Had you been able to peer in through the window of Serendipity’s writing room, you would have seen very little to reassure you that the first book in Serendipity Smith’s new series was on its way to your local bookshop. On one side of Serendipity’s desk there was a huge stack of blank paper. And although there was a page threaded through Serendipity’s big antique typewriter, if you were to look closely, you would see that it had been there long enough to gather dust, and that not a single word was written upon it. There was also a fine layer of dust on the typewriter keys, on the stack of blank paper, and on the lid of a little silver box that Serendipity kept on her desk.
The air in the writing room had a stale smell. This had to do with the dust and also with a cup of long-ago tea that had been left – back in the days when it was half full, and not half empty – to slowly moulder on Serendipity’s desk. But the smell had more to do with the fact that no one had been in the room for a very long time. For months nobody had sat down in the big red velvet chair to read, and nobody had selected a volume from the shelves that were stacked, floor to ceiling, with books of every imaginable kind. Nobody had sat down at the desk to stare out the window, no one had thrown the window wide, and no story had trailed its silver thread in or out. In that room there had been no writing: not of the dreaming kind, nor of the hammering-on-the-keyboard kind, and not even of the pen-on-paper kind.
And nor would Serendipity Smith do any writing on this particular Saturday. Though it was after ten o’clock, she was still in bed. She was quite awake, but lying very still with the covers pulled right up under her chin. The phone had been ringing, but she had let it ring out. She was watching the numbers on her bedside clock as they slowly ticked over. She should get up and start the day, she thought, but somehow she lacked the strength. Five more minutes, she decided. Yes, just five.
Of course, Serendipity Smith wasn’t the only writer in residence at Brown Street. The other one was Tuesday McGillycuddy, Serendipity’s daughter. But Tuesday wasn’t writing either. She was curled up in the corner of the couch in the living room, still in her pyjamas. She and her dog Baxterr were watching television. At least, they were sitting together staring at a screen upon which colours changed and people moved, and from which there came the occasional burst of fake laughter. If you had asked either girl or dog what the program was about, they would not have been able to say.
Upstairs in Tuesday’s room, Tuesday’s baby blue typewriter had been moved from its position in the middle of her desk and shoved under the bed. Also under the bed were several scrunched-up items of school uniform, a pair of broken ice skates and an old suitcase containing all the pages Tuesday had so far written about her adventures. This suitcase had not been opened for a long time.
Even though it was Saturday, and past ten o’clock, there was no sign of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen. The grill of the once spotless oven was strung with drips of burnt-black cheese. There were dark splashes of sauce congealed on the stovetop. The dishwasher had been abandoned after its filter had clogged some months ago, and the clock on the wall was now permanently stopped at a quarter to three, but whether that was A.M. or P.M. was anybody’s guess.
The door to the laundry had not been opened for weeks. Behind it was a waiting tsunami of unwashed sheets and towels and tea towels and socks, poised to overtake the whole house. In the living room, as well as in the downstairs bathroom, there were candle stubs and empty matchboxes lying around, because various light globes had blown some time ago. It seemed, at Brown Street, as if all the regular household activities of cleaning, mending, washing, organising and tidying up had been suspended indefinitely. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There was also the fact that the house felt cold, no matter how much Tuesday turned up the heating. And then there was the way it sounded. You could listen at the keyhole all day if you wanted to, and you still wouldn’t hear a giggle or a laugh.
Perhaps you’ve already guessed why. It’s because there was someone missing. That someone was Denis McGillycuddy. And he wasn’t ever coming back.
Tuesday’s father had died on a Friday in the City Hospital while Serendipity held one of his hands and Tuesday held the other. The tumour that had affected his head the year before had returned, and no matter how hard they had tried, doctors had not been able to fix the things that had gone wrong with Denis’s body.
Serendipity and Tuesday knew that Denis wouldn’t have wanted his funeral to be a sad affair. So there had been jokes, and poems, wonderful speeches, several funny songs and even a tongue-twister competition which had no clear winner because no one could say the sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick without stumbling, although everyone knew that Denis would have been able to. Everybody had tried to be cheerful, but of course nobody had succeeded.
