‘He’s playing Tchaikovsky,’ Peter said. ‘You don’t interrupt Barney when he plays Tchaikovsky. Tell him where we’ve gone, Blue, will you?’
And then, apart from the caretaker sweeping in his corner and Barney playing with his eyes closed, only Marek and I were left.
We walked towards each other from opposite sides of the playground. Marek ran his hands through hair so dusty with chalk it practically stood upright, and when he smiled it was the proper smile I saw on Hungerford Bridge.
‘We did it,’ he said.
‘You did it.’
‘We all did it.’
And now we were standing right in front of each other. Barney’s playing was getting faster and faster, building to a finale. Marek reached out both hands for mine and we started to spin like a couple of kids.
‘We did it!’ I shouted, but Marek didn’t shout back.
He slowed down. He stopped spinning. I staggered to a halt and followed the direction of his gaze, to the entrance gates which were deserted now except for one person.
Mr Valenta – tailored-suited, cashmere-coated, custom shod and hatted – stood stony-faced beside his wife on the edge of the playground, surveying his son’s work.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Marek asked.
‘I may have had a word with your mum,’ I admitted.
Time froze. Nobody moved. There was no sound except for the violin.
‘This was a disaster,’ I thought.
And then Marek was walking across the playground, with his crazy hair and his clothes full of multi-coloured chalk dust. He stood before his father and held out a piece of chalk.
‘You did this?’ Mr Valenta asked.
He spoke very carefully, like he was daring Marek to admit that he had. Like he might explode if he did. And then Mrs Valenta put her hand on his arm, and a look passed between them, and it was like when they came for drinks, when she told us that he used to be a great violinist.
‘Tell him, Marek,’ she said quietly.
‘Just because you could not play the violin …’ Marek’s voice shook. He paused, swallowed, and started again. ‘It doesn’t mean I can’t be an artist. It’s what I love more than anything in the world, and if you stop me, it will be like killing me.’
Mr Valenta opened his mouth. Mrs Valenta squeezed his arm, and he closed it.
‘I want to be an artist.’ Marek was sounding much firmer now. ‘But I don’t want to do it in secret. I want to do it out in the open, and I want you to be proud of me.’
As Marek spoke, Mr Valenta’s face changed from a glare to a frown to the sort of crumpled look people get when they are trying not to cry.
‘Well?’ Marek’s voice wobbled again. ‘Aren’t you going to say something?’
Mr Valenta opened his arms, and Marek fell straight into them.
They stayed for ages. Mr and Mrs Valenta walked around the playground with Marek, looking at all the drawings, but I didn’t go with them. I sat on a wall and watched and smiled, because as they walked and looked Mr Valenta’s tie seemed to come looser too, and his Paris hat sat at a jauntier angle. He reached out to touch one of the drawings, His coat brushed against the wall and came away covered in chalk. And all the time, Barney kept on playing, softly, softly, until Ms Smokey came out to ask us to please go away once and for all.
Barney packed his fiddle away and went to join the others in the café. Mr Valenta went to work, still dabbing at his eyes. Mrs Valenta kissed us both and went with him.
‘Wow.’ Marek looked dazed.
‘I told you it was a good plan,’ I said.
‘It was the violin that did it. That was a stroke of genius. It reminded him what it was like. What he used to be like.’
I smiled modestly, because there’s no denying it. Getting Barney to play the violin was a brilliant idea.
‘Did he say anything about Wales?’ I asked.
‘Tata? No. But Mum said before she left that we would talk this weekend.’
‘The violin,’ I admitted, ‘was sort of a fluke.’
Then neither of us knew quite what to say.
‘I guess we’d better go to school,’ I said.
‘I guess.’
There is a tiny piece of green between the primary and secondary, just big enough for a couple of benches and a few bushes tall enough to hide them. And there are times when life is just too big for school.
We stopped at the green and sat on one of the benches and we talked and talked and talked.
At one point, Marek took my hand in his. And he didn’t let go.
