‘It’s big!’ Matt stepped inside and spun around.
‘Ryan’s is bigger.’
‘This is way nicer than your old room. I like it!’
‘What? Seriously? With this hideous wallpaper?’
‘Better than Barbie. And look at the size, the space and hey, the view!’ He crossed to the window and gazed out at the garden.
‘A view of the coal shed roof.’
‘And that oak tree at the end of the garden. Love it!’
Kelly grinned. His enthusiasm was infectious. She put her arms around him from behind and nuzzled her face into his back. ‘Dad’s going to decorate it soon. I’m going to have cream walls and aubergine curtains, with some hot-pink accessories. It’ll be gorgeous.’
‘Like its inhabitant, then.’ He twisted around to face her, and put his arms around her waist.
‘Charmer.’ She reached up and kissed him, full on the mouth.
‘Hey, slow down. Your mum and dad are in the house! Thought you wanted to go to the beach?’
‘I do. Let me grab my bikini and stuff and we’ll go.’ She let go of him and started rummaging in the drawers she’d so recently filled, looking for her beach gear.
‘You’ve got a sink in your room.’
‘You’re so observant.’
‘Useful.’
‘Horrible. I want Dad to take it out. Look at the peeling wallpaper around it!’ Kelly grabbed a loose corner of paper above the skirting board and pulled. The paper came away in a huge long strip to halfway up the wall.
Matt gasped. ‘God, you’ll get in trouble for that!’
‘No, I won’t. It’s all got to come off soon anyway.’ She tore another strip upwards, screwed up the paper and stuffed it in her bin.
‘Hey, there’s something written on the wall, here.’ Matt moved closer to get a better look. ‘A love heart—how sweet! What’s it say? Joanne, no wait, Joan loves Jack. Aw! Joan and Jack. Wonder who they were? Give us a pencil, Kells. I’ll add our names—Kelly 4 Matt, hey? What do you think, babe?’
Kelly felt a shiver go down her spine. Joan, Jack. Who were they, indeed? One of them presumably lived in this bedroom before her, and had written this on the wall. Mum had said that her great-aunt Betty had lived here alone for fifty years, so it had to be before then, unless it was a visitor. But a visitor wouldn’t write on the wall. It had to be someone who’d lived here. Joan, whoever she was, was probably dead by now. A picture flashed into her mind of a young girl, her own age but from a time way back, with blonde hair caught at the side in a Kirby grip. That was the problem with old houses. They were full of the ghosts of past occupants.
‘Kelly? Are you OK?’ Matt’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘Fine. Let’s get out of here. I need some fresh air.’ She grabbed her beach bag and ran down the stairs.
‘You’ve got the window wide open. How much air do you need?’ Matt called after her.
But Kelly felt she just needed to escape from the house for a while. ‘See you, Mum. We’ll be back for tea.’ She dragged Matt after her.
‘Er, bye, Ali—see you later.’ He waved as Kelly dragged him out of the front door, down the garden path.
She banged the garden gate closed behind them and took a deep breath. Better already.
‘What’s the matter, Kells? You seem really wound up.’
‘I am. Joan loves Jack. That really creeped me out, you know.’
‘Why? It’s only a couple of names.’
Kelly shook her head and began walking down the road towards the clifftop and beach. ‘I don’t know, Matt. I just thought, what if they were, like, our age when they wrote that, and maybe that was like fifty or sixty or seventy years ago, before Mum’s great-aunt had the house. They’d be ancient now. Or dead. And it’s just weird to think of kids like us, being in love and everything, and then getting old and dying.’
‘Babe, it happens to us all, you know? Everyone gets old and dies sometime. Unless they die young.’
‘Dying young would be better than fading away.’
‘Bet you won’t say that when you’re fifty.’ Matt playfully punched her arm.
‘Fifty’s already old.’
‘You should try to find out who that Joan and Jack were,’ Matt said. ‘Like, if one of them lived in the house, maybe your great-gran would know. Maybe one of them was some relative of yours. You might not feel so creeped out about them if you knew who they were. My mum’s into the whole genealogy thing, you know. She spends hours online, trying to fill in gaps in the family tree. It’s kind of interesting, in a way.’
Kelly considered this. Maybe it would be a good idea to do a bit of research and find out who they were. Joan was such an old-fashioned name. It had to be someone from long ago. But who?
A week later, Ali and Pete had unpacked everything and flattened the hundreds of boxes, which were now stacked in the garage waiting for the removal company to come and collect them. They’d arranged the furniture and hung curtains, and the house looked respectable enough to entertain visitors. It was beginning to feel like home, though Ali could still not believe they actually owned the house outright, after their years of renting. They’d met several neighbours as well as spending a pleasant evening with Jason from next door, the day after moving in. He seemed to be a thoroughly pleasant chap. In some ways he reminded Ali a little of her father.
She had invited her grandmother to tea that afternoon and was busy making preparations. Kelly was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea and texting.
‘Kelly, will you help me make a cake for your great-gran?’ Ali asked. ‘You know what a sweet tooth she has. Dad’s collecting her this afternoon. She’d love a home-made cake.’
‘Aw, Mum. I hate baking. I’ve got loads of homework to do as well. We’ve started a module in history about life for ordinary people during the Second World War. I’ve got a stack of reading to do for it.’
‘Oh. All right then, I’ll do it. You should go and get on with your homework now. Get it out of the way before she comes, so you can spend some time with her. Remember it’s going to be a lovely big surprise for her, that we’re in this house where she grew up.’
Kelly looked up from her phone and frowned. ‘I don’t get why you didn’t tell her we were moving.’
Ali began collecting together the ingredients for a Victoria sponge cake. ‘Well, I did tell her we were moving house, just didn’t say we were moving here. She knows we inherited it from Betty, but I’d let on that we were planning to sell it. I thought it’d be a lovely surprise for her to find that we’ve actually moved in, and are bringing the house back to life. I can’t wait to see her face when she arrives.’
‘Hmm, well. I’ll go and do my homework now, then,’ said Kelly. She picked up her phone and tea mug, scraped back her chair and left the room.
At ten to three Pete was despatched to collect Margaret Eliot from her nursing home. Gran was eighty-nine, and as Ali’s parents lived in Spain it had fallen to Ali to make arrangements for her when she’d become unable to cope in her own home any longer. She’d also had to sort out a place for Great-aunt Betty, who’d spent the last couple of years of her life in a different nursing home. Ali had always felt it was sad that the two sisters didn’t get on, but Gran had never said much about why that was. Anyway, it was too late now.
Ali bustled round, putting plates, cups and saucers