Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy (20 page)

‘Hang about,’ I say as soon as Mum walks out of the bedroom. ‘That’s not a dress.’

‘Well, what is it?’ Mum asks innocently.

‘It’s a top, Mum. A top.’

‘She looks lovely!’ Philippa protests.

‘She’s going out in a top!’

‘My dress is longer than yours,’ my mum says, smiling.

I stand next to her. We compare dress lengths. Hers is definitely shorter.

‘I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea, that’s all.’

‘I think she might want to give him the wrong idea.’

‘Philippa!’

‘Come on, Fan, your mother has needs.’

‘Enough.’

Mum’s off on her date with Simon the Plasterer. I can’t work out whether I’m sorry that she won’t be able to come to Joe’s party this evening and finally meet Mr Love At First Sight, as she calls him, or relieved because she could well hand him a copy of the Tiddlesbury Tour DVD. Perhaps it’s for the best she’s off with Simon the Plasterer. Although I don’t feel that comfortable about it, what if he takes advantage of her? I leave Philippa applying bronzer on Mother and sneak into the bathroom with my mobile phone.

‘Matilda, this is between you and me, do you hear?’ I say sternly to the plant.

I’ll send just the one little text to Simon the Plasterer.

I read it back. A kiss would be inappropriate, I feel. I press my finger firmly on the send button. I walk back into the bedroom just as the flat’s buzzer goes.

‘That will be lover boy.’ Philippa smiles.

‘Woah, nervous tummy,’ Mum says, getting up.

‘Have you got money?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’ She laughs. ‘Have you?’

‘Yes.’ I smile. ‘Have fun.’

‘And you.’

Philippa and I give her little air pecks on the cheek, lest we smudge her make-up. When she leaves, we skip to the window to watch her. The mum from my childhood has been replaced by this lady on the pavement beneath my window, with the big smile and the keen laugh, getting into a transit van with a plasterer called Simon who’s nearly twenty years younger than her. Simon the Plasterer has clearly shaved and ironed his shirt specially for their date.

‘Look at her go,’ Philippa says, putting her arm round me and leaning her head against my shoulder. ‘She looks gorgeous.’

‘Hmmm. She’s got so thin, though. But she does look happy tonight.’

‘I love how she likes a bit of rough. Now, shall we get ready for the Bit Twitcher?’

‘I will twat you.’

‘Do you know what you’re wearing?’

‘Worked out my outfit on Wednesday.’

Philippa laughs. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but I am really bloody thrilled you’re not going to marry Matt.’

‘I thought you would be.’

‘Promise me something, Fandango.’

‘What?’

‘That you won’t run away from Joe King because you’re scared.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Fan. You’re terrified of loving someone. You have been ever since Steve Wilmot. That’s all in the past, yet you still equate love with pain. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can have the love story. You can have a happy ending. And I think Joe King is it. Promise me you’ll give it a go.’

‘He’s with Felicity.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘But…’

‘Just promise me, your best friend, that if he’s not with Felicity, you’ll give it a go with him. You won’t run away. Please.’

‘Philippa!’

‘Promise me.’

‘He’s with Felicity.’

‘Promise me.’

I look her straight in the eye, I swallow and then with a timid little voice, I relent and say, ‘I promise.’

Afterwards, as I put on a dress with a big heart on the front, I hear my mobile vibrate. I pick it up thinking it will be Simon the Plasterer but it isn’t, it’s from Matt.

Rose Cottage is the most charming house in Tiddlesbury. Although, as it’s away from the main drag of shops and modern housing, it doesn’t actually feel as though it’s in Tiddlesbury at all. If you saw a photo of Rose Cottage you’d think, Wow, where’s that? It must be some quintessentially English picture-postcard village, and then you’d arrive in Tiddlesbury and be very disappointed. Rose Cottage is the only pretty dwelling in the area. It’s a white stone cottage with thick walls and small windows, partly covered with wisteria, and surrounded by an old stone wall over which jasmine drapes. I used to do a run that took me past Rose Cottage and I would always groan and dance with pleasure as I passed the thick jasmine bushes. The rest of the garden is gloriously topsy-turvey, nothing is too coiffed or austere and, best of all, the air smells like fabric softener.

