To Be Honest (4 page)

Just gently.

Josh stands there. And more he doesn’t react, the more Felix punches harder. And what’s weird is that Josh just lets him.

Kai looks puzzled and Frankee, hovering nearby with her mates, starts giggling first, high like she’s testing helium. Then everything stops.

For a second or two no one speaks. Then Felix straightens his leather jacket, scowls and brushes Josh down like he’s royalty or he’s made a massive fuss or something and Frankee rushes up and pulls him away.

“C’mon, I’m thirsty.”

“Me too. See ya, kids.” Kai wanders off with them without a backwards glance.

And I watch Josh watching Kai like a lynx, and I think things are going to get worse.

* * *

Courtney’s legless and tumbling about all over the place, trying to get someone to dance with her; Josh’s disappeared and Rach is doing complicated flips in front of a group of people from her dance class, who’ve all turned up wearing the same shirts and leggings which means they planned it so they could ‘spontaneously’ break into a routine later in the evening. There’s sick outside now and littery puddles quake in the shaky night air. It’s nearly midnight and I’m ready to go home.

With no food since McDonald’s and three alcopops on top of the cider, my stomach grumbles like Dad used to in the mornings. I do-si-do to the back table, part the sea of snoggers and alternate handfuls: crisps with birthday cake. There’s no sign of Josh or Courtney and I’m seriously thinking about going when someone taps my shoulder.

“Dance?”

It’s Jessie J. I mean, not Jessie J asking me to dance but she’s playing and she’s my lucky singer ‘cos I found £10 in the station car park once when I had her on my ipod.

Anyway, it’s Kai.

“Umm ...”

He looks mildly amused. “It’s not a hard question.”

And I want to like I want a five star holiday and for my hair to be always good without me doing anything but in fact what comes out is,

“I need to find Josh.”

“He’s fine. I just saw him go off with Felix.”

Felix?
Never in a million years would he hang out with Felix normally. I’ve got a feeling like a tickle when it’s too hard, not fun, ‘cos I’ve always thought Felix’s a strange one, slidey, and looking at him’s like watching
16 and Pregnant
and feeling like the world’s bigger than you thought. Something’s up. I frown, hiccup, gaze around blindly and ruin any chance I had of sniffing Kai’s aftershave ... must find Josh.

But I can’t. He’s not returning my texts and no one’s seen him and I’ve looked everywhere apart from upstairs, which is cordoned off but there’s something about the gloom beyond the bend in the staircase that makes me know something’s up — don’t ask me how; I just do.

So I’m heading upstairs and then someone starts coming towards me down the stairs, really quickly. It’s Felix.

“Seen Josh?”

He jerks his head backwards. Then Frankee appears from the bathroom, all giggles and they’re gone.

Upstairs, there’s a light on down the corridor. The carpet’s thin, patchy like Tao’s hair was and the music’s quieter but the floor pounds underneath my feet to the bass.

“Josh?”

No answer. In the room, there’s three rowing machines lined up neatly against the far wall like sleeping shipwrecks. Lacy veins cover a diagram of the human body, which looms over a running machine; blood red laminate. In the corner, on a pile of mats with holes in them, lies Josh, fumbling and doing something that looks a bit like texting but isn’t. He sees me and it’s like he falls a bit and he looks through his fringe lazily.

“You took your time.”

I swear at him using words I never do, not even when I’ve done something really stupid.

He laughs.

He’s drunker than I’ve ever seen him but Josh’s too cool to let it show. I think he’s spent so long perfecting a catwalk strut it’s second nature so when he gets up it’s like he’s normal, except his jeans and top need straightening, like his eyes, which are going in different directions. I hoik him up and he looks at the floor and we proceed downstairs. We don’t speak. Erin’s at the bottom.

“Oh. My. God. Comeandlookatthis!” she stage whispers, which is ridiculous because the music’s still banging and everyone’s too out of it to hear properly.

