Rebecca Rocks (2 page)

‘Now, Rebecca,’ she said. ‘I know it’s a bit cheeky, but I was
wondering if you know what sort of character your mammy has named after me in her new book? Gerard and I are so excited. He thinks it’ll probably be a teacher, like me, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a nurse. Or the heroine’s mother.’

Good lord. She has been thinking about this far too much. As has Gerard, apparently. Gerard is her husband who is just as much of a crazed fan of my mother as his wife. Although in fairness you’d never guess if you met him, he seems quite normal.

I managed to get out of it by saying, ‘Oh, Mum never tells us details about her books until they’re finished,’ which was another total lie. But I know I’m only putting off the terrible day when she eventually picks up my mum’s new book and realises there’s no Mrs Harrington in it. Or whatever her first name is. She did tell me at one stage, ‘so you can tell your mammy’, but I’ve forgotten. Was it Eileen? I have a feeling it was Eileen.

Anyway, I told Cass and Alice at lunch, but they weren’t as sympathetic as I’d hoped.

‘Why on earth did you say it in the first place?’ said Cass. ‘It’s not as if she even suggested your mum put her in a book! It was all your idea!’

‘I don’t know why!’ I said miserably. ‘I just felt guilty because she was so disappointed when my mum didn’t turn up that night. Although I don’t know why I felt bad for her, considering how much she’s tormented me all year going on about how she loves my “mammy’s lovely books”.’ (I did what I think was quite a good impression of Mrs Harrington for that last bit.)

‘Maybe you could persuade your mum to actually put Mrs
Harrington
into the book?’ suggested Alice.

‘But then I’d have to tell Mum that I lied to Mrs Harrington,’ I said. ‘She won’t be very happy if she thinks I’ve been going around telling people they can be in the next Rosie Carberry book.’

‘Don’t worry, you’ll figure something out,’ said Cass
cheerfully
, which was a bit callous, I thought. She could have shown a bit more concern for my plight. ‘Now, let’s talk about a bigger issue – the future of Hey Dollface. We need to sort out our summer plans. Like regular practices.’

‘I wish we could have regular practices,’ said Alice sadly. ‘If only I lived nearer town.’

We practise out in Alice’s place, because there are all these barns and old stables and things next to the house. The thing
is, the only reason they have all that space is because they live in the middle of the countryside near Kinsealy, and it’s hard for me and Cass to get out there. There’s a bus that comes about once every two weeks (well, that’s what it feels like if you miss it), and even if you get it, the bus stop is about twenty minutes’ walk from Alice’s house. So basically we have to rely on getting lifts, which doesn’t suit any of our parents, and will suit them even less once the holidays start and we want to go out there during the week when they’re all at work.

Of course, my mum works at home, so technically she could easily take a break and give me and Cass a lift, but she gets very annoyed if you suggest that working from home is in any way different from working in an office. Over the Easter holidays I tried to get her to take us out to Kinsealy, and she acted like I’d interrupted her while she was in the middle of doing some brain surgery.

‘I’m at work, Rebecca!’ she said when I knocked on the door of her study. ‘Would you go in to your dad if he was at work giving a lecture and ask him for a lift?’

I was just about to say, ‘Well, Dad wouldn’t be wearing pyjama bottoms at work and you are.’ But I didn’t because I knew it would increase her wrath.

Anyway, we are trying to think of ways to get around the lift/bus issue but it’s not looking good.

‘Maybe we could get a rehearsal space somewhere in town?’ said Cass. ‘Liz says that her big sister’s band rent a place on Parnell Square. It’s a bit ramshackle, and the loo doesn’t work very well, but it’s okay.’ Liz is in a band called Bad Monkey who we met at the Battle of the Bands, and she and Cass have become good friends.

‘But that costs money,’ I said. ‘And isn’t Liz’s sister in
college
? I mean, I don’t think our parents would give us the cash to just go to some manky old studio somewhere.’

‘You’re probably right,’ admitted Cass. ‘Oh well. We’ll just have to get really good at timing the buses.’

She’s right, we can manage it. It’s not the end of the world if we have to keep on practising at Alice’s place. It’s just that it would be good to be able to practise more often. Imagine if we could practise every day! We’d be, like, professional quality musicians by the end of the summer.

I am studying again! Well, obviously I’m not, I’m writing this, but I’m meant to be studying. The problem is that I have now read so much about the Reformation my eyes are
starting
to glaze over, so I need to take a break from my academic labours. But I will still be technically working, because I’m going to come up with a list of what we need to do to make Hey Dollface the best band in Dublin.

We have been practising as much as possible recently, despite the difficulties of getting out to Alice’s place, because we had to make up for lost time. It’s now three months since Alice fell off a chair at Vanessa’s ridiculous birthday party and fractured her wrist. Which of course meant she couldn’t play the guitar and the band had to go on hiatus for ages and ages.

Of course, after Alice fractured her wrist, we had the whole school musical thing to occupy us, but even taking part in the greatest production of
Mary Poppins
ever didn’t make up for the fact that we were missing out on weeks and weeks
of practising. A few months ago I thought we’d be, like, total band experts by summer. But Cass still sometimes gets the rhythms wrong in her keyboard basslines, and I still have moments when I sort of forget how to play the drums at all.

