Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 07] (3 page)

‘Yeah, course.’

‘He may be careful,
but there are some maniacs out on the road,’ said Dad.

‘But…’Tony began.

‘I
said
end
of story,’ said Dad, then he got up and left the room.

‘Sorry,’ I said as
Tony sat at the counter and put his head in his hands.

‘It’s not fair,’ he
groaned.

‘You sound like
Kevin,’ I said laughing and went into my impersonation of the teenage character
that Harry Enfield plays in the film
Kevin and Perry Go Large
. He’s a
really obnoxious fifteen-year-old who is always telling his parents, ‘It’s not
fair,’ and ‘I hate you.’ It usually makes Tony laugh when I do it, but this
time he wasn’t going for it.

‘It makes me look like
a right dork,’ he said. ‘Three of my mates have been driving for six months
already. I hate being the one who has to act like a kid - oh my dad won’t let
me. It sounds so pathetic.’

‘So what
do
you want to do on your birthday?’ When someone is feeling low, my philosophy is
to change the subject to something cheerful.

‘Not much I can do, is
there? On a Monday? Mum says we can do something special at a later date, maybe
a weekend when everyone’s a bit more chilled.’

‘But you have to do
something on the day and although, yeah, you have to go to school, there’s
always the evening. You could do something nice if Mum hasn’t already got
something planned.’

‘Actually she did say
we could go out for dinner tomorrow, but who wants to go out with old misery
Dad? Not exactly exciting. I’ll probably meet up with some mates after school.
You can come if you promise not to drool on any of them.’

‘As if. Anyway I’ve
got a dentist’s appointment after school tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I might not be up
to eating out if I have to have a filling or something. Why don’t you have a
party later? It is your eighteenth after all.’

Tony shook his head.
‘That’s what Mum said. I’ll think about it, but if Mum and Dad want to
supervise, I’d rather not.’

‘So what would you
really like to do?’

Tony was quiet while
he thought. ‘I know what I’d like to do,’ he said finally. ‘I’d like to go out with
Lucy. Just the two of us. Not actually on my birthday necessarily, but some
time soon after. But I don’t suppose she’ll be up for a date either, you know
what she’s like, always blowing hot and cold.’

‘Ahh,’ I said, putting
on my moany groany voice. ‘Poor Tony. Itthh noooot faaiiirrr.’

At least this time he
laughed. Or grimaced, sometimes it’s hard to tell with Tone.

A few minutes later
Mum came through. ‘Ah good. I’m glad to get you both together as I wanted to
have a bit of a chat.’

Tony and I looked at
each other and tried not to laugh. Quite a few of our mates’ parents have been
doing this lately, so we knew what to expect by ‘a bit of a chat’. It was a
talk about sex, drugs or drink and how we mustn’t do any of them.

‘So,’ she began, just
to let you know how things are at the moment.‘

Ah. Maybe I was wrong,
I thought. Maybe it’s not the ‘It only takes one time and, before you know it,
you’re pregnant’ sex lecture. Maybe it’s the ‘We have to tighten our belts’
lecture.

‘As you know,’ Mum
continued, ‘my contract at the station was renewed last year…’

‘Oh, they’re not
talking about letting you go again are they?’ asked Tony.

Earlier this year, Mum
thought she was going to be out of a job. She works as a news presenter on
Cable and her position, as with all the presenters, is precarious as the
producers like to try out new faces or, as Mum says, younger faces.

‘No, they aren’t
talking of getting rid of me, no, just cutting down my hours. The producers are
doing it to all us diehards and, to give them their due, they do have to keep
trying out new people. So. This is the situation. Dad’s got a new film to
direct and that’s going well, but there’s not an enormous budget on this one
and he’s doing it mainly because of the prestige, not the money. It will look
good on his CV and hopefully lead to other things. So money’s going to be a bit
tight, plus we’ll have a big tax bill coming in January. So. What does this
mean for all of us? Bit of budgeting. Pulling our belts in a little and no
money for extras I’m afraid. I know there was a skiing trip you fancied going
on with the school, Tony, but that’s out for the time being. But we can live,
that’s the main thing.’

