Page 6 of A Sky Painted Gold

“I don’t think so,” Midge says without a pinch of sympathy. “You’d better wash up and come and eat something. That’ll sort you out.” With that, she stands and makes her way out of the room, leaving me alone to deal with what feels like waves of rolling seasickness.

Summoning all of my effort, I struggle to my feet. Squinting back at me from the mirror is a very sorry-looking individual. My hair is sticking out in every direction, my dress is crumpled, my stockings are torn to shreds and there is lipstick smeared around my mouth. It is then, staring at my own terrible reflection, that I remember that the Cardew party have finally turned up. I remember the beautiful girl hanging out of the back of the car, and I wonder if she ever looks this bad in the morning after spending the night partying. No, a voice in my brain says very firmly. Absolutely, definitely not.

It takes a lot longer than it should, thanks to many rest breaks along the way, but eventually I end up in the kitchen, washed and dressed and looking almost presentable.

Midge makes me a steaming mug of tea and some thickly buttered toast, which, much to my surprise, I manage to eat and keep down. I have to admit that I am feeling much better. Perhaps things aren’t so bad, after all.

Freya drifts in, a book in her hands. She appears to be dressed as Queen Elizabeth, and she has a stiff paper ruff tied around her neck. “Gosh, you look terrible,” she says, peering closely at my face. “You’re all … green.”

“Yes, thank you, there’s no need to shriek like that, Freya,” I whisper, resting my forehead against the cool, cool tabletop.

“Are you remembering when you fell over trying to show everyone how to do the Charleston on top of that table?” Freya’s voice rings out. I groan again. That explains the bruise on my leg.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” I say, pressing a hand to my forehead.

“Good idea.” Midge nods. “Some fresh air will do you good. Go and get blown about on the beach a bit. Freya won’t mind taking over your chores this morning.”

I think I hear Freya muttering something to the contrary under her breath, but I don’t have the energy to argue. I shove my seat back, wincing at the noise it makes, and stumble outside. The sun is blazing as I scramble along the coastal path as fast as I can, taking great gulps of the salty breeze blowing in from the sea. It’s as if I can feel the cool air spreading through my body, flowing right into my fingertips and my toes.

Rounding the bend, the view opens up so that I can see the Cardew House. I release a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. The tide is well in and so the jewel-like building seems almost to float, suspended between the water and the sky. The sun beats down on the sea, turning it a beautiful turquoise. The cars are still on the drive but, like last night, there are no other signs of activity.

I pick my way down to the beach, which is currently little more than a thin band of golden sand standing between the sea and the lumbering sea wall. At either side, the cove is hemmed in by dark, sea-smoothed rocks, and I clamber across them. The rocks feel warm beneath my bare feet and I jump on to the damp sand. With little concern for my clothes I plunge into the water, wading out until it laps somewhere around my knees. It is bracingly cold, and the shock of it clears some of the stubborn cloudiness in my head. I stand for a moment, feeling myself sinking, the fine sand closing in around my ankles, anchoring me to the seabed.

My skin is itching with the need to know what is going on at the house. It is so close, so tantalizing, that other world of glamour and excitement. I glimpsed it as it sailed through the village last night, and remembering the image of that convoy of cars speeding past me makes my head buzz again, but this time for non-ginger-wine related reasons. Knowing that they are all over there, knowing that the house is really, truly alive after all this time, fills me with a sense of longing so powerful it is like a kick to the stomach. I dig my toes further into the sand. I have to see it. I have to see them all for myself.

My heartfelt longings are interrupted then by the sound of someone calling my name. I turn quickly, wobbling as I lift my hand to shield my eyes, and realize that the shouting is coming from the top of the cliff. It’s Tom, and he looks agitated as he scrambles down towards the beach.

“The dragon’s arrived!” he exclaims once he reaches me, coming to a screeching halt that sprays sand in the air. His body quivers like an exclamation mark. This is dark news indeed.

“Already?” I ask with a sinking feeling. The dragon is Midge’s other sister, our aunt Irene. She’s a gaunt, disapproving woman who looks rather like an overgrown crow. She has been positively swathed in black since the death of our uncle Art over four years ago, and will probably remain so for evermore because Queen Victoria is her role model in all things, despite the fact that she’s been dead for almost thirty years. Aunt Irene likes to come and look in on us fairly regularly, just to remind us in a very loud way that we are living like heathens. Presumably, she has arrived to share her thoughts on our behaviour at Alice’s wedding. I have a feeling they will not be positive.

