Birdy (4 page)

As the term crept on and sunny September became damp October, I realised that it was just as I’d hoped: Bert and I had indeed become proper friends. For the first time in my life, I didn’t dread going to school. The lessons were still pretty dull, the other students annoying and mean, but nothing seemed so bad when I had Bert to kick around with.

I think I laughed more in those first couple of months than in the rest of my life put together. That’s the thing about laughing – you really need someone else around to be able to do it properly. Before Bert, when people near me had sat cackling in the corner, I’d always found myself stiffening. I know it probably didn’t do me any favours, but I suppose it was a defence mechanism. I’d roll my eyes, almost automatically. Losers, I’d think. Immature. Pathetic. I suppose I was just trying to tell myself and everyone around me that I didn’t even
want
to be part of the joke. But now Bert had arrived, I too was a laugher.

The silliest things would set us off: a classroom door squeaking in an odd way, a teacher sneezing mid-sentence. In one registration, a window cleaner appeared outside, grinning in at us as he soaped up the glass. For some reason, the sight of him gave us such a potent attack of the giggles that we’d completely fallen apart and Mr Hurst had had to ask us to step outside to calm down. Of course, that had set us off all over again and once we were out in the corridor, we’d clung to each other, gasping for breath, tears running down our cheeks.

Bert lived across the other side of town, on one of the wide roads that backed onto the golf course. Every morning we’d meet each other at the top of the hill and walk down together, across the main road and over the playing fields to school. Bert – who always seemed to have a fair amount of cash on her – would often want to stop at the paper shop on the corner to buy croissants or a sausage roll from the glass cabinet at the front. In fact, as her enthusiasm that first day in the canteen had suggested, Bert liked to eat a
lot
. Especially junk food. I have no idea how she managed to stay looking so healthy and fresh with all the grease and gunk she chucked inside her.

After school, we’d often wander up the field and through the grassy quayside area next to the river to the high street. We’d amble along for ages, looking in the shop windows. Sometimes we’d go inside and try things on, or go into Debenhams and play around with the make-up samples, dolling ourselves up like drag queens. Before Bert, I probably would’ve turned my nose up at such juvenile behaviour but I suppose that was because I would’ve always just been watching, looking over from the outside. Now I had Bert, now I could join in, it all seemed like brilliant fun. Really, everything with Bert was brilliant fun.

Those first few weeks, even though Bert and I seemed to be getting on really well, I still had that worry in the back of my mind that as soon as she got to know some of the others, she’d ditch me. I did want her to fit in of course, that was my whole job after all, it’s just that I did so want her to still be my friend too. Every so often I’d get a wave of anxiety and decide that it was only a matter of time until she started spending her lunchtimes reading gossip magazines in the canteen with Megan Brebner and Laura Cox, or maybe organising science club outings with Polly Ratchet.

But then gradually I started to relax. The thing was, she actually wasn’t having any trouble fitting in any more. She was still a little bit eccentric but people had got used to it. Some of them seemed to like it, even. She wasn’t making a fool of herself. It seemed she had found her feet at last. But despite that, despite the fact she didn’t necessarily
need
me any more, she didn’t show any signs of going off with anyone else. I mean, she was polite to everyone, but that was as far as it went. It was me she’d sit with in lessons, me she’d wait for so we could walk home from school together. I seemed to be enough for her. She’d chosen me. She wanted to be my friend. It was quite a wonderful feeling, really.

Sometimes, when I look back now, I try to remember how much of that wonderful feeling was to do with Bert herself at that point and how much of it was just the sheer relief of finally feeling part of something after a lifetime of being on the outside of everything, of feeling that there wasn’t a single person in the world who really knew me. It was sort of like being picked for the team after fifteen years of sitting on the bench and I suppose that was quite a powerful thing. Certainly powerful enough to stop me taking a step back and really taking a good look at Bert, carrying out a proper assessment of her character. She
was
lovely of course, totally charming, but I do wonder if I could’ve looked a little more closely at the person I was getting involved with.

