Aunt Thecla sounded a lot less friendly when she rang me on my mobile the next morning. Though I suppose I should have been glad she phoned me rather than going straight to Dad, as she probably would if they hadn’t fallen out. I’d been in the bathroom so I hadn’t picked up, thank goodness, but she’d left me a terse message saying that she’d just found fifty pounds inside her wellington boot. She added that she was coming round to speak with us all tonight, and that she would also leave a message for Mum to inform her of that.
‘Bella, what are we going to tell her?’ I said as I got dressed in our bedroom while she continued to laze in bed. We’d been ignoring each other until now, and for once I hadn’t felt like being the first to break the silence. The only reason I was speaking to her now was because I figured this was an emergency.
After I’d let her hear the message she’d continued to keep her back to me, and now she snapped, ‘Don’t ask me! You’re the one who had to go and put the money back and get yourself caught. You could have left things how they were and everything would have blown over. But oh no … Libby had a better idea …’ She turned her head then and I saw that her eyes were a bit puffy like she’d been crying. I knew she was worried because she hadn’t heard from Sam yet.
‘Maybe we should just tell her the truth?’ I suggested. ‘We don’t need to say why you took the money.’
‘No way are we telling them the truth!’ She glowered at me.
I sighed, sensing that I wasn’t going to get anywhere while she was angsting over Sam. ‘Bella, you and Sam will be OK …’ I began.
‘Oh yeah?’ She turned on me angrily. ‘How do you know?’
‘Well, have you tried phoning him?’ The trouble with Bella is that she never wants to be the one who backs down.
‘Of course! It keeps going straight to voicemail. He doesn’t want to speak to me.’ She sniffed.
‘Oh …’ That kind of surprised me, but I had other things to worry about. ‘Maybe he just needs a bit more time to come round, but, Bella, listen … Aunt Thecla’s going to want an explanation about the money. If I don’t tell her the truth, what am I going to say?’
She shrugged. ‘You’re so clever … I’m sure you’ll think of something. Now can you please just go away and give me some privacy?’
I left our bedroom wondering why she always seemed to take priority whenever we both wanted a place to retreat to.
Downstairs Dad was cleaning the kitchen floor while Grace sat in the living room with the TV turned up really loud. She’d been allowed to watch loads more TV since we came here. Basically, whereas Mum tries to limit the TV, Dad likes to use it as a sort of babysitter so he can get on with his own stuff.
I knew I needed to plan what I was going to say to Aunt Thecla about her money. I thought about whether I should go to her house and just tell her the truth – or a variation of it. But what could I tell her we’d needed the money for that would sound convincing? It had to be something Mum and Dad wouldn’t buy for us or lend us the money for.
Feeling like I needed to escape for a while I decided to go and see Tansy.
* * *
I arrived at my new friend’s house wondering how much her dad had told her about his lunch with my aunt. I’d already texted her to see if it was OK to come round, and as soon as I rang the bell she came to the door.
‘Dad’s on the phone with my mum,’ she said immediately, looking more tense than I’d ever seen her. ‘I told you she’s back in the country, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, Tansy! That’s brilliant!’
‘Well, I’m really mad at her. She can’t have it both ways. First she’s desperate to leave me to go and set up a clinic in Africa, and now she’s desperate to have me back like nothing ever happened! Well, she can’t treat me like that!’ She started up the stairs, and when I didn’t immediately follow she turned back and snapped, ‘Come on, then!’
I hurried after her feeling confused. ‘Wait a minute, are you saying your mum wants you to go back and live with her in Southampton?’ I asked as I caught up with her in her room.
Her bedroom resembled an old-fashioned guest room rather than the bedroom of an almost-teenage girl. Her stuff seemed to be dumped around the floor in various boxes, as if she wasn’t planning on staying long enough to bother unpacking.
‘Yes, but I already told her I wasn’t ever going to move back in with her, and I meant it!’ she said as she flopped down heavily on her bed. ‘I mean, why should she get away with just walking out on me like that? She has to face the consequences of what she did, right?’
‘OK …’ I paused, worried by something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. ‘But you do actually want to stay here with your dad, right?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ she said dismissively.
‘I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t it matter?’
‘Look,’ she said impatiently. ‘I love Dad, but I’ve always been a lot closer to Mum. I miss her really badly and I miss our old life in Southampton. So what I want is to have that life back, but it’s not that simple.’
‘Oh …’ I was too surprised to respond for a few moments. Then I said, ‘Why isn’t it?’
‘I just told you! Mum can’t leave me behind like I don’t matter and then expect me to go running back to her whenever it suits her.’
I must have stayed silent for too long because she suddenly looked at me closely and asked, ‘You do get that, right?’
I nodded quickly. ‘Of course I get it.’ I actually tend to get most people’s points of view in most situations, which makes it hard to take sides sometimes when there’s a disagreement.
‘So you’d do the same if you were me?’
‘I don’t know … maybe … it’s just … aren’t you sort of cutting off your nose to spite your face?’
She gave a dismissive little huff. ‘I don’t care.’
There was an awkward silence because I didn’t know what else to say. I knew she was lying about not caring. But I wasn’t sure if she actually knew she was lying. I decided to change the subject.
‘Did your dad say anything to you about his lunch with my aunt?’ I asked.
I wondered if he’d told her about Aunt Thecla confessing over lunch that she’d been in love with his older brother.
Tansy shook her head. ‘He’s been acting a bit weird since though, like something’s bugging him. I thought maybe their lunch date didn’t go so well. Did your aunt say anything about it to you?’
‘A bit,’ I said, avoiding her gaze.
‘You know, he’s been talking a lot about that day my grandfather caught your dad with Murray’s cricket bat. He says he feels really guilty about it because he knew Murray meant your dad to have it. He was jealous, so that’s why he didn’t say anything. And guess what? He was clearing out Grandpa’s garage the other day and –’
But she didn’t have time to finish because from downstairs her dad suddenly yelled, ‘TANSY!’ at the top of his voice. When we came out on to the landing he was looking up at us from the hall. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were here, Libby. I need to talk to Tansy about something. It might take a while …’
‘Oh, sure.’ I know when to take a hint and I instantly headed for the front door.
‘I’ll text you later!’ she called out after me.
As I walked home I tried to imagine myself in Tansy’s situation. How would I feel if Mum left me for several months to go and set up a clinic in Africa? I would miss her so badly, though I’m sure I’d also be really proud of her and boast to everyone I met about what she was doing. Tansy sounded more outraged than anything else – outraged that her mum hadn’t put her first. I suppose it could be because she’s an only child and accustomed to being the centre of her mum’s world all the time. But then again … Mum says you have to be careful not to judge other people, or jump to conclusions about them, before you’ve actually walked in their shoes for a while. And since I’d never been in the situation Tansy was in right now, I guess I didn’t really know how I’d react if I ever was.
I was surprised when my phone pinged before I’d even got home. The message from Tansy said: OMG! Mum visiting tomorrow!
I wasn’t sure how to respond since I didn’t know whether the OMG was an excited OMG or a horrified one. That’s the trouble with texting. Sometimes you need to see the other person’s facial expression and hear their tone of voice as well.
I texted back: Good luck! which I hoped sounded both neutral and interested.
The trouble was I was starting to feel a bit worried on my own behalf now I knew Tansy’s mum wanted her to go back to Southampton with her. Because I really didn’t want to have to start at my new school on my own.