Love Bomb (5 page)

Love you always,

Mumface xxx

Everything is silent in the room. I sit and stare at the letter. I know what Mum looked like; I’ve seen loads of photos – huge smile, swinging blonde hair (dyed), freckles like mine – but, just now, I almost
heard
her.
Usually when I read my birthday letters, they come from the past, but these words were whispered in my ear. Hairs prickle on my arms and my throat feels sore.

I look up at the ceiling. Are Mum’s letters in the attic waiting for me? Part of me wants to rush up there and find out, like I’m doing a treasure hunt, but something holds me back. What if she never managed to write them? What if Dad threw them out by mistake? Instead, I bury myself further in the bed and read the letter one more time.

I want to have a mum again, just for a few minutes.

I get to Kat’s house early and discover her family doing squats in the garden. Seriously. Her mum, dad and big sister are all exercising in skin-tight running leggings first thing on Sunday morning.

‘Betty!’ yells her dad, jogging over to high-five me. His slap is so enthusiastic I fall off my bike. He helps me up. ‘We’re competing in Tough Mudder today!’

‘Tough
what
?’ I say.

‘Mudder,’ says Kat’s mum, panting. ‘It’s the hardest endurance test
on the planet
.’

Kat snorts. She’s appeared at the front door. ‘It’s jogging in
mud
, Betty.’ She’s wearing shorts and a bra and holding a can of Coke. Kat may not share her family’s love of exercise, but she certainly shares their love of hanging out naked. She claims they are ‘physically at ease’ because her mum’s Swedish, but her dad seems to be a fan of nudity and he’s from Portsmouth. Last time I was round, he was doing t’ai chi in
very
loose yoga pants.

‘Any chance I can persuade you and Kat to join us?’ he asks. He straightens up and then starts touching his toes. ‘There were still a few places yesterday …’

‘As if, Dad,’ says Kat, rolling her eyes. ‘I told you. We’re rehearsing.’

‘Don’t whine, Kat,’ he says. His head appears between his legs. ‘Kids whine.’

‘Whatever,’ she says, turning round. ‘Come on, Betty, let’s leave these losers to it.’

Her mum laughs as if Kat’s just said the cutest thing and then they all pile into a Range Rover the size of my bedroom.

‘Help yourself to cinnamon buns, Betty,’ calls her sister as they pull out of the driveway. ‘I baked them this morning.’

Kat’s family are awesome. I leave my bike by the front door and follow Kat inside. I crept out early this morning, making sure I didn’t wake Dad, then cycled along twisty lanes into the countryside. The crisp air and perfect blue sky made me forget all about Dad and Poo.

The house is made entirely of pale wood and decorated in shades of white. I feel as if I make the place messy just by being in it, like an inky smudge on a sheet of paper. I run my finger along the edge of a smooth vase shaped like a drop of water and stare at a beautiful picture of the sea. Kat’s mum painted it.

I find Kat in the den, slumped in a huge beanbag with her guitar across her knees. She’s pulled on a
jumper. ‘Ready to do this, Betty?’ she asks, strumming a few chords. ‘Let’s nail this pencil song!’

And we do. Kat starts playing, she’s obviously been rehearsing, and I pull out my lyrics. Right from the start, we sound good together. We practise for ages, having a few cinnamon bun/Toby analysis/jukebox breaks. That’s right, Kat has a
jukebox
in her den, along with a pool table, dance pole (her mum’s) and, tucked away behind some sort of indoor tree, a sauna. This is the only den I have ever been in, but I think ‘den’ must mean tons of cool stuff in one room.

The two of us make a good band, and by lunchtime we’ve come up with an arrangement we like.

‘Let’s run through it one more time,’ says Kat, ‘then we can go into town and get a KFC.’

By now we’re both standing and I belt it out. Kat’s plugged her guitar into an amp and starts improvising. To be honest, we forget all about the winkie jokes and get into the song. It’s full of soulful chords and the pitch
suits my voice. Kat ends the song with a mad crescendo of strumming and we do lots of whooping and
yeahs
!

After grabbing a couple of juices from the mini fridge, we crash on the beanbags.

‘We weren’t bad, were we?’ she asks.

