Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) (5 page)

“This is our cat, Spot.” A girl had just glided past us to put a plate down on the dining table. She had to be Grayson’s twin sister; they had the same light-brown eyes. “And you must be Liv and Mia. Ann’s told us so much about you. That’s a lovely way you’ve done your hair.” She seemed to smile as easily as her brother, but it looked better on her, because she had dimples in her cheeks, a snub nose that went with the dimples, and a pretty, freckled complexion. “I’m Florence, and I’m really pleased to meet you.” She was small and delicately built, but with voluptuous breasts, and her face was framed by shining, chestnut-brown curls falling in ringlets to her shoulders. Mia and I could only gawp at her. She was simply stunning.

“What a pretty dress, Ann,” she said to Mom in a voice as sweet as honey. “Blue suits you so well.”

Suddenly I seemed to myself not just dry as a stick, long-nosed, and plain simplistic in the way my mind worked but also dreadfully immature. Mom was right: we were being downright bad mannered. We’d hit out with dark looks and said rude things just to punish her. Like naughty toddlers flinging themselves on the supermarket floor and throwing tantrums. Meanwhile Florence and Grayson showed no weak spots but were behaving like grown-ups. They didn’t react to our rudeness. They were smiling, paying compliments, and carrying on a polite conversation. Maybe they really were glad that their father had met our mom. Or maybe they were just pretending to be glad. Whichever way it was, they were doing far better than we were.

Feeling ashamed of myself, I decided that from then on I’d be just as well brought up and polite. Although that, as it turned out, wasn’t going to be so simple.

“There’s only something small for a starter.” When everyone was sitting down, Florence smiled warmly at Mia and me from the other side of the table. “Mrs. Dimbleby bought far too many quails. I hope you like quails with celeriac purée.”

Oh no—here we went. Celeriac. Eeugh! “That sounds … interesting,” I said in as politely adult a tone as I could manage.
Interesting
was always a useful word.

“I’m afraid I’m a vegetarian,” claimed Mia, proving cleverer than me, as she often did. “And I have this silly allergy to celeriac.”

Also, you’re stuffed full of Christmas cookies
, I added silently.

“Oh dear, never mind. I’ll make you a sandwich if you like.” Florence smiled so radiantly, it positively hurt your eyes. “You’re staying in the Finchleys’ apartment, aren’t you? Is Mrs. Finchley still collecting those charming china figurines?”

I wondered whether I could say “Yes, they’re so interesting” again without sounding negative about it, but once again Mia had chipped in ahead of me. “No, these days she’s collecting the most dreadfully vulgar-looking dancers.”

I quickly looked down at the plate with my starter on it, so as not to giggle. What on earth
was
the stuff on it? I could identify the thin, red slices as some kind of meat, but what was the mushy pile beside it?

Grayson, who was sitting beside me, seemed to have read my mind. “Chutneys are Mrs. Dimbleby’s specialty,” he told me quietly. “This one is green-tomato chutney.”

“Oh. Ah. Interesting.” I put a lavish forkful into my mouth and nearly spat it all out again. For a moment I forgot my good intentions. “Are those
raisins
in it?” I asked Grayson incredulously. He didn’t reply. He had taken his iPhone out of his jeans pocket and was looking at the display under the table. I’d have looked too, purely out of curiosity, but I had enough to do swallowing the weird chutney stuff. As well as raisins, it contained onions, garlic, curry power, ginger, and—yes, no doubt about it, that was cinnamon. And something that, when I bit it, felt like crunchy buttons of some kind. Mrs. Dimbleby had probably stirred in everything that needed to be used up. If that was her specialty, I hated to think what the thing she didn’t cook so well would taste like.

Mia grinned at me maliciously as I washed the chutney down with a gulp of orange juice.

“But aren’t the Finchleys coming back from South America next month, Dad?” asked Florence.

“Yes, they are. They’ll be needing their apartment back from the first of October.” Ernest glanced briefly at Mom and took a deep breath. “In fact, that’s exactly what we wanted to discuss with all of you this evening.”

The display of Grayson’s iPhone flickered. When he noticed me looking curiously at it, he held his hand farther under the table, as if he was afraid I might read the message with him. I wasn’t even particularly interested in his text message. I thought the tattoo on the inside of his wrist was far more intriguing. Black lettering, half hidden by the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“You’re one of that blond boy group from school,” I whispered. “That’s why I thought you looked familiar.”

