Let's Get Lost (4 page)

“What about her?” I asked flatly. “What are you sorry about?”

She laughed nervously and looked at Dot for some clarification but Dot was staring at her bag of crisps like they were about to break into song.

“I’m sorry about your mum,” Lily repeated. “About what happened.”

“You should be,” I said gently. “ ’Cause, if you think about it, it was your fault really.”

It was really fascinating to watch the color drain out of her face as if someone had adjusted her contrast button. “That’s a terrible thing to say,” she gasped, her pink lip gloss even more garish against her blanched skin. “I thought you’d be different.”

I knew she did. Everyone did. They wanted me soft and weak so they could stop being scared of me.

They were going to have a long wait.

“Well, I’m not,” I said, feeling my top lip curl with disdain and that bitch-goddess tone edge into my voice. “Business as usual. Now why are you still sitting there?”

Lily scrubbed her hand over her eyes, which were leaking tears, as usual. “Your mum died!” she screeched, ensuring that everyone in the canteen was now giving us their undivided attention. “And if you weren’t such an evil cow, then you’d be upset about it.”

I put my hand to my heart and made an “ouch” face, like I was bothered. “Listen, sweetie, so I’m one

parent less—that doesn’t change the fact that you gave that baseball cap-wearing twat a blowjob and everyone knows you’re a skeevy ho.
Sucks
to be you, huh?”

She was rooted to the spot, opening that famous mouth of hers as wide as it would go. Didn’t look like she was going to be moving anytime soon, which just made it easier to nudge my half full can of Diet Coke with my elbow as I got up so she was drenched in a sticky deluge of brown droplets that soaked into her white top.

“You should really wear more black,” I advised her, gathering up my jacket and bag. “Doesn’t show the stains quite so much, does it?”

“You bitch,” she breathed as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d just had a Diet Coke shower.

Dot bumped her shoulder as she brushed past. “I should totally go and see Mrs. Greenwood and tell her what you said about Is’s mum,” she hissed.

As I slowly made my way through the canteen, it occurred to me that I had something to thank Lily for because now the other girls weren’t sorry for me. They were looking at me as if they were scared that it would be their turn next. And that, I knew how to handle.

4

One minute it was all still and silent, the next the curtains were being yanked back with a deafening swish so that the room was flooded with retina-burning light.

My hands groped for the pillow so I could pull it over my head, but Felix was already bouncing on the bed. “Get up, Is! It’s nine, I’ve been awake for ages.”

I felt fragile and
English Patient-
y. Dot had come over after school yesterday and totally outstayed her welcome. First she’d freaked out because all we had in the fridge was a jar of artichoke hearts and some moldy cheese so she wouldn’t be able to keep her Diet Coke levels topped up. Then she’d wanted to TALK, or rather she’d wanted me to talk about my feelings and shit so she could coo sympathetically. In the end, I’d had to push her out of the front door and shut it before she’d had time to register what was going on, her aggrieved little face peering at me through the frosted-glass panel.

And it had taken me hours to persuade my body that it wanted to snuggle down and get some sleep. I’d even hauled the Henry James out of my bedside drawer to see if his turgid sentence structure would make me drop off. Eventually, I’d flicked on the TV and watched late-night poker until the cards had gone blurry.

I opened one eye in time to see Dad snap off the TV, which was emitting static, and then turned over so I could get a few more minutes snoozing in.

Alas, it was not to be, as I felt hands snatching the covers off me as I made like a ball and whimpered,

“On fire? Are we on fire?” I was sure I could smell burning, but that might just have been the dream I was having before I was so rudely awakened. This time she’d walked into our old house in Alfriston, and as she disappeared through the front door, the whole building burst into fierce flames.

“No, Isabel, no one’s on fire,” he bit out, and what do you know? He’d actually managed to shave, though he had a wicked-looking nick under his chin. “Is it too much to expect you to get up at a reasonable hour?”

I didn’t say anything. I certainly wasn’t going to raise the issue that medical research proved that teenagers needed to have long lie-ins.

