Girl, (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture Page 7

  STILL GOD’S LITTLE FAVOURITE, EH? WELL, ENJOY! she replied. I AM STUCK HERE IN A GRIM HOTEL IN THE RAIN. MY SHOWER CURTAIN SMELLS LIKE AN OLD TRAMP AND MY MUM KEEPS FLIRTING HIDEOUSLY WITH THE WAITERS.

  There was a waitress at breakfast, thank goodness. Lover boy with the gleaming brow must be off duty. Anyway, Mum didn’t seem in such a flirtatious mood this morning. She wanted an early start.

  As they paid the bill, the gentle rain modulated into a sudden, violent storm. Torrents of muddy water raced down the steep hill, lightning flashed and thunder echoed round the hills. Jess’s mum held an umbrella over Granny as she climbed into the car. Jess leapt into the back and slammed the car door. By the time Jess’s mum got round to the driver’s seat, her hair was wet through. She looked like a scarecrow. Jess was glad Fred wasn’t here to observe this pitiful sight.

  ‘Goodness! What a storm!’ said Granny. ‘I feel quite chilled!’

  In the back of the car was a tartan rug. Jess passed it through to Granny in the front. She received it eagerly and wrapped it round her legs.

  ‘I might not get out at the castle if it’s raining, Madeleine,’ she said. ‘I’ll just sit in the car, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ said Jess’s mum. ‘I still want to go and see this place, though. I’ve –’

  ‘– always wanted to go there!’ shouted Jess in Mum’s voice. They all laughed. It was the first time Jess had made them laugh for ages.

  ‘By the way, I had a text from Flora this morning,’ she said. ‘She’s going to Riverdene after all – with her big sister.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s a different story altogether,’ said Mum. ‘Freya’s such a sensible girl.’

  Huh! What did Mum know? Once Freya had been so mad about a boy, she had gone to a mystic and asked her for a love-spell. Plus – and this was such a dark secret even Freya’s dad didn’t know – she had celebrated her first term at Oxford by having a pig in high heels tattooed on her backside.

  ‘I expect you miss Flora very much, dear,’ said Granny as they drove through the torrential rain, out of the town and into hilly countryside.

  ‘Yeah, but at least we can keep in touch via texts,’ said Jess with extreme cunning. So far she had managed to disguise all Fred’s texts as Flora’s.

  They followed the signs to Berry Pomeroy, and almost immediately found themselves driving along a narrow claustrophobic track through a wood. So this was the most haunted place in England. For the first time on the whole trip, Jess was actually looking forward to seeing something her mum wanted to show her.

  At the end of the long wooded drive they emerged into a sort of clearing. There was a car park sheltered by dripping trees, and a short distance away the ruins of the castle rose, ghastly, dark and fractured, into the sky. Jess’s mum parked the car, and just as they were getting out, the rain stopped with almost spooky suddenness.

  ‘I’m still not coming round it,’ said Granny. ‘I bought this newspaper two days ago and I haven’t finished it yet.’

  ‘OK,’ said Mum. ‘We won’t be long.’

  Mum bought a couple of tickets from a man in a booth, and Jess looked up at the towering ruins. Strange, twisting vapours rose from the ancient stones. The whole place was steaming in a really eerie way.

  ‘Berry Pomeroy Castle,’ said her mum, reading from a guidebook, ‘was built in the late fifteenth century as a main family seat of the Pomeroys … Wait a minute, that’s a bit boring … It was abandoned sometime between 1688 and 1701, and was left to fall into decay. It quickly became overgrown and steeped in mystery, folklore and legends.’

  ‘Look, Mum,’ said Jess. ‘Do you mind if I just wander about on my own? No offence, right? I just want to sort of tune in to the atmosphere. I can read the guidebook myself. You don’t have to read it for me.’

  ‘Hah!’ said her mum. ‘You, read a guidebook? All right. I’ll shut up.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll read it, and if there’s anything you want to know, just ask.’

  ‘Thanks. See you in a minute,’ said Jess, and walked off. She looked around. Broken, ruined walls towered above her on all sides. Some rooks cawed in the nearby wood, and their calls echoed around the walls in a sinister way.

  Jess walked off to the right, through a ruined doorway, down a gravel path to a round tower with a strange, empty window that looked, somehow, as if it were scowling. Dripping spiral steps led downwards inside the tower. At the bottom was a sandy floor. A draught of air passed across Jess’s face. She felt cold and horribly lonely.

