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Disaster Zone #1: the Mum situation

I’m not putting these into priority order, or anything. I’m just numbering them so I can sort them out in my head, like breaking down an experiment into stages so you can tackle it. Believe me, there was just disaster on top of disaster at the side of another disaster, and overall it was just a big, ugly mess. But anyway, here goes.

First of all, Mum was told to come to collect me from school. This was not easy as she was in Glasgow and had to rearrange her flights and so on, so guess what happened instead? Yep, Dean came to get me. Not only did I have to undergo the shame of having brought the school to a standstill by having my famous boyfriend turn up in the hall (and how had THAT happened? Any of it?!), I had the terrible terrible shame of being hauled up to the principal’s office for the first time in my life … at Trevellyan, at least … and on top of all of that I had to be signed out and taken home for a serious think about the consequences of my actions with my mother’s new fiancé.

Furthermore, Jazzy had to come with us. At least he had clothes on this time, although when Dean saw what Jason had done with his vintage 501s he nearly cried.

There was a painful discussion with the principal in which I had to explain who Dean was and promise that yes, yes, of course I understood that school was not a disco and I couldn’t go inviting my boyfriend in during the day, especially when he was so darned famous. No amount of saying ‘He’s not my boyfriend’ and ‘I didn’t invite him in’ and ‘I haven’t been to a disco since Year 6 and have no plans to ever go to one again’ seemed to have any impact, and when Dean said testily, ‘Well, what is he then?’ when I said that Jason was not my boyfriend, I didn’t really have an answer.

What was he, in fact? Someone I seem to have met at primary school, who had somehow become world-famous and then taken some illegal substance that gave him a bit of amnesia? Some guy I’d stored, naked, in our garden shed? A human being I’d borrowed, without his permission, to try to come between my friend and the guy I … you know, chemical reactioned? There was just no reasonable explanation and in the end it was easier just to say nothing.

I was still a bit mute when we got into Dean’s car, which Jason recognised from Friday night. ‘Hey, Aggie’s car!’ he said, which just served to aggravate Dean all the more. First his jeans, then his car … was nothing sacred?

‘You get in the back, Mr Divine,’ he said,
in an ultra-formal tone which I had started to recognise as Really Mad. ‘I’ll drop you off after I’ve taken Cat home to meet her mum. She should be home in about half an hour.’

‘Sorry you had to come and get me,’ I said to Dean in a small voice.

‘It’s what …’ He paused, and I could tell he was going to say “what families do” and then better of it. ‘It’s what your mum wanted,’ he finished.

He rapped on the steering wheel for a while and then said, ‘You know what, Cat – you could have just said. Confided in Aggie. You’re old enough to have a boyfriend. Aggie would have understood, even if she’d been … well, a little jealous.
He’s an old friend from school. That’s fair enough. Why hide it?’

‘I … didn’t … I don’t …’ Know how to respond to that, I thought.

And anyway, when did this become about Aggie? Was this about me having a boyfriend before she did, or about the boyfriend being Jazzy Divine – none of which was true, anyway? Or was it about me not sharing stuff with Aggie?

‘Sorry,’ I said, which was the thing I said most all day.

‘Your mum thinks you’re reacting to our announcement the other day,’ he said, shooting me a little sideways glance. ‘I know it must be quite hard to take in when you and Rachel have been a unit all this time.’

‘Half a unit,’ I said quietly.

He nodded sympathetically. ‘I know. And we have too. We’ll all have to work things through to see how we fit.’

I looked out of the window, as
for some weirdy reason I was wondering if I might cry. Did he have to be so nice? So like Aggie. Hate you hate you hate you …

Jason just sat in the back humming to himself, and when Dean said, ‘Shall I drop you off near the campus?’ he replied, ‘Sure thing, bro,’ and went back to his singing.

Dean glanced at me again with an expression that said: “Okay, apart from the obvious, what DO you see in him?’

It was a fair question. What a good thing he wasn’t really my boyfriend. I might have expected a real boyfriend to stand up for me a bit more. At all, in fact.

And then we were home, and Mum was jumping out of a taxi and rushing over to the car, and I knew the talking was just about to begin. We’d have to go over it all again: her and Dad, and Gemma, and me before Trevellyan, and me not having more friends, and me choosing weird boyfriends, and me just basically being a major disappointment from start to finish although she always tried to pretend otherwise …

It went on long into the evening
, and only ended when I’d convinced her that Jazzy was not my type (all that talk about values) but that Freddie was my type and unfortunately he thought that his type was Dolores.

