Nothing was happening.
Everything was completely still, motionless, not a single rustle in the atmosphere, no stirrings within.
The only sounds, muted by closed windows, were the cries of white-bellied gulls as they soared around the neutral sky.
Jenna Moore, petite, dark-haired, and emerald-eyed, was sitting at the cluttered dining room table staring out at the winter-bleak garden. Looking at her, no one would have guessed she was the mother of four, the eldest being fifteen. Her smooth, playfully freckled features and girlish frame made her appear far closer to thirty than the forty she actually was.
It was Sunday afternoon and she was supposed to be making the most of some rare hours alone. The younger children—Josh, age eight, and the five-year-old twins, Flora and Wills—were on playdates down in the village, while Paige, fifteen last birthday, was somewhere with her stepfather on this sprawling misty peninsula, though Jenna wasn’t for the moment entirely sure where. All she knew was that it never failed to warm her to think of how close Paige and Jack were. He was the only father Paige had ever known, since her own had abandoned them when Paige was barely a year old. They’d never heard from him again, though Jenna had felt genuinely sorry when she’d heard how he’d lost his life in a rock-climbing accident at the age of thirty. By then Paige was seven years old and Jenna was married to Jack, who’d accompanied them to the funeral and had sat with Paige for a long time afterward explaining how losing her real father wasn’t going to make any difference to them.
“So you’re my real daddy, really?” Paige had insisted.
“That’s right. I’ll always be here for you, and no one will ever be prouder of you than me.”
“But why didn’t my other daddy live with us?”
“He did for a while, when you were a tiny baby, but he wasn’t really ready to be a daddy. He wanted to do other things.”
“You don’t want to do other things, do you?”
Jack had shaken his head gravely. “All I want to do is be your daddy, and Mummy’s husband—and maybe a daddy to a brother or sister for you too. Would you like that?”
Paige had nodded eagerly, which had twisted Jenna’s heart with longing. After two miscarriages she was starting to worry that she’d never give Jack a child of his own.
Blinking as an unexpected breakthrough of sunlight bathed the garden in a rich golden glow, Jenna began picturing Jack’s and Paige’s faces as they probably were now: intent, laughing, curious, and excited as they went about their task. This was the fourth Sunday in a row they’d been out capturing this special place in the world on film, and so far there had been no fallings-out that she knew of. In fact, between them they had gathered some impressive footage of surfers riding the waves over at Rhossili Bay; the flighty dance of marram grass as the wind gusted over the dunes; entrancing close-ups of old and young faces singing their hearts out in chapel; wild ponies roaming the vast open moors; golden plover, sanderlings, and little stints pecking and flitting about the wetlands; starfish, cockleshells, and feathers littering the shores…There was so much material now that Jenna could hardly remember it all. Today’s mission was all about local folklore, Viking raiders, the Arthurian legend, smugglers, dragons, and damsels in distress. If there was fog clinging to the rocks of the Worm’s Head, Jenna knew, Paige intended to whisper lines from Herbert New’s sonnet to accompany the haunting scene. Patient, folded wings; with lifted head, / Watchful, outlooking seawards sits the Form / Which, dragon-like, defies the approaching storm…
The project was for Paige’s ICT course—Information and Communications Technology: Using your mobile phones, make a tourist video of the region to include everything you feel to be worthwhile.
Jack was a big one for projects, sometimes seizing them as if they were his own until Paige—or whichever child he was supposed to be assisting—patiently, or occasionally hotly, reminded him that she was in charge.
Jenna couldn’t help but smile at the way Jack tried to hide his hurt, or frustration, at being brought up short by his children, quickly covering it with pride that they were so gifted, or determined, or simply willing to learn from their own mistakes.
“Dad, I’m fifteen, for God’s sake,” Jenna had heard Paige grumbling as they’d returned last Sunday. “You’re treating me like a baby.”
“But you asked me to help,” he’d protested.
“Help, yes, not take over. I need someone who’ll do as they’re told and maybe make suggestions if they’re relevant. Not someone who thinks they know everything.”
“But I do.”
Paige hadn’t been able to stop herself smiling at that. “But I’m the student,” she’d reminded him. “I have to learn, and sometimes that means getting it wrong, or finding my own way to the solution.”
This kind of response invariably brought Jack’s eyes to Jenna’s—such clarity and wisdom in one so young.
Paige had always loved to work things out for herself, whether a jigsaw puzzle as a toddler, new words in her storybooks as she started to read, or the complex challenges of the chemistry lab or maths class in school. These were the only two subjects at which she didn’t do quite so well. Even so, her eagerness to grasp what was eluding her made Jenna worry at times for how hard she drove herself.
Still, she seemed well balanced, and had continued to thrive in spite of the life-changing move Jenna and Jack had decided on just over a year ago. It had been one of their biggest worries at the time, how it would affect their teenage daughter to be plucked from the heart of everything and everyone she knew to begin a completely new life in a country she’d only ever visited for a couple of weeks each summer.
