My Sisters And Me

by Lisa Dickenson

  Rae ignored Emmy and led Bonnie and the other two into the kitchen, where she flicked the kettle on. ‘Drink?’ she asked the room.

  ‘Tea, please,’ sang Noelle.

  ‘Gin, please,’ deadpanned Emmy.

  ‘Ooo, can I have a gin?’ Bonnie asked. ‘No? Okay, have you got coffee?’

  ‘We have coffee,’ Rae answered.

  Bonnie settled on to one of the bar stools at the breakfast island. ‘I heard you guys used to have to fend for yourselves a lot because your parents would go out into the woods for days performing rituals. Is that why you always turned up at school in dirty clothes? Is that why you put a curse on your teacher?’

  Rae snorted. ‘We turned up at school in dirty clothes because our mum couldn’t get us from the front door to the end of the drive without us having some kind of scrap or play fight, or climbing a tree. We were always clean when we left the house, though. Where are you getting this from? The Facebook page?’

  ‘Some of it, but ever since you guys came back into town I’m hearing a lot of gossip in the café. Oh my god. When your mum’s around nobody dares to say a thing – you’ll find that on the Facebook page – but the things they say about you…’ She whistled, and accepted her coffee gratefully.

  ‘I hope I’m not being rude,’ Bonnie continued. ‘My mum’s always telling me off for that. I don’t believe any of it, it’s just well funny. I actually think you all seem really nice, and you tip well; bonus. People are always judging me too. It’s like, if you look a certain way or live a certain way, or your parents are a certain way, there must be something wrong with you because you’re different. But different is good, it’s well interesting. Don’t you think? Cool living room.’ She took a quick break from talking to peer around Noelle into the next room. ‘Have you got any biscuits? I put some in the hamper, in case you want to open any.’

  Noelle got the hamper and pulled out some local ginger biscuits, handing them straight to Bonnie who offered them around and then took two herself, which she set aside for a future break in her monologue.

  ‘Have you got a laptop?’ Bonnie asked. ‘I’ll show you that Facebook page. Oh my god, it was so funny. You know Annette, right? You must do, because she’s literally eight hundred years old and I think she’s owned the newsagent’s for seven hundred of those years.’

  ‘Oh, we know Annette,’ replied Emmy.

  ‘So you went in her shop the other week didn’t you? I’m not stalking or nothing – that’s just what I heard.’

  ‘We did, yes,’ Rae answered. She was both irked and intrigued as to why people were discussing them so much. She was sure people didn’t care to discuss them to this extent when they actually used to live here.

  ‘She literally put a sign up in her window saying “No Lake children allowed”.’

  Rae was taken aback and the sisters gasped at each other. ‘That stupid old —’

  ‘Rae,’ Emmy warned, tilting her head at the teenager.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve heard much worse,’ said Bonnie with pride. ‘Well, she’s been telling everyone that’ll listen that you’re shoplifters, but then do you know that hot policeman, PC Jones?’

  Emmy, despite her impending annoyance, smiled at his name. ‘Jared? Yeah, I mean he’s not hot, I don’t think, whatever.’

  ‘He IS hot. Anyway, he told her to take it down and said if she had a formal complaint she had to report it to the police, otherwise this was violating your human rights. He also told her you all earn a shitload of money so are really unlikely to shoplift a bag of Frazzles.’

  ‘How do you know all this was said?’ Emmy asked. Jared was ace.

  ‘Because one of my friends was trying to shoplift at the time and had to look super-casual like he was just browsing for a good ten minutes while they argued. It was his first time shoplifting – I told him it was a dumb thing to do – now I think he’s scared off it for ever. Nobody wants a life in a jail cell do they? Can I have another coffee please?’

  Emmy gave in and sat next to Bonnie, handing her the laptop. ‘Bonnie, you surely don’t remember us at all – you must have been a tiny kid when we lived here?’

  ‘Nope, you have a clean slate with me.’ She tap-tap-tapped at lightning speed. ‘I’m just super into creepy stuff so I’ve been following this page for a while. I’m kind of aware it’s bullshit, but bullshit can still be fun, can’t it? Check it out.’ She slid the laptop back to Emmy, and Rae and Noelle huddled over her shoulder.

