‘This isn’t the first time I’ve seen your room, you know … I know what you’re like.’ I hope not, I think to myself as I shove the painting under my bed.
I go back downstairs where Cassie is lying on her stomach on the floor, nose to nose with tiny Princess. What a good distraction. We go up to my room with the largest mugs of tea I can make and sit down on my bed. I perch the tea on the sill and fish out my biggest sketchbook. I can sense the painting beneath the bed like a beating heart.
It’s decided: I’ll take care of the scenery, and Cassie will take care of the people. I picture the high street of the town where I’ve lived all my life, a street I’ve been looking at and walking down for eighteen years. I start sketching on the thick, heavy paper. This is a vision of the Weston Bay I actually know, not some outdated idea of what it once was, as if the past is some kind of guarantee of quality. Cassie points out things to add, little elements of the town that I’ve forgotten, shop fronts that would stand out. We go back and forth, each thinking of a place, a detail – the old-fashioned sweet shop Daisy and I were allowed to go to once a week when we were little. The blue-haired elderly lady who walks three huge Doberman dogs (almost as big as her) up and down the high street every day. The bus driver who looks like a wizard with his long grey beard and rings on all his fingers.
‘We’re working on something,’ I say, when Mum pops her head in to enquire about dinner.
‘You still need to eat, though,’ she claims. Which I suppose is true. ‘And you can’t starve Cassie either. You can have it in here, I don’t mind. I’ll make you a bacon and egg sandwich, shall I?’
‘Alright, if that’s OK with you.’ She disappears. I’m so lucky to have a mum who doesn’t push me or press me or ask me too many questions. She’ll just let me and Cassie do our thing in peace and provide the sandwiches. I wish things hadn’t played out the way they did with Señor Mango Sorbet. I wish it wasn’t just going to be Mum and Princess in a few weeks’ time, I wish she had, you know, a real person to hang out with. I wish I hadn’t had to get involved. But I would do anything to protect my mum, the way she’s done with Daisy and me for all these years.
Once we feel satisfied with the look and feel of the high street, Cassie takes over and blocks in the people on the street. The real people who live here. People who look like her as much as people who look like me, women who wear headscarves, men who hold hands with men. We transfer the sketch to A3 paper, but this time instead of soft grey pencils, we use pen and ink, creating the same image except more neatly, and in bold, graphic strokes and bright, eye-catching colours. It looks like an old advert from the 1950s for weekend trips to the coast, except the time is now. The people are now. This is our town and the ‘our’ grows and changes with every passing year. We leave space for a banner at the top and the final task is for Cassie to meticulously hand-letter ‘NO PLACE FOR HATE IN WESTON BAY’. All fired up and working away, she looks more beautiful than ever, twitching her nose in concentration and holding her breath like it’s the difference between getting something perfect or messing it up.
Finally, we stand back and look at the work we’ve created together.
‘It’s perfect,’ Cassie says.
‘Yeah … it is.’
‘There’s just one problem, though.’ She turns to me, looking concerned.
‘Which is?’
‘There’s only one of them.’ She’s right. If we’re going to be any match for the hate campaign, we’ll need more than one poster.
‘It would be mad to do all of them by hand, wouldn’t it?’
Cassie looks at her watch, chunky and digital and bright purple and just extremely Cassie. ‘It’s taken us three hours to do one. So yes, it would be mad to do all of them by hand.’
‘And it’s too late to go to a copy shop today,’ I say.
‘And we don’t know if someone in a copy shop would be on board with our project …’ Cassie says, reminding me of all the things I can’t even see because of my privilege.
‘No, totally, you’re right,’ I say, ashamed. ‘We just need to find someone trustworthy with a large format printer-copier thing. Surely there must be someone. Between the two of us.’ I bite my lip and try to think hard, going through my mental Rolodex of people I know even a little bit. This is what happens when you, essentially, have one friend.
