The Summer of Secrets (6 page)

Alice. It was hard to imagine her involved in anything so messy.

‘I suppose if she does it …’ Helen’s voice tailed off as Victoria turned round.

‘Alice?’ Victoria gave a short laugh. ‘Alice doesn’t do things. She waits for other people to do them for her.’

She gave the mixture a vigorous stir. Drops of floury water flew out across the table and splattered down the front of Helen’s T-shirt.

‘Careful!’ Helen wiped some from her cheek.

‘Well, I did tell you to wear old clothes.’

Victoria went back to her stirring and they were silent for a time. The weather had changed today. The air felt sticky and slow, and clouds, low and dark, had been building up as Helen had walked down to the cottage after breakfast. Now, the kitchen was full of shadows.

‘OK, it’s ready.’ Victoria turned off the gas and picked up the saucepan with both hands. She nodded towards the table. ‘You bring that one.’

As Helen went after her towards the stairs, there came a rumble from the sky outside. Helen stopped to count the seconds before the lightning. It was a long way off yet. Victoria lifted her saucepan above her head and glanced over her shoulder.

‘It looks as if we’ve cooked up some magic,’ she said, and broke into a run.

Victoria had discovered the wallpaper in an outhouse. It had been partly used at some point, the end edges left roughly cut and the tightness of the rolls finishing in a loose furl. There was no sign of its pattern inside the cottage, which Helen could understand. She thought it was horrible, the huge brown and orange flowers reaching out with nightmare tendrils towards each other. Now, putting her saucepan down inside Victoria’s bedroom door, she leaned her head to one side. Spread out in long strips on the floor, it wasn’t any nicer than she remembered.

‘And you’re sure you want this on your ceiling?’ She spoke to Victoria’s back. ‘It’d give me nightmares.’

Victoria was gathering armfuls of clothes from the floor and piling them on to the bed.

‘It’s brilliant.’ She didn’t look round, but nodded towards a plastic washing up bowl. ‘Can you fill that with water?’

A louder crack of thunder sounded. Helen turned, but was too late to see the lightning flash.

‘It’s going to rain any minute. Do you want to close the window?’

‘Not really.’ Victoria dragged a bedspread over the pile she had made and waved a hand towards the bowl. ‘Water!’

Helen bent to pick it up as the next roll of thunder came. This time she was quick enough to see the forks of light stand out behind the network of trees on the far bank. She felt the air holding itself ready for the rain, but none came.

‘Hello! I need it over here!’ Victoria’s voice was sharp, but still Helen lingered by the window. The sky beyond the trees was a smooth metal plate, reflecting darkness with menace. ‘Helen!’

She jumped at the tone, and dragged herself away.

The flour-and-water glue turned out to be less sticky on the ceiling than it felt on their hands and arms. As Victoria pushed one end of the wallpaper against the corner of the wall, Helen pressed with her hands along its length. By the time she reached the end, though, the middle section was bellying off. She saw Victoria take a step forward and, in that instant, the far end fell away.

‘Quick, it’s coming down, behind you, behind you!’ She let go of her own piece to pat ineffectually further along, but her hand went straight through.

‘It’s got me!’ Victoria’s voice rose up in a shriek as her head and shoulders disappeared under the collapsing paper.

Laughing, Helen forgot to keep an eye on her own end. Seconds later, it came down as well. There were acres of it, the clinging sodden folds wrapping themselves around her. It felt soft, but she couldn’t break through. Slime filled her mouth as another bolt of thunder cracked. Her breath was coming in gasps, and she couldn’t inhale. Just as panic was about to win, she felt the paper being pulled away. Victoria’s head, covered in wallpaper with holes torn for eyes and mouth, loomed over her.

‘Whooo!’ She was waving her arms, and laughing so hard that her ghost noise trembled and ran out. Her expression changed as Helen rolled to one side and began to cough. ‘Are you all right?’

Helen peeled more paper away from her head and let out a shaky giggle.

‘I think so’ The remembered sense of cloying dark brushed through her mind again and was gone. It didn’t seem so bad now. Something cool landed on her cheek. Rain, coming down in huge slanting drops and bouncing over the sill. ‘You might want to close the window.’

Victoria glanced over her shoulder, then shrugged.

