‘You mean Louis,’ she said tartly. Having the Louis conversation with her was going to suck.
‘Well, Louis, but mainly Francis. Is he pissed off with me?’
Alice wiggled her head from side to side. ‘He’s hard to read. Muttering something about going to Soho to look for you in some fabric shops.’
I hoped he hadn’t spent hours searching for me when I hadn’t been anywhere near Soho. Though I wasn’t sure exactly how far Soho was from Notting Hill. I’d ruined any plans he might have had to hang out with London mates or soundcheck and stuff.
‘I bet he’s pissed off with me now,’ I said, my voice all high-pitched and gaspy. Alice looked at me with amusement.
‘Oh, Franny, you’re having too many feelings again,’ she said, which wasn’t very helpful so it was a relief when her phone rang.
‘Oh hello, Mr Barker,’ Alice said as she stared at me. ‘No, she’s not in the loo, she’s sitting right here. I’ll pass the phone over.’
I batted away her outstretched hand. ‘I can’t!’ I whispered. ‘I’m not ready to talk to him.’
‘This is about the tenth time he’s called so you’re just going to have to be ready,’ Alice said, as she shoved her phone right in my face. She was all about the tough love lately.
It was a struggle to swing my legs over the bench seat without flashing my gusset and kicking Kirsten, but I managed it, then scurried to the door. ‘Hi,’ I muttered as I reached the street. ‘I’m all right. I know I said I was going to London with a rock group but it’s not quite as bad as I made it seem.’
‘Are you in London?’ Dad asked. It was hard to get a gauge on what he was feeling. And by feeling, I meant exactly how angry he was with me.
‘Yeah,’ I replied.
‘With a rock group?’
‘Yeah, but that kind of sends out the wrong idea. They’re not a very good rock group. Not that they’re badly behaved, just that their music sucks.’
‘And are you planning on coming home?’ It was still that mild voice but that mild voice could quickly turn into a shouting voice or a voice that used to stop my allowance in the days before I started earning my own spending money.
I sighed. ‘I am but I don’t really want to.’
I heard Dad sigh too, then silence. It was long enough that I wondered if we’d been cut off but then he sighed again. ‘I didn’t realise that things with your mum had got so bad.’
‘Well, I think you kind of did and that’s why you’re hardly ever around.’ I was shocked at my own daring but I only had the guts to say this over the phone. I didn’t think I could ever say this to his face. It was the one thing I hadn’t been able to yell at him that morning.
‘I take the long runs because they pay better and we need the money now that your mother isn’t working,’ Dad said and we were back to this tired old dance again.
‘But we never talk about why isn’t she working any more,’ I persisted. ‘And don’t tell me that I don’t need to worry about it because you leave me to deal with her for weeks and weeks and all I do is worry. She stops taking her pills and she hasn’t gone to her group for months and she’s either totally OCD and manic or she’s in bed and it’s all I can do —’
‘Franny…’
‘I didn’t want to screw up my GCSEs. It was the last thing I wanted to do and she promised that if I didn’t tell you she’d start getting better. She was scared that she’d have to go away again and it didn’t make her better last time. Not really. I don’t think she’s ever going to get better and be who she was when —’
‘Franny,’ Dad said more forcefully. ‘Just shut up for a second, pet. I’m putting your mum on the phone now.’
‘No! Don’t!’ It was too late. There was a muffled silence as he passed the phone over and then I heard a snuffly sound.
‘Franny? Do you hate me very much?’
I sighed. ‘No. It’s just… well, I don’t feel like you love me any more. If you did, then you wouldn’t treat me the way you do. You’d want to get better for me, not just when Dad’s around; not just because you don’t want to go away again.’
‘I know. For what it’s worth I’m sorry.’ I wasn’t sure that she was going to say any more than that. Then she snuffled again. ‘It’s hard to explain. When I’m having one of my bad days, it’s like I’m outside of myself and I can’t get back in. Do you know what I mean?’
I thought back to what Alice had said about how I would shut her out when I was going through stuff and maybe I sort of did know what Mum meant. ‘I suppose. But it’s just as scary for me as it is for you. There have been times when I was worried that I was going to come home and find you de —’
‘Don’t even say that, Franny! Don’t even think it.’ Mum sniffed like the tears weren’t that far away. ‘Me and your dad had a long talk this morning. I’ve already made an appointment to see the doctor next week. Maybe see if I can have some one-on-one therapy and I promise I’m going to start going to the group again. Thing is, it’s not like mending a broken arm or getting over chicken pox…’
‘I get that,’ I said, but a part of me did still think it was that easy and I was still angry with her. She was only interested in getting better now that Dad knew what had been going on when he wasn’t around. But then, she was still my mum. ‘I just miss you, you know.’
I could hear her swallow hard. ‘Yeah, I miss me too.’ She swallowed again. ‘My head gets so messy, Franny, and I just can’t seem to get it straightened out, but when I take the tablets they make me feel like I’m underwater.’
