All of the Above

by Juno Dawson

‘Yeah.’

  I knew what I had to do and it was awful. The most awful thing I’d ever done.

  Facebook kept me up to date with Nico while he was in London. There were pictures from the studio, from meetings, from gigs. Action Station had ‘buzz’ apparently. Nico tried his best. He texted before bedtime and tried to call when the band took breaks but our lives weren’t overlapping like they used to. He talked band and I talked school. Our common ground, quite literally, was being demolished.

  It happened on First Hot Day. First Hot Day is the BEST. First Hot Day that year fell at the end of May, right after Nico had completed his last exam. My end-of-year tests were still ahead but my future wasn’t hanging on them.

  With it being First Hot Day, and with us being English, we’d all thrown all our clothes off, prematurely opting for shorts and vests and flip-flops. After school we all went down to the beach and celebrated the arrival of summer. We drank warm fizzy wine because it was two-for-one at the garage, and played Frisbee.

  I couldn’t focus on it for a second though. Too much going on in my head.

  Maybe Nico sensed something was wrong or maybe he just wanted chips, but we broke away from the pack and went to the kiosk on the pier.

  ‘Christ, do you want some chips with your salt?’ I asked, judging him as he liberally showered his chips.

  ‘You can talk, vinegar-woman!’

  We sat on one of the benches overlooking the sea. I was wearing some cheap Lolita heart sunglasses I’d picked up at the pound shop – they were too small and squished my head a bit.

  ‘Toria,’ Nico started and confirmed what I had already suspected. So we both knew. I’d put off any form of serious conversation while he’d been doing his exams. It seemed he had too. ‘What do you think about me living in London next year?’

  I wasn’t a bit surprised. I couldn’t even pretend to be.

  ‘I thought you might have to, to be honest.’

  ‘I don’t want to, but I think I need to be up there. This train shit is killing me, man. We’ll be OK though. You can come up on weekends and stuff.’

  Here goes: ‘Are you sure you want me to?’

  He replied without skipping a beat. ‘Yeah. Of course I do. Don’t you?’

  I didn’t believe him. I was a little annoyed that I was going to have to be the villain.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He said nothing for a second and seagulls squawked overhead, fighting over the leftovers that spilled out of a bin.

  ‘I know I’ve been a shit boyfriend, Tor.’

  I went right off my chips and dropped them into the bin. ‘You haven’t. It’s just … not the same as it was.’ He said nothing. I pointed off the pier to where yellow claws ripped up the golf course like giant zombie hands bursting from the grave. ‘That, my love, is a metaphor.’

  He managed a feeble laugh. ‘I’ll say. I know this sounds awful, but this band could actually make it …’

  ‘I know!’ I agreed wholeheartedly. ‘And this is your shot. You are bloody well gonna take it. I mean, hello! You’re gonna be a freaking rock star! I don’t wanna get in your way.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘It feels a little like I have been. You keep trotting back here while the others stay in London. The band isn’t the complication, I am.’ He looked so sad. No, that wasn’t the right word. Resigned was more appropriate. I imagine I looked the same. It wasn’t working. However much we both wanted it to, it wasn’t. ‘Last year was so brilliant, Nico. It was so, so good. Maybe I’ll come to London after my exams, who knows. Maybe it’ll be good again.’

  He fingered his tattoo. ‘Rise and fall.’

  I stroked it too. ‘Rise and fall. We don’t know what’s gonna happen, but right now I think you should be with the band.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t want you to think the band is more important than you, because it’s not.’

  I laughed. ‘Maybe it is! And that’s OK. Right now, this year, I’m nothing. If the tables were turned and I had an opportunity to do this amazing life-changing thing, what would you tell me to do?’

  ‘I’d let you go in a second.’

  ‘Well, there you go then.’

  ‘But we’ve been brilliant, Tor.’ He cupped my head and pulled me into a kiss.

  ‘We still are. Look at us talking like grown-ups!’ This was not going to descend into squabbles and arguments, I was determined. I wanted Nico in my life forever. I wasn’t sure what that was going to look like, but I’d make it work.

