No one had heard her come in; they were all talking at once. Mo was saying, ‘When she’s ready—’
Tommy’s excited voice cut in. ‘But my father can help her!’
Then the gentle tones of Tommy’s dad. ‘It is not appropriate, Osman.’
‘But then everyone can see how clever you are!’ cried Tommy. ‘We have to show them. Everyone will come to you!’
‘You can’t help someone who isn’t ready to be helped,’ said Mo dryly. ‘No matter how clever you are. No offence, Professor.’
‘None taken, I assure you. I apologise for my son, who seems to believe I should demonstrate my skills to the town by practising on the neighbours.’
‘Only some of the neighbours,’ muttered Tommy.
Mo said sharply, ‘I hope you’re not suggesting your father should brush up his skills on me.’
There was an awkward silence, then Tommy said, subdued, ‘Of course not, Mrs Mo. I’m sorry, Mrs Mo.’
Mo snorted.
‘Forgive us, Mrs Mo,’ said Tommy’s dad. ‘We have trespassed on your time for long enough.’ He said something to Tommy in their own language, and Eloise heard them get up to go. She waited, holding her breath, as they all moved out into the hallway.
‘Thank you for the curry,’ said Mo gruffly. ‘Again.’
‘Not at all. Leisure in which to cook has proved to be an unexpected benefit of unemployment.’
‘And you cheer up, Tommy. You look like you’ve lost a shilling and found sixpence.’
‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Mo?’
‘Never mind. I know you meant well. But when Eloise and I are ready for help, we’ll ask for it, all right? Till that day comes you can mind your own beeswax.’
‘I don’t understand, Mrs Mo.’
‘Oh, forget it. Buzz off. See you later. Goodbye, Professor.’
Eloise heard the door slam shut, then open again. Mo called out through the screen, ‘Thank you!’
Eloise quickly changed her clothes, threw the wet ones into the laundry basket, and crept silently into the kitchen where a covered casserole dish sat on the table. Mo came marching in, and jumped at the sight of her.
‘Scared the living daylights out of me! What are you, a ghost? Where the devil have you been? It’s nearly dark.’
Eloise shrugged and spread her hands in apology.
‘You just missed Tommy and his father. They brought round another curry. Lamb this time, I think they said.’
Eloise nodded, non-committal, though she saw Mo glance swiftly at her as if trying to guess whether she’d heard any of their conversation.
As she and Mo ate dinner, Eloise thought about what she had overheard. It had startled her when Mo had lumped the two of them together as needing help – or rather, not needing it, thanks very much.
Eloise was glad. All she wanted was to be left alone, that was all she had ever wanted.
But then she remembered that horrible sensation when Anna’s dad had looked through her, spoken through her, as if she didn’t exist. In the other time, Eloise was a ghost – except to Anna . . .
And, Eloise realised, she was as good as a ghost in her own time, too: silent, invisible, sidling out of rooms. Maybe Mo was wrong. Maybe she did need help, after all. Her throat tightened.
Mo asked her suddenly, ‘You’re all right, aren’t you? Getting along? Finding enough to do?’
Eloise nodded. She could speak to Anna, but she couldn’t speak to Mo – not yet. Her hands were still spattered with grey and green and white paint. She wondered if Mo would ask what she’d been doing, but she didn’t.
As Eloise picked the paint from under her fingernails, she reflected that Mo wasn’t very good at noticing. Either that or she was extra good at pretending not to.
‘Your father rang today.’ Mo dropped the serving spoon back into the casserole dish. ‘Says he’ll be here on Christmas Eve.’ She looked at Eloise sharply. ‘You know it’s Christmas next week, don’t you? On Tuesday?’
Eloise chewed slowly. She had no idea what day it was.
‘Today’s Saturday, by the way,’ said Mo dryly. ‘You need money? For presents?’
Eloise paused, then, inspired, she shook her head. She could give them drawings: one for Mo and one for Dad. She could do that by Tuesday, easily. Dad would have a picture of the house, of course. And for
Mo she could copy the summerhouse painting – the girl swimming through the window. Yes, she was sure Mo would like that . . .
