by Sue Limb
‘Delightful, as usual.’ At least Jess was determined to keep the conversation normal. ‘An endless succession of wonderful treats.’
‘Come and meet Ken,’ said Mum, a strange expression masking her face, as if she was possessed by a demon. They entered the sitting room and were enveloped by a strange and sickening smell.
A man was sitting on the sofa. The smell could only be coming from him, unless a crocodile had died behind the sofa some days ago and it had somehow escaped their notice. The man was small and dark and, spookily, he seemed to have borrowed the head of a much bigger man. Maybe he had bought it on eBay.
As heads go, it wasn’t unpleasant. Basically, it was a low-budget Roman emperor, with black slicked-back hair, a long hooked nose, bristling eyebrows and a strong stubbly chin – you could see he had to shave about three times a day. He was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a rugby shirt, with a thicket of dark hair sprouting out of the top. He was not so much a possible date as some kind of wildlife park.
On seeing Jess, he got to his feet and extended his hand, his face cracking open to reveal a ragged row of yellow teeth. The handshake was disastrously limp – you’d have got more of a touchy-feely thrill from a dead handbag.
‘This is my daughter, Jess,’ said Mum faintly. ‘Jess, this is Ken.’
‘Hi, Ken,’ said Jess, trying to hide her deep disgust.
‘Hi, Jess.’ Ken’s voice was unexpectedly deep, dark and masculine. Presumably Mum had seen a flattering photo emphasising the Roman emperor side of things, been impressed with his telephone voice and then been horrified to be enveloped in his aroma.
I mustn’t be prejudiced, thought Jess urgently. He might be really nice once you get past the smell.
‘Ken was just telling me about his CD collection,’ said Mum with an anguished glare. ‘He’s into classical music.’
‘Yes,’ said Ken, ‘we were discussing the St Matthew Passion. Do you like classical music, Jess?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never really got into it,’ said Jess defiantly. ‘It makes me feel kind of depressed and Sundayish. Although I do like … What is that thing, Mum?’
‘Prokofiev,’ replied Mum edgily.
‘Prokofiev!’ boomed Ken. For a moment it sounded as if he’d sneezed or coughed. Foreign names can be like that. ‘Prokofiev’s a bit showy for my taste,’ Ken went on. ‘You can’t compare him to the St Matthew Passion.’
‘What exactly was St Matthew’s Passion?’ asked Jess. ‘Mine is ice cream.’
Ken didn’t even register the joke, he just kind of launched himself into a stream of words. ‘It’s the Passion of Christ, obviously the crucifixion, you know?’
Jess did know – she was planning to crucify Ken in a few minutes’ time. In fact, she’d already chosen the exact place on the wall where he would fit in nicely: between Mum’s graduation photo and a print of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
‘There’s nothing to beat the St Matthew Passion performed on period instruments,’ Ken rolled on. ‘You can’t beat the Netherlands Bach Society,’ he informed them.
He pronounced ‘Bach’ like ‘Bark’, making Jess briefly wonder if there was a choir composed entirely of dogs and, if so, whether they could be persuaded to chase Ken down the street and over the horizon, snapping ferociously at the seat of his pants.
There was a split second of silence.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Jess eagerly, longing to escape to the kitchen. ‘I often put the kettle on – they say it suits me.’
‘Jess wants to be a comedy writer,’ explained Mum, with a feeble smile. ‘She’s occasionally charming but mostly insane, I’m afraid.’
‘Comedy. Ah! Ha ha!’ Ken produced something clearly intended to be a laugh, but which would have qualified him to sing bass in the Netherlands Bark Society, along with the mastiffs and bloodhounds. ‘Comedy, eh, Jess? Good luck! I think you’re marvellous!’
Jess retreated towards the door. Though she was committed in a general way to being marvellous, she’d just as soon Ken found her utterly vile, thanks very much.
‘Do you like biscuits?’ she enquired, trying to sound as un-marvellous as possible. In fact, she delivered the question with a sinister sneer, as if she was planning to slip him a flapjack made of toad’s skin.
‘Usually I avoid biscuits,’ boomed Ken, ‘because of the sugar and the wheat, you know – they can make me a bit hyper.’
‘A bit hyper’, thought Jess. If he’s like this now, what will he be like when he’s got a couple of chocolate biscuits inside him?
