What You Become (5 page)

‘She’s an actress, Mum. You shouldn’t believe a word that comes out her mouth. Charlie Fielding is a bitch, pure and true.’

‘Rosie! You can’t call people that! Especially girls. Remember the
sisterhood
.’

‘Mum, there is no sisterhood. I’m really sorry. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t exist. Not at secondary school.’

‘But you used to be so close!’

‘We were only “close” while I went along with everything she said. She’s a nasty snake, and you shouldn’t trust her. I’m actually being very restrained here, Mum. The B-word is a very PG way of expressing how I feel about Charlie Fielding.’

Mum closed her eyes, and I knew I’d said too much, but how was I supposed to remember? The whole thing about Mum had always been that she was genuinely up for discussion. She
loved
changing her mind; it made her feel enlightened. She didn’t care about being right at all costs like most people. Like Dad.

‘You’re right,’ she would say mid-argument, the moment it dawned on her. ‘I get it now. I thought I was right, but it’s you. Clever girl!’

She’d even thank me for showing her the way, and then we’d
both
feel enlightened. It wasn’t like that now, though. Her voice had weakened the way it did these days, and I felt bad for pushing her.

‘I know you love Ti, and she’s been good to you, helping you stick up for yourself, and looking out for you, but you have to understand that we can’t ignore behaviour like this. The girl has problems, Rosie. Even you’ve admitted as much.’

‘I said she doesn’t always have the easiest home life, her family put her under pressure from time to time . . .’

Mum looked at Dad in a way that made me nervous, and he took over again.

‘We don’t think it’s a good idea for you to spend time with her any more, not for a while at least. Until she’s pulled herself together a little bit.’

‘No!’

‘Just while the dust settles . . .’

‘You’re so obsessed with the fact that she’s a bad influence that you don’t see how she’s a good influence, how much she helps me! And what if I’m a good influence on her? What if stopping me from seeing her makes everything worse?’

‘It’s not your responsibility to keep Titania’s behaviour in check,’ Mum said. ‘Her parents should be doing that.’

‘Well, what if
I’m
the bad influence?’

Mum laughed then. ‘Bloody sneaky bad influence if it’s you.’

Dad joined in. He tried not to, but he couldn’t help it, and I wanted to tell them that they were wrong about me, that I wasn’t the good girl they thought. That I walked the town at night with Ti. I’d been in Chase’s garden.
I
lied to
them
too. But what would it achieve? To say I was a liar and a wimp, not the person they thought at all, when their eyes glowed with love and here Mum was actually laughing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mum said. ‘We aren’t laughing at you, we want what’s best for you, we just . . .’

She winced slightly and rubbed at her temples, another headache starting. It was time to go.

Ten

When the phone rang late that night I knew it would be Ti, and for the first time in the history of us I felt nervous. Partly because I was worried Mum or Dad would pick up the other line and tell her outright she wasn’t to call any more, but mostly because I hadn’t decided what to say.

I’d been lying in wait beneath the paper moon on the landing, just in case she called, but I couldn’t think how to tell her what had happened with my confession.

‘How was school?’ she said, trying for casual, at the same time as I blurted out: ‘I went to see Kes.’

I could feel the truth set to tumble from me like Lego bricks from Joey’s basket, because I had never kept a secret from Ti, and I wasn’t intending to start now, but she jumped in before I had finished, and she sounded so shocked that I was embarrassed.

‘You really did it? What did he say?’

‘He thought I was just making it up because I wanted my friend back,’ I said, amazed at how convincing my lie sounded. Ti’s breath was long, and I scrunched my eyes shut and wound the phonecord round my finger, heart bashing at my insides.
He said Chase counts and you don’t. That you brought it on yourself. That I should forget you.

‘I mean, he got rid of me pretty fast. I’m sorry, Ti. I feel terrible . . . I should have tried harder. I should have stayed with you when I had the chance or stopped you, or
something
. . .’

‘No, I should have stayed with
you
when I had the chance. We never should have gone to that stupid garden.’

The gnawing feeling in my stomach wouldn’t go away. I hated knowing things Ti didn’t. It made everything uneven between us, like I was an evil overlord and she was some innocent peasant.

‘I hate Fairfields without you.’

