Bone by Bone (8 page)

‘Wow,' breathed Autumn, and Tilly smiled again.

‘Look,' she said, and took her hand and led her over to the dolls' house. ‘It's even got stables and horses. Shall we get the girls ready to go riding?' She opened the front of the dolls' house and brought out two Barbies. ‘We need to put their jodhpurs on first.' She passed one of the dolls to Autumn and said, ‘Why doesn't your dad live with you?'

Autumn froze, clutching the Barbie to her chest.

Poppy rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘It's so common, Tilly. Lots of mums and dads get divorced. Mum says it happens all the time if you work in the media.'

Tilly nodded her head sagely and handed Autumn a horse-riding outfit. ‘In our class Jason and Olive and Kate's mum and dad don't live with each other.' She frowned. ‘I don't think they work in the media though.'

Autumn let out her breath and started to ease one plastic leg into the beige tube of the jodhpurs.

Poppy said she was too old to play with the dolls and started fiddling around with Tilly's iPod and speakers. Autumn saw them both notice the hole in her tights and glance at each other but Tilly didn't say anything mean. Poppy fetched lip gloss, a brush and a hair band. She carefully painted the gloss on Autumn's lips. It smelt of strawberries and was gooey. She took Autumn's bobbles out and undid her plaits, then brushed her hair and put the hair band in place.

‘There,' she said, as if Autumn was one of them.

Perhaps Tilly would be her friend at school now, thought Autumn, looking at her reflection in the mirror, the two blonde sisters peeping over her shoulder.

‘It's so pretty,' she said. The hair band was white with a red rose.

‘It suits you,' said Poppy.

‘You should keep it,' said Tilly. ‘I've got lots of them.'

Autumn touched the flower. ‘Really?'

‘Yeah, sure.'

She looked from Poppy to Tilly. They were both smiling at her. Perhaps it was going to be okay living here after all. She smiled back at them.

LAURA

A
s soon as they reached Wolferton Place, Laura rushed inside and checked the answerphone. There were no messages. Vanessa was in the kitchen. She wondered if she could tell whether any irate parents had visited while her mother had been here on her own this afternoon simply by the way she was chopping vegetables. She went downstairs and Autumn followed.

‘Hello, darling,' Vanessa said, smiling at her, and then, looking over at Autumn, she asked, ‘Did you have a nice time with Tilly?'

Autumn nodded. ‘She's got the biggest dolls' house you've ever seen. With thoroughbred horses and stables. And
all
of Beyoncé's songs on her iPod.'

Surely Vanessa wouldn't look this casual and relaxed if Levi's parents had come round? Laura thought. She opened her laptop and switched it on. It booted up swiftly and she started to do an Internet search for schools in the area. When they'd moved here, Autumn's school had been the only one in their catchment with a spare place, but there was a slight chance that the situation could have changed – someone might have moved or even been expelled since September. But as she suspected, there were still no vacancies. She was about to close Google when an email pinged into her inbox. It was from Aaron. Vanessa was absorbed in cooking dinner and Autumn was sitting opposite her at the kitchen table, drawing and talking excitedly about Tilly, so she rose quietly and went upstairs to her office.

Hi Laura

Is your laptop and the Internet working properly? I'm on call over the weekend if you need me but I trust the problem is sorted now.

I had a fine view of Jupiter last night before the sky clouded over and the rain kicked in.

Best,

Aaron

She quickly pressed Reply and started typing.

Dear Aaron,

Thank you so much for fixing my laptop, it's working!

Glad you could see Jupiter! I wouldn't know how to tell any of the stars – or planets for that matter – apart.

Thanks again for your help…

With best wishes,

Laura

She pressed Send and waited for a moment. She wondered if he was there, at his laptop too, and if he would reply straight away. She hoped he might suggest meeting up. He could show her Jupiter, or…

She jumped when her laptop started ringing. It was Matt on Skype.

She pressed Connect and felt the strangeness of seeing his grainy image in a brightly lit Internet café, a poster in Sanskrit and a faded photo of Everest on the wall behind him. He was looking well, healthy, lightly tanned. She wondered whether Autumn would tell him what she'd done to Levi.

‘Hi!' she said. ‘You're early. How's it going?'

‘Brilliantly so far,' Matt said. ‘The athletes have met their Buddhist families and there's tension already. It's not exactly luxurious – one of them is staying in what's basically a cow shed. She's not happy!'

Laura nodded. At least she didn't have to listen to his endless tales about filming any more. ‘I'll call Autumn…' She turned and saw she was already standing in the doorway.

‘Is it Daddy?' She sounded excited.

Laura moved so Autumn could sit in her chair, and she perched on the edge of the stairs to give her daughter the illusion of privacy.

