Girl, (Nearly) 16: Absolute Torture! (8 page)

‘Did you dream about marrying him, even though he was dead?’ asked Jess.

‘No, I didn’t fantasise about being married to him,’ said Mum. ‘I think I wanted to
be
Lawrence of Arabia. Anyway, enough of that.’ Mum whipped her napkin off her knee and wiped her mouth. She went off to pay the guesthouse bill, and soon they were on the road again, heading for Lawrence of Arabia’s cottage.

Jess couldn’t concentrate on Lawrence of Arabia. She could feel herself sinking into a horrific but somehow compulsive fantasy about Fred being a waiter with three gorgeous girls, all in short black skirts, competing for his attention. There would be a blonde called Grace, who would appeal to his higher nature. Jess was sure there would also be a dark girl with sultry lips called Selina. She would appeal to his baser instincts. And, worst of all, there would be a redhead called Charlie – such a sassy name for a girl – who was not particularly good-looking but had the most magnetic personality and the funniest gags. It was Charlie Jess was most afraid of.

‘He died a very tragic death.’ Her mum broke into the fantasy with yet another of her depressing asides. ‘Is it next left, Granny?’

‘No, next but one,’ said Granny, navigating with excitement. ‘By a phone box, according to the map. How did he die, dear? I can’t remember.’

‘He fell into a bowl of parsnip soup and was drowned?’ suggested Jess irritably.

‘No,’ said Mum, putting on a pious air. ‘It was tragic. He used to ride about on a motorbike. He swerved to avoid two errand boys, and went off the road and crashed. He never regained consciousness. I think he was in hospital for a few days, sort of hanging on. But he died.’

‘I wonder if he had one of those out-of-body experiences,’ mused Granny. ‘You read so much about them. A lot of people have had them. They’re lying on their hospital bed, and then suddenly they’re floating up by the ceiling and they hear a voice say – turn right by that chip shop, dear – “Your time has not yet come.”

‘Still,’ Granny went on, ‘at least he didn’t have a wife and family, so there wasn’t that immediate sort of family loss.’

‘The nation grieved,’ said Jess’s mum, in a pompous tone of voice, as if she were in the pulpit of a cathedral somewhere. ‘And one might say the fact that he wasn’t married with children was even more tragic.’ She sighed, as if she would have given anything to bear a glamorous son for Lawrence of Arabia, rather than a slightly stout and bad-tempered daughter for Tim Jordan.

Soon they arrived at Cloud’s Hill, and Jess clambered stoutly and bad-temperedly out of the car. This was a remote spot. Wind tossed the grass and leaves about in a rather haunted way. Jess’s mum looked up at the clouds, and a strange, dream-like expression came over her face.

‘Cloud’s Hill . . . I’ve wanted to come here for years and years, you’ve no idea,’ she murmured, and walked off to the entrance.

Cloud’s Hill was a weird, tiny house. There was no electricity. It was dark indoors, and plain, and it smelt peculiar.

‘I do think he might have got himself a decent sofa,’ said Granny. ‘I don’t like those chairs. It gives me backache just looking at them.’

‘To think that he actually sat there!’ said Jess’s mum, staring in fascination at the chair upon which Lawrence of Arabia’s charismatic buttocks had reposed. ‘I was crazy about him when I was young. It would have been much healthier if I’d had a proper boyfriend – one my own age.’

Wow
, thought Jess,
is Mum fishing? Does she maybe have a hunch that Fred and I are An Item?
It would be so, so cool if Mum knew about Fred and approved and everything. Jess’s heart started to beat impossibly fast. She must say something. She knew Fred wanted her to tell her mum about him.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Jess, in a casual, airy kind of way, ‘I’ve got a proper boyfriend – somebody my own age.’

Mum whirled round, her face transformed in an instant. Her blissful yearning for the spirit of Lawrence of Arabia was replaced by wide-eyed alarm and terror. As if she’d suddenly seen a snake in a flowerbed.

‘What?’ she hissed. ‘What’s all this? What on earth are you talking about?’

Oh no
, thought Jess,
I’ve blown it
. In an instant the skittish, holiday-Mum had gone, and the anxious, disapproving old bat of normal everyday life was back in charge. Jess would have to blag her way out of this one.

‘Yeah,’ she went on, ‘haven’t I mentioned him? His name’s Siegfried de Montenegro and his family made a million out of marzipan. They live in a castle on a hill in Transylvania. We’re planning a December wedding and I’m going to have a troupe of vampires-in-honour, all in pink and white.’

Mum’s face cleared. She shook her head in some kind of disbelief, as if Jess had just made a very tasteless joke, and went back to ogling Lawrence of Arabia’s furniture. Phew! That had been a dodgy moment and no mistake.

Jess felt sad. If only her mum had said, ‘What, Fred? Perfect choice – I adore the lad. He can come round any time and I’ll make some jam tarts specially.’ But it didn’t seem as if she would be able to say that, ever. Jess and Fred would have to remain a secret for years and years and years. Till they were middle-aged – twenty-five, at least.

