Edie's looking at me hard. I wonder if I'm developing a spot, or if I got something in my teeth at lunch.
‘You're really into this stuff, Nonie, aren't you?’ she says.
I wonder if she's criticising my superficiality again. She sees my doubtfulness and smiles.
‘I mean – in a good way. You make it sound like poetry.’
‘It is like poetry.’ I'd have thought that was obvious.
‘Do you mind if I quote you on my blog? As I say, people are starting to ask.’
‘Go ahead.’ I quite like the idea of being a fashion expert.
‘Anyway,’ she says as the bell goes for lessons, ‘what's Crow's big idea? For her collection?’
And I realise that I don't know. In the midst of all the excitement and the phone calls and interviews and the flowers, none of us has actually thought to ask her what she's going to do.
Edie sees the doubt on my face again.
‘I mean, she does have one, doesn't she?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say airily. ‘She's bound to. She's just . . . I'll let you know. I need to talk to her about it.’
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur, as I realise that there are only twelve weeks to go before the show, and that I very badly need to find out what's going on.
When I catch up with Crow, she's sitting on the floor of the workroom in a pair of old dungarees, fairy wings and fluffy slippers, but she picks up a jumper and starts fiddling with a seam. It's made of silver thread and designed to be worn over one of her flower-petal skirts. When she's finished, she bites off the thread and hands me the jumper.
‘Try this on,’ she instructs me.
I do as I'm told. It drapes and folds around me like a fairy comfort blanket. Back come the boobs and hips. I've no idea how she builds them in. I check myself out in the mirror. I look about eighteen, and slightly model-ish, in a vertically challenged sort of way. Crow grabs a needle and starts making adjustments, occasionally catching my skin in the process.
‘Ow!’
Crow says nothing, focused on what she's doing.
‘So,’ I ask casually, ‘how's the collection going?’
She shrugs, catching me again.
‘Ow ow ow!’
‘Don't talk,’ she says. ‘You're distracting me.’
‘But I have to. I'm sure it's under control and everything, but . . . you know . . . I haven't really heard you talk about . . . you know . . . the show recently. Is it going OK?’
She shrugs again. The needle misses me this time.
‘You are designing for it, aren't you?’
She avoids my eye in the mirror. It's impossible to have this conversation in a half-finished silver jumper. I take it off, to Crow's protests, and sit on the floor. I can feel an icy chill down my back. It's not the lack of jumper. It's the sense that something's wrong. And I can't help feeling that it's my fault.
‘Crow . . . You do want to do this?’
It's the question I can hardly bear to ask. I'm not exactly sure how I get the words out. But here she is, this only-just-thirteen-year-old, surrounded by fashion addicts who are deciding her life for her. I've assumed – we all have – that this would be exactly what she yearned for, like every design student round the world. Probably even in Uzbekistan. But maybe we were wrong.
She sits cross-legged near the window with the jumper on her lap, examining the stitches, avoiding me.
‘Because,’ I swallow, ‘you don't have to. Maybe we've made a mistake. I'm sorry. I got you into this. Maybe it's too much . . . ’
‘Oh, Nonie!’
She puts the jumper to one side and comes over to me. She doesn't exactly fling her arms around me, but sits right in front of me, leaning forward, with a damp sparkle in her eyes.
‘This is . . . my life. In my head, all my life, I've seen these beautiful things. Now I can make them.’
She doesn't talk very much. This is a major speech for Crow. I'm very touched. But somehow, the way she says it, it sounds as if she's saying goodbye.
I can feel my own eyes welling up.
‘Then why . . . ?’ I'm choked up but I have to go on. ‘What's wrong with showing people what you can do? Just think. They're going to give you thousands of pounds so you can design your dreams. You'll have proper models to wear them. Music. Lights.’
For an instant, Crow's face floods with delight as she imagines the moment. Then, just as quickly, her expression fades and her face is blank.
‘What is it?’
She traces a shape on the carpet with her finger. Her voice is very quiet.
