Glitter (8 page)

W
hen my dad leaves Alice’s house he looks much more like his old self. He pats Alice’s dad on the back, smiles and heads towards our crummy old car armed with the laptops for the Community Action Project and a pile of homemade goodies to eat from Alice’s mum. Suddenly I miss him. I know I hate him a lot of the time, but I don’t really, not deep down. I don’t like the thought of him being in the flat alone with no one to grumble at. Sebastian’s going off for half-term on some trekking thing for his Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which means my dad will be completely alone for a whole week. I think
if it had been possible he’d like to have stayed at Alice’s house too. Just to have a rest from it all and feel the softness of our old life one more time.

Alice’s mum packs us some picnic tea and sends us off for an afternoon ride. The woods are rich and heavy with swirling golden leaves that glow bright in the autumn sun. I’m riding Alice’s spare pony, Kizzy – she’s a gentle Skewbald with a long cream mane. When we’re clear of the woods and tumbling across the park I set myself free. Kizzy gallops faster and faster and faster and all of my troubles drop to the ground and get trampled by her hooves. I’m me again; I’ve come back to earth after being abducted by aliens and hidden in a dark cupboard for more than a hundred years and if I close my eyes it’s as if nothing has changed. I am the same girl. I’m Liberty Parfitt with a Liberty Parfitt life. I can ride ponies every day and eat lemon cake whenever I want and ride in limousines and have tea at the Ritz with my granny and have money of my own to spend on useless things. I can lie on a beach for hours and order whatever I like for tea. I can fly in planes and shop for clothes and let my dad buy expensive food without worrying. But when I open my eyes my dreams fall like hail to the ground. Alice’s face truly has no worries
on it and my face has them written all over it in thick, black marker pen. Alice is smiling and laughing and gabbling on about Thea Quaddy and stupid, unimportant things. And I bet she’s never even had one day where she’s worried about money or ever met a sixteen-year-old who has to work to help his mum out or a girl with a million plaits in her hair that’s never ridden in a limousine.

At suppertime Alice’s mum is nosy, too nosy. She keeps asking questions about my dad and what happened to his business and about my new school and our home. She keeps fussing around me, like I need extra caring for or something, which is irritating, because I don’t. Just because I don’t have a mum of my own it doesn’t give her the right to try and be my mother. It doesn’t give her the right to try and take my mother’s place. And anyway, I don’t need her, I can manage alone; I have done for years.

I hate Thea Quaddy. Alice hasn’t stopped going on about her and about all the fun stuff they’ve been doing since I left. She’s invited Thea to go to Greece with her during the Easter holidays and she said that her mum would probably pay for me to go too if I wanted. But I don’t. I don’t want
people to feel sorry for me and start paying for things for me all the time. I know I’m the poor girl now but everyone doesn’t have to keep rubbing my nose in the fact. Soon I’ll have to start saying thank you for breathing their precious rich air. My worry eczema pops up and starts bothering me again, so I hunt in my bag for my cream and slather it on my skin.

It’s not until we go up to bed that I spot Alice’s violin case. She’s stuffed it in the corner of her room, probably hoping that her mum won’t see it, which means she won’t get nagged at about her music practice. While we’re getting ready for bed my eyes keep being drawn back to it. I can’t help it. It’s too much knowing that it’s there and not mine to play. My mouth is burning to ask Alice if I can take it out and have a go; better still if I could borrow it for
Bugsy Malone,
but I’m too angry with her, she’s stupid and babyish now and she hasn’t got a clue.

Lying in Alice’s fresh, big double bed makes me feel sad and small. I curl up in a tiny ball to hide away from it all. All the softness and cleanness and safeness of her room pricks like a splinter that’s stuck in my eyes. I can’t settle because a worry bug keeps shifting me around the bed not letting me get to sleep.

“My mum’s been worried that your dad’s going to get depression,” Alice whispers into the night. “That can make people do weird things, you know. That’s why she invited you here, to make sure you’re OK. Thea Quaddy was going to come as well but my mum thought you probably needed some quiet time and some space to get used to things.”

