I set up the pieces. I let him have white and lift one of his knights out onto the battlefield. Then I twist the board round and take my turn, play my game. Back and forth I go, plotting, counter-plotting. Killing. I’ve just taken his castle when there’s a knock on the door. I throw the quilt over the board and grab my phone. I lie back on the bed and pretend to be texting. The door opens. I count to three before looking up. And, though I use my best bored expression, I’m hoping that things will be back to normal. That it will be my dad again. Not The Rockstar.
But his eyes are blank, empty of the dad I knew. Suddenly everything about him is so freaking annoying. I mean, does he have to look like a hobo? His hair is long and greasy, like it hasn’t been washed in months. His clothes are dark and sloppy. Massive shades sit on top of his head like a trademark. His shoes. Oh, God – he’s wearing wedges!
‘Hey,’ he says, like he’s cool or something.
My, ‘Hey’ is flat. And I don’t get up. Neither does Homer. My pal.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were home?’ he asks, like he cares.
‘You were busy.’ As usual.
‘It was just Marsha and Ed.’
It’s always someone, I think, but say, ‘How is The Stylist?’
‘Marsha’s great.’
‘Apart from her taste.’ I give him a slow once-over. Doesn’t he see it?
He laughs like I’ve cracked a joke.
‘And by the way . . . No man should dye his hair.’
He stops laughing. A hand goes, automatically, to his head.
‘You look retarded.’
‘Actually retarded?’ He pretends to look impressed.
‘And the state of your shoes! You don’t, like, have polio or something?’
His smile is forced. ‘No one else is complaining.’
‘Not to your face.’
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. When he looks at me again, it’s to say, ‘I’ve work to do.’
‘Course you do.’ And as I watch his back disappear, I feel like calling after him that I’m not stupid: I know when a person comes to say ‘hi’ because they should, not because they want to.
TWO | LEE HO
My house is like the UN. The chief gardener is, actually, Irish, but apart from that, it’s representatives from around the world. The cook’s French. The cleaner, Moldavian. The handyman, Polish. The Rockstar’s personal trainer is Ukrainian. Mike’s a Cockney. We didn’t always have these people. We weren’t always totally useless. The Rockstar hired most of them after Mum died. What he doesn’t see is that, even if he hired an army, he still couldn’t replace her. Because none of them would be her.
If anything summed up my life, right now, it would be breakfast. Imagine a chef pouring your cornflakes. I look at Barbara – the chef – and know she’d have liked me to have kippers, smoked salmon, a fry, even a croissant, just to keep her stimulated. But I lost my appetite six months ago. The Rockstar’s not going to fire her for pouring cereal. My mum had this thing about breakfast being the most important meal. She’d make me eat slow-release carbohydrate (brown bread) and protein (egg or bacon). Every day. If I had her back, I wouldn’t argue. And I’d taste every bit.
Oh, great. The Stylist (think Cher, pre-plastic surgery) has just walked into the kitchen. Which means she must be crashing here, like half the world. There’s a pocket missing on her skintight denims. It’s deliberate. Everything about her is. If I’d been consulted when he was hiring a stylist, I’d have told him to get a guy: Asian, totally camp and so passionate about clothes he’d die if he had to work at anything else. Not this ordinary person who’s made a career out of knowing a few celebs. During The Cowboy Phase, I couldn’t look at The Rockstar. Now she has him wearing shoes that look like they’re from a medical supplier. The Stylist has been on the payroll, like, forever – or at least that’s how it feels. Once, he offered me her services ‘for a makeover or something’. It was a few days after I stopped going to The Therapist. It was no coincidence.
‘No thanks,’ I said to him. ‘I like to look good.’
‘What’s your problem with Marsha?’
‘Have you got an hour?’ I asked, then added, ‘She wears bullets in her belt, for God’s sake.’
‘They’re not real.’
I’d worked that one out when wondering how she got through airport security.
‘Hey!’ she says now, like she’s woken to blue skies.