  Suddenly she felt she wanted to talk to Fred. She hadn’t had a text from him for ages. She got out her mobile and rang him on his. There was no reply. It was switched through to voicemail.

  Jess didn’t leave a message. She didn’t want to sound like an idiot – desperate and needy. Instead, she had a brilliant idea. She would ring him at home! He probably hadn’t gone out to work yet – most of the catering jobs seemed to be at lunchtime or in the evenings. At this time of day – mid-morning – he was bound to be at home.

  Her fingers shook with excitement as she dialled Fred’s home number. She could hear it ringing in that divine house where Fred’s magical presence was a daily reality. Then, suddenly, somebody picked up. It was Fred’s mum.

  ‘Anne Parsons?’

  ‘Oh, hello, this is Jess. Is Fred there, please?’

  ‘Oh, hi, Jess! No – I’m afraid he’s gone away for a few days.’

  ‘Oh – I thought he had a job?’

  ‘No – he got the sack yesterday for spilling things and not being polite enough. Honestly, what an idiot! So he’s gone off to Riverdene with somebody – Luke, I think.’

  Jess’s heart leapt in shock. Fred was going to Riverdene! He was bound to meet Flora there. Unless – and at this thought an icy spear seemed to stab right through her heart – unless he and Flora had hatched a secret plan to go together.

  Chapter 19

  Heroically Jess attempted to continue the conversation in a skittish, lighthearted way, even though her heart lay shattered into three thousand pieces at her feet. No, four thousand. Eat your heart out, Thomas Hardy.

  ‘Oh, right. OK! Thanks! It was nothing urgent!’ said Jess, trying to sound carefree and relaxed. So Fred hadn’t sold the Riverdene tickets after all! What a liar. She felt sick, sick, sick.

  ‘Are you having a lovely time?’ asked Fred’s mum.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jess, between clenched teeth. ‘It’s brilliant! Sorry – I have to go now – I’m running out of credit.’

  She hung up. As she put the mobile back in her pocket, she heard her mother’s footsteps up above. She came carefully down the wet stone stairs. Jess hoped she hadn’t overheard the phone call.

  ‘Oh, Jess!’ said Mum, as she arrived at the bottom of the tower. ‘There you are! I thought I’d lost you. What’s the matter, love? You look pale.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Jess, trying to hide her shaking hands. Fred and Flora, together at Riverdene! ‘I just …’ She scrambled for an explanation. ‘I felt a bit odd down here, that’s all.’

  ‘Let’s go up and get a cup of tea in the little cafe,’ said Mum. ‘That’ll put you right.’

  How typical of Mum, Jess thought. The idea that a cup of brown water is going to bring me back from the edge of madness.

  They sat down outside the tiny cafe by the entrance, and Jess had a cup of hot chocolate. It might not perform therapeutic miracles, but it was certainly more interesting than tea.

  ‘That tower – the one you were in – is called St Margaret’s Tower,’ said Mum, consulting the guidebook. ‘It’s one of the oldest parts of the castle. And the tower, it says here, is allegedly haunted by the “White Lady”, the ghost of Lady Margaret Pomeroy who, according to legend, was imprisoned here by her jealous sister, Lady Eleanor. Several people claim to have seen her or felt her presence in the tower. So maybe it was the White Lady who spooked you down there.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jess. It was interesting that the tower
had been the scene of intense hostility between sisters, though. If Flora stole Fred, Jess would immediately rent a concrete mixer and wall her up alive. Not for her whole life necessarily. Just until she started to lose her looks. Although knowing Flora’s luck, she would still be ravishingly beautiful at ninety.

  After the cup of hot chocolate, Jess made a massive effort and assured her mum that she had fully recovered from her haunting.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts anyway,’ said Mum firmly as they walked back to the car.

  ‘Mum! You’re glued to repeats of Most Haunted every chance you get!’ said Jess. ‘You’re a sucker for all that stuff.’ Jess was thinking how easy it was to be haunted by one’s two best friends in broad daylight. She could see them clearly right now, frolicking flirtatiously at Riverdene.

  ‘Goodness, are you back already?’ said Granny as they arrived at the car. ‘I had a lovely talk with a woman who was walking her dog. He was called Bosun and apparently he’s fathered thirty-six pups. She showed me her pooper-scooper. It was a very stylish one. She said she’d bought it in New York.’

