by Judy May
Shouldn’t have written about biscuits, now I’m hungry.
DAY TWENTY
Today was a day off for everyone except the security guards, which gave the place an abandoned look after the hordes of the last few days. I was determined to get up and out to the little cottage for a snoop around, but was prevented by three things.
One: Exhaustion, I didn’t wake until nine.
Two: Pancakes, blueberry, too delicious to rush especially as it was only me, Ro and Paul in the dining room staring quietly and comfortably into nothing but maple syrup and recovering from the madness of recent days.
Three: My own mother, who showed up to take me into town, thus reminding me about the whole morning at the wall, which now makes me laugh when I think of it.
It’s fantastic news, she has decided that I am allowed to join the twenty-first century after all and have a shot at an actual normal life. While writing this I have been blinking four times more than usual thanks to the brand new contact lenses in my eyes. Luckily mine is a straightforward prescription. I think Miss Higgins had a word with her when she phoned to make sure myself and Paul hadn’t become complete delinquents yet.
The lenses are great, but this was so mortifying – as soon as we got back to The Grange Mum got talking to Professor Brown and they both had this great idea of having Stephen show me how to look after my lenses. I explained that the woman in the opticians had already taken me through it, but they insisted, and a rather confused-looking Stephen ended up going up the attic stairs with me towards the bathrooms.
He suddenly turned around and said, ‘Lemony, this is just our parents being weird, right? You don’t need me to show you this, do you?’
‘No, I know what to do, it’s not exactly rocket science.’
‘Good’, he said, ‘I want to show you something.’
And with that he started bounding down the stairs to the library.
Over the fireplace hangs a large, old family portrait, which I’d seen a dozen times, but hadn’t wondered about.
‘That’s her, the woman who wore the diamond necklace and spoke in tongues,’ Stephen said, pointing to the woman in the red dress in the centre. ‘She isn’t wearing the necklace, of course, she sat for the painting later in her life.’
Around her were gathered other men and women each holding something like a fan, a book, a hunting rifle, as Stephen explained, an object of value or significance to them. Only that lady sat with her arms empty. It was strange because although her hands were folded in her lap, they seemed to be pointing towards something, as if her index finger was made of wood or she wanted the painter to notice someone who’d walked into the room.
‘The other night I mentioned to my father that I’d told you all the story of the lady of the necklace,’ Stephen continued, ‘And he asked me if I knew that this was her. It’s funny how I’ve known the story and the painting since I was small and never put the two together. And I now I desperately want to know …’
‘… what is she pointing to and where is the necklace?’ I finished for him.
‘Exactly,’ he grinned, ‘I knew you’d understand.’
What I do not understand is how a sixteen-year-old guy can refer to his dad as his ‘father’, but hey.
Just then Ro bounced into the room, which was weird as she hasn’t spent any time in the library as far as I know, closely followed by Paul, which wasn’t so weird giving his current affliction. Instead of being pleased to see me Ro headed straight for Stephen and demanded to be told what was going on.
‘He was just showing me the painting of the lady with the necklace,’ I blurted.
But she didn’t mean what was going on with me and Stephen being there, she was talking about what the security guards had told her.
‘I just spoke with Security, and they say they’re not allowed to tell, but that you might know something. Stephen! You know I’ll find out so you might as well tell me now,’ Ro used her dog-training tone which made Stephen stare at her with a mixture of amusement and concern, as if she was some chainsaw-wielding child.
Stephen motioned for us to sit on the large leather chairs as he stood at the fireplace to surrender his story.
‘There have been several break-ins during the past few days, not just the one in the actor’s trailer. This library, the utility room and my father’s office have been searched. Nothing was taken, but the locks were tampered with and a window in one of the kitchens was broken.’
‘I knew it!’ said Ro.
He then looked at us for an age on the edge of his next sentence, finally deciding to let it out.
‘I think they’re looking for the diamond necklace, whoever “they” might be.’
‘How can they be looking for the necklace if we’re the only ones who know about it?’ Ro asked, and it seemed a sensible question.
Twice in my life my brother has surprised me, once when he confessed his love for Ro and again when he said, ‘The script for the film is partly based on the story, so the rumour has been about for weeks.’
We never even saw a script, in fact I totally forgot that there might be one.
‘And it wouldn’t be difficult to research it,’ Stephen added, ‘In fact many people in the film industry realise that the story of the necklace is why Alex’s dad was interested in filming at The Grange in the first place.’
It seemed like a good time to share my middle-of-the-night adventure with the blonde woman and the man the night before the crew arrived with them, and we began to discuss it from all possible angles. It must have been hours, but it seemed like only minutes before Miss Higgins came to call us to join the others for dinner in the kitchen. They were all talking about Nick and Fraser, and laughing about their own attempts at dancing in the ballroom scenes, while the four of us stayed lost in our hopes of finding a clue that might shed some light on things. Ro hardly ate a thing and stared out into the middle distance. Yeah. It’s all gone a bit Sherlock Holmes around here, but that’s not a bad thing I suppose.
