Love Notes from Vinegar House (2 page)

It was Holly’s birthday, and I’d been talking to her on the landline the night before (my night, her afternoon or morning – I could never get a handle on the time difference). The cordless phone handset I’d shoved under my pillow was a demented cricket chirping loudly into my ear. My stomach lurched upwards as I was pulled out of a stupid dream where my feet were stuck in sand while waves dumped seaweed over my head. I stabbed blindly at the keypad and finally fluked the talk button.

Let me give you a hint about phone calls that early in the morning – they’re not from someone telling you that you’ve won the lottery or the Nobel Peace Prize. They’re not even offering to save you money by introducing you to a new phone plan. My first thought was that it was the camp nurse saying that Oscar needed some minor surgery, but it was Carole, my mother’s sister.

“Freya?”

Her voice was tight and so unlike her usual bright, breezy manner that my stomach dropped down to my bedsocks. Then up, then down, a terrifying roller-coaster ride. When Aunt Carole asked for my mother, I stumbled to my parent’s room, the fog of sleep clearing with each step. Mum was already sitting up in bed looking alarmed, so I handed her the phone and perched on the end of the bed to listen in.

Look, I don’t want to go into details, but my Nanna was very sick. Which was sad, but kind of like finding out that the neighbour who lived down the road – the one who dropped birthday cards and Christmas cards into your letterbox every year – was in hospital. If you looked at a world globe and found where we lived, you’d have to spin it 180 degrees to find out where Nanna lived. I didn’t really know her, and she didn’t really know me.

Of course, it was different for Mum.

Mum was a mess, rushing around, pulling clothes from drawers, flicking through the filing cabinet for her passport, then stopping to stare off into the distance, slow tears leaking down her cheeks. My mum is the sort of person who usually only cries at movies, never when things were really tough, so it was like watching a stranger impersonating her and not doing a very convincing job. I made Mum a cup of tea, because that’s what they did in the movies, and then I sent her outside to sit in the morning sun with the distraction of Deefa going crazy around her feet.

“I’m going to have to go with your mother,” Dad said as he strode about.

Let me tell you something about my father; he never walks, or casually saunters, but strides, even if it’s only to bed. I call him the Colonel, though never to his face.

“Can you stay at Holly’s? I’m not sure how long this is going to take.”

“Holly’s in France,” I reminded him.

“Right. Hell, what a mess.” He ran his fingers through his brown hair, which was thin on top and showed pink bits of scalp.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. More than fine, actually, I thought.

Home alone.

Already I was making plans for late, late nights and takeaway dinners. Maybe I could sort the school friends mess out and have a quiet gathering of thirty or so–

“Could you stay with Holly’s mother?” he muttered.

“I’m not staying at Holly’s without Holly being there,” I said.

Seriously. Sometimes it felt like Dad had been born at the age of fifty, which would have been quite uncomfortable for his mother. Even though I had seen photos of him as a teenager, I couldn’t imagine him ever worrying about a zit, or getting up the courage to go on a first date, or partying late the night before an exam.

I stood up to look out the window at Mum, who was warming her hands around the teacup and ignoring the dog. Things were obviously bad. She loved that dog.

“I can stay here. I am perfectly old enough to live by myself,” I said.

“Don’t you have other friends? What’s that girl … Barbara?”

“Bridie,” I corrected. “And no, everyone’s away.” Dad didn’t have a clue who my friends were or what they were doing. They are also not on my Things That Dad Needs To Know list.

“Maybe I should get Isabella to come home–”

“Dad!”

“Freya, it’s out of the question. Money’s a bit tight at the moment – we just can’t afford to take you with us. And you can’t stay here by yourself. How are you going to get about?”

“Dad, I’m on holidays. I don’t need to be driven around. I can walk to the supermarket from here.”

Even though I usually badgered for a lift if ever I had to go there. I mean, it’s only a couple of blocks from home, but it is uphill. More of an incline than hill, really.

“The Dunbars live just down the road if I get stuck,” I said.

Even though they were stuck up snobs and they always ignored me whenever I walked past their house. Just because of that embarrassing incident four Halloweens ago … I don’t really want to talk about that though.