‘But I’m suffering a bit from low blood sugar,’ Ken informed them menacingly. ‘It often dips at this time in the day.’
‘Biscuits it is, then!’ cried Mum, and she and Jess ran out to the kitchen together.
Behind them, Ken sat in a horrible silence. If only they had a recording of something played on period instruments! Although Mum owned a CD or two, the CD player had stopped working after an unfortunate accident involving the Christmas tree and a pot of tea.
Mum filled the kettle, staring at a robin on the bird table out in the garden. You could see she was longing to elope with that bird.
‘So, how was school?’ she asked again, loudly. Their conversation could obviously be overheard in the sitting room, even with the kettle seething quietly towards boiling point (an emotional state quite accurately reflecting Jess’s).
‘School was fine,’ said Jess distractedly. Mum was scribbling something down on a piece of paper. ‘History was the best lesson today, because Mrs Fitzherbert had a coughing fit.’
‘Oh, good, dear,’ said Mum absently. She pushed the note across the table. It read: For goodness’ sake, get rid of him. ‘And how’s Fred?’
Jess grabbed the pencil. HOW??? she wrote. ‘Oh, fine. Fred’s organising the music for the dinner dance.’
‘Oh, lovely,’ said Mum, scribbling again. Pretend to be ill, she wrote.
What’s that horrible stink? wrote Jess. ‘How was your day?’ she trilled, in a conversation that was taking place somewhere on another planet.
‘Oh, not too bad. Alison’s going down with a cold so we must remember to take our vitamin C,’ replied Mum. Then she seized the pencil. I was supposed to go out for a drink with him. Say you feel sick and then I’ll have to stay here.
At this point the kettle boiled, the tea was made, and Jess cracked open a packet of chocolate biscuits and stole a few of Granny’s custard creams.
Lay it on with a trowel, added Mum, with heavy underlining.
They carried the tea tray into the sitting room. Ken was sitting upright like a robot. Jess wondered all over again how such a big head could have been assigned to such a short man. She wasn’t against short men in principle – Mackenzie at school, for instance, was cute and cuddly – but Ken had nothing going for him except his possible departure.
‘Mum,’ Jess faltered, reaching deep into her drama department, ‘I feel a bit weird.’ She plonked down on to a chair.
‘You look pale, darling!’ cried the strange false mum who called her darling. ‘What is it?’
‘I feel sick!’ gasped Jess, clutching her tummy. ‘Oh dear! I think I’m going to faint!’
‘Put her head between her knees!’ suggested Ken impertinently.
You keep out of it, you stinking weirdo, thought Jess.
‘You ought to lie down.’ Mum pulled at her arm.
‘Shall I help get her upstairs?’ Ken cried eagerly, leaping to his feet.
‘No, it’s all right!’ screamed Mum in alarm. ‘Jess often gets a dodgy tummy. Just pour yourself a cup of tea, I’ll be back down in a minute.’
Once safely in Jess’s bedroom, a strange madness came over them. Mum’s eyes took on a deranged quality.
‘Lie down!’ she whispered. ‘I’ll get you a glass of water!’
‘But, Mum, I’m perfectly OK!’ Jess reminded her. ‘I don’t really feel sick!’
‘Oh help, I’m losing it!’ Mum grabbed her hair in a frazzled
gesture. ‘What planet am I on?’
‘Never mind that – what planet is he from?’ whispered Jess. She burst into a terrible fit of giggling. Mum joined her. They fell on the bed and shook with silent laughter, filling their mouths with parts of the pillow. Eventually Mum dragged herself off the bed and started pulling her clothes tidy.
‘Thanks, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and get rid of him now. If you haven’t heard him leave by half past, come down and faint on the floor or be sick over him.’
‘I can’t just vomit at will, Mum,’ Jess informed her. ‘Though I admit it would look good on my CV – I could probably get a job in the circus.’
‘Don’t!’ Mum looked unhinged for a moment. ‘I mustn’t laugh! I could go hysterical just like that! I’m right on the edge!’ She nerved herself up by the door for a moment, crossed both fingers in a kind of symbolic salute and then left the room.
Jess’s phone bleeped again. Another text message! It would be Fred this time, apologising and reporting success in fixing up the band for the dinner dance.
