“Haven’t you got tables to wait on, then?” I said.
“Place is emptier than Tesco’s car park at midnight. S’been like this for nearly a month now,” Mehmet said and blew out a big, blue cloud of smoke. Sasha used to have a sort of crush on him until she smelt those cigarettes. “I don’t know how long...” Mehmet stopped mid-sentence and threw his half-smoked cig into the gutter.
I looked to see what had made him jump. I should have known. It was Nene. I tried not to smile. I was glad it wasn’t just me who was scared of her. Dressed head to foot in black, she launched into a verbal attack on Mehmet, full volume, non-stop Turkish. I couldn’t catch a word of it, but her size, short and square, and her face and tone, made her seem more like one of those vicious little Staffordshire bull terriers than a little old lady. I stepped back. She stopped, looked me up and down like I was lower than dirt, and went inside.
“Hello, Nene,” I called after her. She didn’t bother to look round and, to tell the truth, I’d probably have fallen over if Nene even tried to be nice to me.
Mehmet looked at me, shrugged, and scurried in after her.
Nene is my grandmother. Now I know grannies are supposed to be all loved-up over their grandchildren, but it was never like that with me and Nene. Mum said not to worry, Nene was like that with everyone, but I knew she held a special place in her heart for hating me. I was proof that, in Nene’s eyes, her lovely son was once, long ago, less than perfect.
Inside the Stone Cave, Dad was sitting at a table near the back, tapping away at a laptop.
I smiled and waved, but it was obvious I wasn’t going to get as much as five minutes out of Dad with Nene there, jabbing her finger at him like a demented troll. Maybe this was her cave and Dad had fixed it up so she’d feel right at home. The walls were all grey and had been plastered by Dad and his mates so that they looked like rock rather than walls.... But rock that had been painted Dulux Elephant Grey rather than any real-life cave I ever saw.
Today the restaurant was very empty.
“Mehmet,” I said, “is it like this in here all the time?” Mehmet was hard at work, wiping a table which looked perfectly clean already.
“Mondays, yes. Tuesdays too. Thursdays sometimes your dad’s mates come in after work, and Fridays and Saturdays... well, it’s not much better.” He leant close. His breath really was smoke-fuelled toxic. “But things are bad.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t know if you know all this, but Nene wants him to sell up. She wants to go home.”
“Home?” I said. “Wood Green?”
“No, Seren, Cyprus!”
“Sounds all right to me,” I said. “Better than all right in fact. Maybe Dad’d get more customers in here if Nene wasn’t lurking in corners, snarling.”
Mehmet almost laughed. “No, Seren, you don’t get it. Nene wants everyone to move with her, your dad and Sherifa and the girls, my Mum and Dad.”
“What!” I was shocked now. “Dad’s going to Cyprus?”
“It’s not definite. And I am going nowhere. I am totally staying in London! There’s nothing to do over there at all.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. Dad had taken me once when I was tiny, before him and Sherifa had had their kids, but I could hardly remember it at all.
“I don’t want to be out of a job,” Mehmet said. “Your dad says he’s waiting for the Olympics. Holding out till then. Says there’ll be so much trade, but Nene, she doesn’t believe him. She says her heart will give out if they stay in Dalston a month longer.”
“So we need more trade or she’ll get her way?” I said.
“Exactly.”
We both looked at Nene. I heard the word ‘Olympics’ and the word ‘heart-attack’. So maybe those words don’t really translate into Turkish. I thought that there was nothing that would stop Nene. Even if she had a heart attack she had so much energy she would still keep going. Actually I would have put good money on Nene not having a heart at all.
Dad looked like a beaten man. I felt a wave of ‘sorry’ coming off him towards me, and I looked back at him with what I hoped was my sympathetic face. He smiled at me over Nene’s shoulder. I made a phone shape with my hand and mouthed, ‘I’ll call.’
Nene saw me looking, and gave me a dirty look so filthy I could have used it to grow vegetables.
“She still hates you more than me, then?” Mehmet whispered.
