(I promise I won’t leave it another month before making my next post.)

*

By the time they got to the lift, Aunt Sammy and Emil had caught up with them. Unfortunately, so had Aunt Love.

Mum arranged things so that Van, Sammy and Emil were behind her, and herded them into the lift as soon as the doors opened. “Just go. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“Feel brave, do you?” screamed Aunt Love over Mum’s shoulder, “Hiding behind your little sister?”

Mum shook her head. “Love…”

“Can’t come out and face me, can you?”

The lift doors closed, which meant that Aunt Van couldn’t have come out and faced her even if she’d wanted to. Lennie moved as close to Mum’s side as she could. Aunt Love was probably still going to want to fight with someone, and Lennie didn’t want it to be her.

Love took a step backwards, and scowled at Mum. “I can’t believe you’d defend her. Shows your values.”

“Go back and see if your dad needs to see a doctor.”

“If he needs to see a doctor? She just broke his fucking jaw!”

“And he broke her nose once. Now they’re even.” The lift doors opened up behind them, and Mum pulled Lennie in as she made her escape.

Safely inside the lift, going up, Mum got her phone out of her pocket and started writing a text. “This is how I’m spending the night before my wedding, Len,” she sighed, “Some people just have to worry about flower arrangements.”

Now that it was just her and Mum, Lennie found her voice. “Why do you think she did that?”

Mum looked up from her phone. “He scared her. And then I think she went into panic mode before she could think.” She moved her phone so that Lennie could see the screen. “I’ve just texted Ewan to tell him to drive Charlie and Love to A&E. I don’t know if he actually needs it, but I figure best to be on the safe side, right?”

Lennie nodded. “Did he really break her nose once?”

“Yeah,” said Mum, “He did.” She turned to the control panel. “I don’t remember which room Van and Emil are in, so I’ve just set it to go to the top floor. We can walk down from there. We’re bound to run into them eventually.”

They stopped a few times before they got there- people on other floors wanted to get on- and Lennie just stared at the mirrored walls and thought. This already felt like something that had happened in the past, not something that was still going on now. Remember that time Van punched Uncle Charlie in the face just before my wedding? That was a strange time, wasn’t it?

Lennie felt as if she’d dreamed it. In fact, she felt as if she’d dreamed most of what had happened tonight. She squinted and fluttered her eyelids to see whether that made her wake up.

When they got to the top floor and stepped out into the light of the hallway, Lennie had to give up on that. If this was a dream, then it was a dream that wanted to last a bit longer. Lennie supposed she was alright with that, as long as Charlie didn’t show up saying horrible things again.

They spotted Van and the others on the second floor down, outside of Room 544. Mum stopped at the end of the hallway and waved to them, to check whether or not they wanted them around. Aunt Sammy waved back, and Mum and Lennie followed them into the room.

Lennie had never actually been in a hotel room before, so it was interesting to look around and see what they were like. It was all packed in, with the bed and the wardrobe against one wall and the table with the TV and the kettle against the wall opposite. One of the other walls was completely taken up with windows and curtains. It didn’t look like a room you could do much in.

Van sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, breathing deeply in and out. Emil sat down beside her and took one of her hands. Behind them, their suitcase was still open up on the bed. Lennie could see a bunch of neatly-folded clothes balancing on top of their shoes.

“Van, I’m so sorry,” said Mum, “I told her I didn’t want him at the wedding.”

Aunt Sammy, who was standing by the curtains, looked at Mum and said, “Couldn’t you have texted her earlier? To warn her?” She didn’t say it nastily, but coming from Aunt Sammy, who never picked fights with anyone, that was practically a slap in the face.

“I wasn’t thinking.” Mum’s voice shook. “I’m sorry.”

Van sighed, and heaved her head upright. “No, I’m sorry. You invite me to your wedding, and I punch one of the other guests and terrify your daughter.”

“I’m not terrified,” said Lennie. Then, in the name of honesty, she amended, “I’m not terrified of you.”

“Well, thanks for saying that, but you’ll understand if I don’t like to think of myself as somebody who throws punches in front of children, right?”

Lennie didn’t see why not. It wasn’t as if the kids at her school avoided throwing punches in front of each other.

“He scared you, Van,” said Mum, “You felt trapped. It wasn’t your fault.” She walked forward slowly, almost tiptoeing, and sat down on the bed next to Van and Emil. “Sammy’s right. I should have texted you. I just didn’t think.”

