“Han, you hadn’t ever spoken to him. It was always going to be a long shot.”
“Had you ever even seen him at ground level?” Dermot chips in.
“Shut up. Both of you.”
“No. YOU shut up. I ache all over and you haven’t said thank you yet.”
“It didn’t work!”
“That’s not the point! I tried.”
“Thank you for pretending to drown so I could humiliate myself,” she says grudgingly.
“Thank you both for trying to rescue me,” Dermot pipes up. Even Hannah has to smile at that.
“You’re welcome,” she tells him. “You have a very subtle sense of humour sometimes.”
“It has been said,” he agrees.
Aggy and Barbra arrive at the swimming pool at the same time. I can see Barbra giving Aggy’s old van a horrified look. I’ll tell her the rat story one day, I say to myself, as we all wave goodbye to each other.
I rest my head on the seat as Aggy drives me home. I’m being rude – I should make conversation and say thank you for the lift – but I think I might be sick if I open my eyes and see everything whooshing past. I must look as bad as I feel because Aggy puts a lovely cool hand on my forehead while we’re idling at the lights. I keep my eyes closed until the van stops and then Dermot helps me gently out.
“Thank you for me being quiet,” I mumble, nonsensically.
“Thank you for not being sick,” he says, holding me up as he rings the doorbell. Mum opens the door and makes concerned noises at me. They might be words but I’m not really listening. I feel Dermot give me a pat on the back before he runs back to the van. I flap a clumsy goodbye wave over my shoulder.
I think lying on the cold poolside with a scraped back was a bad idea. My head hurts, I’m hot and cold and I drag myself to bed wrapped in several layers of pyjamas. Such a good friend to Hannah, I grouse to myself as I shiver under the covers. So unappreciated. She’ll be sorry if I die – or, worse, can’t go to prom.
At the thought of my lovely new jumpsuit hanging in my wardrobe never to be worn, my eyes fill with hot tears. I must be feverish.
There’s a soft tapping at my door. “Are you all right, Lou?” says Mum, coming in. I shake my head sadly beneath the cover. She crouches next to the bed. I feel her rubbing my shoulder and I lift the side of the duvet to tell her about my night, in a husky croak.
Mum’s annoyed. “When did Hannah get so selfish?” she asks.
“She’s just had her brace tightened,” I defend her. “Top and bottom.”
“Well, still… Would you like something to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
“Boiled egg with its head off and toast to dip in?”
“Maybe.”
I manage half an egg before I burrow back under the covers, feeling sick. I hear Dad come in and sit at my desk.
“How’s Lou?”
“Eeeuuurgh.”
“Can I finish your egg? Waste not, want not.”
WORRY DIARY
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I wake up at about five in the morning feeling like something is very wrong. I stand in the bathroom for ten minutes, shivering and wondering if I’m going to be sick. I don’t want to be sick; I hate being sick. I breathe deeply until the feeling passes and creep back to bed, but I lie awake for a while, not quite trusting my body.
The next time I open my eyes it’s to find Lavender and Mum standing beside my bed. “Lou?” Mum says, “do you think you’ll feel better if you eat? Cereal, toast, another egg?”
My mouth fills with spit and my chin wobbles. I croak, “Please stop naming food. It’s not helping.”
“OK, then have a shower? See if you’re up to going to school?”
I sit up, feeling groggy, and let them manhandle (womanhandle) me into the bathroom. I sit in the shower as my legs are too wobbly to stand. Mum stands over me and tuts. “I’ve a good mind to send Hannah a photo of you.”
I look up at her, squinting as the light hurts my eyes. “Please don’t, Mum.”
Once I’m “clean”, I go back to bed. I do feel better actually. In an ideal world, I’d rather my showers weren’t team efforts, but this one was needed. I text replies to Dermot, Gabe and Hannah all asking where/how I am – Hannah gets a slightly terser reply than the others, as she deserves, but she sounds so sorry that I relent. I have a sudden thought.
Did you tell Cammie etc that you asked Dan out?
OF COURSE NOT.
Still Number One! I’m still Number One! I do a weak little air punch from my bed.
My phone buzzes. You’re not going to tell them, are you?
