Wonderland (5 page)

“No, Stella. Leave it. It’s not worth it,” I plead.

“Bollocks. She’s a plastic bitch and she’s going to pay for it. I just need to figure out how.”

“But —”

“No buts. Here, hold this.” She hands me her cigarette. “My bra strap’s all twisted.”

Then I get that feeling. You know. Like you are being watched.

“Jude?”

I look up, panicked. Oh, God. My drama teacher, Mr. Hughes. I glance at Stella with what I hope is a “Just don’t say anything, don’t even look at him, and cover up your bra” look. Stella ignores me and smiles at him. A Cheshire-cat-that-got-the-cream smile. Mr. Hughes says nothing. But he’s seen it. Seen her.

“So, Jude.” But he’s looking at Stella still, distracted. Seconds pass. Then it’s as if he returns from another place. Back to me. “You were great this morning.”

“Oh . . . right. Thanks.” I wonder if he’s just saying that or if he really means it. If I really am good. Good enough to pass the exam. Good enough for the Lab.

“Seriously.” He smiles. “You’ve got no worries.”

I nod. Believing him now.

“So, can I expect you in A-level theater later?”

“Sorry?”

“Introduction? This afternoon? I mean, I know you’re not coming back.” He laughs. “But in case you change your mind. Decide to slum it with us for another two years . . .”

“Right. Yeah, I think so.”

“Great. Great.” He pauses. “You’ll want to give that up, though. Bad for the voice. Unless you want to sound like Bob Dylan. Which I’m guessing you don’t.”

I look at the cigarette, still burning between my fingers. “Oh, God. Sorry . . . I mean, sorry for saying God as well.” I glare at Stella but she’s looking at Mr. Hughes. “It’s not mine. Really. I . . .”

He smiles. “Well. OK. Good.” He turns to go, then stops and glances over his shoulder at us. “Oh. And don’t let anyone else catch you looking like that. I know it’s only a few weeks, but uniform is uniform.”

I nod, gormlessly, as he heads back toward the quad. Then stare down at my shirt, my kilt. Regulation. He must mean Stella. Must think she’s a Duchy girl. As if. I turn to her. “Thanks a bloody million. You could have told him it was yours.”

But Stella isn’t listening. “Oh, my God. He is gorgeous.”

“Stella!”

“What? He is.” She looks at me, smiles. “Oh, don’t tell me you don’t fancy him. You’re so bloody transparent.”

And I am. It’s like she can see inside me. See every dirty secret that lurks in the darkness. But that was finished long ago. It never even started. It was just a crush. Childish. Pathetic. And I knew he wouldn’t. And nor would I.

“No way. He’s got a girlfriend. Anyway, he’s old.”

“What is he? Thirty? That’s not old.”

“Stella!”

“He is, though, isn’t he?” Stella elbows me, grinning. “A babe, I mean.”

I pause.

“Kind of . . .” I admit.

Because he is. Hair curling over the neckband of his washed-out concert T-shirt. Old tweed jacket and jeans. Skin turning brown from the June sun. Not like the other teachers in their navy-blue suits and Ford Mondeos.

I watch him disappear into the theater building, the doors swinging shut behind him. Then I turn to her. “You’d better go, Stell. He’s right. If anyone else sees you, I’ll be in detention for a week.”

She stubs her cigarette out on the scorched grass. “School’s out for summer.”

“Not at Duchy it’s not.” Never mind that we’re on exam leave. Or that half of us won’t even be back in the autumn. Duchy girls breathe rules. And Stella has broken at least three.

She’s silent for a second. Then I see it. A flicker in her eyes. A dare. “Come with me,” she urges.

“Where?” I don’t get it.

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Just out of here.” She pauses. “The dunes.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” She’s standing now, right hip stuck out, looking up from under her lashes. “What have you got this afternoon?”

“Um. Supposed to have this A-level introduction thing.”

“What’s the point of that? You’re not even staying.”

“Well . . .” She’s right. And even if I did stay, it’s not like I don’t know exactly how it’s going to be. Same corridors. Same teachers. Same Emily Applegate. Just without the uniform.

Stella is already walking backward to the gate, beckoning me to follow. “Come on.”

