Читать книгу Make My Wish Come True - Фиона Харпер - Страница 7
ОглавлениеChristmas 1981
Juliet sat on the brown velour sofa, her arms folded across her chest, and watched her sister play amidst the wreckage of wrapping paper and discarded curling ribbon. Gemma’s fair curls bounced as she chatted away to her new dolly and brushed its hair. Juliet glanced at her digital calculator, still in its packaging, sitting beside her on the sofa and felt a little bit sick.
That doll had been on her Christmas wish list, not Gemma’s. Mummy must have got mixed up somehow. But Daddy said Mummy was a bit sad at the moment, and it made her do strange things.
Gemma stopped brushing the doll’s hair and looked up. ‘When’s dinner?’ she asked. ‘I’m hungry.’
Juliet looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It said ten past four. She was hungry too. Christmas lunch should have been hours ago. She wanted to go and ask Daddy, but last time she’d ventured into the kitchen he’d been hunched over the table, crying softly.
‘Soon,’ she told Gemma, trying to smile.
Her sister nodded and returned to fussing with her doll. Juliet just sat there, feeling even sicker.
After a few moments, Gemma stood up and picked up the doll. ‘I’m going to go and show Mummy what I’ve done with Georgina’s hair,’ she said.
Juliet jumped off the sofa and stood in the doorway. This is what she’d been dreading. ‘Not right now,’ she told Gemma softly. ‘Mummy had to go out for a bit.’
Gemma’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but she didn’t question her older sister’s words. That was because she was five. Juliet was nine and she was a big enough girl to know the truth. Daddy had said so. He’d also said Gemma was too little, that she wouldn’t understand, and that it was Juliet’s job to make sure she didn’t find out.
A sudden image of her mother running from the house, raw stuffing still clinging to her fingers, then jumping into the car and driving away left Juliet feeling breathless and shaky, but Gemma glanced back up at her, eyes so large and trusting, and she covered it all over with a smile.
‘Is she coming back soon?’ her sister asked, only half-interested in Juliet’s answer as she started twisting the doll’s hair, attempting her own five-year-old version of a plait.
Juliet kept smiling, even though it felt like her insides were being sucked into a big dark hole.
‘Yes,’ she said, and blinked back the moisture that had gathered in the corner of her eyes.
She bent down a little bit so she was on Gemma’s level. ‘If you want, I’ll show you how to plait Georgina’s hair
properly, and then you can show Mummy when she comes home.’
Gemma threw her arms round Juliet’s neck and squeezed her hard. ‘You’re such a good big sister, Juliet! I love you.’
People liked Gemma the best because she was cute and ‘bubbly’. Juliet didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she suspected it meant not shy and nervous, like she was. Sometimes she wished Gemma was different, but right now she understood why people liked it when her little sister directed all that enthusiastic affection at them.
She was a good big sister, wasn’t she? And she would keep on being a good big sister, the best she could be.
She sat down cross-legged on the carpet and Gemma sank down beside her. Juliet took the doll and with a frown of concentration began to braid its hair. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘this is how you do it …’
And once she’d shown Gemma, she let her have a go too. And while her sister chatted and plaited, her chubby little fingers almost tying themselves in knots, Juliet glanced towards the living-room door.
Maybe while Gemma was busy she ought to go and see if Daddy needed help cooking the dinner. Somebody had to do it. And she didn’t know if Mummy was ever coming back.
