Something More (Girlfriend Fiction 11)

by Mo Johnson

  ‘Duh, stupid,’ Terry panted, still bouncing. ‘We’ve already waited over two years.’

  ‘But the points system? Didn’t we fall short?’

  Dad beamed. ‘Aye, but now Australia is short of nurses, so your mum’s qualifications have earnt us more points than we first thought. It’s enough to take us over the line.’

  ‘But Mum hasn’t worked for ages.’

  ‘That’s right, I’ve been at home painting my nails every day and eating chocolate. I’m a little tired of that now, so I think I will become a nurse.’

  Seeing it was wise not to go any further down that path, I changed tactics.

  ‘What about poor Gran McGonnigle? We can’t just walk off and leave her here alone.’

  ‘Oh, you mean all alone apart from her other five sons and two daughters, their partners, their kids and her one great-grandson?’ Terry scoffed. ‘That’s true, Mum, we can’t leave Gran…she’ll be sooo lonely.’

  ‘We’ve been through this before,’ Dad said, reaching for my hand. ‘We know you’re not as comfortable about the move as the rest of us, but your mum and I feel that it’s the best thing. There are so many opportunities in Australia. Colin and his family love it, and they’re only too happy to sponsor us.’

  Colin is Dad’s younger brother. He backpacked to Australia twelve years ago. I bet he didn’t leave a hot girlfriend behind in the process. He’s married to an Aussie now and based in Sydney with two little boys.

  ‘The idea will grow on you,’ Dad continued.

  Yeah, like a fungus.

  ‘And you’ll make new friends there and—’ ‘And if you still hate it when you’re eighteen, you can bugger off back to Scotland,’ Terry interrupted, before scampering out the door to Mum and Dad’s protests at her language.

  So much has happened since that conversation.

  ‘It’s the Salvos for the capital-S boxes.’ Dad blustered back into the garage. Damn. I’d been so busy daydreaming, I’d missed my chance to escape.

  I reached for a box on the garage floor and opened it: a few old pots, some chipped apple-green glasses and lots of heavy clothing. We’d shipped far too much crap from Scotland.

  ‘I’m going to move the car out before we put any more boxes in it,’ Dad went on. ‘Come on, get into the passenger’s seat, pet.’

  Nooooooooo! My heart sank, but it was too late to run. Dad was changing into Super Driving Teacher; he didn’t even need a phone box.

  The car started on the first twist of the key. Dad threw me a satisfied smile. ‘Now, that’s what happens if you care for a car properly. It’s not just a useful machine, you know…’

  Yes, I did know; I’d have to be deaf not to. It was the same speech every time.

  ‘A car is your livelihood in a vast country like Australia.’

  I knew what was coming next. You’ll be driving soon…

  ‘You’ll be driving soon, and you need to start taking this seriously.’

  I groaned. No, I don’t think so.

  ‘Don’t give me attitude. Driving is an essential skill for a young person these days. You must have a car. And a woman needs to be clear about what she’s doing behind the wheel.’

  ‘What! And a man doesn’t?’

  ‘Of course he does, but men are naturals. They’re born to drive.’

  ‘Yeah, born to drive women mad.’

  ‘Now come on, fair’s fair. Women have no sense of direction and no sense of geometry.’

  ‘What’s geometry got to do with it?’ I challenged.

  He was now paying close attention to his rear-vision mirror, as if expecting the garden to hurtle through the garage door.

  ‘I’ll answer that important question in a minute.’

  As expected, he didn’t. Instead he began his little driving mantra in a singsong voice. ‘Foot on the brake. Slip into first. Check over your right shoulder.’

  He demonstrated the position for a long time. I hoped he’d get a crick in his neck; he’d be stuck there while I escaped back to my room.

  ‘Clear to go? No?’

  ‘Yes!’ I chimed simultaneously. ‘Let’s move it.’

  He turned back to me and frowned. ‘Five times out of ten, you will not be clear to go, young lady. Another vehicle will be approaching.’

  He’d slipped into his courtroom voice, which was a particularly bad sign.

  ‘What happens if you are prepared to drive off and then right at the last minute you have to wait, eh?’