But what about Anna?
Time ran at a different, faster speed for Anna; perhaps she’d already had her Christmas. But Eloise wanted to give her a present too, especially after what had happened today. After all, it was Eloise’s fault that her father had growled at her.
She shovelled up the last of her rice and curry and slid from the table.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any point asking what you want?’ asked Mo abruptly. ‘Books? A camera? Think I got my first camera when I was about your age. Paints?’
Eloise nodded eagerly to the last. But it wasn’t till she was seated cross-legged on her island bed, sketching, that she realised that Mo would have to ask the Durranis to buy her present for her. It was weird to think of Tommy, or his father, who she barely knew, shopping for her Christmas present.
Then another thought struck her. She tore a page from her sketchbook and wrote a laborious note.
When she knocked on Mo’s door, the noise of typing broke off into a startled silence. Eloise knocked again.
‘Come in then, don’t stand there like a stunned mullet,’ came Mo’s impatient voice.
Eloise pushed open the door. It was the first time she’d ever been inside Mo’s study. It was stuffy and airless, and an old-fashioned fan whirred on the floor, riffling sheaves of paper on Mo’s desk as it rotated. The desk was under the window, the computer propped on a stack of books. Mo swung around in her chair. Her hair was wild, as if she’d been digging her hands through it. One pair of glasses rested on her head, one pair at the end of her nose and a third dangled round her neck. She glared at Eloise. ‘Don’t you remember rule number one? What’s the matter?’
Mutely Eloise handed her the note.
Mo squinted at Eloise’s terrible handwriting, ‘Do you want me to buy presents for the Next Doors?’ She grimaced at Eloise. ‘Not game to spell Durrani, eh? Don’t blame you.’ She folded the paper, gazing at Eloise over her glasses. ‘There’s no need for that. I’ve asked your father to take care of it, as a matter of fact. But thank you for asking. It was . . . thoughtful.’
Eloise stared at the carpet. The fan whirred around and lifted the hair on her forehead.
‘All right,’ said Mo. ‘My sea voyages are calling. Buzz off.’
Eloise withdrew, and a minute later the clackety-clack of the computer keyboard started up again on the far side of the door. Would she get to read Mo’s book one day? Eloise wondered if Mo would ever finish it.
11
The next day, Eloise crept toward the summerhouse. She was almost too nervous to close her eyes, scared that the magic wouldn’t work. Last night it had seemed harder to push back into her own time; perhaps it would be harder to get through into Anna’s time today. She walked forward, into the red dark behind her eyelids, through the shrilling of the cicadas. Then the rush of silence washed over her.
When she opened her eyes, she was in the other time, with the neat summerhouse, the white fence, the cropped lawn. Someone had abandoned a blanket and a book in the middle of the grass. The swimming pool glimmered, diamond-bright in the early morning sunlight. Birds shouted from every corner of the garden, and the tips of the trees were dipped in gold.
Eloise hurried into the summerhouse. She knew just what she wanted to do for Anna’s present. It was only a small present; maybe Anna wouldn’t even notice it. But Eloise would know.
She looked at the painting of the swimming girl and her heart expanded. It was good. The swimming girl was fluid as a mermaid, but there was nothing watery
about her: she was firm and full of energy. And now Eloise picked up a brush to add the final touch to the picture.
Inside the bright square of garden she painted a tiny figure: another girl, in a big hat, holding up one hand in a wave of greeting. She didn’t sketch it first, just dabbed it directly into the heart of the painting, a solitary small dark shadow in the sunlit garden, dark inside light inside dark, just as the dark painting was folded inside the bright summerhouse.
The two painted girls held out their hands to each other, across the frame that joined and separated them, across the light of the garden and the dark underwater, the garden girl in her dark frock and the swimming girl in her pale nightgown. And if they were both Anna, it didn’t matter; it was as if a dream Anna waved to the real Anna, though Eloise wasn’t sure which was which . . .
Anna.
Eloise put down her brush. Anna wasn’t here. As slowly as possible, she washed her brush, tidied the paints, took a drink from her water bottle. But still Anna didn’t come.
