The House of Memories (18 page)

“I’m not suggesting anything so simplistic. You’re overreacting. What I’m saying is—”

The door opened. It was Lucas.

“Henrietta!” He kissed her cheek. “I hope Ella has been looking after you? She’s made your favorite lasagna tonight; did she tell you?”

I couldn’t stay. Not a second longer. I left, apologizing to Lucas. I said nothing to Henrietta.

It was past eleven o’clock when I returned to the house. I’d walked up to Marble Arch to the cinema and watched two films, one after the other. I barely noticed them. Henrietta’s words kept coming back to me, the sentences in my head louder than the dialogue on the screen.
Selfish. Selfish.

The house was quiet when I came in, the living room and kitchen in darkness. I switched on the light. The table was clean. The dishes had been done. There was a dish on the stove top. I lifted the lid. Half the lasagna. I put it into the fridge. The remaining salad was there too, covered in cling wrap. Henrietta must have done it. It wouldn’t have been Lucas. Or the tutors. I had to fight an urge to throw it all in the bin.

I was in the hallway about to go up to bed when a voice made me jump.

“We left some for you if you’re hungry.” It was Lucas.

“I’m fine, Lucas, thanks.”

“Come in and have a drink with me.”

I hesitated. “No, thanks.”

“Henrietta’s gone home. Please, Ella.”

I followed him into the withdrawing room. It was in near darkness, lit by just one standard lamp. The fire was going. There was music playing in the background, a classical piece. Lucas poured himself a whisky and gave me a glass of water.

“Why don’t you drink anymore, Ella?”

“It’s not good for me.”

“Were you heading toward alcoholism?”

Henrietta’s bluntness had obviously been rubbing off on him.

He noticed my reaction. “You don’t have to answer that. It’s your business. I just miss having someone to share an after-dinner whisky with.”

I had a memory flash—Lucas and Aidan here sipping whisky and trying to outdo each other quoting poetry, or was it Bob Dylan lyrics?

“Henrietta said to tell you the lasagna was delicious. Actually, she told me it was delicious, but I’m sure she won’t mind me passing on the compliment.”

“Lucas, I’m sorry. I hope Henrietta didn’t leave early because of me. We had a . . .” A fight? “An exchange.”

“She mentioned it. Don’t worry about hurting her feelings. Henrietta has the hide of a rhino,” he said cheerfully.

I stared at him. Hurt
her
feelings?

“Sit down, Ella, please. You’re making me nervous standing there like that. Now, I need to give you an update. I discussed the entire situation with Henrietta.” He noticed my blank expression. “About the thefts. She’s due to go to the clients’ houses next week. She does regular interviews with the students for me, formal appraisals. I’d like you to go with her.”

“Me?”

“I think it could be helpful if you’re familiar with each house. You can see for yourself how easy or difficult it would be for something to be stolen.”

“Couldn’t I go with the tutors?”

“You could. But I thought it might be a good opportunity for you and Henrietta to get to know each other. And I’d like that to happen.”

“Why?” It sounded rude. It was rude. But I couldn’t soften it now.

“Because you are the two most important people in my life.”

That silenced me.

“Ella, I know how Henrietta can appear. But it would make me happy if you became friends. Perhaps you could have a meal together one night first, before you visit the students.”

There was nothing I wanted to do less.

“Shall I suggest some dates to Henrietta?” he said. “Would next Wednesday suit you?”

Stop being Lucas’s gatekeeper, Charlie had told me. You should be happy he’s so happy.

I made myself smile. “Wednesday would be great,” I said.

From: Charlie Baum
To: undisclosed recipients
Subject: It’s Been a Noisy Week in Boston

The latest report from the Baum trenches is as follows:

Sophie (11): Home with a cold. Announced: “Being sick is fun because you get servants. I can boss you around all day long.”

Ed (8) and Reilly (6): Overheard having conversation about birds.

“What are pigeons actually for?” Reilly asked.

“Racing, mostly,” Ed said. “But also to make the sky look good.”

Tim (4): Has asked me to stop playing Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs. “I don’t get it. He just drives and drives and then it’s finished.”

Lucy (36): Exam results in. Top of the class! And verily, there was loud rejoicing in the Baum trenches. All the late nights studying instantly worthwhile. Four children and one husband very proud of their clever mother and wife.

Charlie (36): Phooey to the diet. We’ve been celebrating. With cake and champagne. Who eats salad to celebrate anything??

Snip the cat (kitten age): One word. Furball.

Until next time, everyone please stay sane.

