Girls to Total Goddesses (15 page)

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28

I met Matthew by the Catholic church. He was carrying a heap of leaflets.

‘Hi, Matthew!’ I smiled briskly, as if to indicate that we would not be spending time together at all if it wasn’t for our task. This was work, not a date, and certainly not the moment to ask me out after his nerve had clearly failed him last Sunday morning.

‘Paolo,’ he corrected me.

‘Paolo, of course. Sorry, Matthew.’ I grinned, taking the piss slightly.

‘Hi,’ he droned with a slight frown. ‘Let’s rock.’ He was still using the faux cockney accent.

‘Hardly my idea of rocking, but let’s see the handouts anyway.’ They were a smaller version of the posters: Ruby’s design looked great, and Rose Quartz’s magical name was blazed across the top in pink glittery letters. ‘Awesome!’

We set off down Longville Street, going up alternate front paths. At the bottom of the street we paused while Matthew got some more leaflets out of his shoulder bag. So far it had been relatively painless.

‘Beast must be relieved now the publicity’s out and Rose Quartz is up for it,’ I said, to make conversation while Matthew fumbled with the buckles on his bag.

‘Oh yes,’ he nodded solemnly. ‘Beast’s a happy bunny now, yes siree!’ Matthew’s choice of words was bizarre, but I detected something nasty behind it.

‘A happy . . . bunny?’ I repeated faintly, peering at his strange pasty face for further clues.

‘Mustn’t say anything, sworn to silence, but the ladies do seem to confide in me.’ He gave me a weird louche wink.

‘What do you mean?’ I begged. ‘What ladies?’

‘Well, you know yourself, there are certain guys who girls naturally feel relaxed with,’ said Matthew, handing me a pile of leaflets. ‘Guys, well, like a kind of gay best friend, only not gay.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve got Toby,’ I added firmly, so Matthew would clearly understand there were No Vacancies as far as I was concerned.

‘Well, I’m a bit like that,’ Matthew went on. We set off towards Newton Road. ‘Girls tell me their secrets.’

‘Who’s been telling you their secrets?’ I pestered him. ‘Charlie?’

Matthew gave a horrid secret grin and slid a lizard-like look my way. ‘Hmmmm, you’re on the ball today, Miss Zoe,’ he said, sounding like Cary Grant in a 1950s movie: not quite British, but not quite American, either. Sadly, Matthew did not look like Cary Grant, more like an aardvark, although he lacked the aardvark’s cute perky ears. ‘You may have thought I had a bit of an – erm, crush on Charlie when I told you about her last Sunday.’ What? My ears pricked up, big time. I was the aardvark now.

Matthew had been talking about
Charlie
last Sunday! He hadn’t been hitting on me at all! Whilst feeling immensely relieved that I was not Matthew’s lurve object, I was also somehow rather insulted and annoyed that it was Charlie – such a cliché.

‘You gave me the right advice,’ droned Matthew. ‘You told me not to say anything and to watch her body language. And I was watching her body language a couple of days ago and she started talking about Beast, and that’s when I realised . . . well, I didn’t really fancy her that much anyway.’

‘What did Charlie say about Beast?’ I persisted, as we delivered leaflets in a synchronised manner to Number 105 and 107 Newton Road. It was a Victorian terrace, so we were able to continue our conversation as we walked up adjoining paths.

‘Oh, various little secrets . . .’ He smiled to the path. My heart lurched sickeningly. I had deeply suspected that Charlie and Beast were an item, or likely to be, but maybe now I had to take it on the chin: Matthew could provide confirmation.

‘Don’t tell me she’s Beast’s latest squeeze?’ I tried to sound scornful and dismissive, as if Beast had a different squeeze every week. My own heart squeezed in anguish at the thought of Beast squeezing Charlie.

Matthew stopped in his tracks, halfway up the path to Number 109.

‘How did you know?’ he asked.

‘Oh – it’s obvious,’ I shrugged, stuffing a leaflet through a letterbox, whilst silently my entire being unravelled into dust. It was over for me: Beast and Charlie were together. I had in some way essentially died whilst actually mysteriously remaining alive. My legs kept carrying me up and down paths, my voice kept making conversation, even perky conversation, but my eyes were as dead as a zombie’s and my brain had become a dark drizzle. Come to think of it, I was now the perfect match for Matthew.

‘She’s amazing,’ I said, privately thinking how amazingly naff she was.

‘All girls could take a leaf out of Charlie’s book,’ intoned Matthew solemnly. I thought that I would like to take a leaf out of her book and shove it down her throat. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Zoe, but I think you could learn a bit from Charlie.’

‘Oh?’ I enquired archly, infuriated by his ponderous rudeness. ‘How exactly?’

‘Well, everything, really; the way she moves . . .’ I made an instant plan to see how she moved when a rhinoceros was chasing her; I was going to organise it, no problem. ‘The way she dresses, her perfume . . . The way she treats a guy.’

