Dad’s car radio will only work on Radio Two, so driving into Staitheley I turn off the lame country music he insists on singing along to, and open the window, craning out, this big smile slapped on my face by the warm wind and the electric excitement I feel being back. My school ended before lunchtime because all the dinner ladies in North London have gone on strike, so it’s teatime and I’m home with the whole weekend ahead and Nell coming over tomorrow. My phone beeps with a message. It’s from Josh.
‘Sadie says come 4 a cupcake + tea, she saw U in car just now so no escape 4 u.’
‘Dad, stop.’ I am secretly relieved to put off going home. I can’t quite imagine our house without Mum’s presence, and I know the Christies will be just the same as usual. I also know Dad won’t like it very much. ‘Look, I’ve got to go to the Christies’ for tea with Sadie. She’s really excited that I’m back. Come and pick me up at five to go to Jack and Granny’s.’
Dad opens his mouth to make a suggestion, but I’ve got my hand on the door handle and when he stops for the corner by the village shop I jump out, waving.
‘Bye. Don’t forget to bring Cactus, I’ve got to see him.’
‘You’ve got to see everyone, and I’m waiting my turn,’ Dad shouts back, and there is pain as well as teasing in his voice. But I can’t be held responsible for grown-ups’ feelings. I need to see everyone back in Staitheley, and small children are the most impatient. I walk through the Christies’ boatyard and open the red-painted back door.
‘Hell-oo, it’s me, Lola,’ I call, and I don’t realize that I’ve breathed in until my senses brim with the smell of toast almost ready and tea just brewed, and the Christies’ family life, with all its noise and chaos, engulfs me.
‘Look, Lola, I’ve iced one for you and one for me. They’re purple princess cakes so we’re allowed to eat them first.’
Sadie charges towards me, waving two very sticky cakes, and wraps her arms around my legs. I reckon it’s best to keep still, and anyway, it’s a treat to hug her back. She’s so small and solid but she’s grown and got more of her long blonde hair falling in front of wide blue eyes since I last saw her.
‘Hello there, Lola, my dear.’
Caroline crouches to remove the buns from Sadie’s hands. She has funny pink slippers on over socks, tight green leggings and a baggy T-shirt. I am shocked to find myself thinking I’m glad my mum doesn’t wear clothes like that. Caroline leans to kiss me, and I hug her back awkwardly. Josh’s dad, Ian, appears in the doorway, also smiling, and by the time I am in the kitchen I feel exhausted by being smiled at, and under pressure of some sort because they are all so pleased to see me.
Josh, perched on the edge of a chair in front of a pile of washing, is strumming on a guitar, and is the only one who doesn’t stop what he’s doing to greet me.
Everything that I expected to be the same is a little bit different. Even Josh; he looks smaller, and younger, which is weird, but maybe it’s because I’ve got used to hanging around with people like Aiden Black and he’s mega compared to Josh.
Sadie tugs my arm.
‘Come on, Lola, we need to play fairies to practise for when I get a loose tooth.’
And I pick her up and twirl her around, hiding my face in her neck. My feelings for her are so uncomplicated compared to everything else. When I put her down again, Josh has left the room, and the next minute he crosses the yard past the kitchen window, his skateboard under his arm. Caroline leads me to the table, chatting.
‘We’ve all missed you, Lola. How are you getting on at your new school? Is London fun? It must seem very quiet to be back here again.’
I laugh, looking round the kitchen. A radio is perched on the window sill, mumbling away to itself, and Neoprene whistles fruitily when I catch his eye.
‘Coffee and cake. Coffee and cake,’ he suggests, twisting his head to one side and selecting a peanut from his bowl with one delicate claw.
Sadie has found a skipping rope and is trying to swing it in the small space between the cooker and the table while chanting, ‘Two-four-six-eight, who do we appreciate?’
On the cooker, a pan of potatoes is boiling, the lid clanging, steam rising and clinging to the glass panes of the window.
‘No, it’s not quiet here. In London I’m on my own in the flat a lot because Mum is working, but that’s OK. And school isn’t so bad now that I’ve got some friends, but it’s nice to be back here again.’
