Vix rolls her eyes at me. I know she’s thinking, What on earth do you want a boyfriend for?
‘Let’s go,’ I say, embarrassed. I grasp Vix’s arm and we walk ahead of the boys, through the ticket barrier and up the stairs to the platform. We can hear them behind us, jostling each other and throwing bits of paper at our backs. Rich is never like this when he’s on his own with me. It’s weird: the moment his mates show up he starts behaving like he’s a monkey in a cage at London Zoo.
Hampstead Heath isn’t far from Camden, just a few stops on the Overground line, but it’s a world apart. It’s much more chichi than Camden – full of delis and duck ponds and posh people. It’s also incredibly green, like the countryside, which you wouldn’t expect to find in London. There’s acres of woodland, with every tree, flower, bird and butterfly you can imagine. Mum used to take us here for walks and nature trails when we were little. She picked mushrooms here too, until she accidentally poisoned us all with a stir-fry and decided she’d be wiser to buy them from the Wholefoods shop on Parkway instead.
The walk from the station to the fair, which has been set up at the start of the Heath, only takes a few minutes. As we draw closer, we can hear an eerie mix of sounds – strains of music, laughter and distant screams. The pavement is littered with hotdog cartons and empty Coke cans, which Rich and his mates kick back and forth like footballs. Rich still hasn’t said more than two words to me; it’s like I’m invisible.
‘Do I look all right?’ I whisper to Vix. I’ve made a big effort with my make-up today and I’m wearing my most flattering skinny jeans.
‘You look great!’ she says. ‘Gorgeous.’
‘Thanks.’ I force a smile. I don’t feel much better, though, because she’s not the person I want to hear it from.
The fair is coming into view now, appearing like a field of giant, brightly coloured skeletons against the trees. We enter and walk around for a while, viewing the rides with their flashing lights, the shooting games that no one ever wins, and the stalls selling sweets and food.
‘So what are we going on first?’ asks Rich. ‘Shall we start big? Or build up to it?’
‘What about that one?’ says one of his mates, pointing up at the sky.
‘Yeah, good one!’ says Rich. ‘I’m game.’
We’ve stopped beside the scariest, meanest-looking ride in the whole fair. It’s called the Looping Screamer and it’s one of those rollercoasters that not only goes incredibly high and incredibly fast, but also corkscrews around, propelling you upside down. I look up at it and my knees buckle. ‘Um . . . I’m not sure I want to go on that,’ I say, hanging back.
Rich walks over to me. For a moment I think he’s going to give me a hug, but he doesn’t. ‘Don’t be a wuss, Sky,’ he says, impatiently.
‘I’m not . . . I just don’t really like rides that make you go upside down like that. Can’t we go on the dodgems instead?’
‘Nah, we’ll do that later. Come on, it’ll be fun. Everyone’s waiting.’
He’s right – the others have joined the queue already. Rich’s mates are full of bravado; Luke is making clucking noises at me.
‘Can’t I wait for you here? I’ll get us some drinks.’
‘Don’t be such a killjoy!’
‘OK,’ I say reluctantly, giving in. I wish I could be stronger, but I want to please Rich and I don’t want everyone to think I’m a scaredy cat; they’ll tease me for the rest of the day.
‘Right, so you’ll ride with Vix, then,’ says Rich.
‘Oh . . .’ I want to say, ‘I’d rather sit with you so I can hold your hand,’ but that makes me sound even more of a wuss. ‘OK, then.’
I walk over to Vix and take her arm again.
‘You all right?’ she asks.
I nod.
When we reach the front of the queue, the ride moves around to meet us. We climb into our seats and the bar automatically comes down over our laps, trapping us. It’s too late to change my mind now. I turn to face Vix. ‘I might grab your hand,’ I warn.
She smiles at me, reassuringly. ‘Fine, as long as you don’t throw up on me!’
Vix loves rides: the higher and faster the better. She’s a real speed demon. You’d never think it to look at her. She seems so calm and quiet and sensible.
