I lived in a three-bedroom house in Islington with Mum and Dad, and I dreamt of having my own pony, shiny-black with a white blaze on its forehead. I planned to turn the garage into a stable, turn the backyard over to grass. I was going to call my pony Star and braid its mane with ribbons and feed it hay that smelt of summer and happiness. Together, we’d win horse shows and races and cross-country trials, collecting rosettes and trophies.
‘One day, Scarlett,’ Dad used to say. ‘When we live in the country. Imagine it – chickens, a veggie patch, room for a pony…’
‘Don’t encourage her,’ Mum would snap. ‘We’re not moving anywhere. You can’t have a pony in central London, Scarlett. How about a hamster?’ In the end I got two rabbits, Coco and Fudge, who lived in a hutch in the garden.
Mum worked late most nights even then, but Dad was self-employed, so that didn’t matter. He ran a web-design business, working from home, so he was always around to pick me up from school, take me to classes, heat up frozen pizza if my mates came round for a sleepover and pretend not to notice if we sat up past midnight, eating ice cream in bed.
He was a cool dad – embarrassing, sure, but cool. I didn’t mind the Morris Traveller back then, not even when Dad called it Woody in front of my mates and pretended it was farting every time the engine backfired. I didn’t mind when we went to eat out and he sat at the dinner table balancing a spoon on the end of his nose, not even that time it fell off into his soup and splashed his shirt with Cream of Tomato and Basil. So what?
I was just about the luckiest girl alive, and I didn’t even know it.
Dad moved out just after my tenth birthday. He’d met someone else, he said, an Irish woman called Clare who made handmade soap out of herbs and spices and bits of grated lemon rind. Eye of newt and mouldy fingernail clippings, more like. If ever there was a witch, it had to be Clare.
Clare wanted a website to help sell her stuff. It shouldn’t have been a big job, but she needed help to photograph the stuff, help to write the captions, help to choose the artwork and lettering.
‘I hope she’s paying for all this extra work,’ Mum sniffed, after Dad spent a whole Saturday styling and photographing a bunch of speckled soaps that looked like they were made of cooking fat and boiled-up twigs. ‘She’s taking advantage of you.’
Dad just laughed and said that Clare was a nice woman, and that she deserved a bit of help.
‘Why can’t she help herself?’ Mum had snapped.
I thought Mum was being a bit mean, but that’s just what Clare did. She helped herself – to my dad. I didn’t even see it coming.
‘It’s not that I don’t love you any more,’ Dad said to me before he left. ‘I do. I always will, Scarlett. It’s just that things aren’t working out with your mum. They haven’t been for a while.’
I tried to believe him, even as I watched him pack. ‘Can’t you try a bit harder then?’ I wanted to know. ‘It might just be a bad patch. Gill’s parents had one of those, and they’re all right. You just have to bring home flowers and chocolates and hold Mum’s hand a bit more.’
‘Scarlett, love, it’s too late for all that,’ he said.
‘Well, you don’t have to leave,’ I argued. ‘You can still live here, can’t you? We’re your family, you should be here, with us. Tell that stupid Clare woman to go away’
Like that was ever going to happen.
‘Scarlett, love, I can’t,’ he told me. ‘I don’t want to. I’m sorry’
Sorry? That didn’t really cut it, for me. He moved out of our house and into Clare’s, and Mum and I were history. I got to see him every Sunday, and we’d trudge around the British Museum or sit in McDonald’s, picking at our Happy Meals and wondering how it got to this.
‘Clare’s nice,’ he said to me one week. ‘You’d like her. Why not come over next week, get to know her a bit?’
‘She’s a witch,’ I huffed. ‘I hate her.’
‘Scarlett, you don’t even know her.’ He sighed. ‘Give her a chance. She’s a good woman. She has a little girl – Holly, she’s seven. Nice kid. I’m sure you’d get on…’
A little girl? My world crumbled.
I cried so hard when he dropped me home that night that Mum said we should cut the meetings to every other week. It was too upsetting, too disruptive. Pretty soon, we were down to once a month.
