by Julie Cohen
Lydia was doodling in her notebook, big swirls and flourishes. It helped her think, especially since Harry Carter had plonked himself down right next to her in the lesson and was trying his best to get her attention. He might have scraped himself into top set maths by the skin of his teeth, but he was an idiot of the first degree, who could not take a hint.
Avril was in a different maths set, so Lydia couldn’t even glance at her and roll her eyes. She’d chatted with Avril for hours last night, as usual. They’d watched Top Model together on Skype, and then from the beginning on +1, and then they’d just hung out, talking about nothing, like they always did.
The tip of Lydia’s pen swirled into a spiral, round and round inwards towards a small centre point. She knew absolutely everything about Avril, and Avril knew everything about her, except for this one thing. It was the one question she could never ask. So she sifted through the information she had about her best friend, all the secrets and the confidences, like one of those oracles they’d learned about when they read Julius Caesar, poking through entrails to find out the future. Avril was a virgin, the same as Lydia. She’d never had a serious boyfriend, just some snogs – the same as Lydia. They’d snogged the same boy, Lucius Arnsworthy, in Year Nine and they’d both agreed he was fish-lipped, but did that even mean anything? If a boy was fish-lipped, you didn’t exactly have to be gay to work it out.
‘Pssst!’
It was Harry hissing at her. She kept her eyes on her spiral, going over and over the middle point so that her pen dug a hole in the centre.
‘Pssst!’ This time he reached over towards her. Lydia leaned back, but he didn’t try to grab her; he put the folded piece of paper that was making the rounds on her desk, on top of her notebook. Then he smirked at her.
Lydia waited until Mr Singh’s back was turned at the whiteboard to open it, under cover of her desk.
BAILEY SWINDON IS A CARPET MUNCHER PUT YOUR INITIALS BELOW IF YOU AGREE AND PASS IT ON!
There were a dozen sets of initials below it in different colours of pen and pencil.
She turned to glance back at Bailey. The other girl was bent over her notebook, writing something – presumably the equations that Mr Singh was babbling on about. With the other hand, she was scratching her nose. She didn’t have the slightest idea that this primary-school trick was going on around her, poor cow.
Lydia held up the note and ripped it in half. Then she tore it into strips, then shreds. She collected the bits of paper in her hand and walked up to the front of the room, where the bin was.
‘Lydia?’ said Mr Singh, who miraculously noticed that she was out of her seat. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting rid of rubbish, sir,’ she said, and dumped the paper into the bin. Sniggers. Harry made a goofy face at her.
Bailey kept on writing.
When the bell rang for break, Harry was over at her desk like a shot. ‘Did you like what I sent you last night?’
‘Not much.’ Lydia put her books in her bag and tried to look the perfect mixture of disdainful and uncaring. As if she had nothing at all to hide; as if she hadn’t thought of Harry’s text once since he’d sent it. ‘I didn’t like your note just now either.’
‘That wasn’t my note. I didn’t sign it. Anyway, you owe me a picture now. Don’t forget.’
‘I don’t owe you anything, Harry.’ She picked up her bag and went for the door.
‘I think you’re really pretty. And you’re clever too.’
‘Well, that’s nice.’
She didn’t miss the jealous gazes of the group of Year Nine girls they passed. Ideally, she would tell him to piss off. But she couldn’t shake off the niggling fear that he might know something.
‘Did you like my idea of you and Avril together? She’s hot, too.’
‘Don’t be gross.’
‘I’ll send you something tonight, too. Maybe that will change your mind. Or maybe you’d rather see it in person?’ He bent closer to her to say it and his breath warmed her ear. His hand rested on her hip. That was enough. Lydia stopped and glared at him.
‘Can’t you take a hint, or do I need to spell it out for you? I’m not interested in you. I think you’re an immature tosser with a head as big as a football pitch and the sense of humour of a flea. I don’t want to see any selfies of your tiny dick, or any other part of you. Got it?’
Harry stepped back. His eyes narrowed, and to Lydia, he looked more intelligent than he ever had before. She was aware of the people around them, quiet now.
