Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles Read online

  I wanted to walk with Julie, but I looked for her everywhere and couldn’t find her, so I went with William instead. He was on his bike – the pillock; it kept getting in the way. And we met Delilah, with her friend Sam, at the estate agent’s as planned. Delilah and Sam were all giggly I had to have words with D about her outfit. ‘Delilah,’ I said, ‘do you really think combats are the thing?’

  She looked horrified. ‘Are they finished?’ she said. ‘Is no one at your school wearing them?’

  I said, ‘Delilah, it’s just it’s a peace march, that’s all.’

  She was carrying a big plastic bag and she dropped it. ‘I hate myself,’ she said. ‘I get everything wrong.’ Poor Delilah. She tends to do that – lurch from one mood to the next. William told her no one would notice, that he loved her Puma trainers, and added, ‘Anyway, at least you’re not wearing tweeds and wellies like Miss I’m-Too-Square-to-Get-a-Boyfriend here.’ I’d have knocked him off his bike if we hadn’t been passing the chemist’s. John was at the window and he gave a big thumbs up and a peace sign when he saw us. It gave me a flutter of pleasure.

  At the river things were a bit less organized. I think we were supposed to be crossing the bridge, but they had police there to stop us. The river was low and kids were assembling at the bottom of the slipway. There was some serious chanting, but a few boys were mucking about with a shopping trolley, giving each other rides, and others were trying to climb up to the bridge from the bank. I kept looking around for Julie, but I couldn’t see her. William said he was going then – we were really near the pub where his dad drinks and he probably didn’t want to bump into him – so I turned round to ask Delilah if she wanted to walk home too and saw that she’d wandered off. She was at the bottom of the slipway, with her plastic bag open, handing out what looked like leaflets to everyone who passed. I clambered down to join her and only then, seeing the amusement on people’s faces, saw what the leaflets were. Invitations. To a party.

  ‘Delilah!’ I said, lunging. ‘Put those invitations away.’

  I tried to grab the plastic bag from her, but she grabbed it back. I grabbed again and this time she let go and I felt myself do one of those comedy windmills as I tried to keep my balance. But the problem with wellies – where they fall down in relation to, say, Puma trainers – is grip.

  ‘Oh,’ said Delilah, looking down at me. She started laughing hysterically. The invitations had scattered all around me.

  And, naturally, according to Sod’s Law of personal relationships, that was when Julie came up.

  ‘What ARE you doing?’ she said. She was wearing her short white mac with the belt.

  Delilah, still laughing, said, ‘Picking up my invitations. Would you like one?’

  Julie said drily, ‘I’ve already got one. I think most people have. Not a great idea giving them out to everyone unless you’re prepared to accommodate the whole school. Are you?’

  I was scrambling to my feet. I know Julie and Delilah don’t get on, but it was as if Julie was being particularly mean to Delilah to get at me. It was horrible. I said lamely, ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you, Delilah.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ she said, suddenly hoity-toity, and walked off.

  So that was another friend I’d alienated. Then I asked Julie if she was off and she said yes, and I said did she want me to walk her to the bus stop and she said all right. But she didn’t talk to me at all on the way and when we got there a bus was just pulling in and she ran for it. As it moved off, I waved and scrunched my face up to make it try and say ‘What’s wrong and why aren’t you talking to me?’ She didn’t entirely ignore me. She gave a sort of half smile like she wanted to do more but something was stopping her.

  It seems self-obsessed and frivolous that I should end the day flustered about a spat with my best friend. But I can’t help it. Half of me wants to call her up and plead with her to like me again. The other half is furious with her for making me feel like this. Why should I call her when I’ve done nothing wrong?

  We should be beyond things like this. We’re not children. We’re fourteen, for goodness’ sake.

  Friday 28 February

  School library, 1.20 p.m.

  I’ve had lunch but was too miserable to eat a thing. I’ve decided to lurk in the school library during break to lick my wounds. I just saw Julie outside the gym, giggling with Carmen. She stopped and looked away when I passed. I stuck out my tongue behind their backs. Proud? Moi?