Eloise told herself that it was still early; there was plenty of time. But she knew, somehow, that Anna wasn’t going to come.
She took a deep breath and ducked out of the summerhouse. Then, without letting herself hesitate, she set off round the side of the swimming pool, along Anna’s secret path through the bushes toward the house.
She kept her head down. The usual noises wafted from the house: a repeated phrase from a piano, someone laughing, a door banging shut. It was so strange to think of the deserted, derelict house she’d seen that first day with Dad full of people and furniture and music.
She lurked by the back door. Anna’s father couldn’t see or hear her, but maybe other people could. And even if they couldn’t, she didn’t want to experience that horrible feeling when they looked straight through her. Eloise waited till the clatter from the kitchen fell silent, then she pushed the door open a crack and slipped inside.
The back hallway was empty. There was the same green-felt door, but the felt was bright and new, and the studs that nailed it in place were shining. Eloise pushed through it into the foyer. The piano noise came clearly from one of the big rooms. Everything looked lighter, brighter, with fresh white paint, vases of flowers, bright canvases on the walls.
Eloise ran on tiptoe across the foyer and up the curving stairs. She’d never been upstairs before. She felt light-headed, almost queasy. Inside the house, she had a feeling that she’d never had in the garden or the summerhouse: that she was in the wrong place, that she didn’t belong here.
Three corridors led in different directions. Down one of them she heard a buzz of voices; she veered away. Anna had said she could see the summerhouse from her bedroom. So her room must be on this side of the house—
Eloise risked calling in a whisper, ‘Anna?’
A door clicked open, and a high, excited voice hissed, ‘I’m here!’
Eloise dived inside and Anna instantly slammed the door behind her. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!’ Anna’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were huge and shiny. She threw her arms round Eloise and squeezed her tight.
Eloise had a confused impression of overflowing bookshelves, drawers yanked open, an old-fashioned white bedstead with the covers tossed about. The next instant Anna released her.
‘I was starting to think I had imagined you. But I didn’t, did I? You’re as real as me.’
‘We’re as real as each other,’ Eloise assured her, but as she spoke she felt giddy again. Were they real? Were they dreaming? If she belonged in Anna’s future, should she be here now? Suppose Anna suddenly decided not to have any children, would Eloise vanish, like a shadow when the torch clicks off ?
‘Dad’s so upset with me. He says I’m too old for imaginary friends and he says I’m not even allowed to go to the summerhouse on my own . . . He rang Mumma in America and she was nearly going to come home.’ Tears poured down Anna’s cheeks. ‘I miss you so much,’ she wept. ‘You’ve been away so long.’
Eloise felt stricken. She didn’t know what to do. ‘I can’t help it,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not my fault.’ She put her arms around Anna and hugged her. Anna smelled of soap and toast.
‘I want to come with you,’ sobbed Anna. ‘I want to go to your place.’
Eloise stiffened. ‘I don’t know if you can.’
‘Where is it, where you come from? It’s a different time, isn’t it?’ She pulled away and gazed solemnly at Eloise. ‘Are you dead? Is that why you came?’
‘No!’ said Eloise. ‘I’m not dead.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Eloise uncertainly. ‘Anyway, if I was dead, you couldn’t come with me.’
‘I could die too. Then we’d be together all the time.’
‘No!’ said Eloise in horror. ‘Oh, no, you can’t do that! And I’m not dead.’
‘Dead people never think they’re dead,’ said Anna matter-of-factly, dabbing at her eyes. ‘But if you’re really not dead, you must come from the olden days.
Do you come from the olden days? Why can’t I go back with you?’
‘Because . . .’ stammered Eloise. ‘If you’re not here . . . You just can’t.’
‘If I came into your time, I could be invisible like you,’ said Anna. ‘Is it fun being invisible?’
‘No,’ said Eloise. ‘It’s horrible.’
Anna stuck out her bottom lip. ‘I still want to come. I want to see what the olden days are like. I want to stay there for a while, with you. I want to give Dad a big fright.’
