One More Little Problem (3 page)

As ever, Caro leaves me floundering like a small lost fish in a big rough sea.

Just as I’m wondering what on earth to say to this, Dad slopes into the kitchen, casts a brief look at Caro, ferrets around for white bread and starts slicing up some dubious green-mould Cheddar.

‘Yes please, gardener man,’ says Caro. ‘Got any pickle?’

I nearly fall off my chair.

My dad chuckles, a rare and much-missed sound. He gets some extra bread out of the packet and produces a jar of rancid chutney from behind a row of out-of-date Pot Noodles.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ he says. ‘But it’s about time people said what they felt. Too many people dither about all around the houses. I like a girl with attitude.’

I’m even more shocked.

‘This is Caro,’ I say in my prim voice. I’m eyeing up the butter-laden knife with distaste. Butter and I have a long historical relationship of mistrust.

‘You know –
Caro
?’ I try again. ‘We were at Forest Hill together? I might have told you about her?’

My father turns round and sizes Caro up with renewed interest.

‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘You’re the one who slices yourself to bits. Interesting hobby. Can’t you find something less dramatic – acting classes or whatever?’

I nearly pass out with embarrassment and fear. Fear of what Caro might do or say to this astonishing remark. But to my surprise Caro laughs and pushes her packet of worms towards Dad.

‘Smoke?’ she says.

Dad nods and rolls one up, even though he
hasn’t smoked roll-ups since about 1980.

‘Your gardener’s OK for an old bloke,’ she says to me, chomping down on the sandwich as if the packet of biscuits was a phantom snack.

‘Her gardener is in fact her father,’ says Dad. ‘But I take it as a compliment from one so young and bitter.’

‘Ah,’ says Caro. ‘So you’re the old dude who pays the mortgage here. Right?’

Dad nods.

‘In that case,’ she says, ‘I need to ask you if I can stay. For about six weeks. As much free tobacco and verbal abuse as you can handle.’

Dad screws up his mouth on one side. I can see he’s trying not to laugh.

‘Can you cook?’ he asks.

Both Caro and I laugh at this one.

‘No she sodding well can’t,’ I splutter.

‘Clean?’ says Dad.

Caro raises one scornful pierced eyebrow and says, ‘Pur-lease!’

‘Got any money for rent?’ says Dad. I swear he’s enjoying this. I haven’t seen his eyes spark up in that way for quite some time.

‘Nope, skint as a badger,’ says Caro.

‘And do you get on with my daughter?’ says Dad. ‘That’s the all-important question.’

At last! He’s showing some signs of fatherly protectiveness. I heave a quiet sigh of relief. I mean – I do like Caro in small doses and all that, but the thought of having her here the entire summer while I try to clean the house and get Dad to his interviews on time . . .

‘OCD?’ Caro is saying. ‘Yeah. She’s all right. Bit demented with all the jumping and stuff.’

‘Tell me about it,’ says Dad. ‘But that’s my Princess. That’s Zelah.’

Gee, thanks, Dad.

I go over to the sink to wash up. I’m in
shock. This day is getting weirder and weirder.

Just as I start running the taps I turn around to see Dad and Caro shaking hands.

‘Deal?’ she says.

‘Deal,’ says Dad. ‘Welcome to our crazy house of love.’

With that, my entire summer falls about my ears.

And crashes to the floor.

T
here’s a small ray of hope when Dad rings up Caro’s foster parents to ask whether they mind her staying with us.

Turns out they’re not best pleased about her hiking down the motorway without telling them.

I’m upstairs listening on the extension and keeping my fingers crossed so tight that the blood flow is cut off and my knuckles are all white and transparent.

Honestly – I love Caro, but even living in the room next door to her for a month at Forest Hill nearly finished me off. Caro’s not
the type to sit down and read a book or watch a good DVD. Either she’s blasting out her satanic rock metal CDs at top volume or she’s in a screaming mood, banging doors and smashing glasses on tables and hurling abuse at authority figures.

And then there’s all that blood.

Blood and OCD are a vile combination. Blood is
Dirt Alert
AND
Germ Alert
.

It’s bad enough that I’ve got to put up with Caro all summer without having to mop up her blood too.

The thought of it makes me come over funny and I drop the phone on the bed for a moment.

