Life, Death and Gold Leather Trousers

by Fiona Foden

  Red liquid shoots up. “Lily, no!” I scream, leaping up from my seat as Jupe’s guitar falls from my hands and hits the stone floor. The neck splits, and the whole body cracks, a shattered sunset at my feet.

  I stare down at it, frozen in horror.

  “What have you done?” Jupe slurs, nearly sending me flying as he pushes me aside in his hurry to get to the guitar.

  “Jupe, I—” I cry out, but no other words come.

  “Stupid girl!” he roars, like I’ve never heard him before. I’ve never seen him this drunk before either. He’s scary, and I back away to the furthest corner of the room. Now he’s scrabbling on the floor, snatching the broken pieces and still yelling at me, Mum, all of us. Mum’s screaming back that it wasn’t my fault, I’m only a child, and how dare he speak to me like that? And she goes for him – really tries to hit him – but Dad grabs her and tries to calm her down. She’s writhing madly like a wild cat, trying to break free. Lily’s dropped her cup and is wailing loudly. I stand and stare and wish I could die.

  Somehow, in the scuffle, the cauldron’s knocked over and the floor’s swimming with red liquid. It looks like blood. Then Mum’s shouting, “Come on, everyone!”, and we’re all bundling out of Crickle Cottage and Lily throws up red punch sick all over the scrubby ground. We pile into our bashed-up old car and drive away with Mum raging, “For God’s sake, it was only a guitar.”

  “I still feel sick,” Lily whimpers. “Will I die?”

  “Of course not, my love,” Mum says firmly, turning to Dad. “It’s ridiculous, Geoffrey, him having booze about the place with Lily around…”

  Dad gives her a look, and I can tell what he’s thinking: But it’s always like that at Jupe’s. I put my arms around Lily and pull her close to my chest.

  Mum blames Jupe for what happened next, even though he isn’t even here with us. She blames him for the fact that she takes a corner too fast, veering off the road and through a wooden fence that cracks over our windscreen, flying past us in bits. I can’t remember if Lily and I are crying, or what we’re doing, because it’s all blurry as she screams and swerves. The car seems to bounce over bumps and finally stops in the field. For a moment, there’s silence. Then Mum turns, saying, “God, are you all right, girls? Clover, Lily?” over and over again.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Dad tries to reassure her, and we stagger out and stand there, all four of us hugging one another in the middle of a soggy field. When Mum finally peels herself off us and tries to start the car, the wheels spin and spin, stuck in mud. She revs so hard, the car makes a weird kind of spluttering noise, as if it’s actually drowning. Then it stops, and no matter how many times she tries, Mum can’t get our old car to start again. She won’t call Jupe either, even though we’re stranded. “I never want to speak to him again,” she snaps.

  In the end, it’s a farmer who comes to help us – the farmer whose fence Mum drove right through. He takes us back to his farm, and calls a local garage so they can tow our car out of the field and check it out. While we wait in the farm kitchen, a man from the garage calls Mum to say some vital engine part’s burnt out. Our car is officially dead. “How will we get home?” Lily keeps crying.

  “I’ll take you to the train station,” the farmer says. On the way, we stop off at the garage to collect all our stuff from the car – our suitcases, Lily’s cuddly rabbit and even our buckets and spades.

  “Nice holiday?” an old lady asks Lily across the aisle on our train journey home.

  “Our car crashed,” she blurts out.

  “Oh, did it?” The lady looks horrified. “Are you all OK?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Mum says quickly, squeezing my hand and turning to look out at the stormy grey sky.

  We spend the rest of the journey in dazed silence.

  And that’s the last we ever see of Jupe.

  Dear Jupe,

  I don’t know why I’m sitting up in the middle of the night writing this letter in bed. Maybe it’s because I so want to talk to you and this feels like the next best thing. It feels weird staying in Crickle Cottage without you. But I realize we had to come. You made us when you wrote your will. You wanted us to clear out your house (did we ever realize what a mammoth task that was going to be?). We’re sorting and taking box after box to the charity shop in Polcreek. Ed keeps saying it’s mad, and that your stuff’d be worth a fortune – even your ordinary things like an old ciggie lighter or a pair of wellies with a hole in. He says we should eBay it. Mum won’t listen. She says she wants things sorted as quickly as possible, which means dumping it all at the charity shop. What they don’t want, the house clearance men will take away.

