Girl, 15: Charming But Insane

by Sue Limb

  ‘Just to Fred’s – just for a moment – to borrow something.’ Jess tried to dodge past her mum, but her arm was seized with frightening strength. She should never have suggested her mum start going to the gym. They struggled briefly by the gate.

  ‘Have you done your homework? Get back indoors!’ cried her mum, in a ferocious bad mood even by her standards.

  ‘I’ll only be half an hour and I can’t do my homework till I’ve got these notes off Fred!’ cried Jess in despair.

  Summoning her last shreds of strength, Jess pushed her mum back against the wall, struggled free and ran off. She realised that when she returned she would be in big trouble, but she had to see Fred now. She ran all the way and, when she arrived, rang the bell immediately instead of waiting till she had got her breath back. The door was opened by Fred’s dad. Jess could hear football on the TV indoors, and though Fred’s dad didn’t exactly look furious at her arrival, he was clearly planning to deal with her enquiry with ruthless speed and return to the screen within seconds.

  ‘Is – Fred – in?’ panted Jess, hopelessly out of breath. She was going to have to work out, one of these days.

  ‘No,’ said his dad. ‘Sorry. He’s out.’

  ‘Could – you – ask – him – to ring – me, please?’

  ‘OK,’ said Fred’s dad, obviously hoping that was all.

  ‘Thanks!’ gasped Jess, and turned to go.

  It was only when she was halfway home that she realised that perhaps Fred’s dad had been lying. That Fred was ‘out’ rather than out. Refusing to see her. On the other hand, he might be halfway to Paris with Mr Fothergill by now. When she was three-quarters of the way home she realised she should have apologised to Fred’s dad about not turning up to his wife’s birthday party. But she was fairly sure that, given a choice, Fred’s dad would rather return immediately to football than endure passionate speeches of guilt and shame.

  A hundred metres from home, Jess’s mobile bleeped. She grabbed it, hoping it was Fred. But it was only a text message from Flora. THE GARAGE IS BRILLIANT! RING ME FOR DETAILS! Jess switched off her mobile, shaking her head in disbelief. As if a mere garage could be of any interest. Flora really should get herself a life.

  Chapter 20

  Jess’s mum was waiting, wrapped in a ferocious glare.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Jess. ‘But look – I’ve only been twenty minutes. In fact, eighteen. A mere nothing in evolutionary terms. The blink of an eye.’

  ‘This is my house!’ said her mum, spitting fire.

  ‘So?’ Jess tried to keep the mood light, playful. She didn’t want to tell her mum about how she had ruined Fred’s mum’s birthday party and was desperate to apologise to the whole Parsons family. It was her major crime in life so far and she knew her mum would be deeply upset to hear about it. ‘I love it. It’s a great house.’

  ‘Don’t you start being cheeky on top of everything else!’ hissed her mum. ‘This is my house, and I want some consideration from those who live here! After the day I’ve had, what I want is somebody to make me a cup of tea and tell me they’ve got an A in English. Instead, I get beaten up on my own doorstep.’

  Jess ran to the kettle. It was hot.

  ‘Too late!’ said her mum grimly. ‘I’ve made it myself. So where are the precious notes?’

  ‘The precious notes?’ repeated Jess, unable to remember for a split second what on earth her mum was talking about. That was the problem with lying. If you lied extensively, as Jess usually did despite constant New Year’s Resolutions, you could never remember what it was you were supposed to have done.

  ‘The notes you went to Fred’s to borrow.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t get them. Because he was out. His dad said so.’

  ‘You could have saved a lot of trouble and time by ringing him first.’

  ‘She did ring him first, dear.’ Granny was watching from the doorway, evidently hoping this row might develop into a full-scale murder, possibly involving severed body parts. ‘She tried several times. She made me some tea and toast as soon as she came in, Madeleine, and we had a lovely chat about her friend Frank.’

  ‘Fred,’ corrected Jess. Although she adored Granny, and was deeply grateful for her support right now, if she called Fred ‘Frank’ again, Jess would scream aloud and might just have to throw custard over her.