“What else is there? I’ve got stacks of homework. I’ll just hang out at home, like I’m already doing anyway. What’s the difference?” I didn’t mention the Harts, our neighbours across the road, although once they would have been at the top of my list of friends.

The same moment the idea crossed my mind, Dad said, “I’d ask the Harts, but they’ve got a houseful of relatives.”

I was glad I couldn’t go there.

“So, Dad–” I began.

But the Colonel was already striding out of the room, punching at the numbers of his mobile phone, totally ignoring me as usual. Look out. National emergency. Maybe he was calling the prime minister.

I decided that I would talk to Mum after things had settled down a bit. I had friends who’d lived alone for days at a time. Didn’t my parents trust me?

But I never had a chance to talk to Mum about the whole staying at home thing because a half an hour later Dad had some wonderful news. I thought maybe he’d had a call from Aunt Carole to say everything was okay and that Nan’s illness was a false alarm. In fact, he had rung Grandma to ask if I could stay with her.

Fffffantastic.

“Your grandmother has a few appointments in Port Eden next week, but that’s only an overnight stay,” said Dad.

“Next week?” I repeated.

“Freya, I don’t know how long this is going to take,” said Dad.

That stopped me in my tracks, because my father knows everything. What did he mean he didn’t know how long this was going to take?

“And Rumer will be there, so you two girls can keep each other company,” said my father.

Really, really fffffantastic.

Rumer.

My least-favourite cousin.

Let me tell you about Rumer. I don’t want you to think that I go around hating people, because I don’t. I have a lot of friends. Well, not a lot, not thousands or anything, but I have many friends and one really good friend – Holly. But I was telling you about Rumer. Rumer and I don’t like each other much, but our families insist we are the best of friends. Technically, this is not correct. We are best friends like cats and dogs might be. Or like oil and water. Or like a glass of milk and someone with lactose intolerance. You get the idea. Rumer is older than me, but it is only a two-year gap. If only the gap between the rest of our lives wasn’t five billion light- years apart. Still, Rumer wasn’t too bad – just as long as I did everything she wanted.

I don’t know about you, but I hate bossy people.

When we were younger, Rumer always made up games where the rules shifted depending on how she was feeling. This made trying to win pretty impossible. And Rumer was always the hero. My roles ranged from weakling foe to snivelling servant and even unloved pet. If Rumer was the star of the show, I was like one of those actors in the credits way down near the gaffer boy. Or maybe just stunt girl number two.

Once, at Grandma’s house, I was given the role of wild dog suffering from rabies. Not one of my finest moments. I figured if I got too tired of the game I could bite Rumer on the leg and blame it on losing myself in the character. I never got a chance to bite Rumer, though, because she tied me to a tree then went off and forgot about me. I was stuck shivering under the tree until Isabella came to find me for lunch. I kicked Rumer when I found her. I got into trouble from my parents – she screamed as if I’d tried to kill her – but Grandma gave me a nod and handed me a peppermint. It was so hot I thought it had burned my voice clear out of its box.

There are things I think about sometimes that I usually keep to myself. For instance, have you ever thought about a voice box? I mean, can it really be a box? And if it’s not a box, then why not call it something else? Like a voice cube? Or a voice oval? I’ve tried feeling my neck for my voice box, but found nothing even vaguely resembling a square shape.

Luke Hart has an Adam’s apple that goes up and down on his neck when he speaks. But that’s not a box. Doesn’t really look much like an apple either. And the strange thing is, one day it just appeared. From out of nowhere. He went from having a smooth neck to one with a bobbing thing that did not resemble an apple at all.

Anyway, how did you get me talking about Luke Hart?

I was talking about Rumer and how incredibly annoying she is. The only person who doesn’t give in to Rumer is Grandma.

Grandma lives in a rambling old double-storey house that has three names. The locals call it Kramer’s Folly. Kramer is my grandmother’s last name. It’s my last name too, but I already told you that. The house’s official name, the one on the brass nameplate near the front doors, is Burnside. And the cousins call it Vinegar House, after Grandma Vinegar – not her real name of course.

