by Sue Limb
The party kind of unravelled early because watching motorsport movies wasn’t the girls’ idea of fun, and Jess got home by 10pm, which was fortunate, because her mum was already intensely irritated.
‘I’ve told you, I don’t approve of you going out in the evenings on weekdays!’ she snapped. ‘And I must know where you are!’
‘I was only at Tiffany’s,’ grumbled Jess. ‘Watching a movie. And if you really want to know, it was dead boring.’
Next day, school was buzzing with gossip. Who had nicked the disc? Rumours flew about. It had been sold to a Japanese businessman. It had been bought by satellite TV. Jack had never made it in the first place. Jess just kept her head down and her fingers crossed. OK, so yesterday she had been rescued – possibly by divine intervention. But the disc could surface at any moment and the whole CCTV party could be on again in an instant.
Jess tried immensely hard to be a good girl, as she had promised the Almighty. She didn’t want to blow it by a moment’s thoughtless misbehaviour. Luckily Ben Jones was absent, so she wasn’t distracted from saintliness. She actually concentrated in history, and performed her set tasks in strange, neat handwriting. She sat at the front in English and put her hand up eagerly to answer every question in a shiny virtuous voice. She ran about and attempted tennis in the sports hour, trying not to sweat too hard, as she thought God might not like it. She did not draw on her hands, doodle or daydream at all. By the end of school, she was radiantly religious and totally exhausted.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Flora. ‘You’ve been a bit weird all day, babe. What is it?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ shrugged Jess. ‘Just a headache. Got to go home early and sort my room out.’
She stomped off home on her own. The others were meeting at the Dolphin Cafe, but she didn’t want to hear anything more about the blasted CCTV footage as long as she lived.
Home seemed even more of a haven than usual. It felt cosier since Granny had come to stay – possibly because she turned up the heating even in summer, and was always making cups of tea. A delightful smell drifted out from the kitchen.
‘Granny’s made us her famous stew,’ said Jess’s mum from her desk, where she was going through some bills. As she spoke, the phone rang. Jess’s mum answered it, and then handed it over to Jess with an expression of grim annoyance. ‘It’s Fred,’ she said, and walked out to the kitchen to do something domestic – perhaps to check that Granny’s stew hadn’t got bats and toads in it.
Jess grabbed the phone. ‘Hi, Fred!’ She was intrigued. Fred didn’t often ring. But she was also terrified. Maybe somebody had found the disc, and Fred was ringing to warn her.
‘Meet me in the bus shelter in five minutes,’ said Fred briskly. ‘I want to return your copy of Twelfth Night.’
Jess was surprised. Fred didn’t usually talk in such short sentences for a start. And he’d already given her back her copy of Twelfth Night, at school. Something was wrong. He sounded almost sinister. Jess grabbed her jacket.
‘Where are you going?’ called her mum. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready!’
‘I won’t be a minute!’ yelled Jess, and ran out of the house. ‘I’m just going to collect my copy of Twelfth Night – the one Fred borrowed!’
She had on her jeans and trainers. It wasn’t far to the bus shelter. It was about halfway between her house and Fred’s. She ran all the way, her heart pounding with dread – and to be honest, with unaccustomed exercise. Fred was waiting there. She recognised his tall, skinny outline from afar.
‘I couldn’t talk on the phone,’ said Fred, looking mysterious under his hood. ‘My mum was listening. I thought you’d probably like to have this.’ He handed over a packet wrapped in a padded bag.
‘What is it?’ asked Jess.
‘It’s the CCTV footage from Tiffany’s,’ said Fred. ‘I got there early and nicked it yesterday when Jack was in the loo. I smuggled it out in the massive pocket in my cargoes.’
Jess fought off a terrible urge to fling her arms round Fred. She knew that was the sort of thing he hated.
‘Fred – you are the best!’ she cried. ‘I can’t tell you – I just can’t tell you what this means to me.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Hey – you haven’t actually watched it, have you?’ A deep and furious blush whizzed up from the soles of her feet and enfolded her entire body.
Fred just shrugged enigmatically. ‘What? Just a load of girls going to the toilet? Personally I prefer wildlife documentaries.’
Jess tried hard to work out if he was lying or not, but it was impossible with Fred.
