A Sky Painted Gold Read online

  And – I hardly want to think of it – if Alice leaves, becomes someone else, then I suppose I have to as well. Everything will change. I touch my finger to one of the creamy rose petals, and the morning dew is still clinging to it, quivering like a tear about to fall. I sigh deeply, wallowing quite happily in the beautiful melancholy of it all and thinking that it would make a pretty line in a story.

  Alice snorts with knowing laughter. “Lou’s writing melodramas again.” She rolls her eyes, and I can’t help laughing back, caught in the act.

  “I was thinking about the wedding in Lady Amelia’s Revenge,” I offer, “and the way I can foreshadow the death of…”

  Alice clamps her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me!” she shrieks, and then her hands drop to her sides and her eyes widen. “It’s Rudolpho, isn’t it?” she asks in tragic accents. “You can’t kill him, Lou, you can’t.”

  I keep my face as bland as possible, and mime locking my lips shut and throwing away the key. Lady Amelia’s Revenge is a story that I’ve been working on for months, and Alice demands new pages all the time. Usually, I’m more than happy to provide them, but I lost one of my notebooks recently so things have been a bit slower, and Alice’s questions and guesses about what’s to come have become increasingly frantic. She’s quite invested in the grisly adventures of my feisty heroine, and I have to admit that I love it. Although I suppose Alice won’t have much time for silly stories when she’s a married lady.

  We are interrupted by Midge, who seems, as always, to be wholly unmoved by the crashing waves of my emotional turmoil. “Well, you two had better go and get ready,” she says. “Take these boys out from under my feet, and try and mop them up a bit, will you? I’ve got a million and one things left to do here, and your father’s still not back from seeing to the top field.”

  The triplets groan and weep and protest as though they are deathly allergic to clean water and cotton face flannels, while Alice and I herd them up the higgledy-piggledy stairs. Finally, after a tense and rather soggy stand-off, we send them off with a stern warning to stay away from anything sticky, and Alice and I make our way up another flight of stairs to our room.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  The room I share with Alice is right at the top of the house, tucked away in the eaves. The ceiling slopes at both sides so that you can only really stand up properly in the middle, in the space between our two beds. On my side of the room is a small window, and if I kneel on the bed, stick my head through it and turn my neck slightly to the left, I can just see down the hill to the sea and the curve of golden sand cut into the cliffs. Tiny white houses are dotted about here and there, balanced precariously on the steep precipice and looking as though they might, at any moment, tumble into the water below. I can’t see the island from here, but I know that it is there and my awareness of it is constant, inescapable. Over the weeks my desire to run off and hide there has only increased. With Alice preparing to leave our house, questions about my own future have started creeping up on me, and I’m not ready to start thinking about them yet.

  Alice flops down on to her bed, almost crushing the flowers that still sit on top of her head. “Careful!” I exclaim, removing them and setting them on her bedside table. “Don’t mess up your hair. That isn’t very bride-like behaviour.”

  “What is bride-like behaviour, then?” Alice asks, unfussed. She rubs her nose and stares at the ceiling, her golden hair fanned out around her on the worn bed sheets. Like most properly beautiful people, Alice worries very little about her looks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, almost able to ignore the familiar pang of jealousy over her effortless appearance. “Shouldn’t you be all pale and trembling and a bit more … you know … swoony?”

  Alice props herself up on her elbow and grins. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels. I’m hardly throwing myself at the mercy of some dark, brooding stranger.”

  I snort at this, because she’s right, the words “dark, brooding stranger” are as far from those you would use to describe Jack Treglowen as possible. Two years older than Alice, we’ve known him all our lives and he’s been in love with my sister for as long as any of us can remember. Sweet Jack, with his coppery curls, strong arms and frank, open face. At one time or another every girl in the village has thought herself deeply in love with him – myself included – but he’s only ever had eyes for Alice. Although for the longest time she didn’t really seem to notice. Alice simply accepted his quiet adoration without comment; Jack’s love was just a part of the fabric of her life, something comfortable – familiar and unchanging.

  Until it wasn’t any more.

  It was just over two years ago, when Alice was sixteen, that I finally felt something shift between them. The way they spoke to each other was different, their voices softer and yet full of something crackling and impatient. One night Alice came home bright-eyed and changed for ever. She told me that Jack had kissed her and I pressed her for every detail.

  Alice had been kissed before, of course – in fact, we both had (though Alice much more regularly – I, then fifteen, had been kissed only once by a boy called Martin, the butcher’s son, and it was nothing like it had looked in the films, because for one thing he smelled like sausages, and for another the whole kiss was quite sweaty and awkward), but this was different. This wasn’t the inexperienced fumbling of some boy who had taken her to the pictures in the hope of a quick feel, this was Jack, and when she said his name now it was in breathless italics.

  Alice’s eyes were starry and she kept touching her fingers to her lips as if she couldn’t quite believe that the feeling of his mouth on hers was real. She said it was perfect, and suddenly my sister, who had never held anything back from me, who I had never had any secrets from, seemed to know something I didn’t. It didn’t matter how many questions I asked, I simply couldn’t get at this secret thing, this changed, grown-up thing that Alice had experienced. Eventually, I stopped trying. I watched her humming and brushing her hair in front of the mirror and I felt a gap open up between us.

