One More Little Problem (7 page)

‘Marvellous,’ I say.

I turn the bathroom door handle and am about to skip to my bedroom and select some lovely clean clothes when something tells me to look down.

There’s a big patch of something red on the carpet beneath my feet.

‘Oh shit,’ I say.

She’s started to do it again.

O
K.

This is a major
Dirt Alert
and
Germ Alert
moment.

I am standing on a carpet right next to a big patch of blood and I have bare feet.

Nightmare.

I hop back into the safety of the bathroom.

There are two white flannels sealed into plastic bags. Heather steals them from hotels for me because she knows I like them.

I tie one flannel around each foot and then put the plastic bag over the top so I look like I’m wearing some weird space-age baby
bootees but I’m past caring what I look like by now.

Then I close my eyes and tiptoe around the blood in my strange padded feet, shuddering at each step.

I knock on Caro’s door.

‘Caro?’

No reply.

‘Can I come in, please?’ I say. My voice has a schoolteacher prissiness that I hate.

There’s still no answer.

Great.

This is just what I need. Blood and maybe even potential death on a Saturday afternoon when I should be doing my homework.

I sigh and push open the door with one fingernail.

Caro’s lying on her back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling, hugging her own elbows.

I can hear the drumbeat blaring from her iPod so I step forward and pull one earplug out of her ear.

‘Put that back,’ says Caro. She sounds faint and weary.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not until you tell me what you’re playing at.’

Caro swivels up into a sitting position and regards my feet.

‘OCD, what the hell are you wearing?’ she says.

I ignore this.

‘Show me your arms,’ I say.

For answer, Caro pulls down the long sleeves of her black top and hugs her arms closer. She looks like a daddy-long-legs after it’s been half-murdered by a playful cat – all angles and bent bits.

‘Caro,’ I say. ‘For God’s sake show me your arms and then I can help you.’

Caro gives a bitter little laugh.

‘You, OCD?’ she says. ‘You’re not in a fit state to help anyone. I heard you doing about a million jumps last night.’

‘Yeah, and I wonder why that is?’ I say. ‘Maybe it’s because I have the psycho house guest from hell staying in my spare bedroom.’

‘She sounds fun!’ says Caro. ‘Do introduce us when she next visits.’

I stand up in my rustling bootees and make an inelegant waddle for the door.

Just as I get there Caro swings her legs off the bed and says, ‘OK, OK. Come back.’

As this is about the nearest Caro ever gets to apologising, I come back in and sit on the bed.

‘Here,’ she says.

She pulls back her long sleeves and reveals a new section of fresh criss-cross slashes across the soft white underneath of her arm.

‘Ooh, giddy,’ I say, putting my head between my knees.

I’m terrible with blood.

When I come up again I swear Caro’s almost smiling.

‘OCD, you freak me out, man,’ she says. ‘Only you could end up, like, twisting this all around so that now I’m worried about you.’

What?

‘Since when have you ever worried about me?’ I say. This is a true surprise. Nothing Caro does or says ever shows any scrap of concern for my health.

Unless you count verbal abuse and spitting and snarling as concern.

‘You’d be surprised,’ says Caro in an enigmatic sort of way.

Then she goes pale green and clammy and I realise I’m going to have to do something about the blood coming out of her arms so I
untie my feet-flannels and wrap them around her wrists with a shudder. Then I lock the door. This would not be a good moment for Dad to come in and request lunch.

I sit on the bed for about an hour until I’m sure the bleeding has stopped.

We don’t talk much, but that’s because Caro decides to play me the new Marilyn Manson album and I have to pretend to love it.

Just as I’m finally leaving the room with a pounding headache, she says: ‘It’s not really working out with my foster parents.’

‘I thought that your foster mother sounded all right on the phone,’ I say. Caro’s pale face is making me feel sorry for her, but my hair’s dried in damp rat-tails over my face and any moment now Dad will peel off his gardening gloves and head towards the kitchen for a limp cheese sandwich.

Caro gives her sarcastic little laugh again.

‘Yeah, she’s nice,’ she says. ‘That’s the problem. Next to her I look, like, really really evil.’

I decide not to point out that even next to the devil himself, Caro would still look, like, really really evil.

‘So what are you going to do?’ I say. I’m shivering now.

