A Place of Secrets (18 page)

Jude rarely had occasion to visit the shop, though when she
did she always loved delving into its trove of starry treasures. These ranged from delicate silver mobiles of the solar system to kitsch film-star T-shirts and plastic pocket-money toys. And it still amazed her, but also gave her immense pleasure to see Claire in her professional environment—efficient and effective instead of prickly and difficult. At this moment she was explaining calmly and earnestly
to a young woman in a minidress and leggings why giving a name to a star in the firmament was such a wonderful thing to do. “It’s a fabulous sign of your love for someone special. I’ve done it for my daughter and my mum and my gran, and they were all so touched.” Claire clearly believed what she was saying, every word. She hasn’t done it for me, it occurred to Jude; Claire’s never named a
star for me. And this dull thought bludgeoned home the distance between them.

She was fond of her sister, there was no doubt about that, and she supposed that her sister felt the same about her, but always there was this sense of Claire’s resentment. It was more, much more than the simple biological fact that her birth had knocked little Princess Claire off her throne thirty-four years ago. It
was about more than primal sibling rivalry to succeed and earn their parents’ praise. After all, Claire had always refused to play that particular game. Some of it must be about Claire’s disability, but since Claire’s damaged leg had actually meant she received more in the way of parental concern and attention than her able younger sister, surely it should be Jude who was resentful. There was something
else at work here, and Jude had never got to the bottom of it. She turned away, absently picking up and examining a delicate porcelain mug on which Van Gogh’s famous picture of a street café under a starry sky was painted. It occurred to her she ought to buy something for Suri’s birthday in a week’s time. Not this, though. She looked about. A pretty string of fairy lights? No, too Christmassy.
An engraved silver bangle caught her eye; it was just the sort of thing Suri would wear. It would look stunning against her tawny skin. She glanced at the price and then, as she pulled her purse out of her handbag, she tuned in to Claire once more.

“There’s this lovely presentation box,” Claire was telling the girl, “with a unique certificate.”

“Oh, the writing’s so clever,” the girl exclaimed.
“Did you do that?”

“Yes, the personal touch is important,” said Claire, who had taught herself calligraphy as a teenager. “This is where your star’s name goes, here. And there’s this chart of the night sky so you can see where it is. We only use stars you can see in the northern hemisphere, so your loved one can actually expect to see it, if only with a telescope. Here we write the coordinates,
so they can find it. And there’s this booklet about studying the night sky … oh, and my poem.”

“And it’s twenty pounds for everything? I’ll do that, then. It’s my gran’s sixtieth so the star will be called Trixie Tonkins.”

Jude, in the queue to pay for the bracelet, had to disguise a little snort of laughter with a cough. Clearly the idea of a noble celestial body named Trixie Tonkins also struck
the girl as peculiar, because she asked anxiously, “Do you think they’ll accept that?”

Claire, commendably, kept a straight face. “Of course. Astronomers use numbers rather than names, anyway, so they won’t be bothered by what we do. The Star Bureau produces a register every now and then to publicize the names and, I’ve got to tell you, there are other companies that do this, but since there
are more than fifteen million known stars, there’re plenty for everyone who wants one.”

Jude had once had an argument with Claire about this. “Don’t you think you’re conning people a bit? After all, stars won’t ever officially be called by these names that people pay for. Is it legal?”

“I always explain,” Claire had replied fiercely. “But people still seem to want to go ahead with it. It’s more
the symbol of naming a star, isn’t it? It’s a special thing to do for someone, a personal thing. Customers don’t seem to care whether some nerd at NASA calls it by the name or not.”

“Money can’t buy you love—or stars,” Jude muttered.

“Summer adores her star,” Claire said. “She knows where to look for it and points excitedly when she thinks she’s seen it. In actual fact, she can’t see it with
the naked eye, but you know Summer—she thinks she knows best.”

Perhaps that’s why Claire’s never given me a star, Jude saw suddenly. She thinks I’m a bit cynical. In fact, Claire was wrong, Jude did understand what Claire meant.

“Give her staff discount for the bangle, will you, Lol? Twenty percent,” Claire’s business partner Linda told Lola at the till. Linda’s manicured finger moved quickly
over the calculator. “Twelve pounds, I make it.”

