Phosphorescence

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘To have your project read out at school is so impressive.’ Mum pushes her hand back through her hair and her silver bangles clank.

  ‘But it’s not because it’s good,’ I have to point out. ‘It’s not accurate or anything. In fact the geography teacher said it was a load of old rubbish.’

  ‘That was unnecessarily rude of him.’ Mum has a purposeful look on her face, as if she might threaten to come into school.

  ‘No – I mean the thing is that the Director of Studies likes the way it’s written, so never mind Mr Lascalles. He is so yesterday with his views.’ I stumble over the words to get them out in time to mollify Mum. It works.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you have a strong voice already,’ she says.

  Mum looks completely different now we have left Dad. She has had a haircut, and they gave her a fringe, which secretly I think was a mistake, but also I do think that she looks quite young, which is good, I suppose. She has also started wearing a lot more make-up, which actually makes her look a little older. The combination of the young hair and the old cosmetics leave her about where she was before, but groomed and polished instead of careworn and miserable. Her clothes are better too, and she wears skirts all the time.

  ‘I never want to see an oilskin garment again,’ she said when we were packing to move. And it is as though she has completely turned her back on the life we had in Norfolk. Mum never even looks out of the window, never mind goes outside. She just floats around wearing glossy tights and heels and silky skirts with little tops. I feel galumphing and huge next to her, because she seems so small and slight. It’s as if the shabby outer casing of her when she wore big jumpers and had manky-looking hair has been shaved off, and inside is a shiny new little jewel-like mum.

  ‘So, is it being read out for its literary merit or because it’s a good project?’ she asks.

  Sighing, I zap the TV silent and continue to stare at the screen.

  ‘Not sure.’

  A man with purple sunglasses opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish. Losing the sound has always been the best way to watch bad music acts.

  ‘Actually, Mum, I’m not so keen on the geography project being read out at all.’ I prefer not to look Mum in the eye when I am disagreeing with her, even if the disagreement is only tiny, like now. ‘It will make me feel a bit of an idiot to hear what I wrote, and I hate the idea of everyone else knowing it. It’s like being naked or exposing myself or something.’

  Mum laughs, another new form of expression for her, and I zap the sound back up because the bad song has finished and the next band on are quite good. Mum doesn’t seem very bothered by anything I do. She hardly ever tells me off, and she’s more likely to laugh if I do something wrong. It’s weird. Come to think of it, she doesn’t often ask me about my day, or what I had for lunch, but I tell her anyway, because after all the years of her asking me, ‘How was school?’ it is automatic to give her an edited version of my life.

  I almost did it when I got back from the weekend with Dad, but I saw a barrier go down behind her eyes, so I stopped myself and said, ‘Oh, well, you know, it was just like it always is there. Nothing happening to no one.’

  Mum smiled, gratefully I think. She said, ‘I’m glad Jack’s recovering.’ But actually she didn’t sound any more glad than she would have been if someone on EastEnders was getting better from an illness. Now she lets the subject of my project drop and goes back to tapping information into her Palm Pilot. She reminds me of a nine-year-old kid on a PlayStation.

  Nell and I discuss her, late at night when I am in bed with the duvet over my head and the phone sneaked from its cradle in the sitting room while Mum is having a bath. She has now had enough of my extended conversations and is beginning to be a real pain about the phone bill.

  ‘I didn’t ask to move to London away from my life and my friends,’ I pointed out to her, when she started psyching out just because she couldn’t get through trying to ring me from work for a measly half-hour. That shut her up for a while, but tonight I want to keep things simple, so Nell and I talk quietly, and I absolutely won’t be on the phone for hours.

  ‘You know what, Nell?’

  ‘What?’ Nell yawns. She is in bed too, but not hiding because she doesn’t need to. I was the one who called, and anyway, Nell’s mum hardly ever gets in a psych. She’s really cool.

  ‘I think my mum is in love.’

  ‘Is she?’ Nell’s surprise makes my toes curl up and something shrivel in my stomach.

