Kook

*

When I got back, Mum was on her knees in the lounge, pulling out Victorian cups and framed pictures from a box with ‘ornaments’ written on the side. The place was a mess of boxes and newspaper. And stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. I couldn’t see where it was all going to go.

It felt weird. Seeing all the things from our London flat, but in a totally different place.

A different place. A better place? I didn’t know. But I was beginning to think it could be.

“Good walk, was it?” Mum said, not looking up, slamming a vase down on the floor, then crunching up the newspaper it had been wrapped in and throwing it over her shoulder. Her bundled up hair came loose. She blew it out of her face.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Where did you go?” She sounded sharp.

“The sea.”

She stood up, grinding her jaw. “Do you know what time it is?”

“No.”

My head felt like a balloon that needed to take off. Being stoned and drunk had felt good out there, cycling over the moors in the moonlight. But now I was closed in by this maze of boxes, with no escape from Mum’s laser stare.

“Did it occur to you I needed help?” she said, with her hands on her hips.

“Yes.”

“But you stayed out anyway.”

“Yes.”

“And why did you do that, Sam? With a whole lorry-load of boxes to unpack… We’ve got to go and see your grandmother tomorrow, and you’re starting at a new school on Monday. Do you even know where all your stuff is? Where your new uniform is?”

“Not really.”

“Not really? You either do or you don’t. Well perhaps you might… SAM!”

“What?”

“Look at me.” She stormed up to me. “What’s wrong with your eyes? They’re bloodshot.” Suddenly I was freaked, like I was totally scared but about to burst out laughing at the same time. The maze of boxes was closing in. I felt really out of it. I was thinking, I probably look wrecked too.

“Have you been drinking?” she said, sniffing the air.

“Yes, I had a beer,” I said. There was no chance of the silent treatment – this was going to run into a full rant. I got ready to take it on, already planning my escape route and excuses. But then she turned away and sighed, looking over the sea of boxes and newspaper-wrapped ornaments with this odd, empty look. Like she didn’t even know what those things were. She looked well and truly knackered.

“Just go to your room, and sort out your stuff. And get Tegan to bed too,” she mumbled. “There’s cold fish and chips if you want them.”

I didn’t. I wanted to get away, quick as I could.

Teg’s a good kid for a six-year-old. I love her, but she’s always been a nightmare at going to bed. And especially, it turned out, when she was in a new house. She eventually got into her pyjamas and stood in front of the chipped bathroom mirror practising jerky dance moves instead of washing, or brushing her teeth.

“Mum’s angry with you,” she said.

“I know,” I said, leaning against the wall.

“Jade’s nice. I like her dog. Is she your friend?”

“I dunno. I hope so.”

“Is she your girlfriend? Did you kiss her?”

I laughed. “No, Teg. Now brush your teeth.”

After a lot of begging, I put her to bed and read her a story. A story? The story. The Tiger Who Came to Tea. The one story she’d loved since she was three; the one story that was sure to get her wrapped up in her quilt, and listening. Sometimes she was asleep before I even got to the end. Not this time.

“Can we look at stars?” she said, as I walked out the door of her room.

“Sure, but not tonight. I haven’t unpacked the telescope. Goodnight, Teg.”

“But Sam, there’s millions of them. I can see—”

“Goodnight, Teg.”

*

My room was in the attic. Mum or the removal guy had put the boxes marked ‘Sam’ in there. And there was my telescope in the corner, all bubble-wrapped and Sellotaped, waiting to look at the stars. I didn’t start unpacking. I fell on the bed and listened to the distant white noise of the sea. Through the skylight I could see the stars. Even with the moon up, there were more of them in that sky than I’d ever seen.

When I closed my eyes, I could still see the waves, and hear Jade singing.

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I DIDN’T REMEMBER anything about Grandma. And I only knew what Mum had told me. That she was old and dying of cancer. That she had months left.

Maybe.

She lived in a massive house near a rocky point called Cape Kernow. A house that would be ours one day.

We’d come back, Mum said, so Grandma could get to know her one grandchild and only heir. That was me, Tegan being the result of a fling that had lasted the time it took Mum to get pregnant.

Things were pretty broken between Mum and Grandma, I knew that. They didn’t get on. There’d been some fallout after Dad died. Maybe because Mum took us to London. Mum never told me. Now we’d come back to Cornwall to help ‘mend’ things, though I didn’t have a clue as to what it was that needed mending.

I had an idea of some old manor, all dank and dark and smelling of cabbage and cat’s piss. I pictured my grandma in a huge bed, with grey hair and greyer skin, fading away, with us at her side, listening to her final, totally wise words.

I was wrong.

The house was big, square and white, with large windows and a front door painted ocean blue. The house’s name was painted on the wall in thin black letters. ‘Where Two Worlds Meet.’

A short, skinny, tanned woman answered the door. She was dressed in jeans, a smock and headscarf. At first I thought maybe she was the cleaner.

Wrong again.