A Jarful of Moondreams: What Secrets Are Ready to Spill Out?

by Chrissie Bradshaw

  36

  Cleo liked to take the river route home from school. This followed the Tyne as it flowed by Tyneview High and then passed industrial parks, old terraced houses and new buildings taking her right to her own apartment on Mariner’s Wharf. Her apartment, overlooking the Tyne, had always felt spacious until the past few months when it had been stuffed to the rafters. It felt so empty now that everyone had gone and she wasn’t in a hurry to get home.

  A few times, since she’d read Mum’s diaries and seen the address on the inside covers, she had almost turned left at the roundabout heading for Elswick and driven towards Middle Row. She’d searched google maps and knew that the row hadn’t been knocked down to be replaced by flats or a shopping arcade but still stood there, close to the river and quite close to where Cleo worked.

  She wanted to find out whether it was the house she remembered visiting when she was a tot. Maybe not a tot but she’d have been less than four because she had her fourth birthday with Mac; he’d strung balloons and fairy lights all over the garden making it magical.

  How reliable was a three-year-old’s memory? She could recall red bricks, a front door leading straight onto the pavement and a red front step with flowers in a plant pot next to it. A tall frowning lady stood in the doorway. She didn’t shout but had a scary voice as she ordered her mum to go away.

  Even now, the memory brought shivers to Cleo. She’d thought about it a lot since reading the diaries. Thought about how going to live with Mac and being so happy had meant that she put all of the time she was away from him right out of her mind. She had to talk to Mum about that time when she got back.

  Why had mum taken off to London with her and why had she then gone back to Mac? They loved one another, she knew that, but Mum and Mac did move away from one another. Was it because of her? Or, had she returned because of her? Or, was it nothing to do with her at all? She just didn’t know because she had blocked any talk about being adopted whenever Mac or Mum had raised it and had never asked questions about her time before Dunleith. When she was younger, she didn’t want to know the answers but she did now.

  Cleo surprised herself by making a detour and heading back towards Elswick and Middle Row. There was no harm in finding the house, was there?

  She drove slowly down a road where children were playing football and toys were strewn on the pavement. The street had speed bumps and she could slowly pass number thirty-seven.

  A plant pot stood by the step, dark green and overflowing with geraniums. Cleo wound down her window for a better look. It was one of the few houses in the terrace that looked cared for with a red front step and a shining brass knocker.

  She parked a little further up and a couple of little kids, nine or ten-year-olds she guessed, cycled up to the car looking interested.

  ‘Who you looking for missus?’ A copper-headed boy with a face full of freckles peered into the window.

  Cleo wasn’t sure what to say. ‘I’m not looking for anybody,’ she told the lad, ‘I’m just looking at the houses.’

  ‘I’ll tell you the ones that’s up for rent,’ his friend piped up. He was a spelk of a boy with teeth that he hadn’t grown into yet. ‘The one next to mine is up… number twenty.’

  ‘Aye, and then there’s thirty-seven. She’s trying to sell that.’

  Cleo’s ears pricked up, she hadn’t noticed that it was for sale. ‘Do either of you know who is selling thirty-seven?’

  ‘Aye, me da says she’s mental. She’s asking thoosands for it and me da says she’ll never get that much for a hoose aroond here.’ With that, the freckled lad went to join his pal in riding circles a bit too close to her car and doing wheelies.

  Cleo took a closer look at thirty-seven and noticed a poster in the front window, it wasn’t obvious like a ‘for sale’ board outside a house. The house was being sold by Pattinson’s estate agents.

  ‘Thanks lads,’ she smiled and took a giant bag of Haribos out of her glove compartment. ‘Take these for your help.’

  ‘We shouldn’t take sweets from strangers but I reckon you’re alreet,’ said the freckled lad holding out his hand.

  ‘Consider them earnings for information,’ Cleo said. ‘What’s the name of the woman who has the house for sale?’ There was a slight chance that it still belonged to her grandmother who would have to be in her eighties by now.

