Mr Spinks stops and stares up at us as we gawp around both rooms, wobbling from one front paw to the other as he tries to figure out who we are and what we might be doing here. Or maybe he’s desperately wondering where Nana is and when she’s coming back and is trying to use doggy telepathy to read our minds.
Angie is watching us closely too. She settles herself on the top of each door, head twitching, studying the strange, open-mouthed gasping creatures we are – and probably hoping one of us fancies filling up her seed bowl sometime soon.
“Ready to see upstairs?” Mum asks, taking a deep breath to prepare herself. Now it’s my turn to shrug a yes. Of course I want to see more of Nana’s secret world.
Once past the box forest of the hall landing, we wend our way up the next staircase, which this time is home to dozens and dozens of pair of shoes, from pointy, dainty, gold dancing shoes that perhaps belonged to a flapper girl of the early 1900s, to clompy silver platforms from the 1970s, to slouchy Ugg boots … all sitting neatly partnered on either side of each step. I can almost imagine an invisible presence standing in each pair, like a ghostly guard of honour, as we ascend.
And then a fat dog rushes past me, like an oversized black potato on cocktail-stick legs, and I can’t help sniggering.
“Not quite so bad up here,” says Mum, surveying the second-floor landing. “Though it smells pretty musty.”
There are two clothes racks on wheels, both heaving with an assortment of old coats, dresses, shirts and skirts.
“Shall we try this one first?” I suggest, pointing to a room that’s directly above the living room.
I lead the way in before Mum has a chance to answer. And we find ourselves in an art studio, with a desk virtually disappeared under sheaves of drawings on A3 sheets of paper and semi-finished vast canvases propped up on every wall. The floorboards are bare, and splattered with paint. Only the neatly made bed in the corner and the open book and alarm clock on the small table beside it give away the fact that this is also Nana’s bedroom.
“How can she live like this?” Mum says quietly, almost to herself. “Maybe if I’d visited, I could have stopped it getting this bad…”
As she talks, she rests a hand on an empty easel and gazes at the view outside the three windows, which mirrors the ones downstairs.
The view consists of identical buildings opposite, though there’s a decent amount of sky above the roofs and chimney pots, I suppose. But I’m turning to go already, ’cause I’m itching to see the last two rooms on this floor, and the attic too.
After all, we still haven’t come across “Dean”, baby “Zephyr” or the pearl that’s meant for me and only me…
“C’mon,” I say, heading back out into the hall, moving a wheelie rack of clothes out of the way and opening another door. “Whoa…”
“What? What is it?” asks Mum, hurrying after me when she hears my shocked gasp.
And then she sees what I see.
What this flat – so far – has not prepared us for.
We both gaze around the immaculate room, painted pale grey, with two single beds made up like it’s some boutique hotel, with acid-yellow bedding and funky sixties-patterned cushions laid against the pillows. There’s one painting on the wall, done by Nana of course, of a teenage boy on a surfboard, sandy-haired, in neon-green shorts, balanced on the crest of a white-tipped, azure-blue wave.
“I don’t get it,” says Mum. “Why is this room like, well, this?”
But I’m not listening; I’m hurrying through to the next room, moving another rail of clothes – which Angie is happily roosting on – to get to the handle.
“This one’s just as neat!” I call out. “Neater, even!”
It’s like Mum Heaven.
White walls blend with white draped curtains matched with a crisp white duvet on a double bed. An old dressing table with three mirrors has been painted white, for a shabby-chic effect. A white stool sits at it, painted white too, and with a pretty, rose-patterned seat of Cath Kidston fabric.
Again, there’s only one large painting on the wall, this time of a single velvety red rose, so vivid I can practically smell the scent. That’s Mum’s favourite flower; whenever she’s in a good mood, she’ll come home with a bunch for the living room. Though she prefers to call them “scarlet”, rather than red. And her love of scarlet roses was the inspiration for my name.