Tom, it seems, has had a lucky escape. “I heard her coming up the drive,” he rattles out, and the shuddering breaths he is taking make it clear that he has legged it all the way here. “She was already moaning to herself. She didn’t even need anyone else there to have an argument with. I think she was quoting the Bible … something about gluttons and drunkards.” He rolls his eyes. “And I was there in the kitchen, innocently enjoying a piece of my beloved sister’s wedding cake,” he continues, and the outrage in his voice is real, even if his claims that any of us are suddenly beloved seem a bit of a stretch, “and her voice was getting louder and louder, and then she appeared in the doorway and started screeching about how I should be using a plate and cutlery and how I had been raised wild…” He finishes with a shake of his head. “I just stood up and made a run for it. I could hear her shouting all the way down the path. Thought I’d better let you know.”

“Thanks,” I reply. “Did Freya make it out?”

Tom shakes his head. “I don’t think so. There wasn’t time.” He trails off, a haunted look in his eyes, and we both bow our heads for a second, thinking of our fallen comrade.

Freya is almost certainly being berated right at this very moment – for talking too much, and laughing too much, and existing too much. Aunt Irene, it always seems, would like us all to be a lot … less. Her own house is grim and silent, like a mausoleum. Both her sons (the pinnacle of perfection, of course) are grown up and have left home now, but I remember them as pale, silent ghosts always haunting that horrid place.

Tom’s message delivered, he is already on the move again. “I’m going to see Bill,” he calls over his shoulder. “Don’t go home! She’ll be there for hours!”

With a sigh I pull myself from the water and sink to the sand. This is exactly why I need the Cardew House. Looking at it now I feel a pang that I can’t go and hide out there, among the books and the shadows. It is blisteringly hot, and the house will be cool and quiet.

Except it won’t. Not any more. As if to confirm this I hear a distant shout. I’m on my feet immediately, watching as three dots appear in the water beside the island. There are people swimming out from the cove. I think they must be racing each other. I can’t discern any details; all I can see are flashes of pale limbs and white spray as they thrash enthusiastically through the water. The sound of shouting gets louder, more than one voice egging them on from the sand. The figures turn back towards the shelter of the cove and disappear from view. Cheers explode, reaching across the waves, and the race must be over. I stand frozen as the minutes tick by, watching, waiting, but nothing happens. They’re gone.

I kick the sand in frustration. The tiniest glimpses, the glittering promise of that world snatched out of my hands. I want to see it all with an urgency that overwhelms me for a moment. I want the lights and the music and the noise and the excitement, I want the newness and the fantasy. I want to experience things that are bigger than my own life, not just read about them. I want to escape into that dream for a while.

I sit back down, against the rocks this time, seeking some shelter from the sun. I pull my notebook and a short, stumpy pencil from my pocket and chew on it thoughtfully. Then I write about the party last night, and I find myself dwelling on the arrival of the Cardew party, on the girl leaning out of the car. And how her smile seemed like a promise.

CHAPTER

FOUR

It’s over a week later and my impatience has reached boiling point. Even Midge the Unflappable is fed up with my moping about. “Honestly, Lou,” she says, “you’re worse than the triplets. Will you get out of the way and do something useful?”

I slam upstairs to my room and write angry, scathing passages in my notebook about how nobody understands me. I try to concentrate on the next chapter of Lady Amelia’s Revenge, but the words seem to dance about on the page in front of me. I feel unsettled and agitated. It’s hard to admit that I’m lonely. Alice and Jack are on their honeymoon in Devon and the realities of an Alice-free house are finally here, pressing in on me.

I do my chores in the morning and I take care of any small jobs that need seeing to on the farm; I pull weeds out of the vegetable garden and I pick ripe strawberries, destined for Midge’s kitchen, the juice staining my fingers. I do a truly awful job of darning socks, I mind the triplets, teaching them to sing their ABCs in a noisy, tuneless chorus, and sometimes I help Tom with his schoolwork, but mostly the days just stretch out empty in front of me, while I wait for something, anything, to happen. I know that I am simply filling time, rather than doing anything genuinely useful or productive. My life feels too small for me now, like a dress that I have outgrown, cutting into me more and more uncomfortably every day. How long can things carry on like this? Without Alice to talk to and to laugh with, without the distraction of preparing for the wedding – an event that has taken over the last few months – I feel so flat, like all the fizz and energy has gone from my days. I am lost.