The Tulip Touch

by Anne Fine

  ‘Good at what?’

  ‘Knowing what I was thinking.’

  ‘Julius –’

  ‘And then,’ he finished in a rush, ‘I learned to make myself think something different. If I want the only coconut cake on the plate, I think “I want the chocolate one” as hard as I can. And, for a while, it fooled her.’

  He laced his fingers, and bent them back nervously.

  ‘But not any more. She can get through that too, now. She can read what I really think.’

  And there was no shaking him. Tulip was a witch. And that’s what must have set me off. From that day on, I lost my confidence that all the thoughts I had were quite my own. At first, it started as a little game. (Not one of the ones we did together. A private one I never shared with her.) I’d make believe that, if she wanted, she could read my mind, and even send her own thoughts directly into my head, to swirl about and make the whole place hers. I’d try and lay myself open to it, and be a blank slate in case it really could happen. And that felt so weird and puppet-like that I came to enjoy it. Soon, even when we were busy with other things, I’d secretly be playing The Tulip Touch, practically inviting her in.

  ‘Want to play All the Grey People?’ she’d ask me.

  ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘I’ll be the leader, shall I?’

  ‘Yes. You be leader.’

  ‘Right. First, we’ll go through the coffee lounge. And then the writing room. And then the conservatory’

  ‘All right.’

  You’d think I didn’t have a will of my own. And wouldn’t you suspect that she’d get bored, playing with such a servile shadow? But not a bit of it. It suited her fine. We’d march in silence through the chosen rooms, gazing with utter contempt at all those amazingly dull-looking people who spent an age tinkling their coffee cups, or staring into space over their drinks, or fiddling inside their handbags. Did they have any thoughts at all? Could they be thinking interesting things? Or were they just as they seemed – people with brains as grey and lifeless as their faces?

  Dad spotted us on our third circuit.

  ‘Okay, you two. Hop along. These rooms are supposed to be restful.’

  And off we went, to play Along the Flaggy Shore in the upstairs passage, or Fat and Loud outside the bar. Whatever Tulip felt like doing next. She must have noticed I was different. But she never said a word. Even back then, that bothered me.What did she think was happening? And once I remember turning back, when she had sent me off across the hall to snaffle a few sheets of headed paper from the desk. And she had such a horrid smile on her face. Smug, she looked. Cocky.

  I fetched the paper. But when I came back, my self-imposed reflex of submission failed.

  ‘I don’t see why I had to get it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you?’

  The tone was disdainful. And the look said, clear as paint: ‘I know why you chose me. But surely, surely, even someone as stupid as you has worked out by now why it was someone like me chose you.’

  2

  Explain to me how you can come so close to rescue, only to have it snatched away. Just take the time when we were moving up together from the village school to Talbot Harries, in town. I didn’t realize anything was brewing till Dad made a point of seeking me and Tulip out.

  ‘So what are you two young ladies up to today?’

  Tulip stood up and brushed the grass bits from her knees. We’d been in the middle of Guest-stalk (not one of the games we admitted to playing), and he’d blown our cover by walking straight up to us. Our prey strolled off.

  ‘Nothing much. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’

  He gazed round, casually. It was quite obvious that he was after something, but not sure if he had the time to work it in the conversation gradually. Then one of the waiters appeared on the verandah to give him a quick ‘You’re needed in the restaurant’ signal.

  Dad came directly to the point.

  ‘Which school are you moving on to after the holidays, Tulip? Is it Talbot Harries?’

  She made a face.

  ‘I suppose so. No one’s said anything different.’

  Now the waiter was back again. It was quite obvious there was a difficult guest inside.

  ‘You’ll still be with Natalie, then,’ Dad told her cheerfully. And then, ‘Excuse me, girls,’ as he hurried back across the lawn. I couldn’t look at Tulip. Suddenly, like someone drowning, I wanted so much to lift an arm to try and save myself. And Tulip could always read my face. If I knew Dad was lying, she’d know it too.