  ‘“The Maplewood House in the Woods”,’ Emmy read. ‘Bloody hell, it’s got 186 likes. There’s a map, photos, comments; this is not okay.’

  ‘Don’t worry too much about it, it’s a historical landmark is all, sort of. People are interested. And it’s all photos from the Internet, it’s not like people have been sneaking into the grounds and taking photos of the outside.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Rae.

  Bonnie gulped. ‘Because I’m the moderator.’

  ‘You what?’

  She held her hands up. ‘I didn’t start the rumours or anything – I told you, I don’t start gossip. There’s been a lot of stuff written about this house over the years – in the papers and online, I mean; it’s Maplewood history. This is a tribute page, if anything. Anyway, it means I can remove any posts that I don’t think should be on there, and I’ve got morals and ethics and things, and I wouldn’t let anything stay up that looked like it had been taken without consent.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ Emmy snapped. ‘To get some exclusive photos of the freak-show house?’

  ‘Not at all!’ Bonnie cried. ‘I really wanted to meet you and say hello. And I wondered if, maybe… You see, I want to be a journalist one day, and I thought if I could write a really good article it would help me with my uni application. And I wanted to write about you. Or your house, if you don’t want to be in it. And not gossip, I promise, about the history of it.’

  Emmy glanced at her sisters. ‘Let us think about it.’

  ‘Sure.’ Bonnie hopped off the stool and stuffed the biscuits in her pocket. ‘Let me know what you decide, whenever. And let me know if you want me to be your eyes and ears in the town. I love a bit of undercover work.’ She wandered towards the door, looking around her. ‘By the way, I also babysit for the Bradleighs’ kid, and he and his missus had some friends round the other day and they were all talking about you ladies. I know because I was hired to keep the kids entertained in the next room and to bring out the plates of scampi and chips when they’d heated up. But don’t worry, everyone knows they’re a bunch of dipshits. ’Kay, bye!’

  Bonnie left the house with one final, appreciative look, and then trotted off down the driveway.

  ‘She was like a tornado!’ Noelle exhaled as they all shuffled back into the kitchen. ‘I don’t think I even said one word to her. She’d make a great barrister.’

  ‘That was certainly pretty interesting.’ Rae laughed. ‘Did you see this hamper? ALL the bacon!’

  Emmy was back in front of the laptop. ‘Are you two bothered about what she was saying though? That everyone’s been talking about us?’

  Rae shrugged. ‘Let them talk. I’m tired of caring.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Am I? I think I am. Either way, you can’t stop people talking.’

  ‘You can if you stop them from having anything to talk about,’ said Noelle. ‘If they got to know us they’d see we’re very nice. And that our clothes aren’t dirty and our home isn’t full of shoplifted items from a newsagent’s.’

  ‘Nor is it full of voodoo dolls and sacrificed animals,’ Emmy huffed, reading comments on the page.

  ‘Just one healthy chicken.’ Noelle waved out the window at Vicky, who was moonwalking in the back garden.

  Emmy shook her head and stood up. ‘I don’t believe in having to convince people to like you. This is life, not an audition. Now if you excuse me, I’m going back upstairs to finish my clear-out. I need to say goodbye to what I now realise is a far-too-large collecti
on of cargo-pants for one person who wasn’t even in All Saints. Turns out I don’t know where it’s at.’

  Chapter 14

  ‘I heard on the grapevine that you’ve been defending our honour?’ Emmy said to Jared over the noise of the hammering rain. They were huddled in a bus shelter waiting for the latest downpour to subside. The October sky was grey, stripped of its September blues, and there was a definite feeling that winter was battering at the doors of Devon.

  Jared was on duty, but it was a slow day so when Emmy had called him to see if he wanted to meet for coffee he’d suggested takeaway, and that she joined him on his walking route. Looking at her soaked hair and wet feet gave him a mini case of the guilts, but selfish as it was, the hot coffee in his hand, courtesy of her, was worth it.

  ‘Are you talking about Annette’s?’ he laughed.