  So we’re dead busy and that’s OK. Having loads of spare time means you start thinking too much and I’ve done more than my share of that lately. Sometimes, being here, I’ve even forgotten about Riley and Skelling in France, at least for a few minutes. (Riley is a boy at school. We were friends. Well, more than friends, I thought for a while, but it’s all gone wrong somehow. We used to play guitar together. To be honest, Jupe, Riley’s not that good really, but I was trying to help him, passing on all the tips you gave me. And Skelling? Well, she’s this girl with highlights who totally hates me. So it’s been good for me to get away from all of that.) Anyway, sorting your stuff has been almost fun. But I can’t shake off the feeling that there’s something else – some reason why you asked us to come to Crickle Cottage.

  Am I going crazy? Maybe it’s all those creaks in the night. I thought the countryside was supposed to be quiet!

  Love,

  Clover xxx

  Mum and Ed are on something like their ninety-fifth charity shop dash when I spot it, lurking outside in front of the kitchen window. Its fur is straggly and matted and, I have to admit, not unlike mine, pre-Bernice cut.

  “Lily!” I yell, pelting outside. “Look who’s turned up! It’s Jupe’s cat. I’m sure it’s Fuzz.”

  She thunders towards us. “Oh, isn’t he gorgeous?” She reaches out to stroke him, which Fuzz seems perfectly fine with – but when I venture closer he hisses and spits. Yep, that’s Fuzz all right.

  “Bet no one’s feeding him,” I say. “Look how skinny he is.”

  “Let’s bring him in,” Lily says. We coax him into the kitchen, leaving the front door wide open so he doesn’t spark Mum’s allergies. Lily rummages through our paltry provisions in Jupe’s rust-speckled fridge. We’ve been here for five days now, existing on basic stuff from the village shop. Ed still hasn’t caught a fish.

  “D’you think he likes ham?” Lily asks.

  “Don’t know. Let’s try him with a little bit.” I take out a packet and peel a corner off a slice, placing it on the floor in front of him. Fuzz scoffs it down.

  “Wish we could take him home,” Lily grumbles, feeding him more ham while stroking his bedraggled fur.

  “Mum wouldn’t let us,” I remind her. “Anyway, he’d probably have Cedric for breakfast.”

  She sighs and gazes adoringly at him. Fuzz hoovers up the rest of the ham, then pads around the kitchen, sniffing expectantly.

  He wanders into the hall, moseying in corners, as if he suspects that Jupe’s somewhere in the house, but isn’t quite sure where. “Let’s see where he goes,” I say, quickly shutting Mum and Ed’s bedroom door so he doesn’t sneak in and strew hairs all over their bed.

  He trots upstairs and sniffs in Lily’s room, then mine. He prowls up to the top landing, where he looks up and mews. “What does he want?” Lily asks.

  I shrug. “No idea.”

  “Think he’s still hungry?”

  “He can’t be. He’s had all our ham. We’ll have to tell Mum we ate it in sandwiches, OK?”

  Lily nods gravely. Fuzz is really yowling now, all the time straining upwards, stretching his neck, as if he’s being pulled up by an invisible thread. I stare up, frowning. There’s a h
atch up there on the ceiling. The entrance to the attic, probably. “Looks like he wants to go up,” I say.

  “Maybe that’s where he used to sleep,” Lily suggests.

  “I doubt it. Why would he sleep in the attic? I mean, how would he have got up? Anyway, I’m sure he used to sleep on Jupe’s bed.”

  “Maybe there’s something horrible up there,” Lily suggests, shuddering, “and only cats can smell it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like…” Her eyes expand so they’re almost circular. “Like … something dead.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I retort. “Look, if you’re that worried, let’s find a ladder and go up.” I shoot her a challenging stare. That’ll stop her morbid ideas.

  “Yeah,” she says brightly. “OK.”

  “I, um…” My heart flips anxiously. “You really want to?”

