Kiss (17 page)

‘Yes, OK, well, whatever,’ said Carl, tickling my neck with the feather duster. ‘Let me see my birthday present then!’

‘In a minute. Look, Carl, it’s obvious someone’s been in here, moving stuff around. It wouldn’t be Jules, would it? Perhaps we’d better ask her, because if she
hasn’t
then I think someone’s broken in—’

‘No one’s broken in, silly. Paul was here,’ said Carl.

‘Paul?’ I blinked at him.

‘Yes, he came round for a bit after his match yesterday.’

‘And you let him in the Glass Hut?’

‘
Yes
. Don’t act like it’s such a big deal. It wasn’t
my
idea – he asked to see it, he was interested,’ said Carl, flinging himself on the sofa.

‘So interested he mucked everything about and snapped off the horse’s leg?’

‘He didn’t do it deliberately. He can’t help being a bit clumsy. He was horrified. He says he’s going to get me another one.’

‘Did you …?’ I swallowed. ‘Did you show him our Glassworld book?’

‘No!’ said Carl. ‘No, of course not. It’s ours.’

I breathed out.

‘Besides, I didn’t want him to think me completely nuts,’ said Carl.

I grabbed the cushion under his head and whacked him with it. He whacked me back and then we were messing around mock-fighting, somehow back to normal again. I still hated the thought that Paul had been bumbling around our private place, poking and prying, breaking things, but at least he hadn’t stumbled through Glassworld, smashing everything.

‘Can I have my present now, please?’ said Carl.

I handed it over with a flourish. I didn’t need to tell him to be careful. He delicately untied the ribbon, undid the wrapping paper, unwound the bubble wrap.

I waited, my heart beating fast. I knew Carl would be tactful and say he loved whatever I gave him, but I also knew him too well for him to be able to fool me. It was always risky buying him glass when I knew so little about it.
I
loved the champagne flute and I was pretty sure it was Victorian, but maybe it was just reproduction, maybe it was just any old rubbish and Carl would secretly hate it.

‘Oh!’ he said when he saw it. ‘Oh, Sylvie, it’s lovely.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’ He ran his finger very gently along the vines curling round the stem. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘It was in the Cancer Research shop near my dentist’s. I didn’t have enough money on me but I went back.’

‘How much did you pay?’

‘You’re not meant to ask that! Ten pounds. Was that too much?’

‘Total wondrous bargain. Oh, Sylvie, you’re the best friend in all the world.’ He raised the glass to me and mimed drinking. He breathed in, as if savouring his sip of champagne, and then held the glass solemnly out to me.

I leaned over and sipped too. It was the way we used to play when we were little, melting ice lollies and pretending they were wine. It was so real I could almost sense the fizz of champagne under my nose, taste the delicate froth on my lips.

I looked at Carl. He looked at me. His face was soft and gentle, his eyes dreamy. He leaned forward a little. He had only to move a fraction more, angle his head sideways, and we would be kissing. I leaned forward too. Carl blinked and stood up suddenly.

‘Let’s play Glassworld,’ he said quickly. ‘OK, it’s King Carlo’s official birthday on Friday, but that’s a bit of a public bore, all pomp and ceremony, so Queen Sylviana decides to give him a very special unofficial birthday celebration the Sunday before. Sunday is their only day off from royal duties, a day when they can leave off their glass crowns, kick off their glass boots, and indulge themselves. So they sleep late, and when King Carlo wakes, Queen Sylviana has her pet canary trill
Happy Birthday
to him. She brings him a special birthday breakfast prepared by herself, golden croissants in the
shape of His Majesty’s initial, and a bottle of the finest vintage champagne from the Glassworld cellars.

‘“But you’ve forgotten the glasses, my dear Queen,” says King Carlo.’

‘“No, no,” says Queen Sylviana, smiling, and she hands him a beautiful midnight-blue parcel tied with silver ribbon, and inside the parcel King Carlo finds the finest antique champagne flute blown when his great-great-great-grandfather was but a boy. It’s the most beautiful birthday present from his dear Queen. It makes him very happy. He starts musing on all the past birthdays they’ve spent together, ever since they were first betrothed as small seven-year-olds. His first birthday present was … Come on, Sylvie, what was it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled. He was indulging me, playing the game I loved most in the world, but it was all delicate diversionary tactics.