‘I went to Tilly's house today. She's thinking about being my best friend. We had cupcakes. Tilly and her sister made them.'

She could hear Matt's voice, echoey with distance. ‘I'm glad you're making friends. How's school?'

‘Can I go to a new school? Granny says there's a really good private one just up the road.'

Laura sighed. This was not what she wanted Autumn to bring up with Matt.

‘Why would you want to do that? You're at a great school, Autumn. It takes a little while to settle in, that's all.'

‘But I really, really hate it. I don't want to go there any more.'

‘Give it a chance, Autumn. Besides, I can't afford to send you to a private school. They're expensive, you know.'

He didn't even mention her, Laura thought – as if it was blindingly obvious that she wouldn't be able to afford the school fees.

‘Granny could. Why don't you ask her to pay?'

Matt laughed.

‘Okay, Daddy needs to go soon. Can you say goodbye and then go downstairs and help Granny with the dinner? I'll be down in a few minutes,' said Laura.

Reluctantly, Autumn pushed herself upright and slouched away.

‘She's being bullied,' said Laura as she sat back down in front of the laptop.

An email flashed up in the corner of the screen. The heading read,
Jupiter
. It could only be from Aaron.

‘I spoke to Mrs Sibson yesterday – her class teacher. She said she'd speak to the boy's teacher and let me know what he said. But I didn't feel she was taking it as seriously as I'd have liked. And then we had a bit of scare in the evening. Autumn didn't turn up so I went to find her – she was in that nature reserve with Levi and a gang of boys. They'd ripped up all her pictures…'

She hesitated, not knowing how much to tell Matt. She felt the prickling sensation of a blush beginning to spread across her cheeks and throat. After all, it wasn't his problem to deal with Autumn on a day-to-day basis – and if she told him what she'd done he'd be shocked and think she couldn't look after Autumn properly. Oh God, she thought,
she'd
been so focused on thinking about Levi's parents, she hadn't considered the alternative. Any rational person would call the police, wouldn't they?

Matt was looking behind him and nodding at someone. He turned back to her. ‘Damn kids. I'm sure it'll blow over. She needs to learn to stand up for herself. Look, I don't want Autumn to walk through that bloody nature reserve you like so much – not now that it's getting dark in the evenings.'

‘No, no, of course not, I don't think she should either. Not on her own—'

Matt interrupted. ‘I've got to go. The rest of the crew are here waiting for me.' His image broke up into pixels. ‘… down the mountain in a week for supplies so I can talk to Autumn over Skype again then,' he was saying when the flesh-coloured squares reassembled themselves as his face. ‘I'll be back in a fortnight from now and then I want Autumn to come and stay for the weekend. Okay?'

Laura nodded. ‘Of course. But you need to pick her up. She can't travel on the train by herself. And I'm not bringing her.'

He nodded curtly. They'd had this argument several times before. Matt wanted Laura to drive Autumn to London so she could stay with him at the weekend and she'd refused.

‘I've got to go.' He was already speaking to someone else as he pressed a button on his keyboard and severed the connection.

That evening Vanessa poured them both a large glass of wine. It was a Sancerre, Vanessa's favourite white; she'd gone to the nearest off-licence to buy a couple of bottles that afternoon. Autumn was finally in bed. She'd made Vanessa read her an entire chapter of
The Amber Spyglass
before letting her leave.

Laura swept out the minuscule fireplace in the sitting room and started methodically laying a fire.

The first one in the new house, she thought as she carefully created a wigwam of kindling over tightly rolled balls of newspaper. Should she tell her mother what had happened about Levi? If she was going to say anything, this would be the perfect opportunity – Autumn was in bed, they were drinking a bottle of wine, she would soon have a fire going. After all, she might not have another chance. Vanessa was leaving tomorrow afternoon, and the following morning she was flying to Namibia to spend several weeks with the Himba. Laura wouldn't even be able to phone her.

Vanessa took a sip of her wine and said, ‘Do you remember learning how to do that in Namibia?'

‘Lighting a fire? No,' said Laura.

‘You were always so self-sufficient as a child.'

Laura looked at her mother in astonishment. It wasn't how she thought of herself at all. When she and Matt lived together he'd gradually taken over doing everything practical: from pumping up their bike tyres, putting up shelves, hanging pictures to organizing their household finances. He'd never disguised his annoyance at her practical ineptitude or her disorganization. It was true, though, she realized. Once she had been self-sufficient, and she could be – she had to be – like that again.

‘Nkemabin taught you to light fires when you were only four,' said Vanessa, chuckling. ‘I was horrified. But you were both so careful.'

