How Could You Do This To Me, Mum?

by Rosie Rushton

  ‘Chelsea? Chelsea, come down here, please. I need your help. Now!’

  She pulled a face at the closed door, picked up the magazine and went on reading. After what her father had done to her, she didn’t owe him any favours.

  Chapter Three

  Dramatic Developments

  Jemma’s reading matter was giving her a great deal more pleasure than Chelsea’s.

  ‘I think, Jemma dear,’ Miss Olive had said to her when she went for her assessment class on the first Saturday of term, ‘I think you have considerable talent and a great deal of potential. I watched you as Nancy in Oliver! at your school, you know. My nephew, Toby, was one of the urchins. Very apt casting, I must say!’ she added, her three chins wobbling in unison.

  Jemma had glowed with pride. She was still slightly amazed by everything that had happened. The old dumpy Jemma Farrant, with her sludge-coloured hair and fat thighs, who never knew what to say to people and whose mother insisted on treating her like a ten-year-old was a thing of the past. Not only had she lost all that puppy fat, she was on her way to stardom. After her performance as Mandy Fincham’s stand-in in the school play, everyone had showered her with congratulations.

  Even her love life was looking good. She’d had a great time with Rob on New Year’s Eve and he’d asked her to go out with him again. He’d even told her she was lovely. To think that Chelsea Gee, who had looks to die for and never felt nervous or unsure of anything, had really fancied him something rotten, but he’d chosen Jemma as a girlfriend! Perhaps it really was true – perhaps she did have star quality.

  She could see it now in big bold type in the Sky Guide. Jemma Farrant, the new star in theatre’s firmament, comes to your screen as . . . Now, what would it be? Juliet? Ophelia? Or perhaps Emma? They were doing Jane Austen for GCSE and she quite fancied swanning around in an empire-line dress fluttering a fan.

  Jemma rammed her set books into her school bag. Of course, once GCSEs were over she would leave and go to drama school. She was going to be so busy this year. Miss Olive wanted her to do loads of different classes. She’d have to get her mum and dad to fork out for the rest. Gran had been really cool and given her the drama lessons for Christmas.

  She turned her profile to the mirror, lifted her chin and surveyed her reflection. Now that she had lost weight, she really didn’t look too bad. Of course, she’d have to get a perm, and highlights too probably, and maybe her eyelashes dyed . . . She’d have to ask Laura where she got hers done.

  ‘Petal? You up there, poppet?’ Her mother’s voice tinkled up the stairs. Jemma cringed. The first thing she would have to do would be to sort her mother out once and for all. She’d have to realise that Jemma was on her way to fame and give her some respect – after all, she had even outshone Sumitha in the school musical and Sumitha had been singing and dancing for years. Jemma reckoned that was why Sumitha hadn’t turned up at the party after the play; she couldn’t handle the competition.

  Still, she thought, scooping her hair up and wondering how she would look in period costume, she should be nice to her – it was understandable that she felt a bit overshadowed. Besides, she’d want someone to go to class with.

  But Sumitha had other ideas.

  Chapter Four

  Sumitha Makes a Deal

  ‘For the last time, will you get the hell out of my bedroom!’ yelled Sumitha, hurling her history text book at her brother who was standing in the doorway, rubbing his left foot up and down his right leg and looking utterly pathetic.

  ‘But I want you to . . .’ he whined.

  ‘You are such an utter and total wimp!’ shouted his sister. ‘For the last time, I have no intention of spending the rest of term walking to school with a Year Seven idiot and that is final!’

  Sumitha knew that, if she timed it right, she could bump into Jon on his way to the Bellborough Court school coach. She certainly did not intend to have an eleven-year-old kid tagging along behind.

  ‘Why can’t you walk with your own friends?’ she demanded.

  ‘I want to go with you,’ said Sandeep, his dark eyes filling with tears, ‘I don’t like walking with them.’

  ‘Oh, honestly, grow up, can’t you?’ snapped Sumitha. ‘Don’t be such a baby!’

