Soul Love (6 page)

After the first bite, I was totally focused on winning. The sugar built up on my lips. The shrieking grew louder. Aurora had a stopwatch. My lips began to tingle and itch. I was desperate to
lick them, but I held on. I could feel my tongue involuntarily slipping out. I bit down on it along with the doughnut. Victory was in sight when I caught a glimpse of two pairs of eyes looking at
me. One was Cleo’s. Her expression was a mixture of sneering and triumph. And next to her, grinning for all he was worth, was Torso Boy.

With only three seconds to go, I licked my lips and walked away as quickly as I could. What was it with me? Why did I always manage to make a fool of myself? I ran behind a marquee and rubbed at
my lips. There was a metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I must’ve bitten down so hard on my tongue that I cut it. I was going to wait a few minutes and then go and find Sarah and tell her I
was leaving.

‘I thought you’d like this? It’ll take away the sugary taste.’

It was him again!

Torso Boy held out a paper cup of water in front of me. Probably just coming along to have a laugh at me.

‘Thanks,’ I said coldly and took a sip from the cup.

He didn’t take the hint; instead he sat down beside me.

‘You were great. My best time is thirty seconds and Cleo is rubbish. She could only manage five seconds before licking.’ He smiled at me.

He was so close to me that I could feel his arm next to mine, even though we weren’t touching. He smelled earthy with a hint of lemon. I felt overpowered by the sense of him, and my brain
emptied of anything interesting to say.

He just sat with me for a while. He had gentleness about him that I didn’t know how to deal with. He wasn’t like any of the boys I was used to. If it had been Jackson, he’d
have been laughing the loudest at me. Then he would’ve tried to out-do me in the doughnut eating. Or he would’ve deliberately misunderstood the rules of the game and started a row or
something. Both he and Mia would do anything to be the centre of attention. And I would’ve laughed along and joined in, burying my embarrassment in the noise.

This boy was different.

I could still taste the blood from my tongue.

‘I’m bleeding,’ I said.

He winced. ‘Blood freaks me out,’ he said and moved quickly away from me.

I stood up to leave.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude,’ he stammered.

‘I have to go now,’ I said, turning away.

‘I could show you round later when everyone’s gone.’

But I carried on walking away, whilst my brain was screaming, ‘Fool! Fool! Fool!’

Chapter Nine

‘
I
’m going away for a day or so on a book-buying trip. Julius will help you out in the
shop and Ava will come round in the evenings,’ Sarah announced on Monday morning.

Mum never trusted me to babysit for Marcus for more than a couple of hours. If she had to go out then she phoned every five minutes to check up. Here was Sarah proposing to go off for days and
she was leaving me without a phone. I was shocked.

She wasn’t totally irresponsible. She did leave me the address for the vet in case anything should happen to Tallulah. She also left me some food in the fridge, so I suppose I should have
been grateful for that.

Julius was quite perky when I got to the shop. ‘So good to be back at the helm once more,’ he said before sinking back into his chair, stroking his whiskers and reading his book like
he always did.

‘Do second-hand bookshops ever make any money?’ I asked him.

‘A fortune can be made if you find the right book. Hope springs eternal.’

‘What about old records?’ I nudged Kai’s box of records with my foot.

Julius nodded. ‘The same rule applies. If it is rare and sought after and in good condition.’ He handed me a couple of specialised antiquarian book magazines. ‘Read them and
weep.’

The television deprivation must be getting to me because I was actually interested. The amount of money some dusty old books fetched was amazing.

I was daydreaming about discovering a rare book when Aurora came in.

‘No doughnuts, please.’ I raised my hands in mock horror.

She giggled and tugged at her plaits. ‘I’ve come to see you!’ she said. ‘Now that school has finished I’ll come in lots. My brother’s coming too. He goes to
college in London but he’s here for a while. He’ll most probably buy a book. He usually does.’

Aurora chatted on and on at me about the stall and how much money she’d made, how many doughnuts she’d had to eat to test out the experiment, and how she was going to have a stall at
the Netherby Festival. On and on she went without stopping to draw breath. I was glazing over. Then she announced in her clipped voice, ‘You’re coming to tea tomorrow.’

‘Will there be room for me in your treehouse? Will Curio mind sharing?’

