Blue Lavender Girl

by Judy May

  I brought Jane Eyre up here to my room to keep Aunt Maisie happy, but I won’t be reading it.

  I am managing to keep the room tidy. Tonight I put some rose petals into my bath and felt like a princess. I think I look more like a witch though, with my long black hair that tangles into a bird’s nest five minutes after I’ve combed it. I wish was more like the Snow White blonde girl I saw in the supermarket. Although we could be twins, she puts herself together better and her expressions and laughing make her prettier. Maybe I look more like Rose Red.

  I hope something happens tomorrow. Anything. A TV would be amazing, but not very likely. No wonder people in the countryside claim to have seen aliens. My head will start making stuff up very soon if I don’t feed it something.

  ***

  I hate myself. I am ugly and stupid and there is NOTHING good about me. Everyone else has some good points. Kira has her meditation and her hippie stuff, Dee is a bit useless too, but at least she looks really good and her brothers and sisters do stuff with her and she laughs a lot. I only ever laugh when Aidan tells me stories about his friends in the band, about when they make mistakes on stage. I laugh at some TV shows too, but never when there is someone else in the room.

  Things I HATE

  my hair

  my body

  my face

  my brain

  my voice

  my family

  my friends

  my school

  my whole life

  I know that I was an accident and my parents probably wish I’d never been born.

  ***

  When I was sitting in the front room I saw that horrible man from the paint shop arguing with a man with a van. I don’t think they had an accident because both the van and the car looked fine, so it doesn’t make sense why they stopped there to yell at each other. Maybe they hate life too.

  ***

  LATER

  Aunt Maisie could tell I was in a vile mood from how I just sat there biting my nails. She asked me how that Jane Eyre novel was going and I told her it was too difficult. So she had me bring it back down and said to read one line from anywhere. It’s a pain when she gets all teacher-y but it’s always over fairly quickly. Anyway, I read a sentence from the book and she asked if I understood that sentence, and I said ‘Yes’, because it took a little bit of thinking about but was easy enough. Then she said to do it again with another line from anywhere and I did it and it was pretty easy too. I guess I was just put off because it was so big and old and lacking in pirates.

  I read the first few pages in the bath and it is a bit depressing; it’s all about this little girl who people say is bad, but really she hasn’t done anything wrong, everyone’s just out to get her, so I could totally relate. She also reads this book about birds and about sea fowl, which I think are seagulls, at least I don’t know what else they could be as there are no such things as sea chickens. I used to be really into garden birds, but I would die if anyone knew that now.

  There is a chaffinch who lives in the tree outside this bedroom.

  Aunt Maisie says we can go for a long drive tomorrow so I can see the countryside. It’s hard to get excited about cows, but it will be great to be out of the house. I think she is trying to make sure I don’t get more pissed off with the world before she has to hand me back!

  DAY 13

  It was hilarious, we packed a picnic and everything. The people I know back home would laugh themselves into a coma if they heard about someone going on a picnic with their aunt with fish-paste sandwiches and blueberry muffins.

  We drove to an old ruined castle which was very cool. Aunt Maisie wanted to take pictures of it, so I wandered around for a couple of hours and was imagining that I was Rose Red from the fairy tale and married to my prince. There was no-one there because of it being a weekday so I could be as loopy as I wanted.

  Then we went to this place that has a waterfall and that’s where we ate the picnic and then walked in the woods for a bit. On the way back I fell asleep in the car and now I am going to read a couple of pages of Jane Eyre.

  It’s funny, but if someone told me that I would have to do all that for a day I would think I would despise it and do whatever it took to get out of it. But I actually (I have to admit) had fun.

  I called Mum and Dad and they had nothing to say except that everything was fine, and I just said the same, ‘Fine’, as if the day would be ruined if I told them about it. Also, I want them to worry about me a bit for a change or at least wonder how I really am.

  I know people make phone calls about me when I am not there so I hope Aunt Maisie is telling them that I am damaged from all the abandonment. But then my mum would just tell her to make me do the weeds in the garden like she does at home if she catches me moping. She calls it moping, but I call it feeling hurt, and pulling weeds has never done much for it.

  DAY 14

  Aunt Maisie was going into the village to get her nails and hair done, and asked me did I want a lift. She dropped me off on the main street and I told her I’d see her back at the house sooner or later. It’s about a thirty minute walk, which is fine when all you have to do in the day is chop fruit and read an old book. I mean it’s not like someone famous will drop by and I’ll miss them.

  I saw the man who bought all the paint and did the yelling at the man, coming out of the bank, so I crossed the road to avoid him. As soon as I got to the other side I ran straight into that blonde girl, and she had a crazy sandy-coloured dog that was dragging her along the street, the same one as the first time I saw her. The dog came right over and started jumping up on me and she was saying, ‘Really Buddy, have you no manners?’ as if the dog spoke perfect English.

  I said, ‘It’s OK, I like dogs.’

  She told me she was taking it out for this old couple because the man had hurt his leg in a fall and his wife was too busy fussing to be able to walk the dog.