  She couldn’t be doing with Sandeep trailing after her. He was turning into one pathetic kid. When he had started at Lee Hill the term before, he had really enjoyed it – then suddenly, after half-term, he had regressed to babyhood and started acting all pathetic, waiting for her at the end of the afternoon and insisting on sitting near her on the bus or sticking at her side like glue when they walked home. After the awful business with Bilu she had been pleased to have her brother as an excuse not to get involved in too many discussions with her friends, but she was over that now, and he was just being a pain. All last week he had shadowed her like a homesick puppy. Well, it was time she put her foot down. She was going to make a lot of changes in her life – and she wanted to talk to Jon.

  Of course, after that terrible experience at the party, when she’d got drunk and thought she was going to die, she had vowed that she would never get involved with a boy again. Then Jon had invited her to The Stomping Ground for New Year’s Eve. Half of her had wanted to go, because she really liked Jon as a mate, but the other half was scared that people would start talking about the mess-up with Bilu and make fun of her. So she had refused, saying she ought to stay at home with her family.

  ‘OK, then,’ Jon had said, ‘suppose I come over to your house? That way your mum and dad wouldn’t be upset about your going out.’

  ‘You mean, you’d give up The Stomping Ground just to come over and listen to my father’s boring sitar music droning on?’ Sumitha had asked in amazement.

  ‘If it meant being with you, of course I would,’ Jon had said, turning beetroot and paying a great deal of attention to the floorboards.

  So she had gone. And it had been OK. The best thing was that she could really talk to Jon. Not just idle chit-chat but really meaningful stuff. And there were no embarrassing overtones – Jon was just a mate. Nothing more.

  He had told her all about how he wanted to be a cartoonist on a national newspaper. ‘I want to be a political cartoonist – a sort of satirist with a pencil,’ he’d said. (Sumitha had had to look up ‘satirist’ in the Oxford English Dictionary when she got home.) He’d explained that important issues like ethnic cleansing or famine in Africa needed to be highlighted and some people might find it easier to understand from looking at cartoons than reading political speeches. ‘I want to do a job that makes me feel – oh, I don’t know – as if I’m making a contribution and drawing is about the only thing I can imagine doing for the rest of my life,’ he’d said. ‘Does that sound rubbish?’ he’d added, watching her anxiously.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ Sumitha had assured him, ‘I think it’s brilliant.’

  Ever since then, Sumitha had done a lot of thinking. She realised just how clued up about the world Jon was and how certain about what he wanted to do with his life. Everything he did was geared to achieving his ambition. Bellborough Court, being a private school, didn’t go back till a week after Lee Hill and Jon had even organised a work experience slot with the local newspaper. His single-minded determination suddenly made her own life seem so trivial and shallow, and now she wanted to sound him out on her new ideas. And she couldn’t do that with her brother hanging around.

  ‘Sandeep,’ she called.

  He peered round his bedroom door.

  ‘Here’s a pound – you can get yourself some sweets on the way to school as long as you let me walk on my own.’

  Sandeep grabbed the one pound coin and stared at it with a look of relief on his face.

  ‘Thanks,’ he breathed. ‘Thanks ever so much.’

  Cheap at the price, thought Sumitha, surprised at having struck a deal so easily. She didn’t stop to wonder why Sandeep was looking at that coin as though it was a lifeline.

  Chapter Five

/>   Laura Goes Green

  ‘I do honestly think that Laura is calming down,’ said Ruth to Melvyn on Monday morning, as sounds of a slightly off-key rendition of ‘Love You to Pieces’ floated up the stairs. ‘I mean, she’s actually got up and gone downstairs without us having to nag her every three minutes.’

  ‘And by the sound of all that clattering, she’s getting breakfast ready too,’ said Melvyn. ‘Wonders will never cease.’

  ‘She even seems to have accepted the baby coming,’ added Ruth, surveying her expanding reflection with exasperation. ‘Honestly, I’m fed up with wearing tracksuit trousers and baggy shirts but nothing else fits.’

  ‘Well,’ said Melvyn, kissing the back of her neck, ‘when Tarquin arrives I’ll buy you a whole new wardrobe.’

  ‘You mean, when Phoebe is born!’ joked Ruth.

  ‘Whoever,’ said Melvyn, smiling. ‘Now, shall we go and see what culinary delight your daughter has created for breakfast?’