“Do you want a gift box today?” the shy teenager said, looking longingly at the bangle. “It’s really pretty, isn’t it?”

“Yes, please. Oh, hold on a moment.” A book of fairy stories from a rack in front of the counter caught her eye. She pulled it out, thinking she’d never noticed any such collection on Summer’s shelves. The illustration on the
front of this one was lovely—a cuddly-looking wolf curled around a capable-looking Red Riding Hood. She turned the pages quickly. There was Cinderella in her coach, Snow White waking from her poisoned sleep, Jack swarming his beanstalk. Yes, she was sure Summer would love these illustrations; the characters seemed to leap from the page. The writer was a name she vaguely recognized. As to why it was
in the Star Bureau, she saw the publisher was Little Star Books. She smiled. Cheating, maybe, but why not.

“I couldn’t resist stocking that one,” Linda remarked, as though reading her mind. “It’s not strictly speaking anything to do with stars, but we’ve sold two or three.”

The woman waiting to pay behind her gave an impatient sigh.

“It’s irresistible,” Jude replied, making her decision. “I’ll
have this as well, please. Sorry to mess up your calculations.”

By the time Jude had stowed away her credit card, Claire was ready. The plan was that they’d have lunch together in a little restaurant Claire knew, then drive their separate cars to Gran’s, Claire picking up Summer from school on her way. Jude had felt guilty visiting Gran on Sunday without them, so she had suggested this arrangement.

“Lunch is on me,” Jude said firmly as they waited to cross the road.

“OK.” Claire shrugged as though she’d assumed this to be the case all along. This irritated Jude, but she was used to it.

* * *

In the restaurant they were served by the owner himself, who welcomed Claire warmly, kissing her on both cheeks. He was a jovial man, perhaps in his sixties, with a smile that crinkled the weathered
skin around his sailor-blue eyes, and Claire flirted with him as he fetched the menus.

“What can I do for you lasses today?” he asked. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend, Claire?”

“She’s not my friend, she’s my sister,” Claire said, then saw the hurt in Jude’s eyes. “God, that came out wrong. Jude, this is Joe, lovely Joe, Linda’s brother-in-law.”

Joe looked from one woman to the other,
puzzled for a moment, then his face cleared and he nodded. “I can see the likeness between you,” he said.

“Really?” Jude asked. “Everyone says we’re totally different.”

“Same expressions, same hands, same way of pushing back your hair, same smile,” he enumerated. The sisters looked at one another in disbelief. “Takes a man of discernment to see it, mind you. Now, I recommend the cheese ploughman’s.
Then there’s the seasonal vegetable tart…”

“I’ll have that, thanks, Joe,” said Claire, twinkling at him, and Jude chose the ploughman’s.

When Joe had left them, Claire said, “So what did you buy in the shop?”

“Oh, this, for a colleague,” Jude said, bringing out the box with the bracelet.

“It’s very pretty.”

“And then I thought Summer might like these stories since she got a magic star for
reading.” She passed the book across the table and Claire looked at the title without opening it.

“That’s very kind of you.” Claire looked a little anxious.

“Don’t you like it? You were stocking it,” Jude pointed out.

“It’s a beautiful-looking book. It’s just that I’ve never really read Summer fairy stories. Her teachers say children can find them frightening.”

“Oh,” Jude said, a bit lost
for words. “I always loved them myself. These don’t look very scary.”

“No, they don’t,” Claire said, looking at the picture of Cinderella in her coach. “Oh why not. It’s very kind of you,” she repeated. “I’m sure she’ll love it.” Still, Jude was left with the feeling that her present wasn’t entirely welcome.

Their drinks arrived. Her sister took a sip of cloudy organic apple juice. “What’s it
like living the grand life at the Hall, then? A little bit more space than at Blacksmith’s Cottage, I imagine.”

“But not as cozy. Seriously, Claire, it’s alarmingly big. I’m not used to walking several miles of corridor to get to breakfast.”

“So how do they all manage there?”

“In what way?”

“Who does the housework and cleans the windows? It all seems very impractical.”

“There’s just a daily
cook and cleaner, I think. And Alexia’s always very busy.”

“You’d think they’d rattle around.”