For the first few weeks after Denis died, the phone at Brown Street rang often with people calling to tell Tuesday and her mother that they were thinking of them, and to ask if there was anything they could do, which there wasn’t. Tuesday and Serendipity found casseroles and soups, banana bread and oatmeal cookies on their front doorstep, left there by friends, neighbours and people from Tuesday’s school who wanted to show they cared. During the early weeks after Denis died, Tuesday ate so much pumpkin soup that now pumpkin soup, to Tuesday, tasted of tears.
Then the phone calls and the pumpkin soup eased off. For a while Miss Digby had taken care of everything. But it soon became clear that Miss Digby was also required to dress up as Serendipity Smith, go out into the world, and keep up the impression that all was well with the world’s most famous writer.
This was not, however, a perfect solution, because although it was easy for Miss Digby to be Serendipity at a distance, it was impossible for her to do interviews or television appearances. Anyone with a sharp eye would notice the many small differences between the two women, despite all the distractions of glasses and wigs, coloured contact lenses and fabulous coats. Miss Digby’s voice was a different timbre and accent to Serendipity’s, and her manner could never quite match the authority that came so naturally to the real Serendipity Smith. So after some months, Miss Digby decided it was time for the public Serendipity to go on a long holiday, far from the city and the Hotel Mirage and all the places she usually frequented.
‘But where will you go?’ Serendipity had asked.
‘The end of the earth seems appropriate,’ Miss Digby said drily.
Now a whole year had passed, and Tuesday’s teachers had long since stopped asking her if she needed more time to complete her homework, and her friends had forgotten to try not to mention – on Monday mornings – all the great things they’d done with their fathers over the weekend. People were getting on with their lives. But for Serendipity, Baxterr and Tuesday, life was utterly different and getting on with it seemed impossible.
Sometimes things appeared almost normal. Tuesday woke up in the mornings and had a shower and put on her school uniform and ate breakfast and went to school and came home in the afternoons and watched television and ate dinner and brushed her teeth and went to bed with Baxterr beside her. And then she did it all again the next day. On the weekends, she slept and watched more television. And quite often she managed to take Baxterr for a walk. But all the time and energy she might have had left over for doing anything else was used up in trying to keep herself away from a particular feeling. It wasn’t simply the unbearable absence of her father in the house, or missing the food he no longer cooked, the games he no longer played, the books they no longer talked about, or the ideas he no longer shared. It was as if at the core of everything, including herself and her mother, there was a gaping hole.
‘Ruff,’ said Baxterr to Tuesday when the television program finished.
‘What’s that, doggo?’ Tuesday asked, with a yawn.
‘Hurrrrrrr,’ he said.
‘Yes, all right. I suppose I could eat something too. Let’s go see what there is.’
In the kitchen Tuesday opened the fridge and sighed. She remem
bered when the fridge had been brimming with eggs and milk and fresh vegetables and seven or eight types of cheese. Now there was only a carton of long-life milk, a bunch of limp baby carrots, a rind of parmesan cheese and some butter with a use-by date of six months ago.
‘Come on. Let’s go and get Mum out of bed. We’ll take her out for breakfast. Again,’ Tuesday said.
Baxterr hung his shaggy golden-brown head and Tuesday bent to ruffle his fur.
‘Oh, doggo. It’ll be fun. Really. There’s that new cafe. We haven’t tried there yet. Maybe today’s our day. Maybe it’s the one!’
But, looking into her dog’s sad brown eyes, Tuesday could see that Baxterr wasn’t any more hopeful than she was.
Within the hour a girl in a red coat, a dog on a loose lead, and a woman in a black coat and woollen hat set off down Brown Street in the direction of City Park. The city was full of cafes, and when Denis had been alive, going out for breakfast had been a treat. Now, it had become more of a necessity.
