by Jenny Colgan
‘Has she really stopped?’ said Shackleton. ‘It’s a good sign if she has; she did it to all the other nannies.’
‘Not quite,’ said Zoe, thinking of the occasional swishing noises that came up and down the corridor at night. It was amazing just how much relief she felt, even as she told herself how ridiculous the whole thing had been. ‘But hopefully she will now.’
Zoe looked at Shackleton, who was still wearing a pensive expression following Larissa’s departure.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘I mean, you will have to go back to school at some point. Why don’t you just go to the school in Kirrinfief? Or Inverness?’
Shackleton turned on her almost viciously.
‘Ooh, where’s your mum, Shackleton? Why have you got such a funny name? Do you have ghosts in your house? Mah mah mah. All bloody day. No chance.’
‘They are absolutely mean,’ agreed Patrick from where he was illustrating a very complex sign for Dinosaur Jam. ‘Why do you think you’re so absolutely clever, Patrick? Are you always showing off?’
Zoe smiled at that.
‘I like it when you show off,’ she said, tousling his hair.
‘I’m NOT showing off,’ said Patrick crossly. ‘I am just absolutely clever.’
‘You’re not that clever,’ pointed out Zoe. ‘Mary’s got all the hot water again.’
‘Oh no,’ said Patrick happily. ‘No bath for me.’
Chapter Thirty-five
The weirdest thing was, Zoe had genuinely thought things were getting better.
She hadn’t realised, truly, that it was often when people were feeling things were getting slightly more cheerful, that was when everything started to go pear-shaped, when you let your guard drop.
The season had worn on, each day only exacerbating its beauty. The sun had stayed well into September, and for the first time ever, Zoe was watching the seasons change day by day; the leaf patterns you could almost watch turning golden and orange. She pointed out the changes to Hari, and it was the strangest thing: she went from being annoyed at their tiny attic room to loving the way it put them right up among the tree tops, almost as if they were in their own little nest, listening to the swishing as the leaves fell and watching the great clouds of birds take off on their long journeys south. Zoe had heard of bird migration, dimly in a classroom somewhere, but she had never seen it, the great concatenations of squawking creatures rising, one and a multitude, each with the hidden knowledge inside them, a collective instinct that would take them all the way to Morocco. They watched them and marvelled, partly at the sight, partly at the idea that she was becoming a birdwatcher. Her cleaning up efforts had uncovered several pairs of binoculars and she had felt very little guilt at annexing a set – after all, how could it, she told herself, be stealing if she didn’t take them out of the house – and Hari could sit, once she’d taught him to stop fiddling with the knob, for hours watching the eagle come back and start picking worms out of the ground, stalking around like a gang leader in a pub as if to warn off any other birds.
She found some beautifully illustrated bird spotting guides and stocked them. Once again, they weren’t popular in the village, where people had grown up with the land and didn’t need someone to tell them the difference between a crow and a starling. But at the visitor centre, they did absolute gangbusters. You could see if you were quiet – the herons sit, watchful, glorious, as if utterly scornful that any other creature could approach their beauty and ballerina grace, then unfold their magnificent wings, extend themselves, take off over the loch like Nureyev.
With a four-hour drive for many of the tourists back to Glasgow or Edinburgh, the spotter’s guides were a huge hit, and once more, Zoe made a reorder without telling Nina exactly what she was up to. She realised yet again this was going completely against her instructions, that she was flagrantly disobeying her boss, who was in hospital, but that was just going to have to wait, because she had ninety million problems on top of that one and for the moment, the fact that she was making money and actually successfully running the business was so much of a high she couldn’t bear to think about it.
But The Beeches, if not exactly a haven of peace and happiness . . . it felt settled. There was order, routine. The children had to get out of the house, that was the new rule, so they weren’t just sitting around giving Mrs MacGlone trouble. They also had to clean their own rooms and bring down and take up their own laundry.
