strong scent of lavender from Aunt Phoebe’s drawer liners – even though I knew that I would be required to wear a uniform at Rookwood School. I took out my ballet clothes, the cream leotard and skirt, and the black set too. I wrapped the soft pink shoes in tissue paper before packing them. They were almost new, and I prayed they would last a few months at least.
It had taken no time at all to pack the contents of my life. Now the little room looked bare and sad. As I laced up my leather shoes I stared at the floorboards, trying to convince myself everything was going to be all right.
You’ll be fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only a school.
I shut my eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. And then I traipsed back downstairs with my bag.
“Are you ready to go?” Aunt Phoebe asked. “I’m sure Mrs … Miss, I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Miss Fox,” snapped the woman.
“I-I’m sure Miss Fox will look after you,” Aunt Phoebe said, without raising her gaze to meet my eyes. She placed a hand on my shoulder, reassuringly. “I’ll see you soon, Ivy, my dear,” she added, planting a kiss on my forehead.
“I hope so,” I said, managing a smile. “I’ll write.”
Miss Fox’s foot began tapping even faster. “We haven’t got time for niceties. The driver is waiting.”
I winced and clutched hold of my bag more tightly, then I followed Miss Fox into the lane, where the bright sunshine hit my eyes.
“Goodbye, darling,” said my aunt.
“Goodbye,” I mouthed back. And before I knew it, I was being bundled into the back of an expensive-looking motor car.
The smell of leather seats and the smoke from the driver’s cigar hit my nose instantly.
“Sit up,” snapped Miss Fox, as she climbed into the front.
“I’m sorry, miss?”
She turned and looked at me as if I were a sick sheep. “Sit up straight when you’re in my vehicle. And kindly avoid touching the seats.”
I folded my hands in my lap and began to ask, “How long will it take to—”
“Quiet!” she interrupted. “All this senseless chatter is giving me a headache.”
The engine chugged into life as I leant back and tried to take some deep breaths, but the fumes made me cough. Miss Fox tutted loudly.
All I could see of the driver was a flat tweed cap and the grey hair on the back of his neck. He said nothing, simply nodded and pulled away.
I peered out of the back window, and saw Aunt Phoebe standing on the doorstep. She gave me a sad wave. I watched her shrink as we drove, fading into the sunlight that streamed through the trees.
I turned around, and saw my eyes reflected in the driver’s mirror. They were brimming with tears.
On a few occasions she turned around to give me a look, and I tried to avoid her eye. Eventually she turned her angry gaze on the passing countryside instead, allowing me back into my own world.
The trouble was that my world was filled with Scarlet. Everything we passed in the familiar landscape reminded me of her. The way she used to hop over wooden stiles, while I dangled my legs over warily. The way she used to pick the green leaves off the bushes and crush them into tiny pieces. The way she used to smile at the blue sky, pointing out the shapes in the clouds that only she could see.
The worst was when I noticed two girls, perhaps sisters, playing together in a garden. I felt the memory flow through me, and as hard as I tried, it wouldn’t stop coming. The day Scarlet left for school …
We were standing there on the lawn, each with our matching suitcases; Scarlet in her uniform, me in a plain pink dress.
Father wanted to send us away. “Time to get an education,” he said. “Time to become proper young ladies,” he said. But Scarlet had won a place, and I hadn’t. So they were sending her to Rookwood School, and me to stay with Aunt Phoebe. Father waved goodbye to us with a glass of whisky in his hand. Our stepmother, wearing a pinafore and a grimace, dismissed us without even a second glance as she fussed over her sons, our stepbrothers.
Maybe Aunt Phoebe was a better alternative to our parents, but she was strange and scatterbrained. You could never tell what she was thinking.
There on the lawn, with the suitcases, I knew what Scarlet was thinking. She wished that we were both going to the school, so she wouldn’t have to go alone. I knew she was thinking that, because I was thinking it too. I started to cry; big, gulping, childish sobs.
Scarlet took my hand. “Don’t worry, Ivy-Pie,” she said bravely. “I’ll write you a letter every week. And you’ll write me one back. And when I’ve finished school I’ll come and get you, and we’ll run away together and become beautiful actresses, or prima ballerinas, only we’ll be even more famous because we’re twins. And we can go to America, and everyone in the whole world will want to be our friend.”
I cried even harder. Because it was ridiculous, and I would miss the ridiculous things that Scarlet came out with. Not only that, but because we both knew that I would never become famous and loved by everyone.
That destiny could only be Scarlet’s.
I wiped away a tear and quietly folded my knees up on the seat, risking further tutting from Miss Fox. But she didn’t notice, so I stayed curled up there, trawling through my memories.
Scarlet making a fortress from blankets, protecting her dolls from the Viking Hordes. (That would be me. I wasn’t much of a horde.)
Scarlet leaving trails of painted Easter eggs around our garden, making me find them with clues and riddles. (Our stepbrothers always tried to smash them.)
Scarlet brushing her hair for a hundred strokes before she would let me plait it.
Scarlet hunched over her diary, scribbling away, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth.
My sister always wrote in her diary. Every little event had to be pinned to the page. I never saw the point of it then, but she always said that if she didn’t write down everything that happened, it would just disappear forever. There would be no one to remember.
I
