Charlotte Street (12 page)

I was about to close the blind again, but then… then I noticed something. The man under the bonnet was wearing baggy jeans. Dev doesn’t wear baggy jeans. He wears jeans either slightly too tight and far too short or slacks with elasticated waists he gets for nine quid out of a catalogue. And was that a hoodie? The car whined again and I suddenly realised … I was witnessing a theft! There was a robbery in progress! Someone was trying to nick Dev’s car! Well, fix it first, but
then
nick it.

‘Dev!’ I yelled, falling backwards onto the bed with the sheer shock and excitement of it all. ‘Dev!’

But there was no answer. I needed a weapon, and I needed one urgently. The odd thing is, I own very little weaponry. I have no nun-chuks, all our knives are blunt, and a badminton racquet lacks that certain menace. So I grabbed a hairbrush from the little table in the hall and was surprised for a moment because I didn’t know we had a hairbrush, and I banged on Dev’s door as I ran past.

‘Someone’s nicking your car!’ I shouted, bounding down the stairs, my grip tight on my hairbrush, my mind racing as I tried to decide which end of it looked the most threatening.

I heard the whine again as I reached the door and I panicked. Where the hell was Dev? I needed back-up! The Nissan was screaming for help, and it needed that help in a hurry! The thief was surely just a few short hours from making it work!

‘Dev!’ I shouted. ‘Bring more weapons!’

I pulled the door open, and was suddenly there, right in front of the Cherry, blinking in the morning sun, a man in his pants with a hairbrush he obviously hadn’t used yet.

And there – there he was. The thief. My enemy. Still under the hood, still fiddling about, still completely oblivious of the terrible danger he was in. I couldn’t work out if I should just strike him with the brush, or shout some kind of warning. But what’s a good warning? And what should I say afterwards? ‘Why are you fixing this terrible car?’ was the only thing that seemed to make sense, so instead, I raised my hairbrush and just said, ‘Hey!’

The whining stopped. I tightened my grip on the brush.

‘Morning, sir,’ said the man.

Oh.

It was Matthew Fowler.

What was Matthew Fowler doing fixing Dev’s car?

‘Matt?’ I said. And then I realised I was still in my pants, brandishing a hairbrush. A bus went by, giving me enough time to think up a brilliant excuse.

‘I was just brushing my hair.’

Well, an excuse, anyway.

‘Oi, oi!’ said a voice to my left. It was Dev, striding towards us, carrying coffees and small brown bags. He threw one at me and I crushed it to my chest. It was warm, and oily, and wet.

‘Oz did us some bacon sarnies,’ he said. ‘You wanted a Fanta, yeah, Matt?’

Matt gave him a thumbs-up, then pointed at the car.

‘Chipped flywheel,’ he said.

Dev and I both nodded and said, ‘Aaah.’

‘I can sort it.’

‘How come Matt’s fixing the car?’ I said, pulling some jeans on.

‘Well, we couldn’t go in a broken one.’

‘No, I mean, how come Matt? And what do you mean “go”? Go where?’

‘We’re going on our trip! Our trip to send a message to the women of the world! We planned it last night!’

I was pretty sure we hadn’t. But what if we had?

‘I tried to get the thing going, and Matt was passing, and he asked if I knew you, and at first I said no in case it was some kind of contract killing, and then he mentioned he worked in a garage, and that was that.’

I walked to the window. Well, well. Matt Fowler coming in handy.

I took another bite of my bacon sandwich as the whine outside turned to a low growl.

‘Wheels rolling in ten,’ said Dev, delighted.

‘But where are we going?’

‘We discussed this!’ he said, clapping his hands together, and he jogged down the stairs.

I shoved a spare T-shirt in a Tesco bag and grabbed my wallet. Well, why not? A trip might be fun. But I had an uneasy feeling that I already knew what Dev had planned.

I made my way downstairs, and saw something odd.

‘Oh, are
you
coming, Matt?’

He was in the back seat, swigging his Fanta. Maybe we were dropping him somewhere.

‘I invited Matt along for the trip,’ said Dev, finishing his sandwich. ‘He fixed the car. He’s already done more to earn it than we have.’

I baulked slightly. This was weird. We can’t do this. There’s hardly a day goes by you don’t see a story in the
Daily Mail
about some teacher who’s gone on the run with a former pupil. They’re usually blonde, though, and hardly ever slightly thuggish looking men with access to a pipe wrench.

