by Julia Green
Mia felt too excited to sleep.
She saw the first faint flush of light in the sky. This time of year it came so early. She watched the pale splash of colour begin to spread. Then came the first notes of a bird. And another, and others began to join in.
Now the garden was full of birdsong. It was as if the feeling she had held in her all night, a sort of pent-up joy, was being released at last. She wanted to join in, too, her voice to sing out with all the others.
From the ivy-clad wall came a great chirping and scuffling, and then the warning sound of the male blackbird as he flew to the tree. Mia watched as, one by one, the fledglings fluttered from the nest, from wall to hedge and back again. She counted them. Four.
Where was the cat? He’d been watching them for days now. But last night’s storm had kept him inside; he’d missed his moment. For now, the baby birds were safe.
Now. This moment. That was how you had to think of it. This moment was all you ever had, this, and the next, and the next. Make the most of it, Colleen had said. It all changes so fast. But it didn’t mean you couldn’t plan, and think about what might come next.
Now the sky was full of light. After all the rain and wind in the night, the air felt washed clean, the garden greener and more vivid. Cream petals from the climbing rose lay scattered across the grass. The leaves of the ash tree rustled together.
What had Colleen’s tree book called it, the ash tree? ‘The tree of rebirth and healing’. The leaves of the ash tree were believed to bring good luck; the sap protected newborn babies and made them strong.
Mia smiled. Mum had loved that tree when she lived here. It was there in the photograph on the chest of drawers, the one where Mum held little Mia on her lap. She’d collected seeds from the tree to plant in her new garden, the one in Bristol. Each year there were thousands of seeds, each one with the potential for a new, full-sized tree tucked inside.
Dad and Mia had breakfast together early, before he left for work. Kai bounced in his chair on the table as they ate toast.
‘He’ll bounce right off that soon, if we’re not careful! We’ll have to get him one of those things you hang from the door frame. You know? So he can bounce from the floor.’
‘I’ve been thinking, Dad.’
‘Yes?’
‘About what you said the other night. About you and Julie and everything.’
‘And?’ He carried on eating, pretending not to be tense in every muscle. She could see his hand gripping the mug.
‘Well, I was thinking, maybe I’d try and find a place to live with Colleen. So we can sign on for a college course in the autumn, or after Christmas, maybe.’
‘You don’t have to move out of here,’ Dad said. His face was red. ‘I wasn’t trying to push you out.’
‘No, I think it would be good. We’d help each other, Colleen and me. With the babies. And with studying. That’s if I can persuade her. And Kai and I, well, we could still come here lots, at weekends and that, couldn’t we?’
Dad frowned. ‘You’re only just sixteen. It’s very young to leave home.’
‘So? I can look after myself, can’t I? And Kai. You said how well I was doing.’
‘Yes, but – well, that’s completely different. That’s with you living here. What would you do at college, anyway?’
‘Get some exams. GCSEs. Might as well. I’m not stupid.’
‘I know you’re not. You know I’ve never thought that. Lazy, maybe. Easily distracted. But that was before you had Kai. You’ve grown up a lot, these last couple of months. You’ve had to. But what would you do for money? Benefits won’t be enough to live on, you know.’
‘Mum said she’d help out with money, didn’t she? While I’m at college, at least. Later, I can get a part-time job. If I can get some exams, I can get a better job.’
‘My God! Never thought I’d hear those words coming out of your mouth, Mia Kitson! So you have been listening all these years!’
‘Dad! Don’t spoil it now.’
‘OK, sorry. But this Colleen – she’s not going to want to stay in one place, is she?’
‘She might. She’s loved coming here these last few weeks, the garden and that. I’m going to ask her. See what she says. So you can go ahead and make your plans with Julie.’
Dad looked sheepish. ‘We’ve already started, actually, making plans. The holiday’s booked. Two weeks in August. I thought Laura might be able to come back and stay here with you then. But maybe you’d like to ask your friend instead. Colleen.’
He stood up, scraped toast crusts into the bin, put the plate into the washing-up bowl.
