Paper Aeroplanes (3 page)

By the end of the day it’s like the summer holidays never happened, which isn’t a bad thing. I know that fifteen is a perfectly acceptable age to get a job, but being stuck in a sweaty Portakabin on a building site doing admin and making endless cups of tea with a dirty kettle is not my idea of a good career move. It’s so uninspiring to be spoken to like a moron by a load of men who stink of BO and eat fry-ups between meals. If you ask me, women should be kept away from building sites for the sake of evolution and the human race.

As Carla and Gem watch me have a fag at the end of the school lane their endless positivity still surprises me. How come they never have anything bad to talk about? They have perfect families, their mums and dads love each other, they don’t fight with their brothers and sisters and nothing ever seems to go wrong. One time I was at Carla’s house having a sleepover and her younger sister came in, kissed her goodnight and said, ‘I love you.’ I waited for Carla to freak out, but she didn’t. Apparently that is what happens every night. How weird is that?

Then of course they have each other.

Carla and Gem have never been lonely. They met at primary school when we were five and became inseparable. They’re so close that over time even their mannerisms have become the same. Carla is blonde and Gem is brunette, they’re both the same height and shape and they blend together like soup. Their clothes are cool, their bodies are perfect and they’re always happy. Well, unless one of them breaks up with a boy, but that sadness never lasts. They just get over it, together.

‘I’m going to have a party in a few weeks,’ says Gem. ‘Mum and Dad are going to a Lord’s Taverners dinner and said I can have people over. I’m going to invite all the boys from the year above. Will you bring your boyfriend to this one, Renée? Or will you not tell him about it so you snog loads of other boys like you usually do?’

They fall into fits of giggles. I join in and let out the occasional ‘yeah, probably, but he isn’t my boyfriend’, then tell them I have to get home.

Home is around a fifteen-minute walk from school. I used to get lifts with Pop but when Nell decided to hate me the way that she does I told them I’d rather walk. Luckily Pop won’t let Nell walk because he says she’s too young. I’m not really sure how the one year between us makes that much difference in terms of a fifteen-minute walk to school, but I’m glad he won’t let her because it means I get some time on my own. Kind of.

I see Lawrence sitting on the wall at the end of the school path. His big, blonde curly hair will be gone by the end of the week when the teachers have told him to cut it off. The boys’ school, Grange College, isn’t as strict as Tudor Falls, but the boys are definitely not allowed hair like that. He looks a bit like a poodle.

As I walk towards him I wonder what our headmistress, Miss Grut, would do if she saw me sitting on a wall swinging my legs in my school uniform. She’d probably scream at me to get down then give me an order mark or a detention. My next thought is how strange it is that I’m walking towards Lawrence thinking about school punishments. I used to run towards him and think about kissing.

Lawrence and I met at a party last New Year’s Eve. We’d always known of each other, in the way that most people on Guernsey know of each other, but this was the first time we’d ever really spoken. I was trying to light a cigarette in the rain and doing such a bad job of it that the fag broke in half because it was so wet. He came over to me, threw his coat over both of our heads, lit a fag in his mouth and told me to take it. Half an hour later we hadn’t moved and were snogging, his coat on the floor.

When we went back inside people were wishing each other a happy 1994. We’d missed midnight completely, which was annoying because it was the first year I’d been allowed to go to a party instead of watching the telly with Nana and Pop. But I couldn’t really complain. Lawrence was lovely. He made me laugh all night, kissed me without trying to get his hand up my top and then walked me home.

I’ve never particularly fancied Lawrence. His face has small features and he’s shorter than me. But from the day we met he’s paid me more attention than anyone else I know, and for that reason being around him is lovely. He really likes me. He listens to me and asks me questions about home. No one else ever does that. So the fact that I don’t fancy him hasn’t really been a problem. Up until now.

‘I’ve been waiting ages,’ he says as he jumps down off the wall.

‘Sorry. Carla and Gem were in one of their chatty moods. Anyway, how was I supposed to know you’d be waiting for me?’ I say, sounding intentionally disinterested.

‘I wait for you every day. It’s my thing. Fag?’

