Blue Lavender Girl (8 page)

As soon as I woke up I went around to Jenny’s and she looked as if she had been crying
way
more than me. The red eyes and puffy face were a dead giveaway even though she planted a big grin on her as if everything was fine. I’m so used to having arguments with people that it doesn’t affect me so much, but she was really upset. I felt really bad about that. I gave her a big hug and we both felt way better.

She explained that it wasn’t so much the argument between me and Bob that got to her, it was that it made her think about how her mum wasn’t there for her to discuss it with. Her parents only come to see her twice a year and then she flies to
them over the Christmas holidays.

‘If I could have any wish in the world,’ she said, ‘It would be that my mum and dad would make more of an effort to spend time with me in the summer.’

I asked why she doesn’t go to them and she explained that they are in a country where there are no English or French speaking people around, and that because they are always on duty they are always having to go off and do things and she just gets left on her own, sometimes not even seeing them for days.

I now feel that I have been really exaggerating my situation at home. Although Mum and Dad don’t get in most days until late, at least they talk to me and we eat together on the weekends. Also I’ve had Aidan to talk to, poor Jenny is an only child.

It’s like what I was thinking the other night, that I think that I am the only one with problems and that everyone else is fine. I never would have guessed that Jenny could possibly feel bad about her life.

We did our hair in really cool styles and went down to the Blue Lavender Tea Palace for the meeting. I was wearing my new stuff, but also these striped tights that make the outfit look more young and rockstar than older film star, if you know what I
mean. I also wore one of the bracelets around my ankle and threaded a necklace through my hair. It sounds all weird, but it really looked amazing.

The atmosphere was a bit funny at first and everyone was pretending to be doing things with cloths or paint brushes so we wouldn’t have to look at each other.

Just as Jackson called us to one of the tables to talk, Buddy lay down at Jackson’s feet and Pie climbed up on his back and stayed there. It was so cute, just like one of the greetings cards where the dog, the cat and the mouse all get along and sit by the fire. We were all laughing at this so it wasn’t too hideous when Jackson set down some rules about us speaking nicely to each other and getting along while we decorate the Blue Lavender Tea Palace. We also decided that whatever Mr Walsh might be up to it wasn’t worth our being tired and snapping at each other, so we’re going to leave all that well alone, at least until after the party.

I took a deep breath and said, ‘Bob I’m really sorry for getting so angry with you the other night. I realise that you were frustrated when we feel asleep. I felt angry because I didn’t think you needed to keep going on about it. And I shouldn’t have shouted and
I’m sorry.’

I was all shaky by the time I said it, and Jenny put her hand on mine to make me feel calmer. (I had written the words on a piece of paper at Jenny’s and practised it a few times, guess those therapy sessions did teach me something after all!!)

Bob gave me a hug and muttered, ‘I’m sorry too’, and that was the end of it. Big relief.

While we were painting the chairs (which is a MUCH bigger job than we thought) Bob asked Jackson if Mr Walsh would have the east wing (wing! – still hilarious) finished in time for the party, Jackson said that Mr Walsh would want to get started on it soon if that was the plan.

But when we saw Mr Walsh a couple of days ago at the gate, he had white paint on his hands. I immediately wanted to talk about what the paint was doing on his hands when they hadn’t started painting yet, but as we’d all just promised not to focus on it, I had to change the subject. When Jenny and Bob ran to the Big House for bottles of water, Jackson showed me some more dance moves and we practised the waltz and the foxtrot. I am now getting the steps right but I don’t look like a dancer yet. The rest of the afternoon was just chairs and more
chairs. Tonight I will dream about chairs, I just know it.

This evening the old lady phoned to thank me for looking after Buddy. Her husband had his hip operation and is feeling much better, but they won’t be home for at least another couple of weeks. I told her to relax about Buddy, and that he is running through the lavender field for most of every day and has made friends with a grey baby rabbit. This made her laugh and she sounded relieved. It feels really good to be able to help someone like this, someone I don’t even know. When I get back home I’m going to find out if there are any people who need help with walking their dogs or looking in on their cats while they are away in hospital or wherever. It makes me sort of get why Mum and Dad do all their volunteer stuff, it makes you feel like you are making a difference in the world.

I know I promised to give it a rest, but still can’t stop wondering why Mr Walsh had the paint on his hands and what’s going on with the warehouse in the village and the man in the Park at night. I decided I’m going to get to the Park really early tomorrow morning, before Jackson and Bob are up, and have a look around by myself. This time I’ll have
Buddy to warn me if anyone is around.

