by Chloe Rayban
Gemma’s gaze met mine. I sent her a silencing frown.
Chapter Ten
Dad took us on one of our London-wide cycle tours that Sunday. We were meant to be checking the cycle paths along the Thames to Richmond and back again, so we were out all day.
I was at my least enthusiastic. I hadn’t had that much sleep the night before and cycling was the last thing I felt like. I do have a life of my own actually, in spite of all appearances to the contrary. And I wouldn’t have minded keeping an eye on what was going on across the road. As far as I knew, a load of council bailiffs were breaking into number twenty-five and Matt was being forcibly evicted. I kept going over and over in my mind the events of the last twenty four hours. Each time I ended on — and lingered over — our meeting earlier that morning.
Dad kept on stopping and noting things down about the state of the paths on his Psion and I was supposed to be keeping my eye on the number and frequency of cycle-path signs. I had a pad fixed to my handlebars and a pen on a string — God, I must have looked naff. It had rained during the night and a splattering of mud up my legs added the finishing touch to my appearance.
As our bikes sloshed through the puddles, I was deep into a soul-searching examination of the conversation I’d had with Matt. I know it hadn’t been much but I could remember each and every word. He’d been really nice about the house-martins — but maybe he was just getting his own back at Mr Levington. I went hot and cold, recalling things I’d said. Adding everything up, I’d probably come across as some lost, sad oboe-playing birdwatcher. Or worse — a pathetic school kid with an obsessively protective Dad …
‘Missed one,’ said Dad, as we rode under the shadow of Hammersmith Bridge. He came to a stop standing on his pedals, idling his bike.
I took out my pencil and stabbed at the pad. I was feeling hot and cross and my cycle helmet was driving me mad.
‘What’s up, Tash?’ asked Dad.
‘I didn’t ask to come.’
‘Sunday cycle rides are meant to be a treat. I’ve made a really special picnic,’ said Mum.
‘Oh great, yum-mee,’ I said in a really flat voice. I know I was being a pain. Gemma and Jamie were riding on ahead making whoops and screams that echoed under the bridge. I guess it was a big treat — for them.
Mum frowned at Dad. But Dad just swung his bike round and started after them.
We cycled on past the smelly bit where the sewage farm butts up to the towpath. Gem and Jamie were making their usual exaggerated ‘I’m-going-to-be-sick’ noises. But I just pedalled on stoically. It was a crummy day, I felt like death warmed up and the delightful smell of sewage really topped the lot.
It rained throughout our picnic at Ham House. We all clustered together under a tree but the rain still got through and the crusty loaf Mum had bought went disgusting and soggy. The rain really set in after lunch so we had to put on our gross waterproof kagouls. We rode home as fast as we could. I had my hood on underneath my helmet. I must’ve looked as though I belonged to some strange cult. My fringe was sticking to my forehead in flat spikes and my face felt red and hot. That’s the thing about rainwear — it doesn’t let the rain in but it doesn’t let anything out either. By the time we reached Frensham Avenue it felt like a tropical rainforest inside mine. I steamed up to the house just praying that Matt wasn’t looking out of his window at that precise moment.
I made a bee-line for the bathroom before anyone else could get in there. Then I ran a deep hot bath with bubble bath in and ignored Jamie and Gemma beating on the bathroom door. Eventually Mum joined in.
‘Rosie’s here to see you. Hurry up and leave the water in — they can go in after you.’
‘Honestly,’ I shouted back. ‘Anyone would think we were living in the Third World!’
‘What’s that about the Third World?’ It was Rosie’s voice. She was standing outside the bathroom waiting for me.
I climbed out of the bath and put on my towelling robe.
‘Re-using bathwater. Its Mum’s bid to save the world from drought and disaster,’ I said.
I could hear Jamie through the bathroom door. ‘Did you know we’ve got a hippo in our lavatory?’ he said importantly.
‘Really!’ said Rosie, pretending to sound amazed. ‘How horrid. Why doesn’t it try to climb out?’
