Posh and Prejudice (17 page)
And by the time I come down Wesley’s sitting in the lounge, with his feet up on the special leather ottoman that my mother
bought in the DFS Furniture Showroom May Sale that’s only to be used for special occasions and he’s got a cup of tea in one
hand and a handful of Cadbury’s animal crackers in the other. Everyone turned to smile at me when I walked through the door
like something genuinely amazing was happening. We were only going for a pizza at Pizza Junction, not to the Registry Office!
“Ooh, Wesley’s just telling us about his condo he’s buying!” my mum was saying, “Just down the road it is! You could walk
there in twenty minutes from here!”
“Mmm, I know,” I said, putting in my gold hoops.
“Well, that’s such a sensible thing to do with your money, Wesley,” my mum was saying. “Your dad would be very proud. So is
it a ground-floor apartment or upstairs? I mean… could you have kids in it if you wanted at some point?”
“Come on, Wesley,” I said, dragging him out of the door.
We arrived at Pizza Junction and then we sat in the green racing car which is Wesley’s favorite ’cos when you honk the buzzer
for service it plays the tune “Yankee-Doodle-Dandy.” We talked about his plumbing NVQ and some tracks he’s been laying down
with Bezzie that are up on their MySpace and some big car meet that they’re both going to next weekend in Southend that I
can go to if I want. We had a good time really, I suppose. And when he drove me home to Thundersley Road we sat outside for
a bit and chatted and when he leaned over to give me a kiss I didn’t push him away or nothing I just let him kiss me on the
mouth. It didn’t feel funny or nothing, it just felt like it always used to.
Just like we’d never ever split up.
I did an English AS-Level exam today. Oh my days, I was bricking it before I went to school. Everybody in the family was too.
I must have been giving off some serious runnybum vibes around the house. Well, in the rare moments I’ve actually been spotted
over the last few weeks.
I’ve been trapped in that bloody bedroom with my head in a book for almost a fortnight solid. I’ve only been appearing to
yell at Murphy about playing his Dubstep or on one occasion to cut the plug off Glo’s karaoke machine. (Saying that, it wasn’t
just me upset about last Saturday night. When Glo sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” with all the windows open a lot of folks reckoned
it was Bert’s wife at number 89 getting committed again.)
I could hardly speak for nerves when I got to school today. I just sat there with Uma in the common room clutching my pen
and my pencil and my spare pen and my lucky fluffy hedgehog that Wesley bought me. My stomach kept on trying to make an escape
through my gob so I had to sit there still with my lips tight shut. Then Joshua rolls in and he’s being his usual mega-mega-confident
self, just strutting around chatting about next year when he’s doing his A2s and what him and Claudia have been up to and
how he got scouted in the street the other day to be a model by Storm but he said no thanks, ’cos, like, he wants to be a
politician or a PR guru like his dad or something, yada-yada-yada.
So we all went into the exam room and sat down and I was sitting next to Manpreet, so he’s setting all his pens and pencils
out in dead straight lines ’cos he’s got Asperger’s (it’s finally been officially diagnosed at last), and Uma is behind me
and I can hear her foot tapping and her gob chewing gum like crazy. Then I turn over the paper and the first question I see
is:
“Is King Lear ‘more sinned against than sinning’?”
Give examples, trying to examine the motives for each character’s behavior and judging who is the victim of each situation.
And my heart went BOOM BOOM BOOM!!! when I saw that, because I’d revised something a bit like it about five times round at
Uma’s, and I know she knew it too. So I starts scribbling away like mad writing about Lear’s love test and when he was cast
out into the storm and the suicide of Cordelia etc., etc., etc.
And when I look over at Josh, he’s not really writing much. He’s just staring at the paper and looking a bit annoyed. A bit
flustered. Like it wasn’t a question he’s ever thought about. HA HA HA HA HA.
I mean, I’m sure he did OK in the end. But thinking that he must have got his arse kicked on that paper by “chav-scummers”
like me and Uma has cheered me up no end.
Today was European History AS-Level. Sigh. I think it went fine. I mean I don’t think I got an A or anything ’cos, y’know,
how the hell are you meant to know every piddly little thing about a period of history?? It’s impossible. But at least there
were plenty of questions about Ferdinand of Spain and about Martin Luther giving the pope an earache over his grievances,
so I reckon what I did was OK.
Wesley picked me up in his car after the exam and took me for a burger. Wesley says his lawyer who is helping him buy the
condo called today and said the contracts have been “exchanged.” This means the condo is 99% definitely his.
