Birdy

by Jess Vallance

  We were quiet again, the little storm seeming to have passed. We carried on looking over towards the football training. There was something almost hypnotic about watching them knock the ball between them, hearing the dull rhythmic thud as it bounced from one boot to another. I started to calm down. I’d been silly. Rash and impulsive. I’d try the whole thing again later. I’d make a more convincing case, one Bert would realise she couldn’t deny.

  ‘You know, you shouldn’t worry,’ Bert said after a while, her eyes still on the boys. ‘Be … jealous, I mean. There’ll be a boy for you soon, you know. When you’re least expecting it.’

  I couldn’t even begin to think of a reply to this. I just turned away from her, staring out over the field, hot tears in my eyes.

  30

  The first few weeks in April were all about frantic preparations for the premiere of An Outing to Oz. The plan was that there’d be a performance to the school first, followed by a couple more shows just for parents and governors, and after that it would go on the tour and the kids of Whistle Down would educate the world in the proper treatment of the old and infirm.

  The premiere performance was due to be held over fourth and fifth periods one Friday afternoon near the end of April. The fact the whole school had been excused from two full lessons was a good indication of how worked up everyone was about the whole thing. As you can imagine, Bert, Pippa and the rest of the cast were almost beside themselves with excitement by the time the Friday came around. That day, there were lots of toings and froings to the hall to check on things, lots of passing of notes and messages and a huge number of embarrassing high-fives and group hugs. It was all a bit irritating but I made myself smile encouragingly whenever Bert mentioned how nervous or excited she was and reminded myself that it was only a few weeks until the whole stupid operation was over.

  I ate lunch on my own that day, Bert having to spend lunchtime backstage making last-minute adjustments to the set and costumes. After lunch, I joined the rest of the school as they filed into the hall, ready to watch the show. Outside, a quite spectacular April shower was in full flow, creating a ferocious background roar, and Mr Allenby was hovering by the window, looking out anxiously, no doubt hoping his expert ‘musical coordination’ would be able to compete with the sounds of nature. I took my seat and watched as the drops of water on the window snaked down from the top to the bottom.

  Suddenly I realised there was some giggling going on at the back of the hall. I turned round and craned my neck to see what was happening. People were bent forward, leaning over something. Whatever it was seemed to be making its way along the row because the laughter was travelling with it. Everyone was looking over now, wondering what it was. I stayed in my seat and waited. I figured it would get to me eventually. It did.

  It was an email. It’d been printed out. The paper was crinkled and the ink slightly smudged from where a hundred pairs of grubby hands had passed it around the school.

  From: albertafitzroyblack@gmail.com

  To: ross.allenby@whistledown.ac.uk

  Dear Mr Allenby,

  You won’t be surprised to get this email because we both know there’s been something between us for weeks now. I just wanted to say I think your gorgeous and would you like to meet up outside of school and see wear things go?

  I know you might be nervous about our relationship getting out but you don’t have to worry. I’ve been with older men before including one who was married so you can trust me to be discrete.

  Lots of love from

  Alberta xxxxxx

  I’d only just got the bottom when someone snatched it from me. It was Billy Carr, from the cafe.

  ‘Told you, Hoov!’ he yelled over the crowd to Hoover, waving the email above his head. ‘The posh ones are absolute filth!’

  Someone else took the email off him and it continued down the row, a Mexican wave of sniggering.

  ‘You do realise Bert didn’t write that,’ I told the people around me.

  ‘She did!’ Gary Chester said. ‘Had her name on it. Her email address.’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you see the spelling? Bert’s not an idiot. Wrong type of “your”. Wrong type of “wear”. In fact, it wasn’t even the right type of “discreet”.’

  Gary shrugged. ‘Whatever. Guess her mind wasn’t exactly on spelling when she wrote that.’ He stuck his tongue out and waggled it around. It was gross.

  Eventually Mr Jeffrey managed to wade through the crowds and confiscate the piece of paper. He read through it quickly, his face darkening. Then he folded it in two and tucked it inside his jacket.

