‘Six to eleven and I wish I was joking,’ I replied. ‘We had to send out new uniform guidelines for next term clarifying that the no-make-up rule includes false eyelashes and nail extensions. Ten-year-olds aren’t what they used to be, Dad.’
‘Neither are eighteen-year-olds,’ he muttered, kicking away a clump of dirt at his feet.
‘Mum was just telling me,’ I replied. ‘I hear my little sister has decided to become the next Jeff Bezos.’
‘She’ll be a billionaire by Christmas,’ he said then tapped me on the arm and started down the garden. ‘Come and see the cottage.’
Dad claimed that, once upon a time, the cottage had been a perfect little rustic dwelling, stone walls and a thatched roof, roses round the door, the whole Snow White shebang, but the previous owners had let it go to ruin and now it was more of a horror story than a fairy tale. When my parents moved in, the crumbling limestone building was crammed full of useless junk – boxes of broken tools; a lawnmower without an engine; three kids’ bikes without wheels or saddles; a very concerning device that looked an awful lot like a torture rack (after Dad plucked up the courage to take it to the tip, we all agreed to pretend it never existed – a Taylor family speciality) – but somehow the cottage was even more terrifying once it was empty. I didn’t know if it was the caved-in roof, glassless windows or the thrilling smell of rotten wood and mould but it gave me the creeps, and while I personally wouldn’t have chosen it as a place to give birth and raise a family, the fox population of Harford apparently felt very differently, claiming squatters’ rights the moment it had been cleared out. Mum, William and I had voted to knockthe whole thing down and start again but we’d been overruled when Dad insisted he was going to restore it to its former glory. Just as soon as the foxes were gone. Which I assumed would be never.
‘Can we have a look in the morning?’ I replied, casting a reticent glance towards the shadowy building hiding underneath the trees.
‘Are you sure?’ he replied, sounding just a little bit disappointed. ‘I’ve been working on it.’
Exactly what he told me at Christmas when he dragged me down there only to be surprised by a distinctly unfestive rat.
‘Positive,’ I said with a shiver. ‘Let’s go back in and get the kettle on. I want to hear all about the big birthday party plans.’
Only slightly dejected, Dad turned around and followed me back towards the house. ‘We’ll have to do a tour in the morning before the hordes arrive.’
‘You’re looking forward to it then?’
‘Mostly,’ he said, smiling. ‘As long as everyone behaves, it should be fun. I’ve got some surprises planned for you all.’
‘Yes,’ I frowned, remembering the unwelcome addition to the guest list. ‘I heard.’
When we got back to the house, William opened the door, still on the phone. Hope fluttered lightly in my chest.
‘Any luck?’ I mouthed, letting go of Dad who marched merrily in his muddy boots.
He shook his head and my momentary optimism crashed and landed with a thud at my feet.
‘Not yet. The train is in the depot, they’re cleaning it now. I’m sure they’ll find it soon.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, leaning into his half-hug. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
Or at the very least, I hoped he was.
The living room was one of my favourite parts of what William and I would always call the new house. It was so cosy, with its low ceilings and old, wooden bookcases, every piece of furniture selected for comfort rather than visual appeal, but somehow the higgledy-piggledy design worked. You had the choice of an old leather sofa or two oversized Liberty-print armchairs with mismatched mid-century modern footstools, all of them loaded with cushions, pillows, blankets and throws, begging you to settle in with a good book. And books were the one thing my family would never run out of. Everywhere you looked, not just the bookcases, but every available surface was covered in hardbacks, paperbacks, manuscripts and bound proofs, there were two Kindles on the coffee table and, in the corner, I spotted the Alexa my dad had adopted to read his audiobooks out loud to him. He’d resisted at first, convinced it was spying on him (it almost certainly was), but now more or less considered it a fourth child.
In the armchair closest to the window, still with a smudge of brown buttercream on her cheek, Mum was curled up, completely absorbed in an advance copy of a book I knew wasn’t coming out for at least another year although, from the look on her face, the author might want to push the pub date back a few months more.
‘Pandora, love, there’s something on your face,’ Dad said from a safe and horrified distance.
‘It’s icing,’ I said quickly, allowing him to breathe outwith relief as I tapped my own face to guide my mother’s hand to the right spot.
‘Too much butter in the buttercream,’ she grumbled as she licked her finger clean then set her reading to one side. ‘And too many similes in this bloody book. It’s every other bloody sentence. Bloated, sloppy.’
‘What I’m hearing is, you don’t love it.’
I reached for the proof but she slapped away my hand.
‘They made me sign a bloody NDA for that tosh. Don’t sully your eyeballs with it.’
She snatched it away and tossed it in her massive handbag, the brooding photo of the author mooning out at me from the back cover. Poor man, he had no idea my mother was sitting in her living room, preparing to end his illustrious career with chocolate icing all over her face.
‘Sophie wants to know the plan for the weekend,’ Dad announced, settling himself on the highest leather chair and pulling a super-slim laptop from between the frame and the seat cushion.
‘Yes, because Sophie just found out Sophie wasn’t included on the shared spreadsheet,’ I replied as I flopped down on the sofa. ‘So Sophie hasn’t got a clue what’s going on.’
