by Fiona Foden
“Yeah, ‘cause they’re in a rush for the swimming gala.”
Swimming galas. Trips to Auntie Sue’s. Other people’s lives are so cosy and normal. “Right.” Mum looks relieved. A tense pause fills the kitchen, and I don’t know what to do. The inside of my mouth feels sawdusty, like the bottom of Cedric’s cage. Is it my job to tell Lily about Dad and the nudie model? I only turned thirteen yesterday. I don’t feel ready for the responsibility. Mum sips tea from her chipped World’s Best Mum mug.
“Where’s Dad?” Lily asks.
My heart staggers in my chest. Tell her, Mum. Tell her.
Mum sips some more.
“I said where’s—”
“He’s … not here,” I cut in. “He’s … gone away.”
Mum seems to draw herself up then, as if her tea has magical, strength-giving powers. “Lily, sweetheart. Me and Daddy … we’re … he’s … gone-to-live-somewhere-else.”
Lily’s mouth wilts. “What? Where’s he gone?”
I go over and squeeze her hand, noticing that each of her stubby nails has been painted a different colour. Her shoulder-length dark hair hangs messily around her face. “We’re not sure yet,” Mum says softly, “but whatever happens, we’ll be fine, OK? Everything will work out. Won’t it, Clover?”
How the heck should I know? “Suppose so,” I mumble.
Lily inhales deeply. I can tell she’s trying to flatten the wobble in her voice as she announces, “Guess what! Hannah’s got a chocolate fountain.”
And that, in a nutshell, is how my little sister’s mind works. It flits on to something else – something less scary than nudie models, like chocolate fountains or wanting to buy a plastic tunnel to stop Cedric keeling over from boredom on his wheel.
I’m worried about Mum, but I don’t know what to do with her. Every time I try to cuddle her or offer her more tea, she shrugs me off as if she doesn’t want to be cuddled. “I’m swimming in tea!” she wails at one point. What else could I offer her? Wine? No – I can imagine how that’d end up. So I pack our swimming stuff and set off with Lily into town, which feels better than being trapped in our house.
I’ll figure out what to do when we get back. In fact, by that time, Dad’ll have realized that he can’t live another second without us and come rushing home, and I’ll pretend that my demented brain just made the whole episode up.
As we walk into town, Lily fires questions about Dad. I can’t answer a single one. Then she gives up and starts telling me all these scintillating facts about Hannah’s chocolate fountain. Like how Hannah’s mum adds oily stuff to stop the chocolate setting rock solid. How dipped strawberries are good, but marshmallows are a bit sickly, so Lily could only manage about thirty-seven.
By the time we reach town, I’m all chocolated out.
Normally, on a sunny Saturday like this, we’d head straight for the North Cove. Our town, Copper Beach, is named after its weird rust-coloured sand. Loads of people used to come here for their holidays. You can see from old photos that the hotels along the seafront used to be mad, clashing colours, like Jupe in his gold leather trousers and women’s blouses. You’d get pink, yellow and turquoise buildings all next to one another. Then people stopped coming and the hotels faded and their paint peeled off. Everyone wanted to go to Ibiza or Disneyland. I’ve never been abroad but imagine a sky so blue it hurts your eyes, and sea as warm as a bath.
Lily and I head down the stone steps to the North Cove. “Don’t feel like swimming,” she announces.
I stop. “Me neither, Lil. Where shall we go?”
She grins, showing the gap that the tooth fairy didn’t pay for because she forgot. “The pet shop. Please, Clover! You promised we’d buy Cedric that tunnel.”
I sigh. “OK.” We head for the shops and she pulls me into Pet Heaven, where we watch the tiny neon fish fluttering like sweet wrappers in their tanks. “What are they thinking about?” Lily muses.
“Not much,” I say. “They’re only meant to have three-second memories.”
“They must think about something,” she insists.
“Yeah, well, they’re probably thinking, What a fantastic new tank! Imagine if your home looked completely new and different every three seconds.”