Sometimes I dream about Vinegar House. It starts with the smell of lavender. None of my dreams ever make sense, and this one’s no different. First there’s the smell. Then I find myself in the suffocating stillness of the Blue Room. This is the official name for the blue bedroom upstairs. It’s pitch-black – no wait, that’s a cliché. We studied clichés in English last year. It’s Wild Child’s Incredibly Black Mascara black – the kind that doesn’t run, even if you cry. I only know I’m in the Blue Room because of the texture of the blackness. I’ll explain about that later. So I’m trapped in a hiding space. I hear heavy breathing that isn’t mine. Silent screams choke my throat, and my skin crawls like it’s trying to leave my bones and find another home. (Hey, see ya, skin. Bye. No, really, thanks for staying with me for so long.)

And then, somehow – dreams do not have to make sense – I am downstairs in the entry hall, staring up at the main staircase looking like it belongs in a giant’s castle. I walk slowly up the stairs that crumble behind me.

I don’t want to go to the Blue Room. But I’m like one of those people you see in a scary movie – you know, the kind of movie where you yell at the actor for doing something stupid like walking into danger. (Look behind you! Don’t go in there! Can’t you hear the scary music?)

Still, it’s like I have no choice. I’m moving like I’m following a script.

(
Actor walks up staircase
.)

Ragged curtains flap out a warning from the broken stairwell windowpanes.

(
Actor ignores flapping ragged curtains
.)

I know that Grandma’s going to be cross about the broken windows, but there’s no time to stop and clean it up.

(
Actor is obviously out of her mind
.)

And the strange thing is that the staircase just gets longer and steeper at every twist and turn, until I have to drag myself up each step like a rock climber. Then the handrail crumbles beneath my hand and I am falling, spinning in space until I jolt awake.

If I had a choice between being stuck in wet sand and climbing the stairs at Vinegar House, I’d choose the sand every time. Of course, I’d rather not have any nightmares at all, but you don’t always get to choose what you want.

Including your relatives.

My great-great-grandfather, Willem Kramer, had been born into family money, and he splashed his wealth about like a kid in the shallows at the Homsea foreshore. He was famous for losing the family fortune, then making his own when there was nothing left to spend. Great-great Grandpa showed off his new wealth by building his dream home. Unfortunately, he chose the most ridiculous site for his grand house – for it was built in the middle of the end of nowhere, on the edge of a ragged bluff. It stands on a slight lean so that it always looks in danger of falling into the sea, though Uncle Stephen says that the lean is just an illusion – something to do with the tilt of the land. Uncle Stephen is a very smart man, so he is probably right. Sometimes, when I look at the house, it’s like a huge monster leaning over to devour me. And then in a blink it just looks like a normal old house. The house plays tricks like that. It’s not a friendly house. Everyone in Homsea thinks it is cursed.

The house itself was built in the late 1800s. A row of stables and a small groundskeeper’s cottage, further up the hill, was added some time after that. A triple-car garage was built behind the stables in the 1950s by my grandpa, but you can’t see it from the house.

I’ve seen photographs from the 1920s of “the staff” lined up with the grand house as a backdrop, looming over them. About that time, two of the maids died in a fire that started in the outhouse laundry. Around the same time, one of the stable hands died when he was thrown from a horse that Great-great Grandpa had won in a bet. I’d also heard a whisper of a drowning near Seal Rock, just off Bluff Beach. Perhaps that’s where the idea of the house being cursed came from.

By the time I was born, Grandma Vinegar (her real name is Florence) had been a widow of twenty years, and was what my mother called “careful with her money”. Others just called her mean. Her grandchildren secretly called her Grandma Vinegar due to her sharp and bitter tongue. No one was safe from it – not even the adults. Of course we never called her Grandma Vinegar to her face, but Isabella insisted that Grandma had somehow found out our secret name and seemed happy about it. The only softness I ever saw in Grandma was when she stroked her cats, Nutmeg and Cinnamon. Lucky
she
fussed over them, for they were the oldest and mangiest felines on the planet, and no one else cared. I think they shared two teeth between them.

I hope you’re not a cat lover.