After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby

by Natasha Farrant

  ‘It’s easier to lie,’ she explained.

  She was sitting on my bed and she looked so pretty in her pinstriped pencil skirt and grey silk blouse and cardigan. She was wearing her little tortoiseshell glasses on the end of her nose and the fluffy slippers Flora and I gave her for Christmas last year. I don’t think she has any idea we all overheard her argument with Dad, the one where she told him she deserved a life and didn’t want to be stuck at home with us.

  ‘Do you actually like your job?’ I asked.

  Mum’s face always goes completely still when she doesn’t want to answer a question. ‘Funny little Blue!’ she said. ‘Why would I do it otherwise?’

  I wanted to tell her how much I liked having her at home, but I knew it would only upset her, especially after the row with Flora.

  ‘What does it feel like to have a crush on someone?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Do you have a crush on someone?’

  ‘I just want to know.’

  ‘Goodness, well it’s been an awfully long time . . .’ She lay down and I snuggled up next to her. ‘I suppose you think about it all the time; you always want to talk about your crush, you blush when you see him and your heart hammers and if he talks to you, you can’t even speak. Your knees go weak and you giggle a lot and you’re terribly moody.’ She peered at me over the top of her glasses. ‘Does that sound familiar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well that’s a relief.’

  I thought about what she had said when she had gone, and I thought about Joss. The rats, the cafe, the stealing chocolate. The lying out on the roof. I don’t have any problem talking to Joss, in fact I talk to him more than to anyone else in the world. I don’t blush when I see him, or go weak at the knees. Joss makes me forget everything, and he makes me feel not alone.

  Friday 28 October

  If being sixteen means being like Flora, I never want to grow up.

  I told Joss we were going to Grandma’s on the way to school this morning.

  ‘Rats,’ he said. We use that word a lot now, for obvious reasons. ‘I was hoping we could all hang out.’

  I thought about Grandma’s house, and how even though our parents always talk about it as getting away it never actually feels like that any more.

  ‘Maybe we can come back early,’ I suggested.

  Which is when Flora went weird.

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ she snapped. ‘You love it at Grandma’s.’

  ‘I was only saying . . .’

  ‘You’re just trying to act cool in front of Joss.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  We watched her storm off. My cheeks were burning, but Joss was laughing. ‘She’s a bit mental, your sister,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not trying to act cool,’ I said, and he laughed again.

  ‘Course you’re not. I know that.’

  ‘I do want to go to Grandma’s, really. It’s just . . .’

  ‘You’ll be all right.’ We stopped in front of our house and Joss was looking down at me, all serious and sympathetic, like he knew that I couldn’t find the words to say what I was thinking.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll have fun.’ He reached out a hand and flicked the end of my nose. ‘I’ll miss you, Bluebird.’

  Our front door was open. Inside, Flora and Zoran and the Babes were all yelling at each other.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll miss you too.’

  DEVON

  The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Eight (Transcript)

  The Exploitation of Minors,

  Or, Grandma’s Idea of a Holiday

  DAYTIME, THOUGH GIVEN THE WEATHER, IT COULD AS WELL BE NIGHT. A LARGE VEGETABLE GARDEN IN THE GROUNDS OF AN OLD COUNTRY FARMHOUSE SURROUNDED BY HILLS. RAIN.

  FLORA, JASMINE and TWIG are working in the garden. Twig and Jasmine are raking paths. Flora is hoeing. Until today, she had no idea what a hoe even was, and though nobody knows exactly what she is supposed to be doing with it, it is clear she is doing it badly. Jasmine appears to have doubled in size, because in addition to the boots and anorak the others all wear, she has put on all her clothes – two pairs of jeans, three sweaters, a vest, a T-shirt and a full set of thermal underwear, as well as a fleece-lined Peruvian hat and a rug folded over her shoulders and tied around her waist with string. She looks like a Siberian peasant, a fact Flora has reminded her of three times already.

  FLORA

  (muttering, leaning on her hoe)

  How long, dear God, how long?

