by Hayley Long
Neil looked startled for a moment and then he clapped his hand over his mouth and started laughing.
‘It’s not FUNNY,’ I said, rather louder. ‘I mean it. I know you’ve been out with every single girl in Whitchurch village but you’re not going out with me because I’m already going out with Gaz.’
Neil stopped laughing and suddenly looked a bit upset. I shifted about on my stool, feeling awkward. ‘I’m sorry, Neil,’ I whispered. ‘That’s how it is. I’m just being honest with you.’
Neil went very red and very silent. For a couple of minutes, we sat looking at hair magazines and pretended to ignore each other. And then in a very low voice, he said, ‘Can I be honest with you now, Lottie?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But you’ll have to speak up a bit because all I can hear is Carole King and her flipping piano. And Dilys’s hairdryer isn’t helping much either.’
But instead of speaking more loudly, Neil chewed his fingernails and murmured something in a voice no louder than a whisper.
I said, ‘WHAT?’
Carole King wailed and plonked away on her piano. Jean Stingecombe chatted to Mr Ahmed. Dilys waved her hairdryer around.
With a red face, Neil Said, ‘Mumble mumble mumble.’
I said, ‘HUH?’
Carole King carried on wailing and plonking. Jean shrieked with laughter at something that Mr Ahmed had said. Dilys turned her hairdryer up to a higher speed.
Neil said, ‘I THINK –’
Carole King’s song came to an end. Jean Stingecombe and Mr Ahmed lapsed into a momentary silence. Dilys switched off her hairdryer. Neil finished his sentence.
– ‘ I’M GAY!’
And then, realizing that everything around him had gone totally and utterly silent, he went very pale and looked as if he was about to be sick.
For a moment, the entire salon seemed to freeze and everyone was looking at Neil. But then the CD spun back into life and Carole King started singing another song. And Dilys laughed and shouted, ‘Oooh, are you playing hard to get again, Neily?’ And she waddled off to fetch the small mirror so that she could show Mrs John what the back of her head looked like.
Jean said, ‘Watch him, Lottie! He’s always playing games, that one.’ And then she started asking Mr Ahmed about his hip-replacement operation.
I looked at Neil. I was feeling a bit weird. As if I’d just dreamed up the last couple of minutes in my head. I wasn’t even sure that any of it had actually happened and was almost beginning to wonder if I’d just imagined the entire thing. But then Neil sighed and said, ‘I keep trying to tell people. But nobody ever seems to listen.’
He leaned his elbows on the reception desk and put his head in his hands.
For a moment or two I sat and looked at him and didn’t know what to say. And then, finally, I touched him on the arm and said the only thing I could think of to say and it was this:
‘I’m listening, Neil.’
Neil lifted his head up and smiled at me and, with a look of total and utter relief, he said, ‘Thanks, Lottie.’ And I knew then that I’d actually said the right thing for once. And I didn’t care one jot that he was gay. I was just glad that he’d finally found someone who would listen to him and I’m still really glad and surprised and proud to say that the listening person was me.
And the Third Shocking Revelation? Well, that came after the shop was closed. On the stroke of half past four, just as she had done on the two previous Saturdays, Jean clapped her hands together and said, ‘It’s staff development time, folks.’ My heart sank and I looked over at Neil. It was his turn after all. But for once, Neil didn’t seem to be in the mood. I suppose it’s not every day of your life that you come out of the gay wardrobe. It must be very emotionally draining. I touched him on the elbow and said, ‘It’s all right, Neil. I’ll do it.’
As I sat down, Jean said, ‘I’m going to demonstrate curl and volume today. Lottie has got quite fine hair and clearly the light curl I added last Saturday wasn’t enough because I couldn’t help noticing that it was almost entirely gone by the time she came round to lunch on Sunday. So today, Lottie, we’re going for more layering, more volume and more texture. It’s going to look fantastic’ And then she began layering and volumizing and texturing my hair, and while she did, she sang the natural woman song and I sat very still with my fingers crossed and hoped and prayed that my hair would be OK.
