Life is Sweet

by Cathy Cassidy

  A bunch of old-fashioned party games have been set out in what used to be the breakfast room of the B&B, and the place is swarming with little kids bobbing for apples or battling, blindfold, to take a bite from apples that hang on strings from one of the beams. The little ones are high on toffee apples and monkey nuts, the teens on Coke and cake, the adults on some green-tinged fizzy punch that Paddy has concocted. Seeing all the kids I knew last year again is kind of weird, and I’m relieved when Skye, Summer, Tia, Millie and their friends head out into the dark to gossip and tell spooky stories. At least, left with Alfie Anderson, I feel less out of my depth.

  We hover for a while in the living room, where Mum and her colleagues are holding court to the interested villagers. Mum is wearing cat ears and a fake tail from someone’s old dressing-up box, but Peter, Adele and Mozz have gone wild with the face paints and painted themselves varying shades of white, grey, blue and green before putting on tattered costumes. They move easily among the locals, chatting, eating, making notes, telling everyone more about the proposed TV show. I think everyone in the village offers to take part … It’s like a ghoulish version of X Factor, with one elderly man dressed in wizard’s robes bursting into song in the middle of the kitchen in the hope of being offered a bit part in the series.

  ‘Crazy,’ Alfie tells me. ‘If this series happens, the media frenzy could be too much for a sleepy place like Kitnor. First the film last summer, now this … They’ll be setting up a Hollywood sign at the end of the drive any minute now …’

  ‘I know,’ I agree. ‘Paddy and Charlotte don’t know quite what they’re getting into!’

  ‘I wonder what they’ll call it?’ Alfie muses. ‘Paddy and the Chocolate Factory? Truffle and Strife? Village of the Damned?’

  He tries to keep a straight face as a middle-aged woman dressed as some kind of zombie fortune teller bears down on us, eating a bowl of the Bloodbath Trifle. She is wearing a spotted headscarf and gold hoop earrings with a tiered gypsy dress.

  ‘Terrific party!’ she says, beaming at us between mouthfuls of trifle. ‘The psychic powers are always strong at this time of year! The spirits are watching us, mark my words!’

  ‘Are they, Mrs Lee?’ Alfie replies. ‘As long as they stay away from the sausage rolls, I don’t really mind!’

  ‘Ever the sceptic,’ Mrs Lee huffs, turning to me. ‘Ah … I don’t know you, do I?’

  ‘Meet Jamie Finch,’ Alfie says, helpfully. ‘Skye’s boyfriend.’

  Mrs Lee frowns. ‘Skye? No, no, I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘I read Skye’s palm just a few weeks ago, and you’re nothing like the boy I saw in store for her there. I am never wrong about these things!’

  ‘But you told Skye last year that you saw a bird – a finch – in her future,’ Alfie recalls, teasingly. ‘And then she met Finch just a little while later. Are you saying you were wrong?’

  ‘I’m never wrong,’ Mrs Lee says. ‘But life changes, Alfie Anderson. And a finch can be here one minute and gone the next, so if I saw you in Skye’s palm, young man, I’m afraid it wasn’t for long …’

  She grabs my palm and squints at it while I squirm in horror, wondering what she might see. Lies? Deceit? Disaster?

  ‘As I thought,’ Mrs Lee declares. ‘You have a true love already. A stormy relationship, sometimes hidden, but a true one. That’s just as well, isn’t it, seeing as you’re not in Skye’s future! Ooh, is that Paddy with the Halloween punch? I must just get a refill …’

  My cheeks are burning at her words, but under a thick layer of green face paint this isn’t visible to Alfie. I dredge up my acting skills and pretend to be offended and confused. ‘What was that all about?’ I ask.

  ‘Forget it,’ Alfie says. ‘Mrs Lee is nuts. She’s harmless, but she reckons she’s part gypsy and that she can see the future. She works in the post office, and trust me, she can’t even see the small print on a special delivery sticker without her reading glasses. She doesn’t mean any harm. I mean, I know it’s Halloween and all that, but who actually believes in ghosts and ghouls and premonitions? Load of old rubbish!’

