FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Dee and his wife Yolly live with Vivvy, Dee’s stepdaughter, and my cousins, Elle and Perry, on the same estate as Grandma.
When Dee unlocks the front door and I step into the hall, which is just a hall, not a foyer or vestibule or art gallery, the air is thick and stuffy. Dee says the Carnival was still going on when the others went to bed and it was too noisy to sleep with the windows open. He opens them now and I want to sleep and I really want to have a shower but the most important thing is to charge my phone.
‘I’m going to bed. Staying up all night was much easier when I was your age.’ Dee shakes his head and tuts because I’m sitting on his sofa and my head keeps sinking back into the cushions and it’s quite hard to stay vertical. ‘You, you’re a lightweight.’
‘Funny, ’cause I feel like dead weight.’ The sofa’s swallowing me. I elbow myself back up. ‘Can I have a shower?’
Dee says I can but I have to be quiet and not wake up Yolly because she’ll kill me and there’ll be nothing Dee can do to stop her, and then I can crash in the girls’ room.
Pulling off my grungy clothes and having a two-minute lukewarm shower is as good as ten hours’ sleep. I put on the dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door and pad softly into the girls’ room.
The sun is streaming in from behind the curtains and I gag on the fetid stench of Body Shop white musk perfume with base notes of hairspray and Play-Doh. Vivvy’s half of the room is a shrine to Jourdan Dunn and Elle’s is where pink plastic crap goes to die. It’s a huge source of aggro that fourteen-year-old Vivvy has to share a room with three-year-old Elle.
I weigh up my options and decide that Elle’s bed is the best bet. That kid can sleep through anything. One time when they were on holiday in Spain, the fire alarm in the hotel went off and no one could wake Elle up. When they got back to England, Yolly took her for a hearing test. Elle’s hearing’s fine, she just really, really, really loves sleep. She’s tangled up in a pink flowery sheet, one fist clenching and unclenching, fat little cheeks bulging on every exhale because she’s a total mouthbreather. She doesn’t even stir when I shove her right over and get into bed.
This is going to be good. This is going to be monster sleep. I might even sleep so much that when I wake up it’s Monday morning and time to head over to Grandma’s.
Yeah, come on, sleep, show me what you’re made of.
I rest my head on Elle’s pillow, take a couple of deep breaths and my eyelids are drooping, arms and legs slackening. Oh yes, this is what I’m talking ab …
ONE MINUTE LATER
There’s an angry bee buzzing somewhere in the room. It sounds like it’s right next to me and I should be so tired that even an angry bee couldn’t come between me and sleep, but it’s right there. In my ear. Like it’s about to sting me. I’ve never been stung by a bee, or even a wasp before, so it would just be my luck to have a fatal allergy to getting stung. Like Macaulay Culkin in My Girl.
‘SHUT UP!’ I open one eye and roll over. Vivvy is sitting up. ‘TURN IT OFF!’
‘Turn what off?’ I grunt.
‘Your phone. But first tell whoever’s texting you to SHUT UP!’
‘What?’
Vivvy lays back down so she can flail her limbs in fury. She’s worse than Yolly if she gets woken up too soon. Right now, she’s full-on body spasming in rage.
‘I’m gonna get out of bed and stamp on your phone,’ she hisses. ‘I swear I will.’
‘My phone’s downstairs, charging.’
‘Then. What. Is. That. Noise?’
‘Um, an angry bee?’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Vivvy throws back her sheets, gets her legs tangled up in them, which sends her temper up by approximately eleventy billion more notches. Then finally she’s out of bed and stomping the seven steps that takes her to my side. I shrink back. Vivvy is so mad, there’s no telling what she might do.
‘Your phone. In your bag. Down there.’ It’s like the mad part of her brain has overriden the bit that forms whole sentences.
I look down at my bag, which I’d dumped on the floor next to the bed. ‘My phone isn’t in there,’ I insist, but I pick it up and as I do, it buzzes again. ‘How weird.’
‘Oh God, I hate you!’ Vivvy snatches my bag from my puny grip, plunges a hand inside, rummages a bit and pulls out a phone.
