Friends Forever!

by Grace Dent

  “The who?” I say, wrapping my sensible dressing gown a little tighter.

  “The Argentinians! Santiago Marre and all his Argentinian surf buddies. They’re arriving at Destiny Bay today. Ha ha ha! Game on!” cackles Fleur, vanishing into the bathroom with a copy of Harpers and Queen and a large white bath towel under her arm, leaving me lying on the sofa with a bemused expression.

  Just then, I notice something extremely unsettling. Claude appears to be slumped forward in bed with her face cupped in her hands.

  She appears to be crying.

  Gloria Cassiera’s letter lies discarded on the carpet beside her bed.

  spill

  It’s noon later that day, and the LBD are chilling on Misty Beach. Destiny Bay’s famous sandy cove is extra-specially jam-packed today with buff boys, near-naked babes, Frisbee chuckers, lush surf junkies, surf groupies and of course, several miserable-faced grown-ups with kids attempting to enjoy a fuddy-duddy day trip despite all the heaving cleavages and canoodling couples.

  As the July sun beats down, a chilled-out DJ set drifts over from Cactus Jack’s roof terrace accompanied by wafts of jerk chicken sizzling on the Cactus Jack barbecue. To my left, Fleur Swan, almost dressed in her lemon thong bikini with gold ties, is noisily slurping a double-flaked 99 cone with neon sprinkles and strawberry sauce. On my right, a highly subdued Claudette Cassiera is applying SPF 6 to her voluptuous brown curves. Claude’s barely spoken since she got up three hours ago. And we’re not buying her migraine story one little bit.

  Fleur catches my eye and raises an eyebrow as if to say, “What do we do?”

  I take a deep breath and ask Claude for the tenth time if she’s okay.

  “I’m totally fine,” says Claude, doing a fake smile. “Stop fretting! Hey, Fleur, tell us about what Siegmund knows about Booty Quake. He had gossip, didn’t he?”

  “Ooh, erm, okay,” says Fleur, vanilla ice cream dribbling down her hand. “Well, word is that Psycho Killa’s people have preordered three cases of Cristal champagne. Ten thousand quid, that costs!”

  “Flipping heck,” says Claude.

  “I know,” nods Fleur. “And Dita Murray, lead singer with the Scandal Children, has demanded that the entire Barclay Suite get repainted ivory and lighted with white Diptique candles or else she won’t perform.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” I say. “Isn’t the Barclay Suite ivory anyway?”

  “It’s eggshell,” says Fleur. “And Dita doesn’t do eggshell. Only ivory. It’s going to cost two thousand pounds to redecorate.”

  “What a total waste of money,” tuts Claude, adjusting the straps on her hot-pink bikini top. “Imagine what some people could do with that . . .”

  She starts to say more, but then she shuts up, folding her arms in front of her, her brow in a perfectly centered furrow.

  It should be mentioned here that Claude Cassiera, despite her grouchy mood, looks unbelievably fabulous in swimwear. For a mere lumpen-bodied mortal like myself, it’s simply heart-breaking. Little wonder stripping off for summer fills me with dread. Claude’s ebony skin has a litheness, a firmness, a depth of color and shine that isn’t available in bottles. Her bottom is a perfect rounded feminine peach, her tummy cutely curved and her belly button neatly inward. Annoying. Worst of all, she has a great whopping set of boobs, which enter rooms before her, bounce perkily when she walks, and if necessary, can win arguments on her behalf.

  She’s got no reason to look so glum.

  “Claude, this is driving me mad,” I say. “What’s up with you?”

  “Oh . . . nothing,” she says. “I just really need to chill today.”

  “Cuh,” tuts Fleur. “Chill out? It’s like hanging out with my depressed aunt Enid. What’s up with you? We won’t give up, y’know. You’ll have to tell us.”

  “It’s nothing,” persists Claude, folding her arms.

  “Oh, c’mon, Claude, stop lying,” I say plainly. “It’s about that letter. What’s going on?”

  Claude’s lip wobbles. She pulls down her oversized Top Shop sunglasses.

  “What was in the letter?” probes Fleur.

  Claude’s lips just become tighter.

  “Are you feeling homesick?” I venture. “Are you missing Gloria?”

  “Oh my God!” gasps Fleur, sitting bolt upright. “You’re homesick, so you’ve decided to go home, haven’t you?”