He was going to say it, say what he knew. He was going to strike back at her because she’d rejected him in public.
He shrugged. ‘See you later,’ he said, and turned and loped away, leaving Lydia feeling weak and sick.
Later, they were in Lydia’s room. Avril was lying on the bed, painting her nails with Lydia’s purple varnish, and Lydia was sitting with her back against the bed, choosing music on her iPod. Every time Avril shifted, Lydia could feel it against her back.
‘I think you were a little bit harsh on Harry,’ Avril said.
She hadn’t mentioned it to Avril. ‘Who told you?’
Avril shrugged. ‘A few people were talking about it. Why did you do it?’
‘Well, for one thing, he was passing round this stupid note about the new girl in maths lesson. It’s like something a ten year old would do. And for another thing, he keeps on asking for pictures of my tits.’
‘Oh, all the boys do that. They don’t mean anything by it.’ Avril rolled over onto her back, fingers held high in the air. ‘Are you sure you don’t fancy him?’
‘Fancy him? God, no. Why would I tell him where to get off if I fancied him?’
‘I don’t know. You’re weird like that sometimes, Lyds. You like telling people off.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You do. Like with Darren Raymond. And your mum. You’re always arguing with her.’
‘That’s not because I like it.’
‘I just … you know. Sometimes people like to argue with the people they fancy. It’s like an attraction love/hate thing.’
‘I do not love Harry Carter.’
‘OK.’
‘I don’t. I don’t even like him as a person.’
‘He’s not that bad. He seems OK actually.’
Her voice was elaborately nonchalant. Lydia twisted round.
‘You don’t fancy him, do you?’
‘He’s fit. Everyone thinks so.’
‘Maybe he’s fit, but I’ve got to tell you, Avril, he’s a twat.’
Avril waved her hands in the air, like two purple-tipped starfish. Lydia snagged the bottle of varnish before she knocked it over.
‘But he is so gorgeous, Lyd,’ confessed Avril. ‘So incredibly, wonderfully, astoundingly, epically gorgeous. Those dimples! Oh my God I just want to lick them.’
‘You do?’
‘I didn’t want to say anything before because I thought you might like him. But if you’re sure you don’t …’
‘I’m really sure. But Avril, you can’t like him.’
‘Why not? I can like whoever I want.’
‘But he’s …’ Lydia struggled to put it into words. The thing was, Avril was right. Harry wasn’t any worse than a lot of the other boys. The real problem with Harry was that he wasn’t Lydia. ‘You deserve a lot better than him.’
‘Everyone fancies him. Absolutely everyone. When I – when I thought he liked you, I was sort of jealous.’
‘He doesn’t like me. He doesn’t even know me.’
‘So you don’t mind if I ring him?’
Lydia began painting her own nails, turning her face away from Avril’s.
‘I won’t ring him if you mind,’ Avril added quickly.
Lydia bit her lip and concentrated on filling in her thumbnail. ‘I don’t – you can ring whoever you want, Av. But I really do think you deserve better.’
‘Better than the most popular boy in the school?’
‘Girl, you
should be holding out for Harry Styles. That’s what I’m doing.’
Avril giggled. ‘Well, same name. And I think he’s as good-looking. I wonder what he looks like naked. All that luscious skin, like chocolate ice cream.’
The picture Harry had sent to Lydia swam in front of her eyes, making her paint her skin instead of her nail. She shook her head slightly to try to dispel the image, but the problem was, once you saw something like that, you couldn’t unsee it. You kept on thinking about it: whenever Harry’s name was mentioned, you automatically thought about Harry’s dick. Maybe that was what Harry had intended. But why? Why would anyone want someone to think that way about them? It seemed so dirty, so animal, so far removed from love.
She wondered if she should have kept the photo instead of deleting it. She could have shown it to Avril now, like a treat that only Lydia could share, and been rewarded with her squeal of delight, or even better, disgust. It could have been an object of complicity between them.
But even if they giggled about it, laughed and mocked him, burst into snorts of laughter whenever they saw him in the hallway, Lydia would still know that Avril had that image in her head for ever.