  ‘Totally,’ I say, looking at the palm Mrs Lee had examined. It looks the same as always, a criss-cross web of lines and creases. How can it show hints of a stormy, hidden relationship? It’s just not possible.

  I shake off the very idea.

  ‘Bonfire, Finch?’ Alfie is asking. ‘I think the others headed out that way. Shay said he’d play his guitar …’

  Later, when it’s long past midnight and Alfie, Shay, Millie, Tia and the others have gone, Skye and I walk slowly up to the caravan beneath the trees strung with fairy lights. I feel like I ought to hold her hand, but that is clearly a very bad idea.

  ‘Great party,’ I say into the darkness, because it totally was. I had forgotten how good a Tanglewood party could be.

  ‘I can’t actually believe you’re here,’ she replies. ‘I haven’t seen you in forever, and then when we do get together it has to be at a party where Mum’s invited half the village …’

  ‘Looked like the whole village to me,’ I tease.

  ‘Whatever. It’s just that I thought we’d never get to be alone together …’

  Alone together? I grit my teeth and look up through the canopy of trees at the velvet black darkness, studded with stars, a crescent moon hanging above it all. This could be the perfect moment to talk to Skye, to finish things once and for all.

  We get to the caravan. Someone has placed my moon and stars pumpkin on the steps, and it glows faintly orange in the darkness.

  ‘So …’ I say. Before I get any further it occurs to me that I’m trying to have a deep and meaningful talk with a sixties-style witch while my own face is painted green. I find a tissue in my jacket pocket and try wiping the face paint away, but without soap and water it is a hopeless task.

  Skye smiles. ‘I love that you still have that old army jacket, Finch. It was one of the first things I noticed about you. It used to be too big for you then, but it’s a perfect fit now …’

  ‘I don’t really like it any more,’ I say, surprising myself. ‘I’m not so into vintage these days. Guess I’ve moved on.’

  ‘Right,’ Skye says sadly. ‘That’s a shame. With vintage stuff, you always feel there’s a story to tell … a history. If clothes could talk …’

  ‘They can’t,’ I say. ‘Not even on Halloween. The past is over with. We can’t reach it, no matter how much we want to.’

  I wish I could go back to the summer I met Skye and work out how to stop things falling apart, but I can’t. It’s over.

  ‘Probably just as well,’ Skye says. ‘I have an overactive imagination as it is …’

  I bite my lip. ‘Skye?’ I say. ‘Didn’t you once tell me you’d had dreams of the past, and I was in them? That you knew we’d be together because you recognized me from the dreams?’

  She laughs, but it’s a sad laugh. ‘Did I say that?’ she questions. ‘No … I was having some weird dreams, sure, and I thought I was the girl in the dreams, but I wasn’t in the end. Like I said, overactive imagination.’

  ‘Was I the boy in the dreams?’ I ask.

  Skye hangs her head. ‘I thought at the time you were, but … well, I don’t think so. I just freaked out a little and got things muddled. Like you say, the past is over with. We have to accept that … let it go.’

  My heart thumps. Is Skye telling me things are over between us, or is that just wishful thinking?

  Before I can say any more, she turns away and runs across the grass towards Tanglewood, and I’m left alone on the caravan steps beneath the moon and stars.

  7

  I know
it’s a dream because, even though it feels so real, I know deep down that it can’t be. I am a shape shifter, a time traveller, an invisible witness; the past unfolds before me …

  I can see the crowded platform of a small town railway station. People are waiting for a train: men in uniform – some no more than boys – with kitbags, anxious faces, newly cropped hair. Their families crowd around them, talking too fast, hugging too tight, promising letters and prayers and that ‘it’ll all be over by Christmas’.

  I focus on one young man; no more than eighteen, his eyes bright with adventure, his uniform still stiff and creased as if barely worn. It looks just like my jacket might have done when it was brand new. Beside him stands a girl in a blue dress; Sunday best, her brown hair swept up into a victory roll, her dark green eyes blurred with tears. She reminds me of someone, yet I know I’ve never seen her before.

