Paper Aeroplanes (21 page)

No one has ever told me they would love my life before.

‘It’s not all that,’ I say to her. ‘I bet there are loads of things about your life that I would be jealous of.’

I wait for her to answer me, but she doesn’t say anything.

‘FLO, hurry up!’ Mum screeches as she swoops back in and grabs the fiver out of my hand.

I turn back to Jenny. I never thought about her feelings before. It’s easy to just take people for what they seem, and not think about what life is actually like for them. It makes me think about Renée, and how she has been behaving towards me. It’s easy to presume she is all right because of how confident she is, but her sister collapsed because she is so ill, things at home are bad, and Renée obviously isn’t coping.

It hits me like a shock that I need to be a better friend to Renée. I’ve been so hurt by how distant she has been from me lately, but I have to stand by her. If she wants to push me away or use me as a punch bag then fine, but I’ll still be there for her when she feels better. It’s the least I can do after she pretty much saved me when Dad died.

It’s hard to concentrate at school at the best of times, let alone when your sister is in hospital being force-fed calories through a tube, your family is as functional as a broken toilet, you’re treating your best friend like shit because you feel so guilty and the boy you love thinks you are a stalker who wears shellsuits. Pop had a massive go at me as I left for school this morning. He was going on and on about how I fill Nell’s head with rubbish and how I should be a better example to her. I don’t know what to say to him when he gets like that with me. Even Nana doesn’t try to stop him. He locks on to something and doesn’t let go and I am sick of how that something always seems to be me. I’m over being the baddy all the time, and nothing good that I do ever getting noticed. GCSEs are the last thing on my mind.

I sit in science class slumped on my stool like I have fallen out of the sky and broken my spine. To top it off I have been moved permanently to the front bench after the incident with the vegetarians so I can’t even gaze out of the window without being told off. For once in my life I want to be completely unnoticed. I have problems, real problems. Loads of them. Life is shit.

A paper aeroplane hits me on the back of the head. It hurts.

I have worked out that if you put blue tac in the nose then the notes fly further. Flo x

What is she talking about? I ignore her note. Another one hits me.

Renée, are you OK? I know you’ve been really upset lately. I don’t mind you taking things out on me a bit but I just wanted to let you know that I am here for you if you need me. You have been the best friend in the world to me, and I want to be the same to you. If you want to talk, I’m here. You don’t deserve all the stuff that’s going on in your life and I am on your side. Flo x

Why is everyone else allowed a bad day except me? I spend my life giving people space, letting them thump around all angry and stressed while I just leave them to it and let them deal with their own shit. Why is it that when I have a bad day no one will leave me alone and let me just be pissed off on my own? If I dare give even the smallest hint that I’m an emotionally volatile person I get told off, called moody, selfish or to pull myself together. I can’t be happy all the time!

I ignore her letter again. I will talk to her soon and tell her everything, but right now I have enough on my plate. Mrs Suiter picks up a pile of exam papers and starts to make her way around the class.

‘Well done, Margaret. Very good,’ she says as she lays her exam paper in front of her.

‘Wow, 73%!’ Margaret looks very pleased with herself, as does Charlotte.

‘75%, YES!’

And Flo: ‘85%. I can’t believe it.’

Then Mrs Suiter gives me mine.

‘See me after class, please, Renée.’

23%. Oh, bloody hell!

When the bell rings, I stay put.

As Flo walks past me she puts her hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. I don’t even realise I do it until she looks back at me with the most pitiful eyes I’ve ever seen.

‘This is unacceptable, Renée. Did you do any revision at all?’ Mrs Suiter says sternly.

‘Sorry, Mrs Suiter. Things have been really tough at home recently and I’m finding it really hard to concentrate,’ I say, looking notably upset.

She looks at me with the ‘don’t give me that’ expression that I usually get from teachers when I make up excuses for not doing well at school, but then her face changes and she gives me a much more sympathetic look.

‘Yes, well, we are all hoping that Nell gets better soon,’ she says gently.

I sit waiting for my order mark, but it never comes. Instead she stares me in the eye in her usual intense way.