‘Got to be off. Year Twelves, first thing. The Tempest: themes of loss and redemption. But thank you, Mia. For thinking about it all. Makes a huge difference to me. Talk more later, yes?’ He hugged her as he went past, out of the room, blew a kiss at Kai.
‘One last thing.’ She stood in the doorway as he carried his box of school books to the car. ‘Would you and Julie be able to babysit Kai tonight? So I can go out to hear Will’s band play? Just for an hour or two?’
Dad crinkled his eyebrows, grinned. ‘Of course. Delighted.’
She watched him drive off. The radio blared out full volume. Radio 2. Honestly!
*
Kai smiled up at Mia as she carried him in his bouncy chair into the sitting room. He chirruped at her: a new sound.
Mia smiled back at him. ‘Are you talking to me, Birdy?’
She opened the French windows so he could see out into the garden while she rummaged through the stack of ancient LPs that Dad kept under the desk in the corner. Greatest Hits. She got the record out of the paper sleeve, put it on the stereo that Dad had fixed up on top of the CD player. Funny to think these records were all they’d had, back when Dad was her age.
She found the track: ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue’. Turned up the volume. Then she played the whole record. Dad would’ve been proud of her!
‘What the hell is that?’
Colleen stood at the open French windows, Isaac in his sling on her front, laughing at Mia singing along to Dad’s old record.
Mia turned the volume down. ‘Dad’s,’ she explained.
‘Why were you listening to it, then?’
‘Just for fun. It’s not bad, actually.’
‘Sounded terrible to me.’ Colleen stepped from the garden into the sitting room and flopped down on the sofa to untie the sling.
‘You’re earlier than I expected.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ Colleen’s eyes filled with tears.
‘What’s happened?’
‘The clinic. Vicky. They’re worried about Zak now. I’m better, but they say he’s much too little. So now I’ve got to go and take him to the hospital for tests.’
‘Oh, Colleen, I’m sorry.’
‘Mum’s going to come up. I’ve spoken to her. She’ll come to the hospital with me.’
‘It probably isn’t anything,’ Mia said. ‘They’re just being careful.’
Colleen held Zak on her lap. His dark eyes followed the movement of the leaves outside.
‘I’ve got to feed him more. I thought I might borrow that book you said about, ages ago, about starting to breastfeed again.’ She got a bottle of formula milk out of her bag. ‘Can I warm this up for him?’
While they waited for the kettle to boil, Mia started to tell Colleen about her plan.
‘It might fit in,’ she said. ‘You might be able to stay here while Dad’s away, mightn’t you? Please? Just two weeks? As long as Zak’s OK?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Colleen said.
‘What do they think is wrong with Zak?’
‘They didn’t say. Just said they need to do some tests. He’s small, that’s all, really. I’d know if there was something really wrong with him, wouldn’t I?’
‘Yes. Course you would. He’s bright as anything. He’s been smiling for weeks. He
doesn’t look ill or anything. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I can’t help it. You would, if it was Kai.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I understand. I really do.’
‘I don’t want to stay in today. Let’s go somewhere.’
They walked down to the sea. A different sort of beach, after last night’s storm, from the one they’d lazed about on for the past three weeks. There was a new line of flotsam, washed up by the high tide, mixed with a mound of stinking seaweed, and a new, higher bank of pebbles. They walked along it, kicking bottles and bits of driftwood.
Colleen started picking up bits of nylon fishing rope that had been washed up: all different colours, orange and bright blue and green. She found a piece of wood, held it up and turned it round till it made a shape a bit like a horse. She made it a mane and tail with frayed strands of rope.
Mia hunkered down beside her.
‘Make one for Kai, too. Please.’
‘Not a horse, something else. This piece, look. It’s a swan. Or maybe a goose.’ She held up a piece of wood, softened and sculpted by the sea. There was the curve of a head, and a beak, and a hole where an eye might be. ‘If we had something sharp, then we could carve feathers on the wings.’
‘It should be a seabird for Kai.’
‘Whatever.’