When she’d finished, I looked at myself in the mirror. Only once. Very quickly. And then I shifted my gaze in another direction. It was very difficult to look myself in the eye. I looked like this:
My hair was actually even more putrid than last time.
‘What do you think?’ asked Jean.
‘Hnini, it’s good, hmmm,’ Said in my best Pat Mumble voice, and then as soon as I possibly could, I got my bag, said bye to everyone and left.
I walked just as far as the traffic island and when I got there I plonked myself down on the bench and sat and stared at the passing cars. It was late in the day and there was hardly anyone else around. All the sixth-formers who use the island as their daily hang-out had cleared off and gone home and Elvis Presley – who uses it as his place to sleep – had woken up and gone to the pub26. Apart from the cars which kept whooshing by me, it felt almost as peaceful as it does inside my wardrobe. In fact, it felt so peaceful on that bench in the middle of Merthyr Road that, for a little while, I stopped worrying about my square hair and my non-existent physical relationship with Gareth Stingecombe and decided to DO SOMETHING POSITIVE. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stared at it for ages. And then I pressed Goose’s number. As I waited for my call to connect, a little voice in my head said, ‘Don’t give Goose a hard time.’
‘I won’t,’ I said out loud. I meant it as well. I wanted to sort this whole stupid argument out once and for all. I wanted us to be best friends again.
A voice on the other end of my phone said, ‘Hi, Lottie.’ It wasn’t Goose’s voice. But it was definitely a familiar voice.
‘Goose?’ I said.
‘No,’ said the familiar voice. ‘Goose has just popped downstairs to talk to her mum. Can I give her a message?’
‘Who is this?’ I said.
‘It’s Samantha. Me and Goose were just talking in her bedroom and her mum —’
‘You’re around Goose’s house?’ I said.
‘Well … yeah,’ said Samantha Morgan.
‘Oh great!’ I said. And all of a sudden, I stopped feeling peaceful and positive and just felt fantastically peeved instead.
‘Look, Lottie, I’m not trying to cause any trouble between—’
‘Oh, whatever,’ I said. ‘I really don’t care.’ And then I switched my phone off
I did care though because I sat on the bench for another twenty minutes and muttered to myself. And then, just as I was starting to run out of things to mutter about, I spotted Neil Adam striding towards me in his leopard-print raincoat and he was waving at me. In spite of the fact that I was fantastically peeved off, I couldn’t help smiling because not so long ago, I’d have been completely over-excited by the mere possibility that the stunningly sexadelic Neil Adam would ever want to wave at ME. But the funny thing is that even though I don’t fancy him any more, I actually like him much better than I ever used to.
‘All right, Neil?’ I said.
Neil sat down next to me on the bench and said, ‘I just wanted to say thanks again for being so cool today.’
Even though I was fantastically peeved off, I smiled and said, ‘It’s all right.’
‘Yeah, well, I appreciate it,’ he said and then he gave me a sudden peck on the cheek and got up and began to walk right back up the street again.
‘Hey, Neil,’ I said, calling after him.
He stopped and looked back at me.
‘Be honest with me, has Jean given me square hair?’ I asked.
Neil pulled a sympathetic face. ‘To be fair, I suppose she has, yeah.’
I sighed and nodded. Then I
asked, ‘Does she do staff development every Saturday?’
Neil nodded. ‘It’s all part of the job, I’m afraid, Lottie.’
And that was when I experienced my Third Shocking Revelation. It hit the top of my head like a thunderbolt. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You look after yourself, now.’
Neil frowned. You’re gonna quit the salon, aren’t you?’
I nodded again. ‘I’ve got to, Neil. It’s too stressful. I can’t cope with hair like this every weekend. The money’s handy but I’m not desperate. I’ll see you around though, yeah?’ Then I got up, lowered my square head and walked home really fast.