Then I cried about, of
all things, my triangular head complete with hair wings, and she hugged me and promised me a decent haircut, and told me that I’m beautiful in an unconventional way (which is parent-speak for ugly).

Only after that and a baked potato with cheese and sweetcorn was I
allowed to go upstairs and start texting. I’d never been so perturbed at not being able to do texting – for the first time, I realised why everyone else is so obsessed by it. Beats talking, that’s for sure.

Disaster Zone #2

Dolores didn’t even reply to my texts, which is unheard of. And there’d never been a time when I needed to talk to her more. Eventually I called her phone, knowing she wouldn’t answer, and left a very long message:

‘Hi, Dolores, it’s Cat. Look, this has all got way out of control, but you have to know that there is no way I would be going out with Jazzy D, and I only ever wanted to introduce him to you because you’re right, you would be perfect together. It’s not true, all that stuff on Facebook, honestly. Well, apart from the bit about why a superstar w
ould want to go out with a Cat-Astrophe. Do they really call me that? Anyway, I’m sorry it if was all a bit of a shock but I’m not going out with Jazzy D which means he is totally still available. And so am I,’ I added, in case she mentioned it to Freddie. ‘And I miss you and you’re truly my BFF and I’m sorry.’

It took half an hour, then I got a text that said: REALLY?

Which I took to mean did you really want to introduce him to me and would we really be prefect together and is it really all lies and is he really still available? And are you really still available? (Okay, I lied about that last bit as Dolores would not be at all surprised to find out that I was amazingly NOT going out with anyone).

It might also mean do you really miss me and are you really sorry?

So I texted back, ABSOLUTELY. Just to answer any of those reallies.

A bit later she called me. ‘I don’t know if I’m totally ready to talk to you properly,’ she said. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack this afternoon.’

‘I know. Sorry.’

‘And it sure looks to me like Jazzy D likes you.’

‘I know.’ Weird but true. I think maybe he’d just got confused over my niceness in putting him up in the penthouse shed. ‘Sorry.’

‘But you don’t like him? Not at all?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say not at all …’ There were sluggy moments and stuff, after all, but then I heard her sharp intake of breath and re-thought it. ‘Sorry. No, I don’t. Totally not my type. In fact, talking of my type …’

‘I know, you’re waiting for someone who loves biology and plays Loot,’ said Dolores.

‘Plays a lute, not Loot the game.’

‘Whatevs.’ She sounded a little shirty with me again for correcting her.

‘Sorry.’

Dolores sighed. ‘Look, stop saying sorry. It’s getting annoying, and I’m already annoyed with you. Just … just don’t meet any more pop stars without telling me, okay?’

‘Okay. Sorr … Okay. So Dolores … are we all right?’

I wasn’t sure I could bear it if we weren’t.

‘Probably,’ she said. ‘But don’t muck it up again. Oh, and by the way, Freddie’s nerdy mate wants to go out with you. I bet he’s your type.’

Who? ‘What nerdy mate?’

‘The one he was with when Jazzy arrived. He thinks you’re really cool, and if you’re not going out with Jazzy he wants a date.’

I slumped back on the bed with the phone on my forehead. Freddie’s mate? Why hadn’t FREDDIE thought I was really cool?

‘Cat? What do you reckon? Freddie said he’ll even go on a double date if it helps you relax,’ said Dolores. ‘Although I told him it’s only a pretend one as he is so not my type.’

‘No.’

No, he’s not your type. No, you shouldn’t be his type. No, I don’t want to date his nerdy mate, who I’d barely even noticed. No, I didn’t want to double date with me longing for Freddie and Freddie longing for Dolores and Nerdy Mate apparently longing for me. Nobody was longing for the right person. These chemical reactions just weren’t working properly. Maybe it was Facebook that had made it all complicated, people dumping their partners by status and all that …

Talking of Facebook. ‘Dolores … you know all that Facebook stuff about me and … Jason Devaney?’

‘I certainly do,’ she said frostily.

Naturlich
it was flipping everywhere – even to the extent of alerting the paparazzi so a dozen salivating journos turned up at our house, looking for “Jason’s Girl” to see if the rumours were true. I think some of them wanted to know if it was true I was actually a girl. Those Facebook snaps were not kind to someone tall and flat-chested with hair wings. Luckily Mum went all frosty on them, accusing them of harassing a minor and threatening to sue/call the police/turn the hosepipe on them. That dealt with them (I’m not sure which bit) but it didn’t do anything about the social media stuff.

Good job I knew Dolores. 

‘Will you help me get rid of it?’

And suddenly she was all efficient and in chargey again. ‘Yes! Well, it will be hard because it’s out there, but we’ll do what we can. I’ll get started now.’