Tuesday, Serendipity and Baxterr had discovered a florist cafe where the tables and chairs were squeezed in between huge earthenware vases full of pink and white lilies. But even before they got to the blueberry pancakes, Tuesday had begun sneezing. There was also a laundry cafe where huge, old-fashioned washing machines hummed and spun – full of clothes and bright white suds – while people ate and drank. But the blueberry pancakes there were rubbery. And there was a cafe that belonged to an artist who had painted murals on the walls, the tables, the chairs and ceiling as well. The pictures she made were so real that Tuesday always felt as if she could fall into their scenes. But the blueberry pancakes never had enough blueberries and the maple syrup was fake.
The cafe they planned to try this day was called Crème Brûlée.
‘That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it, Mum?’ Tuesday asked Serendipity, trying as hard as she could to sound cheerful. ‘Crème brûlée? Your favourite?’
‘What? Oh, yes, crème brûlée,’ said Serendipity, trying to appear attentive when Tuesday knew she was a million miles away. ‘My favourite.’
The cafe had a parquetry floor and glass cabinets full of cakes and pastries. Serendipity and Tuesday took a small table near the window and Baxterr lay in a patch of sunshine on the floor beside them. Tuesday and Serendipity ordered blueberry pancakes. Tuesday also ordered a not-too-hot hot chocolate, and Serendipity a strong coffee.
‘Well, they’re not rubbery,’ Tuesday said, when the pancakes arrived.
‘No,’ Serendipity agreed, taking a mouthful.
‘And there are plenty of blueberries,’ Tuesday admitted. ‘But …’
She and her mother looked at each other.
‘… they’re just not the same,’ Serendipity finished.
Chapter Four
Later that Saturday, Tuesday and Serendipity were at the kitchen table playing Scrabble. Although it was mid-afternoon, the game they had started when they’d come home from breakfast was only about halfway done. Tuesday had made some nice words like antique and ivory and sorbet, but Serendipity had struggled to make even simple words like flat and leaf and vale. It was Serendipity’s turn, but Tuesday suspected her mother might actually have forgotten. Tuesday didn’t want to nag her, so she yawned and stretched, looked at the clock that was stuck on a quarter to three, pushed her toes silently against the floor, and waited.
She felt as if she had been waiting for something to happen for weeks. She had even considered whether she should make something happen herself, but the dreadful fatigue that dogged her days and nights never quite let her get up enough steam. She wondered if she should go to the shops and buy food to cook for an early dinner, considering they’d forgotten to have lunch. But the only thing she knew how to cook was pasta with bottled sauce, and she was bored with that. Maybe she could build a card house? Or play Patience? But, no. She couldn’t remember where the playing cards were.
Then, suddenly, startlingly, something did happen. The doorbell rang, long and loud and insistent. It woke Baxterr. He leapt to his feet and hurtled out into the hallway while Serendipity and Tuesday stared at each other, puzzled, as if they too were awakening from a dream.
Serendipity said, ‘They’ll go away.’
Tuesday nodded. They had played this game before, avoiding the ringing telephone, sitting quietly while people knocked and buzzed and rang. It felt peculiar to hide in your own house, but that was the only way they could avoid the conversations people always wanted to have.
After a moment or two, the doorbell rang again, even louder and for quite a lot longer. Serendipity looked pained. Then the doorbell rang again and whoever was outside did not take their finger off the button.
‘I’ll go,’ Tuesday said. ‘They might be selling something. I’ll just tell them we’re not interested.’
‘Would you?’ Serendipity said with a sigh of relief. ‘I’m not here. Whoever they are. Okay?’
With Baxterr at her ankles, Tuesday opened the door. Outside was a woman wearing a huge coat made from fur that might recently have belonged to a grizzly bear. A pair of sunglasses was pushed up on her unruly blonde hair. She observed Tuesday with intense curiosity. Tuesday, in turn, took in the woman’s keen gaze, her faded shirt and pants, and her lace-up boots that looked as if they had survived a trek across the Andes and then tackled the Himalayas (which in fact they had). At her feet was a fleet of matching silver suitcases.