She drags us outside to see Courtney’s bright pink skirt working hard to scale Kai’s thighs, struggling in his lap. A can of lager dangles from one hand while the other strokes Courtney’s muttonish arm, like he’s placating a baby.

My friend’s with Kai Swanning.

Kai’s with Courtney.

Josh grabs my waist as I fall but I don’t have to go all the way; I can stop myself, especially in these magic, flat, rescue shoes. I can. I save myself and stumble up which feels amazing, like I’ve triumphed, not lost, and I’m running away and I’ve still got my bag and I’m leaving behind me a sea foam of drama and everyone’ll know it’s because I’ve seen them together but I’m drunk and light and heavy and I need to go home before I’m sick.

So as you can imagine, Sunday’s fun.

When I wake up, ‘pings’ from the study flash straight through the wall and on through my head as I lie in bed, willing my brain to cope. Mum’s IM-ing someone. Maybe an internet date.

“Oow-ow,” I crawl to the bathroom and scrub myself sober. When I come out, Mum’s in fluffy slippers, holding my phone.

“Josh dropped it in,” she says tightly but her face is soft and trembly so I can’t look at her.

“When?” Head hurts.

“Half an hour ago. I thought he might come and wake you but he seemed in a hurry. Lisi, did you and Josh fight?”

This is not some American sitcom and I am not a pre-teen. Mum is irritating the hell out of me and it’s none of her business. I smile sweetly. “No.”

Twelve minutes is what it takes me to:

• Bundle clothes in the washing machine and turn it on
  
• Make toast with honey and banana
  
• Drink three pints of water
  
• Tell Mum a story about how I got home
  
• Text Erin and Rach but not Courtney
  
• Ring Josh and close the front door behind me
  

We arrange to meet outside Tesco so I have three minutes to make things ok again.

Easy.

It starts well ‘cos I actually like what he’s wearing: grey leopard print skinny jeans and a ‘pimp my toaster’ t-shirt and I tell him and he smiles. Then it all goes bad.

“D’you know what happened last night?”

He’s quiet, finger-flicking. “Kai and Courtney weren’t serious if that’s what you’re worried about.”

And that makes me crosser.

I stare at a man across the road arguing with his wife.

“You scared me a bit.” I take a breath. “When you disappeared, I mean. I thought you were upset ‘cos of Kai and I don’t know what happened with Felix. What happened with Felix? Don’t lie, Josh — something did.”

He looks at me strangely and there’s a car alarm going off and the Sunday world’s broken up now. I have forty nine seconds before I lose my job.

“Don’t lie,” he says like he’s testing the words out. Then he jumps onto the top step of my café where everyone can see: all the customers and everything. And he sings:

“Don’t lie? Ooh my,

Lees-eye, how hard

Do
you
try ... to
not lie
?” and he puts his finger on his cheek and does the stupidest face.

“Don’t split infinitives,” I yell, thinking of Miss Mint. Then he pushes me quite hard so my anger switch flicks on and I swear and don’t care and turn my back on him and go inside.

* * *

Where it’s chaos. The Country Kitchen in the Arts Centre, where I’ve worked since the start of year 9, is a malty den of fruit patterned vinyl tablecloths, peppermint infusions and head-sized meringues. Martha says if you want a kick, try the ‘lively’ ginger beer. It blows your mind, apparently.

“Look what the cat dragged in. Late.” Martha grins toothily. “Table sixteen: three pots of tea - two Earl Grey - a fruit scone, plum pud and drizzle. And no added hangover face, thank you. I know that look.”

She does.

“There’s two chocolate fudges to shift. Get moving.”

My boss and I are a tag-team. She knows my moves; I know hers. She does quiche, I do toast. She smokes, I steal chocolate. She likes grannies, I take the toddlers. We have many understandings.

“Rang your mum last night. Said she’s made loads of bread so I said I’d bring some jams round.”

Martha’s Mum’s best friend: fit, tough; she works the tables like she’s putting out fires. “But she reckons she’s busy. Too busy to see me.” The fag end of her sentence glows indignantly.

