Girls, Guilty but Somehow Glorious (14 page)

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25

TUESDAY 7.32 p.m.

Not completely convincing . . .

‘OK,’ said Chloe, ‘I’ve been totally stupid. Beast just used me. It’s so humiliating! He just snogged me for fun. Kind of because I was there. I mean, if you’d been in the back of that car with him, he’d have snogged you.’

I wanted just to sympathise with Chloe, but what she’d said sounded faintly insulting somehow – as if it meant,
Beast would have snogged anybody, even you
. I knew she didn’t really mean it like that. But there was something else about it that I didn’t like.

‘I wouldn’t have
let
him snog me,’ I said. Instantly I regretted it. It made me seem kind of toffee-nosed and superior. I hadn’t meant it to.

‘Huh!’ said Chloe. ‘I’d like to see you try to stand up to him!’

‘No, no,’ I said, ‘the thing is, I don’t fancy him, Chloe. And you do, don’t you?’

Chloe blushed. ‘I
did
,’ she admitted. ‘But now I hate him.’

‘Good. Because at one point I was beginning to think he’d ask you to go to the Earthquake Ball with him.’

Chloe blushed again. ‘I would never even
consider
going to the Earthquake Ball with him, even if he wasn’t going with Lauren Piper.’

The way she said ‘
Lauren Piper
’
tried to sound free and easy, as if Lauren was a major buddy, but I suspected that secretly Chloe was longing to transform Lauren into salami. As for all that ‘
I hate Beast
’ rubbish, only last Sunday – a mere two days ago, though it seemed more like two years – she’d said, ‘
Beast is really just a pussycat. He’s absolutely adorable. He’s not at all like people say. He said I was beautiful.
’
She said she hated him, but could I trust her to stick to her hate?

‘Never mind him,’ said Chloe, sticking out her lower lip. Then she gave me a kind of anxious, guilty look.

‘I’m really really sorry about the babysitting,’ she said. ‘I know I majorly let you down. I’m
so
sorry, Zoe. If only I’d gone babysitting with you instead of letting Beast take me to that horrible Next Big Thing! It was awful, Beast and Donut coming round to the Normans’ house and waking up the twins and stuff. It was all my fault. Were the parents really cross? Did they give you a hard time?’

‘It’s kind of a big muddle,’ I said. ‘She was cross, so then I said I’d better not babysit for them any more, then she chased me down the street and begged me to reconsider.’

‘So will you never have to go there again?’ asked Chloe, looking mightily relieved.

‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘It was all left up in the air. They didn’t pay me, either. I kind of left in a huff, sort of.’

‘Oh God!’ Chloe cringed. ‘I’m so sorry, Zoe. That was all my fault. I should have come babysitting with you. I was really mean. I hate myself.’

‘No need for melodrama,’ I assured her, biting my thumbnail (which I’d suddenly noticed was ragged). ‘Just never let it happen again, you bitch.’

‘Never!’ promised Chloe. ‘You’re my best mate, and if I ever let you down again may I be nibbled to death by poison toads.’ She stared solemnly at me and drew her finger across her own throat. Then she reached for her notebook and clicked her pen in a businesslike way. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back to the Ball. Let’s draw up another shortlist of boys who seemed too nerdy to consider last week. They might have matured unexpectedly in the last few days.’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘You haven’t heard about how
my
life is in ruins, yet. Some best mate you are!’

‘Oh?’ said Chloe. ‘Is there more? Sorry. Tell me all about it. If anybody’s giving you a hard time, I’m going to eat them alive.’

‘Oh yeah?!’ I raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘Forgive me, but don’t you only eat beans on toast?’

I told her all about my awful bungled attempt to get to know Oliver, and his blanking me on the school field. She made a few sympathetic sounds, but to be honest she looked as if, somewhere in her heart of hearts, she was thinking about something or somebody else.

Then I told her all about Tamsin’s probs. This time Chloe did seem sympathetic. She adores Tamsin. I think it’s partly because whenever they meet, Tam always says, ‘Oh, Chloe! You look absolutely
fabulous
!’ even if Chloe’s wearing a tired old sack with maggots literally peeping out of the ragged edges.