But it was Dad again. YOU AND I ARE GOING TO STAR IN A GOTHIC HORROR MOVIE. CHECK YR EMAIL AND RING ME ASAP!
Huh! Little did Dad know that Jess was starring in a Gothic horror movie already – right now, in the privacy of her own home.
Chapter 6
Jess switched on her laptop and found Dad’s email. Good afternoon to my only descendant, it began. Oh, so he was in one of those moods. Listen, I’ve had a terrific idea. Why don’t you and I write a story together – one paragraph at a time – and if we sell the film rights, we’ll go halves! I’ve been reading Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and it’s totally blown my mind. I’ve started some dark blue paintings with a kind of Gothic fantasy element, although Phil says they’ll never sell. He sends his love, by the way – he’s out surfing. (Phil was Dad’s boyfriend. He surfed all year round – he had a state-of-the-art wetsuit. He could afford it, because he had successful boutiques in St Ives, Newquay and Penzance.)
Attached to the email was a document called Lord of the Wrongs. Jess’s heart sank. She didn’t have time for this. She needed to supervise Smelly Ken’s departure and call Fred about the band. But she really missed Dad – it was tough, living two hundred miles apart – so she opened the attachment and read on.
Lord Volcano stood at a window of a tall tower overlooking the sea, stroking his beard. The sky was blue. The sea was blue. His beard was blue. No wonder I’m feeling a bit down, thought Lord V. His beard was growing so, so slowly. I’m not getting enough protein, he fretted. It had been a mistake to barbecue all the rats in a one-off Christmas binge. He was waiting for his beard to grow long enough to dangle down to the ground (30 metres, approx). Then his long-lost daughter would surely come and rescue him. Lord Volcano was being held prisoner in the tower by the wicked Sir Filo Pastry, who …
The document stopped abruptly. Dad was such a clueless idiot when it came to computers! He had obviously lost half his document. Unless – wait! Maybe this was where Jess was supposed to pick up the story. She saved a copy and stared at the last sentence, her mind racing, then she started to write.
The wicked Sir Filo Pastry, who … was jealous of Lord Volcano’s ability to communicate with animals, and jealous, also, of his magic socks.
Meanwhile, far away in the east, Lord Volcano’s lovely daughter Messica was also imprisoned, by a wicked witch who lured men to her modest semi-detached hovel in order to steal their thoughts and weave herself a magic cloak from them. Currently Messica was lurking in her room, while downstairs the witch was offering magic potions to a man with an unusually large head which he had slightly over-stuffed with music. Occasionally a few notes of Prokofiev would trickle out of his right ear, and the witch would catch them in a jam jar. But soon she …
She whizzed the document back to Dad. This was quite fun after all. Suddenly, she heard the front door open and close. Smelly Ken must have gone – unless it was Mum who had gone, leaving Jess alone with him. The thought made Jess’s blood run cold. She tiptoed to her bedroom door and opened it a crack.
‘He’s gone!’ Mum yelled from the hall. ‘He’s gone! Quick, where’s the air freshener?’
‘How come you got as far as actually meeting that weirdo?’ Jess demanded, thundering downstairs. She ran into the sitting room and sniffed. ‘It’s still there! What is that horrendous stink?’
‘It’s that smell you get when you don’t dry your clothes quickly enough,’ said Mum. ‘You know, if they get left in the washing machine too long or something.’
‘But, Mum, how in your wildest dreams could you have imagined Ken might be a good idea for a date?’
‘The photo he posted on his page was quite attractive,’ said Mum, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I mean, there’s nothing actually wrong with his features. In fact, he’s quite handsome in a peculiar sort of way.’
‘But his head didn’t match his body, Mum! We’re close to Frankenstein territory here.’
‘It wasn’t the size of his head that freaked me out,’ said Mum, running to the kitchen and rummaging under the sink for the air freshener. ‘It was what was inside it. All that stuff about music. I mean, I’ve nothing against music – it’s totally life-enhancing – but he was dangerously obsessed. Ironically, when he mentioned his love of classical music on his biog, I found it reassuring. And he works for a charity. He sounded really interesting and simpatico.’
‘Everybody who joins that website should be forced to describe how they smell,’ said Jess, as they squirted the sofa.