  Then she said, ‘Come on then’, and at first I thought she was talking to the dog until she laughed and said, ‘Well, it’s not like there’s anything better to do around here! I’m Jenny.’

  I said ‘Tia.’ (I am very relieved about my name as I know it was almost Mary after my mum.)

  I know it sounds weird, but it was like we’d both decided to be friends already. Maybe it’s easier to make friends here than back home. Less politics.

  The old couple tried to get us to come in, but Jenny obviously didn’t want to and I didn’t either so she said that she was showing me around. She probably had a bad experience with their tea and fruitcake before.

  Jenny is fifteen (like I will be in ten weeks) and is the most smiley, happy person I have ever met. Kira would say she was probably a game show hostess in a past life. I think in a past life I was probably someone who lived in the woods and ate mice.

  After talking to Jenny I now know for sure that there is nothing to do here, not even a swimming pool, or an outdoor market, or a cinema or any more people our age.

  ‘Except for Jackson. He’s a year older than us, and by the look of you, I don’t reckon you’d think much of him.’

  I have no idea what she meant by that, but she didn’t say it in a bitchy way so she wasn’t being mean. In fact she is so sunny and happy that I can’t imagine her ever being mean or sarcastic. I was almost too freaked to say anything in case I sounded too negative. Anyway it was cool because she was really comfortable with chatting away, a bit like people who have been prisoners for weeks and then they get to talk to the press and keep going on for hours.

  ‘I’ve known Jackson forever because we both get sent here for the summer, but he has to work for his grandfather most of the time, giving tours of the Big House or doing repairs or odd jobs, so I usually don’t see him much. I spend most of the summer with my mum’s old nanny, Nanny Gloria, and she keeps me busy running errands for neighbours.’

  Jenny asked me if I had seen the Park yet and I thought it was beyond weird to have a park in the middle of the countryside, where it would be ju
st more fields and trees in the middle of fields and trees.

  It only took about twenty minutes and we arrived at this place that was the best I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. It’s enormous with this huge lake, and it’s not flat, but not really hilly, and there are different trees in like ‘designer clumps’, and the most amazing stately home in the distance. Jackson lives there, in what they call the Big House, with his grandfather. That made me laugh because it seemed so not normal. A place like that is for visiting with the school, not for living in! Anyway we didn’t get to go that far because Nanny Gloria lives in the Gate Lodge.

  Jenny’s bedroom is excellent. It has a four-poster bed with cushions and pillows in every colour. There’s an old tin bath on the floor at the end of it that is stuffed full of dolls and soft toys that she’s had since she was a baby. We just hung out and talked loads. Usually it takes me ages to get to know a new person so it was weird, but nice.

  It took me forever to walk back to Aunt Maisie’s, so from now on I will take the bike with me.

  I’m at a really sad bit in Jane Eyre where she’s sent away to this school where she is freezing all the time and she is made out to be really bad, and she has never done anything wrong except defend herself against the family she was living with. It makes me feel really good about having a warm bed and food to eat. Even my room at home and things like cornflakes would be a luxury to her. Every couple of pages there’s a word like ‘subjoined’ or ‘ottoman’ that I don’t get, but I still understand what it all means anyway. I hope it gets happy soon.

  DAY 15

  Today was another not-boring day.

  I cycled around to the Gate Lodge as I told Jenny I would, and we spent the morning learning to bake bread (not that I will ever admit that to anyone in the free world). Nanny Gloria is exactly as you would expect a nanny to be, really no-nonsense and with smiley eyes even when she is pretending to be cross. We made olive bread and tomato bread and I took some back to Aunt Maisie when I went back for lunch.

  Then in the afternoon Jenny came over here and we sat in the garden on the sun loungers and talked about our families and friends back home and school and all that. God, we could almost swap lives at this point, we know so much about each other.

  Jenny goes to boarding school because her dad is a diplomat and so her parents have to travel all around the world all the time. She used to go with them, but then she saw a film set in a boarding school and begged her parents to let her go to one. She said she just got tired of leaving her friends behind and having to make new ones every few years whenever her dad was posted somewhere new.

  She was laughing so hard when I told her about the state of my bedroom back home, and said that at her school it was three girls to a room and you had to keep it immaculate. Then just so she didn’t think I was a complete degenerate, I showed her my room here, to prove I could keep a place nicely.

  For some reason we ended up talking about dogs and I told her about how I did have a dog once, for a few weeks and that I really missed him.

  I didn’t go into how Mum got annoyed when Trundle chewed her bag from work, and how she then mysteriously developed an allergy to dogs (an allergy that had no symptoms whatsoever!) and she got Dad to give him away. I didn’t speak to either of them for a week after that and Mum said it was a good lesson in selflessness and Dad just looked really upset. She did buy me a new bag to break my silence, but it’s hardly the same thing.

  Jenny has so many goals, she wants to play hockey for a national team, she wants to be really good at oil painting and to earn enough money to buy her own apartment before she is twenty. I only ever want to get through the day without spilling something on my clothes so I don’t have to do too much laundry. I wish I had something that I really wanted to do, like when I used to run out to that tyre-swing Aidan made for me years ago at the beach place.

