Expecting to Fly (7 page)

‘Hi, is Leela there?’

‘I think she was meeting Zahrah somewhere,’ her mother told me.

Next I tried Brook. By now, it was urgent that I talk to someone about Joe. My future exam results depended on it. I got the answering machine and, when I tried her mobile, it went straight to
voicemail.
Where are they all?
I wondered.

‘Grrrr,’ I said to Posh, who was still sleeping on the end of my bed and had now been joined by Becks. They looked so funny, both of them lying on their backs with their legs
stretched out as far as they would go. I had to go and tickle their tummies. I couldn’t resist.

Mum popped her head round the door. ‘Morning, darling. You had breakfast?’

I nodded. She came in and sat next to me and joined in the tummy tickling and the two cats wriggled with pleasure. Mum looked over at my books.‘You’re up early for a
Sunday.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve got so much to do.’

Mum put her hand on my arm. ‘Is it too much, India Jane? I’ve been worried about you lately. I know it was a big move for you last year at this point in your schooling and on top of
that we’ll be moving house again soon. In fact, I think your dad and I have found a house that will do nicely. Needs a bit of work but it has the space we need. We’ll take you round to
see it soon.’

Tears came into my eyes and I quickly brushed them away.

‘Hey, India, what is it?’ asked Mum.

‘Nothing. Really. I’m fine.’ I felt as surprised by the tears as Mum was.‘Just, I don’t know. Maybe it has all been a bit much. Like, I feel like I am just getting
ahead with one subject and then another pile of work comes in for another one and I feel like I’m not giving all my subjects the proper attention. It’s like that stage act, you know,
when a man balances five plates on the end of five poles – only, with me, it’s like I just get all the plates up and the one at the end starts to fall down, I run to that one and one at
the other end falls. I can’t keep them all in the air at the same time.’

‘Ten subjects is a lot,’ said Mum.

‘It’s what everyone else is doing.’

‘Yes, but they have all been there since the beginning. The syllabus is still new to you.’

I indicated the books. ‘Which is why I am working on a Sunday again, or rather not working. I’ve been faffing about like Queen of Faff.’

Mum looked at me with a concerned expression. ‘We’re all good at faffing when we have work to do. Don’t beat yourself up. Life has to be a balance, you know. At least you have
Joe to go out with and have a good time.’

It was all very well for her. She didn’t have a posse of teachers snapping at her heels about her work and Mrs Goldman telling her to ‘buck her ideas up’. And I wasn’t
sure that I did have Joe any more either. Mum didn’t understand. No one did. I sighed wearily.

‘Has something happened?You haven’t broken up, have you?’

‘Not exactly, but we might. We kind of had a row,’ I said and I filled her in on what had happened the day before.

Mum listened patiently, then smiled.‘I think it’s sweet that he got so jealous, don’t you? Better that than he didn’t care.’

‘He was so sulky though, Mum. You should have seen him, like a girl pouting! And it wasn’t as if anything had happened with Tyler.’

‘OK. Now put yourself in his shoes. How would you have felt if you had seen him holding hands with someone? Some very pretty girl and you’d walked in on them?’

I hadn’t thought of that. I imagined Joe with another girl. I didn’t like it one bit. I laughed.‘Insanely jealous, I guess. I would have imagined all sorts had been going on. I
would have wanted to kill him and her.’

Mum laughed. ‘So there you go. He reacted because he likes you and is possessive and that’s sweet really. And it’s not as if he’s like that all the time. He must have
felt threatened.’

I felt my anger towards Joe disappear in a flash. ‘I could have been more understanding, I suppose,’ I said.

‘It takes time sometimes,’ said Mum. ‘Relationships aren’t always sweetness and light. Some days are going to be like that. And trying to understand where your boyfriend
is coming from is part of growing up. If we all walked away at the first misunderstanding, there’d be no hope.’

I couldn’t wait to see Joe again. I wouldn’t be mad with him any more. I’d show him what he meant to me. I felt better after having talked to Mum and managed to get focused and
down to some work.

Around three in the afternoon, Brook called. ‘Hey, India Jane,’ she said. ‘I got your message.’

‘Where’ve you been?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you and Leela and Zahrah.’

‘We’re in Greenwich. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, but we’ve been having the most amazing time and, we all forgot to check our messages. It’s like being
on holiday here. We’ve been around the markets and —’

As she enthused away, I couldn’t help but feel jealous. They had been out without me. ‘Why didn’t you ask me to come?’