  I’m only fourteen. I shouldn’t have to deal with my mother being in love.

  ‘Well, she laughs a lot, she doesn’t eat much any more. She looks amazing and she isn’t at all interested in me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s love,’ says Nell. ‘In fact it sounds like the opposite. Most people in love look ghostly and are always hanging around the phone. Does she do that?’

  I think for a minute and realize I have hardly ever given Mum a chance to be on the phone because I am always using it.

  ‘Er, no,’ I concede, cautiously.

  ‘Sounds as if she’s happy,’ says Nell. ‘It would be a bit weird of her to fall in love so fast. You’ve only been in London six weeks.’

  ‘Yes, but maybe she already knew the person and that’s why she left Dad.’

  As I speak these words I realize that this has been the shadowy thought in the back of my mind all along. Saying it is a relief, particularly when Nell laughs down the phone.

  ‘Don’t be daft. How was she ever going to have met some swanky London person when she never went anywhere? Your mum never left Staitheley. My mum says that was the problem. She didn’t have enough to do and she got bored. Now she’s busy and she’s happy. End of story.’

  ‘I know . . .’ There is a click as the bathroom door opens. ‘Sh for a minute,’ I whisper, holding my breath. There is a waft of scented air as Mum comes out of the bathroom. She pauses by my door and then a moment later I hear her own door creak and close. ‘Are you still there, Nell?’ I whisper.

  ‘Yeah, I’m going to have to go in a second, but I’ve got to tell you – you’ll never guess – Josh is going out with Fay Bullock. They were snogging at the sixth-form disco. D’you remember her? She’s got huge tits and a kind of flat face.’

  Oddly, it is not the nature of the information Nell is passing on that freaks me out, it is the way she obtained it.

  My heart is thudding as I ask, ‘How do you know? You weren’t there. Year Tens aren’t allowed to go to the sixth-form disco unaccompanied.’

  Nell answers hesitantly, ‘Well, I was there actually. And I wasn’t unaccompanied. I went with Jason Dawes.’

  ‘Oh my God, you—’

  The door spins open and Mum is there in the block of light from the landing, doing her most icy, no-nonsense whisper.

  ‘Give me the telephone.’

  Mum holds her hand out and I pass the phone like a small and unsuccessful relay baton.

  I can’t bear it. Nell had a date, she went to the dance with a sixth-former, she must have kissed him in the slow dance at the end, and now I am the only person left of my age who hasn’t done proper snogging. Or ever been out with someone. The evils of the geography project are nothing to this.

  Chapter 8

  Assembly is a big deal at my school. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does happen, everyone has to go, and there is a register on the way in to make sure we are all there. Sometimes we have a guest speaker, sometimes a class takes over and runs the show. It is always too hot, and the floor smells of polish and shines and squeaks beneath your shoes.

  Assembly is most boring when the usual members of staff are doing the usual thing of leading the prayers and talking, so on the day that Mrs Bailey stands on the platform with my project, everyone is glazed over with the tedium of it all when she gets up to speak. She puts on her glasses, stuffs one hand in the pocket of her sensible long cardigan and coughs, looking over her glasses at the rows of pupils.

  �
�This morning I am going to read to you from one student’s work. I have chosen this opening part of a project because it displays energy and clarity, it is poetic and lyrical, and because it opens a door in the imagination. The pupil who wrote this is in Year Ten.’

  Oh no. My face, burning since she started waffling, bursts into clammy perspiration and everyone in my year group turns to look at me. The whisper and the movement goes through the whole school, and I swear there isn’t one person there who doesn’t know that I am the author when Mrs Bailey begins to read.

  ‘Phosphorescence means shining in the dark; luminous without combustion. In August in Norfolk, the sea warms to a point where the algae become phosphorescent. If you swim at night in moonlight, you become luminous, the water droplets around you sparkle green fire, your skin drips light like sequins, and you seem to be made of glittering scales.’ Mrs Bailey pauses and looks around at all of us. There is an ungodly silence which makes me want to faint, if only I bloody could. She carries on. ‘You are a mermaid when you swim in phosphorescence. And you glow in the dark.’