  Mum climbed into the car and peered over her glasses at the road map.

  ‘What do you say?’ asked Mum. ‘Where shall we go next? What do you fancy? Garden history, a stately home or a zoo?’

  ‘I’m getting a bit tired, what with all this rambling about, dear,’ said Granny. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance, but I’d quite like to go somewhere and stay put for a bit. All this packing and unpacking is exhausting. I keep sleeping through the Six O’Clock News.’

  ‘I’d like to stay put somewhere, too,’ said Jess. ‘Somewhere by the sea.’ She was longing to go and sit and stare at the waves for hours and hours. And, possibly, throw herself in.

  ‘Couldn’t we go down to Mousehole?’ enquired Granny. Mousehole was a sweet little fishing village where she and Grandpa had had their honeymoon.

  ‘I want to go to Mousehole, too!’ said Jess. Even in the depths of her misery she still retained an affection for small fluffy rodents. Although rats were quite a different matter – especially if they were also one’s best friends. ‘Or even better – St Ives! I’m dying to see Dad.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we could go straight down to Penzance,’ said Mum. ‘That’s just next door to Mousehole. We could settle down there for the weekend. You two could hang around Penzance and Mousehole as much as you like, and I could drive back up the coast and have a look at the gardens and things by myself. It’s not far. I could easily make a day trip of it.’

  ‘Great idea, Mum!’ said Jess. ‘You know you always enjoy visiting gardens much more when you’re by yourself.’ Jess liked the idea of whole long solitary days by herself. It would make it much easier to be picturesquely miserable.

  ‘I do wish you’d get interested in gardens, though,’ sighed her mum.

  ‘Mum, get real! I’m a teenager, for goodness’ sake! If I was interested in gardens at my age I would be some kind of social misfit!’

  Mum made some phone calls and sorted out the accommodation – she had a mobile for emergencies, although she always held it some distance away from her head to avoid brain damage. So stylish. Then they drove off from the haunted castle – Jess had a last look at it, over her shoulder – and within half an hour they came to a dual carriageway down which cars were whooshing with carefree speed.

  ‘Can I have a look at the map, Granny?’ asked Jess. Mum didn’t need any more navigating now they were on the main road.

  Granny passed the map back, and Jess picked it up and studied it. Penzance didn’t look very far from St Ives at all. Maybe, inspired by Granny’s example of romance in Cornwall, Mum and Dad would fall in love all over again.

  Jess uttered a silent prayer. God, are you in charge of dating? If so, could you fix it so my mum and dad get together again? And we could all live by the sea in a big house with a huge dog called Boss. And please, please make Flora smell just awful, if you don’t mind. Just during Riverdene.

  Although it might be a smart move to inflict dire body odour on Flora for the rest of her fabulous life.

  ‘I’ve been reading this guidebook,’ said Granny. ‘And it’s quite amusing. Guess what it says about Mousehole! The fishermen of Mousehole once had a reputation for smuggling, bad language, drunkenness and lechery which was envied by quieter men. He’s very interesting, this writer. What’s his name? Darrell Bates. Do you know him, dear?’

  ‘Only in my capacity as a librarian,’ said Mum. ‘We’ve never actually dated, or anything.’

  ‘If you could date a writer, any writer, who would it be?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Dead or alive?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Well, knowing you, Mum, dead would be first choice, obviously – but you could just force yourself for once and go out with somebody who still has a pulse.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mum, dismissing the whole of live mankind, ‘give me Shakespeare any day.’

  So all Jess had to do was persuade her dad to shave his head, grow a beard, wear wrinkly tights and write several works of surpassing genius. It should be a piece of cake.

  Chapter 20

  After a while, Jess managed to stop feeling torn apart by jealousy for a split second. She stopped worrying about nightmare scenarios from Riverdene. Instead she was wondering about what Dad’s house would be like. Then Mum announced that she was getting a bad headache.

  ‘I’m going to have to stop somewhere here for the night,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to ring the guesthouse down in Penzance again and say we’re arriving tomorrow instead. I hope they won’t be cross.’

  Almost immediately they saw a sign advertising a B&B. They turned off the main road and followed signs to a farmhouse. The door was opened by a big woman with a red face, surrounded by three fat and drooling Labradors.

  ‘I only got the family room available, dear,’ said the farmer’s wife in a mooing sort of voice.

