She just had an idea, says the voice. It just popped into her head. She came looking for you. I told you a soldier would come.
Yeah, says Allie. Shut up for a minute, OK?
‘What made you come to look for me?’ says Allie.
Roxy shifts her shoulders as if she’s darting and weaving, escaping imaginary blows.
‘I had to get out of England for a bit. And I saw you on YouTube.’ She takes a breath, lets it all out, smiles at herself and then says, ‘Look, I don’t know, all those things you talk about, where you say that God’s made this all happen for a reason and women are supposed to take over from men … I don’t believe any of that God stuff, all right?’
‘All right.’
‘But I think … like d’you know what they’re teaching girls in school in England? Breathing exercises! No kidding, bleeding breathing. Bleeding “keep it under control, don’t use it, don’t do anything, keep yourself nice and keep your arms crossed,” you know what I mean? And like, I had sex with a bloke a few weeks back and he was practically begging me to do it to him, just a little bit, he’d seen it on the internet; no one’s going to keep their arms crossed for ever. My dad’s all right, and my brothers are all right, they’re not bad, but I wanted to talk to you cos you’re like … you’re thinking about what it means. For the future, you know? It’s exciting.’
It comes out of her in a big rush.
‘What do you think it means?’ says Allie.
‘Everything’s gonna change,’ says Roxy, picking at the seaweed with one hand while she talks. ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? And we’ve all got to find some new way to work together on it. You know. Blokes have got a thing they can do: they’re strong. Women have got a thing now, too. And there’s still guns, they don’t stop working. Lot of blokes with guns: I’m no match for them. I feel like … it’s exciting, you know? I was saying this to my dad. The stuff we could do together.’
Allie laughs. ‘Do you think they’ll want to work with us?’
‘Well, some of them yeah, and some of them nah, right? But the sensible ones will. I was talking about it with my dad. Do you ever get that feeling when you’re in a room and you can tell which girls around you have got loads of power, and which have got none? You know, like … like spider-sense?’
This is the first time Allie has ever heard anyone else talk about this sense she has particularly acutely.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Bloody hell, no one knows what I mean. Not that I’ve talked about it with loads of people. Anyway, that: useful to be able to tell the blokes, right? Useful to work together.’
Allie flattens her lips. ‘I see it a bit differently, you know.’
‘Yeah, mate, I know you do, I’ve seen your stuff.’
‘I think there’s going to be a great battle between light and darkness. And your destiny is to fight on our side. I think you will be mightiest in the mightiest.’
Roxy laughs and chucks a pebble into the sea. ‘I always fancied having a destiny,’ she says. ‘Look, can we go somewhere? Yours, or somewhere? It’s bloody freezing out here.’
They let her come to Terry’s funeral; it was a bit like Christmas. There was aunties and uncles, and booze and bridge rolls and hard-boiled eggs. There was people putting an arm round her and telling her she’s a good girl. And Ricky gave her some stuff before they set off, and he took some himself and went, ‘Just to take the edge off.’ So it felt like snow was falling. Like it was cold and high up. Just like Christmas.
At the grounds, Barbara, Terry’s mum, went to throw a trowel of dirt on to the coffin. When the earth hit the wood she made a long, wailing cry. There was a car parked and blokes with long-lens cameras taking pictures. Ricky and some of his mates scared them off.
When they came back, Bernie said, ‘Paps?’
And Ricky said, ‘Could be police. Working with.’
Roxy’s in a bit of trouble over this, probably.
They were all right to her at the reception. But at the grounds none of the mourners knew where to put their faces when she walked past.
At the convent, supper is already being served when Allie and Roxy arrive. There’s a place saved for them at the head of the table, and there’s chatter and the smell of good warm food. It’s a stew with clams and mussels and potatoes and corn. There’s crusty bread and apples. Roxy has a feeling she can’t quite name, can’t really place. It makes her a little bit soft inside, a bit teary. One of the girls finds her a change of clothes: a warm knitted jumper and a pair of sweatpants all worn and cosy from being washed so often, and that’s just how she feels, too. The girls all want to chat to her – they’ve never heard an accent like hers and they make her say ‘water’ and ‘banana’. There’s so much talking. Roxy always thought she was a bit of a blabbermouth, but this is something else.