Right from Jac Dubois’s index finger sign on Bert’s first day, I had a feeling that she’d be popular with the boys, and as time went on, there definitely seemed to be some truth in that. At first, there was the usual macho strutting about – wolf whistles, cheesy chat-up lines called across the canteen, but that always seemed as if it was more for the benefit of the other boys than any real interest. You know what they’re like – just excited to have a new bit of meat to look at. After that all died down though, there were still one or two genuine admirers sniffing around.

There was Darren Hathaway for example, a grubby boy in our maths class, who liked to hover around a bit, and also a Year Eight boy who’d seemed to have developed a bit of a fixation and started leaving envelopes of rose petals tucked into Bert’s locker. It was in the back of my mind that at some point Bert might succumb to the flattery and start going out with one boy or other. I didn’t think Darren or the Year Eight were really in with a chance but if they were interested then I knew there’d be others. I knew that sooner or later another boy would pop up and it might just be someone who Bert liked the look of. I dreaded this happening to be honest.

I just knew what it would mean for me. For us. I’d be demoted to the third wheel, the spare part. The ugly best friend hanging around while the boy whispered, ‘Can’t we be
alone
for a bit?’ into Bert’s ear, at the same time tilting his head meaningfully in my direction. Bert would giggle and say, ‘Oh, all right then,’ before turning to me and asking me politely but firmly to make myself scarce. I know it makes me sound a bit neurotic, thinking like that, but when you’ve finally found something you’ve been waiting fourteen years for, I suppose you get a bit panicky at the thought of it being messed up.

Luckily though, for the time being, things were OK. Mostly Bert seemed happy to keep her distance from the boys. She was never rude; she never gave them cutting put-downs or withering looks. She just didn’t seem that interested. It was also useful that if anyone more attractive than Darren seemed to be getting interested, the other girls in our year were pretty quick to act as bodyguards. Anyone who was even half decent-looking was usually declared spoken for, and if he was seen too near Bert, Megan or one of the others would step in. Once, for example, Matt Pereira had been hanging around us in the canteen. Matt was your classic tall-dark-handsome type. Big brown eyes and good at sports and all that. He was flirting with Bert I suppose, but more in a bored, lazy way than with any real determination. But Ella Dewsbury had caught sight of him and decided he was up to no good.

She called over. ‘I see you, Matthew John Pereira, trying it on over there. Put your tongue back in and step away or I’ll tell Laura what you’ve been up to.’

Matt had shot Bert one last cheeky grin and slunk away, obviously figuring she wasn’t worth getting in trouble over.

By the time I’d known Bert for six weeks or so, I felt confident enough to ask a few questions around the ‘difficult time’ Mr Hurst had mentioned when he’d told me about her. So far, nothing she’d said about her life before school had given me much of a clue. I tried to think of a way to draw it out of her subtly, but there didn’t seem to be one. I decided to just ask her outright. After all, Bert was nothing if not upfront herself.

We were in art one afternoon – one of my favourite lessons since Bert had joined because we were usually allowed to get on with our own work,
which meant plenty of time for us to sit well away from everyone else and talk. I waited until there was a lull in conversation, then I dived right in.

‘Bert,’ I said carefully. ‘Mr Hurst said … I mean, when he first told me you were coming, he mentioned that you … that things had been …
tricky
for you.’

I stopped, practically holding my breath. There. It was out there.

Bert didn’t reply for a moment or two. She just carried on blending her charcoal with her fingers. I thought she was going to pretend she hadn’t heard the question, or worse, snap at me for being so nosy. But then she looked up and gave me a mischievous grin. She looked sideways quickly, as if she was checking no one was listening.

‘If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone,’ she said. ‘Not a soul. People would think badly of me, I’m sure of it.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell.’

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart,’ I said, doing my most earnest, trustworthy expression. ‘You can trust me.’

‘I know. Of course I can. Good old Birdy.’ She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. Then she grinned. ‘I did criminal damage!’ she said triumphantly.

I couldn’t help but giggle. Bert sounded funny just saying the words ‘criminal damage’. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine her doing any.

‘What do you mean? What did you do?’

‘Threw a brick through a car window.
Richard’s
car.’ She pulled a bit of a face, like she found the name distasteful in some way.