‘Oh,’ said Brook. ‘Um. We assumed that you’d be doing something with Joe.’

‘No. I’ve been at home all day, studying, it’s been really boring.’ I didn’t say that I would have had to stay at home to catch up on work, even if they had asked
me to go. ‘But Zahrah has a boyfriend too. Why didn’t you assume that she’d be with him?’

‘Because she makes sure she never misses out on seeing us,’ said Brook. ‘It’s different with you and Joe. You spend all your spare time with him now.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes.’

I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t had a lot of spare time because of trying to catch up with work so I hadn’t realised that I had been neglecting my mates, but when I cast my mind
back over the last few weeks, I realised that Brook was right. Outside school, I hadn’t seen them once.

‘God, Brook, you’re right. I am sorry. Tell Leela and Zahrah too.’

‘Couple bubble, just like Leela said.‘You’ve gone into a couple bubble.’

‘Noooo. I have gone into a studying bubble. Oh God. And you’ve been talking about me! Will you still be my friends?’

Brook laughed. ‘Hold on, I will ask the others.’ The phone went quiet for a few moments then she came back on.‘Course, dingbat brain. Friends for ever.’

‘Phew,’ I said.‘Because no boy is worth losing friends over.’

‘Exactly,’ said Brook.

After she’d hung up, I sat and looked out of the window for a while. Being in a relationship really wasn’t easy. First of all, learning that a boy comes with friends I might not get
on with, like Sam. Second, learning to put myself in Joe’s shoes. Third, learning not to neglect my mates and keep the balance. Work, love. None of it was a breeze.

‘India, you have a visitor,’ I heard Mum call up the stairs.

‘Who is it?’ I called back.

‘It’s me,’ said Joe’s voice. ‘I’m coming up.’

‘No, I’ll come down,’ I called.

Ohmigod
, I thought.
I look a state
. I scrabbled to try and brush my hair and put lip-gloss on at the same time, but too late. Joe was at the door. He burst in and fell to his
knees. ‘Sorry, sorry, I have been such a prat.’

I laughed.‘OK, you can get up now.’

‘No, no, must grovel at your feet,’ he said and he grabbed my ankles and somehow wrestled me to the ground where he put his arms around me and kissed me. I hoped that Mum or Dad
didn’t walk in and catch us, because I didn’t think they’d be too happy to find us locked on to each other on the floor. As we kissed, a song flashed through my head; I
couldn’t remember the exact words but they were something, like, ‘
The best part of breaking up is when you’re making up
.’
So true
, I thought because Joe was
being really passionate and so was I – our best kissing session so far. However, I mentally added another point to my list of things that were hard about being in a long-term relationship:
boyfriend seeing me at my worst when I have a spot on my nose, no concealer, am in my trackie bottoms and my hair needs washing. Luckily, Joe hadn’t seemed to notice.

‘Here we are,’ said Dad, as he drew up outside a row of terraced houses in Queen’s Park. ‘Number seventy-two. Our new home.’

I got out of the car, glanced up at the house and my heart sank. It was horrible. There was a black wrought-iron gate falling off its hinges, a small front garden full of dead weeds and rubbish,
a mouldy-looking old chair in the corner with its stuffing falling out and the doors and windows looked like they needed a good clean and lick of paint.

‘Are you serious?’ asked Dylan, as he and Mum joined Dad and me at the gate. ‘This place is a dump.’

I burst out laughing.‘Don’t hold back, Dylan.’

‘I won’t.’ He looked well fed up.

Dad pulled keys out, went and opened the front door then ran back to the gate, gathered Mum up into his arms and carried her over the threshold like she was a new bride. Dylan rolled his eyes as
a couple of Indian ladies in saris walked past, stared at them and giggled to each other.

Inside, Dad gave us what he called the ‘grand tour’. It wasn’t grand at all. The hallway was narrow and smelled musty; in fact, all the rooms had a damp feeling. Upstairs were
four bedrooms, three on the first floor, one of which was the size of a broom cupboard with a tiny window high on the wall, too high to see out of, but the other two were spacious. The fourth room
on the top floor was a good size too, with a sloping ceiling on one side. The kitchen and bathroom had modern units but, like the rest of the house, they looked like they needed a good clean.