‘Of
course
you know,’ said Carl. ‘Come on, start writing it. On King Carlo’s seventh birthday his child bride Sylviana gave him—’

‘She gave him a huge set of glass Lego bricks, hand-carved prisms with rainbow reflections, and he set to and made an amazing shiny glass palace. Then he fashioned two small figures out of modelling clay, one a boy, one a girl, and put them on two tiny thrones within the newly constructed glass palace, as representations of the infant newlyweds. He promised they would reign over Glassworld happily ever after.’

‘And on his eighth birthday?’

We went through crystal bikes, alabaster snow-skis, a glass aviary filled with lovebirds, a tame snow leopard with a ruby-studded collar, a pair of polar bears with silver claws, a glass fountain with rainbow-hued water, an indoor garden of blue glass flowers, and finally the crystal champagne flute. It was part of an entire sparkling set of glass dishes and goblets. King Carlo and Queen Sylviana celebrated the royal birthday by drinking pink champagne out of the birthday flutes and eating strawberries and cream from glass dishes.

‘Perfect,’ said Carl. ‘Maybe Mum can turn up trumps and give us real strawberries.’

‘We’ve only just had pancakes. And we don’t have the special glass dishes for the strawberries.’

‘Oh fiddle-de-dee, Miss Fussy Knickers. We’ll substitute china and
use our imagination
.’

Carl hurried off to find Jules.

I stayed in the Glass Hut, starting to write up the latest chronicle. I heard a little
ching-ching
on Carl’s mobile. It had fallen out of his jeans pocket onto the floor while we were wrestling. I pressed the little button to see who was sending him a message. I wasn’t really snooping. I did it almost without thinking.

WOT
???
NEVER SENT U WAKE UP TEXT, U BERK. IVE BEEN IN SNOOZZZZZELAND ALL MORN. U DONE YR MATHS HOMEWORK
?
CAN I COPY
?
CHEERS. PAUL.

MUM DIDN’T GET
home till late afternoon. She came to collect me at Carl’s.

‘Wow, look at you! Positively
glowing
,’ said Jules. ‘So what’s he like, this Gerry?’

‘Oh, he’s very sweet,’ said Mum, ducking her head coyly. Her cheeks were bright pink and she giggled.

‘Look at you, blushing like a schoolgirl,’ said Jules. ‘So when are you seeing him again?’

‘Well, next weekend, if it’s OK with you?’

‘Of
course
,’ said Jules. ‘Sylvie’s part of the family, you know that.’

Mum looked at me. ‘Is it OK with you too, Sylvie?’ she asked.

‘Mm. Yes. Whatever,’ I said.

‘We’ll go home and talk about it,’ said Mum, putting her arm round me.

‘It’s fine, Mum, truly,’ I said, wanting to stay with the Johnsons, but Mum steered me firmly towards the door.

‘Can’t you stay for supper, both of you?’ said Jules.

‘Yeah, hang out, why don’t you?’ said Jake. ‘Though watch out, Dad cooks supper.’

‘I make a mean plate of butternut -squash risotto, even though I say it myself,’ said Mick.

I was looking at Carl. He was carefully looking
past
me, as if observing something fascinating in thin air.

‘Carl!’ said Jules. ‘I’m not sure the Johnson cellars can come up with champagne, but I’m sure we’ll find a bottle of Cava lurking somewhere. Then you can sip from your lovely flute in style.’

‘Mm. Great. Though actually, I might just dash over to Paul’s for supper. He’s having a maths crisis and I kind of promised to help him out,’ said Carl.

‘Do you really have to? Honestly!’ said Jules, looking quickly at me.

I smiled as if I’d known all along and was perfectly happy about it. It wasn’t really a big deal, was it? Carl had a perfect right to go round and see his friend. We’d spent nearly the whole day together and he’d been so sweet to me all that time. He’d obviously sneaked off at some point and texted Paul but that wasn’t a crime. Miranda and I were always texting each other.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks for having me, Jules,
it’s been lovely. See you, everyone. Come on, Mum.’