And what if Avril liked it? What if that was what Avril wanted?
‘You wouldn’t believe—’ she began, but then she thought better of it and shut her mouth. She’d wanted to tell Avril about the photo now that it was gone, share the experience in some way, because the last thing that Lydia needed was to keep any more secrets from her best friend. And because they could still have the giggling, still have the complicity, without the actual photo around to pollute them.
But if Avril actually liked Harry, really liked him, maybe she would be jealous that Harry had sent Lydia a photo. She’d been jealous when she’d thought Harry liked her. Avril would probably be happier if she didn’t know.
‘Wouldn’t believe what?’
‘How I have completely messed up this manicure.’ Lydia drew a purple line down her entire hand with the nail-varnish brush, and held it up for Avril to laugh at.
A knock on the bedroom door. Two quick ones, not a volley of toddler banging, so it was Mum. The door opened almost immediately and Jo poked her head in. ‘Hello, girls! Hello, Avril, I didn’t know you were here. Do you want to stay for tea? It’s lasagne.’
‘Yes, please, Mrs M, that would be great.’
‘Mum, do you mind waiting for me to answer before you come barging in?’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ Her mother didn’t take the hint, though. She opened the door all the way and stood in the doorway, twisting a lock of hair in her hand, as if she were purposely trying to look like a nervous schoolgirl. ‘Are you revising?’
‘Yes,’ said Lydia, though any fool could see they weren’t.
‘I need to talk to you about Granny Honor.’
Lydia nodded. She knew what was coming: her mother was going to ask her to make a handmade Get Well card, as if she were a little kid like OscanIrie. ‘I’ll ring her,’ she said quickly, before Mum could suggest it. ‘I did try to ring her yesterday, but she didn’t pick up, so I sent her a text.’
‘Does Honor even know how to do texting?’ Mum asked.
‘She never answers. I’m glad she’s better,’ Lydia added, because she was.
‘She’s agreed to come and stay with us for a little while. Isn’t that great? It will be good for you to spend some more time with your grandmother, more than just an afternoon visit every now and then. And Oscar and Iris hardly know her.’
‘She doesn’t like little kids,’ said Lydia. ‘She told me one time that Dad was the only baby she’d ever liked. She said she had little or no desire to spend time with a creature who couldn’t engage in rational discourse and that she vastly preferred children after the age of seven.’
‘Well, she won’t be able to hold out for long against Oscar and Iris. They’re so much fun.’
‘They’re sweet little kids,’ Avril agreed loyally.
Mum took a deep breath. ‘There’s only one thing. Honor won’t be able to get up flights of stairs. So she’ll need to take over this room for a little while.’
‘But the guest room is tiny! Where am I going to put all my stuff? And I’m doing my GCSEs, I need somewhere quiet to study. There’s no room in there for a desk, even.’
‘Well, I was thinking that you might want to move up to the top floor. It’s about time we did something with all that space, anyway.’
The finished loft space was where Tatiana had slept until she ran off with Richard the Sleazeball. They’d been using it as a junk room ever since, shoving all of Richard’s stuff up there that they didn’t want to deal with. It was bigger than her current bedroo, though because it was under the eaves; there were parts of it where the sloped ceiling was too low to stand up under.
‘You’d have your own en-suite up there,’ Mum added, ‘and it would be quieter for you to study in, right at the top of the house. We can clear out all the junk and maybe give it a fresh coat of paint on Saturday.’
Lydia looked around at her bedroom, painted her favourite shade of purple, with her posters exactly where she liked them, all of her stuff arranged just so. This room was the only good thing about moving to this house. Aside from Avril, of course. The French doors out to the garden that she opened on warm days to fill the room with fresh air. At night she heard hedgehogs snuffling in the garden; a few times she had heard the bark of a fox. When she couldn’t sleep, she slipped out of the house and gazed at the stars. Their faraway brilliance made her think, for a little while, that her own problems weren’t all that big after all.
