A/N: Finally, it's here! My Esther reboot is finally resuming, after a year of editing, planning and rewriting. Overall, the storyline and major plot elements will be kept the same here; it's still a story about Esther Blake, the cynical, pessimistic, anxious young woman trying to find her place in the world. Only...this time it'll have better focus. Pinky promise!
At first I thought mum was joking when she told me. My mum isn't one for humour but I thought she was having a go for once, and I was horribly mistaken.
She announced we were going to be moving house; and for once it was dad's decision - not her's - which pretty much blew my mind away. Mum always made decisions for our household, it was just the way things worked - a program I'd not only always understood, but one I'd been happy to comply with, for the most part. Resistance is futile when it comes to my mother - she's a lawyer, Serena Blake (not famous or anything, but has a good reputation amongst her own accumulated circles), so arguing tends to never work out in your favor, although my uncle's not really caught on with that revolutionary enlightening yet.
Apparently dad wanted to move somewhere scenic - more remote, more picturesque, surrounded by the beauty of nature and all its silent inspiration; so his artwork's popularity could be influenced by this new muse, and for once, mum was happy with this change (I've been told we're very alike when it comes to preferring the original status quo) - even if it meant working for a much smaller firm with a considerably lower pay.
My dad's the surrealist artist, Michael Blake. Y'know? The guy who did the picture of the apples - bottle green, I've been told about the paint over sixty times by now - that met between the bright green sea and the orange tinted sky, resembling some sort of 'personal reflection' (the smirk he gets whenever he says that clued me in long ago it's about as sincere as half the critics who've gazed upon it, eyes glassy and fish like. Intrusively picky). His most famous painting in his entire career - some critics now scornfully call the 'only' one; conceived when I was only two years old, and mum had started working at her first official law firm (the one she parted ways with when I was five). He tells us he's working on his new masterpiece; said masterpiece has taken twelve years. I'm sixteen now, and all his other paintings have gotten a lukewarm reception compared to the 'inspired' apples, that garnered him a near cult-following. Some days dad laments they're the only thing keeping his career going and it pains me to sometimes agree.
Esther - the name I was gifted with - means 'friendly, approachable and generous' in text book terms. I managed to be an impressive one of these traits.
I'm not friendly by any admirable means as no-one really approaches me at school, and subsequently that leads to me being on the quieter side, crossing out approachability in its midst. I hope you could call me generous, but even then I'm only that by default as I lend people things whenever they ask, but it's not a particularly friendly exchange - namely because I never had any friends at my (now) old school. I figure now I've completed generosity I can move onto the others - hopefully a new environment will make that process of application a little easier.
Socialising is something both of my parents fair pretty well at, and I really overestimated my own abilities considering their considerable prowess. People tend to find me 'too weird' to be friends with - namely the whole not really talking much thing; not that I'm even sure I have much of interest to say. 'Hi, you may have heard of my dad, he painted 'Equinox' - y'know? The bottle green apples on the acid trip landscape?' - not exactly a captivating introduction, is it? Socially, I'm about as appealing as a mouldy banana.
I've got one of those faces people say is beautiful...if you take the time to look at it. So, if you stared for about a minute you'll apparently see the 'beauty' that's hidden there. No-one does, and I can't exactly blame them. I'm socially useless but even I know staring at people's faces isn't considered too acceptable. It doesn't help makeup is - and forever will be - a foreign concept to me (there goes another potential conversation topic I can scratch off the list). Not that I wouldn't wear makeup - it's more I can't. Skin allergies and sensitive pores popped that dream balloon before it even properly arose when I was twelve.
The only features of mine people find interesting are my hair and eyes - that's probably for all the wrong reasons though, as they refuse to complement each other. I'm pale - painfully, dreadfully, bizarrely pale, if I want to overemphasise with adjectives (sometimes I'm inclined to embody dad's flair for the dramatic). My mum, who was born Serena Tolnay, is Danish, hailing from Copenhagen (the capital) and she's that kind of Scandinavian people have tended to stereotype. Tall (long torso, even long legs, with an elegant grace to their movements), platinum haired (straight as a bored, always lacquered and kept tied back tightly when she's working, silken and glossy, to the point it shimmers when in the right lighting), with a snowy complexion that transforms her into a mythical ice queen. She's beautiful, a terrifying sort of beauty with her strong jawline, high cheekbones, thin lipped smile and hooded eyes; that attracted the kind of daydreamer my dad has always embodied. A fire prince unafraid to speak to such a frozen maiden. I fall more under milk maid at the best of times, and even then that's when you discount my contrasting hair and eyes.