‘But maybe there are different tablets you can take and I did some googling and this is just an idea, but exercise is meant to be good, you know, for depression and that. You used to do cross-country running when you were my age, didn’t you?’
‘I was second best in the county,’ Mum said proudly. I hadn’t known that. ‘Look, I’m going to see the doctor with your dad and you know what he’s like. He’ll stay there all day until we get a proper treatment plan.’
I’d been starting to feel all kinds of hopeful but now doubt settled in again. ‘But he’s going away soon, isn’t he?’
‘He phoned the depot and said he’ll only do short trips for the time being,’ Mum said. ‘It’ll mean that money’s going to be tight. Or tighter.’
‘I can pay my own way if I have to,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll even chip in on the housekeeping but —’
‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ Mum snapped and it was actually kind of nice that she was snapping at me in a Mum-ly kind of way. ‘We don’t need you to do that. I just want you to know…’
‘Also, I’m still going to do a fashion degree. I’m the only person who gets to decide on what my future’s going to be. I’ll find the money for my tuition fees or I’ll do what everyone else does and run up some student debt.’ I didn’t want to mention scholarships or grants because I didn’t want to jinx my luck. ‘I’m not giving up on my dreams.’
‘I’m not asking you to. You’ll come home and we’ll figure stuff out; the three of us,’ Mum said, like there was absolutely no wiggle room.
It was like she said; there was no magic button to press that would make everything better and turn us into a happy family, but what she was proposing made the thought of coming home not quite so awful.
‘Right, so I’m sorry for storming off like that and… did I drop any swears?’
Mum actually laughed. ‘Nothing above a twelve rating. We were very impressed with that. Obviously, we did something right bringing you up.’
‘You did lots of things right.’
‘Well, that’s good to know, and I’m sorry, Franny, that you’ve had to go through all this and that I just haven’t been there for you. That I’ve made you feel so scared and unhappy. It cuts me right up. I want us to get back to that place where you feel like you can tell me anything, pet. Where you’re free to act like a stroppy teenager and not have to be the grown-up. That’s what I want.’ Mum made this awful ch
oking sound like she was really going to cry this time, which almost set me off. ‘Now I’m handing you back to your Dad because he wants to know what you’re getting up to with this rock group.’
She passed the phone over again so I could say fiercely: ‘Not getting up to anything.’ Chance would be a fine thing. ‘They’re nice boys. They’re pretty rubbish at being rock ’n’ roll.’
‘Is that so? And what time were you thinking of getting back tomorrow?’
I told him and if he wasn’t happy about me spending the night in London with the rock band, he hid it pretty well.
My bowl of ramen must have been cold by now, and even with a cashmere wool coat on I was shivering a little. I glanced down the road and saw the boys walking towards me. ‘I’ve really got to go now, Dad, but I promise I’ll be home tomorrow.’
‘I’ll see you then – and Franny, love?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t think you’re not grounded for lying to us that you were going to Manchester when you were really going to London with a bunch of long-haired layabouts. You’re so grounded, kid.’
I wasn’t overjoyed about that, but at the same time it was comforting to be back on familiar ground. ‘Whatever,’ I said and Dad said, ‘I’ll whatever you, young lady,’ and I hung up just as the boys reached me.
27
It had been such a stressful day that I was amazed that my stomach was still capable of acting like I was on the scary big rollercoaster in Blackpool. I smiled weakly, but didn’t have the guts to look directly at either Francis or Louis. I focused on Olly and the other two Desperadoes instead. ‘Hey! The girls are inside. They’ve already ordered.’
‘We’ve eaten,’ Olly said, throwing Louis a withering look. ‘Some people refuse to eat any food that isn’t battered and doesn’t come with chips.’
‘Eleven pounds fifty for haddock and chips.’ Louis sounded like he might cry. ‘The haddock was tiny.’
He held up thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart to show how small his fish had been. I tilted my head and tried to look sympathetic.
The others were already trooping inside and I would have followed them but Francis was staying back. I felt like all I’d done for the past ten hours was apologise to people. But then again, the other thing I’d been doing for the past ten hours was acting all wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as the door closed behind Olly. ‘Sorry about me and Alice having a blazing domestic in the minibus, then taking off. Alice said you were going to Soho to look for me.’ I winced. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
Francis was wearing his grey beanie so I had a clear view of the long-suffering look he gave me. The only thing capable of looking more hangdog than Francis was an actual hangdog. ‘Well, I did go to Soho but only partly to see if I could find you. I wanted to check out some record shops too.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Also, we need to swap phone numbers for next time you flounce off with no idea of where you’re going.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I need to be alone when I’m going through stuff. Usual angsty stuff, not having a total nervo stuff. I’m not like my mum.’
‘No one said you were.’ He smiled ever so slightly. ‘Well, Alice did and she’s what my old English teacher would call an unreliable narrator. Have you two made up?’
‘Yeah. She’s agreed to stop glomming on other girls’ boyfriends and I’m going to stop having all the feelings and save some for her,’ I told him.
Francis shook his head. ‘I understood maybe half of that sentence. Who gets Louis?’