“I’m going to have a shower,” I mumbled, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and waiting for the dizzy feeling to stop. Then I swiped at Felix, who’d picked up my pillow and was trying to whack me over the head with it. We really needed to start cutting down on his sugar intake.

“I had the most appalling woman—your friend Dot’s mother—on the phone,” Dad said querulously, as I rubbed a big piece of sleep out of the corner of my eye. “She was remarkably shrewish for a Saturday morning and informed me that I had no food in the house and that you and Felix were on the verge of malnutrition.” He sniffed contemptuously, as if the lack of five pieces of fruit and veg every day was

beyond his control. “But then I tried to do some washing, and we have none of those strange little ball things.”

I felt like . . . well, like I’d managed two hours sleep punctuated by really horrible nightmares and he just.

Would. Not. Shut. Up.

“I’ve been using washing powder, in the drawer . . .” I mumbled vaguely. “I’m going back to bed. I feel like crap.”

“Isabel.” He has this special way of saying my name like he can’t even bear the sound of it. “You’re to have a shower, get dressed, and then we’re going to the supermarket.”

“Come on, Is, it’ll be fun,” Felix cried, and gave me an expectant look that roughly translated as “Please, for the love of God, don’t leave me alone with him.”

“Fine, whatever . . .”

And obviously his mission in life for today was to work my last nerve, because Dad gave me his most condescending smile (I think it might have been a personal best) and said, “A little less petulance, please.”

As trips to the supermarket go, and they don’t really rate too highly on my list of fun things, it started off all right. Since . . . well, he never drives unless he really has to, he decided that we’d walk to Waitrose, even though Felix and I did try to point out that lugging heavy shopping up the hill was unpaid child labor.

“Nonsense, it will be good for you,” he scoffed, setting off down the road at a brisk pace. I clamped my iPod earbuds in so I didn’t have to listen to Felix crapping on about all the stuff he craps on about.

There was a tense moment when Dad became slightly baffled by the whole concept of shoving a pound coin into the slot before you could take a trolley, but he adapted pretty well, and soon we were freewheeling around the fresh produce aisle like we were born to it.

I wasn’t exactly sure who was going to be cooking all the squash and leeks and broccoli that he was blithely selecting while Felix pulled agonized faces at me behind his back. But really, I didn’t want to do anything to break the fragile peace treaty, so I concentrated on fruit because you just eat it as it comes and it stops you from coming down with a severe case of rickets.

It wasn’t until we hit aisle 18—crisps, nuts, and snacks—that our family bonding excursion turned ugly. I innocently snatched a variety pack of Walkers from the shelf, but you’d have thought I was trying to do a trolley dash through the cigarette kiosk.

“Oh no,” he hissed, tugging them out of my hands. “I’m not having junk food in the house.”

Felix already had his arms full of Wotsits. “But we can’t live just on vegetables,” he exclaimed, his voice rising with indignation. “Mum always let us . . .”

It was kinda weird to hear him say the “M” word, like someone swearing in church. None of us had said it out loud in weeks.

“I beg your pardon?” Dad demanded, permafrost coating every syllable.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Felix’s bottom lip was trembling like a kite on a windy day. “Why aren’t I allowed to . . . ?”

“Just leave it.” I gave him a warning punch on the shoulder.

“Obviously potato snacks are right up there with crack cocaine and, oh, I don’t know, drinking yourself into oblivion every night.”

Dad grabbed hold of the trolley, his knuckles white as he gripped the bar. “Is there something you’d like to say, Isabel, or are you happy to continue with your barbed remarks?”

And the thing is, I never know when to keep my mouth shut. I don’t. I can’t. I never could. So I shrugged, and I knew the smile I was wearing was so smug that if I’d seen it on my face, I’d have wanted to smack it right off.

“Nope, just y’know, if a couple of bags of salt and vinegar are going to bring down Western civilization, then I guess we won’t be loading up on bottles of red wine, either.”

Apparently, discussions about the huge amount of booze he guzzles were forbidden, too. His eyes narrowed so much, it was a wonder he could still steer the trolley round the corner. “You really are incredibly obnoxious,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder at Felix, who was trailing miserably behind us. “Oh, go and get your sodding crisps, then.”

