At that moment, the phone ringing broke the silence. I ran downstairs and picked up the receiver.
‘Hey,’ said Lucy’s voice. ‘Just calling to say good luck with the move.’
‘Oh right . . . thanks.’
‘Hey, you OK, Cat?’ asked Lucy. ‘You sound – dunno . . .’
‘Yeah, I’m OK . . . sort of . . . well, maybe not . . .’
‘I knew something was up. I can tell by your voice. Come on. Tell Auntie Lucy.’
‘Oh nothing. It’s just everyone’s gone on to the new house, and I’m here doing a last bit of tidying, and it’s weird being here in the empty house, and I’m wondering if we should even be moving at all, as this was where my mum lived . . . And, well, there’s still that trunk – you know, my mum’s one – and I found the key to it, but now I can’t bring myself to open it.’
‘Why not?’
‘There might be stuff in there I’m not meant to see. Private stuff. Dunno.’ It sounded lame when I said it out loud.
‘Ah, but you promised to let us know what was in it,’ said Lucy. ‘Remember our Truth, Dare game?
‘I know. I will. Some time . . . just not yet.’
‘Just go and do it, Cat. Do what Izzie is always saying: feel the fear and do it anyway. What have you got to lose? It’s not like you’re going to find a skeleton in there.’
‘Oh thanks a lot,’ I laughed. ‘Like I’m not feeling spooked out enough as it is, being here with everything gone.’
‘Just go and do it,’ said Lucy, ‘and I’ll call later to make sure that you have.’
‘I thought Nesta was the bossy one,’ I said.
‘She is,’ said Lucy. ‘Just think yourself lucky it wasn’t her that called. Seriously though, it will be OK. Like for me, I’d been dreading this week for ages. Not wanting to think about it. It’s the week that my boyfriend, Tony – you know, Nesta’s brother – gets his A-level results. He’s such a brain and was offered a place at Oxford if he got good results. I knew he would, we all did, and he got the results last week: As in everything, so he’ll be off there in October. A new start. We’ll both be going different ways . . .’
‘Oh Lucy, I’m so sorry. There’s me going on and you must be gutted.’
‘Actually I’m OK. I knew it was coming and it’s probably a good thing that he’s going. We drive each other and everyone around us mad with our strange on-off relationship.’
‘But Oxford’s not far. You can still see him.’
‘’Course. And he’ll be home in the holidays – but we decided no commitments, no promises that we know we won’t keep. I mean, hey, last thing I want to be is a stone around his neck. No. But we did make a pact. If we both have got to thirty and are still unattached, then we’ll get back together.’
‘Thirty! But that’s a million years away. Anything could happen.’
‘Exactly. Be fun. And you know what? It feels OK. I have to let him go. And with the pact, it doesn’t feel totally final, if you know what I mean. I’ll see him in the holidays, yeah, I’ll maybe even hear that he’s fallen in love, but I can always tell myself: ah, but there’s always when we’re thirty!’
‘He’s older than you, so when he’s thirty or you are?’
‘When he is,’ said Lucy.
‘Wow. I think that is so cool. It sounds like the beginning of a movie.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Exciting, huh? As you said, anything might happen so feel the fear and do it anyway.’
‘Hey, what about the other boys? How did they do?’ I asked as I knew that Nesta’s boyfriend, William, and TJ’s boyfriend, Luke, and Lucy’s brother, Steve, had also been doing their A-levels.
‘They all did good. William is going to university here in London so Nesta is well chuffed about that. Luke is going to drama school and also staying in London so TJ is made up about that as well. Steve has got a place in Bristol so he’ll be moving away. All change, huh?’
‘I guess,’ I said, and made a mental note to let Becca know about Steve, that is if she didn’t already. Like Jamie and me, they keep in touch by e-mail. Bristol isn’t too far from where we live so maybe they could continue their relationship.
After I’d put the phone down, I took a deep breath and looked up the stairs. Feel the fear and do it anyway, Lucy had said. Be brave, Mum’d said in the letter that she’d left me. Always be brave.