I nod stupidly and push my hands deep into the back pockets of my jeans.
‘I’m sure. And how is your mother finding it back in town? I expect she’s meeting old friends again.’
Caroline’s smile is gentle. I wish she would stop talking to me and looking at me in that very kind way she has. I just want to be with Sadie for a bit with no one paying me any attention.
‘Lets play fairies outside,’ I suggest. We walk down to the quay. Sadie chats for a bit then falls silent. I look down and find her staring gravely behind me.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Your bum. It’s waving about all over the place.’
Great. And I haven’t got any other jeans with me.
When Dad comes to fetch me, I run to the car and hurl myself into the passenger seat to hug Cactus, and it is the warmest feeling I have had since I left Staitheley. He licks my face and sits on my knee, singing a long sigh. Dad doesn’t talk much, but then he never did, even when I was here all the time. He likes his own company, or that’s what Mum always says about him, and I suppose it must be true.
‘I hope your visit over there was everything you expected,’ he says as we drive the short distance to Grandma’s house.
He didn’t come to the Christies’ door but revved his engine and hooted his horn outside the entrance to the boatyard. Dad still looks a bit doleful, and I sat through a couple of his long silences on my way from the station, so I realize that it’s best to be busy, and occupy myself by changing the settings on my phone. It suddenly shrieks (a really good sound I got for it off www.freakfone.com) and see a message from Jessie in London replying to one I sent her worrying about my bum. She is on the case.
‘4get crazy infant nonsense. Yr bum is top.’
Mind you, she would say that because she was with me when I bought these jeans in the market. A message from a new schoolfriend who knows nothing of my life in Norfolk is weird, but I like it. As for my rear view, I’m only seeing Grandma and Jack, and Dad, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit wobbly.
The first thing I think when Grandma opens the door is that she’s shrunk. The second is that the smell of her house is the best and most familiar smell in the world and I wish I could put some in a bottle and take it with me to smell when I come in from school to the flat and no one is there. It smells of clean laundry and flapjacks, pale tea and the flowery trace of the scent Grandma always wears. Oh, and a tiny whiff of the soft salt air of the marshes.
‘There we are, how nice. Tike! Tansy! Get down now.’ Grandma hugs me and her terriers leap to join in. ‘Now you must come through and see Jack. He’s been waiting for you.’
In the drawing room, Jack’s usual chair in front of the fire is more inviting than ever with a pillow and a multicoloured crocheted blanket on it, and in the middle of all that, with a newspaper sliding off his lap and his glasses propped on his forehead, is Jack, looking keenly towards the door like Tike the terrier.
‘Well, well,’ he smiles, and holds out a hand to me.
My nose tingles and my eyes fill with tears. I’m not sure if I’m crying because I’m pleased to see him or because he looks so fragile. The copper band he always wears on his wrist is loose, but the smile in his eyes is the same as ever, and I perch on the arm of his chair until Grandma and Dad come through with a tray of tea. I don’t like to say it’s my second, so I don’t. And it is never hard to find room for the food Grandma makes. We are all eating small sandwiches off pink china with gold stars. Tike, Tansy and Cactus are at our feet, licking their lips and looking soulful. Grandma shakes her head at them and says, ‘No feeding terriers,’ as if she knows I was about to split my crusts between them. Jack and Dad are discussing the recent big tides.
‘There’s a porpoise carcass up on the top of the island.’ Dad has put his plate down and he leans back in his chair looking at the fire crackling in front of him. ‘A young one. It must have got exhausted and separated from the others in the storms.’
‘Unusual at this time of year,’ says Jack. ‘D’you know what kind?’
‘No. I saw Billy and his dad today. They were collecting lugworms.’
‘They never stop collecting lugworms,’ jokes Jack. ‘I can’t think what they do with them all. The fish they’re after must feast and never get caught.’
