After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby

by Natasha Farrant

  FLORA

  Oh for God’s sake.

  MOTHER

  He’s clearly a bad influence.

  FATHER

  (doggedly)

  This family will learn to behave as a proper family again! That means eating meals together! Walking to school together! Being there for each other!

  JAS

  (hopefully)

  Does that mean you’re going to live at home again?

  FLORA

  (viciously)

  Or are you hoping to enforce these laws by Skype?

  (MOTHER looks like she might cry.)

  FATHER

  Zoran will be here to make sure you behave.

  ZORAN

  Actually, yesterday you fired me.

  JAS

  NOOOOOOO!

  MOTHER

  Dear Zoran, about that . . .

  (Doorbell rings. Mother hurries from room to answer it.)

  FATHER

  Who the devil? On a Sunday night?

  (Mother returns, looking perplexed.)

  MOTHER

  Apparently you ordered a piano?

  The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Fifteen (Transcript)

  The Piano

  EVENING.

  Still in the living room, which is now a mess of furniture pulled away from the wall to make room for an upright piano, the old-fashioned kind with candle-holders and keys so old they are not white but yellow and which stands where the sofa used to be.

  The GADSBY family, plus ZORAN but minus BLUE who is holding the camera, crowd around the piano in varying states of disbelief.

  MOTHER

  Remind me again why . . .

  FATHER

  It was a surprise for Blue! She wanted a piano!! I forgot!!!

  FLORA

  Blue? A piano? Since when?

  JAS

  I have always longed to play the piano!

  FLORA

  Actually, come to think of it, I’d quite like to as well.

  MOTHER

  But who will teach you? I don’t have time to find a piano teacher!

  CAMERAMAN (BLUE)

  Zoran will teach me.

  FLORA, FATHER and MOTHER

  Zoran?

  CAMERAMAN (BLUE)

  Show them, Zoran.

  Zoran approaches the piano with diffidence, conscious of everyone’s eyes upon him. Mother and Father look bewildered, Jas and Twig excited, Flora sarcastic.

  ZORAN

  Beethoven. Moonlight Sonata.

  He plays. Mother and Father fall as one on to the sofa and stare. The Babes’ jaws drop open. Flora begins to smile. Zoran goes on to play something by Chopin, moves on to the Beatles (inevitably, ‘Hey Jude’) and shimmies on to a special Zoran piano remix of Jack Johnson’s ‘Banana Pancakes’, the Babes’ favorite song of the moment. He sings. They sing too. Even Flora joins in. Mother and Father begin to smile. Father holds out his arms and Mother leans back into them with feigned reluctance. He draws her towards him and kisses the side of her head. She looks away, her eyes suspiciously bright, but she moves closer to him. Her right foot starts to beat in time to the music and she begins to sing.

  Monday 5 December

  Monday 5 December

  Zoran understands. How is it my family doesn’t?

  I left them to their singing last night and came up to my room to get some peace. I lay on my bed and used the camera to focus on the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. They freaked me out at first but Iris loved them, so I brought them with me when I moved. Downstairs, they were back on the Beatles, with Zoran thumping out ‘All You Need Is Love’ and them all belting it out, even Mum and Dad, and I thought, is that really all it takes to make them forget? A piano appears and they turn into the family von Trapp?

  Mum came up. Flushed from singing but wearing a serious expression and carrying a mug of tea.

  ‘I brought you some chocolate biscuits as well,’ she said.

  She put the mug on my bedside table together with the biscuits. I filmed the ceiling hoping she would leave, but she just stood at my window watching the rain.

  ‘You were singing,’ I said at last. ‘Yesterday was the third of December and you didn’t say anything and today you were singing.’

  She turned away from the window. I carried on filming the ceiling.

  ‘Look at me, Blue,’ whispered Mum. ‘Look at me really, not hiding behind your camera. Look at me and tell me it doesn’t hurt me every bit as much as it hurts you.’

  ‘You were singing,’ I repeated, still filming the ceiling. ‘And I would like you to leave.’

  She stopped at the door on her way out.

  ‘Happiness is a choice, Blue,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it’s the hardest choice we have to make.’

  When Mum was gone, I picked up the mug of tea. It was exactly how I like it, hot and milky and very sweet.

  Exactly how Iris liked it.

  I drank it all, down to the very last drop.

  Then I threw the mug against the wall and smashed it.

  I couldn’t care less about the parents’ stupid new rules. Today I marched up to Jake as soon as I got to school and told him that I wanted him to teach me to skate.

  ‘Properly,’ I said. ‘Tonight. After school.’

  ‘WOO HOO!’ said Tom. ‘I’m up for it.’

  ‘Not you,’ I hissed. ‘Just him. And I’ll need your board.’

  ‘DOUBLE WOO HOO!’ said Tom. Jake and I both silenced him with a glare.

  It was totally different tonight. Usually, when we all go together, the boys are joking and messing about, but Jake and I hardly spoke. We got to the park and he asked, very quietly, what I wanted to do.

