Chapter 24
Things That Have Bloody Annoyed Me Today:
Woman in the charity shop who said my mum’s vinyls were ‘unsellable’.
Man in the charity shop who said my mum’s shoes were ‘a bit passé’.
Chloe Dantzer.
Chloe Dantzer.
Chloe Dantzer.
‘That’s the third time I’ve fainted this year,’ I said, coming to on the small spongey green sofa in Jolyon Lloyd-Atherton’s office. A woman in a doctor’s coat and block heels checked my pulse as a chunky-calved nurse cleaned up my ear.
‘I can’t see any injury,’ said the nurse. ‘Are you sure she bit her?’
‘Well, what else was she doing?’ said Heather, pacing the carpet. ‘I knew you shouldn’t have gone in on your own. She could have given you hepatitis or AIDS or God knows what else is going round in this shithole. She’ll need a tetanus now, won’t she? Can you do that?’
The doctor stood up. ‘There’s no injury. It must be Rhiannon’s blood. Temperature’s good and her pulse rate is normal. I can’t imagine what must have happened but the blood definitely hasn’t come from you, Ivy.’
‘Rhiannon bit herself?’ observed Heather. ‘Why would she do that?’
The doctor shrugged and picked up her first-aid kit, tucking her chair back into the corner. ‘Difficult to say. But have no fear, we will be asking her about it and she will go straight on punishment.’
‘But she didn’t hurt me,’ I said.
‘One of the officers said he thought he heard her whispering something to you when you were hugging. Can you recall what she said?’
‘No. She garbled something but I couldn’t understand it.’
The doctor looked me up and down and seemed satisfied I was telling the truth. When she and the nurse had left, Heather sat on the nurse’s chair and looked at me dead on. She could always tell when I was lying.
‘What did she say?’
‘Hiedra y Leo,’ I told her. ‘She just kept saying it; over and over again. And to tell nobody.’
‘Hiedra y Leo?’ she said, opening up her phone and googling it. ‘What is it, an address?’
‘I dunno. I was too busy fainting.’
Heather sat on the side of the sofa and I craned my neck over her shoulder to see her phone screen. The search page yielded a bunch of results until there was something I recognised.
‘Wait – that,’ I said, scrolling back up to it. There was a picture of a small green wooden sign hanging outside a restaurant, and a link to the website. The restaurant was in a small town called Rocas Calientes.
‘That’s where Rhiannon went when she was in Mexico – Rocas Calientes. I read about it in Book Three. Hiedra y Leo, entre Miguel Hidalgo y Morelos, Rocas Calientes, Mexico.’
Heather looked at me. ‘Mexico? You think she wants you to go there?’
‘Yes, because I asked her where Rafael and my brother were. Rafael’s still alive, Heather. She wants me to go there and find them and be safe. Rafael must own the restaurant or something. They must have gone there for safety cos she knew they wouldn’t be found. Did you read the book?’
‘Yes, I’ve read them all. But—’
‘I can get there on a plane!’
‘But they’re in hiding,’ she said. ‘It could be dangerous for you, going there. Especially on your own.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, standing up with a wobble so I could be taller than her in that moment. ‘Anyway, Rhiannon wouldn’t have said it if she thought I’d be in danger, would she? That’s where I need to go. To find them.’
Heather stood up – I was still taller than her, even when she was in her heels. ‘But what if they’re not there? What if you get there and Rafael’s been arrested? Or you get there and he’s a bastard? Or he doesn’t want you. Or worse? What if he’s like Mitch?’
I emphatically shook my head. ‘Rafael’s not like that. Rhiannon wouldn’t send me to somebody bad. She may be a bitch but she cares about me in her own weird way. I don’t know what she’s going to do from one second to the next but I do know that. Please, Heather. I have to try.’
‘If I say no …’
‘I’ll run away and go anyway. You know I will.’
She rolled her eyes and paced the floor.
Through the window to the courtyard, we could see the governor and Guy Majors marching along the corridor opposite, heading our way.
‘Why not wait a couple of months and maybe … I don’t know, maybe me and Dan could go with you, and the boys? We’re due a holiday …’
‘I can’t wait. I really can’t. Please.’
She turned back to me. ‘If I do – and this is a big if – if I do this, and you go there, and he is any of those things: arrested, a bastard, or even if you just can’t find him, you come straight back here.’