My phone vibrates and I see it’s Cal ringing me. I feel my heart rate start to increase but it’s not because of romantic flutterings anymore. I’m nervous at the thought of having to figure out how to act in front of Cassie, what tone of voice to use, how affectionate to be, and what my goal is. I guess I’m trying to figure out what my … game is.
‘Huh, it’s Cal,’ I say, staring at the phone in puzzlement.
‘Oh,’ says Cassie, looking a little anxious, like he’s about to spoil all our fun.
‘Hey …?’ I say, finally answering the phone.
‘Hey! Are you alright? You sound … weird.’
‘I’m fine, just hanging out with Cassie.’
‘Plot twist!’
‘Yeah, I guess that was kind of predictable, huh,’ I say, smiling at Cassie who’s sitting on my bed. We’re a good team.
‘I had a break in my shift and thought I’d ring to say hi, see what you were up to. I just had to clean up a kid’s puke. It was bright blue from the slushy he’d just consumed, which was, naturally, the origin point of the puke itself.’
‘Eurgh, gross … you have my deepest sympathies.’
‘So now I’m hiding out in the back office, hoping no one disturbs me until the end of my legally mandated break.’
‘Your office …’ I say, and if this were a cartoon then my eyes would have widened incredulously. I see Cassie raising her eyebrows at me, stretching out her hand in a ‘go on!’ gesture.
‘Yeah?’ Cal says, understandably perplexed by why I would want to know about the behind-the-scenes administrative workings of my local cinema.
‘Say I’d made something that needed copying a few times … but it was quite big, like A3 –’
‘We have a colour copier in here, you know? It can print and copy large format – we need it for the rotas and stuff like that,’ Cal says, enthusiastically.
‘And you’d let me use it?’
‘Sure. What’s it for, though?’ He finally sounds a little suspicious.
I sigh. ‘You know those horrible posters around town?’
‘I assume you’re not about to tell me they’re your doing?’ Cal jokes.
‘Hilarious! But no. Cassie and I have spent the evening making something to replace them with.’
‘You don’t have to ask me twice to help out on a noble cause. To be honest, I would have said yes to something half as good. My shift finishes in like two hours? Do you want to meet me here with your stuff?’
‘Amazing – you’re the best,’ I say. ‘See you in a bit.’
‘I’m glad I called you!’ Cal says. A little stab of guilt prods at my stomach. ‘I didn’t expect to end up with a side quest tonight. See you later.’
When Cal’s shift ends, we’re loitering in the foyer, our masterwork transported to the cinema in my old A-level art portfolio.
‘Hey,’ he says, kissing me on the cheek. ‘Hey, Cassie.’
‘Thank you so much for this!’ Cassie replies. ‘We really appreciate it.’
‘Yeah, we do,’ I say, and hug him tightly. He looks a little bewildered. But I want him to know that I think he’s great.
‘It’s no problem. You can’t come back there, obviously, because my manager is prowling about, but if you let me know how many copies you want, I’ll bash them out for you,’ he says with a warm smile.
‘Ten?’ Cassie asks, anxiously.
‘I’ll do twenty, why not.’ Cal shrugs. ‘It’s not my photocopier!’ He elegantly swipes the portfolio from Cassie’s outstretched hand. ‘Want some help putting them up? I assume you’re doing it under the cover of darkness.’
‘We would l
ove some help, but we thought about that, and Friday night in Weston Bay is not the time to be sneaking about doing potential vandalism if you don’t want to get detected. We were going to regroup later in the week when it’s a bit quieter,’ I tell him.
‘Maybe Wednesday night?’ Cassie suggests. ‘You know … to take our minds off results day?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘Hey, cutie pie!’ Cassie calls to me as she steps off the bus. I envy her, that she can be so easily affectionate. There were so many moments during our shift today where I felt so awkward just being near her. Urgh.
I smile back. ‘Hey!’
‘How’s it going?’ she asks as she drapes her arm over my shoulder and we start walking towards the centre of town. Has she got more touchy-feely recently or am I just hyper aware of it? Maybe this is her way of overcompensating for the tension that’s been bubbling away.