‘Well, stay here as long as poss and then speak to Social Services, I suppose,’ says Caro. ‘See if I can get plonked with another couple of idiots who don’t understand me.’

It sounds like a lost cause to me but I don’t say this. I’m desperate for the loo now and starving hungry as well as freezing cold. And I just don’t know what to say.

I give Caro an apologetic smile.

‘I hope it works out,’ I say. ‘I really do. Oh – and I hope you don’t mind me asking. But could you dispose of those bloody flannels, please?’

Then I bolt out of the door.

The three of us manage to eat lunch together without having a big argument. I see Dad glance at Caro’s arms and he refrains from asking why she is wearing long sleeves in the middle of a heatwave, but she sees the look and gives him some old rubbish about having a sun allergy, which is kind of true. Like all devil-worshippers she prefers to be pale and interesting and encourage that ‘just dug up’ look rather than aspiring to be brown and wrinkled like the rest of us.

We eat cheese sandwiches in companionable silence and I wash up afterwards while Caro and Dad roll up about sixty cigarettes and talk about old dead rock stars (again).

After lunch I go upstairs and try not to check my email but I do. Still nothing from Alessandro but there’s a message from some
boy called Daz who’s got a pit bull terrier which means that I have to totally ignore the email as dogs and cats are major
Dirt Alert
and
Germ Alert
. Oh, and there’s a short reply from Marky.

I live in Shepherd’s Bush
, he says.
How about we meet up on Saturday? Bring a mate of course
.

Too right I’ll take a mate. I’m hardly going to take time out of my busy schedule to meet some unknown nutter all on my own and in any case it’s a policy of
mysortaspace.com
that you have to take somebody with you for security.

I wonder if Fran will agree to come with me?

I whizz off a quick reply suggesting that we meet outside the Central Line tube station and then I continue my essay on ‘The Wife of Bath’ and I feel, if not exactly cheerful, then kind of resigned to the next few days.

So – Dad’s going to be at the new school all week and that means I’ve got to deal with Caro on my own and make sure that if Fran comes on Saturday, she and Caro don’t kill each other and that Caro stops cutting her arms and finds something positive to focus on.

This has all kind of become my life now.

My jumps have gone up to fifty on the top step and fifty on the bottom step and my face-scrubs are creeping up again too. I did fifty scrubs on each cheek this morning and brushed my hair an extra twenty-two times.

‘Just another day in the crap life of Zelah Green,’ I say.

M
onday comes and Dad’s up at the crack of dawn polishing his best work shoes and squirting himself with some choke-inducing aftershave.

He stirs his muesli around the bowl about a million times and keeps clearing his throat and checking the clock.

‘D’you know, Princess, I think I’m a bit nervous?’ he says as he ties the laces on his shoes to the exact same length.

‘I’d never have guessed, Dad,’ I say, but my sarcasm is wasted on him. He doesn’t ‘do’ sarcasm very often. Dad’s specialities are being
pathetic, wounded, hopeless and depressed rather than sarcastic.

He throws his cereal bowl into the sink with a clatter and straightens his tie.

‘How do I look?’ he says.

I appraise my smart, teacher Dad from top to bottom.

‘Not bad,’ I say. ‘Don’t forget to smile.’

Dad flashes a fake stiff grin.

‘Heather would be proud of you,’ I say. ‘And Mum would too.’

Dad winks at me for that and pretends to ruffle my hair.

Hooray. A glimmer of the old Dad has flashed through the building.

I wave him off from the front doorstep just like Mum used to do. Spooky.

Then I clear up all the breakfast things and check my email.

There’s a confirmation from Marky saying
that he’ll be waiting for me on Saturday outside the tube station in Shepherd’s Bush.

And – there’s one from Alessandro!

I’ve still got Fran on speeddial on my mobile.

She says she’ll be round in half an hour.

To my amazement mixed with more than a smidgen of horror, Caro gets up early and comes down for breakfast.

‘Thought I’d see what this morning thing looks like,’ she says, tipping cornflakes into a bowl and pouring apple juice all over them.

I’m about to protest at such shocking abuse of innocent corn cereal but then I think better of it. Caro does look a bit pale and unhappy this morning. Her arms are healing up, or so she says when I ask her.

