I pull open the door and do a double take.
‘Hi,’ says Allie. She’s dyed her hair bright pink and she’s wearing a rainbow T-shirt and a denim pinafore dress.
I realize after a second that I’m standing there with my mouth hanging open. But I’m not the sort of person who has friends just turning up on the doorstep unannounced. The way we’ve lived until now hasn’t really lent itself to that. And now things are different, but –
‘We just thought we’d come and see what you were up to,’ says Rio. He’s in skinny black jeans, very polished black boots with pointy toes and a checked shirt. They both look like they’ve dressed up for something.
I keep a hand on the door so I’m hanging out of it holding it behind me.
‘Also, we thought we’d better check in case you needed us,’ Allie says, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘to rescue you from the clutches of the evil stepsister.’
‘But I . . .’ I stop and pull the door closed behind me, and they shuffle back on the front step to make room for me. We stand in a little huddle of three.
I’m aware my mouth is still hanging open. I close it and stand there for a long moment, looking at them, trying to think what to say.
Rio cracks his chewing gum and then looks at me, twisting his mouth sideways thoughtfully.
‘Have we come at a bad time?’
‘No.’ I realize it’s really great that they’ve come; it’s just . . . complicated. I wasn’t expecting it to be nice having Lauren staying.
I look at Allie in her rainbow outfit, standing there looking about nineteen and strangely confident (being outside of school suits her, I think), and at Rio, who has grown in a couple of weeks and is somehow almost as tall as me.
‘How’s it going at the gallery?’ I sound like someone’s mum.
‘Ah.’ Allie fiddles with the metal clip of her pinafore. ‘That’s the other reason we’re here. D’you want to come with us tomorrow?’
‘I’m working,’ I say automatically. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’ve spent so long saying no to things like that, it’s just a habit. And I’m never going to have a life if I keep saying no to everything.
‘Oh . . . actually –’ I frown, hoping that I look like I’m just remembering – ‘my mistake. I’m not.’
‘Cool.’ Allie nods. ‘Be at mine for eight. Jack’s picking me up.’
She looks a little bit pleased with herself as she says it. He’s not Rio’s dad any more; he’s graduated to first-name terms.
‘So anyway,’ says Rio, pointing to the time on his phone, ‘that’s tomorrow sorted. Meanwhile we’re supposed to be on a mission.’
I glance at the door without meaning to.
‘I can’t really —’
There’s a shout from the kitchen.
‘Honey, are you coming to do these pizzas? Lauren’s waiting.’
Rio smiles. ‘You’d better go. We’ll see you in the morning.’
Mum calls again. ‘Who is it?’
‘Allie and Rio,’ I say.
‘Tell them they could always join us,’ she shouts.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, before they have a chance to say yes. I’m finding it weird enough that our house has an extra person in it, without trying to negotiate the social weirdness that would ensue if I started trying to mix new friends with old family. I turn back to Allie. ‘What time did you say?’
‘Eight. On the dot,’ she confirms. ‘Jack doesn’t like to be late because of the traffic.’
‘Well, I’d better not keep Jack waiting,’ I say, completely straight-faced.
Rio catches my eye, acknowledging the sarcasm behind the innocent tone, and grins. ‘You’d better not keep Lauren waiting either,’ he says, with an arch of his eyebrow. ‘Happy families and all that.’
‘It’s not . . .’ I begin.
But they’ve turned away and are walking down the path, Rio checking his phone, and Allie pulling her bright hair up into a ponytail.
The moment inside is lost too. We finish making the pizzas and eat them in the kitchen, but Lauren’s looking at her phone, and Mum’s reading a book, and afterwards I disappear to my room to message Ed, and nobody even notices.
I come back down hours later. Lauren’s in the bath, and Mum’s sitting on the sofa watching Friends and making brightly coloured crochet squares.
‘I haven’t seen you doing that in ages.’ I pick one up and look at it. It’s pink and green and white, with a dusty sort of blue around the outside.