‘Poor Tam! I’ll lend you all the money I can lay my hands on,’ said Chloe, going to her special drawer and taking out a cash box. She unlocked it with a dainty key and took out a huge wad of notes.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘Let’s count it. It’s my Newquay money, plus a bit my grandpa gave me for my birthday last month . . . uhhh, £225.’ And she just handed it over.

I was startled. It seemed too easy. Chloe’s generosity just took my breath away. I was also just a teeny tad worried about the amount of money Chloe and Toby had already managed to save up for Newquay. I hadn’t really got cracking with that, yet. I made a mental note to get a job in the Easter holidays.

‘I’ll get you an envelope,’ said Chloe. She went downstairs. I just sat staring at the big wodge of money. I don’t think I’d ever held that much in my hand before. Chloe’s mum doesn’t believe in banks. She says they’re all crooks. So their house is full of little stashes of money. I hope they’re never burgled. It is unlikely, because Geraint would eat burglars alive, head first, without even waiting to be introduced.

Chloe returned with an envelope. She put the money in it and handed it back to me. I felt, frankly, nervous.

‘I’ll give you a receipt or something . . .’ I hesitated. ‘An IOU . . .’

‘Oh, no, don’t bother with that, Zoe,’ said Chloe, sitting down again and getting out her notebook. ‘I know you’ll pay me back. I have complete faith in you, you idiot!’ And she grinned in a breezy way which was, of course, adorable, but somehow made me feel rather nervous, deep down.

OK, she could trust
me
, but what about Tamsin? Would Tam come up with the goods? Would she really get a job at Easter? Was she still living the virtuous life of poverty chic even though I wasn’t actually there to forbid her the designer water and the charity-shop pearls?

‘I’ll just call Tam, now,’ I said suddenly. ‘And tell her how brilliant everybody’s been.’

‘OK,’ said Chloe, doodling in the margin of her notebook. She seemed to be drawing a face. A male profile. With long dark hair and magnetic eyes. Hmmm. A pirate, perhaps? I was a bit worried about Chloe. There have been times when she hasn’t been completely honest with me. Usually it’s been when her pride is involved. I had a feeling this could be one of those times.

‘Hi, Zoe!’ Tamsin answered. She sounded much better: happy and upbeat. I could tell she was in the college bar. There was music in the background and people yelling all around her. ‘How’s everything?’

‘It’s going brilliantly!’ I told her. ‘Toby and Chloe have lent me loads of money. I’ve got nearly £650 already. Fergus probably won’t be able to, but I’m sure we can get enough to pay your friends back.’

‘Well done, Zoe!’ shrieked Tam. ‘You are an AAAAAAngel!’ She sounded a bit drunk, to be honest.

‘Tamsin,’ I said, trying to sound light-hearted because I didn’t want Chloe to get worried about her loan, ‘you’re still on the straight and narrow, aren’t you? Still doing poverty chic?’

‘God, yes!’ shouted Tam. ‘I’m so poor, they’ve told the Pope! I eat out of rubbish bins! I wear only rags! OK, I’ve had a couple of gin and tonics tonight, but Ronnie treated me! I sleep on bare boards, the lot. Don’t worry, darling. I am totally
but tot
ally on board. And I’m going to sell all my throws and stuff on eBay, just like you suggested.’

‘And your clothes?’ I asked. I didn’t want to nag, but . . . ‘or some of your clothes, anyway?’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ gabbled Tam. ‘All of my clothes!’ She laughed in a mad, off-the-wall kind of way. ‘All my clothes, babe! I’m going to do poverty chic in the complete and utter nude!’ She squealed with laughter. I hesitated. I didn’t want to nag. And I didn’t want to say anything that would make Chloe lose faith in Tam and perhaps start regretting handing me her entire worldly wealth in an envelope.

But I so wanted to say something, something boring maybe, something preachy maybe. Just something about what a big deal it was for my friends to give her all their money like this, and how mega-important it was for her to take it seriously, and not mess about as if it was some gigantic joke.

It didn’t seem quite the right time or place, however. So I kept my mouth shut, and after a few more jokes and expressions of undying sisterly affection, we said goodbye.

‘OK,’ said Chloe. ‘Let’s be totally rational about this Earthquake Ball thing. What boys do we know who would be, well, tolerable?’ We tried to think of tolerable boys. There were none.

