by Bankes, Liz
Cal shouted ‘Dan’s back!’ and leapt off the sofa to get the door. Apparently Dan had been on holiday, rather than just out at work for the day. Although Cal does seem to find a lot of things exciting, so I wouldn’t have been that surprised. I noticed how booming Cal’s voice was as he ushered Dan in to meet his potential new housemate.
I watched it dawn on him that I was familiar. His eyes went wide and then he said, ‘Cleo?’
Cue Eastenders music.
Ha. Not quite – he’s not my biological dad/long-lost father/perverted uncle or anything. He featured in an eventful summer I had two years ago. Anyway, I’ll explain later – right now I have to go downstairs for ‘house dinner’ cooked by Dan . . .
Love you.
Cleo x
Chapter 2
That’s fine, isn’t it? Fine. A girl moving in. A girl housemate – no different to a boy housemate.
Except with breasts and the ability to seduce my boyfriend.
But it’s fine. Because he’s my boyfriend and he’s lovely and we’ve been together a year. So there’s absolutely no need to freak out about something that hasn’t even happened. I think that my brain is trying to trick me and actually I’m cool with it.
So cool with it, in fact, that I am currently hunched over my laptop peering at pictures of her on Facebook. Stalking a stranger in my room with the curtains closed when I should be out enjoying the sunshine and running through fields (or whatever it is normal people do instead of spending all their time worrying). I’ve got neck cramp from the hunching. And eye cramp from the peering. Can you get eye cramp? I should put my glasses on.
What I should also do is something useful – like studying for my internship. Which is why I told the girls I couldn’t come out today. And it isn’t a lie. It starts on Monday and I am terrified.
I’ll get my folder out. After I’ve clicked on one more picture.
Oh my God, her hair is actually amazing. It cascades from her head in ringlets. She looks like she gets out of bed and it just falls like that. Not like my uncontrollable afro which I have to attack with millions of products if I just want to go outside and not look mad.
Okay, time to stop stalking and start revising.
This picture looks like it could be from a magazine! She’s at a posh party in a slinky black dress that looks like that it costs more than my entire wardrobe. And it fits in all the right places. I bet she has never had to wear two bras. Gabi always goes on about how lucky I am to be skinny, but I’d swap her big boobs for my flat chest any day.
I bet Cleo doesn’t spend time thinking about swapping body parts either.
I swivel the chair and stare into the mirror by my dressing table. I feel like Cleo’s polar opposite. Our skin is the same tone, but she doesn’t have a random burst of freckles on her nose. Her features are striking and angular, with amazing cheekbones – unlike my round face and lack of chin. And her dark eyes are almost black and sort of lozenge-shaped.
Cal said he loves my ‘big brown eyes’. But then he added ‘they’re like a dog’s’ so I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing any more. Right now they are magnified by my glasses and I look a bit like a fly in pyjamas.
I know it doesn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t matter. The way I look isn’t why Cal is with me any more than the way he looks is why I love him. I know that.
It would be easy to feel better by telling myself that she’s probably got a really horrible personality, or that she’s up herself or shallow or a bit dim. But what have I got to base that on? That she’s pretty? I sound like the bitter, horrible one now. In films and books it’s okay, because the hot girl is usually nasty or stupid and gets found out, so the guy falls for the quiet girl who is funny and interesting and doesn’t realise how beautiful she is, like he should. But what if the hot girl is funny and interesting as well?
There’s a picture where whatever she’s just said has made the blond girl next to her crack up. They’re wearing those gowns Oxford students wear, standing in a stone archway, which I’m guessing is in one of the college buildings. That’s weird, though – I thought Oxford uni students lived in their colleges the whole three years? Even if they don’t, why is she moving in with a load of Oxford Brookes students she doesn’t know?
There’s a banging at my door. Probably Mum checking up on me.
But when I slide the lock open Gabi bundles in, followed by Mia and Nish.
‘Hey! I say brightly, hoping they won’t notice that I’ve been sitting looking at pictures of Cleo with the curtains closed. ‘I thought you were going to the park?’
