Writing On the Wall

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “That’s what he tells you!”

  “That’s what I know.”

  She thought a bit and looked at me sideways. “What if I told you he was getting it from me?”

  “I’d say you was a liar,” I said. But my face had gone all cold. Not that I believed her for a second, but I was shocked she’d try to pull a thing like that when we were supposed to be friends.

  Straight off she saw she’d gone too far.

  “I was just kidding,” she said, quick.

  “If that’s a joke, you better go and buy a new joke-book,” I said. And I walked away.

  I felt bad, though. That’s the trouble with people you like. They may be in the wrong, but you feel bad after. You want to make it up but how can you? It’s up to them to make a move. Karen didn’t. She’s like that. So I felt miserable.

  Kev met me after school. “What you looking so down for?” he asked. “You ought to be happy. Another two weeks and we’ll be out of this hole.”

  He meant school. It was the middle of June, our last-ever term. Yeah, I should have felt happy. But “to say the true” I was more scared. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. Kev didn’t either, but he wasn’t bothered. Took a lesson from his dad. He wasn’t afraid of being out of work, he was used to it. So Kev got used to it too – living with it. Lucky for him in a way. Growing up with my dad had given me a whole different outlook.

  I knew with my head there was nothing wrong with being unemployed – half the country seems to be, and worse to come, Sean says (he should know, he gets the sack often enough; can’t seem to settle). But something inside me made me think, if I went a month without doing something for my living I’d have more on my conscience than if I’d gone and robbed a bank.

  “I got nothing to look forward to,” I said to Kev.

  “I have,” he said. “I’m going to the Continent, aren’t I.”

  “You are? When? You never told me!”

  “I only just made my mind up.”

  “When are you going? Where? What you going to use for money?”

  “One at a time, girl! I’m going soon as school ends. I don’t know where,” he said, all careless. “Probably Holland. As for money, my dad had a big win on a horse and he told me to buzz off and spend some of it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless really. Kev going abroad, with money of his own to spend! Just like a – well, like a man. I looked at him with new eyes. I swear he looked taller.

  “Feeling jealous?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, why don’t you come?”

  I gawped at him for about half a minute. Then I said, “I can’t, can I. My dad’d do his nut.”

  He shrugged and didn’t say any more for the time. But that evening he came over to my house. He didn’t do that often. I think he sensed how my dad felt about him, and my big brothers – well, they are big: Sean’s near enough six foot and heavy with it, and Vlady, though he’s shorter and wears glasses, is thick-set like Dad. I think Kev was a bit nervous of them.

  Anyway, this time he did come, and we sat in the front room and Mum’d got the dinner on, so she’d got no choice but to leave us alone for a bit. I heard her calling Lily and I knew she was going to tell her off to sit with us, so I quickly asked Kev, “What you come for?”

  “Listen. I been talking to Darryl and them, and your pal Karen.”

  “She’s no pal of mine, not any more.”

  “Well, she’s Cliff’s new bird. I thought if we all went together, you could come too. Your dad wouldn’t kick up rough if there was a party of us, would he?”

  “How could we? How could we pay for it?”

  “Your family paid for the school trip every year till now, haven’t they? Well, this could be just like another school trip. We’d only stop away about a week. We’d go on the boat from Harwich. Then when we get there we can hitch-hike. I want to get up to Amsterdam, that’s where it’s all going on.”

  “What is?”

  He gave me a wink. “Dirtiest city in Europe,” he said.

  “What d’you mean, dirty?” As if I didn’t know.

  “Lot of litter and that,” he said, straight-faced now. I didn’t say anything.

  “What do you say? Will you ask ’em?”

  “How much would I need?”

  He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket.

  “I got it worked out. This is the fare, cheapest possible. Then you need spending money. We’d sleep in youth hostels mostly, or if the weather’s good we might sleep rough.”

  “I’m not sleeping rough in a foreign country! I wouldn’t even do it here.”

  “Oh, get away! That’s half the fun.”