I take a cigarette out of the packet and go to put it in my mouth, but he grabs it from me and puts it into his to light – another one of his ‘things’.

‘I missed you today,’ he says, giving me a fixed and intense glare. ‘I miss you every day.’

‘You see me every day, you muppet! Don’t be silly.’

‘Did you miss me?’

I take a long, hard drag of my cigarette and stare back at him, my expression more sarcastic than his, which is so loving it makes me feel stupid. He’s about to tell me he loves me again, I know it. I feel my insides tense up.

I drop my cigarette and press my face against his. I kiss him as hard as I can, as much of my tongue in his mouth as possible, as much pressure against his lips as I can manage without hurting him. I kiss him like this until I feel his words go back down his throat and disappear into his belly. When I am sure they have gone, I break away. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

‘Shall we go and get chips?’ I ask, wiping my mouth.

His eyes are hungry, but not for chips. He thinks we’re ready to have sex with each other. I know that’s what he thinks, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. But I know I’ll never want it with him. I don’t want him to even try it. Why did he have to ruin everything?

‘Yeah, sure. Chips, that sounds good.’

We head towards the Cod’s Wallop in town. I can tell from the way he’s walking that he has an erection, but I pretend not to notice.

‘I’m starving. I’m having batter bits too.’

‘You eat like a man,’ he says.

I decide to take that as a compliment.

The problem with having double maths first thing on a Friday is that I can’t be bothered to do it. I know our GCSEs are only two terms away, but I find maths so boring and I refuse to believe that Pythagoras and his random theorum are going to get me anywhere in life. This is why four weeks into the winter term, at nine thirty on a grim Friday morning, I am lying on the floor in the toilets with Margaret Cooper eating my packed lunch and writing swear words on the bottom of all the sinks with a black marker pen.

‘Have you done any craps yet?’ asks Margaret.

After a short laughing fit I say, ‘Crap isn’t a swear word!’

‘I think it is. Crap, boobs, balls . . . they’re all swear words.’

This is why Margaret and I will never be best friends. Anyone who thinks crap is a swear word is way too innocent for me.

‘Craaaap!’ screeches Margaret, scaring the
crap
out of me. ‘I think I just heard the double doors.’

I’m always amazed by her hearing. Margaret can hear an approaching teacher at a hundred feet, which is why I rely on her for skiving lessons. Without her I would be in detentions every Wednesday. We grab the remains of our lunches and dive into the nearest cubicle. Like clockwork she sits so her feet are facing the front to look like she’s on the loo, and I stand on the seat holding onto her shoulders for support. We take deep breaths and freeze.

The toilet door bursts open, but instead of the usual sound of the slow footsteps of a teacher on the prowl, it is someone running and quite obviously crying. They bolt into the cubicle next to us and wail. The sobbing is loud. Haunting. Full of pain.

Margaret looks up at me and we both mouth swear words at each other. She goes with a succession of craps, and I go with shit because the ‘shhhh’ part works well with a finger over my mouth to remind her to keep quiet.

I feel guilty listening to this person. This is real crying, and they don’t know we’re there. They have come here to escape something, to be alone, and here I am standing on a loo seat with Margaret Cooper between my thighs, hijacking their privacy. It feels wrong.

I hope that it’s Sally. That something has happened to her that’s made her realise how awful she is. That this is the beginning of her huge apology that will put an end to this horrible feud. Because as much as I dislike her, I would prefer not to have an enemy.

My head reaches the top of the partition between the cubicles, my foot digging deep into the palm of Margaret’s hand as she shakes violently trying to get me high enough. I pull myself up and tip my nose over the edge to see which desperately unhappy girl is sobbing so violently in a cubicle all by herself.

It’s Nell.

It’s difficult trying to concentrate in double maths when you’ve been up most of the night looking after a child. I lay there for ages thinking Mum would go in and get Abi, but she didn’t, so as usual it was down to me. Abi woke up at eleven, then again at two, and then for good at five, each time asking me why Daddy isn’t at home any more. I feel so exhausted that I can’t focus on the blackboard. I’m fifteen years old and bringing up a child. Mum doesn’t seem to understand, or care, what it’s doing to me.