Charlie xx

From: Charlie Baum
To: Lucy Baum
Subject: re: Celebrations

No, we will not stop. We are going to turn it into a yearlong festival. The Festival of We Always Knew Lucy Was Clever but Now Everyone Else Does Too. The We Can’t Believe How Proud We Are of You Festival. The I Hope You Realize Now How Amazing You Are Festival. The We’re So Proud I Think We’re Going to Burst Festival. Okay, I may need to work on a catchier title, but the content won’t change.

Yours, in awe. As always.

Your husband. xxx

To: Ella O’Hanlon
From: Charlie Baum
Subject: re: Horrid Henrietta

Horrid Henrietta indeed. Lucas’s love is blind and deaf, it seems. Put her out of your mind for now. You’ve got crimes to solve. Thinking of you.

Charleston xx

From: Charlie Baum
To: Lucas Fox
Subject: A.O’H

He canceled. I don’t know why yet. I was about to leave for the train station when I got the message. He hasn’t returned my calls yet. Any clues your end?

C

From: Charlie Baum
To: Lucas Fox
Subject: re: A.O’H

Finally spoke to him. Said he “appreciated your phone call and our concern” but that the situation is between him and Ella. I said we were only trying to help. Don’t feel bad about calling him. You saved me a wasted train journey. How is Ella? No luck yet with the thief-catching, I hope???

D
ear Diary,

Hi, it’s Jess!!

I’m here! In London!!!!!!! It’s freeeeeeezing. It’s supposed to be almost spring but it feels like the middle of winter. I heard someone say it might even SNOW!! I hope it does. I’ve never seen snow! The sky is SO gray and everyone is wearing big black coats and they rush along the footpaths with their heads down but I don’t care. It’s LONDON LONDON LONDON.

At first when I landed I thought it must still be nighttime, even though I knew my flight was landing at Heathrow in the morning, because after I’d collected my bags and looked outside, it still looked dark. I got the Heathrow Express to Paddington (and yes, there were Paddington Bears for sale there!!!) and had planned to get the Tube from there to my hotel (I love that I am saying all these really London terms so casually!!) but one of the last things Dad said to me at the airport was he didn’t like to think my first hours in London would be spent underground, so I took a black taxi for his sake (and yes, it felt just like in the films!!!). After we’d been stuck in traffic for half an hour I was wishing I was on the Tube. Also, not that I’ll tell Mum and Dad this, but London at first looked pretty terrible. Just like anywhere. It could have been Melbourne in midwinter, houses and trees without leaves and roadworks everywhere and all in this strange half-light as if the day had decided not to be a day but wasn’t sure if it was night yet either, if that makes sense. And the people just looked like people. Office people, teenagers shopping, just normal people doing normal people things, but wearing coats and scarves.

ANYWAY, I’d thought the hotel Mum and Dad booked me into for my first week might be a kind of youth-hostel place but it turns out it’s a very special hotel right in the center of Covent Garden! Yes, as in
My Fair Lady
! They are SUCH sweethearts!! After I got to my room I looked in the guide and found out it’s a hotel that all the big stars stay in when they are in London doing publicity tours or filming! My room is amazing. There’s an actual FOUR-POSTER bed and a huge bathroom. I knew I should have gone right out and started exploring but I felt so grubby and the bath looked so inviting. So I had a one-hour bubble bath, then went for a walk.

Of course I went STRAIGHT to the West End theaters!!!! My teachers and funnily enough my counselor too said that a great way to make things happen is to visualize them happening. So I stood there in front of the theaters and I looked up at the names in lights (except they weren’t in lights yet because it was still daytime) and I imagined MY name there, next to MY photo of me in costume, high up on those big posters. And then I imagined turning up for work each night and being so gracious to the doorman and the stagehands. One, because I always am anyway, it’s just good manners, but also because I read once that you should always be careful of the ones you meet going up the ladder as they’ll be the ones who’ll catch you on the way down, or something like that. I’m a bit too jet-lagged at the moment to remember it properly.

But whatever, I stood there and looked around at all the theaters and it was incredible to see the names of all the musicals that I have spent literally the past ten years learning on the other side of the world!!

But between us, Diary, even though it was exciting to see it all for real, I was actually a bit disappointed at how ordinary it all looked in that gray kind of light. I didn’t tell Mum and Dad that when I rang to say I’d arrived safely and had already been to the theaters. (“Of course you have, my Jessie!” Dad said!!) Maybe it will all look different tonight when I go back again, once the lights are on and there are people everywhere, all dressed up for their night out at the theater.