  Not long after that Jack asked Alice to marry him, and no one was surprised except for me. It just seemed so fast, so sudden, so … final. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy for them: it was absolutely impossible to be in Alice’s radiant presence without absorbing some of the happiness that came off her in violent waves. No, selfishly, it was a feeling that I had lost something, that somehow I had come untethered.

  I had been one half of Alice-and-Lou for so long that I wasn’t sure what it meant to be and-Lou alone. I knew I looked like Alice’s shadow, but as I felt my sister pulling away from me I realized that this description was true in more ways than I had first thought. Where Alice went, I followed. That was how it had always been. Only now Alice was leaving me behind, and I was going to have to find my own way, somehow. After all, a girl without a shadow was one thing, but a shadow without a girl … what became of her?

  I spent more time alone, I began to write more, and then – of course – I found the Cardew House, a house full of shadows, and I knew, with a huge sense of relief, that I belonged there. It was no small thing, that sense of belonging, and I clung to it. It was almost a year since I had finished school and I felt as if I was treading water. Apart from my jobs on the farm I had nothing to do, no purpose that I could see. It had never been like that for Alice. Alice and Jack were already engaged when she was my age, and her future was laid out before her like a perfect, clear road map. When I looked ahead, all I saw was a terrible blank. The thing that made it worse was that no one else seemed worried. As far as I could see I was the only one who thought a giant question mark hung over my future, and although they didn’t say it I felt the weight of expectation – not just from Midge and Pa, but from the whole village – that sooner or later I would follow Alice’s nice neat road map as well. After all, what else was out there for me? The thought of leaving, of somehow making my own path, seemed a daunting impossibility. I was the follower, not the le
ader, and I truly had no idea where to go next. The Cardew House – even in its dilapidated state – felt like an answer. It wasn’t really the grandeur of it that tugged at me, but the restless feeling of it, the feeling that was a bit like magic … the feeling that something exciting was bound to happen, that the shadows would come to life somehow. It was different, and different was precisely what I wanted.

  I give my head a shake. It’s silly to dwell on these feelings on such a happy day. Midge would laugh and scold me for being too dramatic, as usual, although I think that Freya is well on her way to usurping me as the family drama queen.

  “Come on, then, Mrs Treglowen,” I say, pulling myself firmly back to this moment, to this day. “Let’s get you ready.”

  Alice sits up at that, her mouth pulled down, her face a comical mask of disbelief. “Mrs Treglowen,” she murmurs. “Doesn’t it sound…”

  “Strange?” I ask.

  “I was going to say grown-up,” she replies, “but strange is right too.” She lifts her chin, and her voice rings through the small room. “Mrs Treglowen.” She says it again, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it’s really happening!” and then the dimple peeps out and Alice is laughing and she reaches out and pulls me on to the bed with her. We lie there side by side, cackling at the joyful absurdity of it all. My heart lifts. Perhaps, after all, things won’t be so different. It is hard to imagine my sister as anyone other than the giggling golden girl lying beside me.

  “Are you two getting a move on?” Midge’s voice drifts up the stairs. “We’ve got to be at the church in an hour!”

  “Yes, Midge!” we sing out together, as we have a million times before, and again I am struck by the feeling that some things will never change. Then, in a haze of breathless excitement, we begin the process of getting ready.

  Alice’s wedding dress is a beauty. It is a delicate sheath of very, very pale yellow georgette with long sleeves and a scalloped hem that falls just below the knee. (This has been a hard-fought battle, but Alice’s fashionable hemline was eventually approved by Midge and Aunt Cath after we showered them with pictures and patterns clipped from countless magazines. These, we felt, demonstrated that there is nothing risqué any more in showing off your calves, because, after all, it is 1929.) A matching real lace sash is tied loosely around the dropped waist, and a dainty trail of flowers has been embroidered around the square neckline in ivory thread.

  Midge and Aunt Cath have been hard at work on the dress for months, and Alice and I – both obsessed with fashion magazines but completely hopeless at sewing – have been on hand to critique and offer plenty of impractical suggestions. These have been met, for the most part, with surprising patience from Midge and our aunt. There have been only two minor arguments and one major one in which scissors were brandished menacingly, but everything came out all right in the end, and you can hardly see where Alice kicked the kitchen table, so all in all I have marked the dress-making process down as a very successful undertaking.

  With a slightly shaky hand I lay the crown of cornflowers back on top of Alice’s head, and pick up the long lace veil that is draped over the back of a chair. The veil was Midge’s, and her mother’s before her, and the froth of ivory lace feels as light as air in my hands. I know that the veil is meant for me one day, although I find such a day difficult to imagine.

  “Oh, Alice,” I whisper, and I can feel tears rushing to my eyes. “You look … absolutely hideous,” I say. “Really, truly awful,” I sniffle.

