Gypsy Girl (3 page)

I followed her bright pink T-shirt through the trees, pushing my way along a narrow, hidden path, going carefully by the wild roses, unhooking their thorns from my jeans and trying not to get my belly stung by nettles. The path stopped at a high fence that was made of thick steel bars twice my height and ending in sharp spikes holding up a strong steel mesh. It was a fence that said, “Don’t even try to get over me.” It had two signs attached to it. The first said:
INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS LTD. SPECIALIST IMPORT AND EXPORT CARRIERS.
The second was a warning.
PREMISES PATROLLED 24 HOURS BY SECURITY GUARDS.

Beyond the fence was the barn and the new buildings, clustered around a tarmac yard. The barn had been done up. Its doors were wide open, and I could see crates and pallets of stuff stored in there. Three lorries with
INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS
printed on their sides were parked in the yard with their back doors open, ready to be loaded. The silver Range Rover was by the side of them. Next to it was a battered old Jeep. And beside that, in total contrast, was a bright red Subaru Impreza WRX, the kind that my cousins are always oohing and aahing over. I couldn’t see Mr McCloud driving something like that. And anyway it had a personalized number plate,
HUD18
, so I bet it belonged to someone else.

A forklift truck was standing in the middle, beside a couple of white sacks and a load of crates tipped onto their sides. One of the sacks had split open. I reckoned that was the thud we’d heard. The forklift must’ve dropped the whole lot while trying to load the lorry nearest to us. I don’t know what it contained, but it had coated the ground in white, and the breeze had blown it around. A big guy was hosing everything down, spraying the lorry and the fallen crates and the ground all around him. He’d taken his T-shirt off, and his biceps were huge. He might’ve been one of the lorry drivers, but he looked more like he was part of the 24-hour security. He was facing away from me, so he didn’t see me. He carried on swearing and cursing at someone, probably the forklift driver, until a voice shouted at him from inside one of the buildings. It sounded like McCloud.

“Pony. Did you save any of it?”

He paused. “No, it’s ruined. But he won’t do it again, boss.” His accent was foreign. I’m guessing Pony was his nickname because his scraggly long white hair was tied back in a ponytail. As he started to spray the ground again, he glanced my way. He stared for a second or two.

“Boss. We got visitors.”

Let him tell tales, I didn’t care.

I waited a few seconds, but Mr McCloud didn’t come out, so I turned my back on the yard and started picking blackberries. Granny Kate was right about them. There were masses of tangled brambles up against the fence and the side of the barn, and they were loaded down with thousands of berries.

I don’t know why Mr McCloud was so bothered about us being next to his precious property. It wasn’t like we could get anywhere near it because of the security fence. And we wouldn’t want to, anyway. Whatever he was transporting in the big lorries didn’t interest us. I cursed under my breath when I got caught on a thorn.

“What are you going to make with them?” I said.

Granny was good with hedgerow stuff. When she was my age, the men would go off and catch rabbits for stew and she would go picking berries from hedgerows. She would make puddings and pies, and a famous syrup that was so good you could take it like medicine and any coughs and colds going round wouldn’t dare to come anywhere near you.

She threw a few more berries into her bowl. “I’m going to make my special blackberry wine. We can toast the bride and groom at the reception.”

“Does it matter that they’re dusty?” I said, picking a handful and blowing on them.

Granny squinted at them. “That’s not dust. That’s bloom. They’ll be fine. Just drop ’em in the bowl.”

I carried on picking, but my thoughts weren’t on brambles. They were on the big house. From where I was standing, I could see the roof through the trees. I remembered the last time I’d seen it, and I’d gone in – uninvited. That was when I met Gregory Langton for the first time. I wasn’t doing a very good job of not thinking about him.

“So who was that yellow-haired gorjer boy?” asked Granny Kate, watching me.

Sometimes I think she can read my mind, even though she says all that Romany stuff about reading palms and telling fortunes is nothing but trickery and hanky panky. Let’s face it, if we knew the future then we’d all wait for a lottery rollover, predict the numbers and live in luxury. But at times like this, I wasn’t so sure.

“He’s from the big house,” I said, casually.