Not such a very different country; after all, it was only Wales, where everyone, at least in their part, here on the Gower Peninsula, spoke English, and all the warnings of how insular and unwelcoming the Welsh could be to outsiders had proved total nonsense. Their neighbors could hardly be any friendlier, at least to them; the way they sometimes carried on with each other made Jenna wonder if she’d stumbled into the village of Llareggub, the infamous setting for Under Milk Wood.
This was a favorite book of hers, and recently of Paige’s since it had become a set piece for her subject achievement exams, the GCSEs. As it was Dylan Thomas’s centenary year, the whole region was celebrating his life and works in one way or another, and Paige had been chosen by her English teacher to take the part of First Voice in a school production to be staged at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea. Such an honor had never been bestowed upon a female student before, but Miss Kendrick was of the opinion that Paige’s understanding and enjoyment of the play made her such an obvious choice that she’d added Second Voice to the part as well. Since the casting Jenna and Paige had spent many hours listening to Richard Burton’s famous performance, taking it line by line, nuance by nuance, getting to the heart of why he’d spoken, whispered, or growled in a certain way, and what he might have been thinking when observing the many oddities of the characters in the piece.
To say Paige was excited about taking this part was an understatement indeed. Drama was her thing; she loved to act, and this role was her biggest challenge yet. And she was going to be playing it not only in Wales but in Dylan Thomas’s hometown.
As a family, they were loving being here, there was no doubt about that. In fact, in spite of not being Welsh—apart from through Jenna’s father—it felt as though they were exactly where they belonged. However, it hadn’t been their intention to move here after Jack had lost his job as the sales manager for a leading publisher. Their initial plan was for him to find another position in a similar field, but unfortunately it hadn’t worked out that way. The industry was suffering. Dozens if not hundreds of people had been laid off across the country, and competition for the few positions that did come up was fierce. After Jack had suffered through months of nothing but apologies and rejection, his notoriously volatile temper had collapsed into a horrible despair. He stopped attending interviews, found it hard to engage with the children, and even turned his back on the easy and passionate intimacy he and Jenna had always shared. Despite his tendency to overreact, it had unnerved her considerably to see how hard he was taking his failure to start again. When things were going his way he was ebullient, larger than life, ready to meet any challenge head on with a certainty that he’d win. Over that time she’d felt him slipping away, diminishing in spirit and hope, and it had scared her. The Jack she knew and loved was still in there, she’d remained convinced of that, but reaching him, bolstering him, and trying to make him believe in himself again had proved an almost impossible task.
Then one day, without warning, he’d suddenly announced that they should relocate to Wales.
Jenna remembered her jaw dropping.
“We need a completely fresh start,” he’d insisted, “with something of our own. We don’t want to be at any other bastard’s beck and call. We’ll be our own bosses, answer only to each other, and when we start to expand, which we will, we’ll do all the hiring and firing.”
Jenna hadn’t missed the way her highly successful, career-driven sister and brother-in-law had exchanged glances at this unexpected development. She didn’t blame them, as she was skeptical too, but loyalty to Jack, combined with the overwhelming relief that he seemed so determined on this new start, made her say, “I think it’s a very interesting idea, but what kind of business do you have in mind?”
“Publishing, of course,” he’d replied, as if there could be no other. “Given my own employment history, and yours as a published writer and respected freelance editor, it’s all we know, so we need to capitalize. And now, with the Internet, it’s never been easier. We can base ourselves anywhere, have a website as big as we like, and sell whatever we choose. No, wait,” he ran on as Hanna made to interrupt, “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I reckon Wales is definitely the place to be. It’s a land full of poets, playwrights, novelists, you name it, and almost none are getting the recognition they deserve.”
“Would there be a market for them?” his brother-in-law had asked dubiously.
“Of course, if we present them in the right way. We won’t be like all these other Web-based cowboys who make you pay to be published, then do nothing to promote the work. We’ll have a totally different approach that deals with only high-quality product—that’s where you come in, Jen. You’ll be responsible for vetting the submissions and knocking the best ones into shape, and I’ll sort out the website and business plan. It shouldn’t be expensive to get off the ground, just the cost of designing the site and a few well-placed ads…Local media interest is a given, and chances are we won’t even need to go to the bank for finance, which we probably wouldn’t get anyway given how tight they are these days. We can manage everything ourselves, provided we sell this house. OK, I know that sounds radical, but the market’s gone so crazy in London that it’s got to be worth at least three times what we paid for it by now, and it’s complete madness having it sitting there doing nothing when we could be making it work for us.”
“But what about Paige?” Hanna asked, glancing worriedly at her niece.
“I’m cool with it,” Paige assured her, apparently as carried away by the idea as her father was. “It’ll be an adventure.”
