Three days before the party I have the hugest spot in the history of humankind on my nose.
‘What spot?’ says Mum when I charge into her bedroom to ask for something to cover it up.
‘Mu-um,’ I wail. ‘Please don’t pretend you can’t see it.’
Mum is drying her hair. Her room is warm and bright with the radio on and the window open to let in the scent of the blossom tree which is in flower in the garden behind our flat.
Her room is much quieter than mine. I never open my window. I got used to it when it was jammed shut, and even now it’s mended, I don’t bother; it seems pointless because the street below is so loud and dirty. Mum turns off the hairdryer and goes to her dressing table where she pulls open a drawer.
‘Here, try this. It is hardly noticeable – I promise.’ She dabs something on my nose and looks at me, right up close so I am reflected in her eyes. It’s funny how if you look at a pair of eyes on their own without taking in the whole face, they could be anyone’s. Mum’s are so clear and brown, with the whites almost blue, that you would think they were a child’s eyes. Then she smiles and her pupils blur as she comes and kisses me. ‘You’ll be fine, no one will notice, and—’ She is interrupted by the phone ringing. She answers it.
Her face tightens.
‘Oh, hello.’
Pause.
‘Yes, I see. You must talk to her yourself.’
I know it must be Dad.
‘Lola, darling—’
Dad doesn’t call me darling, so that’s odd for a start. Somehow I don’t want to hear what he is about to say, so I rush on, which is what I always do with Dad if I can.
‘Hi, Dad, Did you get my message about the terns?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I’ve got to go to school now, you know.’ I have to pause, because it is time to go, and I haven’t let him say what he was going to. He coughs and continues, talking over me.
‘I thought I’d better ring before you left. I wanted to see if you could change your plans and come home this weekend instead of next?’
This is the excuse I need not to go to the party, but now I have it I’m not so sure I want it.
‘Why? I’ve been asked to a party in London this weekend, and I’ve been really looking forward to it.’ God, I am such a liar. I didn’t want to go at all until this moment. ‘And I’ve made loads of plans for next weekend in Norfolk with Nell and people. And I’m going to help Grandma with Jack’s birthday. That’s why we set it for next weekend, Dad.’
Mum is rolling her eyes and looking at her watch. Dad sounds exasperated.
‘Well, I think Grandma and Jack would like you to come this weekend instead now. He’s had another fall and the doctor thinks it’s a minor stroke. Seeing you cheers him up so much.’
Sometimes I really wish I wasn’t an only child. I hate being the only one who cheers everyone up. It’s such a responsibility. It makes me heartless.
Mum is waving her keys.
‘I’ll see. I’ll call you later.’
I put the phone down with a crash and grab my homework.
‘What shall I do, Mum?’
We are on the way to school, and Mum is marching along at such a rate I have to jog to keep up. We are overtaking everyone else walking along the pavement. I should have worn my cheesecloth top because although it’s still cool enough for goose pimples in the shade of the high wall, out in the sunshine it’s hot and so bright you blink.
‘They said today would be a scorcher,’ she says, slowing down but not stopping as she twists her hair up on her head and clips it with a tortoiseshell claw.
‘Should I go up and see Jack and Grandma this weekend? But then I’ll miss the party, and I’ll have to go again the next weekend because I can’t miss Jack’s birthday. Oh, it’s so annoying. And I haven’t got any suncream and I’m going to fry.’
The school gates loom. Mum passes me a fiver.
‘Here’s some lunch money. Stay in the shade and drink water. You have to decide yourself what to do. I can’t make your decisions for you.’
I knew she would say that, and it doesn’t help one little bit. Hot and cross, my spot pulsing like a heartbeat, I head for my class.
By lunchtime I have a bad headache and no friends. Well, that might be a bit dramatic, but it’s how I feel. I think some of the girls in my year are looking on the party as a chance to do everything. No stopping at anything. I’ve got Dave Fisher as a date, although I haven’t actually agreed to go with him yet, and I’ve never snogged anyone at all. I definitely don’t want him to be the first. It couldn’t be worse. I may as well go to Norfolk and stay with Dad, as nothing could be more humiliating than the party.
I take myself off to the proper-meals window of the canteen when all the others go for sandwiches because I need to be on my own.
‘OK, dallin’. Whaddyahavin,’ dallin’? Come on, come on.’
