Once when passing the sitting room she overheard Elspeth talking in a low voice to Huw about how she’d assumed adopting a girl would help Viola become a ‘nicer person and less spoilt’. Her voice had been filled with disappointment, which terrified Katy. Would they send her back if Viola didn’t like her?
Her new bedroom was supposed to be across the landing from Viola’s but her sister had made such a fuss that, in the end, to appease her, Elspeth had said Katy could live in the attic.
‘I’ll decorate it for you however you like,’ promised Elspeth, her blue eyes silently pleading with her not to make a fuss. Which Katy would never do. She was there to make Elspeth happy. And it was clear Viola made her mother very unhappy. Viola seemed to make it her mission to behave as appallingly to her parents as possible. ‘You can have your own bathroom and everything.’
‘As long as she’s not sleeping anywhere near me, I don’t care,’ snapped Viola, her eyes blazing. ‘I don’t want to catch her fleas.’
Elspeth had screamed at her, told her she was spoilt and selfish, while Huw looked on with a worried expression on his usually benign face. ‘Now hang on a minute, Elspeth, that’s a bit harsh,’ he said, as Viola pushed past them on the landing and ran crying to her bedroom. Katy was pleased that Elspeth had stood up for her while Huw did nothing. He was like a big bear that always seemed to get in the way and Elspeth was always snapping at him, as if she found his presence particularly irritating. He was too laid back. He should be telling Viola off for being rude instead of accusing Elspeth of being harsh. She could see why Viola was so spoilt with a father like him.
Elspeth had come over faint then, stating that she was exhausted and had to lie down, leaving Katy and Huw standing awkwardly in the doorway of the bedroom that was no longer going to be Katy’s, not knowing what to say to each other. Eventually Huw had patted Katy’s shoulder and said he’d make the attic look nice for her. In the meantime she had to bed down with the boxes and cobwebs, spiders and dust, until the builders came in to make the bathroom and knock the two rooms into one. Katy didn’t mind. She had a good view of the garden from up there, and she could hear the conversations that filtered through the windows from below. She had her own private space – her own floor – in a beautiful house and that was all that mattered to her.
For weeks, Viola had been talking about a Halloween party to celebrate her birthday. She was going to invite her friends from school, she’d say loudly, whenever Katy was in earshot. Already Katy hated the snooty girls’ school she had to attend, with the stuffy pinafore and starched-shirt combo she was forced to wear. Everyone made fun of her accent when she opened her mouth, so she decided the best thing was to keep quiet. Even though Viola was two school years above her, her popularity and hatred of Katy filtered down through the pupils, which resulted in everyone giving her a wide berth as though she was infectious and riddled with lice – which was probably what Viola had been telling everyone. Katy tried not to care. She was used to keeping herself to herself. It had served her well at the children’s home and it would protect her here.
Elspeth had gone to town on the house, decorating every inch of it with fake cobwebs, furry spiders, pumpkins with sinister faces carved into them (Katy was made to help with this and hated it because the orange flesh stuck to her fingers), ugly gargoyles, witches’ broomsticks, hanging bats. It was grotesque and changed the feeling of the house from pretty and dreamlike to ugly and nightmarish.
Viola’s friends were to arrive at five o’clock for some food, then go trick or treating. It wasn’t clear to Katy if she was invited, although Elspeth had given her an unflattering witch’s costume with stripy tights that kept falling down and a pointed hat that itched her head. Viola looked beautiful in a white dress, even with the scary face paint. She wasn’t quite sure who Viola was supposed to be but she admired the long Victorian-style dress, all chiffon, lace and petticoats, and glanced down at her own costume feeling like Cinderella in rags.
Viola’s friends were dressed in similar outfits to hers, Gothic and glamorous-looking, with red-painted lips, white faces and too much perfume. And they pranced about the kitchen, giggling and dancing, whispering behind their hands while Katy sat at the end of the table alone. Nobody spoke to her, except Elspeth and a kind-faced older woman called Franny, who was a cook-housekeeper, which Katy soon found meant she did all the jobs that Elspeth didn’t want to do.
And then eventually Viola and her sycophantic cronies gathered as a crowd in the hallway, moving en masse as though they were one living organism, and Katy hung back, by the staircase. ‘Viola, make sure you look after your sister,’ called Elspeth, as she handed out plastic bags for them to collect their sweets. ‘And don’t be back too late.’
Katy noticed how Viola shuddered at the word ‘sister’ and her obvious loathing made Katy’s eyes smart. Viola was determined to hate her – and, as a result, to cast herself in the role of tortured, misunderstood princess in her own little film, while Katy was the ogre.
Viola carried on out of the door, surrounded by her six friends, like maids-in-waiting, while Katy trailed pathetically behind. But they didn’t head to the nearby houses, as she’d expected them to: they continued towards the suspension bridge.
‘Um …’ called Katy, running to keep up. ‘Aren’t we going trick or treating?’
‘That’s for babies,’ one of Viola’s friends scoffed, a pretty girl with long red hair and freckles.
‘And the old farts around here won’t give us anything interesting,’ added another girl, with black hair and a green-painted face. Casey or Cassie. ‘Half of them won’t answer the door.’