Eventually Ed shoulders me gently and pushes the button on the pole beside our seat. ‘This is us.’
We’re on the high street, just up from the Meadows where Allie likes to sit and pretend to be a student. Next year, she’ll be up here with Milly, hanging out with a group of Edinburgh friends. Maybe we could all meet up, I think, trying to work out if Ed would get on with her and Rio.
We sway down the stairs of the double-decker bus and land in another world. Morningside is the poshest part of Edinburgh I’ve ever been to. We duck down an alleyway, and Ed pulls his hood up over his head. The sun’s gone in, and the sky is darkening with the threat of rain.
‘It’s just down here.’ He’s walking fast, still holding my hand.
And then we turn the corner on to a street where the houses are set back from the pavement in their own gardens, fences high to keep the world out.
We cross the road, and Ed peers over a stone wall and through a hedge.
‘Nobody in!’
He sounds triumphant, but I feel sick with nerves. He punches a code into the box in the wall and the metal gates swing open.
We’re standing on a gravelled driveway, which is big enough for about ten cars. It sweeps round in an arc, edged with grass that looks like it’s been trimmed with nail scissors. In the middle of the lawn, there’s a circle of purple lavender bushes. It looks like a park.
I hesitate. ‘Do you think this is a good idea?’
‘There’s nobody here. It’s fine.’
Ed strides forward and I follow behind, checking over my shoulders. I half expect a security guard to leap out of the bushes.
Ed’s fiddling with a metal case that is hidden in a bush outside the door. It’s got a number dial like a bike lock, and he frowns for a second as he turns the last one and pulls. The front of the box springs open and he takes a set of keys from inside.
‘You’ve got keys outside your house?’
He looks awkward for a moment. ‘For the cleaner,’ he says, and pulls a face.
As I’m digesting this information, he swings the huge blue-painted front door open and it becomes clear that we really do come from different worlds. The hall – with gleaming black and white tiles on the floor – is bigger than our sitting room at home.
‘OK,’ I say, following him into the kitchen. ‘So what exactly are we doing here?’
Ed looks around, running a hand along the smooth marble of the work surface. ‘Well, this is weird.’
I can see now why the pretty cottage, which seems like a dream house to me, is – well, it’s a step down to them. And I feel like a step down too, standing in a pair of faded cut-off jeans, with my hair in a messy plait down my back. This sort of place is meant for the kind of sleek-haired private-school girls Ed probably used to spend time with. I feel the knot in my stomach growing bigger and more uncomfortable.
‘I just wanted to get something.’
‘What?’
‘Wait here.’ He holds up a finger for a moment and shoots out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there.
It’s like something from one of the house magazines Mum loves. She would be in heaven here – it’s even got one of those big Aga cookers in the same shiny bright blue as the front door. It doesn’t look like anyone has ever cooked here. The entire place is clinical and spotless and . . . I feel myself shiver as if someone’s walked over my grave.
I step out into the hall and stand beside a glossy wooden table, which has a huge floral arrangement in a vase. The smell of lilies is almost sickly sweet, and I step away, looking up the stairs, trying to work out if I should call Ed, wondering where he’s gone. For all I know, there’s an alarm or CCTV. I wonder if he’s even thought of that – then I remember that it’s his house, and we’re technically not breaking in, even if it feels like it.
He runs down the stairs two at a time, a grin spread across his face.
‘Sorted.’
For a moment I wonder if he’s done something awful like thrown a tin of paint across the walls or smashed up the furniture.
‘What’s sorted?’
I spin round to look at him. He’s rummaging in a drawer and scribbling a note on a piece of paper.
‘Just a minute.’
He signs it with a flourish and leaves the pen and the note lying there, one tiny thing out of place in the immaculate room.
We slip outside, he puts the key back in the safety box and spins the dials, and we scrunch down the drive and out. It’s starting to rain now, big fat splashes, which splatter on the pavement around us.
‘What have you done?’