I stuff another sandwich in my mouth, as a random thought sails into my head: just imagine bringing someone like Pansy or gorgeous Harry Sykes here to Grandma’s house. Imagine Harry Sykes sitting on a little low chair in his skateboarding shoes with the laces undone, eating small sandwiches off pink china. The thought makes me smile to myself, and when I go to the loo and look in the mirror, I can’t really believe that I am part of both of these worlds. I look normal; well, as normal as I can with my hair out of control as usual and my eyeshadow a bit brighter than I reckoned for when I was putting it on. But I don’t look like someone leading a double life, when actually that is how I feel.
I suppose it’s possible that Pansy and people like her have grandparents, and maybe they even live in the country, but I can’t imagine it. I am definitely the only one in my London school whose family thinks it’s normal to talk about lugworms. I think I’ll keep it to myself. It’s better that way.
Nell is banging on the door before I have even finished breakfast the next day. Cactus leaps off my knee and quivers expectantly by the letterbox, thinking she is delivering a news-paper. I open the door.
‘You know, you even sound like a paper round person now,’ I tease, as we hug each other. ‘Cactus thought you were delivering something for him to eat.’
‘Don’t laugh,’ says Nell, putting a plastic box on the table. ‘But he’s right. My mum has sent a batch of rolls she’s made, and I don’t know how old she thinks you are, but I’m afraid they’re shaped like hedgehogs.’
We are both so inflated with euphoria that one peep into the Tupperware box at the shiny, brown, prickle-backed rolls with crinkled raisin eyes has us both collapsed in giggles.
‘I think it’s most kind of her,’ says Dad, removing the lid and picking up one of the hedgehogs to admire. ‘I shall take one for my lunch.’
He moves towards the chopping board with it, and as one, Nell and I shriek, ‘Don’t!’
‘Don’t what?’ Dad is looking in the fridge, bringing out a few salad leaves and a heel of cheese.
‘Don’t cut its head off,’ I plead, giggling again because I am begging for the life of a dough hedgehog.
‘I wasn’t going to,’ he says, putting it down with its paler belly facing up. ‘I was going to stuff it.’
This has me slain again, leaning on Nell, who stops laughing first and digs me in the ribs with her elbow.
‘That’s good,’ she says encouragingly. ‘Mum does that with hers when she’s doing them for her wine and cheese nights and stuff.’
Dad looks very pleased to be doing the same as Nell’s mum, and grates his cheese for the stuffing with a jaunty speed.
‘What are you two up to today?’
And as if a connection of wires has been straining to meet and has finally made it, I feel a click and a rush of comprehension as I look at him.
He is a single parent trying to keep a relationship going with his daughter. I don’t live with him and he doesn’t know anything about my life now. I know too much about his life, though, because I’ve stepped right into the middle of it, and it isn’t wonderful. In fact I feel really sad for him. It always sounded quite cosy on the phone when he called, and he told me things like, ‘Cactus and I are sleeping in the armchair,’ or ‘I’ve been out feeding the hens and hanging my washing on the line and it’s a windy day.’ But now I’m here I can see that it is literally a third of the life we had when we were all here, right down to the way he orders one pint of milk from the milkman to be delivered to the doorstep each morning, when we used to have three. His washing on the line is just a couple of shirts, one towel and two big hankies. It hardly occupies one quarter of the line in our little patch of orchard at the bottom of the garden. I know, because I hung it out for him this morning. I would never have found it if I hadn’t needed to wash my own stuff, and I only hung it out because I promised Grandma I would be a help to Dad, but I never imagined he actually needed my help. The washing had been in the machine for a while, I think. It was clean, but it had that almost mouldy smell of being left there. I wonder how long for? And the bathroom had a spider in the bath and no loo paper on the holder screwed to the wall. I cooked breakfast, but I had to go to the shop to buy bacon and butter because Dad only had bread and coffee. Dad’s life is too big to take on. I prefer to think about the dough hedgehog.
‘Shall I wrap it up for you?’ I pull foil from the drawer where Mum kept it, and I look in the wicker basket in the larder cupboard where there always used to be crisps, and amazingly there are still some there. ‘Look, here are some crisps and you can take an apple.’
Nell passes the fruit bowl, and between us we pack up Dad’s lunch and wave him off. I am crying when I turn back to Nell from shutting the kitchen door behind him.