The phrase “broken home” pops into my head, and I picture our house cracking down the middle with our favourite possessions – my guitar, Lily’s giant tub of five hundred felt tips – poking out of the rubble. I want to forget this morning, to erase it like one of Dad’s horrible drawings. I want a three-second memory, like a fish.
“Look – kittens!” Lily exclaims, swooping towards a wire cage at the back of the shop. “Can we buy one?”
“No way. Mum’s allergic to cats, remember?”
“Well…” She frowns, and I can virtually hear her brain whirring. “We could get one for Betty. She’s looked awfully lonely since Midnight was run over.”
“But what if she doesn’t want a new one?” I reason. “You can’t replace people’s pets without asking them.” Unlike people, obviously. We’re completely replaceable.
“Stinking meanie,” Lily says with a sniff.
“Because I won’t buy a kitten? Don’t be so stupid!”
Lily chews her lip. “Let’s get Cedric’s tunnel then. Did you bring your birthday money?”
“Oh, right, I thought I was a stinking meanie…”
She juts out her lip. “Sorry.”
“Oh, OK,” I say, sighing. Now the Dad thing’s happened, I can’t think of anything I want to buy anyway. The tunnel is made from amber plastic, and I have to agree that Cedric will love its twists and turns. “Where shall we go now?” Lily asks outside the shop.
I rack my brain. The last thing I want is to go shopping in the precinct. On Saturdays you’re always bound to run into someone like Sophie Skelling, who’s already got 34C boobs, trying on a teeny custard-yellow crochet bikini in New Look. My own swimsuit’s plain navy blue. “It’s not plain,” Mum insisted when she bought it for me. “It’s sporty.”
“Let’s just go home,” I say, “and give Cedric his present.”
We don’t talk much on the way back. I think Lily’s feeling as sad and hollow as I am. As we walk, I decide to embark on “Operation Normal” and make a list in my head of ordinary things to reassure me that life will carry on and be fine.
Some Normal Things
Swimming galas
Visits to aunties
Chocolate fountains
Cedric
Dad pottering about the greenhouse…
No – not Dad! Anything but Dad. I try to think of more things but my mind’s a blank. And I don’t feel any better.
Back home, Mum’s lying on the sofa with her bare feet up against the wall, babbling away on the phone. Spotting us, she finishes the call and smiles weakly. “Have a nice time in town, girls?”
“Yeah,” Lily says. “Look what we bought Cedric…”
Mum blinks at the tunnel as if she hasn’t the faintest idea what it’s for. “It’s for him to run in,” I explain. “To stop him getting bored in his cage.”
“Oh!” Mum says with a forced smile. “That’s nice, love. He’ll like that.”
“Let’s show him,” Lily says, tugging me out to our back porch, where Cedric lives. We call it a porch, but it’s really a wobbly outbuilding that Dad built with planks he found in skips. I have a trick that always makes everyone laugh, and decide to perform it to cheer up Mum. I lift Cedric from his cage and let him pat-pat on my hand. Then I carry him through to the living room to show her. “Watch this,” I say. Mum watches with red-rimmed eyes. Then, right on cue, Cedric scampers up the sleeve of my top, around the back of my neck with a delicious tickle and down the other sleeve, where he pings out to rapturous applause.
OK, so Mum doesn’t clap exactly. And I feel so stupid as I shuffle out to the p
orch to put Cedric back in his cage. I might come up with some mad ideas sometimes, but what on earth made me think I could cheer up poor Mum with a performing rodent?
By Monday morning I’ve convinced myself that the whole school will be laughing its pants off about my dad running off with a naked model person. I’m fretting about this before I’ve even got out of bed. Lily is up already, chatting non-stop to Mum downstairs, as if trying her best to pretend that everything’s normal. Poor kid. Normally she only has this kind of stuff to worry about:
Finding acceptable munchies in the cupboard for school snack (no cheesy Wotsits? Call Childline!).
And a pair of matching socks.
Which hair bobble she’s going to wear that day.
Remembering her Brownie Promise and Law.
I huddle under my duvet, trying to think of more things, but can’t. Which pretty much makes my point. “Clover!” Mum shouts up. “Are you dressed yet? Or are you planning to go to school in your pyjamas today?”
