by Sue Wallman
“I’m not sure if I want to come out tonight,” she says. “I’m not feeling it.”
“You have to,” I say. “The Three Amigos stick together through thick or thin. And I need you to stop Tatum flirting with Evan so I have a chance.”
She smiles. “Seriously? OK, then.”
The adults have made an effort for the evening. Gabs is wearing a garment that has huge sleeves and isn’t very practical around the kitchen, Marc has put on his one and only party shirt (or at least the one he’s brought to Roeshot House three years in a row) and Elaine has swapped her blue jeans for black ones and has ditched her fleece for a fluffy cardigan.
The bunting goes up every year, strung across the kitchen cupboards, and this year there’s a silver theme going on with silver party poppers, candles and napkins. Poppy has styled red-rose decorations out of paper and sellotaped them on to the insides of the kitchen and back doors, which the adults admire but otherwise don’t comment on.
Ivy touches one of them and mutters, “Are you getting fixated?”
Poppy says, “What does that mean?”
“She means, did you make those decorations because you’re thinking about Rose Strathmortimer?” says Tatum.
“I did it to keep the ghost away,” says Poppy. The matter-of-fact way she says it is unsettling.
We Amigos exchange looks, and Tatum raises her eyebrows.
“Okaaaay,” says Marc. “Let’s stop the conversation there.”
We eat a roast meal. I watch Poppy spend a lot of time cutting her food up and only taking a few bites. After a few minutes, she takes a black biro from next to a bowl where she probably left it earlier and draws a panda on her wrist.
Elaine says it feels odd for there to be three adults and five children around the table this year.
“Feeling outnumbered, Mum?” asks Jakob.
We don’t notice that Gabs is crying until she gets up, wiping her eyes and smudging her eye make-up.
“Oh, dear,” says Elaine, looking at Marc with alarm. “That must have been my fault. Reminding her…” She takes a big sip of wine and says under her breath, “Though I really do think Kate could have been more thoughtful with her plans. New Year’s Eve works so much better with more of a crowd.” In a brighter voice, she says, “We’ve had good memories in this house. We’ve been very lucky. Shall I fetch the dessert?”
We play Monopoly with Poppy until it’s time for her to go to bed, then we dash upstairs to check our faces and outfits. We know we’re not going to be able to get away with merely sliding out of the back door. Gabs hugs us tightly and I wonder if she’s had too much to drink. Elaine and Marc wheel out a lecture: stay safe on the road, take an extra torch, wrap up against the cold and be sensible. When Elaine says, “Now, what I mean by sensible is…” Jakob says, “We get it, Mum. We’re going now.”
We’re not used to being outside at night here. The garden with its tall trees feels watchful. We steer clear of the bins where Baz was found, and none of us mentions the grave. We adjust our gloves and scarves, the frosty air stinging our cheeks.
The cows are big, bulky, staring statues as we walk past the field. We’re on the other side of the road because it’s the only side with pavement, and even that will peter out before we’ve left Pinhurst. Tatum stops by one of the few streetlights to look at the muddy track that leads to the woods behind the field and Roeshot House. “The entrance to the woods isn’t overlooked. Very tempting place to bury a body.”
“For God’s sake,” says Jakob. “Give it a rest.”
Tatum has her gloves off and she’s holding her phone at waist height so it tilts up at her face. Is she trying out a new technique? She swings round to film the other side of the road. There’s a house there but it’s back to front, with the front door out of sight and no windows set in the brick wall that butts up against the pavement. “The woods extend to the back of Roeshot House, again not overlooked. Why did Alice choose the garden? Because it was convenient? Because she wanted to stay close to her sister? Or because she panicked?”
I jump at the word panicked. A cat stalks out of the track. It has something moving in its mouth.
We make eww sounds and Tatum has her fingers on the screen, zooming in. “Lovely,” she says with satisfaction. “Great image.”
“They should have more lampposts,” I say as we leave the village and bunch together on the road, flattening out against the hedgerow when we hear cars coming, our feet sinking into the soft, muddy verges. It’s hard not to think about Baz being hit by a car.