It doesn’t have to be the end of the world when your parents split up, I know, but it was for me. It felt like my whole life was sliding away from me. I didn’t go to karate and keyboards and drama and ballet any more, because Dad wasn’t there to take me. I stopped dreaming of ponies and I went to after-school club till Mum finished work and could pick me up. There were no more sleepovers, no more embarrassing moments with farting cars or spoons balanced on noses.
I sat in my room and watched the grass grow on the lawn, the weeds sprout through the cracks in the garden path. When Mum told me we were selling the house so she and Dad could split the profits, I didn’t even care.
I cleared away four bin bags of old clothes and toys, books about ponies, bits and pieces of my childhood. Dad called round late one night and loaded them up in the Morris Traveller to take to the charity shop.
Mum made me give Coco and Fudge to the kids next door, because you can’t keep rabbits in a flat, and I still wonder if those kids remember that Coco hates apples, or that Fudge loves it when you scratch her behind her ears. Probably not.
We packed up our stuff and moved to the flat, and then the divorce came through and Dad and Clare got married in a registry office in Camden. Soon after, they all moved to Ireland, to some dump called Kilimoor, in Connemara where Clare grew up, and the very last shreds of hope died inside me.
That was that. It wasn’t enough just to leave us, replace us, he had to move a million miles away and put the Irish Sea between us. Well, fine. If he wanted to act like we didn’t exist any more, I could do the same. I stopped answering his emails, stopped taking his calls. I threw his cards and letters into the bin. I wiped him out of my life, the way he’d wiped us out of his.
I didn’t need him. Not even when I got into trouble at school, not even when Mum packed me off to Nan’s in Milton Keynes for the very first fresh start. Not even when Nan said she couldn’t cope and sent me on to Uncle Jon’s, or when he said I was a spoilt little brat with violent tendencies and packed me off back to Mum. Families, hey? Don’t you just love ‘em?
My dad pulled my life to bits and trampled all over it with his size-ten boots. I need him like I need a hole in the head, or maybe even less.
The journey to Kilimoor is hell on wheels. The Morris Traveller cruises at forty-five miles an hour, and pretty soon there’s a mile-long queue of traffic behind us, waiting to overtake. I wouldn’t be surprised to see small children on tricycles whooshing past us.
‘It’s a bit of a drive,’ Dad says. ‘I thought it’d give us a chance to catch up.’
I don’t think so. We drive through open countryside, past dozens of smart ranch-style bungalows fronted by pillars and tall gateposts topped with stone eagles and lions. I maintain a gloomy silence.
I do a double-take when we pass gateposts topped with stone cats, lop-eared rabbits and, finally, what looks very much like penguins.
‘Different, isn’t it?’ Dad smirks.
It’s different, all right. It’s a foreign country, and a crazy one. As well as the loony gateposts, I spot several garden shrines with brightly painted statues of the Virgin Mary, and one swish modern bungalow with a trio of ancient, rusting tractors arranged decoratively on the lawn. There are endless ruined cottages overgrown with ivy, green post-office vans and alarming yellow signposts written in some kind of foreign language. Even the car number plates are weird.
‘The Irish have their own unique style,’ Dad says as we chug past a pink-and-orange painted building that seems to be half pub, half petrol station, with a sideline in hanging baskets and sacks of coal. An old man in a flat cap and a tweedy waistcoat is snoozing o
n a deckchair by the elderly petrol pumps, while a tethered goat chomps through one of the hanging baskets. I peer back over my shoulder to get a better look, and see that the building has only half a roof.
‘Interesting, huh?’ Dad grins.
I pretend I am a million miles away, somewhere quiet and sane and peaceful where there is no crazy landscape, no smell of leather and Polo Mints, no stupid questions.
‘You have to talk to me sometime, y’know,’ Dad says.
‘Wanna bet?’ I retort, then wince because he’s tricked me into answering. Typical.
The car journey takes forever and then some. I close my eyes to discourage further conversation, and when I open them, the landscape is different, wilder. We’ve turned off the main road. We’re clattering through small, twisty lanes edged with tall hedges, starry with purple-pink flowers. At some places we have to slow down because there are chickens on the road, and all around us hills and mountains rise up, big, silent, spooky.
‘This is Kilimoor,’ Dad says as the Morris Traveller wheezes through a sleepy village tucked into a fold in the mountains. There’s a teeny school, a church and a bunch of time-warp type shops that look like they’ve been painted by a colourblind toddler with a palette of violently clashing colours.
