He was a Gypsy. A Traveller. She was never quite sure what to call them. All she knew was that he hung around with the group of people who parked their caravans on someone else’s land until they were told to move on. Katy had seen him lurking around the newsagent’s on the corner, usually with a mangy dog in tow. He looked out of place on the clean, wide streets of Clifton. But he was handsome – even Katy, at sixteen, could see that – with his long dark hair, olive skin and sparkly blue eyes. Although she daren’t even contemplate having a boyfriend. Elspeth was dead against it and it had been drilledinto Viola and herself that she wouldn’t stand for them bringing boys home. That they had to have left school before they even thought about a serious relationship, and even then it had to be with the ‘right kind of boy’. Katy knew that the ‘right kind’ meant someone who’d gone to a good school, and was from a ‘nice family’. Not some Gypsy boy of no fixed abode.
One crisp Saturday in early March, as she walked past the newsagent on her way home from the shops, she saw him talking to a pretty blonde girl in a puffball skirt and over-the-knee socks. With a jolt, she realized it was Viola. And from the way Viola giggled and twirled her hair, she could see that her sister was smitten.
Katy couldn’t help smiling to herself as she scurried past them and let herself into the house. Elspeth would never approve. Oh, no. Elspeth had plans for Viola that included university and law school, not relationships with out-of-work Travellers.
Katy hugged the secret to her chest as the days passed, relishing that she, for once, had something over Viola. She watched from the attic window as Viola sneaked off to meet him whenever she could. Elspeth was still grieving for Huw, and coming to terms with becoming a widow at the young age of forty-seven. Katy had been devastated by Huw’s death. She had come to love her gentle, dependable father. The house seemed vast and empty without him. And even though Elspeth employed a new cook and housekeeper called Aggie, whose warm smile and kind eyes went some way to helping Katy feel more secure, she missed Huw fiercely. He’d been her protector, and fear plagued her that Viola’s nastiness would turn up a notchnow he was dead. Elspeth had changed since his death too, becoming more brittle and harder to please.
Luckily, Viola was distracted by Danny.
One warm May evening, Elspeth and Katy were in the kitchen – they’d stopped using the dining room since Huw died – Aggie dishing up fish and salad, when Elspeth said, her eyes narrowed, ‘Kathryn, where’s Viola?’
Katy had fidgeted in her chair. She knew exactly where Viola was. She could tell her mother now and get Viola into trouble or she could cover for her. That way Viola would owe her. ‘I think she’s still at the library. Studying. She’s got her A levels coming up.’
‘Yes,’ said Elspeth, spreading a cloth napkin over her lap. ‘I’m well aware of that, thank you, Kathryn.’ She always refused to shorten her name. She looked down at the elegant Cartier watch on her wrist. ‘It’s past her curfew on a school night.’
Just then Viola bounded into the kitchen, her cheeks flushed, her hair escaping from her ponytail. She looked more beautiful than Katy had ever seen her. ‘You’re late,’ snapped her mother, without glancing up from her food.
‘I’m sorry, I –’
‘I told Mother you were at the library,’ chimed in Katy, her eyes meeting Viola’s. ‘I assumed that’s where you still were after I left.’
Viola widened her big blue eyes in surprise. ‘I – Yes, I was. Studying.’
Afterwards, as they were getting ready for bed, Viola cornered Katy in her attic room. ‘Why did you lie for me?’ she hissed. ‘I don’t need you doing me any favours.’
Katy shrugged, enjoying herself for once. ‘Okay, fine. Then I’ll tell her where you really were.’
‘Where I really was? What do you know about it, you brown-nosed little shit?’
‘You were with that Danny O’Connor. You’ve been sneaking off to meet him for months.’
Her face paled. ‘What?’
‘You heard,’ said Katy, sounding braver than she felt. ‘I’ve seen everything.’
The fight seemed to seep out of Viola and she sank to the floor, her head in her hands and groaned. ‘Mother would kill me if she knew. She’d stop me seeing him.’
