Birdy

by Jess Vallance

  I decided my best bet was just to move on and change the subject. ‘So how was the party on Friday?’ I said in the lightest voice I could muster. I didn’t want to start going in heavy, asking her what she’d been playing at, but I did want her to know I’d caught her out on her lying. I didn’t much like the idea of her treating me like an idiot.

  Bert stopped dead. I turned to look at her.

  ‘You know,’ she groaned, closing her eyes for a second and breathing out. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry, Birdy. I’ve always been such a terrible liar. I knew you didn’t buy it when I said Dad was picking me up. It’s just I knew you hadn’t been invited and I didn’t want you to feel bad. It wasn’t that good anyway. I drank too much and got sick.’

  I smiled and gave a small shrug. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. But you don’t need to keep stuff from me, you know.’

  ‘It wasn’t a total lie though,’ she said as we began to walk again. ‘We are doing the decorating at home.’

  ‘I know,’ I said without thinking, and then immediately cursed myself silently. I only knew they were doing the decorating because I’d been at her house the day before and had seen the overalls man myself. Luckily Bert didn’t seem to notice though and the rest of the walk to school passed peacefully enough.

  When I’d told Charlie about Jac, I’d sort of assumed that he’d warn him off her himself. Go round to his house or to his parents’ bistro for ‘a quiet word’. I mean, Charlie isn’t exactly the scary type but he’s tall enough and can be quite grumpy when it suits him. More to the point, he’s a dad and everyone knows that boys are scared of girls’ dads. I had a pretty good idea that Jac was exactly the type to run a mile from a girl if he encountered any kind of hassle, so I thought a little word from Charlie would have the whole business sorted. But what actually happened wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined.

  When we got in for morning registration that day, Mr Hurst was standing in the doorway and people were crowding around, trying to bundle in as usual.

  ‘One line, please,’ Mr Hurst called. ‘Everyone in one line down the corridor.’

  Bert and I were near the back so we couldn’t quite see what was going on at the front, but pretty soon, indignant whispers were passed down to us: ‘Seating plan? What the fuck – since when?’

  Megan Brebner was in front of us in the line. ‘What’s this about, sir?’ she shouted. ‘Why we all got to sit in places now?’

  ‘I want to restore some order to my classroom,’ Mr Hurst called back. ‘I’ve had enough of all this loafing around, eating packets of crisps and lounging on tables. This isn’t a youth club. Or a zoo. From now on, you’ll come in and sit down in your assigned seats and behave like civilised humans until I’ve finished the register. Over there, next to Neil please, Megan.’

  ‘Oh, sir!’ Megan whined. ‘But Neil smells like piss!’

  At this, Mr Hurst put his arm across the door, blocking Megan’s path. ‘You’re not coming in at all if you say things like that.’ Mr Hurst pointed to one of the wooden benches that lined the corridor. ‘Sit down there please. I’ll deal with you in a minute.’ Megan slumped down on the seat, her arms folded across her chest.

  I didn’t think anything of it at first, didn’t make the connection at all, but then, when everyone was in their places, I looked around and saw immediately what Mr Hurst had done. There was Jac, at the front of the classroom, on the desk by the bookshelf right in the corner. And then there was Bert, at the back of the classroom, next to the book trays. Almost as far away from Jac as it was possible to get. And now with Mr Hurst enacting his ‘sit-down, shut-up’ regime, I didn’t think there’d be much chance for any early morning harassment before the register.

  And there were further developments that morning.

  After registration, Mr Hurst kept Jac behind. It was a fairly common occurrence really – Jac was always falling behind in one class or another, too busy playing the fool and chasing the girls to keep up properly. He’d never really been one of those kids clever enough to cruise by on minimum effort. I don’t think he ever did anything bad enough to get any serious grief from teachers, but I gathered there were plenty of ‘buck up your ideas, pull your socks up’ type pep talks as he’d often boast about them to his mates afterwards.

