Girl, 15: Charming But Insane

by Sue Limb

  ‘My room!?’ exploded Jess. ‘There’s a perfectly good spare room upstairs!’

  ‘Yes, but, you see, darling … Granny can’t manage stairs quite so easily any more. Since Grandpa died and she had that fall, you know – well, her house is too much for her to manage on her own.’ Jess was numb with agony. Her lovely room! And she had got it just how she wanted it! It was perfect! ‘Granny has to be on the ground floor, love. She can use the ground-floor loo, and we’ll convert the old coal shed at the back into a bathroom.’

  Jess was too furious to speak. No, wait, she wasn’t.

  ‘Where am I supposed to sleep, then?’ she snapped. ‘Out on the pavement?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, love. The spare bedroom upstairs.’ Jess’s mum had the best bedroom upstairs, the big one at the front. The second-best bedroom was her mum’s study. It was lined with bookshelves and there were three filing cabinets and a huge desk. It was just overflowing with political stuff. From this nerve-centre the local antiwar campaign was organised. Papers lay about everywhere. There were huge piles of antiwar leaflets. Thousands of them. And there were the banners which Jess’s mum carried in the marches. The third bedroom was tiny. A box room. Just about enough room for a bed. Barely big enough to accommodate a pet gerbil. Hardly enough room to lie down without having your legs sticking out of the window or your head out on the landing.

  ‘Why can’t I have your study?’ Jess cried.

  ‘Jess, darling, you know why not. I need that study. There’s so much stuff. You know I have to keep the peace campaign going, love. It’s for your generation – to give you a future. To stop war.’

  ‘Well, I love war!’ Jess’s temper snapped. A wave of red-hot fury washed through her. ‘I think war’s terrific! And when I leave school I’m going to join the army and kill as many people as possible! Now please can I get into my room for what may possibly be the last time!’ She pushed past her mother.

  What on earth … What had happened to her room? All her clothes had been pulled out of the drawers and tossed into cardboard boxes. The posters had been taken down and rolled up. It wasn’t her room any longer. Evicted already.

  ‘It looks like a bomb’s hit it!’ cried Jess. Usually it was her mum who bawled out those very words about her room. This was a moment of revenge. But it wasn’t much comfort.

  ‘If you’d ever seen a room that had really been hit by a bomb, you wouldn’t use that phrase so lightly!’ yelled her mum, trying to make Jess feel guilty in a really horrid way. ‘I’ve just started packing up your stuff, because the thing is, Granny’s coming tomorrow. It’s very short notice. Her neighbour rang me this evening. Apparently she’s strained some ligaments in her knee and it’ll be much easier to look after her here.’

  ‘OK, OK, I get the picture!’ Jess bent down and scooped some clothes into a bag: her jeans, a T-shirt and sweatshirt, nice warm socks and trainers.

  ‘Oh, there’s a good girl!’ gushed her mother. ‘You are a darling, Jess. With the two of us working on it, we’ll soon have it sorted.’

  ‘I’m not working on it!’ screamed Jess. ‘As I’m obviously in the way, I’m going! Take my room! I won’t be around to inconvenience you any more!’ And she strode to the front door, went out and slammed it, hard. She ran off down the street – barefoot, of course, apart from her fishnet tights – and didn’t stop until she could put on her socks and trainers in the shadow of the bus shelter. Of course, she had to put them on over the tights. Stylewise, she was now a disaster from the knees down – until she could find somewhere to change into her jeans. Also her bra was still damp. She was dying to rip it off. But she couldn’t do it here, in the street. It was like a horrible dream. She had to find somewhere.

  Her feet were blistered from walking home in the terrible party shoes. Still, the socks helped. Jess limped off up the road. At the far end of the street was a main road with shops and some public toilets. She’d go and change into her jeans and stuff there. Maybe she could even live there. Where was she going to spend the rest of the night? Should she go to Flora’s and wait for her to come home from the party? If only Flora’s mum and dad would adopt her. If only a kindly and amazingly wealthy old gentleman could find her and take her home, like in a Victorian novel.