“What?”

“We’ve met before. I saw you and your friends in school today.”

“Really? I don’t remember that.”

Of course not. He hadn’t so much as looked at me. “Never mind. Pretty tattoo.”
Sub um
 … Unfortunately I couldn’t make out the rest of it.

“What?” His eyes had been following my glance. “Oh, that. It’s not a tattoo, only felt pen. Er … notes for Latin.”

Yes, sure. “Interesting,” I said. “Show me!”

But Grayson wasn’t about to do any such thing. He pulled the sleeve of his T-shirt down over the “notes” and turned back to his iPhone.

That was
really
interesting. Without thinking, I put another forkful of chutney into my mouth. Bad mistake—it tasted even worse the second time. But at least I could now identify the crunchy buttons as walnuts.

“You see, it’s like this.…” Ernest was looking solemn and had taken Mom’s hand. Mom was smiling in a forced way at the pretty arrangement of blue hydrangeas in the middle of the dining table. No doubt about it—something serious was coming.

“Ann … your mother … well…” Ernest cleared his throat and began again. This time he wasn’t stammering. Instead he sounded as if he were addressing the Economic and Social Committee of the European Court of Justice. “Ann and I have decided to take the fiasco over at the cottage as a sign from Fortuna to consolidate our relationship and dispense with the problem of who lives where by, so to speak … merging.”

After this announcement there was silence for a good five seconds, after which I had a terrible coughing fit, because as I gasped for air, a raisin had gone down the wrong way. It was some time before I had dealt … no, sorry,
dispensed
with the coughing fit. My eyes were streaming, but I could clearly see that Florence, sitting opposite me, had stopped smiling. Even the sun had stopped shining in through the window, having disappeared behind the roof of the house next door. Grayson, to be sure, was still busy with his cell phone under the table. He was probably Googling the meaning of
consolidate
, although it was only too obvious.

“Lottie says you should always explain yourself as simply as possible so that people can understand you,” commented Mia.

“Yes, what, exactly, are you saying, Dad?” Florence’s voice was no longer sweet as honey. It sounded rather like the way the chutney tasted. “You mean that you and Ann are looking for a
shared
apartment? Now? At once? But you’ve only known each other for six months.”

“So to speak … well, no, not really.” Ernest was still smiling, but tiny beads of sweat were standing out on his bald patch. “After thinking it over at length … At our age, time is a precious…” He shook his head, obviously furious with himself for being so tongue-tied. “The house is large enough for us all,” he said at last, firmly.

“And you two grew up here,” said Mom to Grayson and Florence. The corners of her mouth were quivering slightly. “We didn’t want to ask you to face moving house in your last year at school.”

No, sure. Moving house wasn’t good for the emotional balance of young people. Anyone could tell that from Mia and me. Mia made a funny sound, like Buttercup when you stepped on her paw by accident.

“We’re supposed to move into
this
house?” she asked quietly. “And all of us live here together?”

Ernest and Mom, who were still holding hands, exchanged a brief glance.

“Yes,” said Ernest firmly. Mom just nodded.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Florence pushed her plate away. “This house is only just large enough for us—where do you think we can put three extra people?”

Four!
I felt like saying. She’d forgotten Lottie. But I could only get out a kind of croak—there was still something lodged in my throat.

“This house is enormous, Florence,” said Ernest. “It has six bedrooms. If we move around a bit, we’ll all fit in perfectly well. I thought Grayson could have the gable room at the front of the house, you can have your old room back again, and then Mia and Liv can—”

“What?” Florence’s voice wasn’t far from being a screech now. “Those are
my
rooms up under the roof—I’m certainly not giving them up and sharing a bathroom with Grayson again. Grayson! Say something, why don’t you?”

Grayson was looking confused. He hadn’t even looked up from his iPhone. Imagine that, when the world was coming to an end up above the table! He certainly had strong nerves! “Er … yes,” he said. “Why can’t Florence stay on the top floor under the roof? There are plenty of rooms on the second floor.”

