By the time the journey is over, I know not to call her Grandma or Nanny or Nan: her name is Nell. She doesn’t say anything about Dad, only that she hates hospitals. When I ask why, she pulls a face.
‘Yuk,’ she says. ‘Just yuk.’
The stinky dog is called Borage. He’s grey and shaggy and has doggy eyebrows, and he leans like a human when we take corners. So this is who I’m spending the next I-don’t-know-how-long with. Honestly, I’d have been far better off at home on my own.
We’ve driven two hours out of London to reach Nell’s house. It’s daylight now. The last few miles are on country lanes that actually have grass growing down the middle. I lose the signal on my phone. Things really don’t look promising.
Then the road splits into two. We take the right-hand part, which quickly turns into a track and goes very steeply downhill. It carries on like this for a bone-shaking half a mile, then stops at a five-bar gate. The house is just beyond, surrounded by trees: both look really old. The building is made of grey stone, with funny arched windows and a front door so wide and dark it makes me think of castles. It’s called Darkling Cottage; the name’s nailed to the gate in brass letters. ‘Darkling’: it’s a funny word. Old-sounding.
‘Why’s it called that?’ I ask.
‘It gets its name from those woods.’ Nell points to the trees that surround the house on three sides. ‘Suits it, don’t you think?’
I don’t know. It sounds spooky to me.
‘Did Dad bring us to visit when we were little?’ I ask. ‘Because I don’t remember it if he did.’
‘No. He didn’t,’ she says.
As I open my mouth to ask ‘Why?’ Nell gets in there first.
‘You ask a lot of questions,’ she says.
I’d asked precisely two and a half.
‘Open the gate, will you?’ says Nell. ‘And let the dog out of the car.’
I do as she asks. Borage lollops off on great gangly legs, looking more like a baby horse than a dog.
Once Nell’s parked up, I get my bags and follow her round to the back of the house. It’s a fine, bright morning but the sun hasn’t reached here yet. Everything is still white with frost. I suppose the trees make it so shadowy; they come right up to the garden fence on all three sides. The garden itself looks well cared for, not like ours at home, which at the moment is ankle deep in dead leaves.
‘Do you like gardening?’ I say, then realise I’ve just asked another question.
Nell gets that same look she had when we talked about hospitals.
‘If I had a garden worth tending, yes,’ she says. ‘See there, where the ground’s lifted?’
She points to our side of the fence. All along it, the grass looks rough and lumpy, especially closest to the house.
‘Tree roots.’ She tosses her head as she says it, like she really hasn’t got time for all this. ‘If the blasted things grow any nearer to the house it’ll be dangerous.’
‘How?’
‘An old house like mine doesn’t have deep foundations, so if the tree roots grow too close and make the soil dry it causes the house to become unstable, you see. It’s called subsidence. The trees themselves aren’t stable, either. All we’d need is a decent storm, and any one of them could come crashing down on the house.’
‘Oh,’ I say nervously. ‘Right.’
‘That’s the worst-case scenario of course, but they’re such a blasted nuisance, taking goodness from the soil and making everywhere so dark. That’s why I’ve decided to cut down the wood.’
‘You’re cutting down the whole thing?’
It seems a bit dramatic.
‘Don’t look so horrified,’ Nell says. ‘It’s only three acres of land – my land, I hasten to add.’
We stand silent, looking at the trees. They’re old and twisty and so tall I have to tip my head back to see them properly. Right at the top are crows’ nests; we’ve startled them. They fly above us, making a miserable croaking noise that sends a shiver through me.
‘You’re cold. Go on inside,’ says Nell, handing me the door key. ‘I’ll be in shortly for breakfast.’
Before I get a chance to ask which bedroom is mine, she’s striding off across the lawn.
Inside, the house feels really old. Unsure where to put myself, I dump my bags in the hallway. Nell’s right, it is dark in here – so dark I have to put the lights on. More importantly, there’s no internet. No telly. And still no mobile signal, so I can’t call Lexie to see if she’s become a sister yet.
There are three massive downstairs rooms, all freezing cold and smelling of damp, and a kitchen that’s the size of a classroom. I settle in here; it’s got one of those old cookers you put coal into, which makes it the warmest room by a mile.
All morning, I keep the kitchen door propped open so I can hear the phone in the hall when Mum rings. Borage lies across my feet like a giant, hairy hot-water bottle. Time goes slower than slow. Yet my brain’s zipping about all over the place, and when I try to read a book or do homework I can’t concentrate on anything. In the end, I make Theo a get-well card on some paper I find in my schoolbag. At least now I’ve got something to take him when I visit. Not that I can draw, but he’ll like it because I’ve done it, though my T-rexes look more like killer pigs.
Finally Mum calls at just after two.
‘It’s all over,’ she says. ‘The operation went brilliantly. He’s such a brave chap.’
We both have a cry down the phone. It’s the relief, I suppose. Then Mum switches back into cheerful mode.
‘Are you okay?’ she says, sniffing back her tears.
‘I’m fine. Did you get hold of Dad?’
There’s a pause. ‘I’ve left him another message. He was probably in his workshop and didn’t hear the phone.’
I think of what Nell said about excuses. Now Mum’s making them for Dad, which, frankly, is weird.
‘How are things with Nell?’ Mum asks.
‘The house is really old. There’s no central heating or internet or anything.’
‘Oh heck, really?’
I don’t say much more because I don’t want her worrying, so it ends up with Mum babbling on. Maybe I’m a bit on edge but it’s like she’s trying too hard to sound normal.
*
The day drags on. There’s nothing to do here. Then there’s dinner. Nell takes something from the freezer and microwaves it on ‘high’. We end up with what looks like beef but it’s so rubbery I have to swallow it down with water. By the time Nell’s finished I’m not even halfway through mine.
‘You’re a picky eater, I see,’ she says. ‘Your father was fussy with food too …’
She stops like she’s caught herself out. Not that I want her to talk about Dad. Just the mention of him makes me want to kick something. How could he not answer his stupid phone, today of all days?
Nell sees I’m upset. She doesn’t say any more about the dinner I’ve barely touched and instead makes me a coffee with extra sugar.
‘I’ll be in the library doing paperwork,’ she says, and disappears.
For a while I sit, head in hands, feeling all sorts of miserable. Then there’s a shuffling under the table and Borage’s grey, whiskery snout rests on my knee. Outside, the wind makes a strange humming noise in the trees. I can’t imagine growing up here like Dad did, in a house miles from anywhere with no TV and no heating.
Right now, I can’t even imagine Dad. When he first went to Devon, I remember Mum crying and our recycling box being full of wine bottles. We saw him once a month at weekends, which felt weird. When Theo first got sick, I think we hoped Dad would come home. But he didn’t. He’d been gone two years by then and he had a girlfriend called Lara. This summer they had a baby together, a little girl called Poppy. We haven’t met her yet, Theo and me, because since she’s been born our dad has been ever so, ever so busy.
Or, as Nell puts it, he started making excuses.