After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby (10 page)

‘I can’t go to school,’ I told Zoran again this morning. ‘I just can’t.’

Zoran put his hand on my forehead, which is what he always does when we don’t feel well, is very unscientific and always leads to the same result, even when Jas was really sick with an ear infection.

‘You’re still not ill,’ he said.

‘I have an enormous pain
here
,’ I said, pointing to my stomach, my heart and my throat. ‘Also here,’ I added, rubbing my head, which was true. It came on just as I was thinking about it.

‘What you mean,’ said Zoran, ‘is that you don’t
want
to go to school.’

‘Please, Zoran?’ I begged. Because I wasn’t lying. I
can’t
go to school. I can’t watch Flora and Joss together. I can’t speak to him. I just can’t.

I don’t know why Zoran didn’t tell us about his great-aunt before. She is the snowy-haired lady who kept holding the old man’s hand. Her name is Alina, and Zoran lived with her all the time he was growing up because his parents were dead.

‘She isn’t English,’ I said.

‘She is from Bosnia,’ said Zoran. ‘Like me,’ he added. ‘But she came here a long time before the war.’

I said, ‘what war?’ and also that I was surprised because when he speaks he sounds just like us. I didn’t even realise he was foreign.

‘There was a terrible war in my country,’ he said. ‘From April 1992 to November 1995. Really, I don’t know what they teach you at that school. No wonder you don’t want to go.  And Blue, my name is
Zoran
.’

I shrugged. ‘Lots of people have strange names.’

Zoran said in Bosnia his name was not considered strange, and that he didn’t want to talk about it any more.

Alina is lovely. After the concert, she gave me a boiled sweet out of the tin Zoran brought her, and told me I was beautiful. Which was comforting, even if she is obviously half blind.

‘Is the old man her boyfriend?’ I asked.

‘Peter? He would like to be. He actually keeps proposing but she always says no.’

‘That’s so sad.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Blue, she is ninety-five years old!’

‘I don’t see why that matters, if they love each
other
.’

Zoran said
I suspect he’s only after her money
. I got upset and said I didn’t think that was true because the old man looked really sweet and maybe sometimes people really do love each other. Zoran said I was probably right and not to pay attention to him because he was just bitter and twisted.

‘I can’t believe you never told us about her,’ I said. ‘Your great-aunt, I mean.’

Zoran said, he wanted to keep his work life and his private life separate.

‘I didn’t realise we were
work
,’ I grumbled.

‘Childhood and adulthood, if you prefer,’ he said. ‘Then and now. Bosnia and England.’

‘But you grew up
here
,’ I said.

‘That’s not the point,’ said Zoran. ‘And you should have piano lessons. I can’t believe none of you play a musical instrument.’

‘Flora did start learning the violin,’ I said. ‘But she got bored. We were all quite relieved, to be honest.’

‘Music is a great healer,’ said Zoran. Suddenly he looked really sad.

‘You looked different when you were playing,’ I told him. ‘Almost handsome.’

Zoran laughed. ‘
Almost
?’ he said, and I laughed too.

Zoran goes to the old people’s home once during the week when we are at school, and also at the weekend when Mum or Dad is here. Every time he goes, they ask him to play the piano.

‘Don’t you mind?’ I asked.

He doesn’t mind, because that is the only time he gets to play. His great-aunt sold her baby grand at the same time as her house in order to pay for the Richmond Hill Retirement Home, so now he lives with us and has no instrument.

‘You must miss it,’ I said, meaning home.

‘Every day,’ he replied, meaning the piano.

I felt a teeny bit better about life when we got back. We had lunch and Zoran told me about his thesis which is called something like ‘Light in the Darkness: Magic and Metaphysics in Twelfth-Century Britain’. I actually have no idea what it’s about, but he got very excited about it. He started it three years ago when he was twenty-two, and he says he hopes to finish next year, if we ever give him a bit of peace. After lunch he put on a CD of a Russian composer called Rachmaninov and sat in the study to work, and I lay on my bed to write up this diary. Then at half-past three we went to pick the Babes up from school. We took them to the park and we went to the cafe and had those sticky baked custard pies and hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. We all got cream on our noses, and Zoran took a picture of us on his phone which he kept as his screensaver. It was so cosy and the whole day was so different I actually almost forgot about all the
horribleness
and sadness and disappointment of
yesterday
.