  A few minutes later, when Bert and I were at our lockers and I was trying to look cool and bored while Pippa was going over some Very Important Rehearsal Business with Bert, the classroom door was flung open and Jac stomped out.

  ‘Wanker!’ he said through gritted teeth, kicking the bottom of the lockers and making them rattle.

  Pippa, Bert and I looked up. ‘What?’ Pippa asked.

  ‘He’s banned me, hasn’t he? From Oz. Says my maths is too shite. Been messin’ about too much, test results not good enough. All the usual bollocks. Why give it to me then, I said. Why let me do it in the first place? He reckons they were giving me a chance and I’ve “blown it”. Tosser!’ Jac shook his head and marched off down the corridor, his bag slung over his shoulder and his head down.

  ‘Oh brilliant,’ Pippa said, tutting and rolling her eyes. ‘What are we supposed to do for a technician now?’

  ‘An adequate replacement will be provided,’ Mr Hurst called from the classroom. ‘The show won’t be compromised. No need to panic.’

  Bert and Pippa launched into urgent talks about what this would mean for the production and who would be best to take over, but I wasn’t listening. I was having a slow but wonderful realisation: it looked very much like my plan had worked. It hadn’t all gone exactly as I’d thought but actually, if anything, this was better.

  This is what I guessed had happened:

  Charlie would’ve been angry, I suppose like any father would, at the thought of his little girl being molested by a creep with a dodgy haircut. But I realised my early assumption had been a bit silly – Charlie wasn’t one of those Neanderthal types. A man like Charlie, with his gangly legs and rosy cheeks, wasn’t going to storm over to Jac’s place to start roughing him up and making threats. What I realised was far more likely, once I’d thought about it properly, was that Charlie would phone the school. He’d use the official channels. He’d be reasonable and pleasant, and ask for some discreet but firm action to be taken. He wouldn’t shout for Jac’s head on a spike – he wouldn’t want him expelled and he wouldn’t want his Bertie embarrassed by Jac finding out that the complaint had been made at all. Charlie would just ask for the situation to be quietly managed so that some distance was put between the two of them. Bert and Jac didn’t share any lessons, but registration and rehearsals – the only real harassment opportunities – had been quietly shut down. That was far more Charlie’s style. Get our Bert out of harm’s way but without making too much fuss.

  I was relieved. The problem had been taken out of my hands. Good one, Charlie, I thought. Nicely done.

  28

  The end of March was warm and sunny. People even started to declare that it was ‘boiling’, the way they always do when the sun finally comes out after a long and damp winter. In fact, everyone was so relieved that dreary February was over that they got quite over-excited and started walking around the place in short sleeves, stripes of sun cream lining their noses.

  Bert and I started sitting on the field at lunchtimes. She’d collect her mountain of junk food from the canteen and tip it into a polystyrene carton and we’d take it out there with us for a greasy picnic. From time to time, Pippa would sit with us too, which was incredibly annoying.

  I was having a hard time working out exactly where Bert stood when it came to Pippa. On the one hand, I knew she’d been annoyed with her about the whole Meadowrise Care Home debacle – I could still picture her disappointed face as she told me about what had happened that day – but then I wasn’t sure if their close collaboration on the show had worn Bert down. I wondered if Bert was starting to confuse familiarity with friendship. When Pippa came over to us, the two of them would start by discussing official
Oz business, but it often seemed to lead on to other totally unnecessary chat.

  Pippa would usually dominate things, talking about what she’d done, projects she was investigating, successes she’d had. Me, me, me, as always. Bert generally seemed to indulge her, nodding along and saying, ‘Really? Gosh,’ in all the right places. I’d originally assumed that this was just Bert’s natural good manners in action but then, one lunchtime, Pippa had harped on for fifteen solid minutes about a letter she was writing to her MP on the importance of sustainable fishing practices in such a self-satisfied, puffed-up way that I’d had to fight to hold back an attack of the giggles. Honestly, the girl was like a comedy sketch – a parody of a self-important Girl Guide.