The only blue in Ireland is how you feel about the weather. And the only reason I say, ‘Hey’ back is that manners have been hammered into me and I can’t help it. She sits up at the island beside me and asks Barbara for an egg (soft-boiled), and toast, (brown). I’m so close to telling her that Barbara’s not her slave. And I don’t even like Barbara – who’s snooty. I get up. Bring my bowl to the sink.
‘So. Is that what people wear to school in Ireland?’ The Stylist looks like she’s cracked a joke.
I look down at the wetsuit I’ve bought for the sailing course. I could have borrowed one from the sailing school but the thought of dragging on some damp, manky suit worn by a million other people nearly made me barf. And so, the wetsuit.
‘Pretty much, yeah,’ I say, and head for the door. Why does he even need a stylist? I could tell him what to wear and get it right.
‘Have a good day,’ she calls after me.
Doesn’t she have a home to go to? Oh, yeah. It’s in New York.
I get to the yacht club late and in no mood for bobbing up and down on the sea like a bottle. A small group of my class are hanging around outside, wearing sailing gear that’s so grungy it has to be their own. In my brand-new gear I look like a retard. Not that I care.
‘Where’s everyone?’ I ask David McFadden, who looks like he was born on a boat. His wetsuit’s faded and worn at the knees. He’s wearing surfing shorts over it. And on his hands some sort of fingerless gloves.
‘Inside. Changing,’ he says.
I’m about to go in to Sarah and Rachel when our PE teacher (nicknamed ‘Very Peculiar’, because it’s his favourite expression) stops me.
‘Here, there’s enough nonsense going on in there. You’re dressed. Give me your bag. I’ll bring it in.’
Reluctantly, I hand it over. He disappears with it. I glance at the sea. It’s grey and choppy. I think of my bed and wonder why I didn’t stay in it. I fold my arms. Cold already.
‘By the way, you’re with me,’ McFadden says.
I turn to him. ‘Sorry?’
‘We’ve all been paired off.’
‘You’re not serious. Can’t we pick ourselves?’ At least with Rachel or Sarah we wouldn’t have to take the thing seriously.
‘And I’m dying to sail with you too,’ he says, but he’s smiling, like he couldn’t care less either way. He’s different out of uniform, his spiky blonde hair ruffled by the wind like he’s already been out at sea. He looks even more laid-back than usual – if that’s possible.
The rest of the class start to spill from the club, some still struggling into life jackets: all looking like amateurs. I have a rethink. A little expertise might come in handy after all. With McFadden, I could sit back. Relax. Let him do the work.
He’s climbing into some sort of nappy-type thingy and tying it round his waist. It has a hook on the front.
‘What is that?’
‘A harness.’ He hands me one. ‘Here. You’d better put one on. You’ll need it.’
We’re standing, knee deep in water, on a slipway, holding our boat, which, by the way, we’ve had to push into the sea ourselves on a rusty old trailer with wonky wheels. I look down through the freezing salt water, at my new runners. They didn’t tell us we’d have to get our feet wet. I glance up and catch McFadden smirking.
‘What?’ I shout over the noise of flapping sails. He shakes his head. Nothing, apparently.
‘OK. I’ll just get in,’ I say.
‘I thought you wanted me to helm.’
‘What?’
‘Steer.’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Then, you push off.’
What happened to women and children first? ‘No way.’
He smiles, as though he’s holding all the cards. ‘Unless you want to helm.’
‘No!’
‘Right then, push off so I can steer.’
‘How am I supposed to get in?’
‘Jump.’
‘When the boat’s moving?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re joking, right?’
He’s laughing. ‘Wrong.’
I am such an eejit. Instead of shoving off and staying behind on land – which didn’t occur to me until I was leaping into the freaking boat – I’ve rocked it so much, it’s tilting right over. And I’m yelping.
‘It’s all right. It won’t capsize.’ He pulls the thing that directs the boat towards him. ‘Yet.’