“I have a super-glarey reflective tabard from when I took a cycling safety class in Year Five,” says Ivy. “I so wish I was wearing it now.”
“My shoes are in a right state. I should have worn my hiking boots and brought these in a bag,” says Jakob.
I say I wish I knew the names of the stars. I remind the others of the dance-offs we used to have in the attic, the routines I used to make up and teach them.
Tatum is the only one who doesn’t need to distract herself from the creepy silence.
As soon as we see the huge lit-up entrance sign for the Holiday Village, we speed up.
“Oh, look – a signpost to the spa,” says Tatum. “This place is civilized. Why wouldn’t you stay here instead of Roeshit House?”
We go past rows of neat mobile homes, and hear the occasional burst of laughter or murmur of conversation through a window. Old-fashioned lanterns attached to posts light the way.
The most exciting sight is the free Wi-Fi sign on the window of the reception. Before we do anything else we go in and ask the girl on duty for the password. She asks us which mobile home we’re from and straight-off Tatum says, “Thirty-seven.”
The girl frowns but tells us the password.
We hover near the door for quite a while, checking our phones. Sofia’s sent me a selfie of her and Dan with his nan. Their relationship has developed so quickly that she’s spending New Year’s Eve with his family? I send a photo back of me next to a poster advertising the disco.
I write Dad an early Happy New Year text so I don’t need to think about it later. I reply to Mum’s text, saying everything is fine. I purposely don’t ask how her two-day break is going, and I don’t mention the Steve theory in case he scrubs away any blood or fixes any dents on the car.
“I can see Evan,” says Tatum, and I follow where she’s looking, and see him too. He’s with a group of maybe fifteen people, sitting around a couple of tables in the bar area. Dance music thuds away from a room at the back. There are a lot of family groups, and two little girls skip about in sparkly outfits trying to drag their dad off to the disco.
Evan stands up when he sees us, surprised but also pleased. “You made it!” To the others, he says, “These are the guys I told you about, the ones staying in Roeshot House,” which makes me curious about what exactly he’s told them. He rattles off his friends’ names, and the only ones I can remember afterwards are Kai and Megan, who seem to be a couple. Kai tells us to give him money for drinks if we want alcohol because his brother is behind the bar. Tatum hands over some notes and says we can pay her back later, and we give our orders.
“You’re lucky we made it,” says Jakob. “The big metal bar across the attic window fell down inches from my head this afternoon. Leah and me were almost killed!”
Evan swears so loudly the group next to us turn and stare. “How? That’s terrible. Does my dad know?”
I nod and tell him what happened, and Evan rubs his face and says how sorry he is and how he can’t believe our bad luck.
“Or good luck, perhaps,” I say. “It missed us.”
His friends ask us what it’s like to stay in Roeshot House knowing about Rose’s body, and Tatum, who never even knew what it was like before, answers for us, saying there’s already been another death: Baz’s. She describes in horrible detail how she was the one to find him, and how when she vomited, it bounced off the leaves of the plants. “I reckon the car must have been going
super-fast to mash Baz up like that,” she says, shuddering away the thought. She moves on to Poppy’s ghost and the falling metal bar and we hiss at her to stop. “Something’s been unleashed and we’ve all got to watch our backs,” she says.
“The house feels weird,” I concede. “But maybe that’s because we know about the body.”
“It’s also because Ivy’s little sister’s not well,” says Jakob. “She’s got a mystery illness.”
At first I think Ivy is going to sink into her chair in embarrassment but then she tells the others about the treatments Poppy’s had, and the many hospital appointments, some of which Ivy has to take her to.
“So you’re like a carer?” says Megan.
“Sort of. It’s just me and my mum and sometimes she has … down days.”
“You know that friend I was telling you about, whose dad is a child psychiatrist?” says Jakob. “I messaged him just now and he says his dad will help. So Poppy could come to stay with us for a while and get to see him, while you and your mum have a break.”
Ivy widens her eyes. “You mean it?”