My eyes are strikingly dark blue - they've sometimes been mistaken as black under the wrong (or maybe that should be the right?) sort of lighting; a sort of midnight sky in shade (which I only know thanks to hours of flipping through paint manuels on weekends when I've had nothing better to do), and they're like crows eyes amongst my pale complexion. They're intense, beady and glitter with an avian intelligence that only remind people of lack of trust and intrusivity.
As for my hair, it's a pale blonde - the ultimate clash against my crow-sharp indigo eyes - but not quite reaching mum's platinum shade, falling a few hurdles short to a lemony tint. It's grown long (helps to hide the pale face, trust me) and wispy, curling on itself after a good battering from the wind. I tried curling it once but the first time it got toasted and morphed into a good impression of straw; and the second time I tried, my impatient streak meant taking almost an hour and a half for one side of my head was never going to be something I could handle. I just gave it up, washed it and it returned to its natural pale mane. Like I (once ironically) said, resistance tends to prove futile.
And so my lack of resistance landed me in the back of our car, following a removal van, to a place in Ireland known simply as Carcery Vale. That was the part that didn't make sense to me.
I've lived in Newcastle my entire life - upping sticks for Ireland? I thought it'd be somewhere like Manchester or Leeds even, but Ireland?
The landscape beauty provided a lot of answers - even if merely in photographic form. Dad wants his next masterpiece, so rolling hills and demure trickling streams should be the ideal place to nurture such a creation. A surrealist tends to reject nature, but dad's always proven to be the exception to that rule. He's told me his intent was always to bring a sense of 'acid trip fantasy to natural beauty'. And Equinox (the apples) worked. So why couldn't the critics just accept his vision?
I wish I had an answer for him, but the art world is something that's always baffled me, even more so than mum or Evie, and she's only four.
Evie's as cute as a hamster wrapped in cotton wool, sprinkled with sugar, or can be as annoying as techno music - depending on whatever mood she's feeling up to embodying. And journey car journeys (especially the long variety), she always seems inclined toward the latter.
Our car has no air conditioning, so we've rolled down the windows and are all probably (secretly) praying a wasp won't find its way in. Sometimes my prayers seem to be answered as so far, no flying devil. The roar of the wind is even drowning out whatever Evie's saying about some kids show so nonsensical only little kids really understand it, and I should know - I've watched some of her cartoons with her, and out the two of us she shows a hell of a lot more intuition than I'm capable of when it comes to interpretation. So I decide upon staring out the window...for the entire flippin' journey.
Sheep, cows, tree after tree, and the occasional shock of thinking I've seen something in the forest is only fun for about two minutes. I play with the hem of my skirt, untie my hair from its ponytail to re-tie it, yawn a lot, stare at the car ceiling, try and remember the word for platypus in Spanish, all to no avail.
Dad's old synth CDs are playing in the front - a means of compromise to avoid flatout warfare breaking out over Evie putting on one of her nursery rhyme tapes and me making some melodramatic gesture (I'm so aware of them now it's embarrassing and frustrating how I'm unable to stop repeating them) - but we've never really had abundant musical choice. I prefer listening to my music alone (but like the complete wanker I am I've forgotten to charge my MP3), so the car choices we have are Slovakian disco (which only me and mum understand, after she tutored me to stop my isolation getting too much...not like I've ever told her I figured out why), dad's 70s/80s classics (which I privately enjoy, but no way am I letting him rub my nose in it) or Evie's nursery rhymes (ear sodomy - as none of those people can sing a note). Whimsical tittering is something a total misery like myself cannot abide.
I try to be honest with myself most of the time, I really do.