Jenna simply watched as Jack pressed a kiss to their elder daughter’s forehead. “That’s my girl,” he laughed. “Never afraid to take a risk, and the younger ones will be fine. They’ll settle in no time at all.”
“What about you, Jenna?” Hanna ventured.
Deciding this wasn’t the time to argue, Jenna had simply said, “I might need a while to get my head round it, but in principle…” She shrugged. “Why not?”
That was all it had taken for Jack to spring into action. In no time at all the house was on the market, a new business management team—recommended by Hanna—had assessed the project and helped to obtain funding from the Welsh Arts Council, and ads had gone into the local papers announcing the creation of a new e-publishing venture, Celticulture.
A little over a year later they were ensconced at the southern end of the Gower Peninsula in a ten-year-old detached house designed to resemble a barn conversion, which had to be at least twice the size of the Victorian end-of-terrace they’d owned in London. Instead of a street full of stamp-sized gardens and tightly parked cars, they were at the top of a quaintly sprawled village, overlooking a wild grassy moor that stretched all the way out to Port Eynon Point, where the sea glittered and smudged into an ever-changing horizon.
It was idyllic; “God’s own country” was how Jack described it.
“You mean the back end of beyond,” Paige sometimes grumbled, but if either Jack or Jenna called her on it, she’d quickly assure them she was only kidding.
“It’s really cool,” she’d insist. “Different, and a bit weird in some ways, but I can do surfing and stuff here that I could never do in London, and I’m making loads of new friends.”
This was true; she’d taken to her new surroundings far better than they’d dared hope, and clearly enjoyed her new school, The Landings. Her new best friend, Charlotte Griffiths, lived barely a mile away, while her other new best friend, Hayley, was in Reynoldston, which wasn’t far either. There were many others in their set, as they liked to call it: Lucy, Courtenay, Cullum, Ryan, Owen—Jenna was losing track of them all now, but what mattered was how readily they had accepted Paige and how happy she seemed. She’d even started to develop a hint of a Welsh accent, which Jenna loved to hear. It was so musical and friendly, with playful little inflections that fluttered like tiny wings straight to the very core of her heart.
Her Welsh father had never lost his accent, even after four decades of living in England.
How badly she still missed him; she couldn’t imagine a time when she wouldn’t. If she concentrated hard enough, she was sure, she could hear him singing, telling stories, whispering comforting words when she needed them. She could see him working in the garden, dozing in his favorite armchair, delighting in his grandchildren, who absolutely adored him. One of the fondest, most moving memories she had of him was the way his face used to light up with surprise and joy when she’d drop in to visit without warning.
“Ah ha!” he’d cry, his arms going out to wrap her up in the warmest, most wonderful hug in the world.
Almost three years had passed since he’d been struck down with a heart attack. He hadn’t been ill, hadn’t even shown any signs of slowing up or mentioned he was feeling unwell. He’d simply collapsed one day at the office and had never come home. It was like a cruel magician’s trick: one minute he was there, the next he’d gone. She, Hanna, and their mother were still a long way from coming to terms with the loss.
Thinking of him now, as she often did in quiet moments, she hoped that wherever he was, he knew that she was living in Wales. She could see his twinkly eyes shining with delight to realize that she’d returned to his roots. It would give him so much pleasure, especially since her mother had moved into a cottage at the heart of the village. Knowing him, he’d have wholeheartedly approved of Jack’s plans for the new business, and would probably even have got involved in some way if he could.
Stirring as the next-door neighbors’ cat jumped down onto the lawn, circling the children’s trampoline, slide, and two-story playhouse before disappearing over the wall into the moorland, Jenna glanced at the blank screen of her laptop and gave a sigh of dismay.
“Take this time for yourself,” Jack had told her after depositing the younger children at their friends’ homes earlier, and before he and Paige had set off on their shoot. “We’ll be gone for a few hours, so sit with it, see what happens. I bet something will.”
He was wrong. Nothing was happening at all.
It never did these days, and she was annoyed with herself now for hoping that today might prove any different, when she knew very well that a creative flow couldn’t just be turned on and off like a tap.
She was experiencing—suffering would be a better choice of word—a prolonged spell of writer’s block, though she deliberately didn’t call it that. She preferred telling herself that the story wasn’t quite ready to be told yet, or the characters were still making up their minds which directions to take. It would help, a lot, if she actually knew what the story was about—or, more significantly, whom it was about—but she really didn’t. It was as though she’d been abandoned by her own imagination. Actually, there was no “as though” about it—she had been abandoned by her imagination. It had run for cover following the awful reviews for her last book, taking the best part of her confidence with it.
However, blaming a handful of critics for a book that she’d known, even when she’d delivered it, wasn’t as good as her best-selling first was hardly going to help get her past this crisis. Nor was the fact that her agent had recently reminded her that the publisher would be asking for a return of the advance if she didn’t send something in soon.