Philippa and I stand on the doorstep breathing in the scented air while applying lipgloss, she’s clutching the Jägermeister, I’m holding the Red Bull. I’m just rubbing my lips together when Joe answers the door.

‘Ladies! Welcome! Thank you for coming tonight.’

Oh me oh my. He’s been gorgeous in my mind all week. But he’s even more so in the flesh. His freckly eyes are sparkling and he’s smiling as he steps back to let us walk in.

‘Thank you for inviting us,’ Philippa says. ‘We’re very flattered.’

‘Ah, well, yes, the thing is, we called it a party, but we don’t really know anyone in Tidds, so, well, we think we’ve just about managed to rustle up nine people. Does that qualify as a party?’

‘Absolutely,’ I say, finally finding my voice. ‘Some of the best parties I’ve been to only had two guests, me and Philippa.’

‘Why do I believe that?’ Joe chuckles. As I pass him, he leans towards me. ‘How’s your favourite old lady?’ he says, in a softer voice.

‘Oh, oh, she died.’

‘Oh, Fanny, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m all right. Thank you.’

He looks at me closely. ‘Oh, angel, what happened to your face?’

‘My workmate clobbered me.’

‘At the doctor’s surgery?’

‘Yep.’

‘Blimey, it all happens in Tiddlesbury. Right, in we go. Can anyone make a fire? We haven’t sorted the heating yet and it’s colder in here than it is out there, for some reason. Especially at night. So we thought we’d get a fire going.’

‘I’ll do it,’ I volunteer.

‘Great,’ he says and he holds my gaze for a second before disappearing.

‘Go, pyro.’ Philippa snorts. ‘Although, I think there’s quite a lot of fire already in this room. In both your pants,’ she hisses in my ear.

‘So juvenile.’ I tut.

I love fires. I’d love to live in a house with an open fire. Although the danger would be I’d spend all my time gazing at the flames. I can do that for hours. I’m not sure why. I kneel in front of the fireplace. Joe was right, it’s freezing in here. I shiver.

‘Do you need a jumper till you get the fire going?’ It’s Joe again, walking past me.

‘Um. I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Come up.’ He nods towards the stairs.

I don’t know whether I should go up the stairs with him. What about Felicity? Would she think that wrong? Am I being entirely over-paranoid because I absolutely adore him?

‘OK.’ I follow him up the narrow stairs to a tiny landing where he opens a door and walks through darkness to turn on a bedside lamp.

‘It’s a bit of a tip. I haven’t really unpacked yet.’

It doesn’t look like a tip to me. A double bed rests against the wall, bestrewn with a mountain of duvets and blankets. A guitar lies on the floor, surrounded by sheets of scribbled-on paper. Scribbled-on paper is a prominent feature here. It’s in his bed too. He scoops some up and stows them in a drawer.

‘Song lyrics, that’s what the maudlin poetry turned into. What about you? Did the comedy-watching lead to anything?’

‘No.’ I laugh. ‘Just an expensive DVD habit.’

He holds one arm up and takes a little sniff of his armpit. Oh crikey, I even think he’s beautiful when he does that. Oh frig, now he’s taking off his T-shirt. I watch. I can’t not. He throws the T-shirt on the ground and I so could pick it up and sniff it. What is wrong with me? His nipples are very erect but then it is about minus seventy in here. He clocks me staring. And he just stares back. Then he sighs and sits on the bed and shivers. Then he pulls a blanket from it and puts it round his shoulders.

‘Bloody cold, isn’t it?’

I nod.

‘How can it be warmer outside?’

He lifts one arm, indicating that I should get in the blanket with him. ‘For warmth,’ he explains.

I hesitate, then leap across and sit on the bed next to him. His arm reaches around me and I nestle into the blanket. My flimsy T-shirt dress is the only thing separating our chests. We sit like this for a moment. I can hear our breathing. And see it in small plumes of smoke escaping our mouths.

‘Can you feel it?’ he whispers.

If he means this amazing chemistry, then, yes, I can feel it in every nerve in my body.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘This thing.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s narrowed it down,’ I say nervously.

‘This thing between us.’