‘We got your message,’ says Gabi. ‘So we came round for the crisis meeting!’
‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘I didn’t say it was a crisis – I said Cal has a new housemate and she sounds really nice.’
‘You put seven smiley faces after it,’ says Nish.
‘So let me get this straight,’ frowns Nish, who is now lying next to me on the bed. ‘Not only does Cal live with Dan, who is Mia’s ex-boyfriend, he now also lives with Cleo, who is Jamie’s ex-girlfriend.’
‘And Mia and Jamie cheated on both of them when they had their steamy summer affair,’ Gabi’s voice chimes in. She’s lying on a beanbag on the floor, so I can only see her legs. Mia is on the chair by my desk, rocking it back and forth with her foot.
‘Hey! It wasn’t like that,’ she protests.
‘Well. It was,’ says Gabi.
‘Yeah, it was,’ Nish says, nodding.
‘Fine,’ concedes Mia. ‘But Jamie and I are still together, so that makes it . . . less bad. We didn’t do it on a whim.’
‘A whim!’ screeches Gabi and her head appears at the foot of the bed. ‘Thanks for that contribution there, Jane Austen.’
Mia gives her an evil, but I can see she’s trying not to laugh. Then she turns to me.
‘You don’t need to worry. There’s no way Cal would look at anyone else. He’s sickeningly in love with you.’
I nod and smile at them, but it feels empty. ‘Yeah. Yeah. I know, it’s all good.’ I smile again and draw my knees up to my chin.
They exchange looks, wondering whether or not to carry on the conversation. I forget sometimes they all grew up here, whereas I only moved here when I started at the college. Mia and Gabi have been best friends since they were tiny. Nish was part of a different crowd – the private school crowd who used to hang out in the pool house of the castle Jamie’s parents own. Then Mia got a summer job at the castle. So they have all this gossip and history on people that I don’t know, including Cleo.
‘It’s been two years. She might have got less hot,’ says Gabi brightly, oblivious to the looks she’s getting from the other two. ‘And maybe less scary and evil.’
Scary and evil?
Mia sees my face.
‘She had a reason to be scary and evil,’ she says. ‘I sort of, you know, stole her boyfriend. And Gabi’s right – it was ages ago. Has anyone even seen her since that summer?’
Nish shakes her head. ‘Her parents were always moving countries, so she changed schools again. Effie and I haven’t heard much from her. Only rumours.’
‘What rumours?’ I say without thinking and Nish shakes her head.
‘Oh, it was probably all bollocks.’
‘You told me one of them was that she seduced a teacher,’ says Gabi.
‘Really?’ says Nish.
‘Yeah,’ says Gabi. ‘And you said that she broke up the marriage of one of her friend’s parents.’
‘You seem to have developed an excellent memory.’ Nish sits up on her elbows and fixes Gabi with a look.
‘And she . . .’ Gabi trails off as she sees Nish’s expression. There is a moment of silence.
‘Mia’s got an STD!’ Gabi exclaims.
‘Er, what?’ Mia stops rocking the chair and it hits the floor with a clunk.
‘Okay, she doesn’t actually. I was just changing the subject,’ says Gabi. ‘But if she did have one, what do we think it wou
ld be?’
‘Herpes,’ says Nish instantly.
Everyone bursts out laughing and Mia throws a cuddly toy that hits Nish square in the face. I get this sudden strong aching feeling to not go away for the summer. To stay with my friends and get a normal summer job and keep seeing Cal at weekends.
Seeing as at the end of the summer we’ll all be going off to do completely different things. Nish is doing economics at Exeter. Mia’s going to live in Australia for a year with Jamie. Gabi’s not leaving – she didn’t apply for uni and she’s going to go full-time at Radleigh Castle, where she waitresses and helps organise events.
And I’m off to Manchester to do business studies.
