by Sue Limb
‘Uh … yes,’ I said. BAZZZZZZZ! The doorbell! It was Scott! We both leapt up, panicking. Chloe backed off in the direction of the kitchen and waved me towards the front door.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘if either of us scratches by accident, we cough, OK? So the cough means: sorry, that was an accident – I scratched myself by mistake. OK?’
‘And what if we cough by accident?’ said Chloe. I was halfway to the door by now. My mind went blank. ‘What’s the, like, ultimate code for “it’s gone pear-shaped”?’ hissed Chloe.
‘We ask him if he’d like a cup of coffee,’ I whispered, and then ran to the door. I took a deep breath. This time it was going to be fine. Scott would be lovely. I was sure of it. I opened the door and realised in a sickening flash: it had gone pear-shaped already.
The weediest boy in the world stood there. He was skinny, and wearing drainpipe jeans and a gothic T-shirt with the word ‘VOMIT’ in silver sparkly letters on black. His neck was scrawny. His hair was so short, it was almost shaved. His lips were strangely puffed up and looked too big for his face. His eyes were pale blue and sort of fishy.
‘Uh, hi,’ he said. ‘Is this the right place?’ He didn’t even introduce himself. What a dingbat.
‘Scott?’ I enquired, feeling suave and mature – about thirty-five years old. I extended my hand. He kind of flinched, looked panicky, and attempted to shake hands with me – but somehow his hand missed mine and travelled on, up the inside of my arm, dislocating my thumb on the way.
‘S-sorry!’ said Scott. Good God, the poor guy was incapable of the most basic actions. I wondered whether he’d be able to walk in and sit down, or whether I ought to put him out of his misery and carry him in.
‘Come in!’ I beamed. I now felt ludicrously mature: about forty-five. Scott lurched forward and entered the house. He did trip on the doormat but I suppose it was a major triumph that he didn’t actually fall flat on his face.
I ushered him into the room, and there was a terrible moment when Chloe couldn’t hide her shock and disgust at his vile appearance. Her face kind of collapsed into horror, and then tried to climb back into a smile.
‘This is Scott Nicholls,’ I said. ‘Scott, this is Chloe Watson, my business partner. We’ve taken over the project from Jane and Africa,’ I gave Chloe a firm look. There was to be no laughing, and no mention of our not being lesbians. Scott would probably die of fright.
‘Do sit down,’ said Chloe in a strange, nervous headmistressy voice. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Then she realised that she’d inadvertently used the code word for ‘it’s all gone pear-shaped’. Even though, in some ultimate kind of way, it really had gone pear-shaped, it was still far too soon for my dog to be run over.
‘Oops!’ She gave a kind of convulsive start, and looked at me with frantic apology in her eyes. Scott didn’t notice. He was trying to work out how to sit down on the sofa without accidentally killing himself. ‘What I really meant was, would you like a cup of tea or coffee?!’ She said this with a crazy kind of emphasis, so I would know she hadn’t meant to use the code.
‘Yes, please,’ said Scott in a faint, distressed voice. ‘Coffee.’
‘Milk and sugar?’ asked Chloe.
‘Yes, please,’ said Scott.
‘How many sugars?’
Scott hesitated, picking invisible dust off the knees of his trousers. ‘Four,’ he said.
Chloe looked amazed and disgusted. She scratched her neck. Had she meant to? Had she even noticed she’d done it? ‘Would you like some coffee, Zoe?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, please,’ I said, scratching my head to ask if she’d meant to scratch her neck. A terrible light dawned in her eyes.
‘Did I scratch my neck just then?’ she asked – the idiot. She had now blown our entire strategy.
‘Yes,’ I said, enraged. ‘You must try and stop it, Chloe!’
‘Sorry,’ she said, trying to turn it into a joke. ‘It’s just a nervous habit.’
Scott wasn’t really listening. He looked if he was already desperate to escape. I picked up my notebook and cracked it open purposefully. Chloe went off to the kitchen to make the coffee. I reached for my pen.
‘So – Scott,’ I said. ‘First things first. What’s your name?’ Scott looked puzzled. ‘Oops! Sorry!’ I tried not to look like an idiot. ‘Of course, I know your name. Scott …’ I wrote Scott down in my book. Then something terrible happened. I forgot his surname. I was so obsessed with scratching or not-scratching, coughing or not-coughing, that everything else had been wiped from my memory banks.