‘Thank you, Double D.’

There was a long pause in which I could hear the tapping of keys, so I guess she’d already begun. ‘Just don’t be seen with him again. Ever,’ she said darkly, and I knew what that meant. Not only would it be very bad for my social media profile, but it would be very, very bad for our friendship.

‘Never,’ I said.

I couldn’t have meant it more.

Disaster zone #3

Freddie. I don’t need to say any more, do I?

Apart from it was getting worse instead of better. The more he chased Dolores and was indifferent to me, the more I dreamed about him and his attractive lip. What was wrong with my chemistry? It was like an experiment that I couldn’t get right. Aaaaaaaaaaghghghghghghgh. I was missing something – some secret ingredient. Maybe I would have to go out with his nerdy mate and be super cool in front of him. Make him jealous. Make him notice me, and not in a snarky way.

Why did it all have to be so difficult?

For one insane moment, I let my mind wander over some very strange territory, in which I let Dolores actually like Freddie as much as Freddie liked her, and I actually allowed myself to like Jazzy back even a little bit (as he did seem strangely attached to me). How much easier that would be, even if Jazzy was a pop star and super rich and muscly and all the things I hated … How much easier to like the person who liked you too …

I rolled over, still thinking about it
way too much, obviously, because Jazzy’s reflection was gazing back at me beside my own in the darkened window pane. And then it moved, and I realised that it wasn’t a reflection at all but an actual face, peering in from the outside.

The Divine Jazzy D’s actual face. Outside my bedroom window. Not even in the shed any more.

He was back, the idiot.

And o
hhhhh man, was he going to get it now.

Sometimes, just when it seems like life can’t get any more complicated and difficult, it just gets more complicated and difficult. In fact, I think it’s a mistake to ever think “Well, that’s as bad as it can get, isn’t it!” because the second … the millisecond … the nanosecond you think that, it goes and gets worse.

For instance, take that very moment when I lay back on my bed telling myself ‘Well, that was a terrible day but I’ve done some damage control and I think it might get better. Because, you know, it couldn’t get any worse, could it? Hahahaha.’ That was just the very instant when the cause of all the chaos and general disastrousness turned up outside my window.

I was about as furious as I’ve even been in my life, maybe even more furious than when Gemma … Nope, won’t think about that, not that it could get any worse.

Anyway, I just about crashed through the window and grabbed Jazzy Stupid Divine by his not-so-scrawny neck. He wobbled a bit on the ladder he was standing on, only managing to save himself by grabbing hold of the windowsill. My windowsill. I felt like prising his fingers off one by one, then giving the ladder a shove and watching him get back into his beloved penthouse shed – through the roof.

Instead I just glared at him. Fiercely. ‘There are photographers practically camped out in the street, just waiting to get a shot of you at my bedroom window. Are you insane?’

‘Maybe.’ He’d gone rather white, now I looked at him more closely, and his voice was quite strained. ‘Can I come in?’

‘No. Go away! You’ve done enough.’

At that he grabbed hold of my hand through the window, and not in a romantic, Romeo-clutches-Juliet kind of a way. More in a “if I go, you’re coming with me” sort of way.

‘Please,’
he whispered, gripping me so tightly around the wrist that I half-expected my hand to turn blue. ‘I’m scared of heights. It took me all the strength I had to force myself up this ladder, and I don’t think I can go back down it.’

What on earth had happened to him? This was the same idiot who had run six miles in
my neon pink Crocs; who’d turned up naked at a dinner party; who’d shown no fear about anything other than a sort of crowdophobia at the concert ...

‘Deal with it,’ I said nastily. ‘Apparently it’s good for you to face your fears.’ After all, he’d made me deal with enormous piles of rubbish all day, and face so many fears at once that it was a wonder I hadn’t fainted.

‘Cat, please let me in. I need to talk to you. I promise I won’t make things any worse.’ When I carried on hesitating and staring at him in my furious fashion, he peered over his shoulder and said, ‘Actually, I think I did see a photographer a few houses away. It’ll be so much worse if he catches a photo of this. Or worse still, a fan finds out …’

Oh
dear Einstein, did he mean Dolores? What would Dolores do if she found The Divine One outside my bedroom window? It was too much to bear, and as the only alternative to hauling him inside was sending him to his death-by-toppling-ladder, I hauled him inside.

Thankfully he was wearing clothes, this time, so I was able to assist by grabbing the back of his belt and dragging him across the windowsill. I didn’t bother moving my cactus.

