Love Notes from Vinegar House (9 page)

As I rounded the last bend on the path, I saw the beach spread out before us like a familiar friend. The bluff rocks that tumbled to the left and right of us held us in a horseshoe-shaped embrace. An old upturned dinghy which belonged to the house lay tethered on the sand like a turtle basking in the sun. The edge of the water was fringed with dirty foam that looked like something leftover from the Colonel’s car washing efforts. And further out, much further, jutted a rock like the top of a submarine poking out from the waves. It was known as Seal Rock, though I’d never seen a seal basking on its smooth surface.

Once on the beach, Isabella laid out the tartan picnic rug, and Julia helped her unpack the food while I took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans and raced to check the rock pools. Limpets clung to the rock craters and a tiny crab scuttled into a crevice. In the largest pool I found a sea anemone, its feathery tentacles waving at my intrusive pokings. I yelled out to Isabella to come and look, but she waved her hand, too busy to hang out with me. I could feel Luke looking at me and I prayed that he wouldn’t come over. Another part of me prayed that he would.

Angus and Lee had brought a ball along and were lobbing it to each other with exaggerated
ooohs
and
aaahs
. Rumer tried to join in, but her throws were pathetic short thrusts that dribbled over the wet packed sand. She laughed and held up her hands as if to say “I know, hopeless aren’t I?” While I was silently agreeing with her, Luke strolled over, grabbed the ball, and leaned in close to instruct her on the finer points of throwing a ball.

The knife was jabbing into my gut again – little quick jabs of delicious pain that made no sense. I kicked at the sand and stubbed my toe on a submerged rock. Rumer’s laughter added to my pain. I walked down to the water’s edge to ease my throbbing toe. The water numbed my feet instantly, like I’d stepped in snow. I walked into the water a little further. Swimming at Bluff Beach was against the rules. Just like walking down the short cut path.

“Hey!” I had Luke’s attention now. He was further up the beach. I looked back to see him cupping his hands to his lips and calling out to me. Rumer stood to one side behind him and shook her head at me. She said something to Luke, but her words were snatched away by a breeze that lifted the loose sand and dropped it swiftly again.

I didn’t have to hear her words to know she was saying something about me. Maybe she was telling Luke I had a crush on him. The shame of the thought flooded through me like a hot tidal wave, so I did the only thing I could think of. I threw my windcheater off and ran further into the water. Although my feet were wet, it was nothing compared to the shock I felt as the water reached my knees. My shout of surprise was sucked from my body as a gritty wave dumped over me. I emerged to hear Isabella yelling at me, but I ignored her and began to swim away from the beach, my uneven strokes chopping at the steel-grey water. I hadn’t planned to swim to Seal Rock, but it was something to aim for.

The cold was a band of ice squeezing tightly about my chest, leaving me gasping for breath. The water dragged at my jeans, which made it difficult to kick. I looked back at the shore and noticed Rumer standing alone to one side of the group I’d left behind. While the others were waving frantically, yelling at me to come back, Rumer was drawing something in the sand with a long piece of driftwood. She was clearly annoyed that I was getting all the attention for a change. I was smugly enjoying this thought when the next wave caught me from behind. It drew me into its frothy embrace, sucked me down and tumbled me around so that down became up, and up became sideways, tumbling, tumbling and the dull roar of it filled my ears. Then it spat me out, and I bobbed on the water’s surface, gulping at the air, my heart racing, the blood pounding in my ears. It was time to return to the others.

And then I stepped off into nothing. The hard sand beneath my feet had fallen away into the deep water of the drop off. I tried a few wild strokes towards shore, but the tide held me fast in its grip. My feet frantically searched for solid ground, but I was treading water.

