by Jean Ure
For Zahra, and for Tara
Contents
Cover
Title Page
The Beginning
Also by Jean Ure
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Beginning
“I wouldn’t want you having boys up there,” said Mum.
“Boys?” I shot a sideways glance at Tash, out of the corner of my eye. Tash shot one back at me. We managed – just – to stifle our giggles. “Mum!” I said. “As if we would!”
“As if you would,” said Mum.
“I wouldn’t,” said Ali.
“I’m not worried about you,” said Mum. “I’m worried about those two.”
This time we couldn’t help it. I clapped a hand to my mouth to stifle the squeaks. Tash buried her face in one of the sofa cushions. The fact is, me and Tash are into boys in a BIG WAY. It is just something that seems to come naturally to us. We look at a boy and we go all gooey, like oo-er, mushy peas and soft ice cream, and help, help! I’m going into meltdown! Only if the boy is worth it, of course; we are not indiscriminate! Even at twelve years old, when we were just getting started, we knew better than to go for geeks or cavemen. Mum’s problem was that she didn’t think we were old enough to get started at all.
“We sent you to the Gables expressly to avoid all that!”
Poor Mum. Poor Dad. Did they really think that shutting us up in a nunnery – well, an all-girls’ school, which amounts to the same thing – would keep us safely playing with our dolls till the age of sixteen? Eighteen, if Dad had his way. Even older. He’s worse than Mum! He once told us that he wished we could remain his little girls for ever. Pur-lease! Yuck yuck double yuck.
It is amazing how naïve parents can be. It never seems to occur to them that even at an all-girls’ school there are sometimes men teachers. Some of them quite young and fanciable! Or that girls have brothers. Likewise cousins, of the male persuasion. Not to mention a life outside of school.
“It’s all very well you smirking,” said Mum, “but we all know what would happen … The minute my back was turned you’d start having orgies.”
“Orgies!” A series of ecstatic squeaks came bursting out of me. Strange glugging sounds shook the sofa cushion.
“Don’t deny it,” said Mum. “I’ve heard of teenage parties getting out of control. You’d start by inviting a handful of friends and end up with hundreds of total strangers, wrecking the place.”
The sofa cushion erupted. I got as far as, “Mu-u-u-m—” and then collapsed.
“No, I’m sorry,” said Mum. “It really is quite out of the question.”
“But, Mu-u-u-m—”
“I’d never have a moment’s peace, and nor would Auntie Jay. It’s not fair to ask it of her.”
“We didn’t ask it,” I said. “She offered.”
“Yes, but she didn’t realise what she’d be taking on. She doesn’t know what it’s like,” said Mum, “having you lot in the house.”
“But we wouldn’t be in the house! Not her bit of the house. We’d be upstairs, all hidden away … we’d be quiet as mice! She wouldn’t even know we were there.”
“Yes, and I shudder to think what you’d get up to,” said Mum. “You’re too young, I’d have nightmares. It’s no good, you’re not going to talk me round. I shall have to say no.”
“Mum, you can’t!” Tash suddenly sprang into action, clutching her cushion. “This is your big chance!”
Well! If Tash had decided to enter the fray, I obviously had to support her. Earnestly, I said, “Tash’s right, you can’t let motherhood ruin your career.”
Mum pretended to be amused by this – “It’s not going to ruin my career!” – but I could sense that she was wavering. Yippee! We had struck the right note!
“You’d be mad to miss an opportunity like this,” I said.
“Yes, and we’d be the ones that paid for it,” said Tash. “You’d go round telling people it was our fault.”
“Like, all because of us you had to let your big chance slip away from you.”
“Which is why you’d ended up as an unfulfilled woman – all mean and bitter and twisted.”
Mum said that she would be even more mean and bitter and twisted if she came back home to find we’d given Auntie Jay a nervous breakdown.
I stared at her, reproachfully. “It doesn’t say much for the way you’ve brought us up if that’s how you think we’d behave.”