“Of course.”
“Did he definitely say yes?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll make it happen,” says Jakob. “I promise.”
I give him a thumbs-up that no one else can see. The mood shifts. We leave death and illness behind, sipping our drinks and listening to the music escaping from the disco. There’s a discussion about the new menu at the Chinese takeaway, the locals agreeing that the old menu should never have been tampered with, and that the introduction of kebabs is a mistake, followed by an argument over who changed someone’s default language to Bulgarian on their phone.
Evan remembers the burning thing he temporarily forgot to tell us because he was distracted by the news of the window bar. Donna texted him to say Margery has invited us round tomorrow morning to discuss the memorial. “Meet outside the takeaway at ten to ten. She’s expecting us at ten and we can’t be late.”
“Is that Margery who taught us the violin?” asks Kai. “That woman used to give me nightmares.”
“Yup,” says Evan. “This lot want to find out more about Alice Billings – so Mum’s friend Donna suggested we speak to her. Tatum’s doing a video project. I said I’d help. All part of the concierge service. Keeping the customers happy.” He bows with mock-obsequiousness.
“I couldn’t stay in that house,” says Megan. “I’d have gone home by now.”
Tatum opens her mouth. I’m pretty sure she’s about to say something rude, but she remembers Evan is there and she needs his cooperation if she’s ever going to get to meet Margery.
“We’re still mostly having a good time,” I say because I want it to be true.
Jakob raises an eyebrow. It means: Baz’s death, the metal bar incident, Poppy’s strange illness and Tatum taking over. But it also means Amigos together again, we’re out for the first time ever on New Year’s Eve, and am I right in thinking you totally fancy Evan?
“Next time you come, it’ll be cool again,” says Evan. “The police will work out the full story and the ghosts will settle down.”
Kai comes back with the drinks and conversation breaks out in smaller groups.
“The police might never work out the full story,” I say to Evan.
“True,” he says. “But maybe soon we’ll know how Rose died. That’s what most people want to know, isn’t it?” He shrugs. “So. Let’s dance.”
“Sure,” I say because I’d never do that thing of being too shy to dance, or waiting to be persuaded.
Evan says, “Who’s coming?”
Across the table, Ivy gives me a quick smile and a raise of her shoulders to show she’s excited for me.
A few of Evan’s friends, including Kai and Megan, stand up, and so does Jakob. Ivy shakes her head and picks up her rum and coke. Tatum says she needs to Facetime her friends, and interview some of Evan’s group.
“You sure, Ivy?” I ask. I can’t tell if she’s just trying to give me space.
“Feeling tired,” she says. She holds up her drink and says she’ll come and find us when she’s finished it. I feel a pang of guilt for forcing her out tonight.
The disco floor is populated with four couples and the little girls who are holding hands with their dad. Jakob goes to the other end of the room and does two backflips in quick succession.
“Oi!” barks the old-man DJ through his microphone. “You’re going to hurt someone. Cut it out.”
Jakob grins and starts dancing, exaggerated and energetic, then slinky and over-the-top sexy. It makes me laugh. This is so what I need.
I spin and swirl and take up too much space. I relax, knowing that the happy version of myself is emerging. I sing the lyrics with Jakob, and mirror his movements.
It seems inevitable that sooner or later I’ll dance with Evan. He holds his hands out to me and I hesitate for one beat. Is it really me he wants to dance with?
His face and body come more into focus as everything else blurs. I see the brightness of his eyes and the pleasing lines of his body.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I reply.
“Ready?” he says, and in response to whatever he’s asking, I nod and trust. Beat after glorious beat pumps through me. Pink lights. Orange, yellow, red. Bright white squares of light rotating. My muscles are warm and fluid. All my senses are pulsing and at their peak, and this is how I imagine it is to be high.
The song ends and I pull away, but he catches the ends of my fingers. “Stay.” He leans in and takes a strand of hair that’s fallen across my face and tucks it behind my ear. I want him to do it again. To touch my skin in that gentle way. He smiles as he takes my hands again, and I squeeze them ever so slightly, testing the connection. He squeezes back.