“Oh yes,” I whispered back. “I am top of Nene’s most hated. I doubt if there is anything you could do to take my crown,” I said, and walked out.
This was not actually true. I think Nene hates my mum a sliver more than me, but as she never has to see Mum, I get it all because I am walking, breathing proof that once Dad fell in love and had a kid with someone who was not Turkish. Dad has told me over and over to take no notice, and I do try my best.
I had only got as far as the cinema when I heard Dad shouting behind me. “Seren! Babe!”
I turned round and he caught up with me, out of breath from running.
“Are you OK?” he said. “Nene! I know! I’m sorry, love! You know what she’s like.” He hugged me tight. “Seren. I don’t see you enough. You should come round to the house. Sherifa loves you too, you know that.”
Sherifa is Dad’s wife.
“Sherifa’s cool,” I said. It’s true, we get on, she is lovely. “But what about Nene?”
Dad made a face. “Maybe not the house then.” Nene lives with Dad. “Come to the Cave on Wednesday. At least that way you’ll miss Nene, she’ll be taking the girls to their music class.” The girls are my other sisters, Gamze and Ayshe. They’re OK too. I even quite like helping with them sometimes, in the summer.
“Are you all right, Dad? The business?” I said. “Only Mehmet said... he said you might be moving.”
“Where d’you get that idea from?” he said. But he wasn’t looking me in the face. “It’s all fine, Seren.”
Why did I not believe him?
“I got the tenner. From Sasha last Saturday.”
“Yeah, I thought it might be the last bit of money you see from me for the time being. Tell Sasha I’ll be sad to lose her.” He shrugged. “But I can’t afford another pair of hands. There isn’t the trade.”
“Hang on.” I was still processing what Dad had just said. “You mean she’s fired?”
“I’m not Alan Sugar, babe. I just can’t keep her on any more. I can’t afford it.”
I folded my arms. “Did you tell her all this? On Saturday?”
Dad said nothing.
“Oh, Dad! You didn’t, did you?”
“Not out like that. I couldn’t, I mean I know how much the job means to her. To your mother.”
“You should have told her, Dad! She’s saving up for her big Prom dress and everything!”
“I was going to call,” he said, not looking at me. “You can tell her for me, yeah?”
“Dad!”
“So, I’ll see you Wednesday, love,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. “I better get back.”
“Nene?” I said, crossing my arns. I wanted to say “Why are you going, why won’t you talk to me?” But I couldn’t.
Dad nodded. “Nene.”
I watched him go. He seemed a lot older than Mum. Maybe he should read some books. It seemed to work for her. I hadn’t even told him about Keith and the film, but I figured that Dad owed me that much. I texted Keith on the way to the bus stop to say that that we were on for Wednesday, and tried not to think about Cyprus.
I stood at the bus stop outside the cinema, trying to think of an easy way to tell Sasha, who is not even talking to me, that she is out of a job. The bus came far too quickly for my liking.
When I looked in my bag for my Oyster Card I saw the newspaper picture of Denny, and remembered the Kutest Kiddie Kontest for Arthur. Denny would have his singing, I’d be in Keith’s film and Arthur could be Kute. I sighed. That just left Sasha. No date for the Prom, public humiliation in her local corner shop and now no job. It just got worse
and worse. Dad could be such an idiot sometimes!
Maybe that’s where I got it from.
As the bus pulled away, the doors of the Rio cinema opened and dozens of women with pushchairs spilled out into the street. One chased after the bus and the driver waited for her and let her on.
“You saved my life!” The woman said to the driver. She was out of breath and pink in the face. “Thank you so much!”
“What is going on in that place now?” the driver said. “A mother’s meeting?”
“No.” The woman was still a bit out of breath. “It’s mother and baby films. It’s great!”
“What, like Finding Nemo or Toy Story or something?” asked the driver.
“No, Kill Bill,” the woman said and went to sit down. The bus driver’s face was a picture.
I knew what she meant. They had a mother-and-baby screening, where mums could come and bring their tiny babies, and they could just feed them or hold them while they watched a film.
