The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

by Holly Bourne

  Unfortunately the fake turkey tasted of sawdust, and her dad complained so much that her mum drove to the 24-hour petrol station to buy him some bacon. The day ended with her mum drinking too much brandy and snoring lightly on the sofa, while Bree and her dad discussed the upcoming legal proceedings against Hugo. It was a bit of a sour end to a nice few days and the bitter taste was still there when she woke up on Boxing Day.

  Bree’s dad went back to work (“But I’ll be home by seven, I promise”). Her mum began stressing about her Christmas calorie consumption and wouldn’t shut up about detox juicing. Days and days of utter loneliness spread out before her.

  A few days after Christmas, a letter was left in their postbox.

  It was typed and hand-delivered. Logan obviously didn’t trust her not to blab. Her hands trembled as she read it, and she sank down onto her bedroom carpet.

  Bree

  I don’t know where to start.

  I am so sorry. I am so sorry for what I have done to you. You are just a child and I am sorry.

  I’m leaving Queen’s Hall so you won’t see me again. I am sure you’ll be glad about that after how I treated you. You made me feel young again, Bree. In a good way. You were the dream I never had when I was your age, and I was selfish and cruel to act on my impulses. You also made me act like I was your age, which is the only explanation I can offer for my behaviour on the last day of term.

  You are not like anyone I’ve ever met before. There is something there, Bree, something very special that, with time, you’ll see more of yourself. And someone worthy of loving you will see it too.

  I’m moving to a school in a bad area of inner city London. The pay is worse, the kids are definitely going to be worse, but I have to stop kidding myself that helping rich teenagers get into Oxford is making a difference.

  My wife and I are working on keeping things together. I would appreciate it if you didn’t try and contact me in the future.

  Again, I am so sorry.

  Yours,

  Logan.

  There were so many potential reactions to such a dung heap of a letter.

  Bree could’ve laid on the carpet and cried until nothing was left. She could’ve ripped the letter up and burned the pieces. She could’ve taken it to her mum and told her everything, and built on their new foundations of “sharing”.

  All Bree really wanted to do was let out every emotion using a sharp instrument.

  She reread Logan’s writing over and over, a sadness building in her guts and breeding through her intestines. Rejection. Rejection from an utter gobshite, but still more rejection. She slowly walked with it over to her bookshelf and carefully stabbed the letter onto the clogged nail.

  The urge to go to her en suite was overwhelming. Even though her parents had removed everything sharp (thinking she wouldn’t notice) she was sure she could fashion something. But Bree remembered what she’d promised the doctor.

  She went to the dresser and put on her key necklace and made her way quietly to the kitchen. She pressed a pint glass calmly against the ice machine and listened to the loud clatter of it being filled. Then Bree returned to her room, locked herself in the bathroom and, one by one, clenched the cubes of ice in her hands until they each melted.

  Just like they’d told her to do.

  The pain from the ice wasn’t quite the same but it did hurt. In a different way. She clenched until her hands were so numb she couldn’t pick up any more cubes.

  It wasn’t quite enough.

  So Bree told her mum she was going for a walk, wrapped herself up in all sorts of woollen things and walked from her house to the nearest park. Then, from the nearest park, she walked into town. Then, from town, she walked to the next town. Then to the next park. She walked until her face was red raw from cold and her legs felt like they were molten iron being whacked by a blacksmith. On the return journey, at some points, she wasn’t sure if she had enough energy to get home. But she carried on walking, her feet crunching over frosted grass, her breath heavy and even.

  With each step she felt a little better.

  When she eventually got home, she had to calm down her frantic mother because she’d stupidly forgotten to take her mobile. Once she’d promised for the millionth time that she’d never hurt herself again, she stumbled upstairs to her room.

  The nail was still pride of place under the bookcase.

  Bree smiled. She knew just what to do.

  When she fell asleep that night, every single rejection letter lay destroyed at the bottom of her father’s office shredder.

  Including Logan’s.

  chapter fifty-four

  The next day was New Year’s Eve. A night when it’s universally impossible to have fun, no matter what you attempt.

  When Bree woke she still felt terrible inside. A scalding hot bath didn’t help. Probably because she had to hold her bandaged leg out of the water. Neither did watching her mum doing her workout, squatting across the carpet like she needed a dump.

  “Mum, I was thinking of going to London today. Is that okay?”

  Her mum put down the towel she was rubbing her face with. “Of course, sweetie. Let me just get showered and then we can get the train together.”

  “I’d rather go by myself, if that’s alright?”

  A horrified look passed over her mum’s face – as it often had that last week. “Bree…I think I should come with you.”

  Bree wondered if her mum would ever stop worrying now when she went out alone. And she felt so guilty for causing that.

  “Mum, I promised Dr Thomas, and I’ll promise you…I won’t do anything like that again. I really truly promise. I get why you’re scared, but, please, let me go. I’ll text throughout the day, if that helps.”

  Her mum sighed, and Bree watched an invisible battle parade through her brain. Finally she said: “It’s New Year, it’s going to be busy.”

  “I know. I’ll come home before night-time.”

  “Alright then. But the texts need to be regular. Otherwise I’ll worry.”

