Blue Lavender Girl (10 page)

I have to write this now, because you never know!
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I don’t know where to start, I want to write everything at once. Last night was so intense that I’m hoping that if I write it down it will feel more real. If anyone told me such things had happened to them, I’d go ‘Yeah, right,’ and think they were like the crazy lady who hangs out at the bus stop near our house talking about her dinner with the Queen of France.

Jenny and I got ready in my room. I didn’t say anything to her about Jackson in case she thought Jackson just wanted to be my friend (rather than my ‘more than just friend’) and that would fairly slam the door on the dream. She is so optimistic that even if she said, ‘I don’t know’, translated from Jenny-speak that would mean that she figured he
had twenty other girls on a rota for the night. Also, she is
way
too excitable to hide things. Long story short, no talk of Jackson, lots of talk about Bob.

Jenny said she wasn’t going to think about Bob ‘in that way’ so she wouldn’t be disappointed if he went off with some other girl. I said if he did that, I would get the whole party to be quiet before introducing … (drum roll) … ‘Bob and his famous, and now rarely performed, Armpit Fart Medley.’ I couldn’t believe he hadn’t kissed her yet.

I decided that I’d make the whole Jackson thing a long-term plan and that if he didn’t dance with me or kiss me this time around, I’d spend the whole year doing fascinating things, and having other boyfriends, and then next summer when I’d tell him what I’d been up to he’d realise how amazing I am and fall for me. Pathetic, I know! But what’s a girl to do with more dress than hope?

So anyway, we looked incredible and we knew it. Aunt Maisie gave us a lift to the Park, after all, we couldn’t just arrive down on our bikes. There were so many cars and catering vans and things that we walked from the gate after first dropping in quickly to show Nanny Gloria how we looked. She had been invited, but she said she preferred her gin rummy
with her friends. I hoped she wouldn’t drink too much.

There were about two hundred guests already, and more arriving by the minute. It was so surreal to see loads of people there when it’s always just the four of us, like having tourists walk through your bedroom.

Mr Walsh was checking everyone’s names at the gate. It was a bit ridiculous of him, the way he looked for our names even though he knew we were invited. I think he was pissed off that we were guests and he was working.

The main roadway to the Big House was edged with candles in lanterns and looked as if it was hundreds of years ago (except there were no horses around, just cars large enough to live in). The courtyard itself was like Christmas, with pink and blue lighting and the most luxurious table settings I have ever seen on dozens of long white-clothed tables, and silver-backed chairs. A small orchestra was playing on one half of the steps and I told Jenny she’d have to get used to having them play through every meal once she and Bob were married and living here! It was as if the weather had been designed too, warm with a very gentle breeze and probably the right number of millibars, whatever they’re all about.
The buffet table was the whole length of the back of the courtyard, and full of all kinds of food, with a waiter behind each dish to explain it (in as non-condescending a way as possible) and serve you.

People were already eating, but I was too nervous to know what to do, I’m all forks in a setting like that. Jenny is used to fancy parties, so she grabbed a plate for her and one for me and soon mine was piled high (but not so high that I looked like I’d never eaten anything but porridge). I had duck, goose, dauphinoise potatoes, asparagus spears and some amazing vegetable mixture that I can’t remember the name of. We were about to sit next to a lady in a long gold dress, but Bob called us over to where he was sitting with a load of people our age. I was so relieved, they were really friendly and fun and were eating, taking pictures, and talking and laughing with their mouths full, and I felt totally relaxed. I think it was Camille, Jeannie, Charles and Max I met then, but I got to know everyone as the meal went on.

Everyone was talking about real things, adventures they had been on, things they were learning and doing … so different from me and my friends in town when we would just talk about
whoever wasn’t there. It was so exciting chatting with them and being a real part of it, that it was over two hours later that I noticed that Jackson was missing. I didn’t want to be all obvious by asking anyone so I just suffered in silence, (and luxury!), and it wasn’t even suffering, just intense wondering.

Then, I was sitting on a chair near the steps talking to Libby, who was the girl Jackson wanted me to get to know. She and Jenny already knew each other from school, but they didn’t know that they both knew Jackson. We totally get each other’s sense of humour, I guess that was why Jackson knew we’d like each other, and she’s excited that I might be going to her school, (fingers massively crossed!)

As I sat there thinking about what a great and expensive time I was having, I felt someone touch my arm from behind. I can’t even describe how I almost passed out as soon as I saw Jackson. He was dressed in full black tie like the other men (apparently ‘full black tie’ doesn’t just mean the bow-tie, it means the whole black suit, and white shirt, and shiny shoes too), and his blond hair was still wild looking. He seemed to take a deep breath in when he saw me too, and I wouldn’t make up something like that.

Anyway, Jackson wanted me to come away from the courtyard and there were no arguments from me!

He was using that military commander voice that he puts on when organising, and was steering me toward the lavender field. He said there were two men near the Blue Lavender Tea Palace keeping everyone away, telling them they couldn’t come by until after the buffet. Even when Jackson explained who he was, they said it was their job to keep everyone away. That seemed normal to me if they wanted to keep people away from the Tea Palace until later, but Jackson said that there was something about the way they seemed panicked and wouldn’t let him through although he was one of the people throwing the party that made him wonder.