Mental as it may be, I do believe that if the necklace is taken off the grounds this place won’t survive.
DAY TWENTY-ONE
News of the day – the lead actress is sick with the flu (or maybe she has her own Nick and Donna thing that needs to be avoided!) so they are filming in another location with a reduced crew and hope to start back here again in a couple of days.
Lorna, Alice, and Gussy have gone home until then, and Alex has a room in the hotel suite with his dad. So that leaves only me and Ro in one room and Stephen and Paul in the other. Which suits me perfectly as I have a lot of catching up to do with Ro, and the only guy who is not my brother is completely harmless so I won’t have to watch what I look like. In fact today I’m wearing jeans, one of Lorna’s sweaters which looks as odd on me as it would on her if she ever wore it, and my glasses again as I’m not supposed to wear my lenses for long until my eyes get used to them. In short, I look as scruffy today as I’ve been looking elegant on set. I am definitely having a ‘before picture’ day.
Paul and Ro had a competition at breakfast to see who could eat kippers in the most creative way. Paul won, but I won’t write how he did it in case someone finds this and tries to copy him and dies.
The rest of breakfast was quite civilised if you don’t count the number of waffles I put away. Nothing could be said with Miss Higgins around, not that she’d be one to climb in a smashed kitchen window at three in the morning, but you just never can tell.
The library seemed to be the obvious place to start, and the back of the painting the most obvious place to look. While we were busy being obvious Paul actually said, ‘I wonder if we’ll solve the mystery and save the day.’
He sang the Scooby Doo music until Ro asked him to stop. Now that really worried me, the fact that she asked him, I mean when did she stop thumping him over things?
The picture wouldn’t budge, in fact we discovered it was nailed tight to the wall. On examining the edges it became clear that it mus
t have been that way for years, the layers of paint coming just up to the frame.
Stephen was the only one of us not to be disappointed.
‘Don’t you see? This means that it was fixed there centuries ago and must be pointing to something in this room.’
Right at that moment Ro was standing in the path of the pointing finger and laughed, ‘Don’t stitch me up, pointy lady!
But when she moved it was clear that portrait was indicating towards a waist-high, bronze statue of a young man wearing a short tunic.
Stephen stepped forward and checked around it.
‘I know for a fact that this statue doesn’t move from its base, so it must have been fixed in that position. It’s the reason we have rugs in here instead of carpets.’
There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about the statue.
‘Who is it supposed to be anyway?’ asked Paul, disappointed. ‘He looks a little under-dressed to be a Brown.’
‘Theseus,’ said Stephen staring hard, as if the statue would start to whisper its secrets if we wanted it enough.
‘Who’s Theseus?’ asked Ro.
‘A Greek hero who proved himself by lifting a huge, enormous boulder when he was sixteen.’ I explained.
‘God, that is such a guy move,’ she grinned.
‘Lifted a boulder … maybe … Got any large rocks lying about the place, Stephen?’ For the first time since discovering the painting was fixed, Paul seemed to wake up and care about more than simply standing a bit too close to Ro.
‘Yes,’ something was dawning on Stephen, ‘Yes, there’s a huge boulder near the orchard now that you mention it. I used to sit on it to read The Iliad when I was younger.’
‘The Iliad? Too much information, Stevey Babe,’ Paul shook his head in mock angst and led the way out the door.
Unfortunately it had begun to pour with rain, the kind of rain that you couldn’t stand up in, the kind that would make you think of donating money to a flood charity, just in case. So we stayed in.
Paul decided to teach Ro to play chess, which is as dangerous as teaching anyone else to drive. I left the sitting room when the second rook went sailing past my head. I came up here to the library to write this and was surprised to find Stephen here as usually the place is all mine. He’s had his head buried in several large reference books and doesn’t look set to join the real world again any time soon. I think he’s forgotten I’m here.
LATER
Or not. That was so weird, as soon as I wrote that last sentence he looked up and said, ‘Lemony, I think I’ve found something. Tell me what you notice about this.’
The book was ancient and the size of a small coffee table, and was an illustrated history of The Grange. It had plans and blueprints and whatever from the first hundred years of the house. I wished I’d put my contacts in (as if they would make me see things that my head was too slow to notice).
‘Is the little cottage missing? Or did it used to be round like that?’ I guessed.
‘I think that round thing is the boulder – look there’s no boulder where it is today … my guess is that the boulder was moved and the cottage built on the exact spot where it used to be. Which means the necklace could be hidden in the cottage.’
That’s one cool thing about Stephen, I actually sometimes have to put in a bit of an effort to keep up.
‘Stephen, if this is true then someone else is onto it! Remember we couldn’t open the cottage door because someone had made a lock with a six-inch nail.’
I stopped just long enough to throw this under a chair as Stephen and I both raced for the door and outside into the rain, which had gone from being outrageous to just unkind. I don’t know why we didn’t stop for coats or an umbrella, it wasn’t as if the cottage was going anywhere, or as if our adventure involved a kidnapped toddler in need of urgent meds.