  I could go and find William or someone, but sometimes there is comfort in the company of other boffins – ‘the Library Crew’ as Julie calls us when she needs help with her essays. I’m sitting next to Stacey Evans –or I was until she went to the loo. She’s quite nice. Bit dull, but not the sort of person to go off you for no reason. She’s very excited about the French exchange. ‘I’m surprised you’re not going. Don’t you have French blood, Connie?’ she said. ‘Or isn’t it your cup of tea?’

  ‘Not my tasse de thé,’ I said gloomily. An airmail letter with a French stamp arrived for Mother this morning. I saw her put it straight in the bin. I wonder when I get home whether I might not take it out and answer it myself. I wonder what my grandparents would think if they heard from me. I might give them both a heart attack with the shock.

  Mr Patrick, our class teacher, has just come in to put away some books. He’s wearing thick beige corduroy trousers that make his legs look very stumpy. I’m rather painfully alert to the physical appearance of any male I come across at the moment. I spent geography comparing the muscle tone in the shoulders of the boys in front of me. I had to share a book with Joseph Milton and became fixated on the texture of his skin. Worst of all, in French oral I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Mr Baker’s nipples, which you could just about see through his thin white shirt. I mustn’t confess that to anyone. EVER. (He’s been very sweet to me about not going on the French exchange, so I mustn’t be too mean.)

  As for Uncle Bert, there’s just too much of him for my liking. His hair is too long and flouncy, his buttons are too undone and his jeans are too tight. He wears a copper bracelet on one wrist, which he says is for arthritis. I must say I find it odd that a man so concerned with seeming young should so openly advertise the creakiness of his bones.

  Oh, hang on. Here’s Stacey back from the loo. Looking agitated.

  1.30 p.m.

  Oh no. Bell’s about to go. Here’s what Stacey saw.

  She rushed up to me and dragged me to the girls’ toilets. In the second cubicle to the left, on the inside of the door, someone had written, ‘Delilah is a slag’.

  Now Stacey knows Delilah. She used to be at Brownies with her or something. She, like me, thinks there is probably only one set of parents in south-east England mean enough to call their daughter Delilah; that there is definitely only one set of parents mean enough to do so within graffiti distance of Woodvale Secondary’s first-floor girls’ loo.

  We stared at her name in silence. Stacey said, ‘What are you going to do? You’re going to have to do something.’

  ‘Like rub it off?’ I said.

  ‘No, like talk to her. She’s getting A Reputation. Ask Julie. She’ll tell you.’

  So, shall I? Shall I ask Julie?

  The bell’s gone. More later

  5 p.m.

  I’m home now. Amidst internal and external turmoil. Mr Spence has started work on the kitchen roof. He’s in there now, with his ladder and his tools, causing havoc. He’s taken some of the tiles off and put some polystyrene sheet up instead. It’s not a peaceful thing, but alive and vicious; it’s rattling and lunging in the wind and making me more edgy than I already am. As is the holey nature of the paint-splattered tracksuit bottoms he’s wearing. He’s so creepy. ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he said when I came in. ‘What do we have here, then?’

  ‘A fourteen-year-old girl who happens to live in this house,’ I said snippily before taking up residence on the sofa, which is where I am now. It’s cold and grubby. Mother’s clot
hes from yesterday are hanging over the armchair. The fridge has been moved in here to make room and it’s lurking next to the TV like some kind of big greasy white monster. The Delilah graffiti is lurking in my head like something equally big and greasy. There’s only one thing for it. I’m going to swallow my pride and ring Julie.

  5.20 p.m.

  Oh. Oh. Oh.

  I wish I hadn’t done that.

  Our conversation: Me:

  ‘Hi. It’s me.’

  Julie: ‘Oh, hello.’

  Me: ‘How are you?’

  Julie: ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘I haven’t really had a chance to talk to you since Sunday.’

  ‘I’ve been a bit, you know, busy.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, is there?’

  ‘No. Why should there be?’

  ‘I just… Oh, never mind. Look, why I’m ringing is something awful’s happened. Someone’s written “Delilah is a slag” in the first-floor girls’ loos.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘But isn’t it awful?’

  ‘Yeah –’ Little laugh. ‘Well, she shouldn’t have got off with Darius, Toyah Benton’s boyfriend, should she?’

