These had to be the High Rockies I’d read about when my parents broke the news that we were moving from Richmond-on-Thames to Colorado.
They’d been offered a year as artists-in-residence in a new Arts Centre in a little town cal ed Wrickenridge. A local multi-mil ionaire and admirer of their work had got it into his head that the ski resort west of Denver needed an injection of culture
—and my parents, Sal y and Simon, were to be it.
When they presented me with the ‘good’ news, I checked the town website and found that Wrickenridge was known for its three hundred inches of snow each year and not much else. There would be skiing—but I’d never been able to afford the school trip to the Alps so that would put me about a mil ion years behind my contemporaries. I was already picturing my humiliation at the first snowy weekend when I stumbled on the nursery slopes and the other teenagers zipped down the black runs.
But my parents loved the idea of painting among the Rockies and I didn’t have the heart to spoil their big adventure. I pretended to be OK with missing out on sixth form col ege in Richmond with al my friends and instead enrol ing in Wrickenridge High. I’d made a place for myself in south-west London in the six years since they’d adopted me; I’d struggled out of terror and silence, overcoming shyness to have my own circle in which I felt popular. I’d shut off the stranger parts of my character—like that colour thing I’d dreamt about. I no longer looked for people’s auras as I had done as a child, ignored it when my control slipped. I’d made myself normal—wel , mostly. Now I was being launched into the unknown.
I’d seen plenty of films about American schools and was feeling more than a little insecure about my new place of education. Surely normal American teenagers got spots and wore crappy clothes sometimes? I’d never fit in if the movies turned out to be true.
‘OK.’ Simon rubbed his hands on the thighs of his faded jeans, a habit that left every item of clothing he owned smeared with oils. He was dressed in his usual Bohemian scruff while Sal y looked quite smart in new trousers and jacket she’d bought for travel ing. I fel somewhere between the two: moderately rumpled in my Levis. ‘Let’s go and see inside. Mr Rodenheim said he’d sent the decorators in for us. He promised they’d do the outside as soon as they could get to it.’
So that was why it looked a dump.
Simon opened the front door. It squeaked but didn’t fal off its hinges, which I took as a little victory for us. The decorators had clearly just left—gifting us with their dust sheets, ladders, and pots of paint, wal s half done. I poked my nose in the rooms upstairs, finding a turquoise one with a queen bed and a view of the peaks. Had to be mine. Maybe this wouldn’t be so terrible.
I used my fingernail to scratch paint splashes off the old mirror over the chest of drawers. The pale, solemn girl in the reflection did the same, staring at me with her dark blue eyes. She looked ghostly in the half light, her long blonde hair curling in unruly tendrils around her oval face. She looked fragile.
Alone. Prisoner in the room through the mirror; an Alice who never made it back through the looking-glass.
I shivered. The dream was stil haunting me, tugging me back to the past. I had to stop thinking like this. People—teachers, friends, you name it—
had told me I was prone to drifting off in melancholy daydreams. But they didn’t understand that I felt … I don’t know … somehow lacking. I was a mystery to myself—a bundle of fragmented memories and unexplored dark places. My head was ful of secrets but I’d lost the map showing me where to find them.
Dropping my hand from the cool glass, I turned away from the mirror and went downstairs. My parents were standing in the kitchen, wrapped up in each other as usual. They had the kind of relationship that was so complete I often wondered how they found space for me.
Sal y circled Simon’s waist and laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Not bad. Do you remember our first digs off Earls Court, darling?’
‘Yes. The wal s were grey and everything rattled when the tube passed under the house.’ He kissed her froth of short brown hair. ‘This is a palace.’
Sal y held her hand out to include me in the moment. I’d trained myself over the last few years not to mistrust their affectionate gestures, so took it.
Sal y squeezed my knuckles, silently acknowledging what it cost me not to shy away from them. ‘I’m real y excited. It’s like Christmas morning.’
She was always a sucker for the stocking thing.
I smiled. ‘I never would have guessed.’
‘Anyone home?’ There was a rap on the porch door and an elderly woman marched in. She had white-flecked black hair, dark brown skin, and triangle earrings that dangled almost to the col ar of her gold padded jacket. Loaded down by a casserole dish, she efficiently kicked the door closed with her heel. ‘There you are. I saw you arrive.
Welcome to Wrickenridge.’
Sal y and Simon exchanged an amused look as the lady made herself at home, putting the dish on the hal table.
‘I’m May Hoffman, your neighbour from across the street. And you are the Brights from England.’
It seemed Mrs Hoffman did not require anyone else to participate in her conversations. Her energy was scary; I caught myself wishing for a tortoise-like ability to creep back into my shel to take cover.
‘Your daughter doesn’t look much like either of you, does she?’ Mrs Hoffman moved a pot of paint aside. ‘I saw you pul up. Did you know your car’s leaking oil? You’l want to get that fixed. Kingsley at the garage wil see to it for you if you say I recommended him. He’l give you a fair price, but mind he doesn’t charge you for a valet service—that should be complimentary.’
Sal y grimaced apologetical y at me. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Hoffman.’
She waved it away. ‘We make a point of being good neighbours here. Have to be—wait until you experience one of our winters and you’l understand.’
She directed her attention in my direction, her eyes shrewd. ‘Enrol ed as an eleventh grader at the high school?’
‘Yes … er … Mrs Hoffman,’ I mumbled.
‘Semester started two days ago, but I expect you know that. My grandson’s in junior year too. I’l tel him to look after you.’
I had a nightmare vision of a male version of Mrs Hoffman shepherding me around the school. ‘I’m sure that won’t be—’
She cut across me, gesturing to the dish. ‘Thought you might appreciate some home cooking to start you off right in your new kitchen.’ She sniffed. ‘I see Mr Rodenheim final y got round to doing the place up. About time. I told him this house was a disgrace to the neighbourhood. Now, you get some rest, you hear, and I’l see you when you’ve settled in.’
She was gone before we had a chance to thank her.
‘Wel ,’ said Simon. ‘That was interesting.’
‘ Please fix the oil leak tomorrow,’ Sal y mock-begged, holding up her clasped hands to her chest.
‘I couldn’t bear to be here if she finds out you’ve not taken her advice—and she’l be back.’
‘Like the common cold,’ he agreed.
‘She’s not … um … very British, is she?’ I ventured.
We al laughed—the best christening the house could have had.
That night I unpacked my suitcase into the old chest of drawers Sal y had helped me line with wal paper; it stil smelt musty and the drawers stuck, but I liked the faded white paint-job. Distressed, Sal y cal ed it. I know how it felt, having spent many years at that end of the emotional spectrum.
I found myself wondering about Mrs Hoffman and this strange town we had come to. It felt so different
—alien. Even the air at this altitude wasn’t quite enough and I had the faint buzz of a headache lurking. Beyond my window, framed by the branches of an apple tree growing close to the house, the mountains were dark shapes against the charcoal grey sky of a cloudy night. The peaks sat in judgement over the town, reminding us humans just how insignificant and temporary we were.
I spent a long time choosing what I’d wear on my first day at school, settling on a pair of jeans and a Gap T-shirt, anonymous enough so that I wouldn’t stand out with the other students. Thinking again, I pul ed out a snug-fit jumper with a Union Jack worked in gold on the front. Might as wel accept what I was.