Read Online Jubilee by Eliza Graham - Free Book Online

report to
the stewards’ table by the tea tent. So strong was the confidence which he injected into this broadcast that I turned my head to look for Jessamy running across the park towards us. But she
didn’t.
    Now my slight impatience at her absence was growing into concern because of all the trouble she’d be in if she didn’t return, rather than because I thought something bad had happened
to her. My aunt was tolerant of Jessamy’s whims but I could tell by the small vein pulsing on one temple and her tight grip on my arm that Jessamy wouldn’t just get away with a few
cross words. It would be bed with just a piece of toast for her: lights out and no talking. How could she have been such a fool? But then that baton sliding out of my hand onto the grass shot back
into my mind. This was all my fault.
    I could feel my aunt’s tension in the fingers she kept wrapped around my arm. I thought of Uncle Matthew, barely remembered now except as a kind and silent presence around the farm.
He’d scooped me up many times when I’d fallen off the bicycle I’d been learning to ride in the yard and had let me hold the new lambs. I wished he’d been around this
afternoon to soothe my aunt. I was aware of how feeble any attempts on my behalf to do this would be. Dad should be here to support his sister but he was in Majorca building a marina and holiday
apartments.
    We waited. It was time to sit down at the trestles for sandwiches and cake and people began to amble over. One or two cast sympathetic glances at us as they passed. ‘Not found her yet?
Little minx.’ ‘You’ll have something to say to her when you get her back.’
    I refused to join the other children, superstitious that if I sat down with them I was accepting that my cousin wouldn’t be back this afternoon. I stood with my aunt beside the
stewards’ tent. The balloons tied to the awnings and table legs had started to deflate. Paper cups and plates littered the grass and some of the smaller children were rubbing their eyes and
whining. I kept expecting Jess to run across the grass in that easy loping gait of hers to join us. ‘Where’s my mug?’ she’d ask. ‘Hope you saved me a piece of Jubilee
cake.’ I stared at the gate until my eyes ached with the effort of making out an outline of her figure that wasn’t there. I closed them, counted to ten and then opened them, hoping
she’d be there.
    But she wasn’t.
    Mr Fernham appeared with two plates of the sliced cake for us. ‘Fiona made it. It’s very good.’
    Evie crumbled off a piece and put it into her mouth but I murmured an apology.
    People were starting to push back their chairs, their meal complete. In a moment they’d start moving slowly towards home, happy to put their feet up and watch the TV coverage of the
celebrations in London, weary after an afternoon of rich food and games. Evie and I would walk through the fields to the house and Jessamy would be sitting in the kitchen. Evie’d tell her
off, but not harshly; she’d gone beyond anger now. I felt her anxiety pulsing from her in little waves. But Jess would be back at home. She’d look stricken for exactly one second and
then she’d give that shrug of hers, say she was sorry, and mean it, and accept whatever punishment her mother gave her without a word of complaint. I’d say sorry too for dropping that
baton. Jess didn’t bear grudges.
    ‘I could run back to the farm,’ I offered. ‘See if she’s there and then run back here.’
    ‘No.’ Evie clutched my shoulder. ‘Stay with me.’ She had something wound around her hand and wrist; I couldn’t work out what it was at first. Then I recognized it
as Jessamy’s egg-and-spoon medal. The red ribbon was cutting into Evie’s slender fingers. The red matched the polish she’d put on her nails that morning.
    It seemed Evie needed me as much as I needed her. The realization made me feel strange, as though the grass beneath my plimsolls was tilting and