So here she was, facing the happy prospect of having to repay something in the region of twenty thousand pounds in the next couple of months unless she could come up with a synopsis at the very least. Since this wasn’t a sum she could possibly raise, and the only words she’d been able to conjure so far were “Chapter One,” things weren’t looking good.
In truth, the situation might not have felt quite so desperate if they hadn’t spent virtually everything they had on setting up here. Jack’s severance pay, her advance, the small inheritance she’d received from her father, and most of the proceeds from their London house had all gone into creating their new life. She couldn’t deny they’d been extravagant, paying for the house outright, buying themselves a new car each—a flashy coupe for her and Jack, a sturdy dog-and-people-carrier for the family—and getting the children basically anything they wanted, including computers, iPads, iPhones, PlayStations, smart TVs, scooters, bicycles, and tree houses. There was even a jukebox in the sitting room, along with a pinball machine and a giant rocking horse Jack had won in a raffle. Jenna wasn’t sure how low their funds were running these days, but she suspected it was lower than Jack was ready to admit.
“The business is due to launch in a month,” he’d reminded her only this morning, “at which point cash will start rolling in and we’ll be sitting pretty again. Better than that, we’ll be able to send a check to your publisher, leaving you free to write and deliver just when you want to. It’ll probably turn out to be exactly what you need to get the juices flowing. No more deadlines, no nasty phone calls—just you, your characters, and all the time you could wish for to go on all the journeys you’re dreaming about.”
Time—a commodity virtually unknown to busy mothers, particularly those with three children under eight, each of whom had a character, set of needs, and schedule all their own, and a teenage live wire who’d lately started showing signs of a maturity that Jenna knew she should have been prepared for but wasn’t.
Picking up her mobile as it bleeped with a text, she smiled to see the photo Jack had sent of Paige peering into a rock pool with her latest admirer, Owen Masters. Should I be jealous? Jack was asking.
I don’t think so, Jenna texted back. Will tell you more when you get back. How’s it going?
Shot enough for another feature film. Heading up to Arthur’s Stone now. How about you?
How she longed to say she was on a roll, but even if she did, he’d know as soon as he looked into her eyes when he came back that it wasn’t true. Wondering if senna pods might help, she replied, and smiled as she imagined him laughing.
A few minutes later the landline rang; glad of the excuse to leave her computer, she went through to the kitchen to answer.
“Hi, it’s me,” her sister declared. “Hang on, sorry, I’ll be right with you.”
Tucking the phone under her chin as she waited, Jenna reached for the kettle to fill it. How she loved this kitchen! What luxury it was to have so much space to cook and socialize and watch the kids come and go. The house was just perfect; she couldn’t love it more if she’d designed it herself, with its floor-to-ceiling windows all across the back to take in the garden and the view beyond, its characterful reclaimed beams through most of the rooms, and the highly polished sandstone floors.
The dining room was more like a conservatory off the kitchen, with French doors leading onto the garden, while the sitting room was her dream of how a sitting room should be, with an open stone fireplace at the far end, deep-cushioned sofas, tatty rugs, and endless clutter. The mess never bothered her; on the contrary, she rejoiced in it, which she knew was a reaction to all the years of having to live with her mother’s obsession with order. Trails of toys, shoes, books, crayons—everything and anything—led off the sitting room into the playroom, and very often up the stairs to the bedrooms, where another sort of chaos reigned. Jenna and Jack’s master suite was to the left of the three-sided gantry landing and was almost never off-limits. Josh’s room was next to theirs and was poised to become sleepover central just as soon as the painfully shy Josh plucked up the courage to invite more than one friend at a time. Paige’s own small suite was opposite and very definitely off-limits. The twins’ room was next to Paige’s, with a pink half for Flora and a blue one for Wills. From the landing that ran across the tall back windows it was possible to look down into the sitting room or to stand gazing out at the mesmerizing view—if anyone had the time, which they rarely did.
Even on gloomy days their house felt full of light, while on clear days it was possible to see all the way across the Channel to Exmoor. There was no sign of a distant land today, and hadn’t been since long before Christmas.
“Are you there?” Hanna said breathlessly. “Sorry about that. The cat was on the windowsill. I thought she was about to jump. So how are you?”
“Great. How about you?”
“Frazzled, as usual. Got a deadline we have to meet by tomorrow. How’s the weather down there? It’s miserable here in London.”
“It’s just started raining again.”
Sighing, Hanna said, “That’s all it’s done for months. I pity those poor people who’ve been flooded. This must be a never-ending nightmare for them.”
“A couple of houses at the beach have lost their gardens,” Jenna told her. “Jack reckons their foundations too, but no one’s been in yet to check.”
“That’s terrible. Are they holiday homes?”
“Yes, I think so. Huge chunks of the seawall were smashed apart, so they didn’t stand a chance, and you should see the muck the tide’s washed up. The beach is like a rubbish dump at the moment. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t ring to discuss that.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. I’ve just spoken to Mum. Have you seen her today?”
