She looked down at her breasts and smirked because she knew that it would really wind Raj up, the boy she’d dallied with for actual weeks, weeks in the plural, longer than she’d ever dallied with another boy, which made him her most long-term boyfriend. That had been over a year ago, and when she realised that there was a conflict of interest because dating my employers’ son made things totes awk for me with the Chatterjees, Alice had dumped him.
‘No way am I letting a boy come between us,’ she’d said when I’d told her that Mrs Chatterjee kept telling me that Raj was out till all hours with Alice and it was interfering with his studies. Then there’d been the whole incident with the lovebites. Mrs Chatterjee had come close to tears over that. Though I had told Alice that she could keep seeing Raj if she was really into him. ‘Oh, but I’m not that into him. His snogging skills aren’t up to my own high standards. Also, that whole gangsta thing is tragic, especially when the closest he’s come to a ghetto is… well, Raj has never, ever been close to a ghetto in his life. He’s heir to a dry-cleaning dynasty.’
So, Alice had dumped Raj and now they were sworn enemies, which still made my life awkward because I was friends with both of them.
‘Anyway, you were just telling me about all the hot guys at college,’ Alice reminded me, though I’d been telling her no such thing.
‘Yeah, the hot gay guys,’ I said and I still had buttons to replace on three shirts, a pair of cords to take up and the hem on a skirt to let down before closing time. ‘Both of you are distracting me, so you’ll have to leave now. Either separately or together. Your choice.’
‘I is flying solo these days on account of all the pretty ladies who want a piece of me,’ Raj said with a leer in my direction, which I pointedly ignored by hiding my face in a pink-striped shirt.
‘Yeah? Name three of these co-called pretty ladies,’ Alice said sweetly and Raj stopped leering and stared down at his trainers. ‘Anyway I’ve got to go.’ Alice lowered herself down from the counter. Raj’s eyes were now fixed firmly on her boobs as Alice did a little shimmy like she was ironing out all her kinks. ‘I’m meant to be Face-timing fit Declan from the Academy and Skyping my gran at the same time. I hate being double booked. I’ll see you tomorrow, Franny B.’
Then she was gone.
Sometimes, I wondered if making boys fall at your feet was worth all Alice’s time and effort. I’d much rather stay in and watch The Great British Bake Off instead of juggling boys like they were flaming torches.
Raj reached up to pop the collar of his hoodie, then remembered that his hoodie didn’t have a collar to pop. ‘Whatever. She’s such a bitch,’ he muttered and he looked to me for confirmation but I shook my head and pressed down on the foot pedal of my sewing machine so whatever else he wanted to say was drowned out.
5
I’d never been so pleased to get to a Friday. College was turning out to be way more stressful than school.
That morning, Barbara had made me stand in front of her desk while she read my entrance essay. It was about the end of clothes rationing (it had blown my mind when I discovered that clothes had been, like, rationed during the Second World War) and how Christian Dior’s New Look of 1947 with its big foofy skirts had been all bye, bye austerity and hello opulence.
I’d also shown her the two prom dresses I’d made. My prom dress was a slinky, silvery, cap-sleeved shift dress with epaulettes fashioned from gunmetal-coloured paillettes. I’d painstakingly sewn two hundred of the bastards on each sleeve. I’d also made Alice a dress, though my Alice dress had been inspired by Alexander McQueen’s 2008 collection and was my first attempt at boning a bodice and working with feathers. It hadn’t been entirely successful – in the end Alice’s parents had bought her a draped black dress from All Saints for £200.
I wouldn’t have blamed Barbara for dissing my really tortured seam-work where I’d tried to insert the boning, but she just asked me where I’d found the pattern. When I said that I’d tried to make my own pattern, she pursed her lips, then said that she was happy to have me on the course, but woe betide me if I screwed up my GCSEs second time round.
She actually said ‘woe betide’ like she was from the days of Queen Victoria, but it was all right. I wasn’t going to screw up my GCSEs. Barbara was stuck with me but I did wonder when I was going to learn something. We’d spent an afternoon sitting in front of the sewing machines and going through the annotated worksheets that told us what each bit did, though I already knew how to thread the bobbin and what happened if you accidentally pressed down on the foot pedal while threading said bobbin – a world of pain, that’s what.
Sage was now hanging out with Steampunk Dora and Matthew and Paul, and Krystal with a K hung out with her orange-hued hairdresser mates and shot me evils and the two middle-aged ladies tucked themselves away and I hung out by myself. It was almost a relief to go home at lunchtime and check on Mum, who’d finally registered that the summer holidays were over and I was at college.
‘I didn’t realise that you’d started college already,’ she said in a perplexed fashion when she found a whole load of course bumpf on the kitchen table. This was after she’d made it downstairs on Thursday lunchtime and I was nuking a spaghetti bolognese ready meal in the microwave for us.
‘Started on Monday,’ I told her for what had to be the fiftieth time.
‘Oh, so you didn’t want to go back to school?’