I’m just about to say that it’s not my phone and then I remember whose phone it is. It’s Mark’s phone. ‘Oh, that phone,’ I say in a tiny voice and Vivvy makes this growly noise in the back of her throat and I shrink even further back and almost push Elle out of bed.
Miraculously, Elle is still asleep. I think Yolly needs to get her hearing checked again.
‘It’s my boyfriend’s phone,’ I tell Vivvy, who stands there in rumpled, cupcake-patterned vest and sleep shorts, her hair in twists. ‘Ex-boyfriend.’
She stares at me, like she doesn’t even know who I am. Then whatever demon has possessed her decides to move onto its next victim and she gives me a sleepy smile. ‘Oh, hey, Sunny. Your hair is well big.’ She gestures at the phone. ‘Is that the boyfriend who doesn’t even know about Trojan Records? Dee said he was a dickhead.’
‘Thanks for that,’ I say. Sleep has abandoned me. I don’t understand how I can stay up for nearly twenty-four hours and still be in control of all of my faculties. Or about eighty-three per cent of them. All I can think about now is Mark’s phone and what I‘m going to do with it. Right on cue, it buzzes again.
Babe. Don’t be a h8er. Let’s sort shit out. Mark x
He was texting his own phone, so which babe did he mean? Did he know that Tab had stolen his phone? Or did he think it was some other girl that he’d been seeing that Tabitha and I didn’t know about? Or maybe he had some kind of personality disorder (which, yeah) that made him send semi-apologetic texts to himself.
‘Sorry I got my bitch on. Did I swear? Don’t tell Mum if I did, yeah?’ Vivvy gets back into bed. ‘Really, your hair is so big. Turn the buzzy thing off on that phone, OK?’
Then she’s gone. Her head crash-lands on the pillow and she’s asleep. I hate her a little bit in that moment for being able to get to sleep so easily, but not as much as I hate Mark. And really Tab was right, compared to what he’s done, putting in his passcode and having complete access to his phone doesn’t even come close.
I begin with the texts that arrived in the last five minutes.
Yo, Tab, u klepto! U got my phone?
Tab! I no ur mad @ me, but stealing my phone is wrong.
We both said stuff. That Sunny girl is cray cray. Don’t believe what she told Flick. Flick is a stirrer. We talked about this b4. Shouldn’t let her come between us.
Still luv u. Know u luv me 2. Text me!
Babe, I really am sorry but need my phone back ASAP.
This is too good an opportunity to pass up.
Mark has messed with me all night. Wrong, Sunny! So wrong. He’s been messing with me for months and I know I still have a world of hurt to travel through. That it’s going to take a while to get over this. But right now is not the time. Right now is the time for payback.
My thumbs hit the keypad.
Still mad at u. Not sure u deserve 2 have ur phone back.
He replies immediately.
Babe! After all we’ve been through. Let’s not fight. Where are u? Really need my phone.
What about ur 2 Facebook pages? Only liar has 2 of them.
No biggie. One FB page 4 my proper crew and other one 4 North London poors. Only put Sunny as my relationship status to get her to stop bothering me. I swear.
You never even hooked up with her?
No way! Prefer vanilla to chocolate.
I suck in a breath. That’s what happens when you ask questions that you really don’t want to know the answers to. My heart throbs a warning to let me know that it’s still tender and bruised and can’t take any more pain.
Where r u?
Putney. But re
ally need my phone, babes. Can’t u jump in a cab?
What was Mark doing in Putney? God, if he could just stay in one place then this whole night would have been over at eleven. Gone to Camden, met Tab, dumped him, went home. It wouldn’t have made for such a great story but right now I’d be on my sixth hour of sleep and not feeling like someone had pulled out my insides and replaced them with a load of mouldy old socks.
Still, better late than never at all.
Not coming 2 Putney. As if! Try again.
Babe! Got 2 get train 2 Godalming 4 big family lunch. Don’t make me travel all way back 2 town. Please!
Elle sighs, wriggles and turns over. Vivvy has pulled the sheet over her head and all that’s visible is one lone twist. It looks like a fluffy caterpillar resting on her pillow.
I sigh too. I realise now that we always did what Mark wanted and I always went along with it.
Well, this was the last time. Mark didn’t always get what he wanted.