Mum’s arm was still round my shoulders. ‘I can’t come up with butternut-squash risotto but I’ll do us a lovely plate of beans on toast,’ she said.

It was our special comfort food. I hated it that Mum felt I needed comforting.

‘I’m actually not really hungry. I’m still stuffed with lunch,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll just go and get on with
my
maths homework,’ I said as we went into our house.

It seemed so shabby and empty after a day at the Johnsons’. There were oblong patches on the walls where Dad’s paintings and maps had hung, great gaps in the bookshelves, heavy indentations in the carpet where his desk once stood. Mum had bought a couple of paintings from the Hospice charity shop, Gwen John and Picasso reproductions, but they didn’t quite fit the bare squares. The Gwen John woman looked hopelessly forlorn and the old Picasso lady had her head thrown back, her mouth wide open in agony. We were better off with bare walls.

We bought books from library sales but Mum’s were mostly self-help paperbacks and diet books and mine were modern kids’ books about broken families, so the bookcase had a sad air too. We didn’t have enough spare cash for a proper new desk. We had a huge flatpack standing in the desk place, but we couldn’t even work out how to get it out of its cardboard case, let alone erect it.

It was as if our lives had been put on hold since Dad cleared off. Mum kept insisting we were better off without him. She said she liked it much better with just the two of us. She said she didn’t want to meet anyone else, ever.

But now she’d gone and got herself a
boyfriend
.

‘He’s not my boyfriend!’ said Mum. ‘He’s my
friend
, that’s all. For the moment, anyway.’

She brought a tray of baked beans on toast for two into my bedroom even though I said I didn’t want it. The beans smelled so good I couldn’t help eating them, giving up all pretence of working at my maths homework.

‘So you like this Gerry, Mum?’

‘Yes, ever so much. He’s so
funny
,’ said Mum. ‘He just makes you feel comfortable straight away. I was a bit nervous about meeting him—’

‘What?’

‘OK, OK, I was totally terrified. I had to go and find the ladies twice on the journey I was so scared. I almost came straight back home. It wasn’t just meeting Gerry. It sounds so terrible, but I didn’t know quite how badly his stroke had affected him, and I was so worried I’d go to shake his hand and then find he couldn’t use it, stuff like that. He’d told me he had a limp but I didn’t know how bad it was. I wondered if he used a wheelchair and I tried to work out in my head if I should bend down to be at his eye-level when I said hello or whether that would look
patronizing. But
anyway
, the moment we saw each other he gave me this lovely big smile and I smiled back and all my worries just seemed so stupid. It felt as if we already knew each other, as if we’d been friends for years. He doesn’t have a wheelchair, he can manage with a walking stick. His limp’s quite bad but it was good to walk slowly, especially as I was wearing my best shoes with high heels.’

‘Is his face a bit wonky?’ I asked. ‘You know.’ I pulled my own mouth down and to the side.

‘Don’t, Sylvie! Honestly! No, it’s not a bit wonky, not that I’d really mind if it
was
. It’s
him
that matters, not his looks, though actually I think he looks pretty special. He’s eight years older than me and he’s going a bit grey, but he works out a lot in the gym so he’s got great arms and a really flat stomach. I
did
feel a bit shy then, coming out of the changing rooms and meeting up with him in the pool. I was so conscious of
my
stomach. I worried that I looked awful in that bright red costume. Still, once we were in the water I was fine. He’s such a good swimmer, he can totally outpower me, flashing up to the end of the pool and back. You’d never think he had any kind of disability.’

Mum went on and on and on about Gerry while I speared baked beans moodily with my fork.

‘Sylvie?’ Mum said eventually. ‘I thought you were cool with all this but now it looks like it’s really bugging you.’

‘No, I’m fine, I keep
saying
,’ I snapped.

I
wanted
to feel fine. I wanted to reassure Mum and tell her I was happy for her. I
was
in lots of ways. It was just that I was jealous too. It felt so raw and painful and humiliating but that was the truth of it. I was jealous of my own mum because she’d gone out on a proper romantic date, just the two of them. I was still longing for Carl to ask me out on a date with him, just the two of us.