by Fiona Foden
I splutter with laughter. “Not today, it wasn’t.”
He tilts his head and smiles. It’s the kind of smile that makes me forget everything for a moment: Mum, Dad, even the olive oil fiasco this morning. “We all have our off days,” he adds.
We’ve wound up outside Tony’s chippie. Through the steamed-up window I can make out Mum, chatting across the counter to a customer. I can see why Tony rates her. She makes people feel welcome, with all her smiles and chat, whereas Tony acts like he’d rather work in a mortuary than his own restaurant.
“Doesn’t your mum work in here?” Riley asks. So he knows details about me. This makes me feel very weird.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“C’mon, I’m starving. Would she give us some chips, d’you think?”
“No, Tony would go mad!” That’s not true. Tony’s usually so busy snarling over the fryer, he doesn’t notice if Mum dishes out a few freebies. It’s the thought of her smirking at us, then firing questions and teasing me when she gets home.
Riley frowns. “You don’t want your mum to see you with me? Is that it?”
“Of course not,” I protest.
“Great. In fact, I’ve probably got enough money for two portions anyway. C’mon, let’s get out of this rain.”
I’m about to say it’s only drizzle, and wouldn’t we be better getting bags of chips to eat outside? But Riley’s already marched in, swinging his guitar, and is ordering two platefuls at the counter.
Mum’s all sparkly as she serves us. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Clover?” she prompts me, beaming at Riley.
“Um, this is Riley, he goes to guitar lessons…” I mumble.
“Hi, Riley,” she says, smiling. She’s looking better already, and is even wearing mascara, which is starting to smudge in the heat.
Riley and I grab the only free table, which happens to be at the window. I’d rather have hidden away at the back. What if Skelling or one of her buddies walks by and spots us? I know if she sees us, she’ll come stomping right in and bring up my hair oil incident or start making sneery remarks about my weird family. And I just want a few minutes with Riley all to myself.
He chuckles.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“That sign,” he says, pointing. It’s pinned up wonkily behind the counter and says: Smiles cost nothing so we give them for free.
“You know what?” I say. “I’ve never actually seen Tony smile. I don’t know how Mum stands it in here.”
“Well, I like it,” Riley says firmly. “Maybe we could do this again after next week’s lesson. Or sooner, if you’re not doing anything…” His words come out all bunched up together.
“I usually have to look after Lily after school,” I say quickly. “The only reason I can come to guitar lessons is because she’s at gym.”
Riley nibbles a chip. “Well, maybe I could come round to yours sometime to practise guitar? Would that be OK?”
I hesitate. There are so many reasons why he can’t come – like the fact that Skelling would probably prise out my eyeballs and stamp on them. “What about Sophie?”
There. I’ve said it.
Riley shrugs. “What about her?”
“Well, she’s always with you, isn’t she? And I wondered…”
“I can do what I like,” he says with a shrug. “Sophie doesn’t own me.”
“I know, but…”
“Anyway,” he cuts in, “all these lessons I’m having with Niall… I’m just not getting any better, you know? It’s like some kind of mental block. Maybe you could help me before my dad decides it’s a waste of money and stops me going? Would you do that?”
His eyes hold mine for a moment. I know he’s not asking me out or anything, and it really is just a guitar thing between us. But still, I feel the grin spreading like honey across my face. “Sure,” I say. “That’d be good.”
“Shall we swap numbers then?”
I nod, glancing up at Tony’s sign, while trying to blot out Mum, who’s winking at me. Smiles are free, I think crazily. I’m bursting with them.
My ears and fingers might have malfunctioned today. But my heart, which is flipping delightedly as I pull out my phone, seems to be working just fine.
“Clover! Clover!” comes the voice next lunchtime as Jess and I head towards the canteen. “Clover, over here!”
I peer across the yard towards the railings, aware of the blood draining from my face. It’s Dad, standing and waving in full view of everyone. “What’s he doing here?” Jess gasps.
“No idea,” I hiss as Skelling and her fans skitter past us, giggling away.
