Scarlett

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘I should have told you,’ I say ‘I’m sorry. I was going to, but then you saw the scarf and I thought it didn’t matter any more.’

  Kian sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter, Scarlett,’ he says. ‘At least I know they were here, they were looking.’

  ‘Looks like we’re both in trouble,’ I say heavily. ‘I can’t stay here any more. I messed up at Dad’s, hurt Holly.’

  ‘You hurt her?’ Kian repeats.

  ‘It was an accident, but yeah, it was my fault,’ I say. ‘They know what I’m like now. I’m trouble, I’m hopeless. It’s time to move on.’

  Kian stares into the fire, his face highlighted in the dull red glow. I guess this is the bit where I want him to suggest we run away together, away from the dark-haired men, away from Dad and Clare and Holly. We could ride Midnight up into the hills, find a ruined cottage and live there in secret – just us, no school, no adults, no hassle.

  ‘Scarlett, you’re not going anywhere,’ Kian says. ‘You just made a mistake. They’ll forgive you – they’ll get over it.’

  ‘They won’t,’ I say in a small voice. ‘I’ve let them down.’

  ‘You would if you ran away,’ Kian says.

  The injustice of this hits me like a slap. ‘It’s OK for you, though, isn’t it?’ I fling at him. ‘To run away? To let people down? Your dad and your uncle, they were looking for you. This wasn’t the first place they looked and it won’t be the last, either. They were sad – your dad especially. They wanted to find you. So don’t preach at me about running away! You did it yourself!’

  Kian looks at me, his face shadowed. ‘I did, I know, but you don’t know the reason for it,’ he says. ‘It’s a good reason, OK? Not just some family squabble that could be patched up if you’d just grow up and sit tight and accept that you were wrong.’

  ‘It’s not like that!’ I splutter.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  I’m so angry I’d like to slap his face, thump my fists against his skinny chest, spit on his shoes. Instead, I take a big breath in and count to ten, but that doesn’t even start to cut it, and I’m at eighty-seven before I feel his hand snake round mine in the dark.

  ‘I thought you’d understand,’ I whisper.

  ‘I do understand,’ he says. ‘I know that running away is a bad idea. It’s the worst, OK? Look, Scarlett, something happened – something I just can’t talk about. It’s been eating me up, and I ran away, came here, trying to get my head straight. I know how much I’ve hurt my family, worried them. And I know I have to go back.’

  ‘Go back?’ I panic. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Scarlett, I wouldn’t have stayed this long if it hadn’t been for you,’ Kian says.

  We sit in the dark for a long time in silence, holding hands, until the fire dies down to softly glowing embers.

  ‘We have to do this, even though it’s tough,’ Kian says. ‘I have to go back, and you have to stay here, face up to what you did, make your family see that you’re sorry.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can, Scarlett,’ Kian tells me. ‘You’re strong. You’ve made mistakes, sure, but running away would be the biggest one of all, I promise.’

  Later, we ride back through the woods and along the lane, Kian’s arms round me, our hands muddled up together in Midnight’s mane.

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ I whisper. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘I have to,’ Kian sighs.

  ‘Just a few more days? Please?’ I beg. ‘You haven’t finished the hayricks, yet, you said…’

  ‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘I really need to find my dad and uncle. It’s important.’

  ‘I know, of course,’ I tell him. ‘But just a day or two? To say goodbye?’

  Kian is silent for a long time, and then he speaks softly, quietly, into my hair. ‘Just a day or two then. OK?’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  We’ve reached the cottage gate with Holly’s handpainted sign advertizing eggs and strawberries and lettuce. I slip down from Midnight’s back and turn towards the house. The curtain in Holly’s room twitches slightly.

  ‘I’ll do the hayricks first thing,’ he tells me. ‘Meet you at the lough at one o’clock? At least we can say goodbye.’

  I nod in the darkness, glad he can’t see my stricken face, then turn away quickly as he turns Midnight round, back towards the lough. I sneak round the side of the cottage, slip in through the back door, creep up the stairs. As I cross the landing, I hear Holly’s door shut softly, see the light click off from inside.

