Brave New Girl (7 page)

It was after school. Keith had gone to talk to Miss Tunks about cameras, and I thought he would be better off going on his own. I was off to Dad's to ask about the café, and still walking on air because I was going to be Miranda. I promised myself I would make Keith really proud.

Dad's place wasn't just any café. He always told people it was a bistro, or a restaurant. I thought restaurant was pushing it a bit myself, but seeing as I'd only ever been to Maccy D's, the bakers by the station, and a caff round the corner from Christina's Nan's in St Albans, I didn't really know. But restaurants on the telly always had candles and those enormous pepper grinders and Dad's place didn't.

Dad's place was proper Turkish like him, and he did really good
shish
and
lamacun
(say it lamajzhoon)
which is like pizza. He'd also had the inside of it done up like a cave with grey-painted, pretend stone walls. It looked mad, believe. Anyway, that's why Keith wanted to film some of his film in there, because it was totally bonkers and not like any place that exists in real life.

So I waited at the bus stop, thinking about all this. It was on Mum's route and I was sort of hoping it would be Mum's bus. We always had a little chat when she was driving along. It made me feel proud, standing up there near the driver's bit. Plus it was the one time you could be sure she wasn't stuck into a book. She had to be in the real world, looking for little kids who just might run into the road, stopping the bus early if there was an old lady who'd not quite made it to the stop.

But it wasn't Mum who came along, it was her mate Carol. “Hiya love, you up the High Street to your dad's?”

I said “yeah”, swiped my oyster card, and sat down near the front.

Mrs Gold, one of Mum's regulars, got on and sat down in one of the priority seats for old people and pregnant women. Mrs Gold smiled at me and asked after Mum. Then her mate, Mrs Morris, got on and
Mrs Gold started chatting with her, which to be honest, was a bit of a relief.

I put my earphones back in, but even with my music playing I could hear them laughing and giggling like fifteen-year-olds.

I loved these buses, these little buses that went anywhere – not like the double-deckers. These buses, Mum's buses, went through all the back streets, crisscrossing the estates. Once I'd got over the stupid idea of Mum smelling of bus, I was really proud. I would wave at her when she went past. Most of the time she was concentrating really hard so she never saw me, but I would always point her out.
There's my mum.
I stopped doing that when Christina said it was stupid, she was
only
a bus driver.

I shuddered, remembering. Mum always said no one was ever
only
anything.

On the empty seat next to me was the local paper, folded up so you could only read half the headline:
Olympics
. All the headlines round here had been Olympic this or that for so long it felt funny thinking the Games were actually going to happen.

I shook the paper out and flipped past the latest stories of jackings, school plays, and celebrities opening shopping centres. The only decent thing
about our local paper was the problem page, but this week even the problems weren't as problemy as my life. Not a patch on it:
Girl, 13, shunned by sister even though she was trying to do something good
.

I turned another page.
School Singing Stars Chosen for Olympics.
There was Denny's choir with Denny beaming out from the middle of the photo. Mum would be over the moon.

I took out the page and folded it carefully so the picture was in the middle. They'd even spelt his name right underneath,
Denzel Campbell, age 10
, and he didn't look too bad, not like the big-headed, little brother, wind-up machine he could be in real life. I smiled back at the picture before putting the page into my bag. Denny would have it framed, and Mum would tape it up on the flip-down mirror in the front of her bus, next to the one of Arthur dressed up as the Gruffalo when they had Book Week at his nursery last year.

I turned the rest of the paper over.
Kutest Kiddie Kontest
, it said. Underneath the headline were twenty or so square portraits of kids, some babies but some as old as nine.
Keep those entries flooding in
, it read.
Local photographer in Kingsland Centre this weekend, all welcome!
If Arthur wanted to get his picture in the paper,
maybe there was something I could do about it.

“High Street!” the bus driver called out. I'd been so busy I hadn't noticed we'd arrived.

“Thanks, Carol.” I always say thank you to bus drivers, it makes them happy.

The Cave was empty. Mehmet, Dad's cousin, who's around twenty and head waiter, was having a cig on the pavement outside.

“Haven't you got tables to wait on, then?” I said.

“Place is emptier than Tesco's car park at midnight. S'been like this for nearly a month now,” Mehmet said and blew out a big, blue cloud of smoke. Sasha used to have a sort of crush on him until she smelt those cigarettes. “I don't know how long...” Mehmet stopped mid-sentence and threw his half-smoked cig into the gutter.

I looked to see what had made him jump. I should have known. It was Nene. I tried not to smile. I was glad it wasn't just me who was scared of her. Dressed head to foot in black, she launched into a verbal attack on Mehmet, full volume, non-stop Turkish. I couldn't catch a word of it, but her size, short and square, and her face and tone, made her seem more like one of
those vicious little Staffordshire bull terriers than a little old lady. I stepped back. She stopped, looked me up and down like I was lower than dirt, and went inside.

“Hello, Nene,” I called after her. She didn't bother to look round and, to tell the truth, I'd probably have fallen over if Nene even tried to be nice to me.

Mehmet looked at me, shrugged, and scurried in after her.

Nene is my grandmother. Now I know grannies are supposed to be all loved-up over their grandchildren, but it was never like that with me and Nene. Mum said not to worry, Nene was like that with everyone, but I knew she held a special place in her heart for hating me. I was proof that, in Nene's eyes, her lovely son was once, long ago, less than perfect.

Inside the Stone Cave, Dad was sitting at a table near the back, tapping away at a laptop.

I smiled and waved, but it was obvious I wasn't going to get as much as five minutes out of Dad with Nene there, jabbing her finger at him like a demented troll. Maybe this was her cave and Dad had fixed it up so she'd feel right at home. The walls were all grey and had been plastered by Dad and his mates so that
they looked like rock rather than walls.... But rock that had been painted Dulux Elephant Grey rather than any real-life cave I ever saw.

