Posh and Prejudice (16 page)
’Cos like today, you could see how pissed-off Joshua Fallow was getting when he wasn’t getting no attention at all from the
TV crews or the teachers or Prince Charles during the “Increase the Peace” assembly. You could see that he was starting to
take it out on me. Especially when Uma got up in her hoops and her mini and gave her little speech about Mayflower becoming
a Center of Excellence and how teachers like Ms. Bracket had totally given her a chance and turned her life about and she
wanted to carry on in education.
Well, everyone loved that and people were clapping and Prince Charles was nodding—well at least I reckon he was nodding unless
he was having problems keeping his head upright due to the weight of his big ears—and all the papers wanted to take pictures
of Uma and interview Uma for the TV news and everyone remembered Uma’s bit of the day and NOTHING about the fact that Joshua
was up on the stage beside Prince Charles when he unveiled the plaque. No one remembered Joshua’s part in things at all. And
as soon as the assembly was over Joshua started having a proper go at me, saying, “Oh brilliant, Shiraz, now everyone thinks
Uma organized this whole thing! That looks great, doesn’t it?”
So I laugh and say, “Well Uma did organize it! She had all the ideas! She’s been working every night on it! All you did was
hang about trying to get on Sky News so it looks good on your Oxford University application!” So then Joshua just snorts and
says, “Well, I should have known all you chav-scummers would stick together.” So I goes, “Who are you calling chav scum?!
You bloody snobby-nosed prat.” So Joshua just laughs and says, “Look, Shiraz, I don’t think this whole relationship thing
is working out, is it? I don’t think we’re very compatible?”
So I got proper cross then and shouts, “No, Joshua, I don’t think we’re very compatible ’cos you keep turning up at school
on Mondays with hickies, saying they’re eczema!” So Joshua just laughs and says, “Look, I’m going to be totally honest with
you, Shiraz, ’cos I know you respect people ‘keeping it real’ and not being ‘fakers’ and all the chav warrior blah-blah-crap.
I’ve been seeing Claudia in Hampstead, my mum’s friend’s daughter. I need to break things off.”
Well, I was totally stunned. I wasn’t expecting that and I don’t know how ’cos now I think about it it’s totally obvious.
Josh didn’t even look embarrased. “I know there’s been a bit of an overlap,” he said. “But you understand, don’t you? Yeah?
Good.”
And then he walked off. Just like that.
So I walked out of the Sixth Form block and sat on the bench by the parking lot and my face felt red and my head felt dizzy
and I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. And that’s when you came out and sat on the bench and put your arm around me and didn’t
say anything for ages and then you made me get into the passenger seat of your banana-yellow Golf and you drove me home to
my mum at Thundersley Road.
So thank you for all of that, Wesley Barrington Bains II. Thank you.
I am properly mixed up about how I feel about everything right now, and to be honest writing it all down has only made me
feel more confused.
But I suppose the one thing I do know for sure is if I was to get squashed by a piano or trampled by a herd of startled gazelles
tomorrow I would go to my grave having known what it feels like to feel properly, properly loved.
I need to burn this letter now.
Lots of love, now and forever,
Shiraz Bailey Woodxxxxxxx
OH MY GOSH. Carrie has been chucked out of Mayflower Sixth Form Center of Excellence.
Mr. Bumbleclot has finally snapped and terminated her pupil contract. He simply refuses to believe Carrie was off on Thursday
and Friday due to the Ministry of Agriculture running tests to see if her sore throat was the human strain of Taiwanese bird
flu.
“A laughable history of preposterous lies and excuses”—that’s how our headmaster described Carrie’s general attendance in
his letter to Barney Draper. (It’s harsh, but sort of true.)
Well, Barney Draper has hit the bloody roof. He’s gone totally 110 percent radio-rental-mental-shouting-and-screaming-kkkkrrraazy.
He’s gone that sort of mental your mum and dad go when you know if they could actually get away with walloping you they’d
just bloody do it, ’cos you’ve pushed them so far that they’re just standing there shouting like loonies and they’re not even
making sense at times and their eyes are so big you actually think “crapping hell they’re going to have a heart attack and
I don’t know any first aid.”
That sort of mental.
