stones. She said the stars laid their dust over everything. There were bits of broken stars on the snails. And then she blinked.
blah blah blah blah blah blinked
Standing naked in the water, Nina pretended she had a serious speech impediment and made stammering sounds in her head. She felt like someone else. Like someone who had started. Someone who wasn’t her. She felt unbearably happy and plunged her head into the water to celebrate the miracle of Kitty Finch’s arrival. She was not alone with Laura and Mitchell and her mother and father who she wasn’t sure liked each other never mind loved each other.
Nina threw the pebble into the sea, which seemed to annoy Kitty. She stood up and yanked Nina up too.
‘I need to collect more pebbles. That one you threw away was perfect.’
‘Why do you want them?’
‘To study them.’
Nina was hobbling because her trainers were rubbing up against the blisters on the back of her heels. ‘They’re too heavy to carry,’ she groaned. ‘I want to go now.’
Kitty was sweating and her breath smelt sweet.
‘Yeah, well, sorry to waste your time. Have you ever cleaned a floor, Nina? Ever got down on your hands and knees with a rag while your mother screams at you to clean the corners? Have you ever hoovered the stairs and taken out the bin bags?’
The pampered girl in her pricey shorts (she had seen the label) and all her split ends trimmed had obviously got to fourteen years old without lifting a finger.
‘You need some real problems to take back to your posh house in London with you.’
She flung down the rucksack full of pebbles and marched into the sea in the butter-coloured dress she said made her feel extra cheerful. Nina watched her dive into a wave. The house in London Kitty referred to wasn’t exactly cosy. Her father always in his study. Her mother away, her shoes and dresses lined up in the wardrobe like someone who had died. When she was seven and always had nits in her hair the house had smelt of the magic potions she used to make from her mother’s face creams and her father’s shaving foam. The big house in west London smelt of other things too. Of her father’s girlfriends and their various shampoos. And of her father’s perfume, made for him by a Swiss woman from Zurich who married a man who owned two show horses in Bulgaria. He said her perfumes ‘opened his mind’, especially his favourite, which was called Hungary Water. The posh house smelt of his special status and of the sheets he always put in the washing machine after his girlfriends left in the morning. And of the apricot jam he spooned into his mouth straight from the jar. He said the jam changed the weather inside him, but she didn’t know what the weather was in the first place.
She did sort of know. Sometimes when she walked into his study she thought he looked a sorry sight stooped in his dressing gown, silent and still as if he’d been pinned down by something. She’d got used to the days he was sunk in his chair and refused to look at her or even get up for nights on end. She’d close the door of his study and bring him mugs of tea he never touched, because they were still there when she talked to him from behind the door (a slimy beige skin grown over the tea) and asked him for lunch money or to sign a letter giving his permission for a school trip. In the end she signed them herself with his ink pen, which is why she always knew where it was, usually under her bed or upside down in the bathroom with the toothbrushes. She had designed a signature she could always replicate, J.H.J with a full stop between the letters and a flourish on the last J. After a while he usually cheered up and took her to the Angus Steak House, where they sat on the same faded red velvet banquette they always sat on. They never talked about his own childhood or his girlfriends. This was not so much an unspoken secret pact between them, more like having a tiny splinter of glass in the
blah blah blah blah blah blinked
Standing naked in the water, Nina pretended she had a serious speech impediment and made stammering sounds in her head. She felt like someone else. Like someone who had started. Someone who wasn’t her. She felt unbearably happy and plunged her head into the water to celebrate the miracle of Kitty Finch’s arrival. She was not alone with Laura and Mitchell and her mother and father who she wasn’t sure liked each other never mind loved each other.
Nina threw the pebble into the sea, which seemed to annoy Kitty. She stood up and yanked Nina up too.
‘I need to collect more pebbles. That one you threw away was perfect.’
‘Why do you want them?’
‘To study them.’
Nina was hobbling because her trainers were rubbing up against the blisters on the back of her heels. ‘They’re too heavy to carry,’ she groaned. ‘I want to go now.’
Kitty was sweating and her breath smelt sweet.
‘Yeah, well, sorry to waste your time. Have you ever cleaned a floor, Nina? Ever got down on your hands and knees with a rag while your mother screams at you to clean the corners? Have you ever hoovered the stairs and taken out the bin bags?’
The pampered girl in her pricey shorts (she had seen the label) and all her split ends trimmed had obviously got to fourteen years old without lifting a finger.
‘You need some real problems to take back to your posh house in London with you.’
She flung down the rucksack full of pebbles and marched into the sea in the butter-coloured dress she said made her feel extra cheerful. Nina watched her dive into a wave. The house in London Kitty referred to wasn’t exactly cosy. Her father always in his study. Her mother away, her shoes and dresses lined up in the wardrobe like someone who had died. When she was seven and always had nits in her hair the house had smelt of the magic potions she used to make from her mother’s face creams and her father’s shaving foam. The big house in west London smelt of other things too. Of her father’s girlfriends and their various shampoos. And of her father’s perfume, made for him by a Swiss woman from Zurich who married a man who owned two show horses in Bulgaria. He said her perfumes ‘opened his mind’, especially his favourite, which was called Hungary Water. The posh house smelt of his special status and of the sheets he always put in the washing machine after his girlfriends left in the morning. And of the apricot jam he spooned into his mouth straight from the jar. He said the jam changed the weather inside him, but she didn’t know what the weather was in the first place.
She did sort of know. Sometimes when she walked into his study she thought he looked a sorry sight stooped in his dressing gown, silent and still as if he’d been pinned down by something. She’d got used to the days he was sunk in his chair and refused to look at her or even get up for nights on end. She’d close the door of his study and bring him mugs of tea he never touched, because they were still there when she talked to him from behind the door (a slimy beige skin grown over the tea) and asked him for lunch money or to sign a letter giving his permission for a school trip. In the end she signed them herself with his ink pen, which is why she always knew where it was, usually under her bed or upside down in the bathroom with the toothbrushes. She had designed a signature she could always replicate, J.H.J with a full stop between the letters and a flourish on the last J. After a while he usually cheered up and took her to the Angus Steak House, where they sat on the same faded red velvet banquette they always sat on. They never talked about his own childhood or his girlfriends. This was not so much an unspoken secret pact between them, more like having a tiny splinter of glass in the
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