Then we went home, and Flora was there with Joss. Kissing in the kitchen.

It turns out I am not as invisible as I thought I was. I went back to Home Sweet Home for lunch, and the cute baby was there again. Her mother, who is called Ash, told me the baby’s name is Pretty.

‘Because she is,’ said Ash. ‘Would you like to give her her bottle?’

Ash told me all about what it was like to have a little baby, how neither she nor Pretty sleep at night but then nap all morning, tucked up together in Ash’s big bed when her boyfriend goes to work. She bought me rhubarb crumble and insisted I have custard with it, and made a big fuss about me getting back to school on time. I felt almost happy when I left – kind of stupefied by the amount of pudding I’d eaten, and warm and fuzzy from holding Pretty and being fussed over by Ash, but then it was ruined by Madame Gilbert at the gate, who was still smoking Gauloises but now has it in for me so is not laid back any more
at all
.

She called me rat girl – or more precisely
hey, you, rat girl!
– and put me in detention. Which in itself wasn’t a problem, because it meant I could avoid the whole potential walking home from school with the happy couple, but when I did get home they were blocking the front path, with Flora and Zoran yelling at each other.

‘It’s not my fault the rehearsal schedule’s been accelerated!’ Flora was shouting. ‘This isn’t some school play, you know. This is professional theatre!’

‘An amateur-dramatics pantomime is not professional theatre,’ said Zoran. ‘Nor is it a university degree.’

‘So WHAT?’ cried Flora.

‘So do your homework and then you can go.’
‘YOU’RE NOT MY MOTHER!!!’ screamed Flora.

‘Come on, dude,’ said Joss. ‘Be cool.’

He smiled at me, like he was saying, ‘Tell him, Blue.’ I shrugged. He raised his eyebrows. I looked away.

‘
You
do
not
call me
dude
,’ said Zoran, not
shouting
but sounding so cold I actually shivered. I must have made a noise, because he turned round to look at me and even in the dark, with Joss standing just behind him and my heart thudding so hard I thought I was going to be sick, I could see that he was furious.

‘Ah,’ said Zoran. ‘The wanderer returns.’

Flora started backing down the path. She has always been good at spotting opportunities.

‘I’ll be back by nine,’ she called out when she reached the gate.

‘I HAVEN’T FINISHED WITH YOU!!’ roared Zoran, but she was already running down the street, hand in hand with Joss.

‘I promise I’ll do my homework when I get back!’ she shouted, except she was laughing so much you could barely make out the words.

She wasn’t home by nine. I went up to bed and lay there listening for her, and listening to the sound of Zoran pacing up and down the hallway, waiting. There was more shouting when she came in, and tears. I put my pillow over my head and tried to block it out.

Mum came home today. We were expecting her for supper, but her plane was delayed. Zoran looked up the details on the web, and Jas cried when he said she wouldn’t land till eleven fifteen. Twig didn’t cry but went down the garden to talk to the rats. Flora slammed out of the house to see Joss, then slammed back in again because he was out. Zoran shouted at her.

I stayed in my room with my camera, replaying The Kiss.

So far I have managed to avoid Joss quite well, but presumably one day I will have to speak to him again. He is my neighbour, after all, as well as my sister’s boyfriend. Who knows, maybe one day he will even be my brother-in-law.

The way she slips out of his coat. The way she looks at him, half laughing. Straight at him,
inviting
him to kiss her. I tried to tell myself she didn’t give him a choice, but then . . .

The way he touches her hair, slips his hand behind her neck . . .

Kiss.

Pause.

Rewind.

The way she slips out of his coat . . .

The way he touches her hair . . .

It’s so obvious he wanted her too.

We didn’t eat together this evening. Flora took her plate up to her room and Twig took his back out into the garden. Zoran, Jas and I ate in front of the TV – salmon
en croûte
with homemade mayonnaise, potato wedges and lemon tart.

‘You’ve surpassed yourself,’ I told Zoran, because it was true and also because he looked miserable. He shrugged and said he knew it was quite common for teenagers to eat in their bedrooms but did we think it entirely normal for Twig to eat in the garden, in the dark, with the rats, when it was beginning to rain, and also did we think it means he is a failure as an au pair?

