‘Well then.’ Josh covered my hand with his, then turned it over and caressed my palm with one finger, running it up the sensitive skin to my elbow, then back down again. All over my body, my skin prickled at his touch. ‘Maybe you should think about it a bit.’
‘I don’t want to rush into anything,’ I blurted out.
‘Who said anything about rushing? I’m in no hurry.’
Shit. Why did everything he said make me think he meant something else? The idea of him not being in a hurry made me think irresistibly of other things he might do, slowly and languorously, taking his time. Like he took his time over that prank at school.
‘I think…’ I began, and then we heard Adam’s keys in the door.
‘Oh good, you guys are still up. I’d love to try some of that Connemara malt if it’s still going. Freezer’s fine, and Hannah’s cool with what happened. She thought it was hilarious, actually, and she said she’ll reimburse us for the vet’s bill.’
‘I think I’ll head up to bed,’ I finished.
I said good night and went to my room, but I couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time, because I could hear their voices downstairs, not being loud or lairy or anything, but chatting and laughing and clearly having a good old male bonding session.
It made me feel somehow unsettled, although I couldn’t identify exactly why.
Year Eleven
Over the next few months, my life developed a new routine that was fulfilling in a grim sort of way. I ate my apple and carrot every lunchtime, until I began to enjoy them so little that I threw quite a lot away, so then I reduced my allowance to half an apple and half a carrot. I bought packs of sugar-free gum from Mr Nabi’s shop and chewed it, savouring each little white pellet until all the flavour was long gone. I cooked dinner for Perdita and me when Mum was at work and Dad was out, and then said I wasn’t hungry. After my sister had gone to sleep, I lay on our bedroom floor and did sit-ups and leg-raises, first fifty, then a hundred, then more and more.
I worked hard at school and was amazed to find I enjoyed it. When Mr Brodrick praised me, I didn’t care so much about being called ‘Bike’. I perfected a distant stare when I saw Kylie, Anoushka and their crowd looking my way and sniggering. In bed each night, I made a bridge across my hipbones with my forearm, and loved measuring the increasing empty space beneath it.
One Saturday at work, Debbie closed the shop early and offered me a cup of tea.
‘Yes, please,’ I said, then added automatically, ‘Just black. No sugar.’
She set one of her simple, perfect white china mugs down in front of me and said, ‘Tansy, are you okay?’
‘Of course I am,’ I said. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘Everything all right at school?’
School. I thought of Josh, hanging out with Kylie and Anoushka and their elite crowd, and I wondered what he’d told her about me. I wondered whether she knew the names they called me, and why. I treasured those weekend days in the shop, surrounded by beautiful things, and I knew that the small amount of money I brought home mattered hugely to Mum. If Debbie knew what I was really like, if Josh told her what everyone said about me, it would all be gone. And if I told her about the trick he’d played on me, my relationship with Debbie would surely be finished.
I wondered whether Josh knew about the thoughts I’d had about him, how I’d imagined him talking to me, taking my side against his friends, maybe – maybe even telling me he liked me. But that was impossible. At school, and on the occasions, rarer now than they used to be, when he came into the shop, I blanked him totally.
‘Of course,’ I said again.
‘Okay,’ Debbie replied. ‘Only you’ve lost some weight, and I wondered…?’
‘Wondered what? I’m just being healthy. My body is a temple, right?’
Amazingly, Debbie blushed. She’d used the phrase herself, when she’d gone on one of her hardcore juice fasts that involved no solid food, only smoothies made from celery, spirulina, spinach and whey protein, along with five litres of water and two hours of yoga a day. I’d have loved to try it myself, but I had no money for spirulina and wasn’t sure what whey protein was, and the yoga book I’d found in the school library said you should stick dental floss up your nose and pull it out again to clear your passages, which grossed me right out.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So long as you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
Then she sighed, took another sip of her tea, and said she had something to tell me. She was selling the shop, and she and Josh were moving to Australia in the summer once he’d finished his GCSEs.