“Grayson, have you been listening
at all
?” Florence stared at him, stunned. “They’re planning to
move in here
next month! Tell them we don’t have room for them! The gable room is Granny’s room, my old room is Dad’s office, the corner room is our guest room, and I’ve put all my winter clothes in the built-in cupboard in your room.…”

“Flo, darling, do please listen.” The beads of sweat on Ernest’s forehead seemed to have grown a little larger. “I can understand that you feel you won’t have quite as much space to yourself, but—”

“But
what
?” spat Florence.

Even in all this upheaval, I couldn’t help being grateful to her for having stopped being so grown-up and polite. I liked her a lot better with that hysterical voice and eyes flashing with fury. Mia and I were looking back and forth at her and Ernest as if they were playing tennis. Mom fixed her eyes firmly on the flower arrangement again, and Grayson was staring at his iPhone as if spellbound. Maybe he was Googling “patchwork family” and “first aid.”

“—it wouldn’t be forever,” said Ernest. “Look, this time next year you twins will be moving out to study somewhere, then you’ll be home during university vacations at the most, and—”

Florence interrupted him. “And so you won’t be lonely you’re bringing a woman and two substitute children into the house? Can’t you wait until we’ve left?”

Yes, or even a few years longer.

Now it was Ernest’s turn to sound chillier. “I realize that you have to get used to this new situation, as we all of us here do. But I have already made up my mind.” He passed the back of his hand over his forehead. “We just have to move things around a little. If Grayson moves into the gable room—”

“Which belongs to Granny!” Florence was shouting in such a loud voice that the ginger cat jumped off the sofa and several feet into the air. He was quite a fat cat. “Have you told Granny about your plans? No, of course not! She’s on a cruise on the other side of the world—very practical, isn’t it?—and she doesn’t know the first thing about all this!”

“Florence—”

“Where’s she going to sleep when she comes to stay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Your grandmother lives twenty minutes away—she doesn’t need a room here at all. She can simply drive back to her own house after visiting us. But if you like, you can have the gable room, Grayson can just stay in his old room, Mia can have the corner room, and I’ll clear the study out for Liv.” Ernest smiled at Mom. “I work much too hard anyway. I’ll avoid doing that at home in the future.”

Hesitantly, Mom returned his smile.

“Wait a moment—if Liv and Mia are going to be on the second floor too, then who gets my rooms in the attic?” Florence looked penetratingly at Mom. “You, by any chance?”

“No,” said Mom, sounding scared. “I don’t need much space. Honestly, as far as that goes, I can manage with very little. All I have is a few crates of books. No, your father thought the rooms up there would be just right for Lottie.”

At this Florence went right off her rocker. “The
nanny
?” she cried shrilly, digging her forefinger into the air so hard that she almost poked Mia’s forehead. “These two are far too old for a nanny … and I’m supposed to give up my attic rooms to her and share a bathroom with three other people? Honestly, this is the end!”

“Lottie is much more than a nanny. She also does almost all the housework, the shopping, and the cooking,” said Ernest. “And as … well … a very important emotional factor, she cannot, at the moment, be excluded from these considerations.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we need Lottie,” I said quietly.

“Not forever, of course,” Mom made haste to say. “You are quite right, Florence. Mia and Liv are indeed much too old for a nanny. Maybe Lottie will stay another year, maybe only six months.…” She saw Mia’s lower lip beginning to tremble and added, “We’ll just have to see how much longer we need her.”

I reached for Mia’s hand under the table and squeezed it.
Don’t cry
, I begged her silently. Because I was afraid that if Mia started crying, I’d have to join in too.

“And how about Mrs. Dimbleby?”

“Mrs. Dimbleby has been wanting to work shorter hours for years,” said Ernest. “She’ll be glad if she’s needed here for only one or two days a week.”

“Grayson! Did you hear that?” cried Florence.

Grayson raised his head. He actually was still busy with his iPhone. “Yes, of course,” he said.

But Florence didn’t seem to believe him. Once again, at high volume, she summed up the evening’s revelations for her own benefit. “Dad doesn’t just want Ann and her children to move in here, all of us to clear out of our rooms,
and share a bathroom between four of us
”—at this point her voice rose to such a pitch that I felt as if the windowpanes were beginning to rattle—“he also wants to fire Mrs. Dimbleby and give her job to Ann’s nanny instead! And the nanny is getting my rooms up in the attic.”