  ‘It’s an owld witch called Lizzie Donaldson. She hates kids and she double hates me!’ the lad doing wheelies butted in and grinned proudly.

  ‘Ta for the sweets missus,’ Freckles said. ‘Hope you buy her oot but don’t pay over seventy. Me da says it’s not worth it.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads up,’ Cleo called after them as they cycled off at speed.

  She slalomed past a scooter, a pedal car and a shopping trolley to turn around at the end of the row and, as she drove slowly back down the row, her hands were trembling. There in that house was an ‘owld witch’ who hated kids and that owld witch was her grandmother.

  At lunchtime next day, Cleo called into Pattinson’s on the West Road asking for details. The girl behind the desk looked doubtful as she handed over the printed details.

  ‘It does need a complete refurbish. To tell you the truth, the street is usually bought up by buy-to-let landlords nowadays but they aren’t going to pay that sort of asking price. If you want to buy in this area, we have other properties around about that price that may be more suitable.’

  ‘Thanks, but it is this property that I particularly want to look at,’ Cleo explained. She could hardly wait to get out of the shop and go over the details.

  She crossed the road and went into the Beacon, an old fire station converted into offices and a café, for a coffee and a sandwich while she skimmed through her pack of information.

  It was a nineteen twenties two up two down terrace with a sixties extension on the back that gave the house it’s upstairs bathroom and a galley kitchen in the back yard. The original outside toilet and wash-house had been converted into a garage that was accessed from a narrow back lane.

  The photos showed old-fashioned rooms that were neatly kept, a dingy looking bathroom suite – was it avocado? and two bedrooms. One looked to be a chaos of floral prints and full of knick-knacks but the smaller room was bare. Mum’s room had been left empty.

  A hard lump came into Cleo’s throat; there was no room for Mum in that woman’s house or her heart. Fingers trembling, she phoned the girl across at the estate agents.

  ‘It’s Miss Moon, can you arrange a viewing for me at the weekend please? I’m interested in viewing thirty-seven Middle Row.’

  37

  Just before bed on Wednesday evening, Cleo went for a final scout around the area to find Pharos. She had intended being a few minutes but couldn’t resist turning into another street and then another. At each turn, her stomach clenched in anticipation of seeing a silver streak of fur lying by the side of the road. He’d been gone five nights.

  He wasn’t the sort of cat who would look for a new home; not when he’d been with them, well with Mum and Alex, for seventeen years. He must have been run over or stolen or he would have shown up for a meal by now.

  She headed back to her apartment and was quite a distance away when she saw a dark figure resting against the communal door. Her first thought was that someone was locked out but, as she got closer and the figure lifted his hand in greeting, she realised who it was. She broke into a run and hurled herself into Dan’s arms.

  ‘Oh Dan, I’ve really missed you! Where have you been?’

  ‘Once I finished my last stint, I took the first flight so that I could to be with you. I missed my farewell party because you seemed so panicky over the phone and so down that I wanted to get back as soon as I could.’ He hugged her tightly and she felt relief and warmth flood through her.

  ‘Why haven’t you answered my calls?’

  ‘I finished my contract with my Australian phone company and I have to set a new one up, so I’ve had no phone service.�
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  ‘Skype?’

  ‘I thought it was best if I just got here and saw you face to face because, if you remember, you put the phone down on me.’

  Ah, yes, she had. How could she have forgotten that? ‘I’m sorry, Dan. I’ve not been thinking straight and I didn’t mean to be so bitchy.’

  ‘That’s a change coming from you… an apology? We’ll take it as forgotten.’

  ‘I must catch you up on what’s been going on but let’s go inside first,’ Cleo said and led him up to her apartment.

  As soon as the door closed they were back into each other’s arms, kissing and peeling off one another’s coats and kicking off shoes.

  ‘I’ve missed you, you can’t guess how much. Dan pressed her up against the back of her sofa.