‘It’s hard coming back here, Nell,’ I sob. ‘I thought it would be just the same, but it isn’t, and I feel disloyal for being relieved I don’t live with Dad now, even though I can see that he needs someone around.’
Nell puts her arms round me and we stand close together in the kitchen. I am so glad she is my friend. Even thinking it makes me cry more.
‘Mum says I may have to choose when the divorce comes through, and I thought I would choose to come back here, but I don’t know now.’
We sit on the sofa at the end of the kitchen overlooking the quay. Our house is slightly raised, built to withstand floods, so we have a big view. Looking out at it, with Nell stroking my arm, I calm down. She is wearing a white top with hearts on it and her hair is a vigorous spray of auburn from a high ponytail. She has the straightest white teeth when she smiles.
‘Ohmigod!’ I scream, finally noticing something that isn’t directly focused on myself. ‘Your braces have gone! Why didn’t you tell me? When did it happen? You look so amazing. Your face is a different shape. Wow, Nell.’
Nell smiles a huge toothpaste-commercial smile.
‘I wanted you to see the reality,’ she says.
Now my that self-absorption has peaked and is beginning to pass, I have a thousand questions for her.
‘Who are you hanging out with at school? Who has taken my place in the play? Who’s going out with who?’
We would have been there all day if Dad had any food, but hunger pangs get the better of us and we go down to the shop for Pot Noodles and some sherbet dib-dabs, which Nell insists are the most lush thing ever. We are paying, and I have just thanked the third person for asking and said, ‘Yes, I am enjoying life in London,’ when someone touches my shoulder. I turn round, my mouth full of fizzing sherbet, and cough a cloud of it over Josh.
‘Hi, Lola.’ He dusts himself down and waits for me to finish coughing. ‘It’s nice to have you back.’
Unfortunately, I can’t speak. My eyes are watering and I have to gesture to be patted on the back. Nell whacks me and I take a deep breath as we move out into the village street.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I splutter. ‘Yes, I know, it is weird being back . . .’
Josh is on the pavement and I am in the road, so he is towering above me.
‘I suppose you think this place is just a joke now,’ he mutters, and I am too surprised to say anything for a moment. He nods as though I have confirmed his thoughts. ‘I knew it when I saw you in our kitchen. I told Mum you’d changed, but she wouldn’t have it.’
I want to get right what I say, and I am thinking as I open my mouth to begin speaking.
‘You’re right, I have changed, and so have—’
The flash of anger in Josh’s face is gone so fast I’m not sure I saw it, but in its place he is stony and cold.
‘I’m glad you can admit it. I hope you find what you came here for,’ he says, his voice so icy and polite it would have me laughing if my heart wasn’t pounding in shock.
‘I didn’t come here for anything—’ I start to say, but he has turned and is walking off, his hands deep in the pockets of his big oilskin coat, his gait clumsy but fast because he’s got waders on, looking ungainly as a seal, as people dressed up for the sea always do.
‘Poor Josh,’ says Nell. ‘He’s working for his dad now, and he’s thinking about dropping out of school, giving up his A levels to work full-time.’ We have reached the quay, but Josh is already in his boat, untying the ropes and pulling the engine cord. ‘I think the guy who worked for them had an accident and there is a big insurance claim or something. Your dad will know. But Josh is under pressure, so don’t worry about it, Lola. He’ll come round.’
‘Why can’t he finish his A levels?’ The sounds of the quay, the clanging masts and the cries of gulls are so familiar they’re like the voice of a family member.
‘Their business can’t afford them to hire an outsider so they need to use Josh,’ says Nell. ‘Otherwise they’ll go under. My parents say this is a terrible time to be involved with the sea for your livelihood.’
Josh has his sail up now, a red triangle pulled in tight as he tacks out up the creek.
‘He’s had to grow up fast,’ I murmur, watching him head out to sea.
