I finally look up and realize that she’s not teetering on the edge of anything emotional, she’s just checking her emails again.
Well, this first week at school has sucked, but it has taught me many things:
(1) I have no friends.
(2) This probably won’t change, as no one in my class likes me (except as a tampon dartboard).
(3) I am basically uneducated.
(4) I’m really good at pretending I’m not about to cry.
I put number four into practice as I leave Debs’ office. I don’t want to enter my form room with a wobbling chin and blotchy eyes: “Damn this early autumn hay fever, right?” I don’t want to go home and worry Mum and I don’t want to cry in public. That just leaves the one place that still makes me feel safe.
I scoot along the corridor to the pool, head down, hoping no adult will stop me and question my loose interpretation of the school rules. I’m glad to hear nothing from the changing rooms and there’s no one in the pool, so I’m left in peace to sit on one of the poolside benches and watch the steam floating over the top of the water.
I start to cry and it very quickly turns into one of those enjoyable sessions when it’s a relief to let it all out and you feel so much better afterwards. I think of every sad thing that’s ever happened to me and wallow in self-pity.
Once I reach our dog, Mr Hughes, who died peacefully of fat old age five years ago, it’s clear I’ve run out of things to cry about.
After a while I subside into hiccups and dry my eyes. I root around in my bag for a tissue and find an old swimming costume, zipped up in an internal pocket and forgotten. Oh well, I think, it’s not like I’ll be using this again. So I blow my nose in it.
I feel much better, though I can tell that my face has already gone puffy. I’m such an ugly crier, I look like boiled ham glazed in snot.
I hear a sound across the pool and I freeze, still holding the swimming costume/hanky to my streaming nose. Pete is lounging in the open doorway of the swimming pool; I think he’s flicking away a cigarette.
I don’t want him to see me covered in snot. (Admittedly, who would you want to parade your snotty face in front of?)
Cammie appears out of the changing rooms. She must’ve had extra training. She gives him an approving look.
“Waiting for me?” she asks, flirty and confident.
“Nope,” he says. She smiles; he’s obviously joking.
But he looks around as if the person he wants to see isn’t there, then heads off down the sloping field to the car park.
Cammie looks outraged – she obviously can’t believe he was so rude to her. I wonder how much angrier she’d be if she knew I’d seen that. I sit very still. Please don’t look back.
My phone vibrates with a text, and her head whips around. She looks embarrassed but quickly recovers. If she was a cat, she’d be popping her claws out.
“Oh my god, are you crying over the swimming pool?” she asks with an incredulous smirk. I grab my bag and scramble for the door that Pete just left through.
It’s undignified to run away from Cammie, but I can’t bear being laughed at. I stumble through the door and run down the muddy slope, picking up speed as I approach the car park.
I’m running so fast now that I couldn’t stop if I wanted to, which is a real shame as suddenly a Mini swings towards me as it pulls out. I try to jump out of the way but fall onto the bonnet, sliding all the way across it and landing on my feet the other side.
I’m OK! I half-laugh, half-gasp in shock, and look back at the driver.
It’s Pete. His mouth is hanging open, there’s a muddy smear across his bonnet thanks to Yours Truly’s feet and he looks like he’s going to shout at me. I do the only thing I can think of: run away again.
6
Weeeez, did you get my last email? Have you fallen down a well or have you forgotten about me? I miss you soooo much. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. I wish we’d both got in. It’s cool here, but there’s no one like you. They talk about swimming ALL THE TIME. If I’m saying that, think how bad they must be. I’m like: Let’s just look at a fox in some wellies and chillax, guys?! Email me back!
Hxxxxx
I’m being unfair to Hannah – we usually email or text every day. But I hate hearing about High Performance Training Camp. I know I’m selfish, but whenever she messages I feel a jealous sicky surge in my stomach.
I want to be a better friend than that, so on Saturday morning I write a long email back. I don’t tell her how crappy I’m feeling – I don’t want her to feel guilty – so I keep it all a bit vague and bland.