There had been various fulminations and some swearing on this issue, but Zoe was unbowed. There may have been six au pairs before her, but few had had to deal with quite as much intransigence as a childminder at a London pre-prep, and she was resolutely unfazed, figuring also, with every day she stayed, that the family would be less and less likely to want to find someone else, however much Mrs MacGlone disliked her.
And however much Mrs MacGlone disliked her, it didn’t really matter as the effects made themselves known. Freed of following the children round the kitchen, she had time to keep the public rooms cleaner. The shutters now being open year-round left the dust harder to ignore, and the amount of rubbish that had been removed made it easier to get into the nooks and crannies. The entire house was looking better, more lived in, cheerier.
And, best of all, Zoe had won her dishwasher. She had brought the receipt for the book home triumphantly, along with Ramsay’s not inconsiderable cut, sticking her tongue out at him when she met him in the hallway.
He had looked at first pleased and then crestfallen.
‘What is it?’ said Zoe. ‘Don’t know what a dishwasher is? Worried you’ll have to ask for one and point at a washing machine by accident? A washing machine is somewhere you put your dirty clothes . . .’ she went on.
‘Yes, yes, you’ve made your point,’ said Ramsay. ‘No, I was just thinking . . . I loved that book. I hope it went to someone who appreciated it.’
Zoe didn’t say that a girl from a party of Korean-American students had bought it for her grandmother back in Seoul, who didn’t speak a word of English but liked ‘old things’.
‘Why yes,’ she lied furiously. ‘It was someone who had traced his family roots back to those original crofts and desperately wanted a memento.’
‘Really?’ said Ramsay, looking delighted. ‘What was his name?’
‘Mac-something,’ said Zoe quickly. ‘Can we have our dishwasher now?’
And true to his word, Ramsay had someone sent round and plumbed one in and that had made such a difference to the family – Patrick thought it was magical, and kept trying to turn it on with only one cup in it – that Zoe was now considering how to lobby for the microwave, even if she knew, deep down, that what she would really, really like was a coffee machine. And things were feeling not too bad. Which is probably why it all started to go so wrong with Mary.
Part Three
‘What happens if I look down and fall, Wallace? What if I can’t stay up?’
‘Well, don’t look down then, Francis. Be positive about it.’
‘So you can fly if you think you can fly?’
‘You are the stupidest person I have ever met. But maybe. A bit.’
From Up on the Rooftops
Chapter One
Zoe had been a cheerful, bookish child, not much given to introspection. If she had a bad day at school, she’d read the Famous Five, where friendship was assumed and never questioned. If she’d had a good day at school, she’d read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where untold treats and wishes came to good, unspoilt children. If she was feeling sorry for herself, she’d read What Katy Did and imagine the horror of being trapped in bed. If she was feeling in a positive mood, she’d read The Magic Faraway Tree, and make up her own lands.
In short, she self-medicated with books.
(By the way, as the author of this novel, and one who has herself always self-medicated with books, I cannot rightfully attest or deny whether this is a better way of dealing with ‘real life’ than any other. In fact, as a reader (all writers are ju
st readers one step to the side), I’m not actually sure I believe in this ‘real life’. I know it is a terrible betrayal to say this, but come on, aren’t books – whisper it – quite a lot better in real life? In books, baddies get blown up or chopped up or sent to prison. In real life, they’re your boss or your ex. In books, you get to know what happened. In real life, sometimes you don’t get to know what happened ever. They’re not even sure they’ve found Amelia Earhart. So. Books are absolutely the thing in my opinion, or as the old saying goes: whatever gets you through the night (which I should say is also books. Books get you through the night).)
So. Zoe hadn’t really had much experience with truly troubled children – children who might be upset for very good reasons, like not having a mother and having what Zoe considered at times to be an almost cruelly distant father. All the children she’d dealt with were cossetted – worshipped, some of them – which made them tricky but not disturbed.
