Michelle Vernal Box Set

by Michelle Vernal

  The officer made his way over with one hand resting on his walkie-talkie in case he needed reinforcements. Aware of his attentive audience, he put on a big show of clearing his throat.

  “A-hem, could you step this way please, miss?” It was more of an order than a request.

  Jeez, give a man a little authority and it goes straight to his head, Rebecca fumed, eyeballing him back. He was on the stout side of fifty, and she recognised his type. A frustrated wannabe cop for sure. Unfortunately, batting her eyelashes wasn’t going to hold much sway here, she concluded.

  “You can bring your bags with you, miss.” He gripped her firmly by her elbow.

  “But why? I haven’t done anything wrong!” She so wasn’t in the mood for this.

  “That’s what they all say, miss. Now, we can do this quietly, or you can create even more of a scene than you have done already. It’s up to you.”

  Rebecca’s eyes swept round the crowded arrivals hall and were met by a sea of accusing faces all glaring right back at her. “I’m not a drug smuggler, if that’s what you’re all thinking,” she shrilled. Feeling the panic beginning to rise, she began waffling, “It’s this bloody dog here that’s got issues. For goodness’ sake, the last time I smoked a joint was in 1991 and I ate a whole Madeira cake afterwards. Do I look like I eat whole cakes on a regular basis?”

  The jury was apparently out on that one, and the dog handler was now looking seriously unimpressed. Unlike his dog, still engaged in the act of nose diving and snuffling before coming up for air sporadically.

  “For goodness’ sake, get your bloody dog off of me!”

  “Down, Rollo!” Rollo reluctantly obeyed, and the officer led Rebecca away, announcing to the curious onlookers, “Show’s over, folks.”

  One hour and one bag search—and thankfully no other kind of search—later, Customs Officer George conceded that perhaps Rollo had been feeling a tad repressed. Next time she might think twice about hoarding her complimentary cheese and crackers in her bum bag.

  Chapter Eight

  “THERE SHE IS—LOOK! Oh, thank goodness she’s alright.” Pamela Loughton began jumping up and down, waving madly from the arrival area. “Rebecca, sweetheart! Yoo-hoo, over here!” Giving her husband a violent nudge forward, she ordered him to “Grab her, Dick.” Having spent the last forty years doing as he was told, Dick Loughton stumbled forward to meet his youngest daughter.

  The hordes of people who had been milling around in anticipation of the flight from Los Angeles had long since dispersed, making Dick easy to spot. Decked out in his customary beige slacks, whiter than white sneakers, and black windbreaker, he was a sight for Rebecca’s very sore eyes. Upon falling into his open arms, she felt a surge of love and then a sense of gratitude that Trinny and Susannah hadn’t gotten to him too. Over his shoulder, she spied her mum smiling and waving.

  Ah yes, the style gurus would be proud of her mother’s ensemble of a peasant skirt with colour-coordinated top and this winter’s must-have, knee-high caramel-coloured boots.

  “Come on then, love,” Rebecca’s dad said, plucking her off of him and taking hold of her trolley. “Mum can’t wait to see you.”

  “We thought you’d missed your flight. What happened, love? Are you alright?” Pamela cupped her daughter’s face in her hands, her familiar blue eyes creased with concern. Thirty hours of sleep deprivation suddenly caught up with Rebecca and, bursting into tears, she slumped down onto her mother’s ample bosom just like she had done when she was little. Safely snuggled in, she sputtered all the details.

  “It was horrible, Mum, just horrible.”

  Dick patted her back reassuringly. “There, there, love. You’re with your mummy and daddy now. Let’s go home.”

  Sandwiched between her parents, she allowed herself to be led out to the car park.

  “What do you reckon to a nice cup of tea and a slice of Mum’s cake when we get home, love?” her dad asked as he heaved one of her cases into the boot.

  “Chocolate cake?” she managed to snuffle out hopefully.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, they were pulling into Noel Place, and Rebecca smiled fondly at its familiar sweep of front lawns and letterboxes. She’d grown up here, playing out on the street in the days when you still could, along with all the other neighbourhood kids. There’d been a gang of them back then who would gather at the Ryans’ house for morning tea before working their way round the little cul-de-sac until they’d stuffed themselves full of treats. Nothing much appeared to have changed in the two years she’d been away, but as the little Honda hatchback crawled towards their house, there was a loud sniff from the passenger’s seat.