And I realize I want to go. Old Jude wouldn’t. She would stay at school. Sit quietly through the blah talk. But that’s not who I want to be. So I follow her. Because I can. Because she makes me feel like someone else. Someone who can walk out of school when she likes. Someone who can be just like her.

WE STAYED
in the dunes until four. Timed it so Dad would think I’d just gotten off the bus, back from school. Hoped he wouldn’t notice the sand in my hair, on my kilt, trailing from my shoes. She sits on the wall outside, sucking a Popsicle, watching me go in.

Then she’s gone. For a week. A week where I rehearse my lines. Practice for hours in front of the mirror. Being someone else. Isabella, from
Measure for Measure.
A nun.
How appropriate,
I think.

And I should be grateful that she stays away, lets me work. But I’m not. Because I miss her. She’s been gone nearly eight years and back just days and already I don’t know how I managed without her. I need her.

So I made her promise to come back.

And she does.

She’s waiting for me after my exam. Outside the dressing room. I’m wiping makeup off my face when I smell it. Lighter fluid and gum. And my heart jumps. The lurch of seeing a new love. Or a lost one. At least, that’s what I read once. I pull on my uniform and run out into the corridor, scared I’ll miss her. That someone else will see her first and she’ll have to go.

But she’s still there, leaning against the wall in this fifties sundress with cherries on it.

She sticks her gum to the peeling paint of the door frame and smiles. “Ready?”

“For what?”

But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what it is. Today I’ll do it.

“You’ve got to stop dressing like a bloody schoolgirl,” Stella says as she pulls my kilt down for me. We’re in the changing room at Dixie’s, this vintage shop on Ship Street in town. A shop I’ve walked past a dozen times. Wishing I were the kind of person who would wear clothes like that. Clothes that shout, “I’m different! I’m somebody!”

I laugh, letting her undress me. “This is my uniform,” I protest.

“I don’t mean that,” she says.

And I know what she’s talking about. Even out of school, I dress to disappear. Shapeless jumpers. Jeans. Faded T-shirts. Until now.

She smiles, pulls the black silk down over my head. Zips it up. Dressing me like a doll. Then her smile drops. “Oh, God, Jude.”

“What?” I’m worried now. Worried that I was wrong. That I can’t pull it off.

But she’s shaking her head. “Look.”

She spins me around to see what she’s done. To see her staggering genius. I look. I’m in this sixties A-line number, hair pulled back, feet pushed into patent heels.

“Why, Miss Polmear,” Stella breathes, “you really are beautiful.” And I laugh. And Stella puts her arms around me. And we look at the reflection in the mirror. At this new person standing there. She is strange and strong and beautiful. And she is me.

The dress costs thirty pounds. Stella lends me the money.

“You can owe me,” she says.

I’m not sure I want to owe Stella anything. But I want the dress. Have to have it. “I’ll pay you back,” I say. And I will. I still have birthday money from Gran left over in my account.

I go to unzip it. But Stella has other ideas. “Keep it on,” she says. “You’ll need it.”

“Where are we going?”

“Out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Stella says. “You look old. At least twenty.” But my heart still pounds when we walk into the pub.

“Just look bored,” she instructs. “And hold these. Put them on the bar.” She hands me her Marlboro Reds.

I do as I’m told. I fumble, though, dropping the packet on the floor. Cigarettes roll across the tiles. But the barman doesn’t miss a beat when I ask for a vodka and tonic. A thrill surges through me. I’m drunk before it even touches my lips.

“Over there,” Stella says, nodding to the corner.

We sit down in a booth, away from the stares and leers of the men with their pints and
Racing Times.

“Hardly Soho, is it?” she says. “But it’ll do.”

“Yeah,” I say. Like I’d know. I take a gulp of vodka. It stings my throat, but then quinine sweetness takes over.

Stella picks up her cigarettes. Pulls one out and lights it. “So, million-dollar question.” She pauses, punctuating her sentence with a purposeful drag. “Would you rather be deaf or blind?”

“Um. I don’t know.” And I’m thinking,
What would Stella say?
I pick one. “Deaf?”

Bingo.