Dylan’s mood didn’t improve when he saw that, like the front garden, the back was overgrown with weeds.

He came back into the hall, sat heavily on the bottom stair and he looked totally miserable. ‘I think I’d like to stay with Aunt Sarah,’ he said.

‘Not an option,’ said Dad, and he stepped up behind Dylan and sat on the stair just above him.‘We’re a family and we stay together. Come on, everyone, sit. Family
conference.’

Mum sat next to Dylan and put her arm around him and I went up to sit on the stair behind Dad.

‘I know it’s not what we’ve been used to,’ said Dad. ‘We’ve been very privileged to have lived in some of the most glorious locations in the world and then of
course Sarah’s house is wonderful, but things have changed and it’s either adapt or . . . well, that’s it really, no options. We have to adapt. Make the most of it. Sink or swim.
We swim.’

‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, yeah right, Dad,’ said Dylan in his most gloomy voice.

‘This isn’t the first place we’ve looked at you know,’ said Mum.‘While you two have been at school, we’ve been to see over forty houses —’

‘Then a colleague of mine in the orchestra told me about this place. I know it doesn’t look much now. His last tenants, students I think, left it in a right state, which is why he
was so eager for it to go to people like us who will look after it. The big plus is that the rent is very low, and that will allow us to save so that in time we can buy our own place.’

‘And also,’ Mum joined in,‘he said we can do what we like – paint, decorate, put up pictures. Now that is something that a lot of landlords don’t allow but we have
a free rein here.’

Dad stood up. ‘Yes. I like a challenge and, scruffy house, YOU ARE A CHALLENGE. We will make you beautiful. Stylish. People will be
amazed
. You have been neglected but no longer.
The Ruspolis are here. It is your time in the limelight.’

‘Er, Dad, you’re talking to a house,’ I said.

‘And why not? It’s a nice house. It has potential. It needs some TLC that’s all and we’re just the people to give it. Come on, we’re creative people. What do you
think, India Jane?’

I shrugged a shoulder. ‘Which room do you want Dylan?You can have first pick,’ I said.

Dylan copied me and shrugged a shoulder, like he didn’t care.

‘How about Dad and I take the front room?’ said Mum. ‘Dylan, you have the big one at the back; the tiny one will do for when Lewis stays over, so how about the top room for
you, India Jane. How does that sound?’

‘Whatever,’ said Dylan. He wasn’t playing along at all.

‘Are you happy with that arrangement, India Jane?’ asked Dad.

I nodded.

‘Why don’t you have a think about how you might like your room decorated?’ Mum asked.

‘Um, I’ll go and have another look,’ I said. Although I felt the same way as Dylan, I didn’t want to let on to Mum and Dad. I knew it was an upheaval for them too,
because last night, they had left their bedroom door slightly open and I’d seen them standing with their arms around each other looking sad, and then Dad had said something about letting us
down and Mum had given him a big hug. They hadn’t seen me and I’d crept away before they did.

‘And Dylan, let me know if you have any ideas,’ said Mum.

‘Burn the place down?’ he replied.

I couldn’t help but laugh. My sentiments exactly, but I liked what Dad had said: we could maybe do something with the house and, anyway, we had no choice. We had to make it work.
Sink
or swim, win or lose, live or die and all that
, I thought, as I got up and trooped back up the stairs to think about what might be done up there.

We moved into the new house over the next few days, seeing as it was half-term. Posh and Becks were as indignant as Dylan had been at first and objected loudly when they were
shut in the tiny room until we got things sorted. I was determined to make the best of it, although I had felt like crying when I saw all my stuff packed up and my lovely room at Aunt Sarah’s
bare. I thought about all the luxuries we had taken for granted there. State of the art showers. Top of the range TVs. Big American fridge. All the mod cons I wouldn’t be able to use any
more, and I hadn’t even had a chance to use Aunt Sarah’s webcam to talk to Erin. Dad told us all we had to be like Buddhist monks, detached from worldly goods, and he made us chant
nam myoho renge kyo
all the way in the car to the new house at the top of our voices. He said that the chant means something about dedicating oneself to the harmony and rhythm of life. How
that was going to help, I couldn’t imagine. He really is bonkers sometimes, but it seemed to do the trick and took my mind off feeling sad and I think it gave some people in cars near to us a
laugh – four people singing their heads off is not a sight you see every day.