Effy looked at the pictures. ‘See, even your posters are from the past, Jo. All tragic ladies.’
‘Not all of them.’
‘They look pretty tragic to me,’ said Tash as she scrutinised the posters.
‘I like them because they’re romantic,’ I argued, ‘and the colours are so vivid. Plus you have to admit, all the boys in them are lush, just look at them high cheekbones, great hair, not like the spotty oiks that hang around here.’
Effy pointed at the painting of Hylas and the Nymphs. ‘This one looks at bit like Ben, the bass player from Finn’s band. Good cheekbones.’
‘Hah! I knew you loved him,’ I said.
Effy picked up a pillow from my bed and threw it at me.
‘And this one looks like Finn,’ said Tash, pointing at the Burne-Jones poster. It was true, the king in the painting did have a look of Finn. Dark with black eyes that twinkled like polished gemstones.
I shrugged. ‘OK. So maybe I do have a type, except it’s not that Ben bloke. He looked well miserable. I swear he scowled at me earlier on the Heath.’
‘You’d make a good pair then,’ said Effy. She pulled a sad face.
‘I am so not miserable,’ I said.
‘Only teasing,’ said Effy. She looked back at my posters. ‘I wonder what Howard looked like.’
I rolled my eyes and sighed. ‘I thought we’d forgotten about him.’
Effy shook her head. ‘No way. In fact, I’ve been thinking about what Betty said to you and if you’re not going to do anything about it, I am. I’m going to look for Henrietta.’
I laughed. ‘Look for her? But I’m supposed to be Henrietta so you don’t have to look far.’
‘No, dozo. I mean the actual Henrietta. If she did exist, then there will be records of her, like when she was born, where she lived, those kinds of things.’
‘Don’t waste your time. Betty probably told a dozen single women at the Heath this afternoon that they were Henrietta Gleeson. I bet she did exist and was Betty’s great-aunt or something.’
Tash nodded. ‘Possible.’
But Effy had her ‘I won’t be budged on this’ face on.
Tash threw herself back on my bed. ‘So it might be a story that Betty tells everyone, but you still have to admit it’s romantic,’ she said. ‘There’s no harm in just looking for Henrietta. See where it takes us.’
‘It would have saved a lot of time if a boy had been in to see Betty today too and she’d told him that he was Howard and then she could have said, “Ah, I’ve just seen Henrietta. What a coincidence. Quick, get out in the fair and find her.’”
‘You’ve just got a closed mind,’ said Effy. ‘A cynic’
‘Whatever,’ I said and began to make up their beds on the floor.
Later that night, Tash woke me. ‘Jo, Jo, it’s OK. I’m here.’
‘Wha . . . Who?’
‘You were calling for your dad again.’
I looked at the clock. Three a.m. I wasn’t surprised. Effy and Tash had been woken by me during many a sleepover over the years because of a recurring dream that I have. I can never remember the exact details of what happens in the dream, just a sense of loss and an old house, a house that I don’t recognise. Effy, Tash and Mum have all told me that I call out for my dad. He died of a heart attack when I was nine years old. It was totally out of the blue and I still really miss him. Mum’s made me go and see so many sleep specialists over the years to try and stop the dream. She’s had me try lavender oil, counting sheep, relaxation techniques starting with my toes and up through my body None of them have helped much because it’s not that I have a problem getting to sleep, it’s that I wake up when I have the dream and then can’t get back to sleep. Mum’s latest fad is for me to try hypnotherapy. She sits in the waiting room reading magazines whilst the therapist puts me under and I have a nice kip – feels like that anyway. I’ve had three sessions so far and it seemed to be helping a bit, that is until tonight.
‘Want me to get you a drink?’ asked Tash.
‘No. I’m fine. Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.’
Tash settled back down.
‘Maybe we’ve heard wrong all these years,’ said Effy from the depths of her sleeping bag on the floor. ‘Maybe all this time, Jo hasn’t been calling “Dad”, she’s been calling for Howard – Howa-dad. Get it? Howa-d ... ad. Sounds similar.’