‘Tuesday?’ asked the woman in a gravelly, accented voice.
‘Yes,’ said Tuesday.
‘I’m Colette Baden-Baden. Is your mother home?’
‘Well,’ said Tuesday, and although she had been about to say no, she found she couldn’t lie to this woman. ‘It’s not a good time.’
The woman pursed her lips. ‘I know. I understand. Tell her … tell her that Colette is here.’
‘Um …’ said Tuesday. But before she could say any more, Serendipity appeared behind her in the hallway.
‘Colette?’ Serendipity was staring as if she were seeing a ghost. ‘Is it really you?’
‘I came as soon as I heard. I know, I know. Terribly late. But here I am.’
And then the two woman were embracing and the embrace continued for a very long, silent moment before Colette stepped back and said, ‘Well, then. As bad as that. Hmm. Thought as much.’
The next moment, Colette and Tuesday were carrying suitcases and Baxterr was wagging his tail and following them all down the hallway. Back in the kitchen, Tuesday swept the Scrabble set away into its box without a second thought. Serendipity absently filled the kettle and then forgot to light the stove. Colette lit the stove, washed three cups from the pile in the sink, and found in the pantry an almost-but-not-quite empty packet of tea-leaves. She patted Serendipity on the shoulder and nodded to Tuesday, and this resulted in both Serendipity and Tuesday sitting down as if they were the visitors in their own kitchen.
When at last the tea was made and served, Colette said, ‘Tea is very good for sadness, but maybe not quite good enough.’
From one of the pockets of her great fur coat, she extracted a green glass bottle. She dropped a dash of its contents into all three teacups. Tuesday lifted her cup to her nose and took a sniff, then a sip. The taste was curiously warming, as if the tea had been spiked with chillies and cinnamon. Almost instantly she felt a pleasant shiver run through her. She saw the same thing happen to her mother.
Colette gazed from mother to daughter.
‘I cannot tell you how good it is to see you both. Nor how sorry I am, how very sorry I am, unspeakably sorry, about Denis. I’m sure you’ve both been through the worst year of your lives. Whatever I can do, however I can help, I’m here. If you need me to stay, I can. Or if you need to not have visitors, I’m happy to go.’
‘You can stay?’ asked Serendipity.
Colette nodded. ‘As long as you need.’
Serendipity turned to Tuesday. ‘Would you mind, Tuesday? If Colette were to stay for a while?’
Tuesday scrunched her eyebrows together in the way she did when she was thinking hard. ‘Yes, I think you should stay,’ she said to Colette. ‘But I seem to be missing something. I don’t know who you are.’
‘Yes, you do,’ said Serendipity. ‘She’s your godmother.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuesday. ‘That Colette.’
Tuesday stared at Colette in a way that might have bordered on rude, but Colette didn’t seem to mind. Tuesday thought that Colette didn’t look the least bit like the godmother she had imagined. All the postcards, erratic presents and late-night phone calls that her parents had taken had given her an idea of someone more like an airline hostess.
‘Officially appointed at your birth,’ said Colette. ‘Gave you three wishes. Protected you against the bad fairies. Only allowed the good ones. At least, I think that’s how it went. It was quite a party, your naming day. Then, when you were only two, I went off on this project. I’ve been travelling the world for more than ten years making a documentary. That’s what I do, did you know? I’m a filmmaker. Alaska, Africa, India, South America, Antarctica. I’ve been a terrible godmother. I don’t think I have ever even sent you a card within two months of your birthday.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Tuesday and Serendipity together.
‘Of course it matters,’ said Colette. ‘But I assumed you were growing up perfectly well and I wasn’t needed. I mean, that’s what godmothers are for, aren’t they? To arrive when needed. Well, I’ve done badly there, too, because I’m more than a year too late.’
She glanced about, sniffed the air as if she were measuring the likelihood of rain inside the house, and said, ‘Yes. Far too late. The one title anyone ever gave me in life that I hadn’t expected – godmother – and I’ve made a mess of it.’
Blueberry Pancakes Forever Page 2