‘Life is tough sometimes, but without good exam results it will only get tougher. You must try to focus, no matter what is going on at home.’

‘I know, Mrs Suiter, I will try harder. I’m just finding everything really hard and . . .’ Tears start pelting down my face. It’s uncontrollable. Damn it, I hate crying in front of teachers. Mrs Suiter also obviously feels as uncomfortable and stares at me even more intensely.

‘Now now, Renée. It’s just a mock exam. There is plenty of time to do some revision for your GCSEs.’

‘It’s not just my exams,’ I say, giving into the tears.

‘Maybe you should pop home? I’ll tell Miss Anthony you felt a bit sick and that I excused you. Then you can go home and see your family. Will that help?’

I think for a moment about seeing my family and wonder what a life where the thought of them didn’t make me want to bolt would feel like, but I can’t imagine it. I miss Flo so much. What have I done? She was the best friend I ever had and now I have made our friendship impossible because being with her makes me feel awful and two-faced.

I feel a pang of regret for pushing Carla and Gem away. When I was friends with them at least life was simple. They don’t have the brain capacity, or emotional intelligence, or whatever it is, to worry about life. If we were still friends I could have told them about Julian. They’d have told me I am funny and that he is mean, and they’d have hugged me until I didn’t care about him any more, but as it stands I care about him more than anything else. More than Nell, more than Nana and Pop, my GCSEs, anything. I never thought I would be so bothered about my virginity, but having lost it I wish I still had it. I held off for all that time with Lawrence because I didn’t want the entire experience to leave me feeling like shit and here I am, feeling like total shit. I keep going over and over it in my head – and then I think of the blood. That huge red stain surrounding my crotch. Why would he ever want to have sex with me again now? Everything about it makes me want to crawl into a hole and die.

‘Yes please, I’ll go home and see my family,’ I say to Mrs Suiter.

I am excused. I go straight to the hospital.

As I walk up the corridor towards Nell’s room I’m not sure if I will go in or not. I can’t possibly go home at eleven thirty as Pop would never believe that I have been excused from school. I think I might just look through the glass, check Nell is OK, then sit in the corridor and read magazines until lunchtime. Then, maybe I’ll brave going home and tell Pop I have a headache, and then I’ll get into bed and cry until I have to go to school again tomorrow. I expect this will be my life forever.

As I approach Nell’s room the door is open. I hear voices, female voices. Nell is talking to a woman. A young woman, not Nana. The tone is affectionate – I can tell it isn’t a nurse. Then I recognise the voice. It goes through me like honey in my veins. It’s unmistakable. It’s my mother’s voice.

I stand listening. Every part of me vibrating at a million miles per hour.

‘I love you very much, Nell, and I’ve missed you. We’ll all get through this together.’

It’s her. That dream I had, the one where she had gone into hiding because the police are after her, it was true. My mum is back. Everything is going to change.

My feet start to run and I burst into Nell’s room with eyes so wide I can’t see straight.

‘MUM.’ It comes out of me so loud that Nell gasps for breath at the shock of it.

‘Renée, what the . . .?

The three of us are still. I stand staring at my mother, my eyes slowly adjusting, my breath steadying to a pace that I can cope with. Her face comes into focus.

‘Renée.’

She walks towards me. Her face looks all wrong. What is wrong with her face? It is wrong, why is it wrong? I start to cry.

‘Renée, Renée. It’s me. Aunty Jo.’

Three hard blinks later and the reality is almost as good as the dream. Aunty Jo, Mum’s sister, the second most perfect person I have ever met. I throw myself around her, I can’t get close enough. There it is, the smell of Chanel No. 5, leather and cigarettes. The best smell in the world. She feels like her, smells like her and sounds like her. For the few minutes that I stand with every part of me as close to her as I can get it, I forget about everyone else.

‘It’s OK, darling, I’m back now. I’m not going anywhere this time.’

She strokes my hair. When no one has stroked your hair in five years it feels like they are kissing you right on the heart.

‘How did you know to come?’ I ask, my face squashed against her.

‘Nana called me. It’s going to be OK. We will work this all out.’

