There was a gasp of outrage, then he finally shut up. I tried to concentrate on the feeling of the rough wall as I drummed my heels against it and wondered how many stars there were in the sky, but he’d killed the mood.
I twisted around so I could look at him. He was slumped on a rickety chair, staring right back at me. He had the most amazing eyes. They were the exact same shade of gentian blue that was my favorite color in my paint box when I still used to go to art class.
I think I must have been slightly drunk because I told him that, and he sat up suddenly and asked how my course was going.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I wish I’d decided to do the Foundation Art course, too,” he said mournfully. “I hate philosophy.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I chanted, and took another mouthful of wine. “Earth to dickhead, you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Can I have some of that?” he asked politely, because he was either way drunker than I thought or had skin like a rhinoceros. With a sigh, I leaned over and passed him the bottle. He had long fingers and the most bitten nails I’ve ever seen. “God, you’ve changed your hair,” he exclaimed. “It looks cool. Very hard-times chic.”
In the end, it seemed easier to go along with his addled thought processes. Also, being someone else, someone who hung with drunk boys with gentian blue eyes, was more fun than I’d had all week.
“I fancied a change,” I said casually, toying with the end of one of my bunches. “So, when was the last time we saw each other? It’s been a while.”
He furrowed his brow and twisted his lips. He had very pouty lips. “I think it was Glastonbury. You were with Dean. But you broke up, didn’t you?”
I hid a smile and shook my head. “Yeah. I dumped him. He was such a loser. Not very good in bed, either.” Then an awful thought struck me. “You and me? We’ve never done it, have we?”
He gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Jesus, Chloë! If we had, I’d be really offended that you didn’t remember. You’re in a weird mood tonight.”
“Guess I’ve had too much to drink, just like you,” I said carefully, and wondered who Chloë was. He seemed to like her.
“Hey! Do you remember when we got off with each other?” Gentian boy stretched out his legs and made no attempt to give me back the wine. He was wearing jeans and a beaten-up pair of Jack Purcells; the rubber on the soles was almost worn through. “You tasted really sweet and you said you’d been drinking coffee with lots of sugar in it, and I thought all kisses would be that sweet, but they weren’t.”
There was no stopping him. He went on and on about this party he’d been to with the mysterious Chloë and how they’d had too much to drink and ended up making out behind the sofa. He seemed very hung up about it.
In the end, all I needed to do was insert the odd “yeah” or “hmm” into the conversation to keep him happy. He wasn’t going to be winning prizes for academic excellence any time soon.
It was getting cold, so I closed the window, then decided to get the wine back before he drank it all.
“. . . and you said it was complicated because of Dean, but he was seeing Molly by then, anyway . . .”
As I walked toward him, he leaned back so he could gaze up at me with a slightly dazed expression on his face.
“Give me back my wine,” I ordered in my most imperious voice, which is pretty damn imperious. It’s, like, imperious to the power of a hundred. I gestured at the bottle, but he suddenlyseized my hand and pulled me onto his lap. It sounds like a really suave maneuver, but in actual fact, I landed in an ungainly heap on top of him.
I struggled to get up, but his hands were clamped around my waist. “I forgot how pretty you are,” he murmured, and then he tried to kiss me.
“Hang on!” I yelped, and then his hand stroked the back of my neck and really it had been so long since someone touched me. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I wound my arms around his neck and bumped my nose against his as he tried to capture my lips.
“Just one little kiss,” he begged, and he shut his eyes. Then I kissed him.
I’d never really put the moves on a boy unless it involved spinning the bottle and two minutes locked in a stinky cupboard under someone’s stairs. Usually I just suffered some guy lunging at me and shoving his tongue in my mouth at the same time that he tried to shove his hand down my top. But his lips were so soft as I cupped his face and planted tiny little kisses against that pouty, defenseless bottom lip of his. I bit it gently and his eyes snapped open, then he was kissing me back fiercely. But no matter how desperate the feel of his mouth on mine, his hand was still painting circles along my neck.
After a while, we came up for air and he gasped, “I could die from your kisses.” He was really weird.
“Maybe you’re better off dead then,” I told him softly, and he kissed me again. I didn’t mind it when our tongues got involved, usually it’s pretty rank, but he didn’t try to do a spin cycle in my mouth. He just stroked the tip of his tongue along mine and one of his hands crept up to tilt my head back . . .
“Isabel! God, there you are, I’ve been looking for you for ages.”
I took my mouth away from Gentian Boy long enough to say, “Huh?” at Nancy, who was standing in front of me with her hands on her hips.
“We’re going. This party’s dead,” Nancy grizzled, and then realized that I was wrapped around someone. “If you can tear yourself away, that is.”
Gentian boy seemed in no hurry to let me go. His hand tightened around my hip as I tried to disentangle myself, while Nancy stood there, looking like she’d sucked down a whole bag of lemons.