  It was freezing outside. Grey and depressing, like the clouds of frizzy rain knew Christmas was over. Bree wore her big fur coat, like she had the time she went up with Logan. On the way to the station she passed Holdo’s house and stood outside for a bit. They’d always spent New Year together – watching Jools Holland and whingeing about how crap all the bands were while drinking red wine.

  The train to London was quiet, everyone having lie-ins to ready themselves for the night’s forced fun later. The city itself was packed though – full of sales shoppers exchanging Christmas presents for stuff they wanted more. She hopped on the Tube, glaring at anyone who dared look at her. Not many people did. Her contagious bad mood radiated outwards and no one sat next to her the whole way. When she got off at Trafalgar Square it was a miserable scene – all grey, grey and more grey. She picked her way past dilapidated pigeons and marched straight into the gallery. She didn’t stop at the Rubens, or the Water-Lilies, or any of the other priceless paintings tourists queued for hours to see.

  Bree went straight to The Ugly Duchess.

  The room was empty – nobody cared about The Ugly Duchess. Bree sat before it, taking in every brushstroke and remembered the day she’d first seen it.

  The day the obsession with being interesting began, if she really thought about it.

  She was eleven. Year Six school trip. That last year of primary school, when the bullying from Jassmine and co. was really bad.

  Jassmine was popular, even back then. And Bree was a loser, even back then. She’d sat at the front of the coach, next to the teacher, while her classmates had the time of their lives behind her. At least three different boys “asked out” three different girls, using a complicated courting method of passing notes between the seats. The back row was, of course, dominated by the social elite, like the grand box at a ballet. Mini Jassmine and mini Gemma decided which songs were sung, which dares were dared, which notes made it to their intended owners an
d which were opened and read aloud while their writers turned red.

  Bree, her body heavy with puppy fat, pretended to read To Kill a Mockingbird until she got coach sick and vomited into a paper bag.

  The smell stunk out the entire coach and the whiny noises of children shouting “Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, you reeeeeeeeeeeeeek” was the overriding soundtrack until they pulled up outside the gallery.

  Everyone ran off in different directions the moment they were let loose. Mini Jassmine and mini Gemma found mini French exchange students to flirt with in the cafe. Mini Bree paced the gallery alone, as always.

  She wasn’t tough back then. In fact, she’d been quite the crier-in-her-teacher’s-skirt. Loneliness is horrible for anyone, but it’s particularly awful to be a lonely child. Mini Bree tried to lose herself in the paintings but didn’t really “get” any of them. Room by room, her clumpy shoes trod the wooden floors, painting after painting passing her by.

  It was only by accident that she found The Ugly Duchess, when she was looking for the toilet.

  At first, she was drawn in because she was a kid and looking at ugly people was funny. Then she started feeling sorry for the ugly lady in the painting. She wondered what her life had been like, why someone had chosen to paint her portrait. Was it an elaborate joke to ridicule her? Had everyone else in court been laughing at her?

  That was when mini Bree had her first thought that began to turn her into the Bree she was today.

  It didn’t matter if it was a joke. It didn’t matter if they’d been laughing at her because she was so ugly. What mattered was that the Ugly Duchess stood out enough that someone felt the need to put paintbrush to canvas. And now, hundreds of years on, here she still was. Existing and having an impact on someone.

  Bree decided to be like the Ugly Duchess.

  One day, she thought, I’m not going to be eleven any more. I’m going to be old, like seventeen or something, and I won’t be miserable any more because I’m going to work really hard and make sure I’m interesting and people will want to know about me. And I’ll come back here, and look at this painting, and feel a little bit sad that I was so sad when I was eleven but also really happy because that’s not who I am any more. I’m going to come back here and I won’t have any troubles any more. I’ll have loads of friends and be really happy because I’m so cool and interesting.

  Time can be strange sometimes. It can leave imprints in particular places, leave ghosts of memories trapped. Right then, on that cold New Year’s Eve, Bree felt the ghost of mini Bree all around her. She was sitting exactly where she’d sat all those years ago and yet nothing had changed. She was still lonely. She was still a nobody. Age and experience hadn’t done what it had promised. It hadn’t made the world fair or right.

  Bree made a silent apology to her child self for letting her down.

  She let one lone tear escape.

  Her misery was interrupted by a Japanese couple taking her photograph. Twice.

  She stood up, furious. “What are you doing? This isn’t the Tate Modern; I’m not an installation piece.”

  They ran off, their camera bag shaking behind them. She wiped away her tear and flicked it off her finger.

  There were more ghosts here, of course. The ghosts of her and Logan, their romantic trip. She could practically feel the happiness trapped in the wood of the bench where her bottom had sat only a month or so ago.

  She missed him.

  He was an arsehole…but she missed him.

  She guessed that was mostly how love worked.

  Rule number five: One must lose all sight of oneself, get into a huge emotional mess, and break down as a person

  Ralph Emerson apparently once said that life is a journey, not a destination. You may have heard that a few times before. It’s the sort of saying people buy as bumper stickers and put on their cars to pretend they’re all deep and meaningful.

  Ralph Emerson was right about so many things.