‘I know. I’m going to hate The Bridge without you. Actually I think I’d hate The Bridge
with
you; there’s not much to like about it from what Phe says. Soz, I’m not trying to make you feel bad.’

‘It’s okay. I mean, I know.’

As we embarked on the first awkward silence of our friendship I began to see my dad’s point about keeping a phone conversation going for an hour.

‘I know who the secret boyfriend is,’ Ti said.

‘No! Oh my god. Who?’

‘Will Fielding.’

‘Again?’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t tell anyone. Dad will kill her if he finds out. He caught her sneaking out the window last night.’

Fab had only just forgiven Ophelia for stealing from the till last year. It had never happened before she got involved with Will, and so Fab had banned Ophelia from seeing him. It was kind of funny, because the Fieldings swore it was Ophelia who was the bad influence after they caught Will stealing their car in a late-night attempt to visit her.

Even now Ophelia was only allowed to make the cakes, never to cash up or take money from customers, which maddened Ti because she had to do all the maths, and she was terrible at it.

‘Shit! I’ve messed everything up,’ Ti said. ‘I mean, I knew it, but I didn’t really
know
it. I’m such an idiot! Just another De Furious scratched off the register.’

‘Don’t say that,’ I said. De Furious was a name Alex and Charlie had made up for Ti and Ophelia recently. They said it in this awful Italian accent that was meant to sound like Fab, and it never failed to get a response.

The two of them had been in the café a few weeks ago asking Fab, all innocent, if certain things made him
just de furious
– like when customers got melted cheese on the tablecloth or the wind blew over their sign. They’d nodded along as Fab explained how his customers could do what they wanted so long as they returned to order more spaghetti, until Ti, seeing what was going on, had ‘accidentally’ spilled their chocolate milkshake across their laps.

‘Charlie must be delighted,’ Ti said gloomily.

‘She hasn’t said anything yet.’ I’d lied again. What was wrong with me? ‘You can appeal, though, can’t you?’

‘I don’t know. Dad’s not exactly racing to get in front of the governors again.’

‘I hate this,’ I said, winding the phone cord between my fingers. ‘What can we do?’

‘I don’t know. I’m thinking.’

Ti sounded squashed, like she was lying face pressed to the floor, and I knew she was upside down. I could picture her in the hallway, with the family of tiny brass horses and June’s Freddie Mercury calendar. She liked to put her feet against the wall, and rotate so that her hair trailed off the funny little pouffe they all sat on when they talked on the phone.

I used to sit there to call Mum and ask if I could stay the night, back when I was still allowed to ask her things, and I didn’t have any secrets. Those months felt like years ago, a lovely, easy time that would never return.

‘Come over and see me tomorrow? They’re playing table tennis at six.’

‘Okay,’ I agreed, because I couldn’t bear the sadness in her voice.

I’d done enough lying to Ti for one day. Mum and Dad would have to take a turn.

Eleven

After delivering Mum’s tea and toast and getting Joey installed on his computer, I walked up the hill to Ti’s house. I felt bad for lying, but Ti couldn’t know that my parents had stopped me from seeing her. She’d always worried they didn’t like her, and now wasn’t the time for her to discover it was true.

The De Furias’ battered black Fiesta wasn’t parked in its usual spot by the pavement, so I walked right up to the front door and knocked, praying Ophelia was out too. Ti came to the door.

‘He’s hidden the damned key!’ she shouted through the letter box, and I listened, heart pounding, while she searched for it, cursing her dad energetically.

‘I’m sure this is illegal,’ she said when she’d finally got the door open.

‘They’ve all gone to Willows and locked me in. Like an actual dog.’

Willows was the local sports centre where Charlie and me used to mess around together while our mums played hockey.

I’d planned to give Ti a big hug, as much for myself as for her, but she stormed into the house before I had chance.

‘My appeal failed,’ she said, sitting heavily at the kitchen table, and my ears started doing that
wom-wom-wom
thing where you feel sick and dizzy and scared all at the same time.

‘It was today?’

‘Yeah. No one told me either, until an hour before.’

She wasn’t looking at me, which was strange. Had Kes told her I never owned up? Was that why she hadn’t given me a hug?