  When she’d finally left, I’d laid back on the grass with my arms stretched out above my head and groaned. ‘God!’ I said. ‘I thought that would never end!’

  Bert didn’t reply and so perhaps I should’ve left my comments there, but I really wanted to offload some observations. I think I just wanted someone to bitch with for once. The thing about Bert was that she always tried so hard to seem so constantly, relentlessly nice. And sometimes, just occasionally, I wished she’d let the act slip. I wished she would have a bit more … edge.

  ‘Seriously though,’ I said, propping myself up on my elbows, ‘what really annoys me is the way she acts like she’s such a saint. All that sighing and acting so obligated all the time, like she must tend to her parish. Pippa Brookman must save the world, because who else is going to do it?’

  Bert just smiled in a faraway sort of way and lay down on the grass, closing her eyes. I felt a bit annoyed that she wasn’t taking the bait, wasn’t joining in.

  ‘And you know what really gets me,’ I ploughed on, ‘is that she isn’t even as angelic as she likes to make out.’

  Bert batted a fly away from her face. ‘Well, I know that Meadowrise thing wasn’t exactly her finest hour, but I suppose she meant well … she just got carried away with the excitement of the occasion.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but it’s not just that. There are other things too,’ I said and that’s when I told Bert about what’d happened with Pippa and the chalks in the playground in that first year of school.

  Bert opened her eyes and looked at me, a funny expression on her face. For a moment, I thought she was going to say something sympathetic and disapproving, but she didn’t. She just shook her head and laughed, then closed her eyes again.

  ‘Birdy, you’re so peculiar,’ she said. ‘Still upset about something that happened when you were five years old. That’s quite a grudge to hold!’

  I didn’t reply, I just lay back down on the grass and closed my eyes, sulking. It might’ve been a long time ago but I knew that people didn’t change, not really.

  29

  Even the nice weather wasn’t enough to help Granddad for long. His short run of lucidity spluttered to an end and his symptoms returned, more worrying than ever.

  He started waking up at night, screaming and shouting out. The first time it’d happened I’d woken up with a jolt. At first, I’d thought it was someone outside, some drunk person staggering past my window, but when I realised it was coming from inside the house, I opened my bedroom door and peered out onto the landing. Nan was standing at the top of the stairs in her long blue nightdress, a steaming mug in her hand. My grandparents’ bedroom door was open and I could hear the shouts coming from there. Mostly they didn’t make any sense; they were just yelps really. The only words I could make out were ‘No!’ and ‘Bridget!’

  Nan’s head jerked up when she heard me. ‘What are you doing up?’ she snapped. ‘Get back to bed.’

  ‘Granddad …’ I said, looking towards their bedroom.

  ‘Granddad’s fine! Bed!’

  I ducked back into my room and closed the door behind me.

  A few days later, when I came down for breakfast, I turned around when I heard Granddad coming down the stairs only to see him wander into the kitchen wearing nothing but his underpants. I’d never even seen him without his shirt on before – in fact, it was an event if either he or Nan took their shoes off in the house – so I knew this was a bad, bad sign.

  I didn’t know where to look. In the end, I just got up and took my cereal to my bedroom without saying anything. I suppose Nan must’ve come down and sorted him out because by the time I left for school he was sitting in the lounge as normal, shirt, tie and shoes in place.

  That day, I found myself bringing up Granddad’s deteriorating mental state with Bert. I didn’t normally let Bert know many of the details about what was going on at home. It was funny really, I was happy to soak up the sympathy when it came to talking about my dead alcoholic mum or my anonymous absent father – things that I actually couldn’t care less about – but when it came to talking about Nan and Granddad and the increasing panic I felt about what was going to become of them both, I clammed up. I just didn’t feel comfortable letting Bert in. I don’t know why really. Maybe I was scared of admitting how sad and pathetic my tragic little life was. But actually, to Bert’s credit, when I gave her a brief rundown of the things that had been happening over the last few days, she was really quite good about it.

