The Pearl in the Attic Read online

  “I’m sure they’ll come in a minute,” I say, though I’m drumming all my fingers on the chipped blue plastic surface of the reception desk.

  “Oh, dear!” says someone.

  We both turn to see that a passing nurse has come to a concerned stop beside us. She is staring at the blood-spotted toilet paper that was roughly wrapped around my right hand and is now untidily unravelling. I’d forgotten it was still there. I’d grabbed it in a rush as I followed Mum out of the flat earlier.

  “Are you looking for the accident and emergency department?” the nurse asks. “It’s down on the lower ground floor…”

  “No, no, I’m fine – it looks worse than it is!” I say quickly, unwinding the rest of the grotty paper and holding up my quickly healing hand as proof.

  “Ah, let me guess,” says the nurse, smiling as she peers at the tiny, raw, pink nicks on my fingers. “Been playing with a kitten?”

  “No,” I answer, though I can see why it might look like I’ve been target practice for a sharp-clawed little kitty. Not that my mum would ever agree to a pet, since they’re “messy” and need too much looking after, in her opinion. “It was because of the cheesecake.”

  The nurse raises a questioning eyebrow at me.

  But Mum leaps in before I get the chance to explain that the multiple weeny scratches were actually caused by me trying to scoop up the dropped slab of cheesecake from the kitchen floor – without thinking of the minuscule shards of broken plate hidden in the chocolate-and-vanilla mush.

  “Long story,” Mum replies briskly, grabbing my home-made bandage from me and shoving it in her pocket to dispose of later. “We’re here to see my mother. She’s had a fall.”

  After the shock of the phone call, Mum’s snapped into Practical Mode, her default setting. Mind you, even though she was trying to hide it, on the way here it was pretty obvious that she was deep-down stressed; the whole hour-and-a-half car journey from Chelmsford to London, she was driving so fast I kept finding myself gripping tight to my seat in case our Ford Focus did a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and took off.

  “Ah, OK!” says the nurse. “Well, the receptionist should be with you in a second, but who is it you’re looking for?”

  “It’s Patsy Jones,” says Mum. “I was told that she’s broken her arm.”

  “And a collarbone, and some ribs and a couple of fingers,” I add, just to be exact.

  “Jones … Jones … I don’t recognize the name,” says the nurse. “There was one lady who came in tonight with multiple fractures, but it wasn’t a Miss or Mrs Jones.”

  “Maybe she gave her name as Patsy Chaudhary?” Mum suggests.

  “Yes! Mrs Chaudhary!” the nurse says with a nod of recognition.

  I glance at Mum and see that she’s clenching her jaw tight. She’s wondering why Nana is suddenly calling herself by her old, married name; Nana and my grandfather divorced, like, seriously, forty years ago or something, and she’s used her single name of Jones ever since. As for Mum, she stayed a Chaudhary for a while longer, finally changing it to Jones too when she was a teenager – and when she had long since lost touch with her dad back in Australia.

  “Can you take us to her?” Mum asks.

  “Yes, of course!” says the nurse, heading towards some double doors with a sign saying Ward 9 above them. “I’ll let you chat with her while I look for the doctor – I know she wanted a word with you.”

  Mum’s jaw tightens again. It was bad enough getting a phone call to say that Nana had fallen in her flat and had several broken bones; it was more worrying to be told that there were “complications” which would need to be talked over with a doctor when Mum arrived at the hospital.

  “One thing to be aware of: your grandmother might seem a little groggy from the painkillers,” the nurse cheerfully tells me in particular as she breezes past lots of cubicles with curtains drawn. “Here she is! Patsy – it’s your family to see you!”

  Oh.

  My heart sinks and tears prickle.

  Nana’s face is so pale under her pinned swirl of white-blonde hair. Under her bright blue eyes are storm-cloud dark circles. She’s not that old – not even seventy yet – but looks so much more frail than I remember, especially with her whole arm and hand in a clompy L-shaped plaster cast.

  And I guess the fact that she’s generally looking so frail makes my heart sink and tears prick more than the worry over her broken bones. When was the last time I saw her? It’s got to be more than a year, I realize with a gulp. It was when she was packing up and getting ready to leave her old house in Southend for the big move to London, the day she and Mum had that awful fight.