‘Just don’t tell anybody it was me that took it,’ warned Fred. ‘I would quite like to retain all my body parts into adulthood.’
‘I swear I won’t breathe a word to anybody!’ vowed Jess. ‘Fred, I owe you one. Tell me what I can do for you – I’ll do it. I’ll crawl all the way to Africa on my hands and knees and carry you back a bag of mangoes in my teeth. Say the word. I’ll do it. Anything.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ said Fred. ‘As a teenage boy, I fear and avoid fruit as the vampire avoids daylight. No need ever to mention the CCTV again. As far as I’m concerned, this never happened. Bye!’ And he just turned and walked off.
Astonishing! Jess ran back home, holding on tightly to the terrible package. It wouldn’t do to just fling it in a rubbish bin. She wouldn’t rest till the disc had been boiled, poached, scrambled, mashed, pulverised with a mallet and drowned in boiling water. But she might just take a secret little peep at it first.
Chapter 12
Jess got back home just as her mum was placing Granny’s stew on the table. Granny looked up excitedly.
‘There’s a man in Scotland – a tax inspector, of all people – they’ve discovered he murdered his wife and buried her under the barbecue!’ she said.
‘For goodness’ sake, Granny,’ said Jess’s mum, ‘not at the supper table! Jess – wash your hands. You can’t be too careful with all this e-coli about.’
Jess put the package containing the DVD on her chair and washed her hands at the sink. They always ate in the kitchen. It was cosy, and looked out on to the garden.
‘We never used to have e-coli in my day,’ remarked Granny. ‘Although a girl in my street did die tragically from choking on a banger.’
Granny always referred to sausages as ‘bangers’, although she refused to eat them. ‘I would never trust a banger as far as I could throw it,’ she’d observed once, which gave Jess an idea for the Geriatric Olympics, with sausage-hurling a major event. Too bad Jess hadn’t had time to organise it yet.
‘What’s that parcel on your chair, Jess?’ asked her mum.
Jess blushed. ‘Oh, just that copy of Twelfth Night Fred borrowed,’ she said.
‘Why are you blushing?’ demanded her mum suspiciously.
‘Is Fred your boyfriend?’ asked Granny, winking playfully.
‘No, Granny! He’s just a mate, right? I would sooner clean the front path with my tongue than get involved with any male person in that way.’
Jess shoved the package under her chair, trying not to look furtive – trying to look as if it were, in fact, a completely uninteresting Shakespeare play.
Jess’s mum ladled out the stew.
‘Wow, it looks lush! I’m starving!’ said Jess. ‘I love Granny’s stew, don’t you, Mum? A positive treasure trove of savoury items.’ It was important to keep talking, to distract Mum from the dreaded mysterious package.
‘Oh yes!’ beamed Granny. ‘I don’t go for this Japanese sushi rubbish, but I love a good stew. I put a dash of oregano in it to make it more Italian this time.’
‘Let’s go to Italy this summer, shall we, Mum?’ asked Jess. ‘All three of us. They love grannies in Italy. I saw an Italian film once and it was full of grannies, all sitting in the shade and casting spells on people. Can we go to Italy, Mum? Oh pleeeeease!’
‘In principle,’ said her mum, sipping from a glass of water in a rather tired way, ‘I’d be very i
nterested in the idea of taking you to Italy and showing you the art treasures of the Italian Renaissance, but I’m afraid this year we’re too poor.’ She tucked into her stew. Phew! It seemed as if Jess’s mysterious package had slipped from her mind.
‘Who’s your favourite Italian painter, then, Mum?’
‘Botticelli,’ said Jess’s mum. Jess knew this already, of course. There were Botticelli paintings on every wall. Not originals, unfortunately. Jess’s mum’s Botticellis were all reproductions. If they’d had a Botticelli original there’d be no problem about affording to visit Italy. They’d probably have a second home there – a palace with a swimming pool.
They had The Birth of Venus in the bathroom. It showed a beautiful blonde girl rising up from a shell and hovering above the sea. The gods of the winds were blowing at her and a handmaiden was offering her a billowing cloak. Jess’s mum had rather irritatingly remarked that Venus looked a bit like Flora.
