‘No way!’ I said. ‘I’ve been to the Venice carnival and I’m doing a project on masks. I was doing portraits but it’s evolved.’
‘Really. I did a mask project last year. Sadly the mask idea for the festival got voted out. Shame. I think that everyone in masks could have been interesting.’
‘Me too.’
After that we were off, talking like long-lost friends. He was also interested in the CD and what it meant to me. After I’d I filled him in on all the details, he smiled. ‘I can see it means a lot to you to find whoever made it,’ he said.
‘I guess it does. I’m not sure why.’
‘Go with your gut,’ he said. ‘Sometimes things defy explanation – and who knows where it will lead? Like already, we’ve met up because of the CD.’
‘What’s your band called?’
‘Undercurrent.’
‘Yes, I think I remember that name. Your track is somewhere towards the end. A sad song.’
‘That’s me,’ said FB and pulled a comical sad face.
I liked him. He was easy to get on with and unlike some boys, he listened as much as he talked. By the end of the afternoon, we’d swapped phone numbers and email addresses and promised to meet up again. Although I had no more clues about Mystery Boy, I’d found a new friend.
Chapter Fifteen
FB was true to his word and didn’t waste any time getting in touch with me. He texted me the following week and suggested that I go over to his house on Wednesday evening after school.
‘Why does he want to meet at his house?’ asked Tasmin when we met up at lunchtime in the common room. ‘It’s a bit fast, isn’t it?’
‘So we can play Songs for Sarah,’ I replied as I spooned coffee granules into two mugs. ‘He said he’d see what he could do to help me find whoever had made it.
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Tasmin. ‘In case he tries something.’
‘We’re just friends.’
‘Yeah right.’
‘I’ll be fine. I trust him,’ I said.
Tasmin rolled her eyes. ‘Much as I’ve come to like you, dear Paige, I am going to tell you a home truth and that is that you’re naive, especially when it comes to boys.’
I laughed. She really does speak her mind. ‘How do you know?’
She tapped the side of her nose. ‘I just know.’
‘I’m not that naive. I think I know FB’s type. He’s a sweetie. I’ll be fine really.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that so I’ll be going with you,’ she said. I didn’t mind. It felt nice that she was looking out for me. ‘Do you fancy him?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not like that. We get on, that’s all.’
‘Hmm. Not sure he’ll see it that way,’ said Tasmin. ‘So tell me, Paige, how many boys have you kissed?’
‘I . . . er . . .’ I felt myself blush. ‘Only one and that wasn’t a boy I liked.’
‘I thought so,’ said Tasmin.
‘To be truthful, I do worry that I won’t be any good at it.’
Tasmin smiled. ‘Don’t worry. When it’s the right boy, you will. It will come naturally. I’m sure you’ll be good at it, but boys . . . well, that’s another matter.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There are boys that come on too strong and stick their tongue in your mouth and it’s all too wet and full on.’
‘Yuk.’
‘And those that don’t know what to do at all, and give you a dry, closed-mouthed kiss. That’s not nice either.’
‘Where are they or me supposed to learn? They don’t teach it in schools. I mean, there’s so much I don’t know.’
‘Ask away,’ said Tasmin. ‘You’re talking to the expert.’
I had to laugh. She was completely serious and luckily the common room was empty apart from the two of us. Everyone else was outside soaking up the sun. ‘OK. Do you keep your eyes closed or open? Do you keep your mouth open and if so, how much? And your tongue? Does it go in-out or in and around?’
This time, it was Tasmin’s turn to laugh but I didn’t feel she was being unkind. I wanted to know, and who better than someone like her who had had boyfriends? My questions certainly weren’t the kind I could ask my mum.
‘You really haven’t had much experience, have you?’ said Tasmin.
‘No, I haven’t,’ I admitted.
‘First of all, don’t stress it,’ said Tasmin. ‘With the right boy, it will all come naturally and you’ll find you know exactly what to do. It will feel nice – great, in fact, if it’s right. I’d say eyes closed when you’re kissing. No boy wants to open his eyes to find he’s eyeball to eyeball with you. After a bit of kissing, you can introduce the tongue, but when it feels right. Keep it light to begin with – tender, gentle – then if it feels good, you can get more passionate and, believe me, your tongue will know what to do. And sometimes boys like a bit of lip nibbling. That can feel really good. But not too much – it’s not like he’s your supper.’
‘God, I’ll never get it right. It sounds like a science. Gentle, tender. Trust your tongue. Bit of nibbling. Eyes shut. But what if I miss his mouth?’
‘You keep them open until your lips touch, then close them.’
‘Right,’ I said, but I can’t say I felt any more confident after her tuition.
‘Anyway, enough about snogging. Have you had any more ideas about finding your mystery boy?’
‘Actually I have been thinking about it. Instead of trying to find him, how about I try to find Sarah? The girl that Mystery Boy made the CD for? She might be local. She may even go to our school. If I can find her, I could ask her who made the CD for her. She tells me. Simple.’
Tasmin nodded. ‘Not a bad idea. So what do you suggest?’