  Claude doesn’t argue. My stomach lurches horribly.

  But then Claude’s face crumples and she gives a little snort. “Of course I haven’t, you pair of total numpties!” she splutters. “I love it here! I’m having the time of my life. Just having our own apartment. No mother, no curfews, earning my own money! It’s like a dream.”

  “Oh, hurray,” sighs Fleur. “You had me worried then! You can’t leave us, Claude. Can she, Ronnie? That would suck, big style.”

  Claude’s lip wobbles a little. We’ve not got to the bottom of this.

  “Ha!” chuckles Fleur, her candy-floss brain leaping ahead. “I’ve just had the most fantabulous idea. I’m asking Paddy if he’ll extend my bedroom at Disraeli Road out over the garage. Then we could have our own self-contained apartment! Let’s live together during Year Twelve too.”

  As Fleur beams at her own ingenuity, Claude goes to speak, but something stops her. As a long involuntary sigh slips between her lips, a tiny tear trickles down her cheek.

  I reach forward, grabbing her hand. Fleur stops grinning instantly.

  “Right, Claude,” I say firmly. “Spill it.”

  “Don’t, Ronnie,” Claude whispers. “It’ll just wreck the summer.”

  “Oh, don’t be a spanner, Claude,” tuts Fleur. “Nothing can wreck summer.”

  Claude stares into nowhere for a good twenty seconds. But then, she pulls the decidedly crumpled, tear-stained letter from her beach bag and hands it to me. I take a deep breath and begin to read.

  19 July, Lister House

  Dear Claude,

  Hello, darling. Wonderful to hear you on the phone yesterday. Thank you so much also for the money you transferred into my account today. £250! Claude, you’re an angel. Dad would have been so proud of you . . .

  “You sent two hundred and fifty pounds home?” gasps Fleur. “Flipping heck, Claude!? You’ve been working your butt off!”

  “Tell me about it,” nods Claude.

  Now, Claude, I’ve been thinking long and hard about our money problems. Please don’t be too angry at me, but I’ve some bad news. I just feel it’s illogical for us to stay at Lister House. I could cope with the mortgage and bills no problem when I worked for Mr. Rayner, but it seems all I can hope to earn around here now is half of that. Things are getting serious, darling. Today I totted all the debts up and we owe £16,869 . . .

  I stop abruptly, trying to appear unhorrified.

  You’re working so hard, darling, and for that I’ll always be grateful, but we’re fighting a losing battle. The only solution is to put 27 Lister House up for sale and move in with Aunty Sissy. I’m going to call the real-estate agents today. I hope you’re not too angry. Mossington is only 375 miles away, not the end of the world. This is really hard for me too. I don’t want to leave Lister House either, it’s got so many memories. (You and Mika as babies, Dad when he was well and happy. The list goes on . . .) But in times like this I just think of the sacrifice our Lord Jesus Christ made for us. God’s love and spirit pushes me through the pain.

  Have a really good summer, darling. Try to make the most of your time with your friends.

  God bless, Mum XXXX

  I put down the letter. My hands are actually shaking.

  “Hmmm,” says Claude, lying back on her sun lounger wearing a face of nigh-calm acceptance. “I particularly liked the God’s spirit pushing me through the pain bit.” She sighs. “Sometimes she sounds like she’s plugging an isotonic energy drink.”

  Fleur is floundering around for words. “That . . . that whole letter was a joke, right?” she stutters.

/>   “Erm . . . no,” I say, scanning the paragraphs through again for a hidden “P.S.: APRIL FOOL!”

  “Mossington? Where the hell’s Mossington?” splutters Fleur. “Did you just say three hundred and seventy-five miles away? Is that the place you went on holiday to once that takes like sixteen squillion hours by train?”

  Fleur’s voice is becoming rather shrill now. “But Claude,” she pleads. “What about your A-levels? This totally sucks! Your mum’s not thinking straight. You can’t just—”

  “Apparently Mossington High School has a sixth form where the physics and chemistry departments are, sort of, well, okay,” Claude says calmly.

  “Sort of okay?” I repeat. Claude was intending to be prime minister one day.

  “And I can begin in September, if need be,” Claude explains. “They’ve saved me a provisional place.”

  “Oh my God,” I mumble. “You knew you were going, didn’t you?” It’s all beginning to seem real now, now that the shock is wearing off.

