I sat up. I had things to do. Wash my hair, for one thing. I went to the door, ready to go to the bathroom, then paused. Mum was coming up the stairs. She must have decided to lie down on her bed instead of on the sofa. I waited until I heard her door shut, then opened mine.
What happened next was so amazingly lucky that afterwards I took it to be a sign. If the phone had rung twenty seconds earlier, Mum would have picked it up downstairs. If it had rung twenty seconds later, I’d have been in the bathroom with the shower turned on and I wouldn’t have heard it at all. As it was, the minute it rang I ran downstairs and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’ a man’s voice said. ‘Is that Carly . . . er . . .’ He paused, as if he was reading from a list. ‘McQuarrie?’
He sounded so strange I nearly said, ‘Is this a dirty phone call? Because if it is you’re out of luck, mate, and anyway a policeman lives here, so bog off.’
But I didn’t, thank God.
He cleared his throat.
‘This is Daniel Litvinov. My wife Pat’s your tap-dance teacher, I believe.’
My first thought was that Mrs Litvinov had read my mind. She knew I was about to bunk off the dress rehearsal, and she’d called in her husband to get heavy with me.
‘Yes,’ I said cautiously.
‘She asked me to call.’ His voice was a bit unsteady. ‘I’m afraid tonight’s dress rehearsal at the town hall’s been called off. Pat’s mother’s been taken very bad. She’s had to rush her over to the cardiac unit in Durstow. She told me to ring round and tell everyone that she’ll try to fix something up before the display, on Monday or Tuesday.’
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Oh. Thanks for telling me, Mr Litvinov. I’m really sorry about Mrs Litvinov’s . . .’
But he’d put the phone down already.
I put the receiver back and stood there, while the glorious realization of what he’d said flooded through me. I knew I ought to feel sorry about Mrs Litvinov’s mother, but I couldn’t. A mountainous weight had rolled off my back, and a big warm, rosy sun had risen in my mind. I wasn’t going to have to make up silly lies to Mrs Litvinov. I wasn’t going to have to let her down and see disappointment in her face. I was going to go to the party and get my badly needed rehearsal after all.
I suppose I ought to have run upstairs right then and told Mum at once, and got her to agree to let me go to Paradise End that evening, but I didn’t. She was so down on the whole thing. I knew she’d get into a state and put her foot down, and ask Dad to come in and back her up. And if they did let me go, they’d make Sam promise to keep an eye on me, and they’d tell me I had to come home practically before the party had started.
No, I couldn’t tell Mum. Anyway, as the timing had worked out so brilliantly, it looked as if I was meant to go to the party. It was something I was supposed to do.
I looked at my watch. It was only half-past two. There were hours and hours before I could start getting ready.
The house felt small and enclosed all of a sudden, shutting me in. I looked round for a pencil and some paper.
‘Gone for a walk. C, I wrote, and left it on the kitchen table. Then I went out and shut the door quietly behind me.
Why didn’t I go up to Paradise End and try to see Tia? I don’t know. I did walk up to the gates and look through them, glimpsing the corner of a huge blue-and-white-striped marquee that had been put up on the lawn below the terrace, and seeing men carrying around tables and little spindly-legged gold chairs. I knew Tia would come running if I pressed the buzzer by the gate and asked for her, but for some reason I wanted to be on my own.
I turned down to the left, and walked past the long blank wall of Paradise End’s grounds towards the main street of the village. It was oppressively hot and sticky, and the sky was hazing over as if a storm was on the way. I wanted to go the cool way, down under the trees by the canal, but I was doing enough deceitful things for one day and I’d promised Mum I’d never go there on my own.
I walked the long way round, behind the main street and out the far end, at the edge of the village, where the old church was. Beyond it the fields stretched away into the distance. There was a side gate into the graveyard. Big trees hung over the mossy old stones, and the shade underneath them looked cool and inviting.
