‘Until what?’
‘I’ll be eighteen. For the first time in my whole life, I’ll be able to do what I want.’ My voice shook. The edges of my vision were in focus again but I still felt slightly faint. ‘I want to get away from here. I don’t ever want to come back. I can help you, and you can help me. If you want to, that is. If you don’t – it’s over.’
Janey’s face was dark in the shadow of the car. ‘Depends what you want me to do.’
I pulled the key from the ignition. ‘Listen, let’s walk back across the fields. I can’t drive any more. I’ll leave the car here, Joss can come and pick it up tomorrow.’
‘The fields?’ Janey looked horrified. ‘How?’
We clambered out, leaving the car pressed into the verge, and climbed over the stile, into a field heavy with nodding, sandy wheat. Two over, harvesting had already started, and the land was gritty with yellow-grey stubble. The milky-white moon was enormous, hanging low in a silver-blue sky.
‘What’s that?’ Janey pointed up to the moor, behind us. Outlined on the distant horizon was a collection of stones, sharp square edges against the moonlight.
‘Those are the Vane Stones. They’ve been there for probably a thousand years. They’re one of the highest points around. They catch the sun and reflect it back. They say you can tell what the weather’s going to be like by looking at them.’ She looked totally blank. ‘Like a weather vane, you see. The house is named after them. You can see them from the front of the house, Joss’s side that looks over the moor.’
‘They’re glittering.’
‘They do that, when there’s a full moon. It’s beautiful up there. You can see three counties. And the stones are huge. Mummy and I camped out there, once.’ I’d forgotten how she and I used to do things like that. ‘It was brilliant, it’s totally wild. You drive off the beaten track, along a winding, twisting road, through the heather. Further and further away from the coast up onto the moor. You can’t see another soul. We found a huge bank of bracken and slept on it.’ I was smiling, remembering Mummy’s excitement at gathering water from the stream, at us making a fire. ‘It was so much fun, except when Rory ate the sausages we’d brought for our breakfast.’ I thought about his soft head, the bulky feel of him against my ankles, and a sob rose in my throat. ‘I’ll take you. We can go up one day. It’s beautiful, Janey.’
‘I’d like that. The Vane Stones.’ She stared up at them again, at the purple-green ridge of the moor. We walked on.
There was no sound apart from the owls below us, and the rustling of our feet trampling through swaying, heavy wheat, prinked here and there with poppies. Now, I think we’d be shot. Occasionally a fieldmouse would dart across our path, making Janey start.
The stillness, the heavy heat, the alcohol, the pain in my head where Giles had pulled my hair, all were like a clamp and I walked faster to slough it off, dispel the panicky blackness of the mood that I could feel descending on me.
We were in sight of Vanes; I could see the arched windows, glinting, as though they were watching our approach and winking at us. The moon hung exactly above the house. It seemed to be a living thing, tugging at the stones, coating the parched lawn in flecked silver, washing the ancient flagstones with light, pulling us in towards it. The weather vane creaked, very slowly, turning around, though there was, I realised, no wind. It was stifling hot. The whole place was like a model of a perfect English house, from afar. And we in it were rotten. When had we become rotten? I do not know, but I feel desperately sorry for those two girls, on the edge of the fields, about to step back within the boundary of the house.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I put down a wicker basket of items I’d collected from inside. ‘Here,’ I said, taking out a bottle of wine and some mugs. ‘Have a drink.’ I pulled out the nighties I’d taken from the laundry basket. ‘And get ready for bed, in case we have to creep back inside. Or if we want to sleep outside.’ The truth was I wanted to change, I didn’t want to wear the sundress, which smelled of cigarettes and beer and the fetid atmosphere of the pub. Something had shifted inside me, and it was because of her, and the strength having her there gave me to act.
I took off all my clothes, and dived into the pool. My parents slept at the other end of the house, and Merry might wake, but she’d know if she heard us down here that it wasn’t her business. Poor Merry, it never was.
