by Rob Aspinall
“How smug is she?” Becki said. “She lurves showing off.”
I think Becki was more than a bit jel. Jel she wasn’t smart like Lars, Johnny’s multilingual squeeze.
“C’est magnifique,” said Madame Fournier, inviting everyone to give Michelle a round of applause as she returned to her seat.
“Lorna? Would you like to come up?”
Just like in physics earlier that day, I scraped back my chair and walked to the front of the class, ready to die on my big fat behind.
Becki whoop-whooped in encouragement. “Go, Lorna!”
My cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
“Ready?” asked Madame Fournier.
“I guess so,” I said, trying to remember a single word other than bonjour.
“I’ll ask you a few simple questions and you answer me in French, bien?”
“Um, okay,” I said.
Madame Fournier spoke in a thick Gaelic accent that was kind of sexy. She was in her forties, but had a decent bod, wavy black hair and high cheekbones. An oldie but a goodie.
“Where did you go on holiday this summer?” she asked in French.
“Nowhere. I was in hospital,” I replied in perfect La Française.
“Ah, yes, of course,” she said. “Pardon moi.”
Oh, this was weird. Not only did I know exactly what she was saying, I knew exactly how to reply with flawless pronunciation. And all without having to think consciously about it. This was Mr Herd and the physics-off all over again. Like there was another mind inside me. A higher intelligence that stepped in when it thought I needed saving.
Just like Mr Herd, Madame Fournier seemed totally blown away. The next question was harder.
“Can you describe what you’re wearing?”
“But of course,” I said. “A pink cardigan, skinny blue jeans and white trainers.”
Too easy. Next!
Madame Fournier rattled through the questions and I fired back with word-perfect answers each time. After the last question, I remarked on how good her French was. What a cheeky cow! I couldn’t resist. This was awesome. At this rate, I’d have my A levels nailed by Christmas.
“Well done, Lorna,” said Madame Fournier, taking my comment in good humour. “You’ve obviously been practising hard. Ten out of ten.”
I looked around at Michelle Yates, sitting front and centre of the class. Her freckly pug nose flared. She only got a nine and she was devastated.
“I think everyone could follow Lorna’s example,” Madame Fournier told the class. She led a polite round of applause as I returned to my seat, embarrassed all over again. I was used to scraping through life, not actually succeeding. I took my seat next to a delighted Becki. She leaned her mouth in towards my ear and asked me if I could stay over at hers that night and help her prepare for her test.
Avoid the frosty atmosphere at home and share a bed with the Beckster? It would mean going against Auntie Claire, but it was so worth it.
“How did you get out?” Becki asked me.
“A get-out-of-jail-free card,” I said. “The fun police is out for a meal with work.”
We sat cross-legged on her bed in our summer PJs. Me in a Hello Kitty nightshirt that did a good job of covering my scar. Becki in tiny hot-pink shorts and matching Playboy Bunny top.
We had the French textbooks out in front of us, going through the likely questions for the next day. Becki had a big double bed in a big double bedroom with a thick speckled-grey carpet that felt lovely and soft on your feet. Not that you could see much, with half her wardrobe dumped on the floor. The strict tidying rules enforced by Auntie Claire weren’t in place here. Becki’s bedroom was in a permanent state of messy luxury in a detached house on one of the swish estates where everything was newer, shinier and tidier. They had a shoes-off policy at the front door, a downstairs loo and everything.
Becki’s French wasn’t much better than mine before my sudden transformation into Rosetta Stone. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have a multilingual assassin running through her bloodstream. And she wasn’t big on graft or patience, checking her phone every couple of seconds to see if Johnny had posted, texted or messaged.
“I really want to learn French properly,” she said, scrolling her finger up and down her phone. “Me plus a sexy French accent – there’s no way Lars could compete with that.”
“Then maybe we should go through the phrases again,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Okay.”
“So tell me where you went on holiday this summer.”
“Um … en vacances Florida je suis allé,” Becki said in a clunky English accent.
I gave it back to her how it should have sounded.
“See, I want to talk like that,” she said to me. “It sounds fucking hot when you say it.”
Becki put a hand on her hip and leaned in close to me. I guess I was playing the role of Johnny. She stuck out her tits and put on her best mock-French accent.
“Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” she said, tossing back her hair and pouting with those full lips that thinned and creased perfectly in the corners. My heart fluttered beneath my nightshirt. I wasn’t just falling for Becki. I was skydiving from space.
And once I did what I did next, there was no going back.
19
No Going Back
I tried to stop myself. I really did.
Instead I lunged forward, grabbed a handful of Becki’s mega-hair, planted my lips on hers and left them there. Naturally, she was shocked. Statue-stiff. And when I let her go, she was staring wide-eyed at me, trying to process. I was about to burst into apology when she leaned in and kissed me back.
It went on for at least twenty seconds. Technically it wasn’t my first. I’d kissed an orange before, imagining I was copping off with Ben Fielding. But Ben Fielding Orange wasn’t a patch on Becki. Everything tingled from head to toe. She felt warm and smelled of coconut, gently biting my lip on purpose. She was a much better kisser than the orange, but I got cocky, slipping a hand down her exposed lower back.