  No, wait, that sounded a bit sinister. Maybe a kind and amazingly wealthy old lady instead. A kind old lady film director. A kind old lady film director from Hollywood. Who would say, ‘I can make you big in movies. We can get you a new set of boobs, no problem. Choose a pair from this catalogue. I have a house by the ocean and you’ll have your own suite there, with a balcony where you can breakfast on freshly-squeezed Californian orange juice and toasted muffins, while turquoise birds sing sweetly in the lemon groves nearby. And as I have no children, Jess, I am going to make you my heir.’

  Jess reached the Ladies loo. It was locked.

  Chapter 6

  What now? She couldn’t ring Flora. She didn’t want to be reminded of the worst party ever. She didn’t want to hear all the jokes about her boobs and her new role as a soup kitchen. Perhaps this was the moment to emigrate to Australia or begin a distinguished career as a street urchin and pickpocket. On the other hand, it was horribly cold and she was hungry – and she needed the loo. Not for the first time, Jess wished she were a dog. Preferably Ben Jones’s.

  Suddenly she realised where to go: Fred’s. He only lived round the corner and he had said he planned to spend the evening lying on the sofa watching something horribly violent on TV. As yet he would not have heard of her humiliation. And he had a bathroom. Jess ran to Fred’s house and rang the bell. Fred appeared, tousled and crumpled from hours of violent films. He did seem pleased to see her, however.

  ‘My parents are out drinking themselves into an early grave,’ he explained. He invited her in and told her to help herself to coffee.

  ‘In a minute,’ said Jess. ‘Just let me get changed in your bathroom, first. And please – can I have a shower?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Fred. ‘Of course, I never perform hygienic acts myself, being a lovable scamp of repulsive personal habits. But I have observed a shower in the bathroom and I believe it works.’

  Never had a house seemed so warm, pleasant, modern and clean. The bathroom was immaculate. Jess had a wonderful, long, streamy hot shower. Every last scrap of minestrone was sluiced off her shining bod and went swirling away into oblivion. The soupy smell was replaced by the zing of Fred’s mum’s mint and tea tree shower gel. Then Jess washed her hair with some marigold and nettle shampoo and conditioned it with honeysuckle and wild rose. It was the nearest she was ever going to get to gardening.

  After drying herself, Jess tried all Fred’s mum’s moisturisers and body lotions. There was something secretly delicious about snooping in somebody else’s bathroom cabinets. Jess found some pills called ‘Pariet’ which had been prescribed for Fred’s dad. His name was written on the box: Mr Peter Parsons. She wondered what the pills were for, but unfortunately the label didn’t reveal any indiscreet details.

  It must be a bit odd having a man living in the house. She hadn’t actually gone to stay with her dad since he had moved to St Ives several years ago. He often came up to town to see friends, and that was when she saw him. Jess felt sad for a moment at the thought of her dad’s lonely pills in his lonely bathroom cabinet. ‘Mr Tim Jordan, three tablets, once a day in the morning.’ What if he dropped dead in his studio? Would he ever be found? A tear trickled down Jess’s nose. Curse this premenstrual tension! By tomorrow it would be worse. By tomorrow she would be weeping over nursery rhymes and ads for wholesome brown bread.

  She got dressed, put on her warm clothes – minus a bra, of course, because she hadn’t managed to grab a spare – and went down to the sitting room. The film was still on.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ said Fred. ‘Only five minutes more. I just want to see this bloody massacre again. There’s a great decapitation sequence in the supermarket.’

  ‘Why are boys interested in all this
bloodthirsty, macho stuff?’ said Jess. ‘If you were a decent human being you would be offering me a delightful snack, instead of wallowing in horrors which you admit yourself you have already memorised.’

  Immediately Fred stabbed the remote and the TV went off. It was suddenly very quiet.

  ‘So, how was the party?’ he asked.

  Jess sighed. ‘The party sucked. I suffered total humiliation of the sort which I can’t bear to describe. Then I limped home in shoes designed by a woman-hating sadist, only to discover that my mum had evicted me from my room because my granny has to come and live with us from, like, tomorrow. So I’m homeless.’

  ‘You think you’ve got problems?’ said Fred. ‘Earlier this evening my parents enacted a suicide pact in the garden shed with a range of pesticides. They left a note saying that I am not their true son, but was foisted on them by Satan during a visit to Weymouth. Shortly after 6.30 my left leg got gangrene and fell off, and my ears started pumping out bacteria which will destroy the world. Worst of all, the pizza’s past its sell-by date.’