  And when was the last time I spoke to her on the phone? I can’t even remember; Mum does her polite, clipped, fortnightly duty phone call to Nana from work, usually.

  “Renuka!” Nana calls out to Mum, lifting her non-plastered hand weakly from the top of the crisp white hospital sheet. “Well, well, well … you came, darling!”

  Mum hurries over and takes Nana’s good hand. I can see her clenching her jaw again. She’s worried and confused. Nana – like everyone, everywhere – calls her “Ren”. The painkillers are making her fuzzy, of course.

  Or could it be concussion?

  I just remembered Mum mentioning that possibility in the car on the way here; if Nana’s had a fall, she might have bashed her head too. It’s probably what the doctor wants to talk to Mum about.

  “Of course I came,” says Mum, doing her best to sound matter-of-fact, as she settles herself on a plastic chair beside the bed. “So how are you? And what happened?”

  Wow, my mum and nan look so different when you compare them this close. I don’t mean the age difference or the fact that one is healthy and one is a bit broken; it’s just Mum’s precise chestnut bob and olive skin are so very different to Nana’s ultra-pale colouring and trademark bird’s-nest bun (I can see the glitter of jewelled clips dotted in the straggles and messy curls of her up-swept hair).

  “Oh, you know me,” Nana answers with a wan smile. “Clumsy old thing – fell off my snowboard halfway down the piste.”

  I blink for a moment, and then remember that Nana is pretty funny. I suppose I forgot, since it’s been so long and everything…

  “Uh-huh. So what actually happened?” Mum asks her, brushing aside the joke.

  If being an Organizational Fiend was a real subject, Mum would have a master’s degree in it.

  If Humour was a GCSE, Mum would score 0.

  Now it’s Nana’s turn to tear up.

  “It’s not his fault that I fell!” she bursts out with a choking sound in her voice at Mum’s blunt question. “When he bashed into me, I just lost my balance. So you mustn’t be cross with him.”

  “Cross with who? What do you mean? Did someone push you?!” Mum asks. Standing behind her, I see Mum’s shoulders twitch a little at this twist in the conversation.

  “No! Oh, no – Mr Spinks didn’t push me. Like I say, I just—”

  “Ms Chaudhary?” a voice interrupts. It belongs to a young woman wearing a white jacket over her shirt and trousers. She gazes expectantly at Mum, who gives a little nod in reply. “I’m Dr Marek… Could I have a word with you in private?”

  As Mum disappears off behind the curtain, I shyly move away from the bottom of the bed and take her place beside my grandmother.

  “Sita?” says Nana, as if she’s just noticed me for the first time. (Concussion, for sure, since she’s using my middle name.)

  “It’s Scarlet, Nana.” I smile at her, my tummy tying itself in knots at the sudden guilt I feel for not seeing her in so long. Though it’s hardly my fault, since it’s her and Mum who are the problem. Or at least the problem is that they wind each other up so much that being in the same room together for any length of time gets both their blood pressures soaring through the roof. And when Nana wouldn’t listen to Mum and insisted on going ahead with her mad plans to sell up in seaside Southend and move to London … well, that’s when it all
went wonky. Or more wonky than ever.

  “I didn’t recognize you, sweetheart,” Nana says softly. “What colour do you call that?”

  As Nana speaks, she raises her good hand to stroke the messy, lilac-toned layers that hang down around my shoulders.

  “It said Violet Skies on the bottle. It’s called a mermaid shade,” I tell her, keeping my gran up to date with the latest hair fashion.

  “Well, I love it,” Nana announces, sounding and looking a little more like her usual self.

  “Thanks! Mum’s not very keen,” I tell her. “Neither are the teachers at school. And my friends hate it – they say it’s too freaky!”

  “How very boring of them – it’s a triumph! Now, you’ve got the same light blonde hair as me,” says Nana, forgetting hers is more white these days. “Do you think I’d suit a mermaid shade too?”

  Maybe she’s joking again, or maybe she’s serious – she is Nana, after all, a woman who’s never knowingly shied away from anything exciting, alternative or creative – i.e., all the traits of hers that drive Mum around the bend.