I pulled a pillow out from behind me and threw it at her. ‘You really do have an overactive imagination,’ I said as it landed neatly on her head. ‘I call out for my dad. Always have. So forget about Howard-ad. That’s just wishful thinking on your part.’
‘Whatever,’ said Effy. She turned over so that she had her back to me.
I snuggled down again. Somehow I had a strong feeling Tash and Effy weren’t going to let the Henrietta story go, no matter what I said or thought.
Chapter Five
‘Oh, tell the whole world, why don’t you?’ I said as I squeezed into a seat beside Tash and Effy the next morning at our favourite café on Highgate High Street. We liked it up in the village; it had an old-world charm, with Georgian terraced houses built around the square where just about every teenager in north London liked to hang out. There were a few individual, quirky shops there as well as a good number of cafés where we could meet up to check out who was around and who was with who.
Mark, Dave and Owen were wedged in opposite and I’d heard them discussing my visit to the clairvoyant when I walked into the café, even though they had all fallen silent when I sat down. I had thought about telling Mum about it before I left the house earlier but before I could get a word in, she’d laid into me about leaving pizza boxes all over the place and not clearing up after Effy and Tash had gone. She was never in a good mood after working the late shift at the hospital so it clearly wasn’t the time or place to have had a girlie talk about soulmates or clairvoyants.
‘Hey, Owen,’ I said. ‘What you doing back from uni?’
‘Quick visit, I only got home last night. Needed my laundry doing. I’ll be going back tomorrow,’ he said, then gave me a suggestive look. ‘So. About what the clairvoyant said. I might be your Howard.’
‘And why’s that?’ I asked.
‘I’m in my first year of medicine. Howard was the son of a doctor.’
He looked miffed when I laughed out loud.
‘Seriously though,’ said Mark. ‘I saw a programme about reincarnation on telly once and there were some very convincing cases.’
‘On telly, hey?’ I replied. ‘Must be true then.’
This time it was Mark’s turn to look put out. ‘There was a woman on the programme who’d been doing research into past life phenomena,’ he went on, ‘and she had some fascinating case histories. Especially kids. Apparently many recall their past lives but the memory fades after the age of five. Some of them remembered places, people and events they couldn’t possibly have known, and when they checked out the details, it was just as the kids had said.’
‘I saw that programme,’ said Effy. ‘There was an Indian boy who insisted that he had a shop and family in a different village to the one where he was born. In the end, his parents took him to the village and there was the shop and family just as he described and he was able to tell exactly what changes had been made to the shop since he died. He knew all about the place and the wife who ran the shop came to accept the nine-year-old boy as the incarnation of her departed husband.’
‘Amazing,’ said Tash.
‘Mad. The boy probably read about it in a newspaper or something,’ I said. And that’s why the facts check out. Kids absorb everything around them.’
‘Take no notice of her,’ Effy said to Tash. ‘She’s such a cynic. There were loads of examples on the programme of people remembering things from past lives that they couldn’t possibly have known. One young girl said that in her previous life she had buried some jewellery, and when she took her new family to find it, it was buried exactly where she had said.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m sure that there’s a rational explanation for all the cases you saw but then that doesn’t make good telly, does it?’
‘I despair,’ said Effy. ‘But anyway, we’ve come up with the most brilliant idea.’
‘Yes. I’ve thought of a great present for my mum and dad,’ said Tash.
Phew, I thought. Change of subject from past lives, thank God. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
Tash gave Dave a coy look. ‘It was Dave’s idea. I’m going to do a family tree for both of them. You know, find their ancestors.’
‘That’s a lovely idea, Tash. They’ll love that,’ I said.
‘Family tree. Ancestors,’ said Effy; she gave me a meaningful look and added, ‘Census records, Jo. They’re on the Net.
‘Yeah. I know. You can get them online now.’
‘I don’t know why we didn’t think of it earlier,’ said Tash.
Effy nodded. ‘Don’t you get it, Jo? Henrietta. We can look her up while we’re researching Tash’s roots.’
Ah, I thought. So we haven’t changed the subject. No such luck.
