The House On Willow Street (56 page)

And then the woman turned so her profile was visible and Mara knew exactly who this glamorous outsider was: Tess’s sister. This was the famous Suki.

Mara did an unheard of thing—she left some of her cake
and the last of her chocolate, and raced out into the square. Here was excitement come to town.

“Hello, you might think I’m a bit mad, but you look like you could be a friend of mine’s sister. She described you to me when I was working with her. Tess Power? Am I right? Are you her sister—Suki?”

Suki turned to face a very pretty, short girl dressed like a 1950s soda fountain waitress, with red hair cascading all over the scarlet coat she was struggling into. “You don’t need a taxi, I’ll help you bring your bags over to Tess. She’s in the shop. I’m Mara, by the way.”

“Hello, Mara,” smiled Suki. “Everything in this town has improved since I’ve been away. We had nothing as gorgeous as you around. Except for me!”

Tess was stocktaking. She had so much stock it was unbelievable. As she looked at each item, she found herself remembering where she’d bought it, how much she’d paid. It was the jewelry that really got to her: beautiful pieces that weren’t necessarily worth very much in terms of gold or jewels, but that must have meant so much to the owner. Lovely things that had been sent to country auctions for some much-needed hard cash. She picked up a bronze bracelet with a piece of amber set with a tiny prehistoric insect trapped inside; probably some 1920s lady’s bracelet worn for amusement. There were quite a few exotic things, imported from all over the world, from another time, when the ruling classes had empires. All sorts of interesting carvings from India and the Far East, and a number of small tables inlaid with various woods.

Tess had always tried to get the stories of the things she sold in the shop. She was fascinated by the history of pieces: where they’d been, where they’d come from, what they meant. Most of the time, she was able to find out quite a lot of
detail. She wrote it all down in her notebook and then transcribed it onto the luggage label she tied on each item along with the price. She left these labels on the items as she counted up the stock and organized it into categories. She was in the front room of the shop while Zach was helping in the back room. Every so often he’d shout, “Ma, this thing—I don’t know what to do with it.”

“What is it?” she’d call. A lot of the stock in the back room was stuff she hadn’t got around to labeling or else items she had labeled that hadn’t sold.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure what it is. It looks like some sort of sword.” A swishing noise accompanied this, making it clear that Zach was having a play with the sword.

“That’s a samurai sword, darling,” she said. “Well, a copy, at least. It’s very sharp, so be careful. If it was a real samurai sword it would be worth thousands, but unfortunately it’s a nineteenth-century—late nineteenth-century at that—copy, from when chinoiserie was all the rage.”

“Okay,” he said. “So which pile is that to go into?”

“You know, it’s a lovely piece, I just hadn’t got around to putting it in the front of the shop. Bring it out to me with the stuff that we could get a good price for at the auction house. And then maybe we’ll stop for a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit,” she said.

It was painful, going through her beloved shop like this. At least having Zach there kept her from dissolving into floods of tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. No, she’d said to Zach that this was a new beginning; the shop was taking up too much time and it was too difficult. She was going to try and get a more settled job where she’d be there more for him and Kitty. Especially seeing as later this year, when he moved into the sixth year, he would be starting to prepare for his state exams.

“But you love the shop, Mum,” Zach had said sadly.

“I do, but we have to be realistic, darling. It’s hard to run a shop like Something Old in the modern world,” Tess had said, keeping her voice bright but altering her story somewhat because she realized he didn’t quite believe her.

“I’d kill for some biscuits,” said Zach now.

“Okay, you put on the kettle, I’ll finish up here, and then we’ll have a sit down,” said Tess.

At that moment there was a frantic knocking on the door of the shop. Tess had locked it and put the
CLOSED
sign on the front. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone was coming in to buy stuff anymore, and it made it easier and safer just to have the door shut.

“Tess, it’s me, Mara,” said a voice, and Tess smiled. Mara had that effect on people. She brought light into every room she entered.

“Coming,” said Tess, and she swung open the door. Then her hands flew to her mouth in astonishment. For there, standing beside Mara, was Suki, looking impossibly glamorous and in danger of bursting into tears at the same time.

“Oh, Tess,” said Suki, throwing out her arms and wrapping them around her sister. “Oh, Tess, I need you, I need you.”

Zach quite liked being alone in the shop. His mother had whisked Suki off home and he’d volunteered to stay and do a bit more stocktaking to give them some time alone together.

“Only thing is, I’m not exactly sure what to do, Mum,” he’d said.

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” said his mother. “You’re great, it’ll be fine.” And then she was gone.

It was sort of cool being seventeen; people trusted you, you knew stuff. When he was fourteen, he used to think he
knew everything. How dumb was that? Now, now he knew everything. Pixie often said so.

“You’re only saying that,” he’d say with a laugh, but he liked it all the same.

He made himself his cup of tea and gave a couple of biscuits to Silkie, who was sitting with him, begging, slavering for a nibble of a digestive.

“You’ll get fat,” said Zach, as Silkie gobbled down two biscuits. “Nah, you probably won’t, you were born skinny,” Zach decided, petting the dog.