  Jess began to feel a bit better. She examined Fred’s kitchen and discovered he was lying about the pizza. It was perfectly, divinely fresh and scattered lightly with just the sort of pepperoni she adored.

  ‘Sorry,’ he admitted. ‘It was just an excuse. I was too lazy to put it in the oven so I just pigged out on peanut butter sandwiches.’

  ‘Useless, idle, exploitative, male chauvinist drone!’ she scolded him – she had picked up some useful insults from her mum over the years. Also, whenever she was with Fred, she started to talk like him, in elaborate old-fashioned sneers. ‘This is how you switch an oven on – though I don’t expect you to grasp it immediately.’

  Jess twirled the cooker’s dial and within twenty minutes they were tucking into a sizzling pizza, washed down with freshly-squeezed orange juice. After their meal they lay down on a sofa each in the sitting room and watched music videos.

  Eventually Fred’s parents came home. They didn’t look at all drunk. Jess was relieved. Fred’s dad came into the room first.

  ‘Hello,’ he intoned in his strange dull vicar-like voice. ‘What’s the score?’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ said Jess, scrambling up and putting on her most innocent and plaintive expression. ‘I had a bit of a row with my mum and I’ve taken refuge under your roof – I’m really sorry for intruding.’

  Fred’s dad gave her a slow, puzzled look. ‘No,’ he said, ploddingly, ‘I meant, what’s the score?’

  ‘It’s the football,’ Fred explained to Jess, and tossed the remote over to his dad. Within seconds a smear of football-noise blotted out all possibility of conversation. Jess escaped to the kitchen, where she could hear Fred’s mum clattering about.

  Jess apologised for having had the pizza, apologised for creating a mess and thanked Fred’s mum for her hospitality. Jess had been brought up by a woman who believed in politeness more passionately than anyone has ever believed in God. Help, Jess was thinking, as she apologised to Fred’s mum, I hope I put all her cosmetics and lotions and stuff back in exactly the right places.

  Fred’s mum was always friendly and nice. She had fluffy hair and looked like a teddy bear. ‘You’re very welcome, Jess – thanks for keeping Fred company,’ she beamed. ‘Do you want to stay the night? You can have Fred’s room – he can sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘Oh, could I?’ cried Jess gratefully. ‘Only I’ve had this mega-row with my mum, and I don’t think I can face her again tonight.’

  ‘OK, but we must ring her if she doesn’t know where you are,’ said Fred’s mum. ‘Don’t worry, Jess! I’ll talk to her.’

  Within seconds the deal was done. Jess’s mum was reassured without Jess having to speak to her, squirm and apologise or anything. She thanked Fred’s mum effusively. She really was the best teddy bear in the world, apart from Rasputin.

  ‘You’re so kind!’ gushed Jess.

  ‘Oh no, Jess, it’s a pleasure to have you. Any time. And your mum is such a wonderful person.’

  Jess gawped. Her mum, a wonderful person? Had Fred’s mum got her wires crossed and was she, in fact, thinking of Flora’s mum instead?

  ‘She’s an inspiration to us all,’ Fred’s mum went on, making Jess a hot chocolate without even thinking to offer it first – the act of a saint. ‘She’s always so vibrant and positive, and she really cares about trying to make the world a better place. And she’s got such a fine bone structure.’

  This was an amazing speech. It was certainly news to Jess that her mother was some kind of community idol and, furthermore, physically attractive in a skeletal kind of way, but she decided just to enjoy the feeling instead of arguing. Secretly, of course, she knew that her mum was a rancid, rat-haired old bat, but PR was an important skill in today’s modern world, and it would do no good for the awful truth to get out. As the daughter of a vibrant, positive and attractive political activist, she was apparently welcome here. So why argue?

  An hour later, Jess was installed in Fred’s bed. Fred’s mother had insisted on supplying clean sheets and a fresh pair of Fred’s pyjamas to sleep in.

  ‘I’d lend you a pair of mine,’ she confided, ‘but I’m afraid I sleep in my birthday suit.’ Jess tried not to scream aloud. The thought of Fred’s parents involved in nude sleeping was too awful to endure. Jess just hoped their nocturnal nakedness wouldn’t be audible.

  Fred seemed delighted at the opportunity of spending the night on the sofa in a sleeping bag. There were especially violent movies on during the early hours, apparently: movies too gory for the under-18s, too gory for the under-40s; movies which had a ‘Blindfolds and Earplugs Only’ certificate.

