Monday 15 August

Iris follows me to the bathroom this morning, still going on about how stupid I was to sneak out last night, something only topped in stupidity by Clem, Ady and me eating the food in the Oak Parlour.

‘Did you think you wouldn’t get caught?’ she asks again, putting her toiletry bag on the shelf in front of the mirror and taking out her toothbrush. She’s asked me the same question at least fifty times, so I no longer feel like it requires an answer.

‘You’ve changed,’ she says.

She says this like it’s a bad thing, but people need to change. What if I stayed the same person all my life? I brush my teeth for a good long while, giving myself time to think about that, while Iris launches into a speech about how this is the kind of thing that happens when people hang out with Clem.

‘Did you see the photos?’ she asks, sawing floss between her teeth.

She takes out her phone and shows me as I spit. It’s another post on PSST, and as soon as I look, I wish I hadn’t. It’s Clem, a shot of her at the fair, running beside the pool.

‘What do they get out of posting that?’

‘She’s fat now,’ Iris says matter-of-factly. ‘It’s the truth, and I can say it because I’m her twin. No one else better say it, though,’ she adds.

‘She looks better in bathers than I do.’ I look away. I’ve seen enough to know there are no clues there as to who posted it, and I don’t want to size up Clem as fat or thin. She looks hunted, and I hate thinking about her like that.

I head out of the bathroom and walk to Clem’s room. She doesn’t answer my knock, so I go to breakfast but she’s not in the dining room. I text Ady while I’m eating my toast. She texts me back immediately: Already on it. A.

Iris takes a seat next to me with her usual breakfast – orange juice and cornflakes. Will she be eating that for the rest of her life? ‘There’s more,’ she says, but this time she doesn’t seem happy about it. Her twin protection instinct is finally kicking in.

I don’t want to look at what the ‘more’ is. I don’t want Clem to think for a second that I was part of it, but Iris pushes the phone in front of me and I see a flash of too much skin. You can only see a small curve of her breast, a thin moon of flesh. If she were going out, wearing a dress, it wouldn’t matter. It’s seeing it in combination with her lost face that makes me feel like we’re looking at something private.

‘Should I do something?’ Iris asks.

‘Ady’s got it under control,’ I say, getting up and walking out quickly so I can’t be followed.

I knock on Clem’s door again, but she still doesn’t open it. I see Jinx in the corridor and she tells me Clem’s ‘sick’ in air quotes.

I decide to skip orchestra so I can talk to Ady. Making music is the last thing on my mind today. Clem is the first. The second is how to mess with PSST when the opportunity arises.

‘She does this,’ Iris says before I go. ‘She gets people into trouble.’

‘She didn’t get me into trouble. She isn’t leading me astray.’

Or if she is, I like it.

I don’t know Ady well, but I’m starting to know some things about her. One, if she says she’s on it then Clem will be okay. Two, she won’t want me turning up at her front door without some notice, so I head to a cafe not far from her place and the school. At the Organic Grocers, I text: Meet me?

I’m drinking my second coffee before she texts back: On way. Stay there.

She takes off her coat and hangs it on the rack at the front when she arrives, then looks around to find me. When I first saw Ady at school, her hair with the kind of shine I envy, surrounded by like-looking girls, I immediately slotted her into the kind of popular crowd I’d never connect with.

‘Coffee before speaking,’ she says, putting up her hand.

We sit in a warm square of sun that’s coming in the cafe window until she’s had her second coffee, and then she starts talking. ‘I’m working on something to lessen the pain.’ She slaps honey on her toast and licks the drips from her thumb. I don’t push her on what it is. If Ady says she’s got it under control, then she has.

I fill her in on what happened with Oliver and she smiles.

‘It’s strictly work,’ I say.

‘It can’t be both?’

‘It can be, but it’s not. Anyway, he’s probably got a girlfriend.’

‘Probably doesn’t mean definitely,’ she says. ‘The formal is coming up. If I were you, I’d find out if he is single and then multi-task.’ She stands. ‘I’ll take care of Clem. You go forth. Make music.’

I use the portal again tonight, so I can meet Oliver. He lives two streets away from the school, towards the river, and I walk there. It’s dark but there are people out. I’m not afraid. The nerves are all anticipation.

His house isn’t what I expect. It’s small, a single-storey Victorian terrace with an overgrown garden. I see a brief glimpse of narrow hallway and low ceilings when he opens the door. A vase of lilies on an old sideboard. A worn carpet runner. A dog trying to nose its way out the front door.

‘Good fella,’ Oliver says, pushing him gently inside, then leading me along the side of the house. There’s only room for single file. I follow behind him, careful not to trip on cracked concrete.

In the backyard, tucked behind a shirt-filled clothesline, there’s a brick shed. He opens the door. ‘This is my studio and my bedroom,’ he says, and I walk into a room not much bigger than mine at school.

The walls are covered with egg cartons and then soundproofing foam; even though it’s a myth that it completely blocks sound, it muffles it a little. The brick keeps it watertight. There’s a heater and a tiny makeshift kitchen – kettle, microwave, tea, coffee and a bar fridge. There’s an electric piano, an assortment of wind instruments, and Oliver’s cello next to what I guess must be his dad’s. Oliver’s computer equipment is set up on a desk in the corner. His bed has a grey cover and blue sheets, neatly made. There’s a black-and-white cat sleeping on his pillow; her name is Bach, he tells me.

‘I miss cats,’ I say, scratching her ears.

He doesn’t answer, and I figure this is Oliver being nervous, so I try to get some conversation started. ‘When you said a studio, I assumed you meant, you know, not a shed.’

‘Let’s play,’ he says, ignoring the comment.

And that’s when everything really goes downhill.

The two people sitting next to each other at the bus stop, listening to music, disappear.

Oliver tells me he wants to start by playing the song that’s on the CD and seeing if we can add to it. I’ve brought the piece of music I was playing on that day, and he’s got the music he’s playing on the CD, and we try over and over to reproduce the sound of us, but we’re terrible. First I start too early, then he starts too early, then we both start too late and when we play it back and mix, it doesn’t work.

We try for hours and get nowhere. ‘Maybe we just need to take a break. I have to go back now anyway,’ I tell him, and he accuses me of not taking things seriously enough.

‘I’m taking it seriously enough to sneak out and risk expulsion,’ I say, packing away his dad’s cello.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ he says.

‘Don’t bother.’

But I can’t shake him. He stays behind me all the way.

He texts me later that night and says if I’m not serious I shouldn’t bother turning up on Wednesday. I don’t want to waste my studio time.

Fuck you, I text back.

I wish I hadn’t, but I’m glad I did, and then I can’t sleep for thinking about how to talk to Oliver. Surely we can talk if we play together like we do on the CD? But we didn’t play like that tonight. Maybe we’re a one-off? I lie awake, listening to what he and I could be, that wonky road we’re on, rolling around me in the dark.

The music makes me feel better after a while, and that gives me an idea about Clem, who’s still not answering her door. Around three am I give up trying to sleep and decide to do something useful with my insomnia. I make her a playlist.

1.   ‘Angel Down’ – Lady Gaga

2.   ‘The Skies Will Break’ – Corinne Bailey Rae

3.   ‘Dream Girl’ – Jack River

4.   ‘Feeling Good’ – Nina Simone

5.   ‘Respect’ – Aretha Franklin

6.   ‘There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You’ – Ben Folds

7.   ‘Perfect Day’ – Lou Reed