With a deep breath and my chin held high, I march towards him. Whatever it is, I hope it’s going to be quick. I feel more than a little weird about Dad right now. Now I realize that Lily’s jammed next to him, with a grin plastered all over her face too. Despite the fact that he’s abandoned us, she’s obviously delighted to see him. Right now, I don’t know what I am.
“Hi, Clover,” Dad says, reaching out for a hug.
“Hullo, Dad.” I stand, rigid as a drainpipe, waiting for the hug to finish. It feels like billions of eyes are stabbing the back of my head.
“Thought I’d treat my girls to a special lunch,” he announces, releasing me from his grasp.
“Why?” I ask. Dad has never treated us to a “special lunch”.
He shuffles awkwardly and takes Lily’s hand. “I just think we need to have a talk.”
“But you can’t just take Lily out like this!” I protest. “She has school lunches, remember? The teachers’ll be wondering where she’s gone…”
“I sorted all that,” he says calmly. “Called the school office, said I was coming to collect her for lunch.”
“Oh,” I mutter.
“Haven’t got much time, though, have we? God, they work you kids hard.” His face cracks into another smile. “Come on, love, let’s go.”
“But, Dad, I was going to have lunch with Jess and I don’t really want…” I glance back at her and she shrugs. It’s no good. Obviously, whatever Dad has in mind is more important than my lunchtime arrangements.
It turns out that our “special lunch” is at Dinosaur Diner down at the seafront.
There are colour-in place mats depicting prehistoric scenes, and packets of fat wax crayons laid out on the tables. Even Lily’s outgrown colour-in place mats, but is dutifully shading in the spikes on a stegosaurus’s back.
I reckon she has an invisible shell to protect herself, a bit like those dinosaurs had. Since Dad walked out on Saturday she’s tried to act as if nothing’s changed – babbling on about chocolate fountains and chatting on the phone to her friends. I know, though, that it does bother her really. She’s meant to be making a collage for her Brownie artist badge on the theme of “my family”. Ages ago, she cut out little paper drawings of us. Now, whenever she tries to make us into a collage, she sits surrounded by all these paper figures, as if she can no longer work out where to put anyone.
“So!” Dad says overeagerly. “What d’you fancy, girls?” He grips an enormous laminated menu with cartoon dinosaurs dancing all over it.
I skim the options. Nothing has an ordinary name. You don’t get a burger and fries, you get a Tyrannosaurus Burger and Jurassic Sizzlers. It’s not a side order of coleslaw, but Munchy-Crunchy Herbivore Slaw Bursting With Essential Vits. I’ll tell you what’s bursting. My brain, from answering Dad’s lame questions about homework and guitar lessons and has Betty next door got a new cat to replace Midnight yet? As if he’s been gone for months, not three days. What I’d really love is to be in Horsedung’s canteen right now, and I never thought I’d say that.
“Um, everything OK at school, Clover?” Dad asks.
“Yeah,” I say firmly. I don’t mention my oil-slick disaster yesterday, or Amy going on about courts
and judges and all that stuff. I don’t bring up any of that because what could Dad do about it anyway? So there’s no point.
Anyway, what’s happened to our big talk that Dad seemed so keen to have? Maybe he’s forgotten, or is trying to communicate telepathically. I try to tune into his thought-waves, but can only pick up someone yelling in the kitchen.
We order our food, which arrives almost instantly. My burger tastes of shoe. Maybe it really is Jurassic. “Isn’t this great?” Dad says, looking desperate.
I scowl at him. My fingers seized up at my guitar lesson and now my throat’s gone weird as well. “Will I have to go to court, Dad?” I blurt out suddenly.
“What?” He blinks at me, horrified. Lily gawps at Dad, clutching a limp chip.
“Go to court,” I repeat, steadying my voice. “Isn’t that what happens when people get divorced?”
Dad reaches for my hand across the sticky table. I shouldn’t want him to hold it, but I do. “What’s put that into your head, sweetheart?” he asks softly.