The main street is strung out along the most desolate stretch of coastline I’ve ever seen in my life. A huge, grey ocean rolls away into the distance, brooding beneath a sullen sky.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Dad grins. ‘It’s like being on the edge of the world.’
It looks like the back of beyond to me, but slightly less exciting.
‘The cottage isn’t actually in the village,’ Dad says as we head back into the open countryside. ‘It’s about seven miles on, near Lough Choill, woods and fields and hills all around. Very peaceful.’
Peaceful? I want to scream.
We drive past bleak moorland where big chunks of ground have been sliced away and stacked in heaps. ‘They still cut peat from the land, the way they have for hundreds of years,’ Dad tells me. ‘Just wait till you smell your first peat fire. Connemara is a magical place, Scarlett – not like the twenty-first century at all.’
‘More like the Jurassic Age?’ I ask sweetly. ‘Mmm, I can tell.’
We crawl onwards, up twisting mountain lanes, dipping down into a vast, empty valley. The houses fizzle out, except for a tumbledown cottage with donkeys in the garden and a selection of derelict ruins overgrown with ivy.
Then, through a stand of trees, I glimpse a long strip of silver-blue water that glints in the afternoon sun.
‘That’s Lough Choill,’ Dad tells me. ‘Lough is the Irish word for lake – it sounds just the same as the Scottish word loch.’
‘Fascinating.’ I scowl.
‘The name means lake of the hazel tree,’ Dad says. ‘There’s an old hazel at the tip of the lough that marks a holy well or a spring or something. People still come to see it. It’s supposed to have magical properties, according to local legend.’ I fake a yawn, and Dad abandons the running commentary.
We’re quite close to the water now. Lough Choill looks cold and still and timeless, rimmed on the far shore with silver birch trees that seem to dip their toes in the water. Beyond the woodland, a huge, gaunt hillside rises up, smudged with heather and gorse.
‘Almost there,’ says Dad. We drive round the tip of the lough, turning off into a lane that’s so skinny it might not even qualify as a footpath back in London. There is grass growing up through the middle of the road. Unreal.
The car shudders to a halt outside a whitewashed cottage with red-painted windows and climbing roses all round the doorway.
‘Well,’ says Dad. ‘This is it.’
The cottage looks like it’s escaped from a picture postcard. A stone workshop with a tin roof stands behind the cottage, and strewn across the neatly mown lawn in front are a pink bike, a pogo stick, an abandoned Bratz doll. A couple of chickens mooch about in the flower beds, and there’s even a neat vegetable plot. It looks like Dad got his country-cottage dream, anyhow.
A tyre swing hangs from a tree, swaying gently in the breeze. My mouth sets into a grim line.
Dad grabs my suitcase and grins at me, that old lopsided smile I know so well. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ he tells me. ‘They don’t bite.’
Too bad, I think. Because I do.
*
The fridge is crowded with magnetic letters that spell out ‘Welcome, Scarlett’, and the kitchen smells of roast meat and gravy. Yuk. I drop my eyes to the floorboards, scowling.
‘Scarlett, this is Holly,’ Dad says, and my eyes flicker upwards against my will. Holly looks about nine, with mouse-brown hair scraped back into pigtails. She is setting the table with plates, glasses and cutlery, and she looks nervous but friendly, like she’s pleased to see me. Weird.
‘Wow,’ she says, eyes flicking from my hair to my rucksack to my red wedge sandals. ‘Wow! I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t believe I’ve really got a sister at last!’
‘I am not your sister,’ I say. Obviously she’s not very bright.
‘Stepsister then.’ Holly shrugs. ‘Mum’s done us a roast dinner specially – lamb and mint sauce and roasted potatoes! It’s a celebration!’
‘I’m vegetarian,’ I snap. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’
Holly’s face falls.
‘Your mum didn’t mention that,’ Dad says, frowning. ‘Pity. Well, I could open a tin of tuna…’
‘No meat, no fish,’ I say coldly.
‘Right. No, of course. Cheese then? And some of the vegetables?’
I shrug, stony-faced.
‘I’ve always wanted to be veggie,’ Holly chirps.
