Mum leant over, took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I know you will, Patrick.’
‘I’m sorry, Paige,’ Dad said to me, then put his head in his hands for a few moments. I wasn’t sure which was more shocking, seeing my father behave like this or the fact that we’d be leaving London and the house where we’d lived all my life to live in some unfamiliar place in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t seen much of Bath when we had been there, only the area where Aunt Karen lived, and it looked really boring. London was the place to be, everyone knew that. London was my place to be.
It. Could. Not. Be. Happening.
‘But you must have some money somewhere,’ I said.
‘Not any more,’ said Mum.
‘Can’t you borrow some from a bank?’
‘I wish it was that easy,’ said Dad.
Mum took a deep breath and sat up straight. ‘Come on. Let’s remember who we are. We’re the Lord family. We’re survivors. We’ll get through this. Life’s a rollercoaster, up and down we go. We’re going down for a while but things will turn around and we’ll be going up again before you know it.’
Dad sat up straight too. ‘Course we will,’ he said. ‘Things will turn around but, in the meantime, you’ll have to be a brave girl, Paige. I need you to be strong and not be too upset about the changes coming. Change is part of life and you have to embrace it and go with it or it will destroy you.’
I got the feeling he was talking to himself as well as me. But it couldn’t really be happening. Something would make things all right. We couldn’t have lost everything. Things like this didn’t happen to people like us.
Mum stood up. ‘Would you like a hot drink now, Paige?’ she asked.
As if that will make everything all right, I thought, but I nodded anyway. I felt stunned by their news.
Dad got up and left the room.
As I sat there, trying to take in the enormity of what they had just told me, I felt cold. So, not divorce. No. This was much, much worse.
Chapter Three
I awoke the next day in my queen-size bed. My room had been decorated last year – a soft lavender colour with mauve velvet curtains and bedspread. My dressing table and stool were over by the window, a bookshelf packed with my favourite books by my desk on the other side, and opposite my bed was a wall-to-wall wardrobe. It looked fab, everything in its place. The curtains weren’t fully drawn, the sun was pouring in and, for a moment, everything seemed normal, safe and cosy. A lovely spring Saturday morning and I could have a lie-in. As I snuggled down under the covers, my mobile beeped that I had a message.
It was from Allegra. You OK?
The conversation with Mum and Dad yesterday evening came flooding back. For a brief second it had seemed like a bad dream but the reality soon hit me. I’d called Allegra the moment I’d got upstairs last night and, like me, she couldn’t believe it. I’d also found it hard to admit the whole truth to her. I felt a whole mix of emotions: embarrassed at our situation, sad, sorry and ashamed. Like Mum had done last night, instead of stating the fact that we are now poor, I found myself using her more diplomatic words – our circumstances have changed, it’s a temporary measure.
It felt weird. I’d always told Allegra everything and part of me wanted to wail down the phone. This. Can’t. Be. Happening. But another part of me had gone into shock and couldn’t let any real feeling out until I made more sense of it all in my head. Not that Allegra is snooty about money or anything, or at least I don’t think she is, but then I’d never been in this situation before. I had a privileged life, as did everyone in my school. I quickly texted her back that I’d speak to her later, then I got up, put on my dressing gown and headed downstairs.
Mum was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in the kitchen. She looked up as I walked in.
‘How are you, love?’ she asked, her concern for me showing on her face.
I slumped down opposite. ‘It’s a lot to take in. Being told that my . . . I mean our whole world has changed and yet here we are, sun shining into our top-of-the-range kitchen, us sitting at the table like nothing’s happened. I can’t get my head around it.’
She nodded. ‘I know. It must be hard for you. Your dad and I have lived with it a bit longer and, although that doesn’t make it easier, we’ve had some time to adjust. Both of us feel really bad about having to take you out of school on top of everything else.’
‘Why do we have to go so soon?’
‘It’s not really soon. Things have been difficult for months but came to a head recently. Your father didn’t want to say anything before, not until he’d explored every avenue to get us out of this mess, in case some miracle happened, but it didn’t and it seems there is no way out. As you know your dad’s already spoken to your headmaster—’
‘About the fees?’
‘And you leaving, so you . . . you don’t have to go back at all if you don’t want. You’d have been breaking up next week for the Easter holidays anyway.’
‘Not go back at all? Why not? I’ll want to say goodbye to everyone. Oh . . . but what will I tell them?’ I remembered my conversation with Allegra.
Mum looked at me tenderly. ‘It could be awkward for you,’ she said.
‘But I’ll have to tell Mr Collins that I can’t play Juliet after all. He’ll have to give the part to someone else.’ Mia Jeffrey probably, I thought and an image of her with Alex flashed through my mind. So not fair.
Mum sighed. ‘Oh Paige, you got the part.’
‘I told you last night.’
‘Did you?’ Mum’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I didn’t take it in. Believe me, both your father and I had been dreading telling you what’s happened. I do feel we’ve let you down so badly. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, and if there was anything I could have done, you know I would.’ She sniffed back tears, got up to go to the sink and looked out the window so I wouldn’t see her face.