  “No, it was never certain,” sighs Claude. “Mum thought she’d find a new job that paid well. But if she didn’t, then we agreed—”

  “But . . . but you can’t just leave!” butts in Fleur. “What about the LBD? What about Blackwell? What about ‘friends forever’ and all that drivel we’ve been spouting? What about . . .”

  Claude sinks farther into her lounger. “We’ll stay in touch,” she says, aware of how super-lame that sounds. “I’ll be online loads . . . and we can text one another.”

  “Great,” tuts Fleur, her eyes narrowing. “Yeah, ’cos that’s the same, isn’t it? Y’know something, Claude? We should have just let Cressida finish us off. And after everything I’ve done to keep us all together!”

  “Oh, pipe down, Fleur,” I tut. Sometimes I just want to slap her. How’s this about her “pain” all of a sudden?

  “Stop freaking out at me, Fleur!” says Claude, her lip wobbling slightly.

  “Pah!” tuts Fleur. “I feel like freaking out! Why are you both so calm? Why don’t either of you care?”

  As Fleur leaps to her feet in a fury, shoving aside her sun lounger, something seems to snap within Claude. She leaps up too, grabbing Fleur’s wrists and shaking them crossly.

  “Of course I care! You silly moo!” she snaps, her voice cracking. “This is the end of the world! Do you think I want to be Billy-No-Mates, living in outer Bumgrape-on-the-Nowhere, receiving LBD updates by text? Well, do you?”

  As Claude’s voice is becoming louder, the entire beach appears to have paused to spectate our dispute.

  “Well, let’s do something then!” pleads Fleur. “We’ll make a plan! Have Ronnie and I let you down before?”

  Claude shakes her head slowly. “There’s no point, Fleur. I’ve been fighting this for months,” she says, sounding defeated. “It’s over.”

  The back of my throat feels sour.

  “Don’t say that!” tuts Fleur, pulling her hands from Claude’s, grabbing her sarong and storming across Misty Beach in the direction of Cactus Jack’s.

  “I’m only saying it because it’s true, Fleur!” Claude shouts after her.

  Then she sits back down on her sun lounger and begins to cry.

  a lifeline

  “Are you angry at me, Ronnie?” says Claude gingerly.

  Since Fleur’s departure, half an hour ago, we’ve been sitting silently on our sun loungers watching a group of surf girls having a ball in the midday sun.

  They look so carefree. I feel quite jealous.

  For the first time since Year 7, Claude and I are fresh out of chitchat. If Claude leaves town in September, it’ll be the end of an era. To say I’d miss her is an understatement. It’d be like having an arm removed.

  I bet we look hilarious to passersby, sitting in the middle of this growing beach party, looking like case study diagrams from the textbook Recognizing Suicide.

  “ ’Course I’m not angry, babe,” I say. “Neither’s Fleur. She’s just upset. This is huge.”

  “Hmmm, well,” groans Claude, pointing across the beach toward the boardwalk. “If she’s not angry at me, Ronnie, she’s certainly angry about something.”

  As I turn to look, around twenty meters away, Fleur Swan is stomping through the sand toward us, wearing a highly indignant expression, churlishly demolishing sand castles in her path.

  “Oh, boo-hoo!” Fleur barks at two freckly brats who’ve just witnessed their sand Arc de Triomphe being trampled under her flip-flop. “It’s only sand. Get over it!”

  A long shadow falls over our sun loungers.

  “Hello, Fleur,” I say, gritting my teeth, noticing that she’s holding a flyer for MTV’s Big Beach Booty Quake. “You’ve come back then?”

  “Well, yes,” says Fleur sheepishly. “Sorry about that last eruption. I just went schizoid for a moment. But, I’ve had time to think about stuff now, and I have in my hand the solution. Claude, you are not going to Mossington in September. I’ve saved the summer!”

  “Erm . . . really?” says Claude.

  “Really. Now, the MTV Big Beach Booty Quake . . . that’s three weeks away,” says Fleur, scanning through the flyer. “Broadcasting live on MTV . . . show begins at 11 A.M. . . . live performances by the Scandal Children, Velvet Cobweb, Psycho Killa . . . da da da . . . ah, here it is! Also featuring the Demonboard Surf Championships . . . and the search for Miss Ultimate Demonboard Babe!”

  Fleur looks up triumphantly, displaying two rows of white teeth.