Scarlet for the roses, Sita because Nana suggested it – it was some family name on my grandad’s side and she always thought it was pretty.
I walk across the whitewashed wooden floor and take a peek through the slats of a white wooden venetian blind at the window. There’s not much of a view out there – looking down, a big old brick building takes up most of a yard that’s empty except for a few weeds; looking up, there’s a big modern block of flats shutting out most of the summery night sky. I guess the mystery room next door must have the same view.
“So what’s in here, Scarlet?” I hear Mum ask, coming to join me.
“Um … your room?” I suggest.
’Cause this doesn’t just look like Mum Heaven by accident, does it? I don’t know who or what the inspiration is for the room we just saw, but Nana definitely had Mum in mind when she decorated in here.
And now Mum walks in, looking this way and that in stunned surprise, at the bare, clean loveliness of it.
I leave my mother to absorb the fact that she appears to have her own personalized guest room, and hurry out on to the landing. Mr Spinks seems to know that there’s one more place I need to see; he’s already plonked on a step of the last staircase – a plainer, narrower set that is lined just on one side with a mismatching collection of old-fashioned china teapots.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I find myself on a miniscule landing in the eaves, the ceiling sloping down on both sides as I face a plain wooden door with a white ceramic doorknob.
I take a breath, turn the handle and quickly feel around the wall to my left. I’m hoping to find a regular light switch, of course, but instead my fingers land on some kind of dangling cable with a switch attached. Hoping I don’t get electrocuted, I press it – and at the sound of a soft click, garlands of white fairy lights suddenly pulse all over the almost triangular shape of the wall I’m facing, a wall that’s mostly a chimney breast for the fireplaces below. It’s painted scarlet red, same as the sloping walls of the roof on either side.
On the sloping wall to the left, a flowery, vintage tea towel is pinned by its four corners, to act as a curtain to a tiny window, I guess. I don’t bother to look – it’ll have the same across-the-road view of rooftops as Nana’s bedroom down below.
Nearly the whole of the polished wooden floor is covered with an old but lovely Persian rug, in shades of rich red and cream.
Mr Spinks trots over it, easily hopping on to the low futon bed with its beautiful, ornately embroidered Indian throw, and turns a few circles before he settles down, panting up at me, as if he’s welcoming me to my very own room. Which it is, isn’t it? Same as the white one downstairs is Mum’s.
“Thank you, Nana,” I whisper, staring around at the small but incredibly special attic room.
How lovely, if a little bit sad… Nana and Mum had that final falling-out that broke their relationship, reducing it to a terse “How are you? Fine, thanks,” conversation every couple of weeks. And all the time, in her mad new messy venture, Nana had busied herself crafting and creating rooms just for us. For the family that never came.
How stubborn has Mum been, to stay cross with Nana for not listening to her advice?
How stubborn has Nana been, to want us here and never ask?
And how did I never notice before quite how useless adults can be?
Thoughts ramble around my already overloaded head, but then my eyes settle on something and my brain suddenly sharpens up.
There, directly above “my” bed, framed by the garlands of fairy lights, is a painting. Small this time. A miniature of the pearl painting in the liv
ing room.
Is this what Nana wanted me to find?
This painting is the pearl in the attic?
I walk closer to it, and lean in to get a better look.
It’s incredibly pretty, but it’s just … well, there. That can’t be all, surely?
Then something occurs to me: like all Nana’s paintings, it’s not a flat picture stuck in a frame; it’s canvas stretched over wood, with edges a few centimetres deep.
I reach over and carefully take the pearl painting off the wall.
As soon as I do, a packet of folded cream-coloured papers wrapped with a red ribbon – a scarlet ribbon – drops down from its hiding place at the back of the picture and lands on “my” pillow, making Mr Spinks jump.
With legs a little shaky, I flop down beside Nana’s dog.
The pages – covered in that oh-so-recognizable handwriting – rustle and fan out as I free them of the ribbon and folds.