  There is a small silence as she finishes, then a shimmering giggle which starts at the front and surges back through the room.

  Surely she could have left that bit out? It is so unmerciful, so blistering to read out something that was never meant to be heard by anyone. Mr Lascalles seems to be the only person who shares my view. On the platform behind Mrs Bailey he is sitting sideways on a chair, one hand over his eyes as he shakes his head.

  I hadn’t thought much about what it would be like after the project was read out, and if I had, I would have imagined even more people avoiding me than normal and a lot of sniggering. But what actually happens is really surprising. I am on my way back from the science block after physics, texting Dad to tell him about substituting terns for plankton. A group comes towards me on the covered walkway and, without looking up from my phone, I pause to let them pass.

  ‘Hey.’ There is a scuffle of feet as the group stops next to me, galumphing a bit like the elephants in the Jungle Book cartoon. Harry Sykes, whom I have never spoken to before, but who is still the fittest boy in the school in my view, is grinning at me. My hands become solid lumps, nerveless, and I drop my phone. He picks it up and hands it back to me.

  ‘It was your stuff in assembly, wasn’t it?’ His eyes are blue and his hair is the colour of wet sand, but I can’t stop looking at his mouth, his teeth white and straight in his smile.

  ‘Yes,’ I croak.

  Not even Jessie knows I have had my eye on Harry. Only Nell, safely in Norfolk, has heard about him from me. It is one of those secret situations, so enjoyable to hold to oneself because to release it would make everyone laugh. Harry Sykes is more of a god than Aiden and all those superstars in the basketball team; the graffiti art for the rap band he did last holidays has been seen on television, and the fact that he comes to school is generally considered by fellow pupils to be more him doing the James Ellis Grammar School a favour than them giving him an education. It is ridiculous to try and explain how cool he is and here he is talking to me.

  ‘How do you spell “phosphorescence”?’ he asks. ‘It’s a wicked word. I want to look it up online. I like the whole deal about the plankton and the luminosity. Have you actually ever seen it?’

  I almost rise off the ground with amazement because he appears so impressed when I answer, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen it; I’ve swum in it, and I will again this summer I should think.’

  To have Harry Sykes of all people looking at me with proper focus and a bit of awe is too much. I am not ready for this.

  He steps closer and leans one hand high on the wall behind me so he is less than an arm’s length away, and he says, ‘Can you show us it?’

  I am poleaxed by the notion of Harry Sykes and his gang splashing about in the sea looking for phosphorescence. My small patina of sophistication deserts me, and mouthing like a goldfish is all I can do until another weird thing happens.

  Mr Lascalles approaches and, instead of rushing past with his head down, creases his face into a smile and says, ‘Lola, I was looking for you. Your project has triggered a thought.’

  Why does he have to come and talk to me now? There will be thousands more opportunities, including our sodding geography lesson, but right now, in front of Harry Sykes and his mates, is just the worst. My eyes dart between Mr Lascalles and Harry. I don’t know how to keep them both chatting, and in fact I wish the ground would swallow me.

  ‘Has it?’ I mumble, not looking him in the eye and trying to twitch my face into an expression that is both attentive to Harry and off-putting but not rude to Mr Lascalles.

  ‘Yes.’ He barks a loose cough. Harry raises his eyebrows and waits. Mr Lascalles pulls out a large red handkerchief. ‘I’d like to take a group to the Norfolk coast for a camping trip. I wonder if you know anyone there who could give advice on the logistics?’

  Undoubtedly I should answer ‘No,’ but I am still intoxicated by Harry Sykes and his interest. So I nod like a hypnotized sheep, and bleat, ‘Yes, I know just the person. He’s my dad actually. His name is Richard Jordan and he’s the warden of the North Norfolk Heritage Trust.’

  ‘Warden sounds like jail to me, sir.’ Harry’s expression is grave; his friends have sceptical expressions on their faces. Mr Lascalles is polishing his glasses.

  I can’t forget that he blew his nose on that handkerchief just a moment ago. I shake my head.