There’s a mechanical groaning noise and the ride begins to move. It’s deceptively slow at first, and I think, maybe, I can handle this. But then we start to pick up speed and my fear takes over. The people around me begin to scream, like they’re being massacred in the most horrific way. I don’t scream. I just screw up my eyes and clench my teeth and cling onto the bar in front of me praying that it won’t spring open and fling me across the Heath to my death. The ride seems to go on for ever, lurching this way and that, throwing me sideways against the metal of my seat and bruising my thighs. I can feel the wind whipping against my face, and my hair blowing out in all directions. My stomach feels like it’s in motion, rolling around my insides and trying to find an exit. This is truly horrible. I want it to stop. Please make it stop! I want to get off!
Hours and hours seem to pass and then we’re slowing down again. There’s a juddering noise and, my eyes still closed, I realise we’ve come to a standstill. The bar lifts from my lap and, gingerly, I open my eyes. The world is still spinning. When I try to climb out of my seat, I lose my balance and have to sit back down again.
‘That was cool, wasn’t it?!’ says Vix, helping me out. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s grinning, like she’s had the best time ever.
‘It was OK,’ I manage to say. ‘Could have been worse. I’m glad it’s over.’ I glance around for Rich. He’s standing by the entrance, looking rather pale. Luke is being sick. The others are laughing at him. I laugh too, on the inside.
‘So what’s next?’ asks Rich.
‘Dodgems!’ I shout, before anyone else can suggest another ride that’s not firmly rooted to the ground. I’ve noticed that another of Rich’s mates has been evilly eyeing up the Twister.
‘Cool,’ says Vix. ‘Let’s get a car each.’
‘Fine by me.’ I’m planning to ram Rich’s car really hard to punish him for making me get on that rollercoaster.
I do a pretty good job, although I almost give myself whiplash in the process. In fact, I have so much fun that I insist we have another go. I think I like the dodgems so much because we don’t have a car at home. You don’t really need one in Camden – the public transport’s so good, and you can walk through Regent’s Park into the centre of London in half an hour. But Mum wouldn’t drive, even if we lived in the countryside. She’d probably make us travel by horse and cart. She says cars are evil polluters, which are destroying the environment. I can’t wait until I’m seventeen and can learn to drive myself.
The next couple of hours are, surprisingly, quite enjoyable. I manage to avoid going on any more of the really scary rides by volunteering to fetch drinks and hotdogs for everyone and slipping off to find a toilet at opportune moments. One of Rich’s mates, a guy called Robbie, takes a shine to Vix and keeps trying to sit next to her. She’s not interested at all. I can’t blame her – he’s got bum fluff and, ironically, no bum (which is very clear because his trousers keep slipping halfway down his thighs). Every time I walk behind him, all I can think about is hitching them up for him. I’m so lucky to have Rich: he’s cute and stylish and funny. I just know that if I get to spend any proper time alone with him, things will go back to the way they were before I went to Goa.
t’s after six and almost time to go home. We’ve all had too many hotdogs and too many sweets and we’re tired, but nobody wants to leave yet. Even me. School starts tomorrow and we all know that when we arrive home the summer holidays will be over.
‘Let’s go on one more ride before we leave,’ says Rich. He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out the last of his loose change. ‘Bummer. No cash left. What can we do for one pound fifty?’
‘Good question,’ says Vix, shutting her purse
with a click. ‘This place has cleaned me out. I’ve got about the same.’
The other boys have virtually nothing left either, and I only have a couple of quid. So we wander around again for a while. Most of the rides, except the kiddie ones, cost at least two pounds a go. Nobody but me fancies the carousel (too old school) or the helter skelter (too boring). We were planning a trip on the ghost train, but that costs three quid.
‘How about the house of mirrors?’ I suggest. The others aren’t impressed. Vix decides she’d rather have a can of Coke. Spotting an opportunity to be alone with Rich, I try to persuade him to join me. ‘Oh go on, Rich. Come with me. It’s no fun alone.’
‘Yeah,’ says Luke. ‘Go with her. It will be dark in there, won’t it?’ He winks at Rich.
‘Why not?’ says Rich. He turns to the others. ‘Wait for us here, OK?’