Jess completely switched off from her surroundings. She was oblivious to Cloud’s Hill. She was wondering what was going on at that wedding where Fred was being a waiter.

Chapter 12

Jess could see it now. There was a huge marquee on a lawn, and a lot of smartly dressed people were milling about under some massive oak trees. Fred, dressed in a black suit and wearing a cute little bow tie, was pouring out champagne . . .

‘Can I top you up?’ he asked a ravishing young woman in a powder-blue two piece and a massive hat adorned with ostrich feathers.

‘Well, hello!’ said the young woman in a swoopy sort of voice. She was called, er – Jemima. Jemima Featherstone-FFyffe. ‘I wasn’t thinking of having any more champagne, but since it’s you – why not? Tell me, what do you do when you’re not being a waiter?’

‘Oh, I write screenplays,’ said Fred airily. ‘I’m working on one about a rabbit who saves the world.’

‘Wow! That sounds fabulous!’ exclaimed Jemima F-FF. She seemed to have got rid of her powder-blue suit and was wearing a glittering swimsuit and moonstone earrings which looked like two divine dewdrops hanging from her perfect ears. ‘You must meet my father, he’s a film director. Come with me . . .’ And she clasped Fred’s elbow and steered him away through the crowds.

‘Tell me,’ Jemima whispered to Fred, ‘please don’t think I’m being too forward, but – do you have a girlfriend? Are you going out with one of those waitresses?’

She cast a glance at Charlie, Selina and Grace, who were handing out exquisite little pastries while also glaring in Fred’s direction, because each of them had been secretly planning to seduce him herself.

‘Oh no,’ said Fred. ‘I did have a sort of girlfriend, but it wasn’t really a big thing, you know, and besides . . . She’s gone off for the whole summer with her tiresome family.’

‘How could she leave you unattended for a split second?’ enquired Jemima, who had turned into a kind of South Sea Island Goddess, wearing only high-heeled shoes and a bikini made of fig leaves.

‘I’m afraid she is rather careless that way,’ shrugged Fred. And they dissolved into a kind of swamp of snogging behind a potted palm.

All the wedding guests peeped discreetly at them, murmuring to one another, ‘Isn’t it fabulous? Jemima seems to be getting off with that cute waiter. Poor girl, she really deserves cheering up after that awful incident with Don and the white-water-rafting.’

Back in the real world, Jess was in the Lawrence of Arabia bookshop. There were lots of books about him. They all had photos of him on their dust jackets. His face was long and fair and handsome, but somehow haunted and a bit weird. You just knew he was the sort of guy who would never smile for photographs.

‘I tell you what,’ said Granny. ‘He’s the spitting image of your father, dear.’

Jess looked closely at the photos and thought for a bit.

‘Well, I suppose he does look a bit like Dad, in a way,’ she said. Lawrence of Arabia had the same kind of long floppy hair. It fell down on each side of his brow.

‘Dad is a lot taller than Lawrence was,’ said Jess’s mum. She made it sound as if this was a mistake on Dad’s part. If he had any tact he wouldn’t have done all that growing, but remained glamorously short.

‘When are we going to get to Dad’s, Mum?’ asked Jess. ‘I can’t wait to see him again!’ And just at the very moment when, for a split second, Jess had got excited about something on this history tour, she felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. A message from Fred!

‘Early next week,’ said her mum. ‘We’ll be down in St Ives by then.’

‘Great! Cool! Well, I’m going to get some fresh air – excuse me,’ said Jess, desperate to be alone with her text. She strolled outdoors and whipped out her mobile. She had been so longing to hear from Fred. But she hadn’t wanted to text him all the time, all needy and nerdy.

DISASTER
, it said,
MANAGED TO DROP A BIG DISH OF CREME CARAMEL ALL DOWN CHARLOTTE’S CLEAVAGE.

Oh no! It was even worse than Jess’s tortured fantasy. She didn’t even know who Charlotte was, but whether she was one of the cheerleader waitresses, or a seductive wedding guest like Jemima, Fred had already got on such close terms with her cleavage that lurve and marriage must surely follow.

Jess didn’t answer Fred’s text right away, as she usually did. She was too horrified. She didn’t trust herself. She was afraid she might say something really ferocious. On the other hand, boy, did she want to say something ferocious!

Instead she resorted to prayer. Sometimes things got so feverish you just had to hope there was some lovable old guy in the sky with a long white beard and twinkly, compassionate eyes, like Gandalf.

Dear Lord
, thought Jess fervently
, I know you disapprove of cleavages, and I’m sorry that, at certain moments in the past, I have tried to improve mine with the aid of minestrone soup bra inserts. Forgive me, Lord, and – this is just a suggestion – why don’t we make it Anti-Cleavage Week? You could start by removing Charlotte’s during the night and replacing it with an endless dreary flatness, covered with matted red fur.

Chapter 13