‘In my country, people have no homes. Every day, my dad buries someone who's died of AIDS. They can't grow food. Victoria doesn't have a proper school to go to. Dad just teaches the kids sitting in a circle on the ground . . . ’
Then she looks up at me. ‘How can I do a collection? That money could pay for twenty schools. How can I spend it?’
I say nothing. How can she? I'm just a girl with a taste for Astroturf skirts and cheap celebrity. What do I know?
She points to the silver jumper. It's a hauntingly beautiful thing.
‘Each time I make a piece I feel so guilty. The beauty of it buzzes in my head until I get it out. I can't help it. But to do so many . . . Amanda was telling me. Twelve outfits can mean fifty pieces. Dresses, jackets, skirts . . .’ Her eyes glaze with tears. Her voice is a whisper. ‘You're right. It's too much.’ Suddenly she is loud and businesslike. ‘My father sent me here to learn and get good grades. He doesn't want me to be a . . . flibbertigibbet. Laslo can do the collection. Will you tell Amanda?’
I picture telling Amanda. Laslo Wiggins can't do the collection. Laslo is beige and he isn't Crow. If she can't do it, no-one can.
I nod, but I can't bring myself to say the words. I give it one last try.
‘Look. You were so lucky. Everyone was safe. Your family are OK. Isn't that fantastic? You're free. And I can help you. So can Mum. So can Amanda.’
I can't bear to think of all that talent put back in a box and subjected to the Three Bitches on a regular basis.
But her face hardens. In fact, she looks positively scary.
‘Tell her,’ she commands, giving me no flicker of hope.
The next day, she doesn't appear after school. Nor the day after. The silver jumper remains unfinished. Her mobile rings repeatedly in the empty workroom, unanswered, until the battery dies.
Oh great. Not only have I failed to get her to do the collection, I've managed to put her off doing anything fashion-related at all.
Inevitably, Amanda calls to check everything's OK.
‘I can't get hold of Crow. She never answers that phone. She's been getting some great press recently. We've got some interesting sponsorship ideas to discuss. How's she getting on?’
I take a breath. One Two Three.
‘Fine.’
I can't do it.
‘Thank goodness. I was getting a bit worried. I haven't seen any definitive sketches yet.’ She pauses. ‘Can I pop round and see how it's going?’ There's a pause while she checks her BlackBerry. ‘How about next Thursday?’
Another pause. More yoga breathing. Tell her tell her.
‘I think she's busy on Thursday. School thing. Saturday?’
Like two days will make all the difference.
I can hear the uncertainty in Amanda's voice. ‘OK.’ Pause. ‘Oh yes, and can she make the other meeting? It's this Monday with the organisers. I texted her. We fixed it for the evening so it wouldn't interfere with school. They want to talk marketing and venue and things. There's quite a lot to do in advance.’
‘Sure.’ By now my voice is a squeak. ‘Actually, she said . . . she said would you mind if I go? It's just she's busy . . . designing and everything. I do the admin and . . . stuff. Marketing. Venue. And things . . . ’
My voice trails off. Tell her tell her. Why can't I bear to tell her? I realise that this is probably the closest I may ever get to a real, proper collection and I just can't spoil
the dream. Not yet. Not quite yet.
I'll go to the meeting on Monday and tell them face to face. That would be much better. Silly to try and do something so important over the phone. I'll tell them and it will be over and that will be that. It'll be fine.
Amanda agrees that I can go instead of Crow. Ever since we met, she's sort of thought of me as Crow's manager anyway.
Later, after lots of begging on Instant Messenger, Edie agrees to skip chess club and come and keep me company. I'm going to need a hand to hold.
Over the weekend, Edie comes round to help me with geography. I'm not entirely sure why I chose to do an exam in geography when I still get the Pacific Ocean confused with the Atlantic, but it seemed the least bad option at the time.
Edie's been having no more luck with Crow than me. They're still supposed to meet every Saturday for reading practice, but Edie says that Crow keeps ducking out.
‘When I do see her, I keep trying to tell her about the petition and suggesting publicity ideas, but she just shuts me out. It's as if she doesn't want to help.’