I furiously polished a handful of cutlery so it would come up to Mum’s high standards. ‘They wouldn’t even let me start doing A levels until I retook my GCSEs and I wanted to do a fashion degree after A levels anyway so doing a BTEC in fashion is giving me a head start.’
‘Can you even do a degree with just a BTEC? Will they let you?’
‘Well, I hope so. As long as I don’t screw up my retakes.’ By then, I’d moved on to furiously polishing a glass.
Mum smiled wanly. ‘So, it all worked out in the end, then. That’s good.’
I managed not to shout but chewed on the insides of my cheeks instead because she’d been a little better this week. She was out of bed when I came home, if not at lunchtime, then later in the afternoon. On Tuesday she’d even had her friend Linda round who she’d met when she was still going to her support group. Mum was always in a better mood after one of her visits, even though all they did was sit around and moan at each other for a couple of hours.
On Friday afternoon when I got in from college, my oldest sister, Anna, was just parking in the drive. She was the last person I wanted to deal with. Anna always makes out like she’s really busy looking after my nephews, Aiden and Jayden (I know, I know), and that she’s practically a lone parent because my brother-in-law, Steve, works on the lorries like Dad, but she can’t be that busy because every time I log into Facebook she’s playing YoVille or Candy Crush or Bejewelled Blitz or whatever.
On Friday, when I was exhausted after a full week at college and two afternoons doing alterations, she greeted me with a cheery ‘I hoped you’d be here to give me a break. Why don’t you look after the boys while I have a chat with Mum? Oh, and I’ll have a coffee if you’re making it.’
Anna stayed for two hours, and told me off for plonking Aiden and Jayden in front of the television because they kept putting their sticky hands all over my stuff. Then she had a go at me for planning to heat up some pizza for tea, not that she was offering to cook us a meal from locally sourced fresh produce. Didn’t even wash up her coffee mug, borrowed twenty quid from Mum (which was actually twenty quid from me, because Mum didn’t have any cash on her), then had the nerve to leave a huge pile of mending for me to do. And breathe, Franny, breathe…
The one good thing about Anna coming round is that Mum and I always bond over how badly behaved Aiden and Jayden are and how lazy Anna is and how she never had any ambition to be anything other than married. Once Anna had left with half the pile, because I refused to do anything more complicated than stitch up a hole or sew on a button unless she paid me, Mum and I
ate our pizza and bitched about her.
‘She’s got a new tattoo of a rose with Steve’s initials on the petals right on her left boob,’ I told Mum, who sniffed.
‘How common. I thought I’d raised her better than that.’
Ah, it was just like the old days.
What passed for a good mood carried Mum all the way through Saturday. When I got home from the Chatterjees’ I was amazed to find her halfway through an internet supermarket shop though she was a little stressed about which antiperspirant to get as some of them were more carcinogenic than others.
Mum getting her groove back meant I could go out with a clear conscience, especially as Linda had promised to come round with a couple of the other ladies from the support group. There was even talk of cake.
‘First time I’ve seen your mum downstairs in weeks,’ Alice remarked as we got ready to go out.
‘I’m cautiously optimistic,’ I said, as I carefully sewed the last piece of my dress together. I’d found some vintage crossword material on Etsy – and I was making a very fitted dress. My dresses were getting more fitted as I got better at sewing. It was perfect for the indie disco. If we got bored, we could fill in some of the blank squares by writing cool words on it with my fabric pen. ‘Maybe, just maybe, she might be turning the corner.’
‘Well, about time,’ Alice muttered, as she painted her nails with top coat. ‘It’s not right how she —’
‘Oh, let’s not,’ I begged. ‘It’s Saturday night and we haven’t seen each other properly all week.’
‘Yeah! Sing it, Franny! Have you any idea how boring English is when you’re not sitting next to me?’
‘I wish you were at college with me. Is your mum still being really fascist about letting you train to be a hairdresser with all the orange girls at college?’
‘Totes fascist.’ When I was a fashion designer with my own line, diffusion line and a creative directorship at a French couture house, Alice would be a ground-breaking and innovative hair stylist who’d do all the looks for my runway shows. For now though she was stuck doing five A levels and working at her dad’s salon to pick up what she could. It was a travesty. ‘But at least she’s a fascist who buys me alcohol,’ she added brightly. ‘I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my bag and some diet Red Bull but let’s wait until I’ve finished my nails. I don’t like operating nail polish while under the influence of alcohol.’
By the time we clattered down the stairs, we weren’t pissed but on the way to pissed.
‘I’ll just say goodbye to Mum,’ I told Alice as she slipped into her jacket.
‘Be quick,’ she said. ‘Don’t get into anything with her.’
Mum was in the kitchen putting nuts and crisps into little bowls. She looked up and smiled at me. ‘Are you cryptic or general knowledge?’
‘Am I what?’ I looked down at my crossword dress. ‘Oh! Cryptic, always.’
‘Back here no later than midnight,’ she said sternly. I couldn’t believe it. Not the curfew bit but Mum being Mumly. ‘How are you getting home?’
‘Alice’s dad is going to give us a lift when Alice rings him,’ I said.
