Case Histories

Chapter 24. Theo

She had dyed her hair a startling pink color that made him think of flamingos. It suited her much better than the custard yellow. It made her look healthier, although she was healthier – she must have put on half a stone in a week, although that was hardly surprising, as Theo had been feeding her with the single-mindedness of a parent feeding a chick: beans on toast, Horlicks, macaroni and cheese, bacon rolls, sausages and mashed potatoes, bananas and cherries and peaches. She didn't like apples; neither did Theo. Laura had liked apples. Lily-Rose wasn't Laura, Theo was very clear about that in his own mind. Theo was sticking to his donkey food – he got more satisfaction from watching Lily-Rose eat. You would never think to look at her that she would have such an appetite. It was as if she were making up for years of starvation.

She slept in Laura's room, and her dog slept at the foot of the bed. Theo couldn't go near the dog and Lily-Rose worried that it would trigger another asthma attack in Theo. Theo worried too but he told her about Poppy and how he had got used to her and that he believed you could get used to anything in time, and she said, "Yeah, I think that too." They looked at photographs of Poppy, and of Laura, and Lily-Rose said, "She's lovely," and Theo was glad that she didn't use the past tense because it always hurt. He hadn't told Jenny about the girl living with him, he could just imagine what she would say.

He had Jackson's postcard, a picture of a pink flower, the same pink as Lily-Rose's hair. The postcard was propped up on the mantelpiece, next to a photograph of Poppy when she was a puppy. In some odd way Theo identified Poppy with Lily-Rose – little abandoned, mistreated creatures with their new, flowery names. Lily-Rose said she had given herself a new name so she could be a new person. A "fresh start," she said.

She was the product of a profoundly dysfunctional background and she almost certainly needed professional help. She had a history of running away from home, of drug abuse, petty theft, prostitution, although she seemed clean of everything for now. Her mother had murdered her father and she was brought up by her grandparents, who sounded just as bad as her own parents (he suspected abuse). Her life was unreal, like a television program – a documentary or a bad soap opera. Yet she seemed remarkably happy, playing with the dog in the garden, eating an ice cream, reading a magazine. She loved being woken in the morning by a cup of sugary tea and a slice of buttered toast. In the evenings they'd started (bizarrely) doing a jigsaw puzzle together.

"We're like a pair of fucking old-age pensioners," she said, but not unkindly. He didn't want to save her or keep her or change her, although he was doing all of those things and would continue to do them if she wanted. The one thing he didn't do was worry about her. So many bad things had happened to her that she was damage proofed. He was happy just to give her back a childhood. And when she was ready she would move on and he'd deal with that when it happened.