What should I do? Get up and leave the room, that’s what I should do.

‘Yes,’ I whisper, barely audible.

‘Crikey.’

‘Absolutely crikey.’

‘It’s the weirdest thing. Our names, our clothes. I feel as if I’ve known you for a billion years. That’s mad, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I say meekly.

Oh, strange breathing. I’m breathing from my throat. It sounds shaky.

‘Right, I need to stop this,’ he says, jumping up. ‘One jumper, my favourite.’ I take it. It’s a soft, black round-neck. ‘Hoodie for me, we should get back down.’

I stand and nod. I can’t speak. I look at him, my breathing all irregular and I take a step towards him. I look up into his face. He’s looking down at me. I take another step. I could kiss his lips. They would be warm and, I know, wonderful. But I don’t, I stand only inches from his face, feeling all these crazy surges through my body, just looking into his eyes, and then abruptly I pull myself away from him.

‘Thank you for the jumper,’ I mumble and race back downstairs.

Oh, Fan, why are you racing down the stairs? I’m racing down the stairs because I know, I just know, that Joe King could smash my heart into a million pieces and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men and all the superglue in all the world wouldn’t be able to fix it. That’s why. Philippa administers a Jägerbomb and I get back on my knees and start making a fire. But even making a fire doesn’t hold its regular allure because Joe’s not next to me.

‘How goes it?’ Philippa says.

‘Confusing.’

‘Well, you made a promise to me, Fandango. So just snog him tonight. It might be dreadful. Sometimes you get all the chemistry but then you kiss and it’s gone. Cher was right, you know. It’s in his kiss.’

‘What about Felicity?’

‘Yeah, what about her? She’s not here.’

‘Urghhhhh.’ I groan.

‘If anyone deserves the fairy tale it’s you. Kiss him. He’s been put in your path for a reason. May as well find out what the reason is. Get it while you can.’

‘It could end in tears.’

‘It could, yes,’ Philippa agrees.

‘But, you know what I was like after Steve Wilmot. I didn’t get over that for years,’ I hiss, lest anyone hear.

‘Well, that was then. That was a seventeen-year-old girl who’d had to put up with a lot of crap from school kids and her dad. But this is Fanny Fan-Tastic, ten years later, the same lovely, funny, caring person she’s always been but now, much, much,
much
stronger.’

I nod. ‘Thank you.’

She smiles. ‘Oh, and, Fan?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It might not end in tears.’

Oh, thank God, someone’s put a CD on. If in doubt, dance. I jump up, my knees cracking, that’s from the running, my knees have been very vocal since I took up running.

‘Shall we show them how it’s done in Tiddlesbury?’ Philippa says, as we clink glasses. I nod, we drain our drinks and Philippa pulls me into the floor space. We push the settee backwards slightly to create our own dance floor.

‘No worrying about what these cool rock boys think, now!’ she says.

‘As if!’

I love dancing. I love standing still at first and letting the music fill me up. It tingles in my head until my head starts to nod, then the beat travels all the way down my spine. It reaches my belly and goes all the way down to my toes. I love that moment of surrender. Like diving off a board into water. Like the music is in the air around you. When I dance I feel like I’m inside the song. Sometimes, all right, often, when Al’s out I just put music on and dance around the house. I can do it for hours. Whole albums I’ll get through. I do get a bit sweaty though. I pull Joe’s jumper off and fold it and leave it on the settee. I don’t want it to be stinky when I give it back. Ooh we’ve got some of the others up on their feet too. Blimey, everyone’s dancing. The sofa’s being moved right to the edge of the room. And now, Joe’s uncle, Phil, is standing triumphantly upon it, his hands in the air.