We were soaked through by the time we rounded the rose garden and reached the cottage door. Stephen was a man on a mission; he grabbed a huge stone and kept bashing at the nail until it gave. Then he pushed and shoved to open the door, as there were planks of wood, a wheelbarrow and a broken chair just inside it. Once we were standing inside the cottage – me upright with my head an inch shy of the ceiling, and Stephen stooping slightly – we laughed at how we were drenched through.
The obvious thing to do was to start searching, hoping there would be something to find.
I’m not sure if it was ten minutes later or a lot longer, and I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but I somehow managed to loosen a high shelf while looking under a tin of paint. In a split second it became a missile, flying sideways off the wall, weighted with half-full tins of paint and carpentry tools, which began falling in all directions. Stephen was lifting something and turned just in time to be hit across the head with the corner of the shelf; as he fell to the floor, several heavy tins and a hammer crashed down onto his chest. I screamed, but he was totally silent. I pushed the debris away from him, tripping over myself with apologies until the sight of the blood dripping from his head made me realise I had to run for help.
As I turned to go he called out. He wouldn’t let me leave, and wanted me to stay and help him stand. It took a minute or two, but as soon as he could get up he leaned against me for support and we hobbled back out into the rain. He was swaying and the blood was dripping and dissolving in the puddles as we made our way along the path. I remember saying over and over how sorry I was and he kept wincing and gasping that it would all be all right. Such painfully slow progress. He felt more of the pain and I felt more of the slowness, but eventually we got to the house. By now he was a strange, pale-grey colour and I was so panicked that I’d started to cry. He closed his eyes as he slumped down on the first couch in the smaller sitting room and I ran up to the Professor’s office yelling for help all the way.
Soon everyone was around, bending over Stephen, getting me to breathe and calm down, shouting to get a doctor, running for towels and something to stop the bleeding from Stephen’s head.
I couldn’t even see at that point as my glasses had fallen off at some stage, and I was crying so hard I couldn’t explain what had happened. I just remember them saying, ‘He’s fine’ to me over and over, and saying, ‘She’s fine’ to Stephen who obviously never knew me to be capable of having such a complete nervous breakdown and was probably concerned that if I lost any more of the plot I might end up knocking down a chandelier or two and levelling The Grange.
I am writing this from bed since the doctor insisted I rest too, but thought that a cold from the wet clothes was my only danger (I managed to sneak back to the library to fetch this while everyone else was having dinner). Someone went and found my glasses when I was with the doctor, so at least I can see to write.
Stephen had a mild concussion, bruising to his chest, and a head wound that needed four stitches. He is asleep in the room next door and probably won’t be waking up until he’s twenty and I am long gone from here. Everyone keeps saying it wasn’t my fault, but it was, and now he won’t be in the film anymore and we’ll never find out about the break-ins or the necklace. It feels like the curse of the necklace is coming true piece by piece.
This is way beyond the kind of thing that three biscuits and a cup of tea could solve. I usually only ruin dinner, or my chances with Nick, or a joke, or maybe my own reputation as a normal person. This time I have gone and ruined EVERYTHING.
DAY TWENTY-TWO
I woke really late this morning feeling a bit wobbly, and I couldn’t face Stephen. I was thinking about moving home, but Professor Brown said that my moving out would make his son feel far worse than a bang on the head would ever do. I told Ro and Paul about what we’d been up to and their take on it was that if Stephen had been there alone the shelf might have fallen anyway, so it was lucky I was there to help. The logic in that is slightly twisted in my favour, but it was lovely of them to want me to feel happier.
Paul said that Stephen slept through the night and Ro visited him after break
fast. Apparently he wants to see me, but I can’t face him, so I’m going to write him a note and send it in when Miss Higgins brings his lunch.
TWO HOURS LATER
My note to Stephen read:
Dear Mr Brown,
I can only suppose that neither my glasses nor my rude manners were good enough weapons of destruction over the past few days hence my having to resort to the old ‘shelf trick’. No doubt I will manage to finish you off completely if I actually ever make you a cup of tea instead of just fetching one. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cover it. Please let me give you my brother Paul by way of compensation. Really, keep him.
Yours generously,
Miss Lemony Smith.
I also got the reference books from the library, the one with all the plans of The Grange and the others he had piled there, and asked Miss Higgins to deliver those to him.
Miss Higgins came back with a note from him in return that simply said,
Get in here!
I had to assume either the bump on the head had turned him simple or he really wanted to talk to me in a hurry. I knocked nervously on the bedroom door and went in to find him sitting up in bed wearing the kind of traditional blue-striped PJs that I would have expected, a large bandage around his head and his glasses sitting gingerly on his face. He was smiling at me.
‘Did you actually make a plan to ruin my life or is all this sort of accidental?’ he said.
‘Half and half,’ I shrugged miserably.
He insisted I share his lunch, and because Miss Higgins had provided enough food to explode even a guy’s stomach, I thought it would help him if I ate part of the pasta mountain on the tray in front of him. Luckily I’d been too ‘off’ to eat breakfast so I was very helpful indeed.