  JASMINE

  Is it actually this cold in Siberia?

  TWIG

  You’re being pathetic. This is how people used to live before supermarkets were invented.

  JASMINE

  I’m freezing!

  TWIG

  If you had to try and survive in the wild, you would die.

  FLORA

  (sinks to her knees, arms stretched towards the sky)

  I have seen the error of my ways!

  JASMINE

  Plus, I’m hungry.

  FLORA

  (bursting into fake theatrical tears)

  Merciful God, my children are starving!

  GRANDMA

  (appearing from nowhere, as usual)

  FLORA GADSBY, THAT’S QUITE ENOUGH OF YOUR AMATEUR DRAMATICS! AND BLUEBELL, YOU CAN PUT AWAY THAT CAMERA. I SENT YOU OUT HERE TO HELP YOUR BROTHER AND SISTERS, NOT TO MAKE A RUDDY DOCUMENTARY!

  TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER

  Tuesday 1 November

  I have found the words for what I wanted to say to Joss before we left.

  The problem with Devon is that there is too much space. In London I can manage the emptiness without Iris. I can push it right down, fold it up like a piece of paper, over and over so it’s all scrunched up, and even though it’s hard and pointy and hurts I can keep it in one place, locked up inside me where it doesn’t get in the way. Whereas here, it’s like that piece of paper has unfolded itself, and just kept on growing and growing to fill all the space where Iris isn’t.

  Grandma believes in keeping us busy. She says that it is her grandmotherly duty to make us look LESS PEAKY – ALL THAT ROTTEN LONDON AIR! It has not stopped raining since we arrived, but it would take more than rain to make Grandma give up on her plans for us. So far these have included:

  Day 1: twelve-mile hike into Dartmoor. Grandma gave us sandwiches, binoculars, and £5 to buy some fudge from the Black Lion, which is the furthest point on our route. She said we couldn’t cheat and bring fudge back from the village shop because the fudge from the Black Lion has a picture of the pub on it and isn’t sold anywhere else.

  Day 2: was yesterday, and the nineteenth-century child-exploitation gardening scenario.

  Day 3: is today, and was RIDING.

  When we were here last summer, Grandma had a falling out with the riding stables BECAUSE THEY WOULDN’T LET US GALLOP.

  ‘Because of the insurance,’ the riding-stables lady said.

  Grandma said this was PREPOSTEROUS and how could we learn to ride properly if we weren’t allowed a bit of speed? And the riding-stables lady said it wasn’t her fault, it was the new health and safety laws the government had brought in, and Grandma said, ‘Ruddy health and safety.’

  And so now Grandma has bought two ponies, because apparently health and safety laws are different if you have your own horse. So Twig and Jas had a lesson this morning in Grandma’s paddock, and this afternoon Flora and I went out on to the moor again, this time with instructions not to come back until we’d had A JOLLY GOOD GALLOP.

  ‘I’m a little bit scared,’ I told Flora, because apart from practising a bit in the paddock yesterday and the day before we hadn’t ridden since the summer and obviously, for all the reasons I have written, we had never galloped.

  Flora admitted that she was too.

  ‘We could pretend,’ I said.

  ‘She would know,’ sighed Flora. ‘Grandma always knows. She’d be able to tell by their sw
eat or something.’

  And we both looked quite crossly at the ponies, who could probably tell we don’t actually like riding because they were all frisky and shaking their heads like they were showing us they couldn’t care less what we thought or wanted.

  So we did gallop. The ponies didn’t give us a choice. We reached the end of the stone path behind the house, where it opens up on to the moor, and they just took off and it was . . . well, it was amazing! There was this sort of surge and the ponies leaped forward, and my eyes were streaming from the wind and the rain was whipping my cheeks, and the ponies’ hooves were thundering on the moor and everything was flashing by so fast I only caught glimpses of the river we splashed through and a stone sheep fold, a startled pheasant, a cairn. The ponies slowed down when the hill became steeper, where the ground turns brown and barren. We finally managed to make them stop and that is when I fell off. Flora said ‘Idiot!’ and then she was laughing so much she fell off too, and we lay on our backs looking up at the sky where a bird was wheeling and calling on its own.

