Free Ghost Girl by Lesley Thomson Page B

routine, lining up her purchases on a blue Formica table: a tin of dried milk, two boxes of frozen ready meals, baked beans, a jar of chocolate powder, six pork sausages, a box of tea bags and the London A–Z street atlas. Apparently no longer mindful of being quiet, she stowed the groceries away, banging cupboard doors and opening and shutting a large fridge and freezer. Now she appeared to want to draw attention to her presence. She secured the bag on a hook behind the door and straightened a yellow apron hanging there to reveal a yellow smiley face. When she spoke, in a confiding voice, it might have been to the apron. ‘I told you I wouldn’t be long.’ The intention perhaps not to reassure, but to be proved right.
    Carrying the street atlas, she went down the passage to a room like the boys’ dormitories, furnished with an iron bedstead, a plain wardrobe and bedside cabinet. Here the bedding was immaculate, a wool blanket tucked so tightly that only a cardboard figure could have comfortably slipped in between the starched white sheets. The woman shrugged her coat off and arranged it on a hanger in the wardrobe using the same spare movements with which she had handled the shirt. She regarded herself in the wardrobe mirror and shifted her rayon top so that it did not bunch around her waist. She smoothed a hand over a swollen stomach: not a promise of new life, but the bane of middle age. She gave a perfunctory brush to one leg of her black cotton trousers and a pat to her hair – a serviceable style demanding the minimum of effort. In the hallway, head up, shoulders back, she approached a door at the end.
    Her hand on the knob, her determination seemed to falter. She straightened her jersey needlessly and, the A–Z in one hand, tapped on the door. Rat-a-tat-tat, the jaunty tattoo at odds with her stony demeanour. No sound came from within and after a moment she opened the door.
    ‘There you are.’ She addressed a spacious room in which she seemed to be the only one present. It reeked of adhesive and paint. She grabbed a long pole resting against the door jamb and, thrusting it upwards, slotted it into the fastener of a skylight and hauled open the casement.
    ‘Let’s have some fresh air,’ she told the pole.
    ‘You’re late.’ A disembodied voice.
    Darkness obscured streets and tiny lights twinkled on the shimmering surface of the river. They lit up rooftops, exposing missing tiles here and there and chimneys prickling with aerials; signals, traffic lights and scraggy trees sent shadows over the roads. Hammersmith Bridge dominated the scene.
    ‘The river looks as good as new.’ She put out a hand towards the model but then withdrew it as if commanded not to touch. She waved it over the blue and grey painted plaster of Paris. Stiffened peaks and troughs moulded to illustrate the wash of a passing boat beneath the looping span of the bridge. The water level had lowered with the ebbing tide. Figures hurried along tiny streets. A trapdoor in the river dropped down with a bang and a skulled head emerged, grey eyes venomous behind thick glasses.
    ‘Got it?’ The working jaw straining parchment skin hatched with lines. Fluffy brown hair tufted like a young bird’s in a fringe around the tonsure.
    ‘Of course.’ She held out the book.
    He dipped into the hatch and, scuffling, reappeared by the side of the miniature cityscape. He was shapeless in a baggy mauve tracksuit, the jacket zipped up to a neck corded with veins; over this he wore a wool dressing gown, the cord trailing.
    ‘This is second-hand. I want a new one.’ His voice was querulous. He leant on the structure and the frame creaked.
    ‘I found it. We save money.’
    A stain ran down the man’s trouser leg. Shambling along the boundary of the streets, he left a spatter of droplets on the floorboards, smearing them with his leather slippers. Even with the skylight open, the stench of piss and solvent was strong. He opened the paperback and, licking