She fussed over two bowls of nuts, making sure the contents were absolutely level. ‘Well, make sure you thank him.’
‘Of course I will,’ I assured her. ‘So, you’re all right then?’
‘Getting there,’ she said and she was cryptic too. Must be where I got it from. ‘It will be nice to have the girls over this evening. Been ages since I last saw them.’
‘Well, I’ll be going then, Mum.’
She suddenly tutted and tipped some of the nuts from one bowl into the other and I stood there for a second, holding my breath, in case the nuts sent her nuts, but she was still smiling. ‘Have a nice time. I probably won’t wait up for you so I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ll text you just to make sure everything’s OK. And to remind you that if Linda brings her salted caramel cake, you have to save a piece for me…’
‘You don’t have to text. I’m sure I can remember to keep a piece of cake for you,’ she said a little waspishly as if she knew that I just wanted an excuse to check up on her.
‘I’ll still text you,’ I insisted. ‘It gives me something to do when Alice is being chatted up and I’m standing around like a spare part.’
‘I heard that!’ Alice popped her head round the door. ‘You’re looking sick, Franny. Maybe I’ll be the spare part tonight. I’m dragging her off now, Mrs B. Nice to see you. Promise we won’t drink too much.’
Mum snorted at that and I let Alice drag me off as Mum went back to checking the level of nuts in her snack bowls.
6
The Wow Club, underneath the crumbling arches of Merrycliffe’s seafront promenade, was the place to go on a Saturday night.
Correction. It was the only place to go on a Saturday night, unless you fancied the nightclub in Whytecliffe, Kudos, which had four bouncers on the door and had gone down in legend after the time two lads had a fight and part of someone’s ear got bitten off and spat out on the dance floor.
Saturday night at The Wow was indie night and they always had a band playing. The band was usually Thee Desperadoes because they were the only band in town (apart from a poodle-haired covers band that replicated the tunes of Def Leppard and Bon Jovi).
Alice and I didn’t even like indie music that much. It was all whiny and guitary and the singers all sounded really up themselves. Mostly Alice and I listened to Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks and when it was just the two of us we tried to spit out rhymes, though we weren’t very good at spitting out rhymes.
What we were good at was sneaking alcohol into The Wow Club. I had a water bottle filled with vodka and diet Red Bull tucked into my tights and held my bag very carefully over the bulge as it was searched by Scary Bob, the doorman. The Wow were meant to check ID and not let under-18s through its scuzzy portals but they were far more worried about under-18s bringing in their own booze. Alice had her bottle hidden down the arm of her jacket and as soon as we’d paid our entrance fee and had our hands stamped, we raced up the stairs and into the club itself, grabbed the first two empty pint glasses we could find, then hid in a shadowy alcove at the back of the room to decant the contents of our water bottles. We were old hands at this. Never spilled a drop.
‘Cheers.’ We clinked pint glasses and only then could we relax and take off our jackets and go to our usual table.
The Wow was a long low room split into two. The larger part of the room had the bar at one end and the DJ booth and the stage at the other, the dance floor in between. There were two archways at each end, which led to a tall skinny strip of space where there were tables and chairs.
Alice and I always sat at the table by the archway nearest to the stage because it was also next to a little unmarked door that led to backstage, though backstage was just a tiny room the size of a closet. Our table was in a prime spot because it guaranteed many Louis sightings, without it being obvious I was pining for him. Or I hoped it wasn’t obvious.
One of the best and worst things about Merrycliffe was that everyone knew everyone else’s business. So, when Alice and I had drunk enough that we felt uninhibited and able to dance, no one took our table, because it was our table. Except when we got back to our table after the DJ had played fifteen minutes of actual dance music, it was to find Steampunk Dora hovering uncertainly with Paul and Matthew in tow.
It was weird how you could not know someone and then all of a sudden there they were, in your face, all the time. She gestured at the chairs we weren’t using.
‘Can we?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, help yourself,’ I said, thinking she’d take them somewhere else but the three of them plonked themselves down, even though Alice and I had barely seen each other all week and had lots to discuss.
‘So, how are you finding college?’ Matthew wanted to know. He was wearing only a two-piece suit tonight. I guess it was really too stuffy to wear a waistcoat as well as a
jacket. ‘Bit different from school, isn’t it?’
He was talking to me now? He’d had all week to talk to me.
‘It was OK,’ I said with a slightly put-upon air. ‘I thought we’d do some sewing instead of only being allowed to look at the sewing machines.’
‘I was scared to even touch the sewing machine because that technician guy kept glaring at me extra hard every time my hand got too close to it.’ Matthew gave a shudder and he seemed nice enough. Like he could be a new friend. Just a college friend though, because Alice, who was staring at him with arms folded, had the copyright on being my non-college friend forever.
‘This is Alice,’ I said, gesturing at her with a little flourish. ‘Alice, Matthew. He’s on my course.’
They looked each other up and down.
‘And I’m Dora and this is Paul,’ Dora butted in. ‘So, you’re at Saint Anne’s, right?’