  I shook my head. “Not for me it’s not. It’s youth hostels or nothing. I wouldn’t even bring a sleeping-bag.”

  “You can sleep in mine,” he says, all sexy.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  There was this silence. He gave me a funny look. Then he said, “Listen, Trace. I been patient with you. There’s not many would have waited like I have. The lads are sending me up rotten about you.”

  “You said you didn’t talk about me.”

  “Listen,” he said. “Do you know what anyone else would have told ’em? At least I haven’t made nothing up to stop ’em taking the Mick. I just tell ’em you’re hung up on your religion, so it won’t look like there’s something wrong with one or other of us.”

  “Does there have to be something wrong?”

  “Except for the Paki girls, darling,” he drawled, “you’re the last remaining virgin in the school just about.”

  “That’s not true for a start.”

  “Your pal Karen—”

  “I know about her. But there’s others. I’m not the only one, whatever Cliff and Darryl tell you. Big talkers, small doers, them two, you take it from me.” This was true. Boys aren’t the only ones who talk to each other.

  Kev looked amazed. “Get away,” he said.

  “True as I’m here.”

  He got this stubborn look. “Well, never mind them. It’s us I’m talking about now. If we’re going to Holland together I don’t want to spend my time chasing you across the dykes. Are we going to have it away there, or aren’t we?” And he got hold of me.

  “I’m not making no promises,” I gasped.

  “Well in that case—”

  Just then the door burst open and in came Lily. For once I wasn’t sorry.

  “Mum says I’m to come in and make sure you two don’t get up to nothing,” she says, right out, trust her. Tact! Never heard of it.

  Kev was in a huff anyway so he got up without a word and marched past Lily to the front door. I stayed where I was on the sofa. I listened for the door to bang but it didn’t. Lily looked into the hall.

  “He’s still here.”

  After a sec he put his head back in.

  “Aren’t you coming to see me out?”

  That’s what you call a climb-down with him, so I went into the hall, shutting the front-room door firm so Lily couldn’t overhear.

  “Okay,” said Kev. “You win. No promises. But you will come?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “It’ll be great, you’ll see. We’ll have a great time.” He grabbed my arm and gave me a quick one on the lips. “Start softening ’em up tonight,” he said.

  I brought the plan up at supper. Casual.

  “Kev came to tell me he’s off to Holland when school ends.”

  “Go on!” says Sean. None of our family’s ever been abroad except Dad. “They won’t let a little twit like him abroad on his tod, they’ll smack his arse and send him home to his mum.”

  “There’s a whole crowd going and all,” I went on, ignoring him.

  “Sure they’re all mad as hatters,” says Mum. “What’s wrong with the British Isles? If they’re so keen to cross the seas, why don’t they go to Ireland? There’s not a bit of scenery in the world to touch the Hill of Howth.”

 
; “They’re not looking for scenery, Mum,” said Vlady. “Not if I know it! They want adventure.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself,” said Sean.

  “Nor would I,” I said, seeing my opportunity.

  Dad put down his knife and fork and looked at me. “Ah,” he said.

  So then of course they all caught on, and they all put down their knives and forks and shouted, “AH!” like they always do when Dad does it.

  Only Mum didn’t get it. She was standing there with the dish of tinned peaches in her hands and she looked all round. “What’s this?” She never takes in anything the first time.

  “She wants to go with him,” said Mary. And looked at Mum and Dad. Waiting. Were they going to let me?

  “Not with him alone,” I said. “With a whole bunch.”

  “Who?” asked Dad, short. He didn’t like the idea, you could see that with one eye shut.

  I told him some names, off pat. Lucky he didn’t know them, except Karen. I could just imagine what he’d think of Darryl and Cliff, with their fancy haircuts and their earrings.

  “I don’t like that Karen,” said Mum. “She’s not the kind I’d want for a daughter. Not that one.” She pursed her lips and doled out the fruit, splashing a bit.

  Notice she hadn’t said I couldn’t go yet. She was waiting for Dad.

