by Liz Tipping
Liv and I chatted for a while and made a list of all the things we would need. It would be complicated and we’d need to have a good think about how we could fund it. And then I checked the progress of my cardigan on eBay. I was winning the auction. The cardigan was going to be mine and I had a glimmer of hope. I could go to the ball and everything was going to be all right and soon I’d have a few moments of magic of my own.
*
I called round after work to tell Verity about my plans for the event and update her on the cardigan. She was mixing a green leafy paste together as I sat at the table in her chaotic kitchen. She was trying to convince me that red hair could be my look.
“So you’re going to do it? Organise an outdoor film event?” said Verity. “Does this mean you’re staying? Not applying for jobs any more?”
“I don’t know about that, Vee. There’s no guarantee we can get it off the ground, so I’ll still have to apply for jobs. But yeah, I want to give it a go.”
I still wasn’t sure there were even enough people round here who’d want to come to something like that. “If I build it, they will come,” I added and laughed.
“Well, it sounds excellent, and it means you won’t be leaving me. Or Stubbs.”
“I still might be going – there’s no guarantee it will be a success. Besides we won’t see much of Stubbs once I’ve turned him into the best prom date ever. April won’t be able to resist him. I took him ice skating so he can impress her.”
“I doubt April would want to go ice skating. She’d probably only want to go on yachts and posh restaurants and helicopter trips to Paris. So are we are really doing this then?” She inspected the henna paste and lifted it up with a spatula. It slopped back into the bowl. It looked like the contents of some mouldy old teabags.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you to do it, Verity, but I really think I should go to the hairdresser’s especially if you’re thinking of using chemicals. You know, for health and safety reasons.”
“It will be fine. Absolutely fine,” she said. “It’s henna, anyway; it’s all natural.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said, catching a whiff of it. “God. It bloody stinks.” I clamped a hand over my face.
Verity looked at the bowl. “You’re right. In fact, it looks like something from one of the kids’ nappies when they were younger. Maybe we’ll leave it for now. You don’t want to be completely Molly Ringwald; you need to keep a bit of yourself.”
“Yeah, maybe I do, but I just want to look cool. I want Daniel to notice me,” I said, touching my hair.
“Look,” she said, flinging the bowl of henna on top of a pile of dishes and pans in the sink. “Don’t you think you’re taking all this a bit seriously? How do you know if Daniel is even going to remember you? Are you still stalking him on Facebook?”
“No. Yes. Well not really. I would do but I don’t have the time at work and I have to use all my free time to apply for jobs and bid on the cardigan.”
“You’ll look a bit silly turning up in a cardigan to a ball.”
“No. I won’t. I will look interesting. And kind of weird but incredibly cool.”
“Anyway, when is your next ‘date’ with Stubbs?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Tonight,” I said. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be like. But you know, it might be fun, because I get to hang out with Stubbs before April steals him from me.”
“Someone is sounding like the green-eyed monster. Didn’t you ever think you and Stubbs might…you know, get together?”
“I think Stubbs just doesn’t see me like that. I’m probably invisible to him in that way.”
“Are you sure?” Verity pressed me.
“A hundred per cent,” I said. The truth was, it had dawned on me that there had never been a time when I didn’t enjoy being with Stubbs, but now I was beginning to realise that perhaps I did like like him as Liv had suggested. I wondered for a moment if I had hidden these feelings. I thought about how he had laughed the other week when he pretended to ask me out. Me and Stubbs had been so firmly friend-zoned for such a long time. Our relationship was cemented as friends and I couldn’t lose that. I couldn’t even see what a relationship with me and Stubbs would look like. I dismissed the thought. I had too much to think about and I didn’t have time to think about Stubbs and how Liv thought he was smoking hot and how excited I was about seeing him later.
*
“But there’s just so many people ahead of us, and they’re all going to be in that little room. How can anyone possibly have a good time when there’s no room to move?”
I didn’t particularly want to go and see “Nearvana” in this dingy little pub. I didn’t like the idea of either: a) queuing to get into a pub or b) paying to get into a pub, but Stubbs was paying for the tickets. He was always raving about them and he said it was the closest he’d ever seen to the real thing. “And why is everyone twelve?” I said. “I feel about a hundred years old.”
“No one is twelve. You have to be over eighteen to get in.”
Despite what Stubbs said there couldn’t have been many of them over the age of seventeen. I was expecting everyone to be wearing black but a lot of the girls were wearing colourful clothes, like Olivia wore. One of them turned to me and said, “Loving the nineties look, so cool.” I’d hoped Stubbs hadn’t heard. I wasn’t sure if the girl was being sincere, but any time someone commented on my clothes, I winced. It reminded of school and being called the “bag lady”. Being here, even though I was with Stubbs, made me feel uncomfortable.
“You are going to love this. I’ve seen them before. The atmosphere is always good at these gigs.”
“Okay, I believe you,” I muttered as the queue shuffled forward.
“It’s cool you are giving it a go. Never thought I’d see it. After this, we’ll be able to go to gigs together all the time,” he said.
