Chapter Seven
Three years later
Sunday, 26 July 1978
When I took up the floorboard on the porch this year to remove the book I felt rather embarrassed. I know them so well now surely I don’t need to keep the book there. But I am still afraid they might decide they don’t like me so it is good to keep the book safe. I feel calm when I think about it in its little box, safe under the house next to the strange bird man & the old toy car & the ice-lolly sticks.
The Wildflowers are arriving today. When was the last time they were all here together? Well, I know, obviously, I know everything, it was when Ben disappeared.
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I saw any of them. In fact it is Three Hundred and Forty-Nine Days.
Cord is terrible at writing letters. Ben is even worse. I have so many questions but I obviously can’t ask them all, they’d be scared if I did as it is rather strange to want to know as much as I do & I know that but during the rest of the year (349 days) without them sometimes I think I will burst with wanting to know what they are up to as Althea is the only one I ever see and even then that is because she is on television, and not in real life.
1. What clothes will Althea have bought? She seems to have more than ever now. Will she tell me anything about the new series of “Hartman Hall”?
2. What will Cord be into? She is always into something new, ABBA, then when Ben was in hospital she listened to a lot of David Bowie with him, he’s got a transistor radio like mine. So being Cord she is suddenly world expert on him. I learn all about something so we can talk about it together and she’s always moved on to something else. After Bowie it was space shuttles. Everything about how they’re made. Last year she was obsessed with chess and Garry Kasparov! And I’ve never played chess ever before so I spent all year learning it & joined the chess club. I got really good because of my strange brain liking things like chess, in fact, I am the best at chess in the whole school and represented Bristol in the Inter-School Chess Championships & then I got one letter from her, ONE LETTER this year in June and she said she hadn’t played chess all year she was obsessed with Brezhnev and the Communist Party and Russia and she was a communist!!!!!
I give up!!!!
Well, I haven’t learned about Communism. She can whistle for it. I understand what she’s like why she’s like it, Cord needs something to think about and I like that too. The thing is we don’t have anything in common really, apart from laughing. We laugh all the time. She’s just so funny.
3. What about Ben? How do I feel about Ben?
(((((No one knows about last summer in the beach hut and I have kept it to myself all year. Anyway there is no one to tell. I don’t know much if Cord would like it. It was the last night. I was sad. Ben told me what happened when he was missing for the very first time and we were very quiet afterwards and then he leaned over & kissed me & said thank you for being my friend & not feeling sorry for me. I said, that’s OK.
I hate people feeling sorry for me. Althea does a bit and it makes me feel all funny inside. I DON’T like it.
It was the nicest thing that’s happened to me and I will carry that till the day I die which I hope is right here with all of them because I will never ever love anything or anyone as much as them.)))))
That is the most top secret thing I have ever written.
Gary says they are coming in time for a late lunch because Althea has an interview with a newspaper in the morning. Gary is their name for Mrs Gage. Althea likes nicknames, Mads, Bertle, Gary. Gary has made meat loaf & a salad. I am hiding behind the wild roses watching her. The hollyhocks are out, they wave in the wind, they’re almost as tall as the roof. The doors on to the porch are open, I can see the checked lemon curtains flapping in the breeze and I can hear Terry Wogan on the radio and I can see into the beloved house, I can see the picture of Great-Aunt Dinah on the wall opposite, the raffia wine bottle that’s the candlestick, the two wooden stools we always fight to not sit on, the huge chocolate brown teapot on the side, the old worn basket chairs, the dresser, the pile of board games all neatly packed away for once. Stuck behind the dresser on the floor I can see the paper ballgown of the Queen of the Fairies cut-out set we had two years ago which Cord lost & she was so upset about. It’s funny, here we play with childish things, silly games and dolls, and it doesn’t matter. The ballgown is jammed between the skirting board and the dresser, it must have fallen down there. I will creep in now and go and get it and give it to Cord when she arrives, she will be so pleased with me and I need to straighten the floorboard, I can see I didn’t put it back down properly.
The looking forward is almost the worst with the Wildflowers. Because it will end one day & they will be gone. Just for one day, one day I would like to know a feeling where you are totally, utterly happy with nothing else but happiness in your heart, no worries about anything else. Just one day please.
I must go now cos Gary has gone downstairs. I will grab the doll dress and do the floorboard, like a little fairy myself, and no one will know I was there.