The Girl from Lace Island Read online

  The

  GIRL FROM

  LACE ISLAND

  JOANNA REES

  PAN BOOKS

  For Tallulah

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lace Island, off the south-west coast of India, 1989

  Leila stretched out her legs on the rickety black bicycle and whooped as she hurtled down the dried mud track. To her right, the hot afternoon sun flickered through the tall palm trunks, the bright blue Arabian Sea glittering beyond the cliff’s edge. Her voice was juddering now as she sped up, Rasa closing in behind her, his laughter loud as he bumped over the ruts on his bike.

  Ahead, Leila saw the palm trees bending right down to the cool green water in the lagoon, the hummingbirds dipping to break the surface. The stifling afternoon air was thick with insects and the loud trill of cicadas. In the distance, she could see one of the long wooden night fishing boats moored against a row of timber huts at the water’s edge.

  Nearer the clearing at the side of the lagoon, Rasa’s cousins and a few others were waiting to start their cricket match and they turned and cheered, egging her on.

  ‘I’m going to beat you,’ Leila called to Rasa, seeing the lagoon’s edge coming up and instinctively slowing down.

  ‘No. I meant all the way,’ Rasa yelled, overtaking her with a clatter. She watched as his body tensed and he took off, flying over the edge of the lagoon, cutting off its corner and landing on the path on the far side with a bump.

  ‘Not fair,’ Leila called after him, annoyed that he’d changed the rules at the last moment. He knew full well that she’d lose her nerve as she did now, skidding to a halt on the very edge of the path, staring down at the clumps of weed in the lagoon and the slimy creatures that lurked between them. If she attempted the bike jump, like he had, she’d no doubt land head first in the slimy green water, and there was no way she could risk that. Bamu had told her he’d seen the crocodile in there last week.

  She coughed in the cloud of dust they’d both created, seeing Rasa standing on the pedals, looking back over his shoulder at her with a triumphant grin as he reached his cousins and their friends at the clearing. He always won, she thought. But she couldn’t hate him. Not with that grin.

  Leila, out of breath, pushed her bike along the last part of the path towards the gang and leant her bike against a tree.

  ‘You’re late,’ Bamu said, clapping Rasa on the back and raising his chin towards Leila in greeting.

  ‘We were caught in lessons,’ Rasa said, flinging his bike on the ground. It was kind of him not to tell the truth, Leila thought – that he’d sailed through the maths lesson, while she had struggled. It was easy for Rasa. He was the same age as her, but at fourteen, he just seemed to absorb knowledge, knowing instinctively how to apply it, while she struggled with everything.

  This afternoon, Timothy, the young tutor her parents had hired, had finally snapped. He’d made them both stay in until the basics of converting fractions had finally sunk in, and had given the terrible warning that he’d already sent off to Cochin for the exam papers that both Leila and Rasa would be taking. Leila knew it would be awful when they arrived, but right now she didn’t have a care in the world – other than cricket.

  Leila gave Rasa a grateful half-smile. He’d beaten her to the coconut grove, but he hadn’t betrayed her in front of their friends, and that’s what counted.

  ‘You’re first for bowling,’ Bamu said, chucking the hard cricket ball to Leila. She quickly caught it and tucked it under her chin while she tied up her long black hair with a band from her wrist.

  On the other side of the lagoon, she could see Tusker. The elephant had arrived with the ancient mahout, who was talking quietly to it, his long white hair piled into his cloth turban. The mahout had allowed Rasa and Leila to ride Tusker when they were little, but since the elephant’s last musth, when he’d rampaged through the village and Chan, Leila’s stepfather, had been called to help corral the elephant into the sea to cool off, Bibi, Leila’s mother, had declared it too dangerous to let her precious only child near the giant beast. It was a shame. He looked so wonderfully stately, Leila thought, resolving to go later and see the mahout and give Tusker some watermelon. Anjum, the cook, would be sure to spare some fruit for Leila if she asked. He’d always had a soft spot for her.

  She watched Bamu spread out the fielders, knowing Rasa would be first up to bat. She rubbed the cricket ball against the side of her shorts and looked towards the makeshift wooden stumps stuck in the hard ground.

  Behind them, near the edge of the lagoon, were the huts where Rasa lived. She saw Parva, Rasa’s aunt, hanging out red and orange saris on the line at the back of the house in the yard where the chickens pecked in the dirt.

  Parva raised a hand when she saw Leila and smiled. She looked immaculate, as she always did, in a long green-and-gold chemise, a gold ring in her nose. Why Parva had never found a suitor to marry was beyond Leila. By the time she was Parva’s age, she’d be married with children. Maybe old Tusker could be decorated for her wedding celebrations. Now there was an idea.