“Yeah, she’s studying.” I whisk crumbs from a table for four and lay up. “Always on the computer — I never see her. She doesn’t know I exist.”

But Martha checks me. “Don’t play the pity card, my love. Doesn’t suit.” Something spikes inside me and I sulk. Apron on, pencil tucked, water bottle at the ready I think about how much chocolate fudge cake it would take to force-feed Courtney before she’d explode.

“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen ...”

Miss Mint makes short work of the register and we line up like lemmings in front of the coach. My group’s all here and honestly, if I had Rach or Erin with me I’d be fine but of course it’s Josh’s group that gets to share my bus. The thing is, I think Miss Mint’s being nice making sure we were together. If only she knew.

Olly and Joe have one of those bouncy rubber balls with sparkly bits. It thuds and rolls round our legs basically getting everyone wound up except Miss Mint who just plucks it like a flower and puts it in her bag and we’re off, vrooming up the M25 looking down on people driving to real jobs in cars, only two people feeling sick and Josh plugged into something so absorbing it means he’s happy to watch speeding tarmac.

I put my bag on the seat next to me and sit on my own.

The roads get busier as we get to London and the houses get taller and more crowded and then posher, cleaner; then dirty again, then the signs are everywhere saying places I’ve heard of but don’t really know, like ‘Richmond’ and ‘Hammersmith’. Then I see some buildings I only see when Mum’s watching the news and then the signs say ‘West End’ and we’re nearly there, just have to park.

Of course, we go shopping. We’ve got an hour and even though I have to count my group of losers, I scurry over to Erin and Rach as soon as I’ve escaped and we head to Covent Garden. There are millions of people outside the Apple store but none of us can be bothered to wait with the geeks; instead we go and try makeup on and buy fat free frozen yoghurt with Rach and share a cake from
Paul
and I nearly buy crazy leggings in Urban Outfitters with more money I don’t have.

“Where’s Courtney?” I ask, as she was clearly on the bus.

Rach and Erin exchange looks and the wind chucks the paper
Paul
bag in the air and sends it flying into a Chinese couple.

“Period pains,” Rach says. “Went to get coffee.”

“Right.”

Rach and Erin want to go in Zara but I don’t so I head to Trafalgar Square to check out the pigeons. Josh’s blending in on the steps of St. Martin’s Church, wearing the leopard print like proper camouflage. I nearly don’t see him.

“Awright.” I look down on him and he moves his head minutely so I sit.

“Yeah.” He’s shredding a tube map.

“Sorry.”

He squints at me. “You lie all the time.”

“I mean it, though. I am sorry.”

“
I
mean it too. You lie
all
the time, Lise.” He sighs. “Clothes, money, teeth, where you are ... it’s crap.”

“What ..? Everyone lies!” I’m genuinely amazed. ‘Cos they do.

“They don’t, actually.” He stands.

The sky’s the same colour as the stone slabs of space around Nelson. Same colour as the birds and the limbs of the tourists: deep, mauvy grey. I think of my mum, how she works all day every day looking in people’s mouths. I think of Martha. I’m distilled, like the water in science; like the fountains that are off and I say what I really mean.

“Truth is boring.”

And he smiles. “No, it’s not.” He picks up a stale bread crag and pigeons tut off. “I have enough lies at home.” The bread crumbles between his fingers.

I don’t know what he’s talking about; like me, he never sees his dad and his mum buys him stuff all the time. He laughs but it’s wrong, like he’s empty and I want him to laugh with me, not just him.

“It’s nearly lunch,” I say, because it is.

“Well, that’s true.” And this time he almost laughs properly.

* * *

So the day gets lighter in a way but the sky starts to fall into the Thames in as we troop over the Millenium Bridge to The Globe. Miss Mint’s up front and she’s so slim and pretty in a fitted black coat; not like our baggy parkas and we all love her more ‘cos the only extra teacher she’s brought is Mr Morlis and three LSAs. One of them’s Erin’s mum; she likes to help out but keeps losing things and how embarrassing would it be to have your mother along to a trip.