Suddenly the baby laughed in my handbag. I snatched up my phone. I didn’t recognise the caller ID.

‘Hello?’ said a deep thrilling masculine voice.

‘Oliver?’ I cried, leaping up in my ecstasy and almost starting to dance.

‘No – it’s Matt.’

‘Matt?’ I pulled a face at Chloe and shrugged. Who the hell was Matt?

‘Matthew,’ said the voice. ‘Matthew Kesterton. You interviewed me last Sunday about the life coach job.’

‘Oh, Matthew!’ I cried. ‘Of course! I’m so sorry!’ Terror seized my soul. I was going to have to tell him he hadn’t got the job. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t got back to you . . . I’ve been out of town. My sister needed a bit of help . . .’

‘It’s OK,’ said Matthew. It was amazing how warm and deep and lovely his voice was, when you couldn’t see his strange robo-pastiness and his unsmiling khaki eyes.

‘Look, Matthew, I’m sorry the interview didn’t go very well . . .’ I stammered. ‘It was – we haven’t actually chosen anybody yet . . .’ I just couldn’t face telling him he was not The One.

‘No, that’s fine,’ said Matthew. ‘I wasn’t calling you to hassle you about that. I mean, I wouldn’t want to put you under pressure. It’s something else.’

‘Oh?’

‘No, uh, I was ringing you to ask . . .’ Matthew hesitated, sounding not quite as confident as usual. For a second my blood ran cold. Was he going to ask me for a date? Had he been swept off his feet by my fabulous farting? ‘I wanted to ask if I could have a session?’ he asked.

‘A – session?’ It sounded a little bit strange, and to be honest, possibly sleazy.

‘A life coaching session,’ said Matthew. ‘I think I could learn a lot from it. How much do you charge? Thirty-five an hour? That’s the normal rate, I believe?’

‘Oh – uh – yes,’ I stuttered, totally gobsmacked.

‘That’s fine,’ said Matthew. ‘So when could you fit me in? It would have to be after 4.30. Would that be possible?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said faintly. ‘Sure. How about tomorrow?’

‘Would five o’clock be OK?’ suggested Matthew.

‘Fine,’ I replied, desperate to escape from this disastrous appointment but unable to make the right move.

‘Same place?’ asked Matthew.

‘Yes,’ I croaked. My mouth had gone dry with embarrassment. At this moment I remembered I should have been using my squeaky voice. But it seemed the least of my problems, to be honest.

‘OK, then,’ said Matthew. ‘See you then. Bye!’ And he rang off.

‘What on earth was that all about?’ asked Chloe. I told her. She went pale. ‘What do life coaches do, exactly?’ she pondered.

‘Let’s get online,’ I commanded, ‘and find out.’

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26

WEDNESDAY 4.03 p.m.

Poised to pounce on our prey . . .

Next day, at school, life was one long pretence. I pretended to have done my homework. Then I had to pretend that Tam was going to pay everybody back soon. I pretended that I didn’t care if Oliver came round the corner at any minute. (He didn’t, thank God.) And now school was over I had to pretend to be a life coach.

This was the worst bit, really. Interviewing Matthew had been such a disaster that the thought of seeing him again made me feel slightly sick. However, for some reason I’d agreed to it, so here we were. On the way home we stopped in the charity shop and I picked over a few men’s shirts. I selected three: brown, taupe and a kind of soft gold.

‘What about blue?’ asked Chloe, holding up a terrible T-shirt with dolphins on it.

‘Leave the colours to me,’ I said with a sigh. I sometimes think Chloe is sort of colour-blind. ‘Trust me. Stick to what you’re good at.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Chloe, panicking.

‘Panicking,’ I told her.

The shirts cost practically nothing. It was the one aspect of the life coach thing I was almost looking forward to. I was going to redesign Matthew’s wardrobe. It might be fun. A bit like picking up where I had left off with my Barbie dolls all those years ago.

‘How are we going to
do
this?’ asked Chloe, panicking as we walked up her front path. ‘Where do we
start
?’

We hadn’t got very far with the Internet research into life coaching the night before. Most of the websites had been about how hard you had to train to be a life coach, with pictures of people standing on the tops of mountains looking fulfilled in a crazy kind of way and waving their arms about.