  “Well, he does,” she says, indicating Fuzz, who’s mewing crazily and straining upwards towards the hatch. Like he really is trying to show us something.

  “OK,” I say firmly. “I’ll see if I can find a ladder or something.” I check Lily’s bedroom, even though I’m pretty sure there’s no ladder up here, then hurry down to Mum and Ed’s room. It still feels weird. Not Mum and Dad’s room, but Mum and Ed’s room. As if he’s become part of our family without us noticing. An old, faded book called Sea Fishing for Idiots is plonked on their bed.

  There’s no ladder there either, or anywhere else in the house. “C’mon,” I tell Lily, back on the landing. “If you get on my shoulders, maybe you’ll be able to push up the hatch.”

  “OK,” she says eagerly, clambering on to my back as Fuzz yowls and twitches around my ankles.

  “It’s OK, puss,” I say, straightening up so Lily can push the hatch open. Fuzz hisses and turns away in disgust.

  It’s hard for Lily to lift the hatch at first. She pushes and pushes, jiggling on my shoulders until I’m not sure how much longer I can take the weight of her. “Hurry up,” I plead.

  “I can’t do it, Clover…”

  “Give it one more try,” I tell her. “Quick, they could come back any minute.” This time, with an almighty groan, she manages to push the hatch over to one side. Now we can see there’s a ladder attached to the opening, which pulls down easily to the floor. I clamber up, with Lily close behind me, relieved that she’s the one carrying Fuzz.

  The attic smells warm and woody like the inside of a drawer. There’s no window, no skylight or anything, so I grope about in the pitch black for a light switch. When I find it, the room fills with dim orangey light. We both peer around as Fuzz springs from Lily’s grasp, zooming straight for a scruffy leather armchair. He leaps up and stretches out on it.

  I’m staring – not at Fuzz, who I can sense is giving me the evil eye – but at what’s laid out before us.

  A complete drum kit. A row of guitars lined up on their stands. Amps and mics and chairs all around, crammed into the tiny space. We gawp in silence. It looks as if Jupe and his band could climb the ladder and start playing at any moment. It’s his secret room. He never showed us, not even me.

  “Wow,” Lily breathes. “Why’s all this stuff up here?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmur. “Maybe Jupe put it here when the band broke up.”

  “Why?”

  “Lily, I’ve no idea!” I do, though. Jupe never admitted he was upset when the band finished. But he was, I could tell. He seemed to miss playing with other people. I sometimes wondered if that’s why he enjoyed teaching me so much. “Maybe he just didn’t want his bandmates’ stuff lying around the house,” I add, “because it reminded him of the old days. So I guess he just stuffed it all up here.”

  “Well,” she says, grinning, “aren’t you going to play?”

  “I … I can’t, Lily.”

  “Why not?” she demands.

  I pause. It would feel wrong, sort of like trespassing, but how can I tell her that? It would sound crazy.

  “Jupe’s dead,” she reasons. “He wouldn’t mind.”

  I exhale as something catches my eye in the corner. A guitar. Burnt orange, fading to gold in the middle like a sunset. The one I smashed all those years ago.

  It’s polished and gleaming, as good as new.

  I step towards it, wondering now if it really is the same one. But when I’m right up close, I know it is, because it’s not quite perfect. There’s a thin wiggly line where the neck was broken and has been expertly mended. “Go on, play it!” Lily insists, picking up a drumstick and giving the snare drum a gentle tap.

  “Shhh!”

  “Why? There’s no one here. Mum and Ed’ll be ages.”

  “They’ve only gone to the charity shop,” I remind her.

  “No,” she insists, “they’re going fishing as well. They took Jupe’s rods.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grinning, I eye the guitar on its stand. My hand twitches. I so desperately want to touch it. Just a little go – surely that wouldn’t do any harm?

  I pick it up and lift the strap over my head. Fuzz glares from his armchair, sending a chill right through me. Slowly, my thumb skims the strings. “Too quiet,” Lily announces.

  “It’s not plugged in, OK? It’s supposed to go through an amp.”

  “Plug it in then.” She juts her hands on her hips.