  ‘Oh goodness me,’ she said, her face full of concern. ‘How upsetting to see that happening to someone you love, their personality just … fading away like that.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘It’s horrible really.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, putting her arm around me. ‘So horrible. You know you can always stay at mine. Anytime it gets too much.’

  I smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s nice to know.’

  But I knew I’d never be brave enough to ask if I could stay. I’d wait to be invited. Then Bert would get distracted, the invite would never come and I wouldn’t want to mention my worries about Granddad again.

  One lunchtime, when it was really a bit too cold to be sitting outside, we were lounging on the grass, lazily watching the Year Ten boys’ football team, who were practising over at the far side of the field. One of the boys was Jac Dubois, darting about in his little shorts, dribbling the ball between orange cones, and at one point he saw us looking. He paused, his foot on the top of the ball. He winked and blew a kiss towards us.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. ‘Dickhead.’

  I’d meant it to sound jokey. I’d meant to follow the comment with a little laugh and a gentle shake of the head. But it didn’t really come out like that. In fact, it came out sounding quite bitter.

  Bert sighed. ‘For God’s sake, Frances, give the boy a break, would you?’

  I was shocked, both at Bert’s tone and at the sound of my real name which I hadn’t heard her use since the week she’d joined Whistle Down. And I was angry too. What was it about this boy? Could she seriously not see what he was like? He was a moron. He was so clearly only after one thing. Everything from the disgusting ‘I’d give her one’ sign he’d made with his finger the second he’d laid eyes on her, to his sly little plan to get her into bed. It was all horrible. Creepy. Why couldn’t she see it? Was she really that clueless?

  ‘You know what I think,’ I said, looking at Bert through narrowed eyes. ‘It was him who sent you that note. And the locker graffiti thing too, probably.’

  I didn’t know where the accusation had come from really. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, an eruption of irritation.

  Bert frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I think it was him,’ I said again, more firmly this time. ‘It makes perfect sense. He’s angry with you because you won’t go out with him.’

  Now I’d said the theory out loud, it seemed to be gaining momentum in my mind. It was entirely plausible really – I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. We could forget that theory about it being some jealous girl. This was much better. It was the boy himself.

  ‘That’s so ridiculous,’ Bert said. ‘Jac thinks the notes are sick. He said he’d like to beat up whoev
er left them.’

  This revelation took me totally by surprise. ‘What?’ I said. ‘You mean, you told him about the notes?’

  Bert shrugged. ‘Yes, of course. In rehearsals once. He was there just after and … I was upset. He was rather sweet about it actually.’

  ‘Ha!’ I shouted before I could stop myself. ‘I bet he was. I bet he was so sweet, I bet he was a real shoulder to cry on, wasn’t he? I bet he offered you tissues, put his arm around you …’

  I shook my head, astounded by her naivety. And then a new scenario began to form in my mind. This one was even more credible than the rejected lover version, I thought. She couldn’t deny this one.

  ‘It all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?’ I laughed again, a hard laugh, my head thrown back. ‘God, Bert, seriously, can’t you see it? He left those notes to get to you, to … weaken you and get you to turn to him. He wanted to break you down so he could be there to pick up the pieces. Kind, sweet Jac.’ I shook my head again. ‘Utter, utter bastard. And you’ve played right into his hands by going running into his arms.’

  Bert was staring at me. She wasn’t frowning any more, she just looked bemused.

  ‘Birdy,’ she said quietly. ‘Listen to yourself. A minute ago he was cross with me because I wouldn’t be his girlfriend. Now it’s all an elaborate psychological game designed to reel me in. You’re not making any sense.’

  I didn’t reply. I just sat there, looking at the ground, breathing fast. I could see her point. I hadn’t presented my hypotheses very clearly. I needed to rein myself in a bit, to calm down before I tried again.

  ‘Is it … is it about your granddad?’ she said. ‘Is the stress getting to you?’

  I looked up and made myself smile a weary smile. ‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘You’re probably right. I’m just stressed.’