Girls Out Late (8 page)

“Typical!” says Russell. “I was sitting here practicing the coolest way of saying hello and then I see you and spill my coffee all over myself. Not exactly the coolest action in the world.”

“It’s possibly the hottest way of saying hello,” I say, discarding one soggy napkin and starting with the next. He’s got coffee all in his lap too but I can’t really dab at his trousers.

“Good job it’s lukewarm because I’ve been here ages,” says Russell.

“I’m sorry I’m a bit late. Did you think I wasn’t coming?”

“I wasn’t sure. Your dad was really mad at me at first but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d hang on to my letter. Though I didn’t know if you’d want to come. You must feel I’m totally pathetic—not allowed out by my stupid father. Talk about humiliating.”

Russell raises his eyebrows in mock despair and mops his sketchbook dry.

“The coffee hasn’t gone on your sketchbook, has it?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s added a sepia tint or two! I didn’t have it open. I didn’t want to look too posey, sketching again, even though it’s what I like to do best. Well, second best.”

“So what’s
best
best then?” I ask.

“Kissing you,” says Russell.

We both blush violently.

“I’ll get you a coffee—and me a replacement,” says Russell. “Do you want anything to eat?”

We end up sharing French fries, taking turns chip by chip.

“I can’t get over you practically combing the neighborhood for me,” I say.

“I’m sorry, it was a kind of desperate needy thing to do.”

“I think it was seriously romantic,” I say.

“Yeah, like it’s seriously romantic not even to be allowed to ask you out just now because my father’s such a stupid mean old fart,” says Russell. “Well, he can’t physically stop me going out and doing what I want. I mean, I’m stronger than him for a start. But he says I can’t live there if I don’t accept his ground rules. I don’t want to go back to living with my mum either, because she and my sister have this all-girls-together thing and all they seem to do is slag off Dad and if I do any totally normal bloke thing like leave the toilet seat up then they go on about me being just like my father, which makes me so mad. It’s like there isn’t any ideal
home
home. When Mum and Dad first split up I used to shuttle between them, one week with Mum, then I’d pack my little suitcase and go and have one week with Dad.”

“I read a book about a girl like that,” I say sympathetically. “It must have been really hard on you, Russell.”

“Maybe I’m just exaggerating my situation to get you to feel sorry for me.”

“OK, you’re allowed to do that, just so long as you let me bang on about
my
problem family.”

I have a good moan, though I feel a bit mean as Anna has been so sweet to me recently, Dad seems to have taken off his unreasonable Ogre head, and even Eggs has seemed quite cute the past couple of days, drawing lots of pictures of monsters and monkeys and trucks and fire engines, claiming he’s helping Anna with her jumper designs.

“I suppose my family aren’t
too
terrible,” I wind up eventually. “But I can’t wait until I’m eighteen. Nadine and Magda and I all want to share a flat. Maybe we’ll all go to art college.
Not
my dad’s. Hey, show me what you’ve been drawing.”

I’m hoping there are sketches of me. There are
several
! Me arm in arm with Magda and Nadine, me chatting on the bus, me walking hand in hand with Russell in the park. He’s glamorized me considerably. He’s defrizzed my hair and penciled it in as flowing curls, pared down my weight, added several inches to my height and given my outfit a designer edge. He’s set about improving his own image too, adding to his stature and muscle tone until he looks like an Olympic athlete bulging out of his uniform. He’s made his hair more sexily floppy and he’s given his features a full Leonardo DiCaprio makeover so he could get a job as his double for the movies.

“I wish. You wish,” I say, laughing.

“What?” Russell sounds a little peeved.

“We don’t look like that.”

“Yes we do. Well,
you
do.”

“Rubbish! And the park certainly doesn’t look a bit like that. You’ve drawn it like a romantic rose-strewn bower.”

“OK, maybe I used a bit of artistic license here and there. Tell you what, let’s go to the park now and I can sketch it like it really is.”

“Oh yeah. So it’s not ‘Come up and see my etchings.’ It’s ‘Come out and watch my sketchings!’”

“You can sketch too. Come on, Ellie, finish up the chips and let’s get cracking.”

“But you’ve got to go home and so have I. Look at all the trouble we both got into last time.”