Seeing Mum upset made me realise that this wasn’t just about me. ‘Maybe we can come back here some time,’ I said. ‘When Dad’s sorted it all out.’
‘Unlikely,’ she said without turning around. ‘But never say never, hey?’
The following weeks were a blur of sorting, packing and trying to accept that we really were moving. Mum told me more about the school I’d be starting at in Bath after the Easter holidays, though I still didn’t want to hear or believe it. I was amazed that Dad and her had sorted it so quickly but it seemed that, unbeknown to me, so many arrangements had been going on behind the scenes for a few months.
Allegra was round every day before we left, or I went over to her place. She had soon grasped what was really going on. We talked it over again and again and she was totally cool about the fact that we didn’t have any money any more. ‘Happens to loads of people,’ she said. ‘I bet your dad will get it together again.’ I wasn’t so sure. He went about the place like a robot and looked even more in shock than I was. Allegra asked her mum if I could go and live with them but my mum wouldn’t hear of it. She looked so sad when I put the idea to her that I didn’t pursue it. Allegra and I swore we’d be friends forever though, and would Skype and text daily as we had always done.
I did go into school again but only for a few days to get my things and talk to a few teachers about various projects I hadn’t finished. They were all very kind, which made it worse and made me want to just leave. I knew I had no option and there didn’t seem to be any point in prolonging the agony, that part of my life was over. Also, I dreaded seeing Alex and knowing what could have been but now would never be. However, as luck would have it, I bumped into him on my last day when he was coming out of the canteen and Allegra and I were walking along the corridor.
‘Hey, Paige,’ he said when he saw me.
I blushed and felt flattered that he’d remembered my name. ‘Oh. Hi, I mean hey,’ I managed to get out.
‘I hear you’re leaving?’
I nodded and desperately wished I could think of something witty or interesting to
say, but looking into his eyes made my mind go blank. He had such beautiful grey-green eyes.
‘So we won’t be playing opposite each other after all?’
I shook my head. ‘Nuh.’
He shrugged. ‘Bad timing, hey?’
I nodded. Words seemed to have totally escaped me.
Allegra came to my rescue as always. ‘She’s going to live in Bath,’ she said.
Alex didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘Bath?’
Allegra moved away a distance. ‘I’ll catch you later,’ she said. ‘I’ve er . . . got a thing.’
Over Alex’s shoulder, she turned, grinned and gave me the thumbs-up. Alex continued to look into my eyes.
‘Yes. Bath. Somerset,’ I managed to get out. ‘We go after Easter.’
‘I know Bath. I know it well. Used to live there before we came here and I often go back to see my cousin and mates. You’ll like it. Wow. So soon . . . Well, good luck, Paige.’
‘Uh. Thanks.’ He’s kind to say that I’d like Bath, I thought, though I knew I wouldn’t.
Alex looked reluctant to go and, as he continued to look into my eyes, I felt an ache of longing. He really did have lovely eyes. He smiled down at me. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’ he said, quoting Juliet from the play, then looked at me as if he wanted me to finish the line. I knew it so well but the words wouldn’t come.
‘That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.’ He finished the line for me. We both smiled and it felt as if we were in a bubble, all alone and away from the rest of the world, school and its many pupils rushing by us in the corridor. He continued with another quote from the play, this time one of Romeo’s. ‘Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll descend.’
I suddenly remembered my lines and felt a surge of energy.
‘Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo!’
I put every bit of what I was feeling into the lines and could see he felt it too.
‘Farewell. I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee,’
said Alex, continuing as Romeo. His lines were full of the passion that was fitting for the star-crossed lovers and his eyes twinkled as if he was enjoying our exchange.
‘O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?’
I asked. Alex put his hand on my arm.
‘I doubt it not; and all these woes shall ser
For sweet discourses in our time to come.’
‘O God, I have an ill-divining soul!’
I said with a sigh. I was really getting into the part now, finding it so easy to talk to him with someone else’s words.
‘Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.’
‘And trust me, love, in my eye so do you,’ Alex quoted. ‘Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!’
He reached up and touched my chin, a gesture so gentle and yet it made my heart thud in my chest. Suddenly he grinned. ‘Shame, Paige,’ he said. ‘We’d have been good together.’
I nodded and blushed. We’d have been good together? Did he mean as a couple? Alex and Paige, or acting Romeo and Juliet? I guess I’ll never know now, I thought as he looked away.
‘Take care of yourself,’ he said, then turned, and a second later he was gone.
I stood there in shock and it wasn’t long before Allegra came back to join me.
‘I . . . I just had a moment with Alex. A moment moment. There was chemistry.’
‘I know,’ said Allegra and she grinned. ‘I saw.’
On our last day, I felt as if I was floating. Despite the fact that all around me familiar items had disappeared into boxes and cases, a part of me kept thinking something would happen to make it right, a fairy godmother come to the rescue. If Alex could speak to me and look into my eyes, miracles did happen; but no, the removal men arrived and the last of my safe and secure world was carried out the door by eight men in yellow overalls. Carpets, rugs, sofas and furniture were going in the vans then into a storage warehouse somewhere down the motorway. Mum, Dad and I would be travelling by car and had suitcases with the bare minimum of belongings.