Aurora giggled. ‘Oh, no! Mum is going to make a wild mushroom quiche. I’ll meet you by my treehouse at three o’clock.’

The thought of dining in a treehouse with Aurora wasn’t a wildly exciting prospect, but the chance of getting a proper meal was. Plus, I’d save some of the food money Sarah had left
me.

‘It’s a deal,’ I said, grinning. ‘Julius won’t mind watching the shop.’

The shop bell rang, Aurora frowned and said, ‘Gabriel, what took you so long? I’ve invited Jenna to come to tea.’

‘She’s nagged you to death, then,’ he said, grinning at me.

So his name was Gabriel!

Still grinning, he added, ‘She’s not very good at taking no for an answer.’ He leaned on the counter and looked at my magazine and asked, ‘You interested in books,
then?’

I paused, trying to think of an answer. But he answered for me.

‘Silly question when you’re working here.’

‘I’m helping Sarah out,’ I said. Why had my voice gone all soft and quiet?

Aurora jumped up on the counter between us. ‘Ssh, you’ll wake Julius. When is he going to finish that book?’

Julius had nodded off with the book balanced expertly on his lap.

‘He’s been reading it for years,’ Gabriel said with a laugh. His accent was a bit posh, like Aurora’s. Then he glanced over my shoulder at the box of records. ‘Kai
still not back, then?’

‘Not for the foreseeable future,’ I muttered.

‘He will be. He wouldn’t take off for ever and leave his precious record collection behind. Can I just have a look?’

He jumped over the counter and headed for the cardboard box. I suppose living in trees made him agile. He crouched down and began flicking through the collection.

‘What’s Kai like?’ I asked. I was interested to know what he thought.

Aurora butted in. ‘Mum says he’s a free spirit with a deep poetic soul.’

Gabriel tugged on one of her plaits and frowned. ‘She did not!’

‘Did too! I heard her talking about him. She said he needed to be free from that millstone.’

I felt a pang. How could anyone describe Sarah as a millstone? You’d have to be pretty lightweight yourself if you thought she was a millstone.

Gabriel nudged Aurora and looked at me as he said, ‘Jenna doesn’t want to hear your prattle, Aurora. Kai’s all right. Sometimes he lends me some of his records. I play in a
band and he helps out with the sound checking.’

He said my name like he’d known me for ever.

Chapter Ten

T
hat evening, Ava came round with a fantastic meaty stew. As I stuffed myself Ava settled herself in on the sofa
with a large cardboard box.

‘I’m making pom-poms for the Brownies,’ she announced as she took out some pieces of cardboard and began winding wool around them.

As I was finishing my second bowlful she said, ‘I hear you’re a troubled teen.’

I snorted. ‘Don’t spare my feelings.’

Ava carried on, ‘I’m quite good with troubled teens, and babies going through the terrible twos. They’re quite similar really. Lots of screaming and face pulling.’

‘And you are such an expert on troubled teens because . . . ?’ I arched an eyebrow at her the way Mia always did at supply teachers.

Ava took another sip of her frothy coffee and blinked. ‘On account of having been one myself.’

‘Don’t tell me, you stayed up till midnight and didn’t wear your slippers!’ I laughed.

‘Is that your idea of wildness? What I did was dance naked in the grounds of Netherby Hall, fall in love with the wrong boy and make lots of foolish mistakes.’

I looked away at the thought of a naked Ava. As if on cue Tallulah began to mew loudly. I leaped off my chair and dashed into the kitchen to feed her and to have a quiet laugh at the thought of
a ‘wild’ Ava. I composed myself and went back in the lounge.

‘Being a beautiful woman can be a terrible burden,’ Ava continued as she reached into a handbag and pulled out some extra-strong mints and some tatty old photographs.

The first photo was a small black-and-white one of a pretty, dark-haired girl with a familiar grin.

‘If I knew then what I know now . . .’ Ava’s voice quivered.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked. Grumbling older people always said that.

Ava laughed. ‘You’re right. It is a silly thing to say. It would mean transplanting my old brain into my young body.’

‘Yuck! Sounds like a plot for a bad science fiction movie,’ I said.

‘All the mistakes I’ve made and life experiences I’ve had have created the person I am now. If I hadn’t let my young self do all those daft and crazy things where would I
be now?’