“Good try,” said Mum. “But the answer is still no!”
She was doing her best to sound like she really meant it. Like that was definitely the last word. End of subject. Finish. But I’d heard Mum on the phone to Auntie Jay and I knew how much this job meant to her. Dad is always the one in our family that gets to go away on interesting assignments. Partly this is because he’s a man, and men tend to take it for granted that it’s OK for them to go whizzing off across the globe at a moment’s notice but not OK for women, at any rate that’s how it seems to me. But mainly, I have to say, it’s because of his work. Dad is not at all a caveman type; he doesn’t expect Mum to stay home washing his socks and ironing his shirts while he’s off gallivanting. He does, however, happen to be an archaeologist (hooray! I’ve remembered how to spell it) and he is very much dedicated to digging things up. Sometimes he digs in this country, but on the whole there is more stuff waiting to be dug up in other parts of the world. Like right now, for instance, he was out in Peru digging up graves. And Mum had been offered a commission to go and join him, to take pictures for a book. Really exciting! Mum is a brilliant photographer, she is wasted just doing pictures of bouncing babies and giant cucumbers for the local paper. We all thought that she deserved a break. We also thought that it would be pretty cool to spend eight whole weeks living on our own …
I might as well admit it, we weren’t just thinking of Mum! Well, me and Tash weren’t. I don’t know what Ali was thinking. Nobody ever knows what Ali is thinking. Stuff goes on inside her head that has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the things that are going on around her. Like now. She’d been perched on the arm of a chair, chewing her fingernails (a disgusting habit which she ought to have grown out of years ago) when suddenly she stopped chewing and said, “I’m nearly at the end of The Next Generation.”
It sort of made sense, if you happened to know that she is a massive fan of Star Trek. It didn’t actually seem to have anything to do with what we’d been discussing, but that’s Ali for you.
“I’ll be moving on to Deep Space Nine in a few days.”
“Ali, you’re not helping,” said Tash. She turned, to renew the attack on Mum. “Mum, you can’t do this to us!”
“Do what?” said Mum.
“Make us the excuse for not getting on with your life! It isn’t fair,” said Tash. “How do you think it makes us feel?”
“It makes us feel terrible,” I said.
“It makes us feel guilty.”
“All those times you’ve come home grumbling cos of having to do another baby—”
“And now you could be out there doing graves!”
“Tombs,” I said, “actually.”
“All right, then, tombs.”
“Old tombs.”
“Ancient tombs.”
“It’s got to be better than babies!”
“And just think, you’d get to see your name in print—”
“Photographs by Catherine Love.”
“It’s what you’ve always dreamed of!”
Mum bit her lip. We were really starting to get to her!
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. “You’re only making it more difficult for me.”
“We want to make it difficult!”
“We want to be able to boast about you!”
&nb
sp; “Our mum, the famous photographer …”
“Taking photographs out in Peru!”
“But you’re too young,” wailed Mum. “You’re only twelve years old!”
“Mum we’re nearly thirteen!”
“Ali’s nearly fourteen.”
The sound of her name brought Ali back to life.
“If we go,” she said, solemnly, “I’d have to take them with me.”
We all stopped and looked at her. Take what? Take who? Me? Tash?
“My Deep Space Nines.”
The penny dropped. For once, I’d actually managed to follow her thought process. Of course! She couldn’t possibly be expected to go to Auntie Jay’s without her supply of Star Treks.
“Oh, Ali, for goodness’ sake,” said Mum. “You have a one-track mind!”
“One trek,” said Tash.
Rather clever, I thought.
“There’d be enough to keep me going,” said Ali, “so long as it was only a couple of months – though I suppose I could always come back and get more. If I ran out, I mean. If you decided to stay in Peru for longer than a couple of months.”
“Ali, I am not going to Peru,” said Mum. But she really didn’t say it with that much conviction. I think I knew, then, that we had won!