They sat there silently for a moment, with Emil doing a thing where he tapped his fingers up and down Van’s right arm, and then Van said, “Let me guess- him and Mum are back together?”

“‘Fraid so,” said Mum, “They got back in touch after we invited Love and Angel to the wedding. Now all of a sudden, he’s her one true love and she’s spent her whole life waiting for him to come back.”

Van laughed, which was a big relief to Lennie. Things couldn’t be too horrible if people were laughing.

“And she didn’t see any problem with inviting both him and Van to the same party?” asked Emil.

“You don’t know our mother,” said Van.

Mum shook her head. “It’s like talking to a brick wall. She decides she’s part of some grand romance, and everything else just gets dismissed.”

Lennie didn’t know if she should sit down on the bed with the rest of them, or carry on standing where she was, next to the wardrobe. OK, there probably wasn’t enough room for her on the bed, but there might be if everybody squeezed up.

Van had her hand over her eyes, as if she was trying to keep the sun off. “Please tell me Edd’s not living with her,” she said to Mum.

“No. He’s off with Nana Pearl.” (Lennie never called Great-Gran “Nana Pearl.” It just didn’t suit her.) “And I know why you asked. It’s a lot easier to make fun of her when there aren’t any children involved, isn’t it?”

Van snorted. “Don’t tempt fate. Women have given birth in their fifties before now.”

This was news to Lennie. “Really?!”

Mum smiled at her. “Not often. I think we’re safe.”

Lennie briefly pictured herself giving birth to an army of loyal descendants over the course of thirty or forty years and having them all live in a huge fantastical mansion, but there were more important things to address right now. “So is that why you said you hated romantic things?” she asked Aunt Van.

Van raised her eyebrows. “When did I say that?”

“When we were coming in!” exclaimed Emil. His eyes had brightened up in a weird way that made him look a lot younger. “You heard that?”

“Yeah,” said Lennie, feeling a little guilty. Much as she enjoyed spying on people, she knew it wasn’t exactly considered polite. “I was sitting by the porch because it got hot outside.”

(For a moment, she remembered what Charlie had said. But she also remembered that he got punched in the face half an hour after that, so ha.)

“We were talking about our wedding.” Van straightened up a bit. “We had to choose a song for our first dance, and it turned out that just about every love song in existence reminds me of things your Nana Celine used to say.”

“And the men she used to say them about,” muttered Emil. The brightness had gone away.

“Well, yeah. This is my perfect moment with you…– nope.. I can kiss away the pain…– nope. I watch your face as you are sleeping, wonder if it’s me you’re seeing…– definitely not.”

Mum grinned. “Me and Ewan have picked ‘Thinking Out Loud.’”

“The Ed Sheeran one? Well, that’s better than some of them.” (Lennie disagreed. She’d been hoping Mum and Ewan would pick something by Little Mix.) “In the end, we went with ‘Kiss from a Rose,’ just because it was all metaphors. You’d never get Celine comparing her boyfriends to a tower in the sea.”

Mum laughed. It took a moment for Lennie to notice that Van had called Celine by her first name. Lennie wondered if she’d always done that, or if she’d started doing it after she’d grown up.

“I should never have left you there all those years,” said Van, so low and gravelly that Lennie didn’t hear her at first.

Mum squeezed her shoulder. “What could you have done? You were only a teenager.”

“I was twenty-one by the time you were twelve. I could have asked you to come and stay. Then maybe…” Suddenly, she looked at Lennie, and went quiet.

“What?” asked Lennie.

Mum and Van looked at each other.

Lennie’s cheeks started to heat up. “Then maybe what?” She hated it when adults did this. Like they thought you wouldn’t notice that they were leaving stuff out because you were there.

“Then maybe I wouldn’t have had all that trouble with your dad,” Mum replied, with the kind of smile that was meant to calm you down.

“Oh,” said Lennie. Her dad had been this handsome older boy that her mum had met when she was still in school. Mum didn’t find out until much later that not only was he a whole lot older than he said he was, but he also had a wife already- oops.

Mum turned back to Van. “Honestly, I think some of that would have happened anyway.”

“Yeah, but without Celine encouraging you…”

“It’s water under the bridge. And I’m glad you came.” The text alert sounded on Mum’s phone, and she got it out to check who it was. She made an approving hum, and looked up at Sammy and Emil. “Ewan says he’s on the way to A&E. Can one of you take Lennie back downstairs? I want to talk to Van a little bit longer.”

