AllFreeNovel
Share Us
God, it’s after seven. I push myself away from the bathroom counter. ‘Ready.’
I find him sitting on our bed, pulling up his socks. As he stands, he smiles at me, his floppy brown hair falling over his kind eyes – you’d think butter wouldn’t melt. ‘You look nice,’ he says, brushing my arm, and I try not to flinch away.
‘Thanks, you too,’ I say as we head out, hoping he doesn’t notice my gritted teeth. ‘Is Jenna up?’
‘I’ve heard movements.’
‘Baby girl! Breakfast!’ I shout up the stairs. I wait for a response but get none. My baby: always lost in her own little world.
Okay, I’ll admit she’s sixteen. But she’ll always be my baby.
I rub at a tiny point of pain beside my eye and catch myself in the glass of a picture of our little town, Port Emblyn, boats bobbing inside the harbour walls. My reflection is a reminder to smile again. We reach the bottom and push through the connecting door to my brother Tristan’s side of the house.
Shorthorn Lodge is a Georgian farmhouse of warm, honey-coloured granite. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms, an office and three reception rooms. And a library. And the rest: rooms no one uses, doors unopened for decades. We, the Beaufort-Bradleys, have lived here for four generations.
Although, Jenna, Dan and I live in the Victorian red-brick extension, and my parents live about twenty metres away in a converted barn. One big happy family.
Our foyer brings us into Tristan’s laundry room, the judder of a full load a sign his housekeeper has already been busy today. We walk up the corridor and hear voices. Dan turns and gives me a comic grimace – we’re late. My father insists on family breakfasts every day and family dinners on Friday nights. It’s a nice tradition.
We enter the kitchen and greet everyone while Mother fusses slices of toast into the rack. At the table, Father sips coffee from an antique cup, watching Ash and Ava – my brother and Mina’s twins – scroll through their phones across from him. Mina attends to Tristan’s tie as he stands behind them in the bay window, talking on his phone. The pink, puckered patch of skin on his left cheek catches the morning light: a silver kiss.
My father clears his throat and Ash and Ava slide their phones under the table. Mother sets down a rattling tray of jams. Her hair is set in large curls and she wears plum-coloured lipstick to match her necklace. Dan and I take our seats.
‘Dot,’ says Father. His skin is loose at the neck now; dry red patches mar his bald head.
‘Yes, dear?’ Mother reaches for her necklace.
‘Come, sit down,’ he says.
‘Oh.’ She takes her place beside him.
‘Got to go.’ says Tristan. He hangs up. Mina pats his chest and they sit.
‘Well, we’re all here,’ Father says, looking over at the empty chair beside me.
‘Jenna’s coming,’ I say.
‘Shall we wait?’
‘Sorry, David,’ says Dan. ‘She has a drama rehearsal and she’s making sure everything’s okay with her costume.’
My father’s eyebrows rise on his bald head. It isn’t the best excuse. She should’ve sorted it out last night. Except she did have it sorted, until I got involved.
The black and purple dress she’d picked out – she’s some sort of witch, I think – had looked unfinished and so long and dowdy, and I’d been halfway through rehemming it, pins in my mouth, watching TV, when Jenna burst in and started shouting.
‘What are you doing?’ Her dark eyes grew darker.
I took the pins from my mouth one by one. ‘Rehemming your dress,’ I said.
‘But why?’ Her face went red and I realised she was about to cry.
My stomach churned. ‘Jenna, there’s no need?—’
‘You want me to look like a prostitute?’
‘Well, I don’t think?—’
She cut me off and launched into a whole speech. More than I’d got out of her in months. Apparently, shorter isn’t always better these days. And she had told me already. And why hadn’t I listened? And something about implicit consent and feminism and how victim-blaming was still a thing.