I slipped in through the gate. I didn’t want anyone to see me. They’d think I was being weird, all by myself on a Saturday afternoon, mooning around in a churchyard.
There was a bench under the trees. I sat down on it and curled my legs up under me.
I can’t remember all the strange thoughts that went through my head that hot summer afternoon. I suppose I was feeling nervous and excited and guilty, but it was more than that. It was as if I was standing on the brink of something, as if I was about to go through a door, and that I’d soon be leaving the old Carly behind and stepping out as a new person.
Everything about that shady green place is as real to me now, thinking about it ages later, when so much else has happened, as it was at the moment when I was sitting there. I can practically hear the faint rustle of leaves overhead as a slight breeze stirred them, and smell a heavy, damp, woody smell from the boggy corner of the nearby field. I can see the hazy sunlight glowing on the graves, and the rooftops of the old part of Canningtree, which stretched away from me up the hill towards the gates of Paradise End. The new part of the village, the network of streets like ours, was out of sight from here. It seemd as if it didn’t exist any more, as if my home and family had never been, and I was alone in an eternal place, somewhere in the past, or in the future, it hardly mattered which.
I am who I am, I thought. I might even be an everlasting soul. I know where I begin and other things end.
Perhaps it sounds odd, but that’s what I thought, that afternoon.
I must have sat there for ages, quite still, just being. It was the bee that woke me out of my trance. I’d heard it for a while at the edge of my mind, buzzing round a cluster of honeysuckle flowers in the hedge behind me, and then it started coming in close, and made me move along the bench.
I looked at my watch and yelped with surprise. It was nearly half-past four, and I’d have to pretend to leave for the bus stop on my way into Torminster at half-past six. Before that I had to wash my hair, sort out my shoes, decide if I was going to wear my white beads, put some make-up on and fuss and panic in front of the mirror.
I slipped off the bench and ran home.
16
You know how it is sometimes with luck? You can get runs of it, good or bad. I was dead lucky that afternoon. For one thing, no one was in the bathroom. No one was standing outside the door either, banging on it, while I gave myself a good long shower and washed my hair.
The next good thing was that Lauren had stayed out with her horrible little friends, and I had the bedroom to myself. I could concentrate on my hair, and for once it turned out to be not too bad – better than the usual hedgehog look I manage to end up with anyway.
I heard Sam come in and rush around, hunting for his waiter’s gear, but my luck still held because a little later the front door banged shut behind him. I was really glad I wouldn’t have to face him before the party. It would be bad enough bumping into him, as I was sure to do, up at Paradise End.
I tried my dress on again and spent ages looking in the mirror, trying to see myself from the side and back view. I know I’m not anything much to look at, so don’t think I’m being vain when I say that there was something special about me that evening. It was mostly the dress, I suppose, the perfect swirl of black satin, the hint of 1920s glamour, the fall and the cut of it. But it was in me too. There was something new about me, a clearness and togetherness. I don’t know how to describe it. Just believe me when I say I’d never looked like that, never looked so good, before.
There’ll be loads of boys there, I told myself, with a shiver of excitement. Really cool ones. Not like the no-hopers at school.
At half-past six Mum shouted up the stairs, ‘Your tea’s re
ady, Carly. Come and eat before you go.’
That gave me a shock. I wasn’t one bit hungry. In fact, my stomach was churning round like a washing machine. Anyway, I knew there was going to be the most amazing five-star buffet up at Paradise End, and I wanted to have room for it. Most of all, though, I didn’t want to sit in the kitchen face to face with Mum, putting up with her being nice to me.
‘What is it?’ I yelled.
‘Pizza. Your favourite. Ham and pineapple.’
Quickly I slipped the dress off and laid it down on my bed.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I called out, ‘I’ve got to go. Wrap it up for me. I’ll eat it on the way.’
‘Got to go?’
I could hear her footsteps on the stairs, and I was into my ordinary clothes faster than greased lightning. I was just doing up the zip on my jeans when she appeared at the door.