‘I saw one of them glance over to that big statue with the dolphins to the side of the Tea Palace, and whisper something into his walkie-talkie.’

‘He was probably asking one of the waiters to save him some duck for later.’

‘Tia, I need you to be serious.’

‘Of course, I have my serious ball gown on.’

‘Seriously serious. Focus!’

‘OK.’

‘That is a great dress, by the way.’

‘Focus!’

So then, Jackson said that he’d suddenly remembered a story his mother had told him when he was little, about the base of that statue being the start of a passageway that ran underneath the Park, and how it was used in the olden days so the people in the Big House could escape the soldiers or king’s men or whatever. Except Jackson told it better than that.

‘And that time Buddy disappeared! Do you think…?’

‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before now.’

I suppose an underground passageway is so overly obvious that you’d
never
think of it!

‘Where would it lead to?’ I asked, ‘The gate?’

As soon as I said that, he grabbed my arm and started walking fast in the opposite direction. For a second I thought I had said something wrong and he was bringing me back to the buffet, but then I realised we were heading for the stone hut.

‘I bet those weren’t rats we heard,’ he said as we reached the hut, and he got down on his hands and knees, not caring for one second about his lovely suit. He pulled at one of the floorboards until it gave
way and came out completely.

I said, ‘Let’s go down.’

‘I knew you’d say that,’ he grinned.

We disappeared down the hole, helped by this rope ladder hanging there. I went first, not because I was feeling brave, but because I didn’t want Jackson to be able to look up my dress, but I didn’t tell him that.

It was really strange, like being in an adventure book, but it was real life. I was shaking. The corridor at the bottom was lit by these little flashlight things and was painted white to make it all brighter. Now we knew what the extra paint was all about. After a while we got to this big white room filled with boxes and boxes of electrical goods and clothes.

We could hear men’s voices coming from the other end of the corridor so we legged it back the way we came (Jackson going first up the ladder) and back to the Big House, where the dinner seemed to be ending.

As the rest of the party-goers started to make their way over to the Blue Lavender Tea Palace to dance, Jackson headed round the back to the Big House to fetch his bike. We decided not to phone because we couldn’t be sure who was in on it, and who was listening. And that’s how I ended up with my long
dress hitched up into my hand on the crossbar of a bike with a guy in a dress suit, all the way to the village police station. The police were great. They laughed at us at first and then they started to really listen. They made us go through everything carefully and then called to the nearest town for backup.

They told us that this part of the country has been well known for the past couple of years as a place where smugglers hide their stuff for months at a time before moving it on to sell.

I thought it was a daft idea, smugglers in this day and age and us nowhere near the sea. They explained that if people bring goods in legally they have to pay high taxes and duty, but if they avoid paying the money to the customs people they have more to keep for themselves.

Anyway, an hour later we arrived back at the party in a police car and there was a police van already waiting. It was so like a TV show or something, with all the guests talking away, wondering what was going on as the two tunnel-guarding men were led away, followed five minutes later by some men who had been in the tunnel, including Mr Walsh. Bob and Jenny were standing beside us by then and we told them what was going on. It was so fast, like a
circus or something. Jenny went off to reassure the guests while Bob went to explain to his parents and relatives. Luckily the grandfather had gone to bed directly after the dinner.

As they led Mr Walsh away I noticed a streak of oil on the back of his trousers, just like the one I had got on my new skirt.

‘The warehouse!’ I said, and Jackson explained to the police that they might like to check the old oil-storage warehouse in the village.

We found out a while later that the other man was there, the one I had seen arguing with Mr Walsh, and I had to formally identify him, so the four of us were up all night, giving statements and explaining to worried adults and everything.

It is now noon and I haven’t slept and I am back in Aunt Maisie’s house. It was amazing, but I’m a bit pissed off that the counting to five hundred thing doesn’t work.

I stayed awake until three yesterday afternoon and then slept until six a.m. this morning. I got dressed slowly (jeans, runners and the new pink top) and then rode over with Buddy to see Jenny. Bob had kissed her while they were on the dance floor, right before the police got there, and again when he walked her home. I’m so happy for her and made her tell it about a million times. It was just what I had dreamed for me and Jackson, them waltzing and talking about the work we had done on the place, and then Bob said she deserved to be kissed for all her efforts with a paintbrush.

I found out that gin rummy is a card game for old ladies and not a drink. Nanny Gloria taught myself
and Jenny how to play to distract us when we got all jumpy and wanted to hang out in the Tea Palace. She said it wouldn’t be ‘dignified’ to go up there so soon after the party, and I guess she was right because what we were hoping for is not that dignified if done right!

Bob and Jackson phoned us around lunchtime to tell us that they were being kept busy organising, and getting the Big House and the Tea Palace back in order. The police told them that Mr Walsh and the men had used the cover of all the catering trucks to add a couple of trucks of their own (filled with the smuggled stuff), and knew that the noise and bustle of a party would hide what they were doing, especially as there were so many young people running around the Park at night, (which took some explaining to Bob’s dad.) The man at the warehouse was the head of a gang that stretched right across the whole continent so they were thrilled to finally be able to link him to the goods.

Tired again.