I'm just working on the final edits to Lilac Blue. Everything else is ready to go and it should be available to buy in print or as an e-book by the end of the week. But just to whet your appetite, here's a preview - chapter one of the third book in the Lilac the Girl trilogy.
CHAPTER ONE
It was so windy at the top of the hill that Lilac went to sit in the shelter of the obelisk’s alcove while she admired the view. You had to spend at least three minutes admiring the view before you could go down again, but you could admire it in any direction, so you didn’t have to get blown over at the same time. That was Granny’s rule, and Lilac followed it faithfully.
She saw three big ships out at sea, making their way either into Dublin or back to England or Wales – it was impossible to tell which way they were going at that distance. ‘Three at once! I must tell Granny,’ Lilac thought before she even realised she was thinking it. Then, with the feeling of punch to her tummy, she remembered again that she couldn’t tell Granny. Granny was gone and couldn’t ever be told things again, except in some vague and unsatisfactory praying kind of way that mostly just made Lilac angry, not happy.
Partly, Lilac was angry with herself for continuing to let this happen, even though she had no idea how to stop it. At least once every day she had a moment like this when she thought of Granny and then had to re-remember, and it hurt every single time. She was also angry with Granny for dying when she’d been perfectly healthy-seeming and happy, and with God for letting it happen, and with her parents for . . . well, because there they were, going on with things, being practical, arranging stuff, instead of crumpling up and wailing about the unfairness of it.
Thinking back to early summer, the initial shock of the phone call, the days before the funeral that all ran together in a blur in her mind, the funeral itself, and afterwards, she knew that wasn’t really true. Her mother, and her father too, had been pale and shaken. They had both cried and gone to bed early and behaved oddly sometimes, and they’d probably gone to a great effort to ‘be strong for Lilac’ – but in some ways she wished they hadn’t, because then she felt like she was the only one who was falling apart.
Guzzler came back to the shelter of the alcove and nuzzled her. He always knew the right thing to do. She bent over and kissed the top of his furry head, taking strength from his solid forehead hard against hers, holding his silky ears gently between fingers and thumbs. Then he licked her nose wetly and she pushed him away, not able to laugh but feeling at least a little more human.
One last tromp around the top to make sure she’d seen everything, that Dublin was still in its right place with the sea on one side and the land on the other, and the girl and the dog headed down the path again and out of the wind. At the top of the hill she could be in charge of the whole world: queen of all she surveyed, like Yertle the Turtle. But once she left the vista behind she was only in charge of herself and her dog. In a way it was a disappointment, but it was also a little comforting to just leave all that responsibility to the next hill-conqueror.
On the way home she called in to Margery’s house, as planned. Margery couldn’t come out because she had a bad cold – the Irish germs she was no longer used to had clobbered her as soon as she went back to school, she said. When Margery’s mum showed Lilac into the sitting room, Margery was curled up on the sofa under her duvet with a stack of books beside her and a notebook, as well as a box of tissues and a packet of throat lozenges. It would have been a cosy scene if not for all the used tissues dotted around the floor and the hacking cough that erupted every now and then.
‘Are you dying of galloping consumption?’ Lilac asked unsympathetically, plopping down in an armchair and kicking the nearest balled-up tissue a little further away with her toe.
‘Probably.’
‘Can I have your red jumper when you’re dead?’
‘No, I want to be buried in it,’ Margery said with a cheeky grin.
‘You’re so selfish.’
They stopped for a moment.
‘Sorry,’ Margery said.
‘No, I started it. It’s OK.’ It was strange how death was everywhere, suddenly, this autumn. Sometimes Lilac wanted to avoid it and sometimes she seemed to need to talk about it obsessively. Margery followed her lead as much as she could, because she remembered how it had been when her old cat had died. Even though a cat and a granny were not at all the same.
‘They buried her in a blue dress, Mum told me,’ Lilac said, following her train of thought into its tunnel. ‘With a cardigan in case she was cold. And a scarf, of course.’ Granny had loved scarves, always appearing swathed in one or sometimes several.
‘That’s not really nice to think about.’
‘No, I know. But I did ask at the time.’ She continued on a more practical note: ‘Mum’s going down to Cork to sort out more of Granny’s things next weekend. She asked if I wanted to go with her but I don’t know.’
‘You might find something nice to remember her by.’
‘Yes, that was Mum’s idea too. And to say goodbye to the house, because they’ll sell it soon. I never got to take the train on my own and stay on her sofa the way she said I would when I was old enough.’
‘That’s sad. It would have been fun. Except, what would you do on your own in Cork? You’ve no friends there.’
‘I’d have had Granny. We’d go for walks down the pier and she’d buy me ice cream and it would be a ninety-nine with a Flake in it like Mum always says she can’t afford.’
‘But by the time you were old enough to go on your own, you’d probably not want a ninety-nine any more. Or to hang out with your granny in public. Caroline won’t go anywhere with us any more. She says she wishes she was an orphan so she didn’t have parents to embarrass her.’
Caroline was Margery’s big sister. She led a dramatic life, especially considering she lived in exactly the same boring town and went to the same boring school as everyone else they knew.