“I was watching,” she said. “He knew you. And you knew him.”

It was no good lying to her, so I took a deep breath.

“Remember when we last came to Langton?”

Granny sighed. “I do. For your poor mammy, God rest her soul!”

Two years ago our mother Maggie had died. She wasn’t strong like the Smiths – she was always tired – and one day something went wrong with her heart and it couldn’t be put right. We came here for the funeral because it was traditional for all her family to be buried in the graveyard in the town.

“Remember how angry I was that day?” I said. “I couldn’t even cry.”

I hadn’t been going to tell her the whole story, but somehow it came rushing out.

I saw it again in my mind like it was a DVD – the carriage, and the horses with their black feather plumes, the crowds of people, what they wore, what they said, and how the cold sun shone on the tears of me sisters and aunts, turning them to diamonds. But I hadn’t been able to shed even one tear. I was burning up inside with anger that she’d been taken from us. When it was over I ran off, still in my long black coat and boots. No one could stop me or find me. I wandered across the fields by myself, until I saw a horse straying onto the road through a broken fence.

I love horses and I didn’t want to see him get hurt on the road, so I tried to catch him, but he was a stallion and he had his own ideas. Eventually I managed to get my belt around his neck, even though he kept wanting to kick me with one end and bite me with the other, but I’m fast at moving out of the way. In the end I got him back into the nearest field without me being kicked or bitten to death. There was a big house near by, and I guessed he might belong there, so I walked up the drive to tell them what had happened. I didn’t know then that it was Langton House.

When I got to the front door, it was open. I shouted, but no one came. I could hear laughter and chatter coming from the back of the house, like there was a whole load of people having a party. I don’t know why I did it, but I walked inside. And once I’d done that, I kept on walking and looking around the hall and the front rooms. I’d never once in my whole life lived in a house. I looked at the pictures on the walls and the ornaments on the tables. And then I saw a couple of twenty-pound notes tucked half under a vase. I went towards them like I was hypnotized. I didn’t even need the money, but I was angry with the whole world. As my hand reached out and took the notes, there was a noise behind me. I whirled round.

That’s when I saw him for the first time, standing there in his school uniform, shirt untucked on one side, tie hanging loose, ink scribbled onto his hand. He was in the doorway, blocking my escape. Fair hair, golden brown eyes, I never forgot his face. He looked right at me. He didn’t look away.

“Who are you?” he said.

I told him my name, I don’t know why. Right then I didn’t care about anything but that my mother was dead.

We stared at each other some more, until someone shouted to him from the other room. “Gregory! Hurry up, we’re waiting.”

The whole world went still, and my future hung before me, spinning like a caterpillar on a thread. I was a gypsy girl trespassing in his house. He was the rich man’s son. If he told on me then the police would come and my daddy would be shamed that his daughter had been caught thieving on the day of the funeral.

But the boy didn’t shout out.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked, like he really wanted to know what was going through my mind. I couldn’t believe how cool he was about it.

I put my chin in the air and squared up to being caught. “I came to tell you that the big horse with the white blaze and three white socks got loose. I put him back in the field with the oak tree in the middle.”

He gave a laugh like he didn’t believe me. “You caught Nero?” Which I guessed was the stallion’s name. “No one gets near him.”

“I did. I’m fast and strong.” He looked at me and didn’t believe that, either. I didn’t blame him. I looked skinny in my funeral black.

He brushed his hair out of his eyes and said, “And the money in your hand?”

I put it back down. “I didn’t mean to. Don’t tell on me.”

Someone began shouting his name again – closer this time, as though they were coming through the house looking for him. He could’ve called out, given me away, but he didn’t.

“I’m coming,” he shouted, without taking his eyes off me.

Then he stood to one side so that I could reach the door.

I ran. I never thought I’d see him again, but now I had.

“That’s why I owe him. And some time soon I’ll pay him back.”

Granny said nothing. She was still picking berries.

“I didn’t take the money, Granny. I never would have done. I was just angry. And I know you’re going to tell me to keep away from boys like him,” I said. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to go near them.”

She stopped picking and straightened her back. “I remember a boy from round here,” she said. “A long time ago when we came here picking fruit. He was from the big house. He’s probably dead now.” She put a hand to her back again and winced. “Like I will be soon. I’m getting old.”

