‘She gave him a huge set of glass Lego bricks, hand-carved prisms with rainbow reflections, and he set to and made an amazing shiny glass palace. Then he fashioned two small figures out of modelling clay, one a boy, one a girl, and put them on two tiny thrones within the newly constructed glass palace, as representations of the infant newlyweds. He promised they would reign over Glassworld happily ever after.’
‘And on his eighth birthday?’
We went through crystal bikes, alabaster snow-skis, a glass aviary filled with lovebirds, a tame snow leopard with a ruby-studded collar, a pair of polar bears with silver claws, a glass fountain with rainbow-hued water, an indoor garden of blue glass flowers, and finally the crystal champagne flute. It was part of an entire sparkling set of glass dishes and goblets. King Carlo and Queen Sylviana celebrated the royal birthday by drinking pink champagne out of the birthday flutes and eating strawberries and cream from glass dishes.
‘Perfect,’ said Carl. ‘Maybe Mum can turn up trumps and give us real strawberries.’
‘We’ve only just had pancakes. And we don’t have the special glass dishes for the strawberries.’
‘Oh fiddle-de-dee, Miss Fussy Knickers. We’ll substitute china and use our imagination.’
Carl hurried off to find Jules.
I stayed in the Glass Hut, starting to write up the latest chronicle. I heard a little ching-ching on Carl’s mobile. It had fallen out of his jeans pocket onto the floor while we were wrestling. I pressed the little button to see who was sending him a message. I wasn’t really snooping. I did it almost without thinking.
WOT??? NEVER SENT U WAKE UP TEXT, U BERK. IVE BEEN IN SNOOZZZZZELAND ALL MORN. U DONE YR MATHS HOMEWORK? CAN I COPY? CHEERS. PAUL.
MUM DIDN’T GET home till late afternoon. She came to collect me at Carl’s.
‘Wow, look at you! Positively glowing,’ said Jules. ‘So what’s he like, this Gerry?’
‘Oh, he’s very sweet,’ said Mum, ducking her head coyly. Her cheeks were bright pink and she giggled.
‘Look at you, blushing like a schoolgirl,’ said Jules. ‘So when are you seeing him again?’
‘Well, next weekend, if it’s OK with you?’
‘Of course,’ said Jules. ‘Sylvie’s part of the family, you know that.’
Mum looked at me. ‘Is it OK with you too, Sylvie?’ she asked.
‘Mm. Yes. Whatever,’ I said.
‘We’ll go home and talk about it,’ said Mum, putting her arm round me.
‘It’s fine, Mum, truly,’ I said, wanting to stay with the Johnsons, but Mum steered me firmly towards the door.
‘Can’t you stay for supper, both of you?’ said Jules.
‘Yeah, hang out, why don’t you?’ said Jake. ‘Though watch out, Dad cooks supper.’
‘I make a mean plate of butternut -squash risotto, even though I say it myself,’ said Mick.
I was looking at Carl. He was carefully looking past me, as if observing something fascinating in thin air.
‘Carl!’ said Jules. ‘I’m not sure the Johnson cellars can come up with champagne, but I’m sure we’ll find a bottle of Cava lurking somewhere. Then you can sip from your lovely flute in style.’
‘Mm. Great. Though actually, I might just dash over to Paul’s for supper. He’s having a maths crisis and I kind of promised to help him out,’ said Carl.
‘Do you really have to? Honestly!’ said Jules, looking quickly at me.
I smiled as if I’d known all along and was perfectly happy about it. It wasn’t really a big deal, was it? Carl had a perfect right to go round and see his friend. We’d spent nearly the whole day together and he’d been so sweet to me all that time. He’d obviously sneaked off at some point and texted Paul but that wasn’t a crime. Miranda and I were always texting each other.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks for having me, Jules, it’s been lovely. See you, everyone. Come on, Mum.’
Mum’s arm was still round my shoulders. ‘I can’t come up with butternut-squash risotto but I’ll do us a lovely plate of beans on toast,’ she said.
It was our special comfort food. I hated it that Mum felt I needed comforting.
‘I’m actually not really hungry. I’m still stuffed with lunch,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll just go and get on with my maths homework,’ I said as we went into our house.