  ‘“No Lake sisters allowed” is what I heard, until you came along.’

  ‘Don’t pay any attention to it, some people are never going to change.’

  ‘That’s exactly what they all think about us,’ she mused.

  ‘No, that’s different. You haven’t changed, but what they think about you was never right.’

  ‘You’re sweet.’ She nudged him, and sipped her coffee.

  ‘Does it bother you?’

  ‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘Wouldn’t it bother you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did she come to the station in the end?’

  He paused. ‘Annette?… No.’

  ‘Why did you pause? Did someone else?’

  Jared shuffled and wished the rain was louder so it could muffle his awkwardness. ‘No, nobody came to the station about you. Someone else did make a comment. Something about a disturbance outside the pub, that argument between you three and Tom Bradleigh and his mate last month. There were kids there and someone thought it was inappropriate.’

  Emmy groaned and stepped out of the bus shelter, not caring about the fact she now stood in full force of the rain that carried in the wind. A woman walked past that Emmy recognised from school. Emmy smiled, but the woman looked away as if she hadn’t seen her. She turned back to Jared with a sigh. ‘They were the ones being inappropriate! We did nothing wrong.’

  ‘Hey, I don’t doubt you. As if my painfully shy pal Emmy would ever be shouting at anyone outside a pub. And as I told this person, if one of the actual party mentioned wants to make a complaint they can, otherwise I don’t want to hear about it. Although I didn’t actually say those words, because I’m not supposed to discourage people from coming forward.’

  Emmy was about to groan again, but she was getting sick of hearing herself groan. Was it all worth it? ‘Hey, do you know a girl called Bonnie? I’d say mid-teens, works in The Wooden Café?’

  ‘Yeah, I know her, kind of. Talks a hell of a lot and wants to be a reporter or something – she’s always skipping out of the café or school when she’s not supposed to and badgering me with questions if I get called to a crime scene. I think she wishes we lived in Broadchurch. Good kid, actually, though you wouldn’t think so from looking at her.’

  Emmy raised her eyebrows at him and he smacked a palm over his eyes.

  ‘That was really pigeon-holing wasn’t it? I didn’t mean anything by it, I guess I’m guilty of judging books by their covers too.’

  ‘Luckily, though, history has proven that you’re a goodie, not a baddie,’ Emmy replied, and took his hand to pull him up. ‘Come on, the rain’s died down a little. Let’s keep walking, someone might be getting murdered around the corner and you don’t want Bonnie finding the body before you do.’

  Emmy let his hand drop but not before their fingers had brushed together and they’d totally shared a moment. It was like High School Musical, if her life had been anything like that film and she wasn’t ten million years older than those kids.

  It was a tiny, flirty move, but how alive her heart felt to have that with someone! She wasn’t falling for Jared or anything, but her everlasting fondness for him, her lack of male interaction back in her real life and the fact he was, frankly, a bit yum nowadays really had her wings uncurling. Here in Maplewood, all these years later, and even after everything that happened, he made her feel, well, not only safe – but brave. Brave to be herself.

  ‘Do you remember,’ she started, ‘do you remember that time it was your birthday and we went to The Wooden Café and I made you order all of the things you wanted on the menu?’

  He laughed. ‘I was sooo fat by the time we left there.’

  Emmy pointed at a road up ahead that curved up the hill. She knew that shortly after it went out of sight it turned from tarmac to a dirt track, and ended in a viewpoint across the town. It was where the kids always used to go to snog each other after nightfall. Emmy remembered a time she went with Jared. ‘We went up there, it was early afternoon —’

  ‘You took me up there. I was so excited and so nervous, because I thought you were taking me up there to give me a birthday kiss. The whole way up I was wiping my mouth in case it tasted of ketchup, and by the time we got to the top my lips were so dry and chapped.’

  ‘You thought that’s what we were doing?’ Emmy was warmed by how sweet he’d been, and how clueless she had been. Was it possible she didn’t always hit the mark with what people thought of her? ‘But you knew me; surely you knew I’d never pluck up the courage to do something so forward.’