‘But nobody knows how they smell,’ argued Mum. ‘Anyway, sometimes I don’t smell too brilliant myself – like when I’ve been out in the garden spreading compost about.’
‘You do smell good!’ insisted Jess. ‘You always smell of that sunscreen, even in winter. I’m the one who’s rank. Sometimes if I get sweaty I smell just like an onion bhaji.’
‘Dad always smelt nice,’ said Mum a tad wistfully. ‘His aftershave was vetiver.’
‘It still is,’ said Jess. ‘And his skin smells of sunshine.’
‘Let’s burn one of those scented candles he gave me for Christmas!’ suggested Mum tragically. ‘It’s symbolic. I shall be burning my hopes of some kind of meaningful relationship. Goodbye to men and good riddance.’
‘Don’t give up, Mum!’ Jess began to feel a pep talk was necessary. ‘Just because Ken was weird, it doesn’t mean they all will be. The next one might be heavenly. Let’s have another look at the website.’ Like some kind of fairy god-daughter, Jess was determined that Mum would come to Chaos, the Dinner Dance of the Century, if indeed she and Fred managed to organise it in time.
‘I might go online again after supper,’ said Mum with a sigh. ‘I need to keep my strength up, so let’s have linguine.’
They were halfway through their pasta when Jess’s phone rang. This must be Fred, at last!
But it was Flora.
‘Hi, Jess!’ she trilled. ‘We’ve been planning the weekend at the house by the sea and Jack’s shown me loads of photos of it – it’s absolutely amazing! I’ve just emailed you the photos so you can see for yourself! The view from the veranda is literally right down to the sea! And in the sitting room there’s this massive fireplace and we’re going to have log fires there and do charades and stuff! I so totally can’t wait!’
Thank goodness Flora hadn’t said anything about Fred going off like that when they were in the Dolphin Cafe. Maybe it hadn’t seemed odd to her. Jess certainly hoped so. She couldn’t resist telling Flora all about Smelly Ken and Mum’s dating, even though she couldn’t help feeling that somehow, as usual, Flora’s evening had been a lot more entertaining than her own.
Flora had spent the last few hours with Jack, looking at lovely photos of his house by the sea. Jess had been squirting air freshener around. Where was Fred when she needed a laugh? He was the wittiest boy in Ashcroft School after all. Should she ring him or wait till he rang? It was so his turn – he’d go
ne off in a kind of huff. If she left it and he didn’t call, it could turn into a nasty little tiff. Jess decided to grasp the nettle. She hated rows, so she went upstairs and called Fred from the privacy of her bedroom.
‘Where were you when I needed a laugh, you rat?’ she demanded, hoping a faux-jolly approach would work best.
‘Doing stuff at Mackenzie’s,’ replied Fred. He sounded slightly furtive.
‘Have you sorted out the band yet?’ asked Jess eagerly. Mackenzie was a bit of a show-off, but he did know all the local bands.
‘Uh, not exactly,’ said Fred shiftily. ‘We did ring a couple, but they already had gigs lined up – because it’s Valentine’s, of course.’
‘Oh no!’ gasped Jess. ‘I hadn’t thought of that! Of course! But we’ve got to find somebody.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fred nervously. ‘There are still loads to try: Frenzy, Goldilocks, The Car Crusher, The Evil Toads … How are you getting on organising the buffet?’
‘Was I supposed to be organising the buffet?’ Jess felt a cold thrill of fear all across her scalp.
‘Well, you know how useless I would be at that sort of thing,’ said Fred.
‘Didn’t Jodie say she’d give us a hand?’ Jess racked her brains for a reason to be cheerful.
‘Have you tasted her beefburgers?’ enquired Fred. ‘They’re like an industrial accident.’
There was a horrid pause, during which Jess began to panic so deeply her hands went dead.
‘Never mind,’ said Fred. ‘If it all goes pear-shaped, we can elope to Vegas.’
This wasn’t terribly reassuring.
Chapter 7
While Jess was having breakfast the next day, a text arrived from Flora. BTW, DON’T TELL JODIE ABT BEACH WEEKEND AS SADLY NO ROOM FOR HER. BUT SHE’S TROUBLE ANYWAY SO WHO CARES?
‘Oh, Mum,’ said Jess with a careful smile, ‘by the way, Flora’s invited me for a weekend away at Jack’s family’s place by the sea.’