I watched Felix drag his heels away. “I get that you pretty much hate my guts, but don’t take it out on him,” I said.

That got me another flinty glare, as he practically hurled a bottle of fabric softener into the trolley. “I do not ‘hate your guts,’ Isabel. I just find you rude, willful, and thoroughly unpleasant.”

Felix was padding toward us, clutching a multitude of variety bags, chin set like he was expecting another argument, not realizing that the first one hadn’t finished.

“I can see I’ve been entirely too lenient with you, Isabel,”

Dad continued. “But these tantrums have gone on long enough and . . .”

I turned to him and gave him the calmest smile I could muster, which threw him. “Oh, piss off,” I said, and flounced away.

It was really liberating, the acting out or whatever you want to call it. Like, I’d drawn a line between us, one that had been there, anyway, but we didn’t have to tread around it anymore.

My foot was poised to step off the curb so I could cross over Western Road and head down to the beach, when his hand came crashing down on my shoulder. God, I bet he wished that they’d never made spanking illegal.

“How dare you talk to me like that?” he spluttered. “Apologize at once.”

“Get your hand off my shoulder,” I told him pretty reasonably, considering it felt as if he was trying to mold my collarbone into a new and exciting shape.

He let go of me and we stood there, staring at each other. I wondered if he could even really
see
me as anything other than the shopping list of adjectives that summed up what a major disappointment I was.

“I’m still waiting for that apology, Isabel.”

A guy pushed past us
—
and something in the way he held himself, the way his hair looked like it had had an accident with a vat of perming lotion, seemed familiar, even though I couldn’t see his face. It was that boy, Smith, or whatever his name was, from the party.

“I don’t have time for this,” I told Dad, and walked away. I knew he wouldn’t come after me again
—
that would actually have required some effort on his part.

Smith walked fast with a loping gait, almost bouncing on the soles of his sneakers, and I liked that he was so free, so unaware, not knowing that I was looking at him. Like, when you’re on the bus and you stare into someone’s front room and you see them watching television or slumped on the sofa, and it’s like you’re taking a tiny piece of them home with you.

He ambled into a couple of charity shops and rifled through piles of battered vinyl records and tattered paperbacks. I loitered by the racks of musty-smelling polyester dresses—I was going for this whole melting into the walls vibe, but I just looked really shifty, if the suspicious attention I was getting from the blue-rinse brigade manning the tills was anything to go by.

I hadn’t been able to get a good look at him before. It had been dark, and there had been huge quantities of alcohol involved, but daylight softened out the slant of his cheekbones and the hard lines of his jaw, so he looked less thuggish. Didn’t do anything to lessen the effect of his nose. If you were being kind you’d call it aquiline; if you weren’t, you’d call it beaky. And I could see those lips that I’d kissed
—
how they looked as pillowy as they’d felt. His hair was still ridiculous, he’d obviously never got intimate with a pair of straightening irons. But what I liked about him (and I
did
appear to like him, even though he had a stupid name and needed to stop kissing girls at parties because he thought they were other girls he’d kissed at other parties) was his serenity. There was something utterly calm about him, no matter how fast his elegant hands leafed through records or pored over books. It was as if everything was out of focus except him.

He brushed past me on his way toward the door, and I pressed myself against a rail of coats. I waited for the door to shut behind him, then cautiously slunk out in time to see him disappearing into the newsagent’s next door.

Luckily, I could pretend to read the ads for exotic Swedish massages while I peered through the window and watched Smith buy a packet of cigarettes and some chewing gum. As he was walking down the length of the shop, I realized my cover was about to be blown, so I dived into the nearest doorway, which happened to be a hardware shop and looked with feigned interest at the display of screwdrivers

and oooh, power saws. Imagine the damage I could do with one of them.

At first I thought it was the wind brushing against me, but then it happened again, someone was tapping me on the shoulder. Even before I turned around I knew it was him.

I’d forgotten how blue his eyes were. I wanted to compose sonnets in my head about ocean depths and cloudless skies because I was obviously suffering from severe sleep deprivation. He was frowning at me, this little furrowed line popping up between his eyebrows.