  “They just had to go one better than everybody else.” Pamela inclined her head towards the large conservatory protruding from the side of the Ellis family’s house at number 7. That certainly hadn’t been there before she went away, Rebecca thought, amused at her mother’s petty neighbourhood rivalry. Some things never change.

  “Ever since their Timothy made it big with that KY2 bug—”

  “Y2K bug, Mum.”

  “If you say so, dear—they’ve had grand notions. I mean, look at them.” Mr and Mrs Ellis were reclining in matching cane armchairs, sharing a pot of tea. They raised their teacups in a salute as the Loughtons drove past, and Pamela graced them with a queen-like wave of her hand.

  Once they were safely past, Pamela carried on with her monologue. “The Smyths have gone. They moved out to Rangiora to be closer to their eldest. Do you remember Roanne?”

  Rebecca nodded, remembering a big lioness of a girl who was far better to have as a friend rather than foe.

  “She’s expecting. The baby’s due in April. It’s her first, and her husband’s a bit of a dead loss, you know.”

  Letting the comforting sounds of her mum’s voice wash over her as her dad indicated left and pulled up the drive of number 13, Rebecca sighed contentedly. Home sweet home.

  It wasn’t much to look at, the Loughton family home. A house plonked in the middle of its quarter acre of well-tended, handkerchief lawn, it was built in the 1960s. Clad in tired red brick and shaped like a shoebox, it had three bedrooms and a tiled roof. Its selling point was the second bathroom. Dick often congratulated his forward thinking as he tended his dahlias. The best thing they ever did, getting that put in. One wouldn’t call it a pretty house, but it had all the qualities that mattered in a home. It oozed a welcoming warmth, and it was solid and dependable, just like its mainstays, her mum and dad.

  “Come on in, Rebecca love,” her mother urged after unlocking the door and stepping over the threshold into the dark L-shaped hall. Following her in, Rebecca suddenly found herself enveloped in a bear hug. “Welcome home, sweetheart. We’ve missed you.” Pamela blinked back tears.

  “Out the way,” Dick ordered as he staggered in behind them with Rebecca’s cases. “Good grief, my girl. What have you got in these? A man?” He chortled to himself, clearly pleased with his witty joke, but Rebecca wasn’t listening. Something had caught her eye.

  There, still hanging in pride of place right where one couldn’t miss it, was what she’d fondly nicknamed “The Adams Family Portrait.” It depicted the Loughton family as they had been some time in the late 80s. They were modelling matching high-waisted, stonewashed denim jeans. Their jackets (also stonewashed denim) were slung casually over their shoulders. Pamela had insisted they all wear white crew-necked t-shirts—tucked in, of course. The four of them were immortalised forever by the photographer’s soft tones. Even Dad’s hair was big back then. Rebecca grinned, remembering how they’d gone for the sitting, just before Jennifer left home, at their mother’s insistence.

  An awkward teenager at the time, it had been bad enough being seen out in public with her parents and big sister, let alone being made to pose under an autumnal tree in Hagley Park with them. As cringe-worthy as the picture was, it was also comforting to see it again. Spying her daughter smiling up at it, Pamela puffed up with pride. “It’s a real talking
point, our family portrait. I get loads of comments about it, you know.”

  “I’ll just bet you do, Mum.” Rebecca’s tongue was in her cheek.

  True to their word, in no time at all Rebecca was sitting at the informal pine table situated in the corner of what, two decades previous, had been a state-of-the-art kitchen. The mahogany six-seater not so fondly remembered from her childhood now sat gathering dust in the dining room cum living room. Shovelling a piece of cake into her mouth and spraying crumbs everywhere, Rebecca filled her parents in on her flight from hell.

  “Put it behind you, dear. Another piece of cake?”

  She nodded and her mother looked pleased with herself as she sliced off another good-sized wedge. “You always were a good eater.”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. Here we go.

