Echoes. Laura Dockrill
a Bumpington-Brown, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment.
In two hours and three minutes’ time the Bumpington-Brown girls are supposed to be flying to St Lucia to visit their parents, who now live there. Except FUCKERADA! Isabella Mozzarella Jezebella has lost her passport.
‘I think you are an absolute selfish cow. You have cocked this up too many times in the past and you’re doing it again,’ Tillytubs grunted, her piggy nose quivering in frustration.
‘Mum is going to freak,’ Jemima snarled under her breath.
‘You are un-fucking-believable, Isabella,’ BeeBee shook her head in disgust, catting her eyes into dark little slits.
‘I can’t help but think you did this on purpose to spite me for snogging Damien. Look, he came on to me okay, it’s not my fault I’m prettier,’ Taramasalata sighed, folding her St Tropez arms into a bony square.
‘Well, if you’re not coming, let me get my hairdryer out of your bag.’ Frillyskirtbean began digging around into Isabella’s hand luggage.
‘Can I please have your Ray Bans if you’re not coming? Ooh and your sun oil? Ooh and your Ruby and Millie lip gloss? Ooh and your iPod?’ Haggis joined in on the squabble, texting at the same time.
So off they went, all six of them, UGG boots, Paul’s Boutique jackets and acrylic nails. Like a grouching, fake-tanned parade of pretty ducklings, they swanned off to check in. Isabella, stripped of her goods, went to find a quiet, un-embarrassing, un-cringifying space to call Add Lee.
‘WTF?!’ she texted her BFF. ‘This is a long trek all day to the airport to get shunned. Random. L’
To which her BFF replied, ‘WTF?! Bumped, you must be pissed. Ah well. Nero?’
And something happened to Isabella then, when she saw that dreaded word, ‘Nero’. There is something drastically disappointing about packing to go and enjoy two weeks in the Caribbean sunshine, to being deserted by your siblings, and then have to spend the afternoon bitching into a supermarket box of sushi and an espresso. So, as out of character as it was (so out of character it hurt), she replied, ‘Oh, random, they are letting me fly after all. Wix! See you in two weeks ;).’
To which BFF replied, ‘Lucky bitch. Have fun. xoxo’
The Add Lee driver texted to confirm his arrival. The car door shut.
‘Wandsworth Common, please.’
Isabella emptied her suitcase, re-packed it for Cornwall. The Bumpington-Browns had a cottage; she would go there, in hiding, for the fortnight.
After a tormenting train ride with normal, poor people, Isabella slogged her suitcase up that torturous hill in her Primarni ballet pumps (a richy always likes to get these simple footwear on the cheap–shoes were disposable, basically like foot-shaped teabags), pashmina and all. She eventually reached the cottage.
Then, scrambling through her Burberry handbag, she fingered through old fag boxes, tampons, hairgrips and Nero loyalty cards for her set of keys. ‘You are joking,’ she grumbled, after not feeling her keys where she had thought they’d be. She bit her lip and got down to her knees. It was dark and beginning to rain, the wind blew her hair about. She turned her handbag upside down. The wind targeted its contents, attacking the loose receipts and scrappy papers. No keys. ‘No fucking way.’
She looked around the doorstep for a key: under the doormat, behind the plant pot, in the letterbox. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She couldn’t go back. How humiliating. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She kicked the wall. FUCK. Ouch, fuck, bollocks.
She looked through the window and could just make out the living room, the remote control, the mirror, the candlesticks, the dining room table, the alarm beeper signalling every fifteen seconds. FUCK. The rain began to pellet down in heavy, thick strokes; it was difficult to breathe, difficult to keep her eyes open, impossible to get out her mobile phone.
Then she remembered Barnaby at number sixty-seven. Excellent. At least he might be able to give her some tea, then she could order a taxi, or he might even have a spare key to the cottage. Right. On she went, her suitcase crackling behind her, sloshing in the gutter where the rain had almost begun to rise.
Doof, doof, she fisted the door of number sixty-seven, her mitten punching the door in heavy clods. Silence. FUCK. She tutted. ‘What a shitty day.’ Again: DOOF, DOOF. Nothing. She checked her mobile phone. Could ring Mum, break into the cottage, ask her for the code. But she was in a bad mood, she wasn’t supposed to be here in Cornwall, she’d worry, tell the police, get that smelly woman from the teashop to chaperone her home to London. Noway. DOOF DOOF. Still nothing. Great. She would find a hotel. It was getting late. Then, all of a sudden a light came on, it was like a flicker at the end of a dark tunnel, warm, glowing and phew. The door latch clicked open and released. It was a guy, a handsome one too, about the same age as her.
‘Hello?’ he asked.
‘Hi. I was, erm, looking for Barnaby.’
‘Oh yeah, right. Barns ain’t ’ere.’
‘Oh.’ Isabella smiled politely, fake, ridged and difficult. ‘I thought he…sorry, okay. Thanks.’
‘That’s a big suitcase you’ve got; you come far?’ he asked, opening the door further. A sticky, sweet smell swam out of the door; the scruffy hallway was on display, a guitar, shoes, and a surfboard. Weed. Druggies. Just what she needed.
‘Yes, London, but, it erm…’
‘Yeah, we just rent the place off Barns, he lives a few miles away now, got into that property development and we work for ’im. S’all right. Do you want to come in for a cuppa?’
‘No, I…’ she started to protest and then a gush of relief blew out of her like a normal breath after a coughing fit. She was tired and could not refuse some warmth. Besides, her hair now sat in dreaded clumps like dripping icicles, her mascara was bleeding down her face, rainwater-sodden, her tiny shoes, water everywhere, overflowing out of the backs of her heels. It was impossible to argue.
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’
Inside the house were three other boys. Two were playing a game that Isabella just could not grasp the name of–it was pronounced in a heavy Cornish groan, ‘Cul-a-Jooty.’
The boy who’d answered the door left Isabella in the living room saying, ‘This is J and this is Paulie, Boys, this is…’
‘Isabella,’ she answered sheepishly.
‘Isabella. That over there is Bill, his real name’s Ollie but he can’t olly, can’t skate for shit, but he can bill-up…get it? As in, rolling up, s’ank like that.’
Bill was tugging at a bong that gargled in his hands, his head covered in a spread of gingery dreadlocks, his jeans scruffy with band names scribbled over them in heavy black marker, a hoodie with Dr Dre on it. ‘’S’up.’ He acknowledged Isabella and sat up straighter, offering her the bong.
‘No, thanks.’ She waved her hand and sat down, awkward, not wanting the material on her clothing to settle on the surface. The room was not how she remembered it when it was Barnaby’s living room. It was now a dark, dingy pit, the only light being the blue hypnotic flash of the Cul-a-Jooty which entailed lots of shooting. Stacks of cassettes, CDs, vinyl and video games were piled from floor to ceiling. On the walls, over the once flowered wallpaper were scraggy sun-stained posters of Carmen Elektra, Eminem, Snoop Dogg. On the shelves where Barnaby’s football trophies used to sit were funny ornaments and figurines, a mini Batman and Robin and a Rubik’s Cube. It was like a big kid’s room. The main noise, apart from the occasional burp or grizzle was from the stereo in the corner.
‘Do you like RATM?’ the door opener who had now revealed himself as Stoo asked, as he passed her a cup of tea.
‘Excuse me?’ Isabella asked.