I turn over, move right to the edge of the bed, as far away from Alice as I can get, and pretend to be asleep. I don’t care about Thea Quaddy but the word “depression” sticks in my ears. I’ve heard of it before but I don’t really know what it is and I don’t want Alice to know that. My dad is behaving weirdly, but so what? I don’t want people talking about my dad’s problems and getting all worried about us and involved in our lives. We can manage on our own, thank you very much. It’s not their business; they should learn to back off.

It’s the same the following day, Alice’s mum takes us shopping and ends up buying me loads of things that I’d rather not have. She keeps asking if I have enough underwear and if my school shoes still fit. I know she’s trying to be kind and everything and help my dad out, but we don’t need their help, we’re not a charity. And anyway,
that’s my granny’s job and she still has plenty of money, she hasn’t caught the credit-crunch disease yet and maybe she never will. And if Alice’s mum doesn’t stop soon I’m going to get the bus to a tattoo parlour and get them to tattoo the word “charity” across my forehead.

It’s weird with Alice. It’s like we’re not equal any more. She keeps hopping around and showing me this new stupid dance thing that’s going round the school. And she keeps telling me about the school skiing trip at Christmastime and how she and Thea Quaddy are going to share a room. She thinks she’s so cool and cute and the only way I can shut her up is to tell her about me running away from home on my birthday and about being trapped by the scary gang. Her mouth drops open and for a wonderful moment she’s speechless. Then she starts up again like a whirring old machine.

“Thea Quaddy said things like that might happen if you’re living in a rough area like you do. People die you know,” she says. “Gangs have guns and knives. It happens all the time.”

Then I tell her about Tyler, the gang leader and how he’s actually a really good friend of mine. She pulls away from me and gasps.

“You haven’t got a knife, have you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I sigh. “I haven’t got a knife, Alice, but I know people who do. And it’s not all terrible where I live, you know. Nice things do happen there too. And I have a new best friend called Cali and she is a
really
nice girl.”

B
y Thursday I’ve had enough of Alice. I can’t believe she used to be my best friend, my most favourite person in the whole wide world. Now we have nothing in common. It’s like I’m staying with a stranger. And I know she’s itching to go to Thea Quaddy’s on Saturday night for a Halloween party that I’m not invited to. I need to get home. The worry that’s been niggling me and stopping me from sleeping at night since I’ve been here has turned into one big urge to get me back to my dad, and fast. The only problem is that I don’t know how and first I just have to have a go on Alice’s violin. It’s been winking at me all week, inviting me to play, but I’ve been too cross with her to ask
and she hasn’t thought to offer. She’s so obsessed with Thea Quaddy that she’s probably forgotten everything we used to do together. I hate needing to play her stupid violin in the first place, but I do, I can’t help it. I keep looking at it, trying not to want it, but it just teases me. The black case isn’t so interesting at all, but I know of the treasures that await me inside. At breakfast I make a plan.

“Have you done your music practice, Alice?” I ask loudly in front of her mum.

Alice’s eyes glare at me, telling to shut up, but I won’t.

“You probably have loads to learn for orchestra don’t you, for the Christmas concert?” I smile.

“Liberty’s got a point there, Alice,” says her mum. “What with all the fun us girls have been having I’d completely forgotten about music practice. I’m sorry, Liberty,” she continues, “but you’ll just have to amuse yourself for an hour while Alice does some practice. OK?”

“What did you go and say that for?” hisses Alice when we’re sent up to her room, “you know how much I hate practicing.”

“Sorry, Alice,” I say, “I forgot. How about I do it for
you, just to make it up to you and you can lie on your bed and read a book?”

I open the violin case slowly. My heart is racing with excitement. I know I’ve promised myself to stop this violin nonsense and get on with more important things, but I just need this one last go. It’s impossible to describe the smell of a violin; it’s something you have to experience for yourself. But I’m telling you, there’s nothing else like it in this world. I breathe it in and my eyes soak up the shiny chestnut-coloured wood and the four little strings. Knowing it’s the last time I’m ever going to play makes every little moment much more precious and I wonder if people feel like this when they know they’re going to die. I wonder if my mum knew that the last time ever she played her violin was actually the last time? And I wonder where I was that day and what I was doing? I don’t hurry. I pull out the bow, tighten it and rub the rosin up and down twelve times. When I’m ready, I pick up the violin and place it under my chin. Already I am lost. I haven’t even started playing yet and I’m in a far away world where nothing else exists; the whole world has faded away and I am lost in the violin and under its spell. And Alice is too; she’s stepped into the pages of a book and is lost in the
world of its characters and what they’re about to do next.