‘It’s a massive change for us both,’ she said. ‘But an old friend of mine moved out there a few years ago, to Sydney, and opened a business there. It’s thriving, and she’s looking for someone to manage a second branch. I’ve loved living here, but I get itchy feet, and it’s time to start a new chapter.’
‘Right,’ I said, a million questions crowding into my mind. Why Australia? Why now? What did Josh make of leaving his little gaggle of friends behind to start over at a new school where he’d be the new, awkward, frightened one? Not that I could imagine Josh ever being awkward. And most of all, what about me? Why was she leaving me? Had I done something that had made her hate me, along with everyone at school? What would I do without those tranquil weekend mornings spent working and learning, the only time in my life I felt truly happy?
‘There’s not a lot more I can teach you, you know, Tansy,’ Debbie said gently. ‘If you really want a career in fashion, you need to broaden your horizons. I’ve talked to a friend in London who can arrange some work experience for you over the summer, if you want. You could stay with her for a couple of weeks. And if your exam results are good, you could go on to sixth form college and then university. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.’
I looked up at her, and past her to the shop window. It was February and raining, the wind battering against the glass and driving litter along the high street. You don’t have to stay here. It was the first time it had occurred to me that I didn’t; that there was a future for me away from school, away from Dad, away from the memory of Connor and Josh and the things people said about me.
‘When I was your age, I felt like I’d never be grown up,’ Debbie said. ‘I felt like I’d never be in charge of my own life. But things change. This too shall pass.’
It was a typical Debbie remark – a philosophical platitude that she’d read in a book somewhere and was trotting out to make me feel better. But, even though it was on the tip of my tongue to ask how in control of his life her son was feeling right now, being whisked away to the other side of the world because his mum was experiencing itchy feet, it worked. I thanked her and said good night and went home, and over the next few weeks I worked and studied harder than I’d ever dreamed I could. The vision I had in my mind of London, working a summer internship, escaping from Truro and my classmates’ mocking laughter and the stress and misery of life with my father, was a beacon of hope that grew more real each day.
At school, I found myself gravitating towards the clever kids, the ones who were being tutored for their exams, did music lessons in the afternoons and spent break times tapping away on laptops. I wasn’t clever myself, I knew that – anything I managed to achieve would be through hard work and single-mindedness, not through innate talent. And I was still too much of an outcast to make friends with anyone. But, sitting next to Fawzia and Faaruq, the twins from Somalia, an open book in front of me and my little bag of carrot sticks in my lap, I felt a kind of insulated peace, if not any real sense of belonging.
Kylie, Anoushka and the rest of them weren’t focused on exams – not one bit. Anoushka and Luke were an item now, and spent every second when a teacher wasn’t watching glued hip to hip, snogging passionately. All the girls were obsessed with the Year Eleven leavers’ ball, endlessly practising their make-up and getting the train to Plymouth on weekends to try on dresses in Jane Norman and Mis
s Selfridge. I sometimes thought wistfully that if things had been different, I might have been going to try on dresses, too, planning what colour I’d paint my nails and speculating about whose invitation I’d accept to the ball.
But my life was what it was, and no one would be asking me to any dance, so I did my homework and chewed my gum, relishing the sound of my rumbling stomach. I signed up for Mr Brodrick’s extra maths classes and saved up to buy Vogue every month, learning the styles of the big-name designers, and, later on, all the minor ones too, as industriously as I did my school work.
And every morning I felt either savage pleasure or wretched disappointment when I stepped onto the bathroom scale. A low number gave me a sense of achievement as warm and satisfying as a good result in a test; a higher one meant only a quarter of an apple at lunchtime. My belly bore permanent bruises where I pinched the skin over and over, tighter and tighter, because if an inch was good, less than an inch must be even better.