  ‘Fred, Fred, Fred, I’m sick of hearing about him!’ snapped Jess’s mum. ‘He rang the other day, and straightaway you were off out to meet him. Haven’t you got any dignity? Any pride? Or will you just run off out at the beck and call of any Tom, Dick, or Harry?’ Her mum looked cross and ran her fingers through her hair in a tragic and fatigued way.

  ‘What happened then, Mum?’ asked Jess, making a huge effort to control her temper. ‘Sit down. Let me make you some soup.’ Jess pushed her mum down into her chair.

  ‘I’ll open a tin of that lovely tomato soup, dear,’ said Granny. ‘I need a bit of exercise.’

  ‘So what happened in the library?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Was anyone taken ill?’ asked Granny eagerly. ‘I was in the post office once when a man fainted – with a terrible gargling noise. We had to call an ambulance. I never knew what happened to him. It’s always worried me rather, but I suppose I’ll never know now, because it was in 1974.’

  ‘Oh, nothing happened in the library really,’ said Jess’s mum. ‘Just some teenagers messing around with the computer and being cheeky. Alison didn’t come in because she’s got flu, so we were short-staffed, and I didn’t even get a lunch break. And then a smelly man came in and asked me to explain the system to him. I had to explain it three times and it was only halfway through the third time that I realised he had dementia.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Jess, stroking her mum’s hand. ‘After supper you can have a lovely bath with lavender oil in it. Or geranium or something.’

  ‘Stop trying to soft-soap me,’ said Jess’s mum.

  ‘Not soap, mum – bath oil!’ Jess grinned.

  Granny picked up a saucepan. ‘I’ve managed to get this blasted tin open,’ she said in triumph. ‘So I can’t be completely useless after all.’

  Jess’s mum crossed her arms on the table, laid her head down on her arms and closed her eyes. ‘I’m shattered,’ she said.

  Granny looked guilty. ‘It’s all that trouble you had to go to, fetching me over here to live with you.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m nothing but a nuisance. That great long drive, all the way there, and then the car breaking down on the way back, and having to find us somewhere to stay, and then working flat out to get me settled in and comfy, unpacking all my things. No wonder you’re shattered, love. Just take it easy. Jess and I will make the supper, won’t we, dear?’

  Granny stroked Jess’s mum’s head in a tender way. It was really odd to think of her being Mum’s mum. Once, Jess’s mum had been a bald baby, sitting on Granny’s knee. The photographic proof was on the dresser. Then Granny had been young and pretty. Family history was such a strange thing. Jess had a photo of her great-grandfather, and he looked just like Freddie Mercury, although he was unlikely to have shared Freddie’s exotic lifestyle. Guys didn’t go for feather boas and diamanté cat-suits in the north of England in the 1920s.

  Freddie … Fred. Oh dear! Everything seemed to remind her of him. Jess agreed to help with the supper, even though she hated cooking with a pure, romantic, hot-blooded passion. Maybe she could distract herself with domestic chores. She felt a bit guilty, not just towards Fred, but towards her mum as well. Her mum had done loads of extra work so that she could swap bedrooms with her – moving all her stuff out, moving Jess’s stuff in. Her mum’s little back bedroom still wasn’t sorted. There was a huge pile of black sacks in there. It looked like the doss-hole of a vagrant, not the bedchamber of a distinguished librarian.

  The supper was edible – mainly due to Granny’s input – and afterwards Jess watched the news without complaining. Her mum still looked tired and rather ratty. Granny was delighted because a m
ass murderer was on trial in Bosnia. But Jess’s mum was plunged back into despair because another war had broken out in Africa.

  ‘I don’t know why we watch the news,’ she sighed, switching off the TV with unnecessary savagery.

  Jess was so tempted to say, ‘I told you so. We should have watched MTV,’ but heroically remained silent.

  ‘I’m sorry I went out when you told me not to,’ she said, now that her mum seemed fairly calm.

  Her mum just shook her head in a helpless, hopeless way, as if their little struggle by the gate was a sign of the terrible human tragedy that was life on our planet.

  ‘I just hate the thought of you turning into the sort of little tart who chases boys all the time,’ she sighed. ‘You were so original and independent as a child.’

  Jess stifled the familiar urge to hit her mother quite hard with the nearest heavy object – the urn containing Grandpa’s ashes. Granny had placed it on the coffee table earlier so he could enjoy the football. But Jess restrained herself. It was possible that Grandpa had not punished his daughter enough when she was a child. But it would be rather harsh to get a good hiding from your father after he had died.