Dogs were great, you could tell them things and they never told anyone else. Like when Mum and Dad had split up, Zach would bring Silkie into his room and lie on the bed and hug her and listen to music and tell Silkie that he’d known Mum and Dad weren’t happy for a long time. That he’d been really scared something like this was going to happen and now it had, and all of a sudden the future was this big unknown. Parents never seemed to understand how frightening the unknown was for their kids.
They
knew what they were doing, they’d made the choices, but what about you? You didn’t get to make any choices even though you were a part of it.

And yet it had sort of worked out, in some strange way. Mum seemed happy without Dad, and Dad was really happy with Claire. Who knew? Grown-ups were crazy. Once they hit thirty, it was all downhill and their minds started to go.

There was another knock on the door, a very firm one this time.

“We’re closed,” Zach shouted.

“I’m looking for Tess Power,” came a deep voice through the door.

“She’s not here,” Zach said.

“Please, may I come in?”

Zach gave Silkie the last of his biscuit, wiped the crumbs off his mouth, got to his feet and ambled over to the door. He unlocked it and pulled it open to see a very tall, well-built man with dark hair and amazing dark eyes staring down at him. Zach was pretty tall himself, the tallest in his class, but this guy, who was, like, old obviously, had a couple of inches on him.

“She’s not here,” Zach said in a more respectful tone, because this man looked like the sort of person that you had to be respectful to.

For a moment the man just stared at him. Then finally he spoke: “You must be Zach.”

“Yeah,” said Zach slowly.

“I’m Cashel Reilly. I was friends with your mother a long time ago.”

“Oh, okay,” said Zach. “My aunt Suki turned up, so Mum’s gone home with her. She’s not going to be back today.”

“Suki’s come home?”

Mr. Reilly sounded very surprised at that.

“Yeah,” said Zach. “You look a bit familiar. Do I know you?”

“I bought Avalon House so I’ve been around a lot lately.”

“Ah,” said Zach in a much less friendly tone. “It used to belong to my family a long time ago.”

“I know,” said Cashel evenly.

“My mum doesn’t talk about it, she never goes there. But I’ve been there, loads of times with my friends,” Zach said, as if daring the man to tell him he’d been trespassing. “When something’s in your family a long time, it’s supposed to be part of you, you know that? So I didn’t think there was a problem with me going up there with my friends or my girlfriend.”

“No,” said Cashel, “there was no problem with you doing that.”

He stared at the boy in fascination. Tess’s son was a tall, strong young guy, with a warm face, eyes like his mother’s, the dark hair of his grandfather and a firm chin that Cashel couldn’t identify. He was polite, charming and had clearly inherited all his mother’s good manners.

“Avalon House will always be open to you, Zach,” he said. “I promise. It is your birthright.”

“Thanks,” said Zach. “You should tell Mum that, because, like, she must want to go up sometimes. Dad—my parents are separated now—Dad says it means a lot to her but it hurts, and that’s why she doesn’t go there.”

“They’ve spilt up, your mum and dad?” Cashel said carefully.

“Yeah, it’s sort of complicated,” Zach said.

“Oh?” said Cashel, in a way that invited more disclosure.

“My dad’s got a new girlfriend and she’s pregnant.”

“That must be hard,” Cashel said.

“No, not really, it’s going to be fine, Mum says it’s going to be fine.”

Cashel nodded. “That sounds like your mum,” he said, “practical.”

“Yeah, she is kind of practical, and she seems to be taking it okay really. Pixie—that’s my girlfriend—Pixie said that if I went off and had a baby with someone else, well, she’d be pretty mad at me. But Mum, she seems fine about it.”

“Listen,” said Cashel, “I do need to see your mum. Could you give me your exact address, because I don’t know it?”

“Sure,” said Zach. “Bet you she’ll be delighted to see you.”

“I hope so,” said Cashel. “Suki will be pleased to see me, that’s for sure.”

Suki was no sooner through the front door than she dumped her bags on the floor and said to her sister, “Where do you keep the drink in this house?”

“Er, in the kitchen,” said Tess.

“Fine.” Suki marched into the kitchen, opened cupboards and stumbled upon the bottles that were rarely touched. She poured herself a giant glass of Scotch. “Do you have any ice?” she said.

“No,” sighed Tess, “this is not a bar.”

“Oh, stop, Tess, please. I love you, and I’m sorry, but I’m stressed. I’ve flown over. I had to get the bus. It’s been awful. I can’t tell you how anxious I am.”

“I know, my love,” said Tess, and she put her arms around her sister.

Suki laid her head against Tess’s shoulder and felt the peace envelop her. It felt good to be home, she’d been running away for so long.

When they parted, Suki opened the fridge, looking for some sort of mixer to take the hit away from the Scotch. Orange juice, that’d do. She only poured a little in because there wasn’t much room left in the glass. “I’m sorry, I know you disapprove, but I don’t do drugs anymore, I have the occasional drink, that’s all.”