  ‘No, not that kind of warden. He looks after the land and the wildlife, he—’

  Even Mr Lascalles snorts with laughter. They are all taking the mickey out of me and they are the ones who want to go to Norfolk. Hot tears smart in my eyes. I have to get away.

  ‘I’ll put his address and stuff in your pigeonhole, sir,’ I call, walking away fast towards the canteen. That’s the end of my one and only conversation with Harry Sykes.

  ‘It will really surprise me if anything comes of this,’ is my thought as I put my dad’s work address and his mobile number in the box marked ‘Lascalles’ the next morning. Everything slumps back to normal after that, except that I keep glimpsing Harry Sykes whenever I am walking between lessons. Sometimes he waves, sometimes he just nods, but he doesn’t come and talk to me again. Thumbing through an old biology textbook, I notice his name on the flyleaf. He has done it in a kind of 3D writing and I run my finger across the page, imagining him labouring over it for hours, although I reckon he’s so good that he probably designed this in about two minutes flat. In a weird way, I feel more isolated now than I did at the beginning of term. Then I was properly invisible because nobody knew me, but now, what with my crush on Harry eclipsing any other interests I might have had, I don’t want to hang out with Jessie because I don’t want to tell her about it, especially as I remember her telling me she once snogged him. Even though it was ages ago, she may still fancy him. Pansy and her gang have given up on me because I am seen as a swot since the assembly reading.

  Nell is the only person I can talk to about it, but I know the gap is widening between us. She is now going out with Jason Dawes, and even though she does her best to make light of it, I am left behind. We have one brief text chat.

  ‘Wot’s snoggin’ like?’

  ‘Like havin’ a goldfish in your mouth.’

  ‘How do U do it?’

  ‘U try and stick your tongue as far as U can down their throats. They like that.’

  ‘Do U like it?’

  ‘Not really, actually, it’s OK. Don’t all the girls at your school do it?’

  ‘Probably.’

  We used to go through every new experience together, but it isn’t possible any more. Nell’s parents aren’t divorcing, and I am finding my way among a new group. I feel a long way from home.

  There is a party next weekend. Pansy and Freda have invited most of the girls in our year and most of the boys in the sixth form. For some reason they have also asked Dave Fisher, a real drip who has got a crush on me. He has asked me to go with hi
m, but I am hedging. Actually, I don’t much want to go at all. It is a terrifying prospect, a party full of older boys, drink and no parents around. I’ve never been to anything like that, and I know Mum wouldn’t let me if she knew.

  ‘This looks fun. I’m glad you’re making new friends,’ was all she said when she saw the invitation.

  It’s true. From the glossy green of the apple on the front of the invitation, and the gingham design of the lettering, you get an impression of wholesomeness which is obviously designed to mislead any suspicious parents.

  ‘My sister’s getting us a case of vodka alcopops from the place her boyfriend works.’

  Freda is trying to encourage a group of boys in the lunch queue behind us with the lure of alcohol.

  ‘Oh, right,’ says one of the boys she has addressed, as he reaches past her for a plate of pasta. His name is Vince, according to the embroidered pocket on his bowling shirt. I don’t know why she is so desperate for him to come, as he and his friends spend their whole time in the skateboard park up the road and only seem to come to school for lunch. Sometimes I really know I am on a different planet from the rest of my class.

  Chapter 9

  Three days before the party I have the hugest spot in the history of humankind on my nose.

  ‘What spot?’ says Mum when I charge into her bedroom to ask for something to cover it up.

  ‘Mu-um,’ I wail. ‘Please don’t pretend you can’t see it.’

  Mum is drying her hair. Her room is warm and bright with the radio on and the window open to let in the scent of the blossom tree which is in flower in the garden behind our flat.

  Her room is much quieter than mine. I never open my window. I got used to it when it was jammed shut, and even now it’s mended, I don’t bother; it seems pointless because the street below is so loud and dirty. Mum turns off the hairdryer and goes to her dressing table where she pulls open a drawer.