Follow Me Down

by Tanya Byrne

  But for all of New York’s glamour, for all its marble and black lacquer and fringe, I’d never seen a house like Scarlett’s. If Jumoke’s condo had commanded an entire floor, then Scarlett’s house was the size of a city block. It looked like something from a BBC period drama – big and square with three rows of white-framed windows – and even though I’d heard so much about it (it’s talked about at Crofton almost as much as she is) I couldn’t help but be a little in awe the first time she led me around it; from the hall into the big yellow music room with its glossy piano and wireless, to the library with the buttery leather armchairs that remember the shape of you until you sit on them again.

  She announced each room with no fanfare, as though it was normal, as though every girl lived in a house with a name and a chandelier in every room, but when we got to the drawing room, she smiled. Everything in it looked so stiff, from the huge carved fireplace to the heavy silk drapes, that I couldn’t imagine relaxing in a room like that, but I do. We lie in there all the time – her lying on one couch, me on the other – eating fistfuls of popcorn and talking about where we want to go to university, where we want to live, what we want to see. Or, when the sun is out, we open the French windows and sit on the uneven mossy steps that lead to the lawn, the grass rolling out in front of us down, down to the canal with its rickety wooden bridge, and it feels like we have the world at our feet.

  That’s the thing with her house, it’s grand, but they really live in it. They don’t have a housekeeper (I didn’t know this until I noticed the dust on the piano and the white wax weeping from the candelabras in the dining room), which makes sense – her mother didn’t want her daughters to have the upbringing she had – but my father would have been appalled. An old house like that needs care, he’d say. He wouldn’t approve of the unpolished floors and rumpled rugs. He’d say it was neglectful. But Scarlett’s house is like a vintage bag; it has so many scuffs because it’s used. Loved. It’s not like Jumoke’s magazine-perfect apartment with its white sofas and bowl of green apples in the kitchen that no one is allowed to eat.

  The Chilterns live in every corner of their house. It has a smell, a nice smell: old, but kind of comforting, like a spent match or a second-hand book. There are photos of the girls on every wall. The one of six-year-old Scarlett in her yellow wellington boots, pouting and clutching her leather suitcase, is by the door in the mud room, presumably where it was taken before they waved her off. And there’s one of the girls in the drawing room, the three of them huddled together and giggling. It’s impossible to tell them apart, their faces and white cotton dresses covered in red, pink and blue powder. I guess they were in India for Holi and whenever I look at it, I can almost hear them screaming and chasing one another.

  That’s what I love about her house: it’s a home. There are tulips from their farm in every room and a bowl of browning bananas in the kitchen. Normal things. In the summer, I’m sure she sunbathes on the lawn in her heart-shaped sunglasses – Olivia next to her, reading a book – and slams doors when she doesn’t get her way. Every scratch tells a story, every dent, every repaired vase. Even the paintings say something, because that’s another thing her mother does that infuriates her grandmother: she rents rooms to writers and artists – like Mr Lucas – most of whom pay their way with poems or paintings. I’ve seen the paintings dotted around the house, wild splashes of colour between the dour portraits of the house’s previous residents.

  Every time I go to her house, I think of my house in Lagos, of its high gates and marble floors, and wonder what it was like to grow up in a house like that. I’ve never really felt the loss of being an only child, until I imagine the girls skidding in their socks along the floorboards outside their bedrooms and trying to pick out the animals from the dusty tapestry in the dining room while they eat dinner. And I imagined Olivia sitting on her pink meringue of a bed while Scarlett stomped around hers, refusing to tidy it or tugging on the tattered bell pull demanding juice and ginger cake, and I wished I’d known her then, that we’d discovered her hiding places together and counted the steps from the house to the canal.

  Everyone at Crofton asks me about it, about what shampoo she uses and what book she’s reading and they want to know what her room looks like. I just smile and shrug, but if they thought about it, they’d know that her room is like her – a mess. After all, she can never find anything in her locker and is always hastily putting chewing gum into a folded-up receipt before class, then tossing it in her bag, only to find the gum stuck to a notebook two days later. Her room is much the same; she never makes her bed and clothes hang from everything they can hang from: door handles, chairs, open closet doors. There’s stuff all over the place – folded paper ships dotted everywhere, magazines on the floor, a pile of orange peel on her nightstand. It sounds disgusting, but it’s so gloriously Scarlett with its Mucha posters and aura of Chanel that it’s impossible to turn your nose up at it.