I turned on my heel, went back up the stairs, into my room, pulled the trunk out from under the bed, put the key in the lock and opened it.
I was immediately hit with a sweet woody scent. I know that smell, I thought. It’s patchouli. I knew exactly what it was, because Izzie wore it and had told me that it was an essential oil used in aromatherapy and that the oil was extracted from tree bark. How strange that Mum had known about it. I peered into the open trunk and slowly and carefully began to take out what I found in there. Bits of paper, articles torn out from papers and magazines, and a photo album that I opened immediately. I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I knew every photograph that we had of Mum and yet here were pages more. Pages charting her life. Mum as a little girl, holding her mother’s hand. On a bike looking about seven. Mum as a teenager with various hair styles: long hair, short, big hair. Wearing big shoulder pads. One of her in a cap and gown receiving a degree, and then there was Dad looking so young and handsome. Both of them crammed into a photo booth making goofy faces. And then one in a hospital bed holding a baby, her eyes shining. Me. I must have barely been born.
I lost all track of time as I sat on the floor and poured over the wealth of treasures in the trunk. As well as the photo album, there was a small soap bag containing the oil that smelled so strongly. There were three tiny bottles labelled sandalwood, patchouli and jasmine. A couple of slides of someone I didn’t know. A man standing on a beach with his back to the camera. He was naked! Who was that? I wondered. Not dad. He’s not that tall. Maybe an early boyfriend from pre-Dad days. There were bits and pieces from my childhood, awful splotches of paintings I had done and signed: Cat Kennedy. Same from Luke. She had kept them all. A couple of Mother’s Day cards. Valentines from Dad. A tiny crystal swan. A couple of Oriental-looking bookmarks. The words to a song written by Bob Dylan. A file that appeared to be full of bank statements and old household bills.
At the bottom of the trunk was a book with a gold latch on it, but it wasn’t locked. I flicked open the cover and there was a drawing on the first page in green ink of a skull and crossbones and the words: PRIVATE PROPERTY. And then a date. I quickly did the maths. Almost twenty years ago. Unbelievable. It was a diary from when Mum was a teenager. Private property. I oughtn’t to be reading this, I thought as another file caught my eye. I put the diary aside and flipped the file open. It was stuffed with photos and notes, as if Mum had been doing a project or essay. I glanced over the photos – some were of landscapes and exotic skies. And then there was Mum again, this time as a young woman. Before Dad, I think. She was tanned with sun-kissed hair, smiling into the camera. Another of her at an airport with a rucksack slung over her shoulder. Ohmigod. It was Marrakech. I could see the name of the airport in the background of the photo. So Mum had been to Morocco as well. Maybe we even went to some of the same places, I thought as I began to read her notes. How amazing.
I was so absorbed that I hardly noticed the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
‘Cat, where are you?’ called Dad.
Too late to shove anything away and the blankets to hide the trunk were packed. Dad burst into the room and looked surprised to find me kneeling on the floor. He looked even more surprised when he realised that I was surrounded by photos of Mum and her letters and papers.
‘I never realised that Mum spent time in Morocco?’ I said as his face went white and he sank to his knees to join me in looking through what was left of his wife. My mum.
‘YOUR MATES ARE HERE,’ said Jen as soon as Dad and I drew up in front of the new house. She jerked her thumb inside. ‘Becca and Lia are in the kitchen.�
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I was just about to dash inside when a second van drew up outside.
‘Number fourteen?’ asked the driver, looking at Dad.
Dad looked puzzled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But the van we booked has already been and gone. Sure you got the right place?’
‘Says number fourteen on the delivery note,’ said the man as he got out, opened the back of his van, reached in and brought out an enormous bouquet of white roses. He saw Jen at the front door so took them over to her.
She glanced over at Dad and her cheeks turned rosy with pleasure. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she looked for the card and Becca and Lia appeared from inside and ooh-ed and ah-ed over the flowers. Jen looked over at Dad. ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t have.’
