Blue Lavender Girl (3 page)

Aunt Maisie woke me up with a cup of tea and stayed chatting while I drank it.

We went to the garden and cut some flowers which I’ve forgotten the names of already and put them in this vase in my room. It looks great that there is no clutter, just the vase and the mirror.

I spent the afternoon looking through the books but didn’t find any that I liked, they were all too old and boring. Even though it is beautiful and all that, I am going to die of boredom here. She
doesn’t even have a television.

Because I had nothing else to do I went and put all my clothes away neatly and arranged the stuff in the bathroom. I have never had my own bathroom before. It’s really modern, tiled in white and gold, and the sunken bath is huge. I spent an hour in it until I was so spongy and wrinkled that I worried I might get stuck like that.

Aunt Maisie is as good a cook as Aidan. We had a salad for lunch, but not like the ones we have at home with tomatoes and cucumber and watery lettuce, this one had so many things in it, all kinds of stuff that made it not taste like salad but like a real meal.

After we cleaned up I said, ‘What will I do all day?’

And Aunt Maisie said that if you don’t know what to do, it’s your job to discover what you should be doing. That is a bit like when Dad says there is no such thing as being bored only being boring, (which is something he should know all about).

So I looked at some books, got more flowers for my room, and refolded my clothes. I saw a TV documentary about a thing called OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder once, where people wash their hands every minute and fold things all day and I
hope I don’t turn into one while I’m here.

After we finished dinner I just wandered about the garden because I couldn’t think what to do. I was too pissed off to even talk to Aunt Maisie or phone anyone, so I cleaned the kitchen, and had another bath (but not in an OCD way).

I wonder if anyone has ever actually
died
of boredom, or if you get so bored that you just lie there and germs take over and you die of that?

In the morning, Aunt Maisie brought me my cup of tea. That really feels good, waking up to someone being nice, not yelling that you will be late and don’t use all the hot water and don’t eat the bread because it’s a bit green.

After breakfast (pancakes! I’ve never had pancakes for breakfast before) I walked around the garden for a bit and found a bike in the shed. I thought I might as well to go into the village to see if I could buy some magazines. I would not normally ride a bike in case anyone saw me, but no-one lives around here so I knew I was safe enough.

It’s a straight road over to the village and on it I cycled past this girl walking a dog who looked about
my age (the girl, I have no idea how old the dog was), but I didn’t stop. Then when I cycled past her on the way back she waved. I wish I’d stopped to say ‘Hi’, but what if she was just waving and didn’t really want to talk to me?

It was weird, she looked so like me, shortish, with blue eyes, pale skin with a few freckles, long straight hair, except she has blonde hair and mine is black. If either one of us dyed our hair we could be twins.

It reminded me of this book that Aunt Maisie used to read to me when I was a little girl, a fairy tale called
Snow White and Rose Red
. I can’t remember what happened except it involved two sisters, two princes and one big fish, but I remember I loved it and used to get her to read it to me again and again.

I was going to mention the book to Aunt Maisie at teatime, but was too scared that she wouldn’t remember and then I’d feel stupid for saying it and it would be ruined, you know, the idea of it. But then when we were having mugs of hot chocolate at bedtime I did ask, and she knew exactly what I was talking about and went out to her office and came
back in with the exact book. She had kept it all this time. I have been reading it over and over to myself in bed and only stopped so I’d get to write in this before falling asleep, which is going to happen any minute now. I had totally forgotten where the fish came into it.

I would love a prince to come along and take me away from all this. Not very likely I know.

Today I saw that blonde girl again, this time in the supermarket. I was buying soy milk which is like regular milk, but not from a cow. Aunt Maisie says it’s better for you. The girl was wearing a yellow sun-dress and waltzing with the manager in the fruit and veg section. He is an old guy, about seventy, and he was teaching her how to do the steps, and all these old ladies were standing around and loving it and talking about when they used to dance like that in the old days, and what a nice figure the girl had and how they used to have that figure in the old days, and on, and on, and on … My parents never dance, or at least I have never seen them dance, or touch each other come to think of it.

The girl was humming this waltz music and laughing as he whirled her around. Usually I would think that doing something like that was really pathetic, looking for attention, but she seemed OK.

I have now bought and read every magazine in the village so I’m stuck for what to do for the next week. I thought about taking the train back without a word to anyone, but that would just lead to massive numbers of reasonable discussions, so I know I have to stay here at least until Mum and Dad visit next weekend. Technically it would not be running away as I would be going home, but I won’t chance it just yet.