After supper, Mother Eve gives a little lesson in the Scripture. They’re finding Scripture that works for them, rewriting the bits that don’t. Mother Eve speaks on the story of the Book of Ruth. She reads out the passage where Ruth tells her mother-in-law, her friend, ‘Don’t tell me to leave you. Whither thou goest, I shall go. Your people shall be my people. Your God will be my God.’
Mother Eve is easy amongst these women, in a way Roxy finds difficult. She’s not used to the company of girls; it’s been boys in Bernie’s family and boys in Bernie’s gang, and her mum was always more of a man’s woman and the girls at school never treated Roxy nice. Mother Eve’s not awkward like Roxy here. She holds the hands of two of the girls sitting next to her and speaks softly and with humour.
She says, ‘That story about Ruth, that’s the most beautiful story of friendship in the whole of the Bible. No one was ever more faithful than Ruth, no one ever expressed the bonds of friendship better.’ There are tears in her eyes as she speaks, and the girls around the table are already moved. ‘It’s not for us to worry about the men,’ she says. ‘Let them please themselves, as they always have. If they want to war with each other and to wander, let them go. We have each other. Where you go, I will go. Your people will be my people, my sisters.’
And they say, ‘Amen.’
Upstairs, they’ve made a bed up for Roxy. It’s just a little room; a single bed with a hand-stitched quilt across it, a table and chair, a view of the ocean. She wants to weep when they open the door, but she doesn’t show it. She remembers, quite suddenly, as she sits on the bed and feels the coverlet under her hand, a night when her dad brought her back to his house, the house he lived in with Barbara and with Roxy’s brothers. It was late at night and her mum was ill with vomiting, and she’d called Bernie to pick up Roxy and he’d come. She was in her pyjamas, she can’t have been more than five or six. She remembers Barbara saying, ‘Well, she can’t stay here,’ and Bernie going, ‘For fuck’s sake, just put her in the guest room,’ and Barbara crossing her arms across her bosom and going, ‘I told you, she’s not staying here. Send her to your brother’s if you have to.’ It was raining that night and her dad carried her back out to the car, the drops falling past the hood of her dressing gown to fall on her chest.
There’s someone expecting Roxy this evening, sort of. Someone who’ll catch it in the neck if they’ve lost her, anyway. But she’s sixteen, and one text will sort that out.
Mother Eve closes the door, so it’s just the two of them in the little room. She sits on the chair and says, ‘You can stay as long as you like.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got a good feeling about you.’
Roxy laughs. ‘Would you have a good feeling about me if I was a boy?’
‘But you’re not a boy.’
‘Do you have a good feeling about all women?’
Mother Eve shakes her head. ‘Not this good. Do you want to stay?’
‘Yeah,’ says Roxy. ‘For a bit, anyway. See what you’re up to here. I like your …’ She searches for the word. ‘I like how it feels here.’
Mother Eve says,
‘You’re strong, aren’t you? As strong as anyone.’
‘Stronger than anyone, mate. Is that why you like me?’
‘We can use someone strong.’
‘Yeah? You got big plans?’
Mother Eve leans forward, puts her hands on her knees. ‘I want to save the women,’ she says.
‘What, all of them?’ Roxy laughs.
‘Yes,’ says Mother Eve, ‘if I can. I want to reach them and tell them that there are new ways to live, now. That we can band together, that we can let men go their own way, that we don’t need to stick to the old order, we can make a new path.’
‘Oh yeah? You do need a few blokes, to make babies, you know.’
Mother Eve smiles. ‘All things are possible with God’s help.’
Allie’s phone beeps. She looks at it. Makes a face. Turns it over so she can’t see the screen.
‘What’s up?’ says Roxy.
‘People keep emailing the convent.’
‘Trying to get you out of here? Nice place. I can see why they’d want it back.’
‘Trying to give us money.’
Roxy laughs. ‘What’s the problem? Got too much?’