She’s one to talk. She wore her nightie all of Saturday, even to answer the door when a man came around selling dusters out of a suitcase. “Sorry,” I heard him say, “I shouldn’t disturb you when you’re ill.”
I guess she is ill, in a way. She’s trying to be normal, but I can tell she’s putting on a cheerful act, even from up here in my bedroom. “Clover!” Mum calls up again. “It’s gone eight o’clock, love…”
I jump out of bed, tear off my PJs and pull on my alluring grey school skirt plus polo shirt in the hideous colour they call “bronze”. It’s actually a pale, pukey beige which makes everyone look corpse-like, apart from Sophie Skelling with her tumbling curls and spray-on tan.
In the bathroom I drag a comb through my hair. Mum calls it “ebony”, but it’s actually very-dark-brown-nearly-black. It’s currently sticking up lumpenly at the top, looks OK-ish for about five centimetres below that, then frizzles down to my shoulders. My big fat fringe is a disaster.
Raking among Mum’s miracle potions in the bathroom cabinet, I find a bottle of golden serum stuff and dollop some on to my hair. It feels a bit greasy but hopefully it’ll produce wondrous tresses à la Skelling. Maybe it’ll make me 34C-bra-shaped while I’m at it, and worthy of yellow crochet bikinis. I brush my teeth, grab my bag and guitar from my room and hurry downstairs in the hope of a luscious breakfast laid out by Momma.
Only today there’s not much in the way of breakfast. Lily’s parked at the table, tucking into little piles of things from the same plate, like Mum used to give us for lunch when we were little. There’s a raisin pile, a tinned sweetcorn pile and a small mound of grated cheese. Lily’s obviously been allowed to assemble her own breakfast. It looks like some kind of weird nutritional experiment. I find the cornflakes box and shake it. Empty, apart from orangey dust at the bottom. No Sugar Puffs either. Fantastic. I peer into the bread bin, find the last two slices of a loaf and quickly make myself some toast. When I bite into it, though, I couldn’t feel less like eating, and can barely gulp it down.
“You’d better hurry,” Mum says, patting my shoulder.
“I’m just not hungry,” I mutter. “C’mon, hurry up, Lily. Let’s go.”
She crams a fistful of raisins into her mouth and leaps up from her chair. We’re cutting it fine time-wise. I wonder if Dad’s at work yet, or will they live off Nudie’s money? You must be paid loads for that kind of work. Otherwise, why would you do it? At least Mum’s dressed today, and will be working later, which has to be better than sitting around moping all day. Lily and I pull on our jackets. “Have a good day, darlings,” Mum calls out. We’re almost out of the front door when she scampers after us. “Clover, what have you got on your hair?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“It’s very greasy,” Mum says with a frown. “What have you put on it?”
Uh-oh. It was probably some of her skincare gloop that cost more than our TV. Even though Mum’s really pretty, she’s convinced she needs all these creams and oils to stop herself shrivelling into an old woman. “Some, er, stuff from the bathroom cabinet,” I babble, horribly aware of the spectre of Skelling across the road. She’s wearing the shortest school skirt she could possibly get away with, all the better to show off her long, tanned legs. She grins fakely and waves.
I flap my hand at her as Mum rakes through my hair as if checking for nits. “Mum, stop it, we’ll be late,” I protest. From around the corner saunters – no, please no – Riley Hart, tousle-haired and heart-stoppingly cute, doing his long-legged gangly walk. I stagger away from Mum. I think Riley smiles over at me. His fair fringe springs over his eyes, and his hands are thrust into his trouser pockets. Since he moved here after Christmas, Copper Beach has felt brighter, as if glitter has been sprinkled over it.
“Is it some kind of oil?” Mum asks.
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, you must know. You put it on…”
I clear my throat. “It was that yellowy stuff in the thin bottle.”
“For God’s sake, Clover!” she exclaims. “That’s olive oil. I thought I could smell something salady…”
“Ew, disgusting,” Lily sniggers at my side.