  Flora says that if she were a horse and lost her rider, especially on Dartmoor, she would gallop away and hide and live a life free from the tyranny of men. But Grandma’s ponies just wandered off to eat some grass, and I swear they barely noticed when we got back in the saddle. Grandma didn’t check their sweat when we got home. She just looked pleased and told us to untack them and brush them and give them some hay and water, then come in for tea, which was crumpets and chocolate cake Jas and Twig had made with her while we were riding when they weren’t OUT GATHERING STUFF TO BURN FOR BONFIRE NIGHT.

  Grandma has announced that tomorrow is a FREE DAY, which no doubt means more riding and hiking, and at some point we are going surfing. Winter surfing is a ‘treat’ usually reserved for New Year’s Day, but Grandma has said that we look SO peaky this year we get to do it twice. This evening though there was no more fresh air and no more excitement. We sat by the fire and Grandma made us work on the guy, except I actually fell asleep, and Flora told me that while I slept I kept saying ‘faster, faster’ and that I couldn’t stop smiling.

  ‘Which makes a nice change,’ she said, but she looked pleased and anyway, it’s true.

  Wednesday 2 November

  Today it didn’t stop raining and Flora said that’s it, she doesn’t care how much Grandma thinks email rots your brain and won’t allow us to use it except for emergencies, this was a total emergency.

  ‘IN WHAT WAY, YOUNG LADY?’ Grandma boomed.

  Flora said, ‘I haven’t posted for so long my friends will think I’m dead.’ Grandma is very up to date in many ways, but that just floored her.

  My own email inbox was empty. Even Mum hadn’t written, I suppose because she knows we are at Grandma’s and unlikely to be allowed to check. I went on to Facebook. In all the time since I set up a Facebook page (because Flora told me to), nobody except her has ever posted anything on my wall or asked to be my friend, but today I had four friend requests – from Dodi, Jake Lyall, Tom Myers and Colin Morgan.

  ‘What do I do?’ I asked Flora, who was looking over my shoulder.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You just click on Accept.’

  ‘But I’m not sure I want to be friends with any of them.’

  ‘No wonder you’re so lonely,’ said Flora.

  I wasn’t going to click ‘Accept’ for Dodi, but Flora made me. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ she said, and I guess she’s right.

  Thursday 3 November

  Grandma’s plans all fell through today. The waves were too small for surfing and the ground was too wet for riding, and the Babes flatly refused to go for a walk. Then Dad called to announce he was coming down for a surprise visit because he had a meeting in Exeter, and Grandma bundled the Babes into the car to go shopping.

  ‘Sure you won’t come with us?’ she asked, but Flora announced she had to do her roots and I shook my head because suddenly, more than anything in the world, I wanted to be alone.

  Grandma and the Babes drove off. Flora went inside, and I started to walk, very slowly, towards our tree.

  I don’t even know what sort of tree it is, just that it was always hers and mine and that it’s old and good for climbing, with a sort of platform halfway up which is hidden even in winter, when the leaves are fallen. It’s been a lot of things, that tree. It’s been Tintagel and Camelot, a Roman chariot and a pirate ship and it was ours. It’s the one place I know that I can always find her, and when I climbed up she was waiting. She is always waiting.

  I reached the platform and I closed my eyes and laid my cheek against the trunk. I swear, I could see her. I spread my hand out on the wood and it was like the tree had become her. I curled up with my arms around her and I cried and cried and cried until I heard the car come back and Grandma call me, and then I ran to the stream and held my head underwater until I thought it was going to burst.

  Grandma didn’t say anything when she saw me dripping wet. This afternoon she sent me to muck out and brush the ponies and this evening, when all the others were so excited to see Dad, she made me help her with dinner. Grandma may not be a very kissy grandmother, but when we had finished she said, ‘Well done, Bluebell’ very quietly, and I knew that she wasn’t just talking about my Yorkshire puddings.

