Girl, 16: Five-Star Fiasco (17 page)

‘And remember to help with the washing up!’ Mum continued her pep talk, ignoring Fred’s ravings. ‘And don’t sit up talking all night when Mr and Mrs Stevens are trying to sleep.’

‘As if we would!’ sighed Jess, secretly imagining the banshee wail with which she was planning to wake Mr and Mrs Stevens at 3 a.m.

‘And make sure you do all the food preparation,’ said Mum, peering through the darkness as the station lights loomed up. ‘And lay the table! And don’t play silly games on the cliffs in the dark. Promise me you won’t go near the cliff edge? Fred, promise me you won’t let her anywhere near the cliff edge!’

‘I promise,’ said Fred. ‘I won’t even let her go anywhere near the food mixer.’

‘That would be a worse death after all,’ Jess pointed out. ‘Although some people might say it would be poetic justice for me to end up as a hamburger.’ The feeling of going away, even just for the weekend, had filled Jess with a crazy kind of relief and joy.

They climbed out of the car and got their bags out of the boot. Jess’s mum stood watching them with a terrible doom-laden frown of anxiety, as if they were setting out for a war zone. She launched herself at Jess and hugged her so hard, there was a faint cracking noise. Jess knew her mum was convinced they would never meet again – in this life, anyway.

‘Enjoy your weekend, Mum,’ she said, prising Mum’s frantic fingers off her arm. ‘Are you seeing Martin?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Mum in an irritable way. ‘Never mind about me. You just keep safe, that’s all.’

The train was packed, and Jess and Fred had to stand in the area by the buffet.

‘I so love trains!’ Jess grinned, clutching her lemonade can as the train swayed through the dark. ‘I wish we could just stay on this train all night and end up in Moscow or something.’

‘We should go on one of those epic train journeys one day,’ suggested Fred. ‘You know, across the Great Mongolian Plain or whatever. To China or India or something. Wait! Let’s pretend we’ve never met before. I’ll go to the loo and when I come out, we’ll be strangers on the Vladivostok Express.’

Jess leaned on the counter with the bored look of a heroine in one of those moody black-and-white 1940s films. Fred emerged from the loo with his collar turned up – the idiot. Jess ignored him. He trod heavily on her toe.

‘Oh, excuse me!’ he said, in a deep Russian sort of voice. ‘I’m so sorry. The train lurches so badly whenever we hit a peasant. Is your foot badly hurt?’

‘It’s all right,’ Jess assured him in a snaky, husky hiss. ‘My right foot is made of iron. I lost it in the uprising in Omsk.’

‘Were you shot by the Bolsheviks?’ Fred loved history, but Jess couldn’t remember who the Bolsheviks were.

‘No,’ she informed him. ‘It was a very uncomfortable pair of shoes. I was at a ball with Prince Obergurgle – we danced all night and in the morning my foot fell off. So what? I never liked it anyway.’ She shrugged.

‘Not the same Prince Obergurgle who was shot by the Bolsheviks?’ asked Fred, looking impressed.

‘It may have been.’ Jess gave another charismatic shrug. ‘Who cares? My next lover was a plough-boy. He was a lot more fun than the prince.’

‘You are a very attractive person, if I may say so,’ hissed Fred in her ear. ‘Can I offer you a job in my spy network?’

‘I’m already a double agent,’ Jess replied snootily. ‘But I might be able to fit you in on Thursday afternoons.’

Fred laughed. Then his face changed; the Russian spy expression fell away and he was Fred again.

‘We could always just cancel it,’ he said, suddenly deadly serious. Jess’s heart gave a horrid skip. ‘We could say it’s due to unforeseen circumstances,’ Fred went on. ‘People cancel things all the time. We’ve banked the money now so we could give everybody a refund.’

‘But people would think we were such losers!’ cried Jess. ‘And they’d be right! And what about Oxfam? We can’t let them down!’

Fred shook his head. ‘Everybody will have forgotten all about it by Easter.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Jess hesitated. ‘I can’t face the idea of cancelling it – not at the moment, anyway. There must be a way to get the food and music organised properly!’

‘Hmmm,’ Fred said doubtfully, and shrugged.

‘Fred, let’s talk about this later,’ suggested Jess. ‘I just want to relax and enjoy myself this evening, OK? We’ll talk about it in the morning. Let’s get back to the Vladivostok Express.’

But somehow the mood had changed and the world of Russian spies had evaporated.

When they arrived at Weymouth it did seem as dark and foggy as Outer Mongolia, but through a freezing mist Jess spotted Flora waiting on the platform, huddled deep in her parka, her breath billowing on the cold night air.

‘It’s amazing!’ Flora hugged her as if they’d been parted for years, not hours. ‘Wait till you see the house! It’s such a shame it’s dark but apparently in the morning we’re gonna be blown away by the view! Jack’s mum is parked outside. By the way, the perfume she wears is really overpowering, so try not to faint. I think she sloshes it on to mask the doggy smell.’

‘Damp dog is my favourite scent,’ murmured Fred.

Jess punched him affectionately.

‘Gubbins is so wonderful! We took him down to the beach in the dark and he was frightened of the sea! He was barking at the waves, trying to frighten them! It was hilarious!’

Waiting in the people carrier, Mrs Stevens was wreathed in a cashmere throw and a cloud of delicious perfume. She flashed them a toothy grin.

‘Hello, how lovely to meet you, Fred. And, Jess, you’re looking wonderful. How was your journey?’ she gushed in her breathy voice.

