When everyone else was eating lunch in the school canteen, Mimi and Lola made picnic tea parties out on the playing-field to which only a chosen few girls were invited. They read poems to one other and played singles on an old portable record-player and danced under the trees, waving their arms in the air and closing their eyes.
That was how to be different, thought Ella. Different as cool. Different as something other people wanted to be a part of.
Once, only once, Mimi Parr had smiled at her, coming into the girls’ toilets.
‘I like your hair,’ she’d said. ‘Wild.’
And for a whole day after that, Ella had liked her hair too. But the feeling had quickly faded, like a flower growing in the wrong kind of pot. There were too many other feelings, all pushing and jostling against it.
*
The story of Wolf Girl
‘Once upon a time,’ Ella wrote in her notebook, ‘there was a young witch, a very powerful sorceress, who lived alone with her mother in a little flat above a shop in a half-hidden courtyard.
‘By day, the witch was just like any other girl – except that she kept herself to herself and people thought she was strange, a bit too quiet, stuck-up even. They didn’t know how she felt on the inside.
‘She always wore black, but that was because it helped her to hide.
‘Sometimes, in fact, the girl longed for colour – sunflower yellow or flame orange or cornflower blue. But black felt warm. Black felt impenetrable. She could pull it around her like a second skin and no one would ever get close enough to find out her secret.
‘Because by night, while her mother lay sleeping, the girl sprouted thick fur on her legs and forearms. Her hair, already long and dark and wild, grew further down her back until it reached the floor. She leaped from her bedroom window and ran through the town, skirting the stone flanks of the Minster, taking the steps to the city walls in a single bound, moving swiftly from shadow to shadow, enjoying how the cobbles and the worn stone flags felt under her paws. Like this, taking the shape of the wolf, she could fly for miles out of the city, across fields and farmland.
‘Sometimes, she’d scale rooftops and garden fences and peer through windows at people sleeping in their beds – people she knew like Billy Vickers and Katrina Cushworth and the girl from Braithwaites – and she’d… she’d…’
Ella chewed on the end of her pen. What would she do? Put a curse on Katrina so that her skin itched and her ears glowed bright red for the rest of her life? No, of course she wouldn’t, although sometimes it was tempting. Maybe she’d weave a powerful love charm over the girl from Braithwaites so that a millionaire business man, passing by, would see her in the window and fall in love with her and she’d never have to weigh apples or sweep floors again? And Billy…? She felt her face flush.
She began again.
‘And she’d breathe powerful charms into their ears so that they’d stir in their sleep and smell the scent of the old wild places in their dreams. ‘
That was better.
‘But the Wolf Girl loved the woods, the fragrance of earth and wet leaves, the deep pools of darkness that waited between the trees, the cold, clear glint of the stars.
‘She would run and run beyond the edge of the city and plunge deep into the woods to find the darkest places and she’d begin to gather twigs and branches to make a fire. Then she’d crouch on her poweful haunches beside it and breathe flame into the dead wood and as soon as the fire was leaping hot and high, she’d begin to sing.
‘She’d call out the shapes from the flames and the spirits from the leaves and branches. She’d call out the song of the little owl and all the birds that nested here in the deepest parts of the wood and the story of the moon that slept here in the arms of the trees. Finally, just before the sun began to rise, she’d sing the shape of her own true nature, the part of herself that she could never reveal in the light of day.
‘And as she sang, little by little, she’d feel herself return to herself. ‘
Ella looked up from the page. An overfed pigeon strutted on the roof and, below her in the courtyard, the marmalade-coloured cat rolled in a patch of sunlight.
‘There in the woods,’ she wrote, ‘the Wolf Girl never felt ugly or lonely and she never felt afraid. But she always knew that she had to return to the little flat above the shop and her other life in the city and hide her wildness again and her true nature. ‘
*
‘Don’t mind them,’ said Billy. ‘They’re a load of gassing idiots, that’s what they are. Novelty’ll wear off sooner or later…’
They were walking down by the river, throwing sticks from the bank, seeing whose would catch the current faster. Laikin is what Billy liked to call it, laikin’ out. Ella tried the words silently on her tongue. It felt like licking an ice-lolly.
