Rae sensed her sister’s mood. ‘Maybe not today, then. Do you remember when we had that sleepover with Jared and we made him watch the Friday the 13th movies with us, and he nearly cried?’
‘He did not cry,’ Emmy defended him in a shot. ‘He was just a bit freaked out. His mum, probably rightly so, never let him watch horror movies.’
Jared and Emmy had clicked from the start in a purely platonic way. He’d befriended the sisters when he and his parents had moved to Maplewood at the start of the summer of 1998. He was twelve, just like Emmy, and he spent the summer holidays going back and forth between his house and theirs, happy to have new friends who lived in a cool old house in a whole wood that he could play in. He hadn’t realised they were the unpopular kids at school, and that their ‘creepy’ secluded lifestyle was one of the reasons others were put off by them. To his credit, come the start of the school year, when the kids were all too happy to fill him in with stories about feral children and cults and witchcraft in the woods, he wasn’t fazed one bit. In a way, he had sacrificed his own potential popularity to remain friends with the girls. Being a boy who was a ‘raging nerd’ (i.e. smart) wasn’t as much of a stigma as it was for a girl, so he had other friends too, but he was always loyal to the Lake sisters – and to Emmy in particular.
‘Did you ever kiss Jared?’ Noelle asked, all of a sudden.
‘Me?’ Emmy pointed at herself. ‘No, it was never like that.’
‘I did.’
‘What?’ cried Rae, coming to a stop. ‘Why would he kiss you and refuse to kiss me?’
‘Why was he even contemplating kissing either of you?!’
‘It was only a little kiss, on the first summer he was here. I was ten, and he was twelve, and I don’t think he’d kissed anyone before. So he kissed me. I liked to tease him sometimes, when we were all a little older, that he turned me gay, but I didn’t really have a clue at the time why I thought kissing a boy was gross.’ Noelle laughed at the memory. Maybe she had a bit of a clue. She’d definitely practised kissing on a picture of this new pop star from one of Emmy’s magazines, called Britney Spears. ‘It was only a peck from Jared, though, and I think it was practice because he wanted to kiss you, Emmy.’
‘No, he didn’t…’
‘No, Noelle’s right,’ said Rae. ‘I tried to kiss him one night when I came home drunk and he was heading home down the driveway. You two had been studying for your GCSEs or something. I remember throwing my arms around him and kissing him all over his soft little cheeks, but he wouldn’t let me kiss his lips, and I always thought it was because he was saving them for you. Also, I’d recently puked, so that might have been a factor too.’
Emmy smiled, thinking of Jared, whose shy and nervous disposition was partly what had drawn them so close. He was her confidant, her shoulder to cry on, her source of laughter and the person who had made her snap out of it when she almost lost herself to the bullies. She’d thought about him a lot when she first left; they’d tried to stay in touch after school but drifted apart the further they moved through university. But the less she visited home the less he’d popped into her mind, and the bonds that had once held them together had melted away naturally. Now he was a fond memory, one of few, from a time of her life that was all but closed.
‘I wonder what’s changed,’ Noelle was saying in her usual full-of-wonder voice. ‘I wonder if Annette’s Newsagent’s is still there with all the 1p sweets.’
‘Well, I don’t mean to sound morbid,’ said Rae. ‘But Annette herself must be long gone. She was about a hundred and three when we were kids. And a total bitch.’
‘Rae, don’t speak ill of the dead!’
‘Actually, Noey, she really wasn’t that nice,’ added Emmy. ‘She always made us spill out our sweets bags on to the counter so she could count them and make sure we weren’t shoplifting. Nobody else had to do that.’
Rae nodded. ‘If we were ever even a penny or two out she’d act like she knew it all along. “Is that how they raise you out in the woods?” she’d say.’
Noelle’s face fell. ‘I never realised. I thought she was just disapproving of me, but I forgave her, it was a generational thing.’
‘She disapproved of all of us.’
‘Look!’ Emmy pointed to the end of the road, where the houses started merging into the beginnings of town. ‘The cinema’s still there!’ She was determined not to slip back into her bad mood so easily.
‘Oh, it looks so nice,’ said Noelle. ‘Different, smarter – but look at the original features they’ve kept. It’s beautiful.’
