Knightsbridge is where Aunt Jane lived; the Darling half of our clan. Once upon a time the Darlings were of great money, and still are in their own sort of way. Dad was old money, and so was Mum, but it never seemed to faze them. We didn't live in the city like Jane did, or like our cousins. Mum was one for nature, not smog. We lived a long cry from London and often spent our summers at Jane's home in Knightsbridge, Hannah and I. Mum and Dad called it a "get away from our deprived lives as suburban, nature children".
Aunt Jane was always ready to greet us at the door as Dad pulled the car against the curb, dressed in her usual smocks of foreign fabrics. Lord knows she'd been cross the world and over again. Hannah pushed her red frames higher on the bridge of her nose, "I can't wait to get back to Hyde Park. There's always cool ones out there."
Hannah is an insect freak. She's eleven and plays with bugs, captures them, raises them. At home she has an ant farm and a butterfly castle. I sometimes wonder if she'll ever grow out of her fancy of creepy-crawlies, but I doubt she will. Dad and Mum got out of the car and wasted no time pulling our things from the trunk as Jane made her way down the walk. I wasn't very fond of her antics. She was a seventy year old woman who had never grown up.
"Oh dears, leave those be and come here!" And once again I dodged a smothering embrace and shoved Hannah in front of me. Hannah adored Jane, and Jane adored everyone else. Dad was next in line for suffocation from his aunt. Mum was third, and I the begrudging fourth.
"How have you been, Jane? Good I hope," Jane took Mum's arm in response and they gossiped their way up the walk and into the two storie home. Hannah tugged her bookbag from the trunk and ran along ahead, leaving me and Dear Father with the rest of the luggage.
"Be nice, Lizzy," Dad said, my name nothing more than a warning, "Jane loves you. You used to love coming here, you know? When you were pup all you ever wanted to do was come and have Jane tell you stories. What happened to that sweet girl?"
Dad handed me Hannah's second bag and took mine himself, "She got old and realized all those stories are rubbish, and that Neverland only exists in America."
When I was younger I loved Jane. I still did, but things changed. When the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause went out the window, so did all the truth in all the fairytales I'd ever been told. When I was ten and Hannah six we made forts out of sofa cushions, bed posts, and blankets. We were pirates, princesses, and swordswomen; our idols were Xena and Gabrielle. We battled sea monsters, and were glamorous warriors. It was all a sight, and plenty had been saved on VHS tapes and documented on printed film.
After the great Santa Clause incident of 1994, a lot of things changed for me. I didn't have the innocence anymore, not like Hannah did. I couldn't bring myself to believe in fictitious characters for more than what they were: fiction. I was a cynical child, even at age eleven. Mum and Dad didn't want my disappointment to affect Hannah. She still believes in the Easter Bunny.
Jane's home was well furnished in an odd Victorian/French styling, all clutter from her past life. She would horde most things she found in her travels and stack them in place against the walls, on the walls, and on the paneled floors. Tribal masks from South America and Africa; a kimono and fan from Japan; a Sitar from India; and several Tiffany lamps from New York City. The rugs were a mix of replica Oriental weavings, and worn rags from Israel. She was eclectic at best, and even so her main furnishings of tables and sofas were strictly western European.
"Come in, sit down, have some tea." she was honorably traditional, Aunt Jane.
Hannah sat on the stiff backed, pinstriped sofa, between Mum and I while Dad sat in the single seating wingback positioned next to Jane's own oversized armchair. They're an odd bunch, those Darlings. They all seem to gravitate toward the unusual and childish manners of life, which is why I consider myself a Barrie on my Mum's side. The Barrie's are rational people always.
"What is it you've been up to Jack, Maggie? Any adventures?" Jane asked, settling back into her fluff of a chair.
"Not lately, haven't had a real Holiday since the kids were younger," Dad glanced to Hannah and I, "This new job they've got me on doesn't allow for the time."
Mum started in, "No, but it does pay well. We're hoping to get out a few good days for a trip soon enough. We were thinking of taking a cruise of the Mediterranean."
"Mm," Jane set down her cup, "Always better to go by road. Bopping around like those cruises do on a schedule and such never plays well with time to explore. Hannah and Lizzy are young and impressionable; they need to see the world without hindrance."
Aunt Jane always went on about us needing exposure to other cultures and lands. No matter how often Mum and Dad lied, we as a family had never been further than Scotland in our travels. We would make the plans to go somewhere exciting, but never made it to our destination by one thing or another. And when Dad was laid off from his job, he found one better paying, but only at the expense of his time with his family.
I didn't wait to wave off Mum and Dad as they left. Hannah hurried up the stairs with her bag as I carried up the last three. She stumbled into her room and thumped her bag onto her bed, just in time to crank the window open and wave spastically toward Dad's silver sedan.
"They aren't looking back," I dumped her second bag in her doorway and moved to my own room across the hall, and she came thundering after me.
"They are too," she flopped a seat on the end of my bed with her arms crossed and a scowl on her lips, "You didn't used to be so mean."
"What are you talking about? I'm always mean, born mean. Now get your bum off my bed and go unpack. Jane wants us downstairs for dinner soon."
"Why don't you call her 'Aunt Jane'? It's not polite to call her by her first name alone."
I grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it at her, "Because I can. Now go unpack, clean up, and be downstairs for dinner in twenty minutes."
Hannah held the frilled heart pillow in front of her as she backed away, "But Aunt Jane doesn't cook."
Jane Ingram didn't cook because she never grew up. When we weren't visiting, Aunt Jane spent her time as far from London as possible, being waited on hand and foot by guides, chefs, and the hotel's concierge and bellhops. Jane didn't have responsibility. She'd left it on one of her trips to Australia. When the Ingrams were staying in Knightsbridge, all responsibility landed on me. I'm Elizabeth Ingram.