Midnight Read online

  I looked at him warily, wondering what little game he was hatching. ‘We are friends now, aren’t we?’ I said.

  ‘Of course we are.’ Will dug his finger in the strawberry jampot and smeared my wrist and his own with scarlet jam. ‘We’ll still be blood siblings,’ he said, and then he licked my wrist clean and I licked his.

  Mum made a fuss when she came downstairs in her green woollen dress, a purple scarf pinned into place with an amber brooch. Her face was very pale above her colourful outfit.

  ‘What’s all this about you not coming? Of course you’re coming – both of you.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ said Will. ‘And you don’t want to either. You’re just going because Dad bullied you into it. Gran’s never been that nice to you either, has she?’

  Mum flushed, looking uncomfortable. ‘Don’t, Will, please. All right, you don’t have to come. I do understand. But Violet, you must go. You’ll upset your dad so if you don’t.’

  ‘That’s just too bad,’ I said, folding my arms. I kept them folded, hugging myself for courage when Dad came back downstairs. His face was still bright pink, his neck nearly purple where his tight collar was digging into him. He always dressed in a formal shirt and tie and suit to see Gran because she said she couldn’t bear seeing grown men in sloppy T-shirts.

  ‘Last chance, Violet,’ Dad said. ‘We’re leaving in five minutes. You’ve still got time to get washed and get your togs on if you jump to it.’

  ‘I’m not jumping, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ said Dad. ‘I’m not going to lower myself and plead. Though what if this is the last birthday your grandmother ever has? It’s surely not too much to ask, one little family visit on a special day, after all I do for you? I even act like your personal chauffeur, driving you round to see your fancy friends.’

  I stood silently, hanging onto my elbows, trying not to react.

  ‘You stone-faced little cow,’ Dad said suddenly. ‘What sort of a daughter are you? Well, stew in your own juice then.’

  He stormed out of the house. Mum gazed at us anxiously, fumbling in her purse and putting a ten-pound note down on the table.

  ‘There’s not much in the fridge apart from the lamb and stuff. Get yourselves something nice down at the corner shop. And don’t do anything silly, either of you. Do you hear me?’

  I nodded, suddenly near tears.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her,’ said Will.

  Dad yelled from out in the driveway for Mum to get a bloody move on.

  ‘Hark at him, bellowing like a bull. What will the neighbours think?’ said Mum. ‘I’ve half a mind to stay home too.’

  But she scuttled out to join him. We heard the car doors slam and then the roar of the engine as they drove off.

  It was very quiet in the kitchen. Will tore a kitchen towel off the roll and gently dabbed at my wet eyes.

  ‘I’m crying because of Mum, not Dad,’ I sniffed. ‘You’re lucky, Will. I wish he wasn’t my real dad. I hate him. If only I had a dad like Jonathan.’ But I shut my mouth quickly. I didn’t want to spoil things by talking about Jasmine and annoying Will.

  ‘Cheer up, little sister,’ said Will.

  ‘Oh Will!’ I sobbed.

  ‘Hey, you won’t need a shower at this rate. Race you for the bathroom, eh?’

  Will got there long before me, but he was only two minutes using the bathroom. I took much longer, washing my hair in the bath. I heard music coming from Will’s room, beautiful strange piano playing. He usually played really loud thumping rock music, partly to annoy Dad, but I knew he had a collection of classical CDs that he listened to secretly, using headphones.

  When I was dressed I pattered shyly along to his room, my hair tied up in a towel. Will had propped the door open so I could hear the music properly.

  ‘It’s lovely. What is it?’

  ‘Debussy. It’s called “The Dance of Puck”. It’s the nearest I can get to fairy music for you.’

  I hovered at Will’s door. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Sure.’

  It was ages since I’d been in Will’s bedroom. Muffy’s cage was still there, taking up half the room. He’d tied black ribbon and white silk lilies to the bars and made a model of a chinchilla out of papier-mâché, painting it white and putting it on a pedestal so it looked like a marble memorial statue.

  ‘Oh Will. You must get another.’

  ‘No, no more pets. I’m not keeping anything caged any more. I’m getting into bats though. I’ve made a bat box and hung it out the back of our house. I want them to roost in our loft.’

  ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ I thought he was, but I saw he had several library books on bats. He had piles of books all over his room, mostly non-fiction, but he had a lot of fantasy and horror paperbacks and there were all his old childhood favourites still on the windowsill, the Narnia books and The Wind in the Willows and The Jungle Book. There were reminders of the little boy Will all over his room. He’d kept his quartz collection, and the same little troop of pipe-cleaner mountaineers were trekking up this rocky terrain. I looked all round and eventually spotted Big Growl hibernating under a pile of crumpled clothes.

  The pictures and postcards Blu-tacked to his walls were more sophisticated, mostly photos of tortured Gothic singers, boys in black with black hair, girls in white with long blonde hair. There was a set of Hieronymus Bosch creatures with rabbit heads and flowering genitals coupling in imaginative new ways, then a painful series of souls being tortured in hell. There were also five photos of Muffy crouching in corners, her snout in the air, her eyes bright with love. The only other photo was one of a baby, a peaky little creature with a shock of thick black hair and big violet eyes.

  ‘You’ve got my photo on your wall!’ I said.

  ‘Well. You were quite sweet then. You’ve gone off rapidly since,’ said Will.

  ‘I looked so weird as a baby. It’s odd, we are a bit alike. Look at the hair.’

  ‘I always used to wonder why there weren’t any baby photos of me,’ said Will. ‘I asked them once. Dad said it was because I was such an ugly little tyke that the camera broke. Mum got a bit flustered and spun me this long story about a photo album going missing. I was more inclined to believe the old man.’

  ‘What – that you were ugly?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Will, lying back on his bed, his arms behind his head.

  ‘Oh, come on! You’re milking the poor-little-me situation a bit too much now. You know perfectly well everyone thinks you’re drop-dead gorgeous,’ I said.

  ‘What do you think, Violet? No, OK, we’re related, more or less. What about little friend Goldilocks? You two obviously have long discussions about me.’

  ‘No, we don’t. Well. Just the once.’

  ‘And what did she say about me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I did know. Jasmine had said he seemed the only interesting boy in the whole school. But that was private, between Jasmine and me. She’d die if I told Will, I was sure.

  ‘I think we’ll maybe play a game of Truth or Dare,’ said Will.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t look so panic-stricken. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘For you. No, Will, let’s go out, please. We don’t have to go all the way to Brompton Woods. We could go anywhere. We could just have a little wander in the park, or go round the shops. We’ve got Mum’s tenner, look. We could have lunch in McDonald’s. Or I’ll cook us lunch. I could do the roast, I’m sure I could, though I’ll have to get started right this minute.’

  ‘You go and make us a coffee while I ponder,’ said Will.

  ‘OK, great, coffee coming up,’ I said, shooting straight down to the kitchen. I made us both black coffees and I snaffled two truffles from Mum’s secret supply in the tablecloth drawer. She always hid her birthday boxes of chocolates because Will and Dad would help themselves indiscriminately if she left them out on the sideboard.

  Will came downstairs