‘Why do you want to go so early? The bus doesn’t leave till seven-fifteen.’
‘Said I’d meet Lizzie,’ I mumbled, turning away from her. ‘Don’t stop me, Mum. I’m late already.’
She came towards me and I was afraid she’d give me a hug. I dodged out of her way. I didn’t want her to see the make-up on my eyes.
‘Have you got a carrier for your dress?’
‘Yes, of course I have.’
‘You know the last bus goes from the town hall in Torminster at ten-fifteen? Mrs Litvinov promised you’d be out in time to catch it.’
‘I know.’
‘Got your bus money?’
‘Yes!’
I knew I sounded irritated, but I was desperate for her to go. At last she did.
‘OK, love. I’ll get your pizza ready.’
There was no point in waiting any longer. I was as ready as I’d ever be. It was much too early for the party, but I’d need time to change when I got there. It would be dead embarrassing, arriving at the gates in my awful old clothes, but I’d just have to slip up to Tia’s room and get dressed up there.
I folded my dress carefully and put it into the carrier, along with my best strappy shoes and my white beads. I ran down the stairs. Mum had the pizza ready. She was looking at me, a little worried frown cutting into her forehead. I couldn’t wait to get away. I grabbed the warm pizza in its foil wrapping out of her hands and turned towards the door.
‘Got your tap shoes?’ she called after me as I ran to the front door.
My heart jolted.
‘No! Wow! I nearly forgot.’
I raced upstairs, grabbed the shoes and belted down again, then I was out through the front door and away.
I’d worked out what to do. I didn’t turn right, towards Paradise End, in case Mum was watching me out of the sitting-room window, but ran off to the left, towards the bus stop. I planned to turn right along the main road, down to the bottom of the village and work my way round by the lane that led up the side wall of Paradise End, back towards the big gates at the top of the hill.
I was halfway down the main street when I caught sight of myself in a shop window. I stopped dead and stared. The elegant me of twenty minutes ago had gone. Wearing my old jeans and T-shirt I looked like I always did, but worse somehow, like a stupid, scruffy kid. Up at Paradise End, Tia would by now be getting ready to put on her stunning cream dress. Frost would be in a dinner jacket with a black bow tie. Dixie would be wearing God knows what fabulous creation, and dripping with jewels too, if she wasn’t too drunk to put them on.
I felt panic sweep over me. I’d been crazy to want to go to this party. Mum and Dad had been right. I’d be a fish out of water, a square peg in a round hole, a fly in the ointment.
I haven’t got a present to take, I thought, another wave of fright almost knocking me out. I don’t even know if you are supposed to take presents to a party like this.
I caught the reflection of a woman walking along the pavement behind me, and saw that she’d turned her head and was looking at me looking at myself. I felt my face go scarlet, and hurried on.
Then, down at the bottom of the hill, I caught sight of the stones of the old church, and an idea came to me. I’d go back to the shady place under the trees. I’d be all alone there. I could slip out of my jeans and T-shirt and put on my dress, and I could wait for a while, until nearer eight o’clock. It would be much easier, walking up that grand drive, if I looked OK and I wasn’t horribly early.
The sun had got lower and had moved right round while I’d been at home. The old bench wasn’t in the shade now, and even though it was getting late it would still be too hot to sit there.
I went round to the far side of the churchyard and sat down on a pile of stones by the wall, under the branches of an overhanging tree. I needed to cool off a bit. The tension and heat of the last hour had started to undo all the good of my shower.
I looked round. No one was there. It would be easy to change here without anyone seeing me.
Then I heard voices coming down the lane. I moved right back against the wall and waited.
The churchyard gate creaked as it opened and two women came in. One of them was carrying flowers. They walked away from me, down to a row of newly dug graves near the bench. I relaxed a bit. I could tell they hadn’t seen me.