“No, but Jack dropped in on his way back from the shop this morning. She was all right then. Why do you ask?”
“She’s just told me that she’s going to start taking in washing and ironing.”
Jenna’s eyes twinkled.
“I’ve no idea where this ridiculous idea has come from,” Hanna went on, “but I’m guessing she read it somewhere or maybe saw it on TV.”
“She’s just started The Book Thief,” Jenna told her. “The foster mother’s a laundress who also has a foul mouth, so let’s hope no one round here speaks German.”
“Oh, please no,” Hanna groaned. “Do you think she means it? She’s not really going to take in other people’s washing, is she?”
Knowing how unlikely it was, Jenna grinned as she said, “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Hanna sighed. “Do you think we ought to get her to see someone?”
“You won’t have forgotten what happened the last time we tried….”
“You mean the hunger strike?”
“And it’s not as though there’s anything actually wrong with her.”
“She’s just her own person,” Hanna said, quoting their father, “and maybe a little bit on the autism spectrum. If you ask me, she’s that, all right. Is she keeping to her diet?”
“Religiously. Everything organic, gluten-free, no refined sugars or artificial colorings…It takes forever going round the supermarket with her, and she’s always online ordering some supplement or other. God knows how much good it’s all doing.”
“What matters to her is that Daddy put the diet together. She’ll be on it now till the day she dies—or loses her marbles completely. Anyway, tell me about you. What’s new in your world?”
As they chattered on, catching up on each other’s lives, as they often did on a Sunday, Jenna watched the rain growing heavier, pulling a thick gray veil between the moor and the sea. Fortunately, the wind was nowhere near as violent as it had been over the past few weeks; if it had been, there was no way Jack and Paige could have been out in it. During the worst of the storms they’d been forced to bring all the computers and company paperwork over to the house just in case their garden office got carried off by a particularly lively gust. Luckily, it had remained anchored to its spot, though a window had been smashed by a flying branch (already repaired by one of Jack’s mates from the pub), and the stone path leading across the grass to its door had been washed away twice (both times reinstated by Jack himself).
“So you’re still on schedule for the launch?” Hanna remembered to ask before ringing off.
“Absolutely,” Jenna confirmed. “Putting us in touch with Martha Gwynne and her business management team was the best thing you ever did for us. She’s amazing. Just wait till you see the website they’ve come up with. And they’re full of ideas about how they’re going to promote and market us.”
“I’m thrilled she’s working out so well. As a business consultant, she’s one of the best, and it’s lucky for you she’s based in Swansea.”
“And London. I think she’s there most of the time, with a manager running things here, but as far as I’m aware, nothing gets finalized without her approval.”
“Sounds like Martha. She has a home near you, hasn’t she?”
“On the outskirts of Horton. You should see it. She invited us to a party there about a month ago….I told you, didn’t I?”
“You did, and the place is utterly amazing, with tennis courts, a pool, and its own stretch of beach. That’ll tell you how successful she is, and how lucky you are that she took you on.”
Jenna smiled. “Believe it or not, I think she likes working with us. Apparently we’re not as demanding as most of her clients, or as egotistical or unrealistic. She’s invited me for lunch a couple of times, as friends, but for one reason or another it hasn’t worked out yet.”
“I’m sure it will. She’s a very easygoing sort, a refreshing change to all those executive females who take themselves so seriously—I admit I probably have to include myself in that. Anyway, how about the literary content for your new site? How’s that coming along?”
“Actually, brilliantly. I’m being constantly surprised by how much real talent there is out there, and word is definitely spreading about us. Hardly a day goes by now when we don’t get a new submission, and at least half the contributors are willing to be edited.”
“So you’ve got your work cut out? How much are you charging for the editing?”
“It depends if it’s full-on plot and character editing or just sorting out the spelling and grammar. The prices are very reasonable, though, and you don’t have to pay anything at all if you just want to list your work. Obviously we have to vet those first to make sure they’re not obscene or completely unreadable.”
“So remind me again how you’re going to make money.”
“From the editing, like I just said, and advertising—Jack has done wonders with that locally, everyone from Howells the mobile butcher to some high-flying holiday rental company to the Film Agency for Wales has already bought space. Martha’s team is handling the national campaign. I’m a bit vague about the details of that, but I think they’re about to schedule a presentation to bring us all up to speed. Oh, and let’s not forget that we’re only taking a twenty percent commission on downloads; the other eighty goes straight to the author. Amazon takes seventy percent, and good luck getting noticed on their site. As a contributor, you’re a dust speck in a busy vac, to use one of Mum’s jolly little phrases. Anyway, I’ve just heard a car pull up, so it could be Jack and Paige are back. They’ll be drenched, and I don’t even want to think about the state the dog must be in. I’ll call later to get more of your news.”
After ringing off she quickly unlocked the utility room door, dumped an armful of towels next to the sink, and was about to run upstairs to start a bath for Paige—Jack always took showers—when her mother let herself in the front door.
