Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

Jilly had pined for her own father, of course, and Patty judged it wiser to tell her that he’d died. In a car accident , s he had explained. You mustn’t be sad, though. You have Mummy and Brad (then Craig, Harry, and so on).

Meanwhile, Andy had begun to drink. He would come home from work, pause at the door and then head for the fridge, gulping down a can of beer before heating up a pork pie or sending out for a pizza. Some nights, if he remembered, he’d bring home cod and chips. Whatever he ate, it was always washed down with a couple of cans of beer, and he’d drink another three or four before falling into his bed, never quite drunk enough. The house he’d been lovingly renovating fell into disrepair. His days were grey and his nights black. On -Jilly’s birthday each year, he’d get very drunk and cry. He always imagined her as she was when he had last seen her. For him, she was forever five years old.

Far away, in Perth, Jilly was beginning to dare to feel safe when, after nearly two years of relative security, she and her mother were alone again. It was usually Patty who ended relationships, but this time it was Brian who left.

‘I’m sorry, Jilly,’ he said. ‘If I were your dad, I’d take you with me.’

‘Yeah,’ said fourteen-year-old Jilly. ‘Whatever.’ But she hugged him briefly and took the money he gave her.

‘Don’t waste it, Jilly. It’s for an emergency,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake don’t let Patty know you have it.’

Jilly hid the money, of course. She had learned not to trust her mother.

After Brian left, life returned to normal: more parties, more men, and school shoes with holes. One day, shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Jilly came home from school to find a note on the kitchen table.

Dear Jilly

Im off to France with Dominik. Your old enough to look after yourself now and I need a life of my own Im only 33. The rents overdue but Ill send you some money when I’m setled. I left $10 to buy a pizza for your tea. I took your black jumper and red shirt. I’ll need them til Dominik can by me some new clothe’s.

Love

Patty

Since Jilly turned twelve she was no longer allowed to call Patty ‘Mum’. They looked more like sisters, Patty thought. And she was right.

Book of Lost Threads Children of such parents learn survival skills, and Jilly knew that once the authorities discovered she was living alone, she’d be put into foster care. Patty had always threatened her with a foster home as a priest might threaten his congregation with hell. She packed the few clothes she had left, stuffed her mother’s note and pizza money into her pocket, and went to the shed where she’d hidden Brian’s hundred dollars and a little box of mementos. When the school checked a couple of weeks later, it was assumed that the family had absconded to avoid the rent.

To conserve her money, Jilly decided to hitch to Melbourne. She thought it best to go to a larger city, where no-one knew her-where she could melt into the crowd.

Patty, meanwhile, had left France for Dominik’s native Bucharest where, sitting behind a desk in a bright modern office, she stamped the papers of gullible Rumanian girls who wanted to work in London. The job paid well and she enjoyed herself for a time. Unfortunately, when she decided to move on, she met with a fatal and uninvestigated accident. She knew too much and Dominik took no risks.

‘So what’s your name then, love?’ The truck driver leaned over and opened the door. He liked a bit of company.

Jilly was prepared. She had learnt caution from an expert. ‘Amber-Lee,’ she said without blinking. ‘I’m going to Melbourne to see my cousin.’

‘I’m going as far as Adelaide. We’ll stop on the border for a bit of a kip.’ He bought her coffee and a doughnut in Southern Cross and an evening meal in Norseman. When he wasn’t talking, he would sing along to a country and western CD, of which he had an endless supply.

Jilly wasn’t surprised to find that when he pulled over for his ‘kip’, he slid his hands between her legs. As she approached puberty, her mother’s boyfriends, with the exception of Brian, had all tried, more or less successfully, to have sex with her. This was one of the reasons that Patty felt it prudent to leave her behind. A nubile young daughter could get seriously in the way.

‘You are sixteen?’ the driver said as he pulled at her buttons and slid her bra straps down her arms. Her small breasts were white and strangely vulnerable. He paused and looked at her face, still and watchful in the shadows. He wasn’t a bad man. For a moment, he felt something like remorse.

‘You are sixteen?’ he repeated, seeking reassurance.

‘Just get on with it,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m tired.’

He took her then, brutally. And pushed her and her belongings out of the truck when he’d finished.

‘You’ll get another ride. A lot of trucks stop here.’ Ashamed, he threw some crumpled notes out of the window after her. Jilly stooped and picked up the money, stuffing it hastily into her backpack. She sat on the embankment and, childlike, dug her fists into her eyes. A little shuddering sob escaped. She’d come to expect no better, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. The first time had been a terrifying assault by a drunken and violent man. She was barely thirteen. She’d called for help but her mother had gone out to buy more booze. When she did come home, Patty had slapped her daughter’s face. Little slut , she hissed. Just keep your filthy eyes off of my boyfriends. And don’t tell Brian , she warned the sobbing child. We don’t want him to know his precious little Jilly is a whore.

As trucks rumbled past, Jilly thought of Brian. Maybe she should have tried to find him. No, even Brian had let her down. Left her to Patty. There was no-one to care for her now but herself. With renewed determination, she took out the money the truck driver had given her and counted it. Fifty-five dollars. That was the first time Jilly had been paid for sex. She vowed to survive. No matter what it took. She stood up and waved down a passing truck.

Three days later, she was observing street prostitutes in 151 Melbourne.

A car pulled into the kerb. ‘How much for a blow job?’

She didn’t know. ‘Ten dollars?’

The car door swung open. ‘Hop in, then.’

Brenda was a few years older than Jilly and wiser in the ways of the streets. She heard that the new girl was undercutting prices and took her aside for a word.

‘You’ll find yourself beaten up if you play that game,’ she told Jilly, who was now calling herself Amber-Lee. ‘I’ll introduce you to my pimp. He takes a fair slice of the action but you can’t work without a protector. You can stay with me for a while. I need some help with the rent.’

So Amber-Lee unpacked her belongings in the small alcove in Brenda’s one-room flat and patted the lumpy bed. She hid her money in the lining of her coat and her box of mementos under the mattress. Among them was the photo of the day at Blackpool; looking at it, she wondered at how far she had come from the child in the photo.

She hated the work: the men, rough or kind, urgent or impotent, who used her body as though it were a thing. In the early weeks, however, something of Jilly remained. Perhaps there was another way.

She took herself to the Ward Street Shelter. A tall woman, with untidy hair and collar askew, asked her name.

‘Amber-Lee,’ she said.

The woman raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask for a surname. She knew better. ‘Okay, Amber-Lee. I’m Ilse.’ She had a slight accent. ‘I have to make a couple of phone calls and then we can talk. There’s a café bar over there. Just help yourself.’