It seemed so shabby and empty after a day at the Johnsons’. There were oblong patches on the walls where Dad’s paintings and maps had hung, great gaps in the bookshelves, heavy indentations in the carpet where his desk once stood. Mum had bought a couple of paintings from the Hospice charity shop, Gwen John and Picasso reproductions, but they didn’t quite fit the bare squares. The Gwen John woman looked hopelessly forlorn and the old Picasso lady had her head thrown back, her mouth wide open in agony. We were better off with bare walls.
We bought books from library sales but Mum’s were mostly self-help paperbacks and diet books and mine were modern kids’ books about broken families, so the bookcase had a sad air too. We didn’t have enough spare cash for a proper new desk. We had a huge flatpack standing in the desk place, but we couldn’t even work out how to get it out of its cardboard case, let alone erect it.
It was as if our lives had been put on hold since Dad cleared off. Mum kept insisting we were better off without him. She said she liked it much better with just the two of us. She said she didn’t want to meet anyone else, ever.
But now she’d gone and got herself a boyfriend.
‘He’s not my boyfriend!’ said Mum. ‘He’s my friend, that’s all. For the moment, anyway.’
She brought a tray of baked beans on toast for two into my bedroom even though I said I didn’t want it. The beans smelled so good I couldn’t help eating them, giving up all pretence of working at my maths homework.
‘So you like this Gerry, Mum?’
‘Yes, ever so much. He’s so funny,’ said Mum. ‘He just makes you feel comfortable straight away. I was a bit nervous about meeting him—’
‘What?’
‘OK, OK, I was totally terrified. I had to go and find the ladies twice on the journey I was so scared. I almost came straight back home. It wasn’t just meeting Gerry. It sounds so terrible, but I didn’t know quite how badly his stroke had affected him, and I was so worried I’d go to shake his hand and then find he couldn’t use it, stuff like that. He’d told me he had a limp but I didn’t know how bad it was. I wondered if he used a wheelchair and I tried to work out in my head if I should bend down to be at his eye-level when I said hello or whether that would look patronizing. But anyway, the moment we saw each other he gave me this lovely big smile and I smiled back and all my worries just seemed so stupid. It felt as if we already knew each other, as if we’d been friends for years. He doesn’t have a wheelchair, he can manage with a walking stick. His limp’s quite bad but it was good to walk slowly, especially as I was wearing my best shoes with high heels.’
‘Is his face a bit wonky?’ I asked. ‘You know.’ I pulled my own mouth down and to the side.
‘Don’t, Sylvie! Honestly! No, it’s not a bit wonky, not that I’d really mind if it was. It’s him that matters, not his looks, though actually I think he looks pretty special. He’s eight years older than me and he’s going a bit grey, but he works out a lot in the gym so he’s got great arms and a really flat stomach. I did feel a bit shy then, coming out of the changing rooms and meeting up with him in the pool. I was so conscious of my stomach. I worried that I looked awful in that bright red costume. Still, once we were in the water I was fine. He’s such a good swimmer, he can totally outpower me, flashing up to the end of the pool and back. You’d never think he had any kind of disability.’
Mum went on and on and on about Gerry while I speared baked beans moodily with my fork.
‘Sylvie?’ Mum said eventually. ‘I thought you were cool with all this but now it looks like it’s really bugging you.’
‘No, I’m fine, I keep saying,’ I snapped.
; I wanted to feel fine. I wanted to reassure Mum and tell her I was happy for her. I was in lots of ways. It was just that I was jealous too. It felt so raw and painful and humiliating but that was the truth of it. I was jealous of my own mum because she’d gone out on a proper romantic date, just the two of them. I was still longing for Carl to ask me out on a date with him, just the two of us.
‘Did he kiss you?’ I asked suddenly.
Mum went bright red. ‘No!’ she said.
‘Then why are you blushing?’
‘Well, because I feel silly. OK, we did kiss, just when we said goodnight.’
‘Did he kiss you first or did you kiss him first?’ I asked.
‘Look, I’m not spelling out all the details! And I don’t honestly know. It just happened out of the blue. First we were saying goodbye, and then I think I leaned forward, maybe to kiss him on the cheek, but somehow we ended up kissing kissing.’
All right, I thought. That’s the way to do it.