The first time I went under I was scared. I was going to die and the adults would find out I’d gone swimming and we would all get into trouble. I hoped Rumer would get into trouble the most. This is what I thought as the little silver bubbles of my breath rushed past me to the surface. I didn’t know how, but in some way she was responsible for my unscheduled swim. She was definitely the reason Luke and I weren’t friends any more. I clawed my way to the surface and managed two large gulps of air, waving my hand about before sinking again under the water. The cold was leaving my body. So had my mind. It wandered above the waves like a hovering seagull, watching the action around me. I could see the beach and those left ashore. I could see the craggy bluff with its jutting rocks and stunted coastal scrub. And further back, leaning over us all, was Vinegar House with its unfriendly face and crooked shingle roof.

That’s when I noticed the light – a single beam of light reaching out to me from the very top window of Vinegar House. How strange, I thought.

And then someone grabbed my hair and dragged me to the surface, and I was back in my body again. I was hauled through the water then dumped, face first, on the smooth packed sand of the shore.

I gasped and coughed and coughed until a thin trickle of seawater left my mouth and then I started to cry. Isabella gathered me in her arms and shushed me, and told me off and shushed me again, until my sobs stopped and only hiccups remained.

My saviours – Angus and Luke – stood nearby, while the others crowded around in a huddle discussing what to do. If there was any possible way we could get back to Vinegar House and dry off without being detected, then that was our aim. An elaborate plan was hatched. A diversion. And it came from Rumer.

“Isabella should go up to the house and tell them I’ve twisted my ankle,” she declared.

Somehow she’d managed to get the attention back onto her again.

“Then they’ll know we’ve been down here,” Lee argued.

“We’ll go to the tree house,” said Rumer. “The swimmers can go through the kitchen to the back stairs and dry off in the downstairs bathroom.”

“But what if they ask about the others?” asked Julia.

“We’ll say they’ve gone for a walk,” said Rumer.

By now my teeth were chattering like a pair of castanets. It was a natty little beat that matched the knocking of my knees. Isabella looked at me and said, “All right.”

I could feel Luke’s eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything. I wanted him to apologise to me, but I didn’t know what for.

Isabella helped me into my windcheater, which stuck to my wet skin. Then Luke and Angus half-carried, half-dragged me back up the bluff path. We skirted around the back of the house, then the swimmers group broke off and headed to the kitchen door, while the others made their way to the tree house. I heard a single fake scream from Rumer before we entered the kitchen, and a minute later a babble of voices as people exited the front door. Angus grabbed a towel and headed for the Green Room to get dressed. Luke stood uneasily in the bathroom, and I shoved a towel into his hands.

“I’ll use the bedroom,” I said, gruffly.

“Hey, Shrimp, are you okay?”

His voice brought tears to my eyes, and they ran in two scalding rivers down my cheeks. He stepped towards me.

“I mean, that was just a crazy thing to do. You could’ve drowned or something–”

Crazy! Whatever I wanted to hear from him, it wasn’t that.

“Shut up!” I hissed and I headed for the yellow bedroom.

I changed into some dry clothes and hoped no one would notice my change of outfit. Then I rubbed and rubbed at my hair until not a drop of water remained. Angus poked his head through the doorway to see how I was going.

“All done?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Let’s keep this one quiet, Freya.”

I nodded again. “Cross my throat and hope to choke,” I said with the smallest of smiles. “Sorry–”

“Just save your next swim for summer. And not that beach.”

Later that night, as we hung out in the Blue Room, I wondered how we’d gotten away with it. Everyone had been impressed with Rumer’s skills as an actress. Except me, of course. She’d managed to cry on cue and had put up with a lot of fussing from the adults and an ugly bandage from Uncle Stephen (who may have been a doctor but whose triage skills were lacking). When she complained about her bandage, Luke fetched a tapestry cushion to elevate her foot. He had clearly forgotten there was nothing wrong with her. It made me want to scream.

Isabella had already thanked Rumer for saving the day. But I blamed Rumer. Somehow she’d forced me into the water. She’d nearly killed me and was now expecting my eternal thanks.