  Suddenly the platform fills with noise and a thick fug of steam and smoke as the train arrives. The green-eyed girl throws her arms round the young man, hanging on tight as if she will never let go.

  ‘James, don’t go,’ she whispers. ‘Please don’t! I’m scared!’

  ‘It’s all right, Ellie,’ he says. ‘I’ll be back soon … I promise! And I’ll write!’

  The train begins to plough forward again and the young man jumps on just in time, dragging his kitbag behind him, leaning out through an open window to wave until the train carries him far from sight. The girl waves her handkerchief until there is nothing left to wave at. Turning away at last, she finds herself alone now on the platform except for a small brown bird that swoops around her, diving and soaring through the air. She stops to watch the bird as it flutters around her, smiling through a haze of tears, reaching up her hands towards it. I watch, my heart filled with sadness, as the finch hops on to her palms, fluffing up its feathers, stretching out its wings.

  I wake up late to the sound of a gentle knock on the caravan door.

  ‘Finch?’ Skye’s voice is uncertain. ‘Are you awake?’

  I roll out of the bunk, still wearing last night’s jeans and T-shirt, taking the army jacket down from its peg as I open the door. I am trying to make sense of the dream from last night; it was so real, so vivid. I feel choked with sorrow, as though I’m still inside the dream, as though something painful, something terrible has happened. What kind of dream can do that? Was it stress-related? Did somebody spike my drink? Was it a Halloween happening, a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse into the past? Or just my freaked-out imagination going extra crazy?

  ‘Hey,’ I say, smiling sadly as I see Skye at the foot of the caravan steps. I go down to sit beside her, letting my bare feet rest on the cool, dew-damp grass. ‘Think I might have slept in.’

  Skye hands me an apple and a slightly mangled spider web cupcake. ‘Breakfast,’ she says. ‘There wasn’t a lot of choice … it’s carnage in that kitchen. Mum, Paddy, your mum and the TV lot have gone down to the Mad Hatter for a full English. Looks like they’re all agreed on pitching the idea for the series to the BBC. Scary, huh?’

  ‘Cool,’ I say. ‘It might never happen, but if it does … well, Mum would make sure it was done in a good way.’

  I bite into the apple and remember the dream again, the little brown bird flying high. Gradually the sadness ebbs away until there’s a feeling of hope and freedom, a kind of lightness inside me that I haven’t felt in months.

  ‘I had a very weird dream last night,’ I tell Skye. ‘Kind of spooky. It felt … like a glimpse into the past. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Tell me,’ she says.

  So I do. I tell her about the railway station, about the soldier and the green-eyed girl who didn’t want her boyfriend to go to war.

  ‘Do you think he came home?’ Skye asks. ‘Did they have a happy ending?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I think … I felt … maybe not. There was a bird in the dream too, a little brown finch …’

  ‘Trust you to put yourself in the dream,’ Skye says, laughing. ‘What happened to the bird?’

  I remember the girl holding out her hands so that the finch could fly on to them, but I say nothing.

  ‘Skye?’ I say. ‘We had the best summer ever last year, didn’t we? I’d never met anyone like you. It was … magic, almost. Unforgettable.’

  ‘It was,’ she agrees.

  I force myself to go on. ‘But … this long distance thing isn’t easy, right? I’m not good at phone calls or answering texts. I get easily distracted. I sometimes wonder …’

  Skye puts her hand in mine as we sit beside each other on the caravan steps. ‘What do you wonder?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I met your crazy neighbour last night,’ I say. ‘Mrs Lee – the post office lady, right? She read my palm and told me I wasn’t a part of your future.’

  Skye’s hand squeezes mine softly.

  ‘I think we both know that,’ she says.

  ‘We do?’

  ‘I’ve known for a while now that things weren’t the same between us,’ Skye says. ‘You stopped writing, stopped messaging, stopped texting and calling. You didn’t want to come down to Tanglewood this summer, and … well, I wondered if you’d met someone new.’