‘How does she treat a guy?’ I demanded sulkily, and no doubt unattractively.

‘She makes him feel like a king,’ sighed Matthew. ‘She even told me that if it hadn’t been for Beast, she would have loved to go out with me.’

I was silenced by the monstrosity of Charlie’s lie, but impressed at her sheer devotion to the task of making everybody love her – even Matthew.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Zoe,’ said Matthew, stopping for an instant and staring morosely at me over a grubby hedge. ‘But I do think Charlie can teach you a thing or two.’

‘Of course I don’t mind!’ I shrieked, thirty seconds from murdering him. ‘I’m totally into self-improvement, as you know! It’s my big project with Chloe this autumn! And if you remember, I was your life coach once!’

‘Yes.’ Matthew suddenly seemed to remember how we’d met: he’d answered our advert when Chloe and I had been pretending to be life coaches for some reason too embarrassing to recall. ‘You were wrong about brown, though,’ he told me reproachfully. ‘Charlie put me right about that.’

‘Is that why you’re wearing that colour?’ I asked. ‘What is it – wet toad or frozen mud?’

‘This is taupe,’ said Matthew proudly. ‘Charlie told me you can’t go wrong with taupe.’

‘Well, Matthew,’ I stopped in my tracks for an instant, ‘though I’m delighted you’ve found another style advisor, and clearly gone way upmarket, I’m sorry to have to tell you that you never paid your bill, and that, in fact, you owe me thirty quid.’

He may have unwittingly broken my heart and destroyed my self-confidence, but by heaven the prat was going to pay for it.

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29

Matthew argued feebly for a couple of minutes. Secretly I knew it wasn’t really his fault: after all, I’d failed to send him an invoice, but he didn’t know that. I pretended I had sent one, and in the end he rather surprisingly handed over the £30 there and then.

After delivering another six billion leaflets, we parted. I went back to the town centre and walked about a bit, fuming at the thought of Charlie being able to ‘teach me a thing or two’ as Matthew so tactlessly put it. How dare Matthew compare me unfavourably with that simpering bimbo? How dare she pull Beast? How dare Beast let himself be seduced by her? I hated them all!

I quite liked the feeling of hate. It seemed to come with a free energy surge. So Beast and Charlie were an item? Who cared? All that mattered to me now was my sizzling pink dress. I was going to turn up at Jailhouse Rock looking like a million dollars, and Beast would feel his heart crack right down the middle. But it would be too late. Hah! Serve him right!

The dress was still there, waiting for me. I told them I could add another £30 to the fund, and handed over the £30 Matthew had just paid me. Then I tried the dress on again. It was better trying it on without Chloe, because having a best friend who’s skinny is fine in most situations, but when you’re in a changing room together, sometimes daylight mysteriously turns into the blackest darkness.

Holding my breath (I hadn’t lost much weight yet), I could see that the dress was still working its magic. It looked like me wearing it, but a better, five-star version of me: my skin glowed and the dress coaxed my rather random flab into stylish curves.

‘I’ll be able to pay the rest in a couple of days,’ I promised the assistant, handing the dress back.

I decided to walk home, even though I’d already pounded the pavements with Matthew for a couple of hours. I bought a bottle of water from the newsagent, but ignored the chocolate bars. Charlie could teach me a thing or two indeed!
I
was going to teach
her
a thing or two.

On the corner by the cybercafe I met Jess and Fred. They grabbed me.

‘We’ve seen the poster!’ enthused Jess. ‘It’s a triumph!’

‘You’re a genius!’ added Fred. ‘We want you to mastermind the poster for our first world tour!’

‘OK, OK,’ I grinned. ‘But I must warn you that my rates are £5,000 an hour.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Jess waved the subject of money grandly away. ‘Please discuss all those sordid details with our agent.’

‘Who is your agent?!’ I enquired.

‘Frog and Nightgown,’ said Fred.

‘Slug and Lettuce,’ retorted Jess.

‘Hare and Hounds,’ quipped Fred. These were, of course, the names of pubs, not agents.

‘George and Dragon,’ insisted Jess. ‘George does the schmoozing, Dragon negotiates the deals.’

‘Well, you can tell Dragon I’ll be in touch in the morning, then,’ I informed them. It was great to be talking to Jess and Fred. They are so life-enhancing. ‘So what’s the latest on your brilliant careers,
really
?’ I enquired.

‘Well, Beast has given the OK to our sketch for Jailhouse Rock,’ said Jess.

‘What’s it about? Let me see it!’

‘No, no!’ Fred staged a panic. ‘Not in the high street! It might cause a scene!’

‘Actually, we don’t really want anyone to get a preview, Zoe – no offence – it’s just that we feel a bit superstitious about it. We want to keep it under wraps until the night.’

‘Sure, sure, of course, I understand,’ I assured them.

‘But on the other hand . . .’ Jess looked anxious. ‘We’re both suffering horribly from nerves!’

