The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells (26 page)

Willa stands by the window in her nightie, her nose pressed against the glass. The world is wet and windy and full of white lights that look like dancing ghosts.

Please let Mrs Fox be okay,
she thinks. She doesn't want her to give birth to her cubs in a thunderstorm.

‘Willa?'

Daddy comes in, carrying a parcel with a red bow that looks like it's been wrapped by Mummy.

‘I've been saving up this present for bedtime,' he says.

Willa runs over to her bed, jumps onto the mattress, yanks up the duvet and pats the space beside her. Daddy comes over and sits on the edge of the bed. He's wearing his glasses, which make him look scruffy and tired.

Lightning blinks through the room like when Daddy takes a photo with his big flash.

‘Will the man be okay?' Willa asks.

‘What man?'

‘Rainbow Man, in the tent. The one who came to help with Ella's project.'

‘I'm sure he'll be fine.'

Willa isn't so sure. ‘Maybe we should invite him to come in for the night.'

‘I think the house is full enough, don't you Willa?'

She nods but she doesn't agree: you can always find more room. She could sleep with Louis in the den and Rainbow Man could have her room.

‘Was Ella's project about finding Mummy Norah?'

‘Sort of.'

‘Do you love Mummy Norah as much as you love Mummy?'

Daddy rubs his eyes behind his glasses. ‘I love them differently.'

‘So it's okay if I don't love Mummy Norah in the same way that I love Mummy?'

What Willa wants to say is that she's not sure she loves Mummy Norah at all, not like she loves Mummy and Daddy and Ella and Louis and Mrs Fox. But she's worried that might sound mean, especially if Mummy Norah's the mummy who came first.

Daddy's eyes go watery.

‘Yes, that's okay Willa.'

‘Did she leave because of me? Because I was a naughty baby? Did I make her sick?'

‘Sick?' Daddy looks confused. ‘Of course not.' He wraps his hand around Willa's. There are rough bits on his palms from when he used to work in the main bit of the recycling plant rather than in the office bit. She likes how his hand covers hers so that it disappears, like when she threads her fingers in Louis's thick fur.

Now Daddy's eyes go so watery that Willa's worried that tears are going to come out, like the raindrops on the window.

He sniffs and looks up at the ceiling.

‘I'm sorry, Willa.'

‘What are you sorry for?'

‘It was my fault that Norah – Mummy Norah – left.'

‘Why was it your fault?'

‘I wasn't a very good daddy. Or a very good husband. I needed to learn how to be better. Mummy taught me that.'

‘Will you make sure that Mummy stays?' asks Willa.

She can't help thinking about the suitcase lying in the middle of Mummy and Daddy's bedroom and how, if Mummy Norah left because she was upset, then maybe Mummy might leave too.

‘I'll try, Willa.' Daddy gives her a tired smile.

‘And Nat.'

He doesn't answer.

‘Aren't you sad that you didn't have Nat when he was a baby?'

Daddy nods. ‘Of course I'm sad.' He looks up at Willa. ‘But Nat had Onkel Walter. Onkel Walter loves him very much.'

‘Do you love Nat? I mean, as much as you love me and Ella and Mummy?'

Daddy tilts his head to one side. ‘I think I do, Willa. I know I do. But I have to get to know him a little bit.'

‘So he's staying?'

‘We'll see.' Daddy looks at the package in Willa's hands. ‘Are you going to open your present?'

Willa tears open the tissue paper and pulls out a book.

‘
Fantastic Mr Fox
!'

‘It came before the film,' says Daddy. ‘It was written by a very clever man called Roald Dahl.'

Willa can't believe that no one's told her there's a book of her favourite story. She flips through the pages. The pictures are pointy and sketchy and funny – even funnier than the pictures of the characters in the film.

‘I thought we could read it together,' says Daddy.

Willa nods and keeps flipping and flipping. She stops at the picture of the big Caterpillar tractors that are about to crash into Mr and Mrs Fox's house.

‘Start here,' she says. This is the bit where Mr Fox has to be really brave, which might help you to be brave too and to find a way to get Mummy to stay.'

‘You want to start in the middle?'

Willa nods and points at the words.

Daddy swings his legs up onto the bed, draws Willa in under his arm and starts reading: ‘The murderous, brutal-looking monsters…'

There's a shuffle at the door. ‘
Vater?
'

They look up. Nat's standing at the door in his pyjamas.

Poor Nat, thinks Willa. He didn't know about Daddy either, just like Willa didn't know about Mummy Norah.

Daddy gets off the bed, walks to the door and lifts Nat off the ground. ‘Time for bed, young man.'

Nat doesn't answer. He just stares at Daddy and then touches the bulging vein on Daddy's forehead.

‘I don't mind if you put him to bed,' says Willa. ‘I'll read my book.'

Willa does mind. She was cosy with Daddy and reading with him made her forget her worries about Mrs Fox and the man in the tent and the fact that Mummy might leave in the morning. But Nat's littler than her, so it's only fair that he should get Daddy.

‘You're quite something,' Daddy says and gives Willa a smile, a real, non-tired one this time.