Two days later, it was all arranged. Mum was going to Peru, and we were going to Auntie Jay’s. Hurrah! We were so excited. Mum still had her doubts, but Dad, fortunately, was so busy with his digging, and so eager for Mum to go and take photographs, that he forgot we were his little helpless girls and told Mum that of course we’d be all right.
“Jay will keep an eye on them.” He even added that a bit of independence might be good for us. “Teach them a bit of responsibility.”
Wonders will never cease!!!
That weekend, me and Mum and Tash went to “view the apartment”, as they say. Ali was off somewhere with Louise Wagstaffe, her best friend from school. They are thick as thieves! Mum said, “Why not bring Louise with you?” but Ali said they had things to do. I don’t know how she could bear to miss out on all the fun. I mean, a place of our own! There was so much to talk about, so much to decide, like for instance who was going to sleep where, but Ali is the sort of person who really doesn’t care about her surroundings. I sometimes think she doesn’t even notice them, just so long as she has her beloved Star Treks.
Auntie Jay only lives on the other side of town, so the great advantage, from Mum and Dad’s point of view, was that we’d be OK for school. We’d only just started back for the summer term, and they are incredibly strict about not letting us miss any.
“Just remember –” it is their constant cry “ – we’re paying for you to go to that school!”
Yeah yeah yeah. They have to get their money’s worth, I do see that. Me and Tash wouldn’t have minded going off to Peru with them. Stuff school! Ali would probably have got fussed, though. She is quite a boffin, in her own peculiar way.
If Ali is a boffin, then Auntie Jay (who is Mum’s little sister) is your actual auntie from heaven. She is bliss! What other auntie would have offered the whole top floor of her house to three girls?
Once upon a time, Auntie Jay was “into property”. She used to buy it and sell it and make simply oodles of dosh, until after a bit she decided that just making money was rather ignoble, and also not terribly interesting, so she gave it all up and started to work for herself, instead. She runs this perfume company called Scents & Flowers, which advertises on the Internet but is actually located in her basement at home. Scents & Flowers doesn’t make very much money, but is very rewarding in all kinds of other ways. It does mean, however, that she has to let out most of her house as flats, keeping only the bottom bit for herself. It is lucky that it’s quite a large house, bought in the days when she was into property. It is also very old, being built in the year 1905. Which makes it, I think, Edwardian.
So we were going to inhabit the top floor. All by ourselves! Mum said we were extremely lucky that the flat was available. The last tenants had just moved out; we could see where they’d spilled stuff on the carpet and hung things on the wall.
“It really needs redecorating,” said Auntie Jay.
But Mum gave one of her hollow laughs, like ha ha you have to be joking, and said, “Wait till this lot have been in here a couple of weeks!”
“Mum, we’ll treat it like Buckingham Palace,” I said. “I promise!”
“Just don’t set fire to anything,” begged Auntie Jay, “that’s all I ask. Now, let’s take you on a guided tour.”
The main room, which was like a bedroom and sitting room all in one, was huge. It had a tiny little kitchen opening off it at one end, and an even tinier little bathroom at the other, plus a sort of broom cupboard with just enough space for a bed.
“I thought Ali could have that,” said Auntie Jay, “seeing as she’s the oldest. I’m afraid you two will have to share. Is that all right?”
There was just the one bed in the sitting room. It was a biggish sort of bed, but we’d never actually had to sleep together before.
“Blimey,” said Tash.
“You’d better not kick,” I said.
“You’d better not snore!”
Auntie Jay was beginning to look a bit flustered. “Maybe I ought to see if I can find another one somewhere.”
“Oh, don’t worry about those two,” said Mum. “They can make do. They’re practically joined at the hip, anyway.”