The weekend passes so quickly. How does time move so slowly at school and then whiz past on Saturdays and Sundays? I wish I had friends to hang out with. I try not to think about what everyone else is up to or it’ll make me feel too sad.
I help Dad in the garden and Mum offers to take me shopping, but I don’t want to bump into girls from school – I’d feel like a social reject. Lav’s stuck at home too, since she’s grounded, so for most of the weekend she’s reading in her room and slathering some foul-smelling muck into her hair to “bring out the shine”.
Out from where?
Dad makes her sit in the back garden so she doesn’t stink the house out, and she sulks on the patio for about an hour while it “sinks into her follicles”. She and Dad get snappy with each other. She says if she had a decent allowance she could just go to the hairdresser’s like her friends.
Ouch. Dad’s sensitive about money. I try to give Lav a shut uuup look underneath her crusty hair muck but I’m too late: Dad disappears into the shed and the sounds of Radio 4 come wafting out.
All too soon I get that Sunday night feeling. Me and Lav are in the living room watching a wildlife documentary in which hundreds of little worms are darting in and out of holes on the sea bed.
“Beau Michaels,” Lav says to me, unexpectedly.
I frown at her, mystified, until she pokes her tongue out in tentative, jerky little movements.
Ew! I hit her with a cushion. Lav makes kissing sound like a fight between teeth and spit where no one wins.
Mum is watching us narrowly, so we go back to watching the Beau Michaels worms, stifling our smirks. I wish I was an adult so I could just stay in the house where I feel safe, instead of having to drag myself to school five days a week.
I’m brooding on this five-out-of-seven ratio when there’s a crashing noise from the kitchen. Lav and I jump. The back door has swollen in the heat so the only way to come through it is dramatically loud and fast. If we had a cat it would have a flat nose by now.
Dad marches into the living room brushing cobwebs off his shoulders. I didn’t realize how long he’d been out there. He smells like Uncle Vinnie, which is a polite way of saying drunk.
It’s not polite to Uncle Vinnie, obvs.
“Have you been in the shed all this time?” Lav asks.
“Yes,” he says.
“Doing what?”
“Working.”
She opens her mouth to say “On what?” but he leaps in before she can.
“Well, everything in the house is bloody broken, isn’t it? I’m run bloody ragged trying to fix everything because you all live in squalor!” The three of us look around the spotless living room, then at each other. We have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Uh, I’m sorry?” says Mum cautiously. “I just find, you know, what with breeding weapon dogs in the kitchen and all my drug dealing at the strip joint, housework does get past me.”
I try not to laugh. I know Dad’s going through a tough time, but yelling at us won’t help. And I did give him my bedroom so he could have his own space and I could live squashed between Lav’s millions of bras and shoes, so – you know – a thank you might be nice.
“The lamp in the kitchen was broken!” he says accusingly. “I had to take it apart.”
“Oh, is it fixed? Thanks,” says Lav, to make peace.
There’s a pause.
“No,” Dad says eventually. “It’s in bits now, isn’t it? Now I’ve got to put it together again, haven’t I?”
He seems to be waiting for something.
“Thank you?” I offer.
He stomps back to the shed.
“Hide your valuables,” Mum advises. “When Granny went into a home he dismantled the telly and we never got it back together. It’s how he copes.”
I scroll around on my phone. Nothing back from Hannah. Good – I don’t want to hear any more exciting tales of training camp tonight, especially now the mood in the house has gone sour.
I feel so tired that I kiss Mum and head up to bed. Through the landing window I can see Dad’s shed, a patch of light in the darkness of the garden, where now the bushes have become pitch-black, evil-looking shapes.
In the middle of the evil I can see Dad’s silhouette as he sits in his shed, bent intently over whatever he’s working on.
Probably taking apart a blender. It hurts my heart to watch him. He looks vulnerable, and for the first time I realize that he’s getting old.
I send Han a message.
X.
She replies immediately.
X in your face.