‘Hilarious,’ I say, turning away from him and looking ahead.
He gives me a minute, then says, ‘Move up and pull in the jib sheet.’
I ignore him. Don’t know what he’s talking about anyway. He leans forward and grabs a rope with a knot at the end of it. He hands it to me.
‘Pull it. Unless you want to listen to that sail flapping around all the time.’
It was beginning to bother me. Without acknowledging Master Mariner, I take it from him and pull.
‘You can cleat it if you want.’
‘English, please.’ Such a show-off.
He leans forward again, takes the rope off me and whacks it through these two metal thingies. ‘So you don’t have to hold it all the time,’ he explains. And, for a minute, he doesn’t sound so bossy.
‘Right,’ I say, instead of thanks.
We sail out and I’m beginning to think, this is easy, when he says, ‘Ready about.’
‘What?’
‘Weren’t you listening at all back there?’
‘No.’ I thought I was going to be with a sailor.
‘OK. When I say “lee ho” . . .’
“Lee ho”, for God’s sake.
‘When I say “lee ho”, let the rope go, duck under the boom . . .’ he taps the wooden beam under the sail, ‘and pull in the rope on the other side.’
‘And this is supposed to be fun?’ I mutter into the hideous grubby orange life jacket I had to borrow. Why I never thought to buy one . . .
He laughs again and I’m so close to dunking him.
We ‘go about’. I survive. We do it again. And I do more than survive, because I’m so freaking annoyed by his overall smugness I’m not giving him the opportunity to boss me around. I do my end of things before he can tell me to. Soon we’re way ahead of the other boats. In fact, I’m beginning to think we’re going out a bit far. The tub has started to lean over towards the water on the opposite side from us.
‘Hike out,’ he says.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Clip on that yoke.’ He touches the metal hook on my harness. It feels a bit intimate, so I glare at him but he’s too busy bossing me around to notice. ‘Stand up on the side of the boat and lean out.’
‘You must be joking.’ We tilt over further.
‘Do I look like I’m joking?’
‘Oh my God. Can’t you keep it flat?’
‘You have to hike out.’
‘Forget it.’ I look back at all the others. ‘No one else is doing it.’
The boat goes right up on its side now. ‘Want to capsize?’ he asks, looking like he’s enjoying this.
‘You’re doing this.’
‘We’re going over,’ he warns, and water starts to spill into the boat.
‘Jesus!’ I clip the hook onto a metal wire, climb backwards until my feet are against the edge of the boat. I squat there, afraid to go further. It’s not my most poised moment. From behind, it probably looks like I’m taking a dunk over the side. Never again, I think. But the boat does flatten a lot. Which is kind of surprising, given that I’m a total squirt.
‘It’d be easier if you straightened out,’ he shouts.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘It’s actually fun. Go on. Hike right out.’ The boat heels again. Not wanting to look like a wuss, but especially not wanting to capsize, I close my eyes and straighten out. I don’t fall into the sea. And I don’t pull the boat with me. Actually, it’s working. The boat’s starting to skim over the water. It feels like we’re flying. It feels amazing. Not that I’d tell him that.
‘You can let go of the wire. You’re hooked on.’
Why not, I think, and let go.
‘Cool, isn’t it?’ he asks, cheerily.
I ignore him but close my eyes and pretend I’m Kate Winslet at the front of the Titanic. We’re like this for a few minutes when a voice calls McFadden’s name through a loudspeaker. I look behind us. It’s the rescue boat.
‘Dave! Where the hell are you off to?’
He waves casually. ‘Just going about,’ he shouts.
I look at the guy in the inflatable, then at McFadden. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Eh, yeah. You’d better get in. We’re going about.’
This is unbelievable. Not only do we have to heave the boat back up the slip and return it to its spot on dry land, we have to take it apart. There’s a freaking system to everything. McFadden is so anal. Like it matters if we don’t take the knots out of the ropes. He has just given me one to undo when he asks, matter-of-factly: ‘Why are you so stuck up?’