  Flora checked her emails again after dinner. Grandma says now that Pandora’s box has been opened she is resigned to it never being closed again, but she is trying to ration us to fifteen minutes each in the evening, as long as we have done something outdoors during the day. Flora tapped away furiously for way more than fifteen minutes. I wasn’t even going to look, but when she said ‘Your turn’ I didn’t know how to say no. And I’m glad about that because I had an email from Joss.

  Joss said that things were very, very quiet in London. His parents and grandparents un-grounded him for the first weekend of half-term and he went back to Guildford to see his old friends, but now he is back in Chatsworth Square being made to do endless chores and schoolwork. He said how weird it was without all the shouting and thumping and slamming doors from our house. Zoran goes out to feed the rats every morning, but other than that and the occasional burst of opera there’s no sign of life at all. Write to me before I die of boredom! he said. What are you all doing? What colour is Flora’s hair today? I need a Bluebird fix to stop me from going nuts!

  He came online while I was reading, and that’s when Grandma’s fifteen-minute rule went out the window. He wanted to know everything, so I told him all about the horses and the rain and Flora and me galloping and falling off, and I told him about filming the others gardening and he said he’d love to see that, especially Jas dressed as a Russian peasant and Flora on her knees in the mud. And then we just chatted about nothing, and everything, like I told him about the Facebook friend requests and he said he would send me one too, and I said that Flora can cook now and is going to make us peanut-butter cookies, and he said he wished he could be with us to taste them and I said I wished he was here too.

  And then I told him about today. I said ‘there is something I have to tell you’, and he said ‘that sounds ominous’ and then I just came out with it. I said, ‘I used to have a twin sister but she died three years ago this Christmas.’ Just like that. One sentence. It felt so easy but afterwards I wanted to laugh and cry all at once, because I have never told anyone about it before, I have never said those words. Joss swore and asked why I hadn’t told him earlier, and I said because it didn’t feel right, and then I told him about the tree and crying with my arms around Iris and that this was the first time since she died that I have told anyone about it. Joss said that he was deeply honoured, and I cried a bit more, and then we said goodnight and logged off at the same time.

  I’m still in the study now. I am sitting on the window seat, behind the padded tartan curtain. It is completely dark outside, like it never gets in London. I can just make out the trees in the garden, blowing this way and that in the wind. I’m so tired, but I don’t want to go to bed.
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  The Film Diaries Of Bluebell Gadsby

  Scene Nine (Transcript)

  Happy Families

  EXTERIOR. SUNSHINE!!!

  JASMINE and TWIG are fighting a duel in the walled garden at Horsehill Farm. They use long sticks which they hold with both hands. Twig is merciless in attack, but Jasmine is nimble in defence, which means she runs away whenever he comes in for a strike. FLORA lies on the low branch of a magnolia tree, apparently asleep. FATHER sits in a deck-chair, supposedly watching but secretly writing in a notebook.

  TWIG

  (roars)

  STAND STILL AND FIGHT LIKE A KNIGHT!!!

  JASMINE

  (shrieks and hides behind Father’s deck-chair)

  Save me, Daddy, save me!

  FATHER

  (absent-minded, not looking up)

  Fair maiden, thou must learn to defend thyself.

  Flora frowns, opens her eyes and peels herself off the tree, calls Twig and Jas over, takes their sticks, and creeps up to Father’s deck-chair.

  FLORA

  (poking deck-chair really quite hard)

  ON GUARD, YOU COWARD!!!

  Father is good, but Flora is better, the result of endless fencing lessons as a child. She dances around him, laughs as she parries his blows, shouts ‘Ha!’ when he stumbles under her attack. She disarms him with an elegant flick of the wrist and forces him to kneel before her in the wet grass. She places one foot on his shoulder and raises her stick to the sky. In her purple Wellington boots, with Grandma’s duffel coat over her pyjamas and her pink and purple dreadlocks tumbling down her back, she looks mad but also strangely warrior-like.