Wesley says that if I ever move in I’d love living there. Wesley says the second bedroom, that I can use for my books or something
until we have kids, looks over the loading bay of the pakora factory. “So that’s pretty cool, innit?” Wesley says. “’Cos there’ll
always be something interesting for us both to look at.”
I did my Critical Thinking paper today. It wasn’t too bad. I was half expecting to turn it over and for it simply to say “PEDOS
ARE OK?: DISCUSS” but it didn’t. Instead there were tons of multiple choice questions about whether cigarette advertising
was responsible for lung cancer, or whether folks who treat their dogs the same as humans could be called “crazy.”
I tried to answer them my very best but to be honest my head was hurting and I was feeling proper tired and confused. I finished
the exam and went over to see Carrie at Draperville and now I’m more confused than ever.
Carrie had called me after the exam in a right weird mood saying she had finally worked out Stage One of the Carrie Draper
“Whole New Me” plan and she needed to tell me STRAIGHT AWAY, like NOW. So I went over not expecting too much ’cos ever since
Carrie was turfed out of Mayflower Sixth Form her daily routine seems to have consisted of (a) watching Lifetime TV, (b) dehairing
various parts of her legs, arms, top lip etc. and (c) lying about in a robe waiting for various nail polishes to dry.
So I get to Draperville and Carrie’s in the pool cabana and the first thing she says to me is, “What are you doing with your
life, Shiraz Bailey Wood?” And I sigh and say, “Looking at someone with bleach cream on their top lip?” And Carrie goes, “No,
not now face-ache, for the rest of your life? Forever?”
So I go, “Oh? That? Oh, I don’t bloody know. Stay on at school for another year I suppose? If I can. Dunno. Maybe go to uni…
something like that.”
So Carrie goes, “Yeah, you sound proper THRILLED about that.” And I say, “Hmm, you know I’m not thrilled. I’m bored sick of
being locked in that room studying. And I ain’t got no choice really but to carry on ’cos if I don’t I’m going to end up living
behind an Indian food factory with Wesley Barrington Bains II.” So Carrie goes, “Hang on? So are you officially back together
with Wesley then?” And I go, “Hmm, sort of. Wesley just acts like we never even split up. He won’t talk about Joshua. He just
calls it “those months when Shiraz had the hump.”
There was a long silence while we both sat for a bit watching Alexis the dog rolling about on the lawn.
“He loves me, y’know?” I said to Carrie after a while, knowing how crap that made me sound.
“Oh, Shiraz,” said Carrie. Then she got a glossy magazine out of her bag. It had a picture of Tabitha Tennant on the front
dressed in a white coat. The title of the brochure was:
BUTTERZ BEAUTY ACADEMY COVENT GARDEN LONDON WC1 OFFICIAL PROSPECTUS
“That’s Tabitha Tennant’s beauty school, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah!” smiled Carrie, almost fizzing with happiness.
“Eh? Have you applied to go?” I said.
“I applied three weeks ago. When I moved from your house back to here,” Carrie said. “I talked my dad into lending me the
money for my course fees!”
“Oh my God!” I said.
“And I didn’t want to say anything,” said Carrie. “’Cos if it all went wrong I’d look even more stupid… But I had my final
interview yesterday. And I got in, Shiraz! I bloody got in! I’m moving to London! I’m going to be a trainee at Tabitha Tennant’s
Butterz Beauty Academy! I’m so excited! I can’t believe it!”
I just stared at her with my gob open.
I felt well happy for her but also a bit shocked and a little tiny bit sad too.
“You’re moving to London!?” I said.
“Yeah! In a few weeks’ time!” she said.
“But… but…!” I started to stutter, but my head was proper racing. I was starting to feel a bit jealous now too. Imagine actually
moving to London? Imagine having your own place and being right in the middle of everything? You could stand on Waterloo Bridge
every day if you liked! And if you wanted to paddle in the Trafalgar Square fountains and go to the club every night, you
could! Imagine that though? Imagine that?????
I’ve been imagining that for months and months.
“Come with me, Shiraz,” she said.
“What?” I said. “How? I can’t!”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” she said.
“I can’t just leave Goodmayes! I can’t,” I said.
“Yes you can!” said Carrie, “Come with me and we’ll get a little apartment and you can get a job and I’ll go to Butterz Beauty
Academy and we can have a walloping big adventure!”
“But—” I said.
“Oh come on, Shizza, there’s nothing round here for us! Nothing. I’m sick of going to the same places all the time. I’m sick
of seeing Saf all the time too. That’s all getting way too bloody serious. I want to have some fun!”
“But I can’t just leave,” I said. “I can’t do something like that.”