When I let the bow kiss the strings, glittering shivers run up and down my spine, like fairies dancing. The sad calling sounds echo through my brain and find a home in my heart. I was born to play this piece of wood and strings and if only I’d been allowed my dad could have been so proud of me. He might have sent me little parcels of love in his smile or held my hand or taken me out for a special celebration lunch. I wish…But stupid God or whoever put me on this planet forgot to write this important piece of information on my nametag. So no one ever knew. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve made a decision that enough is enough, if I can’t get his attention the way I’d like to I’ll just have to try something else. I’m going to give up worrying about the violin and start working hard at school so I can become something sensible, like a doctor or a lawyer – something that will help the world be a better place and make my dad smile again, maybe even at me. I wish I’d listened to him earlier on and given up on my stupid dreams.

After I’ve tuned up I play all the scales I know like they’re the last delicious things I am ever going to eat. I chew them all slowly, like they’re cream cakes or juicy
mangoes or fresh raspberries with chocolate drizzle. Then I pull Alice’s orchestral pieces out. These are like my main course. These are the fresh green salad or hot gravy roast. I’m a bit rusty, because it’s been so long since I played, but still it sounds good and the music soars and swirls around the room, like medicine for my ears. As I play, every little muscle in my body relaxes, like I’m in a hot bubble bath of music. And all the worries in my brain are soothed away and will be washed down the drain when I’ve finished and it’s time to pull the plug out. When I’m playing the violin nothing else matters, nothing else at all, and if heaven is like this then I know my mum is in a very happy place. Alice’s mum calls from the hallway down below.

“Beautiful, Alice, I’ve never heard you play so well; you see – all those years of reluctant practice have paid off. I told you they would. Wait till Daddy hears you, he’ll be so proud.”

I let myself play one long last note. It’s not part of a piece or anything; it’s just my favourite note. I like it because it moves through my body and into my soul, into the part of me that nobody but me knows, into the part of me that makes me me. One small tear escapes from my eye and I stop. Then there’s silence and I put the violin away.

“I need to go home,” I say to Alice. “I don’t want to make a fuss, I’ve got some birthday money, so I’ll get the train. I just need to check the times on the internet and I need you to tell me where the station is, then I’ll go.”

“You can’t get the train,” laughs Alice. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. Get the train! You’re so funny, Libby.”

“People get the train and the bus all the time,” I snap. “Not everyone in this world has a car, you know and it’s not funny, it’s normal. You have to let me go.”

“And if I tell my mum, who I know for sure won’t let you go, what will happen then, Libby?” she smirks. “Are you just going to lash out like usual until get your own way?”

Her words sting my ears and I can feel the heat rising up in me again, I can feel my rage about to spill out. But instead I take a deep breath, feel all the strength building up in me that I usually lash out and let it fill my body so I feel big and strong.

“One thing I’ve learned from all this, Alice,” I say, “is that I don’t have to lash out any more to get my own way, it doesn’t get me anywhere anyway. But I do have to do what’s best for me; I’ve spent my whole life doing what
everyone else wants and now it’s time to start taking care of myself. I’m not going to be pushed around any more, not by anyone.”

“OK, OK, calm down,” she says. “If you’re that upset about it my mum will drive you back, or call your dad.”

The night-time niggle that turned to an urge has now turned into panic and my worry eczema is burning my skin.

“Listen Alice, please! You have to trust me. I just need you to tell me where the station is and to divert your mum until I’ve gone. I’ll be OK and I promise I’ll phone you when I’m home. I have to go, now.”

“Is it about the gangs?” she asks, opening her laptop.

“No, Alice,” I say, “it’s not about the gangs.”