My Side of the Diamond

by Sally Gardner

  I don’t believe in love at first sight. I definitely believe in lust at first sight – but not love. But by the end of the evening at the pub, I wasn’t so sure. Alex whispered to me he would see Icarus back to the prison – if that was where he wanted to go. Icarus kissed Becky. It felt weird, I didn’t know what to think. Alex and me stood there like a couple of plum puddings.

  When we returned to the house, Becky put her bag on the table and sticking out of it was an exercise book. I hadn’t seen it before. Quickly, she snatched her bag away.

  ‘Where did you get that exercise book from?’

  As I asked the question I knew the answer.

  ‘It’s private,’ she said.

  ‘Show it to me.’

  ‘Icarus gave it to me to look at.’

  ‘Why? Why would he do that? He hardly knows you.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  Not a truer word had been said all evening as far as I was concerned.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t. He is very handsome but – I don’t know if he isn’t a con artist.’

  ‘You are so wrong.’ Becky twiddled her hair, then said, ‘When I visited Icarus in prison, he looked at me and I felt he saw me – all of me.’

  ‘What does that mean? I see you – all of you.’

  ‘You see what you want to see. Everyone wants me to be someone else.’

  ‘You think I’m the same as everyone?’

  ‘Yes. No – sort of … no, I can’t explain.’

  ‘You can. You’re the one who’s good with words – give it a go.’

  ‘Ruth sees me as her clever daughter; Simon as a feather in his cap; Tess as someone to make money out of.’

  ‘And me?’

  She picked up her bag and moved away but I was faster and stronger. I’d been the eater, remember. I took the exercise book and opened it. The paper was squared, the kind Becky liked to write on in her Moleskine notebooks, but the writing was all double-Martian as far as I was concerned. I handed it back to her.

  ‘Do you understand it?’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly.

  I knew she was lying.

  I felt so angry. Angry at myself, at Becky, at this so-called Icarus. All right, if I was honest, I felt really stupid that I’d had sex with Alex. The bloody notebooks were the cherry on the whole cow-turd of a cake.

  I went upstairs and turned on Simon’s computer. I googled ‘Icarus notebooks’.

  There were, according to Wikipedia, twenty notebooks belonging to Icarus. Every code-breaker in the world had tried to decode them. Not one of them had had any success. It was then that I began to have a terrible feeling that this guy was no con artist but the real McCoy.

  Chapter Eight

  That’s not fair, Mr Jones; I’ve told you about Icarus. You said you’d answer one question.

  What if this is the end of my story – what if I stop now? What then?

  All right, but I want to have the chance to ask you a few things. Is that a deal?

  Look, Mr Jones, Becky could have been cooking up porkies when she told me later that she understood those scribbles. She’d only translated fragments and when they were shown to her editor, Tess, at the inquest, she said she thought they were notes Becky had made for her next novel.

  I’ll get them. You can see for yourself.

  Troyon did not survive the impact. Ishmael has been taken. I have left stones. I will attempt to penetrate the citadel.

  Skye and Lazarus are more like us than humans. I don’t tell Phoebe for I can see she loves the girl.

  This emotion called love. It is wrapped up in time, measured by years. The more I see of humans the more complicated love becomes. It is not an exchange of goods. It has no price, it is not a simple connection to other beings. Love is much deeper, its tendrils reach into the bad and the good in humans. I don’t believe we should give up on this project. I cannot return until I learn how to love.

  It was a mistake that should never have happened. I have sent back a girl made of clay and a boy risen from the dead. I see now that what I thought was their love for each other was but a call to go home.

  Her name is Becky Burns. Too thin, in her head knots of loneliness threaded with fear of love, fear of life. In her eyes I see me. She asked me if her mind was her own. I undid one simple knot. To live she must eat.

  That’s all, Mr Jones, that’s all I have. There may be more, somewhere.