I really didn’t want to talk about that with Francis any more. It seemed inappropriate now and I must have used up my quota of feelings for the month, so when I thought about Louis I didn’t feel much of anything. ‘We never got round to discussing that,’ I mumbled, turning to glance through the window so I wouldn’t have to see what Francis’s face was doing. There was sure to be a lot more eye-rolling involved. ‘So, um, did you eat a tiny, expensive portion of fish and chips too?’
‘No, I didn’t!’ I turned back to see Francis looking utterly offended. ‘I lived in London for a year. After the first week I stopped letting myself get ripped off by unscrupulous fast food outlets.’
But I’d only been in London for a few turbulent hours. ‘Oh, is Wagamama an unscrupulous fast food outlet?’
He shook his head and thank God, he was smiling again. ‘No, Franny. Wagamama is perfectly acceptable. Your choice?’
‘Yeah.’ I peered through the window again. When Alice saw me, she waved frantically, even though Louis was sitting next to her. ‘We should go in. I ordered a bowl of ramen ages ago.’
‘I always used to get the teriyaki salmon,’ Francis said, as he held the door open for me. ‘With the tea-stained egg, which isn’t as gross as you’d think it would be.’
It was exactly what I’d thought as I ordered it. The only person who got me like that was Alice and she hadn’t been getting me at all the last few weeks. It was a long time since I’d thought of Francis as Sneering Studio Tech – now he was a friend, but not in the way I was friends with Sage or Dora or Thee Desperadettes. I knew Francis’s hopes and dreams, his fears and the stuff that kept him awake at night. Then I remembered I still hadn’t come close to apologising properly because this little weekend in London should have been a break from all the stuff that kept Francis awake at night.
He was already way ahead, striding towards the communal table that we’d now completely taken over. ‘Francis!’ He turned. ‘I didn’t want to ruin the weekend for you. I haven’t, have I?’
‘You’ve already said sorry.’ He made a little ‘giddy-up’ gesture. ‘Come on, I’m starving and you’re in luck, the seat next to Louis is free.’
My salmon teriyaki ramen would have been stone cold if Louis hadn’t got over his loathing of weird foreign food and kindly eaten it all for me, except ‘I left you the egg, Franny. And it’s not my fault. I was starving. Eleven pounds fifty for miniature haddock and chips!’ he reminded me. It was hard to stay angry at Louis – but not impossible.
I insisted he pay for fresh, piping hot ramen for me, which he did though he moaned about me being tight.
‘She’s not being tight,’ Alice said from Louis’s other side. ‘Dude, you ate her tea.’
‘I liked it better when you two were fighting over me, instead of ganging up on me,’ Louis groused and I waited for the horror to overtake me that even Louis had figured that out, which meant that everyone else knew too, but the horror never came. I was immune to any more horror for the rest of the year at least. Anyway, Thee Desperadettes all fancied Louis too and none of them had managed to nab him, and they were still my new best mates, so they obviously didn’t care. Francis already knew, and Olly and the other two Desperadoes? They were nice but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep worrying about what they thought of me.
Still, Alice and I had shared a significant look that said, ‘We’ll talk about this later and in great length,’ because we were back in that place where we could say quite a lot to each other just by raising our eyebrows and wrinkling our noses.
My ramen had only just arrived when the boys left. The headline band wouldn’t let them soundcheck because they were ‘totally full of themselves for four people who sound like punk never happened’, according to Francis, but they were hopeful that they could beg five minutes to check their levels. Whatever the levels were. Who knew?
‘Don’t know why they’re bothering,’ Alice muttered to me. ‘They’re still going to sound terrible.’
‘Ssh, they’ll hear you,’ I whispered, nodding my head at Lexy, Kirsten and Bethany. ‘They must really reckon Thee Desperadoes are talented musicians to go to every gig and follow them to London.’
‘Well, they must be stupid then,’ Alice whispered back. My plan to integrate her into the new life I was creating wasn’t working so well.
Especially when Lexy wanted us to pool our booze money so we could go to Sainsbury’s and bulk buy. The only problem was t
hat Thee Desperadettes were wine drinkers and ‘We always drink vodka and diet Coke,’ Alice insisted. ‘Or vodka and diet Red Bull. Besides, Franny thinks that white wine tastes like vinegar.’
Shuv said I had a very unsophisticated palate. While ‘Alice can’t drink red wine on account of the fact that the first time she ever did, she drank so much she hurled like no one has ever hurled before or since,’ I explained.
‘Still got the stains on my bedroom carpet,’ Alice said, but I’d caused enough upset already so I decided I would be part of the solution rather than the wine-hating part of the problem.
‘Why don’t we compromise and get some Bacardi Breezers? Or some cute little vodka cocktail things? They’re bound to be on special offer.’
I felt a lot like Mother Teresa or Princess Di, except less dead, because everyone agreed and when we got to Sainsbury’s, which was a huge desolate grey box that made me nostalgic for home, we discovered that they sold cans of lime vodka and Coke and even vodka and diet Coke already mixed.