JULES DROVE US to Kew on Friday evening, Carl, Paul, Miranda and me. We stopped at Pizza Express on the way. I was so keyed up I could barely eat. I was sitting next to Carl but he was busy chatting to Paul about some stupid production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream they were doing at their school. They started talking in cod Shakespeare.
‘Oh, methinks ’tis a pizza! Marry, I love the dish.’
‘Aye, my good fellow, let us nosh this excellent fare.’
They wouldn’t stop, even when Jules begged them.
Miranda yawned. ‘Canst ye not give it a rest, you guys?’ she said, breaking off a piece of Carl’s pizza, an extra cheesy bit.
‘Get off! ’Tis my morsel!’ said Carl. He prodded her gently with his fork.
‘Thinkst thou I am frightened of thy weapon?’ said Miranda.
Paul snorted with laughter and Carl joined in.
Miranda sighed heavily. ‘Give us a break, guys, you’re being so boring. Are you in this play?’
‘We’re rude yokels,’ said Paul.
‘That figures,’ said Miranda. ‘So which ones? Are you Bottom?’
‘I’m Snout the Tinker, so I also play Pyramus’s father. Carl’s Flute, so he’s got to play Thisbe, this bird that Pyramus is in love with, and he has to kiss her.’
‘Shut up,’ said Carl.
‘Yeah, yeah, and it’s Michael Farmer who plays Pyramus. Imagine snogging him! We’re going to have to watch you, Carl, you might turn gay on us,’ said Paul.
‘Shut up,’ said Carl.
‘Oooh,’ Paul said in a silly camp voice. ‘My love! Thou art my love, I think. Kiss me, kiss me – oooh, Mikey, kissy kissy kissy.’
Carl stabbed at Paul with his fork. Paul raised his own and they started up a silly fork fight.
‘You boys and your forking fights,’ said Miranda. ‘Stop it!’
‘Yes, stop. Now,’ said Jules.
‘I’ll divert them,’ said Miranda. She opened her big shoulder bag and brought out a small purple-velvet parcel. ‘It’s present time,’ she said.
‘Oh God, I forgot. I was going to give you that glass pig, wasn’t I?’ said Paul.
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want presents,’ Carl said quickly.
‘I think you’ll want mine!’ said Miranda. ‘Come on, open it up. Carefully.’
Carl cupped the purple present in his hands. It looked as if it might contain a piece of glass. My chest went tight. Carl opened the parcel slowly, stroking the velvet, then finding the black tissue paper inside. He slid a finger delicately under the sellotape, unwrapping until he held the present in his hand.
‘Oh!’ he said.
‘Let’s see. What is it?’ said Paul. He peered. ‘An old paperweight?’ he said, sounding disappointed. ‘That’s a duff present.’
‘No it’s not!’ said Miranda. ‘Is it, Carl?’
He was too stunned to answer. The paperweight wasn’t pretty with little glass rod patterns like a mosaic. It was plain and big and round, with Remember Me in white, and a laurel wreath and a tiny rose with green leaves. Carl was holding it as if real roses were flowering in his palms.
‘It’s a Millville paperweight,’ he said hoarsely. ‘American.’
‘Yeah, the guy in the antique arcade said it was American,’ said Miranda.
‘Millville made Jersey Rose paperweights,’ said Carl.
‘Have you got some then?’ Miranda asked.
‘No, no. They’re way too expensive,’ said Carl.
‘Oh, Miranda, it’s incredibly kind of you, but I hope you haven’t spent too much,’ said Jules anxiously. ‘There, Carl! Aren’t you lucky? You’ve got your beautiful champagne flute from Sylvie and now your lovely paperweight from Miranda.’
‘Mm,’ said Carl, holding the paperweight up and examining it from all angles.
I knew Jules was trying to be tactful, mentioning my glass too. I’d tried so hard but Miranda had effortlessly trumped me.
‘It’s fine, Jules. I’m glad Carl likes it,’ said Miranda. ‘I think it’s a bit weird and clunky. OK, Birthday Boy, am I going to get a thank-you kiss, then?’
She leaned towards him, her mouth pursed. Carl didn’t push her away. He didn’t kiss her nose. He kissed her full on the lips right in front of me.
‘Hey, stop snogging, she’s my girl!’ said Paul.
‘I’m not anybody’s girl, I’m my own woman,’ said Miranda.