Allie looks at Roxy thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Only Sister Maria Ignacia has a bank account. And I …’ She runs her tongue over her top front teeth, makes her lips click.
Roxy says, ‘You don’t trust no one, do you?’
Allie smiles. ‘Do you?’
‘Price of doing business, mate. Got to trust someone or you’ll get nothing done. You need a bank account? How many do you want? Want some out of the country? Cayman Islands is good, I think, don’t know why.’
‘Wait, what do you mean?’
But before Allie can stop her, Roxy’s taken out her phone, snapped a picture of Allie and is sending a text.
Roxy grins. ‘Trust me. Got to find some way to pay my rent, don’t I?’
A man arrives at the convent before seven o’clock the next morning. He drives up to the front gate and just waits there. Roxy knocks on Allie’s door, drags her down the driveway in her dressing gown.
‘What? What is it?’ says Allie, but she’s smiling.
‘Come and see.’
‘All right, Einar,’ says Roxy to the man. He’s stocky, mid-forties, dark hair, wearing a pair of sunglasses on his forehead.
Einar grins and nods slowly. ‘You OK here, Roxanne? Bernie Monke said to look after you. Are you being looked after?’
‘I’m grand, Einar,’ says Roxy. ‘Super-duper. Just gonna stay with my mates here for a few weeks, I reckon. You got what I need?’
Einar laughs at her.
‘I met you in London once, Roxanne. You were six years old and you kicked me in the shins when I wouldn’t buy you a milkshake while we waited for your dad.’
Roxy laughs, too, easily. This is simpler for her than the dinner. Allie can see it.
‘Shoulda bought me a milkshake, then, shouldn’t you? Come on, hand it over.’
There’s a bag with – clearly – some of Roxy’s clothes and other things in. There’s a laptop, brand-new, top of the range. And there’s a little zip-up case. Roxy balances it on the edge of the open car boot and unzips it.
‘Careful,’ says Einar. ‘Rush job. Ink will still smudge if you rub it.’
‘Got that, Evie?’ says Roxy. ‘No rubbing them till they’re dry.’
Roxy hands her a few items from inside the case.
They’re passports, US ones, driver’s licences, social-security cards, all as legitimate-looking as if they’d been made up by the government themselves. And all the licences and all the passports have her photo in. Changed a bit each time: different hair, a couple of them with glasses. And different names, to match the names on the social-security cards and the licences. But her, every time.
‘We did you seven,’ says Roxy. ‘Half a dozen, and one for luck. Seventh one’s UK. In case you fancy it. Did you manage to get the bank accounts, Einar?’
‘All set up,’ says Einar, fishing another, smaller zip-up wallet out of his pocket. ‘But no deposits over one hundred thousand in one day without talking to us first, all right?’
‘Dollars or pounds?’ says Roxy.
Einar winces slightly. ‘Dollars,’ he says. Then, hurriedly, ‘But only for the first six weeks! Then they take the checks off the accounts.’
‘Fine,’ says Roxy. ‘I won’t kick you in the shins. This time.’
Roxy and Darrell kicked around in the garden for a bit, toeing at stones and picking bark off the tree. Neither of them ever even liked Terry that much, but it’s weird now he’s gone.
Darrell went, ‘What did it feel like?’
And Roxy was like, ‘I wasn’t down there when they got Terry.’
And Darrell went, ‘Nah, I mean when you did Primrose. What did it feel like?’
She felt it again, the glitter under her palm, the way his face grew warm and then cold. She sniffed. Looked at her own hand as if it could tell her the answer.
‘It felt good,’ she said. ‘He killed my mum.’
Darrell said, ‘I wish I could do it.’
Roxanne Monke and Mother Eve talk a lot in the next few days. They find the things they have in common and hold them out at arm’s length to admire the details. The missing mother, the place they’re both used to holding, half in and half out of families.
‘I like how you all say “sister” here. I never had a sister.’
‘I didn’t either,’ says Allie.
‘Always wanted one,’ says Roxy.
And they leave that there for a bit.
