a tight black dress and ugly red jacket for her mother). They’d put bows in Estelle’s curly brown hair, force her into a pretty but oversized dress and shoes so tight they made her cry. She’d grizzle throughout the entire thing and it would make her parents argue, make her grandparents tut and roll their eyes. ‘Can’t control her,’ they’d mutter under their breaths. ‘Look at her filthy face.’ No love, no hugs. Nothing.
It seemed to pass down to Estelle’s birth parents. Instead, hands reaching out for her would often scare her, signalling a telling off, a gripped wrist, slapped cheeks. Looking back now, Estelle could see why her parents were the way they were. Her mother’s parents were alcoholics, neglectful and violent. Estelle’s father’s parents were lacking in a different way. On the surface, they seemed like upstanding members of the community. But beneath it all, they were harsh with their son, judgmental and critical. It made Estelle’s father so angry at the world, always trying to prove himself. He liked to tell her and anyone else who’d listen he’d have been a famous football player if it weren’t for a knee injury he’d sustained as a teenager (caused by a fight with another kid – the same fight that had got him slung behind bars for eighteen months, Estelle eventually found out). ‘We could be living in a mansion right now, Estelle. A proper mansion with a butler and everything.’ To give him his due, Estelle had once found a grotty much-used article of him holding up a medal for being ‘player of the match’, black hair sweaty, brown eyes sparkling. She remembered staring at that athletic fourteen-year-old, trying to find the skinny, angry, spotty father she knew.
When she’d first walked into the Garlands’ house, she’d remembered her father’s boasts. Now, this is a mansion, she’d thought to herself.
Estelle peered up at the house now, battling a riot of emotions as she smoothed her white cotton dress down, tucking her sweeping fringe across her tanned forehead.
Then the front door suddenly opened – Autumn appearing there as she had all those years before. She was wearing a long white dress and gold sandals, her lips painted red, her eyeliner a bird’s wing above each green eye. Autumn’s hair was a little shorter, but she looked the same as she had fifteen years before, bar the odd wrinkle or two.
Autumn shielded her eyes from the morning sun with her hands as she looked at Estelle. Then her eyes widened. ‘Stel?’ she called out.
‘Yes, sorry,’ Estelle said, walking up the path, memories chasing her with every step: Alice and her skipping down this path, arms interlinked. Aiden and Estelle whispering their goodbyes in the darkness, lips briefly touching before sneaking back into the house. ‘I should have called. It was quite impulsive.’
‘No, no, not at all, you’re always welcome!’ That was the way it was with the Garlands; their door was always open to the people they cared about. But it had been fifteen years. Autumn grabbed Estelle into a hug anyway, as if those fifteen years hadn’t passed, her musky perfume overwhelming Estelle with memories. Estelle peered over her shoulder towards the house, looking in at its beautifully wallpapered cream walls. Autumn had it redecorated every couple of years by her interior designer friend Becca so it always looked clean and fresh. Estelle remembered feeling filthy in the house’s presence the first time she arrived; her dark hair a tangle down her back, her tartan trousers grubby and her black jumper too tight.
Now she felt clean by comparison, so clean she could almost smell the scorching bleach come off her.
Autumn pulled back, looking into Estelle’s eyes. ‘I just had a feeling when you called me yesterday, we’d see you before too long. Please, come in,’ Autumn said, beckoning her inside.
Estelle paused a moment before stepping over the threshold. The house seemed to reach out to her, pulling her towards it, and she felt a heady mixture of an intense need to get in there and a roaring desire to run away.
‘Max!’ Autumn shouted, her voice echoing around the large hallway and giving Estelle no choice but to step in as she gently led her inside.
Max appeared at the top of the stairs, looking the same too with his short white hair and sharp blue eyes.
‘Look who’s come for a visit,’ Autumn said.
Max peered closer at Estelle then shook his head in disbelief. ‘Is it really you, Stel?’ he asked, laughing his charming laugh. The sound of it took her right back in time. It was overwhelming. How had they barely aged? ‘Autumn’s been dreaming about this for years,’ he said, jogging down the luxuriously carpeted stairs. ‘You never call, you never visit,’ he joked, reaching out to Estelle. She walked towards him, letting him envelope her in his arms.
‘I’m sorry I left it so long,’ Estelle said, eventually extracting herself from his grip. ‘Life caught up with me.’
‘Stop with the apologies,’ Autumn said, stroking Estelle’s short hair. ‘You’re here now and that’s what counts. Look how different your hair is!’
‘It suits you,’ Max said. ‘Must’ve been a long journey. You’re in London now, right?’
Estelle nodded, taking in the vast hallway with dark wooden floors and walls adorned with various family photos – including one of Estelle, face calm as she looked out to sea, her long dark hair in a ponytail. Estelle looked at that girl, tried to find herself in her face. But all she could see was Poppy.
She’d looked just like Poppy. How could she not have seen that before? But then she didn’t have many photos from her childhood like other kids did; she’d left it all behind.
‘Look at this place,’ Estelle said, dragging her eyes away from the picture and feeling like that awe-filled teenager all over again. ‘It looks just as amazing as it did the first time I was here.’
‘Bet it’s bringing back some memories,’ Max said, his arm back around her shoulder.
Estelle nodded, stepping away from him. She should be used to the over-affectionate ways of the Garlands, but it all felt like too much now. That was the thing with them. Nothing by halves. All the emotion and the love thrown at you until you just found yourself wrapped up in it and rolling down a cliff so fast you forgot the old you was standing at the top, watching.
She supposed that’s how she felt all those years ago, standing in the very spot she was standing in now, peering up at the large balcony above and trying to reconcile it with the house she’d lived in as a child with her parents: the tiny cramped hallway with used nappies on the floor, dirty toys flung all over, empty wine bottles and discarded filthy scraps of foil, her mum weaving towards her, ash falling from her cigarette.
‘You must be starving,’ Autumn said, taking Estelle’s hand and leading her through the house. Estelle stopped as she reached the threshold of the kitchen, mouth dropping open. It looked just like her kitchen at Seb’s house. White floor-to-ceiling cupboards across the wall to the left with a line of low units dominated by a pale blue Aga cooker. Then, in the middle, a sleek wood-topped island with four chrome stools overlooking the stunning views outside.
Had she unwittingly moulded her kitchen design from memories of this place, without even realising?
She felt her eyes drawn towards the view through the vast windows. An endless sea, the white of the cliffs. How familiar a sight, one that used to greet her each morning.
She walked to the windows, taking it all in. This garden seemed so much smaller now too. Her teenage eyes must have magnified things in her memories.
‘The view still has that effect, doesn’t it?’ Autumn