“Didn’t you hear me knocking?” Kay Roberts demanded in her usual clipped way. Her neat gray hair was glistening with raindrops, while the expression on her small, elfin face was caught in what looked like a dilemma, as though she couldn’t quite decide whether or not to be cross. At almost seventy she was still an attractive woman, with a faintly lined complexion and quick, watchful eyes that were almost the same vivid green as those of her daughters.
“Sorry, I was in the utility,” Jenna told her, turning back from the stairs. “Close the door, you’re—”
“Yes, yes. Why wasn’t it locked?”
“I thought it was.”
“It doesn’t need to be around here, you know. It’s perfectly safe. They don’t have any crime.”
“No, of course not,” Jenna agreed, knowing it was always best not to argue with her mother’s version of facts. “The latch is a bit loose, so I didn’t want the wind to blow it open. Anyway, I hear you’re planning to take in laundry.”
Kay stopped unzipping her lime-green raincoat, her sharp eyes shooting to Jenna’s. “You’ve been talking to your sister. You know her trouble? She doesn’t get a joke when she hears one.”
Jenna’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe it’s the way you tell them.”
Kay regarded her carefully.
“So, would you like a cup of tea?” Jenna asked, going back to the kitchen. “We’ve still got some of the fairy cakes the Brownies brought round on Friday if you want one.”
“I believe they were very good,” Kay called after her, “but I’ll have one of my own, thank you. Where is everyone?”
“Josh and the twins are with friends; Jack and Paige are out making films. Actually, that sounds like them now. Would you mind going up to run a bath for Paige? But don’t put any bubbles in—she likes to choose her own.”
“Am I allowed into her bedroom? I can’t get to her bathroom otherwise.”
“On this occasion I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“You were always a secretive one too,” Kay commented as she started up the stairs. “You made your father put a padlock on your door once.”
“I can hear you,” Jenna called after her.
“You’re supposed to.”
“And it was to keep Hanna out, not you. She was always stealing my stuff.”
“Actually, it was me,” Kay informed her. “We were the same size. Hanna’s bigger.”
Suspecting this was more of her mother’s peculiar humor, Jenna pulled open the utility room door and quickly leapt back as a dog she barely recognized as Waffle, their daft golden Lab, skidded past to his drink bowl.
“Hey, Mum,” Paige cried, bursting in after him. “It is totally crap out there. We’re drenched right through. Is Grandma here?”
“Upstairs running you a bath. You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
“I know, I know.” Tugging down her hood to shake out her damp, wavy dark hair, she clicked on her mobile to read an incoming text.
“Where’s Dad?” Jenna asked, grabbing the dog before he could spread the mud from his paws all over the kitchen floor.
“Still in the car, on the phone,” Paige answered. “Please tell me you haven’t eaten all the Brownies’ cakes. I’m starving.”
“There are a few left.” Banging on the window to get Jack’s attention, Jenna mouthed, “The dog!”
“Coming,” he mouthed back from the driver’s seat.
“Who’s he talking to?” Jenna demanded.
“No idea. What shall I do with my coat?”
“Hang it next to the radiator, and put your wellies next to mine. With any luck Dad will clean them after he’s finished with the dog. Waffle, will you please sit down?”
With instant obedience Waffle slumped to the floor and rolled onto his back for a belly rub.
“Dream on,” Jenna commented as Paige laughed.
“You are too adorable,” Paige told him. “No,” she cried as he kicked at her legs. “I’m not touching you either. Oh God, look what you’ve done to my jeans.”
“It’s not like they don’t already need a wash,” Jenna pointed out. “Now give him a treat, then make sure he stays in here until Dad sorts him out.”
A few moments later Paige came padding into the kitchen in wet socks, once again engrossed in her mobile phone. Her long, matted hair was hanging on either side of her pixie face, shielding the screen from any POS—parent over shoulder—advances.
“What happened to Owen?” Jenna asked. “Wasn’t he with you?”
“Mm?” Paige responded without looking up. “Oh, Dad just dropped him home. Thanks,” she added as Jenna passed her a cake.
“Do you want a plate, Paige?” Kay asked, coming to join them.
“No, this is cool,” Paige replied, blithely dropping crumbs over her front and the worktop.
“So have you decided what to do about Owen?” Jenna ventured.
Paige frowned in annoyance. “What about him?” she demanded, as if the conversation they’d had only that morning had never happened.
“You mentioned earlier that he was interested in—”
“He’s gay, Mum!”
“So you said.”
“And he hasn’t come out yet, OK? I don’t think he’s even admitting it to himself, but no way am I making out like we’re in a relationship just so no one’ll suspect the truth.”
“You’re too young to be in a relationship with anyone,” Kay informed her.
Paige’s eyes darkened. “Grandma! I’m fifteen, for God’s sake.”