“Me too.” She exhales, the smoke curling toward me. I breathe it in, wondering if it will make me feel different. High.

She cocks her head. “Want to know why?”

I nod.

“I could still see to do my makeup. Deaf people always dress better than blind ones.” I start. Something I once thought, then hated myself for. And she knows it. She meets my eyes. A look of recognition. Of power.

Then it’s gone. She smiles. “And I’d never have to listen to bloody Radio 2 again. Jesus, what is with Tom and that station?”

I smile. “I know. Awful, isn’t it?”

She laughs. “Your turn.”

I take another mouthful of vodka. Let the heat run down my throat and into my stomach, into my blood. “OK,” I say, playing her at her own game. “Midget or giant?”

Four hours later, I stagger down the steps of the bus, my legs heavy, my uniform in a ball in my bag. Ed is there, in the shelter, waiting to go God knows where. Where is there to go around here, anyway?

For a second he doesn’t recognize me. I am a stranger. Then he sees who it is inside the disguise. “Jude? Where’d you get that?” He is looking at my dress, cut low over my breasts.

Self-consciousness seeps back into my veins, cold and sobering. “Why? Don’t you like it?”

“No . . . I do. It’s just . . . different.”

I am relieved. Grasping at approval. Though Stella wouldn’t give a damn what anyone else thought.

“Where’ve you been?” he asks.

“Cornish Arms. End of exams thing.” Like it’s nothing.

But Ed knows better. “Who with?”

“With whom,” I retort. Then quieter, “No one you’d know,” I lie.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Yeah. So? You drink.” He does. They all do. Up on the Point. Beer and cider and stuff. But not vodka. Not Ed.

“I’m eighteen.”

“What, and I’m a baby?”

“No. It’s just that I’m not used to you . . . like this.” He is silent for a while. I can hear the blood rushing to my head. I feel dizzy.

“You look good, though,” he concludes.

I feel my stomach turning. “Got to go.” I stumble out of the bus shelter and up the street, drawing in deep lungfuls of air to stop the vomit rising. Can’t be sick with air in your lungs. One of Alfie’s facts. I make it back to the post office, thanking God it’s early closing. Dad and Alfie are in the kitchen, door shut. I run up the stairs to the bathroom and stick my head under the tap, the cold water running down my cheeks in rivulets. I gulp it down. Got to sober up.

An hour later, I’m sitting at the table, pushing frozen fish pie and tinned sweet corn around my plate. Dad is watching me. Wondering if I’ve got an eating disorder, probably. Another anorexic casualty from Duchy.

“Guess what?” says Alfie.

“What?” I sigh.

“The till was short today. Mrs. Hickman might have stolen —”

“Alfie!” Dad snaps.

“What? She might have.”

“Mrs. Hickman didn’t steal anything. It’s a mistake. That’s all.” I can feel Dad’s eyes on my dress. I think of Stella. Then immediately feel guilty. Stella hasn’t even been in the shop. And she wouldn’t. And Mrs. Hickman is always getting change wrong.

“So, Jude. Going to tell me what you’re wearing?”

“A dress,” I say out loud. And in my head,
Duh.

“New, though. Where’d you get the money?”

I look at him. Trying to see inside, like she can with me. “Are you accusing me of stealing?”

“No. I just asked. It’s not like you to buy stuff like that, is it?”

“I’ve got money. From Gran.” I stab a sweet-corn kernel with my fork.

But he won’t give up. “So, who’d you go with? Shopping, I mean.”

And for one minute I want to tell him. Because I know he wants me to have a friend. But not one like her. And I remember last time. Dad shouting. Telling her to go away.

“No one,” I say. “Just me.”

I fork a prawn and put it into my mouth. Willing it to stay down. Waiting for him to challenge me. But the phone rings and I’m saved. Maybe my fairy godmother does exist after all.

“We’ll talk about this later.” He goes into the hallway, taking his glass with him.

“Whatever,” I say, and push my plate away.

“Dad, Jude whatevered you!”

“Shut up, Alfie.” I kick at his legs.

But he’s too fast. My foot arcs into nothing.

He is staring at me still. Fascinated. Thinking.

“Were you with Stella?” he asks.