  She was the art student who married young, emigrated to Australia, then unemigrated back to Britain with a little kid in tow. She was the single mother who dragged my reluctant mum-as-a-kid on shoestring camping and backpacking trips all over Europe. She was the newly retired art teacher who bought a gypsy caravan for the back garden of her house as a retirement present to herself and scandalized the neighbours.

  Of course she can have lilac hair, same as me.

  “Yeah, why not?” I say, then try and get the conversation back on track. “So, Nana, what did happen with this Mr Spinks?”

  Once again, Nana’s face crumples into despair.

  “Oh, Mr Spinks … I hope he’s not hurt too! And he’ll be so worried about me, Scarlet. Can you go check on him, sweetheart? I can’t bear it if he thinks it’s his fault, and you need to tell him I’m all right really. Will you?”

  My head is fizzling. Who is Mr Spinks? A neighbour? A lodger? A polite burglar who broke into Nana’s flat and introduced himself before he pushed her down the stairs?

  “Well, I—”

  “I mean, if it was anyone’s fault it was J. K. Rowling’s. Ha!”

  “Huh?” I mumble, frowning at Nana.

  She sees my furrowed forehead and that seems to bother her.

  “Oh, Scarlet! I’ve made everything such a muddle and a mess and worried everyone, haven’t I?” says Nana, getting herself properly upset.

  “No, I’m sure you haven’t,” I tell her, reaching for a tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet.

  “But, sweetheart, I don’t know what time it is over there, and the people from the hospital might have woken Dean up,” she says, her hands flapping in distress. “And Zephyr’s only a baby! I don’t want them disturbing his sleep!”

  Oh, dear … that concussion must have really rattled poor Nana’s head, and made her thoughts as mushy as the cheesecake that’s still squelched over the kitchen floor back home. It’s kind of scaring me, to tell you the truth.

  I mean, do Mr Spinks, Dean and Zephyr actually exist? Or are they characters in some soap Nana was watching right before she tripped?

  And what’s J. K. Rowling got to do with anything?

  “Oh, and before I forget, Scarlet,” says Nana, a sudden sense of urgency in her voice as she dabs at her eyes, “you have to promise me something. It’s important.”

  Nana fixes her cornflower eyes on me. They suddenly seem so softly vivid, like the Washed-Up Mermaid blue shade in the hair-colour range I use.

  “OK…” I say warily.

  “Listen, I don’t want anyone but you to find the pearl in the attic. Do you hear me, Scarlet? It’s just for you.”

  Outside the curtain, voices draw near, as Mum and the doctor finish their conversation – and I suddenly feel flooded with a sense of relief. I do love Nana, and I have missed her, but this conversation is taking a turn for the seriously weird.

  “I hear you. Don’t let anyone find the pearl in the attic, except me,” I repeat. “Got it.”

  Of course I haven’t got it.

  All I’ve got is a thudding headache.

  Compared to the last couple of hours, impossible Spanish homework seems as blissful as a week in Florida with a non-stop supply of free ice cream.

  “Scarlet … here,” says Mum, coming through the curtain, followed by the doctor. Mum’s rifling in her bag, pulling some coins from her purse. “Can you grab me a coffee from the machine by the lift?”

  I hesitate, suddenly irritated at Mum ordering me to run an errand, like I’m her PA or something.

  “Oh, Scarlet,” Nana pipes up. “Can you get a cup of tea for Angie while you’re at it? She’s always stealing mine.”

  This feels a bit like falling down the rabbit hole.

  Everything is getting curiouser and curiouser.

  “Sure,” I say to Nana, grabbing the money from Mum and hurrying away from Wonderland/Ward 9 as fast as I can…

  Keep Calm and Panic

  Mr Spinks (who we mustn’t blame for Nana’s fall).

  Dean (the snoozer).

  Zephyr (the baby with the unlikely name).

  Angie (the tea-stealer).

  J. K. Rowling (the insanely famous author).

  All the fanciful characters Nana made up or mentioned – turns out they weren’t anything to do with the strong drugs she’d been given.