My tactic is to not think about it too much, so I can pretend it’s not looming and only two months away and I’m not terrified. I tune back into the conversation again. It’s moved from STDs to Gabi and Max. About how when she visits him at uni they still share a bed and no one, except Gabi, thinks that’s normal. She says that it just feels so nice they are best friends that she doesn’t want to ruin it by having the pressure of a relationship.
I say that a relationship shouldn’t feel like pressure – it should be the area of life where you can be yourself and escape the pressure.
Although try telling that to my mum. She was recently listing the things I have to look forward to in five years (just normal, dinnertime chat) and she said a good job, the deposit for a house and a ‘successful relationship’. I reminded her that I am in a relationship – and with a future lawyer as well – and she just said, ‘Oh yes . . .’ because I think she was remembering the time Cal serenaded me outside my bedroom window wearing nothing but a strategically placed ukulele.
My phone screen lights up on the bed in front of me.
It’s a photo of a grinning cat wearing a top hat and underneath Cal’s message says, Can’t wait for summer living x
The weight on my chest lightens and the words that everyone’s been telling me over and over again suddenly manage to sneak into my brain and feel real for a moment.
You don’t have anything to worry about.
Chapter 3
Oh no. There’s someone in my seat. I hate it when that happens. I could just find somewhere else. But it’s really busy. And that man isn’t old or pregnant, so maybe I can say something.
‘Excuse me. Sorry. I think you might be in my seat?’
He looks up from his phone and arches his eyebrows at me. ‘You can’t reserve seats on this train.’
‘Oh, can’t you?’ I look down at the bit of my ticket that says seat reservation on it. And the seat number. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘No, you can’t.’ He speaks in the lazy, posh drawl that makes people sound like there could be absolutely no chance that what they are telling you is wrong. ‘You can just sit over there.’ He nods at an empty seat across the aisle from him. ‘That is, unless you were going to sit on my lap?’
‘Um . . . no, thank you. I’ll just go here.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, thanks. Sorry, can I just . . .’
I start pulling my bag through the aisle so I can pick it up and put it on the luggage rack. His foot is in the way and I knock into it. I apologise and he goes back to looking at his phone.
Once I’ve sorted the bag I can finally sit down. I get out the bagel and drink I bought at the station and decide to eat before I start going through all the Young Bright Sparx stuff I need to read.
‘’Scuse me, love. You’re in my seat.’
‘I don’t think you can —’
She holds the ticket with the seat number in my face.
‘Sorry, I’ll just get my bag.’
The train is starting to get really busy. I install myself in a nice gap by the luggage rack, but then a woman with a pram needs that, so I move again and find myself facing the wall with a bin wedged into my stomach.
I think about calling Cal, but I should really read all the things about the scheme. And the book Mum gave me, How to Make People Do What You Want Them To Without Them Knowing You Want Them to Do It.
I wish I’d brought some other books really, but I knew that if I did there was no chance I’d read any of this.
Page one, introduction to the Young Bright Sparx scheme, is full of phrases like brightest and best, strive to succeed and rise to the top, and then go higher. I don’t think I am taking anything in. I feel my phone in my pocket and realise that I’m willing Cal to call me to give me an excuse to stop.
I haven’t spoken to him for a while. Well, I spoke to him yesterday morning, but still – he said he was just staying in last night and then he didn’t text me or anything before bed. Did I text him? I’m sure I did. I usually do.
My mum’s face appears in my mind telling me to stop distracting myself and focus. Otherwise I will be a failure and unemployable. No one is going to employ someone whose key skills are Facebook-stalking and making lists of things to worry about, are they?
Maybe a social media company?
Okay, page one . . .
What if Cal fell over in his room and hit his head and died?
His housemates probably wouldn’t think to check for a while. They’d just think he was sleeping in as usual.
Or, even worse, what if Cleo was in his room?
Even worse? Am I actually saying that it would be better if Cal was dead than had Cleo in his room?
Maybe, a bit . . .
Thankfully my phone goes off before I can come to the conclusion that I could be a bit of a psycho. I get that hopeful, on the edge of relief feeling you get when you might be about to be told that your boyfriend a) still loves you and b) is alive.
