After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby (19 page)
Read After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby Online
Authors: Natasha Farrant
Grandma told the story of how Dad rescued Flora. Dad blushed and said, ‘I know I went a bit over the top’, and Mum actually laughed. Zoran glowered and said he never did trust that boy.
‘I’m never going away again,’ vowed Mum. ‘I don’t care about Bütylicious and their stupid job. I’m never leaving
any
of you again,’ and Dad looked like he didn’t completely believe her but was really happy just to hear her say that.
Me, I didn’t say anything, as usual. I just watched. At midnight, Dad poured out more glasses of mulled wine, mugs of hot chocolate and cups of tea, and we drank to Iris.
‘And to all others who’ve gone before us,’ said Grandma softly after we had drunk, and I knew she was thinking about Grandpa.
‘To all others who’ve gone before us,’ murmured Zoran, and I knew that he was thinking about his parents.
He caught me looking at him, and I smiled. Then, because a smile did not feel quite enough, I slid out of my armchair and hugged him.
If this had been a film, the camera would have zoomed in on each of us in turn. When we drank to Iris, I saw how much it meant to all of us. Not just Mum and Dad and me, but to Flora and Jas and Twig and Grandma too. So the camera wouldn’t linger on any one of us. It would pan slowly from each person to the next and then it would pan outwards until we were all in the picture, her parents and her grandmother and her twin and her other siblings, and a man who never knew her but who loves us too, now, and who would have loved her if he had known her.
Iris’s family. My family. All of us together.
A lot of good things happened today.
Today Mum and Dad kissed under the mistletoe. We had to make them, but once they started they didn’t stop.
Today, somehow, despite late flights and snow and secret eleventh-hour film contracts, there were presents under the tree.
Today, Zoran and Grandma together cooked the biggest meal I think I have ever eaten, and after lunch we sang carols around the piano.
Jake came round while we were singing. He said he was dropping in on the way to the park because he was bored, like we didn’t all know that for him to come this way is a massive detour. Nobody said anything, but Flora winked. He stayed for tea, and it was nice.
VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING. THE HOUSE AND GARDEN.
Camera jerks up and down, revealing pyjama bottoms tucked into four sets of snow boots, running as quietly as it is possible for snow boots to run down stairs, over the black and white marble of the hall, slowing to a more careful pace on the icy steps of the veranda and picking up speed again on the trampled snow of the lawn. Camera pans upwards, still jerking every which way. FLORA runs ahead, her pink and green dressing-gown hanging down beneath a thick grey fleece. TWIG and JAS follow, wrapped in blankets. Dawn is not far off and colours are still muted, the sky a soft pale blue streaked with pink and gold.
Camera stops, once more, by the rats’ two cages. Very carefully, Twig opens the lid of the female rats’ cage and separates the straw in the sleeping hatch to reveal a nest of tiny baby rats, curled around each other.
TWIG
(triumphant)
I knew something was up! I sensed it! I knew they would come at Christmas.
JAS
Oh,
sweet
! Can we call one of them Jesus?
FLORA
But I thought this was the girls’ cage! Joss said . . .
CAMERAMAN (BLUE)
Joss wouldn’t know a female rat from a hibernating sloth.
Flora and Blue begin to laugh. They laugh until the camera is shaking, tears pour down Flora’s face and she has to cross her legs so as not to pee. They laugh until the picture is filled with nothing but the snowy ground, and the Babes laugh too. Their laughter gives way to gasps.
FLORA
Come on, let’s go and have breakfast before Zoran and Grandma get up and kick us out of the kitchen.
Twig closes the lid of the rats’ cage and follows Jas and Flora into the house. Cameraman lingers a little longer. When she is alone, she steps away from the cover of the trees, and raises the camera towards the balcony of next door’s attic bedroom. A shadow is up there, watching. Picture comes back down, showing a view of the house from the back of the garden.
CAMERAMAN
Wait for me, I’m starving!
Picture jerks as Blue begins to run. She stops at the top of the veranda steps. Flora leans in to the picture and plucks the camera from her hands.
CAMERAMAN (FLORA)
I’ve always wanted to have a go at this.
Picture goes in and out of focus. Blue’s voice, off camera, tells Flora to give it back. Flora says no. Picture continues to dance, then settles on close-up of Blue’s face.
CAMERAMAN
Gotcha!
Camera zooms closer still until the screen is full of nothing but Blue’s laughter.
Camera goes black.
THE END
Natasha Farrant has worked in children’s publishing for almost twenty years, running her own literary scouting agency for the past ten. She is the author of two successful adult novels,
Diving into Light
and
Some Other Eden
, as well as the Carnegie and Branford Boase long-listed YA historical novel
The Things We Did For Love
. She grew up in London where she still lives with her husband, their two daughters, a large tortoiseshell cat and a black goldfish called Coco Chanel. She is the eldest of four siblings and has never dyed her hair pink, but her youngest daughter keeps trying to sneak it past her.
First published in
2013
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London
WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
©
Natasha Farrant
,
2013
The right of
Natasha Farrant
to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978
–0–571–29796–2