‘What are you doing now?’
Edie's rattling away at her computer, her fingers flying over the keys.
‘I'm setting up some new links on my website. You know I've got all that stuff about recycling and fresh water for villages?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I'm going to add some pages about Invisible Children. Those are all the ones who've been displaced by this war. Boys and girls with no proper homes, no proper education. Lots of them have been split up from their families. There's this campaign to help them. I'd never heard about it before. And I'm actually interested in this stuff. So it obviously needs lots more publicity.’
‘Edie, I hate to say this, but how many people look at your website?’
‘About two thousand a week.’
‘Oh? Really?’
Edie rarely mentions her website. She's been running it for a year now, between homework, chess, orchestra and the other stuff. As it's about water and recycling, it's not exactly YouTube for entertainment value. I was expecting her to say she gets about four visitors and I was going to explain, kindly, that putting links on her website wasn't really going to make a huge amount of difference. But two thousand sounds quite impressive.
‘Yes, really. They like my blog, mostly. I talk about what I'm up to. What you're wearing, obviously. School stuff. And what I really care about and what I think we should do about it. I get loads of comments and questions. Lots of other bloggers point to me now. Look.’
We spend the next half hour skipping backwards and forwards across links in the internet, revealing a network of Edies across Europe and America and Africa, all trying to change the world and talking to each other about it. I had no idea. I'm quite glad to realise she's not alone, because obviously she doesn't get a huge amount of sense out of me on most of these subjects. Just as I find her a bit limited on the history of punk or the advisability of the gladiator sandal.
‘Hang on a minute!’ It's just sunk in. ‘Do you tell two thousand people a week what I'm wearing?’
‘Yes,’ Edie says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. ‘You don't mind, do you? Some of them are quite interested.’
I wake up next morning and my brain is aching. First, there's the thought that the little girl who likes to wear fairy wings was nearly captured by rebels and made into a soldier or a slave. And the worst thing that's ever happened to me was forgetting to wear knickers to games when I was nine. (Actually, that was pretty bad, but I still don't think it's up there against the whole rebel army scenario.)
Second, there's the memory of all those incredible outfits that Crow's been busy designing for the last couple of years. All tucked away in that tiny, overcrowded box room.
Third, there's the picture that Jenny's just texted me of herself at the LA premiere of Kid Code. They put her in a YELLOW TROUSER SUIT. No words come. Things can't possibly get any worse. What have they got in mind for her in Tokyo? A gold bikini?
Fourth, and worst, I have to think of something clever to wear this afternoon, because I'm about to be surrounded by some of the coolest dressers on the planet and I now know that Edie is going to describe me to TWO THOUSAND STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET. Which is pretty freaky.
It's Moaning Zoe's degree show at St Martins. Harry's invited me for company and sweetly, Skye – who's also graduating – has invited Crow. I'm in no fit mental state to go, but I have to, to support Harry. Something bad is going on with Moaning Zoe and he may need my help. First, though: what to wear.
It takes two hours and my bed starts to look like something out of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ under all the discarded ideas. Eventually, I opt for my Converses, black sequinned leggings, a white school shirt (which is fine as long as you NEVER wear a white shirt to school, obviously), Mum's Galliano waistcoat that I'm not allowed to borrow on PAIN OF DEATH and a necklace I've made out of Haribos. Edible art. Perfect if things get really stressful.
Harry goes for jeans, a loose linen shirt with several rips in it and flip-flops, and looks great, if somewhat casual.
Things don't start well.
It takes a while to find Zoe. Eventually I spot her in a dark corner of a room lit by colourful but not very effective neon tubes. She's snogging a boy in a tailored jacket, chains and leather jeans. I watch in disgust, waiting for one of them to look up, but they don't. They just keep at it. Eventually, they reach Discovery Channel proportions of snoggery and I am simply fascinated. How do they breathe, for example? How do they get their noses to fit so close together? And how do they manage not to get their facial piercings caught on each other?
After what seems like hours, Harry comes over and stands beside me, thoughtfully.
