Kite Spirit (6 page)

Kite could almost feel the heat in her friend’s face as she sat exposed and humiliated, willing the concert to end. It had been nearly two years since she’d gone to watch Dawn at her
first full-blown recital, when she’d played her favourite Brahms symphony and she’d looked so happy. Kite had seen her in loads of things since then, playing like a professional. How
could it all have gone so badly wrong?

‘But I only went with her to Howarth’s a few weeks ago, to buy more reeds.’ Kite grabbed hold of Esme’s arms and shook her. ‘What do you mean, she froze? When was
this? She didn’t tell me anything.’

‘I’m sorry, I thought . . .’ Esme pulled away from Kite’s tight grip. ‘Dad and I, and even Eddie, phoned her,’ Esme explained, looking over at the boy who had
been so distressed, ‘to tell her we needed her back.’ She wouldn’t answer our calls, so in the end Dad sent a letter to her parents to meet and talk everything through. But they
never replied.’

‘I don’t understand . . . she was at rehearsal every Saturday.’

Esme shook her head. ‘We haven’t seen her for nearly two months now.’

‘Then Hazel and Jimmy can’t have got that letter . . . They didn’t know either. She must have felt so alone.’

The boy with the black hair came and stood next to Esme. ‘Kite, this is Eddie.’

‘I’ve seen you play.’

The boy nodded, his dark eyes red and swollen.

‘I told her you liked her but she wouldn’t believe me.’

The boy opened his mouth to speak then hesitated and closed it again.

‘Kite was Dawn’s closest friend,’ Esme explained.

‘I wasn’t,’ whispered Kite. ‘I can’t have been or she would have told me what was going on in her head.’

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Esme, and she and Eddie seemed to float off into the crowd of mourners.

Kite wished she could cry. It was as if she had become an instrument with only two notes – flat and sharp; she was either dull and empty or filled with bitter acid anger that made her want
to lash out at someone or something. Suddenly the sky darkened and the rain began to fall. Umbrellas sprung open and people scurried away to take cover in the eaves of the chapel.

‘Come in from the rain, Kite,’ Seth called over the din of the downpour as he sprinted towards her with his umbrella. She shook her head at his offer of protection. Instead she stood
in the middle of the courtyard and held out her arms. It was a relief to be bombarded by something as simple and clean as rain.

Kite heard the doorbell but pretended to be asleep on the day that Mr Scott called round to discuss the possibility of finishing her exams. Through her bedroom wall she could
just about make out the gist of his conversation with her mother. It seemed to be going around and around in circles until Ruby raised her voice.

‘Let the child be! Surely she can take exams at any time.’

Kite recognized that tone; it meant that Ruby was not expecting any further discussion.

‘Of course I understand your feelings right at this moment, but you have to consider how this might affect her future,’ Mr Scott answered not unkindly. He was such a tall imposing
man that Kite had never noticed the surprisingly weak strain in his voice, especially when weighed against Ruby’s.

‘But she
has
a future, that’s the point. And after what’s happened to Dawn . . . We’re not putting any more pressure on her,’ Ruby continued. She was
adopting the ‘stuck record method’ that she had taught Kite to use in difficult situations. ‘Just say the same thing over again in different ways, and eventually your message will
get through,’ Ruby had instructed her.

Seth must have passed Mr Scott in the doorway because their voices mingled together and fused with the drone of traffic from the street outside. There was silence for a while between Seth and
Ruby. They were probably going through their ritual of hugging and kissing and comforting each other. Even though one of them was always off on tour, and they weren’t even officially married,
Ruby and Seth were probably the most ‘together’ couple of anyone’s parents Kite knew.

Kite’s mind flitted back to the day when she and Dawn had watched them snogging through a crack in the living-room door, and Dawn had laughed so hard that she’d almost wet
herself!

‘I don’t think I’ve ever even seen my mum and dad kiss like that!’ Dawn giggled.

Kite continued to listen through the wall. Her parents were sitting on the sofa that backed on to her bedroom wall, the sofa from which she had overheard so many of their ‘secret’
half-whispered conversations.