  It’s kind of strange how well I know her house already. Nice strange. I know that the cutlery drawer in the kitchen sticks and that they keep a spare key under the mat outside the back door. I know to avoid the creaky floorboard under the rug in her bedroom in the same way I knew to avoid the creaky step on the staircase at my old house in New York that tried to betray me every time I snuck in when I’d missed my curfew.

  I know her house better than my new one in London, which I’m yet to sleep in. I saw photos of it before we left New York, so I know that it has square windows like Scarlett’s house and a black front door flanked by bay trees and that my room has a tiny fireplace and a view of the garden, but that’s it. It’s a house in a photograph, not my home. I’d never tell my parents that, though, because it would upset them and I know that sending me away to school hasn’t been easy for them, either. Which is why they’re so relieved that I’ve made a friend, particularly my mother who teases me mercilessly whenever I mention her. ‘Scarlett, Scarlett, Scarlett. Did you do anything else today, Adamma? Perhaps go to a lesson?’

  Jumoke isn’t as amused, though. ‘Replaced me already, have you?’ she said the last time we spoke, making no effort to disguise her contempt. I don’t blame her; I was just as petulant when she told me that she was going to Sabrina Earl’s seventeenth birthday party. We used to hate Sabrina Earl. How can so much have changed in three weeks?

  If Jumoke met Scarlett, she’d understand. She kind of dazzles you. I’m trying to persuade her to fly to London on Friday for my first exeat weekend so that she can meet her. I think they’d love each other and even if they didn’t, a weekend with them still had to be better than the horror of last night – my first Crofton social. Scarlett had warned me about them, but I didn’t think it would be that bad. After all, it was just a dinner in honour of the Disraeli and the sixth formers who want to join the staff, but, as we gathered in the teacher’s dining room in Sadon Hall, I counted twenty-two of us. Twenty-two. One girl I spoke to had a short story published in Granta last month and another just won Young Photographer of the Year, so what I thought would be a nice, quiet dinner turned out to be more like a job interview with twenty-two other people while trying not to spill soup down my dress.

  That’s Crofton, it seems. I thought my last school was competitive, but Crofton is in a different class. I used to feel so grown up when Jumoke and I went to bars, sipped cocktails and talked about sex, but I felt like such a kid at the social last night compared to everyone else. There was no trace of awkwardness; they were all so charming and funny and told the sort of anecdotes I’m used to hearing at my parents’ dinners at the embassy.

  It was kind of weird, though, because while they’re all so polite – so proper, like Stepford kids – if you say the word ‘penis’ to some girls, they immediately revert to being thirteen and collapse into helpless giggles. I think that’s why I like Scarlett so much. There’s something so hopelessly human about her. She isn’t putting on an act; she bites her nails and doodles in class
and sulks when she doesn’t get her own way, like every other teenager. She’s normal, I guess, and at a school where everyone says the right thing and wears the right thing and laughs at the right jokes, she’s a splash of graffiti on the wood-panelled walls.

  Last night everyone was dressed the same. Even me. I was told it would be informal, but I know that schools like Crofton don’t really do ‘informal’, so I didn’t take it literally and rock up in jeans and sneakers. I also resisted the urge to wear one of the bright, patterned dresses I would have worn to an event at my old school. I opted for a simple black one instead and as I stood among the boys in their tweed blazers and the girls in their pretty tea dresses, I was glad I did. But then she swept into the dining room in a floor-length red gown that was enough to make my philosophy teacher, Mr Crane, spill wine down his shirt and I was besotted.

  Only Scarlett.

  As she drifted around the room, I looked down at my black dress and wished that I’d been brave enough to wear what I wanted. Headmaster Ballard wasn’t as impressed, though, and handed Mr Crane a napkin and told us all to sit down.

  I was so surprised that it didn’t occur to me to question why she was there. It wasn’t until I saw her stop to kiss Hannah on both cheeks that I realised why.

