I reach for my inhaler and take a long, deep drawn-in puff. No matter how much I’d like to say it doesn’t bother me, I do sometimes flirt with the idea of being tiny and how much easier that might make my life. Because maybe it would make it easier for others. To not have people second-guess if I can do stuff. To not have to make comments about moving around me.
To not make me then second-guess myself.
To not feel like I’m in the way.
STALE POPPADOMS
We have three ways of making money between us, Camille and me. I have Planet Coffee and babysitting. And Camille flyers. Literally standing outside, handing out leaflets to strangers. When she first told me about the job I thought it would be flyering for cool things like club nights and gigs but because she’s under eighteen she flyers for an Indian restaurant, the Lancer of Bengal. Three nights a week she stands in the doorway of the restaurant, handing out flyers. And I go, when I can (be bothered), for company and a morale boost. Mostly it’s just us. Shivering. Sharing a pair of headphones, one in each ear, bouncing away to a song.
The money is terrible, and what is more terrible, they don’t even give us free curry. Once, when it was cold, we got a cup of chai and a basket of unhappy-looking stale poppadoms that were basically thrown at our heads like we were desperate pigeons. We still ate them because we were desperate. Because we will literally eat anything put in front of us, let alone thrown at us, and because it counted as a freebie from the restaurant and we’ve been desperate for a perk of Camille’s job ever since she started there. Something we could tell our school friends to legitimise us—“Yeah, I ALWAYS get free poppadoms.” Plus, stale poppadoms are delicious. I love it when they get soft like edible salty paper. It’s like the flavour of the sticky bit on an envelope. Amazing. The chai was all right too.
“Help me. It smells amazing,” Camille moans. “They are so tight. I’m so starving. Why can’t they just feed us, man? They make vats of the stuff. I don’t get paid enough for this crap.” She groans, staring into the window of the Lancer.
“Why don’t you just ask them for a little cup of dhal or something?”
“You ask, they like you.”
“They like you. It’s your job, Cam.”
“I’ve only got the job because nobody else is enough of a mug to do it. They literally pay me enough for my bus ride to get here.” Camille clicks her tongue. “They probably think cos I’m mixed race I can’t handle the spice. My dad literally fed me hot sauce as a kid. It’s so insulting. I’d eat their hottest curry as a dare!” Cam grunts. “Go on, go tell them to dare me, BB.”
“You want me to walk in and ask them to dare you to eat their hottest curry?”
“Yeah.” She begins to crack up at the ridiculousness of what she’s asking me to do.
“You know they give chillis to people in rehab? Apparently the rush of the heat is like a buzz.”
“FEED US!” Cam suddenly screams at the door.
We both laugh so hard. Camille kicks the bricks of the Lancer.
“A bit of wee just pushed out.”
TUNA
“Not even one onion bhaji, not one; how bad is that?”
“Pretty crap.”
“I’d even take the burnt stuff.”
“Ooooh, I’d love a peshawari naan right now, wouldn’t you, though?”
“I might buy one.”
“Cam, you can’t buy one, that’s letting them win. You really would be a mug then.”
“You’re right. Least it’s not cold.” She sighs deeply, scratches her head. “People always overorder. I’d take the scraps.”
“It’s just the smell that’s making you want it,” I remind her. “See, this is when my jacket-potato-at-the-bus-stop idea would really come into its own.”
“Oi, go look desperate at the window. Hungry eyes, go on, like a peasant from the Victorian days at Christmas. Make the customers feel guilty.” We rehearse our hungry faces. “We look insane.” She laughs. “I want your face, like that, as my wallpaper.” She pats her pocket. “I actually did bring a tin of tuna.” She wriggles her eyebrows. “But I haven’t got an opener.”
“A tin of tuna? What? Why?”
“Yeah. I love a tin of tuna, little bit of protein on the go. I thought I picked up a ring-pull one but it’s the other one. I hate that. Why would they make any tin without a ring pull?”
I always like to think of “they” as the people we assume do all these things for us in the world, like bottle our ketchup and pack our crisps, when really those people called “they” could just be us. The consumers, they might like ones without ring pulls. No, they would not.
“I hate it when they put tuna in brine.”
“JEESH! Me too. The order goes: sunflower oil, then spring water and THEN brine.”
“Bit dog-foody isn’t it, though, with the ring pull?” I grimace and Cam crinkles her nose up. “Yuck, that’s the worst, when the dog-food cans don’t have ring pulls and then you see the slime of that gross gold jelly glooping out of the top of the can. Like a pork pie.”
“That’s disgusting. Shut up. You’re putting me off my tuna.” Completely not caring that people in the street are now staring.
“Well, you’re putting me off living. You haven’t even got an opener.”
“I know but I’ll find something. Can maybe use a key or…I dunno.”
“How you gonna eat it? What you gonna use?”
“With the lid. My fingers. Dunno.”
“That’s gross.”
“I’m starving. See what lows this restaurant has led me to?” She moans and then knocks on the glass with her knuckles and says, “See what you’ve led me to? This is desperate measures!”
I shake my head at the audacity of her.