I nodded and hugged her against me. ‘I will, I promise.’
She pulled back and looked at me, her eyes loaded with concern. ‘You know I don’t like this. All that way on your own.’
‘I’m not afraid of being on my own anymore. Turns out, I’m quite good at it.’
I wasn’t the same person after meeting Rhiannon.
Something inside me had shifted – I couldn’t identify what exactly – but I knew I’d never be that afraid of anyone ever again; how afraid I’d been when I’d first walked in that room and seen her.
And spoken to her. And shouted at her. I lost myself for an hour.
But now, all the fear had gone, or at least mutated into something else.
Guy Majors didn’t get his photo op – the governor stepped in and forbade Rhiannon from leaving solitary where she’d been sent after our meeting.
When it was proven that she hadn’t actually bitten me, she was still permitted to go ahead with her interview, but the photo was the price she had to pay.
Majors was raging, but he knew he had to be on his best behaviour or else he’d lose his interview as well.
He asked Jolyon if they could re-arrange for another day but Jolyon said under no circumstances could I visit her again. They couldn’t take the risk.
And now I think about it, I believe that’s why she did it.
Initially I thought it was just a distraction, so she could deliver the address into my ear at close quarters.
But maybe it was because she wanted to break the one rule of me visiting her – that if she hurt or compromised me in anyway, I’d never be allowed that close to her ever again.
And I don’t really know why but I knew it wasn’t a bad thing.
Whatever Rhiannon did – before, then, now – it was always for my own protection.
That’s why I knew the address she’d given me was real and not a goose chase. I knew I had to do whatever it took to get there, somehow. Even if I had to forge Heather’s signature on that notarised document, I was going.
And this thought, little by little, kept me going …
The next few days passed in a blur of charity shop bags, storage boxes, Australia Relocation lorries, and repeated visits from the new owners, the Lombards, who seemed to drop by whenever they pleased to measure for curtains and decking, traipse across my bedroom carpet in outdoor shoes, and ask things like, ‘Where might we put a tumble dryer?’ or ‘Have you ever had a problem with Japanese knotweed?’
Heather went back to their solicitor and just said, ‘Look, do they want the fucking house or not?’
It wasn’t that Mr and Mrs Lombard were bad people, just particular.
The rich usually are. They had two kids, a thirteen-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, a golden retriever called Barney, ten goldfish, a shiny silver Jaguar and a top-of-the-range Land Rover which somehow got up our road without so much as a spatter of mud on its hubcaps.
I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible when they were around but there were only a few places I could go.
I’d get the bus to the seafront and play the arcades for hours on end, eat soggy chips, walk on the beach, practise keepy uppies and bending the ball.
Playing with other people’s dogs. But that was it.
I had no real purpose around here anymore.
No friends, no Chloe, nothing to stick around for.
But everything to hope for.
I had a little brother, in Mexico, and I could not stop thinking about him.
He shone like a little light at the back of my mind all the time.
I smiled every time I thought about him.
I ached to see his little face. See if he looked like me, or Rhiannon, or Rafael or if there were shades of all of us.
I obsessed about what his name might be – whether he was called Rafael Junior or Michael Jnr after Raf’s dad. Or Tommy, after Rhiannon’s dad.
I tried to find evidence of his existence online, but of course there was nothing. All dead ends. Just how Rhiannon needed them to be.
And then it dawned.
‘OH MY GOD!’ I cried out, as a flock of six seagulls helped themselves to the remainder of my chips on the bench.
I remembered that email, weeks ago, from someone claiming to be my brother.
I’d deleted it, like I deleted all emails or direct messages from suspected Bad Seeds just looking to get a piece of me.
I scooped out my phone and raked back through my endless Deleteds to see if I could find it.
I’d tried this once before to no avail, but this time, I took it slow, reading every single message.
And I eventually found the one I was looking for, 15 March – there it was – llm10@.
‘Hello Ivy, from your little brother.’ I read it so fast I had to read it again slower to make sense of it:
Hi Ivy,
I found out I’m your brother. I wanted to say hi because I think it’s cool that I have a sister.
I saw on the news about your mum and I’m sorry.
I know how it feels because my mum had to leave when I was little too.
But she was your real mum as well. That means you’re my big sister!
I think you might be sixteen now. I’m 10 and a half.
I don’t know if you’ll want to talk to me, but I really hope that you do.