  ‘Man, I don’t wanna lose you.’ The unspoken secret behind every break-up ever: what if I never meet anyone else who accepts me like you did? I just prayed that Nico wasn’t my one shot at love. That’d suck.

  ‘You’re not losing me. I’ll be here. But I don’t want to be a piece of elastic pinging you back every other week.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, his lips still brushing against mine. His cheeks were wet. So were mine. ‘For understanding.’

  The weird part is, I wasn’t even sad. I don’t know about Nico Mancini, but I felt freer than I had in months. My first act as a freed woman was to cling to him. People stared at us as they walked down the pier but I couldn’t have cared less.

  SUMMER

  The Beach House

  A house that’s built

  on silt and sand

  will surely sink

  into the land.

  Bricks and glass

  Decay to dust

  become the earth

  as all things must.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dad

  I don’t know if you’ve even owned a pair of hair straighteners, but if you do you’ll be familiar with the TERROR that comes from being at school and suddenly wondering if you’ve left them switched on. That is how I felt about Nico. I’d be going about my business when suddenly I’d be hit by a crippling panic seizure.

  What were you thinking? You dumped NICO MANCINI FROM ACTION STATION. Are you out of your tiny mind?

  I had a newfound understanding of how Swift felt after Styles.

  Did I cry? Yes I cried. It felt like I was free-falling and couldn’t see the ground. With Nico I’d always felt so secure, so wrapped up tight, and now that security was gone. The flip side of freedom is insecurity.

  And as for Polly … well, that was playing with matches. I gave her a wide berth. I didn’t want Nico, I didn’t want Polly, I just wanted things to be easy again. I was beginning to think I was a drama coeliac – totally intolerant of any drama of my own.

  I think Mum and Dad sensed something was wrong even if I hadn’t explicitly told them Nico and I were over.

  I remember one Friday evening I came downstairs from my fusty bedroom lair to make a cup of tea. I paused outside the kitchen when I heard voices. They were arguing – well, passive-aggressively. ‘It’s a Friday night!’ Mum said through what sounded like gritted teeth.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I’m allowed a sodding glass of wine, Eric.’

  ‘Why? I’m not having one.’

  ‘Oh is that how it works now? You can’t keep moving the goalposts. I said I wouldn’t drink during the week and I haven’t. Satisfied?’ I frowned, pressing my ear against the door. This was the tail end of a conversation I sensed had started some time ago. No drinking during the week? When had that rule been introduced? Now that I thought about it, I don’t think Mum had been drinking every night over dinner. I hadn’t even noticed with all my stuff going on.

  Wow, maybe Dad had finally said something. Or even set an ultimatum. That was interesting – and I honestly wasn’t sure if it was a positive thing or not. ‘I don’t see why you need a drink if –’

  The floorboard I was standing on gave a creak. Busted. I had no choice but to power into the kitchen like I hadn’t heard anything.

  ‘Hello!’ I announced fake-brightly. ‘I just fancied a cup of tea.’

  They both busied themselves in different cupboards, guiltily.r />
  The next morning, the argument seemingly benched, Dad asked me to accompany him into town. Some new graphic novels I’d pre-ordered were waiting for me at the comic-book store, so I begrudgingly agreed, though my instincts were telling me to hibernate for the rest of the summer. I went ahead to the seedier end of the high street to pick them up while Dad went into the hardware shop to buy something to deal with the wasp nest he’d found at the end of our garden. The comic shop was sandwiched between Taboo, a sex shop, and Christian Aid, which I always found amusing.

  I paid for my books and chatted with Milo the Cute Comic Book Guy for a while. Now that he’d got to know me a little, he was kind of my authority on everything manga. Depressingly, as one of very few females to set foot in that shop, I’m kind of catnip to guys in there. I’m practically a celebrity. I won’t lie, without Nico, it was good to know I had options … even if most of the customers were about thirteen. I heard one guy once mutter to his friend that girls only read comics to impress guys. Yeah, that’s what it is. We’re playing the Long Game, my friend.