‘They have records of births, deaths and marriages,’ said Dave. ‘We can find out everything about her and even maybe the doctor she worked for. He would be listed on one of the census records. They were recorded every ten years from 1841 and you can see all the records up until 1911, so everyone living at a certain address on the night of the census was recorded. If we’re going to find anything out it’s a great place to start.’
‘But it’s this life that matters, surely? Not a past one. Even if I did believe in past lives, it’s gone, over,’ I protested. ‘And anyway, we don’t know where they lived.’
‘London,’ said Effy. ‘You told us Betty said London.’
‘Think of it as a project,’ said Owen. ‘Research. It could be interesting.’
‘I can think of better things to research,’ I said. It wasn’t like Owen to be into something like this. He usually took the scientific approach to life. Maybe he and I didn’t have so much in common after all.
The door to the café opened to our right and Tash nudged me. ‘Don’t look now but. . .’ Course Effy and I immediately swung round to see who’d walked in.
Finn O’Brady
I turned away quickly. So uncool to be seen ogling, no matter how much I wanted to. Not Effy though. She carried on staring. I saw Finn notice her and he turned his back as if he didn’t want to be seen. He bought a drink then slid into the only place available, which was a table across from us.
‘I’m going to speak to him,’ Effy said and got up.
I tugged on her arm. ‘No. Leave him. He probably just wants to blend in. It must be so tiresome being recognised wherever he goes.’
Effy pulled away and went over to Finn’s table. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to say that I,’ she pointed to the rest of us who were all trying to assume indifference but were listening in at the same time, ‘I mean we, we all think your band is brilliant.’
I couldn’t resist looking to see his reaction. He flashed Effy a killer-watt smile. ‘Thanks,’ he said then looked down and stirred his drink. Anyone with an ounce of sensitivity would have taken his body language to mean, Thanks, now move on. Effy, however, has the sensitivity of a dead dog.
‘Do you get fed up of people recognising you?’ she persisted.
Finn looked up again, shrugged and smiled, weakly this time. ‘Part of the job.’ I thought he looked trapped because he glanced around as if seeking an exit. He was so good-looking, it was hard not to stare. Stands out from the crowd, I thought as I tried to drag my eyes away but didn’t succeed. Totally my type, as Effy would say.
Luckily Effy, Tash and I all have different taste in boys. Dave is tall and pale – he looks like he lives underground which is probably because when he’s not with Tash, he rarely comes out into the light and spends his time in his basement on his computer playing sci-fi games. Tash thinks he’s deep and mysterious. I think the words ‘a bit gormless’ are more apt, but each to their own. Tash hangs on his every word. She probably has to because he doesn’t say that many. Mark’s medium height and cute in a Harry Potter way with glasses and dark hair that has a will of its own. He can’t quite believe his luck in having someone as pretty as Effy as a girlfriend, which is probably a good thing because she bosses him around something rotten. Because he’s so in awe of her, he obeys without question. Owen’s sweet-looking, though he’d hate to hear himself described that way. Like Effy, he has an open, friendly face with a wide mouth that’s often smiling. Finn however is in a league of his own. Probably full of himself, most mega handsome boys are, I thought as his eyes scanned the café. He saw me looking at him. I didn’t want him to think I was another on his long list of his admirers (even though I was), so I got up, seized Effy by the neck of her shirt and tugged her away.
‘Excuse my friend,’ I said to Finn. ‘We don’t let her out often because she doesn’t know how to behave in public. Do you, Effy? Come on now, sit back down. It’s time for your medication.’
By now, most of the café was staring and Finn laughed. ‘Hey, it’s cool . . . Don’t I know you from somewhere?’
I blushed. ‘Er . . . yes. I’m part of the Chillaxin team. I’ve been to a few of the meetings.’
Finn nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Course. In fact, we should have another meeting soon. We need some new, original ideas for articles for the next edition.’
‘And I saw you play on the Heath yesterday.’
‘Oh yeah,’ he said and pointed at my jacket. It was the one I was wearing yesterday. ‘I like the way you dress. So you saw the set?’ I could see he was waiting for me to say something about his band.
