I was always careful not to get in the way or to give my opinion when it wasn’t wanted. Often, I’d make my excuses and go and sit in Danny’s bedroom to watch TV or read. But Danny said he liked having me there; he called me his muse. The word filled me with pride. I had always looked at paintings in galleries and wondered about the artists’ muses, their faces captured for all eternity. I didn’t have the talent or the confidence then to create anything valuable myself, so being somebody else’s inspiration seemed to me almost as great an accomplishment as being the artist.
From what I could see, The Wonderfulls didn’t get much playing done at rehearsals. They’d sit around smoking and drinking, talking about other bands and football. I knew it wasn’t my place to say anything, but I couldn’t understand why I was the only person who seemed concerned. In a couple of weeks, they would be watched by an A & R guy, who had it in his power to give them a record contract. They might not have another chance. But what did I know?
Chapter 9
Late one Wednesday night, when I’d arrived home from rehearsals at Danny’s and I was getting ready to go to bed, my mobile rang. I knew it couldn’t be Danny because it wasn’t his ring (a tinny version of a Nirvana track which I’d downloaded from the Internet), and I thought about letting it go straight to my message box. The number didn’t look familiar and I couldn’t imagine who might be calling me so late. But although I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone, curiosity got the better of me and I picked up.
It was Debbie. We’d spoken several times over the Christmas holidays, but she’d gone away with her family and we hadn’t managed to see each other. Since she’d returned to university we’d fallen back into a pattern of irregular communication.
‘Hi, Naomi,’ she said. Her voice was quiet and she sounded anxious.
‘Deb?’ I said. ‘Are you OK? I didn’t recognise your number.’
‘I’m using Sam’s phone,’ she said. I could tell she was on the brink of tears. ‘I got mugged.’
‘Oh no, that’s awful! Are you OK?’
‘Yes, I guess. I was just going into a club and I saw this guy coming towards me and he grabbed my bag and shoved me really hard. It all happened so fast I couldn’t even scream.’
‘Are you OK?’ I asked again. We’d hardly spoken in weeks and even though I felt sorry for her I was very aware of the distance between us. I wanted to hug her, but she was in a different city so I couldn’t. I couldn’t even picture where she was or whom she was with, and I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better.
‘My bag had all my stuff in it – my mobile, keys, ID, all my cash . . .’
‘What a nightmare. Have you told the police?’
‘Yes, and I’ve cancelled my cards. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to hear a friendly voice. You don’t mind me calling, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, emphatically. I was pleased it was me she’d chosen to call.
‘I think I’m going to come home at the weekend. I’m feeling a bit homesick. It would be really nice to see you.’
‘Yes,’ I said, recalling the plans I’d made with Danny for the weekend. He didn’t have a gig and we were supposed to be driving down to Brighton to meet some friends of his. But I couldn’t let Debbie down – and I did want to see her. Brighton would keep. ‘Yes, it would be nice to see you too.’
‘Maybe I could stay over on Saturday?’ she asked tentatively. ‘It would be like old times. We could get a DVD or something.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That would be lovely.’
‘That’s great,’ she said, sounding more cheerful. ‘I’m looking forward to it. I’ll give you a call when I get home on Friday.’
After we’d said our goodbyes I went to my wardrobe and took out my old photograph albums, which I stored on the top shelf behind my jumpers. I wanted to remind myself of the good times I’d shared with Debbie – the joint birthday parties and sleepovers and holidays abroad with her parents or mine. I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t known her. We’d met on the first day of primary school and had become firm friends at once, hugging each other and declaring proudly that we were ‘best friends’, in the possessive way that little girls do. Other friends had come and gone, groups had formed and splintered, but Debbie and I had remained solid, protecting one another from the bitching and the name-calling. She was the first person I told when I’d started my period; she’d bought me my first lip-gloss; we’d both enjoyed our first snogs during a game of spin the bottle at her thirteenth birthday party.
And here, in the tattered albums, was the documentary evidence of our friendship. There we were, at seven, standing in a playground somewhere, our arms wrapped around each other, grinning broadly. And there at fourteen, in crop tops and hipster jeans (which did nothing for either of us), with badly applied make-up and terrible hair. Here I was, last year, sitting on a beach in Greece in a bikini, my arms folded protectively over my belly, while Debbie stood next to me in a T-shirt because she’d sunburned her shoulders the day before.
Thumbing through the pages made me grin and cringe in equal measures, as I witnessed my transformation from a sweet-looking, freckle-faced child to an awkward and self-conscious teenager. It was like viewing one of those computer programmes the police use to show what a toddler who’d disappeared ten years before might look like now. My face had visibly thinned and lengthened over the years, while my nose and chin had become more prominent. My hair, which had been through a remarkable range of styles, had darkened and curled, and my body had filled out. Debbie had changed too. She had always been thin and flat-chested, but in the past few years she’d become less of a tomboy, growing her hair and wearing skirts, and replacing her glasses with contact lenses. She said I was the pretty one, but I could never see it. I envied her long legs and flat tummy, the fact that her hair didn’t frizz in the rain and that she never got zits. I wondered if she’d look different after a few of months away at university. It made me sad to think that now she would have new photographs in which I didn’t feature, her arms around people I didn’t recognise.