Weirdly, Alice, the one who was actually physically unable to play her instrument for weeks and weeks, makes fewer
mistakes
than either of us. Maybe she was just, like, saving her musical strength during all those weeks in a cast. Anyway, she is very devoted to the Hey Dollface cause and has made lots of time to practise since the cast came off, which is particularly good because she is the only one of us with a boyfriend and she doesn’t get to see him during the week. There are some people who would ditch their old friends at the weekends when a new love came along, but not Alice. She is a good friend AND a good bandmate. Of course, her boyfriend, Richard, aka Bike Boy, understands because he is in a band too. They respect each other’s work.

Sometimes I sort of wish I had a boyfriend too, but, actually, it is quite peaceful not having a distracting boy to think about. For ages I was thinking of lovely Paperboy, then he moved to Canada, and I was thinking about him in a sad way, and then I was thinking about John Kowalski from the musical,
and then I realised that he was a selfish smelly fool and not worth thinking about at all. And since then there have been no boys at all. I was worried it might be a bit boring without somebody to think about and be excited about seeing. But actually it is a relief. I can think about lots of other things, like books, and the story I’ve started writing, and how we’re going to play loads of gigs this summer and become the greatest band ever. Well, you never know. As Alice said, ‘We’ve got to have ambition.’

Which brings me on to number two on our list.

To be honest, I thought we’d have played more gigs by now, because when we finished the musical we were sure we were going to put on a show with Bad Monkey. But by the time Alice’s wrist was better it was so near the summer tests that none of us had time to organise a gig (or, rather, our evil
parents
won’t let us) so it somehow hasn’t happened yet. The
problem
is that, as we are all under eighteen, we have to arrange an afternoon gig, and that is easier said than done. I think it’s very unfair that we can’t play gigs in the evening. Mum explained that venues don’t want to host under-eighteens nights because
that means they have to close the bar and they generally make most of their profits selling booze, but I think they should be noble and sacrifice a few euro for the sake of the future of music.

But we’re going to manage to play a gig somehow.
Whenever
I remember the (very short) bit of the Battle of the Bands when it all seemed to come together and the crowd were all cheering and dancing, I feel all tingly and sparkling inside. It made all the annoying practising bits when I couldn’t play the drums properly worthwhile.

And, well, that’s it. I suppose it’s not really much of a list if there are only two things on it. But anyway, it’s a mission statement: practise lots, and play gigs. And maybe get, like, a manager who could sort all that out for us. Although I don’t think that’s very likely.

Right, back to my studies again. I know that in a few weeks I’ll be able to relax in the evenings and read anything I like, but that seems a very long way away right now.

God, I can’t wait until school is over and I don’t have to see
anyone from that ridiculous place (apart from my actual friends) for three months. Today Miss Kelly started grilling us on where we were going on holidays.

‘I hope none of you are going to be getting in an aeroplane, girls,’ she said sternly. ‘The more people fly, the quicker all the oil runs out.’

‘Where are you going on holiday, Miss Kelly?’ said Cass, who has always been very good at distracting teachers. It is one of her main talents. She has often wondered if she could use this skill in some sort of career.

‘I’m cycling to the south of France with a group of friends,’ said Miss Kelly, proudly. ‘One hundred per cent pedal powered!’

We all stared at her.

‘But, um, what about the sea bit?’ said Cass.

‘Ah, we have to resort to a ferry from Rosslare to
Cherbourg
,’ admitted Miss Kelly. ‘But that’s much less
environmentally
damaging than getting a plane. And if I didn’t get ferries, I’d never be able to leave the country. I see it as my duty as a geographer to see the world.’

Which is fair enough, I suppose. But still, I think it’s a bit much of Miss Kelly to be giving out to us about our holiday
destinations as well as giving us horrible geography exams.

I suppose it wasn’t all bad today, though. My parents deigned to let me go over to Cass’s house after school. I’m still jealous of her bedroom; it’s so much cooler than mine. I am going to have to make my parents let me do mine up this summer, it’s ridiculous having such a babyish room when I’m practically fifteen. I can even do it myself. How hard can it be to paint over some wallpaper? All I need is some paint and a ladder. And a brush, obviously.

Anyway, Cass and I lay on her bed and ate some Pringles and had deep conversations about LIFE and love.

‘You haven’t heard anything from you-know-who, have you?’ said Cass.

‘Which you-know-who?’ I said. Because I genuinely didn’t know.

‘John,’ said Cass.

‘Oh, him,’ I said crossly. Not that I was cross at Cass. Just at the thought of John. ‘No, I’d have told you if I had. I thought I saw him on Griffith Avenue the other day but it was
someone
else.’

‘Someone less of a stinker, probably,’ said Cass. ‘And what about …’

I knew she meant Paperboy. It doesn’t hurt so much
thinking
about him anymore, not like after he went to Canada and I was a hollow shell of a girl. I know he isn’t coming back, and I know we’re not getting back together, and I don’t really mind.

But there is a part of me that feels all sad whenever I think about him. Every so often I hear a song that reminds me of when we were going out or even of the time before that when I really fancied him and got all excited whenever he called to our house to collect the money for the papers. And it’s like something washes right over me and I’m back there for a second. But then I have to go back to the boring old present day. I didn’t want to go on about this too much to Cass. I do remember the days when I kept moping about Paperboy’s disappearance, and it started to drive my friends mad because I didn’t really pay attention to anything either of them said. So I told her that I’d heard from Paperboy last week and he was fine.