‘I puked on those steps.’
‘Of course you did, Rae,’ Emmy laughed. ‘And there – the gardening shop is now a New Look. This feels so weird.’
‘It’s like going back in time,’ agreed Noelle. ‘It’s kind of magical.’
Rae was running her hand along a wall, kicking absentmindedly at the leaves, and Emmy felt like she was seeing a mirror image of the teenage Rae once again, who’d probably made the same gestures a hundred times. Rae stopped, all of a sudden, and looked down. ‘Look! This gap in the wall right here, where the stone is missing. I used to hide cigarettes in there!’
Noelle laughed. ‘You did? I used to hide notes for Jenny.’
Rae saw Noelle’s smile begin to drift away and she came to the rescue with a little distraction. ‘Shall we get some breakfast? If it’s still there, I know exactly where we should go.’
Her sisters’ faces lit up, and they all whooped in unison, ‘The Wooden Café!’
They threw a left at the next road as if they’d walked this route only yesterday, their mouths already hungry for buttery bacon baps, stacks of hash browns, all-you-can-eat Coco Pops. Even Noelle, who’d been vegetarian all her life, vegan as a teenager, couldn’t resist this one little treat on the side.
‘It’s here.’ Emmy sighed with genuine happiness when it came into view. ‘And it looks exactly the same.’
Rae smiled. ‘Remembered something you liked about Maplewood?’
‘Maybe just one thing.’ One more thing, she corrected herself, thinking of Jared.
They pushed open the door of the café. Inside, it resembled a log cabin, and the fire was burning like it always seemed to be, no matter the season. The décor was a little different – where there used to be a milkshake machine to the left of the counter was now a shining stainless-steel coffee contraption, puffing out plumes of steam as the already-busy baristas banged scoops of nutty-smelling grounds on the sides. What used to be mismatched dining chairs and round tables were now tartan armchairs and low coffee tables. A basket of blankets sat by the door and Rae grabbed three, even though it was pretty toasty inside anyway.
The three of them snuggled down in their chairs and gazed at the surroundings. Emmy did a sweep and didn’t see a single face she recognised, and let out a long exhale, her body relaxing. ‘I always liked this place.’
Rae smiled and then ordered a whopping amount of breakfast for all of them, including juice, hot chocolates and many bacon products.
‘So I must say, this is better than being at work,’ said Noelle, accepting a hot chocolate mounded with trembling whipped cream. ‘Two and a half months of no court cases, no legal jargon, no long hours at the office —’
‘Just long hours of manual labour,’ Rae jumped in.
‘That’s true. It’ll be nice though, to do something physical. I can’t wait to paint the outside of the house, clear up the garden… Well, anything that means I can just spend long days outside.’
Rae and Emmy exchanged a look. ‘Consider the exterior all yours,’ said Emmy. ‘We should make a bit of a plan over the next few days and then go shopping.’
‘We do need a plan,’ Rae agreed. ‘Do we need some kind of theme?’
‘Theme? Like making the house resemble Hogwarts?’ asked Emmy.
‘A theme – like nautical, country B&B, modern.’
‘How about traditional Devon?’ Noelle said, sticking her nose into
her hot choc. ‘It’s a little cliché, but we’re trying to attract tourists to the house. If I was going to Hollywood, I’d want modern. Or by the sea, I’d want nautical. If I was coming down to stay at a house in the woods, in a beautiful small market town in the heart of Devonshire, I’d want… what’s traditionally Devon?’
Rae thought about it. ‘Cider? Cream teas? Custard?’
‘Okay, that’s the kitchen cupboards sorted. But for the décor… Emmy, what images do you conjure up when you think of Devon?’
Emmy sat back in her armchair and held her hot chocolate close, the aroma wafting upwards, the spices filling her senses. ‘Apart from mud, and being pushed into it as part of a daily ritual?’
‘Oh my god, you’re such a downer,’ said Rae, but not without kindness. ‘Apart from that.’
Emmy closed her eyes. ‘You know, I really hated that they did that just to make my glasses muddy. Like I chose to wear them because I was a nerd. You wore glasses, Noelle, and no one made fun of you for it.’