Sammy, who Lennie had almost forgotten was there, straightened up. “I’ll do it. Come on, Len, let’s see if they’ve got any more of that cherryade.”

To Be Concluded

A little while later, Lennie and Wesley held a last-minute briefing in their secret agent base behind the big chair in the corner of the hotel bar. “OK,” said Wesley, clutching his notebook, “This is Agent Scorpio and Agent…”

“Dali.”

“Agent Dali, synchronising our watches and heading out.” Neither Lennie nor Wesley a) were actually wearing watches, or b) knew how you synchronised them when you did. It just sounded cool to say. “Have you got all your equipment, Agent Dali?”

“Um…” Lennie patted herself down. “Notebook, check… Grappling hook, check… X-ray glasses, check…”

“Have you got your secret disguise kit?”

“Right here.” Lennie held up an invisible bag.

“OK. When we have all the information we need, we’ll meet up back at the secret base. Lets go.”

They split up, Wesley taking the left side of the room and Lennie taking the right. They dodged behind chairs and crawled under tables, avoiding the adults’ gaze. The riskiest part was when you had to rush through a gap in the crowd, because then you had no cover and the enemy might spot you. After one such ordeal, Lennie crouched down behind the nearest sofa, pretending to tie her shoe but actually trying to listen in on the people sitting there.

“It goes, he thinks he’s ED-ucated, AIRS the family SHARES,” sang Aunt Sammy.

“I always heard it as, the flat he shares.” Lennie was surprised to hear Aunt Angel’s voice sound like that. It hadn’t been half as clear at the dinner table.

“No, honest. I’ll look it up.”

“I believe you. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

Lennie wrote down, Aunt Sammy and Aunt Angel arguing about the right words to songs, and moved on in a quest for more information. She saw a set of curtains next to the big window, and dodged behind any furniture she could find until she got to it. The perfect hiding place. No-one would look for her here.

She heard a voice. “Your parents would have fucking battered you if you’d gone out dressed like that at her age. Don’t tell me they wouldn’t.”

There was another one of Nana Celine’s sighs. “Charlie…”

“Just because I don’t like to see little girls dressed up like sluts, suddenly I’m the bad guy.”

Lennie flinched. She’d never heard that word before, but she could tell by the way he’d said it that it meant something horrible. Something dark, dirty and slimy that Lennie didn’t want to know about.

“I know,” said Nana Celine, “It’s OK. When you and the girls move back in, things will be different. I promise.”

“They’d better be. Because if Lucy can’t even be bothered to parent her own daughter, I’m going to have to step in, aren’t I?”

“They will be. I think deep down, Lucy knows you were right. She just likes being in control, that’s all.”

“Well, she’s going to have to learn different.”

Lennie didn’t want to hear any more of this. She didn’t want to write anything down, either.. She slipped out from under the curtain without Charlie or Nana Celine noticing, and went outside to get some fresh air.

She sat by the entrance, in the shadows where no-one could see her, and watched people park their cars and go in. They said a few things when they did, but Lennie didn’t bother to write those down, either. The dark, dirty, slimy feeling just wouldn’t go away.

But it was just as well she was there, because if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have seen the black VW pull up.

It looked just like a normal car, at first. Then a man Lennie didn’t recognise got out on one side, a man with thick black hair and glasses, wearing a grey suit. That got Lennie’s interest, because it probably meant he was coming to the wedding rehearsal after-party too. She kept an eye on him, and saw a woman get out of the other side. She had layered dark-brown hair, the same colour as Nana Celine’s, and she was wearing sparkly earrings and a purple dress. She looked up at the hotel, frowning, and that’s when Lennie knew for certain.

It was Aunt Van.

She walked round the car and took her husband’s arm. (Lennie remembered that Aunt Van had a husband, but she didn’t remember his name.) They walked in slowly, heads down, talking to each other.

As they came through, Lennie listened in on what they said. “I’ve got to say, I don’t remember you being this nervous before our wedding.”

“Of course not. My fucking mother wasn’t coming to our wedding.”

“There is that.”

“Anyway, I was nervous. The way I kept shooting down your suggestions, I was worried you’d think I was getting cold feet.” Aunt Van laughed. “It’s hard to plan a wedding when you’ve got an insane hatred of romantic things.”