Anyway, I know full well why she’s dragged herself out of her pit at this ungodly hour.

She must have overheard me talking on my mobile.

She wants to keep an eye on Fran.

Fran’s as punctual as ever.

‘Hi,’ she says. There’s even a small smile. It’s a pathetic cousin of the big grin she would have given me once upon a time, but it’s a start.

She’s holding out a warm paper bag towards me.

‘Croissants,’ she says. ‘And there are some clean tissues in there.’

I’m touched.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Come in. We’re in the kitchen.’

Fran’s face clouds over a bit at the ‘we’ part of my sentence.

She follows me slowly into the kitchen where Caro is rolling a cigarette.

‘Oh, erm, hello again,’ says Fran in her posh-girl party voice.

‘Hmm,’ says Caro.

Well – it’s more of a piggish grunt, really.

The two of them sit there in silence while I make a pot of tea and get plates for the food.

Caro brightens up a bit when she sees croissants. Fran has brought four, so that she and I can have two each, but Caro delves into the bag and comes up triumphant with the biggest one.

‘Cheers, Fanny,’ she says, biting off the corner with her small sharp teeth.

‘Fran,’ says Fran. ‘My name is Fran.’

‘Oops,’ says Caro. She eyes up Fran’s pink pinafore dress and white plimsolls.

‘You do look a bit like a Fanny though, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

Fran is bristly and blinking with indignation like a hedgehog pulled out of the ground
before the end of hibernation.

‘And you look a bit like a . . .’ she starts, but I plonk the teapot down on the table just in time.

‘Tea?’ I say, in a loud bright voice.

Fran and Caro are eyeing one another up like a pair of tomcats.

Any moment now there’s going to be hissing and fur flying. Not to mention huge gaping wounds. Major
Germ Alert
, obviously. There are many reasons I don’t like cats.

‘Yes please, one sugar,’ says Fran. She takes the cup and sips with her little finger pointing out in a delicate fashion.

Caro sniggers and blows a huge smoke ring up into the air.

‘Ooh, tea party! How lovely,’ she says, mimicking Fran’s voice. ‘And will you be having cucumber sandwiches?’

I grip the underside of my chair, even
though I know it’s not as clean as I’d like.

Fran, you see, is very sweet and posh and all that, but if you wind her up, as well I know, she can go bonkers with rage.

Fran must be trying hard to stay polite because she gives me a tiny smile.

‘How long do you think I’ll be here today, Zelah?’ she says.

Ah-ha! So that’s how she’s going to play it. Ignore Caro. Pretend she doesn’t exist.

Big, big mistakerola.

If there’s one thing that Caro can’t bear, it’s being ignored.

She might as well have ‘I must be the centre of attention at all times,’ tattooed on her forehead.

‘Hey,’ says Caro, tipping the kitchen table up towards Fran so that her plate of croissant starts to slither towards her. ‘I’m talking to you. Didn’t you hear me, little girl?’

Fran lifts her nose slightly and sniffs.

‘Right, Zelah, I’ll eat this and then I’ll get to work,’ she says, ignoring Caro again.

I’m holding my breath now. This is terrible. I can’t eat my croissant because my mouth has dried to cobwebs.

Fran is about to pick up her breakfast and take a dainty bite, but Caro has other ideas.

The croissant, still on its plate, slides off the table and into Fran’s lap as Caro lifts her side up higher and higher.

Then with an enormous slam she drops it back on the floor again and pushes back her chair.

‘You’re a complete arsehole!’ she screams before storming out of the room and banging the door.

A selection of coloured fridge magnets falls on to the floor.

Fran picks up the plate and the greasy flakes
of jam and pastry from her pink dress and reassembles them on the table.

‘How do you put up with that?’ she says, eating the less ruined of two croissants.

I admire the way she’s not crying or making a fuss.

I would be.

‘Dunno, really,’ I say. I’ve got mixed feelings at the moment. A big part of me wants to slap Caro for being so rude to my friend. Or ex-friend, I suppose.

Another part of me knows that Caro is lonely and insecure and unhappy and thinks that Fran is going to take me away and leave Caro deserted on an island of self-harm with only the dire songs of Marilyn Manson and a limp pouch of tobacco worms for company.