‘It’s in the top bit. There’s a lid on.’
‘All the same. It can’t be very nice in there.’
‘It’s not a real hippo, silly,’ said Jamie.
‘Isn’t it?’ said Rosie.
‘Come on,’ I said. I’d been talking to little kids all day. I’d had enough of it.
‘So?’ said Rosie when we were alone in my room.
‘I actually got to speak to him, properly, this morning.’
‘You did! What’s he like?’
‘He’s not nearly as full of himself as we thought.’
I gave her a quick update on the events of the morning and then the night before, complete with an account of the party in lurid detail. But she only seemed interested in one thing — Matt.
‘This morning … What did he say to you? Precisely?’
(Looking back on it, I realised Rosie would think it had been a pretty lame conversation. House-martins!)
‘Not a lot really …’
‘Come on … this was your big chance!’
‘Look Rosie … Forget it. There’s no point. He’s got a girlfriend.’
‘He can’t have. He’s only just moved in.’
‘He has. I’ve seen her with him, twice.’
‘Maybe she’s just a friend.’
‘A friend he snogs?’
‘What’s she like then?’ Rosie demanded.
‘Stunning. Kind of dark and exotic. Long dark curly hair; permanent pout — you know the type?’
‘A babe?’
‘Totally.’
‘Clothes?’
‘Kind of designer-casual — alternative. Stuff you don’t see in the high street. Black mainly and short and tight in all the right places, dead sexy.’
‘Sickening.’
‘Mmmm.’
We both gazed gloomily out of the window. Dusk was falling and the street lights were coming on one by one.
‘Doesn’t seem to be much action over there right now.’
Number twenty-five was in total darkness. I slid my window up. The street was silent apart from rain dripping off the trees.
‘Maybe he was evicted — while we were out,’ I said.
That would be just my luck,’ muttered Rosie.
Her luck! I turned to her and was about to say something, then stopped myself. I didn’t own Matt. I hardly knew him. But he had moved into my street hadn’t he?
‘I better be making a move,’ Rosie was saying. ‘It’s getting dark. But look, if you speak to him again, keep the conversation going, can’t you? I want to get a proper introduction next time, OK?’
‘Right’ I said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
I didn’t see Rosie out. I just stood staring down at her as she made her way down the stairs, flicking her hair and popping her head round the sitting room door to say a typical Rosie flirty goodnight to Dad.
She was my best friend, but sometimes she could be so wrapped up in herself.
I walked back to the window and stared out at the deserted house.
Suddenly there was yet another obstacle between me and Matt.
Not only did he have a girlfriend. Not only did my parents totally and completely disapprove of him. Not only did he think I was totally naff. Now it seemed Rosie had her eye on him …
As soon as Rosie was out of the house. Gemma came barging into my room.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘What d’you mean, what’s happening?’
‘Over the road.’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
She crouched on the floor beside me. ‘Do you think He’s run away and He’s sleeping rough in a cardboard box?’
&nb
sp; ‘I don’t know, Gem.’
‘Maybe he’s been taken away in handcuffs and thrown in jail.’
‘I don’t think they send squatters to jail.’
‘If they do we should make a plot to help him escape. We could go down to the police station and chain ourselves to the railings with our bike chains and swallow the keys …’
I giggled. Gemma was well away on one of her flights of fancy.
‘Or we could bake a cake with a file in it and throw it though his cell window … or …’
‘Gemma! We don’t even know if he’s been arrested.’
Well, I’m not going to move from here until I’ve found out.’
‘Don’t be silly. There’s school tomorrow.’
‘I’ve got a bit of a sore throat. Maybe I’ll have to take tomorrow off.’
‘Oh Gems, honestly.’
But the next morning I came downstairs to find Mum holding the thermometer with a frown on her face.
‘It’s marginal but maybe you’d better stay at home to be on the safe side. I’m working at home today, so you’re lucky.’
Then she went off to call Jamie again.
I slid into the chair beside Gemma and whispered. ‘You haven’t done the tea trick again have you?’