Yes, I reply. Cos I’m evil.
I saw Dan at lunch.
It’s lunchtime already? Time flies when you’re sweating and aching in bed.
He let me queue-jump. And complimented my shoes.
Not a complete loss then – you made a friend!
But who will I go to prom with?
It’s OK. I was going to go by myself.
… She’s typing. I rearrange the cold wet flannel on my forehead. I also have a hot-water bottle on my feet, to accommodate my many different temperatures. One benefit of Mum being unemployed is dedicated full-time nursing.
You’re not NOW, Hannah texts, with a dogged grip on facts.
No, I concede. But I WAS.
NOT THE SAME!
I can’t win an argument with Hannah even when I’m at full-strength, so this is useless. I snuggle back under the duvet for a nap. I wake up to Mum stroking my hair off my clammy forehead.
“Hey, Goldfish, I’m just popping out.”
“Where?” I demand, struggling to sit up. “What if I need soup or a fresh flannel? Where’s Dad?”
“He’s with Vinnie at a work thing, and if you’ve got the energy to be annoying, you must be feeling better,” she says wryly. “I have to go to the Jobcentre. I don’t really want to. It was all right with your dad – you know how chatty he is. But now he’s a bee, I’m on my own.”
She looks so sad … I rub my eyes to make them less bleary. “OK, so I’m coming with you.”
“There isn’t time. And you’re ill. And we’ll be walking MILES.”
“How many miles?”
“Well, two.”
I haul myself out of bed. “How long’ve I got?”
“FIVE MINUTES.”
“Fine.”
I pull on some clothes and spritz body spray all over myself, to hide the musty sick-bed smell. Then add a little hairspray for extra camouflage.
“Lovely,” Mum says, watching this.
“Shush, I’m helping,” I say, pulling my socks on with difficulty as I’m still quite stiff.
Mum makes me bundle up warm before she lets me out of the house, despite my insistence that I’m too hot anyway. So by the time we reach the end of the driveway, I’m already sweating buckets.
“It’s good,” Mum tells me. “Sweat the fever out.”
I give her a disgruntled look. The hood of my jacket is lined in bright pink fake fur (a hand-me-down from Nicky) and I can feel it sticking to my clammy face. I’m trying to be thoughtful and helpful, but so far it’s a massive faff.
Am I going to be sick? I pause… No. The feeling passes, and we carry on down the road.
The feeling returns a couple more times as Mum hurries me to the Jobcentre. It’s a half-hour walk, and it’s a horrible route, along main roads, with cars and lorries roaring past. Today, as an added treat, sleety rain seems to be blowing upwards, snatching our hoods off our heads. We finally stumble through the doors of the Jobcentre, gasping and dishevelled. Around us, people are shaking their coats and knocking umbrellas dry.
“Do that outside, if you don’t mind.” An official-looking man is berating a lady bashing her umbrella on the floor. She straightens up and looks at him as if he’s an idiot.
“I do mind!” she says. “It’s wet out there. How am I going to get my umbrella dry in the rain?” She c
atches my eye and shakes her head at me, like, This guy?
I don’t want to get involved so I stare into the distance and pick pink fluff off my face. Mum starts hunting through her pockets while the official-looking man sighs and stares at her like she’s holding EVERYONE up.
“Sorrysorry,” she’s murmuring, patting through her pockets and trying to pull out a small green card. The rain has soaked into her pocket and the card is dissolving. She holds it up to him, floppy and fragile. “I’ve got Claudette at three-thirty?”
“Well, I can’t read it, can I?” he says.
He looks up as a breeze lifts the hair around his face. I avoid his eye. Because that was me blowing on him to give him my germs. Evil sickly cackle…
He jerks his head at the staircase and Mum hurries towards it, pulling me behind her.
“Are you nervous, Mum?” I ask as we climb the stairs two at a time.
“If you’re late for appointments, they cut your benefits. Come on, Lou. Quicker.”
“Is Dad’s job not enough?”
“No, darling,” she says. “He’s a part-time bee.”