Dad looked like he was going to panic. ‘But, I didn’t,’ he whispered to me. ‘Oh dear . . .’
‘Oh! They’re not for me,’ said Jen with a light laugh, as she read the card then held the bouquet out to me. ‘Cat, they’re for you.’
‘For me!’
‘Wow,’ said Becca. ‘Who are they from? They look like they cost a fortune.’
I took the card from Jen and read it.
To Cat.
This is the first time I have bought flowers for a girl.
White roses to say I think that you’re special. Wishing you many happy times in your new home. Love Jamie.
‘They’re from Jamie,’ I said.
‘Oh that’s so sweet,’ said Lia. ‘And so typical of him. He’s so thoughtful.’
‘Waste of blooming money,’ said Luke as he went past. ‘What you supposed to do with them? Can’t eat them.’
I was so touched that I tried to call Jamie on his mobile straight away, but his voicemail was on. No one had ever bought me flowers before and they were a stunning bunch. I felt a warm glow spread through me and it felt so good after my melancholy morning at the old house. The flowers were a good omen. This was going to be a good new chapter.
I left Dad mumbling to Jen about how he was sorry that he hadn’t thought of a gesture like flowers to welcome her, and she was trying to reassure him that it didn’t matter, although I think she was disappointed that they weren’t for her. Suddenly Dad lifted her up into his arms.
‘Better carry you over the threshold then, hadn’t I?’ he asked, and she laughed as he began to walk up the steps. ‘Oh . . . bla . . . arrrgh . . .’ Dad staggered back, gasped in pain and dropped Jen on the lawn. ‘Oh – my back . . . It’s gone.’ He couldn’t stand up straight and hobbled like a bent old man into the hall, where he put a hand out to the banister and groaned with pain. Jen leaped up and followed after him.
‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ she asked.
Dad let out a moan so she led him into the kitchen and made him sit down.
‘Hmm,’ I said with a grin. ‘Interesting start.’
‘Interesting start!’ said Lia. ‘Aren’t you worried about him?’
‘He’ll be OK. His back always locks when he lifts heavy things. Not that Jen is that heavy, but all the same, he should know better. He’s got exercises to do to crick it back. Hey, let’s explore.’
Becca and Lia looked at my dad, then at me, then shrugged. They might think I was being unsympathetic, but I knew he’d be all right. He’d cricked his back a thousand times lifting stuff for the shop and we knew he didn’t like us to make a fuss.
I couldn’t wait to look around properly, as I’d only been to the house once – and that was under the beady eye of the estate agent – so I hadn’t really been able to get the feel of the place. It was semi-detached and I think I’d heard Dad say that it was built in the nineteen-fifties. At the front was a small garden and path leading to the porch and entrance. On the ground floor was a large reception room that went from the front of the house all the way to French windows at the back. I think it must have been two rooms once, but someone had knocked them through into one, giving the room a lovely feeling of space. To the left was an airy kitchen-diner, outside a long narrow garden with apple and cherry trees at the end.
‘You all right, Mr Kennedy?’ Lia asked when we went into the kitchen, where Jen was searching in the unpacked boxes for painkillers while Dad lay groaning on the kitchen table. He weakly gave her the thumbs-up as I put my flowers in some water in the sink.
‘Have you seen my room?’ I asked, and when they shook their heads, I led them upstairs.
My bedroom was fab. Like the rest of the house, it was light and spacious with a built-in wardrobe area. And I knew exactly where I was going to have the bed: along the wall by the window, so that some days, I could sit and look out at the back garden and fields beyond.
‘Fantabeedosiedobeetabulous,’ I said as I envisaged how it was going to look and the feeling of space I was going to have. In the last place I had the top bunk, so if I sat up in bed, my head almost touched the ceiling. ‘I can’t believe this. It’s sooooo perfect. The whole place is fab fab fab.’
At that moment, there was a crash then a moan in the hall. We ran to see what had happened.
‘Help . . . Help . . .’ whimpered a boy’s voice.
It sounded like Joe.
‘Joe? Is that you? Where are you?’ asked Becca.