All the time I am in Staitheley I have the feeling someone is watching me. It isn’t a sinister feeling, it’s more as if I have a person watching over me than following me in a pervy way. I don’t say anything to Nell because I have been making enough of a fuss about everything already. I might be paranoid, but I think she’s a bit fed up with me this weekend. I mean, I’ve even noticed myself that I’m behaving as if the world revolves around yours truly. Anyway, I’ll make it up to her. She’s got to come and stay in London at half-term. It would be so brilliant.
I’m not enjoying being on my own with Dad. It is really hard to talk about anything because Mum looms like a black hole in our conversations, and everything seems to take us towards the one subject I know we can’t discuss. School, or what I am prepared to tell him about it, is exhausted pretty quickly, and we haven’t even got Cactus with us to provide light relief because he would disturb the nesting terns. The only thing I am glad of is that we are outside, even though I am frozen, as I chose to wear my pale blue T-shirt with gold writing saying ‘Goddess’ on it this morning. I thought about putting a hoodie over it, but I was really hoping we might bump into Josh somewhere on the way, and I had this stupid idea that if he saw me looking strong and serene and shapely in my goddess T-shirt, he would recognize how sophisticated I have become and we could meet as equals.
Of course, there has been no sign of Josh, and the lovely early summer morning has gone a bit sour. There was no way I could possibly wear the khaki jacket Dad found in the bottom of the boat when he saw my goose pimples. It smelt of diesel and it was desiccated, crumpled in a heap of salt-damp rags. It may be cold, but I am not desperate. I rub the tops of my arms and clench my teeth against the sharp air.
Occasionally Dad looks at me and shivers.
‘Brrrr, I wish you’d put something on,’ he says from the snug security of his classic V-neck tanktop, which I am sure was one of the main reasons for Mum leaving him. ‘The sight of you makes me chilly.’ He stamps and smiles and rubs his hands together as though we are approaching winter instead of mucking about on boats on a heady May day.
‘Well, the sight of you makes me cringe,’ I say, when he repeats his desire for me to wear more clothes for the third time. Of course, I regret it the moment the words leave my mouth. Dad kind of crumples, and he can’t work out what to do with his expression for a moment. All the sadness is suddenly there, written in a headline I could not fail to read in the lines of his face, the darkness in his eyes. I feel so guilty I cannot apologize, I just heap nastiness on top of nastiness. ‘We should go back. This is a bit boring and I need to pack to get back to London.’ I am punishing him, but it isn’t fair and it isn’t helping me. I don’t know how to improve things, so I go on making them worse. ‘You should stop hanging on to how things were, Dad. You can’t live like we’re here when we’re not.’
I don’t even know what I’m saying. All I know is that I want to hurt him. I wish he would say something to stop me, but he slumps his shoulders and sighs.
‘You’re right, Lola. I have got to move on, but I’m still here and it’s hard.’
Oh God. I don’t want to have a heart-to-heart. In desperation I suddenly fling down my bag, take off my trainers and my trousers and scream, as if overcome by girly excitement, then race into the sea.
‘Come on, let’s swim!’ I cry. Shit. What a mistake. ‘Oh – oh. Aaah. Oooh!’
I am gasping, ice tingling hair, the creep of frozen flesh as my waist submerges. All the bones in the lower half of my body ache with the gnawing cold, but I plunge my head under, the water swallowing me, then spitting me out as I rear my head back, gulping, now invigorated, adrenalin racing, more alive than I have felt since I left for London.
‘It’s lovely, Dad. Come in!’
Admittedly, my voice is hoarse, inarticulate and breathy, but I am swimming now, striking out through the cold electric silk of the water, and energy is sparking through the choppy sea. I dive under again, and it almost feels warmer to be submerged now I am used to it. The sea smells of salt and weather. You can breathe in a sense of rain to come, sun that has been glancing off the water all day. My goddess T-shirt is dark blue now, and my boobs are sticking out in a pornographic way that makes me cross my arms when I stagger out to Dad. Inevitably, he gives me the terrible tanktop, and I have no choice but to put it on. I drag my jeans over legs red and mottled like sausages left overlong in the fridge, but when I get my socks on and shake the drops of water from my hair I am glowing. I must be almost luminous, I am radiating so much well-being. And I have totally changed the mood. It was so worth it.