Fortune Cookie

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘Jake, wait up! Come back!’

  It barely registers. I’m outside, already drenched in the rain, running away from the house, away from the humiliation. Fourteen years it took me to find my dad; two minutes to lose him forever. He’s vile and mean and greedy and cruel. I would rather spend my whole life without a father than settle for one so shoddy.

  Rain runs down my face like tears, soaks my clothes and jabs my skin like ice-cold needles. My hair is plastered to my head. I’m no longer hot now, but freezing, shivering, teeth chattering.

  ‘Cookie! Wait!’

  Behind me Honey, Cherry and the others are following, but I cannot face them now; I don’t know if I can ever face them again.

  Lightning tears across the sky, a jagged stab of electricity lighting up the trees. I run beneath the branches as the thunder crashes above me, shove past the carefully crafted stage all wrapped in tarpaulins, run down across the wet grass, pull open the rickety gate and stumble on to the cliff steps, slippery with rain. I pick my way down, hanging on to the wobbly railing, glad that my trainers have good grip.

  At last my feet sink into soft sand. I can see the ocean, a vast curve of velvet black glinting in the light of a slender moon. The clouds are parting, wiping away anger, damping down the storm, and the rain is softer now, less punishing.

  ‘Cookie!’

  I look back to see Honey and Cherry making their way down the cliff steps, and my heart lurches as an ear-piercing scream rips through the night, followed by a clattering, scrambling sound. Someone has fallen.

  ‘Cherry!’ Honey’s voice yells out. ‘Cherry, hang on! Help! Somebody, help!’

  Fred the dog is barking, a terrible, anguished bark that goes on and on, and I’m running back again, scrabbling my way up the steps to where Honey is lying across the uneven steps, stretching down to hold her stepsister’s hands. I can see Cherry’s face, a pale oval of terror in the darkness, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  ‘I’ll get Mum and Paddy!’ Summer yells from above us, turning back into the garden. Skye throws herself down next to Honey, hanging on to her waist.

  ‘I can’t hold her, Cookie,’ Honey says. ‘Do something!’

  I can’t get near enough to Cherry from the steps so I run back down again and work my way across the jagged rock face in the darkness, trying to edge myself upwards. I’m vaguely aware of Coco behind me, telling me to go slowly, to watch out for gorse on the rock face, to hang on and pull myself up. I can see the pale blur of Cherry’s T-shirt in the darkness, and feel the rock, wet and precarious, beneath my feet.

  ‘Don’t fall, Cherry,’ I hear Honey shout through the rain. ‘Hang on, please hang on. I’m sorry for all the bad stuff I’ve said and done. I’m sorry, so sorry! Hang on, please!’

  It seems to take forever, but it’s actually less than a minute before I reach Cherry. I steady myself, wedging myself against the root of a stunted tree that’s growing out of the cliff a couple of metres below her. In that moment there’s another lightning flash and I see Cherry clearly, her feet flailing over wet rock, finding a foothold and losing it again, Honey’s hands digging into her wrists. As darkness swallows the light again, I stretch out to grab her waist.

  ‘Let go!’ I yell to Honey, and Cherry falls back against me, and we slip a little and land roughly against the gnarled old tree.

  In the end, I hold Cherry’s arm and help her climb down to where Coco is waiting at the foot of the cliff.

  By the time Paddy, Charlotte and Summer arrive, we’re sitting on the wet sand, clinging on to each other, Honey and Cherry and me, with Skye and Coco huddled beside us.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,’ Honey keeps whispering, and Cherry just nods and shivers and rests her head against Honey’s shoulder and says thank you over and over again. I stretch my arms round them both and wait for my heartbeat to slow again, wait for the fear and adrenalin and elation to fade.

  Just half an hour ago I thought I’d lost everything. Now I know that I have gained far more than I’ve lost; one jigsaw piece is gone forever, but a whole bunch more I never knew I needed are there in its place. I can make a picture after all.

  There are more tears, more hugs, anguished explanations. I wait for Paddy and Charlotte to get angry, get mad, but they don’t do that; they just hug us each in turn, me included, and help us climb back up the cliff steps, slowly, steadily, by torchlight.

  And then we’re all walking back across the grass, and the rain has finally stopped and the clouds clear, and the crescent moon shines down on all of us. The others get up to the house first, head in through the kitchen door. Honey and Cherry and I follow last of all, arms round each other, Fred the dog running on ahead.