  ‘Show me,’ Cleo gasped and unbuckled his trousers as he hitched up her skirt and pulled her towards him. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her, his nearness driving her wild. Pulling himself free of his jeans, he reached for her and Cleo was ready for him. She just wanted Dan.

  ‘Never… ever… ever… put the phone down and worry me like that again,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t,’ she managed to say before passion left her speechless.

  They showered together and Cleo tossed Dan a thick grey towelling robe. It was on the small side for Dan but at least it covered him up so that she wasn’t tempted to slip back into his arms, not yet anyway.

  ‘Drink or coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d love a coffee,’ he said, ‘We need to talk, I want a clear head and you fluster me enough. Especially in that silk cover thing you’re wearing.’

  Cleo smiled, she had deliberately chosen something that wasn’t a cosy joggers and vest combination.

  ‘What do we have to discuss?’ she asked as she set about making two coffees.

  ‘We have to discuss you and Alex, and you and me and where we go from here. What’s best to start with?’

  Cleo placed the coffees onto the low table in front of the sofa and curled up next to Dan.

  ‘You needn’t worry over my feelings for Alex. I know I was annoyed with her when we chatted but I’ve had time to think and get over what she did. I don’t think she should have done it but I can sort of understand her intention. She wanted me to meet that man as a father and she wanted to help. I have to try to get her to talk to me and I’ll apologise because I realise that I’ve needed a sister for a long time and I can’t lose that now.

  ‘I thought I’d be arguing the toss with you about that, Cleo. That’s great.’ He slipped an arm around her.

  ‘You try telling Alex that. She’s hurt and being stubborn and hasn’t answered my texts.’ Cleo sipped her coffee, ‘And what is it about us that you wanted to discuss?’

  ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry for giving you advice and not letting you think things through and I don’t want you to think that Alex is the cause of yet another row.

  She’s never been the cause you know, Cleo. The real cause has been that, until now, you haven’t listened to other points of view or thought you were even the slightest bit in the wrong.’

  Cleo drew away. ‘Is that what you think? My take on it may be a bit different, Dan Collingwood.

  For instance, when you phoned from Australia, straight off it was think of it from Alex’s view. Straight off! Not for one minute did you say poor Cleo, her sister has acted out of order and she has every right to feel mad. If you’d said that before being sympathetic to Alex, I might have felt heard… felt listened too… not discounted. But no, it was look at the other side straight off.

  I look at every side of disputes every day, Dan, it’s part of my job. I know how to look at other people’s points of view but when I’m hurting I want the man I love to back me up first, to understand me.’

  Dan looked stunned, ‘I didn’t think you’d take it like that. I mean, I always have you as number one in my thoughts or I wouldn’t try to make it right for you.’

  ‘I don’t want the man I love to make things right for me. I want him to listen to me and try to understand my feelings, my hurt or my happiness, whichever comes my way.’

  Dan stood up put his coffee cup on the counter and faced Cleo. ‘I think I do know your feelings Cleo, sometimes better than you and that’s why I try to put things right for you.’

  ‘How patronising can you be? Don’t ever believe you know my feelings better than me. You who have had a charmed life and never, ever felt unwanted! How noble of you to want to help me understand what I really feel.’ Cleo was on her feet, fists clenched and face to face with Dan.

  ‘Hey, hey, that’s a bit strong!’

  ‘Oh is it? When we got together and I’d just lost a dearly loved father, you kept pushing and pushing for me to do more with Alex, when I just wanted my life to be as it was. No sister, a mum who spent time with me and a stepdad who was the world to me. You were the one to say ‘let’s do this with the kids, let’s do that.’ I didn’t want to because I couldn’t. I couldn’t face the fact that my life had turned upside down.

  ‘You were the best thing in it at that time and you didn’t just listen or help me to escape the sadness. You just wanted me to adjust. You, who had a mother and father and always had them rooting for you and who had other brothers and a sister, as well as the twins and were used to sharing your parents, were trying to make me be like you when I wasn’t.