‘And, does Matt know where we’re going?’

‘Yeah,’ said Matt. ‘Whitby.’

‘
Whitby
?’ I said, surprised. Dev smiled. Of course he smiled. We hadn’t talked about going to Whitby last night. I’d mentioned Whitby, and he’d talked of a trip, but at no point had anyone said, ‘Let’s get up really early and go on a trip to Whitby.’ This was Dev’s plan, not ours.

‘So Whitby’s in Yorkshire or something?’ said Matt. ‘Never been.’

‘But you’re happy to go? I mean, don’t you have things to be—’

‘Not really been out of London,’ he said. ‘Got an auntie moved to Swindon so seen that. And Bosworth.’

‘Bosworth?’

‘Yeah. With you, sir.’

God, yeah. We’d been to Bosworth. A school trip I’d tried to blank out. Matt had stolen twelve rubbers from the gift shop, and Neil Collins had peed in a bin. This, though, this was different. This was recreational. And it was Whitby. I didn’t want to go to Whitby.

‘Thing is, today’s quite a bad day for this,’ I tried. ‘I just got an email, saying—’

‘Your computer was off. I saw it.’

‘Much earlier, I mean—’

‘You were asleep.’

‘Look,’ I sighed. ‘Are we sure we want to go to Whitby? What about Alton Towers? Or … Snaresbrook? There’s a big hill in Snaresbrook.’

‘A big hill!’ said Dev. ‘Would you like to see a big hill, Matt?’

Matt shrugged.

I stared at Dev. I couldn’t go into it much further, not into the whole Whitby thing, not in front of Matt. I couldn’t face explaining. Plus, it’d be approximately fifteen minutes before
every single kid I’d ever taught and every single kid they’d ever met knew about it. I tried a different tack.

‘It’s … quite a long way to Whitby.’

He shrugged, and nodded. This was all a little odd.

The car was running and Dev scrunched up his brown paper bag.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘It’s a five-hour drive! Let’s see what this baby can do!’

I looked at the car. I didn’t have to get in. I could go back inside, wait for Phillip Schofield and his talking cube, maybe grab a kebab from Oz’s, or pop down to the Den.

I thought about it.

We roared off through Caledonian Road at very nearly four miles an hour.

‘No matter how thoroughly
a crow may wash, it
remains ever black.’

Traditional Shona Tribe proverb, Zimbabwe

I love the Internet almost as much as I love London.

I’m not sure London loves me in quite the same way, but it’s a relationship we’re working on.

There are six people following this blog now, even though so far all I’ve written are three embarrassingly whiny boo-hoo entries, including one terrifically self-pitying thing about listening to my friends in the future, which of course I won’t, because I’m not that type of girl. Also, I shall try not to drink and blog in the future. Sorry about that.

So I suppose I’d better welcome all six of you, however you found me, to whatever you think this is.

Hello, Martin in Malaysia.

Hello, Captain Stinkjet.

Hello, Maureen.

Hello, FrrrrrrrrrrrBeep.

Hello, DownAndOutInPowysAndLuton.

And hello to the sixth person, whoever you are, because somehow you’ve managed to remain anonymous.

As shall I, for now, unless Captain Stinkjet can come up with a name to rival his?

You’re probably wondering about the last entry. I wrote it on a bad day. It was a day I lost something. Two things, actually, neither of which I’ve found again. One was love, and that’s probably the main one, I suppose, because not many poets write wonderful poems about the loss of a disposable camera, which was the other thing. No great paintings or operas feature a bright yellow Kodak that I’m aware of. But then I don’t know much about art. I went to a gallery once, but everything looked like those paintings you see elephants doing on the news, so I went to Café Roma instead.

Strangely, I’m not sure what to miss more: the relationship, or the camera.

See, a relationship you can deal with. It hurts, and for a while it hurts so badly it’s like your lungs collapse and your heart contracts every time you realise it’s gone. But in the long term, for me at the very least, it’s what’s left in a heap on the floor that helps get you through. That little heap of evidence helps you to heal, is the idea I’ve got.

For me it was the photos, which I’d taken with me in my bag to Fitzrovia. I wasn’t sure if I would and I wasn’t sure if I wouldn’t, but I had to sit in that café again then walk past that bright yellow photo place about three hundred times while I decided.

If I was strong enough, I would develop them.

