The Bad Boy Wants Me(31)

I walk up to the bed. ‘It’s only me. I wanted to make sure you were all right. How do you feel this morning?’

‘Super,’ she says a bit too brightly, and pats her bed. ‘Sit down. I want to talk to you.’

I sit at the edge of her bed.

‘You won’t tell Dad about what happened last night, will you?’

‘Of course not,’ I say.

A look of relief passes over her face. ‘Oh good. Thank you. After all, nothing bad, not really bad, happened so no need to worry him.’

‘If you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here, OK?’

She looks down at the pattern of pink roses embroidered on her duvet, her expression undecided, before she looks up with a determined smile on her face. ‘OK. Thank you.’

‘Good. Want to have breakfast together?’

She beams. ‘Yes, I definitely do.’

‘Go on then.’

‘Give me five minutes,’ she says and leaps energetically out of bed. I walk to the window and stand looking out at the garden. It is not a beautiful garden. No one in this house cares for it. Someone comes to cut the grass and trim the hedges, and the tall wall of rhododendron bushes at the bottom of the garden flower and die unnoticed.

Britney is out in less time than it takes me to squeeze toothpaste onto a brush. We walk down the stairs together while she chatters on about one of her bitchy friends. To be honest I have to agree with her. I met the girl once and I didn’t like her one bit.

The breakfast room is full of sunlight from the lantern roof. Cora has already laid out all the breakfast stuff. We drop our slices of bread into the toaster and while we are waiting for it to pop we fill our cups with coffee.

We sit opposite each other at the long table. I butter my toast and cover it liberally with blueberry jam while Britney thinly spreads her slice with butter and an even tinier amount of Marmite. I can smell it from where I am sitting. Ugh. How is that even food?

‘Dad’s taking me to lunch at Groucho Club. Do you want to come with?’

I hold my toast suspended in front of my mouth. ‘Have you forgotten, Brit? I go back to my aunt’s every second Saturday. I’ll be back Sunday evening.’

‘Oh,’ she says, her little face crumpling. ‘What time are you going?’

‘Right after breakfast. My aunt is taking me to an antique fair.’

‘Oh,’ she says as if being dragged around an antique fair is something she has wanted to do all her life.

I smile. ‘Britney Hunter? You hate antiques!’

She bites into her slice of toast. ‘Yeah, I know, but I hate being here on my own more.’

‘You don’t have to be here on your own. Why don’t you ask Natalie to come over?’

‘Natalie is in France.’

‘Right, how about Victoria?’

‘Nah. Don’t worry about me. I’ll probably just paint all afternoon.’

I take a sip of coffee. ‘How come you’ve never shown me your work?’

She worries her lower lip. ‘I’ve never shown it to anyone.’

I stare at her. ‘Why not?’

She shrugs. ‘But I’ll show you.’ She pauses. ‘If you have the time.’

‘Of course I’ve got time,’ I say immediately.

‘Only if you want to.’

I look her in the eye. ‘I want to, Brit.’

‘OK,’ she says and a simple, childlike joy fills her little face.

We finish our breakfast and go up the stairs. We pass the room that leads to the attic where Cash and I had been in last night, and go towards the last room. It bears a skull and cross bones sign on it. When I was first shown around the house this was the one room I had not gone inside. She stops in front of it and turns towards me.

‘I feel really nervous.’

‘If it helps I still draw stick figures.’

She giggles. ‘OK. I trust you. You always tell the truth.’

I feel my ears becoming red. She turns and puts a key into the lock and turns the handle. It is quite a big airy room with a bare wooden floor. There is a mannequin parked at one corner, a tall easel in the middle of the room, and a massive, deep-red velvet armchair by the window. On the floor next to the chair are empty packets of crisps, discarded chocolate wrappings, and a couple of detective novels. Along the walls there are many canvasses lined up with their backs showing to the room.

‘This is my secret room,’ she says in a small voice.

I turn to look at her. ‘I love it.’

She grins. ‘So do I.’

‘Come on then. Show me your art.’

I follow her to the canvasses lined up against the wall and one by one she shows them to me. I say nothing. Just look at each one carefully. They are beautiful but very strange, and leave me with a sense of unease. Most of them are images of unfinished humans or humans with holes cut out of their bodies and children curled up inside the empty spaces. Other figures are white and featureless standing against a dark background. They have a string, like an umbilical cord coming out of them.