Then an extraordinary thing happens.
I'm busy trying to describe the impact of climate change in the Antarctic and I look over and EDIE IS SKETCHING OUT DESIGNS FOR A TEE-SHIRT.
‘Have you gone MAD?’ I ask. ‘Are you feeling OK?’
She looks up, totally guilty.
‘Oh, sorry. Got a bit distracted.’
‘That's MY job. What are they, anyway?’
She's tried to put her hand over the page, but I pull the paper out from under her and have a look. She has the same level of drawing talent as me but you can see roughly what she was aiming for. The tee-shirts are pink, with a big heart in the middle and a slogan in the heart. She's been trying out different slogans.
It all comes back to literature for Edie in the end, but at least it's progress.
I do my quizzical look. She waves a hand dismissively.
‘They're just ideas. For backstage tee-shirts. For if we did do the collection. If Crow did it, I mean. I was thinking we could use the show to highlight the Invisible Children campaign. Make fashion do something useful. Designers do it all the time, you know.’
This is the equivalent of me telling Edie that Shakespeare wrote plays.
‘I'd noticed,’ I say tetchily. ‘Katharine Hamnett was famous for it. Vivienne Westwood's supporting prisoners at the moment. She sends models down the catwalk with placards and slogans on their knickers.’
‘Stella McCartney's very anti-leather.’
‘I KNOW.’
God, my friend can be annoying sometimes.
‘All right. Keep your hair on. Anyway, what do you think about this?’
She shows me the latest slogan idea. Inside the heart, the words say, ‘Less Fashion More Compassion’.
‘It's a bit rude,’ I point out. ‘For a fashion show audience.’
‘Well, they ought to try more. Anyway, it's sort of ironic.’
She tries a few more but that's the one we end up coming back to.
‘I might get a few tee-shirts made anyway, to sell on the website,’ she says eventually. We've abandoned all pretence of doing geography.
‘You're going to sell stuff?’
‘Not exactly. There's a company that does it for you and the money goes to your charity.’
I can't believe it. EDIE is turning into a fashion supremo and I haven't even got my tea-making job yet.
Sickening. Absolutely sickening.
Monday comes.
I'm in a room off Oxford Street. It's dark outside, but the lights from all the shops and buses give the whole area a friendly orange glow. It's an open-plan office, full of desks and abandoned computers. Most people have gone home. The five people who've stayed – some of the organisers of London Fashion week and Amanda – are perched on various chairs and table corners in a relaxed sort of way, clutching mugs of office tea. They're all looking as friendly and helpful as they possibly can. I've never been so terrified.
It's as I sit down that I realise my first mistake.
I've been concentrating so hard on what to say at this meeting that I haven't thought at all about what to wear. I've just thrown on the first things that looked vaguely clean in my wardrobe, and looking around the room, it seems that power suits with pencil skirts are in this season. Electric blue kilts, tartan tights and raspberry Arctic-cobweb wraps are not.
I cross my legs nervously, then cross them the other way. Thank goodness Edie's beside me. She, of course, is in a neat stripy skirt and co-ordinating jacket and only needs a fascinator to look perfect at a society wedding. She's also silent, which is encouraging, given her track record.
I haven't decided exactly when I'll tell them. It seems a bit sudden to just blurt it out first thing. It's probably best to wait for a gap in the conversation. Meanwhile, just for a few moments longer, I can live the dream.
After a few polite questions about school, they get down to business. Arranging a fashion show is like a cross between putting on a school play and organising a wedding, with the added complication that half the guests are there to write about it and the other half are hoping to buy something. Amanda's done it before for Miss Teen stuff, and she's offered to be Crow's mentor and guide her through the process. Soon it becomes obvious that she would be my mentor, because there's nothing Crow would hate more than worrying about seating arrangements and photographers. But actually, I realise, there's nothing I would love more.
