Secrets (4 page)

But Nan doesn't look a bit old. She looks very young. She and my mum could be sisters. In fact when Nan's all dressed up and Mum's all white and worried and needing to wash her hair then it looks like
Nan
is my mum's daughter. And then Nan could be my mum and
I'd
be Patsy so I'd be pretty and sweet and talented. I wouldn't wear glasses and have a pinched face and limp hair. I wouldn't think weird things and get on everyone's nerves.

Patsy tied up the pink ruffles on Nan's curtains and we stared out at the fireworks shooting up into the sky.

‘Wow!' said Patsy. ‘Wow! Wow! Wow!'

She started to get on my nerves. She sounded like a little dog. The fireworks were so beautiful they made my chest ache. I shook every time another rocket exploded. I stared until my eyes went blurry.

‘Are you crying, Treasure?' Patsy asked, peering at me in the dim light.

‘Of course not.'

‘You are. Does your forehead hurt?'

‘It's OK.'

‘It must be so weird being all stitched up like that. How come they used that ugly black thread?' She touched one of the stitches very gently, shuddering a little.

‘They don't fuss about the colour. They just want to stop all the blood leaking out.'

‘Yuck. He's so horrible, Uncle Terry. How could he do that to you?'

‘He's done worse. He's not
Uncle
Terry, though. He's nothing.'

‘I'm
Auntie
Patsy.'

‘Yeah, right, we've done all that bit.'

Another rocket exploded, another and another, the whole sky raining pink and green and gold, and Patsy did her dainty little doggy, ‘Wow! Wow! Wow!'

‘It's better than Bonfire Night, isn't it?' she said, leaning against me. ‘I wonder who's letting them off? I suppose it's all those posh nobs up in Parkfield.' She said the name slowly and softly, but with great emphasis, as if it was the most special place in all the world. Forget London, New York, San Francisco, Sydney – Parkfield's the place.

I humoured her. ‘What's Parkfield?'

‘It's this estate. Not council, it's private, huge, and you should see the
houses
. They're enormous with
masses
of bedrooms and bathrooms. Mum says some have got swimming pools in the basements; imagine! That's where I'm going to live when I'm grown up, Treasure.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Well, I
could
, you know, if I make it in show biz. All these actors and singers and dancers live up Parkfield. That actress from
EastEnders, she
lives there now. There was a whole feature about her in
OK
magazine, Mum showed me.
I'm
going to get in
OK
one day. Maybe for my wedding, eh, and I'll wear white, of course, and me and my husband will sit on thrones and tell you what, Treasure, you could be my bridesmaid.'

I leant my forehead against the cold glass, letting her prattle on while the fireworks flashed.

‘What about you, Treasure? What sort of wedding are you going to have? Shall I be
your
bridesmaid?'

‘I'm not ever, ever, ever going to get married,' I said.

‘Why not?' Patsy misunderstood. ‘You'll maybe grow up to be prettier. And you could wear contact lenses.'

‘I don't
want
to get married. I don't want a stupid scary mean old husband, thanks.'

Patsy thought about it. ‘You'll need a career then,' she said. ‘What do you want to be, eh?'

‘I don't know.'

‘
I've
known I want to be a dancer – or an actress – or a singer – since I was
three
,' Patsy said proudly. She waited. ‘Hey, I didn't mean it to sound like I
was
showing off. I know, Treasure, you can be some big posh business lady who earns a fortune. Mum says you're dead brainy,
much
brainier than me. OK? Then
you
could live in Parkfield too. We could have adjoining houses, you and me.'

Yeah, sure. Dream on, Patsy. You might get to live in this posh Parkfield. I haven't got a chance.

Four

India

DEAR KITTY

I don't think I like this year one bit. It's no better than the last year. It's WORSE.

I've broken my resolutions already. In fact I broke the first resolution within ten minutes. I was supposed to go on a diet:
Sensible Eating for Sparky Kids
. It's a book. One of my mum's friends wrote it. She's got this son, Ben, and he's fat too. He gets called Big Ben at school.

Mum thought Ben and I might bond because of this and so she invited them to our New Year's party.

‘I want you to be a good little hostess and keep a special eye on Ben,' said Mum.

‘Oh, Mum, that's so mean. I don't want to get
stuck
with any boy. Especially Ben,' I wailed.

I make out I can't stand boys. If I'm honest I suppose this is because they mostly can't stand
me
. Anne Frank and I are poles apart on this one. She was ever so popular and had heaps of boyfriends. I haven't ever had any.

Ben and I have never really hit it off. He used to push me off my toddler trike when we were little and he once tore the head off my Barbie doll, deliberately. I hadn't seen him for a year or two and wondered if he might have improved. Mum said he was fatter than ever and utterly refusing to go on his mum's diet. I decided we might have something in common after all.

Ben certainly was wonderfully enormous, stuffed into a big denim shirt and combat trousers. They were supposed to look baggy but they were very close fitting on Ben. I did my best to be a Good Hostess. I offered him a drink and several snacks and tried to make small talk. The talk got smaller and smaller, threatening to dwindle into silence. I asked him what subjects he liked most at school. And then wanted to know his favourite television programmes. And what type of mobile phone he had.

