Lunch at home was pretty tense. Mum was at work as usual, so Dad was in charge. Bella was barely speaking to anyone, and although she didn’t get cross with me when I explained about Katie and her friends, she was upset to hear that I hadn’t managed to see Sam.
We finished eating the fish-finger sandwiches Dad had made and I was helping clear the table when I got a text from Tansy. ‘She wants to know if I can go round to hers this afternoon,’ I told Dad. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’
‘I should think so. But if you want to go anywhere else from there you need to let me know.’
‘Why?’ Bella protested in a pained sort of voice. ‘I thought you said the country was safer than the town!’
‘Don’t you start with that tone of voice, young lady,’ Dad snapped at her, far more forcefully than he usually does.
‘OK, Dad,’ I said quickly, realising that with the mood he was in I’d have to be careful how I handled him.
Tansy must have been waiting for me because the second I set foot on her front porch she flung open the door and pulled me inside. ‘Guess who’s here?’ she said excitedly.
‘Your mum?’
‘No! Well, yes, she’s here too … but I meant your aunt!’
‘OK …’ I wasn’t sure where this was going so I waited to hear more.
‘Dad invited her round to look at some stuff he found when he went through the garage – stuff that belonged to Murray.’
‘Tansy!’ called out an unfamiliar female voice. An attractive woman of about Mum’s age walked into the hall. She was slim with dark hair and she wore a white blouse tucked into blue trousers.
‘Mum, this is Libby,’ Tansy introduced me at once.
‘Hello, Libby,’ the woman said with a friendly smile. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ She turned to Tansy. ‘Darling, I must go and check in to my hotel but we can talk more this evening.’ She leaned forward and kissed Tansy on her forehead, then pulled her close and hugged her tightly. ‘I don’t want you to worry. Everything will be fine, whatever you decide. You know Daddy and I both just want you to be happy.’
I half expected Tansy to say that if that were true then she shouldn’t have disappeared off to Africa for four months, but instead Tansy murmured, ‘OK, Mum,’ seeming only too pleased to have such a big fuss made of her.
As we watched her mum walk down the drive and on to the street where she’d left her car I asked, ‘Did you tell her how bad you felt about her going away?’
Tansy nodded. ‘It’s sort of difficult not to tell her how I feel about stuff. If I’m ever worried or in a bad mood about anything, she always picks up on it and asks me about it.’ Her eyes suddenly went a bit shiny with tears, as if she was finally letting herself feel how much she’d been missing her mum.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. She really wants me to go back to Southampton with her.’
‘Can’t she move here instead?’ I suggested hopefully.
Tansy shook her head. ‘Her job is there.’
‘What does your dad say about it?’
‘That it’s up to me.’
Before I could say anything else she swiftly changed the subject. ‘Come on. Dad’s got something to show you. We need to tell him you’re here.’
Five minutes later I was walking to the garage at the side of the house with Tansy, her dad and Aunt Thecla. I tried to sneak a look at my aunt to see how much she knew, but her face was giving away nothing.
‘I found some of my brother’s old things in here, Libby, and there’s something I’d like you to look at,’ Tansy’s dad said as he unlocked the garage door.
Aunt Thecla suddenly placed her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Michael wants to give this to your father because he thinks that’s what Murray would have wanted. I’m not so sure though. I wanted to see what you thought about it first.’
I was certain then that I knew what it was they had found.
‘I’m sure Dad would love to have Murray’s cricket bat,’ I said without hesitation. ‘I think it would mean a lot to him.’
‘Oh, but we’re not talking about the cricket bat,’ my aunt said as Tansy’s dad opened the garage door and stepped aside.
I just stared. Because there, standing among a whole lot of other junk, was a very old-fashioned and very rusty-looking motorbike.