Читать книгу A HORSE FOR ANGEL - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 11

OST OF THEIR JUMBLED HOME WAS IN THE BIG kitchen. There was a long wooden table half laid for lunch, half covered in toys and papers. Cupboards with no doors spilled out books and crockery, all mixed together. Bunches of dried herbs hung from a clothes line and a basket of ironing and a pile of folded clothes were heaped on a crumpled sofa.

Mum dropped her big black handbag on the sofa and all the other things tipped towards the dip it made. A duck waddled out from under the table and dashed outside, but nobody said anything. It wasn’t like our house with its shiny surfaces and everything tidied away and organised.

We sat at the table. All the chairs were different. Mine wobbled on the stone floor and Mum brushed crumbs off hers before she sat down and hung her jacket over the back.

“This one’s yours,” said Gem, reaching across the table to me with a cupcake in her hand.

“Have a sandwich first,” said Mum, holding out a plate of egg sandwiches before I could say anything. She always spoke like that, cutting corners. Mum told Aunt Liv about the important conference that she had to go to the week after and how hard she’d been working to help organise it. I watched the butter cream squelch up on Gem’s cupcake and the cherry plop off. Gem clambered down, picked up the cherry from the floor and stared at the ball of dust stuck to it. She looked at me, at the cake. Head down, she ran towards her mum and buried her face in Aunt Liv’s dress, holding the cake up high so she didn’t ruin it any more.

“Never mind,” Aunt Liv said softly. “Nell’s here for two weeks. Plenty of opportunity to make her more cakes.”

“Yes, but I wanted her to have this one.”

“I know, love,” whispered Aunt Liv. “It was a special one.”

The cupcake reminded me of the things I had found in the loft. Even when they’re squashed or broken or bits are missing and they look a bit rubbish, they’re still important. And right from that moment I thought my Aunt Liv was nice.

The kettle whistled from the old-fashioned iron stove. Aunt Liv got up and steered Gem back to her own chair. She told us she was growing plants in her fields to make tea.

Mum said, “Tea?” Like that, like a question. “You can’t grow tea in England.”

But Aunt Liv told her they had their own microclimate in the valley and that things just needed the right conditions.

Aunt Liv and Mum were only alike in their faces and their skin. They both had a way of shaking their fringes away from their eyes when they looked up. But that was about it.

Mum chatted about her recruitment agency and everything else that was keeping us busy and therefore unable to visit relatives.

“And I need to get back soon, Liv,” Mum said. “I’ll fetch Nell’s case from the car, then I ought to go.”

She got up, rummaged in her bag to find the car keys. But I couldn’t let her fetch my case!

“I’ll get it,” I said, snatching the keys from her hand.

I ran out, with everyone watching me dodge the flapping geese and ducks. I couldn’t let her get that suitcase. I didn’t want her to find what else I’d hidden in the boot.