  I bit back a snide comment about checking the messages on my mobile.

  ‘Exactly,’ he trumpeted. ‘You can’t tell me, can you? You keep your hand on the handbrake, that’s what you do…ready to drop it quickly when you get an opening in the traffic.’

  I stifled a huge yawn.

  ‘So…hand on handbrake. Check once again. Is something coming? No? Then handbrake off…ease out and go!’ He sat proudly, hands tightly clasping the steering wheel, with a goofy grin on his face, a cross between Driver of the Year – which he definitely wasn’t – and the purple Wiggle.

  ‘Don’t you need to put it into reverse considering that we’re stuck in our garage?’

  He blinked rapidly. ‘Yes, but I’m trying to teach you what you’d be doing if you were in a position to drive off right away.’

  ‘Maybe you should just wait until I’ve got my Ls.’

  Fortunately for me, Dad hadn’t yet realised that kids could get their Ls at sixteen in Australia. Back home we have to wait until our seventeenth birthday.

  Unlike most of my peers, I’m not excited about learning to drive. It scares me, and ironically that’s probably Dad’s fault: he saw some pretty shocking stuff as a traffic policeman in Glasgow. When I consider some of the supreme idiots in my class who are already on the road, I feel ill. The only things standing between my safety and these nutters are the dodgy old deathtraps they buy as first cars.

  Take Jack Ferris, for instance, a guy so vacant at times that he’s had a blank look named after him. (Last week our art teacher told a confused kid to stop pulling a Ferris Face, and the whole class laughed, including Jack.) His Ls definitely stand for ‘loony’.

  He’ll be one of the first kids in our year to get a licence. How much protection is that little bit of plastic going to give the public when Jack pulls a Ferris Face at a Wrong Way Go Back sign and his rust bucket gets up close and personal with someone’s internal organs?

  ‘And when exactly are you going to get your L-plates?’ Dad asked sharply, reversing the car out onto the driveway.

  ‘Give me a break, Dad. I’m not seventeen yet.’

  The smile on his face was dazzling. It was great that he was taking it so well.

  ‘Isla, I’ve got some terrific news for you. I’ve already picked up all the paperwork for your licence application. In Australia, you can learn to drive at sixteen! I can’t believe we didn’t realise it before now. Didn’t you notice any of your classmates already learning? Terry did.’

  I was stunned.

  He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Better yet, she wants to take lessons with you.’

  Lasso my panicking eyeballs.

  Terry knew I was terrified of learning to drive, and I’d specifically asked her to keep her mouth shut. What a brat.

  Dad got out of the car before I could respond. ‘Right, pass me those boxes,’ he commanded.

  I trudged off, kicking myself that I hadn’t just gone to the Bank of Mum, and fumed over Terry’s betrayal as I worked.

  The music from Sad Old Fart FM, blaring from the car radio, was just getting on my nerves when Dad approached, wiggling his fingers and shaking his head from side to side. ‘I love the Beatles. Come on, pet, I wanna hold your hand.’

  I rolled my eyes, but my feet followed his lead and we glided around the driveway. His fingertips were feather-light on the small of my back, but they had magical powers: when they guided me I was sure-footed and graceful. He made me feel like a princess.

  When the song finished �
� much too soon – he smiled. ‘Life doesn’t get any better than dancing with daughter number one on a Sunday afternoon.’ He planted a big sloppy kiss on my forehead.

  ‘You need a shave,’ I said, hugging him. ‘And you’re a terrible dancer.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ he protested, finally letting me go. ‘Your mam and I were brilliant in our day. I remember…’

  I didn’t hang around. I’d already wasted huge chunks of my life listening to what Dad remembered. I collected the last box and was about to hoist it in the air when I fumbled and dropped it. A few things tumbled out.

  ‘Hurry up, Isla.’ Dad was starting the car. ‘Just shove it in and I’ll be off.’

  I gathered up the escaped items and crammed them back into the box. That’s when I saw it.

  Mitsy was heading to the Salvos.

  I smiled as Dad drove away. Sucked in, Terry!

  ‘The road to success is a bumpy

  one, Isla, especially if your

  father is driving.’