  This was one of them.

  I’ve – hopefully – held your interest throughout this process by doing superficial things like tinting my hair and shagging some guy at school.

  But you ultimately want more than that.

  You want to see my emotional journey, don’t you?

  I have to mature and progress in order to remain interesting. And part of that process is having a complete mental breakdown, losing everything I hold dear…and then let’s see if I can magic up some happily-ever-after in Act Three.

  It’s in every basic narrative you’re told. As predictable as getting a cold in winter. Think of films… Maybe the girl won’t get the guy after all, she’s getting on a plane to Timbuktu, he doesn’t realize how much he cares, or does he…? Hang on…is he running through the airport after her?

  YES, YES HE IS.

  These moments of ultimate redemption and satisfaction aren’t a pay-off if your protagonist hasn’t suffered first.

  The thing is, I knew this would happen. I knew things would get messy. How could they not? I pretty much planned it in.

  What I didn’t plan for was just how wrong things could go and just how awful it is being where I am right now.

  Because, as clichéd-story-making as all this is right now, this is my life and in life you’re not guaranteed a happily-ever-after.

  I’m interesting now, sure. I’m also so sad and lonely I’m surprised I still have a reflection.

  This is my journey, this is what I’m doing for me, to make me a great writer, to make me an interesting person. But I’m warning you, the path to being interesting isn’t an easy road.

  That guy I slept with? He filmed it. Couldn’t have planned on that. Couldn’t have planned on him broadcasting it round the whole school either.

  Interesting development. Not a fun one though.

  That teacher I loved? Turned out this great love of mine was a bit one-sided. The more I think about it, the more I realize he was just using me to address some kind of sad self-esteem issues hangover from his own awful teenagehood.

  Those awful girls I befriended? Turns out they weren’t so bad. Mean and horrible sometimes, yes, but human and sincere too. They’re not my friends any more though.

  I have no friends, no one.

  Do you want to know what I’m scared of? I’m scared I won’t be able to give you the redemption you crave. I’m terrified that my journey won’t tie up all the loose ends nicely. Because this is a life, not just a story, and life doesn’t always go the way stories tell you.

  What if I don’t have a happy ending?

  That is what I’m really scared of.

  chapter fifty-five

  Bree celebrated New Year with her parents, who missed some spectacular at the local golf club as part of their new “let’s be a proper family” pilot scheme.

  When your parents feel sorry for you, you know you’ve failed some kind of societal entrance exam.

  And she still hadn’t told them the half of it yet. She couldn’t bear to.

  They’d all dressed up and opened some dusty bottles of expensive champagne her dad kept in his wine cellar.

  In a moment of champagne braveness, Bree had fired off a text to Holdo.

  Hey, you’re welcome round mine tonight if you fancy taking the piss out of Jools Holland with an old friend?

  She’d been ultra-careful with her grammar out of respect for his needs.

  He didn’t reply.

  Of course he didn’t.

  As Big Ben struck midnight, they drunkenly clinked glasses and sang a pathetic version of “Auld Lang Syne”.

  Bree’s mum stood on the sofa, swaying and spilling her champagne. “To new beginnings,” she declared. Not waiting for the others to clink her, she gulped back her glassful and hiccupped.

  “To new beginnings,” Bree echoed, and drained her glass too.

  She wondered if anyone, anywhere, was getting the night they wanted.

  Hugo was having a massive party. He’d called it “Gash Fest Revisited”.

>   She wondered what lucky girl he’d slobbered on at midnight.

  She wondered if Jassmine and the others had gone.

  She wondered if Logan had thought of her as he kissed his wife when the clocks struck twelve.

  She wondered if Hugo’s legal papers had got to him yet.

  Bree might not have redemption guaranteed to be heading her way, but she sure did have shit in one hand, and a fan in the other.

  chapter fifty-six

  On January the fifth, Bree stood in front of her mirror and nervously surveyed her reflection while her mum gave her a pep talk.

  “Just keep your head down, honey.” She was actually brushing Bree’s hair, like she was five. “People will forget soon enough. You’ll be old news soon.”

  “Old news doesn’t stay on amateur porn sites until the end of time.”

  “You know your dad is blocking it from being reposted. You’re lucky to have such a powerful father – lots of girls are in this situation and can’t do what we’re doing.”

  “Did you just call me lucky?”

  “Of course not. No. I didn’t mean it like… Oh, Bree.” She looked more scared than Bree. “Are you going to be okay today?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you? I can miss Bikram yoga.”

  “Mum, honestly, I’m fine. Thanks for being so sweet.”

  They tried one of their new hugs – they’d been practising those a lot lately.

  “Well, you look…under-the-radar.”

  Bree laughed, though in her tummy she felt like she had the norovirus mixed with gastric flu. “That’s what I was aiming for.”

  She was wearing grey woolly tights, with a grey blazer and grey school skirt. She’d tied her hair back in a low ponytail and just put on a bit of mascara… The only item of any note was her new key necklace. Her warrior necklace.

  If she ever needed strength, she needed it today.

  “Let me know how you do. I’ll have my phone on me all day. And we need to talk about arranging those appointments Dr Thomas recommended.”