  “Of course, these days, Plunket and the like would probably say you were one of those obese children they’re always talking about. But you know, Rebecca, in my day we liked to see a bit of cushioning on a child. What was it we used to call her, Dick?”

  “The Michelin Man,” Rebecca supplied helpfully, hoping to end the conversation. “Thanks for the memories, Mum. Now can we talk about something else, please?”

  “You were always overly sensitive, too. Look at the way you gave your dancing away at the first little setback.” Pamela huffed, snatching up her daughter’s plate. Her tetchiness, however, was short-lived. “Oh, before I forget, something exciting happened out at the airport while we were waiting for you.”

  Rebecca stopped chewing and looked over at her mother expectantly.

  “We saw a celeb arrive, didn’t we, Dick?” Pamela elbowed her husband sharply, who promptly raised his head from the sports section and nodded his confirmation.

  “Really—who?” Rebecca’s interest was piqued, but her mum needed to ease up on her Woman’s Day consumption, she thought while snatching her plate back.

  “I don’t know who exactly, but she was a celeb because she was wearing a pair of those big black glasses. You know, the ones the stars wear to look incognito?” Seeing her daughter’s sceptical look, Pamela backed this up with, “And she was striding along, looking straight ahead—you know, the way famous people do. Wasn’t she, Dick?”

  He offered a cursory nod.

  “Of course, I was all for going up to her to get an autograph, but Dad wouldn’t let me in case we missed you.” She pulled a face in her husband’s direction.

  “Wise move, Dad,” Rebecca said and a smile of complicity passed between them as he glanced over the top of his newspaper.

  “She was tall and willowy.” Pamela wasn’t letting this go.

  “Anorexic you mean, Mum?”

  “Borderline, like that Beckham lass. Do you know they superimpose a bottom on her in some photos? Imagine that. In fact, I’d have sworn it was her if I hadn’t been reading about her Mediterranean escape in the supermarket queue the other day. Whoever she was, she had on these lovely blue pants. Ideal for travelling because they didn’t have a crease in them.” While her eyes moved pointedly over her own daughter’s rumpled cargoes, Rebecca put two and two together and came up with Melissa.

  “Oh. I didn’t recognise her with the glasses on.” Pamela looked like a balloon that had just gone pop as she listened to this revelation. “Well, I’ll be telling Melissa she needs to be putting a bit of weight on—she’s getting too long in the tooth to be that thin.”

  IT’S LIKE BEING TRANSPORTED straight back to my youth, Rebecca thought while peeling back fresh flannelette sheets from her childhood bed. She’d gone straight from the cot as a toddler into the bed pushed against one wall of her former bedroom. Of course, back then the bed had seemed simply enormous, and she’d refused to go to sleep until she had her menagerie of soft toys stuffed down either side of it to keep her company. Tonight, she reflected ruefully, she’d be doing well if she managed to squeeze the hottie in next to her.

  The walls of her bedroom were covered in the lilac wallpaper she’d been allowed to choose for herself all those years ago. Dangling from the ceiling was the light-shade oh so carefully picked for the way its lilac fringing matched the wallpaper. The inbuilt wardrobe at the end of her bed had, in its time, acted as a busy A&E for her dolls by day and home to the bogeyman by night. Hence, the little pink nightlight plugged into its socket by the door. Pushed up against the wall over by the window on her left was her duchess. The middle drawer with its lock and key had been privy to all her teenage angst. She’d poured it all out onto the pages of a diary and then safely locked it away.

  Rebecca remembered how her dad had scoured the garage sales for that duchess, telling her it would look brand-new by the time he’d finished with it. She felt ashamed now, remembering the strop she’d thrown as she shouted that she didn’t want stinky old second-hand furniture. True to his word, though, Dick had put a coat of glossy white enamel on it for her and the chest of drawers with its oval mirror ended up looking brand-new.

  It was there that Kelly was sitting, perched right where she’d left her with strict instructions to keep a watchful eye over her room. Kelly, named after Jaclyn Smith’s character in Charlie’s Angels, was her buxom Barbie. Seeing her clad in the same red bathing suit she’d been wearing since Christmas ’79, Rebecca felt a tremor of guilt; it was winter, after all.

