That’s what I love about music. There’s always a song that knows how you’re feeling.
I played Back to Black, over and over, Tom Waits, some Leonard Cohen, lots of Patty Griffin and Joni Mitchell. It was as I was listening to Blue for the third time that there was a gentle knock on my door.
‘What?’
‘I bring word from the rest of us,’ said Amanda.
‘Which is?’
‘MESSAGE RECEIVED, OK? We know you don’t want to move but can this soundtrack of extreme misery please stop?’
She was kind of smiling as she said it, and even though I really did not want to, I found myself smiling too. ‘All right. But only as a favour to you.’
‘Play me that tune again,’ said Amanda. ‘The happy one you were doing a few weeks ago. Dah–dah–dah–daaaaah?’
I played it, and it sounded . . . hopeful. So I played it again.
‘Does it have words?’ said Amanda.
It hadn’t. Now, though, with Mands next to me, I tried,
I’ve got mad skin
I’ve got mad hair
I borrowed your stuff and I don’t even care
‘What did you borrow?’ said Amanda.
‘Your yellow jumper. Deal with it, sister,’ I said, leaning over to scribble in my lyric book. ‘Go grab your guitar? I want to hear it with a bass line.’
Amanda got her guitar and sat down to pick it out, carefully, precisely, Amandaishly.
‘Like that but faster,’ I said. ‘Speed it up a bit.’
Which she did, and I sang:
I’ve got mad skin
I’ve got mad hair
I borrowed your stuff and I don’t even care
I’m the big bad apple on the family tree
Deal with it, sister, that’s just me
‘I like that,’ said Amanda. ‘And I would also like my jumper back.’
We played it a few more times.
‘Is there any more?’ said Amanda.
‘It’s a work in progress,’ I said. ‘I’ve just been finding it . . . hard.’
‘I do get it, you know,’ said Amanda.
‘You nearly do,’ I said. ‘There’s just that funny bit towards the end, it needs a pause after “Deal with it, sister”. You’re rushing.’
‘I meant about the move. I’m nervous as well. And so’s Mum. It’s not just you, Katie. It isn’t easy for any of us.’
I leaned over to get another line into my book before it evaporated.
‘We’re all finding it hard.’
‘Then why are we doing it?’ I asked. ‘Can’t we just wait a few months?’
Mands thrummed a bit on her guitar. ‘Maybe Mum wants to get going on the rest of her life. The divorce went on long enough.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, because it had.
‘We’ll move,’ said Amanda, ‘and we’ll unpack, and then everything will get back to normal.’
‘I suppose,’ I said. Then, ‘Want to see something funny?’ And I showed her the video of Nicole’s ear.
‘Eeeurgh! How have eight and a half thousand people watched that?’
‘Have they?’ I looked at the view-counter, and they had. ‘Wow. It’s gone totally viral.’
We were silent for a second, thinking of all the people out there watching a close-up of Nicole’s ear, then sending it to their friends. Or maybe their enemies, because it really was disgusting. If one person sent it to two people, then they each sent it to two people, then each of them sent it to two people . . .
‘But why?’ said Amanda. Then, ‘Will you forward me the link? Adrian will love it.’
‘So what’s it like?’ said Lacey, the day we moved into the new house.
I was about to tell her that the mobile reception was rubbish, but then my phone went and hung up on her, so I suppose that said it for me.
Our new house was great. In a sort of really dark, horrible kind of a way, where the floors creaked and everything smelled a bit mouldy and the windows didn’t open properly and when you did get them unstuck you couldn’t shut them again.
‘It’s got so much character,’ said Amanda, who’d dropped her keys between the floorboards and couldn’t get them back out.
And when I went out to explore, all the neighbours were about eighty and said things like ‘Good morning’ and ‘Nice day to wash the car’ and ‘Watch where you’re going, young lady’, just because I happened to be walking and texting at the same time, which is completely normal everywhere else and it’s hardly my fault that mobility scooters can’t get out of the way.
‘There’s such a sense of peace,’ said Amanda, who was listening to Black Sabbath.
And we were in the middle of actual nowhere. There was just the pub, a load of stinky pigs and a field of oilseed rape, which really needs to get itself a new name.
And Adrian had stuck his drum kit right under my bedroom window, so even after I’d unpacked my boxes and put all my things out, the room still didn’t feel like mine. All I could see were heaps of flattened cardboard and cymbals and walls the colour of wee.
I thought I’d write a song about it but the wee thing made it sound like the whole situation was funny and it wasn’t. At all.
Then I tried finishing Just Me. I had two verses, but no ending. And after half an hour I still had no ending, just a whole heap of things that didn’t rhyme with other things and a sore brain.
So instead, I tried moving the wardrobe over a bit, in case that helped things.
At which point the wardrobe door fell off on to my actual face.
‘Mum? Muuum!’
It wasn’t Mum who appeared outside my bedroom door but Adrian.
‘Your mother can’t come upstairs right now. She’s having a sit down.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s had a small electric shock.’
‘From what?’
‘The oven.’
‘Do ovens usually give people electric shocks?’