And then the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
‘But why are you my friend, Billy?’ she said.
He stopped dead on the riverbank, a stick in his hand, staring at her. His face looked white, stunned.
‘What kind of question is that, then?’
‘Well, no one else seems to like me.’ Ella hated the way her voice sounded in that moment. Silly, a whiny girl’s voice, drifting down the riverbank.
A blackbird chirruped away above her head and it seemed almost to be mocking her, but she carried on.
‘They all think I’m stuck-up They think that I think that I’m better than them somehow. Except Katrina. And she doesn’t count. But I’m right, aren’t I?
Billy looked down, kicking at a tussock of grass.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. Ella thought he sounded irritated. ‘I wouldn’t know what they think. I mean, why’s the grass green? Why’s the sky blue? Why do you have to ask why all the time?’
But Ella felt suddenly reckless, as if she’d been pressing against some invisible wall and now it was beginning to give way beneath her fingers. She had to know. And Billy was the only one who could tell her.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘for instance, why do we never go to your house? What I’m thinking is, are you embarrassed about me? Are you ashamed, for example, about being friends with the daughter of an Eye-Tie and a Middle-Eastern terrorist, a potential member of Al Quaeda?’
Billy looked appalled. He flung his stick down and turned away from her. He ran a finger round the inside of his shirt collar and shifted from one foot to another. Then he turned back again.
‘Is that really what you think?’ he said, quietly, ‘because in that case, you just don’t know me at all…’
But Ella pressed on.
‘Well, what is it, then? What’s the big secret?’
Billy turned away and started walking. She ran to keep up with him.
‘It’s really very simple, El,’ he was saying. ‘My house isn’t a place that you’d like very much…’
‘But how do you know?’ she heard herself protesting. ‘Why does everyone always assume that they know what I’m thinking?’
‘I don’t know how to explain it to you. But it’s not because I’m ashamed of you, alright?’ Billy said, beginning to scramble up the riverbank away from her, ‘If anything, El, it’s that I’m a bit ashamed of them. And that doesn’t exactly make me feel good about myself. My Mum left school when she was fourteen. My dad’s worked in a factory all his life. My brothers are big, daft uneducated bruisers, the lot of ‘em. It’s not what you’re used to. You’d have nothing at all to talk to them about…’
Ella tried to scramble up after him. She didn’t know whether to feel angry - that he’d assumed he knew what she could and couldn’t talk about - or embarrassed that she’d gone too far. Why did she always have to spoil things?
‘I’m sorry, Billy, I didn’t mean to… I just started to think…’
‘Well, don’t,’ said Billy. ‘Try not to think, why don’t you? How’s that for a new idea? If you ask me, maybe you do too much thinking… Always making up stories when there’s nothing there.
Always scribbling things down in that little notebook of yours.‘
He stopped at the top of the bank, offering her his hand and then, when she took it, hauling her up so hard that she thought her arm would come out of its socket.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her hand was still in his. He was kneading it between his fingers. She saw that he was shaking.
10.
Scarf by Chanel. 1965. Cream silk with black motif.
The bus pulled onto the gravel drive and Fabbia saw the large white sign propped against an oak tree: Private Auction This Way.
She felt a flicker of that old excitement. Sale day. That meant the prospect of a bargain or perhaps a real find. There was nothing she loved more than the opportunity for a good rummage through other people’s wardrobes.
Often it was only jumble-sale stuff. Nylon eiderdowns and faded curtains, napkins and crocheted tablerunners, dented packing cases full of yellowed linen sheets, perhaps the odd 60s cocktail dress in rayon or chiffon. But just occasionally there was something that was truly precious.
And today might be one of those days. Fabbia had leafed through the auction catalogue with interest: a list of the personal effects of Lady Eustacia Beddowes, last surviving heir of the Beddowes family, owners of Doddington Hall, a large country house set in acres of parkland at the edge of the Dales.