The feeling of cool, green water on my naked body was beautiful. It was sharply cold, and fresh. I emerged, shaking my head and smiling. The pool was so deep one rarely touched the bottom, unless one dived all the way down. To be entirely covered with it, to look down and see the moon on the surface, my breasts, my legs treading water, was to feel clean again.
‘Did you ever like Giles?’ said Janey after a long silence.
‘No. Not really.’
She took a gulp of her wine out the mug. ‘Why did you go out with him then?’
I shrugged, which is hard to do whilst you’re treading water, so I slid under again, and swam the length of the pool.
‘I don’t know. His father does business with mine.’
‘Wow. I didn’t think you –’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’re Kitty, aren’t you? You could have anyone you want.’
‘I’m at school with girls. And I’m Joss’s sister. Some guys feel funny, asking me out. And as for meeting anyone not from Joss’s school – who else is there? He sort of . . . picked me. Started ringing up and asking me out. After a while I sort of couldn’t say no. PF kept on at me, kept saying it’d be helpful. Giles bought me all these presents. He’d bring the vodka when we went out. Everyone wanted to be with him. For a time I suppose it was . . . like belonging. I didn’t ever think I was like that.’ I shrugged. ‘Turns out I am.’
‘Don’t you go anywhere else? Friends of friends’ houses? Minehead? Parties?’
‘It’s all the same gang. Always. And they don’t hang out in Minehead.’
‘I like Minehead,’ said Janey, thoughtfully. ‘I like the curve of the bay. And the wooden huts.’
I thought of Sam Red, the grandson of old Tom, whom I’d met up with a couple of times in Minehead arcade, and also behind the arcade, rather like something out of Grease. We’d snog, and do stuff to each other. It was kind of fun. I’d only gone to meet him to alleviate the boredom of the previous summer, when the other girls – Polly, Lucy, Amarinth, Eliza, were into three things: talking about the same group of six or so boys, skincare, and the merits of shopping for ball gowns at Laura Ashley vs Fred’s off the King’s Road.
Joss fitted in with Giles’s gang, because he adapted. I couldn’t work out how to. I wondered about Sam Red now. He was nice. He was a great kisser, and there was something about the combination of his mop of unruly thick hair, AC/DC T-shirt, jeans and sneakers that I found extremely attractive. He was attractive. But I couldn’t have told anyone I knew that I hung out with Sam, even if I omitted to mention what we got up to. They’d have found it weird. And I’d have got more grief from Giles.
I didn’t understand why Giles wanted to be with me. I think he liked having me, knowing I was the prettiest girl, and yet knowing I was his to denigrate and demean in every way possible.
I climbed out of the pool, and dried myself. I put the nightdress on. Janey did the same, not watching each other. I poured myself some wine.
‘Anyway,’ Janey said. ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun to me, only being allowed to hang out with the same group of people the whole time.’
‘It’s hardly like you’re drowning in friends,’ I said, irritated that she understood so well. ‘That Claire girl you’re always going on about, and Ems, is it? And . . . who else?’
‘It’s different. I chose to be like that.’
‘Oh really? What about that boy, Paul?’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ll probably never see him again, unless I go home. And I’m not going home.’
‘You might do.’
‘You don�
�t understand.’ Janey dangled her feet in the pool, her toes pointed. ‘Claire’s left, and she won’t be back. The others have gone away too. And usually it was just me and Daddy. I didn’t need lots of other people. I did stuff with him. He was my best friend.’
She bowed her head, looking at her reflection in the still water. ‘I know. I’m sorry, Janey.’ My heart ached for her. ‘I wish I’d known him better.’
Janey poured herself another cup of wine. She raised it to me, then drank. In the silence, I pressed my wrinkled, cold fingers against my goosebumpy arm, then glanced up. She was watching me.
‘I found him,’ she said, after a few minutes. ‘He was in the garage. I can’t forgive him, that’s the thing. That’s what’s making me so angry. He knew I’d find him. I don’t understand how . . . If you love someone . . .’ She shook her head, body bowed over so far she was almost bent double, kicking the water. ‘Suppose you had someone you loved more than anyone or anything. Why would you leave them? And why would you let them find you, make it even worse than it could be?’