‘What if he asks to see our certificates?’ fretted Chloe. ‘Do we say we’ve lost them or what?’

‘If he asks to see our certificates,’ I told her grimly, ‘we might as well admit the whole thing was a con.’

‘Oh no!’ said Chloe, covering her mouth with her hand. It wasn’t much to hide behind, but it was a start. ‘You’re going to have to run this, Zoe,’ she went on, as we entered the house, ‘because it’s just totally, like, beyond me.’

Luckily Chloe’s mum was out, so we had the place to ourselves. Swiftly we changed out of our school uniform into our cool life coach outfits. I barely had time to straighten my eyebrows and slap a bit of cover-up foundation on Nigel. Moments later the front doorbell gave its irritating buzz.

‘Answer it! Answer it!’ hissed Chloe, cringing back into her bedroom. She’s such a wuss. Sighing, I went downstairs and opened the door.

‘Hi!’ said Matthew. He was wearing his suit again, and his hair was more ferociously slicked back than ever. I endured the cold, limp handshake and asked him in. Chloe came downstairs and greeted him with a nervous grin, but he didn’t manage anything in the smile department in return – not even a friendly twitch of the lip.

‘OK, Matthew!’ I decided to jump in at the deep end. ‘Let’s get on with it. First impressions. What do you think is most important?’

‘Ummm . . . to be smartly dressed?’ asked Matthew, pulling down the hem of his jacket in a self-conscious way.

‘Hmmm – have to say no, not really!’ I grinned. ‘Try again?’

Matthew pondered deeply. ‘To turn up on time?’

‘Uhh, yes, that’s important, but it’s not what I’m driving at. OK, I’m now going to come into the room and greet you, twice. In two different ways.’

‘What are you doing that for?’ asked Chloe.

‘You’ll see.’ I gave her a secret stare. She shouldn’t question my methods. She shouldn’t act as if this was all new to her. She was
hopeless
. I went out, then came into the room again with a totally serious straight face. ‘Hello, Matthew.’ I said, unsmilingly.

I approached him. He cringed slightly. ‘How do you do?’ I said, and extended a limp hand to him. He shook it, looking wary.

‘OK!’ I said, clapping my hands and trying to create a festive atmosphere, though both Matthew and Chloe looked deeply mystified and underwhelmed. ‘Now I’m going to do that again!’

I went out and then came in again, beaming in a friendly way. ‘Hello, Matthew!’ I said, all cheery and sparkly. I then gave him a warm, firm handshake. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Which of those greetings did you prefer?’

Matthew thought for a minute. ‘The first one?’ he said. ‘Because it was more, uh – businesslike?’

Oh God. I was going to have to go back to square one with him and help him to understand the concept of being human.

‘Right, Matthew,’ I said. ‘Come over to the mirror with me.’ There’s a mirror in the corner by Chloe’s mum’s tarot table, where she once tried to contact the spirits of dead people by candlelight. But instead she only saw a few smears because Chloe hadn’t cleaned the glass properly.

I positioned Matthew in front of the mirror. He looked sombre. In fact, this was as near as the mirror had ever come to reflecting a dead person. We stood side by side. In the background we could see Chloe slightly giggling. God, she was annoying sometimes.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Now think of the person in the world you are most fond of.’

Matthew looked very serious indeed.

‘Uhhh,’ he murmured, ‘do you mean, people in my actual family, or people, like, in the media or films or whatever?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Matthew!’ I shouted. ‘I’m just trying to get you to smile!’ Matthew looked surprised.

‘To smile?’ he repeated, as if the concept was entirely new.

‘A smile,’ I said, ‘is the first weapon in your attack.’ Matthew looked a bit reassured that the smile might be considered as a weapon.

‘Go on,’ I said, grinning away merrily at him in the mirror, ‘think of somebody funny. Think of Vicky Pollard. Or whoever makes you laugh on TV.’

Matthew looked at me in the mirror and smiled in a stiff, mad way. It was an obedient smile without any feeling whatever. I began to feel he might be better off just not trying to smile at all.

