Page 3 of The Lost Story of Sofia Castello

2

LONDON, 2000

Everyone knows Sofia Castello is dead. Just like Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin, her tragic untimely death became an intrinsic part of her identity, elevating her to that almost angelic status of one taken too young. The terrible, violent nature of Castello’s death made it even more heartbreaking, dying in a plane crash during World War Two. But her songs lived on, and to this day her wistful ballad ‘Ocean Longing’, about pining for an absent love, continues to get airplay, an evergreen hit on a par with ‘La Vie en rose’ by Edith Piaf. There’s a resonance to the lyrics and the plaintive, soulful tone of her voice that reaches deep inside the listener, transmuting their pain into something almost beautiful. I played it on a loop after the doctor told me I wasn’t able to have children.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Everyone knows she’s dead.’

‘Everyone thinks she’s dead,’ Jane replies with an excited smile. ‘But it turns out that she’s not, and now she wants to tell the story of what really happened.’ Her smile grows. ‘And best of all, she wants you to help her tell it!’

My skin prickles with goosebumps. If this is true, then Jane is right – this is a ghostwriting job like no other, the job of a lifetime. But how can it be true? If Castello didn’t die in the plane crash, why didn’t she tell anyone? Even if the crash had caused her to lose her memory, wouldn’t other people have recognised her?

‘Are you sure this isn’t some kind of prank?’

Jane shakes her head. ‘No, her old manager was the one who reached out to me. I represented him way back in the day, when I first started out as an agent. I got him the deal for his autobiography back in the 1960s and we’ve remained friends ever since. I trust him implicitly.’

‘But how could she have survived the plane crash without anyone knowing? It doesn’t make sense.’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but that’s what makes this job so intriguing.’

‘Wow!’ I lean back in my chair, feeling slightly dazed at this unexpected turn of events.

‘So, how soon would you be able to go to Portugal?’ Jane asks, snapping back into business mode. ‘She’s very eager to get things started and has requested a meeting in Lisbon next week if possible.’

‘Oh – uh – yeah, that wouldn’t be a problem.’ I don’t need to check my diary. Over the winter, I’ve retreated further and further into my post-break-up cocoon. I didn’t even go out on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000.

‘Excellent.’ Jane goes back over to her desk and takes a file from a drawer. ‘Apparently she lives in a coastal village in the north of Portugal. But she wants to meet you in Lisbon first, just to make sure it’s a good fit. You know the score.’

I nod. Every ghostwriting job begins with a preliminary ‘get to know you’ meeting. I used to love the challenge of only having an hour or so to bond with a potential client and win their trust, especially if it was someone I really respected. My favourite had to be my meeting with Sir Lawrence Bourne. He might have been in his eighties, but he still had all the youthful exuberance of a boy, and he shattered my preconceptions of aristocrats being pompous and aloof – after our first meeting he took me to lunch in his favourite greasy spoon café in Camden for pie and mash. More recently, of course, that challenge has faded, but for this job… I shiver at the prospect – this could be the most thrilling and nerve-wracking preliminary meeting I’ve ever had.

Jane hands me the file. ‘All of the details about when and where to meet are in here.’

‘OK.’ I clutch the file, my heart thudding. ‘Are you sure this is for real?’

Jane nods firmly. ‘How long have we known each other, Lily? There’s no way I’d send you on a wild goose chase. And look at it this way. Even if the meeting doesn’t go well and you don’t end up writing the book, you’re still getting an all-expenses paid trip to Lisbon.’

I feel a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach, and it takes a moment to recognise what it is. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’m genuinely excited. I’m not one of those people who believes in a benevolent universe – discovering that your long-term partner is cheating on you and your womb is working against you tends to make one a tad cynical – but even I have to admit that there’s something magical about this morning’s events. Could it be that, just like the butterfly, I’m being helped to feel the call to transform?

And so, two days later, I find myself on a plane bound for Lisbon. As we speed down the runway and into the air, my spirits soar in tandem. I’m nervous about what lies ahead, but it’s a good kind of fear, the kind that is laced with excitement rather than dread. This is the first solo trip I’ve ever taken, but it feels exhilarating to be pushed out of my comfort zone, to be jolted wide awake.

I spend the two-hour flight studying the notes I’ve made about Sofia Castello after some hasty research. She was born in 1920 in a town called Ovar in northern Portugal, then, at sixteen, she headed to Lisbon to work in the harbour selling fish to escape a childhood full of pain and abuse. Two years later, she was spotted singing one night in a bar and, in a classic rags to riches tale, she was whisked out of her life of fish and into the glamourous world of musical stardom. Initially, she was only famous in Portugal, but then her iconic song, ‘Ocean Longing’, catapulted her to worldwide fame in 1941. Later that year, her life ended when the Germans shot down the passenger plane she was travelling on, killing everyone on board – or so everyone was led to believe – and there was a global outpouring of grief. There have been several books written about her, and a couple of documentaries and a film, all claiming to tell the true story of her life, and all, it turns out, completely wrong – about her death at least.

The flight passes by in a flash, and as we begin our descent, I press my face to the window and drink in the scene below. Hills lined with rows of buildings in beautiful pastel shades of yellow and pink, all with terracotta roofs. The reality that I’ll soon be wandering those streets, in a country I’ve never been to before, and where I don’t speak a word of the language, suddenly hits me, and I quickly turn to the back of my notebook where I’ve scribbled down some essential phrases. Bom dia, um café, obrigada, por favor , I chant in my head. Good day, a coffee, thank you, please . All of the essentials, along with desculpa, sou inglês , meaning, I’m sorry, I’m English , which will hopefully cover a multitude of sins.

In the whirlwind of preparing for my unexpected trip, I’d thought these words would suffice, but as the plane gets lower and the streets of Lisbon draw closer, I feel increasingly nervous. What if the locals hate people who can’t speak Portuguese? What if Sofia Castello can’t speak any English? She must be able to though – why would she have asked for an English ghostwriter if she didn’t? It wouldn’t make any sense.

None of this makes any sense, I remind myself and fight the nervous urge to laugh. There’s still a part of me expecting this to be a giant prank. But it’s a measure of how bad things have become that I really don’t care. At least I’m feeling something – even if it is increasingly anxious, it still beats the numbness of the past ten months.

As soon as I step out of the plane and down the steps onto the tarmac, I’m hit by a wall of heat. After a relentlessly cold and gloomy British winter, it feels so alien to breathe in warm air, but so, so good, although I’m instantly regretting my decision to wear a roll-neck sweater, jeans and boots.

Passport control is surprisingly quick and easy to navigate, but then the nerve-wracking part begins. After narrowly avoiding getting on the wrong train, and sweltering in the muggy air, I make it to the city centre. I’ve been booked into the Hotel Avenida Palace where I’m due to meet Sofia Castello tomorrow, close to Praca do Rossio, which my Lonely Planet Guide to Portugal informs me is one of the main squares in Lisbon.

I have yet another pinch-myself moment as I turn the corner. With its ornate water feature and black-and-white mosaic floor, Praca do Rossio is absolutely breathtaking. I stop walking and drink it all in, my feeling of disbelief growing. Just a few days ago, I was crammed on a Tube train in London, just about losing the will to live, and now here I am, in a country I’ve never been to before to meet a legendary singer who’s come back from the dead. And, best of all, she wants me to help her tell her story, and what an incredible story it must be.

I carry on walking, my nervous excitement growing with every step. In all my years as a writer, I have never wanted a job more.