Kay nodded. “Yes, you are,” she agreed, as if that were the topic at issue. “You know, your grandfather loved Dylan Thomas.”
Paige looked at her mother.
“Where did that come from?” Jenna asked Kay.
“I saw the book on Paige’s desk,” Kay replied.
“You’ve been in my room?” Paige cried. “What were you doing?”
“You see, I told you I wasn’t allowed,” Kay informed Jenna. “A red circle with a white dash in the middle means no entry.”
“I already told you, she was running you a bath,” Jenna said to Paige. “Now you should go up before it overflows.”
“Can I have another cake?”
“You’ll get fat,” Kay warned.
“Mum, look at her,” Jenna cried. “She’s barely a size six as it is. I don’t want you turning her into an anorexic.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I weren’t here,” Paige retorted, “and FYI, I’m planning on being a size four by the end of this term.”
“I hope you don’t mean that.”
Paige flashed her a smile. Helping herself to another cake, she took a bite, put the rest back on the plate, and made as if to give her grandma a hug, giggling as Kay instinctively drew back. “Oh, scary granddaughter trying to give Granny a kiss,” Paige teased.
“Don’t be unkind,” Jenna chided. Paige knew very well that Kay had a problem with physical contact, and it really wasn’t like Paige to be cruel.
“OK, I know where I’m not wanted,” Paige told them. Grabbing the cake, she took herself off upstairs.
“I know it’s her age,” Jenna said quietly once she’d heard Paige’s door close behind her, “but her attitude sometimes—”
“Is just like yours when you were fifteen,” Kay interrupted. “And Hanna’s, although she was worse.”
“She was so sweet this morning,” Jenna continued with a sigh. “We had a lovely chat while Jack was out getting the papers, and now…” She shrugged helplessly. “I never seem to know where I am with her. I don’t think she’s like that with Jack, or not so much anyway.”
“You were never like it with your father, only me,” Kay informed her.
Jenna avoided her eyes. Not nearly as difficult as you always were with us, she managed not to say.
“Ah, that sounds like Jack coming in,” Kay remarked. “I’ll go and give him a hand.”
Watching her bustle off to make herself useful, Jenna found herself feeling suddenly sad. Having Kay as a mother, with all her awkwardness and lack of social skills, had never been easy, but that didn’t mean there was no love between them. She knew, mainly because her father had helped her and Hanna to understand, that in her own special way her mother was every bit as devoted to them as he was. It was simply that Kay had never been able to show her feelings in the way other mothers could—or wives, come to that, although her father had remained silent about that. All she and Hanna knew was that he’d always seemed very happy with their mother, and throughout the thirty years they were married they’d never spent much more than a night apart. And a very real intimacy must have happened at least twice, or she and Hanna wouldn’t be there.
Looking round at the sound of the utility room door opening, she broke into a smile as Jack emerged, dark hair mussed by a vigorous rub with the towel, and cheeks still reddened from the wind. Though it would be hard for most to describe him as TDD, as Paige would put it—totally drop-dead—Jenna had never had a problem with that. As far as she was concerned, he was just perfect, with his wonderfully flamboyant air, constantly merry eyes, and the kind of charm that stole hearts wherever he went.
“So have you seen any of what we shot?” he asked, hauling the dog back as it made a dash for anywhere but the utility. “You have to wait in there till you’re dry,” he instructed Waffle. “We got some really good stuff again, and she’s a natural with the commentary.”
“She’s gone to have a bath,” Jenna told him. “I’ll see it later. Who were you on the phone to?”
“When? Oh, just now.” He came to help himself to a cake and gave her a quick kiss before popping it in his mouth. “I’m thinking of going over to Cardiff again tomorrow,” he said, hovering in the doorway on his way to take a shower. “I need to go to the bank, and while I’m there I thought I’d try to line up a few more advertisers. Anything you need while I’m over that way?”
“You mean apart from a few good ideas? Actually, one would do.”
“You can’t buy ideas,” Kay announced, drying her hands as she came out of the utility.
Treating Jenna to a playful wink, Jack took himself off upstairs, leaving her to watch her mother staring after him. “What?” she prompted as Kay turned back to her.
“He didn’t answer your question,” Kay informed her.
Jenna almost asked, What question? But since she knew, and really didn’t want to get into it with her mother, she simply said, “It wasn’t important.”
Upstairs in her room with butterfly lights glowing round the bed’s fancy headrail and the Vamps’ “Last Night” pulsing from the iPod speakers, Paige was in front of her computer, wrapped in her dressing gown while FaceTiming Charlotte.
“So did you manage to shoot much?” Charlotte was asking as she rubbed a purplish face mask over her troubled complexion.
“Yeah, loads. Have you finished yours yet?”
“No. I should have come with you, but then we’d have ended up with everything the same. So Owen showed up, you said in your text.”
Jenna sighed. “ ’Fraid so. I mean, I really like him and everything, but he’s so, like…you know. What’s that stuff you’re using?”