At the same time, a flutter of wings announces the arrival of Angie, who perches on top of the attic door and stares at me.
“Well, well, well!” she caws, in Nana’s voice.
Well, well, well, I think too, as I begin to read what’s on the paper…
The Pearl in the Attic
By Patsy Jones
Chapter 1
Hornsey, North London, 1904
Ruby tasted blood.
The whole of this long day, she had bitten her lip or nibbled at the skin around her nails till they were raw and ragged. She had drummed her feet, tapped her fingers and twitched at every new sight and sound.
And now she stood by Father’s side, feeling unravelled and strange, shivering as if she had been caught standing in the open air dressed in only her vest and drawers.
“Stop,” she whispered to herself, fixedly staring down at the pavement, clutching her heavy bag, wishing she could be still, be calm.
But how was that possible?
For today had been the most glorious, wonderful and terrifying of Ruby’s entire life.
The long journey on the steam train up from Kent.
Taking the bone-shaking omnibus across the teeming, noisy streets of London.
The final, shorter train ride up to North London, arriving at a station right next to a vast, grand building called Alexandra Palace – owned by which royal person Ruby did not know – set on a hill with views of faraway smoke drifting into the skies from the thousands upon thousands of chimneys of the city beyond.
Now, at the end of this unsettling adventure, they had arrived. And Ruby was about to be handed over like a parcel of meat.
“No, no, NO!” said Father, studying the letter in his hand for the umpteenth time. “This can’t be right!”
Ruby kept her gaze downwards, trying to steady her shivering, and said nothing.
It was always better to say nothing.
If you dared to say, “But, Father, I think…” you’d have a slap around the head for your cheek, before you even got a chance to say your piece.
They all knew it, all the children.
Ruby swallowed hard, blinking tears away as she pictured her little brothers and sisters back at the farm cottage. They’d been without Mother for half a year now, without Stanley since he was apprenticed to the butcher in Ramsgate. And now that she was here, there’d be no one to come between them and Father. No escape till they were fourteen too, and Father found a position for them far away.
And far away was what mattered to Father. For why, he would say, would a man be so foolish as to have his child find work close by, so that they may still live at home and remain another mouth to feed? No, no … a live-in position was the key. At least Stanley was only twenty miles from the little ones, and could visit if he chose to. But Ruby was to be placed much further away. Even if she wanted to, she would never be able to find her way back…
“Humrumph! Well, this should be Hornsey High Street,” Father continued, blocking up the pavement in his stubborn refusal to believe that they were finally at their destination. Ruby tried to shrink into herself, or step this way or that, so as not to inconvenience the bustle of passers-by. Her head held low, she watched black-shod feet trot purposefully by, laden wicker shopping baskets by sides, the wheels of shiny perambulators with squalling babies strapped inside.
And of course it was Hornsey High Street, Ruby knew.
When they’d left the train and walked down the great green parks and gardens of Alexandra Palace, they’d followed precisely the directions in Uncle Arthur’s letter. Even so, Father had asked a young lad they passed if their route was correct and been told it was. They’d stopped moments ago and gazed up at the sign that read Hornsey High Street on the side of a fine tenement building, with a shop beneath it, one of many such buildings, all with shops below, goods piled up or garlanded around their windows.
Father and Ruby were where they were supposed to be, no doubt about it, though Father remained to be convinced.
“And this is a baker’s shop, but the name is wrong… Why does it say ‘Brandt’?” Father grumbled. “It should be ‘Wells’.”
“You looking for Mr Wells, sir?” asked a voice, and Ruby watched as a bicycle came to a stop beside them, a pair of booted feet expertly bouncing on to the pavement beside it.
She glanced up, drawn by a lad’s voice; he sounded as if he might be about the same age as Stanley. He was, give or take a year, she decided when she looked at the scrawny boy, in a second-hand but smart enough black jacket and trousers. The cap on his head was pushed back, and there was sweat on his brow from the exertion of his journeying.