It wasn’t like Granny Kate to talk like this. Maybe the magpie had made her feel gloomy.

“You’re only ninety,” I told her. “That’s no age at all for a Smith.”

She shook her head. “The old vardo will be coming soon to take me off to my rest.”

She always says that when a Smith dies a wooden wagon comes along and carries them away to wherever it is that Smiths go in the afterlife.

“Well, it better not be yet,” I said to her. “Or Sabrina will go mad. Don’t go ruining the wedding!”

She laughed, and we carried on picking berries until we heard scuffling and curses in the undergrowth behind us. It was Sabrina, making her way towards us, her tears forgotten.

“There you are, Sammy-Jo!” she shouted, tiptoeing through the bushes, hands high, face screwed up in disgust, like she was wading waist-deep through a poisonous swamp. “You’re supposed to be me bridesmaid. You have to look after ME! You can talk to Granny any time. But I need my nails doing. NOW!”

“I’ll be glad when she’s married,” muttered Granny, and we both started laughing.

“No time for sorrow here! Only weddings,” I said.

But as I handed my bowl to her, I noticed that Mr McCloud had come out of one of the smart new buildings. He was watching us, his glasses two circles of light as they caught the sun.

I gave him a wave to show he didn’t scare me. His face didn’t change. His hand went to his pocket and he brought out a phone, dialled and then put it to his ear. He began talking.

I turned my back on him and followed Granny and Sabrina back to Gypsy’s Acre. I didn’t care who he was ringing. I didn’t care if it was the police. Let him.

He couldn’t move us.

The Paradise Nail and Beauty Bar –
PARADISE IS JUST A FINGERTIP AWAY!
– was packed with Smiths even before me and Sabrina arrived. Three of my sisters, who live in Langton, were already inside, along with a couple of my aunties. You could hear them chattering and laughing from out on the high street.

The noise got even worse when we rushed in, and everyone started shouting and asking the bride-to-be how she was feeling. The Paradise girls had been hearing about the wedding for ages. Star, Sadie-May and Savannah are always in and out, getting their nails done. It was a pity me other two sisters, Sylvia and Suzie, couldn’t be here, but they were due to arrive the next day from down south.

All seven of us have names beginning with
S
. I think my daddy was hoping for a boy each time, and was thinking of calling us Samson, and couldn’t get the idea of a name beginning with
S
out of his mind. All of us have the same sort of looks – “peas in a pod,” my daddy says – long, dark hair, eyes that seem like they’ve already got eyeliner and mascara on and skin that gets a dark tan in the summer. Put that together with the fact that we all like bright clothes and there’s no mistaking us when we get together. There’s only one thing that separates us. I love training and fighting, while their favourite sport is sitting on a comfy chair and texting.

“Here, take these chocolates off me,” hollered Star, waving a big box as soon as we got through the doors. “You know me, I’m a chocoholic and I’ll eat them all.”

Star’s well named. She always wanted to be a star. She’s got a good singing voice, and she used to get us all singing and dancing like the Spice Girls when everyone lived at home. I think she had dreams of entering
The
X Factor
before she got married and had her kids. She tossed the chocolate box towards us, and I caught it. It was Thorntons soft centres, so I grabbed a couple before Sabrina snatched it from me, declaring she was going to faint if she didn’t get some sugar, and tiptapped her way over to sit next to Star.

“Sammy-Jo! Sit here. I saved you a seat!” screeched another voice.

I’ve got seven aunties, but only two were here. Beryl is always flaunting round in her high heels, nosing out the latest gossip. Her sharp eyes don’t miss a trick – she sees and hears everything, and then lets everyone else know. The other was Queenie, big and curvy with huge, glittering, diamond earrings and strings of gold necklaces dangling down her low-cut top.

It was Beryl who’d shouted to me. She was patting the seat next to her, as her girl delicately painted gold and hot-pink polka dots onto her long silver nails. I sat down, and another girl set to work turning my scruffy fighter’s nails into something jewelled and silver to match me dress. All around me there was shouting and laughter, but I didn’t join in. I had a problem.