  DAY 16

  Well, Jenny was right, I don’t think much of Jackson. He is so full of himself and really pushy, like all the worst guys I have ever met glued together and given a posh voice. I was really hoping he’d be nice and that I might even end up really liking him and going out with him.

  STORY OF MEETING JACKSON:

  I cycled up to see Jenny but there was no-one in, and I remembered she’d said that she and Nanny Gloria would be shopping for people in the morning. So I left my bike there and walked up to the Big House. Aunt Maisie had told me that no-one lives in the bottom rooms of the Big House and that tour parties can book to go around them. I just wanted to look in one of the windows to see what it looked like, whether it was like in a fairy tale or like in a museum.

  Walking up the wide stone steps and across the courtyard I pretended that the building was mine and I was a lady, or a baroness or duchess, or whatever you call the type of woman who lives in a place like this.

  I peered through the glass into one of the darkened rooms and could make out a chandelier, some beautiful chairs, and a fireplace with a huge oil painting over it. I imagined myself sitting by the fire, wearing a long dress, reading Jane Eyre, as if I always read important books.

  Right at that moment this guy (who I knew must be Jackson) appeared beside me and without saying hello, or asking who I was, said sharply, ‘You shouldn’t be here! You have to go!’ And he took my arm and started leading me away.

  I pulled my arm back and told him where he could go, using the kind of language that usually gets me in trouble. I quickly walked back down the steps and out of the Park and rode home so furious at him. For God’s sake, I was just looking!!

  It was like he was some big lord of the manor and I was some poor wench who would steal the family silver. Well, I’m glad Jenny doesn’t hang out with him much.

  I went back to Aunt Maisie’s and read in the garden.

  I am going to go back tonight and look around. I bet it looks really amazing at night and there will be less chance of that stupid Jackson seeing me. He is like this monster of a man in Jane Eyre who owns the house she has gone to work in as a governess. In the book Mr Rochester throws his weight around just because he owns the estate, and Jackson is exactly like that and he doesn’t even own the place, his grandfather does.

  After dinner I told Aunt Maisie I was going out to ride my bike to Jenny’s (which is true as I’ll leave my bike there) and would be back before ten. It was really dark apart from the lights on the bike, and so quiet, not even a car anywhere near. The sound of the tyres on the road and my own breathing were all I could hear. An owl hooted once and I stopped to work out where it was, but it didn’t make another sound. When I got to the Gate Lodge I saw that the Park gates were locked, so I just had to turn back. I would love to see the Big House at night, I bet Jenny knows a way to get in. It’s a pity that such a magical place can be so wasted on a guy like Jackson.

  If I lived there I would light up the courtyard and dance there every night to the sound of violins and an owl hooting in the far distance. I’d wear a floaty dress and amazing shoes and do all these ballroom dances with a charming duke, or at least a guy who doesn’t make me want to throw up.

  DAY 17

  Weird. Jenny called around in the morning and she had been speaking to Jackson. He had dropped in to her place at breakfast time, and asked about who I was (probably wanted to run me out of the country entirely!). Jenny said that I was her friend and he had better be nice to me.

  Jenny tried to explain his mean, bossy behaviour away. Apparently, his grandfather is sick and he (Jackson) told Jenny that yesterday he had to get me to leave the courtyard because his grandfather was coming, and that his grandfather would have shouted at me and been really horrible and banned me from the place forever, because since his illness he does things like that. I told her that Jackson himself had done a good enough job of being rude and horrible, and was the biggest mistake of a person I had ever met. She tried to stick up for him, but I know that’s just because she is nice about everyone. She stayed for lunch and then had to go.

  ***

&nb
sp; HOLD TIGHT FOR THE FREAKY WEIRD BIT:

  Some time during the afternoon, without me or Aunt Maisie noticing, a big bunch of lavender with a note attached was left on the front doorstep. The note said,

  Dear Tia,

  Although it was not the best start, I am really looking for ward to getting to know you this summer.

  Yours, Jackson F.

  Aunt Maisie always thinks that something is more of a big deal than it is because she is a bit dramatic, and sure enough her eyebrows were way up around the top of her head.

  ‘Must have made an impression!’ she said in a mysterious voice.

  I know exactly what sort of impression I made, so I think that he must have a thing for Jenny and after their conversation he wants to keep her happy by staying on my good side. Or else he thinks I am properly crazy and wants to make sure I don’t throw bricks through his windows. He can forget about meeting me again, I’m not going to let some bully from the Big House tell me what to do.

  We went grocery shopping and I cooked a vegetarian lasagne all by myself out of a recipe book and it turned out really well. I can’t wait to tell Aidan. I wonder does he even know where I am?

  I called Dee, but she didn’t ask about me, she just talked about her stuff like as if I wouldn’t be doing anything. So after ten minutes I said I had to go. She said that Daniel, the guy from the party was asking about where I had got to. I think she’s making it up to make it sound like I’m missing something.