  Unfortunately their good mood was broken when they walked into the kitchen.

  ‘You two simply don’t care, do you?’ shouted Laura as they entered the kitchen. ‘Daniel says that the survival of this planet is under threat just because of people like you.’ She hurled the top off the pedal bin and rummaged through its rather odorous contents.

  I think we spoke too soon, thought Ruth, looking around in vain for signs of breakfast.

  ‘Now what have we done?’ asked Melvyn.

  ‘It’s what you haven’t done,’ retorted Laura. ‘All these apple peelings should be put on to the compost heap and . . .’

  ‘We don’t have a compost heap,’ pointed out Melvyn reasonably, putting some bacon rashers under the grill.

  ‘Well, we should have!’ declared Laura. ‘Daniel says that your generation are simply not fit custodians of our future.’

  ‘Who’s Daniel?’ asked Melvyn.

  ‘The lad next door,’ Ruth reminded him. ‘You know, the Brownings’ son. We met him on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Melvyn. ‘Intense guy, floppy hair. Laura, it’s twenty to eight. Shouldn’t you be leaving for school?’

  ‘And look at this!’ shouted Laura, ignoring him and fishing a Coca Cola can from the debris.

  ‘Laura, what are you going on about?’ asked her mother wearily. Her back was aching, her unborn child was practising rugby tackles against her ribcage and glad as she was that Laura had made friends with the boy next door, she was not in the mood to have his opinions foisted on her. ‘Three weeks ago, you hadn’t even met Daniel – now it seems he is the world expert on everything.’

  Laura gave her a withering look. ‘That’s right, libel my friends . . .’

  ‘Slander,’ corrected Melvyn, slapping bread into the toaster.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Laura.

  ‘Slander,’ repeated Melvyn. ‘Slander is spoken, libel is written.’

  ‘Oh very clever. You should be taking all this stuff to the recycling centre.’

  Ruth sighed. ‘Laura, I put the newspapers out for collection, I take our bottles to the bottle bank, I send our old clothes to the Salvation Army – what more do you want me to do? I don’t have time to sort through every last egg shell. And at six and a half months’ pregnant, I don’t want to be humping boxes halfway round the countryside.’

  ‘That’s another thing. You are adding to an already over-populated world. Daniel says . . .’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’ snapped Ruth, as the baby decided to try out a bit of goal shooting practice on her bladder. ‘I don’t give two hoots what Daniel says. If he’s so bothered about my unrecycled margarine tubs, let him come and sort them out. And if we are talking about putting rubbish to good use, why not start in your bedroom? There’s enough junk and debris in there to keep even the most ardent conservationist happy for hours.’

  Laura glowered and grabbed a blueberry yoghurt.

  ‘That’s not enough for you to go to school on,’ said Melvyn. ‘Want a bacon sandwich?’

  ‘Come off it, you know I’m a vegetarian now,’ said Laura glaring at him.

  ‘All the same, there’s nothing to beat a good bacon sarnie early in the morning,’ said Melvyn.

  ‘Don’t you care about those poor little pigs?’ shouted Laura, pocketing a banana and two apples from the fruit bowl. ‘If I told you what they do to pigs . . .’

  ‘Go to school,’ said her mother.

  ‘I shall,’ said Laura, and stormed out.

  Chapter Six

  Chelsea Gets the Monday Morning Blues

  ‘Chelsea! It’s half past seven!’ Her mother knocked on her door and marched in.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Chelsea,’ she exclaimed, ‘this room is a tip. I asked you specifically to clear it up yesterday – you haven’t touched it!’

  ‘So?’ mumbled Chelsea, crawling out from under the duvet. ‘It’s my room – what’s it got to do with you, anyway?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, young lady?’ said her mother, yanking back the curtains. ‘It has everything to do with me. I’ve got a long day ahead – editorial meeting, radio show this afternoon . . .’

  ‘So? That’s your problem,’ said Chelsea.

  Ginny grabbed her daughter by the arm. ‘Now, just you listen here. I will not be spoken to like that by you or anybody else, and while you live—’

  ‘While you live under my roof, you live by my rules,’ chanted Chelsea sarcastically, shrugging off her mother’s grasp. ‘Change the track, won’t you?’