Adrian looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘Not usually, no.’
Our thoughtful moment was interrupted by Amanda, who was looking flushed and upset and distinctly non-Amandaish.
‘It’s fine, but I was looking under my bed for my hairbrush, I can’t find it anywhere, and I saw a mouse. Well, mice, I suppose – three mice. At least three mice.’
‘What do you mean, “at least”?’
‘They go quite fast,’ said Amanda. ‘And I didn’t want to look at them properly, because they were mice.’
‘Probably pets left behind by the last lot who were here.’
‘The dead lady?’ I said. ‘Maybe they came out of her CORPSE.’
‘Katie!’
So we sat down and had our first ever family gathering, to list all the things that were wrong with the house. It went like this:
– strange smell (even after opening the windows)
– windows that open but don’t close again
– a quite big hole in the floor of the airing cupboard
– oven is electrified
– mice
– the loo flushes with hot water (two words: poo soup).
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Amanda, in a way that made it clear that even Miss Optimism thought it was bad.
‘I’ll talk to the estate agent,’ said Adrian, tapping out the world’s slowest text message with one of his massive thumbs. He stared at his phone. ‘It’s not sending. Why won’t it send?’
‘There’s reception if you lean right the way out of the window so it feels like you might be about to fall out,’ I said helpfully. ‘Or, at the end of the drive.’ And off he went.
The rest of us stared at each other.
‘Did you not notice any of this when you came to look around?’ I asked Mum, trying to make it come out light and non-accusing.
‘We only went round quickly,’ she said. ‘It was such a bargain . . .’
She looked all small and hopeless and I wanted to roar at the universe for being so mean.
‘We’
ll sort it out,’ said Amanda cheerfully. ‘Really, it’ll be fine. Better than fine. We’re all in this together.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said.
‘Now?’
‘To see the bus stop. Since I’m going to have to be there tomorrow morning anyway.’
I left them to it and went off down the driveway, past Adrian on his phone, past Manda’s hairbrush, which I went back and retrieved from the recycling heap, and off into the sunshine.
Now, I want to be clear that what I am about to say does not in any way mean that I was happy or that I liked the new place or that I wanted to be there.
It was just . . . there was something quite nice about walking down the driveway and along the pavement with the grass smelling green and fresh, all beaded with drops of rain and glimmering in the light. Hardly any cars came past, and the sky felt high and open, empty and waiting to be filled.
I let loose a few bars of Just Me, and it sounded even better outside. Especially after I adjusted the melody very, very slightly and sent the last verse spiralling up towards the watery sun.
I’ve got mad love
I’ve got mad hate
I’ve got my whole life to come and I just can’t wait
And here’s the thing, I think you’ll agree
We’re all in this together. It’s not just me.
The words fell into place like they’d been there all along.
I did a twirl and then another. There’s nothing quite like using a hairbrush as a microphone, is there? And then . . .
‘Are you all right, dear?’
There was the bus stop. Complete with two old ladies.
My face was hotter than the sun. Hotter than the sun on fire. Which I think it is anyway, but still.
‘You have a lovely voice,’ said the nearest one. Then, to her friend: ‘Doesn’t she have a lovely voice?’
‘She’s the one who barged into my scooter,’ said the other lady.
‘Oh is she?’ said old lady number one, at which point I decided to turn around and go home.
Down the end of the drive my phone started going in my pocket. When I saw who it was, my heartbeat went syncopated, which is fun when it’s music but biologically speaking, probably not the best.
‘Dad!’
‘We’re just taking five, so I thought I’d check in on my special girl.’
It’s the miracle of phones that even though he was stateside, his voice sounded so clear that if I shut my eyes I could pretend he was standing just behind me, his hands on my shoulders, holding me close.
‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘We’ve just moved into the new house.’
‘And . . . ?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, because, on reflection, I didn’t want to spend my precious Dad minutes on anything even slightly Adrian. ‘How’s California?’
‘All good.’
‘Hot?’
‘Oh yes. You really must visit.’
‘You know Mum won’t let me come in term-time.’
‘Honestly, your mother! You can’t be doing anything important.’
‘Only coursework.’
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘Or,’ I said, trying to keep the hope out of my voice, and failing, ‘you could always come here? We have loads of space now.’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Work’s pretty busy at the moment, but soon.’
Dad’s a session musician, which is the coolest of the cool. He’s an amazing guitarist, plus he also plays bass and the keyboard and the clarinet, although I have no evidence for the last one and he does have a tendency to exaggerate.
Even so, he’s basically the best musician in the world and I’m not just saying that because we share chromosomes. You can hear him on zillions of tracks, from cereal adverts to stuff by very major rock stars who I’m not allowed to name because it’s supposed to be them playing, not him.
The only difficult thing about Dad being so awesome is that his work is not very regular, so when he does get offered a job, he kind of needs to take it.
‘I’m still planning on coming over just before Christmas,’ he said.
‘Of course. And Christmas isn’t that far away.’
‘Only a few months.’
And for all the magic of mobiles, I could feel the whole distance between us. Every last millimetre.
‘Written anything good lately?’