  “What?” shrugs Claude. “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh no. Nooooooo,” I groan, understanding immediately.

  “Miss Ultimate Demonboard Babe!” repeats Fleur. “Big cash prizes are to be won!”

  “But we can’t surf!” protests Claude.

  “Claudette, it’s a beauty contest,” I grimace, slapping my forehead.

  “It’s . . . it’s a what?” splutters Claude. “A beauty contest? Fleur! How will that help me? Are you tripping or something? Have you been at your mother’s diet pills again?”

  “Nooooooo! I’m deadly serious,” snortles Fleur. “One of us could win this.”

  Fleur is dancing excitedly from foot to foot now like an African tribeswoman with a bladder problem.

  “Pghh! Well, it certainly won’t be me,” harrumphs Claude. “Because I . . . in fact . . . we the LBD are morally opposed to any sort of beauty pageant.”

  “Are we?” says Fleur.

  “Yes, we are, Fleur!” splutters Claude. “Especially ones with swimwear sections where women are paraded around like cattle on auction day!”

  “Oh, shut up! No one’s forced at gunpoint to enter,” giggles Fleur, clearly about to force us both at gunpoint to enter. “Beauty contests are fun! And besides, I’m not one of those feministical thingies. What’s the problem?”

  “Gnnnnnn,” groans Claude. “The problem, Fleur, my butterfly-brained amigo, is the sexist concept of girls being rewarded not for their intellect, but for looking pretty in a bikini.”

  Fleur looks confused. “What, you’d have a problem with winning twenty thousand pounds?” she says.

  “Pgghh!” tuts Claude. “As if money makes the whole concept any less oppressive toward women—”

  Claude stops her rant abruptly. She arches one eyebrow and grabs the flyer from Fleur’s hands. “How much is first prize?” she says.

  “Twenty thousand pounds,” repeats Fleur matter-of-factly. “I’m going to give it a shot. Obviously, you and Mrs. C. can have the cash if I win. Or should I say, when I win.”

  Claude’s mouth drops wide open. “You’d . . . do that for me?” she whispers. “But . . . I couldn’t take . . . I mean, wow!”

  Claude is utterly gobsmacked.

  “Yes, you could,” says Fleur firmly. “I’m not letting you go, Claude. I’ve got to do something! You can’t go to that crappy Mossington place. And besides, you’re in charge of sleep snot and poo bums when we wash McGraw’s yucky poodles. You can’t abandon me!”

/>   Claude’s face is an absolute picture.

  It’s moments like this when I remember why Fleur Swan is a life necessity. Okay, she’s crazy as hell, totally conceited, and a liability at times, but there’s something about her that makes me and Claude feel bulletproof.

  “But let’s all enter!” Fleur urges. “Let’s triple our chances!”

  “Mmm . . . erm,” I say, sucking in my tummy.

  “Twenty thousand pounds,” mutters Claude to herself, her eyes as wide as saucers. “That would be incredible. It would solve everything.”

  “Would it really, Claude?” I ask.

  “Totally,” she replies.

  “Well, that’s that, then,” says Fleur, whipping her phone from her beach bag. “Let’s call the hotline now and register. Ha! And it’s broadcast live on MTV too! Everyone at Blackwell will see it.”

  “Oh God,” I groan.

  “And we’ll have to start working out a training schedule,” says Fleur. “Y’know, fresh fruit, exercise, exfoliation, two liters of water a day. We’ll have to detox. I’m going to buy some of those detox socks that purge the toxins out of the soles of your feet.”

  As Fleur gibbers on and on and on, Claude is absolutely silent, staring ahead with a small grin spreading across her face. It seems the mere possibility of clearing her mum’s debt is making her more relaxed than I’ve seen her for a long time.

  And that’s why I find myself agreeing to this whole ludicrous Miss Demonboard Babe idea. Because I’ll do anything to keep Claude at Lister House and the LBD together. Anything. No matter how daft, far-fetched or likely the scheme is to humiliate me on a nearly naked international televisual level.

  Because, okay, it’s a long shot, but at least now we have a lifeline.

  spooked

  So here I am in the West Turret, alone.

  It’s about 5 P.M. and I’m standing before a full-length mirror, wearing only my fave pink halter-neck bikini and Claude’s silver high heels. I’m having a sneaky go with them while she’s working.