‘It’s terrifying,’ Fred added. ‘If it wasn’t for Amnesty, we’d run away to South America.’

‘Plunkett is such a massive venue,’ shuddered Jess. ‘It must hold, oh . . .’

‘. . . seven billion.’ Fred shook his head in serious fright.

‘And we haven’t had enough experience!’ whimpered Jess.

‘You’ve done assemblies at school. And that end-of-term comedy show you did – with the Olympics – was hilarious.’

‘Yes, but that was in front of our friends. What we need is a couple of gigs where we perform to strangers.’

‘But I thought you said you wanted to keep it under wraps?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean we want to perform our sketch for Jailhouse Rock: just other stuff, anything to anybody. Just a bit of experience, performing to strangers. I mean, we’ve got loads of sketches. We write them all the time.’

‘We’ve written a couple just now, while we’ve been talking to you,’ Fred informed me in an offhand way.

I promised them that if I met any strangers who needed entertaining, I would swiftly organise a gig for them, and with a few more quips, we parted.

It had been great talking to Fred and Jess, but I realised how glad I was that I wasn’t required to get up on stage at Plunkett. All I had to do was be fabulous in the audience. And boy, was I going to be fabulous! I didn’t know where all this buzzing energy had come from, but it was probably wounded pride and a broken heart. Still, it sure beat moping about and weeping into Bruce the Bear for seven hours. (My normal routine.)

I strode along with the air of a Tyrannosaurus rex – or maybe that should be Tyrannosaurus regina. I felt kind of liberated. So Beast was with somebody else? So what? It was as if I’d somehow got out of jail.

On the way home I called at the Normans’ house. Jackie opened the door.

‘Oh, Zoe, yes – that £15 we owe you,’ she said. ‘In fact, we’ve kept you waiting such a long time – let’s call it twenty.’ I didn’t argue, but just protested politely for a moment or two, then accepted with effusive thanks.

‘Zoe, you couldn’t babysit for us on the twenty-fifth, could you?’ said Jackie suddenly, as if it had just entered her head, but I now realised I’d been set up. ‘We can make it £20 on a regular basis if you like,’ she added. My first reaction was to cringe at the very thought of the twins, back down the path and run away like mad. But then something odd happened. I felt a surge of rebellious energy.

‘Yeah, OK,’ I was astonished to hear myself say, but I seemed to have grown a backbone in the last couple of hours. No way was I going to be intimidated by a couple of tiny little kids, no matter how feral.

‘Oh, Zoe, could you?’ Jackie reached out piteously and clung gratefully to my sleeve, like a beggar touching a princess. In strict financial terms, of course, the roles were reversed, but I held all the aces: I didn’t
have
to spend any time at all with her loathsome offspring, whereas she was stuck with them for eternity. I could hear them screaming somewhere upstairs.

‘Our Polish girl’s leaving,’ said Jackie ruefully, pulling a guilty face. ‘Her mother’s ill. She’s got to go back to Kraków.’ Either the Polish girl was lying, or Jackie was lying: we both knew the reason the girl was fleeing wasn’t her sick mother. It was the twins’ monstrous misbehaviour.

‘I didn’t know you had a Polish girl,’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ Jackie sighed. ‘She’s only been with us for a few weeks. We were hoping she’d stay till next spring, but . . .’ Upstairs there was the sound of galaxies being destroyed.

Was I out of my mind, willingly volunteering to expose myself to these tiny monsters again? No, I was not. I was going to tame them. It was like some epic challenge: The Lord of the Twins. We swiftly agreed the details for my forthcoming visit and parted. I put the £20 into a special zipped section of my wallet: the sizzling pink dress fund.

I entered my own home with explosive power and surged into the kitchen. Mum was staring dolefully into the fridge.

‘No fatty food for me from now on,’ I informed her. ‘Salads, fruit, protein, nuts and seeds.’ Mum looked startled. ‘Sorry,’ I added. ‘I should, of course, have said “
Good evening, Mother. How was your day?
”’

Mum closed the fridge door and approached me warily, her eyes fixed anxiously on my face.

‘You haven’t . . . been taking drugs, have you, Zoe?’

‘Certainly not!’ I snapped. ‘You’re the one who takes the drugs in this house, remember? All those indigestion pills? The paracetamol on top of the fridge?’ Mum looked guilty.

‘Chicken salad all right, then?’ she asked.

‘Perfect!’ I replied. ‘I’m going to get into shape. Homework now, OK?’ Mum nodded. I ran upstairs to my room.

I would have expected myself to burst into tears at this moment. I knew, now, that Beast and Charlie were an item. I had been insulted by Matthew. My world had crashed and burned. But strangely, I had never felt further from tears. I was still full of that weird energy that had seized me earlier. I threw open my wardrobe door and scowled at my clothes.

‘Be afraid!’ I warned my clothes. ‘Be very afraid!’ I grabbed my digital camera.

Two hours later, seventy-five per cent of them were for sale on eBay.