I do have a friend who cares about me. She’s just, you know, living our dreams while I rot in double chemistry.
7
The next day I wake up to the sound of Lav stretching and making agonized noises. She’s so bad at mornings, I have had to put up with this drama every morning since I quit swimming. I wish Mum would just let her have espressos.
Like Lav’s got anything to complain about! I have to have another crappy, friendless day, then another, then three more, and then it’ll be the weekend and hopefully I can fake my own death or run away or suddenly become eighteen and get a job. PLAN!
Suddenly I hear a screech from downstairs. Lav and I exchange alarmed looks, then swing our legs out of bed and race out of our bedroom, pushing to get through the door first. Lav realizes her pyjamas are a bit skimpy and doubles back to make herself decent.
Mum is bent over the kitchen worktop sifting through a pile of soggy junk mail, peeling something off the back of a takeaway pizza menu. I hope both my parents haven’t gone mad, who’ll raise me? I still need so much parenting.
“Are you making that noise?” I ask.
“Yes!” she cries, without looking up. “Quick, get some black clothes on.”
“Black clothes?” says Lav, who’s inserted herself into her skinny jeans and is now behind me. “Are we doing a burglary?”
“Emergency mime?” I suggest. (Pretty pleased with that.)
“No!” Mum wails. “Your uncle …” She peers closely at the peeled-off piece of wet post.
“… Hamish, no, Harold, died last week. I didn’t realize the funeral was today. Get dressed!”
That’s so much information in one sentence. Lav and I are staring at each other, having a long sleepy think, when Dad enters the kitchen dressed as if he’s off to work.
Mum says we have to let him if it makes him feel better.
“Who’s dead?” he asks.
“Harold,” says Mum. “Or Hagrid?” She squints at the blotchy ink on the funeral card. Mum has a very big family, and new uncles and cousins-twice-removed regularly crop up out of nowhere. It’s impossible to keep track.
“I don’t know a Hagrid,” Dad muses.
“I think you’ve missed your chance,” I point out, which makes him smile and makes me feel good.
“EXCUSE ME!” snaps Mum, looking up from her paper mush. “Is anyone listening? We have eight minutes to get out of the house and to this funeral and I’m not taking you girls in your pyjamas. Go, go, go!” She chases us upstairs.
I rush to the bathroom before Lav can get in there – she’s never had a quick shower in her life. As I soap up I realize that this means a day off school! Thank you, Uncle Hester, we may never have met but you have done your loving niece a favour.
Seven minutes later we’re all smartly dressed, in the car and heading for a church that Dad can’t find on his phone. Lav and I are trying to dry our hair with the car heaters. It’s not working out brilliantly, but Mum keeps shoving our heads down in front of the vents, insisting we need five more minutes until we’re funeral-acceptable. My sore neck does not appreciate this, but any minute not spent in school is fine by me.
Dad is staring at his phone, sweeping it around in big movements. He hits me on the head but I have bigger problems, leaning between the front seats to get Lav’s second-hand heater air.
The second time, however, he whacks me on my cold ear and it really hurts.
“Oi!” I protest. “Don’t hit your kids.”
“Sorry,” he sighs, “the phone just doesn’t know where we are.”
“Are the gravestones not a hint?” asks Mum acidly, and we both look up to find we’re driving past a cemetery towards a church. Dad looks sheepish and pockets his phone.
We have to run around the church one and a half times before we actually locate the door. We’re not church people so we have no idea what we’re doing. It’s like when I see new swimmers come to the pool and stare at the footbath in confusion, thinking, Is this the pool for nervous swimmers?
We find a massive oak door that looks like our best bet. Dad pushes it and nothing moves; he just looks like he’s leaning against it posing for a catalogue. After watching him lean for a while going redder and redder, we realize he needs help. The door opens slowly, and with a haunted castle-style creak we get it open about a foot. Mum and Lav slip through the gap first.
