Whilst Mum and Ava discussed their beverage preferences, I took a moment to look back at Caitlin. She was still staring right at me but had begun chewing the skin around her nails and wrinkling her nose a little as she did so. I took a moment to take in her strange, oversized attire and her laid-back attitude. I had expected her to be dressed more primly.
‘I’ll pop the kettle on, Darcy, you’ve your hands full.’ Ava edged over to the Aga and shot a look back at her daughter. ‘Caitlin!’ she hissed.
Caitlin shot Ava a steely look before moving forward. ‘Hi, I’m Caitlin.’ She held her hand out towards me.
I shot a look at Mum, who nodded with her eyes wide.
I took Caitlin’s hand in mine. It was warm, but not sweaty, considering the heat of the afternoon.
‘I’m Sasha,’ I said and pulled my lips inwards, feeling embarrassment at our interaction. I dropped Caitlin’s hand.
‘Why don’t you girls go on out and play?’ Mum said, her concentration back on the silver as she rubbed it so hard, the flesh on her arms shook.
‘Mama, you said we would practise my backhand today, before tennis starts,’ Caitlin said to her mother’s back.
Natalie started to move back out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll get these little tykes back outside. Say goodbye to Mummy,’ Natalie said as she pulled the twins out of the door.
‘Lovely to meet you!’ Mum called in her best sing-song voice.
The twins didn’t say goodbye to their mum, and Ava didn’t turn to say goodbye to them.
‘Yes, well, Caitlin, I have a few jobs to do, so I can’t now. But you have Sasha to occupy you now,’ Ava replied as she busied herself with making the tea.
‘But, Mama, you promised, when I asked you last night you—’
‘Caitlin!’ Ava said through an embarrassed laugh as she turned around. Her daughter went silent and looked at her feet.
‘It’s nice for Caitlin to finally have someone her own age to play with,’ Ava said, brushing her hand through her dark hair. ‘And now you have your lovely new friend, there is even more reason for you to want to stay here over the summer.’ Ava’s voice rang out loud and shrill as she turned back to the Aga and continued with the tea. Her voice was laced with a hint of sarcasm and I glanced at Mum for confirmation. She was concentrating harder on her silver polishing, but her lips were pursed and her eyebrows raised in a way that suggested she had heard Ava’s tone too and it didn’t sound the way a mother should speak to her daughter.
Looking back at Caitlin, her face had morphed into one of determination. She stared hard at her mother’s back, her face hardened and reddened. She stepped forward and grabbed my arm and practically dragged me from the kitchen. On the way out, she picked up an open picnic basket from the inside porch. It was lined with a red gingham material and I could see a bottle of lemonade and some bread rolls poking out.
Once we were out of earshot of any adults, with that same look of conviction etched firmly across her face, she said, ‘Come on, I know somewhere really cool we can go.’
We walked out of the iron gates, turned left and I saw our little cottage through the eyes of someone else for the first time since we had arrived here. I felt conscious of the size of our house compared to the Clemontes’ twelve-bedroom sixteenth-century manor house. I glanced over at Caitlin’s smock dress which, although wasn’t an item I would have ever chosen myself, looked new and smart, and then compared it to my frayed shorts, which I had thought quite trendy but now seemed tired and a little dated.
We carried on past the cottage and across the wildflower meadow, which was in full bloom and bursting with every coloured flower; bees and butterflies flew all around us. Suddenly I felt the unfamiliar sensation of a hand in mine and turned to my left to see Caitlin grinning at me. I couldn’t remember holding hands with any of my friends since Martha Braithwaite in Year Three, but something about this moment, with Caitlin’s hand in mine, felt right. It was oddly freeing, just the two of us encased within acres of land; this moment was for Caitlin and me, and no one else. I wasn’t worried that someone would see us and think us babyish, I just thought about how much I enjoyed the sensation. With Caitlin’s hand in mine, I felt not only a connection to her, but to Saxby and everything it offered.
She broke into a trot and I began to run too, our legs falling out of sync, the picnic basket she was carrying tossing from side to side in her hand. As we ran, I could feel the stalks and leaves of the wildflowers tickling my arms and legs. Suddenly Caitlin stopped running, but she kept hold of my hand for a few seconds before she let go of it. She sped up so she was in front of me and began pulling the heads off flowers. I wanted to say she wasn’t allowed to do that, but I thought better of it. This was more her home than mine.
As her hand struck the stalks, I could hear Caitlin saying something, but her voice was travelling forward in the light breeze, out of earshot. As I had never ventured out this far on my own, I wondered if she was trying to tell me where we were going next, and because I didn’t want to miss a wrong turning, I called up ahead after her. ‘What did you say?’
She stopped walking and turned and looked at me, and everything suddenly became amplified as Caitlin studied me with an