Even more irritating was the Botticelli painting in the sitting room, because that was actually of Flora. Not Jess’s friend Flora Barclay, obviously, but Flora the Goddess of Spring. This one also looked like Flora as well as Flora. It was quite irksome, having a friend who resembled not just one but two goddesses: the Goddess of Spring and the Goddess of Love. Especially as Jess herself was more likely to be mistaken for the ape in the famous painting Ape with a Grape or the dog in Still Life with Bulldog, Salad and Fries by Alessandro Poggibotti.
‘What would you like to be goddess of, Granny?’ asked Jess.
Granny thought for a minute. ‘Teeth,’ she replied. ‘I would make sure everybody’s teeth lasted a lifetime.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what I like about stew. It just slips down. I couldn’t rise to a lamb chop, these days.’
‘And what would you like to be goddess of, Mum?’ Jess was beginning to feel a bit more relaxed now. She was beginning to enjoy herself. She was even wondering what she herself would choose to be goddess of. Bosoms, possibly. She would make sure everybody had massive boobs that would last a lifetime. Not guys, of course. Although why not? If everybody had boobs, maybe there wouldn’t be such a fuss about them. And those Sumo wrestler guys certainly –
‘I’d be the Goddess of Mysterious Packages,’ said Jess’s mum suddenly, with a piercing stare. ‘I’d have X-ray vision, so I could tell what was inside parcels without having to listen to a pack of lies.’
‘You could get a job at the airport, then, dear,’ said Granny. ‘Although I hope you don’t, because I think the libraries are safer. They haven’t had any of those terrorist attacks on libraries yet, have they?’
‘I’d like to see them try,’ said Jess’s mum with spirit. ‘They wouldn’t get any further than Cookery and Gardening. So, Jess: what’s in your package, really?’ She turned treacherously to her defenceless daughter.
Jess blushed again. ‘I told you: Twelfth Night. Why are you giving me such a hard time?’
‘Drugs!’ said Jess’s mum with a dramatic, tragic air.
‘Oh, honestly, Mum! I don’t touch drugs. I have never, ever tried drugs. Not even aspirin. I swear to you on …’ Jess looked around for a sacred object, then got up from the table and walked across to the windowsill, where a copper urn had been installed, with some other bits and pieces of Granny’s. ‘I swear on the sacred memory of Grandpa, with his crazy hats and long nose-hair, there are no drugs in that parcel. I have never touched drugs, and I never will.’ Jess placed her hand on the urn containing Grandpa’s ashes.
Granny took Grandpa’s ashes everywhere with her. She hadn’t decided yet where to scatter them. She was always promising to. But still the urn remained. It used to be on the sideboard in her old house. Now it was on the kitchen windowsill. Not terrific in terms of hygiene, perhaps. It was bad enough having your grandparents staying with you while they were still alive. But handy when it came to swearing solemn oaths.
Jess withdrew her hand and stared defiantly at her mother. Was she going to back down and accept that there were no drugs in the package? Or was she going to insist on seeing the ‘Shakespeare play’? If her mum discovered that the parcel contained instead a sinister DVD … If she demanded to watch it herself … If Jess had to witness her own mother watching the whole ghastly charade with the minestrone bra inserts … well, she’d die of shame. There could be another urn up there, next to Grandpa’s, by the end of the week.
Chapter 13
Jess took a deep breath. There was only one way out of this. ‘OK, Mum. I admit it. It’s not Twelfth Night.’
‘I know,’ said her mum with a self-satisfied air. ‘Because I can see Twelfth Night sticking out of your schoolbag over there.’
Oh no! Betrayed by her own untidiness yet again! Jess wondered whether being tidy was part of what God would regard as ‘being a good girl’. If so, her chances of going to heaven were frankly nil.
‘But it’s not drugs, Mum. I would never be so stupid. Nor would Fred. He won’t even take paracetamol. Please believe me.’
‘What is it, then? And it’s pointless trying to lie to me, Jess – I can see it in your face.’
‘It’s a DVD,’ said Jess, hoping to be able to leave it at that.
‘What kind of DVD? Something nasty, obviously, or you wouldn’t have lied to me in the first place. Is it an adult classification one?’
‘No,’ said Jess.