“Let me up,” I hissed, and he blinked a couple of times before relaxing the death grip.
“Who’s your friend?” Nancy demanded, edging toward the door in case the boy made any sudden moves. Like, he’d look twice at her.
I realized that there wasn’t an agony aunt alive who could give you advice on how to handle the correct etiquette when you’ve been sucking face with a boy you don’t know who thinks you’re someone else.
“Nobody,” I muttered, running a hand over my hair to smooth it down.
“I’m Smith,” he supplied, pulling at his faded green T-shirt. “Where do you know Chloë from?”
Nancy flailed her arms, making her bangles rattle furiously. “Who the hell is Chloë? She’s Isabel, you idiot. Jesus, I can’t believe you’d get off with my best friend and not even get her name right. Wanker!”
I stared at the floorboards, and hoped some handy portal would open up and transport me to another dimension where I hadn’t just strung along some drunken boy with beautiful eyes simply to get some touch. Sometime between the stairs and here, I’d obviously turned into a ginormous slut.
When I eventually summoned up the courage to look at him, Smith, which was just the most stupid-ass name ever and his parents must have really hated him, was looking bewildered. But when he saw me glance at him, this sudden grin lit him up from the inside.
“Oh, Isabel,” he whispered so that I was the only one who could hear him. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
But I didn’t. I just grabbed Nancy’s hand and dragged her the hell out of there.
Let'sGetLost
Let's Get Lost
2
I’m not too clear on what happened after that. I had a really vague memory of being sick in a toilet that I didn’t recognize, then wiping my mouth on one of those tragic crinoline ladies that sit on top of loo rolls so no one gets offended by the sight of naked Kleenex Velvet. Whatevs.
Right now I was curled up on the doormat with my keys still in my hand, which really made no sense at all. Though you’ve got to respect a finely tuned homing instinct—but I guess crawling up the stairs to my own bed, was just one step too far.
It was a superhuman effort to lift my wrist so I could squint at my watch (it was just past two-thirty), which nearly killed me, and I collapsed back on the floor with a tiny litt
le sigh. I was tempted to stay there for what was left of the night because it felt like someone had sandpapered the inside of my head.
But I could imagine the sour scene that would unfold if Dad came down and found me curled up against the draft excluder, so I crawled up the stairs, thought about getting undressed, and decided to collapse face down on my bed instead. All that alcohol and puking had really taken it out of me—someone could have started drilling for oil underneath my pillow and I’d barely have stirred.
It’s the summer that Felix was born so I’m seven and she’s wearing her white summer dress with the roses on it, stretched tight over her swollen belly.
The sand shifts beneath our feet as she holds my hand and leads me down to the water’s edge. I’ve got my red bucket with me, and every now and again, we stop so I can crouch down and pick up a shell or a stone, worn smooth and shiny by the relentless lapping of the waves, and drop it on the growing pile with a satisfying crash.
“What a clever little girl you are, Belle,” she says approvingly, and I dig into the depth of the bucket and pull out the prettiest shell, an orange periwinkle, and place it in her palm. I never speak in these dreams, but she does all the talking for us. “Thank you, baby,” she murmurs, and then she straightens up and looks out to sea, a hand over her eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun, her dark hair glinting in the brilliant light so it almost looks alive.
“You stay here, Belle,” she tells me, dropping my hand and pressing down on my shoulders, so I plop down on the sand and watch as she begins to wander toward the water, her gaze on the ground, searching for something.
The tide’s started to come in, and she doesn’t seem to notice it covering her feet with its frilly white edges, and I want to call out. Want to warn her, but when I open my mouth, nothing happens and I can’t move, either. All I can do is watch her wade into the depths so the skirt of her dress billows around her so there are roses floating on top of the water.
My bucket is filling up with tears and it’s getting hard to see her through blurry, sticky eyes—just the top of her head bobbing on the water remains. I scrub at my eyes with my fists, and when I can see again, she’s gone and I can scream now, even though there’s no one to hear, no one to help, and I can’t stop the noise, can’t stop screaming until I’m hauled to my feet and he’s shaking me hard.
“What did you do to her?” he shouts, and he’s blocking out the sun so all I can see are the shadowed, angry lines of his face. “Stop making that bloody racket and tell me what you did!”
I crashed back into consciousness, sitting bolt upright and screaming again, even though my throat felt rubbed raw, as I saw him glaring down at me, Felix peering out from behind his back with an anxious expression. Big faker. Underneath that whey-faced, wimpy little body clad in Superman pajamas for extra cuteness is a violent thug. When it’s not the middle of the night and his big sister is screeching like a banshee, he spends the daylight hours punching, pinching, and flaunting his bodily functions in my face.
“For God’s sake, Isabel,” Dad barked. “You’re hysterical. Stop it this instant.”
My mouth snapped shut so suddenly that I bit my tongue and couldn’t help the whimper that escaped from my mouth, which just made his jaw tighten up.