  ‘I want to learn to fly,’ I told him.

  ‘Right,’ said Jake.

  I stood in the middle of the park, staring up at the ramps. I pushed myself off, making straight for one of them, trying to gather enough speed to go up it, and I slid straight back down again.

  ‘Not like that,’ said Jake. ‘Watch me.’

  He showed me how to rock sideways, each time going a little higher up the ramps, gathering speed. I fell off, but before he could ask if I’d hurt myself I tried again. Backwards and forwards, higher and higher, falling, hurting, getting up, until by the time it was almost dark I was bruised all over but soaring to the top of each ramp and whooshing back down and up the other side. I was cold when I started but each time I fell I shed another layer and each time I got back on I felt lighter and went higher, hair flying, the night wind whipping my face.

  Jake said it was time for a break and we sat with our backs against the ramp, sharing a Snickers he pulled out of his bag.

  ‘Iris would have loved skateboards,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’m surprised she never tried.’

  ‘Is that what this is all about?’ asked Jake. He wasn’t looking at me when he said it, but straight ahead at the ramp opposite.

  ‘Mum says happiness is a choice,’ I told him. ‘And Zoran says I’m lost but don’t want to be found.’

  ‘You’re here now, though,’ Jake said.

  Our feet were almost touching. I jumped up and grabbed my board.

  ‘I’m going to try and flip,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure you’re ready for that,’ he called, but I was already away.

  Jake was wrong, I was ready for it. All I’d done this afternoon was go up and down the ramps, faster and faster, but this time I flew off the top. Literally, I flew. It didn’t last long but there was a moment which felt like forever when the board left the ground and I was just floating, and then I managed to twist, and the board hit the ground with a jolt which went straight up my spine, and I skidded down the ramp on my tummy and lay at the bottom in a heap, with everything hurting, and I laughed. I laughed until I had cramps in my tummy and my eyes were streaming and even I couldn’t tell any more if I was laughing or crying.

  When I finally stopped, Jake was standing beside me .

  ‘That wa
s brilliant,’ he said. He held out his hands to help me to my feet and smiled. ‘That was totally brilliant.’

  For a moment, standing there in the dark with the wind rustling the trees and the whole park to ourselves, we looked at each other like we had never seen each other before.

  ‘Brilliant,’ repeated Jake. And then we left the park, carrying our boards.

  Thursday 8 December

  Mum and Dad have been away all week, and despite their rules Zoran isn’t even trying to stop Flora from seeing Joss. This might be because at the moment, she is the only happy person in the house. She was practically singing when she climbed back through my window on Sunday. Apparently Trudi is not Joss’s girlfriend like we all thought, or even his ex-girlfriend, but the best friend of a girl called Kiera he used to go out with in Guildford. (Kiera is the other girl in the photograph on his Facebook page, the fair wispy pretty one.) He dumped her when he left Guildford, and she sent Trudi to London to tell him she wants him back, but Joss said no, because he loves Flora. Also, he agreed that his friends had been completely out of order, and he yelled at them on the phone and threatened never to speak to them again unless they took the video down.

  Today I came home from school to find Jas and Twig Skyping Dad in the kitchen.

  ‘I would not like to live in a medieval castle,’ Jas was saying. ‘Medieval castles are draughty and broken.’

  ‘Well obviously now they’re broken,’ Dad said. It’s always quite funny to see him on Skype. He sits much too close to the screen and looks like an alien. ‘In medieval times, they were quite different. Twig?’

  ‘It would depend on the castle.’ Twig wasn’t really paying attention, because he was trying to do his science homework at the same time as talking to Dad. Twig has had so many notes about overdue homework he could bind them together and make quite a thick book.

  ‘But if you were a princess,’ said Dad, sounding desperate. ‘If you didn’t have a choice and had to live in a castle but could have anything you wanted there, what would that be?’

  ‘If I could have anything I wanted,’ Jas said, looking very prim, ‘it would be to have all my family around me.’

  I have never seen an alien look so depressed.

  Friday 9 December

  Tom Myers, that loudmouth, has told the entire school that Flora is going to have a baby.

  Tom says but I only told my sister, like he doesn’t understand that’s not the point, which is that when something is secret, you don’t tell anybody. His sister probably only told one person too. Who told someone else, who told someone else until everybody knew except the people concerned. Who found out in the canteen when that idiot Graham Lewis bounced up to them making baby noises.

  ‘Oh my God!’ cried Flora. ‘Are you saying I look fat?’

  ‘Mama!’ said Graham, cracking up. ‘Dada!’

  Joss laughed his head off when he understood what Graham meant. ‘Mate,’ he said to Graham (who told everyone who wanted to listen), ‘mate, you and me need to have a little conversation about the facts of life.’

  Normally boys want people to think that they are doing loads more things with girls than they actually are, but Joss didn’t seem to care. Graham said ‘What, really, never?’ and Joss just laughed harder and said in a blokeish sort of way ‘not for lack of trying, mate’ and Flora went bright red and looked like she might murder Graham and throw his body to ravening vultures.