Unless this is the hospital texting me to tell me he’s dead.
Would they text?
I balance the Bright Sparx folder on top of my bag and fish the phone out of my pocket.
Dear Rosie, Sorry I wasn’t there to see you off. Have a lovely time and don’t ring home too much – real life and all that. You left your knickers – shall I post? Kind regards, Mum.
I wonder if other people’s mums sign off their texts kind regards?
She used to sign off LOL until someone told her that it meant ‘laugh out loud’ rather than ‘lots of love’. It was quite undermining getting texts like, Good luck in your exams. LOL. Mum.
I wish the text had been from Cal. It would be nice if I didn’t start thinking he was dead every time I don’t hear from him for a while. There was the time in the Easter holidays when he hadn’t texted for a day and I phoned some of his friends and his brother Max in tears. Max said Cal ‘ate loads of bread and fell asleep’ and in my panic I asked him if that was a euphemism for death.
Cal just laughed at me when I spoke to him. He didn’t even get annoyed when some of his friends rang because they’d heard from me that he’d gone missing. That’s our pattern really – one of us will worry about something, like when Cal was worried about that guy from college who told me he liked me or when I worry that he has gone off me or died. That’s usually during the two weeks we are apart. Then we’ll see each other and whatever it was will dissolve away and just seem silly. And it will only start to creep back in when we have to do that horrible walk to the station and say goodbye again.
My phone screen lights up with his face. I look at it for a moment, enjoying the relief. From nowhere I get a sudden flashback of something Nish said, over a year ago. It was before I met Cal and I was miserable about not having a boyfriend.
‘You need to be okay on your own. It can’t depend on a boyfriend.’
Where did that come from? I don’t depend on Cal to be okay, do I?
I’d better answer his call before it goes to voicemail.
‘Hello!’
‘Are you here yet?’ he says.
‘Nearly.’
‘After Slough?’
‘After Slough, before Reading.’
‘Hooray!’ he says, in a high-pitched voice that makes me laugh. ‘Hey, guess what? I won the
curry challenge!’
‘What did you win?’
‘Another curry. Does that make me a pig?’
‘A massive pig.’
I am squashed further into the wall and bin when the woman next to me steps backwards.
‘Ah, you love it. You love my sexy belly,’ says Cal.
‘Is that right?’
‘You do! Say I love you, you sexy pig,’ he says.
I look to the side, straight into the face of the woman who is much closer to me than either of us would like. ‘No!’ I laugh.
‘Say it!’
I mumble into the phone, ‘I love you, you sexy pig.’
‘Louder,’ he says firmly. I know Cal and I know I’m fighting a losing battle.
‘I love you, you sexy pig,’ I say.
‘I said, tickets, please.’ In the space of about two seconds the woman’s face has been replaced by the ticket inspector.
‘Oh! Sorry.’ I fumble in my bag. ‘I was just on the phone to my boyfriend.’ I hold up the phone to show him, but there’s nothing there. I must have lost signal. The inspector goes and the woman’s face is back again. She’s giving me an odd look.
I turn away and pick up the folder again, trying to keep in mind what Cal always says. You’ll never see these people again. What does it matter what they think?
Right. Page one.
Dear M,
There is an animal in the house. It brushed past my leg at dinner and when I asked what the fuck it was, Cal looked up and said, ‘It’s a cat.’
I quite reasonably asked if someone could get rid of it and Arlo looked horrified and told me that ‘Nigel’ lives here. I said ‘Oh, does he?’ and Cal said ‘She’ without even looking up from his food.
When I asked why none of them had thought to mention this before, Arlo laughed and said, ‘She’s part of the house – like the sofa or something. We didn’t mention the sofa in the interview either.’
I told him that was slightly different as the sofa isn’t going to give me fleas and it doesn’t shit in a box. Then Dan said, ‘She goes outside’ and gave me a brief smile before carrying on eating.