‘At least, I’ve thought about it. You can tell me all about it, Scarlett. You’ll be sharing my room – it’s going to be cool!’
Yeah, right. I look at Dad and he raises one eyebrow shiftily.
‘It’s just one of several possible options, room-wise,’ he says.
‘No,’ I correct him. ‘It isn’t.’
And you’re at my school.’ Holly beams. ‘Isn’t that the best? I’ve told everyone all about you.’
Oh yeah? No pressure, then. She is nuts, clearly. I shake my head.
‘You’re at the primary school,’ I point out, quite patiently, I think.
‘Yes, in Kilimoor!’ She grins. ‘I’m just finishing Third Class, but of course, it’s just a one-teacher school, so we’re all mixed in together. Our teacher’s called Miss Madden.’
‘I’m twelve,’ I tell Holly. ‘Nearly thirteen. I’ll be going to the secondary school, OK? With the big kids.’
Holly frowns and looks at Dad.
‘Actually, Holly’s right,’ Dad says sheepishly. ‘The system is slightly different in Ireland. You’ll be at the primary school until the end of term, and then in September you’ll go on to the secondary in Westport. It’s not a step backwards or anything – both of the other kids in Sixth Class are the same age as you.’
‘Both?’ I echo. ‘There are only two other kids my age?’
‘I’ve got lots of tips on settling in,’ Holly babbles on. ‘The tricky bit is when someone says something in Gaelic, but of course we learn it at school anyway, so you’ll soon catch on.’
‘Gaelic?’ I wrinkle my nose.
‘You know, Irish. We have to study it,’ Holly explains. ‘I’ll teach you a bit. Céad Míle Fáilte! It means a hundred thousand welcomes!’
A hundred thousand butterflies settle suddenly in my tummy. I have a bad feeling about this place, a very bad feeling. I sink down on to a kitchen chair.
Primary school. Can it get any worse? It can, of course.
A small, plump woman with fair wavy hair and witchy blue eyes comes into the kitchen, wiping her hands on a big floral apron. Clare.
‘Oh, Scarlett, hi.’ She beams, squeezing my arm. ‘We’re so glad to have you here, really! You’re very welcome, and I know you’re going to love it here just as much as we do.’
I sit still, frozen, speechless. I can’t think of a single clever put-down. Why didn’t they warn me? Why didn’t they say?
Why didn’t someone tell me Clare was pregnant?
I didn’t sleep last night. I lay curled up on a rickety iron bed under a lumpy patchwork quilt, in a poky room with sky-blue walls and a border of nursery-ryhme characters. At least they had the decency to take the cot away.
I called Mum a dozen times last night, but she wasn’t answering her phone. I left voicemail messages and texts, but she didn’t call back. I’m on my own.
I’m up early, washed and dressed in my Greenhall Academy uniform. I choke down my breakfast, some kind of muesli that looks just like the dry food I used to feed to my pet rabbits. Clare looks pleased, Dad looks nervous and Holly looks slightly disappointed.
‘You look very smart, Scarlett,’ Dad says. ‘It’s great that you’re trying to make a good impression.’
Trying? I can be very trying, when I put my mind to it.
‘Ah,’ he says, glimpsing my swirly wedge sandals beneath the table. ‘No school shoes?’ His cheeks flush pink and I know he’s not going to challenge me. ‘Right. Well then, girls, off you go. Don’t want to miss that school bus. Have a good day. I’ve spoken to Miss Madden, Scarlett – she knows all about you.’
All about me? That’s scary. Holly and I head out into the lane, then mooch up to the crossroads for the bus.
‘Are you nervous?’ Holly wants to know. ‘I was, my first day here. Everything was different, but now I love it. It’s miles better than London, seriously. You’ll be fine.’
‘I’m not nervous,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve been to five schools in two years – I know all the tricks. What’s to worry about?’
‘Five schools?’ Holly asks, eyes wide. ‘How come?’
I shrug. ‘School number one I went to until I was ten – till Dad left. I loved it there, but we had to move, and that meant school number two. I wasn’t very happy back then – surprise surprise – and I kept getting into scrapes. This one girl said my dad had left because he was sick of me, and we had a fight and I knocked her tooth out.’
Scarlett Page 3