  ‘Toyah Benton?’ Toyah Benton is a large, loud Shazzer who wears shiny red tracksuits and gold-hoop earrings. You wouldn’t want to mess with Toyah Benton. ‘Her boyfriend? When?’

  ‘Down at the river.’

  ‘What? After the march? How d’you know?’

  ‘Carmen saw them. As did several others. Toyah Benton’s well out to get her.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’ve really got to go.’

  ‘Julie –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘You could tell her to leave Darius alone.’

  ‘What about Toyah being out to get her? Should I warn her?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s your friend.’

  Oh. I wish I hadn’t rung. She was so icy. Normally she throws herself headlong into any moral or social dilemma. And she was so hard on Delilah, like she thought she was a slag. And she isn’t, is she? I’ve always thought of Delilah as being ν innocent, as experimenting, or collecting. It’s as if she’s discovered something that she quite likes and she keeps having more of it – like ice cream or chocolate fingers – and no one’s telling her to stop. She’s not hurting anybody. (Quite the opposite.) And it’s not like she goes the whole way or anything. I don’t think.

  Oh no, here she is… I’m going to nab her.

  6 p.m.

  I’m back. Mission accomplished. NOT.

  ‘Hey, Delilah,’ I said, shooting out of our front door. ‘What gives?’

  She said, ‘Nothing,’ rather defensively. I might have looked a bit suspicious.

  ‘Can I come round?’

  ‘Yeah. OK.’

  We went into the house, greeted her mother and headed up to her room. She kicked off her shoes, climbed the ladder and threw herself on to her bed.

  ‘God, life’s boring,’ she said. ‘I wish something would happen.’ There was a sort of desperate, yearning expression on her face.

  I climbed the ladder up on to the platform and sat cross-legged at her feet, fiddling with Floppy Elephant. I wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject. Should I warn her directly about Toyah or give her a bit of general moral guidance? I decided, considering her mood, on the latter.

  ‘Delilah,’ I began, ‘this weekend –’

  ‘I might go down the youth club later’ she interrupted. ‘Do you know if William’s going?’

  I said I didn’t.

  ‘Tomorrow I might go bowling with Sam, or some of the girls in my class are meeting at that new shopping centre down the A3. Or I might go to the cinema, and I’ve got to tidy up my room and…’ She broke off and gave a strangulated moan.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, wondering if she already KNEW.

  ‘This weekend, it’s just… Oh God. This boy I like’s having a party.’

  ‘A boy? You mean Darius?’

  ‘No.’ She looked at me as if I was mad. ‘Who? You mean that bloke at the river? No, of course not. No, he’s called Dan Curtis. He’s one of the boys I got off with on Saturday He’s having a party this weekend and he hasn’t even invited me.’ It turns out someone called Sally at her school who hadn’t got off with him was invited and had been making her life a misery all week for the fact that she wasn’t.

  I got a bit confused about who was and who wasn’t and who had and who hadn’t. Sometimes it’s as if the whole world goes to parties that I don’t go to. But it was a good moment for the moral bit, so I said, ‘Del. Maybe getting off with someone immediately like that isn’t the best way of getting on.’

  She looked at me witheringly, if you can look witheringly through eyes as big and blue and tear-filled as hers, and said, ‘Oh yeah? What are you saying?’

  I said, ‘Maybe you should wait until you really like someone before letting them kiss you.’ I trailed away. ‘You know, as in Darius down at the river…’

  She didn’t seem to hear this last bit. ‘I don’t let them kiss me. I kiss them.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. But maybe you should wait for someone really nice. You know, find out if they are The One first.’

  She looked scandalized. ‘Oh, right. And just hang around, like some uptight weirdo, waiting for nothing, like you? No thanks.’

  I managed to say, ‘Fair enough. Maybe steer clear of other people’s boyfriends, then, that’s all.’

  She swung her legs over the bed and looked at me intently. ‘Who are we talking about? William?’

  ‘No.’ I laughed, shaking my head as if it had bugs in it. ‘Of course not. Just be careful, that’s all.’

  8 p.m.