It’s all about the lighting, as Mum would say. She’s big on lighting. She says that the right lighting in photo shoots can take ten years off her. She’s started talking about how old she is all the time lately, and she’s not even that old, only fifty-five or so, but she’s started telling me not to tell people her age. Also, I can put this in here, Diary, even though I’ve been sworn to secrecy. (Mind you, by the time this diary is published Mum will probably be giving magazine interviews about it!) Anyway, the secret is—she had Botox last week. SHE INJECTED POISON INTO HER FACE. Well, she got a doctor to do it. I noticed something was weird about her and asked her outright and she admitted it but said not to tell Dad. She’d told him she’d been to the dentist apparently. (??? How stupid does she think he is??) Anyway, she said she had to have it done because the truth was TV aged you by at least twenty years in her opinion and she had to be especially careful because on a cooking show people stop and start their DVDs or program recordings to follow the recipes. So she comes under more scrutiny than most people, she said.

I had to stop her there! I laughed and said, “Mum, nobody actually cooks anything that we make on
MerryMakers
. They just watch it and laugh at us.”

She actually got upset!! “They DO follow the recipes,” she said. “They are so easy and also so—”

“Yes,” I said, “nutritionally sound. That’s why the producers make us wear those tight tops, Mum. To show the effects of such healthy diets.” I shouldn’t have said that, she doesn’t like being teased, but I think I was a bit mad at her for doing something as silly as POISONING herself. I am NEVER going to have plastic surgery. I told her as much and she just gave me a kind of glare and said, “You just wait. Wait and see how it feels when you get older.”

Anyway, back to London! After I’d walked around the West End it was still only three p.m. I was going to take one of the open-top bus tours but they looked a bit cold, and I thought, it’s my first time in London, the first day of the rest of my incredible life, I have to mark it properly. So I hopped into another of the black taxis and I asked the driver if he would take me on a kind of tour and tell me about all the sights, like he was my own personal guide. And he didn’t even hesitate and he sounded SOOOO English, like Dick Van Dyke in
Mary Poppins
, and he took me all around the city for more than an hour. It cost a fortune, but it was worth every cent—every PENNY!!

I got him to take photos of me beside his taxi and all the landmark sites too, like Big Ben (I thought it was the clock that was Big Ben but it’s not, it’s the bell in the tower!) and the London Eye and the River Thames. I’ll put them up on Facebook later, once I’ve caught up on all my e-mail. I was only on the plane for less than a day and I got dozens of e-mail messages. A few spam ones, of course, but mostly from my friends and of course one of Charlie’s funny family ones as well. I love them. I’d better send him an e-mail to let him know I’m here too. Dad was going to tell him but I begged him to let me, because really it was MY big news, not Dad’s, but then I got so busy before I left and it all happened so quickly I didn’t get the chance to tell him, so I’ll do that ASAP.

I haven’t had any e-mail back from the London theater agents yet, but it’s only been a week since I e-mailed them and they’re probably waiting until they know I’m in London before they write back to me. I gave them lots of contact details, my e-mail address, my phone number, even the name and address of my hotel—and of course THEY would have known how show-businessy it was even if I didn’t, so hopefully that will have made another great impression!!

I had one strange e-mail today, actually, from my friend Jill in the
MerryMakers
production office. I don’t understand it, to be honest. She was writing to say bon voyage and to say she’d be keeping an eye out for me on
The Graham Norton Show
, which was really funny, because he only interviews HUGE stars, but that’s how sweet and supportive she is. She’s only a junior assistant at the moment. She goes to all the meetings and takes the minutes and all of that. She’s lovely but that wasn’t what was strange. It was her P.S., which said—I quote—“I’m so sorry to hear it didn’t work out with your own show. That would have been hilarious fun working with you, but another time, I hope.”

I’ve written back and told her what a wonderful first day I’ve had here in London already, how cold it is etc. etc., and just at the end, without making much of a big deal about it, I’ve asked her “What do you mean my own show?” The time difference means I won’t hear back from her now until tomorrow. It’s a bit of a funny feeling to think that they are all fast asleep over there while I’m still up here, and I’ll be asleep while they’re all having their day. It’s like life is happening over there without me, which it is, and I’ll catch up, I know, but it also feels a bit like I’m missing out on something. But it will be great here. I really know that it will. I just need to find my own flat, and get onto the audition circuit, get offered a wonderful part and then West End, here I come!!!!!!

Love for now,

Jess xxxxoooo