  She grabbed her dressing gown, pushed past her mother and thundered into the bathroom.

  Ginny sighed and sank down on the end of Chelsea’s bed. Here we go again, she thought. Ever since the end of last term, Chelsea had been as prickly as a hedgehog. What was happening to her? Come to that, what was happening to all of them? Just lately, all the fun seemed to have gone out of life. Barry had insisted on working on Boxing Day and at New Year, and when he wasn’t working he was moaning at her for spending too much money, or shutting himself in the kitchen to practise his recipes for the final of Superchef. Please God, let him win – they could do with the ten thousand pound prize money and, besides, it would cheer Barry up. A bit of cheering up was in order all round. She had taken on this new radio show to boost their income, but she felt so tired all the time, and bloated and fat – and, well, old. It just wasn’t like her; she’d always been so full of bounce. She had even been to see the doctor and he had told her it was her age, at which point she felt like throwing his stethoscope at him and storming out. But then he had offered her this new HRT treatment which he assured her would work wonders. She wished it would hurry up.

  She knew her writing was losing its usual sparkle too – twice last month the editor had made comments like, ‘Write like you used to in the old days,’ and, ‘Let’s have some more of the Jesting Ginny.’ I’ll give him Jesting Ginny she thought darkly. What does he know – thirty-two, double income, no kids. He doesn’t know he’s born.

  She surveyed the rubbish heap that Chelsea laughingly called a bedroom. She gave a half-hearted yank to the duvet, revealed two sordid apple cores and a dented Pepsi can, and decided against it.

  ‘Coffee!’ she told herself sternly. She knew she should be drinking camomile tea or infusion of rose petal or some such healthy beverage but this morning she needed caffeine. Ginny was a great believer in caffeine as a cure for nearly every ill.

  ‘What was all that about?’ said Barry looking up from his new copy of Top Taste magazine as Ginny came into the kitchen and wondering, not for the first time, whether lime green and mango was really the best colour combination for his wife’s outfit.

  ‘Oh, the usual – Chelsea hasn’t cleaned her room, and – oh, forget it.’

  ‘Still sulking about not having a party, is she?’ asked Barry. ‘A meal at Lorenzo’s and that’s it. I’ll book a table for Saturday. Set menu, mind you. Now that I’m renting that catering unit over on the industrial estate, we’ve got to keep an even tight
er rein.’

  ‘Great,’ muttered Ginny, blotting her lipstick.

  ‘You were the one who wanted me out of the kitchen,’ said Barry.

  Ginny sighed. ‘I know, I know, and I suppose we must make allowances for Chelsea,’ she said. ‘After all, she’s a teenager who has split with the guy she fancied and now we’re saying that she can’t have a party; it’s natural that she should be volatile. We must just keep calm and let it flow over us.’

  Chelsea hurtled into the kitchen and headed for the bread bin.

  ‘CHELSEA!’ shrieked Ginny, all thoughts of serenity forgotten. ‘What have you got on?’

  ‘Clothes, surprisingly,’ said Chelsea, smearing Flora on to her bread with one hand and giving an ineffectual tug to her black miniskirt with the other.

  ‘By the way,’ said Ginny brightly, trying to calm down and change the subject, ‘Dad said you were with a crowd of kids he didn’t recognise when he picked you up at New Year – new friends, are they?’

  ‘They might be,’ said Chelsea non-committally. She did rather like Bex, but Fee terrified her and Trug was a bit weird.

  ‘You could invite one of them out for your birthday meal, if you like,’ her father said, picking up the signs from Ginny.

  For an instant, Chelsea almost smiled.

  ‘Mind you, you can give the loudmouthed weird one a miss – and the rest would have to smarten up for Lorenzo’s,’ Barry added.

  Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. Too late.

  ‘Oh, that’s right, go on, trash my friends, why don’t you?’ shouted Chelsea. ‘That’s typical of your generation – judge a person by their looks. Well, if we all did that, you’d be certified a right loony.’

  And with that she grabbed her school bag, hurled the remainder of her sandwich into the bin and stormed out through the back door.

  ‘Well done, dear,’ said Ginny.