I noticed that I now stand and walk like Jenny, really straight with my shoulders back. I don’t know if that’s from being around her or from the dancing. I’m going to have a bath with rose petals and that fancy bubble-bath now, as I haven’t done that in a while.

I woke up early and put on the pink dress. I also wore this little diamond thing in my hair, which Jenny lent me the last time, and a pink and silver bracelet which we got with the dress. Last night after my bath I was up in the attic with Aunt Maisie and she showed me some boxes of clothes from years ago. Some of them are amazing and they mix with my old and new clothes in really great ways. So now I am a million percent comfortable with how I look, princess and old fashioned dancer and rock star all at the same time.

When I get home I want to throw out all the old ugly stuff in my room and start gradually collecting beautiful things like old leather books and the other
stuff Aunt Maisie has. I noticed that the lavender that Jackson first left on the doorstep is now completely past it, but I haven’t the heart to just throw it out.

Buddy and I got to the Park just as the sun came up and I opened the gate with the spare key. The rays looked so incredible through the leaves of the trees, and glinting on the water. First I looked inside the little hut as I remembered we hadn’t actually opened the door of it that night, and thought maybe a homeless man might be sleeping there. But it was empty except for Pie’s old box which was now on the bench instead of the floor.

Next we went up to the Big House which was a bit scary until I reminded myself that Jackson’s grandfather can’t hear well and doesn’t wake until ten, and that Bob and Jackson both sleep until about nine.

I peered through all of the downstairs windows and saw nothing. I guess I just wanted a mystery so much that my head made one up out of ordinary things. I didn’t feel bad though, because I was sitting on the steps up to the courtyard and imaging what it will look like when the party is on.

NOTE TO SELF:
Get dress for party soon or I 
might end up with something orange or something that makes me look scrawny, or illegal, or wrong for other reasons.

I didn’t really notice that Buddy had started jumping about as I was so lost in daydreaming. Jackson appeared and I tried to look like I was part of the brickwork. Nonchalant does work well when you need it.

He looked like he didn’t know what to say either, and I didn’t want to let on that I was still investigating, so I said, ‘I thought you might be up and about, so I kindly came over to give you the privilege of being able to dance with me.’

Then I thought that might make it look like I fancy him so I kept babbling.

‘Yes, I imagined all those mothers and old aunts wanting to haul you around the dance floor and thought I would do you a favour by coming around here so you could teach me how to dance so I can save you at the party,’ I said.

‘You’re going to save me?’ He was laughing by now but I couldn’t back out.

‘So let’s get on with it then,’ I said, as if mildly annoyed at having to be there for him.

‘Absolutely. And thank you Tia, this is very
thoughtful of you.’

God, I could die when I think of it now!

We spent the next age dancing in the courtyard, doing a waltz, a foxtrot, a quickstep (my favourite!) and a Viennese waltz, which makes you feel a bit sick from all the spinning. He also taught me the basic steps for the rumba. There is so much to learn but I’m loving it.

Just as I was doing a really strange rumba move, Bob arrived, and I said hello and said I had to leave and walked away.

This time Jackson followed me and asked me to sit down and help him plan the lights for the Tea Palace. So we sat on the grass by the lake and talked.

We then went on to talk about ourselves and I told him about my brother Aidan and my parents. This time I said the good things about them rather than moaning. I said about all the people they help and how patient they are when I get into trouble. I didn’t mention the trouble much because I feel like that was the old me and now I’d never do half the things I used to, or even three-quarters of them. Or actually I don’t know if I’d be bothered with any of it now. Maybe just talking back when people are being ridiculous.

I asked him didn’t he mind going to boarding school, and he said he loves it. The reason he and his brother go there is because their mum and dad work late during the week. I also found out that he gets home every weekend and that his favourite thing is to go down to the river behind the house and watch this pair of otters who have lived there for years and have brought up loads of cubs. He also fishes and helps the local farmers with fencing and herding sheep.

It’s funny but although I like Jackson here, I know that if I was back in town with Dee and Kira and all the people we know, I’d be the first to laugh at Jackson and make fun of the way he dresses and talks because it’s so different from us. That really sucks because I must have seemed really different to him and he still made me feel really welcome and taught me to dance and everything. I guess that makes him a better person than me. I feel like everyone is a better person than me.

We talked until it was nearly lunchtime so I came back here to eat. Now I have to rush over to the Tea Palace so I’m not late meeting the others.

RESULTS OF BIG PLANNING MEETING:
We decided to put little twinkle lights in the trees outside, to make blue-lavender-coloured shades for the ceiling lights (with new bulbs) to give a colourful glow, to put little rose trees in earthenware pots around the room and add more twinkle lights to these. We also want to have sprigs of lavender at each table that people can take home with them.