Because I can’t do that. Can I?
Can I???
You wouldn’t think an almost seventy-four-year-old woman would end up with a right old rowdy hen night, but when it comes
to my family nothing is ever quiet.
“Ooh, I don’t want no fuss!” my nan kept saying, but I think deep down she did really. Well, least I hope she did ’cos as
soon as my Aunty Glo got her beak in we ended up with a roped-off bit of Goodmayes Social for Nan and me, Carrie, Mum, Glo,
Betty, Peggy, and all the other old girls from Nan’s Wednesday club.
Everyone was chatting and laughing and drinking cocktails with rude names and wearing tiaras and line-dancing and making a
right old fuss.
I’ve got to admit, when Glo said she had a couple of very special surprises for Nan and that Nan had to “bring her best glasses
’cos it was going to be quite a sight,” I thought, “Oh my days, no, Glo, what have you done?!” And sure enough, she never
let me down.
’Cos at about 9
PM
, with the drinks and silliness in full flow, this young bloke appears wearing a funny wig and glasses and a sparkly jacket
dressed a bit like that singer Elton John. Then he sits down at the piano and we’re all staring at him thinking, “’Ere, mate,
you weren’t invited!” then he starts to play and sing that well-serious song by Elton John called “Rocket Man.”
So we all think, “Fair enough,” and we’re all laughing and singing along… and then smoke begins to come out of his trousers.
SMOKE! Big clouds of it! Like his pants were on fire! And we’re all beginning to get proper hysterical by this point. And
with that, some loud disco music began to kick in through the speakers and the bloke leaped up from the piano seat, ripped
his trousers off in one go and underneath he had a pair of gold underpants with a message on them that said
THE ROCKET MAN
!!!
He was a stripper! Then he began doing a rude dance around the social club, rubbing his bum against Nan’s friends’ cardigans
and threatening to dangle his wotnots in their port! Well, honestly, we all nearly died laughing! Especially Nan, who had
to have a shot of her asthma inhaler she was laughing so much. Glo looked very proud of herself.
Then just as things couldn’t get any more surreal, the smoke began to clear and I saw by the bar, the biggest surprise of
all. It was Cava-Sue! My big sister Cava-Sue! Standing at the bar with her backpack. So I turned to Glo and said, “Is that
our Cava-Sue?! But she’s in Australia, isn’t she?” But Glo just winked, so she must have known she was coming all along.
Well, me and Mum and Nan all ran across the room and gave Cava-Sue a big hug and said how proper crafty she was for keeping
her flying home all a secret and as everyone was hugging her and asking her questions, all I could think was how flipping
enormous she’d got on her travels. Like she’d put on at least fifteen pounds! Maybe twenty. She looked like a lovely, cuddly,
motherly version of my big sister.
“’Ere, I’ll get you a drink!” said my mother. “What you want? A vodka lime and soda?”
“Ooh… no Mum… get me an orange juice,” laughed Cava-Sue.
And then she looked at me and her cheeks went a bit pink, and I looked right back at her, right in her eyes. No one else had
guessed, but I had. I’d guessed straight away.
So somehow I managed to whisk Cava-Sue into the ladies’ loo and corner her by the paper towel dispenser and go, “OK, Cava-Sue,
spill. You’re up the duff! You’re having a baby, aren’t you! Don’t say you’re not, I know you are!” And she tries to pretend
to look nonplussed and bewildered, but she can’t fool me and she knows it, and she gives this funny, nervous laugh and she
tells me, “Yes, I’m five months gone. Me? Shizza, I’m gonna be a mum, and you—you’re gonna be an auntie.”
And I look at her sort of amazed, and shocked, and happy and I say, “But how?! How are you pregnant?” And Cava-Sue says, “C’mon
Shiz, you got all your GCSEs didn’t you?!” And I say, “No, but how are YOU pregnant? You said this would never happen to you!
You were proper outraged when folks like Collette Brown and Kezia Marshall got pregnant. You had dreams, you said. It wasn’t
going to happen to you, Cava-Sue Wood.” So Cava-Sue looks at me and says, “Oh I know. I know. But the thing is then I met
Lewis and he had all his own dreams. He wanted to give up studying and go traveling so I ended up doing that with him. And
then I got bloody food poisoning in Vietnam and threw up my pills so they didn’t work properly to stop me getting up the duff.
And when I told Lewis I thought he’d be really upset, but he was so happy, Shiraz! He said he couldn’t wait to be a dad! He
says he’s always wanted to be a dad eventually, so why not now, eh? And I agree, why not now?”