  ‘Look at the peacocks,’ I said. ‘I hate the stupid way they walk.’

  Tulip ignored me.

  ‘If he’s planning on separating us,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘he’ll have to put more effort into it than that.’

  That night, I overheard the plan.

  ‘I think we should send Natalie to Heathcote.’

  ‘To Heathcote? But why?’

  ‘Why not? I know it’s a lot further, but several children from the village go there.’

  He saw me watching them and lowered his voice.Taking Mum’s arm, he led her into the office. I didn’t hear the rest. But over the next few days, Mum tried again and again to sound me out.

  ‘How would you feel about it, Natalie? It’s a long bus ride.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘You’d see a lot less of –’ She hesitated. ‘Some of your old friends.’

  I shrugged again. I knew if I was sent to Heathcote, that would be curtains for mornings and evenings with Tulip. I’d set off too early and get back too late. It wasn’t clear why it should make a difference to weekends. (It wasn’t, after all, as if Tulip had hordes of admirers aching to step in and take my place.) But surely in a new school, with new teachers, new classmates, new people on the bus, I would be able to make new friends.

  The registration forms sat in the in-tray on the reception desk. I fingered them over and over when no one was watching. Heathcote Grange Secondary School. Last date for applications: Thursday 18th August. I could have filled it in myself, it was so easy. Name. Home address(es). Date of birth. Previous schools. Names and ages of siblings. Health problems (if any).

  The days before the deadline, I was a bird on a hot wire. Each time Dad came through a doorway, or cleared his throat, I was expecting him to say,

  ‘Well, it’s decided, Natalie. Heathcote, it is.’

  On Monday, the wrong meat orders were delivered, and two of the waiters fell out and stormed off work. On Tuesday, Julius got a lump of grit in his eye, and rubbed it so hard he had to be taken down to the surgery. Wednesday was kitchen inspection. Everything stops for that. And on Thursday, though I hung around, wondering if Dad would suddenly come bounding down the steps (‘You might as well see the place, Natalie. Why don’t you come along for the ride?’), nothing happened. No one went anywhere. And when I fingered through the papers in the tray, I saw the form was still quite blank.

  Tulip turned up next morning for the first time in a week. Dad met her on the stairs and suddenly looked troubled. She gave him her usual cheeky grin.

  ‘Morning, Mr Barnes.’

  ‘Hello, Tulip.’

  Lightly, she bounced her fingers on the banisters, and carried on up. He hurried down. I watched him make for the reception desk and riffle through the in-tray.

  Mum came out of the office.

  ‘What’s that you’re looking for?’

  He held it up.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘Oh, what a nuisance! What’s the date on it?’

  ‘The eighteenth. Yesterday.’

  ‘No point in driving it in, and begging them to take her anyway?’

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘The Newsams will be here in ten minutes to sort out the details of their wedding lunch.’

  ‘I could do that with them.’

  ‘I thought you were taking Julius for his check-up.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  There was a worried pause. I watched from ov
erhead. Tulip was watching me. And suddenly I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had stayed away all week deliberately, to lower their guard.

  Mum shook off her unease.

  ‘It’s not too late, I’m sure. Shall we think about it as soon as we’ve got a free moment?’

  Dad noticed Tulip lingering on the stairs.

  ‘Yes. Later,’ he said, and hurried off. And that was the last I heard. The form lay in the tray another week, and then it vanished. The last days disappeared as well. (We found a skylight with a smashed alarm, and played Watch the Skies behind the parapets.) And on the first day of September I turned up at the bus stop. New journey. New uniform. New school. New set of teachers.

  And good old Tulip, as usual.

  3

  I hated Talbot Harries. So did she. Hated the slime-green rooms, the shoving corridors, the ringing cloakrooms and the screaming bells. Hated the work, and hated the sarcastic teachers. Hated the food.