Gemma shook her head. ‘Mum nearly called an ambulance last time I did that. No, I’ve really got a cold this time. Or maybe ‘flu.’ She took a sip of her tea and had a very convincing coughing fit to prove it.
‘You’ll have to be quiet as a mouse you know. I’ve got a whole pile of report cards to update,’ said Mum, returning to the kitchen with Jamie in tow.
‘That’s OK. I’ll be up in Tasha’s room. I’m going to finish my house-martin project.’ Gemma glanced in my direction.
Mum caught the tail-end of the glance. She looked from one of us to the other.
‘If there’s any funny business going on, there’ll be trouble,’ she said.
I was burning with curiosity all through school. In Geography I found it really hard to concentrate on soil erosion — not the most riveting subject at the best of times. I raced home as fast as I could.
‘What news?’ I asked as soon as I had Gemma on my own.
‘Nothing … absolutely nothing. The house was totally silent and still. No-one went in or out — unless it was when I was in the loo. And I was really quick. You don’t think …’ Her lower lip quivered.
‘What?’
‘You don’t think he’s in there dying from his wounds, do you?’
‘Hardly. The police were there on Saturday night, remember. I reckon they’d have scraped him off the floor if he’d been trampled in the stampede.’
‘Maybe we should check.’
‘No way! He’ll think we’re snooping on him.’
‘Well, it’s for his own sake.’
‘Gemma.’
‘I could creep over there when everyone’s in bed.’
I knew this was highly unlikely.
‘You’d be scared out of your wits. It’s the spook house, remember?’
There was still no sign of him the next day. I was starting to get worried. The day after that — three days after the party — I got back from school to find number twenty-five was in a state of turmoil. The entire front garden had been dug up and a long trench extended across the front of it.
My heart missed a beat. For a moment, ghastly thoughts raced through my mind. It was a murder hunt and a forensic team was digging the garden for bodies. My blood ran cold. They’d soon be erecting one of those plastic tents you see on the news and have policemen standing guard over it and all these reporters would be crowding round the house. Why hadn’t I done something?
My train of thought was interrupted by a cheery ‘A’ternoon’.
A bloke had come out through the front door wheeling a barrow full of rubble. He negotiated it across the garden on a rough walkway of planks and emptied it into a skip.
‘What’s going on?’
‘We’ve been sent to clear the place up like,’ he said.
I drew a sigh of relief. He must be from the Council. But as relief flooded in, it was quickly cancelled out by despair. Matt had obviously been evicted. I’d probably never see him again.
But I was wrong. Gemma met me at the front door, practically bursting with the news.
‘Guess what!’ she said. ‘He’s not a squatter.’
‘He’s not? How do you know?’
Mum looked up from her word processor and took her glasses off.
‘Builders,’ she said. They turned up in a lorry this morning and started tearing the place apart. So I asked them what was going on …’
‘Number twenty-five’s been sold,’ Gemma butted in, ‘and he’s the son of the people who’ve bought it.’
‘So he does have every right to be there. Like he said,’ I pointed out to Mum.
‘So it seems.’
‘Well, I hope you feel really guilty about being so horrid about him,’ I continued, dropping my schoolbag with a thump.
Mum picked up my schoolbag and put it on the table.
‘It doesn’t alter the fact that he’s obviously totally out of hand. He threw a party for the most undesirable looking people and he was really rude to your father and Mr Levington.’
But Gemma was already skipping upstairs. I followed her.
‘Your cold’s a lot better all of a sudden,’ I said.
‘He’s back! I saw him. He came in a taxi with a suitcase and two enormous boxes.’
‘When?’
‘Lunchtime. Isn’t it great? They can’t make him move out now.’
We’d reached my room and were staring out at number twenty-five.
‘Just think,’ said Gemma. ‘Before too long you could be dating him.’
‘Gemma, nobody but nobody talks about ‘dating’ people these days.’