‘I think she's trying to tell you something,’ I say.
‘I'd noticed.’
‘Anyone you know?’
‘Her name's Zoe. She used to be my girlfriend.’
I giggle. ‘No, I meant him.’
‘His name's Sven and he's Svedish. Look, this is his stuff over here.’
Harry leads me over to a display of what looks like fisherman's netting, complete with fish, seaweed and abandoned bits of rubbish.
‘It's supposed to be a searing comment on global pollution. Particularly of the high seas. Maybe Sven's ancestors were Vikings.’
‘And people are supposed to make clothes out of it? I can't exactly see Ralph Lauren going for it. Or Prada.’
‘I think Sven's a conceptual artist, really,’ Harry muses. ‘He'll be fine with Zoe.’
We look across at Zoe's masterpieces, which are lined up nearby. They appear to be made out of melted and stretched water bottles, complete with their old labels. In addition to looking highly uncomfortable and sweat-inducing, they are also see-through. I've never been convinced by Zoe as a designer and from what I've seen this evening I guess Harry was more attracted by her snogging skills. But he doesn't seem too distraught that he won't be on the receiving end of them any more.
Zoe breaks for air and looks across at us.
‘Oh, hi Harry,’ she says, as if she's just noticed him. ‘Hi . . .’
She and Harry have been going out for five months, which is not long enough for her to have registered my name. Sven lowers his mouth back onto hers for more resuscitation. Harry gives them a friendly wave.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, reaching up to put a sisterly arm around his waist.
Harry nods convincingly.
‘She was a bit clingy. Like some of her textiles. And besides, I'm in love.’
I goggle. This is superfast.
‘Who? Not Skye?’
He gives me his pitying look.
‘No-ooo,’ he says, as if addressing a very small, stupid child. ‘Her picture's all over my room, dummy.’
‘Oh, not Svetlana!’
‘And why not?’
‘Hmm. Let me think. Two reasons. She's a SUPERMODEL. And her father's a Russian BILLIONAIRE.’
‘And your point is?’
My brother can be very dim sometimes.
‘Well, Harry, you're lovely and everything and you're my brother and I adore you. But . . . ’
‘But what?’
‘She's a SUPERMODEL. And her father's a BILLIONAIRE.’
‘I'm sure she's lovely underneath.’
‘She's lovely on top. That's the point. She's probably already got a boyfriend. Several.’
‘She hasn't. I checked. Crow thinks it's a good idea.’
‘Crow does?’
‘Yeah. You know she's always over to look at your picture books?’ I treat Harry's reference to my costume library with the contempt it deserves, and ignore it. ‘Well, she popped into my room one day while you were busy texting your friends. She was asking me all about the photo montage and I explained Svetlana was my future girlfriend and she thought it was great. She obviously doesn't find me quite as hideous as some relatives I could mention.’
‘She's twelve. She probably thinks Barbie's a good idea.’
Harry narrows his
eyes at me and I decide it's time to change the subject.
‘Shall we go and find her? Where will Skye be?’
Harry guides me past all sorts of whacky creations – some of which are so weird they defy definition and others are so gorgeous I want to spend all evening staring at them.
Skye is in the middle of a throng of people. The student-types look as though they've just landed from outer-space, while their friends and parents look like they've popped in from the office. Skye has won the top textiles prize so everyone wants to be seen with her. Today, her hair is Schiapparelli pink with orange streaks. She's wearing one of Crow's new silk sculpture-dresses and vintage Vivienne Westwood platforms.
Crow is busy admiring the new experimental materials that got Skye her prize. She does not look like a girl who spent her nights five years ago avoiding being kidnapped by rebel soldiers. You'd think she was born in fashion school. She's wearing gold dungarees with a purple poncho and seems more at home here than half the students who are clustering around prize-girl.
‘Look at this,’ she says, in her low, quiet way. For Crow, she sounds pretty excited.