Dad’s voice booms out of the receiver.

‘She’d be no trouble at all,’ he’s saying. ‘It would be a pleasure. Any friend of Zelah’s is welcome in my house.’

I come over all funny for a second time.
I’ve never thought of Caro as a friend, exactly.

She couldn’t be less like Fran if she tried.

I’m tempted to pick up the phone and shout something desperate to try and stop the whole horrid blood-soaked nightmare from beginning. But Dad would be angry and I feel too tired to cope with that. Although in some ways, his anger is easier to deal with than this new I-love-everybody sort of Dad.

‘OK,’ says a high female voice. I presume that this must be Caro’s foster mother. From the way that Caro used to describe her you’d think she was the Spawn of the Devil. Instead she sounds soft and mild and worn out.

‘I suppose it would be nice to have a bit of a break from her,’ says the tired voice. ‘She’s a good girl at heart but can be a little – well, demanding.’

Dad gives a friendly chuckle.

‘You don’t need to tell me about having a
demanding daughter,’ he says. ‘Believe me – I know!’

I slam the phone down. Don’t care if he’s heard me now. This is beyond a joke. Me? Difficult? I am an angel child compared to Caro!

‘Zelah!’ Dad shouts up the stairs. ‘It’s very rude to listen to people’s conversations on the phone.’

I pretend not to hear.

I go downstairs to see what Caro is up to.

She’s plugged into her iPod and has her biker boots up on the kitchen table while her head sways in a sort of corpse-like trance to the hideous sounds of Marilyn Manson.

I push her legs on to the floor.

‘OK, chill, OCD,’ she snarls. ‘Few bits of dirt won’t kill you.’

I sit down next to Caro and watch her head-bang for a moment.

Is this how my entire summer is going to be? Me trying to be polite and her ignoring me and tainting my nice clean surfaces with smoke, blood and cigarette ash?

‘What are you listening to?’ I yell, in a bid to restart conversation.

Caro unhooks one earpiece and inserts it into my ear.

I remove it – major
Dirt Alert
– wipe it and hold it just outside my eardrum.

Manson is growling and muttering his way through a ‘song’ with a demonic-sounding guitar repeating the same jerky riff underneath. The ‘song’, according to the little screen on the iPod, is called ‘The Beautiful People’.

‘Yeah. It’s – good,’ I offer. I pass the earpiece back to her and wipe my hands with a shudder.

Caro snorts.

‘You’re a rubbish liar, OCD,’ she says.
‘You always were. Like when you pretended that you didn’t fancy Sol.’

I flush a horrid hot crimson. Sol was the only boy resident at Forest Hill House during my month-long stay. He never spoke because watching his father run over his mother had traumatised him. It was just an everyday story of family murder in the streets of South London.

We kind of clicked.

But then Dad came and found me at Forest Hill and in the excitement of seeing him I kind of forgot about Sol and when I left the house for good he’d gone back to South London with his father to try and start a new life.

‘See,’ Caro is saying. ‘Even just thinking about him you’ve gone all moony and pathetic.’

I clear my throat and get up from the table.

T
he phone rings later on when Caro, Dad and I are sitting around the kitchen table eating miniature Brussels sprouts on toast.

The sprouts are not supposed to have been picked until Christmas but something went wrong and Dad had to cut them off their stalks three months early.

‘Thank God,’ I mutter as the insistent ringing coming from the hallway gives me a chance to abandon both the hideous food and the weird conversation my father is having with Caro – something about legal versus illegal tobacco. Great.

‘Hi, kiddo,’ says a familiar voice on a crackly mobile phone. ‘How’s everything going?’

At the sound of Heather’s voice something unexpected happens. I well up with pathetic girlie tears, even though she’s not my real mum. Heather kind of gets
Dirt Alert
and
Germ Alert
and I feel as if we’ve got An Understanding. Plus she’s all adult and not moody, unlike most people in my life.

And now she’s trusted me to look after Dad and catch up on my schoolwork and this isn’t exactly happening the way she planned it.

Do I tell her?

‘Dad really misses you,’ I start (true), ‘and I really miss you as well,’ (also true), ‘and I’m doing loads of homework,’ (complete lie).

Heather says ‘Oh, good!’