She didn’t see the warning signs; wouldn’t have recognised them. Mary being rude and dismissive wasn’t exactly new behaviour, so that mild autumn day had started like any other. Zoe had got Shackleton baking. He just got better and better. His stolid face was looking less petulant and more cheerful by the day as he carefully measured out raisins and used his phone to look up recipes. Zoe had told him he was improving so much that she was considering offering some of his baking to Agnieszka in the visitor centre to sell, or getting him a couple of shifts in the kitchen down there, and he was going to it with a will that surprised them both.
‘Almost as if there’s a world beyond toast,’ Zoe had remarked when passing him that morning as she went to put long socks on the little ones who were both insisting on wearing shorts (they liked to dress the same every day), before they went charging into the trees, the route to which necessitated a shortcut through a nettle patch and much screaming despite Zoe’s daily warning about the connection between exposed knees and nettle stings, and their daily surprise about how dock leaves didn’t actually work immediately like magic.
* * *
Zoe had been in Kirrinfief and in between not selling any books, had managed to catch up with Kirsty the headteacher, or rather, Kirsty had popped in as soon as she’d seen the van.
‘Haven’t seen much of you around here,’ said Kirsty breathlessly.
‘Ah,’ said Zoe. ‘Really? No, I’ve been here loads, you’ve just missed me.’
Kirsty looked around.
‘Loch Ness monster books?’
She frowned.
‘I think you’ll find there’s a bit more to Scotland than that, Zoe.’
‘Yeah, I know that,’ said Zoe.
‘Anyway, did you get the letter?’
Zoe shook her head.
Kirsty sighed.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Ramsay is absolutely useless. Anyway. There’s a restart date. After the October holiday. There’s a voluntary anger management session. And then they can both come back to school.’
It had almost certainly, Zoe thought, gone with the rest of the post to the mysterious ‘library’, and never been seen again.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘That’s good news. I suppose.’
Kirsty frowned.
‘I know he doesn’t care,’ she said. ‘Could you . . . could you maybe help, Zoe? I think you’re a good influence.’
‘You’re flattering me,’ said Zoe.
‘I am,’ said Kirsty. ‘It’s a total pain in the arse from every conceivable angle if they don’t turn up.’
‘I am surprised we don’t have social services crawling all over us,’ said Zoe wonderingly.
‘You would if you lived in a council flat,’ said Kirsty, and they both pondered whether this statement was true.
‘Anyway!’ said Kirsty. ‘The second of November: that’s when we’re back. That’s your deadline.’
‘Jings,’ said Zoe.
Kirsty laughed.
‘I’m not sure that quite works on you,’ she said. ‘You sound like you’re in EastEnders.’
‘I know,’ said Zoe. ‘I was just trying it out.’
‘Well, now you know!’
‘Do you want to buy a book before you go?’
‘I would!’ said Kirsty. ‘Unfortunately I have twins, a full-time job, a husband who picks his nose and two excluded pupils to worry about.’
‘It would all be better if you just read . . .’
But Kirsty had already bustled off with Bethan and Ethan.
‘Bring them in!’ she hollered. ‘I’ll be nice, as long as there’s no biting.’
* * *
Everything seemed relatively calm in the little kitchen, and Zoe thought she might as well have a shot as, presently, Mary entered.
‘Hello, love,’ said Zoe. ‘Hey. Look.’
She thought back to Larissa the other night.
‘Shackleton and I were talking about school.’
Shackleton sniffed.
‘Yeah, right, whatever.’
‘I just wondered if you wanted to come with me next week. To have a chat with Kirsty. I mean Mrs Crombie. The headteacher.’
‘I know who she is,’ said Mary, who had gone watchful and still, her voice a monotone.
‘I mean, it’s the October holiday soon, and then in November . . .’
‘I’m not going back.’
‘Well,’ said Zoe. ‘You kind of have to. Otherwise they’ll put your dad in prison.’
She’d meant it to be light-heartedly, but the way it came out she realised that wasn’t how it sounded at all. It sounded all wrong.