“Is? Are you okay? You sounded like you were being attacked by killer zombies.” Felix sidled out from behind Dad and pulled a disgusted face. “Urgh! You’re all sweaty.”
The black dress was clinging damply to me and I’d pulled the bottom sheet off the mattress.
If it was possible, Dad was looking at me with even more distaste. “I think this is an object lesson in the consequences of going to parties and no doubt drinking yourself into oblivion,” he intoned darkly. “And please don’t go to bed with your shoes on again, you’ll rip the sheets.”
“I had a bad dream,” I muttered, and then shut up. He was giving me a careful, assessing look that was painfully familiar. Like, when I’m just about to give away the triple-word score on a game of Scrabble, or I’ve told one too many lies, dug myself a great big pit and all he has to do is apply some gentle pressure so I fall right in.
But he decided it wasn’t worth the effort. “Oh, go and have a shower, Isabel, and then get back to bed. You’ve wasted quite enough time with your melodramatics as it is.”
I couldn’t sleep after that. I listened to the sounds of the night; a car speeding up the road, the angry yowling of a couple of cats, and the hum of the streetlight outside my window, but none of it was loud enough to drown out the buzzing in my ears, and in the end, I gave up on sleep, rolled over, and switched on the TV so I could watch old black-and-white films without the sound on, until the sun started creeping in through the curtains, leeching all the darkness out of the room, and I could sleep.
Let'sGetLost
Let's Get Lost
3
School was meant to be this big deal now that we were doing A-levels. Like, we were suddenly adults because we didn’t have to wear the revolting bottle-green uniform and had permission to go into town when we didn’t have lessons. That was the general idea, but as I sat on a hard-backed wooden chair in Mrs. Greenwood’s office with Ella, Nancy, and Dot, she was doing her utmost to make us feel like naughty Year Eights.
“I absolutely do not want a repeat of what happened last term,” Mrs. Greenwood said sternly, eyes scanning our faces for signs of contrition. I could feel Dot practically shaking beside me, but I faced down Greenwood’s bifocal glare. “I will not tolerate bullying, and the prolonged campaign you waged against certain members of your form was inexcusable.” She tapped her pen sharply on the desk. “We had to call in a guidance counselor! And all mobile phones now have to be left with your teachers before first bell.”
Ella choked back a giggle at that, while Nancy wore a faint expression of confused pride that her Nokia antics had had such far-reaching consequences.
“As you know, the subject of suspension was mooted, but in light of subsequent events, the governors felt that the matter should be left to die a natural death . . .”
There was a collective gasp, and Mrs. Greenwood dropped her pen. “I’m sorry . . . Isabel, that was a very tactless way of putting it . . .”
I gave her my most serene smile. “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Greenwood. It’s fine. I didn’t even notice . . . much.”
She inclined her head in a gracious nod. “So, despite no action being taken last term, I’ll be watching the four of you very closely. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to split you up because Isabel’s father felt that she needed the support of her friends at such a difficult time.”
There was another titter from Ella, which Mrs. Greenwood quelled with a pointed cough before blathering on for a few more minutes about how the younger pupils looked up to us blah, blah, blah, and we had to apologize to Lily Tompkins yadda, yadda, yadda, and finished with a rousing chorus of “Year Twelve privileges can easily be revoked, you know.”
I couldn’t wait to get out of there and scrub her monotone drone out of my head, but Mrs. Greenwood motioned for me to stay behind.
I turned around to see Dot close the door with a shrug and a “what can you do?” expression before swiveling around to find Mrs. Greenwood doing the head tilt. I was so sick of the head tilt because it was always a prelude to, yup, here it came. . . .
“So, Isabel, how are you holding up?” she asked, concern dripping like honey from every syllable. “Really.”
“Okay,” I said, studying the hangnail on my index finger.
“I’ve spoken to your father about this wonderful family therapist I know who does a group session with teenagers in a similar—”
“I’m not going!” I yelped immediately. Sit in a room and listen to a whole bunch of sad sacks whining about how depressed they were? I got enough of that at home.
“That’s what your father said. Though he was a little less strident. ” She smiled thinly. I could imagine exactly how that conversation had gone. “But
if you change your mind . . .”
“All I really need to do is arrange a time to re-sit my Maths GCSE.”
That totally took the wind out of her. I think she thought we’d have a cozy little chat and I’d break down and confide in her about how sucky life without a mother was shaping up but, hello, never going to happen.
Instead, she looked down at my school folder. “Well, you have an excellent academic record, and we have high hopes of a place at Oxford for you, but if you feel that things are getting too intense, you should let me or your form teacher know.”
“They won’t,” I stated firmly. I had a perfect A-grade for well, everything, and it was going to stay that way. “I just want everything to be normal, like it was before.”
“Isabel, I’m afraid that nothing is going to be like it was before,” she said softly, fingers tapping out a quiet tattoo on the desktop. “You’ve lost your mother.”