Aunty Jo kept me out of school for the next week. Nell came home from hospital and even though she is still so thin and ill, she sits with us at dinner and we all talk. The conversation is awkward and feels strange for everybody, but at least it’s happening. Pop hasn’t been cutting me down as much over the past few days. I imagine he probably wants to, but maybe being the only man around four women makes him feel a little outnumbered.

One night at dinner I can tell something is brewing. Aunty Jo is about to tell us something serious.

‘Nell, Renée, there is something we need to tell you,’ she says when we have all finished our homemade chicken in white wine sauce. I feel a rush of fear as I prepare for her to tell us she is leaving again.

‘I have spoken to your father,’ Aunty Jo says gently.

Nell stands to attention. Part excited, part ready to attack.

‘We spoke for a long time and, Nell, he and I think that it would be a good idea for you to go and stay with him,’ Aunty Jo says, occasionally glancing at Pop as if to control him.

Nell’s face changes shape. Her sunken skin plumps up and everything moves upwards as she smiles like I haven’t seen her smile for years.

‘Really?’ she says, wide-eyed.

‘Yes. Dr Brehaut says she is happy for you to go, but you will have to continue to see a doctor there. If all goes well
then
maybe you can look into the local schools in Spain. If your father and you feel that the right thing would be for you to stay,’ Aunty Jo says, nodding at Pop to encourage him to say something,

I look at Pop. He keeps his eyes on his plate. A reluctant nod expresses his agreement. ‘It is only right that you should be with your father,’ he says like he’s being squeezed. ‘If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back.’

‘It will work out,’ says Nell with such conviction I know she will never live with us again. She scoops some chicken onto her fork and confidently eats it. She has what she wanted.

In the midst of everyone’s moment I find myself unable to feel happy. ‘What about me?’ I ask, bracing myself for a barrage of comments about how I always think about myself.

‘You’re going to live with me,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘I’m moving back to Guernsey permanently.’

I look at Nana. Her eyes are full of tears but she is smiling. Pop nods as he continues to stare at his plate.

‘Really? With you? When?’ I ask, so happy I could scream but too aware of Nana’s feelings to dare.

‘As soon as I find us a house,’ Aunty Jo continues. ‘I’m looking at some over the next few days. Seeing as I have persuaded school to excuse you for a week, why don’t you come with me? It will be your home, after all. You have to like it.’

I nod so enthusiastically that I burp. Everyone laughs.

Later on I am sitting in my room with the door open reading
Smash Hits
when I hear someone coming up the stairs. I quickly throw the magazine on the floor, open my science textbook and sit up straight. Pop walks past my room and goes into the bathroom. I don’t look up. A few moments later he comes out and just after he passes my door he stops. I feel nervous. He turns back and comes into my room. He has not been in here with me since the moment he pulled me away from Mum, minutes before she died.

The memory of it floods back like it was yesterday, and when I look at him I know he is thinking the same thing. For a moment we look at each other as if that is enough to express how we are feeling, but it isn’t. I jump off my bed and run into his open arms.

‘You are just like her,’ he says as he sobs into my hair. ‘You are just like her.’

The next few days of house hunting are so much fun. In between viewings Aunty Jo and I go to nice cafes, and she even takes me into town to buy some new clothes. I feel like my head is gradually getting together.

‘Where will you work now you are back?’ I ask, as we sift through the rails in Pandora.

‘I’ll work it out. The only good thing that came out of the last few years is a nice divorce settlement. I’ll be OK for a bit.’

‘Why did you leave Uncle Andrew?’ I ask, cautiously.

‘Let’s just say I finally admitted to myself that he didn’t love me as much as he should have done.’

‘What do you mean, finally? You mean you always knew?’

‘Yup. Ever since I met him I had to fight for his attention, prove to him that I was worthy of him. It shouldn’t be like that. People either love you, or they don’t. You can’t force it on someone. I knew as I walked down the aisle towards him that he would never love me like I loved him. If I had been honest with myself about that back then, then the last five years of my life would have been very different. But hey, you live and learn, right?’ Aunty Jo says with a shrug.

‘Right,’ I say.