I laugh in shock. ‘Excuse me?’
‘So Ice Queen.’
I stare at him and drop the rope. He can so undo it himself. I’m about to leave when he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. I pull back immediately.
‘What the hell?’ I look quickly around us. We’re hidden behind the huge flapping sail.
He just smiles and kisses me again. And now – someone, please tell me why – I’m kissing him back. I pull away, like I’ve kissed a toad. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Same thing you’re doing,’ he says, his smile lazy now.
And suddenly it’s not a boy in my class any more, but this windswept, tanned and totally hot guy who wears beads around his neck and plaited leather on his wrist. My face is inches from his and getting closer when I stop. What am I doing? I look at him, totally cold.
‘That was a one-off thing.’
I turn quickly and walk. My legs have never felt so wobbly.
THREE | DROWNING IN CLOTHES
My clearest memory of my mum . . . I’m thirteen and standing in front of the mirror in my room. Close to suicidal. I’m starting secondary school in three days and the uniform that’s arrived by post is enormous, despite us doing a fitting at the start of the summer. I look in the mirror and see a nerd, drowning in clothes. Behind me is my mother. Who’s started to laugh. She can’t seem to stop. Then I’m laughing too, though really I want to cry. I’m about to turn up for my first day at secondary school with ‘Bullying Material’ written all over me.
Then, Mum stops laughing. ‘Right. Let’s go.’
‘Where?’
‘To town. To change it. Clearly, they’ve made a mistake.’ That simple.
Sometimes I don’t just miss my mum, I miss having a mum, someone to fall back on, to take the pressure off, to explain. Like why I can be a total bitch sometimes. And why I kissed a guy I don’t even like. After he’d insulted me. Oh and why I can’t stop thinking of him – or the kiss. At two in the morning, I make a decision. I’m being a tard. He was just amusing himself. It meant nothing. He’s getting no more room inside my head. And from now on I’m going to avoid him. Completely.
Hard to avoid someone when they don’t show up. Next day, he’s not there. I’m paired with Sarah. Who knows (and cares) as much about boats as I do. We toss a coin to see who’ll drive the thing. Sarah loses. We end up going round in circles – anticlockwise. Finally, we drift into the pier wall, where we take advantage of our stranded situation to have a rest.
‘So,’ she says. ‘What were you doing with McFadden yesterday?’
I stomach jolts. ‘What?’
‘Hanging out the side of the boat like that.’
I breathe again. ‘Oh, I was just out on the harness.’
‘The what?’
I look at her. ‘You know, the harness. For balancing the boat. Didn’t you get one?’
‘No. None of us did.’
I stare at her.
‘We’re not that advanced,’ she says matter-of-factly.
Oh my God. I’ll kill him. He made the whole thing up about having a harness. He was having me on, the whole time.
The rescue boat tows us away from the pier. I’m hoping they’ll give up on us as hopeless cases and bring us back to shore. But no, they abandon us at sea, again. Sarah refuses to helm. That’s when I get my turn to prove that sailing really is just bobbing up and down on the water like a bottle. Only more chaotic.
Next day, McFadden’s back. I live up to the Ice Queen rep he gave me and blank him completely. He smiles like he finds me amusing. He’s paired with Rachel.
‘Poor you,’ I say to her, looking at him.
He laughs and goes off to get their boat ready.
‘Did I miss something?’ she asks.
‘You so didn’t,’ I say and walk off, over to Sarah, who is supposed to be rigging up our boat. She’s standing looking at it like it’s a spaceship. And, hey, I don’t blame her.
We’re last out on the water, which totally suits. After about twenty minutes, we hit the pier again, only this time I’m steering.
‘See,’ Sarah says. ‘It is magnetic.’
The Butterfly Novels Box Set: Contemporary YA Series (And By The Way; And For Your Information; And Actually) Page 2