Margery and her family had come back from their year in Canada at the end of the summer. They’d picked up Izzy the kitten from their cousins, and the renters had moved out of their house and they’d moved back in, opening all the windows wide and tutting over things that had been put away in the wrong places. Margery was in sixth class now with Lilac and everyone else, and it was almost as if the previous year had never happened. Margery didn’t even seem behind in Irish, though she’d missed a whole year. Lilac wasn’t sure how that was possible, since they learned Irish every day and Margery wasn’t particularly good at it, but her marks were just the same as they’d always been.
‘Did you do your maths homework yet?’ Lilac wanted to know.
‘Yes, but Mum said she’ll write me a note for my essay. That takes too long. And I don’t want to do it.’
‘Lucky you.’ Lilac moved over to the sofa after all, even though it meant sitting on some tissues. ‘Maybe I should catch your cold. I still have to write mine and I have no ideas.’
‘You’ll never catch it before tomorrow. And you’re probably immune to the germs because you’ve been here the whole time.’ Margery paused for a coughing fit and then scrabbled for a throat sweet. She politely offered one to Lilac, but Lilac shook her head.
‘No, thanks. I only like the blackcurrant ones, not honey and lemon. You’ll be back at school tomorrow, though? You don’t get to stay at home again?’
‘I’m much better than I was, so I think so. And it’s boring staying at home – I’d rather go to school if I’m not feeling awful.’
Lilac never found staying at home boring, but Margery didn’t like being on her own, or missing whatever might be happening where everyone else was. Even if it was a maths test.
‘Well, I suppose I have to go and start my essay, then,’ she said mopily, not moving at all. ‘Maybe it’s raining. I’d have to stay if it was raining, I can’t bring a wet dog home.’
They both looked out the window, where a breeze was chasing the leaves on Margery’s back lawn in the pale afternoon sunlight. Then Guzzler bounded into view, something large and white and squashy-looking in his mouth.
‘I think that’s one of Caroline’s new runners,’ Margery observed. ‘She just got them yesterday.’
Lilac flew off the sofa, into the kitchen and out the back door, shouting at Guzzler, ‘Drop it! Bad dog! Drop it now!’ Delighted that someone was coming to play with him, Guzzler stopped, facing her, dodging from one side to the other while Lilac stood still and considered how best to approach this. She saw a tennis ball in the grass, grabbed it, and threw. ‘Go fetch, boy!’ Guzzler ran for the ball and stood over it, wondering how to pick it up without letting go of his first, and best, prize. He nudged the green ball with his nose and pawed it for a moment, showing Lilac that he’d found it and she could throw it again.
‘Bring me the ball!’ Lilac said in her most excited voice, trying to convince him that the tennis ball was a much better deal than that other, non-round, article. ‘Squirrels! Sticks!’ Guzzler looked around, but didn’t see anything worth putting the runner down for. A rivulet of drool ran down its bright white sole as he stood there waiting for Lilac’s next move.
Lilac sighed and went back into the kitchen. ‘Can I have a biscuit or something, please, Mrs Dillon?’ she asked. ‘Not a chocolate one, just plain. Guzzler only responds to food.’ Margery’s mum opened the biscuit tin and proffered the selection.
‘Help yourself, lovie. I don’t know what Caroline’s going to say when she sees it, but maybe it won’t be too bad once we get it cleaned up. And she shouldn’t have left her new shoes lying around in the hall, I’m always after her to put her things away.’ Margery’s mum didn’t seem unduly worried, in spite of her words. She was pretty unflappable, Lilac thought, choosing a Marietta and running out the door again.
The biscuit did the trick and Lilac left Guzzler happily licking his chops and looking for the tennis ball while she brought the runner back inside and wiped it off at the kitchen sink. Just then, Caroline burst through the back door and flung herself into a chair at the kitchen table, a maelstrom of long dark hair and bad temper. Lilac looked desperately for somewhere to shove the incriminating article she was holding, but it was too late.
‘What are you doing with my runner boot?’ Caroline asked, but her tone was more curious than furious.
‘Um. Well, Guzzler got it, I’m really sorry . . .’ Lilac began.
‘It doesn’t matter. He can eat it, I don’t care.’
‘What?’ said Margery, shocked.
Her mother looked up in concern. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ She started across the room to put a hand on Caroline’s forehead, but Caroline waved her away.
‘Mom, don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine. I just don’t really like the runners after all. I thought I wanted them but I didn’t. I wish we were back in Canada.’
Lilac and Margery exchanged exasperated looks. Lilac placed the shoe gingerly in the draining rack.
‘You spent all year wanting to come home,’ Margery pointed out.
‘I know. But now I’m here I want to be there. I was special there, because I was different. I don’t like being the same any more. It’s boring.’
‘Ohhh-kay.’ Margery nodded slowly, as if agreeing with an irrational toddler.
‘Anyway, I have to go and do my homework essay,’ said Lilac, figuring now was a good moment for a graceful exit.
She called Guzzler as she let herself out the front door. He came racing around from the back of the house and they walked home with no further incidents, Lilac planning her essay in her head and Guzzler thinking happy thoughts of deliciously squashy white shoes.
(Obelisk sketch by the author.)
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