“Well, let’s see, shall we? We have to get this one out the way first,” I said. I was feeling nervous but I couldn’t help smiling when Stubbs said he wanted to spend more time with me. I tried not to think about him asking April out.
We walked down the stairs of the pub where a surly green-haired woman took our money and stamped our hands. She impatiently motioned us down the stairs into a room, which was a cross between a teenage goth’s bedroom and a medieval torture dungeon chamber thing. Though having never been in a teenage goth’s bedroom, I couldn’t be sure that the bedroom of a teenage goth didn’t also look like a medieval torture chamber. I made a mental note to check with Olivia in the morning.
“Stubbs, you know teenage goth’s torture chamber bedrooms?”
He didn’t even think it warranted it a response. He rolled his eyes and held my hand, leading me to the bar. The floor was sticky and while it wasn’t too busy now, I could tell by the length of the queue we’d been in, there wouldn’t be much room to move.
“How do we get out? If we need to,” I said as we stood at the bar.
Stubbs shook his head, as he leant on the bar. “Unbelievable. We’ve literally just got here.”
“It just seems a bit dangerous, is all,” I said. “I mean, what about health and safety?” Being in this room with all these “cool” people and the comment about my “90s look” had me feeling so uncomfortable I didn’t want to stay.
He handed me a pint of lager in the thinnest plastic beaker I’d ever seen and I rolled my eyes.
“Come on, it’s your first gig,” he said. “Enjoy it. You have to get into the spirit of things.” He turned to face the stage where some men in scruffy jumpers and beards were setting up instruments.
I took a sip, but I gripped the flimsy plastic too tightly and it pushed all the beer upwards. It spilled all over my chin and down my top. Classy. I put the beaker down and tried to wring my black jersey top out, which is a very tricky thing to do while still wearing it. Stubbs turned around so I smoothed myself down and pretended nothing had happened. I raised my eyebrows, smiled at him and shrugge
d. A couple of girls nearby smirked and giggled into their cider and black, which made me feel like a complete arse.
The room quickly filled up and the band started. Within minutes, all the noise and screamy, shouty singing quickly became unbearable. If the music wasn’t bad enough they flung their instruments around in front of the speaker things, which created whistling sounds and humming and vibrations.
Stubbs was really into it but I couldn’t wait for each song to end to get a minute’s respite.
It took me about three songs in until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I was feeling panicky as people jostled in between us, taking him a little further away from me, and I felt trapped – like I couldn’t get out.
“Stubbs!” I called him, but he didn’t hear me so I called him again. “Stubbs!” I reached out to him and grabbed him on the shoulder. He turned around. I pointed at the door and mouthed, “I want to go.” He looked a little alarmed. He pushed past the people in front of me and swiftly placed one arm around my waist. He used his other arm to move people out of the way and he swept me towards the door. It reminded me of the night of the Christmas disco when he took my hand and led me away from it all. I remembered how he walked me home when I was crying.
I could see people were looking at me, staring. He half carried me up the stairs and through the doors and sat me on a bench by the canal.
“Better?” he asked putting his arm around me.
I nodded. “I’m sorry, I was just getting so hot in there and there were so many people and all that noise…”
“I guess it’s not for everyone,” he said, sympathetically.
“I think I just don’t like music. Do you think I just don’t like music? I think we need to abandon all hopes of me trying to be cool and just give up on the whole thing.”
“I think you’re cool,” he said.
“I’m not sure I believe you, but it’s nice of you to say.” I wondered if he did think I was cool. I hardly felt like it. I couldn’t even stay somewhere I felt uncomfortable for longer than a few minutes. “I dropped most of my pint on myself,” I said, tugging at my top.
He took his jacket off and wrapped it around me.
“I’m sorry you had to leave,” I said.
“It’s all right,” he said. “As long as you’re all right. I’ve seen them loads of times. Shall we go?”
“It’s only early. Shall we go somewhere else?”
“Go on, then. Where to?”
I shrugged and got up and we started walking along the High Street past a few busy bars and cafés with music blaring loudly from everywhere.
“This one?” said Stubbs as we passed an empty-looking chain pub.
“Nah,” I said.
“This one?” said Stubbs.
“Too busy,” I said, looking through the glass-walled pub. We passed another with a poster outside that gave me a good idea for another “date” with Stubbs.
I was about to point it out to Stubbs when he said, “Come on, I know somewhere you’ll like.”
He hailed a cab and we headed back towards home.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“Back to mine.”
“What for?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said and he winked at me. “We need to sort this out once and for all. Call it testing a theory.”
I had no idea what he had in mind but my thoughts were racing. What on earth did he want to sort out? We got out of the cab at Stubbs’s place and he gently ushered me into his living room.
“Right, Dunham, you might not like gigs, but it’s impossible that you don’t like any music at all. Everyone likes music. Everyone.” He steered my gaze in the direction of his wall full of LPs. “There’s over three thousand albums there and we’re not going to leave until you find something cool you like. Understood?”
“Okay, okay.” I nodded. “But there’s so many. How do I know where to start?”
“Start at A,” he said.
“Alphabetical order? Really? You are such a nerd.”