All Skye's designs have been made into clothes for crash-test dummies. Crow's pointing at a mini-dress. The fabric is silver and stiff as a thick sheet of paper, or leather, with thicker veins running through it. In some places there are holes that give it a lacy effect. It's strong and yet delicate. It would look good combined with fine lace, cotton or tough leather. It would look good if it was simply framed and hung on a wall.
‘Wow.’ Sometimes my fashion vocabulary is a bit limited. But ‘Wow’ seems to cover it.
Skye stands beside me, pink curls bobbing.
‘Glad you like it. It's a process I've developed using silk and rubber. It's such a pain to do, but I love the effect. Marc Jacobs was in earlier on and he really liked it.’
‘Wow.’
‘We need to talk about your friend, though,’ says Skye, looking as serious as anyone can in pink hair and platforms. ‘I know someone who runs a stand in Portobello and Crow's dresses are perfect for her. I've already had three people ask me tonight where I got this one.’
I nod dumbly. What I'm thinking is ‘Wow’. The Portobello Road market in Notting Hill, near Crow's school, is the sort of place where top fashion people go to find unusual pieces. Kate Moss shops there. Mum shops there. It may be nearby, but it's SO not the school bazaar.
‘And she needs more space to work. She keeps telling me she can't make more things because there's nowhere to put them.’
‘I'm on to that,’ I say, glad that I can finally sound organised and purposeful.
I'm hoping Skye will say, ‘Wow’, but she doesn't. She just says, ‘Good’. She doesn't seem in the least surprised – as if she assumed that my job is to sort out all Crow's logistical problems. I feel slightly hurt to be so taken for granted and slightly proud that I seem so competent. Mum would be shocked. I look down at myself just to check that I haven't turned into Edie overnight, but no, Edie wouldn't be seen dead in sequinned leggings.
We've promised Crow a lift home. When it's time to go, Harry pauses to vandalise one of the walls. At least, I catch him in the act of taking down a poster.
‘What are you DOING?’ I ask, sounding like Mum.
‘Oh, it's OK, they've got loads,’ he says. ‘I have to have it. Look.’
I look. It's a poster for a design competition in honour of Yves Saint Laurent. He died recently and Mum dressed in black for days afterwards. I marked the moment with a series of orange and pink tribute outfits. Very YSL. Needless to say, Mum's black outfits included bits of actual Saint Laurent, which I thought was showing off, frankly.
‘What's that got to do with Svetlana?’ I ask.
‘If you look at the small print, you'll see that she's the prize. At least, the winner gets the chance to design a dress for her.’
‘Wow.’
I read the small print. The design has to be for a cocktail dress that embodies ‘the spirit of Saint Laurent’. The winner then gets to create something original for Svetlana to wear on a catwalk during London Fashion Week.
‘Cool,’ I say. ‘I must enter.’
‘You and every design student in the country,’ Harry points out. ‘Everyone at St Martins will be doing it. You can try, though, kiddo. You never know.’
I decide to go ahead anyway – despite my slight handicap of not being able to draw. The story of Yves Saint Laurent's discovery is one of my top three favourite fashion moments. He entered a competition to design a cocktail dress when he was eighteen and won. Christian Dior heard about him and hired him on the spot. Three years later he was running the label. Fashion fairy tales really can happen.
True, he then had to join the army and had a nervous breakdown, but hey – no-one said fashion was easy.
‘Mum?’
‘Mmmm?’
Mum looks up distracted from her cappuccino and her BlackBerry. It's very hard to prise her away from either when she's at home, but I've been working on this. It's time to try out my idea for helping Crow.
‘You know that Cézanne exhibition?’
‘Mmmm?’ Her eyes are drifting back down to the BlackBerry, which is vibrating madly on the table, but I still have about three seconds before she hits a button.
‘The one at the Courtauld Institute? I'd really like to go.’
Wham.
Mum looks up, BlackBerry abandoned, eyes fixing me with a Joe-Yule-like laser gaze.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. Cézanne's one of the most important Post-Impressionists, isn't he? And this is such a one-off exhibition. I really admire what he does with colour.’