She was wearing dark lipstick. Some of it was smeared on Carl’s lips, making him look astonishingly beautiful.
‘Oooh, Thisbe, thou art a luscious wanton-lipped wench’, Paul scoffed.
Carl quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Thank you, Miranda,’ he said.
‘So will you?’ she said.
‘Will I what?’
‘Remember me!’
‘Yeah, yeah. How could I forget?’ said Carl. He looked at her, then he looked at me, then he looked at Paul. ‘I think this is definitely going to be a night to remember.’
Dear Jules paid for the pizzas and then dropped us off at the Victoria Gate of Kew Gardens. It was pitch dark in the street, but the paths in the gardens were lit by little lamps and the big glasshouses were ablaze. There were two amazing swirly glass towers at the entrance to the vast Palm House, one yellow, one orange, both extending great glass tentacles at every angle. Carl peered up at them, noting every bubble and twirl, his eyes following each extraordinary spiral.
‘Boy transfixed,’ said Miranda. ‘So how does Chihuly do it, Carl? Why don’t all the woggly feelers break off the pole?’
‘He does them one at a time and then slots them in so they stay fixed for ever,’ said Carl.
He went on explaining to her as they wandered round the Palm House pond, their heads close together, Miranda’s hand tucked into his elbow, slotting in so it seemed fixed for ever too. Paul and I mooched after them, disgruntled.
‘Do you like Chihuly’s glass?’ I asked desperately.
‘’S OK,’ said Paul.
‘I believe you saw Carl’s collection in the Glass Hut,’ I said.
‘Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of weird. I mean, like, obsessive.’
‘Well, that’s Carl. Totally weird,’ I said. I meant it as a compliment but Paul frowned at me in the gloom.
‘In what way?’
‘In every way,’ I said.
‘You and Carl, you’re, like, an item?’ said Paul.
‘Well … yes,’ I said. ‘We’ve known each other ever since we were tiny. We go w-a-y back, Carl and me.’
‘So why is your mate Miranda making eyes at him and giving him flash presents?’
‘That’s just Miranda. She’s so warm and generous. She’s like that with everyone,’ I said.
‘I wish she’d warm up a bit with me,’ Paul muttered. ‘Has she said anything to you about me, Sylvia?’
‘Sylvie. Well. She’s said some stuff, you know, girl talk.’
‘Do you think she reckons me then? More than Carl?’
‘Definitely,’ I lie
d.
‘Well, tell you what, let’s try separating them, because they’re just going to rabbit on about glass all evening.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Hey, Miranda, wait for us!’
‘Come over here. Come and look at the boat on the lake,’ she shouted from the darkness.
‘A boating lake – great idea!’ said Paul, hurrying towards her.
I was left stumbling after them in the dark, lonely and left out. Then Carl bobbed out of a bush and seized hold of me.
‘Doesn’t the glass in the boat look wonderful! And see all those round floating ornaments like giant glass figs? Chihuly calls them walla wallas – mad name, but don’t you think they’re brilliant!’ Carl felt in the dark for my face, putting his lips to my ear. ‘We’ll float them up and down the rivers in Glassworld, thousands of them, then all the children can paddle their boats and collect them in a Glassworld walla-walla water race.’
‘Carl? There you are!’ Miranda said. ‘Oh my, look at the lovebirds!’
‘We can be lovebirds too,’ said Paul. ‘I wish there were more boats. I’m ace at rowing. Feel my pecs!’ He raised his arms.
‘You keep your pecs to yourself,’ said Miranda. She consulted her map of the gardens. ‘Let’s go and find this sun piece that’s meant to be even more fantastic.’
We walked along to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, jostling each other in the dark, darting forward and swapping places as if we were performing a complicated dance. We stood still when we glimpsed the enormous glass sun, the thousand yellow spirals shining. Carl clutched my hand in excitement, the way he used to when we were children.
‘We’ll have a huge party at the palace and the glass sun will shine over us,’ I whispered.
He didn’t say anything because Paul and Miranda were pressed up close within earshot, but he squeezed my hand. We made our way all round the floodlit conservatory, spotting the tall glass reeds amongst the real cactuses, blue bird shapes stretching their necks out of the water, green glass grass everywhere. It wasn’t just Carl who was enraptured. There were large crowds going Oooh and Aaah, and flashes from cameras.
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