Twenties Girl

She floats across the table and sits on a spare chair at the end, just as Kate approaches the table, looking pink with excitement.

“Guess what!” she says. “We just got a bottle of champagne from the off-license round the corner! The man said it was to welcome us to the area! And you’ve had lots of calls, Lara; I’ve written down all the numbers… and the post arrived, forwarded from your flat. I didn’t bring it all, but there was one package I thought might be important; it’s come from Paris…” She hands me a Jiffy bag, pulls out a chair, and beams at everyone. “Have you ordered yet? I’m absolutely starving! Hi, we haven’t met, I’m Kate…”

As Kate and Tonya introduce themselves and Dad pours out more wine, I stare down at the Jiffy bag, feeling a sudden breathless apprehension. It’s come from Paris. It has girlish handwriting on the front. When I press it, I can feel something hard and bumpy inside. Hard and bumpy like a necklace.

Slowly, I lift my eyes. Sadie is watching me intently across the table. I know she’s thinking the same.

“Go on.” She nods.

With trembling hands I rip it open. I peer inside at a mass of tissue paper. I push it aside and see a flash of pale iridescent yellow. I look up, straight at Sadie.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” She’s gone very white. “You’ve got it.”

I nod, just once. Then, barely knowing what I’m doing, I push back my chair.

“I just have to… make a call.” My voice is suddenly grainy. “I’ll go outside. Be back in a moment…”

I thread my way through the tables and chairs to the back of the restaurant, where there’s a small secluded courtyard. I push my way out through the fire doors and head to the far corner, then open the Jiffy bag again, pull out the mass of tissue paper, and gently unwrap it.

After all this time. I’m holding it. Just like that.

It’s warmer to the touch than I expected. More substantial, somehow. A shaft of sunlight is glinting off the rhinestones, and the beads are shimmering. It’s so stu

“Here you are. It’s yours.” Automatically I try to put it around her neck, as though I’m giving her an Olympic medal. But my hands sink straight through her. I try again and again, even though I know it’s no use.

“I don’t know what to do!” I’m half laughing, half perilously near tears. “It’s yours! You should be wearing it! We need the ghost version-”

“Stop!” Sadie’s voice rises in sudden tension. “Don’t…” She breaks off and moves away from me, her eyes fixed on the paving slabs of the courtyard. “You know what you have to do.”

There’s silence apart from the steady roar of Kilburn traffic coming from the main road. I can’t look at Sadie. I’m just standing clutching the necklace. I know this is what we’ve been chasing and hunting and wishing for. But now we have it… I don’t want to have arrived here. Not yet. The necklace is the reason Sadie’s been haunting me. When she gets it back-

My thoughts abruptly veer away. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about any of it.

A breeze rustles some leaves on the ground, and Sadie looks up, pale and resolute.

“Give me some time.”

“Yes.” I swallow. “Sure.” I stuff the necklace into the bag and head back into the restaurant. Sadie has already disappeared.

I can’t eat my pizza. I can’t make proper conversation. I can’t focus when I get back to the office, even though six more calls come in from blue-chip HR managers wanting to set up meetings with me. The Jiffy bag is on my lap; my hand is clutching the necklace tightly inside it and I can’t let go.

I text Ed, saying I have a headache and need to be alone. When I get home, there’s no Sadie, which doesn’t surprise me. I make some supper, which I don’t eat, then sit in bed with the necklace around my neck, twisting the beads and watching old movies on TCM and not even bothering to try to sleep. At last, at about five-thirty, I get up, put on some clothes, and head out. The soft gray of the dawn is tinged with a vivid pink-red sunrise. I stand still, gazing at the red streaks in the sky for a few moments, and in spite of everything feel my spirits lifting. Then I buy a coffee from a café, get on a bus, and head to Waterloo, staring blankly out as the bus trundles through the streets. By the time I arrive it’s nearer six-thirty. People are starting to appear on the bridge and in the streets. The London Portrait Gallery is still shut up, though. Locked and empty; not a soul inside. That’s what you’d think, anyway.

I find a nearby wall, sit down, and sip my coffee, which is lukewarm but delicious on an empty stomach. I’m prepared to sit there all day, but as a nearby church bell strikes eight, she appears on the steps, that dreamy look on her face again. She’s wearing yet another amazing dress, this one in pearl gray with a tulle skirt cut in petal shapes. A gray cloche is pulled down over her head, and her eyes are lowered. I don’t want to alarm her, so I wait until she notices me and starts in surprise.

“Lara.”

“Hi.” I lift a hand. “Thought you’d be here.”

“Where’s my necklace?” Her voice is sharp with alarm. “Have you lost it?”

“No! Don’t worry. I’ve got it. It’s OK. It’s right here. Look.”

There’s no one around, but I glance right and left, just in case. Then I pull out the necklace. In the clear morning light, it looks more spectacular than ever. I let it run over my hands and the beads click gently together. She gazes down at it lovingly, puts out her hands as though to take it, then draws them back.

“I wish I could touch it,” she murmurs.

“I know.” Helplessly, I hold it out to her, as though presenting an offering. I want to drape it around her neck. I want to reunite her with it.

“I want it back,” she says quietly. “I want you to give it back to me.”

“Now? Today?”

Sadie meets my eyes. “Right now.”

There’s a sudden blocking in my throat. I can’t say any of the things I want to say. I think she knows what they are, anyway.

“I want it back,” she repeats, softly but firmly. “I’ve been too long without it.”

“Right.” I nod several times, my fingers clutching the necklace so hard I think they might bruise. “Well, then, you need to have it.”

The journey is too short. The taxi is slipping through the early-morning streets too effortlessly. I want to tell the driver to slow down. I want time to stand still. I want the taxi to be caught in a jam for six hours… But all of a sudden we’re drawing up in the little suburban street. We’ve arrived.

“Well, that was quick, wasn’t it?” Sadie’s voice is resolutely bright.

“Yes!” I force a smile. “Amazingly quick.”

As we get out of the taxi, I feel dread clasping my chest like iron. My hand is locked around the necklace so hard, I’m getting cramps in my fingers. But I can’t bring myself to loosen my grasp, even as I’m struggling to pay the driver with the other hand.

The taxi roars away, and Sadie and I look at each other. We’re standing opposite a small row of shops, one of which is a funeral parlor.

“That’s it there.” I point redundantly at the sign saying Chapel of Rest. “Looks like it’s closed.”

Sadie has drifted up to the firmly locked door and is peering in the window.

“We’d better wait, I suppose.” She shrugs and returns to my side. “We can sit here.”

She sits down beside me on a wooden bench, and for a moment we’re both silent. I glance at my watch. Eight fifty-five. They open up shop at nine. Just the thought gives me a rush of panic, so I won’t think about it. Not yet. I’ll just focus on the fact that I’m sitting here with Sadie.

“Nice dress, by the way.” I think I sound fairly normal. “Who did you pinch that one from?”

“No one,” says Sadie, sounding offended. “It was mine.” She runs her eyes over me, then says grudgingly, “Your shoes are pretty.”