  ‘That’s fine, fine,’ said Mum, clutching her brow with a tragic air.

  ‘This way, then,’ said the farmer’s wife, and they followed her up a gloomy old staircase on to an ancient landing with low beams. It looked almost as haunted as Berry Pomeroy Castle.

  ‘In here,’ said the farmer’s wife, throwing open a low door. The bedroom was long and low-ceilinged with three beds, and it smelt faintly of wet dogs. ‘The bathroom’s across the landing.’

  They were shown a grubby little cubicle in which there was a light brown cracked plastic bath dating back to the 1970s.

  ‘Lovely, thank you so much,’ said Mum. ‘Terrific, super.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘A bit later, please, that would be marvellous,’ said Mum. ‘I’d just like half an hour’s sleep first.’

  They went back into their bedroom. Mum sat down on one of the beds and got her headache pills out.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she croaked. ‘I’ll be OK in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t you fret, dear, I’ll get you a wet flannel,’ said Granny.

  Jess went back downstairs to bring the bags up. Deep gloom had descended on her soul. She had been so looking forward to arriving at the seaside and staying there, and seeing her dad very soon. And now they were marooned in this hell-hole for the rest of the day.

  Jess had a tiny single bed in the corner of the room. It was a bit of a squash. She smuggled her mobile into the dismal bathroom and looked desperately for a message from Fred. But there was nothing.

  Mum lay down with a wet flannel on her head, and Granny had a little nap, too. The curtains were drawn. It was like a field hospital from a war movie. Jess had to get out. She crept down the stairs and went outside. There was a notice which said, WALK WHEREVER YOU LIKE BUT PLEASE CLOSE THE GATES AND BEWARE OF THE BULL!

  Outside the farmhouse were fields. Jess wandered into the first one, having first made sure there were no mad cows or ferocious sheep poised to strike. Being in a huge field only made her too aware of the fact that
Fred and Flora were together in a huge field, too – at Riverdene. Instantly an awful hallucination sprang up in her mind.

  ‘I’d love to live in the tropics,’ said Flora, looking ravishing with the sun behind her and daisy chains in her hair. ‘I’d love a house with a big wooden verandah overlooking a coconut grove,’ she went on, stretching her lovely brown arms in the sun. ‘I’d have a hammock and I’d feed parrots with mangos from my own mango tree.’

  ‘I suppose you’d have a swimming pool and a tennis court?’ said Fred, clearly imagining Flora playing tennis – or possibly water-polo.

  ‘Oh yes! But I suppose,’ Flora went on, ‘what with my blonde hair and my blue eyes, I must be careful not to get skin damage.’

  Fred was staring at her in fascination, the swine.

  ‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘Unlike Jess, who is so very dark, short and, let’s be honest, a bit of a porker. I’ve always wondered, Flora, how it is you manage to be so fragrant, whereas Jess, unfortunately – bless her heart – smells rather like a ham that has been left out of the fridge for too long.’

  Jess banished the horrible idea from her mind. She hated being trapped in these vile thoughts. There was only one way to discover whether Fred and Flora had indeed met at Riverdene, and that was to ring them. She got out her mobile phone again. She dialled Fred. His was switched off. She dialled Flora. Hers was switched off, too.

  Suddenly a text from her dad came through.

  MUM SAID YOU’LL BE HERE ON TUESDAY. CAN’T WAIT! WHAT SORT OF JUNK FOOD DO YOU LIKE THESE DAYS? PERSONALLY I’M INTO PEANUTS. I GO ROUND TOWN STEALING FROM ALL THE BIRD TABLES.

  Jess grinned, and composed a list: NACHOS WITH CHEESE AND DIPS, COKE, CHEESEBURGERS WITH DOUBLE FRIES, PIZZA WITH SALAMI ON TOP, JACKET POTATO WITH CHILLI. WELL, THAT’S WHAT I HAD FOR BREAKFAST, ANYWAY.

  She pressed the SEND button but the phone bleeped maliciously and a message flashed up: Message not sent this time. Oh no! She’d run out of credit again. If only she had a contract phone instead of pay-as-you-go. And where was the nearest town, where she could top up her account? Miles away. At this point a cloud should have covered the sun, or a squall of rain hit Jess on the brow. But the sun just went on shining in a relentless kind of way. Jess reached a stile that led into the next field. She climbed up and looked over the hedge.