‘Possibly, just possibly,’ I say, grinning at her, ‘we were
good
.’

I roll off the beanbag and wander over to the baby grand. Did I mention the piano? Music is scattered across it. Kat’s sister is grade eight in piano, which kind of puts Kat’s grade six guitar in the shade. Suddenly, I spot a faded yellow music score. ‘No way!’ I say, picking it up. ‘“Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” by Bettye Swan. My mum and dad named me after this singer.’

‘I can play that,’ says Kat, coming over.

‘My mum was singing this song when Dad first saw her.’

‘Tell me,’ says Kat, sitting on the piano stool. ‘I love getting-together stories.’

‘Well, my mum was doing a mini-tour with her band, The Swanettes, during her university holiday.’ Kat is watching me, wide-eyed. ‘So, it’s this warm summer’s evening and The Swanettes are singing at this pub, deep in the countryside and – get this – the pub is called The Falling Star.’ Kat sighs deeply. ‘My dad is sitting in the garden when he suddenly hears this beautiful voice drifting out on the rose-scented air. He follows the voice inside and discovers it belongs to an angel, otherwise known as Lorna. Their eyes meet and she sings the song to him, as though no one else is in the room. Afterwards, he buys her a pint of Harveys and some pork scratchings and they talk for hours as the sun sets over the fields … and the rest is history.’

‘That is soooo romantic,’ says Kat. ‘Except for the bit about the pork scratchings. C’mon, let’s recreate it.’ Kat sits down on the piano stool and opens out the music on the stand. She picks at the strings on her guitar then starts to play the song that is so familiar to
me I can’t remember a time when I haven’t known the words. It seems only natural to join in.

‘Wow,’ says Kat, after the final note has faded out. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to sing that at the concert? That was good, Betty.’

‘No way,’ I say. ‘My dad would have a cow. It would be like the ghost of Mum had just been zapped on to our school stage.’

‘We’d better stick with the willy song, then.’

We grin at each other and I think how great it is to be here, with Kat, talking about willies. I gaze around the room. The walls are covered with photos of her mum from her modelling days in the Eighties. You can see where Kat gets her cheekbones and dangly legs from.

‘Have you ever seen such minging clothes?’ asks Kat.

‘Is that a
plastic
dress?’ I ask.

‘Yep,’ says Kat. ‘And look at this. It’s a
gold
shell suit.’

‘What’s a shell suit?’

‘Like a tracksuit made of sleeping bag material. Mum got loads of freebies from designers. There’s a room upstairs full of them: lace gloves, ra-ra skirts, Keds, boleros, shortalls, leg warmers …’

‘I don’t know what all those things are.’

‘She’s even got
ladybird
stilettos. C’mon. I’ll show you.’

Two hours later, we’re heading towards Bea’s house, eating fries and dressed as Eighties supermodels.

‘Fashion!’ I yell, and Kat spins round and strikes a pose. Each time she does this, her poses get weirder. This time she’s crouched down on the floor, pointing her milkshake up at the sky.

Somehow, Kat’s managing to carry off the Eighties look better than me. She’s wearing a neon pink jumpsuit, leg warmers and the über-gorgeous stilettos. Essentially, she looks like an Eighties supermodel.
I’m wearing gold rapper pants, a jumper covered with Liquorice Allsorts and red pixie boots. Essentially, I look like a loser. Kat took some persuading – unlike me, she isn’t familiar with the joys of parading around town in fancy dress – but she knew she looked good and couldn’t resist busting her new look.

‘Do you think Bea will want to hear our song?’ she asks.

‘Definitely,’ I say. I should add that Kat also has her guitar strapped to her back and I’m riding my bike, very slowly. ‘It was her idea in the first place.’

‘We could go and sing to Bill,’ says Kat. I look sideways at her. She grins, then takes a long suck of her milkshake.

‘Why do you want to show Bill?’

‘C’mon, Betty. Bill’s cutesome. He’s a nine out of ten … maybe more.’ She gives me a shove, making me wobble on my bike.

‘
Nine
out of ten? No way. Seven would be generous … and what’s “cutesome”?’