Some of the girls in the convent want to spar with Roxy, practise their skills. She’s up for it. They use the big lawn at the back of the building, leading down to the ocean. She takes them two or three at once, sidesteps them, hits them hard, confuses them till they jolt each other. They come in for supper bruised and laughing, sometimes with a tiny spider-web scar on the wrist or ankle; they wear it proudly. There are girls as young as eleven or twelve here; they follow Roxy about like she’s a pop star. She tells them to get off, go and find something else to do. But she likes it. She teaches them a special fighting trick she’s worked out – splosh a bottle of water in someone’s face, stick your finger in the water as it spurts out of the bottle, electrify the whole thing. They practise it on each other on the lawn, giggling and hurling water about.
Roxy sits with Allie on the porch late one afternoon, when the sun’s setting red-gold behind them. They’re watching the kids larking about on the lawn.
Allie says, ‘Reminds me of me, when I was ten.’
‘Oh yeah? Big family?’
There’s a longish pause. Roxy wonders if she’s asked something she shouldn’t have asked, but fuck it. She can wait.
Allie says, ‘Children’s home.’
‘Right,’ says Roxy. ‘I know kids who come from that. It’s rough. Hard to get on your feet. You’re doing all right now, though.’
‘I look after myself,’ says Allie. ‘I learned how to take care of myself.’
‘Yeah. I can see that.’
The voice in Allie’s head has been quiet these past few days. Quieter than she remembers it being in years. Something about being here, these summer days, knowing that Roxy’s here and she could kill anyone stone dead; something about that has made it all go quiet.
Allie says, ‘I was passed around a lot when I was a child. Never knew my dad, and my mom’s just a little scrap of memory.’ Just a hat, is what Allie remembers. A pale pink Sunday church hat at a daring angle and a face underneath grinning at her, sticking her tongue out. It seems like a happy memory, from sometime between long bouts of sadness or illness or both. She doesn’t remember ever going to church, but there’s that hat in her memory.
Allie says, ‘I think I’ve had twelve homes before this one. Maybe thirteen.’ She passes a hand across her face, digs her fingertips into her forehead. ‘They put me in a place once with a lady who collected china dolls. Hundreds, everywh
ere, staring at me from the walls in the room I slept in. She dressed me up nice, I remember that. Little pastel dresses with ribbon threaded through the hems. But she went to jail for stealing – that’s how she paid for all those dolls – so I was sent on.’
One of the girls on the lawn pours water on another, setting it sparkling with a faint jolt. The other girl giggles. It tickles.
‘People make what they need for themselves,’ says Roxy. ‘My dad says that. If there’s something you need, something you really have to have – not just want to but have to, you’ll find a way to get it.’ She laughs. ‘He was talking about junkies, wasn’t he? But it’s more than that.’ Roxy looks at the girls on the lawn, at this house which is a home, more than a home.
Allie smiles. ‘If you make it, you’ve got to protect it.’
‘Yeah, well. I’m here now.’
‘You have more power than anyone we’ve ever seen, you know.’
Roxy looks at her hands like she’s a bit impressed, a bit afraid.
‘I dunno,’ she says. ‘There’s probably other people like me.’
Allie has a sudden intuition then. Like a fairground machine with gears working and chains clanking. Someone had taken her to one when she was a little girl. Put in two quarters, pull the lever, clunk, grind, thunk; there’s a fortune, printed on a small rectangle of thick, pink-edged cardboard. Allie’s intuition is just like that: sudden and complete, as if there were machinery working behind her eyes that even she has no access to. Clank, thunk.
The voice says: Here. This is something you know now. Use it.
Allie speaks quite softly. ‘Did you kill someone?’
Roxy sticks her hands in her pockets and frowns at her. ‘Who told you?’
And because she does not say, ‘Who told you that?’, Allie knows that she is right.
The voice says: Say nothing.
Allie says, ‘Sometimes I just know things. Like there’s a voice in my head.’
Roxy says, ‘Bloody hell, you are spooky. Who’s going to win the Grand National, then?’
Allie says, ‘I killed someone, too. A long way away now. I was a different person.’
‘Probably deserved it, if you did it.’
‘He did.’