‘What about this bereavement counsellor the doctor’s set her up with?’ Ruby asked.

‘She’s still refusing to go. Says she prefers to speak to Miss Choulty. I contacted the woman today about it and she says that we should keep a close eye on her, especially the not
sleeping and eating, and definitely sign on with a local doctor as a temporary patient as soon as we get there. She’s written a letter for us to take.’

‘I suppose it’s only for a few weeks, but she can’t carry on like this with no sleep, Seth.’

‘It’s OK, Rubes, I know what to look out for. If it continues, or there’s any sign of hallucinations, we’ll have to take her to hospital and they might give her
medication, but the doctor said that’s always the last resort.’

‘She doesn’t need pills. She needs love and support and to talk it all through.’ Ruby was crying.

‘It’s OK, Rubes. This counsellor, Lucy, says she’ll talk to us too, all of us if it helps, and she’ll see Kite any time when we get back for as long as she needs her
for.’

‘I’m thinking of cancelling my tour.’

‘No need for that.’ Seth sighed deeply. ‘I’ll look after her like I did when she was a baby.’

In the silence that followed, a feeling of outrage began to rise up in Kite. So they had made a plan to take her away somewhere without even consulting her. What did they think that she would do
– follow in Dawn’s footsteps? And if she couldn’t talk to Miss Choulty, how was she going to speak to this counsellor? Never in a million years would she ever take her own life,
but then again, the thought had never crossed her mind that Dawn would consider such a thing either.

Seth began strumming his guitar. He was playing her lullaby. The song that to thousands of other people was Seth Solomon’s ‘hit’ belonged in truth only to her.

‘It was your naming day that released the song writer in me,’ he never tired of telling her.

She knew the words so well that she let them wash over her as she listened through the wall, the tune meandering through her thoughts.

Tomorrow, Kite thought, I will be sixteen and it should be Dawn’s turn to sit on my bed and wish me a happy birthday.

Kite cast around the room, letting her eyes settle on the bright multicoloured diamonds of her birthday kites. There was no space for posters, or photos, or anything else apart
from her long mirror, her wardrobe and a few bookshelves – because the fifteen kites, one for every year of her life, dominated her horizon. Just as well that even Ruby would understand there
was no room now for any more kites after this year.

The door swung open gently, wafting kite tails. For a moment Kite almost expected Dawn to be standing there, but it was Seth who hovered in the entrance, strumming away, as if asking permission
to enter. She nodded and he strolled around aimlessly; singing and playing, lost somewhere deep in his own thoughts.

Gradually, note by note, she felt her body relax. The song took her to a faraway time in her own childhood. Eventually Seth’s voice trailed off. He placed his guitar by her bed and lay
beside her. Tiredness swam around her head, and her eyelids felt unnaturally heavy. Seth flicked his sandy silver-flecked hair over one eye and fidgeted with his collection of leather bracelets. He
had one from each of the many festivals he’d played at.

‘I’ve been thinking that you and I should go away for the summer. Get away from . . . well – just get away really.’

When she didn’t respond he continued. ‘Sid from my record company’s got this idea about a new ballad album. He’s sending songwriters off to write about the places their
ancestors came from.’

‘Sheffield?’

‘Your grandpa was from there, and your grandma was brought up in a children’s home there, but it wasn’t where she was from originally.’ Kite nodded. She vaguely
remembered him saying something about that, but as her grandparents had died before she was born, she never really felt that connected to them.

‘Mum once told me that her maiden name, ‘Storey’, was from the Lake District or around that part of the world. When I was about your age I asked her why I didn’t have any
grandparents. She just said that her mum and dad had “given her up”, she didn’t know why and she didn’t want to dwell on it. It was obviously too painful for her, so I
stopped asking questions, but my finding out can’t do her any harm now, can it? Besides, I’ve always wanted to see the Lakes; it’s supposed to be beautiful up there.’

Kite was only half listening to Seth’s ramblings, but she was grateful that he wasn’t trying to get her to talk about Dawn or, worse still, her birthday. She had told Ruby a hundred
times to cancel even the idea of it. She couldn’t stand the thought of stepping into her seventeenth year without Dawn.