‘I haven’t done it in ages.’ She puts the crochet hook and wool down for a second and looks at me.
I pile up the four little squares she’s made into a tower and line up the balls of wool that are on the table so all their labels match.
‘You OK?’ She squeezes my knee.
‘I’m fine.’
‘I mean with . . .’ She lifts her head, motioning towards the stairs. I know she means with Lauren being here.
‘I thought she was going to be more . . .’
‘Prickly?’
We share a secret grin.
‘She’s had a tough time too, y’know.’
I roll my eyes. I might be ready to accept that she’s not one hundred per cent wicked stepsister, but I’m not completely on board with the idea that she’s actually BFF-for-life material.
‘Tell me about this Allie and Rio?’
‘Oh, they’re just people from school. They’re nice.’
‘You could have invited them in, you know. I mean now the house is . . .’ She tails off again.
‘I know. But it’s awkward. With them, I mean.’
‘Being in a three?’
I nod, my mouth set in a flat sort of line. I can feel it turning down at the ends. I don’t want to go tomorrow for a million different reasons.
‘You can only feel left out if you choose to let it in,’ Mum says.
I give her a dubious look. ‘Is that what your new counsellor says?’
She’s been twice now. The first time, Cressi drove her. The second, she got the bus to the surgery, hopping up the back path to the bus stop on Crawford Road. When she got back, she was exhausted, but she said she preferred to have some time to think things over afterwards.
‘It’s not, no. It’s what I say.’ She points to the poster in the hall that is in a frame. It’s a black-and-white band photo of Mum, Joey and Anna. Tour dates are printed over the top of their faces, but when I look at it I can see that two of them are laughing, looking at each other and creasing up as if someone’s said something hysterically funny. Mum’s looking directly at the camera, her face solemn. I’d never really looked at it properly before.
‘Those two were always like that,’ she says, crossing her two fingers and holding them up. ‘I was on the outside. I spent years feeling like it was something I’d done, or something I hadn’t done. And I’m realizing something that I didn’t hear enough when I was growing up, which is that – you’re perfect just as you are . . .’
She lifts my chin with a finger, turning my face round to look into my eyes.
‘I guess I haven’t told you that often enough either.’
I give her an upside-down sort of smile, feeling a bit awkward.
‘Thank you,’ I say stiffly. She’s still got a hand under my chin.
‘Come here,’ she says, and pulls me into a hug. ‘Still enjoying the swimming?’ she says into the top of my hair.
I nod.
‘You seem to be getting a lot of hours up there. They’re not overworking you, are they?’
I sit back.
‘No, I’m covering some of the teachers that are away, that’s all. The sooner I do my forty voluntary hours, the sooner I cover the cost of the training course – then I get paid.’
I’m lying, and hope she won’t suddenly have a personality transplant and call to check up on me. But it’s a miracle that she’s even managed to catch a bus to the surgery down the road – the chances of her deciding to start making p
hone calls and investigating what I’m up to are pretty slim.
‘They’re not taking advantage of you?’
I think of Ed standing at the bus stop and the sensation of his hand curling under my hair as he pulls me into a kiss and the way the muscles of his shoulders feel when I wrap my arms around them, and I hide a smile.
‘They are not taking advantage, no.’
The emphasis is lost on her. I give her a kiss and head back upstairs, my phone in my pocket.
Lauren emerges from the bathroom, pink-faced and wrapped in a towel. Her hair is dripping down her back.
‘Hi, Holly.’
I smile and go to open my bedroom door, but she stops me.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ she says.
I turn back.
She takes a towel from the airing cupboard and bends over, wrapping it round her head to soak up the water from her hair.
I wait.
‘It’s in here.’ She heads for the bedroom and beckons me to follow her.
It’s funny that she’s already made the room feel like hers again – as if it’s been waiting for her to come back and reclaim it. The house feels more like a home with three of us in it, instead of just me and Mum rattling around.
She pulls out a plastic bag from the drawer, and I notice her cheeks have gone even pinker – not just from the heat of the bath.