‘Going out then,’ she insisted. ‘It’s always happening in books. You know — I found love with the-boy-next-door.’
‘Except he’s the boy-over-the-road. Doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it, does it?’ I replied acidly.
‘But you could,’ she insisted.
‘No Gems. I don’t think so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s just …’
‘Because he’s just … what?’ prompted Gemma.
I tried to define exactly what it was — that hyper-cool look he had, those friends of his, a girlfriend who wore all that amazing gear.
‘Just what?’
‘Oh you wouldn’t understand,’ I said impatiently.
‘Honestly, Tasha,’ said Gemma. ‘Sometimes you’re really stuck-up, you know.’ And she stomped out of the room, adding ‘And Jamie thinks so, too. He says …’
She was interrrupted by Mum calling up the stairs.
‘And don’t forget your oboe practice, Tasha. It’s your lesson tomorrow, remember.’
Oboe practice. Matt was probably sitting over there right now and he’d hear the whole thing — confirming in his mind that I was just a school girl with no style whatsoever. Why was I practising for the beastly school orchestra on a nerdy instrument? The last thing I wanted was for this humiliating fact to be broadcast to him.
‘Can’t. I’m out of reeds,’ I shouted back over the bannisters.
‘But I gave you money for some only last—’
‘Bust them all!’ I shouted back.
‘Honestly …’, I heard her grumbling from below. ’The money that instrument is costing us.’
I lay in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about it all. I’d have done anything to be cool and in with people like Matt and his friends. But we might as well be different species, or from different planets, as far as I could see.
Ever so faintly, I could hear the music he was playing, floating across the street to me. As if he wanted me to hear it. I got up and thrust the window open and leaned out, peering towards his house.
His window was in darkness. Who was I kidding? He probably had friend
s in. Maybe his girlfriend. He’d probably forgotten I even existed.
Chapter Eleven
The following Saturday afternoon Rosie and I had planned a shopping trip together. I had some birthday money to spend and was going to buy a new pair of jeans, or hipsters maybe, I hadn’t made my mind up. Rosie — well, I guessed as usual she’d have a massive amount of cash from her mum to splurge on anything that took her fancy But this Saturday, it wasn’t going to be one of our usual forays into Gap or Miss Selfridge or River Island. We were going somewhere a bit more adventurous.
When Mum inquired where we were off to, Rosie made a face at me and said:
‘Doing the rounds. All over, you know.’
‘Well, be sure to be back by six,’ said Mum, and she gave me one of her warning frowns. ‘Buy a pair you’ll get some wear out of, darling.’
We set off down the street, Rosie striding on ahead with her tote bag slung over her shoulder.
‘So where are we going?’ I asked, catching up with her.
‘Camden Market,’ she said. They’ve got some really cool stuff — like leather gear, second-hand, brilliant.’
A vague and futile echo of my mother’s advice flashed through my brain, but I closed my mind to it and hurried after Rosie. It was my money after all. I’d had enough of sensible wearable clothes.
I’d been to Camden Market before, with Dad and Mum and Gemma and Jamie — it had been a Saturday treat for all the family. We’d had lunch on a barge and I’d spent forever searching the stalls and had bought a ghastly brooch with a skull on it which I’d thought at the time was the ultimate in cool. On that visit I’d been caught up in all the colour, the movement, the excitement of the market, and I hadn’t noticed the people hanging round the tube station. What were they doing? Waiting to meet people? Begging? Selling dodgy things?
I didn’t have time to linger. Rosie had already set off up the street in the direction of the market. I followed, winding my way in between weirdly-dressed individuals. The pavements were greasy with spilt drinks and black with that particular inner-city grime you don’t see in our part of London. The air smelt of food cooking — exotic food, garlicky and spicy and foreign — but it was all mixed up with car fumes and cigarette smoke. A boy came up to me and asked for ‘change’. I hesitated. I never quite knew what to do about beggars. So I gave him 20p and he looked at the coin in his hand and swore at me as if it was an insult. I was starting to wish we’d gone to the high street after all.