Cam delves into her pocket and reveals the proud round disc of tuna. “Dolphin friendly.” She grins. “Thought you’d appreciate that.” She then takes her door key out and kneels down on the ground, the stack of flyers for the Lancer in a powder-pink pile next to her. She kneels, the blunt key at an angle; she tries to cut, stab, prod, scratch.
“It’s not working.” She bangs the tuna can on the ground. It dents. “These things are indestructible.” She bangs it again. A gust of wind drapes past from a too-fast car and picks up a few of her flyers, skipping them across the street as she crawls forward like she’s playing a game of Twister, spreading her body weight out, pressing her fingers and knees on top of the pile. “Whoa, nearly!” She laughs in relief and I help her ruffle the flyers back into their stack and she leans back and sends the can of tuna rolling across the pavement.
“That’s my tuna! Here, hold these.” She shoves the leaflets in my hand and runs after the can, which drops into the road as a car approaches. Cam screams, “STOP! That’s my TUNA!” before the driver runs it over, popping the metal with a thump, and speeds away. Cam screams from the heart in a blood-curdling bellow, and then an ah in surprise.
“No WAY! BB! Best can opener ever!” Cam giggles in delight and runs into the road.
“Watch out!” I shout.
“I am, BB! Look, nothing’s coming.” She crouches and peels the smashed can of tuna off the ground. It’s a mess of elephant grey and elephant-ear pink. Splattered. Cam holds it like a dirty tissue; thick fishy oil is dripping onto the ground in greasy dots.
“Can you actually BELIEVE it?”
“You’re not really going to eat that, are you?”
“Course! Life just gave me a blessing; are you serious? This can of tuna could change my life. It’s a sign.”
I watch her picking off the lid with her nail: shreds of grey metal.
“Watch your fingers!” I warn.
“I am.” She picks at it again; the tin vibrates. “The lid’s not coming off properly still. Pass me the key again, if I just dig it underneath maybe I can…” I
watch the staff of the Lancer peering through the window at the commotion. They must think Cam’s opening a safe what with the concentration and excitement on her face. “Let me just press that down like that, then this bit might tip up.”
I watch the yellow price sticker darken as the sheen of oil bleeds over the top. Fish smell everywhere, simmering in the summer-evening air.
“Cam, just throw it in the bin.”
“This is a good can of tuna here, BB. You don’t just throw it in the bin.”
“It’s been HIT by a car. I’ll buy you a new one, with a ring pull.”
“That’s not the point.” She grits her teeth. “I want this can of tuna. Look, see? I nearly got it. Can you just hold that bit? Maybe just put the flyers down a sec and hold that bit for me.”
“All this for a can of tuna, come on. You’re getting oil on those great culottes.” Cam winks at me and has to stop prising the lid off just for a second to spread her legs and show me how excellent it is that her bottom half could pass as skirt and shorts.
“It’s not about the tuna anymore; it’s the principle.” She tuts. “Help me. I’d do it for you.”
I put the flyers down and I have to hold the bent lid down as Cam uses the edge of the key to flip up the other side. The lid slowly begins to creep up, opening.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! BB! That’s it! Press a bit more….”
SMOSH.
The can of tuna lands facedown on the stack of flyers. Fish oil soaks into the paper, and coats our hands, fish-stained and glossy and tacky.
Cam just breathes in. Picks up the leaflets with the can of tuna on top, scoops up the whole lot and dashes it in the bin.
“Oi!” she shouts at a waiter, who peeps his head up sheepishly over the window. “Yes, you, I quit!” She storms over to the door and roars through the Lancer’s letterbox: “This is long and you never give me any free curry; it’s a disgrace.”
And we stomp home back to mine absolutely starving and stinking of canned fish.
My hands are stinging with the wetness and awfulness of the tuna stains. They feel heavy. I have to keep my hands open like claws and away from my person, stretched out. The smell follows us home like the smell of vomit.
And without even enough money for a bus, and out of principle, we have to walk the LONG way home.
OLD SHEPHERD’S PIE
“There’s no way I’m gonna be able to find my keys in my handbag with all this tuna on my hands.” I peer into the opening of my bag to see if I can make them out among the litter in there. All I can see is a lipstick, a tampon, a dog-poo bag and a tangerine with white dots on it. “I’m gonna have to wake Dove.”
“Do it.”
“DOVE!” I shout. “DOVE!” I pick up a stone and lob it at her window. “DOVE!”
Wait.
Her bedroom light pings on and she comes to the window and stares down at me. Unimpressed.
“What the actual hell?”
“I’m locked out.”
“Why don’t you have your keys?”
“I’ve got tuna on my hands.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
“Can’t you do that climby thing you do and get down the drainpipe and let us in?”
“Or how about I just climb down the stairs?”
“Or that.” I smile. “She’s so clever,” I growl proudly at Camille.
Dove, livid, opens the door. She’s wearing pyjama shorts.
“Wash your hands,” Dove orders.
“All right, bossy. We’re starving,” I announce.
“Have you been to that Indian restaurant thing again?” She looks disgusted. “And did they not feed you again?”
“No, they are so tight. Don’t rub it in.”
“You’re so pretty,” Camille tells Dove. “Your legs are like breadsticks.” People are always telling Dove how pretty she is.