‘Let it rain.’ She peeled a long strip away from her hair. ‘It might work better if we put the paste straight on to the ceiling.’

‘You want to carry on?’ Helen spat glue out as she stared up with what she hoped looked like dismay.

‘Well, we’re already covered in it. No point in cleaning up before the job’s done.’ She held out a hand. ‘Come on.’

The second method worked better, although they had to use drawing pins to hold the paper in place. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had come, tailing off into a slow continuous mizzle. The bedroom felt humid and sticky, but Victoria looked around with a satisfied expression.

‘OK, now I need to wash it out of my hair.’ She stepped over the piles of discarded wallpaper, pausing when she reached the door. ‘Are you coming?’

Helen poked at the chaos on the floor with one foot.

‘Don’t you want to clear this away first?’

‘We can bung it on the landing for now. Come on.’

Helen followed, only wondering once she was in the bathroom why Victoria wanted her there. She stood in the doorway, watching the bath fill with water and feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

‘I’ll wait in your room.’

Victoria had already stepped out of her jeans and was leaning into the mirror examining the clumps of paste drying in her hair.

‘What for? You can sit and talk to me.’ She crossed to the bath and dipped a hand in before shaking salts under the stream of water. A delicate scent of lavender drifted up with the heat. ‘The water’s nice and hot, anyway. Shut the door.’ She was pulling her shirt off now. At least she’d turned away. Helen slid down to the floor, keeping her back to the bath. Water sloshed as Victoria got in. She was still talking. ‘Last week the boiler stopped working but I didn’t realise until I got in. It was freezing. And this bath takes forever to fill.’

It was huge, with taps bellying out beneath the handles like fat barrels instead of coming out at an angle. Helen could feel the heat through the side of the tub. The walls were tiled with an odd pattern in sage-green, the lines reminding her of tree bark. If she half-closed her eyes, they shimmied, stretching and contracting in an odd optical quirk. Victoria’s voice echoed from the inside of the bath.

‘Why do you never have friends round? Were you at boarding school or something?’

Helen turned involuntarily before remembering where Victoria was, but it was OK. She could only see her head.

‘No, I was at the high school.’

‘Oh.’ Victoria slid down under the water. It was strange to hear it lapping from the outside. Then her head appeared over the side, hair slicked back like paint. ‘So go on, why nobody coming round?’

‘Well …’ Helen hesitated. Abruptly, she was back there with the smell of the corridors sharp in her nose. They were always cold, even in the summer term, but she’d taken to walking them, slowly, to avoid being outside. Everyone else was sitting in knots on the playing field, lounging in the aftermath of exam tension. Sometimes a teacher would chase her out. It was amazing how many hidden spaces there were if you were desperate enough to search them out. Anything was better than sitting alone. ‘No-one lives that close.’ She wasn’t about to admit the truth.

‘What I hate at school is when everyone stops talking to you.’ Victoria stood up, sending water ricocheting around inside the bath. ‘Pass me the towel.’

Helen reached out for it, forgetting to turn away.

‘Did it happen to you as well?’ She realised she was staring and dropped her eyes in confusion. The relief in her chest was making her feel breathless. ‘I don’t even know what I did, but one day everyone was laughing at me in registration, as if I’d got my skirt caught up in my knickers.’

‘I found a Tampax in my pencil case.’ Victoria pulled a clean, oversized T-shirt over her head. ‘They’d coloured it in with red felt-tip.’

‘No! What did you do?’

Victoria’s voice was muffled as she rubbed at her hair with the towel.

‘Went and shoved it down this girl’s shirt. Bitch. She was the worst one. They left me alone after that.’ She gave her head a last shake, and dropped the towel on the floor. ‘Are you getting in?’

‘Well, I—’ Helen stopped. The glue had started to go hard in her hair, and she could feel it tightening on the skin of her arms. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ She rolled on to her knees and leaned across to the tap end of the bath, reaching for the plug chain.

‘There won’t be enough hot water.’ Victoria stopped at the door. ‘That’s why I left it in.’

‘OK.’ Helen stayed where she was. What was she supposed to do? Getting into someone else’s bathwater felt wrong, like touching their skin or … She made her mind stop. She could wait until Victoria had gone, and rinse her hair in the sink. Unless Victoria was planning to stay and talk while she got in the bath. Helen felt her fingers grip on to the smooth edge of the tub. She couldn’t do it.