  Dad ate, bent low over his dish, not looking at me. He finished in about four spoonsful and then he wiped his mouth. Nobody said a word. Then he sat back and fired a string of questions at me like a machine-gun. Who–where–how-much–how-long, where’d we sleep, what’d we do, would we stay together? I told him as much as I could and didn’t get impatient or snappish. Not this time, you can bet. Then he said, “Do you really think you deserve such a thing? No O-levels. Probably not even your CSE’s.”

  “Yes I will. One anyway.” But still, he was right, it wasn’t much. I should’ve at least tried for a couple of O’s. Wished I had then, not only to put him in a good mood with me but because it was coming up for job-getting time.

  “I would prefer,” said Dad, slow, “that you do a job for a few months and earn some of the money yourself. That will be better.”

  “But Dad, then I’ll miss this trip! They’ll go without me!”

  “There’ll be other trips.”

  “Please, Dad! I’ll work after. I’ll pay you back, honest!”

  “You so much want to go?”

  “Yes!”

  Silence all round the table. Only Vlady went on eating.

  “I will think about it and let you know,” said Dad. He got up and went to the door. “I don’t like Kevin,” he said slowly. “I wish I did, but I don’t like him. I wish you had some other boy.” Then he went out.

  That does it, I thought. That’s a no if ever I heard one. I felt like crying. I jumped up and was going to run out of the room, but Vlady put up his hand – he was sitting next to me – and pulled me down in my chair again.

  “Don’t go mad,” he said.

  Somehow Vlady can always calm me down if he catches me before a mood really gets started. I sat and ate my peaches and everyone talked and quarrelled and went on as usual. Lily said she’d caught me and Kev necking and I gave her a good clout for snitching. That eased my feelings a bit, but not much.

  4 · Connie

  I didn’t sleep a wink that night hardly – well, not till near morning, anyhow. Then I slept in and was late for school of course. That meant I missed Dad, who goes off to the shop at crack of dawn.

  So I had to leave without knowing what he’d decided. I asked Mum. Nothing doing. If she knew, she wasn’t telling. Another bad sign. When there’s good news, she tells it. Bad news she leaves to Dad.

  Just as I got to the school gate I saw Kev, lurking just out of sight of the school windows. He grabbed me straight off.

  “Let go, I’ll be late!”

  “You’re late now, too late to go in. You better bunk off with me.”

  Tempting. But I jerked away. “I can’t. If Dad found out, then it’d be thumbs down on Holland for sure.”

  He laughed. “Right,” he said, letting go. “You be a good little girl and leave me to get on with me arrangements.”

  That night I waited and waited for Dad to come home. The more I waited, the more time I had to get worked up about going. At the same time I was trying to be ready to be disappointed. I was thinking, If that cow Karen’s coming, who needs it?

  But that didn’t work. Because another girl from our class, called Connie Evans, told me that day that they’d invited her to come along, and she was nice. Weird, a bit, but interesting. I liked her, even though she was a prefect – the only prefect we had with enough bottle for the job. She could even keep the hard boys in order. They respected her. In a funny way, we all did.

  She was a very sharp dresser. She’d dyed her hair black and she wore all black gear (not in school of course, but after). Black shirt, black trousers, even a man’s black hat. She wore crazy make-ups with loads of black round her eyes, and even on her lips sometimes.

  “Why all the black?” I asked her once.

  You know what she said? “Black’s for violence.” That’s all. She wouldn’t explain. But I’ll tell you one thing. Though she was very pretty (that’s not the right word – she tried hard not to be pretty, but she was attractive) and all the boys had an eye on her, I’ll swear she was a virgin – Paki or no Paki.

  Anyhow, they’d asked her, probably so there’d be a girl each. And because she was brainy. She’d done O-levels, though she’d never tell how many. “She’ll get our sums right for the trip,” Darryl had said that morning.

  Darryl was all worked up about it. He’d nearly driven me mad, talking about it every spare minute. He was borrowing his brother’s camping gear, big rucksack and that. Funny, I’d never thought of Darryl as the outdoor type! Now he was rabbiting on about how the only way to see a place was to sleep in the open and talk to the “real people” in shops and that.