I couldn’t help blushing and having a major panic attack kind of in secret. But I really couldn’t admit I had forgotten his surname. So I pretended to write his surname next to his first name. What I wrote, in fact, was ‘Saucepanhead.’ He would never see what I had written, of course. He couldn’t see my notebook from where he was sitting. He would just see that I’d written something and assume it was his surname.
‘I mean, of course, what’s your address?’ I went on, trying to appear relaxed and mature by smiling broadly. Even though the smile was twitching slightly. It was totally synthetic and bogus and longing to drop right off my face.
‘Mynydd Mawr,’ he said, only it sounded like Munuth Mauwer. I panicked slightly.
‘Sorry?’ I said, pen poised.
‘Mynydd Mawr,’ he repeated. ‘It’s – uh, Welsh. My mum’s from Wales.’
‘How lovely!’ I gushed. ‘We went camping in Wales once! It rained all the time but it was gorgeous all the same! … Er, how do you spell it … ? M, U …’
‘Not U,’ said Scott. ‘Why not you.’
‘Why not me?’ I repeated, rapidly losing it.
The faintest trace of a grin flashed briefly across Scott’s face.
‘Y not U,’ he said. ‘The letter Y. M Y N Y …’ My hand was starting to shake. I couldn’t concentrate. And my head was starting to itch. Any minute now I was going to have to scratch my head, whether Chloe was in the room or not.
‘I’ll write it down for you, if you like,’ said Scott, holding out his hand. He wanted my notebook! The notebook in which I’d written his name as ‘Scott Saucepanhead.’ He must never see that! He might think it was some kind of cruel reference to his appearance, not a random word. Although, to be honest, he was way, way more ugly than a saucepan. ‘Saucepanhead’ was, in his case, almost a kind of compliment.
‘No, no, it’s fine,’ I said, making a charade out of getting it right, ‘I’m just being stupid. M Y N Y … ?’
‘M Y N Y D D,’ said Scott. I wrote it down. ‘M A W R.’
I finished it. I now felt slightly more in control.
‘What does it mean?’ I asked.
‘Big Mountain,’ said Scott.
‘Nice,’ I nodded approvingly. ‘Poetic. Do you ever write poetry, Scott?’
Scott looked frightened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Is it … like, necessary for the job?’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I just wondered …’ Silence fell. My mind had gone blank. If Chloe had been in the room, I’d have scratched my head at her and said, ‘Would you like a coffee?’ Even if we were already actually drinking some.
Scott was avoiding my eyes. He was fiddling with his trouser knees again. Kind of scratching. Maybe he also had a code, which was: if it’s all going pear-shaped, scratch your knees. The truth was, it was all so totally pear-shaped, we’d all be scratching away like apes, the moment Chloe came back with the coffee.
The silence deepened. We needed some meaningless small talk. I pride myself on my ability to chat confidently with random strangers (sometimes described by my sister, Tam, as infantile babble) but my mind was so totally blank, I couldn’t remember a single word. In English or Welsh.
Scott looked up and raised his eyebrows slightly. His strange fishlike gaze passed nervously across my face and came to rest on my right ear.
‘Westlake Avenue,’ he said. I blinked, mystified at this random outburst.
‘S
orry?’ I enquired.
‘It’s the rest of my address,’ said Scott apologetically. He was still trying, in some dim and fumbling way, to have a job interview. I wondered if we’d manage to communicate before one of us died of old age.
.
.
13
SUNDAY 3.14 p.m.
The dog that came back from the dead
Chloe suddenly walked through the room and went upstairs. She smiled and said, ‘Excuse me,’ as she passed us. I heard her go into the bathroom. She turned the taps on – presumably to blot out the sound of her making the call. I assumed she was going to ring me right now. I jolly well hoped so. I had already been interviewing Scott for what felt like two thousand years.
Suddenly, a baby laughed loudly in my handbag. Scott kind of jumped. I admit it is a bizarre ringtone. I grabbed my phone.
‘Hi!’ I said. ‘I can’t talk now, I’m afraid – I’m in a meeting.’