  Chapter Nine

  Alex didn’t come back that night, nor the following morning. I tried to text him but I couldn’t get a signal on my phone, not even in the bathroom. I was dead worried. What if they hadn’t gone to the prison and Icarus had kidnapped him and pushed him off the battlements of Orford Castle? I hardly slept that night. I tossed and turned and told myself I’d been a right muppet and should never have let what happened with Alex happen, should have played harder to get, not been such a pushover. Should have, would have, could have; should have had a bit more confidence in myself but I didn’t.

  In the morning, Miss Becky, all fresh as a flower, said, ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I must have slept on Cloud Three, it’s very uncomfortable. I see Cloud Nine was taken.’

  ‘Do you want some?’ said Becky, taking yogurt from the fridge.

  ‘No, I just want to know if Alex is all right. Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Alex’s phone is broken,’ she said. ‘He sent me a text this morning from his mum’s phone. He says he’ll get his mended in Woodbridge.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  Becky looked suprised. ‘What more should there be?’

  ‘That someone noticed Icarus was gone from the prison? Or do they give you the key to the door once you’ve been banged up for twenty-three years?’

  ‘You still don’t believe it’s him, do you?’ she said with a smile. ‘I told you before, you’re wrong. He’s extraordinary.’

  I couldn’t eat a thing. I nursed a cup of coffee, listening to Becky rhythmically chewing muesli. I still couldn’t get my head around Becky eating and the noise of it began to grate on me. I realised I was way out of my depth. She needed some parental care and I thought I should maybe call Ruth. I took out my phone and went upstairs.

  I was also half hoping there’d be a message from Alex. Nothing. Why had I been so hasty? I hadn’t even asked him if he had a girlfriend. I wished then that I’d taken the path that led to the train and London. I knew I’d made an idiot of myself and now I was lost in the yellow woods and it wasn’t pretty. It was the normal shitty place I always found myself in. I’d been there before – and without protection. At least Alex had been prepared.

  Stop thinking about it. Just stop it. All right, girl, you’ve blown it, but so what? You have the right, and if the mood takes you … and all that drivel. The idea of calling Ruth went out of my head.

  I sat down at Simon’s computer. I wanted to find out more about the painting. There was this group of people who had all been affected by it and blogged about the visions that they still had. It made good reading.

  Last night I saw the hologram horse again, pulling a wheelless carriage …

  Enough. That’s enough. I was about to tap the sleep keys when a message flashed on the screen. It was from her of the two-seater Audi fame and I thought it must be for Becky. I read it so I could tell Becky what it said. I read it once and it made no sense. I read it again and it made perfect sense.

  Darling Fish Face

  I’ve managed to wangle a weekend. Booked Paris, the usual hotel. Have you done the deed?

  Love you.

  It disappeared, the brazen blush of words, and wasn’t to be found in the inbox but if you went to the archive the whole sordid affair glowed back at you. The last one, from Simon, made it quite clear what was coming our way, and coming today. I quickly closed down the computer, washed up the coffee mugs, found the Hoover and came over all Mary Poppins until the place was spick and span. I thought about lunch, then decided it wou
ld be pointless as no one would eat anything after Simon had dropped an atom bomb with the power to blow the Burnses’ lives into a divorce court.

  He arrived in his Aston Martin, wearing a tweed suit that wasn’t meant to be worn in the country, having more to do with urban foxes than with country cow shit.

  ‘Jazmin,’ said Simon. ‘I’m so pleased to see you.’

  I could see that thinly concealed under his smile was ‘please get lost so that I can speak to Becky alone’.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, artificially bright. ‘Wow, how tidy it all is. Amazing. Well done.’

  Becky came into the kitchen, still not dressed.

  ‘What are you doing here, Dad?’

  ‘Come to see my princess.’

  I thought to myself, I won’t tell her that Tess Renshaw calls him Fish Face. Though come to think of it, there is something a tad coddish about him.

  I called goodbye and set off for a walk in the rain. I can hardly remember the sun shining that summer. It must have done, but not in my memory.