‘You mean since I saw you like four hours ago?’ I ask.
‘Yeah!’ She takes the roll of posters from me and rests them on her other shoulder, gallantly.
‘Weirdly … not much. Daisy actually asked me how work was today, though!’
‘That’s progress, right?’
‘Yeah … I feel bad. I feel like we’re cutting it pretty fine to sort stuff out. I literally can’t believe this stupid fight has hung around for so long.’ Results day is TOMORROW which means uni isn’t far behind. I don’t want to be without my sister for much longer – things are too polite and careful. I need to fix it.
‘You two will sort it out – there’s no way this is going to last forever. It just won’t,’ Cassie says, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
‘God I hope not,’ I say, wondering if maybe it’s time for me to swallow my pride and talk to Daisy properly.
We walk in silence for a few seconds. ‘Cool that Cal’s going to help us. Always useful to have a charming white man to deflect any suspicion. And to take the heat, if necessary,’ says Cassie.
‘I really hope it’s not necessary!’
‘Same, especially since we’re very obviously doing a good deed here.’
‘But yeah, it’s good of him. I haven’t actually seen him in a while, you know …’ I say, realizing as I speak how much I’ve been avoiding seeing him in person. I feel horrible. I spend a lot of my time feeling horrible at the moment for one reason or another. At least the anxiety around everything else seems to be fighting for attention over my anxiety around results day.
‘No?’ Cassie looks at me, surprised. I shake my head. She doesn’t ask anything more.
When the time comes to do our work, it’s quiet, as we predicted. The three of us roam around, trying to remember all the places the fascist posters had been, and taping ours up in their place. It’s only a small gesture, but it feels good to be turning something we’re naturally good at – making things – into one little way to resist the tide of hate in this town. To say this is our town too, and you don’t get to define it on your terms.
I keep thinking about how incredible it felt to make the posters. Just to create something. And, more than that, to create something useful. It’s such an amazing feeling. And tomorrow I find out whether I’m headed for three years of history and theory of creation rather than just creating things myself. But I can’t focus on that. I need to focus on this. A potential parting gift for my home from me and Cassie.
After we’ve trudged all the way around town, we’re finally out of posters. We collapse on the steps of the war memorial, Cassie and Cal sitting on either side of me. I keep sneaking glances at Cassie, like a compulsion. Cal reaches for my hand.
‘We make a good team,’ I say, smiling at Cassie. Sneaking around after dark for purposes other than going out … that’s a new thing for the day.
‘I’m proud of us.’ She smiles back, a devastating, radiant smile. I look at her and don’t know what to say. I’m looking at her a moment too long, the silence hanging awkwardly between us.
‘You two make a good team, I’m just along for the ride,’ says Cal, mercifully shattering the silence. I wonder if he knows how right he is.
We all leap to our feet and begin our journeys home. I hug Cassie tight when her bus arrives, and she even pulls Cal in for a hug.
‘Right,’ Cassie says, fixing me with a stern look from the door to the bus. ‘Tomorrow. College. We got this.’
I swallow down my nausea. ‘Yep.’ I nod. ‘We got this.’ The doors close behind her and with that she’s gone. The next time I see her, it’ll be the moment of truth. The moment the future gets set in stone.
Cal and I walk on, hand in hand, my guilt coagulating in my chest, Cal mercifully ignoring my damp palm. ‘I was thinking,’ says Cal, just as we’re reaching the point where we need to go our separate ways, ‘maybe I could stick around a bit longer. I know I was planning on going home properly at the end of September, but all that can wait. We could see where things go, with us I mean.’
I feel hot all of a sudden. ‘Oh! Right …’
‘I haven’t done anything about it yet,’ he says quickly, maybe sensing my surprise. ‘It’s just something I was thinking about. No pressure, obviously.’
‘No, no, it’s not that I don’t want you to stay,’ I say. ‘I just hadn’t thought about it. But it’s not up to me. It’s your life, it’s your decision.’