It seemed to snap Becki out of the moment. She pulled out of the kiss and pushed me off by the arms.
“Wow,” she said. “Shit.”
We knelt across from each other, chests heaving.
“This doesn’t make us lesbians, right?” she asked.
“What? Noooo,” I said.
“Cause I’m not.”
“Me neither,” I said. “We’re just …” I searched for a normalising word.
“Curious?” she suggested.
“Yeah,” I said. “BFF curious.”
“Yeah,” she said, fixing her hair. “We’re teenagers. It’s normal. Self-discovery and all that.”
“Absolutely. Totally. Totally normal.”
“It’s not like either of us fancy each other,” she said.
“Say whaaaaat?” I laughed.
I told Becki I needed the loo.
I dumped my pill bag on top of the double sink and stared at myself in the wall-to-wall mirror. I sunk one pill after another, using tap water to swallow.
“What the pissing hell are you doing?” I hissed at myself, wiping water away from my chin before popping another pill. “She’s your best friend.”
I jabbed an accusing finger at my reflection like my own drill sergeant. “You need to get it together and stop acting like a pervy stalker.”
I ducked down for another drink, the last of the medication on my tongue. I broke for a tinkle and rinsed off my hands.
“Now go back in there and act normal,” I said, one last pep talk to self.
Deep down, of course, I realised I was toosh over tits in love with Becki. I just needed to bury the feelings and preserve the friendship. When I returned to the bedroom, she was propped up in bed, jabbing at her phone. A tidal wave of terror rose through my body and flushed into my cheeks. Was she already online, slagging me off? In my mind, Becki was launching Weapons of Mass Embarrassment all over social media:
OMG! You won’t believe what
@LittleLorna has done.
Lorna Walker’s a fat little muff diver.
Walker the Stalker just face raped me.
Walker eats rug.
If you’re a girl + friends with LW, watch your lady junk. #gross
The thought of it made me struggle for breath. I had to rationalise, ASAP.
“About earlier,” I said.
“Ah, it’s no biggie,” Becki said, batting away my concerns. “Weirdness under the bridge.”
“Hey, look at this,” she said, showing me her phone. “Soooo cute.”
To my relief, she was looking at pictures of kittens in fancy dress.
Sod it.
“I need to tell you something, Becks.”
It’s true. I needed to tell someone who wasn’t a doctor or shrink about the dreams. Why not Becki? If she could take a lip-lunge from a bestie, she could handle this.
“I’ve been having these, um, dreams,” I said.
“About me?” she asked, fluffing her hair back.
“No, no of course not.”
“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping a touch.
“About killing people,” I said, as we plumped our pillows and slid down under the covers.
“What do you mean?” Becki asked, turning side-on to face me.
“I’m in the body of an assassin. Some guy called Philippe. And I’m going around the world bumping off VIPs in different countries. The dreams are really violent.”
I filled her in on all the bloody details, including the object hidden in the confession booth of the church.
“Dreams are dreams,” Becki said. “I once dreamt I was a slice of ham.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “The dreams are all linked. They’re chronological.”
“Chrono-what?”
“In date order.”
Becki flicked off the light and we lay there, eyes adjusting to the dark.
“And then there’s the new skills,” I said. “Science, French, the alley.”
“Now that was insane,” Becki said. “I’d been wondering about all that. Plus, Lor, you ordered a burger that night. You’ve been a veggie since forever.”
“I know, right?” I said. “And, what, suddenly I really like Scotch? The only drink I’d had before that was communion wine.”
Becki asked me what I thought was going on. I told her about what Dr Tariq had said.
“That is some fucked-up shit. Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to argue. I’m afraid of what I’ll do next.”
“What did the doctors at the hospital say?” she asked.
“They think I’m psycho as it is. They tried to put me on another drug. I just want to enjoy life. Not walk around like a zombie.”
Becki fell silent. Was she thinking? Was she asleep?
“What about this object you mentioned?” she asked, propping herself up on one elbow.
My eyes had adjusted enough that I could make out the contours of her face and hair.
“What about it?” I asked.
“Why not see if it’s for real?” she said. “See if it’s there, in the church.”
I let the idea spin for a moment. Of course! But …
“Even if it exists, I don’t know where the church is,” I said. “How do I find it?”
“Hmm. Well, if, like you say, all this stuff is coming from your heart, maybe you should just, you know, follow it. See where it takes you.”
Becki was easily the shiniest tool in the box, but far from the sharpest. The simplicity of her wisdom threw me. What a fab idea.
“Ooh, I’ve never been before,” she said, reaching out and grabbing me on the arm. “We could check out the sights while we’re down there … Buckingham Palace … the Tower of London … Oxford Street …”
“Yeah, but we need cash to get down there.”
I wasn’t allowed a Saturday job and Becks rarely had any money that wasn’t invested back into her walk-in wardrobe.
“We’ll get the bus down,” she said. “I’ll blag the money off my mum.”
“Won’t she ask you what it’s for?”
“Nah. Anyway, I’ll just tell her it’s for textbooks. She never checks.”