The sea was flat and grey today. Even the birds sounded sad and mournful, flying low over the water, calling. Colleen was unusually subdued. Preoccupied with Isaac, presumably. She kept trying to feed him from his bottle, but he turned his head away, dribbled milk out of his mouth as if he had already had too much.
‘Perhaps he’d like it better if it was warmed up?’ Colleen frowned.
‘I know you can’t, here. Do you want to go back home?’
Colleen shook her head. ‘No way. I need to be outside. And I love it here.’ She smiled at Mia. She’d got her dreamy look. ‘What this beach needs is a cafe.’
‘No one would go to a cafe here. It’s not that sort of beach.’
‘We would. Us and the babies. And those people you know from school.’
Mia laughed. ‘You couldn’t run a cafe on that! You need holiday people. And they all go further up the coast. There’s nothing here.’
‘There could be. I can see it now. Our cafe. Famous for miles around.’ Colleen started to cheer up. ‘Cheap but classy, all at the same time. With special things for babies and children, like books and toys, and little chairs and tables the right height. And music nights on Fridays. Wild. Fiddle-playing by the cafe owner by special request!’
‘It could be like a beach hut, wooden, with shutters, and a veranda,’ Mia joined in.
‘Painted blue.’
‘Will’s band could play on Saturdays. People would come from miles around to hear him playing the saxophone.’
‘We could call it Cafe Blue.’
‘Bleu.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Cafe Bleu. If it’s a cafe, it should have a French name. Bleu is the French for blue.’
‘OK, if you insist. And – and –’
‘And in the winter we’d board it up and live in a snug little house in town.’
‘No! Why can’t we keep it open all year? The beach cafe that’s always open. I bet the sea’s beautiful in winter.’
‘Not this sea! Not here in Whitecross. The smell’s enough to drive you away. Rotting seaweed, washed up by storms. All the rubbish. Freezing-cold wind.’
‘The trouble is, you’re too real,’ Colleen teased.
Zak had fallen asleep, his face squashed to one side of the sling, his little mouth half open. Colleen lay back on the damp pebbles and closed her eyes.
Mia watched her for a while. She loved the way they’d conjured up the cafe together so clearly. She could almost see it now, at the top of the beach – the wooden tables packed with people, music drifting out over the sea. Fairy lights.
‘The trouble is,’ she said softly, ‘I don’t want to stay here in Whitecross. Not forever. It’s all right for you. You’ve travelled already. You’ve had sixteen years of it. I’ve got to get out, get going.’
Colleen opened her eyes. ‘You will,’ she said. ‘If you want to enough. But there’s loads of time. And for now we’ve got the babies to think of. Let’s make the most of what we’ve got already, right now.’ She looked down at her sleeping son.
She was right, of course.
Mia thought again about the excitement she’d felt all night, the sense of things starting over, of so much being possible.
‘Will you think about what I said earlier, back at the house?’ Mia asked Colleen. ‘About us? That was for real.’
‘I have been. I want to go back with Mum first, when we’ve finished with the hospital, but I’ll come back. I’ll come and stay while your dad’s away, if it all fits in. And then maybe we should look for a place to share. At the end of the summer.’ She turned to Mia. ‘When we’ve done the tests and that, once I’ve stopped worrying about Zak, you know, I’ll be really excited. Promise!’
A slight breeze ruffled the water. They watched the way it patterned the surface, a cross-hatching of silver. The grey sky was lifting, getting lighter. Above the horizon, it had already paled to a thin strip of blue.
From the far end of the beach, a single figure walked steadily towards them. So. He’d known she might be here; maybe he’d even planned to find her and Kai. Now she could introduce him to Colleen, and tell him she’d be there with Becky and the others to listen to him play tonight.
Bit by bit, the different strands of her life were weaving together.
She stood up, waved, then looked at Colleen.
‘It’s Will!’ she said.
Mia shifted Kai up in her arms. His head turned as a thin ray of sunlight caught the shallow water, danced and sparkled on the tiny waves breaking on the pebbles. He stretched out one little hand.
Mia kissed it. ‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she whispered to Kai. ‘Come on, let’s go and meet him.’