  Can I say it out loud? Do I dare?

  ‘There is someone,’ I say. ‘We didn’t plan it … not at all … but yeah. I care about her. Her name’s Ellie. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to tell you; I just didn’t know how … but I think we have to break up, Skye.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Skye says. ‘Thanks for telling me, Finch. The thing is … I’ve met someone too. We’re not seeing each other … not yet. But I think we maybe will, sometime soon, now things are finished between the two of us.’

  I blink and frown and try to make sense of this, and then I start to laugh at the absurdity of it all and Skye is laughing too, and all the awkwardness and guilt falls away and what is left is friendship, strong and pure and lasting.

  ‘I’ve been an idiot,’ I tell Skye. ‘I should have told you right from the start.’

  ‘I kind of knew,’ she shrugs. ‘It’s OK. Things have a way of working out …’

  ‘I hope so,’ I reply.

  Back in London that evening, I text Ellie. Guess what? I’m single. Want to go out sometime?

  She texts back a few minutes later. See you at the playground.

  I’m there ten minutes early, my hair combed and ruffled, wearing my best black jeans and a pair of red Converse. I sit on the roundabout and push it round with one toe, and when Ellie appears in the distance I try to imagine her with her hair in a victory roll, wearing a blue 1940s dress and waving a handkerchief at the horizon. I try to imagine her hands, holding the little brown bird, keeping it safe.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, jumping up on to the roundabout. ‘You did it, then? You broke up with her?’

  ‘I did it,’ I confirm. ‘I should have done it months ago …’ I pause. ‘Ellie … this is going to sound weird. But what’s your grandmother’s name?’

  ‘Sarah,’ she replies. ‘Well, that’s Dad’s mum. Mum’s mum is called Louise.’

  My shoulders slump. ‘Great-grandmother?’ I try. ‘She was a teenager in the war. Her sweetheart went off to fight …’

  ‘And never came back,’ Ellie says. ‘Yeah, that was my great-gran. Her name was Eleanor … I was named after her. Who told you about her?’

  ‘Nobody, really,’ I say. ‘I think you might have mentioned it a while back …’

  Ellie frowns. ‘Did I …?’

  I think of the dream, of the girl with dark green eyes and the young man going to war, and I wonder if love can reach a
cross the years and find a second chance, or if it’s just that hanging out at Tanglewood has made my imagination go into overdrive. I’ll probably never know.

  Ellie nudges me. ‘You’re still wearing that horrible jacket …’

  ‘It’s my favourite jacket,’ I say firmly. ‘I love it. It’s got history … happy stuff, sad stuff, forgotten stuff.’

  Ellie shrugs. ‘I quite like it too,’ she says. ‘It looks cool. I just don’t want you to get too big-headed, that’s all …’

  ‘Big-headed? Me?’ I argue, and Ellie laughs. I remember how much I love the sound. I push the roundabout some more, making it spin, and I slide an arm round Ellie’s shoulders.

  ‘I’ve made a total mess of things the last few months,’ I confess. ‘I haven’t been fair to you, but things will be different now, I promise. I’ve worked out what matters to me, and you matter to me, Ellie. Can we start over?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Without the guilt, without the rows, without the lies.’

  She leans in to kiss me, and it’s just like a first kiss should be, gentle and sweet and full of promise. I think briefly of Skye, and I hope that her new boy is everything she wants him to be, that he will make her as happy as Ellie makes me.

  Above us, the moon and stars glint bright above the dull orange glow of the city sky.

  ‘Snowflakes and Wishes’ is a wintry tale that tells Lawrie’s story, and is set on New Year’s Eve, before the events in Fortune Cookie. Lawrie’s family are back at Tanglewood for a party, and returning to Somerset reminds them all how much they’ve missed it. When one of the animals goes missing in the middle of the night, Lawrie and Coco find themselves on another rescue mission. They end up with a LOT more than they bargain for … and in the middle of a snow storm, they begin to realize how much they’ve missed each other too …