‘I’ll go and find you something to wear.’ Victoria spoke over her shoulder as she went out to the landing.

Helen dipped the ends of her fingers into the water. It was warm enough, and the bath salts left an oily smoothness on her skin. And she didn’t want to come across as snotty … Before she could think about it anymore, she stripped off her clothes and got in. The water closed over her skin like a gossamer tickle and she felt herself shiver. She let her head sink under the surface. She always used the shower at home, and had forgotten how luxurious a bath could feel. And, after all, this was no different to being in a swimming pool where other people had been. She let the water burble against her ears. The air was cool where her skin was exposed, and she shifted herself to make the water ripple across. She couldn’t let herself enjoy it too much, though. There was no lock on the door, anyone could come in. The thought made her plunge into hasty washing, and she was already wrapped in the towel when Victoria’s head appeared around the door.

‘The paper’s staying up,’ she reported, thrusting an arm in to drop clothes on to the floor. ‘I’m putting the kettle on. You’d better hurry up before the twins eat all those cakes.’

‘You’ve got to save one …’ Helen began, but Victoria was gone. ‘For Seth,’ she finished.

The thunderstorm ended the run of fine weather. Almost immediately, it was as if the heat wave had never happened, and the overcast skies and drizzle might as well have been there for ever. Mick’s mood went down with the barometer. He stopped scouring the paper for auctions or making trips for boat parts, instead spending hours in the gloom of the garage, contemplating the bare structure of the hull. His mood permeated the house. Helen started to wait until he’d gone out before coming down for breakfast. In the evenings, she’d stop in the hallway when she came back from the cottage, gauging his frame of mind from the volume of the television, the number of beer bottles lined up by the sofa. He was often asleep. One evening, she stood and watched him, head back against the chair, his mouth open as he snored. If it hadn’t been for Victoria, she thought, this would be her only entertainment. So with relief, she’d slip out every morning, calling behind to let him know she’d be back later, and ignoring the confused sense of abandonment she felt towards him.

Even though the cooler weather showed no signs of ending, she was happier than she’d ever been in the world they created in the confines of Victoria’s bedroom. By the time the two of them had got bored of lying around swapping daft stories and making elaborate travel plans for the future, Victoria had resurrected the book list.

‘All that, and she follows him to Siberia!’ Victoria didn’t look up as Helen came into her room, but stared at the book in her hand, her face wrinkled in disgust.

‘All what?’ Helen flopped down on to the bed, flipping open her own book where she’d folded down the corner of the page, and immediately closing it. She was having trouble keeping the characters straight in her head, and she knew she’d lose track if Victoria was talking.

‘This book.’ Victoria waved it in front of Helen’s nose, but too fast for her to read the title. ‘First of all it’s like reading … treacle.’ She threw the book in the air, hitting it with the palm of her hand so it flew across the bedroom, landing face down and open on the floor. ‘And her dad drinks all the money away, her mum makes her be a prostitute, and this nutter who axed someone and thinks way too much is in love with her and she follows him to prison. In Siberia.’ She wandered across to the window. ‘How are you getting on?’

‘OK, actually.’ In fact, Helen hadn’t been able to sleep the night before until she’d found out whether Natasha had broken off her engagement. ‘But I’m skipping the battles.’

‘If what you’re reading is actually
And Peace
.’ Victoria pulled herself up on the sill. ‘You can only get half points. No prizes for missing bits out.’

‘Not fair!’ Helen protested. ‘It’s at least twice as long as yours.’

‘Rules of the game.’ Victoria pulled up her knees and picked at a loose thread on her jeans. ‘And I get extra because everyone in mine was so incredibly miserable.’ She grinned at Helen, daring her to disagree.

Helen joined her at the window. The rain somehow made everything the same: tree-green merging into grass-green before the dimpled surface of the canal absorbed all of the differing shades in subtle, swaying streaks.

‘My dad and me used to play a game with the raindrops,’ she said, following one down the glass with a light fingertip chase. ‘We used to choose one each and race them down.’

‘Nice story, Grandma.’