‘Up here.’
‘Up where?’ I asked and looked up.
Becca and Lia burst out laughing, for right in the middle of the ceiling, exactly where a light bulb should be hanging, was Joe’s left leg. It had come through the ceiling.
‘Joe, what happened?’ I called up.
‘I fell off one of the joists,’ he said. ‘Help me before the rest of me comes through.’
‘Hmm, looking for a job as a light shade?’ asked Becca.
‘Not funny,’ whimpered Joe. ‘I’m stuck.’
‘I’ll get Dad,’ I said, and was about to head off downstairs.
‘No,’ cried Joe from above. ‘He’ll kill me.’
We ran up to the second floor and into Joe’s new bedroom, but I couldn’t see him. ‘Where are you? What happened?’
‘In here,’ said Joe. ‘I’m in the dummy attic.’
‘There,’ said Becca as she pointed at a small knee-high door on the wall to our right and went over to kneel down by it. Lia and I went with her and, indeed, the door led to an area in the roof. In the space between two of the joists was a very miserable-looking Joe.
‘I was having a look around and balancing on one of the beams,’ he snivelled, ‘when I slipped and my leg went through the ceiling.’
‘It’s only plaster,’ I said. ‘It’s not meant to be walked on.’
‘D’oh, I know that,’ groaned Joe. ‘Least I do now. Come on, I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.’
‘I’ll get him,’ said Becca, and she squeezed in and gently hauled Joe up, back on to a beam, then pulled him back into his room. His face was tear-stained and my heart went straight out to him.
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ I said. ‘You’re OK. You’re safe now. Were you scared that you were going to fall?’
Yes . . . and . . . but . . . I . . . I’ve ruined the new house and I’ve only been in it for five minutes. Dad’s going to hate me and think I’m stupid and —’
I put my arms round him and let him sob for a moment. Dear Joe. So often acting the tough guy, so determined to grow up so fast, but at times like this, it was clear he was vulnerable underneath all the bravado.
‘Hey, hey. It’s going to be OK,’ I said. ‘We won’t tell Dad today and chances are he won’t even notice for weeks, if ever. I mean who looks up when they’re going down the corridor? Don’t worry. We can maybe even try and get Squidge in to fix it. He’s a dab hand at DIY.’
‘Do you think?’ he sniffed.
‘Yeah. It’s going to be great here. Don’t you worry. Just great,’ I said.
I couldn’t have been more mistaken. For the rest of the day, everything that could go wrong, did.
Dad, having recovered from his back lock, was nailing something up in the kitchen and hit a water pipe in the wall. Water
came gushing out – unfortunately just as Emma was passing by, so she got an unexpected shower and didn’t like that one bit. And then we had to call for an emergency plumber, which Dad didn’t like because of the expense.
The beds arrived in their dismantled state, but no one could find the bag with the tools in so Dad couldn’t put them together.
And Emma was prancing around in the living room and tripped and pulled out the main phone socket so that we couldn’t get a dialling tone. When we called on the mobile to try and get someone out, they said that a technician wouldn’t be available until Tuesday.
So much for my good omen, I thought as I wondered what was going to go wrong next.
For a couple of hours things went peacefully enough, and we emptied endless boxes and bags and began to put things away.
Dad drove into the village to get fish and chips for supper, drop Becca and Lia home, and borrow a tool box to put the beds together.
In the meantime, the light was beginning to fade and, after a busy day, I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep in my new room. However, unbeknown to the rest of us, Luke was upstairs attempting to wire up the computer and printer, and somehow managed to fuse all the lights in the house. Of course, it being a new house, no one had thought to look where the fuse box was, and the situation fast turned to farce as we scrabbled around in the dark trying to find it. Not an easy task with no lights – and no candles either, because no one could remember which box they had been packed into. Luckily, I remembered that I had one of my lovely smelly ones that I’d bought in Morocco in one of my cases, and Joe found a small torch in his rucksack, so we all convened in the living room to try and decide what to do next.
All Mates Together Page 4