And although I’m generally quite a sociable person, I’m actually relieved that I’ve been forced to spend this particular Saturday evening on my own. Except for the Emotion Notepad and Winnie, of course. And they couldn’t care less what my hair looks like.
hOw I GLImPseD the LIGht whILe I was IN the Dark
Normally I don’t like Sundays. Sundays have a tendency to bore me into oblivion. In Whitchurch, all the shops and cafes are shut and there’s never anything much to do other than sit in the public garden or hang out at the bus shelter. And even if I stay indoors, I end up getting bored to tears. My mum tries to force me to do a bit of the housework, and when that fails, she nags me to do my homework and usually I just go upstairs and do it because I might as well, seeing as how there’s nothing else to do. On Sundays, even the TV isn’t worth watching. Unless you like watching programmes about gardening or God, that is. Or Antiques Roadshow.
But today hasn’t been like that. Today has been brilliant and momentous and extremely enlightening. Because I had a visitor.
It was just after lunch and I was sitting in my bedroom playing with Winnie when, downstairs, the doorbell rang. I picked up Winnie and, holding him close to me so he couldn’t make a bouncy escape, I sneaked out on to the landing to find out who the visitor was. I didn’t expect for one second that it was anybody who wanted to see me. Gareth had already told me that he’d be at his nan’s house all day and, apart from him, nobody has called round to see me in ages. Not even my dad.
Downstairs, I heard my mum say, ‘Hello, stranger! How lovely to see you!’ I frowned and edged a little closer to the top of the stairs. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn’t my dad! My mum is never pleased to see him. I edged closer still. My mum, unaware that I was listening just above her head, shouted up, ‘Lottie! Can you come down, please? Goose is here.’
For a moment, I froze on the landing with Winnie still hugged against me. And then I darted back into my bedroom, shoved Winnie into his cage and did the only thing that I could think of to do. I climbed inside my wardrobe and shut the door.
Don’t think I didn’t want to see Goose. Because I did. I REALLY REALLY did. Gareth Stingecombe is a fantastic person but he’s useless at talking about shoes. Or hair dye. And I can’t have races with him to see which of us can eat a family bag of marshmallows the fastest because it’s just not the sort of thing you do when you’re trying to look sexy. So he definitely has his place in my life but in no way is he a replacement for Goose. But as happy as I was that she’d called round to see me, I was also feeling seriously freaked out. I had this colossal fear that, somehow, I’d say the wrong thing and make things between us even more terrible than they already were. I suppose it’s fair to say that I was experiencing a few confidence issues. It’s hardly surprising though. Just recently, whenever I’ve tried to talk to Goose, we’ve ended up practically fighting. This tells me something interesting about my peacemaking skills. It tells me I haven’t got any.
From inside my wardrobe, I heard my mum barge her way into my bedroom and say, ‘Lottie, Goose is … oh!’ And then there was a sudden silence.
I hugged my knees and held my breath and hoped my mum would clear off.
After a moment or two, my mum knocked on the wardrobe door.
‘Go away!’ I said.
On the other side of the wardrobe door, there was a deep sigh. Then my mum said, ‘I don’t know what the problem is between you two but Goose has made the effort to come round so you can make the effort to get out of that wardrobe and talk to her. Surely you can manage that much?’ She sounded a bit cross.
‘I doubt it!’ I said. I was feeling a bit cross too.
There was another short pause and then my mum said, ‘In that case, I’ll send her up here.’
‘YOU WILL NOT!’ I said.
‘Watch me!’ said my mum. She was really getting on my nerves. Even so, with the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn’t swap her for a different mum.
Outside, everything went quiet and I guessed that my mum had gone downstairs and was telling Goose to come on up. I bit my thumbnail anxiously and quickly tried to take stock of the situation. I’d never discussed my wardrobe habit with Goose. I had no idea how she was going to react. From another person’s point of view, I admit that it can seem quite weird. With this thought in mind, I was just about to clamber out when I heard the door of my bedroom creak open. Instantly, I sat back down and huddled myself up tighter. If there’s one thing that looks more mad and undignified than being caught sitting in your own wardrobe, it’s probably being caught clambering out of it.
Goose said, ‘Lottie?’
I hugged my knees and held my breath and hoped she would go away.
In a confused voice, Goose said, ‘Er ... I thought your mum was joking when she said you might be in the wardrobe.’