Charlotte held up the tube and read from the back. “Apparently it contains antimicrobial willow bark, mango, and blueberry to minimize blemishes and to clear away excess sebum.”
“Excess what?”
“Sebum,” Charlotte giggled. Turning around, she wiggled her bottom in front of the camera.
“I am soooo glad you’re wearing knickers,” Paige laughed.
“Be grateful. Oh my God! That reminds me. Have you seen the latest episode of The Valleys yet? It is totally insane. That girl—you know, the one who looks like Kelly Durham? I forget her name. Anyway, she only took her knickers off in the middle of a nightclub.”
Paige pulled a gagging face.
“Just what I thought,” Charlotte assured her, “but I can’t stop watching it. So, what are you doing later? Do you want to come over?”
“Would love to, but I’ve still got loads of homework to get through. Have you done the geography stuff about ecosystems yet?”
“Yep. You’ll sail through it, provided you get the answer to question one right, which is seaweed. English is more Dylan Thomas, so no problem for you there. Maths is going to totally fuck with your head, but when does it ever not? And business studies is starting to really piss me off. Let me know how you get on with all the crap about sourcing finance—I could do with some help.”
“Like I’m going to know.”
“Bet you do.”
“Yeah, right. So I’ll see you at the bus stop in the morning?”
“Worse luck. Let me know if you hear from Oliver before that.”
Paige’s insides melted to liquid. “Don’t,” she groaned plaintively. “No way am I going to hear from him. He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”
“Course he does.”
“Course he doesn’t, unless…Oh my God, Charlotte, you haven’t told Cullum? He’s his brother. He’ll—”
“Give me a break! Would I do that to you? I’m just saying, I reckon he’s interested.”
“He’s eighteen.”
“And?”
“And he’s going out with Lindsay French.”
“I heard he’s chucked her. I’ll try to find out.”
“No! You can’t ask Cullum!”
“Is that what I said?”
“You don’t know anyone else to ask, and if Oliver finds out we’re, like, stalking him…Oh God, I’ll want to kill myself.”
Laughing, Charlotte said, “I’ve got to go and wash this stuff off. I’ll speak to you later.”
As the line cleared, Paige dropped her head in her hands and groaned again. Oliver. Oliver. Oliver. She could hardly stop thinking about him. It was like she was becoming obsessed, and she’d never even spoken to him, for God’s sake. Had only really seen him twice. He’d noticed her, though, last Saturday, when a crowd of them had gone to support the Swansea College rugby team against Worcester. He had looked so totally drop-dead in all his gear that she’d nearly fainted.
Maybe she had, because she couldn’t remember anything that happened after he’d caught her eye.
Chances were he’d been looking at someone behind her.
Or maybe he’d spotted her and something had happened for him too. He might, even now, be wondering who she was, trying to think of a way to ask his younger brother about the girl he’d brought to the game….
She had to stop thinking about him, get him out of her mind before she ended up making a total idiot of herself. He was three years older than her, for God’s sake, and was so completely out of her league that it would be like pairing Zayn Malik up with Ugly Betty. Not that she was anything like Ugly Betty, who in real life was a total babe, which she definitely was not. Besides, there couldn’t be a girl alive who didn’t have the hots for Oliver Pryce; he could have his pick of anyone, and though it made her want to die just to think of it, she knew in her heart that he’d never choose her.
Remembering her bath, and feeling a dizzying rush of excitement at the thought of Oliver coming to watch her, she was about to get up from the computer when someone instant-messaged her.
Hey. Can you talk?
Frowning, she looked at the name. Julie Morris. She couldn’t think of anyone called that. I’m cool. Do I know you? she typed back.
Is it true about you and Owen Masters? the sender asked.
Paige frowned as her pulse started to drop back to normal. Tell me who you are, she typed back.
I’m a friend.
But I don’t know your name. Do you go to The Landings?
Yes.
Which year?
Same as you.
So Julie Morris isn’t your real name?
I’m not supposed to go on chat rooms and stuff so I’ve made up this name in case my parents check. Long story. Will share if we become friends.
Intrigued, Paige asked, So why do you want to know about Owen?
Just interested. Do you like him?
He’s OK.
I think you should go out with him.
Whoever this girl was, she obviously didn’t realize Owen was gay, and no way was Paige about to tell her. He’s not really my type.
So who is?
That would be telling.
Does he go to our school?
No. Do you have a boyfriend?
No. Thanks for the chat, have to go now.
Paige blinked as the connection ended, and started going through everyone she could think of in her year who could be Julie Morris, but couldn’t come up with a single one who’d ever said she wasn’t allowed to go on chat rooms at home. On the other hand, the girl might not want to admit it to anyone, and Paige supposed she didn’t blame her for that. Whatever, it was the girl’s call, and since Paige could hear Josh and the twins running up the stairs shouting her name, she quickly shot into her bathroom and locked the door.