  And hated being on my own. Someone had shopped us. We never found out if it was Dad, or the teachers from our old school. But we were separated for almost every lesson. Even our registration class was not the same. I’d catch a glimpse of Tulip as she was buffeted my way down some seething staircase, and call out hopefully,

  ‘See you at break on the back steps!’

  But she was hardly ever there, and each school hour went on for ever, till I was a bag of nerves who jumped at every raised voice in a corridor, and bit my fingernails until they bled, and couldn’t concentrate on what the teachers said for hot tears prickling behind my eyes.

  ‘This is your fault!’ I shouted at Julius, when he caught me weeping over homework I couldn’t do. ‘If it weren’t for you and your stupid sore eye, I’d be at Heathcote now!’

  He backed away. I wondered if he’d gone to tell on me. But, no. He came back a few minutes later with a heap of mint imperials he’d pinched from the bowl in the coffee lounge. While I sucked for comfort, Julius patted me. And though it made it harder than ever to concentrate on the homework, I couldn’t bring myself to shake him off. It wasn’t Julius’s fault that he was the apple of Mum’s eye, and everything to do with him came first and second and next and last. Julius’s tumbling class. Julius’s visit to the clinic. New trousers for Julius. He didn’t set it off, or even encourage it. Mum had no need of that. It hadn’t escaped anybody’s attention that even though furry rabbit and poor, battered Mr Haroun had long ago been tossed up on the shelf of precious cast-off cuddly things, Mum never did grow out of Julius. Even when he was dying to scramble out of the car, his fingers rattling the handle and his face turned to go, she’d be hungrily reaching out for him.

  ‘Say goodbye properly, darling. Give Mummy one last hug.’

  At least he never smirked or crowed at always coming first. Sometimes he even looked rueful, as if I’d been the luckier of the two, with no one noticing if I was there or not, or if I was happy, or if things were going right or wrong.

  ‘Sorry,’ I sniffled again. And he turned up the patting.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and tell them you’re crying.’

  It was a generous offer. It’s never easy in a big hotel to get attention (if you’re not paying for it). But if it was Julius who went, Mum would look up at once.

  I shook my head.

  ‘No. Honestly. I’ll be all right.’

  And no doubt I soon was. It’s hard for anyone to start at a new school. Tiring and nerve-wracking. No wonder I was always so glad to see Tulip waiting on the steps at ten to four.

  I’d rush up, full of questions.

  ‘Where were you? You can’t have been in your gym class. I went past twice, and didn’t see you through the glass. Were you hiding in the cloakroom?’

  She’d give her little sideways grin.

  ‘Tell you later. Let’s just get out of here.’

  She’d take my arm, and off we’d go past all the people who’d come on with us from our old school. Susan and Janet, with their brand-new friends, and Will and Jamie, who’d been accepted at once in the ‘Lads’ Gang’. We’d saunter down the street towards our stop.

  I’d hear a rumble gathering behind us.

  ‘Here’s a bus coming now.’

  She’d cock her head to one side.

  ‘What’s it to be, then? Home or Havoc?’

  And so relieved to be out of there, out at last, and no longer alone, I’d choose the one I knew she wanted to hear.

  ‘Havoc!’ I’d cry. ‘Havoc!’

  And as the bus roared past, with the breeze of it whipping up our skirts, we’d slip away down the alley, out of sight.

  4

  You couldn’t really call it havoc. It was just stupid things like cheeking people as we ran past, and telling old ladies their short cut was closed at the other end because the police had found a body with its throat cut, and hiding behind walls to flick mud pellets at women wearing smart jackets. (‘Don’t waste any of them on the men,’ Tulip ordered. ‘Men never bother, anyway.’)

  Sometimes we were spiteful. When the young mothers poured out of the playgroup centre into the post office shop, we’d stand in front of the display of foreign stamps till everyone’s back was turned. Then Tulip would jam one of her specially selected twigs – short, but tough and sinewy – between the spokes of the nearest parked pushchair. Casually, we’d move into the queue, and watch with glee as the frustrated mother pushed and tugged, and struggled with the brake. Once, we watched one of them burst into tears, and I felt bad. But mostly I took Tulip s line on it. It was just ‘fun’, ‘a good laugh’, ‘something to do’.

