sinking into his skin. Her own skin was wet with tears. How could she cry so much and still have tears to spare? He had traced his finger over her cheek, as if, somehow, that could stop the flow, and begged her to be brave.
‘One day we’ll be together again,’ he said. ‘I promise with all my heart it will happen.’
She wanted to believe him but her mother had said that that was never going to happen. Never, ever.
Two months had passed since then. How could so much in her life have changed in such a short space of time? At first, her anger had no target, or so she thought. Was it directed at her father with his big plans and fine promises? Or the families who came to view their house and tramped through the rooms as if they’d already moved in? Or the removal men who took away the furniture she thought they owned but didn’t? Or the men who loaded her father’s silver BMW and her mother’s Range Rover onto two trailers and drove them away? Or her mother for pretending that moving in with a recluse was such an exciting adventure when everyone knew it was just an alternative to becoming homeless? Isobel guessed it was all of those things rolled up together, but most of all she blamed her father. He had cast them adrift from the safe, happy world they once knew and she would never forgive him. Never!
At breakfast this morning before they left Park View Villas, her mother had once again insisted that they were at the start of an exciting new adventure. ‘We’re walking away from here with our heads held high,’ she said. Her voice had sounded shrill and unfamiliar, as if she knew how fake she sounded but was unable to stop. ‘I know this is difficult for you both but it’s also a wonderful opportunity to begin again.’
Beginning again was not what Isobel wanted. The plans she had made with her friends, the beach trips and the sleepovers, the long summer evenings doing nothing except hanging out together in the park, that was exciting and adventurous, but the move to Hyland Hall was a tragedy, plain and simple. She hated it when her mother tried to pretend otherwise. They had held a farewell party for her in Joanne’s house, so much hugging and crying and so many promises to keep in touch. It should have helped Isobel to feel better but her mood was mutinous as she left her bedroom for the last time. Her footsteps clattered off the wooden stairs. She hadn’t even left and, already, her house sounded empty. Like her memories were evaporating into the stillness she was leaving behind.
They had already said goodbye to their neighbours. Her mother had asked them not to wave goodbye in case it got too emotional but Isobel knew they were watching from their windows. Julie knew it too. The pink feather boa she wore for dressing-up games had fluttered like a swarm of butterflies around her neck as she ran down the garden path. She flipped it from side to side, then curtsied to their invisible neighbours before climbing into the back of the car.
Two enormous rubbish skips filled with all their belongings they had dumped from the attic and the garden shed were parked in the driveway. The leaky garden hose hanging over the edge of the first skip reminded Isobel of an elephant. A grey hunkering beast waiting for them to depart. She took her rabbit’s foot and glass horseshoe out of her pocket and flung them over the edge. What use were good luck charms when they had failed her utterly?
The car was already packed with boxes and plastic sacks of stuff they still actually owned and was so tiny compared to the one her mother used to drive. Mrs Gordon from next door had insisted she was too old to drive her car anymore and Sophy must take it as a ‘thank you’ for all her kindness over the years. Isobel had never noticed her mother being kind to Mrs Gordon. Just as she had never noticed her parents getting ready to begin their new lives without each other.
She was fourteen, almost an adult and old enough to understand that marriages broke up. Old enough to understand that divorce, although terrible, did not destroy lives. Old enough to cope with the fall-out. Or so she kept trying to convince herself. But words like