  After I left the shop, I ambled to the end of the street where I’d said I’d meet Dad. He wasn’t there yet. From this level, I could see over the beach, the promenade and Fantasyland. What was left of it, I should say. JCBs clawed and scraped at the ground like dogs after bones. What was once our playground was now a dirt pit. A hole.

  At the entrance to the building site were three enormous skips piled high with memories. Even from the high street, I saw the fake Mickey Mouse sign snapped in half to fit in the dump, a pile of timber from the pirate ship. The penis Loch Ness monster had been reduced to rubble.

  It was a ruin.

  You know what? Heartache is a very real thing. The longing for that place physically hurt in my chest. Now that some time had passed I realised trying to save the golf course was far from trivial. I missed Fantasyland and I missed Daisy, and the two thoughts twisted together in a double helix. I remembered what Nico had said about want and that made my heart hurt even more because it reminded me that I no longer had Nico.

  I was a ruin.

  ‘Tor? Are you OK?’ It was my dad; I don’t know how long he’d been watching me.

  I almost said I’m fine, but I didn’t. ‘I’m sad.’

  ‘I know.’ He gave me a hug and I felt about five years old and that felt nice. ‘It’s a shame. I’m proud of you for trying to save it though.’

  I looked up at him. ‘You let the police cart me away.’

  ‘Aw, that was designed to teach you a lesson. I was arrested at a protest once.’

  ‘What? No you weren’t.’

  ‘I was! 1985. The National Front wanted to march through Bradford so we formed a human shield to keep them out. It turned violent though and I was arrested. I was only ever cautioned, mind.’

  I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. ‘No way! That’s so cool.’

  He winked. ‘It must be me you get it from. Shall we go down and have a look?’

  ‘It might make me sadder.’

  ‘I meant go down and see if there’s anything we can pinch out of those skips!’

  Isn’t it lovely when people surprise you in a good way?

  Luckily, none of the crew working that day seemed to recognise me as one of ‘The Brompton Two’ so we were left to rummage unchallenged. We must have looked well povvo, but the skips were a treasure trove. I found part of the windmill (where I’d first met Him), the mast of the pirate ship (where I’d watched the stars with Her), but what I really wanted was the seal. ‘Can you see the seal?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Dad was hanging over the side of the largest skip, his legs dangling in midair. ‘There’s a skull? Do you want a big skull?’

  And then I saw it. The Disapproving Seal was underneath a tarpaulin, next to the skips. I peeked underneath and saw it was with the volcano and some larger rocks. I wondered if they were being sold as scrap or something. ‘Dad, look!’

  He allowed himself to drop over the rim and back to solid ground. ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s a bit broken.’ Where the diggers had torn the seal off the course, they’d ripped his flippers off and chunks of plaster were missing from his side as if a great white had taken a bite.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s OK. Shall we put it in the garden?’

  I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. ‘Mum will kill us. It’s not even our garden.’

  ‘Tor, Mum isn’t nearly as uptight as you think she is. Do you want it or not?’

  It wouldn’t be the same. I couldn’t save Fantasyland but I could at least keep a memento. It was Daisy’s shrine too. It shouldn’t end up on some scrapheap.

  ‘Yeah. Can we really keep it?’

  ‘Sure. But can we lift it?’ It was heavier than it looked – I suppose it had never occurred to me that the seal was made of solid stone. I took the tail end and Dad took the head. We lived at the top of a hill. There were the coast stairs to contend with, but we did it, even if we had to stop every hundred metres to have a rest. As soon as we got back to the high street we bundled the Disapproving Seal into the back of the Disapproving Cabbie’s car.

  Despite looking at Dad the way you might look at a puppy who’d made a puddle, Mum took it in her stride. I had underestimated her. She didn’t care in the slightest, although she did say, ‘God, what an ugly thing,’ which was quite fair really.

  We positioned the grumpy seal in the back garden (away from the wasps). It looked kinda ridiculous, but when hadn’t it?