I start laughing and by the time we reach the top floor, we’re both cackling. It’s dead silent up there so everyone stares at us. We shut up immediately. Mum pushes me gently towards a bank of sofas and makes her way to a desk in the far corner, saying, “Hello, Claudette!” I sit on a sofa and look around. Dad’s right, it is like a shop that sells chairs and sadness.
Around me, damp people sit waiting. It’s very hot in here and we’re all steaming gently. The man next to me has glasses that keep fogging up. He cleans them twice then gives up.
Mum told me to bring a book as she might be a while, so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand as we left. I pull it out of an internal pocket on my coat. It’s about the only thing that stayed dry.
Good old Worry Diary. I give the front cover another look. A cake and the word “worry”. What a daft design. Stationery for someone with an eating disorder.
Anyway, I flick through it and examine my lists. I take great pride in crossing off some of the items.
Nothing to wear for prom. (Bye-bye!)
Hazel (Ha! See ya.)
Does Lav have a horrible creepy stalker?
I haven’t thought about that one for a while. I should, though. It was weird for someone to enter the competition pretending to be her. I still feel uneasy about that.
Mum needs a job.
Mum is sad.
I look up at her, being lectured by a lady with a no-nonsense bob. I guess this is the woman she was impersonating the other day, but Mum doesn’t seem to find her so funny now.
I circle my Mum Worries. And snap the book shut when suddenly she’s in front of me.
“OK!” she says, all fake cheery. “That’s that done for another two weeks!”
“Are you all right, Mum?” I say.
“I’m fine. Come on.” And she pulls me up by my big coat and bundles me back out of the Jobcentre.
As we’re walking back, rush hour is starting. We’re constantly splattered with dirty water as cars whiz through puddles on the road. A car hoots and pulls in ahead of us on the hard shoulder. Mum spots the driver and groans.
“Hi, Barb!”
Hannah’s mum gets out of her big fancy car and gestures for us to get in. “You’re soaking!” she exclaims, a little unnecessarily, tbh. “Get your wet clothes off and hop in!” She pops the boot. Hannah gives us a little wave through the back window.
“I, uh…” Mum looks at me, I look at Mum.
Barbra gets back into the warmth of the car, shouting, “Just coats, shoes and outer layers off, so you don’t damage the upholstery!”
Mum and I end up stripping off on the hard shoulder while the rain pours and cars tear past us. It’s all very well for Barbra to say just take off your wet layers, but as soon as you take something off, the item of clothing beneath it gets wet, so…
“That’s enough,” says Mum, when we’re down to T-shirts, and we hop in the car.
“Oh!” Barbra looks concerned. “You’re still a bit wet. The leather seats aren’t really meant to—”
“Mum.” Hannah is firm.
“Yes, right. Well, something for the valeting company to deal with, I suppose,” Barbra chirps to herself.
“How are you feeling? Any better?” Hannah looks concerned.
“Oh Louise, are you ill?” Barbra turns a worried face on me in the rear view mirror.
“A bit feveriiiiii-sh-ah!!” I say as Barbra winds down my window and a howling blast of hail wallops me round the face.
“I have to keep Hannah away from germs. She has national time trials in a month,” Barbra explains. I nod understandingly, although my whole head is numb.
“Mum, it’s fine, I’m fine.” Hannah leans over me and fiddles with the switches on my door to make my window go back up.
“Hannah!” Barbra presses the button in her door to make it go down again. I’m shivering, then warm, shivering, then warm. It’s a good thing I’m already feverish.
I’m so glad when we pull up outside our house.
“Thanks. Bye, Hannah, Barbra!” I say, jumping out of the car. Mum and I gather armfuls of our clothes and shoes out of Barbra’s boot and waddle awkwardly to our front door, trying not to drop things.
“Oh, glove!” says Mum, trying to kick a mitten in the air for me to catch. I grab for it and drop a jumper.
Dad opens the door and watches us struggle.
“You know you’ll be warmer if you actually wear that stuff?”
“Put the kettle on, Mark.”
He makes up for it by bringing me soup and sandwiches while I warm up on the sofa, and Mum fetches my bedcovers. I’m never usually allowed to do this. They say if I got a taste of life with food, a duvet and the TV, I’d never get off my bum and go to school. Quite right, too, I think, dipping a sandwich into my soup and channel-hopping. This is the life.