  I was heading towards the harbour when I bumped into Mrs Sunshine again, the basket still stuck to her arm, this time full of bread. She was holding an umbrella with Monet’s water lilies on it.

  ‘Ah, just the person I wanted to see.’

  Now, I would have liked to have stopped her right there and asked her why she wanted to see me. Was it on account of my dreads, or the tattoo on my right arm, or possibly something to do with the six piercings in my ear?

  Turned out it was to do with a woman I had never heard of before that day. They kept coming out of the woodwork. Mrs Berry.

  ‘I thought,’ said Mrs Sunshine, ‘that Becky should take the Doulton figurines Mrs Berry promised her before her cottage is cleared and everything is taken to auction.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  She smiled a smile that said, ‘Why should you? You are definitely not one of us.’ I thought then that maybe the whole village was teeming with aliens and I was the only human left.

  ‘Just tell Becky that they will be there Friday. She’ll understand. Must dash.’

  An hour later, I was walking slowly back to the cottage, hoping I’d left it long enough, when Simon’s car came towards me and stopped.

  ‘Jazmin,’ he said, winding the window down and leaning across the front seat to look up at me. ‘Thank you for all you’re doing.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Ruth has gone to India for the summer, to do a yoga course. I would like you to keep an eye on Becky. Don’t leave her, will you? Here …’ He took an envelope from his pocket. ‘This is for you.’

  I have been broke since once upon a time. I took the envelope. I knew what money felt like.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But, Simon, I want to talk to you …’

  He already had the car in gear. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I watched Fish Face do a three-point turn that would have embarrassed James Bond, before shooting out of Orford, heading for the bright lights of Paris.

  I stopped in the bus shelter and looked in the envelope. Two thousand pounds. Unbelievable. Two thousand pounds to wash his conscience clean.

  I returned to the cottage, wondering what state I’d find Becky in. Please, I thought, please, may she not stop eating.

  Chapter Ten

  Who tells the truth? Does my mother? Did my father? Do you, Mr Jones? I don’t think there is any truth to be had in this world. That’s why we’re all so screwed up.

  I’ve been talking for ages and still we’re not anywhere near the reason you’ve come to speak to me.

  Yeah, tomorrow’s fine. Funny, but I’ve found it comforting, talking to you and not being judged. Do you mind me asking – who will you be interviewing next?

  That’ll be interesting. He came to see me before the inquest to tell me it would be best if I didn’t say too much in court. He was right. I should’ve listened. I hoped he would answer a few questions for me but he didn’t. He’s a quiet man.

  Shall I carry on?

  Chapter Eleven

  Becky was sitting at the kitchen table, studying Icarus’s exercise book.

  ‘I’ve just seen Simon,’ I said. ‘Are you all right, Becks?’

  ‘This house, and the house in London, are built on lies,’ she said. ‘Lies are bricks that the truth slowly moulders away until the house falls down. Simon said that he had only stayed with Ruth because of me.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ I said.

  ‘He’s moving to New York.’

  ‘Does Alex know?’

  I’d never seen Becky this furious. Tears were pricking the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Simon’s on his way to see him now.’

  ‘New York?’ I said. ‘Why New York?’

  ‘I suppose he wants a lot of water separating him from Ruth so she can’t grab hold of him with her mermaid claws and drag him to the bottom of the briny sea. And he’s been headhunted by a top firm of architects there.’

  ‘What about Tess?’

  ‘Moving to New York too. Great. I’ve lost my dad and my editor.’

  ‘You haven’t lost them, you’ve just …’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be around. When they all hit the ground in pieces, I’ll be well gone.’

  I was going to ask her what she meant but as she was on the verge of tears, I thought better of it.

  I said, ‘It might all work out. You know, parents go through these crises and get back together again.’

  ‘Where does that happen then?’ Becky went to the fridge and took out a carton of half a dozen eggs and put it on the butcher’s block. ‘In some happy-clappy, soupy –’ she lifted her fist and brought it down hard on the carton – ‘film?’ Eggs cracking, yolk spilling. ‘Want an omelette?’