  “How’ll you talk to ’em – in Double Dutch?” Cliff asked, sneery, but Darryl didn’t turn a hair.

  “I dunno about double, but I’m going to learn a bit of single,” he said. Cliff and me gawped at each other. Darryl learning Dutch! You’d have to have sat through four years of French with him to see the comic side of that.

  I was thinking about all this while I waited for Dad to come home. Darryl being all worked up and talking about the windmills and the flowers and the canals and that lot had got me excited. Now it wasn’t just a trip I fancied, it was Holland. I’d always thought it would be just flat, with the queen pedalling about on her bike, all dreary. But now I thought it might be fun, and even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t bear to be left behind.

  So when Dad’s van finally drew up I couldn’t control myself. I went rushing out of the house to grab him before he’d got more than one leg out.

  “Dad, can I go? Please say I can go!”

  He stopped moving and just give me one of his sad, Polish looks. He didn’t have to say a word. I didn’t give him the chance. I just turned and ran back in the house and upstairs to my room.

  Of course Mary had to be there, blow-drying her hair. It’s red. She pretends to hate it, but since she found out what the boys think about red-heads she’s starting messing about with it the whole bloody day practically. When I saw her now, sitting in front of our mirror blow-drying away with that silly simper on her face I just stood there and yelled:

  “Why do you always, always have to be in here, can’t you ever move your fat arse somewhere else?”

  Red-heads are supposed to be hot-tempered but Mary’s just the opposite. Not that she doesn’t feel things. She just doesn’t flare up like I do. She kind of smoulders deep down, like a volcano. And then, once a year, she’ll erupt. . . . This wasn’t one of those times though. She looked at me through the mirror and her nose went bright pink. Then she switched off the drier, laid it down ever so carefully on the glass top of the dressing-table, got up and walked ou
t.

  She brushed past me without seeming to see me. Like I was a speck of dirt. She didn’t even slam the door like Lily would have, to show what she thought. She can make you feel like the incredible shrinking man, Mary can, when she goes all quiet like that. The bit at the end where he walks through the little hole in the fly-screen.

  Anyway she was gone, so at least I could fling myself down on my bed and have a good cry. A good cry? What’s a good cry? This was a lousy rotten awful stinking cry. I hate crying like I hate being sick. And at least throwing up makes you feel better after. After my “good cry” I felt just as bad as before and I looked like something the cat dragged in. Except we haven’t got a cat.

  I lay on the bed, thinking, of all things, Why haven’t we got a cat? I suppose I needed something to comfort me. Something to stroke. I thought, I wish Kev was here to give me a cuddle, but Kev isn’t really the cuddly sort. He’s more sort of spiky. After this month or so we’d been going out, he hadn’t got any more gentle than he was to begin with. I’d told him a few times not to grab and not to hold me so tight but he was just like that. Part of that showing-off thing; look what a hard man I am, sort of. Nice sometimes, but not when you’re feeling fragile like I was then. I had a nasty feeling Kev wouldn’t have been much comfort even if he had been there.

  Anyway. Unless you’re going to run away from home there’s nothing you can do in the end but make your eyes up thick and go downstairs. When you get there you can either go on as if nothing had happened or you can sulk. No prizes for guessing which I did.

  It was a king-sulk, that was. I didn’t give Dad a look of course. I just took it out on everyone else. I took a swipe at Lily just for the way she stuck her elbows out when she ate. Sent Sean up rotten for losing his job again. Criticised every single bit of food Mum put on the table, though it was about like always. And told Mary to shut her face because she took Mum’s side.

  Only Vlady I didn’t say anything to. And that was because he wasn’t there. Maybe if he had been I wouldn’t have let myself go. Not so bad anyhow.

  “Where’s Vlady?” Mum asked in a gap in my bitching. She looked round for him like she hoped he’d come and save her from my mood. It wouldn’t have been the first time.