‘I’m working on a couple of things,’ I told him. ‘Hey, what did you think of the last batch?’
‘Oh, fantastic. All of it.’
‘Really?’ My heart did another flip. ‘I wasn’t sure about Wet Weather. But if you like it . . .’
‘I love it,’ said Dad. ‘The lyrics are phenomenal. Your best yet.’
‘Wet Weather was the instrumental number. The one with a ripply bit at the beginning, that was supposed to sound like rain . . . ?’
‘Of course it was. And I thought it was amazing.’
Now it was a good thing we were on the phone, or he’d have seen me cry. ‘Thank you, Dad.’
‘I’ve got to go back into the studio now, sweetheart. Sorry this is such a quick one. You take care, won’t you?’
‘I will. And Dad –’
At which point the stupid, stupid, stupid reception cut out, and he’d gone.
So I stomped back up the driveway, and then I trod on a snail and felt bad and tried to walk a bit more delicately and then trod on another snail anyway which just goes to show that sometimes there really is no point to anything.
And then I thought about getting the bus with Finlay, and Nicole from year eleven and Mad Jaz, and my mood got even worse, if that’s possible, which it was.
We’d started calling her Mad Jaz as a sort of joke, although it isn’t that much of a joke because Jaz has a tendency to go crazy.
Like, once there was this spate of muggings on the high street and we had a policeman come in to show us self-defence. He needed a volunteer to demonstrate his techniques and picked Jaz and to cut a long (and violent) story short, Jaz ended up being arrested.
I’d been staying well away from our resident psychogoth, which luckily had been quite easy to do, because Jaz seemed to have taken the decision to stop coming to lessons. Which, now I thought about it, meant that she almost certainly wouldn’t be getting the bus any more. After all, why would you bother going to school if you weren’t planning to be in any classes?
I came through the front door to find that everyone had mysteriously vanished.
‘Hello? Hello?’
Nothing. Just some distant guitar noise.
‘Manda?’
I went upstairs and across the landing.
The door to Mum’s bedroom – no, not Mum’s bedroom, Mum and Adrian’s bedroom – was open, but there wasn’t anyone in there. Just the faint scent of Mum’s eau de toilette and the not-so-faint stench of Adrian’s deodorant.
I must have inhaled it ten times a day, but even so, every single time was a shock. I hadn’t even known my old life had had a smell until he’d come along and swapped my home and bought Mum different perfume and sneaked fags out the bathroom window. Now I knew things were messed up without even having to go to the bother of opening my eyes.
I knocked on Amanda’s door. ‘Manda?’
He was there. Sitting on a chair by her bed, guitar under one arm. ‘Hey, Katie.’
‘Oh. Hello.’
Amanda was propped against her desk, head bent over the frets. She didn’t meet my eye. ‘Katie.’
‘What are you two doing?’ It came out more confrontational than I’d meant. But surely Amanda couldn’t have been playing with . . . him . . .
I mean, there was making the guy feel at home and then there was out-and-out sisterly betrayal.
Playing together was ours. We’d done it with Dad since we were tiny, Mands banging a drum while I sat on his knee and he held my fingers in place on the strings. We got older and better, and there were nights, after a really big row, when music was just about t
he only thing keeping us together.
And now here she was, strumming away as if it was just normal.
‘We’re not doing anything,’ said Amanda, as Adrian said:
‘You’ll like this . . .’
‘She won’t,’ said Amanda, actually putting her fingers across his strings to stop him from playing. Quite right, too.
While Amanda had at least noticed that she was in trouble, Adrian was still grinning. ‘Go on, Katie, grab your guitar, we could do with your expertise here.’
‘My fingers are tired,’ I said, which made no sense whatsoever, but there you go.
‘So are mine,’ said Amanda quickly. ‘Shall we call it a night?’
Adrian’s head swivelled between us, then he picked up his guitar and left, pausing to call, ‘I’ll put on a pepperoni pizza, shall I?’
‘Katie . . .’ Amanda began.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said, heading for the door. ‘You play with him, if it makes you happy.’
‘Really?’ said Amanda.
‘NO.’
Mobility Scooting on the Pavement
Got a head full of blame
And a knee full of hurt
Got a heart full of shame
And a face full of dirt
Lady,
You’d think you’d have a bell
Or perhaps a kinda hooter
Somewhere on your mobility scooter
You’re a Blue Badge holder,
And I was in your way
One day I’ll get older
But first I need to say
Lady,
Get yourself a bell
And a really massive hooter
And fit them on to your mobility scooter
And if you won’t do that
Then lighten my load
And ride the stupid thing
Along the stupid bloody road.
Turning up at a bus stop on a school morning is a bit like jumping into a den of tigers. Or something just as deadly, but not so endangered. Like jumping into a bowl of cashews, if you’ve got a nut allergy.
To avoid making it totally obvious to the bus crowd that I was Katie-no-mates, I made sure I got there nice and early. Which didn’t work at all, as, in fact, I was the first one to arrive. I ended up standing around completely on my own, fiddling with my phone.
Accidental Superstar Page 3