“But first you are listening to this one.”
He marched over to the shelves and pulled out a vinyl LP. It was orange with four silhouetted figures on it. He slipped the record from its sleeve, barley touching it, and carefully placed it on the turntable; then he lifted the stylus ever so gently and lightly dropped it on the record.
“You’ll like this one,” he said and came back over to the sofa where I had plonked myself down. He sat right next to me. The side of his thigh was touching mine. The music started and he said, “Close your eyes… Listen.”
It wasn’t like the noisy racket in the pub. I liked the voice of the man singing. His voice was gravelly, but it sounded calmer than the stuff in the pub.
I closed my eyes and listened. I snuggled back into the sofa.
“What’s it called?”
“Blow Up the Outside World,” he said.
“Yeah? I don’t mind it.”
“More Soundgarden then after this one,” he said. “Come on.” He got up and offered a hand to me, taking me across the wall of records. “Here, I’ve got loads of stuff by them. Have a look through.”
I flicked through the covers and chose a few, putting them in a pile.
“Thanks for doing this, Stubbs; it’s really nice.” I sat myself down on the floor, flicking through the records in front of me. Behind one record I found a pile of negatives in a clear folder. I pulled them out and put them up to the light.
“Hey,” said Stubbs and tried to take them off me.
“Sorry,” I said as he filed them back in amongst the records.
“What are they?”
“Just old stuff, from college, photos of this and that.”
“Why can’t I see?”
“They’re private,” he said.
“What you mean, like dodgy stuff is it? They say it’s always the quiet ones,” I teased.
“Don’t be daft,” he said. He was going red. “It’s just some photos. I don’t like showing people.”
“Why not?” I said. “That’s what photos are for, to show people, aren’t they? Where’s the actual photos?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “Probably didn’t print half of them. Can we just get back to the music?”
“Sure,” I said. I felt sad that Stubbs didn’t want to show me his photographs, that he didn’t want to show them to anyone at all. We worked our way through almost the entire Soundgarden back catalogue and some other bands too. We sat together for hours and Stubbs told me facts about each album. I didn’t ask him any more about the photographs, but when he got up to get us a drink, I went and swiped them and put them in my bag. I felt awful taking them but I thought if I took them and got them printed up, it might help Stubbs get excited about photography again. I wondered why he didn’t want me to see when he used to be so passionate about pictures. I was sure if I printed them, he’d be able to see how good he was.
He came back with drinks for us and beckoned me over to the sofa. “So turns out you’re a Soundgarden fan then – next week we’ll try Nirvana.”
“Yeah, I’m a Soundgarden fan,” I said with my eyes still closed. I brought my legs up underneath me. I tilted my head to the side as I tried to catch the lyrics in the music and my ear made contact with Stubbs’s shoulder.
“Oh sorry,” I said, feeling all of a sudden nervous and self-conscious as I noticed how close I was to Stubbs and how intimate this all felt.
“It’s all right,” he said without opening his eyes and he put his arm around me and pulled me a little bit closer so my head was resting again on his shoulder.
I opened my eyes and moved my head to get a better look at him.
“You’re so good at hugs,” I said.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s nice.”
“So do you reckon…” he said opening one eye, turning his face to mine. I wondered for a moment what he was going to do and it looked like he was abou
t to move in for a kiss. “Do you reckon that I could impress April Webster with my amazing hugging abilities?”
I nodded. But for some reason the thought of Stubbs even so much as hugging April made me feel quite sick.
Chapter Eleven
It was my day off and going shopping was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt I should go into the shop and help Liv work out the costings for the outdoor cinema to see if it was even possible, but Verity insisted time was ticking away and that I had to get something to wear to the school reunion.
“Okay then,” I said to Verity. I took a deep breath. “Where do we start?”
I had hoped Verity would be gentle with me and perhaps take me to the little Dorothy Perkins in Broad Hampton. But she said shopping in a supermarket with two small humans in tow was a logistical nightmare so we’d travelled into town on Friday afternoon while the children were at school. We were on the ground floor of Selfridges in Birmingham at the bottom of the first escalator. It seemed so vast.
“We just start at the bottom and work our way up,” said Verity and tugged me so we could embark on the escalator.
It wasn’t that I hated shopping. I loved shopping. Just not for clothes. I tended to buy something when I needed it. Like if a zip had broken on my trousers.
“How do you know what to buy? There are so many choices.” I was bewildered by all the floors and hundreds of concessions.
“I can’t describe it,” said Verity. “You see something and you absolutely, without question, know that you have to have it. And sometimes you know you can’t have it because you can’t afford it, so you have to walk away.”
We stepped off the escalator.
“And then sometimes the best thing happens,” she continued. “You decide that it would be morally wrong to sell your children and you are quite attached to both of your kidneys, so selling organs on the black market is also out. So you know you can never have it.” Verity trailed her hands along a rail of jewel-coloured dresses as I followed along behind her nodding. “But then,” she said, spinning round to face me, “something magical happens and you find out it’s in the sale.” She grabbed one of the dresses and held it up against me, which unnerved me and made me gasp.