  I admit that I wasn’t keen on my little sister but actually Dan, I might have gotten over it sooner if you hadn’t gone on about it and then broke off with me because I didn’t have the same interest in kids as you did and I worked hard at my studies.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Cleo. I didn’t know you felt like that. I was just helping, I just left school and not that bright it seems.’

  ‘Dan you hadn’t been what I’d been through, that’s all. I shouldn’t blame you, just like I should never have blamed Alex but it stopped me from blaming it all on myself. I’ve been feeling guilty ever since I can remember do you know that?

  ‘When I first met you, I just wanted it to stop and it never, ever has.’ Silent tears streamed down Cleo’s cheeks.

  ‘You never talked about it like this, even this summer.’ Dan pulled her into his arms.

  ‘I couldn’t. It’s hard even now. I thought about counselling but even that was too painful to go through. Why do you think I’ve chosen a career with kids? Chosen schools in the inner city where there is deprivation? And why do you think I’m hell bent on opening that mother and baby unit? It’s all to make me feel better for being born and for being the way I am!’ Great sobs engulfed her.

  ‘Oh Cleo,’ Dan held her, ‘Can you let me in? Can I help? That’s all I’ve ever really wanted. Let me be close to you, let me love you and be there for you.’

  ‘I’m going to try Dan but please remember that when I push you away, that’s when I need you most.’

  Next morning, Dan got up with her and made their coffee. As she was leaving, he was pulling on running gear. He’d told her last night that he would look out for Pharos when he set off for a morning run and it hadn’t been idle talk.

  As she drove to work, she pondered over how wrong they’d been about one another. They’d always been attracted, but just how little they’d understood each other had shaken them both and she hoped their relationship was stronger for it.

  As from now, it was going to be based on understanding and love rather than lust and romance and Cleo was a bit in awe of how deeply they felt about one another. It made her feel so much stronger and so wanted and that was something that she hadn’t felt since Mac had died. Dan wasn’t taking over Mac’s place, but last night, he’d listened and given her that same grounded feeling of being loved.

  They’d agreed to look for a house together. House-hunting with Dan, it made her smile and forget her sadness about Pharos and Alex for a minute or two.

  She had tried to speak to Alex earlier in the week but she’d refused to answer her calls and wouldn’t come to the phone
at the Collingwood’s. She was going to keep trying to get through to her. Dan had been surprised at how stubborn Alex had been. Last night, he’d realised it wasn’t just Cleo who could be stubborn and had said ‘It’s well seen that she’s your sister, Cleo.’

  38

  Dan stayed with Cleo on Thursday but was flying out to a conference in Italy at the weekend. This was to do with his new job in Newcastle and he had planned to go there straight from Australia before coming to the North East but he’d changed his flights to be with her. They had talked a lot so Cleo was happy to have a weekend of rest and time to catch up on her school admin.

  She had her viewing on Saturday too and, although they’d talked about RF, Mac’s death, the diaries and most other things, she hadn’t mentioned her plan to view her Mum’s old house and meet her grandmother. This was something that she wanted to see and do for herself and she didn’t want to talk through the pros and cons of what she was doing.

  The door to thirty-seven opened and an angular woman stood there looking at her without the hint of a welcoming smile. Cleo noticed hooded eyes, a downturned mouth and steel grey hair cropped and curled then hairsprayed into submission. She didn’t look frail but she didn’t look friendly either. Could she hear the thumping mallet that was Cleo’s heart?

  ‘Come in then. You wanted a look around, so don’t hang about in the road.’

  Cleo walked through the front door that led straight into the living room. Her first glance took in the net curtains, lace doilies covering every surface and china ornaments galore. Her eyes scanned the room again. No photos; she was hoping to find a clue about her mum.

  ‘You’ll want to see the dining room.’ The woman stood at the doorway and indicated the next room to Cleo. The smell of polish, dark furniture and a large sideboard with lots of crystal on top of it. No photos.

  The kitchen was beyond; functional and clear of clutter. An old gas cooker, a formica table with two chairs and a door to the yard.