  Rasa took the scuffed cricket bat from Victor and walked to the stumps. Observing him from a distance, Leila realized he’d grown without her noticing. His legs were longer, and he had much more hair on them than he’d ever had before. And he was getting a moustache, something Bamu teased him about, although Leila hadn’t mentioned it. She wondered if he noticed changes in her too. She’d certainly been alarmed at what had been going on lately. Her T-shirts were suddenly too tight: her breasts and hips
had begun to curve out. She didn’t mind her new shape; it just felt unnecessary, when all she wanted to do was play cricket.

  She walked away from Rasa, twisting her pumps in the hard mud in a comedy walk to make the others laugh, her jokiness masking the determination she felt. She would get Rasa back and bowl him out and show him that she was just as much one of the boys as he was. She stopped before her run-up and looked up the hill, where she could just make out the long, sloping red tiles of her house, the white wooden shutters, closed now against the sun, as if bathing in its warm glow. Leila’s great-grandparents had built the sturdy plantation house at the turn of the nineteenth century, when they had tamed the wild palm trees on the island and cultivated the fertile land into the rich paddy fields where Bamu and the others usually worked in the early mornings.

  She prepared herself, laughing with her team and watching Rasa knock the bat against his scuffed plimsolls, waiting. He called out a threat, like he always did, and Leila steadied herself for her run, but just as she started running, a familiar noise made her stop.

  The small aeroplane made the forest tremble, and with the game momentarily forgotten, the children ran through the trees to the edge of the red cliff to watch the plane coming from the sea so low over their heads it felt like they could touch it. They all instinctively ducked and laughed, shouting at the noise.

  Leila tried to see who was in the back of the plane, but she knew it would be Chan and the latest guests. She sighed, trying to smother her disappointment. She liked it when it was just her and Bibi up at the house. When guests came, things changed and her mother and Chan became entertainers, bending over backwards to charm the guests who stayed in the luxury bungalows by the beach. No demand was too outrageous, and although Leila knew it was their money that kept Lace Island going, she also resented the guests Bibi so readily put up with and their bad behaviour. There were always people frolicking on the beach half naked, married couples coming here with their lovers, actresses recovering from operations, politicians who needed to let off steam without the fear of camera lenses. And when they did, it meant that Leila was not allowed out to play cricket in the grove.

  ‘Come on, Leila,’ Parva called from the path, once the sound of the plane engine had receded and they had all returned to their makeshift cricket pitch. In the distance, Leila could hear it slowing on the small landing strip. ‘Your mother will want you up at the house.’

  ‘But I’ve only just got here,’ Leila called back, glancing now at Rasa and seeing his hazel eyes boring into hers from beneath his dark eyebrows. She knew he shared her disappointment. He hated the guests arriving too. No doubt he’d have to miss his lessons to take them out on the boat to the coral reef that gave Lace Island its name.

  ‘Come on, young lady,’ Parva called again. ‘Time to do your duty.’

  ‘Five minutes. Just let me bowl out Rasa. Shouldn’t take long.’

  Parva smiled and Leila resumed her position. Running as hard as she could, she flung the ball at the stumps. Rasa’s bat was a blur as it hit the ball hard and they all watched it soaring towards the lagoon.

  One more bowl, Leila thought to herself, annoyed at Rasa’s skill. One more was all it would take. She wasn’t going to go up to the house, she decided. Not until she’d won.

  CHAPTER TWO

  London, present day

  The high roundhouse kick smashed into the side of his head with a satisfying smack. Hell, yeah, Jess thought, as her leg came lightly back down to the padded gym floor. There was no time to gloat, though. Not yet. Not with an opponent as unpredictable as Kai. She watched him stagger backwards, but she stayed where she was, then jumped back on her toes, her fists raised to her chin, shrugging her shoulders to rearrange her heavy white robe. Come on, sucker. Show me what you got. She was aware of her taut muscles screaming, her chest heaving, but she wouldn’t finish yet. Not until he was down for good.

  Kai continued backwards, his hand clamped to his ear, but Jess knew damn well that he could be bluffing. She jumped lightly towards him and back, and he took the signal. She saw him straightening up, steel in his eyes, his tall frame towering over her, all bets off now. Finally, he was taking her seriously.

  She pounced towards him, her fists punching. One, two, one, two. And another roundhouse.

  ‘OK, break it up.’ Tony, their kick-boxing master, strode quickly across the mats, his tattooed arms stretched between Jess and her opponent. ‘I said, break it up!’

  In respect, Jess slunk backwards, but her eyes didn’t leave Kai’s.

  ‘Take it easy, Jess. Save some juice in the tank,’ Tony told her, catching her arm and breaking her stare.

  As always, she came to her senses when she saw Tony’s familiar wrinkled face, his thick neck cushioned with one of the white gym towels.

