by Sue Wallman
For Phoebe, Maia and Sophie xxx
CONTENTS
Cover
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Acknowledgements
Back Ads
Copyright
ONE
The back seat of the car is my kingdom. Travel duvet, phone, headphones, snacks, easy-to-access make-up bag to make myself look presentable ten minutes before arrival. Not even the presence of revision books, hastily stuffed into my bag by Mum, can dampen my mood. I pop a tab of chewing gum into my mouth, crunching down with satisfaction on the minty outer layer. Not long to go until we’re there.
I’m wrong about that. It takes ages to reach the midway point, the Spotted Pig pub. It was where we always stopped for lunch when it was Mum and Dad. Now it’s Mum and Steve, and Mum drives straight past it without saying anything. She pulls up outside a cafe in a parade of shops off the main road. It turns out to be closed, so we have to buy sandwiches from a petrol station.
We eat the ham and cheese (with unexpected mayonnaise) sandwiches and Pringles in a parking space next to the machine that forces air into car tyres. Steve finds his Guess the Movie Soundtrack app and I’m annoyed to discover my new headphones fail to block the grating sound of him and Mum laughing.
I remind myself that in a couple of days the two of them will be going up north to visit Steve’s sister, leaving me at Roeshot House alone with the others. I. Cannot. Wait.
Before we set off again, Mr Eager-To-Please takes the rubbish to the bin. While he’s gone, Mum checks her face in the flip-down mirror above the windscreen. She pushes away a flake of mascara from her cheek, and reapplies her lipstick. By the bin, Steve straightens his Christmas jumper. I know what everyone at Roeshot House is going to think about that jumper.
“Mum,” I say. “Please don’t let Steve share any more of the driving.”
She frowns.
“He has a solid driving age of ninety,” I say. Leaving aside the fact he owns driving gloves, I concentrate on the main problem: by driving so slowly he’s wasting valuable time I could be spending with my cousin Ivy and our lifelong friend Jakob. “I hate being the last ones to arrive.”
Mum sighs and looks as if she’s about to fire up the Don’t-Be-Mean-To Steve script, but she says, “You’re right to want to make the most of Roeshot House. I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford it next year if the rental price keeps rocketing. And Steve and I aren’t even going to be there for two of the nights we’re paying for.” She sees my face and starts the engine as Steve approaches the car. “I’ll do my best but, you know, maybe next year it’ll be time for us to do something different.”
I’m not sure who the “us” is in that sentence.
I lean forward to the gap in between the front seats. “But we have to come back next year.”
“Soon you’ll want to go to a New Year party with your friends at home,” says Mum. “Things change.”
“They already have,” I say, leaning back as Steve opens the car door and sits so heavily the car actually wobbles, adding one of his trademark grunty noises. “Everything all right?” he says. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think even he can sense he’s not my favourite person.
I pretend I haven’t heard, and Mum says, “Yes, we’re fine, thanks. Leah’s keen to get there and see Ivy and Jakob.”
She makes me sound as if I’m going on a play date. When we were little, Ivy, Jakob and I called ourselves the Three Amigos. It sounds silly now that we’re fifteen, but that’s still how we think of ourselves.
I can’t imagine a time when I’d rather be at a party than at Roeshot House. OK, it sounds supremely unpromising when I tell anyone about it: a week in an old house in the middle of nowhere which has no Wi-Fi or even a phone signal. But somehow it works. The three of us hang out by ourselves most of the time, sometimes also with my little cousin Poppy, Ivy’s sister, who’s eight, and their dog Baz. The adults are always busy being boring with each other, which works fine for us.
We’ve lost two dads along the way. My uncle, Ivy and Poppy’s dad, died of a heart attack three years ago, and my dad dropped out last year after he left to live with Amber. The Amigos were there for each other both times, not in a weepy arms-round-each-other kind of way, but by escaping to where we’d always been happy, up in the attic. We did our usual things, the predictions, of course, and mad games, like doing laps of the attic without our feet touching the floor, which involved climbing on the bookshelves and leaping from the big desk with the green leather inlay on to the armchair, crawling on top of the chest of drawers, and cheating with the rug for the last bit. There were always new things to do or to talk about. Like the time last year when Jakob produced a load of miniature bottles of alcohol his parents had won ages ago in a raffle and forgotten about. We discovered a taste for Chinese liqueurs and made our own chocolate ones by buying hollow chocolate Father Christmases and injecting the alcohol in with the oral syringe we found in the bathroom alongside an out-of-date bottle of Calpol.
Being an Amigo was about having fun, not dwelling on the crap that had happened in the past year.
My phone pings. A notification appears at the top of my screen. It’s Ivy. Where are you? She’s placed the text across a selfie of herself, her face indignant, her eyes the same shade of brown as mine. The two of us look more alike as cousins than our mums do as sisters.
I catch a glimpse of grey cloud behind her. She’ll be sitting on the wall at the end of the drive for the phone signal. The next shot is of a cow in the field next to Roeshot House. Then another of her with a snowman filter that’s given her a carrot nose. Freezing my arse off. Hurry up and get here.
I have an excuse, I message back. It’s called Steve. You’ll understand when you meet him.