‘Is it horror?’ asked Granny. ‘If so, I wouldn’t mind having a look. I saw a lovely one once with zombies in.’
‘It’s really silly,’ said Jess. ‘I went to a party at Tiffany’s last weekend, right? Well, we found out afterwards that Tiffany’s brother had rigged up a camcorder in the girls’ bathroom, so every time somebody went to the loo they were on film. We were gutted, obviously. The boys organised another party – that’s where I was last night. They were going to show the footage to everyone.’
‘Men! Typical of the male concept of “fun”! Primitive and immature,’ snapped Jess’s mum.
‘Yeah, right. Anyway, Fred managed to get hold of it in time and he hid it so nobody could find it yesterday. He gave it to me just now so I could destroy it.’
‘Let me see it, then.’ Jess’s mum held out her hand.
Jess handed it over. Thank goodness she had told the truth, and not tried to pretend the DVD was about the novels of Charles Dickens or marine animals of the barrier reef. Jess’s mum marched into the sitting room and shoved the DVD in the machine. Jess and Granny followed her and sat down on the sofa. Although she had told the truth, Jess’s heart was still pounding like mad. She had no idea how soon she would appear, but the thought of Mum and Granny seeing the whole charade made her want to scream aloud and run off to Borneo. Wherever Borneo was. It sounded pretty far away. Worst of all would be the revelation that she addressed her boobs as Bonnie and Clyde. Can you imagine your mum and your granny knowing that kind of stuff?
The footage kicked in with a lot of dazzle and tracking, but then it settled to a view of the bathroom at Tiffany’s. You could see the washbasin and the far wall, but you couldn’t actually see the loo at all – it was far over to the right, out of the picture. For a long time there was nothing at all, just the wall. It was like all CCTV footage: black and white, grainy and boring. Nobody was going to win any Oscars for this piece of cinema. The Novels of Charles Dickens would have been a whole lot glitzier.
Then somebody came in – a girl called Sophie whom Jess hardly knew. She marched over to the right-hand side of the screen, turned round and disappeared. You could just about tell that she was going to pull her pants down when she went out of vision.
‘Well, if all the boys can come up with is this, it’s a pretty poor show,’ said Jess’s mum, getting up. ‘I’ve got sleazier stuff in the DVD department of the library.’ And she went back to the kitchen and started clearing the plates.
Jess went on watching the footage. Sophie reappeared, pulling up her pants, came over to the washbasin and washed her hands. Then she checked her make-up, got her mascara out and reap
plied it. It took ages and was very boring.
‘I wish somebody would creep up and murder her,’ said Granny.
‘You’ve seen too many whodunnits, Granny,’ said Jess. ‘Anyway, nobody could creep up on her, unless they’d come up out of the loo.’
‘That would be a good idea,’ said Granny. ‘A murderer in a wetsuit, wielding a harpoon.’
‘You’d never get the harpoon round the S-bend, Granny,’ Jess pointed out. She was beginning to feel better. But she still wished Granny would go to bed.
Sophie finally finished her make-up and left the bathroom. There was another long wait. Then Alice Andrews came in, took out her contact lenses, rinsed them, put them in again and used some eye drops. Then she blew her nose. Then she washed her hands. Then she started looking for something in her bag. Then she looked in the mirror again and went out.
‘I’m getting a bit bored with this, Jess, love,’ said Granny. ‘Can’t we watch the latest James Bond instead?’
Jess wanted to see more of the tape, but she didn’t want Granny to see it. She had no way of knowing how many girls had visited the loo before her. She might appear on screen any moment with minestrone all over her cleavage.
‘OK, Granny.’ Jess put on James Bond for Granny, but went off upstairs with the DVD. She told Granny she had work to do – which was true. She still hadn’t started her latest essay. However, once upstairs, she was distracted by the chaotic grandeur of her new bedroom. Her stuff lay strewn everywhere, spilling out of black plastic sacks. She should have sat down at the desk and started to plan an essay entitled ‘Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night may be a comedy, but it also has darker moments’. Instead she started sorting her clothes out, folding them up and putting them carefully in the drawers. It was virtually the first time in her life she had done this kind of thing, but it was sort of enjoyable in a weird, perverted kind of way.