It niggled me that Debbie was only coming home because she’d been mugged. But maybe having something horrible happen to her had made her realise how much she missed me, that her real friends were the people she’d known for years. Maybe things would be just like they used to be. I looked forward to spending time with her, to staying up into the early hours and chatting until one of us fell asleep. Best of all, Danny would finally meet her and the three of us could hang out together, like a perfect triangle made up of the most important people in my life.
For the first time in months I went to sleep thinking not of Danny, but of Debbie. I dreamed that we were at her house, playing hide-and-seek. We’d locked ourselves into her bedroom and were cowering together behind her bed. Somebody – a faceless man with dark hair – was banging on the door, trying to get in. As he forced his way into the room, I woke up.
The following evening Danny and I went out for a curry. I kept meaning to tell him Debbie was coming home at the weekend, but the time never seemed right. He was in a particularly sweet and silly mood and I didn’t want to spoil it. What do you do, interrupt a funny story to say, ‘That’s hysterical, Danny, and by the way, I can’t go to Brighton’? Of course I knew even then that it was just an excuse. The truth was, I knew he’d be angry and I didn’t want a fight. I’ve never been very good at arguing – I end up getting upset, then crying, which usually makes the other person feel even more frustrated.
So, it wasn’t until later, when we were sitting in his car outside my house that I mentioned it.
‘You know we were going to go to Brighton on Saturday?’ I asked nervously. ‘Well, would it be OK if we did it another weekend?’
‘Why?’ he said, smirking. ‘You aren’t shy about meeting my mates, are you?’
‘No,’ I said, laughing, although there was some truth in it. ‘Actually, it’s because of one of my mates. You know my best friend, Debbie?
Well, she’s coming home for the weekend.’
‘I see,’ he said, clearly irritated. ‘And you want to see her instead?’
‘No, not instead. I want you to come out with us too. But I do really want to spend some time with her.’
‘But Brighton’s all arranged. Can’t you see her another weekend?’
‘No, she’s upset. She had her bag nicked. Look, I couldn’t really say no.’
‘You never can,’ he muttered.
The comment was like a knife in my belly. Was that how he really saw me – weak and pliable? Or was he just trying to goad me?
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’ He wasn’t looking at me. ‘Just that you’ve done nothing but bitch about her ever since you’ve known me and now you want to drop everything for her when she snaps her fingers. I thought you were stronger than that.’
‘It’s not like that, Danny,’ I said, my voice beginning to break. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Danny and I had never before exchanged a cross word, but now I was receiving the icy treatment I had feared. He wouldn’t even touch me. When I tried to put my hand on his arm he flinched and brushed it away. ‘I was pissed off with her because she didn’t seem to care as much as she used to. I was scared I was losing her. Now, she wants to come home and maybe if we spend some time together things will be how they were.’
‘No, she wants to come home because she’s a silly girl who didn’t keep her eye on her bag and feels homesick.’
Hearing Danny echo my own niggling doubts made me feel defensive. ‘That’s not fair. You don’t even know her. She’s lovely. You’ll see.’
‘I’m not sure I can be arsed,’ he stated harshly.
‘What do you mean?’ It was so important to me that Danny and Debbie got on. I was trying hard to stay cool, not to let myself cry. I felt shocked and angry and self-protective at the same time and I didn’t know what to do with all those emotions.
‘I mean I don’t see the point of hanging round with you and your so-called best mate when I could be in Brighton having a great time.’
‘Don’t you want to meet my friends? I’ve met yours. I spend loads of time with the band.’
‘That’s different,’ he snapped. ‘And you know it. I do want to meet your friends, some time, but not when it means I have to cancel something we were both looking forward to.’
At last, he turned to look at me. Noticing that a fat tear was beginning to roll down my cheek, he softened. ‘I’m sorry, Omi,’ he said, wiping it away with his hand. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
It wasn’t enough. The worry that he wasn’t really interested in my friends had troubled me for many weeks. I made a point of turning my head away from him.
‘But you have upset me,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about Saturday, but Brighton’s not about to fall into the sea – we can go another time. I just feel that you don’t care about my friends. I know nobody’s around at the moment and I must seem like Billy No-mates, but my friends are important to me and when they’re here I want to see them. They’re part of me. If you don’t meet my friends, how can you really know me?’
Now he was upset. ‘How can you say that? I know you better than anyone. I know everything about you and you know everything about me. I don’t need to meet Debbie to know that.’
‘But you do!’ I cried. I opened the car door and put my left foot on the kerb. I didn’t want him to see me sobbing and I could feel a gush of tears waiting to escape.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he tutted, grabbing my arm in an attempt to stop me from getting out the car. ‘You know what? Let’s forget this weekend. You do whatever you want to do with Debbie and I’ll go to Brighton.’
‘Fine,’ I barked, shaking him off me. ‘Whatever.’ I launched myself out of my seat and slammed the car door behind me. For a moment I thought he might follow me, but then I heard the roar of the engine and the squeal of tyres as he sped away up the street. Tears streaming down my face, I let myself into my house and, exhausted, went straight to bed. I cried myself to sleep.