‘Look, is this some dumb questionnaire?' he said.

‘No, I was just trying to make conversation,' I said, mortified.

‘You don't have to hang around me, India.'

‘I don't mind,' I mumbled.

‘Yes, but I do,' he said – and he went off and started chatting to Phoebe.

Phoebe is my mum's favourite model. She is a year younger than me but she acts like she's ages older. She has a mass of wonderful soft black curls, big, big, big eyes with long lashes, and she's
tiny
. She is so beautiful it makes me ache to look at her. Even Mum softens when she speaks to Phoebe. Her voice goes all gooey and sickeningly sweet.

Thank goodness Dad doesn't go a bundle on Phoebe.

‘She looks like Bambi with a wig on,' he whispered to me the first time we met her. I got the giggles so badly I snorted and stuff came out my nose.

I looked for Dad at the party but he didn't seem to want me hanging round him either. He had a bottle of whisky in one hand and Wanda's au pair friend, Suzi, in the other. Wanda herself had e-mailed her family in Australia and then retreated to her room, crying. I suppose she was homesick. I wasn't allowed to go to
my
room. I had to stand there with a stupid smile on my face, passing round the party snacks.

I told people again and again and again that my name is India and yes I
am
Moya's daughter and I
am
getting a big girl now. It got so bad I wanted to scream and throw the canapés at them. I snacked a lot myself. Caviar looks like baby blackberries so I expected it to taste sweet. I took a big bite and wrinkled my face in disgust. Mum said it's an acquired taste. I don't think I'll ever acquire a taste for rotting fish. Mum got a black bead of caviar stuck between her front teeth. I didn't tell her.

At twelve o'clock everyone went mad and started kissing. Ben kissed Phoebe. He didn't kiss me. Dad kissed me and some of Mum's friends kissed me and one silly man picked me up and whirled me round and round and then got very red in the face and had to sit down. Mum frowned at me as if it was
my
fault. Mum did her fair share of kissing too. The black bit of caviar had gone. Some sad person had it stuck to their tongue, yuck yuck.

I looked closely at all the smiling men, trying to spot which one.

‘Don't
peer
like that, India,' Mum hissed. Then there was a loud swoop and bang and Mum clapped her hands like a little girl.

‘Firework time!' she cried. ‘Goodie goodie!'

She ushered everyone into the garden to watch. She'd hired a firework man to do a special display. We had to stand behind the little picket fence for safety, so we were uncomfortably huddled together. I saw Dad making the most of this with Suzi. I wished she hadn't come to the party. I wanted Dad to myself. Mum was bobbing about in the distance. I edged further and further away from her. I knew it would annoy her if she saw me standing all by myself.

I peered up at all the rockets and each time one burst into stars I made a wish.

I wish I had a real best friend!

I wished it ten times over and then I crept back inside the house, into the kitchen. The left-over party canapés were congealing on their silver trays.

‘Blow
Sensible Eating
. I'm
not
a
Sparky Kid
,' I muttered. I ate every single honey-glazed sausage and asparagus tip and quail's egg and goat's cheese tartlet and Thai chicken stick and
even
the caviar canapés, and
then
I went to the fridge and got a big carton of Loseley vanilla-and-ginger ice-cream and ate the lot. Then I went up to bed.

I wasn't sick. I
felt
sick – and I got up in the night to go to the bathroom just in case. The party seemed to have finished because it was quiet downstairs. It was very noisy in Mum and Dad's bedroom. They seemed to be having a serious quarrel about Suzi.

I felt so lonely I wondered about going into Wanda's room. If she was still crying we could maybe comfort each other. But when I peeped round her door I saw she was fast asleep, her hair inky-black against her pillow, her long feet sticking straight out the end of her duvet. I decided it would be mean to wake her so I trailed back to my own bed and put the light on and started reading Anne Frank's diary all over again to take my mind off my queasy stomach.

The first part made me feel sadder than ever because Anne had so many friends when she was at school, before she had to go into hiding.

Maybe we're not soulmates after all.

I absolutely
have
to get a proper best friend at school this year. I shall try harder with Maria. Maybe she'll let me be her second-best friend. She might even get fed up with Alice and want to go around with
me
.

* * *

I can't believe I wrote that. I HATE Maria now.

I tried very, very hard the first day back at school. I sit over the other side of the classroom from Maria and Alice but I hovered by their desks before lessons and after lessons. I went along to the girls' cloakrooms when they did and stood in the lunch queue with them, listening all the time. Whenever Maria said anything – for example:

I'd say:

I thought my replies were a lot more interesting than Alice's, which were:

But somehow Maria didn't seem to think so. She started off the day nodding and smiling but by the time we were packing our bags ready to go home she was shaking her head and frowning all over her face. She didn't
say
anything and when I said goodbye she said goodbye back. Alice said goodbye too – but then she added ‘and good riddance!' the moment I'd turned my back. Maria went, ‘Alice!' like that – but she burst out laughing. They both did.

I walked across the playground with my head held high, pretending not to have heard them. I shan't go near them tomorrow. I've never been that keen on Alice but I thought Maria might be different.