We wander up a plank into the ‘house’, which is really a shed on stilts, decorated with pictures of contorted faces. It’s dimly lit inside, and slightly spooky, so I take Rich’s hand. The mirrors are arranged in a maze of rooms, lighting up and appearing unexpectedly from the darkness as we pass by. The first mirror makes me look ten feet tall and as skinny as a supermodel. I like this mirror. I wish I could take it home with me and put it in my bag to bring out in shop changing rooms. The second has the opposite effect, making me look squat and round. Rich giggles. He puts his hand around my waist and squeezes it, affectionately.
‘You can talk,’ I say, as he comes into view in the same mirror. ‘Who’s been eating too many pies, then?’
Rich laughs again, then turns me around and draws me close to him. He puts his hand on the back of my neck and strokes my hair. We find ourselves kissing, slowly, gently. I feel happy, for the first time in weeks.
‘We look like two teletubbies snogging,’ I say. Rich laughs again and pinches my cheek. I pluck up my courage and say, ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I know. Yeah, me too. Come on . . .’ He takes my hand and we walk deeper into the maze, laughing at our images in a wavy mirror and in another that makes us look as small as ants. In the next room there are several mirrors and we are reflected multiple times, as if the whole world is populated only by versions of me and Rich. I think about his mates outside, and wish that could be true. We kiss again and, for a few moments, it is.
Then we turn a corner and find ourselves in the centre of the maze, in a room in which every mirror presents a more distorted reflection than the last. One makes me look as if I don’t have a head at all, just a pinprick on my shoulders. Another chops me off at the waist, so I’m like a torso, with arms, floating in the air. But it’s the third that makes me stop in my tracks, my stomach lurching faster and harder than it did on the rollercoaster . . . because the image it shows does not seem that distorted at all: it’s the way I see myself every time I look at my reflection. Before me, I can see a monster, with a huge hooked nose, tiny eyes and a tiny mouth. The face is grotesque. The face is mine.
I stand, rooted to the spot, unable to stop looking. I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. All I need is a broomstick.
‘Come on,’ says Rich. ‘We’ve been in here ages. The others are waiting.’
‘Hold on, Rich. Can I ask you something? Do I really look like that?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I know, but look at my nose! It’s deformed.’
He laughs. ‘Yeah, so is mine. Look at my nose in there. I look like a freak. That’s what the mirror’s meant to do.’
I can see that his nose is distorted in the mirror, larger and longer than it really is. He looks weird. But I don’t, not really. My nose looks the way it always does, just slightly more exaggerated.
‘Bend down,’ he says. I obey. ‘See, now you’ve got a weird forehead instead.’
‘Yeah, but my nose still looks huge.’
‘No it doesn’t.’
‘Honest? Even in real life? You don’t think it’s grown?’
‘Jesus, Sky. What’s up with you?’ He takes my hand again but, this time, he drags me by it, hard. ‘Let’s go back and look in the fat mirror again instead. That made you laugh.’
‘No, I don’t want to.’ I’m aware I’m feeling tearful and that my voice sounds whiny, but I can’t help myself. ‘Seriously, you don’t think I have a ginormous nose? Be honest with me, please.’
Rich rolls his eyes. ‘God, Sky, shut up about your stupid nose.’ He drops my hand and begins walking towards the exit, alone. ‘I don’t know what’s up with you lately. I tell you what, though – you’re seriously no fun any more.’
f I think about it, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I started obsessing about my nose. I’d noticed it had changed before, of course, but it didn’t start to keep me awake at night until the day my aunties came round for tea, just before I went to Goa . . .
‘Goodness, Sky, haven’t you grown!’ declared Auntie Karen, kissing me loudly on both cheeks. I cringed, like I always do. She’s being saying this to me and to my sisters, Grass and Ocean, at every family get-together since I can remember. I think someone must pay her to embarrass us; she certainly acts like it’s her job.
She took a step back. ‘You do look ever so grown up.’
‘Thanks, Auntie Karen.’ I forced a smile and, when I was sure she wasn’t looking, wiped her wet, peach lipstick imprint from my cheek. Dealing with embarrassing aunties was so not the way I wanted to be spending the last Sunday afternoon before I went away for a month.
