Page 129 of Jessica Beam is a Hot Mess
Chapter Thirty-Three
Every Good Woman ought to pursue a partner of equal or greater breeding and education. This is the person with whom you will spend your life, raise your children. They must have the means to take care of you, else you will be destined for a life of strife and financial worry.
Matilda Beam’s Good Bride Guide, 1956
I can’t sleep.
Every time I start to doze off, I think of Leo and my heart lurches and wakes me up. And when it’s not that bringing me out of sleep, it’s Peach turning over in the bed and lobbing me in the face with her arm.
With a sigh, I climb out from beneath the duvet and pace around my room, halting when I feel a sharp prick in my toe.
‘Ow!’ I hiss, grabbing my foot and hopping up and down. I pick the offending shard out of my foot. It’s a tiny piece of porcelain from when Jamie’s nephew Charlie knocked over Felicity.
I gape at the rest of the dolls. Mum’s dolls. I wonder if this sad aching I have inside is the feeling Mum had all the time? Is this what drove her over the edge?
I check the time on my iPhone. Two a.m.
Pulling on my dressing gown, I creep out onto the upstairs landing and peek up at the attic door, spotting a little rope cord dangling from it. Reaching on tiptoes, I pull the cord down as slowly as possible and unfold the wooden ladder super quietly.
As I step onto the first rung of the ladder, it gives a massive creak. I freeze. If Grandma catches me sneaking up here after she told me not to, she’ll have a right paddy, and tonight has already been quite craptastic enough, thank you.
When, thirty seconds later, it becomes clear that Grandma didn’t hear the creak and I’m safe, I carefully climb the rest of the way into the attic and close the hatch softly behind me. I sneeze instantly. Urgh, it’s so dusty up here, I can smell it!
Feeling along the wall for the light switch, I find it and flip it on. The attic is illuminated by the glow of a bright, bare bulb dangling from the rafters. I shake my head as I see boxes and toys and papers and old trophies and books and more boxes.Attic is emptymy arse. Grandma was totally lying. I pluck a trophy from where it’s balancing on top of an open cardboard box and look at the inscription.
Kensington Young Ballet Competition. Winner Rose Beam.
And then I pick up an old school blazer with a label sewn into the collar.
Property of Rose Beam, Class 4 Blue.
Woah. This is all Mum’s stuff! No wonder I never saw any around the house – it’s all crammed in here!
Opening odd boxes, I rifle through them eagerly. There are school reports, a signed theatre programme fromRomeo and Juliet, old shoes, tape cassettes, half-used bottles of perfume and a few disco flyers for a club called the Blue Canary.
Then I spot − half covered by a turquoise stripy duvet cover − a large black trunk nestled in the darkest corner of the attic. I traipse over, muffling another sneeze as I dislodge a couple of teddy bears which proceed to fall off the top of a cardboard box and bop me on the head. Sitting down cross-legged in front of the trunk, I yank off the duvet cover, bunch it up and chuck it over to the other side of the attic. Then I slowly lift open the lid of the trunk.
Inside, there are envelopes and folders, old magazines and letters. Then I notice, buried beneath all the paper, a small pile of brightly-coloured patterned notebooks.
Frowning, I grab the notebook on top of the stack and open it up.
The first page is scrawled with large, looping script in the kind of thick blue ink that can only come from a fountain pen. I recognize the handwriting in an instant.
It’s Mum’s handwriting.
Rose Beam’s Diary
My hands start to shake.
Rose Beam’s Diary
9thJuly 1985
I can’t write properly, my hands are shaking so much. Dammit. I need to breathe but I can’t catch my breath.
I’ve just been downstairs as Mum was calling me. She was sitting in the drawing room with Dad, and they both looked so serious. I thought they were going to tell me that someone had died. Before I could ask who, Dad told me to sit down. Then he said that I wouldn’t be seeing Thom any more. At first I laughed because I thought he was doing one of his stupid jokes, but then Mum started crying and completely wigging out and I knew that they were serious. Dad told me that he’d had one of his friends look into Thomas Truman’s background and he’d found out that Thom is a known gambler with a string of debts who was obviously using me for our money. I told Dad how ridiculous he was being because I know all about Thom’s card playing, but that he loved me and that it was real, true love. Thom paid me back every penny of the money I lent to him and I told them so.
And then Dad told me the worst thing anyone has ever said in my life. He told me that last night he went to see Thom at his house and offered him twenty thousand pounds to leave London and never see me again. According to Dad, Thom took it without a second thought. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Dad said they hadn’t spent all this time, effort and money to bring me up well, only for me to marry a layabout who was after the family money, that something scandalous like this would ruin the family’s hard-earned reputation. Mum dashed over to hold me, but I pushed her away. How has she let this happen? She just sat by Dad’s side, agreeing with everything he said like she always bloody does.