“It’s not even half past four! I told my dad I was going to this art club—I do sometimes stay on, we’ve got a great art teacher. Anyway Dad and Cynthia don’t get back from work till half past six so he’s not to know, is he?”

“My dad is back from art college by five some nights. And Anna will be home with Eggs.”

“Can’t you say
you’re
at an art club?”

“I suppose. Mr. Windsor was talking about starting one the other day. He’s great too. My friend Magda’s developed this serious crush on him. She was having this terrible flirty conversation with him today—and he seemed to be enjoying it terribly.” There’s a little pang to my voice.
I’ve
had a little bit of a crush on Mr. Windsor since he came to our school. I suppose I’ve always thought of him as
my
Mr. Windsor because I’m the one so nuts on art. But he’s never chuckled at me the way he did with Magda.

“Everyone always fancies Magda like mad,” I say.

“I don’t,” says Russell.

“Don’t you?” I say, ever so eagerly.

“No, not a bit. I mean, she’s fun, she’s pretty and all that, but—”

“But?”

“Well. She’s a bit obvious. All that giggly wiggly stuff.”

“Hey, Magda’s my friend,” I say—but there’s a tiny wicked bit of me that is thrilled.

“I know, I know. You and Magda and Nadine, the Unholy Trinity.”

“What do you think of Nadine? She’s not giggly and wiggly.”

“Yes, but she’s sort of weird and stuck in her own world. She’s OK, Magda’s OK, but you’re the one that I want, Ellie.”

It’s a supremely magical moment—but his words remind me irresistibly of John Travolta. Russell grins, on the same wavelength.

“‘You’re the one that I want,’” he sings.

“Oooh oooh oooh!” I sing back, and we both collapse.

We have this long involved old-movie conversation all the way on the bus, comparing our special favorites. Sometimes we differ. He’s a total
Star Wars
freak while I find it all a Big Yawn. He wanted to vomit while watching my beloved
Little Women.
I get scared telling him my number-one favorite film is
The Piano.
I won’t be able to bear it if he sneers. The relationship between Flora and Ada is just the way I remember it between my mum and me. But Russell says it’s one of his favorites too because it’s so strange—those poke bonnets and crinolines and the piano on that bare beach are such haunting images. Russell is obviously into film theory. He’s predictably a Tarantino fan. He starts the little riff about McDonald’s in Europe and he’s impressed when I chant along with him. Then we rewind to the start of the movie and do the stickup scene. We get a bit carried away and this little old guy at the front of the bus jumps up like it’s
really
a stickup, and a fish-faced middle-aged lady tells us to Mind Our Language.

It’s just as well it’s my stop next. We’re still giggling when we get to the park. We’re both hoping it might have turned into the magical glade in Russell’s sketchbook, but it’s just the scrubby old park, totally unromantic in the daylight, with toddlers howling, mums shouting, an old vagrant muttering, torn Magnum wrappers flapping in the breeze and dog dirt in the grass.

“
Not
a haunting image,” I say.

“We’ll go over by the trees,” says Russell.

But there’s a little group of guys, one with his hood up, several looking shifty. There seems to be an exchange of hard cash for equally hard drugs.

“Maybe going over by the trees isn’t such a good idea,” says Russell. “So where
can
we go?”

We end up walking out of the park and down by the old allotments. Someone has planted cabbages. Their sour reek fills the air. We stand looking at each other, breathing shallowly. It’s hard knowing how to start kissing in broad daylight, especially as there are several old chaps and a girl in dungarees digging their allotments. Russell glances round and then closes in on me. His eyes morph into one as his lips touch mine. His head is at a slightly awkward angle so my glasses get pressed into my nose, but then the kiss takes over and my eyes blur and the cabbages turn into great green roses and the shouts and yells sound sweet as birdsong.

“We’re going to lose track of time all over again,” I say, when we eventually draw breath.

“Who cares?” says Russell, and kisses me again.

“I care,” I say eventually. “I don’t want you to get into any more trouble with your dad.”

“I care too,” says Russell. “I don’t want you to get into any trouble either. So we’ll go now. Well, in a minute. One more kiss.”

We do go . . . after quite a few more kisses. Russell sees me right to my front door and we arrange to meet tomorrow. Same time. Same place. Same boy and girl. Same love story.