Laura had a sudden image of herself as a child crouching on her haunches in the blazing heat of the afternoon, training a piece of wind-worn glass – the thick, round bottom from a Coke bottle – onto a scrap of dried welwitschia, the fibres glowing with bright sparks.

Nkemabin had clapped and laughed and shouted, ‘Quick, quick!'

He'd wanted her to feed the sparks with scraps of paperbark, shaved from the trunks of the trees, but she'd been too slow and the fibre curled into dark twists of ash and the fire died. Nkemabin, who smelt of woodsmoke because he didn't live in the farmhouse with her parents, but in a mud hut nearby.

‘He looked after you since you were a tiny baby,' said Vanessa.

Laura struck a match and lit the newspaper. She waited for the kindling to catch light. Nkemabin had always been there, every time she'd returned to Namibia, but she hadn't realized that her mother had entrusted her to him at such a young age.

‘You were about nine months old,' said Vanessa, taking another sip of wine. ‘It was our first field trip since you'd been born and I thought I wouldn't actually be able to collect any data at all. Damian was only two and a half and very boisterous and just into everything. I had visions of him picking up scorpions or trying to play with a puff adder. But I simply couldn't imagine leaving you at all. You were so pale, I thought you'd burn without me there to smother you in sun cream every half an hour and make sure you stayed in the shade. I don't think I'd left you for more than an hour up until that point and even then, only with your father.'

Laura looked at her mother in astonishment. She hadn't thought Vanessa would have any felt any kind of guilt or longing to be with her as a baby because she'd always seemed so ambitious and focused on her career. She remembered how sharply her mother had spoken to her yesterday when she'd told her about Autumn being bullied, how disappointed she'd seemed that Laura hadn't already found out who Levi's parents were and gone to speak to them. She closed her eyes, imagining how much worse it would be once Vanessa knew what she'd done to the boy. She could picture her anger and disapproval when she realized exactly how badly Laura had handled the situation.

Her mother continued with her story. ‘But Nkemabin persuaded me to leave both of you. I didn't know whether to trust him or not. He'd been so good with Damian the year before, but then Damian had been older than you were and he was also a robust little boy. I was so desperate to get back out and see the baboons and track the other wildlife, and I also thought that your father wouldn't get any decent interviews with the Himba women – and I really didn't want to spend the entire field trip looking after both of you while your father got to spend all day in the desert – so, in the end, I agreed.'

This was more like her mother, Laura thought. The kindling had caught alight and she put a couple of logs on the fire. If she told her mother now, Vanessa would talk about it for the rest of the evening, turning over Laura's actions and debating the consequences. The dissection would last until she caught the train home tomorrow afternoon. Her mother would say that the police were sure to be here on Sunday, since they hadn't been round today. Perhaps, thought Laura, the boy's father might track her down and pay her a visit himself. That would be so much worse. Maybe she should ring the police and get it over with? She looked across at her mother. Should she risk it? Vanessa was the only person whose advice she could ask right now. And she had promised Autumn that she would tell her grandmother.

‘But after only an hour I was so wracked with guilt and convinced that something dreadful would happen to you, that I doubled back towards the farm house.' Vanessa slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa. ‘When I reached the dry riverbed, I hid behind one of the acacia trees and trained my binoculars on the house. At first, I couldn't see anything and I thought, well, either you were inside with Nkemabin, or… well, you can imagine the kind of scenarios that ran through my mind.'

Laura moved over to the armchair and picked up her glass. She took a sip. It was a heady blend of peach and elderflowers. No wonder her mother loved it. It was such a treat to drink expensive wine: since she'd moved to Bristol she'd taken to buying whatever was on offer from Lidl, and only opening a bottle at the weekend. She rested the cool glass against her forehead, trying to make up her mind what she should do.

‘Just as I was about to run as fast as I could towards the farmhouse,' Vanessa continued, ‘I saw you. Nkemabin had made a play area for you in the courtyard. It was shaded by a bougainvillea and Nkemabin had also strung up sheets to create a little den. Damian was crouched at his feet, completely absorbed in building a sandcastle and decorating it with sticks and pebbles. You were sitting on Nkemabin's lap and you were both staring at each other in mutual adoration. And then you started to laugh, that gorgeous, chuckling belly laugh that babies make. And I knew you would be all right.'

It had been years since she'd thought of Nkemabin. She wondered how he'd felt: a poor Namibian caring for two white children while their parents wandered around the desert looking at animals. What had happened to him after they'd grown up? She felt ashamed she'd never asked. She took a long draught of wine and her eyes filled with tears. She hadn't realized that she had mattered to her mother so much. Maybe her mother wouldn't judge her as harshly as she expected.