‘Come on,’ he says, and we run along the road and duck back down the alleyway and dart between the Morningside Road traffic and throw ourselves on to the number 16 bus with half a second to spare.
We get the best seat on the double-decker – the top deck, right above the driver’s seat. Sitting at the front of the bus, looking out over the city as we head towards the centre of town, it takes us both a minute to stop panting.
‘OK.’ I turn to him. ‘Are you going to tell me what crime I’ve just been an accessory to?’
Ed puts his hand in the pocket of his hoody and pulls out a tangle of expensive-looking jewellery.
‘When we left, Mum left all this behind.’
‘Are you going to sell it?’ I think of the trip I made with Cressi, when we took a heap of boxes of Mum’s random purchases to the Cash Generator store and returned home with enough money to pay off the bills that were outstanding.
‘It was from my grandma.’ Ed shakes his head. ‘I mean, she might want to, but I can’t imagine it.’
‘She didn’t have time to take it when you left?’
‘It wasn’t really like that.’ His face clouds over. ‘When it happened, we literally grabbed a bag each and went.’
‘So that’s the first time you’ve been back there since?’
He nods. ‘Pretty weird.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, and we sit in silence for a while as the bus makes its way down the hill towards Lothian Road.
I think about Mum and her posh musician friends in Norfolk, and how visiting there always felt a bit like being second best, and how standing in the glossy affluence of Morningside had somehow brought up that same feeling of not being quite good enough, and I wonder if Ed is thinking the same thing.
‘I’m sorry our day trip to the beach turned into a heist,’ Ed says as we walk down the high street from the station. ‘D’you want to come back to mine? I’m sure Mum would love to see you.’
His manners are impeccable as always, but somehow tonight they make me feel uncomfortable, not charmed. I feel like I’ve seen another side to him, and I don’t know where I fit in.
‘I better go,’ I say, checking my phone. ‘We’ve got Lauren’s last night.’
‘I’ll wait with you.’
We stop at the bus stop and sit down on the plastic bench where he shared chips with me that first night we met.
I shake my head. ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I feel a bit freaked out at the idea you’ve got . . . that –’ I stare meaningfully at the pocket of his hoody, which is bulging with jewels worth God knows how much – ‘in there.’
‘Good point.’
I don’t get up from the bench but incline my face up to his as he leans over, his legs on either side of mine, and kisses me goodbye. I watch him striding down the street and feel unaccountably sad. There’s a chill of autumn in the air. Lauren’s going home, summer’s almost over and it feels like it’s the beginning of endings.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Neil returns from his holiday with a tan that looks like his skin is made of leather, and arrives at the door with a bag of duty-free perfume nobody will ever wear. He’s bought three bottles of exactly the same stuff.
‘It’s classy – Clare wears it.’
Lauren catches my eye, and our deadpan expressions match.
‘That’s very kind of you, Neil,’ Mum says, putting the bag down on the ki
tchen table.
‘Do you want some coffee, Dad?’ Lauren goes to fill the kettle.
‘You’re all right, princess. I’m sure you’re dying to get back to your own room, settle yourself back in and all that.’ He jingles the keys in his hand.
‘About that,’ Mum says, and she gives him one of those looks. ‘Can I have a word?’
And she takes him through to the sitting room, still limping a bit on her sore ankle, and Lauren and I stand in the kitchen and look at each other.
‘D’you reckon he’ll go for it?’ I twirl a lock of hair round my finger and let it go, watching it bounce. Lauren’s curled my hair with her straighteners so instead of being an orange mass of fuzz, it’s hanging in fat, bouncy waves. I feel like a ginger Kate Middleton, only without the castle or the . . . I pause for a second, remembering Ed’s enormous house and the immaculate gravelled driveway, and I laugh.
‘What is it?’
‘Just thinking about how weird this summer’s been.’
Lauren gives a shy smile. I’m surprised how things have worked out with her. I suppose she’s just another surprise in a summer holiday that’s been full of them.
