After Iris: the Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby (9 page)

Last night when I went to bed, Flora was waiting for me, looking troubled because she had just eavesdropped on a conversation between Dad and Grandma in the kitchen. Basically, Grandma was angry with Dad because he says he has to leave
tomorrow
, and with Mum because she is not here at all.

‘What can I tell you?’ said Dad. ‘She’s needed in Beijing.’

‘SHE’S NEEDED HERE!’ shouted Grandma. ‘THESE CHILDREN NEED THEIR PARENTS!’

Dad said we were fine, which Flora says is just typical. Flora says of course we
are
fine, but Dad would say that even if we were in the middle of an earthquake, and a towering inferno to go with it. And then Dad said, very quietly but loud enough for Flora to hear, ‘Do you remember what Papa said when you left London to come and live here? He said, you had both always dreamed of living in the country, and now you were following your dream. I’m happy, Mum. I’m doing something that makes me happy, and for the first time in three years I don’t wake up every morning wanting to howl.’ Grandma said, ‘But what about your family?’ and Dad said he would tell us soon enough and when he did he was sure we would understand. And then Grandma asked what Mum thought of all this and Dad sounded really sad and said he couldn’t remember the last time he and Mum had a conversation without arguing.

Now Flora is more convinced than ever that Dad is in love with someone in Warwick. Some weird teacher type from the uni. She said they probably read their books out loud to each other in bed, and that she was very pessimistic about the future. But then in the end, Dad did stay. He was all set to go back after the tickling frenzy on the lawn but Jas clung to his legs, and Twig explained (very slowly, like Dad was the child and Twig was the grown-up) that we had a guy, and that later we were going to make a bonfire and burn him, and that there would be sausages and baked potatoes and marshmallows, and also fireworks in the village.

‘You
have
to stay, Daddy,’ said Jas, and then she did her round cat’s eyes and Dad sighed and said what the hell, all right, he would stay and we could all go home together on the train.

So Dad came bodysurfing with us, and even though he yelled when he went in the water (he got a wetsuit without socks, which is not a mistake he will ever repeat), afterwards he couldn’t stop talking about it.

‘Remember when we all caught that same wave?’ he said.

Also, ‘I haven’t had so much fun in ages!’

And, ‘Why don’t I do this every year?’ forgetting that whenever Grandma makes us do this on New Year’s Day, he stays at home by the fire and sleeps.

When we were warm and dry again, we built the bonfire. We piled up all the wood we had gathered over the week, along with the junk Grandma had hoarded for a year: newspapers, vegetable crates, cardboard boxes, a broken chair, rotten floorboards from the old shed. We piled it as high as we could and sat the guy on top. We drove to the village for the fireworks display, and then came home to light the fire, and Dad made us hold hands and dance around it, singing old songs he knows from the seventeenth century when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. We ate the sausages and potatoes, and then Grandma brought out blankets and we wrapped them round ourselves and lay on our backs to watch the stars, except Flora who toasted marshmallows for us while Dad told ghost stories.

‘Mummy would love this,’ said Jas, when the stories were finished and we were all quiet watching the flames.

‘She would.’ Dad held out his arms and Jas climbed on to his lap. He held her close and buried his face in her hair, rocking her.

‘I wish she was here,’ Jas said, and Dad said, ‘So do I, sausage,’ and carried on rocking.

My eyes met Flora’s across the bonfire, and she shrugged.  

 We are on the train now. It was sad to say goodbye to Grandma, but I’m looking forward to seeing Joss. At least, I think I am. How do you behave with people when you have told them your innermost secret? Not that Iris dying is a secret, exactly, but that’s how it felt to me. Will he want to talk about it? Will he want to know what happened? Maybe he will just behave exactly as he always has, and if he does, will I be relieved or disappointed? Maybe, he won’t say anything immediately but will wait for an opportune moment, and then maybe when that happens I will start to talk and talk like I always do with him, and maybe it will feel good.

Maybe. 

I have been thinking about Iris and how she used to climb our tree, up and up, fearless, until she reached the top when I was always too scared to go higher than the platform. I once told Grandma it wasn’t fair that Iris was so much braver than me. Iris was never afraid of anything, but Grandma said that there’s a difference between being brave and not being afraid. Iris was not afraid because Iris never thought about the consequences of what she did. ‘Iris is a doer,’ Grandma said. ‘You, Blue, actually think about what could happen to you if you fell out of that tree. The day you do climb to the top, you will be much braver than she is. So I gritted my teeth and I did it. Iris shot up before me and I just climbed on up after her and tried not to look down, until I was next to her and we were both screaming our heads off because we were on top of the world together.