‘I’d love to have a room like that,’ sid Avril, tucked up away at the top of the house. It’s so romantic.’ Her eyes were wistful.
‘All right then,’ said Lydia, with enough resignation in her voice to make her mother understand the weight of what she was asking. How Lydia, once again, was the one who shouldered the changes her mother had decided to make.
‘Wonderful!’ Mum stood up, beaming. ‘I think this room will be perfect for Honor. She’ll be right at the heart of the house, where we can look after her. Anyway, dinner will be ready in a few minutes, girls. I’ll call you when it’s on the table.’ She went to the door, and paused. ‘You know what would be really nice, Lyddie? If you made Granny Honor a lovely handmade Get Well card. After you’ve finished revising for your manicure exam.’
As soon as Mum left, Avril flopped back down on the bed full-length. ‘That room is huge! What colour are you going to paint it?’
‘I don’t know. Also, have you thought that it’s the same room where Richard was shagging Tatiana?’
‘Yuck.’
‘I know.’
‘Your poor mum. She didn’t deserve that.’ Avril sighed.
‘Honestly, I have no idea why Mum is so mad keen to have my grandmother move in. They hate each other.’
‘I can’t imagine your mum hating anyone.’
‘It’s not hate so much as this awful tension between them. Mum gets all chirpy whenever she’s around, a little bit manic. And Granny Honor just looks down her nose at her. It’s really awkward. And she’s like my only living relative besides Mum, so Mum feels we have to spend time together. It’s easier when I just go and visit Granny Honor in London. We don’t have to talk much.’
‘Do you want to know something secret?’
Lydia climbed up on the bed too and lay down so they were side by side. Their legs aligned, heads close, shoulders touching, hands clasped the same way. Avril was warm and her hair smelled of grapefruit shampoo.
‘What?’ Lydia said.
‘Sometimes I wish your mum was my mum. Wouldn’t that be great? Then we could be sisters, real sisters.’
Her voice was sad. Avril hardly ever talked about her life at home, but Lydia knew, of course. She’d been there often enough when the bedroom door was shut and they had to creep around the house, making as little noise as possible. She put her arm around Avril and hugged her.
‘I wish that, too,’ she lied.
Chapter Ten
Jo
‘WHERE’S DADDY?’ OSCAR jumped up so that he could see better out of the window.
‘He should be here any minute, sweetheart.’ Jo shifted Iris on her lap and adjusted one of the slides in her thick dark curls. ‘I know he can’t wait to see you.’
‘He’s late again?’ Lydia appeared in the doorway, in skinny jeans and a stomach-skimming T-shirt, her hair artfully messy and her eyes lined with too much black. ‘Jesus Christ, that man is pathetic.’
‘He’s their father,’ Jo reminded her. She heard the tartness in her own voice and softened it. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘I thought you might want to help me with the painting?’
‘Oh, Mum. I thought you were going to do Granny Honor’s room and I was going to do mine?’
‘Well, yes, but I could do with a hand. Or you could paint upstairs and I could paint downstairs, and we could meet for lunch. It would be like a painting party.’
‘Party!’ said Iris, clapping her hands.
‘I’ve told Avril I would meet her.’
‘Avril could help.’
Lydia gave Jo a look that clearly said Are you mad? Jo wondered where teenagers learned these things from.
‘I’m doing revision, remember? I’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow is when we have to go and pick up Granny Honor.’
‘I’ll do it tonight, then.’
‘Don’t forget to text me.’
‘Whatever.’ Lydia headed for the front door. ‘I’ll be back later.’
‘Don’t you want to say hello to Richard?’
‘What for?’ She banged the door after her.
Charming. But Jo had to admit, Lydia did slightly have a point. Even though Jo believed that Richard had tried his best to be pleasant to Lydia, the two of them had never clicked. It had been the subject of many discussions between Jo and Richard when they were still married. Jo had said that maybe it was because Lydia, who’d been eleven when Jo and Richard married, was too old to accept a new parent figure in her life. Richard would snort and say, ‘Nonsense. She remembers her own father and I can’t compare.’