  Like it’s that simple! I don’t know how, because I’ve never played an electric guitar apart from with Jupe. How long has this stuff been set up for anyway? It could be years since he came up and played. It might be dangerous. What if a billion volts surged through me? I’d be fried to a crisp, and Lily would have to drag me down the ladder and Mum’d go mad.

  With an exasperated sigh, Lily plonks herself on the stool behind the drum kit. She picks up a pair of sticks and starts to play. A proper rhythm, I mean, just like that – dead simple. A steady four-four beat. It’s not often you’re awestruck by your little sister.

  “What?” she laughs, stopping.

  “That’s good!” I say. “How d’you know how to do that?”

  She shrugs. “I just do.”

  “C’mon, someone must have a drum kit and let you have a go…”

  She’s stopped listening because she’s playing again, more confidently now, bashing the hell out of the kit. Well, if she’s playing, I am too. I find the wall socket, click on the switch and prime myself to be electrocuted – and nothing happens. I’m still alive, at least. I find a lead and, after stabbing it into random sockets, finally strike gold. There’s a scream of feedback. Fuzz scoots off his chair, streaks across the floor and cowers behind a speaker in the corner.

  I strum quietly, not sure what to play. Then I bang out a chord much louder than I meant to. “That’s better!” Lily yelps. I start playing properly, and the first song that pops into my head is “Clover’s Song”, the one Jupe wrote for me. I haven’t figured out how Ed knows it, but playing it now, in Jupe’s secret room, it starts to feel like mine again. And it seems right, the two of us playing away. Lily’s transfixed by the drums and if Riley was here, it’d almost feel as if we were a band, the three of us. He could sing, I know he could. He’s just too shy to give it a try. Lily and I play on, and we’re totally lost in the song until there’s a bang downstairs and we stop suddenly.

  “We’re back!” Mum shouts.

  I stand dead still. Lily freezes, drumsticks in mid-air.

  “Clover? Lily?” Mum yells up. “What’s going on up there? Is that you?”

  “Clover?” Mum calls again. “Lily? Where are you?”

  “Upstairs!” I yell back. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

  Pause. “Hurry up, girls. We’ve got something exciting to show you.”

  Lily and I stare at each other. “We’ll have to get down without them knowing,” I hiss.

  “W
ill they be mad, d’you think?” Lily whispers.

  “It’s not that. You know what Ed’s like, always trying to get his hands on Jupe’s stuff. He’ll want to sell it all, or keep it himself…”

  “What’ll we do with it?” she asks, wide-eyed.

  “I don’t know! But we’ll need to get of here, quick as we can. C’mon, you grab Fuzz – he won’t let me touch him.” Obediently, she creeps over and tries to pick him up. But he won’t let her hold him either. He leaps from her arms, diving under the drum kit and hissing.

  “Girls!” Mum bellows.

  “We’ll have to leave him,” I whisper. “One of us can come back and get him as soon as we’ve spoken to Mum.”

  “Are you sure…” Lily starts.

  “What else can we do?” I ask.

  “OK,” she says, throwing Fuzz an apologetic look. Mum and Ed are chatting away downstairs as we scamper down the ladder and push it back up into place. Lily hops on to my shoulders to replace the hatch, and we pause, catching our breath, on the landing.

  “Sure Fuzz’ll be OK?” Lily asks, alarmed.

  “Hope so. It’ll only be a few minutes.” I swipe dust from my hair and pray that essence of moggy doesn’t seep down through the cracks around the hatch and whoosh straight into Mum’s eyes and nostrils. Or, worse, that Fuzz doesn’t poop on Jupe’s leather chair or pee on all that electric stuff, causing a fizzy explosion so the cottage burns down. What would the landlord say about that?

  “Promise not to tell Mum or Ed about this, OK?” I remind Lily.

  “Promise,” she whispers as we head downstairs.

  “Hi,” I say casually, wandering into the kitchen.

  “Hey, girls,” Mum says. “What were you two up to upstairs?”

  “Just messing about,” I say with a shrug.

  “Everything all right?” She gives me a quizzical smile.

  “Yeah, we’re fine. So what’ve you been doing?”