I am not the joyous, triumphant person who once climbed right to the top of that tree.

I am not on top of the world.

Joss came round this morning before school.  He was wearing this battered green parka over a navy hoodie I have never seen before, and his hair was still wet from the shower. He looked so . . . Joss-like. He gave this great big smile when he saw me, and he put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me and said, ‘How’s my Bluebird, I’ve missed you!’ It was a nice hug and I did feel relieved. I thought, this is going to be all right, everything is still normal, and I was happy. Then before I could think of anything to say, Flora came striding out, in her tartan mini-skirt and knee-high Doc Martens, with her multicoloured hair piled up on her head. She glared at Joss and he let go of my shoulder and we all marched
off to school, keeping up with Flora who walked in between us and went on and on about how excited she was that rehearsals for the Extravaganza were starting again tonight. I rolled my eyes at Joss and he grinned and said, very politely, ‘You’re so lucky, I’d love to be involved in something like that,’ and Flora asked, ‘Do you act?’ and he said, ‘No, more of a stagehand, me’ and then Flora – Flora! – said, ‘Well, we’re always short of stagehands so why don’t you come along to rehearsal with me this evening?’
and Joss actually said OK.

I should have known then that something was wrong. I only saw him once at school, at lunch. I felt sick and didn’t think I would be able to eat anything but Jake and Tom and Colin, who seem to have decided to adopt me, all dragged me along to the canteen and there he was ahead of me in the queue, carrying a lunch tray, on his own as usual but not seeming to mind.

‘Afternoon, gorgeous,’ he said, when we met at the cutlery station.

Jake said
join us
(except he sort of squeaked it because ever since the Great Rat Debacle, he has positively worshipped Joss). Joss laughed and said thank you, but he could see I was in good hands and he didn’t want to get in the way of my many admirers, and then he patted me on the shoulder and I blushed. ‘Catch you later, Bluebird,’ he said, and the whole canteen looked at me, like ‘the lush new boy and the invisible silent girl’ and even though it was mortifying it was also quite cool.

I waited for him outside school, but he didn’t come. I waited for ages, and then I even pretended I had forgotten my French book in the library so I could go back in to look around. School was empty except for Old Dave the caretaker, who has hardly any teeth and got cross with me because he wanted to lock up and I was taking too long. I walked home on my own. When I got there, Flora was already running out of the house, cramming a sandwich into her mouth.  I heard Zoran shout ‘Take your coat’ and she yelled back ‘I can’t, I’m late’ and ran past me down the path to Joss’s to bang on the door. He came out almost immediately. ‘Late’, Flora repeated, and then the two of them ran off down the street, turned a corner and disappeared.

And that is when I knew I do have a crush on Joss. 

This morning we received a postcard from Dad:

If King Arthur had a daughter, what would she be like?

I think it says a lot about my family that nobody actually stopped to say
I wonder why Dad is asking that
, or,
I’m well too, Dad, thanks for asking.
They just launched straight in.

‘She would be drippy,’ said Twig. ‘She would hang out of her chamber window in her tower bleating
save me, Daddy, save me.
’

Jas scowled and kicked him, but Twig jumped out of the way, laughing. ‘She would be brave,’ growled Jas. ‘She would slay dragons and rescue ladies and KILL STUPID USELESS KNIGHTS!!’

‘Then she wouldn’t be a daughter, she’d be a son,’ said Twig.

Jas threw her homework book at him.

‘What do you think, Flora?’ asked Zoran.

‘About what?’

Flora has been wandering around in a little bubbly cloud of happiness. It is almost impossible to get her attention, let alone have a conversation with her.

‘If King Arthur had a daughter,’ said Zoran, ‘what would she be like?’

Flora sighed, like she was saying we were all too silly but she was so full of goodwill and sweetness and light she was going to answer us anyway. ‘She’d have awesome clothes,’ she said. ‘Suits of armour to fight in, and flowing robes.’

‘Flowing robes!’ scoffed Twig. ‘Dad’s gone nuts.’

‘Your father is a great intellectual,’ said Zoran.

‘Is he?’ asked Jas. ‘Really, truly great?’

Flora snorted. Zoran glared. Jas burst into tears and said she wished we were still in Devon.

I was the only one who didn’t say anything, but then I was also the only one who bothered to reply to Dad.

If King Arthur had a daughter
, I emailed him this evening,
she would be very confused.