‘That’s cool,’ said
Tony. ‘I wasn’t that bothered about skiing to be honest. Not since Mark Crawley
broke both his arm and leg on the last trip. Seeing him lumber about in a
plaster cast put me off a bit.’

‘And I’m sorry, Tony,’
said Mum. ‘About the party for your eighteenth. Do you mind waiting a while?
Until things have improved a bit?’

‘No problem,’ said
Tony. ‘I wasn’t sure I wanted one anyway.’

He’s great with Mum.
They have a really good relationship, much better than he has with Dad, which
is interesting seeing as Dad is his real dad, but Mum is his stepmum. His real
mum died when he was tiny, then later Dad married my mum. She’s always been
there as long as he can remember. Our family ‘confuses a lot of people, because
Dad is Italian - dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned. (Actually he’s
three-quarters Italian and a quarter Spanish to be precise as Granddad is half
Italian, half Spanish and Grandma is Italian.) Tony’s inherited his European
good looks, complete with Dad’s movie star type dimple on his chin. Mum’s
Jamaican, dark skin, dark hair, green eyes and, although I take after her, I’m
not as dark, more kind of coffee coloured. When new people meet Tony and me,
then find out that we’re brother and sister, you can see their minds working
overtime trying to work out why we look so different.

‘OK, Nesta?’ asked
Mum.

‘Yeah. You know me,’ I
said. ‘I don’t care in the least about material things.’ Mum did a double-take
and Tony burst out laughing. What a cheek. I am clearly one of the most
misunderstood people in the history of time. Still, at least what Mum had said
explained why Dad was being funny about Tony having driving lessons. Clearly he
couldn’t afford them, but didn’t want to admit it. Men or boys, the whole male
species are weird about some things and can’t just come out and say stuff like
they’re lost or broke or something. As if to admit you’re hard up means you’ve
failed in some way. Huh, I thought, I have no problem admitting when I have no
money.

‘So we’re poor again,
are we?’ I asked.

‘Not poor, Nesta,’
said Mum. ‘Just not rich at the moment.’

We’re always going
through these phases - spare money, no spare money. Dad says working in the
media is often feast or famine. When I’m an actress, I’m going to make sure I’m
mega rich all the time by getting into every play and film going, as I don’t
reckon it’s much fun having no dosh. I can see what a strain the ups and downs
of finances put on Mum and Dad.

‘Anything you want to
ask?’ asked Mum.

Tony shook his head.

‘Nah,’ I said. I
planned to go upstairs and learn my audition part for the end of term play at
school. We’re doing
West Side Story
this year and I want to go for the
part of Maria.

‘Good,’ said Mum. ‘So
you both understand? No extras for a while?’

I nodded. It’s funny,
I quite like the fact that Mum treats Tony and me like adults and keeps us
informed as to what’s going on, as I know some people’s parents don’t. It makes
me feel accepted as a grown-up. On the other hand, I don’t want to know,
because I reckon all that stuff is their job, being parents, paying the bills
and all that and I want to just be a teenager and not think about any of it.
Mum says she tells us about the finances so that we don’t think that ‘Money
grows on trees’. As if.

‘Er, Matt, wasn’t
there something you wanted to say?’ Mum called into the hall, then turned back
to us. ‘And your dad had something he wanted to say as well.’

Ah. Now the sex talk,
I thought, sneaking a glance at Tony. He raised an eyebrow as if to say, this
should be interesting.

There was a cough from
somewhere in the vicinity of the sitting room, then we heard Dad’s footsteps
approaching.

He shuffled about on
his feet for a few moments. ‘Right,’ he said.
‘Ahem. Yes. Er…
I… I wanted to talk to you about
contraception.’

‘What!
Again?’
Tony
groaned.

I rolled my eyes.
‘Mum, Dad. We do all this stuff at school.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tony as
he leaned back on his stool and put his hands behind his head in that arrogant
‘You can’t teach me anything’ way of his. ‘But it’s cool, if you want to talk
about it. So… Dad. Contraception? What would you like to know?’