Esther, the Filipina dinner lady, beams at me and waves a giant ladle over the possibilities.
Everything looks rank. I point at the last portion of tuna salad, the least wilted-looking plate on the stainless-steel worktop.
‘Toonatoonatoona,’ she bellows back into the kitchen behind her. ‘We need more-an’-more-an’-more.’
I am sitting in the shade on my own, fanning myself with the polystyrene tray from my food and trying to wipe a blob of mayonnaise off my T-shirt when Harry Sykes drops out of the air and lands cross-legged next to me. Well, I’m sure he just walks up and sits down, but it seems that he drops out of the air.
‘Will you come with me to this party on Saturday?’
He is twizzling a pen round his fingers. It flashes in the sunlight and I gaze at it, not him, and remain speechless. I am thinking, ‘Thank God I didn’t tell Dad I’d go home this weekend.’
‘I could come round to your house and pick you up, or we could meet at the skateboard park.’
Harry obviously thinks silence means yes. He lies back in the grass next to me with his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. I can’t look at him. I can’t look anywhere except at the grease mark on my T-shirt.
I don’t know what would have happened, or how I would have managed to move again, if Jessie hadn’t come over, wiping her hands on her skirt and kneeling down on the grass next to me.
‘Sykes, what are you doing?’ It is a surprise to me that anyone can address Harry Sykes in anything less than an exultant whisper, but I have to remember that not everyone sees him as a deity. So when he opens his eyes and grins at Jessie, saying, ‘I’m asking your friend Lola to come with me to the party,’ Jessie just says, ‘Oh, right.’ She gives me a speculative smirk and a wink before standing up.
‘I’ll leave you to it then.’
She moves off towards another group.
I must say something. I cough to clear my throat which doesn’t work so I croak, ‘I’ll meet you at the skateboard park.’
Harry looks pleased. He holds out his hand flat, and I put mine in his, as solemnly as if we are exchanging vows. Harry pulls the lid off his pen with his teeth and bends over my hand, writing something.
I burst into slightly hysterical laughter.
‘It tickles so much,’ I protest.
‘I’ve finished.’ He stands up without letting go of me, so I am pulled to my feet as well.
‘To remind you.’ Harry picks up his folders. ‘See you later.’
He dodges a basketball which has just bounced out of the court, and wanders away.
I look down at my hand. He has drawn a wave with droplets making the letters of my name and a tiny dog just above my wrist-bone.
Pansy and Freda pass as I am gazing in wonder at the back of my hand.
‘Ooh! Harry’s tagged Lola,’ calls Freda in a voice dripping with innuendo. I smile at her, revelling in what is definitely my best moment at the school so far.
‘It’s good, isn’t it?’
My voice is laid-back and cool. This sensation is beyond. Beyond everything.
Suddenly everything has changed in school, and I can hardly wait to get there in the morning because Harry is waiting for me at the gates. Mum has gone on an assignment to Paris. She warned me it might happen, and she said a friend of hers would come and look after me, but I wasn’t paying attention. So Ali arrives, and I am gobsmacked. Ali is a macrobiotic. She does a lot of chanting and meditation and hates Radio One. We get off to a bad start over breakfast. I am eating cereal and reading the packet when Ali suddenly snatches the box and chucks it in the bin.
‘What are you doing?’
I am astonished and freaked out.
‘You must boycott this company,’ she urges, her eyes bulging madly. ‘They are destroying Africa with their cynical exploitation of workers.’
My Coco Krisps don’t taste quite the same, but I try to eat them.
I would normally be desperate to get away to Staitheley rather than eat bean sprouts and boycott cereal but I am so pleased about the timing of her stay. Ali doesn’t have a clue what I’m doing or ask me about my homework and stop me talking on the phone, and she doesn’t walk me to school. Mum would notice how distracted I am, but Ali doesn’t know any better. The moment I dread is the moment when I can no longer put off ringing Dad. I psych myself up to do it just before I am due to go shopping for a skirt with Jessie. That way there is a treat after the horror.
‘I’m not coming this weekend, Dad, I’m afraid. But I’ll be there for Jack’s birthday as we planned.’ There is such a long silence I think he must have been cut off. ‘Dad? Are you there?’
‘Yes, I heard you, Lola, I heard you.’
He sounds so tired, and so despondent, I just want to get off the phone. I can’t deal with it.