‘A beautiful old place,’ David had said. ‘And Eustacia was a nice woman. I looked after her a couple of times when I lived up that way. She never married, never had children. She was fiercely intelligent, loved a good debate. She was interested in travel and gardening and women’s rights and anthropology. She once told me that she’d wanted to be a botanist, got a place at Oxford, but her father wouldn’t let her go. So she stayed at home, did lots of voluntary work in the community and, after her parents passed away, she went all over the world – Africa, India, Vietnam – taking photographs, collecting rare plants, volunteering in orphanages, that kind of thing. She opened the gardens to the public a few years ago. There’s a picnic area and open-air concerts with fireworks in summer. There’s even a regular bus service. Now I suppose they’ll sell it all off to some fat-cat property developer, turn it into luxury apartments. ‘
‘And was she elegant, this Eustacia?’ Fabbia had asked. ‘What did she look like? Did she have beautiful clothes?’
David had smiled.
‘Well, not that I know about these things,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.’
And so, as the Dales bus wheezed its way up the hill and squeezed itself through the stone archway that marked the main entrance to the park, Fabbia imagined the young Eustacia, striding out along the driveway with her sketchbook under her arm.
As the bus braked sharply and the house came into view, she pictured how Eustacia might have looked as a young woman just before the War, draped over the stone balustrade of the terrace. She saw her in her mind’s eye as a haughty beauty with one of those English Rose complexions, her slim figure swathed in an evening gown of green silk.
She assessed the graceful proportions of the Hall, its large windows onto the park, the discreet details of the porticos, and felt sure that Eustacia would have been a person of great taste with at least a couple of lovely pieces stashed away from her earlier years. There would be jewellery, most definitely jewellery, one or two dresses, handbags and perhaps some favourite shoes.
She stepped down eagerly from the bus and followed the cardboard signs that had been taped up on pillars and tree trunks to direct the auction-goers. She passed through a gate into what she guessed were the kitchen gardens. They were, she noted, neat and well-stocked, laid out in that very English way. A hedge of lavender brushed her legs, releasing a pungent scent, and bees busied themselves along a wall of roses and honeysuckle.
An austerely suited woman – Fabbia wondered why the women from the auction houses always dressed in that rather unflattering way – flashed her a professional smile.
‘Sign and then print your name here, please.’
She held out her clipboard and a pen and then presented Fabbia with a number printed on a large piece of white card.
Fabbia followed the line of people through a series of sparse rooms and stone corridors, emerging in an impressive marble-columned hall. She shivered, drawing her jacket around her.
The room echoed with the sounds of subdued voices. Rows of stacking chairs had been arranged between the columns. People were craning their necks to admire the fine plasterwork of the ceiling. The sun cast stripes of light across the polished stone floor through tall, perfectly symmetrical windows.
Fabbia settled herself towards the front of the rows where she’d be able to see the lots more clearly. She glanced down at her catalogue where she’d marked in pencil the items that sounded most interesting to her.
She noticed that almost everyone else seemed to be dressed in tweed or those ugly, green quilted jackets. She felt almost like a teenager again among these women with their hair sprayed into stiff helmets, their sensible brogue shoes.
The auction moved very quickly. An assistant carried each item carefully from a small anteroom and laid it on a table draped with a red cloth. Fabbia raised her card and made bids on a number of things – a pearl choker with a crystal clasp, a lady’s set of luggage by Louis Vuitton, a 1930s toilet case in pink leather with silk lining, a camel coat with a fake fur collar by Jaeger.
Each time, the bidding went higher than she’d anticipated. She knew her limits. What she was waiting for came right at the end. Lot 108: Various accessories including fans, rings, gloves, belts and scarves. Fabbia knew that the real treasures were to be found among the ‘various.’ Things got bundled together and sometimes, just sometimes, a real gem could get overlooked.
She waved her card.
‘Fifteen pounds. Any advances on fifteen pounds?’ said the auctioneer.
People were beginning to get up from their seats, drifting away.