  ‘I’m still independent,’ Jess said in a clenched voice between clenched teeth. ‘And I don’t chase boys, ever. Fred is not my boyfriend, he never has been, he is just a friend.’ Or was.

  ‘I just don’t want you to end up heartbroken and discarded,’ said her mum. ‘It’s easily done. Men are such monsters. Most of them.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Madeleine!’ cried Granny. ‘Your dad wasn’t a monster. He was an angel. Have you forgotten the chocolate drops he used to bring home for you every Friday?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Jess’s mum. ‘I haven’t forgotten the chocolate drops.’

  ‘And surely you’re not referring to Tim? He’s a lovely dad for Jess – isn’t he, dear? He was such a polite boy – and he’s still a lovely chap. He always remembers my birthday. He sent me a painting of a bunch of flowers last year.’

  ‘Yes, Dad’s great,’ replied Jess. It would be quite nice to see him more often, though, she thought. ‘He texts me all the time. He sends me a spoof horrorscope every day. It’s cool having a dad who’s an artist. Can I go down to Cornwall and stay with him this summer, Mum?’

  Jess’s mum looked startled and appalled, as if Jess had suggested spending a few days with Mr Ogre of Ogre Castle.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t want to inconvenience him.’

  ‘I am his daughter, Mum, for goodness’ sake! And anyway, I’ve already mentioned it to him,’ said Jess. ‘When he rang up last time.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked her mum.

  ‘He said he’d see. He didn’t rule it out. He seemed quite keen, actually,’ said Jess, veering once more towards a convenient untruth.

  ‘I’ll have to e-mail him,’ said her mum.

  Granny smiled eagerly. ‘I’m sure he’d love to see Jess this summer, dear. It’s so good that you’re still on friendly terms, isn’t it?’

  Jess’s mum nodded, and several slightly odd expressions flitted across her face. Jess wondered, for a split second, if her mum was still in love with her dad. Briefly, Jess envisaged a screenplay in which she dragged her mum down to Cornwall and placed her parents together in a magic garden. They emerged ten minutes later, engaged to be, well, remarried. It was a satisfying screenplay, but somehow, in some ultimate sense, kind of boring.

  Jess went to bed after that and tried to read Act V of Twelfth Night. It was homework left over from two days ago. However, Jess was tired, and the lines kept going strangely slanted, a bit like Ben Jones’s handwriting. She closed the book and tried to think about Ben Jones for a while. She revisited the screenplay set in Cornwall, dressed Ben in a wetsuit and arranged for him to perform some daredevil award-winning surfing on the beach at St Ives. After the surfing he walked up the beach, fell at her feet and proposed marriage. They were married in Tobago and spent their honeymoon snorkelling and lying under palm trees.

  They had just removed their snorkels in order to indulge in a bit of honeymoon snogging, when Jess’s mum appeared on the beach. The beach vanished and was replaced by the bedroom, but Jess’s mum was still there, kneeling by the bed. She kissed Jess’s brow.

  ‘I’m sorry about this evening,’ she said. ‘Let’s see what Daddy says about you going down there. But I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Jess. ‘What’s the problem?’

  Her mum looked furtive, and shrugged.

  ‘Why did you and Dad split up? Do you still love him?’

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ exclaimed her mum, in horror. She scrambled hastily to her feet.

  ‘Oh, I just thought it would be cool if you two got together again. You could renew your vows on a beach somewhere – like Tobago.’

  ‘What an appalling thought,’ said her mum, and backed away to the door before Jess could spook her with any more horrific scenarios. ‘Not in a million years! Look, Jess. I know I may be a bit prejudiced against men, and I expect it’s hard for you, at times, darling, but I can assure you I’ve got my reasons.’

  ‘Was Dad cruel to you?’ called Jess, as her mum opened the door.

  ‘Oh no. Never! Please don’t think that. He was fine. It was totally amicable,’ said her mum. She went out quickly and shut the door. Jess was puzzled for a while, but there was no point in trying to get to the bottom of her mum’s mysteries. However, Jess decided it might be worth pumping Granny for info at the earliest opportunity.