  I knock softly on her door, turn the handle, go inside. She’s pretending to sleep, her face pale against the gloom, the quilt drawn up to her chin. I bend down to touch her cheek and she sits up, throwing her arms round me, hugging me so tightly I can hardly breathe.

  ‘Oh, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘I thought you’d gone.’

  In the morning, Dad takes Holly into Galway to the dentist. There’s some dispute over whether she’s well enough, but I get the feeling Dad wants to keep her out of my way. The heat is already stifling outside, but things are feeling distinctly frosty between Dad, Clare and me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say again.

  ‘S’OK.’ Holly grins. ‘I’ve changed my mind, anyhow. I don’t want a piercing any more.’

  ‘Bit late for that,’ Dad huffs. ‘Thanks to Scarlett.’

  I am sorry, though. Sorry enough to take Kian’s advice and come back, sorry enough to hang around and watch the icicles form around me as Dad flashes me a reproachful look and Clare eyes me warily, as though I might start hacking the kitchen to bits with the bread knife at any moment.

  Dad and Holly head off in the Morris Traveller. They’re making soap deliveries to craft shops in Galway too, and Dad has a meeting with a business that makes rag dolls from organic wool and cotton, and wants a handknitted website to match. They’ll be away all day.

  ‘I’ll be in the workshop if you need me,’ Clare says curtly. There’s no warmth, no sympathy in her voice, just a quiver of hurt, confusion. I know I put that there, and it makes me feel bad.

  There’s more than one way to say sorry, though. I get out the mixing bowl and make a batch of fairy cakes, icing the tops with buttercream and decorating them with ripe strawberries from the garden. I do the washing up, mop the kitchen floor, then work for a while on my project folder. It’s so hot now, even inside the cottage, that a trickle of sweat slips down the small of my back.

  What will Kian be doing now? Making hayricks in the scorching heat. It’s not even half ten. I don’t think I can survive till one o’clock.

  I open the fridge and see a jug of Clare’s home-made lemonade tucked away at the back. I pour myself a glass, and, as an afterthought, one for Clare. I add a couple of cubes of ice and take it out to the workshop.

  The smell of crushed strawberries and fresh mint hits me as I open the door, and Clare looks up from a bowl of freshly liquidized fruit. This is her territory, and I’ve been careful to avoid it before today; my eyes flick around the room, taking in shelves stacked with pans, jars of mysterious powders, oils and granules. In the corner, a big pan filled with molten soap is cooling.

  ‘Lemonade?’ I say shyly, setting the drink down on the table. ‘It’s so hot, I thought you’d need something.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Clare says, taking a long drink. ‘That was thoughtful.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  Clare looks startled, then faintly horrified. I have never offered to help her with the soap before. She frowns, then shrugs and chucks me an apron. ‘Why not?’ she says. ‘You can grease the moulds for me – it’s like greasing a cake tin.’

  I set to work while Clare gives the fruit and mint a final whizz. She finishes off her lemonade, puts on rubber gloves and goggles and weighs out a heap of white granules.

  ‘This is caustic soda, pretty strong stuff,’ Clare says. ‘Open that window as wide as it’ll go, would you? And stay over there.’

  �
��Why, what happens?’

  Clare ties a scarf over her nose and mouth so that she looks like a pregnant bank robber, then tips the granules into the fruity liquid. A cloud of fumes rise up from the mixture, prickling my nose.

  ‘You can’t put stuff like that in soap,’ I protest. ‘It’d burn the face off you!’

  Clare shakes her head and the scarf slips down round her neck. ‘Ah, but when we blend this into the vegetable fat mixture, there’s a chemical reaction. The soda gets neutralized – it disappears, if you like.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it was so complicated,’ I say, impressed.

  ‘Ah, it’s a real mad professor’s laboratory in here,’ Clare says.

  She pours the strawberry and mint into the cauldron of soap, and starts stirring. ‘It’ll take a while to reach trace point,’ she tells me. ‘Meanwhile we can take this little lot out of its moulds…’

  She chucks me a pair of rubber gloves and I set to work turning out slabs of what looks and smells like coconut ice – the soap has been layered with white on the bottom and pink on top. Clare trims each slab and cuts it neatly into squares with a cheese slice, for me to stack and cover with a blanket to ‘cure’.