The women stopped by one of the graves. The older one took a bunch of dead flowers out of the vase by the headstone and emptied out the water. Then she filled the vase again from a bottle and arranged the fresh flowers in it.
It sounds funny, I know, but until that moment I hadn’t thought of the churchyard as a cemetery. It had just seemed like a nice quiet place, a place to think and feel apart, where you could be yourself. But now the low sun was sending dark shadows from the lines of tall old gravestones across the grass, and it felt different, full of sadness and endings and thoughts of other worlds.
The women stepped away from the grave and moved back along the path towards the gate. They still hadn’t seen me.
‘Too hot for me, this weather,’ the younger one said, wiping her forehead.
The other one looked up at the sky.
‘Yes. It’s gone sultry. There’ll be a storm tonight, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Did I shiver at that moment? Did I have a premonition of what was going to happen. I don’t think I did.
The churchyard gate squeaked again as it shut behind them.
I felt out of place. I was about to go to a party. I was going to dance and eat fabulous food, and be beautiful in a stunning dress, and have the most amazing fun with my best friend. I was going to look cool and sophisticated and keep my end up and show the world that Carly McQuarrie could hold her own with the best of them, however posh they thought they were.
‘What on earth am I doing,’ I heard myself say out loud, ‘lurking around in this spooky old graveyard, for heaven’s sake?’
I hid behind the biggest tombstone, took off my jeans and T-shirt and zipped myself into my dress. I clasped the beads round my neck and slipped my smart shoes on to my feet. Then I bundled my old clothes into the carrier bag. The scruffy me had gone. The elegant me had magically returned.
At that moment, I heard music wafting down from the great house above, and the sound of car doors slamming. The party was starting.
With my heart pounding in my chest, I walked out of the churchyard, up the hill, towards Paradise End.
17
By the time I got to the gates of Paradise End, cars were arriving – Porsches and Jaguars and Alfa Romeos – and people were stepping out of them, the men in black or white dinner jackets and the women in dresses like ones you only see in magazines.
I stood there hesitating, looking in round the left pillar of the gates. I hardly recognized the house. There was a striped canopy over the front door and a red carpet running halfway down the gravel drive, with little trees in flowerpots on each side of it. There were people everywhere, guests in their fabulous clothes, chauffeurs in grey caps, waiters in short white jackets.
Then I heard a familiar voice.
‘That’s right, sir. D
rive round to the left behind the garage. There’s parking on the other side of the house on the north lawn.’
It was Mr Hollins. He waved the car on and turned round and saw me. For once, his heavy face split open in a smile.
‘Wotcha, Carly Tia’s been waiting for you. Come on in.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Up there. She’s been on the lookout for hours. Where’ve you been?’
He pointed up to the house. I moved round past the gate pillar and looked up. I could see the whole front of the house now, and there in an upstairs window was a slim, pale shape that moved and disappeared. A couple of seconds later, Tia came out from under the canopy and ran down the drive towards me.
‘Carly! You came!’
She was looking at me as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
‘Course I came. I said I would, didn’t I?’
‘Get out of it, you two. You’re blocking the traffic,’ said Mr Hollins, shooing us away from the gate to let a huge white Rolls-Royce come gliding through them.
Tia led me away from the drive down on to the lawn below the terrace, where the marquee was standing. She slipped behind a clump of bushes, and I followed her.
‘This is one of my hiding places,’ she said, ‘that I’d planned to use if you didn’t come. But you did. I just can’t tell you, Carly . . .’ She broke off and looked down at my dress. ‘It’s OK, isn’t it, the dress I mean. It does work. Actually, I think you look rather stunning. Those beads are exactly the right thing, and I really like the way you’ve done your hair.’
My confidence was beginning to climb back up again.
‘You look brilliant too,’ I said.
She shook her head, the way she always did when I said something nice about her looks, as if she was tossing the compliment away.
Paradise End Page 14