My mum used to get like that all the time with Cava-Sue. Well, until Cava-Sue started living 5,000 miles away and then all
of a sudden my mother rewrites history with Cava-Sue as some sort of saint, and not someone who is basically getting drunk
in bars across Australia and passing it off as “world exploration.”
So anyway, Carrie calls me this morning at 8:30
AM
crying her eyes out going, “That pig Bamblebury has chucked me out of Sixth Form! My dad is doing his nut! Come over and
save me!” So I pull on my hoodie and my jeans and get over to Draperville and the electric gates are stood open for some reason
so I wander in and right away I hear ONE HELLUVA bloody fight going on and I follow the noise round to the swimming pool and
there’s Maria Draper standing on the terrace wearing a beige velour tracksuit and pink flip flops with Alexis their chihuahua
under her arm, shouting, “Will the two of you bloody get inside now! The neighbors can hear every word!”
So I look over by the pool and there’s Carrie in her nightie standing on top of a patio table underneath the pool cabana screaming
at Barney Draper, “I hate you! I hate you! I wish I’d never been born! You don’t know who I am! You think you do but you don’t!
Get away from me, you bloody pig!” And Barney is there in his work clothes: trackie bottoms, old Lacoste T-shirt, and tool
belt, shouting, “And you can get down off that table too before you break it! You spoiled little brat! Where do you think
this all comes from? Do you think it grows on trees! No, I work day and night! Day and bloody night! And I built this whole
place up from scratch! I had nothing when I was your age! NOTHING! Not a bloody pot to piss in! I’ve worked my arse off for
TWENTY BLOODY YEARS for you and your mother! Now look at you, you lazy little brat! You could have all of this on a plate!
But you don’t want it! Oh no! All you had to do was get some qualifications then it was yours! But you don’t want to work!
You make me sick!”
Then Carrie, whose face is bright red, shouts, “OH, SHUT UP! Shut up! You stupid bloody man! I hate you! I don’t want any
of this! I didn’t ask for any of this! And I’m not bloody interested in running a Jacuzzi installation bloody business! I
don’t want it! It’s boring! You can’t make me be something you want me to be, you bloody headbending, brainwashing weirdo!
I should get social services on you! You won’t let me be who I want to be! I just want to be me! I don’t need you and your
head-control!”
So Barney’s laughing now, but not funny laughing, angry laughing, ‘Oh, you don’t want none of this, do you?!” he’s shouting.
“Do you!?? You don’t want your allowance? You don’t want the widescreen TV in your room and your iPod and your gym membership
and that running tab I keep settling at Cheeky’s Vertical Tanning Salon and the bags full of designer outfits I seem to keep
paying for! You don’t want me being your bloody ATM, do you!? I should get a fizzing key-pad fitted to my chest! You’re a
little leech! If you don’t want none of this then pack your bags! Go and stand on your own two feet!”
So Carrie screams, “Oh, don’t worry about it! I will! I’m leaving now! I’m going to live at Shiraz’s house!”
Then she jumps off the pool cabana table and storms upstairs and packs a wheelie suitcase full of clothes and leaves Draperville,
slamming the front door. As I write this, she’s having a nap in Cava-Sue’s old room.
My mother says Carrie’s welcome to stay until things calm down. Or until she realizes that our house has no swimming pool
facilities or in-room TV. Whichever is soonest.
Carrie is still living with us at the Wood household. It’s pretty good having her here, but she is a proper distraction schoolwork-wise.
Carrie says she feels so amazingly free now she don’t have to think about English AS-Level. Carrie says it’s just enough having
her whole life ahead of her with no one planning it for her! Carrie says it feels like a big weight’s been lifted off her
mind and she’s going to build herself up from nothing like Tabitha Tennant did. I ask her how she’s going to do that and she
says she’s still figuring it out.
Then Carrie asked to borrow three quid off me for bus fares to Saf’s house ’cos Barney has cut off the direct deposit into
her savings account. Carrie only went out to Saf’s ’cos my mum was saying it was her turn to shovel up the dog turds in the
backyard. Carrie don’t do dog poo.