The bus stopped at the lights, and suddenly I had an idea. I thought that Dad could do a special for the mums and babies.
What if Dad laid on tea and cake, and someone like me or Sasha – not Nene – could keep an eye on the babies while they chat? I happened to know, from years of research of course, that the only thing mums like more than cake is chat. Maybe that would help. Keith knew everyone at the cinema by their first name, he was bound to have a number I could pass on. Dad could talk to them, or I could ask at Film Club. It was worth a try.
The bus swished past the shopping centre, where there was a brand new banner flapping in the wind: LONDON 2012 WELCOMES THE WORLD! it said.
Now I had more bad news. I sighed, so the glass of the window fogged up in front of my mouth. I didn’t care about the world, I just wanted Sasha to welcome me. How was I going to manage that?
6
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
“Once I’ve signed this out for you, Keith, this camera becomes your responsibilty, for the whole week,” Miss Tunks said.
It was lunchtime, and me and Keith were in the Drama office. I was furthest away from the desk, backed into a shelf of multiple copies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“Yes, Miss Tunks.” Keith nodded and cradled the camera in his hand as if it was a silver, metallic kitten. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had started purring.
“You know how it all works?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Tunks.”
“And you’ll be using your own memory stick?”
“Yes, Miss Tunks.” Keith flicked the camera on and flipped out the viewing screen.
I had to admit it did look dinky and flashy and very, very lush.
Miss Tunks must have seen the look on my face. “And as it’s signed out in your name, Keith, that means you will be the one using it and carrying it at all times.”
“Yes, Miss Tunks.”
“And not any persons round here with a talent for falling over...” She looked straight at me and I looked away. That woman would never let me forget the Christmas show.
“Right.” Miss Tunks picked up the mug from her desk and took a sip. It read STAR in red letters. “I’ll give you the key for the costume cupboard, Keith, make sure you lock up and give it back to me after lessons. I’ll be in the staffroom. I’m sure it’ll go well. You’ve got a great eye, don’t forget that.”
“No, Miss Tunks,” Keith said, smiling, and she shooed us out.
Out in the corridor I mimicked, “No, Miss Tunks!” over and over until Keith had to push me to make me shut up.
“That is so why she likes you!” I said. “Three bags full, Miss Tunks...”
“Yeah. But I got the camera, didn’t I?” He patted his bag. “And I got the key to the costume cupboard.” He twirled the key on its fat, plastic key-fob.
On the other side of the corridor, I saw Fay and some of Sasha’s mates. They looked knives at me, but since they’d been doing that for the past three days it was starting to feel like normal.
“Have you told Sasha about her job yet?” Keith asked.
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s hard when she’s not talking to me. At all.”
“Seren!” Keith sighed. “You really don’t do yourself any favours. The quicker it’s done...”
“I wrote her a note,” I said.
Keith looked at me and his face told me I was the biggest idiot in the whole school.
“There was nothing else I could do! She’s never in the same space as me for more than a few seconds and if I so much as try to talk to her she looks away, moves away.”
“You should have got your dad to do it.”
“I wish! He’s too much of a soft touch. That’s his whole problem.” I thought of Nene. “I was going to text her but that seemed a bit harsh. So I wrote her a note. I stuck it in her locker this morning. I expect she’s read it by now.”
I could still feel the Year Elevens staring as Keith opened the door to the costume cupboard, which was under the main stairs and next to the stage. It was bigger than an actual cupboard but not much, and it stank of old sweat and stale make-up. On either side were metal clothes-rails thick with floor-length dresses, cloaks and funny trousers, and on the floor were black bin-liners, marked with labels written in fat marker on sticky tape. One read TOGAS, another, OLIVER.
Me and Keith each took a rail, and started to look through it. Sometimes a heavy waft of stale sweat and old deodorant seemed to puff out of the clothes as if they were alive. “This is rank,” I said, passing a mothy old velvet doublet and moving on past a Victorian crinoline, made out of what looked like net curtains. “You have to admit it does stink like someone’s old armpits in here.”
Keith breathed huffily. “We need to find something for Miranda.”