  ‘I don’t like this weather,’ Clare frowns. ‘It’s really close and sticky, even with the window open. I feel like I’ve done a whole day’s work already. I think there’ll be thunder, later.’

  I give the strawberry mixture a stir. ‘Hope not,’ I say. ‘I wanted to go down to the lough.’

  ‘You love that lough, don’t you?’ Clare says. ‘I have to admit, you’ve worked really hard on that project of yours, even in the school holidays. That’s something to be proud of.’

  Would she still think that if she knew the real reason I love being by the lough? So I can hang out with a runaway boy a bad boy a boy I’m going to miss like crazy Nope, she’d think I was bad beyond hope.

  ‘Clare, I’m sorry about what happened with Holly,’ I say into the silence. ‘Really sorry. OK?’

  ‘I know that, Scarlett,’ she says softly. ‘OK. That’s trace point for the soap – time to add the colouring and fragrance.’

  I stir in diluted red colouring and watch the soap change from speckled pink to deep, vivid red. Next, I measure out strawberry and peppermint oil, mix it up and stand back as Clare ladles the liquid soap into the moulds. A film of sweat glistens on her brow and she catches her lip as she dips and pours the mixture. She is almost eight months’ pregnant, and she shouldn’t be doing this, not in this heat.

  ‘Let’s call it a day,’ I suggest when the last mould has been filled and the cauldron, ladle and measuring jug have been set to soak in the sink. ‘It’s way too hot to work.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Clare says uncertainly.

  Outside the window, the first crash of thunder booms out across the valley.

  The rain starts then, slowly at first, big drops of rain that spatter my hand as I reach out to pull the window closed. By the time Clare has tidied the workbench, it’s pelting down, hammering against the workshop’s tin roof.

  ‘This has been threatening all week,’ Clare says, draping blankets over the freshly poured trays of soap. ‘At least the storm will clear the air.’

  I frown. ‘I hope Dad and Holly are OK in Galway.’

  ‘Might not even be raining there,’ Clare says. ‘The valley has much more dramatic weather than the rest of the area, because of the lough and the mountains. We get these storms sometimes. It’s not really surprising after all that hot weather – should have known it wouldn’t last!’

  We pull the door shut behind us and run across the grass to the house. The rain lashes us with icy fingers, pelting our hair, running down our bare arms in tiny rivulets. By the time we get inside, we’re drenched. Clare chucks me a towel and I rub at my hair, heading upstairs to change. I pick out a black top and a short, red, wraparound skirt. When I come back down, Clare has the patchwork cot quilt spread out over her knees and a bag of scrap fabric spilt out across the table. Two more lemonades sit side by side next to the scrap-bag.

  ‘Thanks, Clare.’

  I pick up my drink and drift over to the window. The rain is sluicing down so fast I can barely see out – my plans to spend the afternoon by the lough with Kian are not looking good. A new crash of thunder makes me step back from the window.

  ‘It’s getting closer,’ I say. ‘I hope the chickens will be OK.’

  ‘They’ve coped with worse than this,’ Clare tells me. ‘They won’t like it, of course, but these storms never last too long. Don’t worry, Scarlett.’

  It’s silly, I know, but I was really scared of thunderstorms when I was a kid. Now I know that there’s nothing really to be scared of, but still, each flash of lightning and crash of thunder twists my insides a little. I sit down at the table, sipping my drink, and open my maths book at a fresh chapter.

  I’ve been staring at the first problem for a whole five minutes when Clare takes the book away and closes it gently.

  ‘Help me, instead,’ she says. ‘It’ll take your mind off things.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I protest.

  ‘I know you are,’ Clare says lightly. ‘It’s just that I could do with some advice. I’ve almost finished this, but it still looks a bit flat and ordinary. It needs something else – I just don’t know what!’

  I spread the quilt out across the table. It’s beautiful – a tiny patchwork of random shapes and colours, overstitched with bright embroidery threads. I can see the pale blue stripes of Holly’s outgrown school dress, a washed-out scrap of denim from an old pair of Dad’s jeans, a pastel floral print that has to be cut from something of Clare’s. Bits and pieces of their lives are stitched into this quilt, pieced together to make the new baby warm and welcome.