Inside the wardrobe, I sighed and said, ‘Well, guess what? She wasn’t.’
Outside the wardrobe, Goose said, ‘So are you coming out then?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said.
There was a short pause and then Goose said, ‘Oh well, I suppose there’s only one thing for me to do then, isn’t there?’
Before I had a chance to reply, the door of my wardrobe opened and Goose said, ‘Budge up!’ And the next thing I knew, she had squeezed in and was sitting huddled up beside me in my wardrobe.
We must have looked like this.
After a little while, I said, ‘This is a bit weird, isn’t it?’
Goose said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I quite like it in here. It is a bit fusty though.’
‘It’s OK when it’s your own fust,’ I said.
Goose said, ‘Hmmm. Perhaps.’
For a few minutes, we sat huddled side by side and silently adjusted to each other’s presence. I’m not used to sharing my wardrobe. I chewed my thumbnail again and hoped that Goose would speak first because I was feeling a bit uncomfortable and awkward and couldn’t think of a single thing to say. But next to me, Goose just sat in the dark and said nothing and the silence seemed to get thicker and thicker. I suppose she must have been feeling a bit awkward too. To be fair to her, she’s probably not used to conducting conversations from within a wardrobe. Neither am I, really.
I racked my brains for a conversational opener and, eventually, something popped into my head. I said, ‘Beth sy’n cwcan yn dy bopty poeth gwyllt, cariad?’
In the darkness, Goose chuckled and said, ‘Dim lot!’27
And then I said, ‘So what brings you to my wardrobe?’
Goose said, ‘I miss you, Lotts.’
In the darkness, I smiled. I could tell that Goose was smiling too because I’d heard it in her voice. You don’t have to see a smile to know it’s there. You can hear them too. You can’t smell them though. After a moment or two, I said, ‘I miss you lots too.’
Goose gave a shrug. She was so close to me, I was able to feel it. ‘It’s been totally tragic without you around. I haven’t timed how fast I can eat a family bag of marshmallows for ages and I can’t actually remember the last time I had a decent discussion about shoes.’ She sighed again. ‘Even the Free Willy films seem a bit pathetic when you watch them on your own.’
‘I thought you just wanted to hang around with Samantha Morgan,’ I said. ‘And Spud.’
Goose was quiet for a moment. And then she said, ‘I like Sam. She told me all about what
happened in Year 9 and she feels bad about it. And she only came round my house yesterday to tell me about what happened with Lee Fogel. She thinks you and me should be friends again.’
This time, I was quiet. Finally, I said, ‘Do you think we should be friends again?’ I’m not really sure why I even asked this because I was already pretty sure I knew the answer.
In her best Kentucky accent, Goose said, ‘Well, hey, I guess, Jonice.’ And then in her normal voice, she added, ‘Of course I do. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.’
In my best Kentucky accent, I said, ‘Well, hey, Janice, that’s swell.’ And then in my normal voice, I took a great big deep breath and said, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been acting a bit self-obsessed recently. Sometimes the inside of my head is all me me me.’
In the fusty darkness of my wardrobe, Goose gave an awkward cough. ‘I just thought that you’d got so carried away with Stingecombe that you couldn’t be bothered with me any more.’ She sniffed and then added, ‘You haven’t phoned me or called round for me or even bothered to walk to school with me for ages.’
We lapsed into silence again and then, after what felt like another eternity, I said, ‘Sorry.’
In the darkness, Goose fumbled for my hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s all right,’ she said.
It was nice just sitting there in the dark with Goose. It was nice to have her back again. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had and I reckon we’ll still be hanging out together when we’re eighty. I racked my brains for something else to say. Finally, I said, ‘Did you know that Neil Adam is gay?’
WHAT?’ In the cramped space of my wardrobe, I sensed Goose’s entire body stiffen in shock. For a moment she even stopped breathing, and then she said, ‘Mad Alien? Are you sure?’
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘He told me so himself And then, suddenly feeling a bit terrible, I added, ‘But don’t tell anyone else though. I don’t think he’s ready to go public yet.’