The strange thing is, when they start to explain how Fashion Week works, it all makes perfect sense. I've imagined doing a collection so many times and read about so many of the famous ones that I almost feel as if I've been there. We talk about fabric suppliers, embroiderers, themes, props, models, publicity, hair and makeup, producers, studio space for making the clothes . . . The list goes on and on and I'm in heaven. Even the budget is really just a question of maths, which is one of my best subjects. Sometimes they use vocab I don't understand, but they're happy to explain it. In fact, I notice them smiling increasingly as the meeting goes on, especially Amanda.
Several times, I catch sight of Edie's leg jiggling and realise she's trying to catch my attention. When she does, she gives me the Look.
I know. I'm still waiting for the best moment to tell them. But I'm having too much fun. And then, of course, it gets too late and it would be simply embarrassing to round off our lovely chat by mentioning that by the way, Crow won't actually be doing a collection. I decide that it would be much better to do it by phone, after all. Or maybe email.
Edie jiggles until it starts to look as if she has a major problem with muscle control. As we're ushered out of the room by smiling fashionistas, she is so busy giving me the Look that she trips over the threshold and practically collapses into the landing, bashing her knee in the process. I ignore her and focus instead on shaking hands and making reassuring noises about staying in touch.
‘There,’ I say once we get outside, breathing in the sharp Oxford Street air. ‘I think that went pretty well.’
‘Apart from one MINOR DETAIL,’ Edie points out, rubbing her damaged knee.
‘Apart from that, obviously,’ I admit.
‘So? When are you going to tell them?’
‘Amanda's booked to see Crow's designs on Saturday. I'll have to tell them by then.’
As I say the words, it's as if Fate has decided for me. Either something will happen by then or we'll get to Saturday and there won't be any designs and it will be the most embarrassing day of my life. Either way, it's five days away and not something to worry about now. I focus instead on catching Topshop before it closes.
‘You know,’ Edie concedes once we're knee deep in cute skirts and sequins, ‘for someone who comes across as a complete bimbo most of the time, you made a pretty good killer-businesswoman back there.’
I think she meant it as a compliment. At least, I'm pretty sure she did.
On Wednesday, I walk in from school to a wall of sound. It's comi
ng from Harry's room. He's doing less drumming at the moment and more work as a DJ. You can practically see his room vibrate as he works on new mixes to get the party started. Mum, luckily, finds it all very ‘funky and artistically interesting’, so doesn't mind the decibels. Next door aren't so happy, but there's not much they can do.
I decide to ask his advice on breaking the bad news to Amanda and the Fashion Week team. Of course, I've considered asking Mum about this. For a nano-second. But it would involve explaining how I got so far into this mess and I don't really feel like doing that right now. Not to Mum, anyway. Not until I've sorted things out a bit better.
‘Harry,’ I say, launching into his room without knocking. He looks up from his decks, surprised. There's a sort of a house rule that says I HAVE TO KNOCK OR I'LL BE DISOWNED, but it's pointless when the music's so loud.
‘Can I talk to you?’
He considers for a minute and turns the music off. Suddenly the house is disconcertingly silent. I stand there uncomfortably and tell him about Crow's reaction to the show idea, and the meeting with Amanda, and the visit in less than a week. I start off being quite embarrassed but as I go on I get more and more frustrated with Crow. Is it my fault she's going to turn down this incredible chance? That she's going to waste her life? That she's stopped designing? And on top of it all, Edie had this great idea about helping the people in the camps back home, but Crow won't do it. I even tell him about the tee-shirts.
I'm expecting loads of sympathy. Loads. What I get instead is a steady look and silence, for a while.
Eventually Harry says, ‘So you haven't really talked to her?’
‘Well, I'm talking to her, but she's not talking back much.’
Still the odd look. I can feel the heat in my cheeks. I wonder if I'm being totally fair. Harry's super-quiet. His pupils are pin-pricks. When he talks, his voice is low and I can hear his raggedy breath.
‘Crow is the one who was a Night Walker. It's her family that's stuck in a camp. But have you noticed how she never wants to talk about it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps she doesn't want to be constantly reminded. Maybe it's worse than you think. It sounds like this is a project for Edie. It's some more CV points. It's a nice pink tee-shirt with a slogan. I bet it's not like that for Crow.’
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