  (Gran McGonnigle)

  On Monday morning Terry was in so much of a hurry to leave she missed Dad’s offer of a lift.

  Usually we catch the train to our school, which is forty minutes north, near Uncle Colin’s place in Sydney. We started there when we first moved to Australia, and when we finally settled in Coledale three months later to be near Wollongong for Mum’s new job, neither of us wanted to change schools again.

  Coledale is lovely. Behind the house there’s a wall of mountains called the Escarpment. It reminds me of home.

  Terry and Dad don’t seem to think about Scotland much. Mum gets a bit teary now and then when one of her relatives calls, though. Perhaps, like me, it’s not just the people that she longs for; maybe it’s the places and smells, too.

  I miss the long summer twilights: that in-between time before the day dies, when magic can still happen. I had my first kiss at dusk…with Brian.

  ‘Come on, stop dreaming,’ Dad said, waving the car keys at me. For a horrible moment I thought he was going to ask me to get behind the wheel, but he didn’t.

  Soon we were zipping across the new sea bridge at Clifton, winding our way along the coastline. I tuned in to Dad’s rabbiting for a few seconds on the off chance that he was saying something interesting.

  ‘… a wee banger’s all you’ll need. You and Terry can share it.’

  Change of subject needed, immediately.

  ‘Do you use this car at work, Dad?’

  ‘No, they’ve got pool cars. I’d be too conspicuous driving around in the same vehicle every day.’

  We veered close to the hard shoulder of the road and my body jolted as Dad over-corrected his steering.

  ‘How are things with your new case?’

  His forehead creased. ‘This one will be the death of me.’

  ‘What? You’re not in any danger, are you?’

  He laughed. ‘Aye, I might die from boredom. Compensation claims are a pain in the neck, or in this case, the back.’

  ‘Why?’

  I soon wished I hadn’t asked. He was still going on as we approached the freeway. ‘So you see, Isla, that’s workers’ compensation in a nutshell.’

  Yeah, a coconut shell. We were almost at my school.

  Basically, some guy was conning his employer to pay him while he pretended to have a sore back, and Dad was hired to catch him out. Mum’s nursing job is more dangerous. She’s often thumped by a flying arm or foot belonging to one of those old wrinklies in the geriatric ward.

  Perhaps, I mused, they were just trying to tap dance – like Gran McGonnigle. ‘I’ll be tap dancing to my grave. I’m not crawling in there,’ she once told Terry and I.

  ‘And we’ll be tap dancing on top of it,’ Terry had muttered under her breath.

  Gran and Terry have always had a bit of a ‘personality clash’, as Mum calls it. She reckons they’re just too alike.

  Dad was looking at me. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing. Just thinking about Gran tap dancing.’

  ‘Aye, well, this guy can definitely tap dance if he wants to, because there’s nothing wrong with his back.’

  ‘What makes you so sure? He might be using strong painkillers.’

  ‘I’ve been onto him for a month now, and the only thing making this joker flinch is this week’s petrol prices. Let me tell you, we all need strong painkillers to stomach those.’

  I laughed.

  ‘You won’t be laughing when it’s coming out of your own pocket, kid.’

  Oh no, back to me driving again. ‘So, you follow this guy every day and what?’ I asked hurriedly.

  ‘What do you mean, what?’

  ‘What do you do exactly?’

  ‘I film him and I take photographs.’

  I suppressed a snort. Dad must have the most self-photographed fingers in the history of this earth. ‘Doesn’t he ever notice you, Dad?’

  ‘No! Anyway, it’s easy for me to blend in with the crowd; he’s always at the Lions’ football stadium, even mid-week. But it works both ways – he just disappears. It’s a bloody big place.’

  ‘Never mind, Dad, there’s a lot of losing being done inside that stadium this season.’

  He gave the top of my head a playful swipe.

  ‘Go the Lions!’ I taunted, clambering out of the car.

  ‘Carve up that maths test today,’ he called after me from the open window.

  Low blow. I’m terrible at maths.

  It came as no surprise to me that the main topic of forbidden communication in first-period history was Emma Duggan’s party. If her birthday gets any more popular it will be declared a public holiday. An invite from Emma is a defining moment in your school year, perhaps even your life. Thankfully, I get on well with her and her friends so I made the cut.