‘Fine, thanks,’ said Jess politely. ‘How was yours?’ (She was particularly proud of this bit of ultra-politeness, and would remember to boast about it to Mum when she got back.)

‘Oh, it was fine, thank you, Jess, but the roads are always a bit busy on Friday evenings, aren’t they? Even in winter. I hope Charles has got the house warmed up – the boys have been cutting wood. We’ve got a big fireplace so you’ll be able to toast your bottoms all evening.’

Mrs Stevens drove out of town with panache; soon they were on dark country roads.

‘I wish we could see the sea!’ sighed Jess.

‘Oh, you wait till tomorrow morning – you won’t be disappointed, unless there’s fog,’ promised Mrs Stevens.

Eventually they turned off the country road into a small lane and then almost immediately up a zig-zagging steep sandy drive, higher and higher and higher, until Jess’s ears popped. A big house loomed up in the headlamps, and Mrs Stevens parked.

‘Welcome to Sea Spray,’ she beamed, tossing her blonde hair back with the kind of relaxed poise that Jess’s mother would never have managed in a million years. ‘We’ve saved some supper for you – you must be starving!’

‘Oh, thanks very much!’ Jess replied eagerly.

They entered the house via the kitchen, which was at the back, and then went through into a huge sitting room, where a gang of boys were gathered around a fireplace. A bald man, presumably Mr Stevens, was dozing in an armchair. Jack jumped to his feet as they arrived and came over, smiling, the puppy bounding alongside him.

‘Hi, Jess! Hi, Fred!’ he said. ‘How was the train? We got the fire going for you. Uh, I don’t think you know my bro, George . . .’ A smaller and slightly plumper version of Jack waved from the hearthrug. He had dark curly hair and a big nose. ‘And this is Tom and Humph.’ Tom was tall with glasses and a wide smile, and Humph was a pale, thin guy kneeling by the fire and fiddling with a poker.

‘There are so many boys, we could almost have a football match!’ trilled Mrs Stevens from the kitchen. ‘We’ve saved some chicken casserole and some spuds in their jackets for you, if that’s OK, Jess?’

‘Oh wonderful, thanks so much!’ Jess turned back to the kitchen and Fred followed her.

Gubbins was wagging and capering round their feet – he seemed to be particularly enchanted by Jess, and the feeling was mutual. She’d always wanted a dog and had nagged her mum about it in vain for years.

There was a big table in the kitchen with two places set for them.

‘Sit down!’ said Flora. ‘What would you like to drink? OJ or cranberry?’

‘Just water, please.’ Jess was uneasily aware that her jeans were already too tight, and she hadn’t hit the spuds yet.

‘So,’ said Mrs Stevens, ‘when you’ve had your supper, we’ll all gather round the fire and play charades until we fall asleep. It’s a tradition at Sea Spray.’

‘Charades?’ Jess clapped her hands. ‘We love charades, don’t we, Fred?’

‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to play,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve strained my imagination.’

Mrs Stevens looked baffled for a moment, and then uttered a strange bellowing laugh. ‘Oh, Fred!’ she cried. ‘Flora warned me that you were a bit of a joker! Strained your imagination! Ha, ha!’

Jess was glad that Mrs Stevens had apparently found Fred amusing, but she knew his manner could be a bit weird sometimes, and she just hoped he would relax and not try too hard.

Chapter 22

After gobbling up the delicious supper, expressing delight and gratitude and insisting on washing up their plates (winning a gold star for politeness – Mum would be proud), Jess and Fred returned to the sitting room. Mr Stevens was still asleep in his chair, Gubbins was curled up on the sofa with Flora, and Jack, George, Tom and Humph were sprawled on the floor, arguing. There were loads of chairs and three sofas – the room was enormous – so Fred and Jess sat down, slightly awkwardly, on a small sofa.

‘But I’ve gotta find that phone!’ Humph was saying, running his fingers through his limp fair hair and turning his big green panicky eyes from person to person.

‘Humph lost his mobile earlier this evening,’ Jack explained with an amused grin. ‘We went out to walk on the beach and he reckons he must have dropped it somewhere on the path.’

‘What if it rains?’ wailed Humph. He seemed to be a bit of a drama queen.

‘Oh, you can just put it in the microwave to dry it out,’ said Jack, exchanging a quick flickering secret smile with his brother.

‘Can you?’ Humph looked doubtful. ‘That sounds a bit, uh, dodgy!’

‘No, it’s fine!’ said George. He had a lazy kind of grin. He lay back and stared at the ceiling, scratching his face. ‘We could put the dog in, too, if he gets a bit wet in the sea.’

‘Nooooo!’ shrieked Flora, laughing. ‘Don’t you dare touch my precious Gubbins!’ She picked up the little terrier and kissed his ears.

Mrs Stevens appeared in the doorway, her hands covered with flour. She’d already confessed to being an obsessive about baking – always a welcome hobby in a parent. ‘Why don’t you all play charades?’ she suggested. ‘Round the fire – so cosy!’

‘Later, Mum.’ George brushed her suggestion aside.

‘I’d love to play charades,’ said Jess, knowing it was something she and Fred would really enjoy. Fred was brilliant at charades. She’d never forget his performance of the Old Testament – the whole concept.

‘So would I!’ added Flora. ‘Although I’m rubbish at it!’

‘Let’s go down to the beach again first!’ suggested Jack. He gave Flora a secret kind of look, and Jess noticed George picking up on it. She guessed something was brewing.

Tom, the quiet speccy guy with the big smile, lumbered to his feet. ‘Maybe we’ll find Humph’s phone,’ he said, and Jess saw that he, too, was in on the joke – whatever it was.