‘So it’s OK to be crazy when you’re young?’ I asked.

‘It’s all part of growing up. Then you have to be respectable for about thirty years before you get to be reckless all over again!’ Ava laughed.

I casually flicked through the rest of the photographs.

Ava’s voice went quiet. ‘Some mistakes can be more painful than others. It would be nice to unmake one or two of those painful ones. Mistakes should be like reverse wishes. You
should be able to unmake three mistakes in your life.’

I stared at a photograph of a young woman standing in the grounds of Netherby Hall. She wasn’t looking at the camera or smiling. It must have been a cold, windy day because her long, blond
hair was blowing about and she was wearing a brown suede jacket. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said, sighing.

Ava looked at the photo and sighed too. ‘Lavinya had an effortless beauty. Never wore make-up or did her hair, but she always looked just right. Broke his heart, she did. One day she was
here and the next she had gone. No one knew where or why. She was a wild spirit. You couldn’t pin her down. I found that picture in an old book in Sarah’s shop. Someone must’ve
been using it as a bookmark and forgotten about it. She’d be in her mid-twenties there. She died a few years ago. No one speaks about her now. Especially not the second Lady
Netherby.’

‘Lavinya was the first Lady Netherby?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and Gabriel is her son. Aurora is the child from Lord Netherby’s second marriage or it might even be his third. There have been a succession of girlfriends and wives at
Netherby Hall over the years and I find it hard to keep track.’ Ava carried on winding the wool.

‘Gabriel and Aurora live at Netherby Hall!’ I gasped. And here was me imagining that they lived in a caravan in the countryside – or in a tree!

‘Aurora’s always lived there and Gabriel visits from time to time. Lord Netherby only found out he had a son when Gabriel was about eleven years old. He’s a nice lad, even if
he didn’t inherit Lavinya’s striking blond looks.’

‘Aurora’s invited me round for tea tomorrow,’ I said. Gabriel’s looks seemed just fine to me.

‘That’ll be nice, dear, but you should really be mixing with people of your own age. Why don’t you pop into the youth club in the village hall? It’s on every Monday
night. You could call in for an hour or so. I won’t mind.’

I muttered a vague reply. I didn’t take in what she was saying. I was too busy trying to get my head round the fact that Torso Boy was Gabriel, son of Lord Netherby.

I’d seen TV programmes about the aristocracy and seen pictures galore of toffs in magazines, but Gabriel was nothing like them. He was so scruffy for one thing . . . I suppose if you have
heaps of money you don’t need to think so much about your appearance. Then another thought hit me.

What do you wear when you go to tea with a lord?

Ava made another milky coffee, but before she could drink it she’d dozed off on the sofa, making little snorting sounds. When her face was relaxed with sleep she looked a lot younger. I
made a mental note to actually listen to her more.

The sound of a key turning in the lock startled me. I didn’t expect Sarah for another day at least, but you never knew with her.

‘We’re in here!’ I shouted.

‘And who are
you,
exactly?’ a man’s voice replied.

Chapter Eleven

H
e looked me up and down and whistled.

‘Jenna, you’ve grown up all of sudden.’

Shame you haven’t, I thought.

‘Sarah not here, then?’ Something in his voice made me think that he knew she wouldn’t be. He was carrying a large canvas bag.

Ava woke up with a start, ‘Kai, love, you’re back! Sarah will be pleased.’

‘I only stopped by to pick up a few bits and pieces. Then we’re off to a festival in Cornwall,’ he said as he bent over and kissed Ava on the cheek.

I’d bet anything the other part of ‘we’ was young and female.

‘Sarah didn’t say you’d be coming round,’ I said.

Kai grinned back at me and asked, ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s gone on a book-buying trip,’ Ava replied.

‘She probably forgot to mention I was coming.’

Hadn’t Sarah gone on and on about how she hadn’t heard from him? Surely Ava would see through him.

‘Ava, you’re looking lovely as usual. Is that a new hair colour?’ He tickled her cheek. Ava turned to mush.

I tried another tactic. ‘I’ll give you a hand, Kai.’

‘No need, unless you’d like to rummage in my underwear drawer.’

He was holding a pretty big bag for just underwear.

‘Wouldn’t have thought you’d wear any,’ I said. Now it was his turn to blush a bit. He came up close and cupped my face in his hand.