“But you said earlier you wanted your Miranda to look ordinary,” I said. I pulled out a Medieval dress complete with pointy hat and veil. “Like this, maybe?”
Keith rolled his eyes. “No! More ordinary, well, not completely ordinary, out of the ordinary. You’ve got to stand out. You’re not going to be saying anything so you’ve got to look different, exceptional....”
“Yeah, and not like some Turkish-English giant girl who likes her cake.”
“You are so not fat!” Keith snapped. “Girls!” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “It’s because you are tall that you can wear anything,” he said.
“Who are you all of a sudden? Gok Wan?”
“Seren!”
“Sorry.” Christina had used that one on him so often it had got very stale.
“There’s nothing here!” Keith leant against the wall and crossed his arms.
“We’ll find something,” I said.
“Miranda is supposed to be this girl who is trapped...” Keith sighed.
I opened a bag that said BUGSY MALONE. There was a twenties flapper dress which was cream-coloured and fringy. Shazna had worn something like it for the Christmas show, and I remembered being dead jealous. I looked at the flapper dress. Shazna’s had been much prettier, more delicate. I closed the BUGSY MALONE bag and rummaged through the other black bin-liners: LEOTARDS, PANTOMIME HORSE. Suddenly, there it was. GROVE END’S GOT TALENT. That was it, last Christmas. I pulled the bag open and looked inside. There was the mermaid’s tail some girl in Year Nine had worn, a cat mask and a Superman outfit. I dug down deeper, touched something silky near the bottom and pulled.
There was the dress. I looked at it for a long minute, remembering the rehearsals we’d had all through November, me, Christina and Shazna. I thought it would be just me and Christina at first, but ever since the start of the autumn term things had been different. It hadn’t been me and Chris any more, she hadn’t been Chris any more. She had become Christina and it was always three of us, Shazna was always there.
Shazna hated Keith, she said he was a total weirdo just because he was a boy who talked to girls. I should have realised then just how bad things were. I still thought we could all be mates.
I
even smiled, thinking about the time I suggested Shazna take the lead in the dance routine we’d worked out, watching her and Christina, and gradually realising, as December rolled round, that they didn’t want me in it at all. Why didn’t I take the hint? I shivered and closed my eyes. Because I had done all the work, sorted out the moves – everything.
I remembered standing on our school stage, looking like some kind of giant next to Shazna and Christina, grinning like an idiot, so happy to be up on stage. So excited to be there in the dark of the hall, the curtains pulled tight so the afternoon light wouldn’t sneak through. There was a sudden rushing in my ears and I thought I would be sick if I remembered any more.
I snapped my eyes open and looked at the dress. I took deep breaths to make the vomity feeling go away, and forced myself to concentrate on here and now.
The dress was pale grey with silver sequins and fringing, that moved and rippled like water. I had wanted to wear this so much. Shazna got it because she was smaller than me, and to be honest it wasn’t long enough to be a dress on me. I took my school jumper off and put the dress on over my shirt and school trousers. It was more of a tunic top on me. “What d’you think?” I said.
Keith got out the camera and flipped down the viewing screen. I pulled my best Kate Moss faces at him.
Keith looked at me seriously. He nodded his head. “You know what, Seren, maybe that’s it....” He looked back at the flipped-down screen and smiled.
There was a high-pitched bleeping noise from the camera. “Dammit!”
“What’s happened?”
“Dunno. I’ll just pop back and see if I can find Miss Tunks. I won’t be a sec.”
After Keith had gone, I found a mirror behind one of the clothes rails and admired myself a bit. I did love this dress. I was mid-admire when the door flew open.
“Did she sort it?” I said, looking round.
But it wasn’t Keith.
Standing in the open doorway was Sasha. For a tiny nano-second I thought she had come to find me to make everything up. We would be friends again. Or if not friends, then sisters.
“Fay said you were sneaking around in here.” The tone of her voice made it obvious I had been wrong. And she wasn’t alone. I could see Fay behind her, smiling.
Brave New Girl Page 5