‘I’ve got loads to do this weekend, Dad, sorry.’ Even as I’m saying sorry I’m actually feeling angry. Dad is such a one for making you feel bad, and now, whenever he rings up, I seem to feel bad, and I don’t want to go back to Staitheley and see him, and that makes me feel worse. ‘I’ve got to go now, someone’s at the door.’
Mum sends a postcard from Paris. It is of a cabbage, and she’s written it in French. Not my best subject, but it looks quite interesting. I have to wait to get to school to decipher it with a dictionary: ‘Mon petit chou,’ she has written. ‘N’oublie pas le linge et aide Ali avec la vaisselle. Gros bisous, ta mere.’
I find out that ‘le linge’ is not lingerie, as I had hoped, and therefore not a lovely present for me from Paris, but is bloody laundry so that means that ‘vaisselle’ isn’t worth looking up, because it is bound to be slaving of some sort.
I am in the library with the vile Miss Blessup. She has a couple of girls from my year helping her clean out the hamsters, who are called Cake and Bread. Verity and Sarah are such operators. You get off library duty early for cleaning out the cage. I wish I hadn’t wasted my time translating that postcard, it’s just made me cross.
My bad mood lasts until I begin getting ready for the party with Jessie. We decide to start about two hours early, and Jessie comes to the flat with her clothes in a plastic bag. She immediately makes herself at home in my room, plugging in her heated curling tongs, putting on a CD she has brought to create an ambient atmosphere, and kicking off her shoes.
‘It’s always better to get ready with someone else,’ she pronounces, leaning on her elbows in front of my mirror and applying a smear of my purple shimmering eyeshadow to her eyelids.
I nod, wondering if I dare ask her what it was like to snog Harry. She pre-empts me.
‘Have you snogged Harry yet?’
I shake my head. She gives me a knowing smile. ‘Well, you will tonight, so make sure you brush your teeth.’
Oh God. I am in the bathroom, cheeks burning, brushing my teeth like there is no tomorrow. I have brushed pink hair mascara all over my fringe and I look as if I have trailed my head in icing. Oh, well. It is a miracle that we aren’t late when we finally leave the flat, although I have to walk in a foolish fashion with my mouth half open and my hands dangling in front of me. I don’t want to close my mouth in case my bubblegum-flavoured lipgloss rubs off before I meet Harry, and my hands are flapping in the breeze to let my neon-green nail polish dry. Jessie can’t stop giggling because just before we came out we noticed that the name of the nail polish is ‘Snot Snog’.
‘How can they think anyone will buy something called Snot Snog?’ she wails, getting the bottle of polish out of her bag as we walk through the balmy May evening towards the skateboard park.
‘Well, we did,’ I point out to her. ‘And we didn’t stop to look at the name. D’you think we might not have bought it if we’d known what it was called?’
The air is full of scents – flowers, almonds from the Spanish grocer’s shop on the corner, a rush of tobacco from the boys waiting at the bus stop, all laced with fuel from a lorry hissing its brakes at the traffic lights and the acrid smell of warm tarmac.
I have been feeling guilty about not going to see Dad since he called, but, as the traffic lights change and the lorry grunts away, I catch sight of Jessie and me in a shop window. We look so eager, waiting to cross the road, both wearing new tops and a bit more make-up than we really meant to. My bad mood and my nerves vanish, and I can tell I’m going to have a good time tonight.
Harry is waiting at the skateboard park, lounging against the fence. He walks towards us, and the lazy, teasing smile on his face is probably the sexiest thing I have ever seen.
‘You look great,’ he says. ‘I like your pink hair.’
I laugh, and blush. I am no good with compliments, I don’t know where to look.
‘I’ve got some alcoholic lollipops,’ Jessie suddenly announces, cutting through my embarrassment brilliantly. ‘They came in some promotional thing my dad got and he gave them to me. They’re supposed to be gin-and-tonic-flavoured.’
‘They’re bound to be really disgusting,’ says Harry, contemplating the green lollipop. ‘But let’s give them a go.’
The party is down some steps in a mews next to a restaurant. People are spilling out of the door, smoking self-consciously, and the bass line of the music thuds through me, as much a sensation as a sound, as we queue to go in. I am glad me and Jessie are with Harry when we have to give our names at the door. A man in a black T-shirt draws a Day-Glo cross on my hand and we go into the party.