  I only stopped her twice. Once, when she started with the milk bottle smashing. And another time, when she took someone’s rabbit out of its hutch.

  We’d had fun with animals before. Dead ones. It’s not till you go looking that you have any idea how many dead birds and furry things are lying round the average town. (Sometimes I think I’ll never be able to see another road kill without thinking ofTulip.) She’d flick them over with her shoe.

  ‘Looks all right to me,’ she’d say critically. ‘Yes. That’ll do.’

  She’d scoop it up in one of the torn plastic bags with which Urlingham is littered, and we’d carry it round with us – it could have been a loaf and a pound of tomatoes – until we saw the perfect place.

  ‘There’s a hutch.’

  We’d be up to the fence in a moment.

  ‘Is it empty?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  It wouldn’t have, either. I’d watched her push fat, spoiled rabbits off their favourite patch of straw to shove a dead pigeon or blackbird in their place. But,

  ‘I meant the house,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that.’ She glanced dismissively at the kitchen window with its prissy curtains hanging in scallops.‘There’s no one looking, anyway.’

  I checked the upstairs windows. But there were no signs of life, no shadows moving back and forth.

  ‘Who’s going, then?’

  ‘I’ll go.’

  I gave her a leg up. There was no stopping Tulip once she’d started, so it was better to get the whole business done. She landed lightly on the other side. I passed the mucky bag over, and she set off boldly, sauntering across the lawn as if she owned it.

  I watched her prise open the hutch lid.

  ‘Well, hello, Thumper.’

  She lifted the rabbit out by the ears. I hated that. I knew people said it didn’t hurt them, but I didn’t believe it. And there was something in the way she did it – slowly, deliberately, almost with relish – that set my nerves on edge, and started me scrambling along the fence, looking for a foothold of my own.

  By the time I got over, she had her hands over its eyes.

  ‘Gone dark, has it, Bunny?’

  You had to be careful. She could turn just like that. So:

  ‘Can I hold him, Tulip? Just for a little bit?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘First come, first served.’
/>   ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Give him to me.’

  She grinned unpleasantly.

  ‘You don’t know he’s a he. He might be a she.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You could just let me have a go at cuddling him.’

  ‘Only if you’ve guessed right.’

  She upturned the squirming rabbit for no more than a couple of seconds.

  ‘She’s a she. So she’s mine.’

  ‘She’s not yours, Tulip.’

  ‘She is now.’

  Tulip was crooning in the rabbit’s ear. ‘Who’s a clever bunny? Who’s going to be a good girl? Who’s Tulip’s special one? She’s not going to make a fuss, is she? Oh, no. She isn’t going to do that. Because she enjoys it really, doesn’t she? And if she starts struggling, she’ll get hurt.’

  She finished up so savagely that I knew I was watching something horrible, nothing to do with the rabbit she was holding, but darker, much darker, and hidden, and coming from deep inside Tulip.

  I heard my own voice saying,

  ‘Put it down!’

  It was like breaking a spell. The strange look cleared from her face. She practically threw the rabbit back on its straw, and turned away. I slammed the hutch lid closed.

  ‘Quick!’ I said. ‘Someone’s watching! Hurry up!’

  She wasn’t fooled.To prove it, she very deliberately took her time, snapping heads off the flowers as she strolled back towards the fence. I didn’t care. I just scrambled over as fast as I could, and then, fuelled with relief at landing on the other side, gave myself over to her yet again.

  ‘What shall we do now, Tulip? You decide.’

  5

  That was the year we started The Little Visits. I’ve no idea what set us off. All I remember is that one minute we were rollicking merrily, arm in arm, past some perfect stranger’s front gate. And the next, we were on the doorstep, and Tulip had her finger pressed firmly on the ringing bell.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’