‘I could put a notice in the library as a start. I could put a postcard up today saying if you’re the Sarah some boy made a CD for, please contact Paige Lord or Tasmin Davidson in Year Ten.
‘Better she contacts me than you as a lot of people still won’t know who you are,’ said Tasmin. ‘Just put my name and maybe Clover’s. Everyone knows who she is too.’
‘Good point. And if that doesn’t work, I could go to the school office and ask the secretary for a list of all the pupils here. She could be in any year.’
‘OK, and if she’s not at this school, what then?’ asked Tasmin.
‘I will rethink the plan. As you keep telling me, Bath’s a small place.’
When it got to Wednesday, FB came to meet me at the school gates. He didn’t seem so happy about Tasmin coming along and was quiet when we caught the bus to his house. His silence didn’t last long and as soon as we got to his terraced house, he took us up to his room and pulled out all the books he had on masks. His room was a bit like Tasmin’s in that every surface was cluttered, in his case with books, magazines, DVDs, computer games and CDs. The walls were plastered with posters of various bands, one of The Smiths in prime position, and one wall was covered ceiling to floor with amazing masks. I was about to ask if he’d made them when he thrust a book into my hand.
‘Take a look at that while I find something,’ he said.
I sat on his bed and started to look through the book he’d given me. It had great examples of African masks, many I hadn’t seen before. Tasmin sat next to me and did her best to look interested but I could tell immediately that it wasn’t her thing. FB went over to his computer. ‘I’ve been dying to show you all these since I met you, Paige,’ he said as he punched a few keys to open a file. ‘I’ve got loads of images on here.’
‘I don’t think we want to see the images you have hidden on your computer,’ said Tasmin. ‘Not if they’re like the ones most teenage boys look at.’ She laughed. FB didn’t.
Tasmin lasted about fifteen minutes. I could tell by her left foot that she was bored out her mind because as FB and I looked through the pages of masks, her foot started twitching, up and down, up and down as if she was already walking out of there.
She soon was.
I had to laugh. When did you turn into my mother? I wanted to ask but I bit back the words.
FB and I spent an hour or so pouring over all his findings about masks. He did have some great images and looking at them gave me lots of ideas for my project. He was also generous about lending me some stuff to take home to study further.
I pointed at the masks on the wall. ‘Did you make those?’
He nodded. ‘Most of them.’
I pointed to two simple masks that were next to each other – a white one showing a happy face and a black one with an exaggerated sad face. ‘I like the Shakespearian ones,’ I said.
FB nodded. ‘Ah. The only two I didn’t make. Those were made by a mate. He gave them to me when he realised that I’d been making and collecting them. The whole thing about masks resonates with me. I’m interested in the psychology too. We wear masks for different people, to hide our thoughts and feelings, a protection of sorts, don’t you think?’
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘That’s the angle I want to take in my project. I’m not going to make actual masks. I want to draw and paint the more subtle masks that people wear. Like that saying, put on a brave face. I’ll do a series of brave faces . . .’
‘Cheery faces, happy faces, flirty faces. My mum always used to say, “Put on your happy face”,’ FB added.
‘My mum’s been doing that lately with all the changes that have been happening in my life. Her and Dad.’ I’d told him a bit about the move from London when we were chatting at the festival.
‘What about you?’ FB asked. He had a gentle expression in his eyes and looked at me as though genuinely interested in what was going on inside me. For a moment, I thought I was going to cry but didn’t feel that I knew FB well enough to let him know what I’d been going through. And things are getting better, I told myself.
‘I’m OK,’ I said.
He sat next to me on the bed, put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. ‘And there’s your brave-face mask, right there,’ he said.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about him having his arm around me but he didn’t keep it there for long. He got up and went to the door. ‘Fancy a drink? Tea? Coffee? Juice?’
‘Juice, thanks,’ I replied. While he was away, I flicked through a file he’d pulled out with the others. Masks in Shakespeare. The pages were full of quotes and sketches of masks used in various plays.
FB came back with a tray with glasses, a carton of apple juice and plate of biscuits. ‘Help yourself,’ he said as he put it down on the cabinet next to his bed. I was about to ask him about the notes in his file when he asked, ‘How about we listen to this CD of yours?’
I got it out of my bag and he put it into his computer then we both lay back. He gave me the bed and he lay on the floor, his head resting on a beanbag. Callum Casey’s voice filled the air. FB only spoke to say, ‘My band,’ when his track played.
When the last track had finished, FB sat up. ‘So you like this CD, do you?”
‘I do. I really do.’
‘It’s a good compilation. It tells a story, doesn’t it? A love story – guy sees girl, falls in love but did she feel the same? Or was it about a fantasy girl.’
‘I know. I wonder what happened.’
He glanced at the cover and I told him all that I’d worked out about how it was put together. Like Tasmin and I had done, he reached for a magnifying glass to see if he could find any more clues. ‘Tell you what, I’ll scan the cover in on the scanner at school,’ said FB. ‘Then we can blow it up and see if there are any more clues on there. Apart from that, all I can help with are the bands. I know all of them. All local. Yeah, whoever put this CD together has good taste in music especially as my band is on there.’
Excellent, we’re making progress, I thought as I drank my juice.