It is the most unrelaxing experience of my life. Everyone is looking at everyone else, but mostly without speaking. I am still holding my lollipop, and I become obsessed with trying to put it down without being seen. In the end I drop it on the floor just as Freda and Pansy walk past. Pansy treads on it, but doesn’t notice it sticking to the heel of her shoe. Nor does she see me and Jessie, standing right behind her. Bronzed and made-up, she and Freda have tried hard, and they are golden and glorious to behold. They look like goddesses from a Greek myth, particularly as both of them have strapless tops on and their shoulders glitter with body paint when they move.
‘Pansy looks like she’s come as her own going-home present,’ Harry whispers in my ear, then adds more loudly, ‘She should have a label on saying “Fool’s Gold” to protect people who know nothing about her, or the fact that she’s got a six-foot boyfriend liable to turn up any time.’
Pansy turns and darts a hostile look at us. Jessie and I attempt a smile. Still brandishing the green nail polish, Jessie says, ‘I’ve got to show this to the girls. See you all later,’ and threads her way through the throng. Harry shrugs and we move through to the dancing. It is loud and dark on the dance floor, and no one looks like they do at school. Their faces are masks of attempted cooldom now.
My stomach is knotted with nerves. I know Harry will go off with his friends and I’ll have to stay here and dance on my own. I shouldn’t be here. I hate it. Dancing with Harry is disconcerting, he has a weird routine all set up and he can do moonwalking and he rotates his hips so I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment. He flexes his hands and twists about. If I was watching him on telly I’d be really impressed, but dancing with him makes me feel really silly. Spare, in fact. He’s not doing it deliberately, but his kind of dancing is showy and best done with a spotlight, not a self-conscious girl. The song never seems to end. Everyone is drinking beer or alcopops in slender glass bottles. I don’t know how I will last the evening. I am thirsty and the taste of the gin lolly is still in my mouth. I want some water but am nervous of drinking anything here, in case it’s spiked. Looking round the crowded room, I don’t need Harry’s look of surprise as I come to a grinding halt, mid-dance, to tell me I am not equipped to deal with this sort of thing. Give me a children’s tea party with cupcakes any day. I must escape.
‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I shout. Jessie has not come back, and I want to find her.
He looks relieved and immediately heads away from the dance floor towards a gang of boys clustered around two older girls.
Outside, dusk has fallen and the street lamp on the pavement above the restaurant is throwing a fitful orange glare on the entrance. A taxi ticks up to the steps and pauses for its passenger to alight. She turns, and I am amazed to see Mum, pale yellow like Homer Simpson in the street lighting, strain showing in the lines around her mouth.
‘Lola. Oh, good! You got my message?’ She comes towards me as if it is quite normal for her to have arrived at my party.
‘What message? Mum, what are you doing here?’ Surprise has given way to shock. No matter how much I am hating this evening, I don’t need my mum to turn up. She is approaching down the steps now. I try to turn her round, shoving her a little in the small of her back. ‘This is a teenagers’ party. You shouldn’t be here. Go away.’
But Mum stands her ground. She even grabs me by the wrist and starts hauling me up the steps.
‘I’m so sorry, Lola, I had to come and get you. We must go, I need to talk to you.’
She’s gone nuts. Mum has clearly lost her mind.
‘No. Go away.’
I am so angry I can hardly speak. My voice has vanished to a tiny huff of fury. People from the party are looking at us in surprise. And I should think they might. Fancy coming in your office mac and suit and pearls and trying to drag your daughter away from a party she is invited to so you can talk to her.
‘Leave me alone. I’m staying here,’ I hiss, sounding as though I had been loving the party. ‘This is the most embarrassing moment in my whole life.’
‘Oh, Lola, please, come with me now.’ There is sharp anguish in Mum’s voice, and something in her desperate tone makes me go with her up the steps. She faces me outside the restaurant door and puts her hands on my shoulders. ‘Lola, I have some sad news. There is no easy way to tell you. Jack has died.’ She pulls me towards her but I push her away, shaking my head.
‘No. He can’t have. You’re wrong. It’s his birthday next weekend and I’m going to see him.’
My voice shakes, and sobs start to thrust up through my chest. I wrap my arms across myself. Mum moves forward and this time she holds me tight. Her tears say everything.