‘Anyway I think it would be quite something for us to find out about my family’s roots together,’ Seth said in his soft, contemplative voice, still staring at the ceiling.

Ruby had been so set on teaching Kite about the history of her family in the Caribbean that Kite had spent most of her preschool years in St Kitts back when Grandad Cyril was alive. She could
picture him holding on to her as she stood on his feet and he danced her around the room roaring with laughter. Ruby said that any daughter of hers should have carnival and sunshine in her soul.
But all she knew about Seth’s family is that they were from Sheffield, and now it seemed that even that was only half the story. It reminded Kite of something Dawn had said in drama one day,
after Dawn’s uncannily accurate impression of Ruby.

‘I wish I came from somewhere else, like you!’

‘But we’re both from London!’

‘Yes! But you know what I mean; you’ve got your St Kitts family too and all Ruby’s arty connections. We don’t really see anyone in our family. What do I say if someone
asks me what my culture is?’

Now Kite thought she might be beginning to understand what Dawn had been getting at. Kite had Grandma Grace and Jai and all her cousins in St Kitts, and even though they were so far away, she
Skyped them most weeks and they were always in her thoughts. So maybe if Dawn had belonged to a big bustling family of aunties and uncles and cousins, she might have found someone to talk to. Maybe
if Dawn had had a Grandma Grace with all her funny stories . . . Now Kite thought about it, there were plenty of things that she might not tell Seth or Ruby, but she couldn’t think of
anything really that she would need to hide from her grandma.

On the occasions that he’d mentioned them, Seth always referred to his mother and father as ‘Grandma Hannah’ and ‘Grandpa David’, which was strange to Kite as Ruby
and Seth always made such a big deal about people not being labelled by their titles.

‘What was their surname?’ Kite asked suddenly. When she spoke her voice sounded strangely flat and lifeless to her.

‘Didn’t I ever tell you?’ Seth asked in surprise.

Kite shook her head.

‘Jackson. I suppose I have found it a bit hard to talk about them – you know, because they died so close to when you were born. I was gutted about that. Your grandma went just a
month before you arrived. Ruby was so pregnant at her funeral. That’s what upset me the most. She was really looking forward to meeting you.’ Seth’s eyes filled with tears as he
hugged Kite to him.

‘I would have liked to meet her too. So
I
could have been Kite Jackson?’ she asked as she tried out her new name. ‘I prefer Solomon . . .’

Seth nodded. ‘I did too! My “Song of Solomon” album did pretty well for me, so I never used Jackson after that! Anyway, what do you think to a road trip to the Lakes? How about
setting off tomorrow? It might make it easier, on your birthday, to be doing something different.’

Kite shrugged by way of answer. She couldn’t feel any worse than she already did, and maybe if she got away from Fairview and London, where everything reminded her of Dawn, she would be
able to sleep.

‘OK!’ Kite whispered.

‘Good!’ Seth sighed with relief, wrapping his arm around Kite’s shoulder. ‘You know Ruby’s choreographing this show in Manchester, so she can come up and visit from
time to time. Wait till you see the house the record company’s rented for us. It’s supposed to have been designed by some prize-winning architect. Shall we have a look online?’
Seth walked over to the computer and went to switch it on.

‘Leave it, Seth,’ Kite groaned.

‘OK, then it can be a surprise.’ He smiled, picked up his guitar and walked out of the room.

As soon as he was gone she regretted not showing more interest. He’d looked so upset when he’d talked about Grandma Hannah dying. Knowing Seth, he was probably trying to find a way
to get her to share her grief with him, but she’d pushed him away, like she seemed to push everyone away now.

Kite watched as the display on her alarm clock switched to 5.42 a.m., the exact time of her birth. These were important times, times that people should know, the time of your
birth and the time of your death, but even with the inquest over, nobody was able to pinpoint the moment of Dawn’s death. With thoughts like these filling her mind, Kite was grateful to be
heading off.