We stand in the kitchen and listen to the low rumble of Neil’s voice and Mum explaining that Lauren wants to spend time with us, living here, and that we’re part of her family, and she’s welcome to stay as much as she wants. And neither of us say a word. We just listen in silence.
Eventually Neil comes back through, and Mum follows behind him, giving a grin and a thumbs-up behind his back.
‘Well, girls,’ Neil says. ‘This has been a bit of a shock to the system. I have to say I expected to get back and find you standing at the front door with your bag packed, Lauren.’
‘I think we’ve muddled along pretty well.’ Mum looks proud of herself.
Three weeks ago when Lauren walked in the door and I felt sick with nerves at how it was going to work out, I had no idea we’d be here now.
‘So you’re not wanting to come back tonight?’ Neil rubs his chin and looks confused.
Lauren darts me a look. ‘We’ve got some stuff to do.’
He shakes his head as if he can’t quite believe it. Neil’s not used to hearing people say no – he’s a salesman, and his entire life is predicated on his staying put until someone gives in and does what he wants. It’s weird watching him – he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.
‘I’m not saying I’m not coming back, Dad.’ Lauren puts a conciliatory arm round his waist and hugs him so his face brightens. ‘Just that we’re going to Edinburgh tomorrow. And I might as well go from here as from the other side of town.’
He shrugs. ‘Fair enough, I suppose. Clare will be disappointed, mind you.’
Mum, Lauren and I all raise our eyebrows in a perfectly synchronized motion.
‘I’m sure she’ll survive,’ says Mum, seeing him out.
The idea of Clare, who treats everyone under the age of twenty as if they’re toxic waste, actually being disappointed that Lauren wasn’t going back to steal her mascara and leave hairs in the bathroom basin was pretty unlikely. Lauren had sat one evening telling us just how clear Clare had made it that she wasn’t welcome there. She wasn’t allowed to eat anything without asking permission. Eyebrows were raised if she was in the bathroom for too long. And Clare’s dog, Alfie, was a no-go area.
‘She’s actually told me that I’m not to tell anyone he’s my dog.’
‘That’s insane,’ Mum had said.
‘I know. But I think she can’t bear sharing Dad, and this is her way of making up for it.’
‘Families can be pretty weird,’ I’d said. And we’d gone out to the back door and picked dandelions from the roadside and fed them to Courtney Love, and I’d found myself telling Lauren that she could share our rabbit any time she wanted. It sounded strangely childish, but at the same time the delight on her face suggested that maybe it was exactly what she’d needed to hear.
Families can be pretty weird. Neil drives off in his gleaming Range Rover, and Mum and Lauren wash up the dishes from lunch. I fish my schoolbag out from the cupboard under the stairs and put my festering PE kit in the washing machine.
‘I can’t face going back,’ Lauren says. She’s biting her lip.
‘We’ll be fine.’
I straighten up and do a little finger dance to cheer her up, singing the ‘I’ll Be There for You’ theme tune from the beginning of Friends. It makes her laugh, and I feel genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy. It’s a good feeling.
Thursday, though, will be the real test. I’m throwing myself in at the deep end and taking Lauren and Ed on the train to Edinburgh. We’re going to head up to the gallery, meet up with Allie and Rio, introduce everyone and have a picnic in Princes Street Gardens.
There’s a small voice inside my head asking what can possibly go wrong. And another one that keeps saying everything. I’m choosing to ignore it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
We’re on the train to Edinburgh. I’m sitting beside Ed and we’re facing Lauren. Her blonde hair is spread across her shoulders, and her pink-lipsticked mouth puckered sideways. I know she’s chewing the inside of her cheek, just like she does every time she’s nervous.
‘What kind of stuff does your friend’s dad paint?’
I’m not holding Ed’s hand. I feel a bit shy, and also I don’t want Lauren to feel like a third wheel, and we’re all making stiff conversation as if we’ve just been introduced in an incredibly awkward social setting. Which we have.