Then Twig came in and had to have a very hot bath because he was soaked through and freezing, but instead of shampoo he accidentally used the new Chanel bath milk sample Mum gave Jas last time she was home, and Jas went ballistic. She hasn’t thrown a proper tantrum in ages, as opposed to just crying, and I had forgotten just how loud she can shout and how extreme she can be. She shouted that she hated us all, especially Twig, and she hoped we all died soon so she could have some peace and quiet in her life free from thieves like her horrible brother, and she wished she had never been born. When Zoran tried to calm her down, she bit him. Then she threw Twig’s entire comic book collection down the stairs, went to bed and cried herself to sleep. Twig crept out of the bathroom smelling delicious but looking rather scared and asked if he could sleep with me tonight. Flora stayed in her room.

I sat up in bed with the lights off for Twig’s sake, typing up my diary and listening to him asleep on the mattress beside my bed. He does these little snorts and grunts which make him sound like a piglet. All the way downstairs, Zoran was listening to a concert on the radio in the kitchen, and occasional bursts of music or applause drifted up so I could hear.  

It’s been a while since I had the dream of the beach in Devon where Dad once made us scream. It’s always the same: low tide, with shelves of pebbles leading down towards the water’s edge where the shingle is sand-
coloured
and gleaming in the shallow surf and the occasional piece of sea glass glints like treasure. Except for the orangey shingle and the dull green of fields high above us on the cliff tops, the landscape is practically monochrome. Cliffs, sea, sky, everything is grey. A white mist is creeping in from the sea and through that mist a figure appears, thin and frail, walking away from where I stand with Mum and Dad, Flora, Jas and Twig. The mist shifts in the wind. The figure grows dim, then solid, then dim again. Every time she reappears, she is a little smaller, until she vanishes completely.

In my dream, Iris never looks back.

I knew Mum was home as soon as I woke up. There were real voices downstairs, and the house just felt less empty. I don’t think I have ever in my entire life felt so happy at the thought of seeing her. I slipped out of bed and out of my room, across the landing and down the stairs, quietly so as not to wake the others. Tonight I didn’t want to share her, or wait my turn until the others shut up. I wanted Mum,
now
. Her arms holding me, her voice telling me she loved me. I can’t describe how much I wanted it. It was like a
hunger.

I stopped when I reached the kitchen door. Something was wrong. Mum wasn’t getting to her feet to welcome me. She sat with her back to the door with her head in her hands. Zoran sat beside her. ‘I don’t like it any more than they do,’ she was saying.

‘But do you
have
to travel so much?’ asked Zoran.

‘In this job, yes. I’ve asked to do less, of course, but they have made it quite clear it isn’t an option.’

‘So quit,’ said Zoran.

‘Quit?’ Mum sounded appalled.

‘I’m not sure I can cope any more,’ Zoran said. ‘Jas doesn’t stop crying, I’m worried about Blue, and Flora has become uncontrollable.’

 ‘Work,’ said Mum in a strange low voice, ‘is the only place where I don’t think about my daughter’

And then she began to cry, rocking back and forth on her chair, her arms wrapped around her middle. ‘Iris, my baby, my baby!’

Zoran shifted so that he was facing her and took her hands. She leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed.

‘I know,’ said Zoran. ‘Believe me, Cassie, I know.’

I heard a noise behind me. Flora was sitting on the stairs, looking like she’d been turned to stone.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I whispered.

Flora didn’t answer. We crept back up the stairs and into bed and we didn’t speak another word.

Fault
n
1 a failing or defect; flaw. 2 a mistake or
error
. 3 a misdeed. 4 responsibility for a mistake or misdeed.

Of the three of us, Iris was always the one coming up with ideas, and so she was our leader. Dodi and I were her not-quite partners in crime, her faithful lieutenants, and her babysitters, because a person who isn’t afraid of anything is also a person who needs looking after. The long pretend games. The pet-grooming salon in Year 5. The trying to sail round the entire lake on a sailing course when we were meant to stay between the buoys. We did them all, but we stopped short of eating the plants she insisted were real food in our pretend games. We shampooed the neighbourhood cats, but drew the line at using a hair-dryer. We called for help when she said we should paddle.