Allegra came to say a final goodbye. ‘I’ll come back to see you soon,’ I said as we stood on the porch at the front of our house.
‘And I’ll come down to Bath as soon as I can,’ she said. ‘I promise.’
I tried to make myself smile but couldn’t hold back the tears. ‘Laters.’
‘Laters,’ said Allegra. She had tears in her eyes too.
We hugged goodbye then it was time for her to go. As I watched her walk away, it felt as if my stomach was full of knives, all cutting into me. Allegra had been my best friend since my first day in Year Seven. Apart from holidays abroad with our families, I’d seen her every day for almost four years. She was part of me and I couldn’t imagine life without her.
When the removal men had closed up the back of their vans and gone, Mum and I went round the empty rooms checking that there was nothing left. It felt eerie and empty and, without the furnishings that had always been there to soften sound, the rooms echoed our footsteps. I was trying my best to be cheerful because, as time had gone on, it had really hit home how hard the move was for Mum and Dad as well as me, and me blubbing wouldn’t help. Mum was still doing her cheerful act but, when we’d done the rounds of the house and she’d shut the front door and locked it, she looked like she was going to cry. Dad went to get the car and Mum and I stood a moment in the front garden. She looked up at the bare windows on the first floor and then her tears did come.
‘I can’t believe I’ll never go in there again, my home,’ she said. ‘Or see my garden, my lovely roses bloom this year.’
I put my arms around her and she hugged me tight.
‘It’s only until we find a place of our own again,’ I said. ‘We’ll be back on our feet in no time.’
The look she gave me broke my heart. A smile that said, ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ But I did.
Dad brought round the car to the front and Mum and I climbed in. It was a Volkswagen Polo. The Porsche and Mercedes had gone weeks ago. I’d noticed that the cars weren’t in their usual spots on the drive but had assumed they were in for service, never imagining for a minute that they’d gone for good, but that was before I knew the truth.
Dad didn’t glance back at the house but Mum and I both looked out the back window as we drove away as if trying to hang on to our life there. I felt brokenhearted. The car turned the corner and the house was gone.
Mum gazed out of the window at the traffic.‘And so life flows on,’ she said as we drove through Richmond towards Kew and out to the M4 where Dad hit the fast lane towards Bath.
A new chapter for all of us, I thought as I tried to push images of Alex Taylor’s face out of my mind. I wonder what it will hold?
Chapter Four
Mystery Boy
‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’
Shakespeare: As You Like It – Act 3, Scene 5.
A girl. A girl in the park. She’s walking her dog – though by the way the dog is pulling on the lead, the dog is walking her. She has chestnut-coloured hair, glossy in today’s sun. She’s wearing jeans and a red jacket. She never notices me, though I’ve seen her around a few times. There’s something about her. The way she moves. A lightness. A grace. A brightness about her face. Sometimes she’s on her phone, sometimes she’s talking to her dog. I wish she’d talk to me. She looks like fun to be with, as if she’d have a lot to say. Seeing her makes me feel alone although I’m not. I know tons of people. I’d like to approach her but I don’t know how, though normally I can talk for England. She makes me feel awkward and dumb. I can’t do it. I feel lik
e I’d babble and blush and look a fool.
My far-away girlfriend. Is she out of my league?
Chapter Five
My brave face lasted about five minutes once we’d got to Aunt Karen’s. Not that Aunt Karen wasn’t friendly – she was and she greeted each of us with a big hug then ushered us inside. She’s four years younger than Mum and they’re like chalk and cheese in looks. Mum is impeccable and slim in her classic designer clothes, usually navy and cream, Aunt Karen is curvier in well-worn jeans, colourful tops and trainers, and her shoulder-length auburn hair is as unruly as Mum’s blonde bob is tamed. Uncle Mike was dressed in a similar casual style in jeans and a red fleece.
My four cousins, Tasmin, Jake, Joe and Simon, were squashed on a sofa watching TV. Uncle Mike had tea and biscuits ready for us. I smiled at Tasmin and she gave me a brief nod by way of reply – a greeting of sorts, but not very friendly considering I’ve known her most of my life and we’d always got on. I hadn’t seen her since a family wedding a few years ago. She was fresh-faced and chatty and we’d had fun hanging out with the other teens. Since then, she’s got curvier, sulky-looking and, although the same age as me, she looked about twenty.
The TV programme Snog, Marry or Avoid came into my head as I took in her fake tan, false eyelashes, heavily made-up eyes and the dyed long blonde hair that looked like extensions. The programme shows a before and after beauty treatment where the presenters do a reverse makeover and get girls who overdo the slap to look more like themselves and less like drag artists. Tasmin would really benefit from a more natural look, I thought as Tasmin looked at me with equal dismay. She was dressed in tights, denim shorts, trainers and a tight red top. I guess I looked super-straight to her in my white shirt and jeans, hair tied back and no make-up apart from a touch of mascara and lip gloss. Mum had drummed it into me that less is more when it comes to make-up.
Playlist for a Broken Heart Page 2