‘Yeah, of course,’ he says, looking down at the pavement, tracing a circle with the toe of his trainer. I feel so grateful to him for all the help he’s given me with this covert operation. How he let me use his office equipment when he could have got into big trouble. How he’s come out in the middle of the night to stick the posters up with me. How he’s always just so there and so good and so kind and so cute. I’m not at all surprised that my sister fancied him. But I don’t think I can let this whole thing roll on indefinitely. I can’t keep lying to him and to myself. Besides, Leeds is looming at the end of the summer. So if Cal doesn’t leave Weston Bay, he’ll be another person I need to wrench myself from if and when I do.
He gives me a kiss and leaves. I feel exhausted when I finally make it home. Physically and emotionally. I can barely believe that I have to go through results day tomorrow on top of it all.
And things are still weird with me and Daisy. It’s felt like a weight around my neck for days and days and days. I just want to make things right. Results day I can’t control. Me and Daisy, though? Maybe I can control that. I miss her. I miss our in-jokes and our kitchen dancing and how she gets so excited about soil and how well she knows me.
I knock on her bedroom door, interrupting the quiet in her serene little nest.
‘Daisy,’ I whisper loudly after lurking on the landing too long. ‘Are you awake?’ Too late to chicken out now.
‘Well, I am now, you idiot.’ A good way to begin.
‘Sorry,’ I say, inching around the door and into her room. She flicks on the lamp next to her bed and sits up, disgruntled.
‘What do you want? Why aren’t you in bed? It’s results day tomorrow.’ She rakes her fingers through her long hair and fixes me with a hard stare.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Huh,’ she says, cocking her head.
‘I’m just so tired of how things are between us. I’m sorry. I just wanted to tell you that. I’m sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’ Daisy asks.
I breathe in deeply. ‘I’m not sorry about Cal. I just want to start by saying that.’
Daisy plays with the ends of her hair, twisting them around her finger. ‘This isn’t a great apology.’
I sit on the end of her bed and take her hand, the way I used to when we were little and I was scared of being in the playground without her. ‘But what I am sorry for is changing the plan without telling you. Daisy, we’ve been together our whole lives. Nursery, reception, primary school, secondary school,’ I say, counting them off on my fingers. ‘It was always me and you together. Always me and you getting lumped together as if we were just the same p
erson. And then when we had to be separated for sixth form, I thought, OK, this isn’t so bad. Maybe I kind of like a little separation. Some time apart. So I know we talked about going to the same uni and being back together again, but when it came to it, I thought, you know, maybe it would be better if we just kept on down this path. I don’t think I understood it was so important to you. I don’t think I even really understand it now.’
‘Do you want to understand it?’
I nod sincerely.
‘You went to sixth form and you met Cassie.’
I squint at her in confusion. ‘But you have loads of friends – why does it make a difference to you that I met my best friend?’
‘Because you stopped talking to me! It was like you just didn’t need me anymore. I was always your, you know, Default Person, and then all of a sudden I wasn’t and it made me realize how superficial all my friendships were. Not like they’re superficial people, but it just wasn’t anything close to the bond I had with you. I could have fun with them but it wasn’t the same. It made me realize how important you were to me. I’d taken it for granted my whole life because we’re sisters, and you think that bond doesn’t need any maintenance, and it made me understand that it does. I thought we would get it back at uni, that we would regain that closeness that we had before. And then you just decided to do your own thing.’
‘Daisy … changing the plan is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.’
She looks up at me. ‘Serious?’
‘I literally don’t sleep sometimes, thinking about how much I wish I wasn’t going to uni. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m so anxious about leaving here, and you, and Mum, and Cassie. Just leaving everything. Leaving my life. It feels like everyone around me is so hyped to start this new chapter in their lives and I’m just not ready. Maybe being with you would have made a bit of a difference, but I don’t think it would have solved it. I’m just not ready to leave it all behind. It makes me feel like an idiot baby.’
‘You’re not!’ She squeezes my hand. ‘It’s your life and you know what’s best for you. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.’
Melt My Heart Page 16