‘Um . . .’ I think of the huge canvases layered with geometric shapes and colours. ‘They’re not really of things – they’re more like . . . ideas.’
‘I like paintings that look recognizable,’ Lauren says. ‘Like Monet and the impressionists.’
Their pretty floral art is as far removed from Jack’s enormous in-your-face paintings as you can get. This is going to be a disaster.
‘Well, they’re – not that.’
Ed laughs. ‘I think the idea is we’re making up numbers. They want people there so it looks like lots of potential buyers are interested.’
Lauren giggles at this. ‘Because we’re totally the sort of people who’d be buying modern art.’
‘I happen to be a bit of a connoisseur, actually,’ Ed says in a silly mock-pompous voice. ‘I’ve got several artworks in my bedroom.’
‘I’m doing History of Art as a Higher.’ Lauren fiddles with the cuff of her shirt.
‘Me too,’ Ed says.
And somehow that breaks the ice, and the rest of the journey we compare notes on the awfulness of school and the hopes we have that fifth year might not be so bad. And I watch Ed and Lauren talking and think how weird this all is. But it feels good.
‘You might need to work on your “polite but interested” gallery face,’ Ed says to Lauren. ‘Have you ever been to anything like this before?’
I shove him with my elbow. ‘Could you sound any more patronizing?’
‘It’s fine.’ Lauren laughs at him. ‘I mean, if we didn’t have you here mansplaining art, we mightn’t know what we were looking at.’
‘I didn’t mean –’ Ed’s tone is mock-injured.
‘I know,’ we both say.
‘You can’t help it,’ I continue. ‘It’s the patriarchy. Not your fault.’
‘I can’t win here, outnumbered by you two.’
Lauren and I exchange a look and grin at him. ‘Nope.’
When we get to the gallery, my stomach is a tight knot of nerves and anxiety. This is so far out of my comfort zone that I have literally no point of reference. I’m not exactly an expert at smoothing over social situations, and I want everyone to get on. I feel like it’s up to me to make it work. But Allie and Rio are standing at the back wall, chatting to his dad. Lauren peers at one of the paintings in the window.
‘Ed,’ she says, turning to him with a mischievous expression, ‘can you just explain this painting to me?’
So when Allie a
nd Rio spot us and hurtle to the front of the gallery, expecting just to be introduced to Ed, they’re completely thrown to discover me and Lauren laughing, and Ed standing beside us with his hands in his pockets, shaking his head in despair.
‘You must be Ed,’ says Rio, and puts his hand out. Working here has turned him into the version of himself he always wanted to be. He’s in a skinny black tie and a shirt, and the grey suit he bought ages ago from the charity shop in town. Somehow he carries it off.
‘Thank God,’ Ed says. ‘These two are ganging up on me.’
And Rio looks at us, and Lauren straightens up, and for a second there’s a weird feeling in the air. He and Allie haven’t been around to see the transformation of Lauren into someone I’d voluntarily spend time with . . . or the re-transformation? Whatever. I really hoped that when school went back, she wasn’t going to go back to being the ice queen of the popular gang, and us to the pond slime social rejects.
We do all the introductions. Allie’s still un-prickly and genuinely delighted to meet Ed, dragging him across the room to meet Rio’s dad. I watch her as she flicks her pale pink hair over her shoulder. It’s grown this summer. She looks happy. I watch as her face lights up and she gives a tiny, shy wave to a girl who has just walked past us in the doorway.
‘Love’s young dream, strike two,’ says Rio, rolling his eyes at Lauren.
And for a weird fleeting moment as I watch Allie greeting Milly with a kiss – because this is a gallery in Edinburgh and not the high street in Kilmuir – I think that if this was a movie, it would end with Lauren the High School Princess getting together with Rio the Sharp-suited Outcast. But he takes her off to look at the paintings, and I think that with Rio explaining them maybe they’ll make some sense, at least.
My Box-Shaped Heart Page 18