‘You’d better hope my mum doesn’t find out you’re here, or that will be worse than any photographer or fan known to mankind,’ I muttered darkly as he collapsed in a heap on my beanbag.

It was weird, him being in my bedroom. He seemed very masculine, with his slouchy jeans and hint of a five-o’clock shadow, and it’s not like my room is fluffy and pink. The fluffiest thing in there is my own head. Sprawled across the beanbag
like a sky-diver who’d lost his parachute, he didn’t leave much room for me other than the bed and my desk. I sat at my desk with him beside me on the squishy seat, as if I was a doctor and he was my toddler patient. A very large toddler patient.

‘I see you made it home,’ I said primly.

‘What?’

‘You’ve got different clothes on. In fact, you’ve just got clothes on. Makes a very nice change, may I say.’

He looked down at himself as if he’d forgotten getting dressed and then gazed up at me from his lowly beanbag, puzzled. ‘What do you mean, I’ve got clothes on?’

‘I mean you are dressed. Clothed. Fully attired.’ Bless him, he really was thick. ‘Or have you forgotten about your tendency to turn up with nothing on?’

Jazzy ran a hand through his hair, which was more tousled and natural-looking than usual. He seemed shocked and perplexed. ‘Nothing on? He’s been showing up with nothing on?’

‘He who?’

‘Him. This … Jazzy D,’ he said, pulling his iPhone out of his leather jacket pocket and shoving the most horrible of all the Facebook images under my nose. It was him, looking handsome and pop-starrish, and me with my hands over my face in a sort of beak-shape, my eyes round with horror and my stupid hair floating up towards the ceiling. I looked like Big Bird off Sesame Street.

‘Ye-es,’ I said slowly, because there was clearly something amiss here. ‘This Jazzy D, AKA you, has been turning up naked. Even when I bought you clothes, which is a bit insulting, actually.’

‘You bought this Jazzy D clothes?’ Now he looked completely shocked and horrified.

He sounded like a nutter. ‘Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?’

I nearly stopped myself, actually, because it dawned on me as soon as I said it that Jazzy D wouldn’t know the third person from his grandma. I might as well be talking in Latin – not that anyone actually talks in Latin – so I was just about to re-phrase it when he suddenly scrambled up and walked over to the desk.

‘I’m not talking about myself in the third person, Cat,’ he said, sounding very clear, very clever and very, very close. He brought his
iPhone nearer to my nose. ‘This is not me.’

Omigod. I’d let a lunatic W
annabe Jazzy climb into my bedroom. ‘You’re … you’re not Jazzy D?’

‘Yes, I’m Jazz—̕
He corrected himself. ‘I’m Jason Devaney. That’s not me. He’s like a double or a doppelganger … or something.’ Peering back at the picture of himself, he shook his head, bewildered.

Omigod, I’d let a schizophrenic Jason Devan
ey climb into my bedroom – one who knew long words like doppelganger. Also German, which I liebe.

‘Is it … is it the drugs, Jason?’ I said softly. ‘I thought maybe you were on something. We’ve been warned about the effects at school. I didn’t realise it was schizophrenia medication. Or do you need medication because of the drug-taking?’

Omigod, I’d let a mental, medicated druggy climb into my bedroom, and now I was insulting him!

‘Sorry, Jason,’ I said soothingly. ‘I don’t think we call it schizophrenia any more. Bi-polar; that’
s it, isn’t it? It’s okay, though. No need to worry. I’m going to be a doctor.’ What the helix. Now was not the time to be splitting hairs, with splitting personalities standing right here beside my desk.

At that his jaw dropped open. ‘I don’
t take drugs. Christ, does he do drugs too? And I am not, absolutely not bi-polar. A bit fed up, maybe, and completely, completely exhausted, but not mentally ill or anything.’ I watched his big hazel eyes cloud over and he held up both hands, flashing the phone at me once more. ‘Sorry. There’s nothing wrong with mental illness, of course. Are you …’

Omigod. He thought I was the mentally ill one. Given the Big Bird pictures, I could see why he might think there was something wrong with me, but seriously … ‘I’m not mentally ill! I’m not ill at all. I’m sick of the sight of you, but that’s about it.’

‘Cat, you haven’t seen me before.’

‘Please sit down again, you’re making me nervous being all …’ Mental. Drugged up. Nearby. ‘… tall.’