Royal Festival Hall. Final offer.
He could easily get to Waterloo from Putney and just bloody deal with it. Forcing Mark to go out of his way, to come back into town, might not seem much to the casual observer but to me it was huge. Total game changer.
Fine. Outside RFH 1 hour. Laters. M xxx
I pick up my bag and tiptoe out of the room. Then I look down at the borrowed dressing gown and tiptoe back in.
As I stand over Vivvy’s bed, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life. This is what it must feel like to wake the kraken.
I gingerly prod a bit of her. I think it’s her shoulder. ‘Vivvy? Really sorry, don’t hate me, can you lend me something to wear?’
She doesn’t stir. I give her another prod. ‘Vivvy. Wake up! Gently, in your own time, but the next ten seconds would be good.’
‘Oh God! What is wrong with you?’ She flings back the sheet. ‘What is your problem? Why are you ruining my life?’
It takes five precious minutes for Vivvy to flail and rage and threaten to kill me before she stops behaving like a tool and starts rooting through her drawers.
Vivvy only ever wears one outfit: leggings and an outsize hoodie. Yolly says it’s because she’s embarrassed about her body blossoming into womanhood. Quite frankly, I’d be embarrassed about growing hips and boobs if my mum described it as blossoming into womanhood.
Now Vivvy makes a big deal out of letting me have her rattiest pair of leggings – they have holes in them and saggy knees (‘No, it’s all right, you don’t have to give them back. They’re a present’) – and a pair of navy-blue granny pants out of an unopened pack of three that her nan had given her for her birthday, but she flat-out refuses to let me borrow a hoodie.
‘They’ve all got sentimental value,’ Vivvy says as she clutches a sky-blue Superdry hoodie to her chest like I’m about to snatch it from her and run for the hills. ‘For real, Sunny, letting you take one would be like giving you one of my children.’
‘But it’s a loan. And I’d take good care of it. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow, all freshly washed. So it’s like giving me one of your children so I could, um, you know, babysit it.’
‘No, I can’t. It’s nothing personal, but you’re young and irresponsible.’ She looks at me standing there in her ratty leggings and my bra, which has seen better days. Much, much better days. ‘You could borrow something of Elle’s. She wouldn’t mind.’
We glance over to the bed where Elle sleeps on. Yolly should probably also get her checked out for narcolepsy while she’s getting her hearing tested.
‘She’s three! Nothing of hers is going to fit.’
‘Yeah, but she’s a really fat three-year-old.’ Vivvy has the grace to look slightly ashamed. ‘Mum says she’s just going through a chubby phase. We’re not allowed to mention it in front of Elle in case we give her an eating disorder. She says so much stupid stuff.’
I give Vivvy side-eye and she gives it right back to me. ‘My mum says a whole bunch of stupid stuff too. The sex stuff is proper cringe. I think she’s trying to scare me into never doing it.’
‘Don’t talk to me about sex stuff.’ Vivvy shudders. ‘Gross. Look, there must be something of Elle’s you can wear. One of her dresses would do as a T-shirt, right?’
Elle’s little wardrobe is pink. So is everything in it. I reject anything glittery or with flowers appliqued onto it. Also anything featuring Disney characters. I’m left with a flowy cotton sundress; it’s white with huge cerise polka dots on it. It comes to my navel, chafes on the armholes and gives me a monoboob.
‘It doesn’t look that bad,’ Vivvy says, even as her eyes widen in horror. ‘You can well style it out.’
‘Jesus! Stop being so tight and lend me a hoodie!’
‘I can’t. I want to, but I just can’t,’ Vivvy informs me sorrowfully. ‘Honestly, you look all right. Anyway, it’s not like you’re going anywhere special. Only to meet that Mark so you can dump him. Why do you need to look hot to do that?’
I didn’t need to look hot, but I also didn’t want to look like I’d just escaped from a CBeebies set. Even new, improved Sunny who Charlestons in convenience stores and vanquishes vengeful hoodies wouldn’t be able to pull off a sassy ‘This is me and this is my ass walking away from you’ speech in a sundress meant for a three-year-old. And let’s be clear about this, I want Mark to be overcome with not just shame and regret but also for him to replay the moment I stomp away from him over and over again for years to come and to think, ‘Not only was Sunny an excellent human being, far too good for me, she was also well fit.’