‘Jolly good!’ I assured him, lying through my teeth. My own smile now became stiff and mad also. Although by now his smile had vanished. In the mirror we could see Chloe laughing helplessly behind us.

‘God!’ I exclaimed, ‘I don’t know which is worse – trying to get you to laugh, or trying to get Chloe to stop laughing.’ Suddenly, Matthew smiled. Properly! ‘You smiled then!’ I yelled. ‘Bingo!’

Suddenly Chloe’s phone rang. For an instant the samba chicken ringtone blotted out all civilised conversation.

‘Hello?’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it? Listen – if I’d known it was you – whose phone? Well, that’s just sneaky! . . . no, no, no!’ She went out into the hall. She ran upstairs. It was obvious Beast had rung again.

‘Matthew,’ I said, ‘your smile transforms your face. Look.’ He looked into the mirror and smiled a genuine smile. He was thousands of miles away from having a fragment of Brad Pitt’s charisma, but at least he looked alive.

‘Now let’s work on your handshake,’ I said. Upstairs, we heard Chloe’s bedroom door slam. ‘OK, let’s shake,’ I said, holding out my hand. It was weird to be sort of almost holding hands alone. But I owed it to Matthew to get him to stop flopping his hand about like a dead fish and start cultivating a masculine squeeze.

‘Squeeze my hand tighter!’ I urged him. In the room above, Chloe started yelling. We couldn’t hear the actual words, but it was obvious from her tone of voice that she was having a Grade-A phone row.

‘Blonketing varly prangester forgest thumpwork!’ she yelled.

‘Ow!’ I yelped as Matthew tightened his grip. ‘Steady on, Matthew! I almost felt my bones splinter!’

‘Effargst plinkworthy uf crapola mangking wannabeef frickerstowe!’ shouted Chloe, above.

Matthew loosened his grip slightly. He frowned with the tremendous challenge of shaking my hand with a kind of nice normal pressure.

‘Imagine my hand is a can of Coke which you’ve just opened, and you’re standing up in a bus, and you don’t want to spill any,’ I suggested. ‘That’s about the amount of pressure you need. You’re not trying to crush the can for recycling, OK?’ Phew! This life coach business was certainly a challenge. ‘Right, Matthew, now go out of the room and come in and greet me,’ I suggested. ‘Gimme the teeth, the squeeze, the whole personality.’

Matthew went out, knocked, and came in with something like a smile on his face. He got his hand out far too early – in fact, his hand came round the door first, but he managed to shake hands without either disgusting me or cutting off my circulation. This was progress.

‘Well done, Matthew!’ I beamed. Matthew beamed back. He really did look almost quite nice, for a minute.

‘Fargurn apsootoh crinkum parly avocettage oosha furgently barroooophicuss!’ raged Chloe, up in her bedroom.

‘Right,’ I said, serenely ignoring the rumpus on the first floor. ‘Come back over to the mirror, Matthew. We’re going to do a little colour experiment with you.’ I got out my charity-shop shirts.

‘Strile pod nurst!’ yelled Chloe.

We gazed into the mirror together. I held the brown shirt loosely in front of Matthew, covering up his boring grey suit and strange, upsetting purple tie.

‘You should be thinking,
brown
,’ I purred in his ear. ‘Blonds – I mean fair guys – should always consider brown. Brown is the new black. It’s ultra-chic. And it does loads for you, Matt. It brings out the topazy tones in your hazel eyes.’

‘I nimmerwannarspiktyeraggin! Yra baaaathud!’ shouted Chloe.

‘Are my eyes really hazel?’ asked Matthew. You could see he was on the verge of beginning to fancy himself.

‘Yes,’ I assured him. I was uneasily aware that Chloe was about to rejoin us. We heard her bedroom door slam. We heard her footsteps thundering downstairs. I think we both cringed slightly, to be honest.

‘I always thought they were just brown,’ said Matthew, looking back towards the door. We both watched Chloe come into the room. I was hugely, but
hugely
relieved that she wasn’t crying. Not yet, anyway. She looked a bit flushed. Her eyes were bright. She had the look of a mad electric doll which had just been fitted with a brand-new battery.

‘Matthew,’ she said, in a deranged tone of voice, ‘would you be interested in taking me to the Earthquake Ball next Saturday?’