I watch Steve rub his bald patch absent-mindedly. I begged Mum not to invite him. He won’t understand the traditions. He probably won’t even appreciate the house. It’s a blend of new and old. Every time we arrive we find that Pinhurst Properties has renovated it a little bit more and Mum insists that it was perfectly fine how it was before and it didn’t need the wet room installing downstairs, or the new coffee machine. But I like the gradual makeover, the high ceilings and the space. I love the two staircases at different ends of the house, and how there’s a cluster of bedrooms for the adults at one end, and another for the Amigos and Poppy at the other. Above all, I love how we can make as much noise in the attic as we like, and as long as we check in for meals nobody minds much what we do.
“Nearly there,” says Mum. She turns her head towards Steve, I guess giving him a smile, though I can’t see it from where I’m sitting, but I see her hand rest momentarily on his thigh, and wish I hadn’t. “Gabs and Elaine can be overbearing, but don’t let that bother you. They just like things their way,�
� she says. Mum’s right: my auntie Gabs and her best friend from school, Elaine, can be terrifying. I wonder if he’s nervous. Mum turns her attention back to the road, and the indicator tick-tocks as she slows down to turn right. “I’d never have believed we’d end up spending every New Year together, the three of us. Gabs and Elaine pretended I didn’t exist most of my childhood.” She says it as if it’s amusing, but I don’t find it funny.
We’re on the twisty roads now and there’s only one bar on my phone left. I circle a porthole in the condensation on my window. The grey-white light is darkening. The frost hasn’t thawed all day. Ivy will be back in the house now with the others, keeping warm by the log fire.
We pass the sign to the Holiday Village, the open-all-year-round mobile home park which has an indoor pool where Ivy once organized a competition to see how many floating plasters we could scoop up. It was something like seven, and Auntie Gabs took them to the front reception and got a refund on our entrance fee.
There are still Christmas lights up in the village, and the most ostentatious display is above the Chinese takeaway as usual. Two boys on bikes, leaning against the postbox, stare at our car and I want to tell them that we half-belong here. At least, Mum and I do.
I rush to rub concealer over the spot on my chin, holding my tiny mirror near the window where the light is better, then put on my trainers, but I keep looking up. Seeing Roeshot House for the first time as we turn into the drive is a sight I’ve never become tired of. The house is imposing and proud, built from beautiful old grey stone, with a circular section of drive outside the big, square porch. The front door is huge and wooden and looks like something out of an old-fashioned Christmas card with its large wreath, made with real foliage and different each year, and with the little lantern-like lights lit up either side of it.
It’s around three times the size of our old house, four times the size of our new one. The new house is dull. You can look at it from outside and can pretty much guess the layout inside. Roeshot House promises surprises: corridors and hidden-away rooms, cupboards in unusual places and bathrooms the size of our lounge.
Smoke rises from the chimney into the approaching-dusk sky. There are two cars already parked near the porch. I knew we’d be the last to arrive.
As I step on to the drive, my legs stiff with not having moved for a while, I see a car slow down at the end of the driveway. I stare at it. The window winds down and a woman leans out with a phone to take a photo, then the car drives off.
Some ancient jazz singer used to live in the village. She must think it was here.
Mum walks round me, to open the car boot. “What was that about?”
“The paparazzi have caught up with me,” I joke as I lift out my little suitcase. “Weird though, right?”
“What’s weird?” asks Steve, only just emerging from the car.
I let Mum explain. I can’t be bothered.
Warm, yellowy light spills out of the kitchen window, through the half-closed blinds. That’s where everyone will be.
A black, fluffy dog bounds round the side of the house and rushes towards us with an excited whine. I crouch low and he dive-bombs me, panting with delirious pleasure. I hear Auntie Gabs helloing before I see her. She emerges round the corner wearing a pale blue blanket thing, her blonde-grey hair pushed back with a red headscarf. She hugs me first.
Jakob’s next to her, shivering in a thin long-sleeved floral shirt, a beanie hat low on his head. “Le-aaaah!” he says and he clasps me towards him in a funny little side-sway. He’s taller, and his hair is longer, kicking out from under the hat. I smile past him at his parents, Elaine and Marc, as I rub his spindly arms to warm him. They say how good it is to see me, then look at me as if I’m not quite the person they remembered in their head. It’s been a whole year, after all. Elaine is wearing her usual uniform of fleece and unflattering jeans. I’m half-surprised Marc isn’t in his running gear.
Someone ruffles the top of my head and I twirl round to see Ivy. She’s small and energetic, like me. Ivy plays county hockey; I dance three times a week. The golds and browns of her eyeshadow give her a new, sophisticated edge, but when she smiles I sink back into the Roeshot House comraderie.
“Make-up’s on point,” I say, and she laughs and embraces me.
I look for Poppy, but before I can ask where she is, Mum introduces Ivy to Steve. They shake hands (shaking hands?) and I want to say, That jumper. I know.
“You’re not the only newbie, Steve,” says Auntie Gabs, her voice loud with enthusiasm. “We’ve got my friend’s sixteen-year-old daughter here too. Tatum.”