‘Yeah. Um . . . quite good.’
Finn laughed again. ‘Quite?’
‘Yes. I thought some of the songs were a bit similar.’ A warning voice in my head told me to shut up. I always do this when I speak to a boy I fancy – try to sound cool but end up sounding like I’m being critical. So not the same thing.
Effy knows me well and could see I was in danger of saying something stupid. ‘You’ve also seen me in my mum’s estate agency’ she blurted out.
Finn looked at her and nodded. ‘Oh right,’ he said.
‘Yeah. Two doors down. Davis Reed?’
‘Oh right! My parents are looking for a new place, preferably with an outhouse or soundproof garage so I can rehearse.’ He smiled and Effy flashed me a ‘told you so’ look. ‘I don’t think they can stand my music any more. They don’t even think it’s quite good.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I said, then put my hand over my mouth. ‘I think I might shut up now.’
‘Good idea,’ said Effy. She turned to Finn. ‘See, it’s Jo who needs the medication and doesn’t know how to behave in public. Not me.’
‘I also think I’ll go and sit down now,’ I said and for some inane reason, I bowed. Bowed? Albeit a small one. More of a bob. When I got back to our table, Tash was looking at me open-mouthed.
‘So . . . yes . . . that went well,’ I said. ‘Where are the boys?’
She indicated outside the café window where Owen, Dave and Mark were now hanging out. ‘Don’t think they liked having competition.’
The café door opened again and two tall, leggy girls entered, spotted Finn and went over to him. One of them was the girl he was with on the Heath, the other had long blonde hair and looked so posh she could have stepped out of the party pages of Tatler. Probably an Arabella or Cordelia. She looked down her nose and gave Effy a look as if to say, Who the hell are you?
This time Effy did get it. ‘OK, later,’ she said to Finn.
He grinned. ‘Yeah, later.’ I could see that he liked being seen with an admirer by the two girls. God, he’s so transparent, I thought.
Effy scuttled back to join us. ‘I think he likes you,’ she whispered. ‘He remembered you from yesterday.’
‘He remembers my jacket,’ I said. ‘And now he certainly won’t forget me
from today. He must think I’m an idiot! Anyway, it looks like he has a girlfriend, maybe even two.’
Effy was never one to give up. ‘Might not be serious,’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘I’m so not interested. I think he’s arrogant. Probably got an ego the size of a bus.’
Opposite me, Tash was making ‘zip it’ signals and shaking her head.
‘What?’ I asked.
She pointed behind me. I turned to see that while I’d been talking, Finn had got up from his table to head for the counter. He must have heard every word I said.
‘Jo was talking about someone she saw on telly, not you,’ Effy called to him, making it a thousand times worse.
‘Sure,’ he said. Like he believed her. Not.
We finished our drinks and headed out of the café to join the boys. Our plan for the day was to mooch around the shops, which is one of my favourite things to do, but we quickly found that everything was closed because it was a bank holiday. Instead we had to make do with a bit of window shopping. At least the boys seemed happy about having escaped being dragged into every single shop.
A book in the window of an antique/junk shop caught Owen’s eye as we passed by. ‘Give me a mo,’ he said as he peered in the window. The others went ahead but I waited for him and together we looked at the usual mix of stuff on display: odd bits of china, paintings, frames and trinkets.
Owen pointed to a sepia photo in a silver frame showing a young woman from the Victorian era standing next to a pillar with a plant. ‘Hey look–’
‘Don’t even say it, Owen,’ I interrupted.
‘Say what?’
‘That she might have been Henrietta. Ever since yesterday, that’s all I’ve heard from Effy and Tash.’
‘Ah well, you know my sister. She has a vivid imagination,’ he said as he peered at the photo. ‘And I wasn’t going to say that. I was about to say it’s a nice frame, but come to think about it, yeah, imagine just for a moment that the story the clairvoyant told you is true. Imagine looking at a photo of yourself in a previous life. OK not the one in the window there, that would be way too much of a mad coincidence but say you found a photo of the real Henrietta–’
Love at Second Sight Page 3