Joshua Fallow and Claudia Ravenscroft’s families are both going on holiday together this July. They’re going to Claudia’s
granny’s summer house in Tuscany. Joshua says he isn’t in love with Claudia because let’s face it they’re both going off to
uni next year so they can’t get into anything heavy. It’s just fun for now, Joshua says.
The thing is about Claudia, Joshua says, is that she’s just cool. She just sort of gets where he’s coming from. Their familes
are sort of the same, Joshua says. Joshua doesn’t say this sort of thing about Claudia directly to me. He says it to whoever
is sitting beside him in English when I’m trying to concentrate on Shakespeare and not think about quitting school. School
really sucks right now.
I went to Ilford Mall with my nan today to find her a bridal outfit. Murphy came too and went to Marks and Spencer with Clement.
My mother chucked Murphy some money before they went and said, “And come back with something smart! Not something a bum would
put on for a court appearance!”
I can’t believe she trusted Murphy to buy his own outfit. Then again, I suppose he has grown up a lot over the last year.
He spends all his time now texting Rema and he’s even giving Delano and Meatman a wide berth. He’s actually quite mature.
I can’t help thinking it was the “Naughty Babes” calendar that did it.
Nan and Clement are so in love with each other. They walk about together holding hands and they finish each other’s sentences
and they just seem to know what the other one is thinking all the time. It makes me feel odd when I’m with them ’cos I feel
properly on my own. My nan asked me if I wanted to bring a young man to her wedding so I have someone to dance with and carry
me home when I’ve got blisters. I said I’d have a think.
Me and Nan went into Marks and Spencer to choose her hat when Clement wasn’t looking. The assistant asked her what sort of
color she was looking for and Nan said, “I want something really gay!” The assistant nearly fell over backward with shock,
so I explained my nan meant “lively and happy and fun” ’cos that’s what gay used to mean, last time Nan got married. I like
hanging about with Nan and Clement, they’re from another world.
Barney Draper came to collect Carrie from our house tonight. He picked her up in his work van and took her to Spirit of Siam
for some noodles. Just like they always used to do on Fridays when she was in Year Eight, Nine, and Ten, back when she was
a little girl and she wasn’t out with boyfriends and she was basically Barney’s little princess and didn’t give him tons of
earache all the time.
Carrie was in Cava-Sue’s old bedroom when Barney tooted the horn, packing her clothes and all her Tabitha Tennant beauty manuals
into her wheelie suitcase. I told Carrie she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to. I told her my mum was only kidding when
she said she had to unblock the hair from the upstairs sink. Carrie said thanks for everything and she’s proper grateful but
she’s decided to go home to Draperville to begin Stage One of her new life plan.
I said to Carrie that I thought Stage One of her new plan was going to involve standing on her own two feet. Carrie said she
definitely has a plan up her sleeve and it did involve all that independence-blah-blah type-thing, but there was no harm in
planning it from her own bedroom in Draperville.
I gave her a hug, then I watched as she walked out of the front door and down the path. Barney got out of the van and leaned
against it with his arms crossed as she sauntered toward him proper sulkily.
He picked up the pink suitcase without a word and put it into the back of his van. Then they both scowled at each other for
a bit, having a sort of stand-off. Then she poked him in the stomach and he burst out laughing, then he grabbed her by the
waist and swung her round and round until she started squealing with laughter, then she jumped in the passenger seat and they
drove off.
I have no bloody idea what she’s going to do next.
OK—it’s sort of mad ’cos I honestly don’t really know how this whole thing with Wesley Barrington Bains II has started happening
again, but it just sort of has.
Well, to be honest, I’m not sure it really has but everyone else in the world seems to think so, including Wesley and both
of our mothers, who will have plenty to discuss on their next rendezvous in the Food Lion aisle.
I don’t remember agreeing to anything. All I said in my text was that I’d go out for a pizza with Wesley just for a chat and
a laugh, just like friends would ’cos that’s what we are, good friends.
So I’m in my bedroom tonight ironing my hair and putting on lip gloss when all of a sudden there’s a right fuss going on downstairs,
so I know Wesley has arrived to pick me up. Straightaway my mother is up opening the front door and my brother is outside
looking at the new spoiler Wesley’s put on the car and my dad’s outside on the path looking as happy as happy can be.