  We’re walking through the cherry trees when a ramshackle van turns in through the gates, crunching across the gravel, headlights sweeping over us.

  ‘Who the heck?’ I mutter, and Honey and Cherry shake their heads, baffled.

  Paddy and Charlotte reappear in the doorway, frowning.

  Nobody turns up to visit at three in the morning, do they?

  The van shudders to a halt and the doors slide open. A woman carrying a little girl wrapped in a blanket steps down on the gravel, another child, older, leaning into her sleepily. On the other side of the van, a man appears; a tall, wiry man with long dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail. Suddenly I feel sick, scared, horrified.

  Sheddie.

  ‘Jake,’ Mum says, her face breaking into a weary grin. ‘Oh, Jake, thank God we’ve found you!’

  21

  Mum puts Isla down and my littlest sister rubs her eyes and squints up at me through the darkness. ‘There he is!’ she cries, and she and Maisie tumble across the grass towards me, hair fluttering out behind them. I can’t run, I can’t hide. I stretch out my arms and gather them in, hugging them close, laughing in spite of myself, inhaling the scent of cheap shampoo and bubblegum and home.

  ‘You’re wet, Cookie,’ Isla declares, unimpressed. ‘All soggy! Yuck!’

  ‘Mum got my mobile,’ Maisie is saying, breathless, tearful. ‘She checked back through my texts and worked out where you were. I’m sorry, Cookie!’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper. ‘It’s OK, I promise.’

  Above her head I see Mum coming towards me and I tilt my chin, square my shoulders. In the thin yellow light spilling out from the house, she looks older somehow, blue shadows beneath her eyes, a crease of worry between her brows. Were they there before? I can’t remember. She looks tired, weary, as if life has played some cruel tricks on her and squeezed all the hope and happiness out of her soul. She didn’t look like that before we lived in London, I know that much.

  ‘Jake?’ she whispers. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I messaged you,’ I argue. ‘I told you I was safe.’

  ‘Oh, Jake,’ Mum says. She holds out her arms and I fall into them, my head on her shoulder. Isla and Maisie snuggle in on the hug, and I pull in a few rough breaths, allow my panic to ebb slowly into acceptance.

  ‘We’ll talk about it,’ Mum says softly, stroking my hair the way she used to when I was a kid and upset about a nightmare or a cut knee. ‘We’ll sort it out.’

  I used to believe her, back then. Now, not so much.

  Paddy and Charlotte come down to join us, and our clumsy embrace disintegrates.

  ‘Mrs Cooke?’ Paddy says, offering his hand to shake. ‘I think we spoke on the telephone, just after Cookie arrived.’

  Mum’s eyes widen, and she ignores the offered hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says stiffly. ‘I wish you had! I haven’t had a clue where Jake was these past few days, and I’ve certainly never spoken to you before!’

  ‘Cookie?’ Paddy says. ‘What the heck is going on?’

  Charlotte sighs. ‘Let’s go inside,’ she says. ‘I think Cookie has some explaining to do.’

  We huddle round the kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate and trying to make sense of things. Charlotte has checked Cherry over and found no i
njuries; she’s just grazed and shaken, with bruised wrists where Honey held on to her so tightly. Honey has a few cuts and grazes too, but nothing serious. She and Cherry lean together, as if by touching they can wipe away the hurt and anger of the last few years; suddenly, they don’t seem to matter. After all my attempts to get the two of them together, it took an accident to break down the barriers, and show Honey what really mattered.

  ‘Baths and showers for all of you, and then bed,’ Charlotte declares, ushering the sisters out of the kitchen. ‘We’ll talk about this tomorrow, but right now Cookie and his family need some privacy, and what you girls need most of all is sleep.’

  Charlotte leans down and tucks a blanket round Maisie, curled up and yawning in an armchair next to the Aga with Fred asleep at her feet. Isla is already asleep again, cradled in Mum’s arms.

  There will be no sleep for me. I shiver a little, still soaked from the thunderstorm, draped in a blanket and cold in spite of the gentle heat of the Aga.