  He made his way to the front of the hall and called for quiet. For a minute I thought he was going to say something about the email, demand to know where it’d come from, but he didn’t. He’d obviously decided we should go on with the afternoon as planned and he just gave a bit of a speech about the show, talking about how hard everyone had worked and how the production was going to really make a difference to the community and blah blah blah, and then it was time for curtain up.

  The play opened with a scene where Dorothea’s cantankerous, demanding grandparents and great aunt sit around whinging about how miserable they are and how they wish they were young again. The reference to the original Wizard of Oz was actually quite clever – Pippa played the fearful grandmother, complete with a lion-like mane of wild orange hair, who sits and worries about how she’s too afraid to go out any more, what with all the feral youths running around the place, ready to push her over. The old aunt had a neat grey bob, spray-painted silver and shiny as tin. Her problem was with the fact that she couldn’t find love, believing that if she was young and pretty again people would be more interested. The grandfather, with scarecrow hair and a ragged green jacket, was sick of his dodgy memory and just wanted to be as quick as he was when he was young. That part was a bit irritating actually – the forgetfulness was presented as a series of jokes involving things like pairs of glasses turning up in the fridge and misunderstandings when messages weren’t passed on. If only these people knew what it was really like to live with someone who was losing their mind, I thought to myself. Wouldn’t be laughing then, would they.

  Bert did a good job of Dorothea, and it was nice to see her enjoying herself. All in all the show was fine really. Better than an afternoon of French and geography anyway.

  When the cast had performed the final song and the curtain went down, there was a roar of applause and even a few whistles, but it wasn’t long until people had moved on from the show and were talking about Bert and the email again.

  ‘Did you see?’ one girl behind me was saying. ‘She kept looking over at Allenby the whole time. She’s definitely into him.’

  ‘Definitely,’ her friend agreed. ‘And I think he’d go for it, you know. After all, he did cast her as the lead. I think there’s something dodgy going on there, for sure.’

  Over at the front of the hall, I saw Mr Jeffrey go over to where Mr Allenby was sorting through his sheet music at the piano and bend down to whisper something in his ear. Mr Allenby’s smug smile quickly faded and was replaced by a look of shock and then, right after that, fury.

  The two of them left the hall together, Mr Allenby talking urgently in Mr Jeffrey’s ear, like he was trying to convince him of something. Like he was trying to plead his case.

  I slipped out of my chair and ducked backstage. I didn’t really relish the thought of being in the midst of all the over-the-top actor camaraderie that I knew would be going on back there but I knew it wouldn’t take long for the news of the email to filter back to Bert. I needed to get to her and reassure her that no one had taken it seriously.

  As soon as I saw her, I realised she’d already heard. She was sitting in the corner on a sagging old armchair. She’d changed out of her costume but she was still wearing her Dorothea make-up. She looked a bit funny to be honest, her face all anxious and stressed under her bright pink cheeks and false eyelashes.

  ‘Don’t even gi
ve it a second thought,’ Pippa was saying in her loud, honking voice. ‘Don’t let them get to you.’

  ‘I just don’t know why someone would do that …’ Bert was saying in a small voice. ‘And now everyone, everyone, is laughing and …’

  I crouched down at Bert’s feet and put my hand on her knee.

  ‘Oh, Birdy,’ she said. ‘Did you see it? Is it really how they’re saying? Do they think I propositioned Mr Allenby?’

  I nodded slowly, a sympathetic smile on my face. ‘’Fraid so,’ I said quietly.

  She let out a long wail and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘And you’re sure you didn’t send it yourself?’ Pippa said. ‘You know, as a joke or something?’

  ‘Of course she didn’t!’ I snapped.

  ‘All right,’ Pippa huffed. ‘I’m just trying to ascertain the facts.’

  ‘Well thanks very much, Miss Marple, but we can do without your contribution.’ I turned my attention back to Bert. ‘Come on.’ I gently pulled her hands away from her face. ‘Let’s get out of here. Let’s go back to yours. It’ll all be forgotten by tomorrow.’