It’s true, me and Tash are the hugest of best friends. Mum says we are more like twins than sisters. Sometimes we pretend that we are twins, and then people just get so confused! You can see them looking from me to Tash and back again to me, not knowing what to believe. We happen to have been born on exactly the same day – yet we don’t look in the least bit alike. Tash is small and dark and elfin, with this dear little face, all beaming and full of innocence. (Totally misleading! Mum says she is a holy terror.) I am on the skinny side, with blonde hair, a bit straggly except when it has just been washed, and blue eyes. In my last school photo, although I say it myself, I looked positively angelic! This is also misleading, according to Mum. She says that when it comes to the holy terror stakes, “I couldn’t put a pin between you.” But physically we are completely and utterly different, and this is because we are actually not even sisters! We love to string people along and get them all wound up. And then, when we have teased them long enough, we put them out of their misery. We have this party piece that we do.
“Her mum – “ Tash says.
“Married her dad,” I say.
“Which means – “(both together)” – we’re not even related!”
Ha ha! Well, we think it’s funny. Sometimes we tell people the story of how Mum and Dad met up while me and Tash were still in Infants. We tell how they got talking while they waited for us outside the school gates. How Mum was on her own with me and Ali, Dad was on his own with Tash, and so in the end they decided to get married. How us three were bridesmaids, in little pink frocks. Just so-o-o sweet!
Yes, and it would have been even sweeter if Ali hadn’t gone and brought up her breakfast in the middle of the ceremony, though at least she managed to catch most of it in her bouquet, which Auntie Jay said showed great presence of mind. Personally I thought it was rather disgusting, but it is the sort of thing you expect from Ali. She is just so accident prone!
After we’d settled the question of beds, and had mastered the art of switching the cooker on and off and closing the fridge door properly – Mum seemed to think we needed lessons! She has such a poor opinion of us – we all went downstairs for a cup of tea. One of Auntie Jay’s friends was there, a woman called Jo Dainty, who used to be at uni with her. She said, “Well, I just hope you’re more capable than I was at your age … I couldn’t even boil an egg!”
“I can boil eggs,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound boastful but there are times when grown-ups really do seem to think we are quite useless. I mean, closing fridge doors, for goodness’ sa
ke!
“Just don’t get too cocky,” said Mum. “This is going to be a steep learning curve.”
She added that she intended to make out a list of Do’s and Don’ts, and she advised Auntie Jay to do the same.
“I may even make a Book of Rules.”
She thought better of that idea, thank goodness! But the day she moved us into the flat she presented me and Tash with a couple of jotter pads and said she wanted us to keep a daily Food Diary and a weekly Activities Diary, so that when she got back she would be able to check a) what we had been eating and b) what we had been up to.
“Mum!” I said. “That’s spying!”
“It’s not spying,” said Mum. “It’s a way of keeping you focused.”
“So who gets to do what?” said Tash.
I said that I would do Activities, and she could do Food. Writing a diary was no problem for me, I already kept one anyway. Not that I would ever let Mum see my own personal diary! My personal diary is strictly private. I thought that for Mum it would be easy enough just to do extracts. Suitable ones, of course!
“What about Ali? What’s she going to do?”
Mum said that Ali was to be responsible for Fat Man. Fat Man is our cat. He is not really fat, it’s just that he has masses of fur, all puffed out like a big pompom, plus the most disagreeable expression, which in fact is every bit as misleading as Tash looking innocent and me looking angelic. In reality he is the sweetest cat and we all love him to bits! But it is Ali who specially dotes on him, so we didn’t mind her being put in charge. In any case, she would never have managed to keep a diary, she is far too disorganised. Unless, perhaps, she could have put it on the computer. Ali loves her computer! Needless to say, it was going to come with us. The computer and Star Trek are the two biggest things in her life – well, plus Fat Man.
Some people think that Ali is a bit odd, but really she’s just eccentric. We all feel very protective towards her. Dad once said that she is your actual “innocent abroad”, by which I think he meant that she is not at all streetwise. Unlike me and Tash! I wasn’t altogether surprised when Mum took me to one side, as we loaded the car for the second trip to Auntie Jay’s, and said, “Emily, I want you and Tash to do something for me … I want you to watch out for Ali. Make sure she’s all right. I know she’s older than you, but she is such a dreamer! So can I rely on you?”