We dance on and on. I mouth the lyrics when I wasn’t aware I knew them, and everything is how it should be, the music, Evan, me.
“Leah?” Tatum has her hand near her mouth. She’s going to cup it against my ear so I can hear what she’s saying. At first her breath tickles and I giggle.
“Ivy’s not feeling well. We should leave,” she says, and I pull back. “She’s got a migraine.” The words hiss down my ear.
“What’s the matter?” asks Evan.
“We need to go back,” says Tatum, almost shouting so he can hear her. “Ivy’s ill.”
He registers concern and I wave across at Jakob to join us, and we walk into the bar.
“Ivy’s in reception,” says Tatum when she sees me looking for her. “It’s not as noisy there.”
She’s lying on a sofa, clutching her head in her hands. It must be bad if she doesn’t care about lying down in reception.
“Ivy, are you OK?” asks Jakob, reaching her before me.
She says. “I’ve got a splitting headache. I think it was a combination of the alcohol and the lighting.”
“We’ll take you home,” I say.
She turns her head very slowly. “Wait until after midnight. Honestly. I’m not going to ruin your night.”
I remember holding Evan’s hand. The dizzying possibility of him leaning in for a kiss. “It’s OK,” I say, and then whisper, “Amigos first.”
“I’ll walk back with you,” says Evan.
“Very gallant,” says Tatum with a touch of sarcasm. “But we’ll get a taxi. I’ve got cash.” She goes to the reception desk where the girl looks thrilled to have something to do.
I step away from the other two, and say to Evan, “Thanks for inviting us. See you outside the takeaway tomorrow.”
“Wish you didn’t have to leave early,” he says.
“Me too,” I say and then Tatum calls Evan over to the reception desk. The taxi driver is coming from Riddingham and needs the postcode of Roeshot House.
It’s not far off midnight when we finally get into the taxi.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this to you,” says Ivy as she sits next to me. “You and Evan were getting on so well.”
“He’s really nice,” I say.
Tatum turns round from the front passenger seat. “All part of his concierge service, like he said. I wouldn’t go thinking you’re special. And who knows, maybe you’re the one who’s unlucky in love?”
NINETEEN
Tatum is filming as she steps out of the taxi, having paid the driver. She doesn’t go directly to the back door with Ivy, Jakob and me. She veers off to the grave and talks about it being several minutes to midnight, and asks what fresh horror the New Year will bring to the residents of Roeshot House now that the body of Rose Strathmortimer has been disturbed.
“She’s the one who’s disturbed,” says Ivy through clenched teeth.
“She’s definitely making the most of your headache,” I say. “Getting us back just before midnight.”
Jakob says, “She’s jealous of you and Evan, that’s why.”
Tatum has crept up behind us. “You think I’m jealous of Leah and Evan? Give me some credit. He’s been great setting up interviews, but he’s very, very average.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I snap at her.
Tatum holds her hands up, laughing. “OK, OK! I guess I’ll leave that one alone.”
The frost has made silvery claws of thin branches, and crouching statues of the overgrown plants. Something suddenly looms over me and I squeal.
“It’s just a cow’s shadow,” laughs Tatum. “Relax!”
As we get nearer to the house, we hear Marc’s voice in the darkness. “You’re back early. Everything all right?” His footsteps echo down the side passage.
“Ivy’s got a bad headache so we came home,” says Jakob when Marc appears, pulling his coat round himself, his arms not in the sleeves.
We pile into the warmth of the kitchen and into the lounge where Gabs and Elaine are drinking red wine. They hug us as if we’ve been away for days, breathing their alcohol fumes over us, making a fuss over Ivy, feeling her forehead, wondering where the paracetamol went. Before we have time to prepare, it’s midnight and there are more hugs and “Auld Lang Syne” sung along with the people on the TV. Ivy has too much of a headache to join in, so I’m in between Jakob and Auntie Gabs. Auntie Gabs’s hand is dry and bony, and her eyes are shining as if she might be holding back tears.