‘Oh, I’m really sorry,’ said a mysterious masculine voice. ‘This is Oliver. I’ll ring back later.’ Oliver!!! And he hung up on me. These few words kick-started a major crisis in all my internal organs. Stomachs I never knew I had started break-dancing. My kidneys sizzled as if on a barbecue. My tummy started to beat like an African drum. My face turned red, white and blue – I could feel it.
Scott sat opposite, staring at me. At this most inconvenient moment he had found the confidence to look me in the eye. I had lost a chance to talk to Oliver because I was trapped with this moron. And it was all my fault. What was I doing here? What on earth did I imagine I was playing at?
‘So …’ said Scott. ‘What does the uh, job, like, involve, exactly?’
The baby laughed again from my handbag. For a crazy moment I thought it might be Oliver again. I grabbed the phone.
‘Hello?’ I said, in a seductive voice.
‘Listen.’ It was Chloe. ‘Is it too soon to tell you your dog’s been run over?’
‘No!’ I said, with a tragic gasp. I leapt from my sofa and walked over to the window. I turned my back on Scott, to hide my face. ‘How did it happen? When? Where?’
‘You told me not to say anything funny, so blah blah blah blah, I’m afraid,’ said Chloe. In my near-hysterical state I almost found this too hilarious to bear. But I knew I had to concentrate like mad and make it feel real. It was our only chance of getting rid of Scott immediately – which incidentally was already way, way too late for comfort.
‘No!’ I cried operatically. ‘No! Oh, how awful! How is he?’
‘Dead!’ said Chloe. ‘No, wait – sorry, I got that wrong. The dog’s fine, but the bus is a write-off. Not bad for a chihuahua.’
A burst of laughter snorted out of me, but I disguised it as a sob of anguish.
‘In intensive care?’ I spluttered. ‘Can I come and see him?’
‘Yeah,’ said Chloe. ‘And don’t forget the grapes.’
‘I’ll come right away!’ I said, and rang off. I turned to Scott, who was looking worried.
‘My dog’s been run over,’ I said, trying to keep the urge to laugh firmly shut in. I grabbed a tissue, covered my face for a moment, and let out a sob of laughter with my face well hidden. Scott stumbled to his feet. He looked deeply upset. We stood around helplessly in the face of my awful loss.
‘God! I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I kind of sobbed. ‘He’s in intensive care, down at the vet’s. I’ll have to go there now.’
‘Yeah,’ said Scott, looking with obvious longing towards the door. ‘God! I hope he makes it.’
Then a really weird thing happened. The front door flew open, and Chloe’s huge dog, Geraint, came hurtling in. He headed straight for Scott and started sniffing his trousers with horrid familiarity.
‘Geraint!’ Chloe’s mum, Fran, now entered the room, looking, as usual, like some kind of low-budget street entertainer. Several Indian bags hung from her shoulders – some adorned with little mirrors. She was wearing her hair up in a thick grey pineapple ponytail, and earrings shaped like gigantic red and white toadstools dangled from her ears. ‘Geraint! Stop it! Go in your basket!’
Scott was stroking Geraint’s head in an attempt to distract him from his jeans.
‘It isn’t this dog that’s been run over,’ I explained. ‘This is Chloe’s dog. It’s my dog.’
‘Your dog’s been run over, Zoe?’ cried Fran in horror. ‘I didn’t even know you had a dog!’
‘We’ve only just got him,’ I explained. ‘He’s only a puppy.’ Tears (God help me) appeared in Fran’s eyes.
‘Oh my God, how tragic!’ she lamented. At this point Chloe came charging downstairs. ‘Zoe’s dog’s been run over!’ said Fran.
‘I know!’ said Chloe, dramatically. Of course she didn’t know! She’d been upstairs when I’d got the call, hadn’t she? Did she never think?
The important thing now was to get Scott out of the house.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to Scott. ‘I’m going to have to go and see him. He’s in intensive care,’ I told Chloe’s mum. ‘Down at the vet’s.’
‘Oh, which vet? I’ll drive you there if you like,’ said Fran, with disastrous sympathy. My mind went blank. I didn’t have a clue where any vets were. That’s how it is when you aren’t allowed any pets. The wonderful world of vets – and vet students – is closed to you.
‘That one down by the station!’ I made flapping gestures. ‘Down that side road. The one with the thingummyjig.’ Fran looked puzzled. I turned to Scott. He was longing to go: I was longing for him to go, and yet still, somehow, we hadn’t managed to get him even anywhere near the sitting-room door.