‘You can’t,’ said Eloise urgently. ‘Anna, you can’t do that. You have to stay here, with your dad. He’d go crazy if anything happened to you. The only reason he got so upset is because he was so worried. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you, you’re the most important thing—’ She broke off. Suddenly she knew it was true. To Anna’s dad, Anna was the most important thing in the whole world.
Eloise knew that she wasn’t the most important thing to her father. Lots of things were more important than she was: work, projects, convention centres, girlfriends, money, cars, running away from everything that possibly reminded him of Mum.
Maybe Eloise reminded him of Mum. Maybe he was running away from her as well . . .
‘I have to go,’ she stammered. She felt peculiar, insubstantial, as if she really were a ghost, as if she might float up to the ceiling. She shouldn’t be here; she couldn’t stay any longer. ‘Goodbye, Anna.’
She bolted from the room and ran down the hallway. It seemed that her feet skimmed along the blue-and-brown rug almost without touching it. Was she fading away? What if she was trapped here, a half-person, visible only to Anna? She heard voices; two people were walking up the stairs. Eloise skidded to a halt, but they didn’t turn their heads; they walked past without seeing her.
‘Wait!’ Anna called behind her. ‘Stay!’
The couple at the top of the stairs swung round toward her, startled.
‘I can’t!’ cried Eloise in a burst of panic. ‘I have to get home!’
The guests stared straight past her, unhearing. Eloise leapt down the stairs and tore across the foyer; she had to swerve around a woman in a print dress who didn’t pause or step out of her way, but just kept walking.
Sobbing for breath, Eloise burst out into the sunlit garden and sprinted across the clipped grass. She didn’t know if Anna had followed her; all she wanted was to escape back to her own time.
Eloise shut her eyes as she ran and held out her hands blindly before her. Please, let me get home. She ran and tripped and fell, the wind knocked out of her.
Fighting for breath, she stared up at the sky. Whether it was her own time or Anna’s time, the sky was always the same, stretched tight as a canvas, flecked with cloud. Silence settled around her, soft as moth wings. The pain in her chest faded; she could breathe again. She sat up.
She was back in her own time. The grass rose high around her. The wild garden shrilled with the noise of cicad
as, and the summerhouse sagged beneath its blanket of ivy. Eloise hid her face in her hands and began to cry.
12
El Dorado! Sweetheart!’ Dad twisted round in his chair and pulled her into a hug. ‘How are you, precious girl? Crikey, I’ve missed you! C’mere and give me a cuddle.’
Eloise threw her arms around him. He did care after all. He’d come early to surprise her. He was the best dad in the world.
Then, looking over the top of Dad’s curly head, she saw a strange woman perched on the edge of Mo’s hard green nubbly couch. Her blonde hair was brushed carefully to frame her face, which was as stiff and shiny as a mask. Her puffed-out lips half-smiled, but her eyes didn’t. She wore a grey business suit, high heels and pale pink nail polish, and she held her champagne glass with the very tips of her fingers. Several bottles of champagne sat on the coffee table.
‘Lorelei, this is my darling daughter, Eloise,’ said Dad, squeezing Eloise so tightly round the waist she could hardly breathe. He said solemnly, ‘Eloquence, I’d like you to meet a very important person. This is Lorelei Swan.’
‘Hi,’ said the woman coolly.
Eloise stared at her. She felt her own face stiffen into a cold mask that matched Lorelei Swan’s.
‘My little Electric Fence is a bit slow to warm up.’ Dad gave Eloise a playful nudge. ‘Don’t mind her . . . Hey, hey, guess what? Lorelei’s going to help us build our dream. What a pal, eh. What a sensible investor, I should say!’ Dad’s big laugh rang out.
Eloise and Lorelei Swan looked at one another. Lorelei Swan took a tiny sip of champagne, and her puffy mouth moved slightly in a tight, brief smile.
‘Let’s not get too carried away, Stephen,’ she said. ‘The deal’s not done yet. Photos are all very well, but I still need to see the site.’
‘Of course, of course!’ Dad leapt up, releasing
Eloise so suddenly she nearly fell over. ‘Let’s go! What are we waiting for? Wanna come along, Elementary-my-dear-Watson?’ Dad hiccupped.
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