They walked up the steps to the entrance, shrinking against each other as if it was cold (it wasn’t). Lennie leaned in for a closer look.

“Just warning you, the next two days are going to be hell. It’ll be a cloud of dread and misery, and we’ll come out feeling kind of soiled.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Remember last time? I can’t believe it took you so long to realise she was hitting on you.”

“I thought maybe she just got chatty when she was drunk!”

“Really?” Van put on a breathy voice. “I think it’s best to try everything life has to offer, Emil.”

Van’s husband laughed, and they went in.

Lennie stayed outside for a moment, mainly so they wouldn’t think she was following them around. Aunt Van looked amazing. Even if you didn’t already know she was a famous celebrity, you’d be able to tell just by looking at her. Normal people didn’t look that glamourous, ever.

She’d definitely be writing this up in her notebook. And then she was going to go in and talk to her.

(To Be Continued)

Lennie didn’t care what Ewan said- football was a lot more fun if you played it with Medieval rules.

Ewan looked down at Lennie and Wesley, who were wrestling for the ball, and sighed. “If this was a real football match, you’d have been sent off for about five different reasons by now.”

“Not if we were Medieval peasants,” said Lennie, twisting her head so she could look up at him, “They used to call it ‘balle’, with an e, and it was like a melee. They used to… Oi!” Wesley had managed to grab the ball and wriggle away while she’d been distracted. Lennie reared up, leapt, and pinned him to the ground again.

Ewan shook his head. “Guys. Guys. This is not professional behaviour. Do you think Harry Kane and Megan Rapinoe spend all their time trying to smash the other players into the pitch?”

He looked to Aunt Sammy and Camilla for support, but Sammy clearly wasn’t going to be much help because she was doubled over laughing. Camilla, who’d been sitting on the bench reading her book, looked over and frowned. “Ewan? You and Lucy definitely haven’t put any weedkiller down on the lawn today, have you?”

Ewan tapped his chest. “Scout’s honour. I’d never have let them play out here if we had.”

“Well, alright, then,” said Camilla, going back to her book.

Lennie relaxed her grip on Wesley, and hauled herself to her feet. “Back in a minute,” she announced, dashing into the house. She was going to fetch a packet of crisps, but if she told everyone else that, they’d all want one.

Unfortunately, when she got to the kitchen, Lennie found that Mum and Nana Celine were already in there, talking. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem (apart from the risk that Mum would tell her it was too close to dinner to have any snacks), but this time, they were talking about her.

“I don’t want him speaking to Lennie like that,” said Mum. Lennie’s hand froze, inches away from the door. Time to get some spying done.

“It was a joke,” said Nana Celine, “It was obviously a joke.”

“Well, I don’t want him making jokes about my daughter and her clothes. Alright?”

So that was what it was about. Lennie had told Mum about what Charlie had said yesterday, about her shorts, and Mum had shaken her head and told her not to listen to him. She hadn’t sounded angry then, but she did now.

“I just don’t see why you’re making such a fuss about this,” said Nana Celine.

“Mum, I wouldn’t even let Ewan speak to her like that, let alone some guy she barely knows.”

Lennie rolled her eyes. As if Ewan would have a problem with her wearing shorts. What else were you supposed to play football in?

“Charlie is not ‘some guy.’ He’s a member of your family!”

“Before this week, I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years! And Lennie’s never…”

Nana Celine interrupted, her voice rising into an injured wail. “Charlie was more of a father to you than anyone else, so don’t try and tell me he’s not family!”

“He…” Mum let out a heavy sigh, giving up. “There’s another thing, too. What’s Van going to think if he shows up at the wedding?”

“Well, I hope she’ll be happy for me…”

“Mum, she won’t. You know she won’t.”

Lennie hadn’t known for sure that Aunt Van was coming. Her pulse started to race at the news. Not that she knew Aunt Van well- she’d only seen her once or twice, usually at people’s weddings- but that didn’t matter. Aunt Van was famous.

About a year ago, Lennie and her Mum had been in Sainsburys, and Mum had suddenly stopped in the book aisle and picked up a book the size of a brick, with a black cover with a silver barbed-wire pattern. “Look at this!” she’d said, “One of your auntie’s books!” It had been called Branded by Van Kowalczyk, and Mum had brought it home and given it a position of honour in the bookshelf. Lennie had tried to read it a couple of times, but she’d always given up after a few pages. It was all creepy real-life stories about horrible things that had happened to people in prison. But Lennie was proud of her anyway.