I took the seat beside her, swallowing loudly by mistake.

‘Dad’s still not talking to me,’ she said, shifting in her seat to get comfortable. There was a knock as she banged her knee against the wood, and screaming through her closed mouth, she threw the keys she’d been holding across the room. They clattered against the wall, and I stared at the chip they left in the green paint.

‘He won’t listen to me! He hates me! Ophelia’s the only one in the house being nice to me at all, but
I’m
supposed to be the nice one.’

I walked over to pick her keys up, heart thudding, while she rubbed her hands over her eyes.

‘Sorry,’ she said, shaking her head, and shutting her eyes, and I wanted to comfort her because I knew how she hated to lose her temper, but what could I say? Her appeal had failed. She was permanently excluded, and here I was sitting in my uniform.

‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ I said eventually, and she nodded, staring at the plastic seagull fob attached to the house keys. I set about finding what I needed, glad to have cupboards to look into and cups to get. Things were becoming more strained between us, and I couldn’t work out how to fix it.

‘I thought Dad was going to hit someone he was so mad. He was shouting by the end; I could hear him from outside. They accused him of being a bad parent.’

‘Really?’

‘That’s what he said. Sophie Fielding was worst of all. They shouldn’t allow kids’ parents on the board; it isn’t fair.’

Ti drummed her fingers on the table, while I waited for the kettle to boil.

‘It wasn’t even about the threat in the end – it was my word against hers so they couldn’t throw me out for that – they just made out I was this really horrible student. They pulled out all my marks and detention records and how many times I’ve been on report. They talked about me wearing black jeans instead of trousers all the time. As if that matters! Everyone wears black jeans! Everyone’s in and out of detention. Aren’t they?’

She looked to me for confirmation, and I bunched my mouth over to one side because it wasn’t strictly true. Seventy per cent of the Fairfields population had probably never spent a day in detention in their lives, and only Ti and a few other kids from the Beacon got away with wearing black jeans instead of proper school trousers. Or didn’t get away with it, it seemed.

‘I’ve got to stop thinking about it,’ she said. ‘It’s done. Can I paint your nails?’

She was trying to sound chirpy, and so after setting down our drinks I laid my hands on the butterfly-covered plastic tablecloth. We would pretend this was the recent past, and everything would feel right between us. Ti slipped into beauty-salon mode, asking how I was, and if I was going anywhere nice on holiday this year, then telling me the latest about Will and Ophelia, and how Will had failed his driving test for the second time.

The sweet, toxic smell of the black varnish filled my nostrils, and I watched Ti splay the brush carefully, head low so she could be precise.

‘I’m so bored of hearing about him; he’s such a brat. His mum and dad are paying for his lessons so it doesn’t matter how many times he fails. He actually said that. Can you believe it?’

I could easily believe it. None of the Fieldings worried about money. They owned two hotels on the beach front, as well as the most expensive fish restaurant on the high street, and Sophie had recently opened an organic bakery in the boarded up off-license next door to Fab’s café as well. Dad complained about the town getting too fancy, and the locals being priced out, but he’d almost wet himself when he found out Sophie would be selling unleavened spelt bread.

While I blew my nails, Ti scanned the rammed-to-the-rafters fridge. There were Tupperware containers full of leftovers from the café as well as the usual jars of olives and vegetables that the De Furias loved, and I was excited to see what she would bring out. She pulled a foil-covered cake from the middle shelf, and I thought to myself that considering how weird Ophelia was about eating she was brilliant at baking.

This one was soft and caramelly with apple and cinnamon, and Ti cut us each a big slice.

‘You can’t let the knob jockeys get you down, that’s what Ophelia says.’

Ti turned the radio on, beginning the sort of dancing she knew would make me laugh: A sexy pop starlet plus lobster plus somebody’s grandad. Alternating between mouthfuls of sweet cake and bitter tea, I watched her, wishing for the millionth time that other people could see her the way that I did, that she would let them.

And then the front door opened, and my stomach dropped. Ophelia burst in with her headphones on.

‘You’d best not be eating my cake!’ she shouted, pushing her headphones back to rest round her neck. She laughed in Ti’s direction, her whole expression shifting from scary to fun in a nanosecond.