‘I was a lesbian, I’d already handed them ammo on a plate.’
‘You were so good at brushing it off though,’ said Emmy.
‘It bothered me sometimes. First I was the grubby hippy kid, then I came out and I was the horrible kid that turned poor angelic Jenny gay. Rae, do you remember flipping out at Mum and Dad one time when you came home after you’d moved away? You said that everyone thought our family was effed-up, with one sister accused of being suicidal, one sister who was gay, and hippy parents.’
‘I said that? And you heard?’
‘Yeah, you wanted them to do more to protect us. But it was good for me to hear it. I’ve always had a bit of a habit, even now, of scrubbing my memories clean so everything is idyllic, but that taught me that you can’t always pretend things aren’t happening, you just have to learn to not listen to it instead.’ The three were silent for a moment, until Noelle added, ‘Now, Emmy, describe to me your image of Devon.’
Emmy inhaled, letting thoughts of her past pass, and thought about rolling hills and rocky tors and pebble beaches. ‘I see Dartmoor, lots of greens from trees, moss, grass, and brown from scrubby patches of earth where people have trekked up and down the tors, and on fuzzy Dartmoor ponies. I see… ice-cream vans under blue skies but also sitting there in torrential rain and wind. I see sheep grazing, lambs hopping about, stony walls, old churches, purple heather, blackberries hanging off brambles and lovely sharp sunsets.’
Emmy opened her eyes to see her sisters staring at her, eyebrows raised. She laughed. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Noelle said, and smiled up at a waitress who was buckling under the weight of all the plates of bacon.
‘What?’ Emmy asked again. Her sisters were so annoying.
‘Nothing,’ Rae echoed, and grinned as she bit into a hash brown. ‘Nothing at all.’
Chapter 6
An hour later the girls walked out of The Wooden Café, stomachs full, faces pink from the heat of the fireplace, and full of motivation for starting the house renovations.
‘I was just thinking we could open out that whole space – let the living room merge into the kitchen and the hallway,’ Rae was saying.
‘It’s good to have energy flow through the house,’ added Noelle with a nod.
Emmy, however, was shaking her head. ‘You’re just saying that because you’ve chopped the door down and don’t want to put another one up. It’s freezing in that house; I think we need doorways.’
‘That’s not it at all,’ Rae protested, though that totally was it. ‘We could install one of those middle-of-the-room electric flame-y fireplace things that they always have on Grand Designs.’
‘We do not have a Grand Designs budget though, and I’m not getting out a loan just so a few holidaymakers can dry their socks off a bit quicker. Besides, we said we weren’t going to go with a modern theme.’
‘Fine, make it a campfire instead then —’
‘Wahey, look who it is! It’s the wicked witches of Maplewood!’ came a shout from outside the pub garden the girls were walking past. Emmy turned to look, cursing herself for doing so.
There before them were two people who were… Well, ‘shadows of their former selves’ is the polite phrasing. Men who, at school, were good-looking and popular and arrogant AF, but were now bald and fat, and Rae for one thought that if no good came from the rest of this entire two months, the knowledge that Tom Bradleigh was now less Freddie Prinze Jr and more Fred Flintstone was quite satisfying.
Rae stepped forward a little, a natural instinct, so that she was between them and her sisters. On one side of her, she could see that Emmy was freezing up. On the other, Noelle looked like she was trying to place the men.
Kelvin Somethingorother – the one who’d yelled out – stayed seated, stuffing the last of his chips in his gob, while Tom wandered over to the fence with his pint.
‘Bloody hell, all right, girls?’ he said, looking them up and down with an amused expression as if they were three show ponies trotting past for his inspection.
Back at the table, the veins on Kelvin’s once-a-rugby-player neck bulged with the urge to guffaw some other clever line about witches if only he could get those chips down a bit quicker.
‘Hello Tom, Kelvin,’ said Rae through tight lips.
‘Rae Lake,’ declared Kelvin finally, striding over and wiping ketchupy fingers on his jeans. ‘Last time I saw you was that sixth-form party where you were offering BJs to everyone!’
Tom threw his head back and laughed.