‘
Cute
plus
handsome
equals
cutesome
… equals Bill.’

‘Nope …’ I picture Bill’s serious face, his messy sun-bleached hair. ‘I don’t see it, Kat.’

‘Then you’re blind.’

‘Fashion!’ I yell, and Kat spins round then peers at me over her shoulder, three French fries sticking out of her pouting lips.

We ring Bea’s doorbell and smile in anticipation. Although her house is in darkness, we can hear jivey music playing somewhere. Suddenly, there’s a patter of footsteps and a small pink shape appears behind the glass. The letterbox is poked open by Bea’s little sister.

‘Who that?’

‘Hi, Emma,’ says Kat, crouching down. ‘It’s us. Can you open the door?’

‘OK,’ she says, then she disappears. Several minutes later she returns with a collection of books. She starts to build them into a tower.

I shove Kat out of the way. Three-year-olds have no sense of urgency. ‘Hurry up, Emma,’ I say through the letterbox. ‘We look really stupid and it’s cold.’

‘I’m too small,’ she says. I watch her add a few more books to her teetering pile then she climbs up. ‘That’s better. I can do it now!’ Her hand reaches towards the door handle, then she stops. ‘Uh-oh.’

‘What?’

‘I need a wee!’

And she’s gone again. When she finally reappears, she’s dressed as Iron Man.

‘You look tough,’ I say when she finally lets us in.

‘You look stinky,’ she replies. Ouch. ‘Bea and Ollie are in the kitchen,’ she says as she scampers back upstairs, karate chopping the banister and yelling, ‘Die! Die!’

Kat and I head towards the thudding
Bim Bam Baby
music. As we get closer, we can hear panting and gasping. Now, if it were any other teenage couple behind that door, we might have knocked, but it’s just Bollie – so we walk straight in.

Ollie is holding Bea up in the air in a position I can only describe as a double-hand butt grab. Next – I can’t really tell how it happens – Bea is sliding between Ollie’s legs and popping out the other side. The music stops and we clap. Bea looks so happy her rosy cheeks could burst. Even though she’s been applauded loads of times for jiving, she still loves it.

‘What do you think?’ asks Kat, spinning round.

‘You look so cool,’ says Bea, examining the stilettos.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ says Ollie, laughing.

Soon Bea and Ollie are sitting on the sofa with Emma wedged between them. Kat and I are ready to perform.

‘OK, Emma,’ I say, ‘this is a song about a pencil that doesn’t want to do any more writing.’ I glance over at
Kat and she nods. I take a deep breath, swallowing the last of my singing-aloud fears, Kat hits the first chord and we’re off.

It doesn’t sound quite as amazing as it did in Kat’s den with her amp and the big acoustics, but our audience seems to enjoy it and when we finish, Emma yells, ‘Again, again!’

We play it one more time, then Bollie show us a few new moves and Emma sings a song about a ‘naughty gruff’ which may or may not be about the Gruffalo. We all agree it should definitely be in the Autumn Celebration.

It’s starting to get dark when Kat and I head home. We stand at the edge of the park, ready to go our separate ways.

‘Thanks for singing with me, Betty.’

‘It was loads of fun,’ I say. We look at each other. It’s so good to be back where we were before I stole Jesus. ‘Hey, I’ve got a question for you, Kat. It’s a bit surprising.’

‘Go on.’

‘How do you kiss?’

Kat laughs. ‘You’re right. I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘It’s just I think there’s a chance that I might kiss Toby one day,’ I say, ‘and I don’t want to look stupid.’

‘My sister told me that you just shut your eyes and let it happen. But you could practise on an apple with a wedge cut out of it.’

‘Really? That doesn’t sound right. Isn’t that just eating an apple?’

‘You don’t eat it – you
kiss
it. Mum recommended it. She’s kissed loads of people so she should know.’

‘It sounds a bit crunchy,’ I say, pushing off from the kerb. ‘Laters, Kat!’ She does a final ‘Fashion!’ pose and I cycle down the road. I can smell wood smoke and my breath puffs out in front of me. ‘I’m going home to snog an apple!’ I yell over my shoulder. Then the road dips and I zoom down with a massive ‘Wahoooo!’