  She poured the whole sorry mess into a bowl.

  I’d helped her extract most of the eggshell when the phone rang. I picked it up and almost put it down again, the sobbing was so loud.

  ‘Jazmin,’ whimpered Ruth. ‘Can I … can I speak to Becky?’

  Becky looked at me. I mouthed ‘Ruth’ and she took the phone and put it on speaker.

  ‘How could he?’ Ruth shrieked. ‘How could he do this to us, darling? And with your editor. How did he even meet her? The bitch!’ There was a pause, then Ruth shouted, ‘No! I’m talking to my daughter. I don’t care if this is the first-class lounge, I won’t be quiet.’

  ‘Mum,’ said Becky, ‘Mum – Ruth – where are you?’

  A man’s voice came on the phone. ‘This is the manager of the British Airways first-class lounge at Heathrow. I’m speaking to Mrs Burns’s daughter? Your mother needs to calm herself and then she will call you back. Goodbye.’

  ‘I suppose there was always a clue,’ said Becky. ‘Take away the M and it spells OTHER. Ruth is some other person, a mum I don’t know.’

  I put on Lou Reed and for no reason both of us sang, blasted it out loud and clear, and I wondered how many other less-than-perfect days were taking place behind the closed doors of Orford.

  We sat down to eat and despite the eggshell the omelette tasted good.

  ‘Do you think,’ said Becky, ‘that it would be better for all of us if there was no such thing as love? And definitely no passion?’

  ‘That’s a strange question.’

  ‘Think about it. Love corrupts, passion ignites. Notice too that no country goes to war unless it feels passionately that God is on its side.’

  ‘But there are many kinds of love,’ I said.

  ‘What if it didn’t exist and there was just kindness? What if we were just kind and forgiving to one another? Then there would be no war. There would be no point.’

  ‘And there wouldn’t be art or music – hip hop or the Megabytes.’

  Becky was about to say something when the phone rang again. We both stared at it and I hoped Becky wouldn’t pick up, but it rang on and on until it became a siren. Becky answered it at last and pressed the speaker button. Ruth s
ounded really out of it.

  ‘I’m so sorry, darling, so terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘I only found out today.’

  ‘Where are you going, Mum?’

  ‘Mumbai. I’m on the plane, waiting to take off. I’ll call you when I get there. Don’t worry, darling, it will all be fine.’ The line crackled and an announcement could be heard telling passengers to turn off their mobile phones. ‘I have to go to Mumbai, darling. You understand, I have to find inner peace.’

  Another voice said, ‘Please, Mrs Burns, you must switch off your phone now.’ The line died.

  ‘That illustrates the mother theory perfectly,’ said Becky. ‘She is just another loser exiled from the couple kingdom. Watch how fast your paper house burns down, Mrs Burns.’

  She was silent. I was gobsmacked by Ruth’s behaviour. I wouldn’t have thought it of her, didn’t see her as the run-away-and-hide kind of mum. I had imagined her coming down here to be with her daughter, not legless on a first-class flight to India. It made me wonder: who is grown-up these days?

  ‘Just you and me then,’ said Becky. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Jaz.’ I went to put my arms round her. I felt guilty about the money but it didn’t seem like a good time to tell her that her father thought he had to bribe me to stay with her.

  ‘Grown-up. Stupid word, isn’t it? I feel far more grown-up than my parents, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said, and I told her about Mrs Sunshine and Mrs Berry but then had a feeling I was adding to all the sadness.

  As far as I can remember, nothing much happened for a few days. No Alex. No Icarus. Becky wrote in her Moleskine. Mum sent a postcard. Most unlike her. It had a picture of an old 73 bus on it. Said she was moving to a rented flat in Margate to be near Auntie Karen. It had a view of the sea and there was more than enough room for me. She even added that she was missing me. That made me smile. At least my mum seemed to be playing the slot machine of life and winning – if only pennies.