Willa hopes that
quite something
is a good thing.

Daddy blows Willa a kiss and carries Nat out onto the landing.

Willa turns to the where Mr Fox is digging tunnels, even though he's tired and hungry. She mouths the words:
They kept at it with great courage
…

Ella stares at the tweet from @sunnysideofthestreet.
Gold dust at your feet.
She recognises the line from one of Louis Armstrong's songs. Gold dust at my feet? More like crap, she thinks. Piles and piles of crap like the bin bags full of Mum's old stuff standing on the doorstep. She scrolls down. At last, there's a message from @onmymind.
You have the freedom to choose
. Ella laughs. As if she's ever got to choose anything in her life.

She sends a tweet, pulls her duvet in tight, stares up at the ceiling and listens to the rain. She loves how close it sounds, as though her room is part of the sky. Maybe Sai's right and the roof won't ever get fixed and the damp patch will get bigger and then crumble and leave a massive hole and she'll get to lie here and look up at the stars.

The house creaks as the wind throws itself against the roof.

Maybe, if she stays up here, she'll be swept away. Then she won't ever have to go back downstairs to all those strange people living in her home. Seven of them now: a crazy, cobbled-together family. Weird to think that, after everything, the only one who understands her is Fay.

She can't get the picture of Willa hugging Mum out of her head.
Mummy Fay and Mummy Norah
–
more crap. And Willa being sucked in by her just like Dad was, like everyone, even Louis. And Fay, Fay who was meant to be the intelligent, grounded one, telling her that Mum needed her –
now more than ever
? What did that mean?

Louis shuffles in closer against Ella's body.

‘What do you see in her, hey Louis?'

He looks at her with droopy eyes. Maybe he only remembers the good times, like Ella used to.

There's a loud tearing overhead. And then a crash. And a moment later, the ceiling starts dripping onto her duvet. Maybe the house will split open and leave them all standing in the rain.

She switches her phone back on and texts Sai:

She packs a bag with everything she needs for tomorrow's race, puts on her trainers and kisses the top of Louis's head.

‘Don't tell anyone,' she whispers, and then pads quietly down the stairs.

 

As Ella steps on to Willoughby Street she looks back at the house. The wind has beaten the cherry tree so hard only a few pink petals cling to its branches. The tarpaulin flaps loosely against the side of the house. A flash of red disappears under a hedge.

The tent's dark, so the busker must have gone to sleep. Ella wonders whether he's got two Twitter accounts, whether he's @onmymind.

She breaks into a run. The cold air pushes in and out of her lungs. She breathes in the smell of wet earth, the sweetness of spring, feels the rain on her bare arms and the wind against her face. She can't remember the last time she felt so free.

The rain gets stronger. And although her hair is drenched and her clothes soaked through, Ella keeps running.

She runs past the steel barriers that the police have put up for tomorrow's 10k, the banners stretched across the high street, the water stations.

She runs past Willa's school. And the Animal Ark. Willa keeps saying that she wants to adopt all the animals and bring them home. She'd be better off checking herself into the Ark, they'd be a better family for her.

She runs past The Great Escape, with its posters of planes and palm trees and deserts. Here she takes off Mum's trainers and throws them in the bin on the side of the road.

She wants to strip it all away, every bit of her that's connected to Mum.

As she leans over the bin she hears a squawk overhead. A crow sits on a telephone wire, a shadow bleeding into the stormy sky.

‘Go!' Ella yells. ‘Just go!'

It lifts off the wire, flaps its wings, squawks one last time and flies into the dark clouds.

Ella starts to run again. The rain falls harder. Her wet socks slap the pavement.

She runs past the Three Feathers, where she went to look for Dad on the day Willa was born.

And she runs past houses, their orange glow spilling out onto the pavement like the windows of an advent calendar: families watching television, laughing, getting ready to sleep. Normal families with mums and dads and siblings who all know each other.

A gust of wind. The electricity wires crackle overhead. Then a snap. The street lamps blink off and then the windows of the houses go black.

When Ella reaches the post office she checks her phone. Still no answer from Sai. She thinks that maybe he's gone to sleep early to prepare for the race, but as she looks up at his bedroom she sees a candle glowing in the window. The electricity must have gone off all over Holdingwell.

Perhaps he doesn't want to see her. She swallows hard and chases away the thought. He probably hasn't looked at his phone.

She grips the drainpipe and lifts herself onto the first windowsill. It's an old house with lots of footholds, so climbing up is easy. And she's done this before, though in daylight and without the wind and rain.

Come on, you can do it, she says to herself. One last windowsill and you'll be outside Sai's room.

Her wet socks make it hard to get a footing, but she knows she can make it. She lifts herself up and looks through Sai's window. He's lying on his bed reading a book, his earphones in. She knocks on the glass but he doesn't hear.

‘Sai,' she yells and knocks again.

As she leans forward to knock for a third time, her foot skids on a patch of moss. She sways to the side. Her fingers slip off the windowsill. She falls, grabbing at any surface she can on her way down. The brick scrapes her hands. The pavement speeds towards her.