I played our favourite card game, Motors, but my heart wasn’t in it. I flipped out the wrong cards or played out of turn and snapped at Lee when he nudged me with his foot. When Rumer asked me how I was feeling, I looked up to find Luke’s eyes staring into mine. In the dim light, they were the slate grey of the sea, and I felt myself tumble and twist in their depths. I could feel the others judging me. I closed my eyes and felt the tumble once again as the waves crashed over me.

I heard the creak of a loose floorboard in the hallway, and we turned to the half-opened door to see Mrs Skelton walking past with our pile of wet towels.

For the rest of the night we waited to be summoned to the drawing room.

But nothing was ever said.

I’d tried to block that day from my mind, although whenever I looked under the Things I Hate About Rumer file I’d see it there. Rumer spent the next half an hour walking slowly up and down the hard sand talking to someone on her mobile. I sat and watched Seal Rock and wondered how I was going to survive my stay at Vinegar House. I didn’t need to look back up the bluff to know that the house was leaning over me, somehow, filling me with dread. I checked my phone, but the only message was from my ex-friend Suzette Crompt, and I deleted it without even reading it.

Do you know what it’s like to want something so much that when you suddenly have it, well, it’s hard to believe? I often wonder how Cinderella was so cool about the timely appearance of her godmother. I never quite believed that part of the story.

In my version – and I was always Cinderella, with Rumer being both of the ugly sisters and the wicked stepmother – the fairy godmother would appear but I could never be as cool as the real Cinderella was. I think it would be a little bit scary to have someone turn up like that.

I’m just not built for fairytale surprises. So when I pulled back the drapes the next morning and the first thing I saw was Luke Hart, I closed the drapes again and waited to hear the
brringgg
of a magic wand. And then I was going to have some harsh words to say to my fairy godmother for she was about two years too late. I peeked through the gap in the drapes to see Luke pushing a wheelbarrow up the long, winding driveway of Vinegar House, his breath fogging in the cold air. I considered I might still be dreaming in my sagging bed, but the cold snapping at my bare toes told me otherwise.

Luke Hart?

Here?

A wind was playing with the trees, bending them first one way then another, and it whistled through the gaps around the window. As I tried to recover from my shock at seeing Luke, he paused, wiped his brow, then looked directly up at the house. I stepped back from the curtains, paranoid that he had seen me in my PJs gazing out at him.

“Seems a waste of time, if you ask me,” said Mrs Skelton from the doorway.

I hadn’t heard my bedroom door open. Mrs Skelton had a way of creeping about that was unnerving. Something she’d learned from my grandmother, no doubt.

“I need to change the sheets,” she continued. “It’s Friday.”

As if that explained everything.

“What’s a waste of time, Mrs Skelton?” I asked.
I pulled the heavy blankets from the bed and dumped them in a pile on the floor.

Mrs Skelton picked up the blankets and folded them neatly onto the armchair in the corner of the room. “Another gardener, with only us here to appreciate it. Not much of a garden anyway. But Mr Chilvers insisted, and what Mr Chilvers wants …” She pulled savagely at the top sheet, whipping it off in one move like a magician. “A waste of money, if you ask me.”

I hadn’t asked, but then that never stopped Mrs Skelton from telling people what she thought.

“How did Luke get here?” I asked.

Mrs Skelton shrugged. “Do you have any more washing?”

“I can do my own washing,” I said, trying to be helpful.

She turned a sour face to me.

“Do you know how to use a washing machine?” she asked. “Your cousin just leaves her things on the floor.”

“No. Really. It’s fine.”

“Suit yourself then.” Her lips pressed together tightly, creases puckering around the edges as she gathered the sheets and pillowcases into her arms. “Good day for drying,” she remarked as she left my room.

I moved to the heating coil underneath the window and tried to warm my numb fingers. Luke and Mr Chilvers were standing near the cubbyhouse tree, Mr Chilvers with an axe in one hand, while he gestured with the other.