  They weren’t anything to do with bump-on-the-head fuzziness either.

  She has dementia.

  Well, probably. That’s what Dr Marek wanted to discuss with Mum. Nana arrived with broken bones, but the doctor thinks there are fractures and fault lines in her mind too…

  “I guess it explains why she had that ridiculous idea to move to this place,” Mum mutters, as the car bleep-bleeps its locking system behind us. She sounds exhausted. We’re both exhausted.

  It’s about ten p.m. and we’re parked on Hornsey High Street in North London. It’s not like the high street in our town; there’s no Superdrug or Paperchase or Carphone Warehouse or whatever. Cars zoom up and down it, but it has a faded, forgotten feel.

  Glancing either side as we cross the road, I see a kebab shop, a launderette, a small post office, a place selling second-hand furniture, a Tesco Express, an old-fashioned pub. Only the pub and the kebab shop are open, but they’re hardly groaning with customers.

  There are lots of empty, long-dead shops too, and that’s what we’re looking for: a derelict shop with a flat above it, a bell by the front door with JONES scribbled in the plastic-coated name section.

  “I don’t remember her being different, or seeming ill before she moved, though,” I say, picturing Nana in her dungarees and stripy T-shirts, singing as she got on with her packing back at the house last year. That morning, before the big blow-up with Mum, Nana had me running around doing odd jobs for her: dropping off hand-painted goodbye-and-here’s-my-new-address cards to her neighbours; making sure the bird feeders were all full; putting together a little posy of roses from the garden to welcome the new owners (I used a jam jar as a makeshift chunky vase – the jam jar Nana always kept her spare keys in, hidden under the hydrangea bush by the front door).

  “Maybe it was just in the early stages then,” says Mum. “Maybe we didn’t notice because she’s always been a bit…”

  “Random?” I suggest.

  “Exactly,” Mum agrees with me.

  “But out of anywhere she could move to, why did she want to come here?” I ask as I gaze around at this drab, uninspiring street.

  “Well, I guess your nana did know this area already. When she left school, she came to London and studied art at a college somewhere around here,” says Mum, telling me a bit of Nana’s ancient history that I only hazily remember hearing before. “But honestly, Scarlet, when she said she was bored of being retired and wanted an adventure, I thought my mother was talking about trekking in Nepal for three months or something. I didn’t expect it t
o mean packing up her whole life and moving to this.”

  Of course, this is what Mum has the problem with: Nana was originally from seasidey Southend, and when she and my mum returned from Australia, Nana headed back there, buying a ramshackle old house that she’d done up over time. Why – after all these years – would Nana want to leave a gorgeous house with sea views for some grotty flat above a shop on a busy, fume-filled road?

  Thinking about it, I’m suddenly stabbed with a sharp twang of longing for that old house, even though I’d been going less and less, even before Nana moved away. Once I’d started secondary school, there were always shopping trips into town or plans to hang out with Bella and Aisha. You know how it is; if you don’t go, you might not be asked again, or worse still, be talked about.

  But when I was young, I was always super-excited when we were on our way to visit Nana… There was always fun stuff to do, either hanging out at the beach all day or just playing in her huge garden, which I adored, since we didn’t have one of our own in our modern block of flats. What would Nana have planned, I’d wonder. Would there be a paddling pool set up? Skittles made from a tennis ball and empty water bottles? A brand-new fairy door nestling in the tree roots? A paper-trail hunt, where the clues Nana had made up would be tied to pine cones, tucked under plant pots, hidden inside watering cans? A memory rushes in of me and Mum often having to let ourselves in with the hidden keys in the jam jar, if Nana was out of range of the doorbell, sketching or daydreaming in her caravan in the garden…

  “Didn’t Nana have some plan to buy a flat with a shop, that she could turn into a gallery?” I ask, the details now starting to drift back to me.

  Nana’s idea had been to open up a space for her own art, and other local artists, potters, sculptors, whatever. During the fortnightly duty phone calls, Mum had come to realize the gallery idea had never materialized, which didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

  “Mmm,” mutters Mum. “Though how she thought she could start up a business at her age I don’t know. And how was an art gallery ever going to work in a backwater street like this?”