“Oh, Dermot stopped by! No, wait, the other one,” Dad says, popping his head around the door. “I can’t keep up with all your gentleman callers.”
I count them off on my fingers. “Dad, I have ONE boyfriend. And ONE friend who’s a boy.”
“They’re similar, though. Small and serious. Anyway it was Gabe.”
Aaah, he probably missed me at school. So romantic.
A load of paper lands on my lap, almost spilling my soup.
“He dropped off your homework,” says Dad.
Sigh. Thanks, Gabe. Heaven forbid I go ONE day without schoolwork. He would’ve had to go round all my teachers to gather this, I marvel, flicking through it. It’s very sweet but so flipping diligent. I know why, though: there have been times when Gabe has spent months stuck at home thanks to ME, and schoolwork means a lot when it’s your only link to normal life.
My English homework has a note on it:
No way you’ll actually do this.
I’m humouring him.
Get well soon. Mr P.
Ha ha, Mr Peters knows me so well. But I’m going to do it first, just to prove him wrong. I set to work on an essay about Shakespeare’s Othello. After about thirty minutes, I realize Mr Peters probably wrote that note as a … thingy, reverse parallel parking.
Reverse psychology! That’s what I mean. And it’s worked! Look at this essay, it’s actually good. Damn Mr Peters, he’s sneakier than Iago.
WORRY DIARY
Feel so bad for Mum going to the Jobcentre by herself.
Bump on my chin. Threatening to become spot JUST in time for prom. (I know this is less important than Mum, but it’s a really big bump.)
Asked Uliol if we should practise before prom and he said, “No! Keep the spontaneity!” Great.
When I was coaching Gabe, Ro and Pete in synchronized swimming last term, we rehearsed every spare second we could find. Uliol has a much more laid-back approach and it is freaking me out. We’re going to meet for half an hour before prom and “have a chat”. They can have a chat; I will
have a panic attack.
By Tuesday night, I feel better and I’m so bored of being at home. So on Wednesday morning I’m waiting for Aggy and Dermot. I kiss Mum goodbye, feeling a bit guilty about leaving her, and race outside as soon as I see the van.
Aggy slows down as she approaches, but doesn’t stop. “THE ENGINE’S PLAYING UP AGAIN!” she yells past Dermot, who flinches delicately at the volume. At least I know what to do now. I trot alongside, Dermot kicks open the door and I scrabble up to my seat.
“What did I miss at school?” I ask.
“People are starting to panic and ask anyone to prom,” he says. “At first, no one needed a date – they were so over trad ideas like that. Now it’s three days away, they’re panicking. Even I’ve had an offer! Girls are getting desperate.”
“Hey!” Aggy and I slap him affectionately. “Don’t put yourself down, Derm. You’re the host!” I say.
“And HANDSOME,” his mum adds.
“With an exciting fashion sense,” I tell him. “So, who did you say yes to?”
He looks shy. “I had to say no. I’m going to be so busy on the night I don’t think I’ll be a good date.”
“Shame,” I say. “I was going to ask you to ask Hannah. But duty before love. I respect that.”
As we’re pulling into the car park, my phone buzzes with a WhatsApp message. Dermot gets the same a second later. It’s a fancy digital invitation to prom.
“Better late than never.” He grins.
It’s so obvious that Cammie wrote the invitation. It says at the bottom:
“Of course it’s guaranteed!” I laugh. “It’s our prom. And YOUR house. And who’s going to turn latecomers away? My uncles are the doormen.”
“I can’t wait to meet these girls,” says Aggy. “They sound like a trip.”
“Hmmm, yeah, something like that.”
Naturally, Dermot’s address is on the invitation, and Karl Ashton recognizes it straight away. The moment we walk into our form room, people start interrogating Dermot.
“Is that your house?” Sasha demands, pointing at her phone.
“Um, yes?” says Dermot.
“Your house that you live in?” another girl asks. “Or like a community home thing or something?”
“No, just me and my mum.”
“You can have a prom in your house?” Sasha says slowly.
Lou Out of Luck Page 19