Free The Summer of Secrets by Sarah Jasmon

Her hair and face were wet from the rain, her blouse a clinging second skin. Victoria was standing behind the chair, massaging Alice’s shoulders, but they didn’t seem to be talking. The sun was out now, a swathe of light catching the two of them against the red brick of the wall. The colours around them, on them, were rich and somehow golden. Helen felt her throat close up again. Poor Alice. She was so beautiful, so … other. A picture came into her mind of her own mother, fussing about things being tidy, always asking what she, Helen, had been doing. Victoria was so lucky.
    Helen swiped a hand across her eyes, wishing she could go and join them. It would be like breaking through a spider’s web, though. She felt too large, too solid, the sort of clodhopping peasant who crashed into fairy stories and got turned into stone. Instead, she retreated into the sitting room but the front door was locked and there was no sign of the key. The windows were no use to her either, their frames sealed with many years’ worth of thick, white paint. For a brief second she felt a lack of air, the walls closing around her in a dizzy rush. The twins’ voices, floating down the stairs, came from another planet. She tried to think. She could join the twins. She could go back up to Victoria’s room. She could wait where she was, pretending to read or something. Or she could go home, giving a casual wave as she passed by, as if this sort of thing happened every day. There was only one option, really, and she made her way with slow steps back to the kitchen. It turned out that she needn’t have worried. As she sidled down the side of the cottage towards the path, one hand lifted, neither Victoria nor Alice noticed her go.

Chapter Eight
    The feeling of being an intruder lingered overnight, and Helen found herself searching for things to do around the house. As she kicked mess into corners and behind furniture, she went over the previous afternoon, replaying the conversation to work out what had happened. Perhaps she’d asked too many questions. She tried taking pictures down from the sitting room walls with the vague idea of making the house more Dover-like, but there was nothing to put up in their place, and the pale squares they left behind made the rest of the walls seem dirty. She hung them back up in a different order, but they were still boring. One day she’d live somewhere beautiful, with colour and clutter and shelves crammed with interesting things. Dissatisfied, she drifted back to the kitchen. The dirty washing-up water still hadn’t gone down the drain. She’d have to tell her dad.
    As if on cue, Mick came out from the back of the garage. She watched him shamble along the path to the house and waited for the kitchen door to swing open.
    ‘Dad, the sink’s blocked.’
    Mick didn’t answer, but sank down on a chair and started to roll a cigarette. He seemed tired, the pouches heavy under his eyes and rough stubble covering his chin. The ribbing around the V of his jumper was loose, wool unravelling in a curly spring. Helen felt a twist of love for him in her stomach. It wasn’t fair. Mum had been so mean, always going on about what he didn’t do. She’d make it up to him somehow. Leaving the sink, she crossed to the chair on the other side of the table.
    ‘Have you been doing something to the boat?’
    He lit up; closed his eyes.
    ‘It’s too much for one person.’ His eyes stayed closed. ‘I’ve missed my time.’
    ‘No you haven’t.’ She tried to remember the names of friends he’d had, people he could contact. ‘How about Ken? You know, he used to be interested in it.’
    ‘Too busy with his wife and kids.’ Mick blew out a gush of smoke and opened his eyes to study the glowing end of the roll-up. ‘There’s not enough maintenance done on the canal, anyway. The locks are falling apart, the bottom’s filling up. Won’t be anywhere left to take the boat at this rate.’
    ‘You could always go to