“What was olive oil doing in the bathroom?” I snap, aware of Skelling dawdling to let Riley catch up with her as usual. Best mates, those two, always chatting away. Oh, the joys of living on the flight path to school so nearly everyone passes our house.
“It’s been there for years,” Mum says, “since Lily was little and I’d rub it into her scalp to get rid of the flaky bits…”
I try to stomp back inside, but Mum blocks the doorway. “Mum, I’ll have to have a shower, wash it off…”
“You can’t have a shower at twenty-five to nine…”
“I can’t go to school covered in oil either!”
Mum plants her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to,” she says firmly. “Look on the bright side, love. Olive oil’s a brilliant conditioner.”
I open my mouth to protest, then turn and march schoolwards with Lily whooping like a monkey at my side. The day can only get better.
My school’s called Horsedung (its real name is Horsedon but no one calls it that). It’s a huge brown lump, and it stinks – at least before lunch while the dinner ladies are brewing up hideous potions to pollute our insides. I know school meals are meant to be healthy, but the government’s rules don’t seem to have reached our little corner of Devon. We never have stuff at home to make a packed lunch, and Mum won’t let me go to the chippie, which seem a little unfair as she works there and daily fried food hasn’t done her any harm.
Once I’ve dropped off Lily at primary school, I leg it up the hill. I’m beyond late, which does seem to matter now. I also hope that if I run, the air whooshing through my hair will evaporate the olive oil.
All through registration and maths, I keep my head down, horribly conscious of the salady pong. Break time is trickier. In need of some friendly support, I grab Jess and make her come to the loos with me. Luckily, there’s no one else in there. “Try washing it out,” she suggests. Obediently, I rub on a splodge of pink liquid soap from the dispenser and splash some warm water on to my head. “Think it’ll work?” I ask doubtfully.
“Course it will,” Jess reassures me. “Soap’s just like shampoo, isn’t it?”
Not like Jess’s shampoo, it isn’t. Hers has exotic ingredients like mango essence and rare orchid juice or whatever. While Mum buys herself fancy wrinkle creams, Lily and I get cheapo shampoo that’s ninety-nine pence for something like sixty-five litres. It’s bright blue and smells of hospitals.
School soap, on the other hand, smells bubblegum-sweet and soon works up into a creamy froth. “Wash it off in the basin,” instructs Jess. “Here, I’ll help you.”
I fill a basin and dunk in my humiliated head while she sloshes on water from her cupped
hands. It runs down my polo shirt and swills inside my burning ears. “Is it done yet?” I ask, my voice echoing around the basin.
“No,” she mutters. “The more I rinse, the more bubbly it gets. It’s really frothing up now…”
“How will I get it off?” Panic judders up my chest.
“God, Clover, I don’t know…”
“I can’t go to history with a bubbly head!” I wail.
“Maybe we can pat it with paper towels,” she says desperately.
“Patting won’t work, it’ll still be frothy…”
The loo door bangs open. “What’s the matter, Jess?” comes Skelling’s crowing voice. “Hey, Clover, is that you with your head in the sink? Didn’t you have time for a shower this morning? Thought I could smell something…”
I flip my head out of the water like a seal. “There was some, er, stuff in my hair,” I say coolly.
“What, like bird poo? Did a birdie poo on you, Clover?” Skelling tosses her fair curls. “Or is it nits?” she goes on. “Saw your mum checking your hair on your doorstep this morning. You can’t wash them out, you know. You have to use special liquid from the chemist that really stinks. Or shave your head.” She cackles loudly.
Water dribbles down my back, and the school soap is making my scalp itch. “I don’t have nits,” I snap.
“Ever seen one under a microscope?” she asks. “They’ve got massive scratchy claws and pointy mouths to suck your blood.”
The bell rings shrilly. “C’mon, Jess, we’d better go,” I announce, flinging Skelling a withering look.
“But you’re soaking wet,” Jess hisses. “You can’t go to class like that.”
Skelling snorts into her hand. “Better use the hand drier, hadn’t you?”
Although I hate to admit it, her suggestion makes more sense than dripping all over the floor in history. I duck under its hot blast with Jess hovering protectively at my side.