  Down the hall, she could hear Coronation Street’s muted theme and her mum stampeding in from the kitchen. She pictured her clutching two teas with a biscuit clenched firmly between her teeth. “Where’s mine?” Dad would ask, eyeing up the biscuit as she plonked his tea down on the mahogany side table (bought to complement the dining room table) next to his La-Z-Boy.

  “I’ve only two hands and one mouth, Dick. Go and get your own,” Mum would undoubtedly reply, her eyes riveted to the old-fashioned box television.

  Rebecca yanked the duvet up, trying to cover the sudden surge of loneliness she felt at knowing how comfortable her parents were in each other’s company. She spied the small dark outline keeping a lonely vigil atop her duchess and whispered, “You’re lucky, Kel. You don’t have to worry about getting old and being all on your own.” Kelly didn’t respond, so Rebecca assumed she was still in a snit about the haircut she had last given her—who could blame her? It couldn’t have been easy looking like Dyke Barbie for the past twenty years.

  “AUNTIE BECCA...AUNTIE Becca—WAKE UP!” Jack shouted in her ear as Hannah gleefully climbed onto the bed and began using it as a trampoline. Rebecca pulled herself up into a sitting position and, despite still being half-asleep, made a successful grab for her niece, who squealed delightedly.

  “Come here, you little monster. When did you get to be such a big girl? You were just a baby when I last saw you.” Planting a big kiss on the top of her head, she inhaled the scent of Johnson’s No More Tears shampoo and cuddled her tightly. “Ooh, I’ve missed you.”

  Hannah giggled and wriggled away, and Rebecca turned to Jack, who was standing reticently by the side of the bed. Shyly peeping out from under his fringe, he said, “Dad bought me my bike. It’s a 50cc four stroke.”

  Jennifer, who’d plonked herself down at the foot of the bed, mouthed, “Motocross.”

  Rebecca nodded. So her nephew was still mad keen on dirt bikes. Good, that meant he should like the Honda Race Rig she’d picked up for him. “Jack, open that big suitcase over there and you’ll find two little surprises in it.” He didn’t need her to ask twice, and a moment later, there were shrieks of excitement as the new truck was revealed. Next came the Village Sweet Shop she’d bought for Hannah to add to her Sylvanian Families collection.

  Smiling at the children’s excitement, Rebecca took a moment to study them. At seven years old, Jack had lively brown eyes and an unruly shock of brown hair so dark that it bordered on being black. He was turning into a mini-me of his dad, only much cuter of course. Turning her attention to Hannah, while she might be Jack’s sister, they were like chalk and cheese in the looks department. Even at the tender age of three, it w
as obvious she was going to be a beauty in the blue-eyed blonde category belonging to her mum.

  “Hanny goes to school,” Rebecca’s niece announced proudly, trying to tear the cardboard packaging of her new toy open.

  “You do not!” Jack glanced up from where he was ramming his new truck into the side of his auntie’s suitcase.

  “You go to a preschool, don’t you, Hannah?” Rebecca mediated as a voice floated down the hallway.

  “Jack, Hannah—come and see what Nana’s got for you.”

  Picking up their new toys, they both clattered out of the room.

  “Good flight, sis?” Jennifer got up and pulled the curtains open, letting the winter sun stream into the room. The rays bathed Jennifer in its weak light, making her look like an angel. As usual, she was immaculate in a military-style jacket with three-quarter length culottes and soft leather boots. Her sister didn’t do casual nor cheap, Rebecca noted, taking in her chic ponytail and carefully made-up face that belied her years. She did look pale, though, despite the war paint.

  “That sun’s way too bright.” Rebecca squinted away the light. “And no, since you’re asking, it was not a good flight but I can’t face talking about it until I’ve had a coffee.”

  Jennifer’s grin didn’t quite reach her eyes as she perched back down on the end of the bed. “Just as well Mum’s made a pot of plunger especially for you then.” Since this didn’t have the desired effect of seeing her toss the duvet aside and leap out of bed, Jennifer further tempted, “And she’s talking fry-ups.” That did the trick.

  Moments later as she shrugged into her dressing gown, a thought suddenly occurred to Rebecca, and she called out to Jennifer, who was already halfway down the hall. “Hey, is Mucky Mark here with you?”