Several Months Later
Once I had a twin sister called Iris. She was like half of me. I loved her more than anyone else in the world, and when she died I thought I would never be happy again. My diaries then were all about her. Oh, not just her. They were about all of us, the people we met, the things we did – and we have done a lot. But all the same, at the heart of them there was me, missing Iris.
Now it’s different.
It’s not that I don’t still love her, and miss her, and wish that she was here every single day. It’s just – it’s not at the centre of everything any more. It’s more of a shadow in the corner of the room. I know she’s there, watching me. I know she loves me. I know she doesn’t mind.
The most important thing is for us all to be happy. I know it’s what she wants too.
Jas didn’t win the art prize. Mr Boniface thanked her for bringing joy and colour to the school (his words), but said that with so many people involved who didn’t actually attend Clarendon Free Primary, he couldn’t honestly give the prize to her. He gave it to Todd instead, which was perfect. As Jas said, the whole point was for Megan and Courtney and Chandra and Fran not to win, and obviously they didn’t. Jas and Todd were their school heroes for about week. Then other things happened, the way things do in school, and people began to forget about them. Jas doesn’t mind though. She says she doesn’t care about being popular, as long as people just leave her alone. She has given up art for ever and has started writing a novel in verse. At the weekends, she and Todd get together and make clothes.
Twig has given up on sport and taken up debating instead. He’s pretty good at it.
Flora is back at drama school. She called yesterday, super-excited because she’s got herself an agent. ‘Next stop Broadway!’ she cried. ‘Or Hollywood! I don’t know yet which I’d rather.’
Dad said quite sternly that before becoming a star, she must first learn to be an actor, but Flora said Dad didn’t understand a thing.
Pumpkin took his first steps. I wish I could say it was towards one of us, but actually it was towards Pixie, or more precisely towards the cookie she was holding out to him. I filmed it. It’s the sweetest, funniest thing I’ve ever seen, especially the bit where he crams the whole cookie in his mouth.
Marek didn’t go to Wales. He talked about it for ages with his parents – properly, without shouting – and they agreed to let him stay at Clarendon Free (as long as his grades don’t suffer). He has stopped doing his chalk drawings and is doing art at school now. He spends every weekend squirrelled away in different galleries, drawing. Sometimes I go with him, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, if you pass his house at night and stop to listen, you can hear a violin.
Down in Devon, Zoran is composing a musical. He says it’s based on all of us. And after a long winter, Grandma says she’s well enough to help Gloria with the horses. ‘Just a bit of grooming,’ she says. Skye says Gloria’s horses are the best brushed in the whole of Devon.
I applied for the film course Peter told me about. It took me a while to work up to it but in the end I decided to go for it, because what’s the point of making art that no-one gets to see? The letter came this morning, telling me I’ve got a place. It’s a summer course, so it means that for the first time in my life I won’t be spending the holidays in Devon. I was sad at first, but it’s all right. Devon and Grandma and Skye and the others will all still be there when I’ve finis
hed. Making films is what I have always wanted to do.
One day, I’ll make history.
Life’s just getting started.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natasha Farrant has worked in children’s publishing for almost twenty years, running her own literary scouting agency for the past ten. She is the author of the Carnegie-longlisted and Branford Boase-shortlisted YA historical novel The Things We Did For Love, as well as two successful adult novels. Natasha was shortlisted for the Queen of Teen Award 2014, and the second Bluebell Gadbsy book, Flora in Love, was longlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.
She grew up in London where she still lives with her husband, their two daughters and a large, tortoiseshell cat. She is the eldest of four.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Bluebell Gadsby series
After Iris
Flora in Love
All About Pumpkin
The Things We Did For Love
Copyright
First published in 2016
by Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House,
74–77 Great Russell Street,
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2016
All rights reserved
Text © Natasha Farrant, 2016 Cover illustration
© studiohelen.co.uk
The right of Natasha Farrant to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 978–0–571–32234–3
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
Time for Jas Page 17