She didn’t know why Aunt Van wouldn’t want to see Uncle Charlie at the wedding, but, if anything, it made her like her more. Giving up on the crisps (but glad that she’d got some useful information instead), Lennie headed back outside to continue the football game.

(To Be Continued)

(This is a semi-sequel to a few of the stories in From the Rooftops and The Things in the Cellar, as well as The Six Daughters of Celine Cooper.  It should make sense on its own, though.)

Her name was Eleanor Colleen Lennox, but her friends usually called her Lennie. Two days before her mother’s wedding, she was sitting on a wall outside the Rose Hotel and thinking about an artist she’d heard of who’d had little deer horns grafted onto her forehead. When Lennie got older and became a famous artist, she was going to go one better. She was going to have reindeer antlers, with blue hair (maybe in spikes, maybe not) and green stripy snake tattoos coiled all around her arms. (“But you didn’t even want to get your ears pierced,” Mum would say, “How are you going to get a tattoo over your whole arm?” Lennie would figure out a way. It was always worth it for art.)

Lennie was waiting for Aunt Sammy to show up. Nana Celine had booked practically the entire hotel for their family this weekend. Mum said they only needed it for the reception on Saturday, but Ewan (who was going to marry her in a few days) said that they shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If Nana Celine wanted to practically buy an entire hotel so that both their families could descend upon it and make a nuisance of themselves, then why stop her? Lennie agreed with him. She was just sorry there wasn’t a pool.

Ewan was a PE teacher at William Gladstone High School, and Mum worked in the kitchen there, so that was how they met. They’d told Lennie that it was a really good school, but she didn’t have to go to secondary school there, not if she didn’t want her mum and by-then-stepdad breathing down her neck all the time. Lennie hadn’t quite decided yet. They’d start looking at all the other secondary schools in September, and then she’d see.

Lennie was looking out for a grey Ford Fiesta, because that was the kind of car Aunt Sammy had. She’d be bringing her girlfriend, Camilla, who was the most beautiful woman Lennie had ever met and was always wearing about five hundred different-coloured bits of jewellery that you could never spot all in one go, and Camilla’s son Wesley, who was Lennie’s usual partner in crime at big family events. Last Christmas, they’d played Secret Agents and managed to hide from the rest of the family for a whole hour. Maybe they could do that again.

Lennie tapped her fingers on the stone beneath her, thinking about codenames and invisible ink and deadly laser pens, until she heard a noise just to her left. She looked up and saw Uncle Charlie standing over her with a cigarette in his mouth. She hadn’t even seen where he’d come from- it was as if he’d magically appeared in the courtyard. He’d probably make a good secret agent.

“Alright?” said Uncle Charlie. Actually, it was more like “Mm-murr?”, like a grunting groan more than an actual word, but Lennie knew what he meant.

“Yeah,” said Lennie, sitting up properly. She didn’t know Uncle Charlie that well yet. He’d been married to Nana Celine back in the olden days, when Mum had been a little girl. He wasn’t Mum’s dad, but he was Aunt Angel and Aunt Love’s, which was why they were all back in town for the wedding. “Just waiting for Aunt Sammy.”

Uncle Charlie didn’t say anything, just carried on staring at her and smoking his cigarette. Lennie knew that those grey bits under his eyes and in his five-o’-clock shadow probably weren’t cigarette ash, but it was hard to believe it when he smoked so many of them. “Going to be some changes around here,” he said. It sounded like he’d kept his teeth clenched when he talked.

“Really?” asked Lennie.

Uncle Charlie nodded. “When I move back in with your grandma. Going to be some changes. Won’t be having you running around in those skimpy shorts, for a start.”

Lennie looked down at those shorts, feeling suddenly very protective of them. They were patterned in blue and green and turquoise, like army camouflage but brighter. “I only wear shorts when it’s hot.”

Uncle Charlie carried on staring at her, slowly smoking his cigarette. “Going to be some changes,” he repeated, then went back inside.

Lennie smoothed down her shorts, wondering what Uncle Charlie’s problem was. She didn’t even know what “skimpy” meant. It sounded like it had to do with fish.

She drew her knees up, and went back to watching the road. After a few minutes, she spotted a grey Ford Fiesta.

(To be continued)