  It turns out that Mum looked back through Maisie’s texts and found a mention of Kitnor. She grilled Maisie for more information, but all my little sister could remember was my comment about the Chocolate Festival. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. Mum was determined to find me. They spent half an hour packing up the van, then drove west to Kitnor. The plan was to sleep over in the van and ask the locals for information about the Chocolate Festival in the morning, but they saw a poster on the wall at the end of the lane, spotted the address and found us easily.

  Paddy sits down beside me. ‘So, Cookie,’ he says, ‘do you want to explain about the phone call home? Because I think both your mum and I would like to know what happened there.’

  I bite my lip. ‘I gave you a different mobile number,’ I admit. ‘I got someone else to talk to you. Pretend to be Mum. I’m sorry, both of you. It was a stupid thing to do. I let you down.’

  The kitchen door creaks open again and Honey and Cherry step back into the kitchen, their faces grave. Charlotte rolls her eyes, but my new sisters are not about to be shooed away this time.

  ‘It wasn’t Cookie’s idea,’ Honey says. ‘I took his phone and put on a London accent. I thought it was funny to fool you, Paddy. My fault.’

  ‘No, mine.’ I argue.

  ‘And I knew, but I didn’t tell,’ Cherry chips in.

  ‘I’m angry with all three of you,’ Paddy says. ‘I expected better. I thought I could trust you.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Mum says, and shame seeps through my veins like poison. ‘Start talking, Jake. I’ve been beside myself, these last few days. I thought you were at Harry’s and I tried to give you space, but something just didn’t seem right. And then Mr Zhao showed me the letter you sent and I got really, really scared.’

  Isla wakes briefly and gazes at me, her eyes big and solemn; it’s one big guilt trip. The guilt twists inside me like a knife, and anger floods into the wound.

  I can see Sheddie watching quietly from the sidelines, and I study him quietly. He has gentle brown eyes and looks like he smiles a lot, but I am not fooled. I will not trust him. Mum has always had disastrous taste in men. Sheddie won’t be any different.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you came here,’ Mum says into the silence. ‘I mean, why Somerset? What’s the connection? An old school friend?’

  I exchange furtive glances with Paddy and Charlotte. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Better start at the beginning then,’ Mum says.

  I roll my eyes. ‘This is Charlotte Costello,’ I announce. ‘She used to be Charlotte Tanberry; does that name ring a bell?’

  ‘Charlotte … Tanberry?’ Mum falters. ‘No, I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘You haven’t met, not exactly,’ I explain. ‘But you’re connected. Because – well, you had an affair with Charlotte’s first husband, fifteen years ago. Remember that, Mum? Small world, huh?’

  If I’d wanted to lash out at Mum, I couldn’t have found a better way to do it. She crumples instantly, her body curling in on itself, shoulders trembling as she covers her face with her hands to hide the tears.

  That scares me. Mum hardly ever cries. She has always been the strong one, the fierce, determined one. And now my little sisters are awake and howling too, and Sheddie has stretched an arm round Mum’s shoulder. Charlotte is offering her a tissue and Paddy is looking at me sadly as if I am not the boy he thought I was. Disappointment. I have seen that look before, a million times, but even so, it makes me feel bad.

  ‘What Cookie is trying to say is that he came here to meet us,’ Honey cuts in. ‘His sisters. Is that so wrong? I was staying with Dad in Australia and found out I had a brother; we’ve been writing for a while. I sent a rail ticket.’

  ‘I didn’t plan to use it,’ I say. ‘But then everything went wrong – the bathtub flood, the ceiling disaster. Mr Zhao blamed me, and he was right; it was my fault. My own stupid fault. You lost your job and we were going to be homeless. Mr Zhao said we had to get out and you said we’d have to move in with Sheddie.’

  ‘Hang on!’ Mum interrupts. ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t lose my job – I quit. And nobody’s pushing us out of the flat; wherever did you get that idea?’

  ‘I overheard you talking to Mr Zhao, the morning after the flood,’ I say. ‘He was angry. He said we had until Saturday to get out.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘No, Jake,’ she says gently. ‘That morning I told Mr Zhao I was handing in my notice and moving out. Whatever you heard, you got it all wrong. We’re not moving in with Sheddie because we’ve been evicted. Mr Zhao would never do that to us, Jake!’

  I frown. What did I actually hear that day? Did I jump to conclusions, add two and two together and come up with five? It wouldn’t be the first time. Dismay floods through me.

  ‘But Mr Zhao was so angry,’ I argue. ‘You said yourself he didn’t have the money for repairs, and I knew there was no way we could find that sort of money.’