 

‘Ella?' Someone is shaking her. ‘Ella?'

Ella looks up and sees a blur of different colours. A big, white smile, a yellow cap, a rainbow jumper.

She closes her eyes. She feels like she's floating in a big, starless sky.

‘Ella?'

She opens her eyes again.

Sai's mum looks down at her; the red stain in her parting glows in the candlelight.

Ella looks around: she's in the kitchen above the post office. Someone must have carried her up. She's sitting on a chair, wrapped in a towel. Her ankle feels like it's on fire.

Mrs Moore kneels beside her. ‘Where does it hurt?'

Ella wants to say
everywhere
. And she wants to point, not at her scraped hands and knees or even her ankle, but at her stomach and her chest – at the crow that's been flapping there ever since Mum turned up, squawking and pecking so hard she can't breathe.

‘I'm fine,' she says.

Mrs Moore nods, but takes Ella's feet in her hands and eases off her wet socks. She rubs Ella's feet dry with a towel and then presses her fingers along Ella's ankles and the bones at the top of her feet.

‘Does this hurt?'

Ella winces. ‘It's okay.'

‘I think you were lucky. That the man found you, and that you have not done too much damage to yourself.'

‘What man?'

‘He did not give his name. He brought you to the door.'

Ella tries to remember what happened, but her mind's a blur.

Mrs Moore massages Ella's foot. ‘Maybe it would be wise not to run tomorrow.'

Ella takes her socks out of Mrs Moore's hands. ‘I'm going to run.'

Mrs Moore nods, like she understands that the race is not just about running ten kilometres through Holdingwell. That it's the only thing that feels normal – that feels good – in Ella's screwed-up life at the moment.

‘Would you like me to drive you home?'

Ella shakes her head.

Mrs Moore looks up, still cradling Ella's ankle in her hands. ‘May I say something?'

Back home, no one ever asks permission to say something. Perhaps if they did, they wouldn't end up saying stuff that made everything worse. Ella nods.

‘Maybe you should try to get to know who your mother is.'

Ella seizes up. Her ankle throbs harder. She wishes she'd told Mrs Moore to stay quiet. The last thing she needs is more advice on how to handle Mum.

‘I know who she is.'

Mrs Moore puts down Ella's ankle.

‘May I say say a few more words?'

Despite herself, Ella nods again. She knows she's not going to like what Mrs Moore has to say, but there's something about Sai's mum that makes her want to listen.

‘Thank you.' Mrs Moore bows her head. ‘I think the mother you are holding on to is the mother in your head – in your memory.' She points to her forehead, and then she lowers her hand to her heart. ‘And the mother in here, too.' She takes a breath. ‘Sai does the same, with his father. Memories can be good, Ella. Sometimes. But sometimes they can trick us. Then can stop us from living today.'

A clatter of footsteps in the corridor. Sai bursts in.

‘Ella, what happened?'

His mum stands up, takes Ella's socks and slips out through the kitchen door.

‘I don't want to stay at home,' says Ella. The candlelight flickers across Sai's face. ‘Why didn't you answer my text?'

‘Did you talk to your mum?'

So that was it. He thought that his silence would force her into patching things up with Mum.

‘It's not going to work. Her kid's turned up. And her brother.'

‘Her
what
?'

‘It's all a mess, Sai. Apparently she was adopted and Walter's her long-lost brother, and she's claiming Nat is Dad's. And now Willa knows who Mum really is —'

‘Slow down.' He kneels in front of her. ‘How did Willa find out?'

‘I told her. I had to. And guess what? She's excited to have two mums!' Ella shakes her head. ‘I can't understand how Fay is letting all this happen. She's the one who's been there for us —'

‘That's not what you used to think.'

‘I know.' Ella pauses and looks down at her bare feet. ‘I got things wrong. I built up this stupid idea of Mum in my head. God, I'm an idiot.' The burning in her ankle has turned into a series of sharp stabs. She looks up at Sai. ‘Can I stay?'

Sai looks down at Ella's bare feet. ‘What did you do with your trainers?'

‘I threw them away.'

‘Where?'

‘In a bin.'

‘What bin?'

Ella shrugs. ‘Somewhere on the high street.'

Sai's dark eyebrows shoot up. ‘You loved those trainers.'

Ella shakes her head. ‘I don't want to have anything to do with her any more.'

Sai's mum comes back into the kitchen and hands Ella a set of clean pyjamas and another towel. ‘You should have a hot shower before you go to bed, to warm up. I've put candles in the bathroom. Sai will change the sheets on his bed; he'll sleep on his couch.'

So this woman, who's meant to have all these strict principles about boys and girls and sex, is letting Ella sleep over – and in Sai's room, with Sai right there beside her?

Ella takes the pyjamas and the towels. ‘Thank you.'

‘Leave your wet clothes outside the bathroom door. I'll put them over the heaters to dry.' She kisses Ella lightly on the cheek.

Ella feels the crow flapping in her ribcage. This is the sort of thing a mum's meant to do, isn't it? It's what Fay tried to do for Ella, but Ella pushed her away. It's what Mum failed to do.