I didn’t know what to say. I slid one hand out towards her, and touched her arm.
‘I see him, you know. Whenever I close my eyes. His tongue was swollen, grey and purple – it stuck out. He looked so – so stupid. Undignified. That’s the worst bit. I hate myself for it. For even thinking that. But h-he d-did. I don’t understand why.’
‘Did he leave a note?’
‘Yes.’ She looked up and directly at me. ‘Yes, he did. Do you know what it said? It said: Rescue Sylvia.’
‘Oh.’ I sat back.
‘How did he meet Sylvia?’ Janey asked. ‘Daddy said she was his ward, but that’s all.’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘I don’t . . . really know. All I know is he was a lodger with my grandmother, in Wellington Square. After she’d left my grandfather who had custody of Mummy. And your dad promised to look after Sylvia if anything happened.’ I rubbed my still-throbbing scalp. ‘So he looked after her. Mummy says he was always on at her to work hard.’
Janey gave her small, twisted little smile. ‘He did the same with me.’
‘After her mum died Simon – your dad, I mean – he stayed on in the house and took care of the lodgers and he made sure Mummy went to school. She changed her name to make it easier for them. She said something today about it. About how it helped protect her. But then your dad lost his job, and had to move away for work. I think that’s when it went wrong. Your dad wasn’t there.’
The music, the glistening ripples of moonlit water, the pull of the moon, the steady drip from my wet hair down my body and onto the ground – all were hypnotic.
‘I’ve been thinking lots about our house. How it’s just sitting there, empty. I had a birthday party once,’ Janey said. ‘We didn’t have lots of money. My mum got really worried there wasn’t enough food. So she goes to the corner shop, buys armfuls of Golden Wonders and Monster Munch and when she comes back, Daddy is running up the walls and jumping off. And he’s blowing a kazoo in time as he runs up. And there’s this group of kids around him, totally transfixed. He said one of them started crying, so he had to take action.’ I realised she was smiling, and crying. ‘We all ate the crisps, and he turns the oven on, and he shrinks the crisp packets in the oven and each kid got one to take home. He said it was a special token. And my mum was so furious, it wasn’t how she wanted the party to be at all. And everyone said it was the best party they’d ever been to, and she just couldn’t see it. The next week, and the week after, at school, children kept coming up to him, clinging on to his hand, begging him to do it again. And he’d say: Do what? and they’d say: Oh, any of it!’
We both laughed. I tried to make it sound natural, but I was at sea, trying to read cues I couldn’t quite decipher. Joss and I had one birthday party when I was seven, some suitable children in the neighbourhood and a few locals too. All grouped round the swimming pool, and most of them too afraid to go in, because the water was such a strange, vivid green. Mummy made lavender bags, and quiche, and told us we could run around the garden. But the children were scared of the buzzing from the beehives, and there was nothing else to play with, and they weren’t allowed inside – my father’s stipulation. Someone fell in, and had to be rescued, and it was all rather grim. Two months afterwards, I was invited to Sam Red’s party, in Larcombe Village Hall. Sandwiches, jelly, twenty children running around screaming with joy and a magician called Mr Majelika who made a rabbit actually appear out of a hat. Was it the first time I realised being one of the Hunters wasn’t actually all it was cracked up to be?
To have someone here with me, someone who understood, whose mind worked the way mine worked, after all these years, was glorious. But it made me see how unusual our situation was.
‘Sorry,’ Janey said, wiping her nose neatly with a tissue. ‘I got sidetracked . . . I don’t really understand what happened. With Daddy and Sylvia in London.’
‘I don’t really know either. Just that your dad got a job in Northampton. Somewhere like that. Did you know where?’ Janey shook her head. I took a deep breath. ‘Janey, when he came back she’d taken up with . . . with my father. They were married when she was eighteen.’
Janey’s expression said it all. I didn’t ever tell people this. I’d been poking through the study and found the marriage certificate, hanging out of a paper file on a shelf. That my father had married my mother when he was forty, and she was eighteen. I don’t think Joss knew. He could work it out, sure, if he wanted to, but somehow there was a big difference between her being twenty-two years younger than him now and then.