I never have fun, not like everyone else seems to. It’s either Mum getting at me at home or Sally putting me down at school. Other people seem to live so differently. It makes me feel totally unlikeable. Why would anyone want to try to have fun with me? I follow Sally around like a lost sheep because I don’t have the courage to say what I want. It’s force of habit now, I guess. I don’t bother saying how I feel because one of them will make me feel so stupid for it. I’ve turned into a boring tagalong who watches everyone else have fun while I feel more unsure of myself every day. The only person I can be myself around is Dad, but being with him isn’t the same any more. He’s more pathetic than me at the moment.

At break time Carla and Gem invite Sally and I to a party. Sally says yes for both of us, but I really don’t want to go. I’ve nothing to wear and I can’t afford booze.

‘Do you think your mum would buy me some ciders when she gets yours?’ I ask, thinking that getting drunk might be the answer to all of my problems.

‘Flo, you’re a nightmare when you’re drunk,’ says Sally. ‘Don’t you remember puking into Mum’s welly boot in the back of her car last time you had some of my ciders? It was disgusting. Face it, you’re not a drinker. You’re good at other things, like . . .’ she tails off and pretends to squeeze a splinter out of her finger, ‘ . . . making sandwiches.’

My life is a disaster.

I feel so mad I almost run out of school three times today. How have we got to the point as a family where Nell is so full of pain that she sobs by herself at school and I don’t have the guts to knock on the toilet door and ask her if she is OK? What kind of person does that make me?

I’m so angry that we never talk about Mum, and that Dad leaving is just a fact rather than a problem. Mum died a long, painful death that we all watched, and Dad left because he couldn’t handle it. We’re all supposed to hate him for that, but from where I’m standing none of us is dealing with it that much better. My family are like four stretched elastic bands about to be pinged and land so far apart that we never find each other again. Something has to give. Someone in our house has to say something.

I wish Aunty Jo was here. Aunty Jo is Mum’s sister. She is so cool. When Mum died Nell and I thought we might end up living with her, but she met my Uncle Andrew and moved to London with him. If she was here she could make this better, but as it stands, it’s down to me. Until now I’ve just stayed quiet, never hinting at how I feel for fear of upsetting somebody else, but after seeing Nell cry like that in a toilet cubicle, I know it’s time to try. We have to talk about Mum. We just have to.

When the bell goes I’m out the door so fast I don’t even have my coat on. I feel so wound up. I ignore Carla and Gem when they call after me because I know this will be the one time I won’t be able to stop myself screaming in their faces. I need to get home before Pop and Nell, so that I can tell Nana we have to make everyone talk about Mum. If I get home after them then they will all be in separate rooms and I’ll have to go around asking them to come and meet me in the kitchen, and that will never work. I can’t do it over dinner because Pop eats like a wild animal and trying to make him focus on a conversation while that’s going on is impossible. Timing is everything, so I could really do without Lawrence waiting for me at the end of the school lane and presuming that I have nothing better to do than smoke his bum-sucked cigarettes.

‘Hey, don’t you want a fag?’

I don’t stop. I can’t deal with him right now, I can’t take the pressure he’s been putting me under lately. Does he not understand anything about who I am?

‘Renée, stop. I’ll buy you chips?’

‘I don’t have time. I don’t want a fag. I don’t want chips.’

I want to scream ‘FUCK OFF’ in his face but somehow I manage to keep that in. I know I’m being crazy and that he doesn’t know I’m on a mission to save my family from its group depression, but he is like a wall I have to run through, so I just keep running.

‘But you always want a fag,’ Lawrence shouts, sounding confused.

I feel like my heart is coming up into my face. It’s a rage I’ve never experienced before. I could explode with liquid heat, or maybe just tears. The pressure building inside of me is loud and feels like sick, but not from my stomach, just like every part of me could throw something out.

I turn to him. His face is giving me a good idea of how mine might look. He looks shocked by whatever it is he sees in me.

‘Please never presume what I want, or what I am thinking. No one knows what I want, or what I am thinking.’ My voice is calm. I am being very weird.