Over the sound of Pseudo Echo roaring into a keyboard solo from the front of the car, mum calls to me. Her hair's been pushed back with a simple hairband and I can see the glow of her perfectly applied makeup in the mirror (a sting of envy from my jealous self), everything crisp and in place. Sometimes I'm convinced mum became a lawyer because she's so aesthetically destined for it. "Oh Esther, I've enrolled you at their local secondary school!" She yells slightly over the whirring music. "You start on Thursday, the 20th that is!"
Today is Monday the 10th, meaning I get a whole week of nothing to do! On the bright side, I'll be able to organise my room, do some exploring of the local area and possibly even form an attack plan so I can actually make some friends at my new school. On the light bulb smashed side, watching daytime TV and mulling around by my lonesome is fun for about three days, but I know I'll get bored.
Back home, the loneliness was something easier to ignore, it'd nestled comfortably in my bones and I'd acclimated myself to it deep down. But in a new place...my lack of friends felt magnified. I had no-one from back home who'd really remember me, who I could ring or email. My classmates had signed my shirt politely, but most of them had seemed more bemused I even existed. I could blame them as much as I couldn't. I wasn't someone that interesting or that friendly. In the beginning I guess I'd found being a loner cool, a great sign of my individuality and uniqueness. At sixteen and with the impending idea I had to make new friends with no prior experience or even former friendships from my old home? It was a miserable reminder that I seemed good at one thing: closing myself off.
At home my only real companion to avoid wallowing in my own pity would be Evie. Sure, she's about as sugary sweet as a hamster dipped in treacle tar and artificial sugars, but it wasn't like we could talk, or that we shared many interests. The age gap has proven to make me more like her aunt than her big sister sometimes. And I know it's really my fault for being so awkward.
Judging by the fact my parents were already gearing up for their new work, I'll be looking after Evie. Looking after is something we make work well, as I am efficient in keeping her entertained - usually because she finds me speaking either Danish or Slovakian amusing. When she's older I've vowed to teach her. Be a good big sister and endow her a life skill, something I feel I've failed to do so far.
Mum's going to be starting work near immediately, just in case someone tries to snaffle up a case I know she's had her eye on for a while (hell it's been near promised to her), and dad's going to want to get good idea of his surroundings. I know we're not actually living in the Vale itself, more on the outskirts, so we're 'closer to nature' (as much as that phrase annoys me). But I have to agree with my dad on one thing, Carcery Vale sure is beautiful...in a near mystical sort of way.
Luscious greenery, cool blue skies, fields blotted entirely with the bright burning of flowers and whisping corn, a place almost entirely unmarred by the taint of modern technology. It's an artists dream. No-one ever gives my dad enough credit for his smarts, but when they shine through, boy are they a lighthouse beacon.
There's at least one other house all the way out on the border of the Vale; a mansion owned by a man named Dervish Grady. Apparently mum knew 'back in the old days', something linking to them attending the same university (albeit different courses, based on the rare tidbits of information I've garnered via eavesdropping). He has a nephew - who lost his parents (something mum told me in advance, so I don't put my foot in things...that is if I'm ever brave enough to try attempting a conversation) - who's name begins with a 'G' and is apparently 'unusual', but apart from that, mum and Dervish's connection is somewhat dubious. I had a few uncomfortable suspicions they used to date - maybe the relationship even ended messily, as she doesn't always seem to speak too kindly of him; but dad's lack of protest at the fact she's insisted we go visit him seems to have told me I was wrong. Either that or the relationship just really didn't end as badly as I suspected.
I've seen a couple photos of my mum as a teenager, back in the 1970's, and she looked even more stunning then than she manages to now. None of the few wrinkles she's acquired from stress, hair flowing glossily and unrestrained like a Disney princess, a glorious figure unmarred by the strain of having children. Even now though I see why dad always seems so delighted he managed to snare her.
Part of me sometimes hopes one day I will get to look like my mother; glorious, slim waisted yet wide busted, a real-life Barbie doll. Judging by the way I'm going though, I'm going to be more like one of Barbie's background friends - not quite as plastically and perky, though. Mum's looks and high IQ are something even I internally admit I'm envious of, but at least I got her brain's, which is something I'm eternally thankful for. At least I could be a smart loner - that was something I used to desperately reassure myself with.