Today the restaurant was very empty.

“Mehmet,” I said, “is it like this in here all the time?” Mehmet was hard at work, wiping a table which looked perfectly clean already.

“Mondays, yes. Tuesdays too. Thursdays sometimes your dad's mates come in after work, and Fridays and Saturdays... well, it's not much better.” He leant close. His breath really was smoke-fuelled toxic. “But things are bad.” He lowered his voice. “I don't know if you know all this, but Nene wants him to sell up. She wants to go home.”

“Home?” I said. “Wood Green?”

“No, Seren, Cyprus!”

“Sounds all right to me,” I said. “Better than all right in fact. Maybe Dad'd get more customers in here if Nene wasn't lurking in corners, snarling.”

Mehmet almost laughed. “No, Seren, you don't get it. Nene wants everyone to move with her, your dad and Sherifa and the girls, my Mum and Dad.”

“What!” I was shocked now. “Dad's going to Cyprus?”

“It's not definite. And I am going nowhere. I am
totally staying in London! There's nothing to do over there at all.”

“I wouldn't know,” I said. Dad had taken me once when I was tiny, before him and Sherifa had had their kids, but I could hardly remember it at all.

“I don't want to be out of a job,” Mehmet said. “Your dad says he's waiting for the Olympics. Holding out till then. Says there'll be so much trade, but Nene, she doesn't believe him. She says her heart will give out if they stay in Dalston a month longer.”

“So we need more trade or she'll get her way?” I said.

“Exactly.”

We both looked at Nene. I heard the word ‘Olympics' and the word ‘heart-attack'. So maybe those words don't really translate into Turkish. I thought that there was nothing that would stop Nene. Even if she had a heart attack she had so much energy she would still keep going. Actually I would have put good money on Nene not having a heart at all.

Dad looked like a beaten man. I felt a wave of ‘sorry' coming off him towards me, and I looked back at him with what I hoped was my sympathetic face. He smiled at me over Nene's shoulder. I made a phone shape with my hand and mouthed, ‘I'll call.'

Nene saw me looking, and gave me a dirty look so filthy I could have used it to grow vegetables.

“She still hates you more than me, then?” Mehmet whispered.

“Oh yes,” I whispered back. “I am top of Nene's most hated. I doubt if there is anything you could do to take my crown,” I said, and walked out.

This was not actually true. I think Nene hates my mum a sliver more than me, but as she never has to see Mum, I get it all because I am walking, breathing proof that once Dad fell in love and had a kid with someone who was not Turkish. Dad has told me over and over to take no notice, and I do try my best.

I had only got as far as the cinema when I heard Dad shouting behind me. “Seren! Babe!”

I turned round and he caught up with me, out of breath from running.

“Are you OK?” he said. “Nene! I know! I'm sorry, love! You know what she's like.” He hugged me tight. “Seren. I don't see you enough. You should come round to the house. Sherifa loves you too, you know that.”

Sherifa is Dad's wife.

“Sherifa's cool,” I said. It's true, we get on, she is lovely. “But what about Nene?”

Dad made a face. “Maybe not the house then.” Nene lives with Dad. “Come to the Cave on Wednesday. At least that way you'll miss Nene, she'll be taking the girls to their music class.” The girls are my other sisters, Gamze and Ayshe. They're OK too. I even quite like helping with them sometimes, in the summer.

“Are you all right, Dad? The business?” I said. “Only Mehmet said... he said you might be moving.”

“Where d'you get that idea from?” he said. But he wasn't looking me in the face. “It's all fine, Seren.”

Why did I not believe him?

“I got the tenner. From Sasha last Saturday.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be the last bit of money you see from me for the time being. Tell Sasha I'll be sad to lose her.” He shrugged. “But I can't afford another pair of hands. There isn't the trade.”

“Hang on.” I was still processing what Dad had just said. “You mean she's fired?”

“I'm not Alan Sugar, babe. I just can't keep her on any more. I can't afford it.”

I folded my arms. “Did you tell her all this? On Saturday?”

Dad said nothing.

“Oh, Dad! You didn't, did you?”

“Not out like that. I couldn't, I mean I know how much the job means to her. To your mother.”

“You should have told her, Dad! She's saving up for her big Prom dress and everything!”

“I was going to call,” he said, not looking at me. “You can tell her for me, yeah?”

“Dad!”

“So, I'll see you Wednesday, love,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. “I better get back.”

“Nene?” I said, crossing my arns. I wanted to say “Why are you going, why won't you talk to me?” But I couldn't.

Dad nodded. “Nene.”

I watched him go. He seemed a lot older than Mum. Maybe he should read some books. It seemed to work for her. I hadn't even told him about Keith and the film, but I figured that Dad owed me that much. I texted Keith on the way to the bus stop to say that that we were on for Wednesday, and tried not to think about Cyprus.

I stood at the bus stop outside the cinema, trying to think of an easy way to tell Sasha, who is not even talking to me, that she is out of a job. The bus came far too quickly for my liking.

When I looked in my bag for my Oyster Card I saw
the newspaper picture of Denny, and remembered the
Kutest Kiddie Kontest
for Arthur. Denny would have his singing, I'd be in Keith's film and Arthur could be Kute. I sighed. That just left Sasha. No date for the Prom, public humiliation in her local corner shop and now no job. It just got worse and worse. Dad could be such an idiot sometimes!

Maybe that's where I got it from.

As the bus pulled away, the doors of the Rio cinema opened and dozens of women with pushchairs spilled out into the street. One chased after the bus and the driver waited for her and let her on.