‘I got this the other day when I was shopping.’
She pulls something out of the bag – it’s black and expensive-looking. I can’t quite work out if it’s underwear or a top.
‘It’s nice,’ I say politely. I lean closer, realizing as she’s shaking it out that it’s neither – it’s a swimsuit.
‘It’s not for me.’ She proffers the little plastic hanger with the suit attached. ‘I had a voucher and I saw it and I thought maybe you’d like it.’
I take it from her. It’s made of smooth black fabric, and instead of the sensible school-uniform Speedo costume I normally wear, this one is pretty with a scooped neck.
‘I noticed yours was looking a bit dead when I took the washing out of the machine the other day, and . . .’
There’s a moment where we both look at each other, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing. I can’t afford new stuff, and she’s got loads of it.
‘. . . Anyway,’ she continues, picking up the bag and folding it in half, and then in half again, ‘I hope it’s OK. You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to.’
I look down at it again and feel a huge grin spreading over my face.
‘I love it.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Wish you were up here.
Wish I wasn’t going to Edinburgh.
Wish it was tomorrow.
Wish you were . . . I stop myself typing. What I want to say is Kissing me. Now.
I feel like I might be under a spell. I’m walking down to Allie’s house, and it’s so early in the morning that the only people on the road are exercise-fanatic joggers and cars heading up to Hopeburn to catch the train to Edinburgh. The city bus lumbers past, half-asleep commuters leaning against the windows, mouths hanging open. I walk and I message Ed, and I feel like I’m fizzing over with excitement.
‘You’re early.’ Allie is clearly terrible in the mornings. She’s swaying in the doorway, her pink hair standing up in fuzzy tufts, last night’s foundation settled like a mask on her face. She rubs her eye and smears eyeliner and mascara halfway down her cheek.
‘Morning,’ I say. I shove my phone in my pocket and follow her inside.
Allie’s mum looks up and smiles. ‘Come in, my duck – you must be Holly.’
Their house joins on to the side of the shop, and I catch a glimpse of her dad unpacking the papers and stacking them on the shelves.
‘We’re all running a bit late today. D’you want a cup of tea while you’re waiting?’
Allie’s house is dark and cosy, even in the middle of summer. The sitting room looks out over the Firth of Forth, and it’s shabby and comfortable, not posh.
‘I’ll just be a minute,’ says Allie, thumping up the stairs.
She must get ready faster than anyone I know. I’ve been up since six, had a bath, dried and straightened my hair, put on make-up to try and make myself look less like a twelve-year-old, and tried on and discarded about five different outfits. I pull the hem of my skirt down. It’s shorter when I sit, and there seems to be an awful lot of thigh before my knees appear. I’ve got a grey cardigan and one of Mum’s old band T-shirts on, and a jumble of plaited friendship bracelets tied to my wrist.
Allie’s mum places a cup of tea in front of me. It’s always awkward when you’re sitting in a strange house. I clear my throat and press my knees together. She unwraps a packet of Kit Kats and offers me one.
‘I may as well give you three these to take with you. Allie’s refused a packed lunch every day she’s been working at the gallery. I bet you’ve got one, haven’t you?’
I look at her and pull a confused face. ‘I haven’t, no – but I didn’t realize we were . . .’
I had some of the money Neil had given us shoved in the back of my purse, and a bottle of Coke in my bag that was left over from yesterday.
‘Paying a fortune for Edinburgh lunches. I don’t know what she’s thinking of. Thank goodness she’s got Rio there with her keeping her on the straight and narrow.’
I feel my eyes widening. Rio, the person obsessed with designer labels who dreams of living in LA and doing all his shopping at Whole Foods? He’s not the first person I think of if I’m asked to picture someone with an economical nature.
‘He’s a lovely boy.’ Allie’s mum sits down beside me and unwraps a Kit Kat, snaps it in two and pops half in her mouth in one go.
She munches noisily for a second.
‘Lovely boy,’ she repeats, and looks at me knowingly.
I smile back, taking a sip of my tea.
