The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones (13 page)

As she speaks, she keeps her eyes on the grey waves, crashing far below. I stare across the water: to the lighthouse on Mulvey Island, the Bee rock hardly visible under the high tide; the Pavilion on the pier; the glitter of the fairground. It seems so long ago now, when we first stood here together, and I took my very first Diana photograph, of a patch of empty grass.

It knocks the air from my lungs suddenly; how much Red's done for me. She couldn't give me a perfect summer – not with Mum poorly, and bedrooms, and only two days left – but she's tried so hard. And all this time she's had to watch me do the things she never did; things she'll never do now. Without envy, or bitterness. Just to be kind, to some future, past, new version of herself. I don't know if I could be that generous.

But I want to be. I don't want my Red self to disappear.

And I realize: it doesn't have to. I'm taking her with me, one way or another.

“Come on,” I say, running for the short-cut path. “No time to waste.”

“Where are we going?”

It's the first time she's ever had to ask.

The whole town's beginning to buzz with Fifties Fest anticipation. There's bunting between the lamp posts on the promenade; a field up on Penkerry Point roped off as a car park already, another as a second campsite. A few early arrivals are on the prom, and I get to halfway through my second roll of Diana film snapping a turquoise car with fins and creamy leather seats, crammed with big-shouldered ladies in polka dots.

I don't have time to spare, though.

First stop: the tiny Penkerry pharmacy, to buy hair dye.

Second stop: every other shop in Penkerry, because the pharmacy only does Ash Blonde and Dad's Espresso Coffee Deluxe, Guaranteed to Blend Away Greys! and I need a little more electricity.

At last, I find a bottle of wash-in, wash-out
Sonic Red
in a tiny tucked-away place that smells like patchouli.

“What are you doing?” hisses Red.

I look round, and spot, over her shoulder, the neon sign:

EAR-PIERCING AVAILABLE

My stomach turns over, but I can't ignore it. It's as if the universe guided me here, and is speeding me down my road towards Red.

“Blue, wait, are you sure. . .?” says Red, as I poke through my purse.

The last of my birthday money is enough to cover it. One bottle of hair dye, and two fat gold studs, throbbing painfully in my ear.

“What are you doing with those scissors?”

“Nothing,” I tell Mum, slicing the leg off my favourite jeans.

The other follows, snip-snip-snip. I slip them on. Not straight. One leg's longer than the other. I don't have time or money for the biker boots, but it's a start.

“I'm just going to borrow your T-shirt, Tiger, OK?”

I poke at the clothes mountain on the floor.

“No chance,” Tiger calls back from the bathroom, where she's soaking the redness from her eyes. “I'm never lending you anything ever again, not after you lost my best ever, most beloved favourite scarf.”

I can't argue that. Who knows where it ended up. There's probably a starfish somewhere at the bottom of the sea using it as a house. I start excavating through the layers of socks, Austen novels and headphones anyway.

Tiger swishes through the curtain in a smog of her favourite perfume. White-blonde dreadlocks, vast blue eyes – and a scruffy purple T-shirt, with a smiley yellow face.

She catches me staring, and smirks.

“Duh!
Catrin
gave me this. I'm probably never taking it off again.”

She crosses her arms across her chest, firmly.

No T-shirt. No boots. But it's OK. I can compromise on a few details, so long as I get the big stuff right.

“I need you to cut my hair.”

I hold out the scissors, handle first. Tiger is the family hairdresser: has been for as long as I remember. I hope I can describe the parakeet wing over one eye right. It's not like I can show her a photo.

“I'm going out,” she says crossly, grabbing her bag and stepping over me.

“You can't! I need you to do this first!”

I contemplate the scissors, wondering if I could just chop the ponytail off myself, all in one go. Is that how Red did it?

“Can't you at least help me dye it?”

“Dye it?” Mum pokes her head through the curtain, as Tiger swishes out. “Don't think so, baby. I've already had an earful about the stains in the bathroom. Wait till we get home, then it's only our sink you'll be buggering up. And our towels. And our carpet. Yeah, maybe you can't do it when we get home either.”

She plucks the bottle of wash-in dye from my hand, and eyes me. “
Sonic Red
? Seriously?”

“Mum!”

“I don't want you mucking about with your beautiful hair, sweetie,” she says, combing her fingers through my stupid ponytail. Then she gasps. “Oh my god, what did you do to your ear?”

“Nothing,” I say, jerking my head away. “It's pierced. Don't yell at me.”

“Who's yelling?” Mum frowns, squeezing my arm. “I don't mind you having your ear pierced, baby – though I'd rather you'd told me, before. But you definitely don't want to do your hair now. You need to keep the piercing clean, you don't want to get dye in it.”

I shake her off. “It's not up to you. It's my ear. It's my hair.”