  I knew that was unlikely but I needed to say something. And I wanted to get her away from the sniggering and the whispering and away from bloody Pippa and her loud ascertaining.

  Bert nodded and I helped her pack her bag and led her out of the backstage door, across the field and to the safety of her house.

  ‘It’s so weird, Birdy,’ she said once we were safely in the den, a mug of tea resting in her lap. ‘I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘There’s no way you could’ve sent it when … when you were drunk or something?’

  ‘Of course not!’ She frowned, offended. ‘I don’t make a habit of getting drunk, you know. It was just at that one party I got carried away. And anyway, I don’t like Mr Allenby so why would I say it, even if I was drunk?’

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t have an answer.

  ‘You saw the email,’ she said. ‘Was it even from my email address? Or was it a fake account?’

  ‘It was from your account,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  Bert narrowed her eyes and looked into the distance, thinking. ‘So I’ve been hacked.’

  ‘It looks like it …’

  ‘Tell me again what it said,’ she said, staring at me. ‘Word for word.’

  I recited the email again for what must’ve been the sixth time that afternoon and Bert winced.

  ‘And why did they have to include that bit about the married man? It makes me look like such a … such a … harlot.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said slowly. ‘I was thinking about that. Did you, I mean, I’m not calling you a drunk or anything, but at Jac’s party I know you were a bit … I mean, what I’m trying to say is, did you tell anyone about Richard?’

  ‘No!’ she said indignantly.

  I was quiet for a moment. ‘Are you sure? I mean, I know you’d … you’d had one or two too many, and I heard some boys saying … well, just saying you were a bit worse for wear. Do you think there’s any chance at all that something might have slipped out, anything at all, that could’ve given you away?’

  ‘I don’t think so …’ Bert said, but she was chewing on her lip a bit. She looked pained now, rather than annoyed.

  ‘But can you be totally certain?’ I pushed gently.

  Bert shook her head and looked down. ‘No, I suppose I can’t be one hundred per cent positively sure. I can be a bit of a … chatterbox, but I just …’ She trailed off.

  I sighed. Now we were getting somewhere. ‘OK,’ I said calmly. ‘OK, so that means that anyone could’ve sent this really, couldn’t they? I mean, there’s not just the people at the party to think about. Any of them could have passed it on – I mean, you have to admit, it does sound like quite a good bit of gossip, doesn’t it? Going out with a married man? It probably didn’t take long to get round.’

  I knew that Jac was still a perfectly plausible suspect – he’d been at the party after all and I didn’t know what had happened that night – but I hadn’t seen Bert with him since. If she hadn’t given in to his pestering, there was still a good chance he was harbouring some kind of unrequited love thing – but I knew there was no need to mention him now, or to really talk about suspects at all. It didn’t matter. The important thing wasn’t giving Bert someone to blame. That wouldn’t make her feel any better, not really. I just had to be there for her.

  ‘Oh God!’ Bert groaned, burying her head in her hands. ‘I can never go back there, Birdy. My school career is over. I’m never leaving this room.’

  I went over to her and put my arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on,’ I said, pulling her towards me. ‘Come on. You’re just going to have to wait this one out. It’ll be old news in no time. We’ll just have to battle through it. If I hear anyone saying anything I’ll make sure I tell them what rubbish it all is. We’ll shut the whole thing down together.’

  Bert sighed. ‘OK.’ She looked up at me and gave me a weak smile. ‘Thanks, Birdy. Thanks for believing me.’

  ‘As if I wouldn’t!’ I said, smiling back.

  Down in the hall as I got my things together, Bert was trying to persuade me to stay for dinner and I was just contemplating whether I could tell Nan I was still at school when Genevieve poked her head out of her studio.

  ‘Actually, I think Frances should probably be getting home tonight,’ she said.

  I was a bit surprised but I just nodded and said, ‘Yeah. I need to get back really.’