Dad pats his paunch and waves me through next. On the other side I bump into Mum and Lav, who have frozen in horror because they’ve emerged at the front of the church next to the vicar. They stand and smile at him like fans.
He ignores us, which is kind of weird. Does this happen to him a lot? He must be really good at vicaring.
We’re looking out at a full church – there’s like a hundred people here! Uncle Hebrides was popular. I give the room a weak smile and Dad saves the day. Taking Mum and Lav by the arm, he leads his moron family down the aisle, flashing a big, charming smile left and right at stony-faced family members while I follow trying to look like their carer.
Dad spots an empty pew near the back and pushes the three of us towards it. A woman in the row behind shakes her head at us but I can’t work out if it means, You people are terrible, or How sad Humphrey is dead. We all slide along the hard, wooden bench as the vicar continues his sermon.
Then we realize what that headshake meant: Don’t sit there, the pew is broken! She really could’ve made her message clearer. But she didn’t, so now the four of us are basically sitting on a seesaw. Dad shifts slightly, and Mum, at the other end of the row, wobbles as her end shoots up a couple of inches.
We all freeze and do Big Eyes at each other.
I had automatically propped my feet up on the seat in front – standard practice for a tall person facing teeny leg-room – so I take them off and try to plant them on the floor for balance. This makes the bench lurch even more dramatically and we all grab each other in panic.
Now Dad’s end starts sinking; whatever the pew was resting on seems to be buckling at his end. Lav slides down towards him with a little hiss of bottom on wood. Despite my best efforts, I begin to follow her. Mum is hanging onto the other end of the pew, so she goes nowhere.
Dad is maintaining an admirably straight face as his bottom sinks lower and his knees move closer to his chin, and he manages to keep his eyes on the vicar, nodding occasionally, like: Hmm, good point, what is community?
Thankfully we’re so late we’ve missed half the service, so we only have to sit like this for about twenty minutes. As it comes to an end the vicar tells everyone to kneel and pray, but that is not an option on the Pew of Askew so we all just duck our heads very slowly and try to look respectful.
If I shift my bum I’ll flick Mum at the vicar.
People are beginning to stare. I’m starin
g back, I can’t see anyone I recognize. Mum’s family is so big. The moment the funeral is over, the mourners head for the doors. We wait for the last person to leave before we attempt to move.
“OK,” says Dad. “One … two … three … and up!” We all stand together. Success!
Almost.
Lav loses her footing, staggers and falls, dragging me down with her. I can’t say Mum makes the tidiest dismount either. Dad helps us all up, shaking his head.
“Right,” says Mum demurely, tucking her blouse in. “I think we should skip the buffet.”
Dad agrees and we skulk out of a side door and into the car. I’m still shutting my door as Mum puts the car into reverse.
She’s like a getaway driver.
We drive home to KISS FM; Lav called radio shotgun. I don’t think that’s a Thing, but Mum said not to squabble on holy ground so I let it slide.
“Who was it?” I ask Lav as she flicks through the service pamphlet she picked up on the way out.
“Hmm?”
“Who was the funeral for?” I ask, jiggling the pamphlet so she can’t read it until she pays me some attention. “Hugo? Heathcliff? Hubert?”
She tuts and flicks to the front page.
“Violet,” she snaps, and pulls it back to read. She looks up a moment later and frowns.
“Violet?”
Dad gives a snort of laughter. I don’t understand. Lav slaps her hand over her mouth, her big brown eyes horrified. Is this a sex thing?
It’s usually about sex when everyone gets it except me.
I don’t see how, though. “Dad?”
Dad twists in his seat to look back at me. “Wrong church, wrong funeral.”
We gatecrashed a funeral?
We sit in stunned silence.
“That’s awful,” I breathe.
“Don’t!” cries Mum. “I feel terrible.”
“So you should!” Dad says. “No one in that church was related to you and you didn’t even notice!” Mum is laughing now. “I’m glad there are only four of us or you’d be getting us muddled with the pizza delivery boy!”
Girl Out of Water Page 4