Mr Walsh came in while we were there and was amazingly un-psycho as he said, ‘Hello kids, just so you know there will be lots of extra vans, lorries and people around, because we are starting to paint the east wing and because we have some of the catering equipment arriving early for the party. Just so you know.’

I have to go now because Aunt Maisie has made me some hot chocolate.

I was a bit surprised and shocked and amazed to get an early phone call from Bob. (You know the way there are people who phone you and people who don’t?) He said the workmen had arrived to start to prepare to paint the east wing (still funny!) and Jackson had gone for the morning to find small rose trees in a plant nursery and Jenny was washing a car for a busy mother from the village. So he asked me would I come over to the Big House to help. I didn’t ask ‘with what?’ because I wanted to sound helpful. I brought my book in case he kept me hanging around.

When I met Bob he showed me the guest list for the party and there were loads of lords and ladies and
earls of places. It was fun until I noticed that some of them had a ‘T’ beside their name, including me and Jenny and about twenty others. Bob explained that it was for ‘teenager’ so we could all sit at tables beside each other. I guess I presumed that it would just be the four of us and a bunch of adults, but now there will be loads of others that Bob and Jackson know better, and we probably won’t get to talk to the guys all night. There are at least ten girls coming and I bet they all dance brilliantly and Jackson has been teaching me just so I don’t come over as a total embarrassment in front of his friends. It was a bit of a downer, but at least I’m still invited to the best party I’ll ever get to go to. Maybe one of the teenage guys who’s coming will dance with me and maybe he will be really polite about it when I mess up and say I was ‘awfully interesting’ at dancing.

Bob showed me into the large formal drawing room which looked onto the start of the east wing. He wanted me to hang out there for ‘security reasons’, which I took to mean I was to make sure no-one nicked the paintings. He had to look after something for his grandfather’s nurse and as he ran off he said that the tours have been cancelled until after the party so no-one should bother me.

I was wearing my new blue dress, and a great vintage grey jacket, with my old grey shredded cardigan underneath and the whole thing looked ‘rebellious rich kid’ and matched the amazing furniture perfectly. I couldn’t believe I was in such an incredible place, and doing them a favour by being there! Every inch of the room was beautiful, the gold line that went all the way around the wall, the painting of ladies and angels and sky on the ceiling, the lion paws on the ends of the chair legs, everything. I sat there reading
Jane Eyre
sometimes, and looking around sometimes.

Buddy sat on the rug (which was the size of a carpet in most peoples’ houses) in front of the fireplace. It was as if he knew to be really well behaved as he just lay there staring at me the way he does when he’s guarding Pie.

Every time though! Jackson does it every time! One minute I was on my own on the chair and the next moment he was crouching right beside me.

‘Good book?’ he said.

‘Very,’ I said, pretending I had known he was there.

It’s funny how I don’t feel I have to be all smart with him any more. He said the workmen had stopped for lunch and so should we. He’d brought a
pizza and it felt so funny sitting there in such a luxurious and enormous room eating a cheese and mushroom pizza straight from the box. Bob smelled the pizza from upstairs and joined us, and I don’t know why, but that seemed to make it not so good, although there was plenty of pizza. I must make more of an effort to get to know Bob, if only for Jenny’s sake.

The Blue Lavender Tea Palace looks completely different from when we first started. The sign is up and the walls and woodwork are all done and it’s starting to feel magical.

Jenny was hilarious she was so giddy, and Bob kept staring at her when he thought no-one else was looking. Somewhere between the first round of raspberry-bran-crunchies (which I made last night) and the end of the afternoon, we lost Buddy. He was gone for an hour, and images of me having to go to the hospital and tell the old couple and them dying from the shock of it, raced through my mind. I could hear him somewhere off in the Park, barking in the distance, but none of us could find him. Jackson offered to cycle around the Park and the village to find him, but I said I was sure he’d come back once he got hungry. Sure enough, as we were re-doing
that stretch of window frame which we’d messed up before, Buddy reappeared. He had a small bit of white paint on him (not the same shade as our white) so he must have been in the east wing. It’s funny how you can very easily become an expert in shades of white paint. Luckily Mr Walsh didn’t show up to shout at us. We’ll have to keep the doors closed from now on.

Anyway, we finished the window frame and the chairs (finally!) and after I got back I read
Jane Eyre
because I’m so into it after this morning. The story is so sad. Jane is away from Mr Rochester and really misses him and thinks she hears him calling her. She had rushed back to him and I stopped reading at that point just in case he isn’t there and she has to be lonely for the rest of her life. I don’t think I could recover from that, at least not tonight, so I’ll finish it tomorrow.