Page 28 of The Moon Sister
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. A man came to the house this morning and had some kind of big argument with Dad. I didn’t dare go downstairs, but I could hear them yelling at each other. Then Dad came upstairs and told me we were going home. And I don’t want to go!’
‘Do you know what the argument was about? Or who the man was?’
‘No, he wouldn’t say.’
‘Zara, darling,’ I said as I circled her in my arms. ‘I’m so sorry. You just have to remember that it’s really not long until you’re eighteen, and then if being at Kinnaird is what you want, no one can stop you.’
‘Dad said I could spend my whole Christmas holiday up here if I wanted to, but Mum won’t let me stay on. She hates it here.’
‘Maybe the estate’s just not her kind of life.’
‘Nothing is her kind of life, Tiggy.’ Zara sighed, her expression a picture of weariness and despair. ‘She’s always saying she’ll be happy if Dad does this or that, like take her on swanky holidays with money he hasn’t got, or buy her a new car or a picture she likes because that’ll make it better. But it doesn’t ever. She’s just a really unhappy person, you know?’
As I sat and stroked Zara’s silken hair, I knew that even though she might be exaggerating due to dramatic teenage hormones, I’d seen enough of Ulrika to understand that she was a difficult character. And it suddenly struck me that even though I’d been adopted and had lived under the care of a woman employed by my adoptive father, and had often secretly dreamt of being the beloved child of two married, biological parents, I’d idealised the thought. I had no experience of warring parents. Never once at Atlantis had I heard Pa Salt and Ma have an argument – we had been brought up in total tranquillity, and for the first time I acknowledged how rare that actually was. What Zara was experiencing was what lots of other friends of mine at school had said they had gone through too. We sisters had lived in a fantasy of perfection in our fairy-tale castle, certainly in terms of our two ‘parents’. Of course, the saving grace of our childhood had been that there were six of us. Harmony had certainly not reigned supreme between us. Someone was always falling out with someone else, and normally that ‘someone else’ would be my baby sister, Electra . . .
Silence ensued as I continued to stroke Zara’s hair. It lasted so long that I actually wondered if she had fallen asleep, but her head suddenly bobbed up.
‘I know! I could ask Dad if I can stay here with you and Cal at the cottage! I could say you needed me to help you out until the end of the holidays!’ Her face lit up with excitement at her new idea. ‘Could I, Tiggy? I promise I wouldn’t be any trouble. I can sleep here on the sofa, as long as Cal wouldn’t mind, which I’m sure he wouldn’t because we get on really well and he likes me and—’
‘I’d love to have you here, Zara, but your mum hardly knows me and I doubt she’d trust her precious girl to a stranger.’
‘Well, Beryl’s at the Lodge and Mum trusts her and Dad’s known Cal since he was born and—’
‘Zara, all you can do is speak to your parents. If they’re happy for you to stay here with me and Cal, then yes, we’d be happy to have you.’
‘I will,’ she said, ‘and if they don’t let me, maybe I’ll just run away.’
‘Don’t say that, Zara, it’s a threat, and if you want everyone to believe that you’re grown up enough to make your own decisions, that isn’t the way to handle it. Why don’t you go back to the Lodge and ask them? If they agree, you need to give them time to come down and see me before they leave,’ I encouraged her.
‘Okay, I will. Thanks, Tiggy.’ She stood up and walked to the door. ‘One day, I swear I will come and live here at Kinnaird. Permanently. And even Mum won’t be able to stop me. Night, Tiggy.’
As I’d expected, there’d been no visit that night from either Charlie or Ulrika, and the missing Range Rover the next morning confirmed that the three of them had left for Inverness.
‘Poor wee kiddie, caught in the middle o’ all that,’ Cal said as he sipped his coffee. ‘Dysfunctional families, eh? Mine isn’t perfect, but at least I’d say we’re fairly normal. Right, that’s me off.’
Cal walked to the front door, then bent down to pick up an envelope from the mat. ‘You’ve got mail, Tig,’ he said handing it to me as Thistle’s head appeared longingly round the open door. ‘An’ you’re comin’ with me, Thistle,’ he said, shooing the dog out.
I opened the envelope and read the short note inside.
Dear Tiggy – in haste – I apologise for my abrupt departure and for not coming to see you. A legal issue has cropped up. I’ll be in contact soon.
Many apologies,
Charlie
I had no idea what he meant but I had to presume it was something to do with the big argument Zara had mentioned.
I went to my bedroom; all this talk of families making me miss mine. I opened my bedside drawer and pulled out the letter Pa Salt had written me. I’d read it so many times, it was starting to look grubby. Unfolding it, I started to reread it, comforted just by the sight of Pa’s looping, elegant handwriting.
Atlantis
Lake Geneva
Switzerland
My darling Tiggy,