I frowned. ‘Who’s Richard?’

‘Oh, just this friend of my parents. He was a marine biologist.’

I waited for her to go on, to explain what he’d done to deserve such treatment, and whether it was somehow related to his marine biology antics, but she didn’t show any signs of expanding on her anecdote.

‘So … did you do it on purpose? Why?’

‘Oh yes. It was quite deliberate,’ she said, putting her charcoal down and looking at me. ‘I was just so cross! Richard was being really unbearable. I’d just had enough. So I wrote him a little message, to tell him so. I was going to just leave it out for him to see, but that morning … well, let’s just say he’d been particularly vile. So I tied it around a brick, and – smash! – popped it through the window of his car.’

I just looked at her for a minute, trying to take this image in. ‘What do you mean, vile? What did he do?’

‘Oh … you know.’ She gave a little vague wave of her hand but didn’t say anything else. Then she shrugged sulkily and added, ‘What can I say? I’m a very passionate person.’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘What did it say, then? The message?’

Bert looked back up, suddenly proud again. ‘It said, “You are as loathsome as a toad.”’

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s from a play.
Titus Andronicus
. I was reading it at the time. I thought it was clever. Offensive, but classy.’

I nodded and we were quiet for a moment then, concentrating on our drawings.

‘So what … then you had to come to school?’ I asked. ‘As a punishment?’

Bert shrugged. ‘Not really a punishment as such. More for … socialisation. My parents talked a lot about boundaries and appropriate behaviour.’ She scrunched her nose up. ‘Don’t tell anyone though.’

‘Sure, OK. Whatever you want.’ I wasn’t really sure what I’d tell them anyway.

Bert smiled and shook the charcoal dust from her picture. ‘Thanks, Birdy. Anyway, that’s all in the past now. No more dramas for me, that’s for sure. These days I am equanimity personified.’

I smiled back, feeling pleased that Bert had felt she could confide in me, even if I wasn’t one hundred per cent clear on what she’d actually confided.

I have wondered about that day since, you know. I wonder if this was the first clue I had about what Bert was really like. She’d called it ‘passionate’, but with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder if another word might’ve been more accurate. Impetuous, perhaps. Volatile.

Definitely more than a little unpredictable anyway.

On October the eighteenth Bert asked me if I wanted to go to her house after school. I remember the date because it felt like such a milestone. Maybe I would’ve made a note of more of the dates if I’d known that one day this would all form part of a story.

‘You can stay for dinner, if you like,’ she said. ‘Mum’s so chuffed that I’ve made a friend so quickly. She can’t wait to meet you.’

‘OK,’ I said, giving a nonchalant shrug to hide my delight. ‘Sounds good.’

‘Will you need to check with your grandparents?’

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘They’ll be fine. I’ll just let them know I won’t be in for dinner.’

The truth was, Nan would be likely to make such a fuss about the idea of me going to someone else’s house for dinner that I knew I wouldn’t even tell her. It was one of Nan’s peculiarities – that we should never eat other people’s food. In her eyes, it was somehow shameful. As if it was suggesting that we need to be fed by other people, like it made us look like a charity case. Still, I could easily tell Nan I was doing homework in the school library – as we didn’t have the internet or even a computer in the house, I often had to do that, so she wouldn’t think anything of it. I knew I’d have to eat a second dinner when I got home – Nan always kept mine for me when I was late, on the side with a plate over the top – but that was OK. I didn’t want to worry her or stress her out but I did so badly want to go.

I’d actually walked past Bert’s house loads of times before, when I was out for my Saturday afternoon walks. Weekends really drag when you haven’t got any friends and you’re only allowed to read real books when no one’s watching. Sometimes I’d head to the library to escape the house but I’d often find it full of giggling five year olds and their drippy parents clapping and singing nursery rhymes. If I hung around at home, Nan would give me jobs to do – cleaning out cupboards, scrubbing the floors, starching Granddad’s shirts – so I’d usually pass the time by taking myself out for long walks. I could be gone for hours, trudging around the streets. Sometimes I’d go into Flo’s Cafe at the end of the high street and sit at one of the tables with the plastic red and white checked tablecloths. They’d give me a mug of hot water for free usually. They were never that busy in there so they didn’t mind me taking up a table without paying for anything. If Flo was there she’d even slip me a biscuit sometimes. I guess I’m the kind of person people tend to feel sorry for.