If you wanted to squeeze even a quid out of Auntie Claire, you had to prepare a PowerPoint business case. It made me realise just how much of a nightmare she was.
“We’ll have to go midweek though,” Becki said.
“Peasy,” I said. “We’ll just wag off.”
It’s not like I had anything new to learn, after all.
Becki squealed in excitement. “Road trip!”
She turned over so her back was to me. I lay my head on the goose-feather pillow and stared at the outline of her head. I wanted to reach out and touch her.
No! Bad Lorna! Leave it! God, having a dead guy’s mind inside mine was a nightmare. Why did I have to be so weird all the time? Why couldn’t my body just play ball and let me be normal?
Winning back control was like house training a puppy. I had to learn what was off limits and when it was okay to poo.
Play it low. Play it straight.
My entire social existence depended on it.
20
London, Bitches
We stepped off the coach with bodies half asleep from the five-hour slog that had started at 5.30 on a chilly Manchester morning. But as soon we hit the streets of warm, sunny London, it was all forgotten. I felt the combined thrill of skipping class and being here with Becki.
It wasn’t at all like in my dreams. Everything was bright and breezy. And no blood in sight. Just the red London buses trundling past.
Seeing as we were close by, we hit Buckingham Palace first. No sign of the queen, but we took photos of ourselves with the guards in furry hats. Tried to make them react by pulling silly faces and wiggling our arses. They did well. You can ignore a willowy young girl in white trainers and a high-neck yellow summer dress. But try acting like you didn’t see the dusky bombshell in the tiny denim cut-offs.
Next up, we hit Big Ben and the London Eye, then took the tube over to Oxford Street, where we window-shopped our feet off.
There wasn’t much of a plan, other than keep seeing the sights until inner-Philippe gave me some kind of clue. But, to be honest, I was having so much fun away from the shackles of hospital, school and home that I forgot all about it. We even got served in a pub. No ID or anything. I ignored my urge for a Scotch and we sat out on the street, watching fit men and glam women strolling by in their designer dresses and shades. Proper ones too. Not like the fake bug-eye Gucci shades I’d got off eBay.
“I could definitely get used to this,” Becki said, tipping her head back in the sun, the light sparkling off her glossy lips.
“True dat,” I said, sucking on a vodka lemonade.
Guys were constantly checking us out as they walked by. Okay, checking Becki out mainly, but I was part of it. Invited to the human party. And it felt like we were a big deal.
It was also proof that I hadn’t totally turned. I still liked guys. I guess it was like popcorn. You could have salty or sweet. Or even both at the same time. Either flavour was completely different and yet totally nom.
We finished our drinks and spent most of the money we had left on a KFC. I know, I know. Healthy diet, blah, blah. Animal cruelty, blah-de-blah. Big woo, I was on holiday. Sitting by a window looking out onto the bustling street, I wiped my mouth with a serviette and chugged my lunchtime pills with a Coke.
“Hey, what would you rather eat?” Becki asked, licking gunk off her fingers one by one. “Chocolate-flavoured poo, or poo-flavoured chocolate?”
“Hmm, not sure … both would be gross.”
“It’s a real stumper, isn’t it?” she said between licks. “I still can’t decide.”
Man, she even made chicken grease sexy. As I swallowed my last pill, I saw a helicopter whizzing across the skyline, high above the city. Images and memories played like a flashback before my eyes. T
he black helicopter. The small Chinese boy with the SpongeBob balloon. The shopping arcade. The alley. The street name that belonged to the alley. I took out my phone and jumped on Google Maps.
Boom. There it was. Swan Street, no more than a few minutes away.
“What is it?” Becki asked.
“I think I know where the church is,” I said.
We stood in the alley where the shooting went down, Becki sniffing the air in disgust. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but as I remembered the sniper leaning out of the chopper, I also felt a sharp pain in my lower left gut, where the bullet had entered. Then again, it could have been the hot wings.
“I don’t get it,” Becki said. “What are we doing in tramp alley? It smells of wee.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t listening. I’d noticed a big hole in a nearby NO ENTRY sign. Something had punched right through it.
“Holy shit,” I said, pointing at the sign. “I’ve seen this before.”
It felt like someone had passed an electric current through my entire body.
“In your memory dream?” Becki asked, joining me in staring through the hole in the sign.
“Yeah,” I said. “One of the bullets that missed me. It hit right here. I remember.”
“That is spooky weird,” Becki said. “I mean, I thought it would be cool to come to London. I didn’t actually believe you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Becki just shrugged. We headed down the alley and came out in the pedestrian area. The shopping arcade was right where I’d dreamt it. We followed the path I’d taken on the pizza bike and came out the other side, hanging a left and coming across the bench I’d crashed into. Its metal underside was mangled, a couple of broken wooden slats in the seat, black rubber skid marks from the tyres leading us straight to it.
Memories flashed into mind of the stagger to the church and, sure enough, just a short walk up the street was the doorway, this time half open. I turned to Becki, who was busy texting. Probably Johnny.
“I think I should go in alone,” I said. “It’ll be more discreet.”
Dressed as provocatively as she was, I thought Becki would draw too much attention. I wanted to breeze in and out like the wind, under God’s radar.