  Alice dimples appreciatively, and drapes the veil over one arm, tilting her head to the side like an inquisitive bird as she gives herself a good stare in the mirror. “Do you think Jack will like it?” she asks in a voice that lacks her usual confidence. I think that even she is intimidated by the perfect image reflected back at her.

  “I think he’ll fall in a dead faint when he sees you coming down the aisle,” I say with perfect honesty. “He won’t believe his luck.”

  “Alice! Alice!” Voices are calling now from downstairs and, after giving me a gentle hug, being careful not to squash any of her finery, Alice begins to make her stately way down to show herself off, leaving me to change quickly into my bridesmaid’s outfit.

  I feel a shiver of excitement as my fingers stroke the dusty pink chiffon. It is my first real, grown-up dress made just for me. It’s a simple design, with soft pleats in the skirt and a V-shaped neckline (although nothing too scandalously plunging, more’s the pity). Midge has made me a long, narrow scarf in the same material that I knot carefully around my neck, the ends trailing at the front. I pin my unruly curls up as neatly as possible and slip my feet into the little shoes that we have dyed pink to match the dress. I look in the mirror and see none of Alice’s splendour. Despite my attempts at neatening up, I still look ruffled, unpolished. I try again to smooth my hair, but the curls spring out at disobedient angles.

  “Lou.” Pa’s gentle voice reaches my ears, and I turn and scamper downstairs to meet him on the landing. He looks smart in his suit, with his father’s old watch hanging from a well-polished chain in his pocket – a far cry from his usual overalls. Pa returns my look of admiration and I can’t help but feel pleased. “Very nice,” he says as I do a little twirl, trying not to trip over my own heels.

  “Not exactly a fashion plate,” I say ruefully.

  “You’ll do,” Pa replies.

  People always say that Pa is a man of few words, but the funny thing is that they couldn’t be more wrong. I inherited my own love of language from him. He may not be a big talker, but my father loves words. He reads anything he can lay his hands on and he saves up words that he knows I will like, words like “incarnadine” and “mellifluous”, leaving them for me around the house, written on scraps of paper in his slightly shaky handwriting. He still keeps the first short story I ever wrote for him in a box with all his treasures. It is about a cat who learns how to sing.

  Pa is a writer too. He writes poetry in small blue notebooks that he buys in bulk and he shares his writing with no one any more – not even me. I have dim memories of him making up funny poems for me when I was three or four, poems about zoo animals, and about me and my sisters, that would make us howl with laughter. I even have faded, fragile copies of a couple that Pa sent to us just after he left to fight … but by the time the war had ended, so had the poems. Pa came back the same but different, a bit faded and fragile, just like the letters – quieter, and somehow further away.

  “Midge is waiting,” he says now. “Don’t want to be late. You’re to walk down with the others, and Alice and I will be behind.” I briefly press him into a hug, surprised as always by how thin he feels, shocked that someone so strong can feel so breakable. Midge is constantly trying to feed him up, but no matter how many generously buttered scones he puts away, Pa remains spare and angular. “All elbows and knees,” Midge says.

  Midge stands outside now, tapping her foot and trying to restrain the triplets from flinging themselves on to the ground and tussling like puppies. She looks pretty in a lilac suit that she made for our cousin Arla’s wedding last year. Freya, as usual, looks a million miles away, staring short-sightedly into the distance, oblivious to the racket issuing from our noisy brothers. She is squeezed into a floral dress that is too tight for her, one of Alice’s cast-offs, I think, and her pale blonde hair has been braided and pinned into a crown. Tom scuffs his shoes, looking uncomfortable and running a finger around his shirt collar as though it is trying to strangle him. He is leaning on the handlebar of the oversized pram in which the baby seems, thankfully, to be asleep.

  “Here she is!” Midge exclaims. Her face softens. “And looking pretty as a picture too.” I bask in her admiration for a moment, but Midge’s appreciation is swiftly put to one side. “Now, we’ve got to take the flowers over, but the lads will be coming back later for the food,” she says, and once again I find my arms full of delicious-smelling blooms as we begin to make our way along the path towards the village. The church bells are al
ready ringing in the distance, filling the air with their joyful peals, and I turn my face towards the sky, feeling the sun spreading in golden waves across my skin.

  “Alice looks like something in a story.” Freya’s voice is muffled as it drifts towards me from behind the bundle of honeysuckle she is carrying.

  “Alice always looks like something from a story,” I say.

  There is a silence then as Freya thinks this over. “Yes,” she replies. “But today she looks like something else too.” Her eyes take on a misty, faraway quality and her lips are pursed as she weighs the words she wants to use. “She looks exactly like a bride,” she says finally.

  I suppose it’s not the most profound statement to make about someone on their wedding day, but I know just what Freya means, and she’s absolutely right. Alice looks more like a bride than any bride has ever looked before.

  Tom, who is slightly ahead of us, pushing the rattling pram with much vim and vigour, gives a whoop then as he spots several of his friends running up from the church to meet us. There is no more time for reflection as we descend into the village and are bundled into the pretty church with roses around the door. Here we are caught up, shaking hands and sharing hugs with people and distributing the flowers that Alice has collected, although our neighbours have arrived before us and the place is already positively bursting with blooms.