Dove rolls her eyes. “Mum’s gonna be raging at you.” She loves saying this as she stands over us making sure we scrub the tuna oil off our hands with washing-up liquid, like some evil guard at a prison.
“What is there to eat, then?” Camille suckers the fridge door open before snooping around inside. “I wish we had money for a pizza.”
“Who on earth has a job at an Indian restaurant and doesn’t get free curry? I don’t get it. You two are idiots.” Dove leaves us and heads back up to bed.
“The cupboards are bare.” I puff my cheeks out.
“I hate it that your mum isn’t that mum.”
“Me too.”
“Wait….”
And that’s when I remember the most best greatest thing in the entire world. There is half a shepherd’s pie in the oven.
“Oh my actual days, we are saved!” Camille grins, already beginning to peel the cheese from the roof of the pie.
“Reckon it’s all right? It’s, like, really days old.”
“Sure it will be, it’s shepherd’s pie. It’s basically industrial. Don’t these things get better with age anyway?”
“Hmm.” She might be right. “But I didn’t have it in the fridge.”
“Oh come on, B, this is basically medicine compared to the dirty dog-food kebabs I usually eat after working.”
Camille’s right. And an oven is basically a fridge’s understudy, so…
And the forks dig in. The mash is cloddy, almost frozen into a starchy iceberg and very baking-tray tasting but the flavour’s still there. Ish.
“Oi, shall we whack it in the microwave?”
We fill our bowls and try to ram both of them into the microwave at the same time. They clunk and boff off each other, clanking round clumsily as the glass plate beneath jerks off its pivot.
“It’s not heating. We have to take turns so it gets ALL the heat.”
Camille puts her hand into the Alpen and scoffs a handful of ashy snowy flakes. It dusts her chin in powder. Impatiently we take turns to heat our bowls until we can barely take it any longer, forking our mash down lukewarm. Camille douses hers in brown sauce, chilli flakes and then a spoonful of mango chutney. I just have mine on its own.
“I am unemployed.” Camille balls a fist under her chin.
“Don’t worry, something will come up again soon.”
“Why can’t I keep a job?”
“Because you’re too wild, that’s why.”
“What are you doing?” Camille asks me in a tired voice.
“Writing something down.”
“What? Why are you writing?”
“I have to write down what I’m eating in this stupid book.”
“It’s a shame that what happened, happened. Otherwise you could have written down tuna,” Cam says wistfully.
We share a toothbrush and head to my room. We go to sleep curled up like a balled-up pair of odd socks.
* * *
—
It feels like we have been asleep for four minutes….
“BB!” It’s Mum. “BB, wake up.”
“Huh?” My eyes are clamped together with mascara spiders. The sun is beating through my curtains. SUMMER. YESSS.
“I need some help with the ducks.”
“I hate it that you have ducks,” I whinge. “They can’t even have cute babies because they’re all boys. They just quack and be annoying. I just want to sleep.”
“Please help me.”
“Mum, I just want to sleep.”
“Bluebelle, if you think this not-going-to-college malarkey means you going out and sleeping in until eleven every day and not helping me around the house, then you have another think coming.”
GRRRRRRRR! I think about arguing how amazingly consistent and good I’ve been at keeping my food diary but (a) it doesn’t exactly mean I’ve been on a diet and (b) I don’t want her to bring up the fact that I still haven�
��t been to the gym. It was the deal, but OF COURSE you know that and are probably thinking YOU’VE DONE NOTHING EXCEPT EAT.
“Mum, technically, it’s the summer holidays, so I haven’t really left school until the holidays are over. I’m entitled to a break after my exams as the new school year hasn’t technically begun, so you’re kind of being unfair by taking away my rights.” She ignores me and walks away. “Where’s Dove, anyway?” I demand. “Why can’t she help?”
“Jumping off buildings somewhere, no doubt.”
I sink my head into the pillow. I hate this family.
Camille rolls over. Her Afro is in my face like sleeping next to a giant microphone. “Let’s help your mum, come on. She’s good to us.”
* * *
—
Zombie-like, we plod to the kitchen. The sun streaming in through the window is making me feel all boiling hot like I’m stuck in a tent, trapping our skin all claustrophobic, like we have hair gel smeared all over our faces. Camille is wearing a bikini top and boy boxers but I don’t think they belonged to a boy, ever. Her golden belly pops out like a little troll’s. I could just pop a magenta gemstone right in the button of it. She’s so lucky, she tans so beautifully in zero point one seconds. I am in a full matching set of pyjamas. So I doubt I could get a tan anyway. I love pyjamas.
“Thank you, girls. Basically, I need one of you to come with me to the pet shop to pick up straw because you can’t park there and last time I got a ticket, and the other one to clear out the duck shed.”
“Oh, Mum!” I moan because I know it’s going to be muggins here that has to clear out the pooey shed.
Camille laughs as she hides her hair under an orange hoody and shoves some sliders on her feet and heads out with Mum.
“The shovel is out there.”
“Oh thanks,” I shrill sarcastically.
“And remember, the dogs can’t be left alone with the ducks.”
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Page 10