Evie's going to be the pretty sister, at least that's what I've surmised so far. Unlike me, the pale complexion suits her, making her look like a child Snow White. Little button nose, doe eyes as bright as the spring skies, topped off with neat raven bunches. Evie got dad's black hair, contrasting itself beautifully with mum's aqua eyes, with her rounded cheeks making her look twice as adorable. If I had dark hair I'd look twice as creepy as people have called me under their breath now. I'd look like a corpse with dark hair (something I realised during a particular bout of melodrama when I vowed I'd dye it onyx), so I've grown to be way more thankful of being lemon blonde.
Dad's freckled - heavier than either of us: Evie - who has a few clinging to her soft cheeks and others dotted along her dimpled chin; or me, with the golden spots that emerge on my arms or across my cheeks in the summer, when I'm not charred red as a lobster - with a mop of black curls and a grin like a shock of lightning. He usually wears suspenders - something mum used to tease him about mercilessly when they first got together - but like the rest of us, he's slender and has a thin waist, so he actually manages to pull them off without looking ridiculous. My dad embodies artist, but somehow has never looked pathetic in doing so. Large, square rimmed glasses cover his eyes - the identical navy to my own - and paint always flecks his fingertips from hours of work.
Sometimes I worry if dad wasn't an artist I'd be much harsher towards them...I think most people would be if they didn't love one. And it's those sorts of worries that make me want this move to succeed, despite my pessimism and whinging. Even if I'm already wishing I was in school, so I could be properly socially awkward around other teenagers, and get into a panic about my GCSEs (which I've been conveniently pushing to the back of my mind ever since Year 9...and I'm now well into Year 11).
The car stops - I've clearly been distracted by my shameless inner self-pitying and musings - and I hear mum and dad get out, which causes me to hang back. They usually do this when they want to be 'secretive', but I've long figured this one out (being a loner does give you good people reading skills - so I'm thankful for that at least).
Mum has a pleased smile on her face already - gazing up at the building - and dad looks ecstatic. Like a little boy with an Action Man, or even (if I want to be a total dick) a painter finding his success. They've already begun whispering to one another, eyes turned away from the house and back onto one another ( suspicions correct, Esther ). I'm usually not in the mood for eavesdropping on my parents but I freeze just as I'm beginning to turn away, as mum puts her hand over her stomach in an action I've seen once before. A memory I distinctively can single out.
Having horny parents - not cool.
Especially as an insecure part of me is worried about getting another sibling. There'll only be five years, maybe six, between them and Evie, but me? A whole seventeen. By the time they're my age I'll be thirty-four. Maybe married with children of my own. There was always going to be one major downside to my parents conceiving me when they were only twenty-two years old, and sibling age gaps was something I never considered up until Evie's conception (when I was near certain I was simply going to remain an only child thanks to all the time that'd passed, too self-important to understand my parents had stabilized their careers by that point in time).
A childish part of me is sullenly annoyed I'm impressed when I look up at the house. It's an older model, I know that as much, crafted from what appears to be white plaster that's impressively devoid of cracks and not entirely battered from years of being hidden away in the countryside. Three stories high (attic included) with large, arching windows on the ground floor, giving it a bizarre mediterranean vibe I never anticipated I'd give it. A large set of double doors meet the front of the house, facing the driveway, and the voice of the previous owner mentioning having new ones fitted rings home as I realise the wooden structures look considerably younger than the rest of the structure. The garden itself seems to stretch on for miles and miles, leading outwards into the forest and endless fields which surrounded the property, only branched off with small, wooden fences. It was mostly untrimmed, like a thick jungle, but I like that untidiness for some reason, similar to dad.
Imperfections are what make you special, that's what Grandmother Tolnay enjoyed telling us before her passing.
Yes.
I can feel myself smiling as I lean over to unbuckle Evie, who's patent shoes are hitting the back of the seat as she swings her feet back and forth, head turning round over and over as she attempts to take in all her surroundings at once; Mr Dobbs, her stuffed cat (dyed a bright prussian blue thanks to an accident with some washing on the behalf of my cousin Helena), clutched tightly to her chest as she joins me, mum, dad (and my future brother or sister who hasn't officially been announced yet) standing by the property, removal van registering only vaguely in my peripherals.I think I'm going to like it here, really.