  Jess found it hard to go to sleep. She couldn’t bear to think what it would have been like on the floor of the Ladies loo, if it’d been open. There was something strangely distracting about sleeping in Fred’s bed. And there was also a perverse kind of thrill involved in wearing Fred’s pyjamas, even though she had never consciously fancied him.

  Goodness knows what it would have been like if she had been offered similar accommodation by Ben Jones’s mother. If she ever had the opportunity to wear Ben Jones’s pyjamas, she would never wash again. She would never take them off. She would wear them for the rest of her life, even when she was an old lady. But no! She must not think about Ben Jones. He had witnessed her humiliation and from now on he would regard her as nothing more than a complete and utter idiot. And so would everyone else.

  Chapter 7

  Jess was walking down a street, a crowded street, maybe Oxford Street, and all the faces coming towards her were staring, staring. Suddenly she realised she was only wearing a bra from the waist up. No T-shirt. No top. People were leering and jeering. Desperate, awful shame flooded over her. Suddenly, at her feet, a manhole cover opened, in the middle of the pavement, and Fred looked out. He held up his hand.

  ‘Come on – quick!’ he grinned, and Jess jumped in beside him. The cover slammed shut over their heads. Fred didn’t let go of her. They were running hand in hand across a vast beach where an ocean growled and crashed. Shining birds wheeled and plummeted overhead and rainbows danced in the spray. ‘We’re going to see the Tiger!!’ cried Fred. Jess didn’t know what he meant, but she held on tight. His hand was warm.

  Suddenly, she awoke. For a split second she could still feel the grasp of Fred’s hand, then it vanished. She was in Fred’s bedroom. A huge poster depicting intergalactic warfare gloomed down at her. Welcome back to the real world of testosterone. It was eight o’clock. At home, of course, Jess would have turned over and gone on sleeping for another four hours: her Sunday treat. But she could hear somebody moving about downstairs, so she got up and quickly dressed.

  Fred’s mum was making tea. ‘Tea, Jess? A waffle?’

  ‘A waffle! Wow, yes, please! I could live here for ever! Are you looking for a lodger?’

  Fred’s mum laughed. ‘We’ll have it in here. Fred’s fast asleep on the sofa.’ She closed the kitchen door.
‘His mouth is wide open, as if he’s singing. Have you ever seen Fred asleep?’

  ‘Oh, frequently!’ laughed Jess. ‘Don’t forget we’re in the same set for French, English and history!’

  It was warm and merry in the kitchen. A cat dozed on the laundry basket by the French windows. Sunlight twinkled in the garden beyond.

  ‘I love this time of year!’ said Fred’s mum as she expertly manoeuvred a waffle on to a plate and handed Jess the maple syrup. ‘Summer – flowers everywhere, it gets light so early. And not long till the summer holidays, eh?’

  Jess agreed. Adults often raved madly about the summer, flowers, etc. Jess’s mum even went into rhapsodies about her bean plants. And when it was time to dig up the first new potatoes, she would come indoors with her hands covered in mud and a grin of pure ecstasy on her face. Perhaps it was because there wasn’t a man in her life.

  Jess wondered what it would be like to have a stepfather. She had often fantasised about recruiting a rich one. But she supposed no rich man would look twice at her mum. She was the sort of woman admired mainly by other women. She didn’t even pluck her eyebrows. They looked like a hedge in a gale.

  Anyway, Jess wouldn’t want a frightening control-freak like Flora’s dad in her life. Fred’s dad seemed OK. Big, dull, cuddly, addicted to football. What more could one expect of a male person? It must be intensely boring being a man. The very sound of a football crowd made Jess feel depressed, like hymn singing on Sundays. But all men seemed to have to be addicted to sport. Although, come to think of it, Jess’s own dad was completely uninterested in sports of all kinds.

  Jess hadn’t seen him for quite a while. But he’d be coming up to town in the summer holidays. He was the very opposite of Fred’s dad. He was thin, anxious-looking, nervy and not at all cuddly. On the rare occasions when Jess saw her father, he gave her a hug carefully, as if he had prepared for it by reading a manual called How to Cuddle Your Child and he was afraid he would get it wrong. Bless him, the moron!