‘They won’t,’ said Mary, looking terrified.
‘No, I mean . . . I was exaggerating, obviously, I mean. But . . . darling, it’s the law. Children have to go to school.’
‘Can’t we be home-schooled?’ said Shackleton.
‘Who by? Mrs MacGlone?’
‘You could do it.’
‘I can’t do long division,’ said Zoe. ‘One. And two, I already have two jobs, thanks.’
‘And three, you’d be rubbish,’ burst out Mary suddenly. ‘Rubbish and terrible and horrible and hate you!’
And she fled out of the room in tears, banging the door.
Zoe watched her.
‘Yes,’ she said to Shackleton. ‘And also for those reasons.’
Shackleton looked relieved, as if worried that she might be upset.
‘I think,’ said Zoe measuredly. ‘Perhaps just on this occasion . . . some toast?’
She also found herself thinking how much less Mary’s outbursts upset her these days.
‘I made bread!’ said Shackleton surprisingly.
‘Seriously?’
The boy showed her where he’d been leaving it to rise.
‘I watched a YouTube tutorial.’
‘Shackleton, I could hug you!’
He looked concerned.
‘I won’t,’ she added reassuringly. ‘But aren’t you clever.’
He grinned, and she turned the oven on for him.
Presently, Zoe decided to take a bunch of laundry up to Mary, who had in fact been much better at fetching it herself recently, but school talk had obviously put the kibosh on that.
Zoe did knock – she went over and over it in her head later when trying to work out if she had done the right thing – but the rooms of course were so large and the doors so thick and she was carrying a large pile of washing and . . .
Nonetheless. She pushed open the heavy white door with her shoulder, her chin on top of the washing pile, still half-smiling at Shackleton and his baking and marched sideways into the room, dappled with pale green and pale yellow light from the trees, only to come across Mary, the child, the little girl with the pale face and the long dark hair, carving a long thin snaking line into the back of her leg with the edge of a razor, the blood dripping against the pale white skin like a horror movie.
Chapter Two
At first, the thought that flashed through Zoe’s head was that Mary had started her period
– could she though? Or was she too young? But then girls did these days, didn’t they, things had changed . . .
All of this went straight through Zoe’s mind until she realised that the simple, normal reason was not the right one; that the tiny thing flashing in Mary’s hands was a razor blade.
The gorge rose in Zoe’s throat, but she knew there was no time to show her shock. The girl’s face was paler than ever, but defiant too; a purple pulse at her slender throat.
‘See,’ she was saying, without speaking out loud. ‘See what you made me do?’
Zoe turned her head and put it out of the door not to startle anyone.
‘Ramsay!’ she shouted, trying to sound business-like but not panicky. ‘Ramsay. Can you come here . . . would you mind, please?’
Nobody heard. Stupid stupid stupid big house. She charged down the stairs and along the corridor and banged furiously on the huge, forbidding library door, screeching, ‘COME UP TO MARY’S! NOW!’ then ran back to Mary’s side, fiddling with her phone to call 999, trying to get a signal.
She grabbed the first thing she came across – an old shirt of Mary’s – but the child immediately screamed at her until she picked up an old towel.
‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Darling. Please. Give me the blade. Please.’
Mary was staring at the blood on the floor, quite horrified and surprised, as if she’d never seen it before. Please, thought Zoe. Please let it have been the first time.
‘Just give it to me. Right now,’ she said quite snappily, putting out her hand. To her surprise, Mary automatically dropped the blade to her, still catatonic.
Zoe moved as slowly and carefully as she could and wrapped the towel around the child’s legs, moving her in towards her own body, ignoring the blood going onto her jeans until she could find a way to staunch the flow.
Patrick appeared in the doorway and Zoe, as calmly as she was able, hissed, ‘Patrick, get your dad? Mary fell down.’
At that, Mary started, her huge eyes looking up at Zoe wonderingly. Zoe rubbed her back in what she hoped was an encouraging manner.