‘HELLO, TIDDLESBURY!’ he shouts. He doesn’t look uncle old, maybe just ten years older than Joe. He wears dark-framed spectacles that make him look geeky chic. His hair is cropped and he’s shorter and a bit stockier than Joe. He sounds like a kind man from what Philippa has said, he even said he’d read her book for her. Philippa dances over to the settee and raises her hands towards him as she dances. I close my eyes and start beating my body around to the drums in the song. I can see Joe, he’s dancing to the side of the room, talking to the older man he was talking to before the gig the other night. He bounces his head to the music. I start to feel the booze and the beat. I love this feeling. I want to bottle it and revisit it when I’m old. Joe starts dancing towards me. He’s been put in your path for a reason, that’s what Philippa said. Maybe for this one moment. To feel young and alive. Maybe when I’m old I’ll remember this, dancing freely with a cool guy from a band. Maybe that’s all it is, one for the treasure chest of memories, nothing more. He’s not self-conscious when he dances like most men are. Matt hates dancing. But I don’t want to think of Matt. Joe is closer to me now. We share a smile as our heads nod and our bodies lurch. There’s a break in the song, and suddenly we’re jumping and laughing. Then as it slows at the end and we’re out of breath, we stop, waiting for the next tune, the next surprise, the next surrender. It’s got a dirtier, sexier bass line. Joe’s uncle yells, ‘Turn it up.’ Philippa pulls Joe and me to the side of the dance floor and over to the stereo where she’s got Jägerbombs waiting for us.

‘Welcome to Tiddlesbury,’ she toasts. Joe hugs her and I love that he does that. She dances away to offer the other Jägerbomb to Joe’s uncle. We carry on dancing but we’re closer than before, still in our own worlds, but those worlds are slightly nearer now. Joe dances forward until our hips are almost touching and then backs away slightly, I move my arms so they nearly touch him. We’re sharing the song with each other. I can feel I’m sweating already. I wipe my chest with my hand. It’s wet. I attempt to dry it on my dress. Delightful. Joe hides his hand in his hoodie sleeve and gently wipes it across my chest. Then using the same hand he wipes the sweat off my neck. But he keeps his arm resting against my neck when he’s finished. We dance. We’re close enough for my breathing to practically sound orgasmic. I wish I could control it. I can’t look at him, not while I’m panting. I’m looking down at the carpet. The song ends, his arm is still around me. He’s leading me off the dance floor. I look at him now. I smile, just because I can’t not.

‘I’m going to do something ridiculous now and you will think I’m a twat,’ he says. He’s heading for the stairs. I pause at the bottom of the stairs he’s already started to climb. But then I follow him. I stand outside his room for a minute. He walks in and turns a light on. He looks back at me.

‘Are you OK?’

Should I step into his room again? I think of Matt’s text that I haven’t responded to. But I don’t want to be with Matt. I want to be here with Joe King. ‘What about Felicity?’

He looks suddenly pained. ‘Ah, yeah. I’ve ballsed up a bit, haven’t I?’

I must look devastated because he springs forward.

‘It’s not that bad. I should have organised the party for last night really. Tonight Felicity’s got some big family bash so she couldn’t come, she really wanted to meet you and Philippa. She’s heard loads about you. She said you sound like the coolest person she’s ever heard of.’

‘Your girlfriend sounds like a freak,’ I say trying to sound carefree.

‘Felicity isn’t my girlfriend. Why do you say that?’ he says quickly. ‘I like her, as friends, she’s fun, but she’s not… We’re not— ’ He stops, and chuckles to himself. ‘You know, I only organised this party to see you! It was all I could think of when we were sat on the pavement. I wanted an excuse to see you soon, so I made up a party for Saturday. But then I realised that I barely knew anyone in town. Except Felicity. And she couldn’t even come.’

I’m smiling. I step into his room. I can’t stop smiling and it would be really useful if I could.

‘OK, I don’t know why I’m doing this, really, it’s so not cool. It really wasn’t cool when I did this before. So the very fact that I’m doing it again lifts me into the premier league of twat. Not that I worry about cool. But, God, anyway… what am I saying?!’

I laugh. He watches me.

‘Your smile is… Sorry, I’m all over the place with you. Anyway,’ he says, ‘have a seat, get into bed, if you fancy. I will be down here.’ He sits crossed-legged on the floor and picks up his guitar. ‘I wrote you another song. That afternoon after we bumped into each other.’

Now I’ve stopped dancing I feel cold. I climb into his bed. I’m still smiling.

‘Oh, God, I’m not sure why I’m playing it to you… I love your smile,’ he murmurs.

‘I love yours too,’ I whisper.

He starts to play.