“They do a bit. And for years it must have been just Chantal and her husband, William, living there.”

“That must be strange.”

Alexia hadn’t changed anything around much, it occurred to Jude now. She thought of the drawing room with its formal furniture, the black-and-white photographs of long-dead
family members set out on the piano and the bureau. Someone less tactful than Alexia might have brought in the interior designers. She didn’t think it was merely a matter of there being no money. Even the dresser in the breakfast room was still lined with Chantal’s mementos, though a modern corkboard on the nearby wall was covered with the messy paperwork of a busy young family: party invitations,
car pool schedules, digital snapshots. She wondered what Alexia thought about the situation deep down. She’d not yet had much of a chance to observe.

Their food arrived and for a couple of minutes they concentrated on eating. Then Claire said, “You’ve never really said why you didn’t go to France. I think you’re mad, missing a chance like that. I haven’t had a holiday for … ever so long.”

“We
ought to go away together, the three of us, sometime,” Jude said on impulse. “Visit Mum and Douglas in Spain maybe, once their place is ready.” But Claire didn’t seem that keen.

“I can’t leave the business really, can I?”

“Can’t you? You and Linda seem to have help.”

“Lola? Yes, she’s OK. And one of the mums from school, Jackie, helps out sometimes in the week with the online orders and the
admin, but we can’t afford to have someone else full-time and Linda gets a bit fed up, especially in school holidays when I keep having time off.”

“She doesn’t have children, does she, Linda?”

“No, but her mum and dad are really old now and her mum has Alzheimer’s.”

“Supposing you could get help in the shop, would you go?”

“Maybe. Summer would love it, I suppose.” Jude read it that Claire
wouldn’t. Thinking about it, a week or two cooped up with their mother would be tricky for Claire, even now that they got on better. The two sisters sat in silence for a moment, then Claire said, “So why didn’t you go to France with that Caspar guy? I thought you were keen on him.”

She was digging, Jude thought suddenly, reading her sister’s thoughts. If Jude were still going out with Caspar,
she would be safer to leave alone with Euan. Jude concentrated on piling chutney on her cheese, and remembered how upset she’d been that Caspar hadn’t wanted to meet Claire. That, she saw now, was one of the things that sounded a warning bell about him. “He’s the first man I’ve been out with properly since Mark and—” She looked down at her food without appetite. Suddenly she decided to confide in
her sister. “Claire, I finished things with him. I’m frightened that I don’t know how to be with someone anymore. Every time I was with him I was comparing it to how it was with Mark. And there wasn’t the same closeness. I wasn’t at ease with Caspar. I was always wondering what he was thinking and whether he’d understood me.”

Claire studied her calmly, then remarked, “He wasn’t perfect, you know,
Mark. You seem to think he was.”

What a strange thing to say. “He was for me.”

“The trouble is you’ve put him on some pedestal, like he couldn’t ever do a thing wrong. And then you compare everyone else to this ideal vision and they don’t make the grade. How can they? You don’t give them a chance.”

“Well you’re the one to give me advice,” Jude retorted.

“That’s different. I’m not looking for
anyone else,” Claire said fiercely. “Me and Summer, we’re a big enough unit. It would take someone very special for me to change that.”

“Not Euan, then?” Jude flashed back. “You seem to trust him with her.”

“I do,” Claire said, her voice softer now. “Wouldn’t you?”

Jude remembered his gentleness with all living things and nodded. She’d got the definite feeling that Claire was interested in
Euan, despite all her protestations about going it alone. There was something troubling her though, about Summer.

“Claire, did you know Euan took Summer to see the folly once? Apparently she didn’t like it.”

Claire looked mildly surprised, then said in an odd voice, “Oh, why not?”

“I don’t know. Euan said she was frightened by something. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you before.”

“She never said
anything.”

“Well, perhaps it’s a coincidence, then.”

“What’s the coincidence?”

“Well, I just thought … I think it must have been around the time her dreams started.”

Claire stared at her, uncertainty in her face. Then she said, “Mum wouldn’t go there, you know.”

“To the folly? You told me you and she nearly went there once.”

“I fetched her over to babysit Summer—you remember that time she
couldn’t drive because of her knee?”

“A couple of years ago?”