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’ll just have to nip in and get some codeine for my back. Hope it cheers you up, love. These last few months have been bloody hard work for you.’ He licked his thumb and wiped a bit of muck off my face. I scrunched my nose in protest.

  I was going to argue, say I was fine, but I caved in. I nodded. My ass was feeling a little kicked.

  ‘I’m going to make a cup of tea, do you want one?’

  ‘Yeah. Two sugars please. I’ll be in in a sec.’

  Dad headed for the kitchen and I was left with the seal. I wondered about repainting it, but I didn’t want to lose the judgemental little face. I looked up to the clouds and stroked the seal’s head.

  Epiphany time. I had so much to be grateful for. I know it’s tacky to say ‘count your blessings’ but I did. I had so much good in my life. I had great parents who, while far from perfect, were looking out for me. I had great friends. Between Nico and Polly I had almost too much love going on. And now I had a Disapproving Seal. You know what? It could have been a lot worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Intent

  I couldn’t avoid Polly any longer. We had to revise. The strategy had worked after Christmas and I needed it to work again. Once more the Wolff residence became a sweatshop for Beasley, Alice and me.

  It wasn’t helped by the fact the weather was still glorious. All we wanted to do was flop around on the beach – anything else was much too exerting. At least we could revise in Polly’s garden, cooling ourselves on the thick green grass and making daisy crowns. Coconutty Hawaiian Tropic filled my nostrils and we had to use mugs to weigh down piles of revision notes or we’d spend whole afternoons chasing sheets across the lawn.

  We became addicted to something called ‘Pink Drink’. It was some sort of raspberry squash and it was the best thing ever. Polly, being quite fancy, muddled it with ice and fresh mint leaves – it was definitely good for the brain.

  I was making a fresh jug in the kitchen when Polly padded in, her bare feet slapping on the tiles. I was looking quite Indian at this point, but Polly didn’t tan at all – she kept to the shade to protect her milky skin. ‘I’m gonna get some cherries and grapes and stuff,’ she said.

  ‘Ooh good call.’ I filled the jug with ice, aware that Polly was watching me. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She looked sceptical. ‘I mean about Nico. You’re being weirdly calm about the wh
ole thing.’

  I filled the jug from the tap. ‘You know me. Doesn’t need to be a big drama.’

  She was trying to tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue and teeth – a challenge she’d been working on all morning. ‘It’s OK if you want it to be a big drama. You’re entitled. Go ******* nuts. Throw the jug if you want.’

  I smiled, albeit with slightly gritted teeth. ‘I’m OK thanks. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.’

  Polly came to my side at the sink to rinse the fruit. ‘Maybe it’s because you and Nico weren’t meant to be together.’

  I felt myself stiffen. ‘It’s not that!’ I snapped. ‘I loved him; it just wasn’t working right now. He has to go to London.’

  ‘****, don’t bite my head off. It was only a suggestion.’

  I realised I’d got one too many glasses down from the cupboard and put one back. ‘Well, that’s not what it was. I miss him like mad. I feel like a bit of me has been chopped off. It’s so weird. Have you ever heard of phantom limbs?’

  ‘No.’ She almost choked on a stem and coughed it into her palm.

  ‘It’s like when soldiers and stuff lose limbs. Even though there’s nothing there, they can still feel their foot or arm. It’s like that; I can still feel him even though he’s gone.’

  Polly’s lips parted like she was about to say something and then changed her mind. After a moment, she abruptly changed the subject. ‘Are you ready? Let’s take these out.’

  The garden was so bright it was almost oppressive. The sun beat down and the patio slabs burned the soles of my feet. We scampered to the cool grass and carried the snacks to the end of the garden where Beasley and Alice waited in the shade of a grand oak tree. ‘Alice just had the best idea,’ Beasley said. ‘When the exams are finished, why don’t we go camping? We haven’t done that for years.’

  I am so not a happy camper. ‘Camping? No way.’

  ‘It’s fun!’ Polly said. ‘We used to do it all the time. Make a fire and toast marshmallows. Nico used to play for us …’ She trailed off, perhaps worried she’d upset me.