  ‘Have you worked out what you’re wearing yet?’ Kate Sullway whispered just before the bell.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Me neither.’ She grinned. I like her – she was the first girl at this school who asked for my mobile number and she uses it a lot – but she’s not Fiona.

  After another disastrous date with trigonometry in period two, I headed for the canteen and lined up for a blueberry muffin.

  ‘You been invited to The Palace on Saturday night?’ It was Jack Ferris, in front of me in the line.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. He didn’t need to know that the whole invitation was fraught with danger for me. ‘You?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He winked. ‘It’s only the losers who didn’t get that pink envelope. Didn’t you just love those silver glitter hearts that fell out? I’m really into classy invitations.’

  His face was deadpan, but his eyes twinkled. Just when I started to find him slightly less unbearable than usual, he laughed. At least I think it was a laugh; it sounded like someone had just run over his foot.

  ‘Emma has a massive heated pool. It’s going to be an awesome party.’

  I disguised a groan with a cough. The pool was precisely my problem.

  ‘So, are you a bikini-wearer or a one-piece kind of a chick?’ He stepped forward in the queue as he spoke.

  If only he knew the truth: neither was much use to me.

  He turned around again. ‘I’d say you’re a bikini babe, am I right?’

  I shuddered. ‘Are you ever right, Jack?’

  ‘I think I was once, when I was in kindergarten. It’s a great story, actually, do you want to hear it?’

  ‘Yes, please do bore me to death, Jack – and by the way, it’s your turn.’ I pointed to the impatient mother behind the canteen window.

  When he’d purchased a wheelbarrow of food, I took his place. He’d bought the last blueberry muffin. I spun around in a huff, and there he was, hovering.

  ‘I won’t tell you then, because I want you alive this weekend. You can be on my team for pool poker,’ he said through his final mouthful of delicious muffin.

  Nightmare! I wasn’t getting into the stupid pool because, well, let�
�s just say I’m aquatically challenged.

  Living in a cold city like Glasgow, I never felt the need to learn to swim properly. But more than that, I have a pool phobia. Crazy to most Aussies, but true.

  I’ve always hated the idea of swimming pools. I mean, anyone would have to agree that there are people out there you wouldn’t even let in your front door, never mind take a bath with, right? So why jump into a pool with them? The only thing keeping their germs off you is a bucket-load of bleach, and don’t get me started on bleach.

  ‘I can’t imagine there will ever be a time in my life when I’d want to be on your team, Jack.’

  ‘Really?’ He seemed to give this statement serious consideration. He was silent for a few seconds – most unlike him – and I wondered if I’d gone too far.

  I watched him fighting with the wrapper of his pie. ‘Give me that!’ I snapped it out of his clumsy mitts and whipped the plastic off in a second: my version of a truce.

  ‘Thanks.’ He took a bite before adding, ‘Well, you can be on Sam’s team, then. You’ve gotta play. It’s too good a game to miss, and we’re betting on it so bring some cash.’

  ‘Is Sam Doyle going?’ I asked as casually as I could, while my heart beat a heavy-metal rhythm.

  He clicked his tongue at my stupidity, stuffing the pie in hismouth. ‘Of coursssssssse.’ He stressed the word and half the pie ended up on my shirt.

  Gross. Imagine being spat on by someone who could be defeated by a food wrapper. But the spray heralded good news. Sam was going.

  As far as I’m concerned, Sam Doyle should be cloned and given to every girl as a sixteenth birthday present. Think how much time and heartache that would save us. But as there’s only one of him, I’ve decided that I deserve him. I am trying to get over Brian, after all.

  ‘Everyone in Sam’s group is going – and so is Molly Phillips.’

  I froze. Tomato sauce was now dripping down his chin. I imagined it was blood from the punch I wanted to give him on his ugly nose.

  If Molly Phillips was going too, I didn’t stand a chance.

  But Molly didn’t take art, and that’s where I was heading next, to my table right behind Sam Doyle. With any luck, Miss Reid’s ramblings wouldn’t distract me too much from my perving.