One afternoon in May, after school finished for the day, I hung back as I always did, waiting for Kylie and Anoushka and their crew to leave. I’d learned that if I went ahead of them, they could run and catch me up, and their taunts would follow me all the way home. So I loitered by the gate until I was sure it was safe to go, and then I walked slowly towards home, my bag of books dragging on my right shoulder.
I could see their little group far ahead of me, Luke’s arm draped around Anoushka’s neck, Kylie and Danielle punching each other’s arms and shrieking, Josh and Ben idly kicking a football back and forth, a few others tagging along, hoping to be included. Then Josh broke away from the group, waved and came jogging back towards me.
I froze, looking around for a place to hide. But the wide road was lined with terraced houses on either side; there was nowhere to go. I fixed my gaze straight ahead and kept walking.
When he was a few yards away, he called out my name. My actual name, not the cruel nickname I’d been given. I ignored him.
‘Hey, Tansy,’ he said again, but I didn’t stop.
He fell into step next to me, and I walked on as if he wasn’t there. Ahead of me, I saw Anoushka and Luke peel off and go into Luke’s house, while the others split up at the crossroads, going right and left. I could hear their laughter drifting back towards me.
‘Tansy? Earth to Tansy!’ Josh stepped in front of me and turned around to face me, so I had no choice but to stop.
‘What do you want?’ I demanded.
Josh looked just the same as always, lean and lanky, his dark blond hair dishevelled by the wind and his tie half undone. He’d ‘shot up’, as Debbie put it, over the past few months and his trouser legs and shirtsleeves were too short. He was smiling like him stopping to talk to me was a totally normal thing to do, even though we both knew it wasn’t.
‘Do you have a date for the leavers’ ball?’
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d gone down on one knee and proposed marriage, but I fought to keep my face impassive.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Will you come with me?’
For a second, a whole new future opened up in front of me: a future in which I’d be wearing a dress that didn’t come from a high-street store but was unique and beautiful, my hair coiled in a perfect up-do, surrounded by laughing friends who liked me, my arm around the waist of a handsome boy.
Then reality closed back down with a snap. I remembered what he’d done before – the cruel trick he’d played on me. I remembered how eagerly I’d gone along with it, how I’d let myself be lured into the trap against my better judgement, because I wanted so badly to believe that he liked me.
I wasn’t going to fall for that again.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I said, made brave by months’ worth of pent-up hurt and anger. ‘I’m not playing your pathetic little game.’
And I stepped deftly past him and walked on, leaving him standing open-mouthed and alone in the street.
Twenty
Things changed yet again after that night. Before, I’d had the sense that Josh and Adam were engaged in a kind of love triangle with Freezer at its apex, and even worried that they might challenge each other to a duel over his favours at any moment.
Now I was living in a house with a three-way bromance going down.
Take this typical scene a couple of weeks later. I came downstairs on my way to work and found Adam and Josh in the kitchen. They both had slices of Josh’s special organic sourdough wholemeal toast spread with the palm-oil-free peanut butter he’d bought, and cups of espresso from Adam’s fancy new coffee machine. But their toast was going soggy on their plates and their coffee cooling in their mugs, because they also had a fishing-rod cat toy with a bunch of feathers on the end, which Freezer was chasing round the kitchen, occasionally doing wild pounces or dramatic skids on the tiled floor.
Both of them were watching him with identical soppy grins on their faces.
‘Look at this, Tans,’ Josh said. ‘It arrived this morning. He thinks it’s the best thing ever.’
‘Come on, little dude.’ Adam made the toy go again and, after a dubious glance in my direction, Freezer pursued it, leaping in the air and coming down with all four paws on the feathers, before turning upside down and savaging it with his hind legs.
‘You got the birdie!’ Josh cooed. ‘You clever cat!’
‘Freezer, the mighty hunter,’ Adam said, glowing with pride like a father watching his baby take its first steps.
‘We should really give him treats when he catches it,’ Josh said. ‘It reinforces their predatory drive, I read online.’