I almost didn’t go to school today. Zoran had to come into my room and practically drag me out of bed. I told him I didn’t feel well but he wouldn’t listen. He said, ‘I have a lot of things to do today which do not involve me staying at home looking after little girls who are actually quite well enough to go to school’. I told him I could stay on my own and he said no, that Mum and Dad paid him to look after me and so I had to go.

‘If I die,’ I said, ‘my blood will be on your hands.’

‘Leave the dramatics to Flora,’ said Zoran. ‘They don’t suit you.’

‘I HATE YOU!’ I screamed as he walked off down the stairs. ‘AND I AM NOT A LITTLE GIRL!’

‘You certainly sound like one.’ Flora emerged from her bedroom and yawned. She was wearing her greenand pink silk kimono, the one she used to say makes her look too girly. Her hair hung down her back like a tangled, dreadlocked rainbow. She looked weird and glamorous and beautiful, and the sight of her made me scream again.

Afterwards I regretted it, of course. I scuttled off to school without waiting for her because I couldn’t bear to be there while she told Joss how childish I had been. ‘Blue threw a tantrum this morning!’ I could just imagine her saying. ‘She screamed her head off like a two-year-old.’ And Joss would answer, ‘I thought I heard something through the walls, wow Bluebird I never knew you had it in you’ and then he and Flora would probably kiss again, in public, in the street, in front of me, and I would have to be all ‘oh, you two are so cute together’, or make puking noises, or pretend not to notice or whatever it is you are supposed to say or do when you are thirteen years old and your big sister is SNOGGING THE BOY YOU LOVE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

The boy I love?

At school I did my best to ignore everyone. You would think after all these months of being ignored myself it would be easy, but apparently this is not possible when you have caused a sensation by bringing racing-car-driving rats into school. For a start, Dodi brought me cupcakes. ‘I made them last night and remembered you used to like them,’ she said.

CUPCAKES? I BECOME HER FRIEND ON FACEBOOK AND SHE BRINGS ME CUPCAKES? AFTER YEARS OF IGNORING ME? AFTER I PUBLICLY HUMILIATED HER?

Still, they were the Red Velvet ones with cream-cheese icing that Jas loves, so I took them for her, except then Dodi looked disappointed so I ended up sharing them with her at break, even though we didn’t exactly speak to each other while we ate them. And in French, waiting for La Gilbert, Jake Lyall rocked up with his two musketeers, and I flipped when they all tried to show me drawings of skating rats they want to use to decorate their boards.

‘OH, WHAT’S THE POINT?’ I shouted. They looked shocked. Basically nobody is used to me shouting, ever.

‘Your rats are famous,’ said Jake.

‘They’re really cool,’ stammered Colin.

‘THEY’RE LIKE, MEGASTARS,’ shouted Tom, even more loudly than me, but then Tom is like Grandma and always shouts so no one batted an eyelid.

‘I meant what’s the point of living,’ I said. I slumped over my desk and tried to ignore them, but I think boys are programmed not to get the ‘I want to be alone’ thing because they just hung around until I looked at their drawings, which are admittedly quite cool.

I went out again at lunchtime. I slipped out through the gate like my old invisible self and went back to Home Sweet Home. It was just like it always has been: the old smelly dog and Capital Radio, the men in black-framed glasses waving their iPads, the mums with their pushchairs. I remembered sitting here with Joss, the way he decided what I needed to feel better, the cakes he ordered, the way he listened when I told him stuff I’d never told anyone, and I could have screamed again.

There was a baby at the table next to me, all wrapped in white except for a pink ribbon in her corkscrew curls, her skin smooth and shiny and black, fast asleep with her hands scrunched up by her face like babies do, like they’re saying
please don’t wake me, please, however cute you think I am, please don’t coo and poke me and wake me up.
And I wished I could be like her.

The baby woke up anyway and looked straight at me. Her eyes were like chocolate. She reached out her hand and I held mine out without thinking so that she could grab my finger. She gurgled. Her mother smiled.

‘She likes you,’ she said.

‘I like her,’ I replied.

‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ she asked.

‘I’m going back,’ I sighed.

She had a lovely smile, that woman. ‘Can’t be that bad, sweetheart,’ she said.

‘Believe me, it is,’ I said.

Nobody saw me slip back into school. Even today, when my blood boils with anger, when if I let myself I could shout loud enough to bring every teacher, every classroom assistant, every pupil and lunch lady and handyman out from behind all those closed doors and windows, even today I can make myself fade to a
shadow
.