“Who’s going to court?” Lily demands.
“Er, someone at school mentioned it,” I babble, “and I just thought…”
“Listen,” Dad insists. “Nothing like that’s going to happen, OK? No one’s going to court. You’ll both stay with Mum, and we’ll make arrangements so we can get together every weekend and do nice things like come here for lunch…”
A fossilized lump has jammed in my throat.
“…And maybe I’ll bring Bernice so you can see how nice she is. That’s why I wanted to see you. To explain everything to my favourite girls.”
Bernice. The word hovers awkwardly between us. I take a gulp of Coke to try and dislodge the lump.
“Would you like that?” Dad asks.
“Yes, Dad,” Lily says quietly, looking down at her place mat. She knows who Bernice is. Mum has spat out the word enough times on the phone.
“Clover?” Dad prompts me.
“Uh-huh.”
“You’d be OK with that?”
“I suppose so.” What else can I say?
He frowns, trying to make eye contact. I stare down at the cartoon pterodactyls on the menu. “Like some pudding?” he asks when we’ve all made half-hearted attempts at our main courses.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, “but we need to get back.”
“Oh, of course.” Had he forgotten about school, or what? Doesn’t he care about our education?
We drop off Lily and I say a speedy goodbye to Dad. “I’ll have to run to make it back for the bell,” I say, dodging his kiss.
I pelt along, my hair flying. Since Dad left, I’ve spent every spare moment playing guitar to try and take my mind off what’s happened. Sometimes it’s worked. I’ve lost myself in the songs, just like when it was Jupe and me. Now, though, Dad’s stormed back into my head. And he lied, I figure as Horsedung looms into view, about me and Lily being his favourite girls. That woman is now.
Nudie Bernice.
She’s his number one.
“Hey, where were you at lunchtime?” comes the voice behind me. I swing round, steadying my breath from my run. Riley looks like he’s been running too. “I, er, had to … meet someone,” I say.
“Oh.” He looks lost for a moment, then adds, “You know you said you’d help me with guitar?”
“Uh-huh…” My Dad-induced mood lifts a little, although the burger taste still lurks in my throat.
“All right if I come over later today?” Riley asks.
I pause for a moment, wondering if I should pretend to be busy, just so I don’t seem too keen. But after that dismal lunch with Dad, what would be nicer than hanging out with Riley for a couple of hours? “Sure,” I say lightly as we step into school together. “That’d be cool.”
“I’d really appreciate it,” I tell Lily as we walk home, “if you’d give me and Riley some privacy and not hang about, sticking your nose in.”
“Why?” she asks, frowning.
“Because … there’s stuff he wants me to show him on guitar and he’ll be embarrassed if you’re there.”
“Why? D’you fancy him?”
“Course not! He’s just a boy from school, all right?”
She shoots me a sly look. “Have you kissed him?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” I start to walk faster so she has to scurry along to keep up. It’s not normal to have to spend as much time with your little sister as I do. Unless I’m at school, she’s there, pinging questions at me. I officially have no life.
“So what am I meant to do,” she asks, “while you’re… showing him stuff?”
“Stay out of the bedroom,” I say firmly.
“That’s not fair! It’s my room too. I’ll just sit and draw in the corner and be quiet.”
“But you’d still be there,” I point out. “You’d still be breathing. Can’t you watch telly or something?”
She blasts out a huge groan and lets her camouflage school bag slip from her shoulder and drag along the ground, narrowly missing a spillage of curry. “Sorreee!” she sing-songs. “I won’t breathe, then. I’ll stop breathing and die and then you’ll be sorry.”
Sometimes I think my heart’s like a guitar string, because it twangs with guilt when she says stuff like that. I glare at Lily. We’ve shared a room since she was born. When she was old enough she’d climb out of her cot while I was asleep, and I’d wake up with her snuggled up next to me in bed, gusting milk breath in my face.