Aunt Maisie caught me sighing on the sofa (she said, ‘like a Victorian consumptive’, which I think is not good) and asked if I wanted to read the book that was her favourite when she was my age. I thought it would be an adventure thing with boats and pirates, but instead it was a really old and impossible book about a girl who looks a bit ugly if that’s her on the front. It’s called
Charlotte Brontë
, by Jane Eyre. No. Wait. It’s called
Jane Eyre
, and the writer is called Charlotte Brontë. Not that it matters, except to her maybe, and she’s dead by now.

In school this year we had to read
Pride and
Prejudice
and it was OK except I couldn’t work out who they were talking about because they sometimes said ‘Miss Bennett’ and it meant one of them and then it meant another sister, and the main girl was called Elizabeth, Liza, Lizzie, Eliza, and a million other names so I got too mixed up. It didn’t help that I never actually read the thing, I just watched the film!

I brought
Jane Eyre
up here to my room to keep Aunt Maisie happy, but I won’t be reading it.

I am managing to keep the room tidy. Tonight I put some rose petals into my bath and felt like a princess. I think I look more like a witch though, with my long black hair that tangles into a bird’s nest five minutes after I’ve combed it. I wish was more like the Snow White blonde girl I saw in the supermarket. Although we could be twins, she puts herself together better and her expressions and laughing make her prettier. Maybe I look more like Rose Red.

I hope something happens tomorrow. Anything. A TV would be amazing, but not very likely. No wonder people in the countryside claim to have seen aliens. My head will start making stuff up very soon if I don’t feed it something.

I hate myself. I am ugly and stupid and there is NOTHING good about me. Everyone else has
some
good points. Kira has her meditation and her hippie stuff, Dee is a bit useless too, but at least she looks really good and her brothers and sisters do stuff with her and she laughs a lot. I only ever laugh when Aidan tells me stories about his friends in the band, about when they make mistakes on stage. I laugh at some TV shows too, but never when there is someone else in the room.

my hair

my body

my face

my brain

my voice

my family

my friends

my school

my whole life

I know that I was an accident and my parents probably wish I’d never been born.

When I was sitting in the front room I saw that horrible man from the paint shop arguing with a man with a van. I don’t think they had an accident because both the van and the car looked fine, so it doesn’t make sense why they stopped there to yell at each other. Maybe they hate life too.

Aunt Maisie could tell I was in a vile mood from how I just sat there biting my nails. She asked me how that
Jane Eyre
novel was going and I told her it was too difficult. So she had me bring it back down and said to read one line from anywhere. It’s a pain when she gets all teacher-y but it’s always over fairly quickly. Anyway, I read a sentence from the book and she asked if I understood that sentence, and I said ‘Yes’, because it took a little bit of thinking about but was easy enough. Then she said to do it again with another line from anywhere and I did it and it was pretty easy too. I guess I was just put off because it was so big and old and lacking in pirates.

I read the first few pages in the bath and it is a bit depressing; it’s all about this little girl who people
say is bad, but really she hasn’t done anything wrong, everyone’s just out to get her, so I could
totally
relate. She also reads this book about birds and about sea fowl, which I think are seagulls, at least I don’t know what else they could be as there are no such things as sea chickens. I used to be really into garden birds, but I would die if anyone knew that now.

There is a chaffinch who lives in the tree outside this bedroom.

Aunt Maisie says we can go for a long drive tomorrow so I can see the countryside. It’s hard to get excited about cows, but it will be great to be out of the house. I think she is trying to make sure I don’t get more pissed off with the world before she has to hand me back!

It was hilarious, we packed a picnic and everything. The people I know back home would laugh themselves into a coma if they heard about someone going on a picnic with their aunt with fish-paste sandwiches and blueberry muffins.

We drove to an old ruined castle which was very cool. Aunt Maisie wanted to take pictures of it, so I wandered around for a couple of hours and was imagining that I was Rose Red from the fairy tale and married to my prince. There was no-one there because of it being a weekday so I could be as loopy as I wanted.

Then we went to this place that has a waterfall and that’s where we ate the picnic and then walked in the
woods for a bit. On the way back I fell asleep in the car and now I am going to read a couple of pages of
Jane Eyre
.

It’s funny, but if someone told me that I would have to do all that for a day I would think I would despise it and do whatever it took to get out of it. But I actually (I have to admit) had fun.