Chapter Sixteen
Mystery Boy
“The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.”
Shakespeare: As You Like It – Act 3, scene 4.
The deed is done. She has the CD and I know her name. Sarah. It happened by accident. Maybe fate? I was in Costa Coffee down in town and she came in. My first instinct was to turn away but didn’t because she doesn’t know me yet. I watched as she joined friends. A bunch of girls from Kingswood school who’d been checking me out before she came in. ‘Hey Sarah,’ I heard one of them say.
Sarah was a pickpocket’s dream because she left her bag behind the chair she took. It was gaping open. I’d be able to drop the CD in there no problem. I got up to go to the loos – once in there, I pulled out the envelope with the CD in it and wrote ‘Songs for Sarah’ on the envelope and the spine of the CD cover. Perfect, I thought. It made it all the more personal. When I came out, I saw she’d gone with the girls to the counter and her bag was still there on the floor. Cupid was smiling on me. I dropped the envelope into her bag. Easy peasy. Job done.
Chapter Seventeen
Best day of my life, I texted Allegra on the Friday of the bank holiday. New home, new chapter.
Can’t w8 to see you tmro. Call me l8r. I have nws of Alex, she texted back.
Of course, on reading the part about Alex, I couldn’t wait and called her straight away, but she must have just switched her phone off after she’d texted me because it went to messages. It was bank holiday weekend and she was coming down on the train for the day with her mum. The plan was that her mum was going to head for the spa and I was going to show Allegra round. I couldn’t wait.
‘You got everything you need?’ asked Mum.
‘Yep,’ I called back. We were in the new flat. Mum and Dad had moved in during the day and after school, instead of heading back to Aunt Karen’s, I’d made my way to our new home where I’d spent a glorious evening arranging my bedroom. I’d packed my bags last night and Mum and Dad had brought them over first thing in the morning so that they were there when I arrived. Removal vans had been in the morning too and when I got there, it gave me a warm glow to see familiar items from our old home in Richmond piled up in the sitting room ready to find their place. I soon got busy helping Mum empty the boxes, filling kitchen cupboards, making beds (lovely, lovely soft cotton) and putting clothes away.
‘It’s weird,’ I said to Mum as we unrolled a blue and taupe Persian rug out in the sitting room, ‘it’s like we’ve been in a parallel universe for a month but now we’ve come back to reality.’
Mum nodded. ‘I guess,’ she pointed at the rug, ‘we’ve landed alright but somewhere different.’
‘It’s going to be OK though, isn’t it?’
‘I hope so.’
‘How’s Dad’s business idea coming along?’ I asked.
Mum glanced at the door to check if Dad was nearby. ‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to say anything but . . . he’s found some premises that are coming up for rent. A shop to be precise. He’s been researching where there might be a gap in the market here in Bath but that’s the problem. Everything’s just about covered – cafés, shops selling merchandise, knick-knacks. It has to be the right product.’
‘He’ll think of something,’ I said. ‘How’s he going to finance it?’
Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Loan of course.’
‘I thought he couldn’t get a loan any more.’
‘He can’t but your Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike can. They’ve agreed to be investors if they like his ideas.’
‘Wow. That’s good of them.’
‘I know but they also stand to make some money if things work out, which will be good for them as they both only have small pensions. They believe in your dad. None of what happened was his fault and he still has a brilliant business head on him, if only we can think of the right product. There are a million tourists piling off buses here every day, even in the winter. There has to be something we can provide.’
‘Ice cream?’ I suggested. ‘No, bad idea, there are loads of ic
e cream places near the centre. Loads of fudge shops too.’
‘We’ll think of something. It’s not something for you to worry about.’
Too late, my mind was already whirring with mad ideas as I went back to my room. Masks? T-shirts? I wanted to help.
Dad had arranged for my old dressing table and mirror to be brought out of storage, a desk that used to be in a downstairs study, a bedside cabinet and a bed that used to be in one of our spare rooms in the Richmond house. My old bed was much too big for the new room but I didn’t care. Anything would be more comfortable than the camp bed I’d been sleeping on. By bedtime, I had made the room my own. My wine-coloured bedspread and cushions were on the bed, curtains up across the window (they were a bit long but Mum said she could shorten them easily), a Turkish rug on the floor, my clothes folded and put away in drawers or hanging in the built-in wardrobe in the corner and there was a bedside lamp casting a soft light into the room. It looked fab.
I put my laptop on the desk, lit the scented candle that Mum had bought me as a house-warming present, arranged a few books and files, then lay back on my bed for a few minutes. I felt like I could breathe again and stayed there for a while, savouring the moment. Order had been restored in my life, I felt a wave of happiness surge through me.
My phone beeped that I had a text. It was FB asking how the move had gone. I texted back: happy, feel like I’m at home again. He was proving to be a good friend and we’d met up a few times to hang out, have a coffee or talk about what we were into. I liked the fact he was so into art and we could talk about that – something I could never do with Tasmin.
When I got up to get a drink before going to sleep, Mum and Dad were still arranging and rearranging furniture in the sitting room.
Playlist for a Broken Heart Page 9