That was OK. Now I’m not so keen on sharing. The only place I get any privacy to read the magazines Jess gives me is on the loo with the door locked. We must be the only family in the developed world without a computer, so I can’t read stuff online. I’m not even safe in the bathroom. If I’m more than three minutes, Mum starts hammering on the door, shouting, “What are you doing in there?” as if I might be slathering myself with her precious wrinkle creams.
I glower at Lily. “I’ll pay you,” I mutter.
“How much?” Her eyes gleam like wet pebbles.
“Fifty pence.”
“That’s not enough! I want at least a pound. Two pounds.”
I snort in acknowledgement of being ripped off, but agree because I feel light and excited about Riley coming over. My head whirls with things to show him, like how to strum like you mean it and not sound afraid. Focusing on guitar-things is dampening my nervousness.
But as we turn into our road, my stomach tightens again. Our house is practically quaking with deafening rock music. We can hear it from the far end of the street. Mum plays this stuff when she’s worked up about something, so I know things are bad.
She likes terrible bands from when she was young. Bands who wear tight, shiny trousers and have masses of hair which they shake madly like wet dogs. OK, Jupe had a few pairs of scarily tight trousers stashed in his wardrobe. But he wrote songs, proper music that meant something to people. These other bands Mum likes just roar and wail as if they’re in agony.
I push open our front door and pause. “Why’s Mum home?” Lily shouts over the music. “Shouldn’t she be at work?”
“Don’t know. Maybe she’s sick and came home early.” But this isn’t sick-bed music. Dumping my bag in the hall, I march in.
“Hi girls!” Mum’s stirring something tomatoey in a pan on the hob. “Good day at school?”
“Um, yes,” I yell back, deciding not to mention our jolly lunch with Dad. “Why are you home? Haven’t you been at work?”
“I quit,” she announces.
“Did you get the sack?” Lily asks brightly.
“No, sweetheart. I said quit. Big difference. Hang on a minute and I’ll turn the music down.” She does – a bit – but it’s still pretty loud compared to what you’d hear in any normal house.
“But why?” I ask when she comes back into the kitchen.
&n
bsp; She sucks in a huge breath, as if the extra oxygen might help her explain. Her lipstick and eyeshadow look creased and end-of-day-ish. “You know Tony, my boss?” she says.
I nod.
“Well…” She flicks her gaze at Lily. “He, um … now I’m single and all on my own without a man or anything … he seemed to get…” She blushes and laughs awkwardly, showing her small, even teeth. “The wrong idea about me and him,” she finishes in a gallop.
“What wrong idea?” Lily asks.
Mum turns back to the bubbling pot. “The idea that I might want to, er … you know. Be his, um … girlfriend.”
“Ugh,” I shudder. Is that what happens when your husband leaves you? You’re slobbered over by men with fat, sweaty faces and enormous pink arms? Tony is gross.
“Anyway,” she goes on, “I was sick of having stinky hair and giving smiles for free. The only trouble is, now we won’t be able to borrow those costumes from the chippie for the carnival.”
The carnival! The very word pierces my heart. “What about money?” I ask, trailing after Mum as she removes the CD from the player and pops in another.
“We’ll manage,” she says. I’m about to ask how will we manage exactly? when there’s a sharp knocking on our front door.
Riley. Oh God. I’d been looking forward to him coming over all afternoon and now I can’t imagine anything worse. He can’t come in. Not with Mum’s music on, which I’m sure she’ll turn up to top volume again at any moment. We won’t be able to hear ourselves play, for a start. And he’ll decide Mum’s mad and tell everyone and never speak to me ever again. “Answer the door!” I hiss at Lily. “If it’s Riley, tell him I’m not in.”
She blinks at me. “What should I say?”
“Just tell him I’ve had to go out!”
“But why?” Lily’s forehead wrinkles in confusion.
“Tell who?” Mum asks.
“Just … a boy.” My heart’s banging so fiercely, I’m surprised she can’t hear it.
“That nice boy you had chips with?” Mum says with a smirk.
I nod. There’s another loud knock.