‘I can’t help thinking –’ she leans in closer and her voice drops – ‘you know . . .’ She gives a knowing sort of nod.
I look at her for a second as my brain processes what she’s saying.
‘Rio and . . . Allie?’ I say.
She nods, slowly and emphatically.
I dart a look at the hall, hoping that Allie might come thundering down the stairs and rescue me from this conversation.
‘I – I just . . . I’m not sure that . . .’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t start with that – I know, I know. Experimenting and all that stuff. I watched a programme on Channel Four all about it. But there’s no smoke without fire, and the two of them are like –’ she lifts her crossed fingers in the air, echoing the exact motion that Mum made last night – ‘that.’
‘OK,’ I say.
There’s a sharp rap at the door.
‘That’ll be Rio. Shall I get the door?’ I say, jumping up so fast that I knock the tea off the table. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ Allie’s mum says in her lovely Birmingham accent. ‘Off you go. I’ll sort it out.’ And she gives me a massive wink as Allie walks into the room.
‘What the hell was that about?’
Allie, Rio and I are crammed with a load of canvases in the back of Rio’s dad’s beaten-up old Land Rover. It’s not the kind with luxury leather seats and onboard video – it’s the kind that’s held together with bolts, and rattles you so hard that you feel your brain coming loose.
We judder to a halt at the junction that takes us out of town.
‘Your mother has decided –’ I pause for a second and look from Allie to Rio – ‘that you two are . . . a thing.’
Allie puts her hands to her face in a passable impression of Edvard Munch’s The Scream painting.
Rio looks horrified. ‘No way.’
I nod.
Allie looks at Rio, and the two of them burst out laughing.
‘Never going to happen,’ they say, at exactly the same time.
‘I guess
ed that,’ I say, and think about the fact that a few weeks ago, before I knew them, I’d come to exactly the same wrong conclusion. ‘But you might have some explaining to do when your mum’s already heading to John Lewis to buy a wedding hat.’
We bump our way along the motorway, through the outskirts of town and into the centre of Edinburgh. I watch as the houses change from the low white-harling bungalows to the huge brick villas and the Georgian terraces of the New Town.
We pull up on the high street, under the bridge, and I look up at the buildings piled on top of each other and imagine the castle up there, out of sight, balanced on its outcrop of rock. It doesn’t matter how many times I come here, I fall in love with it in a different way each visit. I love it here – the tourists that drive the locals crazy, the posh Morningside ladies with their little dogs, the half-drunk students lazing on the grass of the Meadows. It feels like everything you could ever want is here.
‘Holls?’
Allie has been out to the Land Rover and has two canvases under her arms. Rio’s stacking them neatly against the white-painted walls of the gallery.
‘Sorry.’
‘Can you give us a hand?’ she says, looking at Jack for approval.
Rio’s dad flashes me a quick grin, and his eyebrows dance upward in amusement as Allie marches back out.
‘Allie’s quite . . . keen.’
I smile. I feel a bit awkward standing there.
Rio’s dad hands me a pile of printed programmes. ‘I know you’re not working – you’re welcome to go off and do your own thing – but if you want to help me for a sec I could do with someone to just check these are all numbered.’
I check that there’s a name and number printed on the front of each catalogue, and then when I’m done I skim through one of them, looking at the pictures that are shown inside.
‘I’m hoping we’ll get a few sales at this exhibition tonight.’
‘Are your pictures in here?’ I look down, wondering if I’d recognize which ones are his.
Jack gathers the catalogues up and puts them in a neat pile on top of the rough wood of the counter. It’s made, I think, from scaffolding, the metal bars at each corner strung with lights, which frame the sign that hangs below it. This feels like the coolest part of town, and I feel like a scruffy small-town hick. Somehow Jack’s faded, paint-smeared jeans and holey T-shirt look like they’re a deliberate choice. I feel low rent and hokey. I pull my hands into the sleeves of my cardigan, aware that I’m taking up too much space.
My Box-Shaped Heart Page 13