  She tried to return to her fantasy about marrying Ben Jones on a Caribbean beach, but something else kept getting in the way. How could she concentrate on fantasies about Ben when her relationship with Fred was so comprehensively trashed?

  Suddenly her mum came in. She looked strange. She looked secretive. She looked haunted. She looked mysterious.

  ‘Just one other thing,’ she said.

  This was it. The moment of truth. The secret behind Jess’s parents’ marriage. The terrible truth about their doomed love.

  ‘I’ve just remembered,’ said her mum, ‘you’ve got a dentist’s appointment in the morning.’

  Chapter 21

  Jess had no cavities. She silently gave thanks to the Goddess of Teeth: Granny. Jess suddenly remembered, while lying on the dentist’s couch, that she hadn’t put Granny’s eardrops in the night before. She’d have to do it that night.

  ‘I don’t want your mother to do it,’ Granny had confided darkly. ‘Her coordination can be a bit poor when she’s tired. I remember once she broke a window trying to bandage my ankle.’

  Mid-morning break was just finishing when Jess got to school, so she had to go straight to double maths. Flora was in a different maths set – a higher one, naturally – so Jess wouldn’t see her till lunchtime. At lunchtime she went to the library, but Flora wasn’t there, and neither, she couldn’t help noticing, was Fred. Maybe Flora was in the gym gallery with Mackenzie and Ben. Jess went there. No sign of them. There was a group of girls with candy-floss hair and candy-floss souls drooling over a boy called Bison doing press-ups.

  ‘Have you seen Flora?’ asked Jess, putting on a sour frown of indifference to body-building. She didn’t for a moment want to be mistaken for the sort of girl who salivates over a six-pack.

  ‘I saw her and Mackenzie talking to Mr Samuels in the music room,’ said one of the girls.

  Jess couldn’t decide whether to trudge across the whole school to the music department. Why did she have to run around after Flora the whole time? On the other hand, on her way across school she might just run into Fred and be able to apologise to him.

  Jess sat down on a low wall by the tennis courts. Some very small kids were trying to play tennis. It was quite amusing, really. A little girl with red hair tried to serve, tossed the ball up and missed it on the way down. It hit her on the nose, and she lost control of her racket, which sailed over the net. This cheered Jes
s up slightly. She may be tragically alone, abandoned by her best friend and in the middle of a horrid misunderstanding with Fred, but at least she could take pleasure in other people’s misfortunes.

  Jodie sat down beside her. ‘What has Fred asked you to do for his newspaper?’ she asked.

  Jess blinked in total puzzlement. ‘What newspaper?’

  ‘Oh, Jess! Haven’t you heard? Mr Fothergill asked Fred to edit a school newspaper and he’s been asking everybody to do stuff for it. He rang me last night and asked me to write a piece about the environment. I’d have thought he’d have asked you first.’

  A horrid spear of alarm stabbed through Jess’s guts. Fred had rung Jodie last night! So he had been home after all! He had been ringing people! But he hadn’t rung her – and he’d told his dad to tell her he was out!

  ‘Oh, well, I’ve been to the dentist,’ said Jess. ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’

  ‘It’s brilliant!’ said Jodie. ‘Fred’s even got an office – it says “Editorial” on the door. It’s Mr Fothergill’s office really, but he’s turned it over to Fred just for the rest of the term. We’re going to have an editorial meeting in a minute. See you!’ Jodie got up and ran off.

  Jess turned back to the tennis for teenies. One of them had fallen over and was trying to play while sitting down, and the others were messing about, putting tennis balls inside their shirts and shorts and pretending to be boob queens or well-hung, but somehow it didn’t seem so amusing any more.

  So Fred had asked Jodie to write a column about the environment. Jodie’s idea of a beautiful environment was the shopping mall. And as for writing, well, Jess didn’t want to be mean, even privately in her own head, but she didn’t think Mr Shakespeare needed to worry about competition from Jodie Gordon.

  Maybe if she strolled in a casual kind of way past what used to be Mr Fothergill’s office, Fred would be inside – with the door open – and he’d call out, ‘Hey! Jess! I’ve been looking for you all day! I want you to be our comic columnist – right on the front page. Five hundred words about anything you like, and we’ll have a photo of you as well, so get your hair cut!’