‘No, I really mean it, dear. Let me look at you.’ She took my face in her hands and squeezed my cheeks, as if they were made out of playdough. ‘You’re different,’ she continued. ‘Still lovely, of course, but your face . . . it’s more defined. No more puppy fat, eh? Those boys will be queuing up.’ She prodded the side of my nose. Her hands smelled of onions. ‘And you certainly don’t have a little baby nose any more, eh?’
I did a double take. Did she really just say that aloud? Did Auntie Karen really just tell me – and everyone else – that I have a big nose? Grass giggled; I must have heard right. Aware that I was glowing bright red, I stepped away from Auntie Karen and went to sit down on the sofa, covering my nose with my palm, protectively.
So it isn’t just me, then, I thought, mortified. My nose is huge and people can tell!
‘You’re right, Karen,’ said Auntie Julie. ‘Sky looks terribly grown up.’ She stared at me too – although, thankfully, she didn’t feel the need to touch my face. Then she appeared to have a lightbulb moment. ‘I know! I’ve got it! Doesn’t she look like Connor all of a sudden?’
It took me a second to twig exactly who Connor was. I’ve never called him that. I felt a twinge of nausea rise from my belly.
‘I didn’t . . . you know, you might be right,’ said Mum, in a weird voice, peering at me, as if she had never seen me before. I was starting to feel like an exhibit in a science lab. ‘I hadn’t really noticed the change,’ she continued. ‘I guess you don’t see someone growing when you’re with them every day. But Julie’s spot on. You’ve gone and got your dad’s nose, Sky. Well, well, well.’
I looked around the table from my mother to my older sister, Ocean, and then to my younger sister, Grass. It struck me that all three of them have exactly the same slender nose, with slightly triangular nostrils and a cute little tip. Perfectly proportioned identikit noses, which looked like they’d been made to a pattern in the same factory. Grass could be my mum’s Mini-me, they’re so similar. Mum often likes to pretend we’re all sisters. She gets a buzz when people say, ‘Oh but you don’t look old enough to be a mother yet, let alone have three such grown-up teenage daughters!’
I hadn’t acknowledged it before, but that day it became clear to me that I don’t really look like her, or the others. I’ve got her eyes, maybe, but I’m taller, darker, flatter chested. And if my nose was made in the same factory, it was in the misshape pile, rejected for being too big and slightly wonky.
Until that second I had never
wanted to look like Mum. In fact, I’ve tried my hardest not to, refusing to wear the hippy-dippy clothes she likes me to dress in, and cutting my hair to shoulder length, when she’d prefer me to wear it down to my waist. But now I felt like the odd one out. And I didn’t like it.
‘You’ve got no reason to feel self-conscious, Sky. It’s a handsome nose,’ said Mum.
‘Gee, thanks, just what I’ve always wanted – a handsome nose,’ I said, hoping sarcasm would mask my hurt.
Mum smiled, wistfully. ‘Oh, but Connor had a lovely nose. A real Roman nose. It was one of the things I first noticed about him. That, and his eyes.’
‘Yes, he was a nice-looking fellow,’ said Auntie Julie. ‘That’s one thing we can all say.’
I flinched. They were talking about him like he was dead. But he isn’t dead. He’s just . . . somewhere else. He left when I was eight and then there were a couple of years of odd weekend visits and random cards. After that, nothing. I haven’t heard from him for almost five years. We used to get bits of news through Grandma, but since she died: nada.
‘Oh, sure, he was a handsome devil,’ said Auntie Karen, winking at Mum. ‘Devil being the operative word.’
Mum nodded. Then she shook her head, as if she was trying to shake off her memories. ‘Well, it’s all in the past now. No point dwelling on it.’
She tried to change the subject then, as usual; she doesn’t like talking about Dad. Since he left, Mum has filled the gap – and our flat – with all her weird and wonderful interests, and the new friends that come with them: animal rights, spirituality, medieval music, saving the planet . . . She claims she’s a free spirit. Who needs a man, when you can do a thousand and one things with tofu?
But I didn’t want to drop the subject. ‘He wasn’t a devil, he was my dad,’ I said, quietly. ‘He’s still my dad. Our dad.’ Even if, I wanted to add, he doesn’t care about me, Ocean or Grass enough to remember our birthdays, or send us Christmas presents. I glanced at my sisters, but they were staring down at their plates, pretending they weren’t there.