I creased up laughing.
So did Mum and Dad. Phew. War zone safe for a few more days.

C h a p t e r
 
3

Count-down
to Clamming up

Contents
-
Prev
/
Next

Fifty-eight,
fifty-nine, sixty. Four minutes left. One, two, three… I counted as I lay on
the couch at the dentist’s the next day after school. About four more minutes
and I should be out of here, I thought, then it’s all over for another six
months. Dental surgeries are
not
my favourite places: the persistent
buzz of drilling behind closed doors, the smell of polished wood mixed with
antiseptic mouthwash, the anguished screams of despair as patients beg for
mercy… OK, maybe the screams are in my head, but it doesn’t help that my
dentist, Mr Saltman, has a poster of Steve Martin in the film,
Little Shop
of Horrors
, on his ceiling. Everyone that lies back on the chair has no
choice but to see the poster as Mr Saltman works on their teeth. In the film,
Steve Martin plays Orin Scrivello, the demented and sadistic dentist. Hhmm?
What is Mr Saltman trying to say to his patients, I wondered.

‘Scange choich of poh
- er,’ I mumbled as I pointed up at the ceiling. I was trying to say, strange
choice of poster, but it was somewhat difficult with Mr Saltman’s thumb and
index finger in my cheek and my top lip stretched almost up to my ear (not my
most alluring look). As he tapped my teeth with some cold metal implement, I
closed my eyes and tried to think of nice relaxing things. Izzie had briefed me
as we were leaving school. ‘Think soothing thoughts,’ she’d said, ‘positive
visualisations to distract you from the pain.’ She’d suggested waterfalls,
flowers, dolphins. Sadly dolphins don’t do it for me, nor waterfalls, Iw-ring.
I decided to try and think up some soothing visualisations of my own. Things
that made me happy to think about. The perfume counters in Selfridges. Rails of
fab clothes in Morgan. The lingerie department in Fenwicks. Snogging Brad Pitt.
Oh, I’m being shallow, I suddenly thought. Clothes, underwear, snogging. No, I
can do better than that. I can do deep visualisations or else the girls would
have been right yesterday, all I think about is my appearance, boys and
clothes. No, I’ll try again. I
will
think deep meaningful things. I
imagined myself going on a protest march to save the environment. Hhmm, I
wondered, what does one wear for a demonstration? Green or brown? Something
that looks like you’re serious about the cause, but casually alluring as well
in case there’s a hot eco-warrior boy there. Oh
no
. I was back to
clothes and boys. I tried again. Think uplifting thoughts, uplifting,
deep
thoughts, I told myself. Something to distract from the fact that my jaw has
locked and my neck muscles have gone into spasm. No. The visualisation stuff
wasn’t working. All I could see now was Steve Martin with his drill in his
hand, an evil look in his eye and he was coming closer. I was never very good
at getting the right visualisation for the right moment, I’m not like Izzie,
she’s so into all that New Age hocus pocus and it seems to work for her.

I opened my eyes to
see if Mr Saltman had finished. No. He was still nose to nose with me, only
with a mask over his nose and mouth. And glasses over his eyes. He looked like
a giant insect hovering in my face and suddenly I had the urge to laugh as the
words to Steve Martin’s song from the film rang through my brain, ‘to beee a
dena-tist…’ Gulp. Arghh, I thought as I struggled to swallow.

‘Ow,’ I cried as Mr
Saltman pulled my mouth to the left. Real person down here, I thought, skin may
be elastic, but it’s not
that
stretchy. Sadly he didn’t seem to be
picking up on my thoughts and continued to yank my bottom lip as though it was
made out of plasticine.

‘So Nesta, have you
been flossing regularly?’ he asked.

‘Urg, argle oof,’ I
attempted to say. I mean how ridiculous? Asking people questions when they’re
lying on their backs with their mouths full of fingers, metal things and cotton
wool. I think it may be one way that dentists make their jobs enjoyable. When
they get bored or something, they wait until someone is in their chair with
their mouth full of dentisty type stuff, then they ask them questions and
secretly laugh as they watch their patients struggling to answer.