Candy and the Broken Biscuits. Lauren Laverne
when she’s trying to be a grown-up. “I’m saying, Candy, I think your mother deserves some happiness. If it’s with Ray then so be it. He’s not of her usual stamp, I’ll grant you, but do what you’ve always done…And?”
“…and you’ll get what you’ve always got. I know.” Glad has been drumming this particular pearl of wisdom into me since I was as tall as her piano stool.
“I don’t believe you when you say Ray is wrong for your mum, Candy. He’s been a good influence on her, admit it.” She sips her tea, observing me over the top of the cup.
I try to think about the last time Mum did anything preposterous. “She made me miss our school trip, to go on the road with a Kiss tribute band!” I huff, remembering the mortifying week I spent touring the seaside resorts of Britain with Smooch.
Glad makes a face. “That was down to that awful Brian laddie.”
Oh yeah. Brian. Mum’s boyfriend before Ray. He was Smooch’s drummer. Mum was desperate for me to sample “the magic of life on the road”. The reality of watching her boyfriend dress up as a cat and play metal every night almost put me off music for life. Almost. “What about the Guinea Pig thing?” I ask, in the style of a lawyer making a spirited case for the prosecution.
A few weeks ago Mum bought twenty-five of the things from a pet-shop because “they looked sad”.
Glad smiles, casting a glance at the cage in the corner where her own two dozy furballs (Winston and Adolf) are snoozing contentedly. “He was away that weekend – remember?”
She’s right, dammit! He was on a course called Becoming Your Own Biggest Fan.
Glad smiles kindly. “I think what you’re finding hardest about all this is what it means about who you are. You’re just starting to work out who you want to be and now you’re going to belong to somebody you never asked for. It’s tough, but can I let you in on a secret?”
Like I have a choice. I do an if-you-must eyebrow at her.
“None of us get to pick. That’s how family works. And there are much, much worse fathers to have than Ray.”
“He’s not my father!”
“He’s the closest thing you’ve got. And he wants the job. He’s not what you’d call ‘cool’ but so what? Dads aren’t cool. If he’s not so terrible a choice that you’d sabotage the wedding maybe you just need to accept him.”
A silence descends as Glad allows this newsflash time to percolate. I hover glumly over my tea. She’s right – this is my life. A man so uncool he makes my geography teacher look like Jay-Z has been cast in the role of The Dad. I’m skiving off school for the first time ever and I’m in the East Bishopspool Pensioners’ Day Centre. I look round and my eyes come to rest on a poster on the noticeboard.
RESTRICTED MOVEMENT? CHAIR-OBICS COULD BE FOR YOU! TUESDAY 3PM.
Oh God. This cannot be it. I love Glad. I love my mum. But this cannot be my life…
Can it?
Instead of going to school, I head home. Not ideal as Mum’s salon is a mere creaky floorboard below but that’s where I go. Partly because I’m not sure what else to do and partly because I’ve got to get out of this uniform before I can think straight. I feel anchorless and a bit floaty. It’s beginning to sink in that Mum is going to go through with this. Her life is separate from mine. I suppose that looks obvious written down, but I’ve never really thought about it before. It’s a horrible thought but the other side of it is…a bizarre kind of freedom. Why should I go to school anyway? I can make my own decisions too.
I walk home via the quiet streets, so that I’m not spotted. The floatiness turns to giddiness and then something approaching hysteria. The world is spinning out of control and nothing is the way I thought it was when I first opened my eyes today. I’m out of school on a Monday morning! I feel, in a surreal way, daring. Spy-like.
I flip my MP3 player to a David Holmes’ film soundtrack. As it thrums into action, pacy and tap-tap-tappity everything suddenly looks monochrome. I cling to the sides of cars Jason Bourne-style as I pass, subtly checking over my shoulder for double agents and imagining myself seen through the sights of a weapon. When I place my hand on an imaginary gun, I have a word with myself. Luckily I’m back. I pop out my headphones and, quiet as a mouse, sneak into our yard, through the back door and up to my room.
My bedroom is as much like the inside of my head as anywhere could be. Pictures line the walls. Mainly they’re of musicians but there are some of places, too. Each one takes me somewhere or pushes my thoughts further out. Towards? Just away, I suppose. I have a bit of a thing for stars and my collection decorates the ceiling. Every time I find a picture of one I have to cut it out, otherwise it’s unlucky. Cartoons, scientific diagrams, wierdy mathematical line-drawings of ones by an old Dutch dude called MC Escher (not actually a rapper as it turns out!) and a 3D model I stole from the school science block that I still feel bad about.
My bed is tucked under the window, with its sea view and embarrassing curtains. Mum is obsessed with old stuff. Clothes, records, furniture: anything, really. So obviously our house is full of it. She calls it “vintage” but we sensible people know it as second-hand junk that’s often broken. Like the people in it, our house’s furniture is charming but doesn’t really do what it’s supposed to. I have an old 1950s bedroom set, made of white melamine with a sort of grey tiger-stripe pattern going on. There are a couple of handles missing and one of the dressing table drawers won’t open (Holly, has speculated that it may contain the ashes of a murder victim). At first I thought it looked uber lame but I must admit, now that it’s got all my stuff on it, it’s pretty cool. A rainbow selection of clothes peek out of the wardrobe, lounge on the bed and curl up on my dressing-table like old friends.
My phone beeps. Text: PIRATE. It’s Holly. Her surname is Rodgers. Holly Rodgers. Jolly Roger? Pirate. Don’t blame me. I didn’t invent the rules about nicknames. Why do they always have to be something insulting? When people try to start their own nickname it’s always so obvious. They give it away every time by trying to make it sound cool like ‘Laser’ or ‘Hawkeye’. It never sticks. Fart in PE once, though, and you’re ‘Napalm’ for the next hundred years.
Anyway Holly has decided to “own” Pirate. It actually really suits her. She’s the most genuinely rebellious, take-no-prisoners, close-to-the-wind-sailing girl I know. Definitely the funniest. She got detention for titling her homework ‘A pain in the Pythagoras’ last week. Which shows you how much she hates authority. And maths, which is where she is now.
“Whr ru? M in hell pls snd hlp. X”
I picture her texting from her pocket without looking at the screen.
I message back. “@ home but going 2 the blue. Can u get out? X”
I know, I know, inciting her to truant. Well trust me – today may be a first for me, but for Holly it definitely isn’t. How Mr and Mrs Rodgers produced her I’ll never know. She’s from a family of nine and they’re very religious – they go to one of those churches with singing, clapping and lots and LOTS of smiling but NO ACTUAL SENSE OF HUMOUR. Our pirate friend is very much the cuckoo in the crow’s nest. She actually keeps a change of clothes at school for sneaking out.
“Cu in 20. X”
I’d better get changed myself. It’s funny – the things I wear make me even more of a freak to people round here but dressing up makes me feel better about it. I’ve tried toning it down but it’s like holding your breath. You can only last so long.
Ten minutes later, I am wearing a tea dress that in my head belonged to Drew Barrymore in around 1993, long woollen socks that come up past my knees, battered Nike hi-tops and a 1980s knitted hat made of sparkly