  ‘It needs more colour,’ Clare says decisively. ‘Something strong and vivid to frame the paler scraps. A border – red maybe?’

  The thunder booms again outside, rattling the windowpanes.

  ‘I – I’d like to put something into the quilt,’ I say softly. ‘I know I’m not a proper sister, but…’

  ‘Scarlett, you are!’ Clare exclaims. ‘You’re going to be this baby’s half-sister, exactly like Holly. I’d love you to contribute something to the quilt. I’ve wanted to ask you a hundred times, but I was scared you’d say no…’

  ‘I would have said no,’ I admit. ‘I didn’t want to be part of this family, or part of this project, not to start with. But – well, I feel differently now. It’s not too late, is it?’

  Clare puts a hand out to touch my cheek. ‘It’s not too late at all,’ she says. ‘How could it be? Thank you, Scarlett.’

  ‘You could have a bit of this,’ I say, pulling at my red skirt. ‘Or maybe my burgundy combats? What d’you think?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Clare says. ‘You can’t cut them up, it’d be such a waste!’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t have any old clothes with me, though.’

  ‘Unless… Well, there’s the stuff in the attic,’ Clare says.

  The thunder crashes again, and the kitchen light flickers slightly and then steadies. ‘What stuff in the attic?’ I ask. ‘There’s nothing of mine up there.’

  Clare hesitates, biting her lip. She can’t quite meet my eye.

  ‘Clare?’

  ‘Actually, there is,’ she says at last. ‘Sacks and sacks of stuff that your Dad’s kept hold of for years, since you moved out of the house in Islington. I think he was supposed to be taking it to the charity shop, but he made the mistake of looking in the bin bags, and he just couldn’t bear to part with it.’

  My head is spinning. What was in those bin bags, all that time ago? Toys, clothes, books – bits and pieces of my childhood. When Dad left, I threw out everything I could from the old days. Getting rid of the memories wasn’t so easy…

  ‘He kept it all?’ I ask. ‘Everything?’

  ‘I think so,’ Clare tells me. ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett. He should have told you.’

  The lights
flicker off and on again, and I rub my forehead, trying to clear the fog from my mind. My childhood, neatly bagged up, is sitting in the attic above our heads. It’s not lost, after all.

  ‘Can I see it?’ I ask. ‘The stuff in the attic?’

  Clare grins. ‘Of course, Scarlett. Fetch that stepladder from the back porch, would you? I’ll show you exactly where it is…’

  We go up the stairs, carrying the wooden stepladder between us. On the landing, Clare opens up the rickety stepladder below the square wooden hatch in the ceiling and climbs up, pushing the hatch door open to reveal a dark, cavernous space.

  ‘Lucky there’s a light up here,’ she calls, flicking the switch on.

  ‘Come down,’ I call. ‘It doesn’t look safe. You hold the ladder and I’ll go up.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Clare laughs, tanned feet in flowery flip-flops disappearing up the rungs of the ladder. ‘I’m pregnant, not ill. Come on!’

  I follow her up into the floored loft space, piled high with boxes, tea chests, rolls of carpet and black bin bags. My heart starts to thump.

  Clare is already kneeling beside the black bin bags, opening the knots at the top and checking inside them. ‘That’s them,’ she says. ‘One, two, three… four. Do you want to see? It’s your stuff really, so if there’s anything you want we can throw it down.’

  I look inside the first bin bag, fishing out school books, plimsolls, a stack of dog-eared pony books. There’s a bundle of home-made cards tied up with string, carefully coloured with stubby wax crayons or scratchy pencils or garish felt pens, endless sketches of ponies, a green potato-shaped car that has to be the Morris Traveller.

  Inside the second I find a bag of Barbie dolls, a black Barbie horse with red wool plaited into the mane, my very first pair of satin ballet shoes and an impossibly tiny pink leotard. The third bin bag is stuffed with soft toys – a fleecy brown bear, a ragged panda with only one ear, a knitted donkey that Gran made me back in the days when I was still her favourite granddaughter and not the problem child from hell.

  How did it all go so wrong?