If I was stronger still, I would not.

But now I never can and I feel robbed of the chance to move on. To see those moments once more, to tell myself the story all over again, to decide how I should move forward and when. Maybe that’s what this is.

There must be a thousand blogs like this out there and I apologise. So many girls and so many boys thinking the world is interested in their story. I’d tell my friends, but they’re back home where it’s safe and besides: I’m not sure I want them to know. Here’s me, in London, alone, sad, living the dream.

So I will stop for now, because Come Dine with Me is on, and really, that takes precedence. So I’ll simply wish all six of you a very pleasant evening indeed.

Sx

PS There’s a stock phrase I’m used to hearing on soaps or in bars, if I’m eavesdropping. One person looks at the other and says, all serious like, ‘Things change. People change.’

They’ll accentuate the ‘people’ so that we know they’re talking about ‘people’ and then they’ll leave a pause after they’ve said it so you can see just how very serious they are.

I think things do change, of course. But in my experience, I think often things change because people don’t.

‘Hey, Matt,’ said Dev, turning down the radio. ‘Just so you know, Jason’s ex-girlfriend is now engaged and pregnant.’

A pause.

I shot Dev a look that said thank you.

‘Congratulations,’ said Matt. ‘Or … whatever.’

We were somewhere past Barnet, on the A1. You didn’t need to know that.

‘Plus,’ said Dev, ‘my one’s just copped off with a fella in a Vauxhall.’

Well, this was awkward.

‘Hence this trip. We are striking a blow for men everywhere.’

‘We’re not striking a blow,’ I said. ‘I doubt the women of the world even know about this.’

‘Subconsciously, they do,’ said Dev. ‘Subconsciously, they feel very bad about it. Are you with us, Matt? Anything you need to let the women of the world know?’

‘So what’s so good about Whitby?’ said Matt, staring out the window. ‘Good clubs, or what?’

I bristled.

Don’t, Dev. Just don’t.

‘Jason wanted to go, didn’t you, Jason?’

‘Mmm,’ I said, looking away. ‘Whitby.’

‘Jason knows someone who went to Whitby once, y’see.’

‘Right,’ said Matt. As a reason for a five-hour drive, it was somewhat lacking.

‘A girl,’ said Dev, enjoying the moment.

‘I don’t actually know the girl,’ I said, hoping that would make things clearer, but realising that actually, it didn’t. ‘It’s kind of a joke.’

‘It’s not a joke,’ said Dev. ‘Check this out: Jason saw this girl he liked, ended up with her camera, developed the photos and found out he was in one. Now he’s found out one of the pictures was taken in Whitby and so we’re going there.’

‘That’s not why we’re going there,’ I said, flatly.

Dev just looked at me.

‘Mate, it’s exactly why we’re going there.’

I turned to try and explain more to Matt but he had a slightly horrified look on his face.

‘What if she’s not still there?’ he said. ‘Just ‘cos she’s there in a photo doesn’t mean she’ll still be there today.’

It was true. That’s not generally how photos work.

‘That’s not why we’re going, Matt—’

‘Okay …’ said Dev. ‘We’re going there to get away. To
do
something. But who knows – we might pick up a few clues.’

‘What’s this girl look like?’ said Matt.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘Check the glovebox,’ said Dev. ‘The photos are in there.’

‘You brought the photos!’ I said.

‘Course!’

‘Let’s see,’ said Matt, now interested.

‘It’s weird,’ said Matt, still holding the photo of The Girl. ‘It’s like, fate, and that.’

It had been a long, long journey. We were leaving a Little Chef outside Worksop and Dev and Matt had been talking about, like, fate and that for the last two hours. I’d had little choice but to join in. I’d also had a horrible sausage.

‘Like, if you met her again, what would you say? Or if you saw her for the first time again, what would you say different? I mean, would you take her camera this time?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Would you take her camera again, or would you hope you realised sooner and then tell her before she got into the cab?’

‘Why?’

‘What he means,’ said Dev, ‘is given the chance, would you rather not have these photos in your possession?’

I shrugged.

‘I dunno.’

But of course I’d rather have them. They were exciting. Something new. A connection I was yet to make, if I was ever to make it at all.

‘If you didn’t want them, you’d have chucked them out, I reckon,’ said Matt. ‘But you didn’t. You kept them. And now here we are—’

‘Outside a Little Chef near Worksop that does horrible sausages.’