I also quite want to be able to move my arms. ‘I swear, Viv, if you don’t lend me a hoodie, I’m going to wake up your mum and tell her that you dropped the f-bomb because you totally did.’
Vivvy gasps and clutches at her hair. ‘Why would you do that? Why are you being so mean? You’re never mean.’
‘I’m not being mean,’ I say firmly. ‘I’m standing up for myself and I’m going to be doing it quite a lot from now on so get used to it.’
‘Seems more like bullying to me,’ Vivvy grumbles but she’s moving towards her chest of drawers again, face furrowed with indecision. ‘Bullying is well worse than saying the f-word.’
‘We could go and ask your mum if she thinks it’s worse than refusing to lend me a hoodie when you’ve got … like, hundreds of them in there!’
‘Not hundreds.’ Vivvy rifles through her bottom drawer where I guess she stashes her least favourite hoodies and finally pulls out a khaki one. ‘You can borrow this, I suppose.’
I know Vivvy loves an outsized hoodie but this could double up as a tent if ever the Royal Marines were short of one.
‘My auntie bought it when she went to America. She forgot that their clothes come up bigger than ours. I still want it back, though!’
‘Fine. Whatever. Thanks.’ I tug off Elle’s dress – it takes most of the skin under my arms with it – then I pull on Vivvy’s hoodie. It makes me look like I’m pregnant with triplets.
‘It’s quite thin material so at least you won’t be too hot in it,’ Vivvy helpfully points out. ‘It’s quite a hard colour to wear, isn’t it, khaki? Do you think that’s why they make soldiers wear it? So they concentrate on fighting rather than how fit they look.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t show up the dirt so much.”
Time is marching on like khaki-clad soldiers on parade. It takes another two minutes of begging to get Vivvy to part with a pair of trainer socks so I can pull on my sneakers and finally get going.
The house is still as I creep down the stairs, but not silent. I can hear the click of the boiler. The hum of the fridge. All those noises that houses make that are comforting and familiar. Our house creaks as the sun comes up and the radiator in the hall always rattles if you come down the stairs too fast. But I don’t want to think about our house because now I remember that it mostly resembles landfill. Landfill left by meat eaters. Oh God …
Bu
t now I’m also thinking about eating so I go into the kitchen. Grab an apple and a carton of juice out of the fridge and write on the whiteboard, ‘Had to go, but will see you all tomorrow. Love, kisses, hugs, Sunny xo.’
I’m almost out the door when I remember my phone. The battery is now on 77%, which is good and I have three texts from Mark, which is bad. I can’t even look at them. Oh, the idea of them. Of Mark’s thumbs hovering over the screen, thinking of words designed solely to hurt me.
I stuff my phone back into my bag and open the front door onto the chalk-bright morning.
TO-DO LIST
Dump Mark.
Dump Mark in a devastating, understated way that he’ll think about for at least five minutes every day for the rest of his life.
Text Emmeline to apologise for acting like a tool.
Text Vic to ask for Jean-Luc’s number.
Text Jean-Luc to apologise for acting like a tool.
Go home.
Do not go to bed.
Feed Gretchen Weiner.
Varnish shed.
Collect all bottles that once contained alcoholic beverages and put them in the recycling.
Ask Max from top flat if I can tell Mum that it’s his recycling if she gets suspicious. She will DEFINITELY get suspicious.
Ditto for rubbish bag containing empty meat wrappers.
Gather up all the dirty plates and cups and run the dishwasher.
Unload the dishwasher.
If Emmeline hasn’t replied to my text, bake her a cake. She always responds well to baked goods.
(If cake-baking is a possibility, do it before I run the dishwasher.)
If Jean-Luc hasn’t replied to my text, run the English through Google Translate and send it again in French. En Français, even.
Really, do not go to bed.
Don’t even lie on the sofa or any other horizontal surface.
Burn scented candle in kitchen to get rid of the stench of cooked meat.
Don’t forget to blow out scented candle.
Put back the bottle of perfume borrowed without asking from Mum’s dressing table.
London Belongs to Us Page 18