  ‘But why would we have to?’ Mum says. ‘It was an accident! The insurers have been round to assess the damage and they’re going to pay in full. The restaurant will be good as new – better, actually. And the flat will be too.’

  ‘Insurers?’ I echo.

  It turns out that Mr Zhao had insurance cover for the restaurant and flat; he paid a yearly fee in case of accidents or emergencies, and now the insurers will pay out for the repairs.

  ‘You said we had to move to Millford, live in a scaffy old yurt …’

  ‘Jake, moving in with Sheddie has nothing at all to do with the accident and everything to do with us just wanting to be together,’ Mum says. ‘We love each other, Jake – it really is that simple.’

  I pull a face. I seriously do not want to know about my mum’s love life, but I’m baffled at how I can have got things so very wrong. My shoulders slump.

  ‘Your letter really scared me, Jake,’ Mum says. ‘You told Mr Zhao that you were going to get money … How on earth did you plan to do that?’

  ‘Dad,’ I say in a sad, small voice. ‘I asked Dad. I thought he could talk to Mr Zhao, stop you being thrown out on the streets, maybe pay for the repairs’

  ‘We Skyped him,’ Cherry says into the silence. ‘An hour or two back. Let’s just say it didn’t go too well. Cookie ran away and we went after him, and that’s when I slipped.’

  Mum puts her head in her hands. ‘You asked Greg?’ she says, mortified. ‘No way. I don’t want his money, Jake! I never have!’

  She looks at Charlotte, rakes up a shaky smile. ‘I wasn’t much more than a kid when I met him,’ she explains. ‘It was my first job and I hadn’t had any serious boyfriends before then. Greg made me feel special. I didn’t know he was married, I swear! The romance didn’t last; the pregnancy just about finished it off. I lost my job, lost everything, really. He gave me three thousand quid to shut up and stay away. I was naive enough to be pleased at the time, but I’d no clue back then of the cost of bringing up a child. It barely got us through
the first year.’

  I think of the Skype call, of Greg Tanberry yelling at me that Mum was a gold-digger after his money. The memory still feels raw, like an ache in my gut.

  ‘I didn’t realize, Mum,’ I say quietly. ‘I should have told you where I was going, what I was doing, but I thought you’d try to stop me. It was something I had to do, even if it was a big fat fail. I had all these ideas that Dad would be happy to hear from me, that he’d want to help, want to rescue us – only he wasn’t. He wasn’t at all …’

  Honey steps up beside me and takes my hand in hers, squeezing gently. On my other side, Cherry does the same. I find myself standing straighter, stronger.

  ‘Cookie, I’m so sorry,’ Charlotte says. ‘Greg is a very flawed man. Selfish, impulsive and never willing to face the consequences of his actions. When I see the mess he’s made of other people’s lives I sometimes wish I’d never met him, but then I wouldn’t have my four lovely daughters, and I wouldn’t have Paddy and Cherry. And, of course, your mum wouldn’t have you. I don’t think either of us would change that for the world.’

  ‘True,’ Mum says with a sigh. ‘I’d say we both have a lot to be grateful for.’

  By the time the sun comes up, things are looking very different.

  My little sisters are tucked up on the blue velvet sofas in the living room, fast asleep under soft crocheted blankets. Honey and Cherry have crept away to bed, and as I sneak out of the kitchen door to head back to the caravan to crash out too I reflect on how surreal it is to see Mum and Charlotte holding each other, laughing, talking, crying, and calling each other Alison and Charlotte. As I leave, Paddy and Sheddie are drinking black coffee and discussing fair-trade chocolate and sustainable living and possible t’ai chi workshops for Saturday.

  Looks like I’ll be staying for the Chocolate Festival after all.

  22

  When you’ve stayed up all night to Skype the dad you’ve never met, had your dreams shattered into a million pieces and run around in a thunderstorm rescuing people from a cliff face – well, you kind of want an easy time the next day. When your mum and little sisters pitch up at three in the morning in a van painted with rainbow stripes and polka dots and CND peace symbols, driven by a crusty bloke with waist-length dreadlocks and the worst name in the world, and everyone sits up until dawn talking about ceilings and insurance and how rubbish my dad was – that’s when you really need a lie-in to recover. Until midday at least, or possibly longer.