  ‘I didn’t know you were trying out for the Disraeli,’ I said, stepping into her path as she made her way to the table.

  She stopped and blinked at me – as though she’d never seen me before – then beamed and kissed me on both cheeks, too. ‘I’m not trying out,’ she said, and there was a slight edge of, Silly Adamma. ‘Hannah’s asked me to do the theatre reviews.’

  ‘Oh. OK,’ I started to say, but she just continued on to the table.

  I’m not sure how, but I lucked out and the seating plan sat me between Mr Lucas and Hannah. I wondered if it was Scarlett’s doing, her way of introducing me to Hannah, as she’d promised to, but when she just waved across the table at her, I realised that she wasn’t going to. She had probably forgotten, so I did it myself. I introduced myself to the boy sitting opposite, as well, a guy called Sam Wolfe who held my hand for a moment too long and, when he repeated my name, managed to make it sound dirty, which I didn’t think was possible.

  British boys continue to disappoint me.

  There was an empty chair opposite Hannah and I was wondering who would be foolish enough to be late for an event like this when Dominic strode in in a black suit, which he wore so well it made Hannah blush a little when he introduced himself with a smile. He then turned to me, his smile a little wider, and told me I looked divine. My reaction wasn’t as obvious so I hope he didn’t see my fingers flutter as I tugged my pashmina onto my shoulders. I hope Mr Lucas didn’t notice, either. If he’s going to be overseeing the Disraeli this year, I don’t want him to think I’m a silly schoolgirl easily distracted by compliments.

  ‘I hope my cousin isn’t being too lecherous,’ Dominic said, then winked at Sam. ‘Hands on the table where we can see them, Samuel.’

  I was a little startled; they couldn’t have looked more different. Dominic’s surname was Sim, so I guessed they were related on Dominic’s mother’s side because they were almost direct opposites of one another; where Dominic has dark hair and eyes, Sam has a tangle of white-blond hair and eyes so blue that they were almost unreal. Disney-prince blue. When Dominic saw me looking between them, he winked and I turned away, determined not to let him distract me as I continued my conversation about Wole Soyinka with Mr Lucas.

  As I had suspected, the informal dinner was rather formal. It wasn’t unlike the ones at the embassy, but much more English, with white table linen and white plates and perfect medallions of pink lamb, that made me miss my parents’ rowdy parties with the decanters of palm wine and bright centrepieces of lilies and amaryllis.

  The conversation was as sober as the food, mostly about school and the upcoming year. Unfortunately, despite chatting animatedly for ten minutes about Wole Soyinka, Mr Lucas wouldn’t look at me after resting his knee against mine under the table while we were being served our soup. I was startled, but when I moved and he flushed, apologising clumsily, I realised that he’d thought my knee was a chair leg and had to swallow a laugh.

  He didn’t look at me again, didn’t utter another word, in fact, until the cheese course, when he said how excited he was to be assisting Crofton’s Drama department, which has an excellent reputation. It was clearly for the benefit of Headmaster Ballard, who noted the compliment with a nod, but when he went on to say that he would be directing the production of Hamlet, Scarlett’s eyes lit up. She spent the rest of the evening batting her eyelashes at him until she heard Dominic and Sam trying – and failing – to woo me in French, and couldn’t resist joining in.

  Where my French was competent, if a little awkward, she chatted breezily, bantering with Dominic and Sam, who were also fluent. Within a few moments, everyone at the table was rapt and when she had their attention, she explained why she spoke French so well. She told them the story of her mother running away to Paris, about her parents’ apartment with its second-hand brass bed and how her sister Edith was named after Edith Piaf, who was born under the lamp post across the street. When she was done, you could have heard a pin drop.

  It’s impossible to describe Scarlett to anyone who hasn’t met her, which is why I’m so desperate for Jumoke to meet her. I’m in awe of her, I know, and it’s silly – like I have a hopeless crush – but at a school like Crofton, she is nothing but light and colour. I don’t know if I would have survived the last three weeks without her. After dinner last night, when everyone was on the lawn outside the teacher’s dining room trying to impress Hannah with better – brighter, funnier – stories, Scarlett stopped me as I was about to join in and pulled me into the shadows around the side of Sadon Hall. When we were far enough away, she grinned, the light from the dining-room window hitting her cheek, making her blue eyes look like they were made of glass.