I push past her to the bathroom. I pull out my ponytail, and start rearranging it in the mirror, brushing out a too-long wing to sweep across one eye, pinning up the back. Not Red, not right, but closer.

Dad groans from the sofa. “Please tell me Peanut isn't going to grow up to be a teenager?”

“Sorry, love. Looks like we're two for two so far.”

They laugh together, as if they think they're so so funny; as if all of this panic and rush isn't their fault.

I pull on Merlin's coat, grab the bottle of dye, and slam the caravan door behind me.

“What are you doing?” says Red, face crunched as she looks at my new halfway hairdo.

She's been waiting outside, listening in.

“No time,” I say.

It's not her I need right now. I want to go straight to Merlin's, spend every last second I can with him – but I want it to be perfect when I see him. I've got a picture in my head: exactly how it should be. For that I need Fozzie. She'll understand why I need to dye my hair, today, right now, without me needing to explain anything. I can't wait to tell her about the hand-kissing. She'll lend me some fabulous clothes; better than a T-shirt. She'll show me how to do my face all painted and perfect. We can have a girly teenage talk about boys. I've never had one of those, and now I need one. Urgently. With instructions.

I breathe in the spearminty smell all around me, and break into a run.

The Shed is in chaos; a van parked outside, crammed with boxes of crisps and ice-cream cones. Inside I can see Dan and Mags, sweating over a new table, puzzling out how to fit it together. I peer hopefully past them, but I can't see Merlin.

Fozzie rounds the van carrying a huge bag of paper cups, and nearly walks right through me.

“Oh!” She doesn't give me her usual smile. She's not like herself at all: hair scraped back, face pink from the effort. “Hi. 'Scuse me.”

“Sorry!” I step back, as she dump the box, and collects another from behind the van. “You look really busy.”

“I am,” she says, hefting the box, sliding it on to the other. “I'd have asked you to come down and help, but, well, I haven't seen you, have I?”

“I'm sorry!” I start helping her take bags out of the van, but she snatches them angrily from my hands. “I had to. . . Something came up.”

“Let me guess: you had to go off to hang out with that other special friend of yours? Guess you two worked out your issues. Jason, who runs the Red Dragon now? He says you were down here last night having a whale of a time.”

“I did look for you,” I say feebly. I don't know why she's so cross. She's got other friends too.

Dan bangs out of The Shed, his usual cheery grin fading right off his face the moment he sees me.

“All right, Foz?” he says, rolling up his sleeves.

She gives him a grim nod.

“Hi, Dan,” I say.

He hefts two bags on to his shoulders and goes back inside without a word; only a dismissive shake of his head.

This is awful. This isn't how this is meant to go at all.

“Is that Merlin's coat?” Fozzie crinkles her nose, critically.

A smile sneaks on to my face. I can't help it. I'm longing to see him. Like that wait in a restaurant when you've ordered lasagne, and they bring out other people's plates first, hot and delicious-smelling, and all you can think is
lasagnelasagnelasagne
till you can almost taste it on your tongue.

This is how much I need a girly chat with someone who knows what they're doing: I think boys are like lasagne.

“Yes! Foz, I've got so much to tell you. You won't believe it. Unless – is he here?” I ask, peering into The Shed.

“Yeah, right, like he'd actually turn up when he says he will.” She narrows her eyes. “Is that the only reason you're here? To find Merlin?”

“No,” I say, in a voice that means yes. “No! I wanted to – look, I need you to help me. We're going on a date! And I've got hair dye. Because – see – all this stuff has happened, and. . . Can we go and just, you know, hang out?”

I want her to smile at me, and tell me about some weird film I've never heard of that will teach me about dating. I want to sit in her bedroom, waiting for my hair to turn cherry red. I want her to stop looking at me like I've broken something.

“I'm busy.”

She grabs two huge plastic sacks of popcorn and hauls them towards the doors.

“Wait! That's not the only thing I came to tell you. We're leaving. We're not staying for the rest of the summer. We're leaving this weekend.”

“Oh!” she says, honest disappointment sneaking into her eyes before she can hide it. “Right. I heard they were changing the band line-up, getting someone else in to open the Fest.”

“Yeah. Mum's not well enough to play. We're going to stay to watch, but we'll be off Sunday morning.”

“She OK, your mum?”

I nod, and she nods back, once, sharp.

“Give her my best.”

“I will.”

We stand there.

“Nothing else you want to say?” Fozzie says, tapping her foot, her mouth a flat line of annoyance.

Why's she being like this? She should be hugging me, telling me she'll miss me, demanding we spend every last second together.

“Is this because of Merlin? Are you . . .
jealous?
”

Fozzie groans out loud. “Jealous? You are having a laugh. Can't believe you even think that. But then you're not the girl I thought you were, are you?”

She wheels inside with the popcorn.

A few seconds later, she marches back out and thrusts a parcel into my hands, wrapped in shiny gold paper.