So there it was: our first argument. My grandma once told me that nothing lasts, and nothing – good or bad – stays the same. I didn’t really understand what she meant until that night. I’d genuinely believed that we would remain in our happy state forever. I saw us always laughing, always agreeing, always on the same page. It’s naïve, I know, but I had never truly allowed myself to accept that Danny could be cruel to me – I’d hoped his feelings for me somehow granted me immunity. The argument brought me back to reality and, worse, it made me feel alone again.
There was no text from Danny when I awoke the next morning. I made myself go into work and do what needed to be done. I tried to spend as much time as I could with the other staff members, so I didn’t have time to think about Danny. Whenever there was silence our argument began to replay over and over in my mind, like my dad’s old vinyl records when they got stuck. But I couldn’t ignore the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away. Surely this wasn’t the end? It couldn’t be. The thought of losing Danny terrified me and yet I couldn’t bring myself to contact him first. All day, I toyed with the idea of calling or texting him, but what would I say? Sorry? I hadn’t done anything wrong, so why should I apologise? Perhaps I should send him a jokey text pretending that nothing had happened. But that would just be letting him get away with it.
At three in the afternoon, Danny put me out of my misery by texting me. DECIDED 2 GO TO BTN 2DAY. HV GD TIME WIV D. DX. I read and reread the text countless times, trying to decide what it meant. There was no apology, no mention of the argument and he had stuck to his guns and gone to Brighton – and a day early too. Nothing had been resolved. Then again, he had wished me well and finished with a kiss – surely that was a positive sign?
It took me over an hour to reply. After deleting at least ten possible messages, I settled on the concise: OK. SPK WHEN UR BACK. NX. Its brevity, in contrast to my usual messages – and the fact that I’d signed my name with an ‘N’, not an ‘O’ – showed I was still unhappy and hadn’t entirely forgiven him, but it wasn’t nasty and it left things open.
Emily agreed that I’d got the tone right. ‘You don’t want to let him think he’s got away with it,’ she said, angry on my behalf. It was lovely that she felt so protective of me. She’d made me run through the argument several times, punctuating the end of Danny’s words with the occasional ‘bastard’ and ‘selfish git’ until she realised her vehemence was making me more upset.
‘He’ll come running back,’ she said. ‘Anyone can see how much he likes you. Just make him sweat a bit first.’
I wondered where she’d learned so much about guys. Wasn’t I the big sister here? Still, I allowed myself to be reassured.
Now, I just had to get through the next two days.
Debbie came home that evening. She was spending Friday night with her parents and we’d arranged to meet on Saturday lunchtime at a coffee shop in town, and then do a bit of window shopping and come back to my house to watch a DVD. I was determined to have a good time with Debbie, to prove to myself that I could still have fun without Danny and, more importantly, to reassure myself that she was still my best friend.
I spent Friday night watching TV with my parents (Emily was at a friend’s house). Anything was better than sitting alone in my bedroom, dwelling on what had happened. Mum and Dad seemed surprised that I wanted to be with them and even more surprised that I appeared happy to watch an hour-long documentary about medieval architecture. I was very quiet and Mum kept asking if I was all right. I told her Danny was at a family do and that I fancied an evening in because I was tired. I’m not sure she believed me, but she knew better than to pry.
I felt far less anxious in the morning, after a good night’s dreamless sleep. I went into town early and wandered round the shops on my own, testing lip-gloss and blushers. Debbie was already drinking a cappuccino when I arrived at the café. She was dres
sed more scruffily than I’d seen her in years, in ripped jeans and a baggy jumper. Despite her concessions to the ‘student’ look, she still looked smart and polished, her hair a little too neat and glossy. It made me smile to myself. She hadn’t changed, really.
‘Naomi!’ she cried, when she saw me come in. She bounded out of her chair and rushed over to kiss me hello. I was happy and reassured that she seemed so genuinely pleased to see me. I hugged her. When I put my arms around her I could feel the bones in her back.
‘You’ve lost so much weight!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t they feed you at university?’
‘I know,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘It’s terrible. That’s what a diet of Pot Noodles and toasted sandwiches does to you. My mum was horrified. After Christmas she sent me back with a month’s supply of nutritious food.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Hey, you look good, though.’
‘Thanks.’ I blushed. I was about to say, ‘That’s what being in love does for you’, but given that Danny and I were barely on speaking terms, it didn’t seem appropriate. Instead, I asked, ‘So, do you want to hit the shops, then?’
‘Great. I have absolutely no money and no plastic, so I won’t be able to do any damage.’
‘You can help me buy something,’ I said, laughing.
We spent the afternoon trawling the rails of all the high street stores and chatting about everything under the sun. Although I was pleased that Debbie finally seemed interested in the details of my life, I wasn’t in the mood for serious talk; every time she asked about me I deflected the conversation back to her. I had always been a good listener, so she didn’t notice. She had so much news to tell me that a simple question, such as ‘What’s your accommodation like?’ could elicit a ten-minute speech full of anecdotes involving copious amounts of alcohol and guys I’d never heard of.