‘We’ll have to ask Hannah,’ Adam replied.
‘He is adorable.’ And so are the two of you, you big dafties, I thought, forgetting for a second how unadorable Josh had been to me in the past. ‘Right, I’m off.’
‘Have a good day,’ Josh said, but he was watching the bundle of feathers and Freezer, who was crouched low, his bottom wriggling as he prepared to pounce.
‘Some mates of Josh’s are doing the quiz at the Prince George tonight. Fancy coming along?’ Adam asked.
‘With Adam on our team, we’re sure to win,’ Josh said. ‘Bloke’s basically a walking Wikipedia.’
Adam ducked his head in a modest aw, shucks gesture, but I was pretty sure it was true.
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘Depends how work goes.’
The prospect of being with Josh – who’d no doubt nail all the questions about music and sport – and Adam – who knew everything else – and being left to humbly answer the odd question about America’s Next Top Model wasn’t the most appealing thing ever.
But, on the other hand, I’d noticed the expression on Adam’s face the night before, when he’d come home late from work and found Josh and me sitting on the sofa together watching Queer Eye. We hadn’t been canoodling or anything – we hadn’t even been touching each other. But there we were, next to each other, our feet up on the coffee table next to the remains of a chicken salad I’d made, and Adam had looked at us with an expression on his face that was not unlike the way he looked at Freezer when he pounced on his feathery toy.
If I did manage to nail a tricky quiz question, Josh would high-five me, maybe even hug me. And I’d hug him back. And Adam would see, and tell Renzo. A price worth paying, surely.
But, as it turned out, I didn’t make it to the pub that night. Just as I was shutting down my computer at half six, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. Chelsea.
You free?
* * *
Sure. What’s up?
* * *
Can you come round the flat?
Bollocks. Typical Chelsea – she wasn’t going to communicate anything significant in a text. But it was on my way home, after all.
Give me 45 minutes.
Chelsea’s staccato texting style was catching, I’d found.
Soon, I was in the lift on the way up to the sixth floor of Wadsworth Heights. The estate felt different now, in the twili
ght of a summer evening. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and people at work had stopped saying how gorgeous the weather was and started moaning about how they simply couldn’t bear the heat any more, it was too much. But here, everything seemed to have been brought to life by the heatwave. I could smell the mouthwatering savouriness of a barbecue. Windows were open to let in the warm air, children’s laughter was drifting up from the playground next to the car park and people were sitting on plastic chairs outside their front doors, smoking and chatting.
The door to Chelsea’s mum’s flat was closed, though, and I knocked tentatively. It was opened by a boy who I guessed must be Nathan – a lanky, handsome lad wearing low-slung jeans and a hoodie pulled up over his baseball cap. He must be roasting in this weather, I thought fleetingly.
He stared hard at me, unsmiling. In spite of what I knew about him, he looked like a boy trying to look tougher than he was.
‘Hi, I’m Tansy. I work with Chelsea.’
‘Nathan.’ He held out his hand for me to shake and smiled a sudden, warm smile, his cool street demeanour slipping for a second so I could see the sweet boy Mrs Johnston had described. ‘They’re through here.’
He showed me to the bedroom that Chelsea had told me used to be hers, where she did her sewing now, but he needn’t have – I could have found my own way there just by following the whirr of sewing machines.
Chelsea and her mother were both in there. Mrs Johnston was still in her work uniform, a scarf tied over her hair, bent over a machine as she fed a swathe of mustard-coloured silk under the needle, rapidly and expertly. Chelsea was at the table, fixing a pattern to a piece of midnight-blue velvet, her mouth full of pins. The room wasn’t immaculately tidy as it had been before, with everything squared away. It was – well, not chaos, exactly. But there were several empty teacups scattered around, drifts of snipped-off thread littering the floor, garments in various stages of production hanging on rails and lying in roughly folded piles.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 23