  ‘Just giving it everything I got,’ Jess said, wiping sweat from her top lip with the cuff of her robe, trying to make light of the fight, but they all knew she’d been waiting to kick Kai’s butt for a year. ‘Like you always taught me,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘Yeah, well, fifty sit-ups on the mat. Go,’ Tony said. ‘Burn off some of that aggression.’

  She noticed now that Tony had tired lines round his eyes, but even so, he’d always been the same – ever since she’d started coming here as a teenager. Not having known her own father, Tony was the only older man Jess had ever had in her life and she respected him. It was Tony who’d set her straight and given her a path. Tony who’d shown her how to channel her anger and stop directing it at the teachers. And most recently, it had been Tony who’d encouraged her to apply for her dream job as cabin crew. He’d even given her a reference.

  Yes, he was one of life’s good guys. And Jess knew there weren’t that many of them around, which is why she exhaled loudly now and smiled, before giving Kai an exhausted high-five. At twenty-two, he was three years younger than her, and taller. His black face was shiny with sweat, but there was respect in his eyes now as he nodded to her.

  ‘You trained her too good,’ Kai grumbled to Tony as she spun on her heel and left the mats, and she grinned with private satisfaction. ‘So, Jess,’ Kai called out, and she turned, ‘you put in a word for me with Angel, right?’

  Jess sighed and shrugged sadly, needing to dispel the hope in Kai’s eyes. If only it were that simple. If only she could tempt Angel into going out with someone like Kai. She had to admit that he was kind of cute. But then, blonde Angel with her teasing ways had always been attractive to men. Unfortunately, always the wrong sort.

  An hour later, Jess was still thinking about Kai and their fight as she got off her bike by the tower block where she lived. It was dark; a freezing drizzle was making a halo round the weak street light. She expertly flipped the bicycle frame onto her shoulder and stepped round the remains of a takeaway spilt over the cracked path, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the three youths who circled on their tiny bikes like sharks on the scrubby patch of grass below the street light.

  She braced herself, waiting for them to shout out some sort of sexist or racist abuse, but tonight, she was off the hook. She couldn’t help feeling that their silence indicated a grudging respect, but it had been hard won. Not everyone who lived here was so lucky.

  Holding her breath against the stench of stale urine, Jess pushed through swing doors into the concrete stairwell. She’d done her best to make their flat homely, but she couldn’t escape the nasty aesthetic of the tower block. The local estate agents shouted about this area being up-and-coming, but many generations of the same families had lived here for years and they viewed the influx of City boys and hipsters with suspicion and, in some cases, contempt. Which was why there was graffiti all over the walls and the air stank.

  She started up the concrete stairs, her senses on alert, never knowing if she’d make it up to the second-floor walkway without bumping into one of the hooded junkies who liked to steal purses, phones and bags whenever they got the slightest opportunity.

  God, she could
n’t wait to get out of here. And as soon as she’d passed her training, she would be. Because then she’d finally have a career. For the first time in her life, she’d be someone.

  She let her thoughts slip into the comfort of her fantasy once she had finally made it as cabin crew. She imagined herself in first class, dressed in a smart uniform, and how it would feel to greet all those rich and famous people. She imagined closing the doors to the swanky 747, sealing herself in and jetting off across the ocean to Australia, Thailand, India – places that had never been in her reach before, but now felt so tantalizingly close.

  Safely on the walkway, she put her bike down, raising her arm in greeting to her elderly Indian neighbour, who was pulling in her washing from the line she had suspended outside her front door. As she passed, Jess breathed in the delicious waft of curry that always came from her tiny flat and mumbled a hello. She was starving, she realized, her session at Tony’s kickboxing gym having gone on for longer than she’d thought. She pulled her keys out of her puffa-jacket pocket and unlocked the front door.

  ‘Oh. You’re home,’ Angel said, her head popping over the top of the sofa just inside the door.

  That was rich, Jess thought, considering Angel, her best friend and so-called flatmate, had been absent without so much as a text message for three days.

  Jess recoiled at the cloud of cigarette smoke and wafted the front door to let in some air. She felt annoyed that Angel had suddenly turned up and had already wrecked the flat, which Jess had only cleaned that morning. And she’d started smoking again. Jess wanted to scream with fury. Why wouldn’t she ever learn? Who could afford to smoke these days? Not Angel. That was for sure.

  She glanced into the kitchenette area to the side and saw that the bags of shopping she’d left in a hurry before she’d gone to the gym had been half emptied, badly cut bread and a mangled block of cheese left out on the side. But worse, worse than all of that was that Weasel was on the sofa. Nobody knew what his real name was, something unpronounceable and Slavic, which is why everyone called him Weasel. And he was a weasel. By name and by nature. Even the sight of the top of his shaved head made Jess’s skin crawl.