On the front of his delivery bike was a large basket, and down the side, in the most beautiful gilt script, was the name Brandt – Baker and Confectioner.
The twinkle of the gilt drew Ruby’s eye like a magnet. Richness of colours always stirred something inside her … the pink-orange sunsets over the Kent cornfields were cheering, their burning glow banishing the day’s drudgery. The red sheen and black dots of a ladybird – presented on the fingertip of one of her little siblings – always made Ruby smile. And the lilac haze of lavender fields near the farm; who could ever tire of such a sight?
Ruby had thought of those colours on the train here, knowing they’d be lost to her now, and that nothing could replace them in London’s grey cloak of smoke.
But this; this little glimmer of gold … it gave Ruby the strength to raise her gaze higher and see what this place was about, this place she must settle in, whether she wanted to or not.
And the look of it quite took her breath away.
As soon as she was old enough to run errands, Ruby had been sent to fetch the family bread from the miller’s place, buying a loaf warm and soft from the back door of the bakery shed.
But here was a shop that looked so very grand that Ruby almost expected it to sell fine jewels. Her eyes took in the glossy black of the frontage, with large thick letters above it that read Brandt – Baker and Confectioner once again, and once again in that rich gold.
The words were carefully scripted on the huge plate-glass window too, this time in neat golden arches. A door, with a brass bell visible, stood to the right.
As for what lay inside the window…
“Oh, my,” Ruby murmured, and found herself drawn closer, walking away from her father and the delivery boy. For the window was such a vision! A soft, lustrous purple cloth – velvet, she guessed it to be – was draped all about it, pinned and flowing from some upstanding backing board and pooling into swirls on a wide shelf. Breads and cakes of every shape and size were laid upon it, either spilling out of baskets or displayed on some dainty invention of prettily painted, stacked plates. Ruby had never seen such an abundance, such sweetness … and seeing the luxury of it all lit the tiniest flame of hope in Ruby’s heart.
Perhaps this position would not be so very awful.
Perhaps her uncle Arthur and his new wife might be kind to her.
She had never met either of them, but they could not be cold
er or meaner than Father, surely… ?
Ruby felt the eyes on her before she saw them.
A woman was staring at Ruby. She stood behind the display in the window, tall, buxom and severe, hair hidden in her white cap, arms crossed in front of her white apron. Was this her aunt … her aunt Gertrude?
The woman’s look was strange, hard to read. It was not that tight mask of anger that Father wore so very often, nor was it the weary disdain of the old schoolmaster when Ruby smudged her work again.
Before Ruby could fathom what the look could be about, Father’s shout drew her attention, and she saw the woman turn away from the window and retreat back into the shop.
“Ruby! This way!” Father ordered her, as a farmer might command his dog.
As Ruby stirred herself, she suddenly understood.
The meaning of the cool, steady look was very clear: You are not welcome…
Turning slowly, feeling leaden with dread, Ruby went to follow Father and the delivery boy, who was now steering his bicycle through an open doorway that led to a passage next to the shop.
But Ruby found her way blocked by a smiling young woman, her dark hair piled up in fanciful curls. She was dressed most peculiarly, in a waisted navy frock coat and matching long knickerbockers!
“Coming to Alexandra Palace this weekend?” she said, smiling warmly at Ruby and offering her a printed handbill. “I promise, you’ll see such things as you’ve never seen in your whole life. A Wild West show, I tell you, with the one and only, world-famous Colonel Samuel Cody!”
This Colonel Samuel Cody might very well be world famous, but not in Ruby’s small patch of England. She squinted at the handbill held out to her, making out nothing of the smaller printed words beyond blackened smudges against the paper, though the title SF Cody and Company and the drawing under it was just about clear enough. The coloured drawing was of a man in a hat like that of some cowboy, with long hair, a raggedy beard, twirled moustache and fringed jacket. He sat upon a horse that was rearing up, its front legs tearing at the air. In one hand the man held the horse’s reins, while in the other he held … a gun!
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