I look at Ivy. The eye-rolling over Steve’s jumper can wait. Why didn’t I know about Tatum? Ivy gives a little shrug, as if it’s not important. But it is. How can we be the Three Amigos with some new girl?
“Last-minute addition,” says Auntie Gabs cheerfully. “Come and meet her. She’s in the kitchen with Poppy.”
“Time for cake!” says Marc, and there’s laughter. There’s a rule, or perhaps it’s a tradition, that we can’t start Marc’s famous mandarin-and-chocolate cake until the last family has arrived. As I’m jostled into the house, with Elaine going on about the boiler not working, I feel the familiar excitement of having five days ahead of me with my Amigos.
TWO
The kitchen at Roeshot House was renovated a couple of years ago. The units are painted pale grey and there’s a huge gleaming double oven that Auntie Gabs and Elaine went crazy over the first time they saw it. The big, wooden, slightly wobbly table wasn’t replaced and there’s still a mark where Jakob tried to carve a J in it with a ballpoint pen until Elaine saw him and went ballistic.
Poppy is sitting at it with an intricate colouring book and a rainbow of pens, and my mind stumbles as I take in her changed appearance from last year. She’s lost so much weight her head looks too big for her body. I know via Ivy that she’s had an on-off viral thing for nearly a year now, but I thought it was more like a cold she couldn’t completely shake off than a thing that was causing her to waste away. She’s eight, but she looks much younger.
She smiles, her front teeth almost too big for her mouth.
“Hi, Pops!” I say. “How are you doing?”
“OK,” she says.
“She’s got muscle ache today so doesn’t want hugging,” says Ivy. “It’s a high-five day.”
I go closer and let Poppy tap her hand against mine. Her wrist looks snappable.
“And this is Tatum,” says Ivy.
The adults move out of the way and I see Tatum standing by the kettle, removing the cellophane wrapping from a box of teabags. Her hair is light brown with pink ends. But it’s not just her hair which makes her striking. She has great skin, red lipstick, immaculate eyebrows and a far curvier figure than me or Ivy. I really like her oversized silvery jumper, but I know I’m too short for it to look good on me.
“Thanks for letting me scrape in,” she says cheerfully. There’s no part of her which looks awkward about being with a bunch of people she doesn’t know.
I nod. “Hi.” I hope she doesn’t hear the flatness in my voice. If she’s a year older than us, surely she should have lots of work to do? Unfortunately she doesn’t look quiet and studious, the type to be happy writing essays in a quiet corner of the house while the Amigos are in the attic. I bet she’ll want to join in.
Ivy says, “Tatum lives near us, but we’re at different schools. We used to go to a playgroup together though, didn’t we?”
Tatum nods and says, “Yep, but I don’t remember you at all.” It has a dismissive edge.
Across the room, I hear Auntie Gabs explain that Tatum’s nan had a fall so her mum had to go and help, her dad’s away working and her brother is travelling. She calls out, “OK, folks, hands up for tea? Coffee?”
“I’ll make Poppy’s milkshake,” says Ivy.
“Milkshake?” says Jakob. He picks up a glittery straw on the counter, next to a tall glass and a yellow tin with stick people doing exer
cises round it. “I’ll have a banana milkshake too.”
“You can’t, it’s a protein drink for building up Poppy’s muscles,” murmurs Ivy. She picks up the straw and jabs him playfully in the stomach. “How are your core muscles?”
“Ow,” says Jakob. “I’m going to cut the cake.”
Tatum plunks teabags in mugs. “Got to make myself useful,” she says, and I look around for something to do too because I suddenly feel like a spare part.
Ivy shoves a packet of paper napkins in my hand. “Here. Put these out.”
The napkins have reindeer on them, the arty, wispy sort. Auntie Gabs’s sort of thing. In our house we just have kitchen roll. I sit at the table next to Poppy and fold them into different shapes. We make a fan and a wonky heart, and an attempt at a flower. When we’ve done that, she lets me do some colouring, directing me which colours to use.
“You’re honoured,” Ivy says as she places the milkshake in front of Poppy. “She won’t let me do that.”
Tatum brings the mugs over to the table and everyone else sits down in dribs and drabs. Steve positions himself next to Mum and I have to look away. That was Dad’s usual seat.
Auntie Gabs says, “Clive from Pinhurst Properties is coming to fix the boiler as soon as he can. He sends his apologies.”
“We should ask for a refund, or at least a discount,” says Mum.
“Jakob, go and find a jumper,” says Elaine. “You’re making me cold just looking at you.” She shivers into her brown fleece. There’s photographic evidence that Elaine was once slim and fashionable, but I still find it hard to believe.
“Yeah, in a minute,” says Jakob, forking a large chunk of cake into his mouth.
Marc rubs his knee. “Where’s the paracetamol, Elaine?”
“No idea,” she replies. “I hope you didn’t rely on me to pack it.”
“Marc runs marathons,” Mum says to Steve.
“Can’t run at the moment,” says Marc with a grimace. “Hurt my knee in an accident a couple of months ago.”
“He fell off the treadmill at the gym,” says Elaine. She shakes her head. “Honestly.”