Bert’s road – Chestnut Avenue – was one of my favourites to walk down. All the houses were huge, and every one of them was different. Bert’s one was light blue and white. It had big bay windows and the front door was right in the middle. I always think that’s the sign of a really posh house – when it’s perfectly symmetrical at the front.

We had to ring the doorbell because Bert had forgotten her key. When the door was flung open, a middle-aged woman stood in the doorway. She was older than I’d expected, I suppose around fifty. She had short, spiky hair, dark at the roots where her blonde dye was growing out. She was wearing an oversized man’s shirt. Both her face and her shirt were splattered with green and purple paint. She smiled widely at us.

‘Oh hi, darlings!’ she said. ‘You’re home already! Gosh, hasn’t the day whizzed by? You must be Frances,’ she said to me. ‘How lovely to meet you! I’m Genevieve.’

She leant forward and kissed me on the cheek. I froze, not quite sure how to respond. My nan had probably only kissed me twice in my entire life so I wasn’t used to these kinds of spontaneous displays of affection.

‘Yes, this is Frances,’ Bert said, stepping into the hall and kicking off her shoes. ‘I call her Birdy. But that’s our thing really so you should probably just call her Frances. Is that OK with you?’ she added, turning back to check with me.

I said it was fine and Genevieve laughed. ‘Right-oh,’ she said. ‘Can you help yourselves to a snack or whatever you want? I’m just finishing up in here.’

Genevieve disappeared into a room off the hall that smelt like varnish and glue.

‘Mum’s studio,’ Bert explained. ‘She spends most of her life in there. She’s an artist. Genevieve Fitzroy – have you heard of her? She does these ginormous paintings – all bright colours and splashes of paint everywhere. She sells them for thousands.’

I shook my head. It didn’t exactly sound like the kind of artwork we’d be likely to have in my grandparents’ house.

Bert’s kitchen was warm and smelt like coffee. I sat at a huge wooden table and watched as Bert poured us big glasses of lemonade and made us jam on toast. I couldn’t imagine Nan ever letting me raid the cupboards like that. Especially not before dinner. As we sat at the kitchen table, the back door opened and a tall, thin man with curly orange hair and muddy green wellies came in.

He seemed surprised to see us. ‘Ah, hello there! Is it that time already? I thought it was still morning!’ He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked at me, his head on one side. ‘And who have we here?’

‘Frances,’ Bert told him through a mouthful of toast.

‘Of course, of course! The wonderful Frances!’

He went to the sink and washed his hands, soaping himself right up to the elbows like a surgeon getting ready to go into theatre, then he turned back to me.

‘I’m the father,’ he explained. ‘Also known as Charlie. Sorry about the attire.’ He pointed down to his dirty knees and boots. ‘Been planting hyacinth bulbs for hours. Got carried away.’

He seemed younger than his wife, I thought. But then maybe that was just because he had one of those fresh, jolly faces that redheads often seem to come with. He filled a glass with water and downed it in one, then headed towards the hall.

‘Just getting in the shower,’ he said.

From the hallway, we heard Genevieve shout, ‘Charlie! Get those boots off the carpet!’ and Charlie mumbling his apologies as he pulled them off.

Bert rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘Dad’s a gardener,’ she said. ‘Although he mostly only does our garden. He’s too scatty to run a business really. He does have a van though.’

I nodded and chewed my toast.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ Bert went on. ‘Mum’s dad was super-rich. An actual millionaire. He was horrible apparently and he’s dead now, but he left Mum pots of money.’

‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘Sounds good.’

I was slightly taken aback by this frank disclosure. I’d always been taught that it was rude to talk about money. Especially to show off about it. But the way Bert had said it, it was so matter-of-fact it didn’t feel like showing off at all.

‘Hey,’ Bert said, grinning when we’d finished our snack. ‘Do you want to see my den?’