That distracted him for a moment. With a quick glance around my bedroom, he plonked himself down on my Big Bang Theory duvet cover. ‘Sorry. I didn’t intend to intimidate you or anything, turning up at your house like this. In your bedroom.’ He ran a hand through his hair again, and it all stood on end, rather like mine. ‘It’s just that I had to find out what’s been going on. I am absolutely serious, Cat. You have never, ever met me before – not in person. Whoever this is that’s been naked and drugged in your presence – it’s not me. I’ve been having a break mid-tour to rest my voice, and I went back to Jersey for a while after the Zed gig. All this Facebook stuff is the first I’ve heard of this other guy.’ He held up the photo again. ‘I’ve got to admit, he’s the image of me. Whoever it is, he’s good.’

I sat and stared at him for a long time, thinking:

# Dolores’ head would explode if she knew the real Jason Devaney was currently sitting on my bed.

# So would my mother’s
.

# He’s much better-looking when he’s more messy.

# This is the real Jason Devaney. The one who went to my school in Jersey. I could hear it in the faint twang of his accent, and I could tell by the way that he’d strung several sentences together including quite a few words of more than one syllable and had not once burst into song, that this was not the same Jazzy I’d had living in my shed.

So who was the Jazzy who’d been living in my shed?

‘How … how did you find me? Did you trail me home from school?’ That was how the paparazzi had found out where I lived.

Then he fished in the inside pocket of his battered leather jacket, that actually looked like he went biking in it and actually looked like he might have fallen off once or twice. I wondered for a moment if I should scream – maybe he was going to pull out a gun, or a knife, or
worse, a Double Vision CD.

But when I saw what he was actually holding, I couldn’t even speak.

‘These letters you kept sending to Stephen,’ he said with a small smile, holding up the envelopes with my writing on them. ‘You put your address on the top.’

‘Ah. Don’t people do that any more?’

‘People don’t send letters any more, Cat.’ He started to laugh, and for a moment I wondered if it was all going to turn horrible again and he’d just come to snigger at me. ‘Stephen had them checked for poison and all sorts. Probably gun powder. But then he let me have them and I read them and … here I am.’

‘You certainly are,’ I said.

Which made us both think: if you’re here, Real Jason Devaney, then where (who, what) is the other Jazzy D?

‘You’ve got to help me find him,’ said Jason eventually. ‘Please,’ he added.

‘I wouldn’t know where to start looking,’ I said, then I remembered that actually, I would.

So I made sure Mum was safely ensconced in her bedroom with her earphones in, working on her translation from her Glasgow meeting, and we crept down the stairs to the shed.

He wasn’t there, and for a moment I wondered if I’d been duped when Jason turned all dreamy eyed and said, ‘Oh, this smells great!’

‘Slugs,’ I said knowingly.

‘Yeah. Even though slugs are not the gardener’s friend, I was always quite fond of them.’ He paused as he searched through the sleeping back and Other Jazzy’s abandoned clothes, looking for clues. ‘My dad was a market gardener in Jersey; it was my job to get rid of the slugs. And the snails. And the rats.’

‘Nice. I can
see why you’d want to be a pop star.’

He stared at me then for a long time, but didn’t say anything. Then he shrugged. ‘Do you really remember me from school?
From St Lawrence’s?’

Ah. That.
And … what? ‘Um, not that much, to be honest. I was only there a few months. In Jersey. And now you come to mention it, I wasn’t at that school anyway.’

‘That’s what I thought. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered you,’ he said, in the identical way to how he’d said it about Dolores
, even though that was lechy and gross and this really wasn’t. Confused me for a moment. Was he schizo, or mad, or genuine? And why would he have remembered me, anyway?

‘Why would you have remembered me?’ I said belligerently, waiting for some rude comment about my hair, or my tallness, or my general awfulness.

Jason Devaney smiled. ‘Because of the tree. The pea tree. You were famous for a good few months at our nursery – kids kept coming to buy pea plants from us so their parents could show them the difference between peas and poisonous laburnum.’

Wow. Huh. I’d had an impact on someone. On a business. On a family. Wow and again wow.

Then he said, ‘So maybe we have met before in person, at the nursery,’ and I thought of something.

‘Actually, we
’ve definitely met before,’ I said. ‘At the concert in the letters where I came to meet you, and my friend Dolores tore your collar off. You might not remember. Probably happens all the time.’

Jason’s pretty face turned pale in the moonlight. ‘Oh no. That I remember. She was scary.’

‘Beautiful, though. Powerful scary.’ That was me, not him. ‘She’s my best friend, actually, though nobody gets how we’re friends when she’s so gorgeous and I’m … clever.’

Jason wasn’t listening. ‘My favourite shirt, that. Vintage Fred Perry. Maybe I could
mend it.’ We closed the shed door and gazed out over the moonlit field behind the house. ‘What happened to it?’