I called Mum and Dad and they had nothing to say except that everything was fine, and I just said the same, ‘Fine’, as if the day would be ruined if I told them about it. Also, I want them to worry about me a bit for a change or at least wonder how I really am.

I know people make phone calls about me when I am not there so I hope Aunt Maisie is telling them that I am damaged from all the abandonment. But then my mum would just tell her to make me do the weeds in the garden like she does at home if she catches me moping. She calls it moping, but I call it feeling hurt, and pulling weeds has never done much for it.

Aunt Maisie was going into the village to get her nails and hair done, and asked me did I want a lift. She dropped me off on the main street and I told her I’d see her back at the house sooner or later. It’s about a thirty minute walk, which is fine when all you have to do in the day is chop fruit and read an old book. I mean it’s not like someone famous will drop by and I’ll miss them.

I saw the man who bought all the paint and did the yelling at the man, coming out of the bank, so I crossed the road to avoid him. As soon as I got to the other side I ran straight into that blonde girl, and she had a crazy sandy-coloured dog that was dragging her along the street, the same one as the first time I
saw her. The dog came right over and started jumping up on me and she was saying, ‘Really Buddy, have you no manners?’ as if the dog spoke perfect English.

I said, ‘It’s OK, I like dogs.’

She told me she was taking it out for this old couple because the man had hurt his leg in a fall and his wife was too busy fussing to be able to walk the dog.

Then she said, ‘Come on then’, and at first I thought she was talking to the dog until she laughed and said, ‘Well, it’s not like there’s anything better to do around here! I’m Jenny.’

I said ‘Tia.’ (I am very relieved about my name as I know it was almost Mary after my mum.)

I know it sounds weird, but it was like we’d both decided to be friends already. Maybe it’s easier to make friends here than back home. Less politics.

The old couple tried to get us to come in, but Jenny obviously didn’t want to and I didn’t either so she said that she was showing me around. She probably had a bad experience with their tea and fruitcake before.

Jenny is fifteen (like I will be in ten weeks) and is the most smiley, happy person I have ever met. Kira
would say she was probably a game show hostess in a past life. I think in a past life I was probably someone who lived in the woods and ate mice.

After talking to Jenny I now know for sure that there is nothing to do here, not even a swimming pool, or an outdoor market, or a cinema or any more people our age.

‘Except for Jackson. He’s a year older than us, and by the look of you, I don’t reckon you’d think much of him.’

I have no idea what she meant by that, but she didn’t say it in a bitchy way so she wasn’t being mean. In fact she is so sunny and happy that I can’t imagine her ever being mean or sarcastic. I was almost too freaked to say anything in case I sounded too negative. Anyway it was cool because she was really comfortable with chatting away, a bit like people who have been prisoners for weeks and then they get to talk to the press and keep going on for hours.

‘I’ve known Jackson forever because we both get sent here for the summer, but he has to work for his grandfather most of the time, giving tours of the Big House or doing repairs or odd jobs, so I usually don’t see him much. I spend most of the summer with my
mum’s old nanny, Nanny Gloria, and she keeps me busy running errands for neighbours.’

Jenny asked me if I had seen the Park yet and I thought it was beyond weird to have a park in the middle of the countryside, where it would be just more fields and trees in the middle of fields and trees.

It only took about twenty minutes and we arrived at this place that was the best I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. It’s
enormous
with this huge lake, and it’s not flat, but not really hilly, and there are different trees in like ‘designer clumps’, and the most amazing stately home in the distance. Jackson
lives
there, in what they call the Big House, with his grandfather. That made me laugh because it seemed so not normal. A place like that is for visiting with the school, not for living in! Anyway we didn’t get to go that far because Nanny Gloria lives in the Gate Lodge.

Jenny’s bedroom is excellent. It has a four-poster bed with cushions and pillows in every colour. There’s an old tin bath on the floor at the end of it that is stuffed full of dolls and soft toys that she’s had since she was a baby. We just hung out and talked loads. Usually it takes me ages to get to know
a new person so it was weird, but nice.

It took me forever to walk back to Aunt Maisie’s, so from now on I will take the bike with me.

I’m at a really sad bit in
Jane Eyre
where she’s sent away to this school where she is freezing all the time and she is made out to be really bad, and she has never done anything wrong except defend herself against the family she was living with. It makes me feel really good about having a warm bed and food to eat. Even my room at home and things like cornflakes would be a luxury to her. Every couple of pages there’s a word like ‘subjoined’ or ‘ottoman’ that I don’t get, but I still understand what it all means anyway. I hope it gets happy soon.