I wonder if I've pushed it too far. The whole colour thing probably sounds a bit rehearsed, which it is. But luckily Mum doesn't notice. The fact is, her daughter is talking about Art. With interest. And Mum has the chance to educate me and share her passion.
‘I'm free tomorrow, actually,’ she says. I knew this – I've learnt how to check her BlackBerry when she's not looking. ‘Would you like to go after school?’
‘Fantastic! Great idea!’
Mum tries to look modest, as if she doesn't want too much praise for having thought up this incredible scheme. Which is perfect. It will work better if she thinks it's her idea.
The thing about Mum is she's in great demand. Although her ‘office’ is a cupboard on the top floor at home, most of the time she's somewhere else, mentally at least, being busy. She represents some really important young artists, whom she's nurtured since they were students, and they're always calling up with problems or questions; or buyers are trying to find the right piece to add to their collections; or she's arranging an exhibition or some art-related event, and it's really, really hard to get her undivided attention. The only times she turns the BlackBerry off are in churches and art galleries. Same thing, really, as far as she's concerned. And it's hard to have a proper conversation in a church, so if I really need to talk to her, I have to take her to a gallery.
It took me years to work this out, but since I cottoned on to it, it's made my life much easier. And I don't actually mind looking at Cézanne and stuff. He's a pretty good painter, as far as I can make out. Of course, I'll have to let Mum lecture me about him for twenty minutes or so, but once that's over I can move on to Phase Two of Project Crow.
Mum starts with a picture of the Mont Sainte-Victoire. At first glance it's just a picture of a fairly ugly mountain, but by the time Mum's finished explaining about Cézanne's ground-breaking use of colour to suggest perspective, it's become a fascinating picture of a fairly ugly mountain.
Mum pauses for breath.
‘By the way,’ I say, ‘I've got this friend.’
‘Ye-es?’
I see Mum pat her pocket for her BlackBerry, in case more important messages are arriving, but then she remembers she's switched it off.
I carry on. ‘She's very talented. She needs our help.’
Mum looks at me sce
ptically. ‘What does she do?’
‘She made this.’ I'm wearing a painted silk flower skirt Crow finished a few days ago. Mum's already given it a semi-approving look.
She puts her head to one side, non-committally.
‘And she can draw.’ I take a piece of paper out of my bag and unfold it. It's covered in Crow's sketches of dancing girls. Suddenly, Mum looks quite excited. She knows big talent when she sees it.
‘And she's been asked to make clothes to sell in Portobello Road market and she needs some space to make them because she lives in a tiny flat with her aunt and she's from Africa and there's hardly any money and all the stuff is piled up everywhere and she's hardly got room to sew and I think she could be a great designer,’ I finish in a rush. ‘If we helped her.’
There's a silence while we look at each other. Then Mum does something entirely unexpected. She bends down and takes my cheeks (with their rubbish cheekbones) in her hands and kisses the top of my head. I am SO small.
This is nice, but I'm not sure what it means. I gabble on.
‘I mean, you help your artists all the time, so I'm sort of copying you, really, and we've got that room downstairs that Granny uses sometimes to stay in but it's usually empty and I know your artists need it sometimes if they're staying in London but it probably wouldn't be for very long and it would really help Crow and she's so nice and Harry's met her,’ I finish, rather lamely. I'm not sure why this should make any difference, but it might.
Mum takes the drawings from me and admires them for a long time.
‘They're good. How old is she?’
‘Twelve.’
Mum sucks in her breath as if she's just tried a scalding cappuccino. Then she swears in French. One of the words I Tipp-Exed on my Converses, in fact. French swear-words are a leftover from her modelling days. Her eyes keep scanning the drawings.
‘So?’ I ask at last.
‘Certainly,’ she says, smiling. ‘She can have Granny's room.’
I wait for the ‘but’. This has all been far too easy. But there isn't one. Maybe I'm better at managing my mother than I thought. Maybe Crow just really is that talented.
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