‘You wish.’ Rae seethed. These were the boys at school that always got the laughs – even from the ones they were making fun of, because it was easier to laugh along than show how it was cutting you to pieces inside. Rae had never once laughed at their jokes, though, and she wasn’t about to start now. These guys were nothing.
Tom slurped his lager. ‘Smile, love, it was a long time ago. Just having a laugh. What brings you lot back?’
Noelle spoke up before Rae could jump the fence and punch him in the face, which would not be unheard of behaviour. ‘We’re taking short breaks from our busy, important careers to fix up our old house —’
‘About time,’ Kelvin interjected.
‘What are you doing here? Don’t tell us you never left,’ Emmy cut in, feeling the rage build inside her, and ashamed that her voice came out sounding weak. Tom and Kelvin were hardly her worst enemies, but for a while at the age of fifteen she’d had a crush on Tom, lord knows why, and one time he’d caught her staring and he and all his friends had guffawed at her for a week, telling anyone that would listen that Rae Lake’s little sister was caught trying to put a love spell on him.
Luckily, Emmy was wise enough for the crush to evaporate instantly.
Tom turned and waved at the table. ‘Maplewood’s our town. We’re dads now, me and Kelv.’
‘Together?’ asked Noelle.
‘No, we’re not gay,’ laughed Kelvin, though when all three sisters’ eyes turned to daggers, even he had the decency to look a little abashed. ‘Oh, that’s right, you had a thing with that blonde girl, I heard about that after we left school. If only you two had been a bit older you could’ve been pretty popular at our parties.’ Kelvin looked dopey and pleased with himself, and Noelle stung. She wasn’t stupid, she knew society was far from where it needed to be, but it made her feel a little sick to think of her relationship with Jenny being reduced to frat boy entertainment. But she put a hand on Rae’s arm – she didn’t want this conversation to escalate; it wasn’t worth it.
Kelvin rambled on. ‘Tom’s wife is Maisie, do you remember her from our year, Rae? That’s their kid, Donovan. My girlfriend’s not someone you’d know, and my kid is that one – Alfie.’ He pointed at the small boy in the high chair who was staring into the distance, half a chip dangling from his mouth.
‘You two. Have offspring. What a wonderful world,’ said Rae, her voice quiet and measured.
‘Yep, we’re doing the girls a favo
ur; thought we’d give them a break and bring the little lads to the pub with us this afternoon.’ Tom beamed with pride. Pride for himself and Kelvin.
‘But they are your kids?’ asked Rae.
‘Yep,’ he nodded.
‘So you’re not really doing your partners a favour?’
‘Yeah, we are, they’re off shopping or something.’
Rae and her sisters exchanged looks, exasperated. ‘Well, bravo then. Lucky girls. They must be so grateful to you for mucking in and looking after the kids that you’re fifty per cent responsible for.’
Kelvin was about to sit back down, bored of reminiscing with some girls he barely even remembered; Tom was sipping his pint, thinking over Rae’s words. Suddenly Kelvin fixed Emmy with a once-over. ‘You were a massive swot in school, weren’t you? Do you remember that, Tom, that Rae Lake’s little sister was this total nerd back at school?’ He turned back to her, nodding with appreciation. ‘You’re definitely more passable now.’
Emmy was slipping. She wanted to be able to ignore them, safe in the knowledge that she was a better person than they’d ever be. Or even better, she wanted to shoot Kelvin down with something clever and feminist, and give him a real whopping chunk of her mind. But the teenage Emmy inside her dragged at her sleeves and begged her to run away. She made her forget her words and struggle to collect her thoughts because annoyance and frustration were flooding over the top of them.
‘Let’s go,’ said Rae with a big-sister abruptness. ‘Gentlemen, it’s been… something.’ She turned and walked away, Emmy and Noelle close by. Behind them, they heard the unmistakeable sniggering of Tom and Kelvin.
‘So that was fun,’ Rae said through gritted teeth as they marched away. ‘What a treat to come back and see how grown-up everyone here has become and how we’ve all moved on from the past…’ March, march, march.
‘They’re just silly boys, they always will be,’ said Noelle, squeezing Emmy’s hand, who was still silent.
Emmy huffed through her nostrils and came to a stop. She might have even stamped her foot a little. ‘I just. I just. Passable.’
My Sisters And Me Page 5