‘Fifteen pounds to the beautiful lady in red.’ The auctioneer flashed a smile at her, visibly relaxing as he came to the end of the long list of items.
A few heads turned in her direction. A woman several rows in front swivelled round in her chair and appraised Fabbia over the tops of her glasses.
Afterwards, tea was served from two enormous stainless steel urns in one of the drawing rooms. Fabbia busied herself with examining the detail of the wallpaper, which was a yellow Chinese silk. She fiddled with her mobile phone, pretending to listen to messages, so that no one would try to talk to her.
Finally, when the queue for tea had dwindled, she took her cup and perched carefully on the edge of a window seat upholstered in blue brocade, looking out over the hazy English vista of the park. A few more minutes and she’d be able to leave without drawing further attention to herself, make arrangements to pay for and collect her box of treasures. She couldn’t wait to hold them in her hands, to look at them more closely.
She began to imagine again what the young Eustacia must have felt as she sat here, perhaps at first with her sister – David had said there was a sister who’d died a few years ago. And would there have been suitors, local young men, standing fidgeting in the middle of this room? Had anyone asked for her hand? And then later still, Fabbia thought, Eustacia would have sat here with her aging father, the one who’d denied her an education and confined her to this very luxurious cage. What would they have said to one another? She imagined them sitting in those striped armchairs, either side of the fireplace. And, of course, finally Eustacia would have sat here alone, looking back on her life, wondering as we all do in the end, what she might have done differently.
A young woman approached and wedged herself at the opposite end of the window seat, tucking her feet up under her, balancing her teacup precariously in her lap. She smiled at Fabbia.
‘I couldn’t help but notice your beautiful outfit,‘ she said, extending a hand. ‘Hello, I’m Sylvia. A cousin of Eustacia’s. Officially, great-cousin, twice removed. W
e’re dying out, you see. Practically none of us left.’
And she smiled again, a dazzling smile that made her face dimple. She wore jeans and a floaty top, a pink cashmere cardigan – a good one, Fabbia thought, but rubbed at the cuffs - and strings of mala beads, rose quartz and turquoise and aquamarine, with a pendant which Fabbia recognised as the hand of Fatima, a sign of good luck back in the Old Country.
The young woman’s hair was cut very short, giving her the look of a mischievous elf.
Fabbia took her outstretched hand, decorated in large silver rings.
‘Fabbia Moreno,’ she said. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’
‘Ah,’ said Sylvia, ‘Fabbia. I knew it. I knew you were someone interesting. You have the lovely new shop in York, don’t you? The one in Grape Lane. My sister’s been telling me all about it. How exciting.‘
She set the teacup, which Fabbia was relieved to see was already empty, on the floor and sprang to her feet.
‘Would you like to come and see something? There’s something I’d like to show you.’
She was already on the move, weaving through the roomful of people, looking back over her shoulder at Fabbia, gesturing for her to follow.
Fabbia followed. They walked very quickly through a warren of corridors, past walls covered in oil paintings and portraits and mahogany tables arranged with Chinese vases and silver trinket boxes.
Sylvia came to a stop at the foot of a staircase, resting her hand on the polished banister.
‘Servants’ stairs,’ she laughed in her high, lilting voice. ‘As children we used to sneak down here and into the pantry. Midnight feasts. We were terrible. We ate everything in sight.’
‘You used to stay here?’ said Fabbia, surprised. She hadn’t thought of the Hall as a family house with children clattering down the corridors. It seemed so quiet, so elegant, so restrained in that English way. Not at all child-friendly.
‘Oh, yes, we were here, off and on, all the time. Mummy and Daddy were away such a lot you see. Shipped us off here for the summers. But we loved it. A children’s paradise. Trees to climb and a house full of servants to indulge our every whim. And, of course, Eustacia. She was such fun. We were always just a little bit scared of her – which was probably a very good thing – but she had such a sense of adventure, always inventing things for us to do, expeditions, indoors and out, projects, challenges…’
The Dress (Everyday Magic Trilogy: Book 1) Page 9