  I was taken aback by Genevieve’s comment. She seemed decidedly off, but I couldn’t for the life of me think why. Looking back now I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection with the rather rude way Charlie shut the door in my face when I came to tell him about Bert and Jac. That was a bit off too. The signs were there, I suppose, that things weren’t quite right, but I couldn’t see them. Didn’t want to see them. Instead, I figured it was just Genevieve’s artistic temperament putting her in a bad mood. Maybe a customer hadn’t liked their painting or something. But anyway, it actually felt like the right time to say my goodbyes. I felt like I’d had a successful few hours in the den. Bert seemed better. The worst of the crisis was over. My work was done, for now.

  31

  Back at school the following day, Bert was hauled into a meeting with Mr Hurst and Mr Jeffrey. She shot me a panicked look as she was led away and I must say I felt a bit worried too. What if they didn’t believe Bert’s story that her email had been hacked? Could you be expelled for sending that kind of message to a teacher?

  But luckily when she came back she seemed relieved.

  ‘It was OK,’ she said. ‘They weren’t cross really. Well, Mr Allenby was a bit, because he was caught up in it all. And the embarrassing thing is, I still think a tiny part of him wonders if I did really send it. But Mr Jeffrey and Mr Hurst said it was obviously not my doing and that I should report anyone who teased me about it.’

  Typical Allenby, I thought to myself, wanting to believe that someone really had a crush on him, that it wasn’t all just some cruel prank.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘And see? It’s blowing over already.’ I gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and she smiled at me.

  It wasn’t all quite as plain sailing as that though, and over the next week or so, wherever we went, people would call things out or make childish comments. Mostly Bert dealt with it quite well I thought, usually by completely blanking whoever it was giving her a hard time. There were a few times when the teasing was a bit more persistent though and sometimes I had to step in and tell people to shut up. To be honest I knew it wouldn’t really help that much, me wading in like that – in fact sometimes it just made it worse – but the important thing was that Bert knew she wasn’t on her own. There’s nothing worse than feeling alone when people are ganging up on you.

  The good thing was the play was now in full swing as it embarked on its tour around the local area and that kept Bert busy. Talks of rehearsals and costumes we
re replaced with meetings about setting up venues and transport arrangements. Cast and crew usually had to leave last period a bit early to get to their performance location on time and the class would send them on their way with cheery waves and calls of ‘break a leg’. These would usually be met with kind of grim smiles and serious nods from the actors, as if they were going off to fight for queen and country. Just a couple more weeks to get through, I told myself. Just a few more days. By mid-May, the play would be over and everyone’s attention would turn to exams and then, more importantly, the summer holidays.

  I usually dreaded the summer break – six weeks of nothingness stretching out before me, trapped in the house with Nan scrubbing and bleaching anything she could get her hands on and Granddad sitting in his chair, looking around the room in bewilderment, as if he was thinking, ‘How did I end up here then?’ This year though, I couldn’t wait for the twenty-third of July to come around. Bert and I had big plans for the summer. Already we’d talked about hiring a rowing boat for the day and taking it down to the river for a picnic, barbecuing in her parents’ garden, and there’d even been talk of a day trip down to Brighton. ‘Let’s do that in the summer!’ had become our catchphrase and it felt to me as if the summer had taken on a kind of fairy-tale quality. It would be amazing. The weather would be perfect, Bert and I would see each other every day and school, Jac and Pippa and An Outing to bloody Oz would be long forgotten.

  But then something happened. Something I honestly hadn’t seen coming.

  It was the day before the grand finale of the play. It was planned that there’d be a final big performance, back at school again, but this time attended by ‘important members of the local community’ including the mayor and people from a local TV station. Excitement was at fever pitch, not least because key members of the cast – including Pippa and Bert – were due to be giving televised interviews to some shiny-haired, blue-eyed woman from the BBC.

  It was the start of second period – geography – and we were waiting for Mrs Hart to finish dealing with some boys who’d been caught fighting down the corridor. Bert and I were sitting at the front of the class and I was doing my best to look interested and supportive while Bert babbled on about whether she should look at the interviewer or straight down the camera and whether her hair looked best up or down. Suddenly Pippa came into the room and approached our desk looking preoccupied, maybe a bit anxious.