‘I’m so sorry, Scott!’ I said, with a brave smile. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Scott edged sideways towards the door. ‘Sorry about … it. Bye.’ He ducked out of the sitting room and disappeared into the hall. Chloe followed him and we heard them saying goodbye, and the front door shutting behind him.
‘Phew!’ I said, and slumped back down on to the sofa.
‘You must be very shocked, Zoe, love,’ said Chloe’s mum. ‘Would you like a few drops of my Rescue Remedy?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said faintly. I now had to explain to Fran that it had all been a lie. Chloe entered the room, and as she did so, a strange sound rang out. It was Chloe’s latest ringtone – a flamenco chicken.
‘Hello?’ she said, and then she went red. Instantly I knew it had to be Beast.
‘When shall we go to the vet’s?’ Fran asked me. ‘Right away?’
Chloe sped furtively from the room. I could hear her muttering secretly into her mobe as she ran upstairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut. ‘Or would you like a cup of tea first?’ Fran went on. She was being so nice, so supportive, and yet somehow, I wanted to kill her – in the comfort of her own home, too.
‘Fran,’ I said heavily, ‘I have a huge confession to make. We invented all that about my dog being run over to get rid of that nerdy boy.’
Fran’s face creased into a huge smile. ‘Ha ha!’ she laughed, and clapped her hands. ‘Brilliant! No dead dog! No dog fighting for life! Re-sult!’ And she waltzed off to the kitchen, chuckling to herself. Though she sometimes uses inappropriately youthful slang, Chloe’s mum does have a nice festive kind of character. My mum would have interrogated me for hours, and left me feeling I had committed a dreadful crime.
I was now free to run upstairs and eavesdrop on Chloe’s phone call. But as I arrived I heard her saying goodbye. I knocked on the door. She flung it open. Her face was alight with excitement.
‘Zoe!’ she whispered, pulling me inside. ‘Beast’s invited us to the Next Big Thing – tonight! It doesn’t start till eight! We’ve got plenty of time to get ready – isn’t it amazing?’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘We’re babysitting tonight, remember?’
‘He’s absolutely adorable.’ Chloe wasn’t even listening. She was staring in a dreamy kind of way at the carpet. ‘He’s not at all
like people say. He said I was beautiful.’
I felt a pang of rage. I didn’t want Chloe waltzing off to events with boys while I stayed behind, babysitting. I was starting to change into a nerd.
In fact, it was happening already. I looked at my feet. They had already become flat and smelly. Soon the nerdhood would spread to the rest of me. I would have to marry Scott and have nerdy babies with strange fishy eyes.
‘But the Next Big Thing is only for sixth formers,’ I objected.
‘He says he can smuggle me in. And you must come too, with Donut.’ Suddenly the red mist descended on me.
‘Chloe, no!’ I exploded. ‘I don’t want to go to the freakin’ sixth-form party with that Neanderthal! We’re supposed to be getting ourselves organised for the Earthquake Ball!’
‘But that’s not for another week!’ shouted Chloe. ‘The Next Big Thing’s tonight! Come on, Zoe, don’t front! We’re playing Major League now!’
‘Front? Major League?’ I repeated. ‘What language are you speaking, pray? Some kind of Beastly slang, presumably? Listen, Chloe, we have to babysit tonight. I can’t get out of it, OK?’
‘No, no!’ said Chloe. Her lower lip started to stick out and tremble. ‘Stuff babysitting! I’m going to the Next Big Thing! I never promised to go babysitting with you. The Normans are your babysitting people, not mine. I’m sorry, Zoe, but if you don’t want to go to the Next Big Thing with me, I’ll have to go without you.’
Her green eyes kind of flashed. It’s not often Chloe challenges me like that. I knew she would never change her mind, so I just flashed my eyes right back and picked up my jacket.
‘I’ll go, then,’ I said. I was seething with fury at the way she’d let me down, but I didn’t make a melodramatic exit, slamming her door or anything. I just kind of stalked grandly out of the house.
I was dreading my babysitting torment that evening with the loathsome Norman twins. At times in the past, Chloe had really helped me out, and even though she hadn’t actually promised to come and give me some support tonight, she’d kind of gone along with the idea.