‘He took her down here for the weekend when she was seventeen. Showed her how wonderful it was.’
Janey’s mouth was curled downwards. ‘So, like . . . your age.’
‘Yep.’
Even saying it made me feel queasy. I tried to think of Mummy being driven down towards the house for the first time. How alone she must have felt. Sensitive, brilliant Sylvia Lestrange, so alone she felt she had to marry a man I was sure she didn’t love, walk into a world about which she knew nothing. Had she had a friend, to speak out for her? Where was Simon, when it happened?
‘I once heard my father talking about how nice it was, being married to someone younger. Hugo’s dad, Sir Andrew. He told him it was easy to break her in. The girls he knew from growing up, a lot of them were land girls or WRNs or WAAFs. They didn’t really care for being bossed around. They were Ros’s friends. They went off and did their own thing. He’s never liked that.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Janey. I could see it in her eyes: disgust, pity, horror, re-evaluation. ‘But how – do you mind me asking, how do you feel about your dad?’
‘I don’t know.’ But I did know. I forced myself to meet her gaze. ‘OK. I don’t like him. He’s only interested in what he’s interested in. And it’s not children. It’s not me or Merry. And Joss he is interested in, but only if he conforms. I feel sorry for Joss most of all in a way. And Merry, poor lamb. What happens to her I don’t know. The irony is she’s most like Daddy of all of us.’ I moved closer. I wanted to make sure I got it right. ‘He’s never cared about Mummy’s life. He made her leave art college. She was so talented.’
‘She still is.’
‘Yes, but she lives a sort of half-life. She has sex with him every day, and I know she doesn’t want to. I don’t know why.’ I paused, and then pushed the heel of my palms into my eyes. ‘At least I don’t want to know why.’
‘What does that mean?’
I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to tell her what I thought. She sleeps with my father to keep him busy. To keep him sated. ‘She’s barely there most of the time. She wants me to leave, that’s why she wants me to go to Cambridge. To get out.’
‘Has he ever –’ Janey’s eyes locked on mine. ‘Kitty – has he ever done anything to you?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s – looks. And touches. He pushes against me, “by accident”. He stares at me. I’ve seen him watching me
get changed. He’s come into my room, once or twice. He stands there, asking me about Giles. Mummy’s appeared, and taken him off.’
‘Your father,’ she said, hoarsely.
Bile was in my throat; shame, horror, embarrassment. ‘It’s as if he’s waiting. Waiting for something. But he’s never quite got up the nerve.’ I rubbed my head.
I thought she might try and change the subject, or let me know how disgusted she was by me, by what I’d allowed to happen. But she just said: ‘I’m so sorry. That’s awful, Kitty.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s not talk about it again, please.’ She nodded. ‘This is what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m leaving. I’ll go – anywhere. Travelling across Europe, then down into Africa. I’m going to take the car. I’ll leave right after the Collecting, next week. There’s loads of other people there, they’ll never notice.’
Bless her for ever, she didn’t look horrified. She said calmly: ‘Won’t you go to Cambridge?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve deferred the place for a year. I just know I have to get out of here, and if I tell them, they won’t let me. So I thought I’d just do an evening flit. And, Janey – here’s the thing. Will you come with me?’
She kneeled up, hugging herself. There was a spark in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes? Seriously?’
We stared at each other.
‘We have to plan it without telling anyone,’ I said. ‘We leave a letter. We say we’ve gone travelling, that we’ll be in touch. Are you sure, Janey?’
Janey nodded. ‘I’m sure. What’s there for me? I’ve stuffed up my exams, the house is being sold. Mum’s making me go to secretarial college. I don’t even know where I’d live.’ She laughed, like it was funny. ‘I’ve got absolutely nothing else to go back for.’ She bit her thumb. ‘Well, almost nothing.’
‘Good.’ I saw the hurt in her eyes at my pleasure, but I wanted to keep going, in case she changed her mind. ‘We need money. I’ve got a Post Office account. I just need to – get the book off Mummy . . . now . . .’
The Beloved Girls Page 32