  That was a few hours ago. Since then William’s been round, hanging about Mother’s ankles, looking hungry. She fussed over him, getting all French and ‘ooh la la’, making toast and telling him she could see his hipbones. Yeah, right. Who’s fault is that for wearing jeans two sizes too big?

  Mr Spence finished work for the day and didn’t leave. Maybe he wanted toast or ‘Ooh la la’ing too. And then Jack turned up with his new girlfriend, Dawn, who’s tall and skinny. Usually, Jack throws Cyril and Marie around the place, and makes them shriek with laughter, but when he’s got a new girlfriend with him he gets all awkward and cool as if he doesn’t know whether to show his new girlfriend what a great dad he is, or stand back, cool and narrow-eyed, reminding Mother what a great catch he is. He met Dawn selling fish door to door. She bought a box of Dublin Bay prawns and a duo of stuffed plaice. Must be love. Never is, though.

  ‘This,’ Jack said, lunging, when I came into the room, ‘is my favourite stepdaughter in the world.’

  I reared back. Lately, this house is either Odour of Calvin or Odour of Cod. ‘I’m your only stepdaughter in the world,’ I said. ‘Don’t show off’.

  Jack turned to New Dawn and said, ‘See what I have to put up with?’

  There was tooting outside the house in the street then. Mother, still chatting to Mr Spence, shrieked at me that it was Bert and she wasn’t ready and could I run and tell him to come in?

  This I did. He humphed at me through the car window but went and parked. He came in and stood around, one hand inside his shirt, massaging his own shoulder. He said, ‘Ciao,’ to everyone in a fake-friendly sort of way. William gave me A Look (I know why – a) we hate it when grown-ups are overly chummy, and b) we hate ciao). Mr Spence, coming late into the room, said, ‘Evening all,’ to which nobody answered. Then Mother went upstairs and Uncle Bert got all snippy with Marie. She’d been making a camp next to the fridge in the sitting room – using all the cushions from the sofa – and when Uncle B. realized there was nowhere to sit, I heard him say, ‘Hey. You. Scram.’ Marie looked too shocked to scream.

  Then everyone left – William went home to leave lettuce out for his hamster, Mother and Uncle B. went out, and J, D, M and C went to McDonald’s. I declined the offe
r of this last and mooched around downstairs on my own. I searched all the bins for the airmail letter Mother got this morning, but I couldn’t find it.

  I’m too depressed to breathe, let alone eat. It’s been such a miserable day. One of my best friends is a slag; the other isn’t talking to me.

  And is Delilah right? Am I an uptight weirdo? Am I waiting around for nothing? Recently, I’ve had this yearning, restless feeling inside me. I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want love. I definitely don’t want anyone’s hands up my jumper. (It’s not that I’m too young, it’s just, having been through it all with Mother, I’m too grown-up for all that.) I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve just got this funny aching feeling that something – everything – more interesting is going on elsewhere.

  In bed, 2 a.m.

  And don’t get me started on Uncle Bert.

  1. Money: if he’s so rich, how comes he never pays for anything? And happily eats us out of house and home?

  2. French leanings: he thinks French wine is overpriced. That lingerie ‘French tat’ comment. And all this stuff about French lessons. Isn’t it just a way to get a free meal?

  3. Small children: beeping from the car (avoidance); his irritation with Marie; his attitude to Woodvale’s march; his use of the word ‘scram’.

  I’ve had enough of this notebook.

  Saturday 1 March

  The chemist’s, quiet moment, 4.30 p.m.

  I faced up to the truth during the long, dark night. Everything has gone wrong. And it’s all my fault. I’ve meddled. I’ve created my own Frankenstein’s monster.

  I never thought I’d write in here again. This beautiful, deliciously smelling notebook would be wasted forever. But today everything has changed.

  The morning began dull and overcast. You couldn’t believe spring would ever come. The chemist’s was dark when I arrived. John was in the back eating a bacon sandwich and reading the newspaper. He only has a microwave at home, he told me, and crispy bacon’s apparently one thing you miss when you only have a microwave at home. He gets his bacon sandwiches from the cafe at the station. Sometimes he has one for lunch too.