Chapter 1.9

 

"You want me to write a story?" She looked up at her aunt with a slight frown. Writing a story seemed like something to do for homework, and she didn't have any homework.

Her aunt smiled, "No, not unless you want to. Look." She opened a drawer and took out a palette like the ones they had at school. White plastic with holes like little egg cups all around the outside, only this one was pristine white, whereas the ones she was used to were multicoloured and thick with old paint. Finn began opening the bottles of ink, revealing that each one had a medicine dropper in the lid, with which she drew out some of the colour and added it to the palette cups. And oh! What colours they were! Yellow like the sun on a summer morning; red like the crunch of autumn leaves in the park, and blue like the shimmer of a damselfly flitting over the mill pond. She delighted in the translucency of them, like the glassworker's artistry in liquid form.

"You can use anything you like to put the colour onto the paper," her aunt said. "Pens in you like, or brushes, fingers or sticks." She demonstrated each with a line or swirl of the appropriate tool; the last one flicked at the paper, sending dots of violet across the page, where it blended and bled into the yellow swathe she'd added with a wide, soft brush. "And if you put water on first, the ink runs into the damp paper like frost on a cold windowpane."

She looked up at her aunt, her fingers curling and uncurling, hardly able to contain her excitement. "What should I paint?"

Finn laughed. "Anything that takes your fancy," she said. "Let your imagination run wild."

"But Mum says I don't have an imagination." She had been told this so many times it was hard to believe otherwise.

"That's not true at all." Finn smiled like ice cream when it wasn't your birthday. "Everyone has an imagination. Even your mum. What do you think she wanted to be when she was your age?"

She gave a shrug. "I don't know. Married, I suppose." She thought about how often her mum complained about the cost of things. School uniform. School lunches. Weetabix. "And rich. She probably wanted to be rich. Or marry somebody who was already rich, like a prince. Or a sultan."

"I wanted to be an architect." Finn gazed into the distance, like there was a big book of fairy tales waiting to be read aloud. "That's someone who draws buildings that haven't been built yet. I was one for a few years"

"Didn't you like doing it?"

"I loved it, actually, but the firm I was working for got into a lot of trouble when the people they hired to construct the buildings ran off with all the money. It closed down and I had to look for a new job, and while I did that my brother died."

"Were you really sad?"

"Yes, of course." Her aunt's smile had faded like the warmth of a bed when the covers were lifted away. "We didn't get on very well, but he was still my brother and the only family I had."

"What about me?"

The smile returned. "You weren't born yet."

"But I'm family. You're my aunty."

"I am now." Finn ruffled her hair. "But we're not technically related. Your dad and I were best friends for ages and ages, and then when he met your mum, he asked me to be his best man."

"But that's silly. Best men have to be boys."

"Who told you that?" Finn held up one hand. "Never mind. I can guess who. There are no rules as to who has to be what at a wedding, except on television. Girls can be best men or husbands, boys can be bridesmaids or brides and guests can be happy or sad."

"Why would someone be sad at a wedding?"

"Many reasons." Finn dipped a brush in the black ink and drew a figure on a horse with a few simple lines. "They could wish they were marrying the bride. Or the groom." She winked. "Or they could be on a diet and not allowed to eat any of the wedding cake."

"Not eat any cake?" She thought about when she broke her gran's best teapot and hadn't been allowed any cake for a month. "That's horrible." She tried to copy Finn's horse, but it came out more like a camel. "Can I be a bridesmaid?"

"Of course you can."