  ‘This is so boring, Adamma. I want to dance.’

  ‘I covet that dress,’ I told her as she raised one arm and twirled.

  She perked up at that. ‘Olivia’s going to kill me dead. I bought it with her credit card.’ She threw her head back and laughed, clearly unrepentant.

  I sniggered, too. ‘What about your card?’

  ‘Daddy cut it up after the Waiting for Godot incident.’

  ‘Ladies,’ Sam said, appearing from nowhere.

  Scarlett put her hand on her hip with a playful smile. ‘Got a fag?’

  He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jacket and opened it. Scarlett took one, put it between her red, red lips and waited for him to light it. When he did, he held the pack out to me, too, but I refused, stunned as I watched Scarlett inhale then blow the smoke towards the sky. I had no idea she smoked.

  ‘I have some of this, if you prefer,’ he said, taking a silver hip flask out of his other pocket and holding it up to me with a proud smile.

  ‘What is it?’

  Scarlett didn’t wait for him to answer, just thrust her glass at him. I had a moment’s hesitation as I watched him pour some of whatever it was into her glass, thinking of who was gathered a few feet away. When she saw me watching, she smiled and I knew what she was thinking, so I held my glass out too and she cheered. She thinks I’m so prim; You’re such a princess, she tells me whenever she watches me pour a can of soda into a glass or catches me checking my make-up between classes. Maybe I am. I’ve never drunk from a hip flask before.

  I hadn’t even taken a sip before Dominic came around the corner, his eyebrow arching when he saw us huddled in the shadows.

  ‘And then there were four,’ Scarlett said with another grin.

  He looked at her and nodded towards the party. ‘Hannah’s looking for you.’

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered, flicking her cigarette into the bushes.

&
nbsp; I watched as she downed her drink then walked around the corner towards the light of the lawn. When we lost sight of her, Dominic turned to Sam, who took the hint and followed her back to the party. When we were alone, I tensed, waiting for Dominic to smile and say something charming, but he frowned.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He took the glass and sniffed it, then tossed the contents into the bushes. ‘Is that how you’re going to impress Hannah? With the smell of Jack Daniel’s on your breath?’

  ‘Give me a break. It wasn’t even a shot,’ I snapped. Of all the people I expected to get a lecture on drinking from, I didn’t think it would be Dominic Sim. He sounded like my father. ‘Scarlett just downed a whole glass. Go tell her off!’

  He shook his head, then turned back towards the party. ‘Keep doing what Scarlett does, Adamma,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘See how far you get.’

  I was furious, but I’ve been thinking about it all day. He’s right, I know. Scarlett has her spot on the Disraeli, she doesn’t need to try out like I do, so drinking wasn’t my brightest moment. I’m not usually so easily swayed, but there’s something about Scarlett. She reminds me so much of Jumoke – she’s wicked and funny and has an answer for everything. I love our lunches by the canal, waving at the brightly painted barges as they go past and, when it’s too cold to sit outside, giggling on the top row of the bleachers, the pool below us, big and bright and blue. She makes me do things I would never usually do, like sneak out of Burnham on a Sunday afternoon and drive around Ostley in The Old Dear with the windows down and the sun on our cheeks.

  She shouldn’t be driving, because she’s only sixteen and doesn’t have a licence yet, but her parents don’t seem to mind as long as she stays in the village. They don’t seem to mind about a lot of things, actually. They’re so cool, much cooler than my parents. I mean, I know my parents could be way worse, but they’re not as liberal as they think they are; they think I’m too young to be in a serious relationship (another reason they were so keen to move to the UK, because it would put some distance between me and my boyfriend, Nathan, who my father thought I was seeing far too much of) and they never let me drink apart from a glass of champagne on special occasions. But Scarlett’s parents aren’t like that at all. Last Sunday, her mother didn’t say anything when we took a bottle of red wine from the kitchen and drunk it in the big yellow music room. She just grabbed a glass and came in and danced to Fela with us.