I waltz indoors, sure that Anna will take one look at my wild hair and shining eyes and flushed face and swollen lips and start to create. But Anna is busy with her own creating, crawling round on her hands and knees on the living room carpet, matching up pieces of sweater, while the kitchen table is covered in potential designs. Eggs is sitting cross-legged in a corner, a huge toffee in his mouth clamping his teeth together. He is also creating, with needles fat as crayons and scarlet triple-knitting wool.

“ ’ook, ’ook, Ellie,” he says, dribbling toffee-slurp down his chin. “I c’n
knit
!”

“Good for you, Eggs.”

“I wish
I
could knit,” Anna says. “Dear goodness, what have I taken on, Ellie? I must be mad! You wouldn’t be an
angel,
would you, and help me come up with one or two more designs?”

“How about an angel design then? An angel motif on the front, little gold Lurex halo, wings in some fancy overstitch to look like feathers—and then a little devil on the back with silver Lurex horns and hooves?”

“Oh, Ellie, that’s brilliant!”

I help Anna all evening, the good-girl daughter with ultra-amazing original ideas. Dad comes home, pats me on my unruly head and delicately inquires if I’ve had a brief tryst with Russell.

“In McDonald’s, yes,” I say.

“Ah! Love amongst the Big Macs,” says Dad. “Well, just so long as you’re home for tea. Good girl.”

I am enjoying this new role no end. Maybe I’ve finally sussed out a way of having a great time
and
being a Good Girl.

Magda and Nadine seem intent on being Bad Girls. At school the next day they listen to my detailed account of My Meeting in McDonald’s with My Boyfriend Russell, but they both seem gently distracted. I’m all set to show off just a little weeny bit at going home time because I have another date with Russell but neither Magda nor Nadine seems interested. They have Other Plans.

Magda hangs back when the bell goes, telling us she has “things to do,” and suggests we hurry on homeward without her. We blink at her.

“
What
things?”

“What are you up to, Magda?”

Magda looks shifty. “OK, OK, I’m just going to hang around here until Mr. Windsor materializes.”

“Oh, Magda, you are a fool.”

“He’s a
teacher.
”

“I’m not a fool. I seriously think I could be on to a good thing. And it’s great that he’s a teacher. Who wants to waste their time with schoolboys?” Then she catches my eye. “Sorry, Ellie! I wasn’t getting at you and Russell.”

“I know, I know,” I say. Though I rather think she was.

Nadine and I can’t persuade her to come along with us.

“She’s mad,” I say crossly. “She’s making a complete fool of herself. As if Mr. Windsor would seriously consider a little fling with Magda! He’d lose his job for a start.”

“Mmm,” says Nadine.

She isn’t really concentrating. We go out into the playground. Nadine starts. I suddenly realize what’s preoccupying her. Liam is waiting by the gate again.

“Uh-oh,” I say. “Don’t worry, Naddie. I’m here.”

She’s not even listening. I look at her flushed cheeks. Maybe she doesn’t
want
me here!

“Nadine, don’t look at him. Come on.”

“What’s he
doing
here?” says Nadine.

“Well, it’s obvious. He’s hanging around trying to get you to go out with him again.”

“I loved him so much,” Nadine says softly. “He was so gentle, so romantic at first.”

“Yes, but look what he was really like. Nadine, are you crazy? Stop looking at him!”

She suddenly gasps.

“What is it now?” I take hold of her arm. She’s trembling.

“He’s not here to see me,” Nadine says. “Look!”

I turn—and see Liam waving to someone. A little blond girl in Year Eight is rushing across the playground toward him.

“Oh my God,” I say. “He’s the absolute pits. Come
on,
Nadine.”

But she pulls away from me, still staring at Liam and the little Year Eight girl. He’s kissing her now. He is
disgusting.
He’s doing it deliberately to hurt Nadine. And it’s working. She’s looking absolutely stricken.

“Please, Naddie. Come away.”

“I’ve got to see him,” she says.

“
What?
You’re mad!”

“Let me go, Ellie.”

“Don’t be so stupid. Just come with me. Please. I’m begging you.”

“He’s not going out with her,” says Nadine.

She starts walking toward them.

“Nadine!” I yell at her, furious she can be such a fool.