  ‘Well, surely you knew that Westlife guy would never marry you, but it didn’t stop you holding up a “Marry Me, Dave!” sign at their concert. People dream, when they’re in loooove.’

  ‘There was no Dave in Westlife,’ she chuckled quietly. ‘I really liked that afternoon, though. I didn’t know you had other plans, but I remember just lying up there in the grass with you, staring at the sky. It was one of those blue-sky days where you can still see the moon. We laughed and dozed and we were the only ones up there for hours. It was like, just for that afternoon, we owned the town. We were free, like everyone else, and could enjoy it. It was a really good afternoon.’

  ‘Do you want to go up there now?’ Jared asked, checking his watch. ‘I have time. No murders, yet.’

  ‘I don’t know; now I know what you’re really after, I’m not sure I should lead you up there.’ Listen to you, Emmy, you Flirty Gerty!

  ‘Oh dammit,’ said Jared, as a call suddenly came in through his radio. ‘Could we rain check?’

  ‘Sure,’ she agreed, mentally calming herself down.

  ‘Looking forward to it.’ PC Jared Jones squeezed her hand, and was off. Emmy turned and looked up the hill, then decided to take a trek up on her own. She didn’t need Jared there holding her hand any more; she knew that, deep down in her heart.

  It was a nice added extra, though.

  Back at the house later on, Emmy found Rae directing an electrician around the living room, pointing out where he should place the spotlights, and Noelle talking to the floor.

  She shook out her hair and hung her jacket by the front door. Waving at Rae, she walked over to Noelle and crouched next to her. ‘Whatcha doing?’

  Noelle looked up and moved to the side. ‘Meet our new lodger, Big Daddy!’

  Emmy screamed and fell backwards, shuffling away on her bum like the next victim in a horror movie.

  The electrician looked over lazily, but Rae waved her hand and commanded his attention back to the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Noelle said, smiling at the absolutely huge spider on the skirting board. ‘He only has seven legs and he doesn’t like the rain. He won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Because I’ll die instantly from his bite?’

  ‘He won’t bite you.’

  ‘Please can you just put him outside?’

  ‘He doesn’t really get on with Vicky…’

  ‘He doesn’t get on with your own flesh and blood either. Please, Noey? Vicky can come and stay inside while it’s raining instead.’

  Noelle hopped up and scooped her hands around Big Daddy. ‘Deal.
’

  Emmy gave her a wide berth and went upstairs to change into some drier clothes. She was midway through pulling on her sweatpants when the bedroom door swung open.

  ‘Nice cat knickers,’ Rae hooted after getting an eyeful. She came in and sat on Emmy’s bed and watched her finish dressing.

  In walked Noelle, holding Vicky, and the two of them sat on the bed also. ‘I can’t leave her downstairs while the electrician’s here, I don’t think she likes boys.’

  ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ Rae smirked.

  ‘Nice cat socks, Em.’

  ‘I miss living alone,’ Emmy sighed.

  Rae clapped her hands, causing Vicky to flutter her wings and jump down off Noelle’s lap. ‘So, I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘No,’ said Emmy and Noelle in unison.

  ‘Hey!’

  Emmy shook her head. ‘A Rae Lake idea is never a good idea.’

  ‘That is not true! Name one bad idea.’

  Noelle piped up first. ‘Fun! Okay, how about the time you tried to build one of those bedsheets-rope things to climb out of your bedroom window with, and made me go first and I fell?’

  ‘You only fell on to the conservatory roof, you hardly had an Emmy situation, and thanks to that we then knew it was solid enough for us to walk on.’

  Emmy joined in. ‘What about your idea for us to sell bunches of wildflowers at the end of the road to passing cars and someone reported “gypsy kids” to the police?’

  ‘I was just trying to make you some pocket money, Jesus.’

  ‘How about —’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Rae cried. ‘This one is a good idea, trust me.’

  Trust me, she says! Emmy rolled her eyes at Vicky Chicken who was pecking at the eyeballs of a discarded My Little Pony.

  ‘What month is it?’ Rae asked, setting the scene.

  Noelle knew this one. ‘October.’

  ‘And what happens in October?’

  ‘The Walking Dead starts up again?’ guessed Emmy.