In the background are lots of clinking and splashing noises.

‘Sorry kiddo,’ she yells over the noise.
‘Champagne poolside party. You know how it is! But tell me what else you’re up to?’

My mouth kind of freezes half-open when she says this.

I don’t know where to begin.

‘I’m fine,’ I manage. ‘I’m having a great summer holiday.’

I feel tears welling up again at this reference to some mystical faraway paradise that I can only dream of, so I grab a clean tissue to stop them in their germy little tracks.

I want to tell Heather about Caro turning up and Dad going weird. And I really, really want to tell her about the website I’ve just registered on and my fears about Boys.

But I don’t.

I just go: ‘Have a lovely time. Thanks for ringing, I’ll get Dad,’ in the voice of a strangled chicken and I put down the phone and get Dad.

I go and sit in the front garden and have a big snivelling cry.

After the cry I feel better. I get the shears out of the shed and trim what’s left of the orange geraniums to exactly the same height. I’m kind of embarrassed to be doing this but I like things to be neat and tidy.

Not much hope of that inside the kitchen.

Caro and Dad are rolling cigarettes and sharing a can of beer. Dirty plates cover the table and all the work surfaces. Dad has taken off his mouldy work boots and is sitting in muddy grey socks. Caro’s got her black biker boots on the table again. The air is full of raucous laughter and stale smoke.

For the first time in ages I miss Fran.

I mean, she said some vile things that last time I saw her but at least you could rely on her to be clean and smell like a fragrant summer’s day. Fran would have washed up her
dirty plates and wiped the table down and swept the floor.

I wash up the dirty plates, wipe the table down and sweep the floor.

Then I leave them speaking the language of the devil and go upstairs to scrub my face.

Next day’s Tuesday.

I wake up with a sinking kind of feeling. Judging by the loud snores coming from across the landing, Dad isn’t going to be in the best of states to go and start job-hunting even though he promised Heather he would on the phone last night.

I get up and switch on my CD player. At the moment I’m listening to ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day. I load up a scrubbing brush with soap to do my rituals.

This is what I do:

Twenty scrubs of my right cheek.

Twenty scrubs of my left cheek.

Ten scrubs of my right hand.

Ten scrubs of my left hand.

Then I brush my frizzy black hair twenty-five times in total, tie it into a neat pony, slide into my clean cut-off jeans and silver flip-flops and select a nice calming blue vest top from my wardrobe where all the clothes hang at equal distances with exactly the same gaps in between them.

I used to have a ruler to do this but the Doc helped me stop that. Now I just judge the distance by standing back and gazing at the clothes with a critical eye.

I move a blue dress about a half a centimetre to the left and a flippy long white skirt about three centimetres to the right.

There.

Perfect.

Now that I’ve done my bedroom and
bathroom rituals there’s only one set left to do.

The stairs.

I do thirty-one jumps on the top step and thirty-one on the bottom so that I can head into the kitchen and relax.

Did I say ‘relax’?

The sight that greets me as I enter fails to encourage a sense of relaxation.

Dad and Caro must have stayed up chatting half the night because when I went to bed the kitchen was cleaned to perfection (by me) and now there are cans, bottles, ashtrays, chocolate wrappers and CDs littered all over the wooden table, the chairs and the floor.

Oh well. At least there’s nobody in here yet. Maybe I can have a good think about dating and boys and, gulp, Sol while I’m washing up.

I twiddle the knob on the radio until I find Radio One and then I slide a pair of nice clean yellow rubber gloves right up my arms and
poke around in the plughole with a shudder to remove something that looks like a clump of hair in gravy tied up with some green seaweed and then I scrub the stainless steel sink until it shines my hot reflection back at me and then I set to on the rest of the kitchen with grim determination.

Dad staggers down about an hour later and swallows three painkillers straight off.

‘She can hold her drink, that little friend of yours,’ he says. He’s grey in the face and looks about a hundred.

He fails to notice the clean sparkling kitchen.

‘I could murder a fry-up, Princess,’ he says.

I slam a box of oats and a jug of milk down in front of him.

‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ says Dad, all mournful. ‘You only eat rabbit food.’

He pours oats into a bowl and crunches
through them with a pained expression on his tired face.

I go into the hall to pick up the post.