  It took her about twenty seconds to work out that the source of the rumour was me. I tried to apologise but she didn’t listen. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately’, she fumed, and ‘I used to like having you as a sister and maybe one day when I forget what it feels like to be HUMILIATED in front of the WHOLE BLOOMING SCHOOL I might forgive you’.

  Joss was still laughing all the time she was yelling at me, so then she turned on him and started screaming at him about how insensitive and immature he was being.

  ‘Just because I’ve got a sense of humour,’ said Joss, and Flora said, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ and Joss said ‘Lighten up, can’t you?’ and suddenly they were in the middle of an argument and didn’t notice me tiptoeing away.

  The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Sixteen (Transcript)

  In Germany They Decorate Their Trees on Christmas Eve

  The landing outside FATHER’S study. From behind the closed door, the sound of battle cries and loud music. TWIG and JAS jostle each other, looking anxious.

  TWIG

  You go.

  JAS

  No you.

  TWIG

  No, you.

  FATHER’S VOICE

  (from within study)

  Whatever you want, go away! I am trying to work in here!

  (Twig takes a deep breath and throws open the study door.)

  TWIG

  We would like to go and buy a Christmas tree.

  FATHER sits at his desk, reams of paper spread out before, around and behind him. Light flickers from his open laptop. Music and the sound of battle grow louder.

  FATHER

  (not looking up)

  Well off you go, then.

  JAS

  We need you to come with us.

  FATHER

  Where’s your mother?

  JAS

  She is still jet-lagged from Argentina.

  FATHER

  What about Zoran? Don’t I pay him for things like this?

  BLUE’S VOICE

  He has gone to visit Alina in her nursing home.

  FATHER

  Who on earth is Alina?

  JAS

  Please, Daddy? You’re only watching a film.

  FATHER

  I am not watching a film, I am working. One day when you are older, you will understand. In Germany they decorate their trees on Christmas Eve. In Russia, not until the New Year. Now go away.

  JAS

  (bursts into tears)

  I hate you Daddy!

  FATHER

  (roaring from behind study door, which has slammed shut)

  And I hate b****y Christmas!

  The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Seventeen (Transcript)

  The Point Is, We Don’t Actually Live in Germany

  AFTERNOON. The Gadsby living-room. A coal fire burns once again in the grate. FLORA sits on the chaise-longue in the furthest corner of the room, IMing Tamsin about her argument with Joss. FATHER sits asleep in an armchair by the fire, the Sunday papers spilling off his lap. MOTHER, TWIG and JAS sit around the coffee table, playing Monopoly and eating a chocolate and pistachio torte prepared earlier by ZORAN. Mother hates Monopoly but is taking part in a show of family unity. Twig loves Monopoly but his heart isn’t in it. You can tell by the way he stares into space. Jas is compensating for this by being extra polite.

  MOTHER

  I must say, darlings, this cake is quite delicious. Did you help Zoran make it?

  JAS

  I’m so glad you like it, Mummy. Twig! Do pay attention, I am about to buy Mayfair.

  TWIG

  The point is, we don’t actually live in Germany.

  MOTHER

  Well no, darling, but she said Mayfair.

  TWIG

  Which means that we always get our Christmas tree at the beginning of December.

  JAS

  Shh, Daddy’ll hear.

  FATHER

  (waking up)

  Daddy’ll hear what?

  TWIG

  Even when Iris was in hospital. And now it is the end of the second weekend in December.

  FATHER

  Even when Iris was in hospital what?

  TWIG

  WE HAD A TREE AT THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER! AND WE DO NOT LIVE IN GERMANY!

  Father’s response is muffled by the door opening. Zoran enters, and comes to stand in the middle of the room. He grips a fur hat in his hands and even though he speaks to Mother, he does not look at her. This has the effect of making him look like a
Russian peasant come to beg a favour.

  ZORAN

  I have news I am afraid you will not like.

  MOTHER

  (gushing, trying to make up for the fact that just a week ago she tried to fire him)

  Oh, Zoran, I’m sure it can’t be that bad!

  ZORAN

  The thing is, my great-aunt is getting married.

  Sunday 11 December

  Sunday 11 December

  So Zoran’s fears have been confirmed, and Alina has accepted Peter’s proposal.

  ‘Did you tell her he is just in it for the money?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ cried Mum. ‘Blue! What do you know about this?’

  ‘I went to visit one day when I didn’t go to school.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ grumbled Dad, ‘is why you think we will not like this news?’

  Zoran explained that Alina is getting married tomorrow and that she has decided to go to Paris on her honeymoon. Paris is where she went on her first honeymoon, he said, and she has very fond memories of it. Only because this time she and her fiancé are so old, she wants Zoran to go with them. Just in case something goes wrong, she says. I could tell Dad was dying to ask what sort of thing but Mum shook her head and he didn’t.