Katy joined her on the floor, her legs crossed. She tentatively reached out to touch Viola’s shoulder, feeling she was about to pet a lion. But Viola didn’t move, or bite her head off, like she’d expected. Instead she continued to sit there, her head in her hands. When she eventually looked up her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘I love him,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘I can’t bear to be apart from him. Will you help me?’
She locked eyes with Katy, desperation reflected in the deep blue irises that were so like Elspeth’s. Katy hesitated, pretending to think about it, and the air around them seemed to still, as though the oxygen had been squeezed out of the room. ‘Of course,’ said Katy, eventually.
For the next few months, Katy helped cover for Viola whenever she could, and as a result her sister was nice to her. After Elspeth went to bed Viola would sneak up into Katy’s attic room, sit on the edge of her bed and tell her all about her secret rendezvous with Danny. And even though Katy couldn’t help but feel a little jealous thatViola had found such a handsome, sexy boyfriend, she was honoured that she, geeky, shy Katy, who spent hours in her room with only her books for company, was the confidante of the popular, beautiful and vivacious Viola. She even began to let go of her years-long conviction that Viola had done something awful to Mittens.
Viola sat her A levels and Katy her GCSEs, then the school broke up for the holidays. For the first time, Katy actually looked forward to the summer ahead. She envisaged time spent with Viola and maybe even Danny. Perhaps she could suggest they set her up with one of Danny’s crew. She daydreamed of walking over the Downs with her younger version of Danny, picnics in the sunshine, trips to the cinema as a gang. She’d have a social life for once, apart from just Mandy. Lots of friends. Maybe even a boyfriend of her own.
The summer holidays flew by, and just as she hoped, Viola accepted Katy into her group, allowing her to join them when they went shopping or to the park. Cass always eyed Katy with suspicion, as though she couldn’t understand why she was suddenly allowed to hang out with them. But she didn’t make any trouble and Katy basked in Viola’s attention. One day, Viola took her to Tammy Girl and helped Katy pick out a pair of stone-washed jeans. Katy had never felt so fashionable.
Elspeth seemed delighted that her ‘two best girls’ were getting on so well and every time they went shopping she’d hand them some more cash. ‘If I’d known being friends with you would make Mother so generous I’d have done it years ago,’ laughed Viola, linking her arm through Katy’s as they boarded the bus. Sometimes they sneakedoff to the Downs to meet Danny. Viola would disappear under the bushes with him while Katy kept watch. On the way home one day, Katy asked, ‘Do you think Danny has a friend you could set me up with?’
Viola flicked her long hair over her shoulder while she pouted in her little pocket mirror as she applied her new pearl-pink lipstick. ‘Maybe,’ she’d said noncommittally and Katy had spent the rest of the journey wondering what he’d look like.
One stifling hot Friday night in August, when Elspeth was due at some charity do, Viola asked Katy for another favour.
‘I want to sneak Danny into the house. Will you help me?’
Katy faltered. This was different from the other times. This felt dangerous. If Elspeth caught them it wouldn’t only be Viola who’d get into trouble. The fear of being sent back to the home reared its head again. The threat was always there, lying dormant. It was in the subtle ways Elspeth expected Katy to be constantly grateful and the perfect daughter. When Huw was alive, he’d always come to Katy’s defence on the rare occasions Katy had done something Elspeth disapproved of, and the deep-seated fear of being sent away had lessened. But since Huw had died, Elspeth had taken to finding more and more ways for Katy to disappoint her. The most recent being her end-of-term report at Easter. ‘Oh dear,’ Elspeth had said, her voice cold as she sat across the desk from Katy in what had been Huw’s study but was now hers. ‘This report isn’t as good as I expected. After everything we’ve done for you, all the money we’ve spent. Please don’t make meregret choosing you, Kathryn.’ Katy had apologized and promised to do better until Elspeth was mollified.
‘Please,’ begged Viola, looking up at her through her ridiculously long eyelashes. How could Katy say no? ‘You need to be on the lookout. As soon as Mother comes back, let me know. Once she’s in bed I’ll sneak Danny out through the kitchen. Okay?’
