Expecting to Fly (8 page)

A couple of hours after we had arrived, Zahrah, Leela and Brook turned up each with a house-warming present: a scented candle from Brook (I had told her the place smelled
musty), a chill out CD from Zahrah that she had put together herself and some scrummy yummy Indian sweets from Leela that her aunt had made specially. We got my CD player out, put the CD on, lit
the candle and ate the sweets, no problemo.

‘Home,’ I said gloomily, as I looked around at the mess and the unpacked bags and the wallpaper peeling off the wall to my right. The others followed my gaze, then Leela lay back and
started laughing.‘Home,’ she repeated in a deep, sad voice.

‘My smelly bedroom,’ said Brook in an even gloomier voice.

‘I’d love my own bedroom,’ said Zahrah. ‘At least you don’t have to share.’

‘She does,’ said Leela.‘With all the dust mites and bedbugs.’

We all cracked up laughing.

Zahrah went over to look out of the window. ‘Hey, you’ve got a nice view from here.’

I got up from the bed to join her. The window looked out over the cricket grounds and then over towards Notting Hill Gate.

‘How will you get to school?’ asked Leela.

‘Bus,’ I said. ‘The stop is near, so that’s no sweat. It will take about twenty minutes longer.’

‘And has Dylan got over his disapproval?’ asked Brook.

I laughed. ‘Yeah, but first he went round the whole house with a pair of Marigolds and some disinfectant. He can be a very prissy madam some days.’

Brook reached into her bag and pulled out a pile of magazines. ‘Here. Mum was only going to throw these out. I thought we could go through them and get some ideas for
decorating.’

Mum came in at that moment with a tray with mugs of tea for everybody. ‘Mm, smells nice in here,’ she said as she looked at the candle. ‘The scent of a house is so important,
isn’t it? My essential oils are the first thing I unpacked so that we can get the house smelling nice.’

Mum has a gift for mixing scents – the bath lotions and potions that she makes to sell in Aunt Sarah’s shop in Notting Hill are exceptional, so I knew that she would have the house
smelling divine before long.

‘How do you like your new home, Mrs Ruspoli?’ Zahrah asked.

‘We’ll make it nice. There’s a way to go though, and I only realised today how much stuff we need – at my sister’s house we didn’t need furniture, it was all
there but, here, we only have the basics.’

‘Freecycle,’ said Zahrah.‘It’s a website where people advertise stuff they don’t want and you can go and get it for free. My family have got loads of stuff from
there: desks, chairs, carpets, you name it. It’s brilliant.’

‘But why don’t people want money for their things?’ asked Brook.

Zahrah shrugged.‘Guess there’s a lot of people out there who are into sharing and recycling.’

‘My sister does something similar with clothes,’ said Leela. ‘Every six months or so, her and her mates do a clothes, book and CD swap evening and everyone brings along what
they don’t wear, or have read or don’t listen to any more. She’s got some fab things.’

‘Could you come and show me on the computer, Zahrah?’ said Mum. ‘Dylan’s got his computer up already and the internet seems to be working, although I’m not sure how
as we haven’t had our wireless system set up yet.’

‘He’s probably tuned into someone else’s,’ said Leela. ‘Most people put a lock on so that no one else can use theirs, but some people don’t bother.’

‘I can’t keep up with all this technology,’ said Mum. ‘But I don’t think I’d like all the neighbours tapping into something I paid for.’

Mum and Zahrah went off downstairs, leaving Brook, Leela and me to pore over magazines.

By the end of the afternoon, I was feeling a hundred per cent more positive. We had some ideas for the colour scheme and decor for my room and it felt good to be designing it myself. At Aunt
Sarah’s, the rooms were done up to her taste, which was typically stylish and elegant and I did like it but, because it had already been done, there had been no room for me to express myself.
I was looking forward to picking the colours I wanted and the fabrics and pictures for the wall that I liked.
Maybe I could do interior design as a job
, I thought, as I ripped out pages from
the magazines that had caught my eye and Blu-Tacked them to the wall.

‘Is something the matter?’ asked Joe when we drew back for breath after a snog. It was the first week back after half-term and we were sitting on the wall outside a
church after school.

‘No. Why?’ I asked and pulled my jacket tight to keep out the cold February afternoon.

Joe shrugged. ‘Oh nothing. You’re a bit quiet, not your usual self, that’s all.’

‘I’m fine, really.’ I was fine, ish, but he was right about me not being my usual self. Usually when we kissed, I was really into it but this time it was like . . . going
through the motions, like my lips were kissing him but my mind was miles away and I hardly felt anything.
Does this mean I’ve stopped fancying him?
I wondered but, as I stared into his
eyes, I felt the familiar flutter of chemistry. Phew. He had such beautiful green eyes with long curly eyelashes.
So what’s the matter with me?
I wondered.‘Um. You OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m great.’

‘I was thinking about what we could do this weekend,’ I said, in an attempt to change the subject. I felt confused by my lack of enthusiasm for kissing him because it had never
happened before.

Joe smiled. ‘Ah. My social secretary. So what’s on the agenda then, Miss Ruspoli?’

‘Dad has a team of his mates in to start the painting and decorating. He wants us to make ourselves scarce, so I thought we could do Tate Britain this time and look up the Pre-Raphaelites
there. We’re doing them in art history —’

While we were talking, Sam had come out of the school gates and over to join us. He gave me his usual unfriendly nod. I raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement back at him.
I can be distant too,
matey
, I thought. It was a shame he was so sulky because he would be a top babe otherwise.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ he said.

‘My social secretary was just giving me my itinerary,’ said Joe with a grin.

‘Well, don’t forget we have football Saturday morning,’ said Sam.

‘Top of the list, wouldn’t miss that,’ said Joe.

‘I can text you later,’ I said to Joe.‘That is if you still want to go.’ I didn’t want to carry on with my suggestions for what we could do when Sam was there, in
case he said he wanted to come along or said something sarcastic. It wouldn’t be the first time. He often made sarky comments about how we were like an old married couple or we were joined at
the hip and how Joe couldn’t make a move any more without consulting me. That wasn’t completely true, although we did wait for each other every night after school if only to see each
other for ten minutes or to walk to my bus stop, but I had decided not to get into arguing with Sam. He was Joe’s best mate and I had to make it work somehow.

I was about to make my excuses and go when Brook and Leela waved from the other side of the road, then came over.

‘So how are our lovers?’ asked Leela.

Oh God, not you too
, I thought, but then I glanced at Sam. He had frozen and had gone slightly pink. I looked at Leela and Brook. Which one of them had caused the reaction? Hah! Obvious.
Brook. She was staring at him with a dreamy-eyed expression and he had shifted his gaze to his shoes and looked awkward, which was a first. I was so tempted to say something but I bit my tongue. I
didn’t want to embarrass my mate or frighten Sam off. Not if it was love at first sight. Or was it? ‘Hey, do you guys know each other?’ I asked.

Sam looked back up at Brook.

‘Yeah, course,’ he said. ‘Seen you around.’

‘You too,’ said Brook and their eyes locked.

‘Oh get a room,’ said Leela,which caused Brook to laugh like a donkey, which isn’t like her, and Sam to blush even more.

‘Brook, Sam, Sam, Brook,’ I said.

‘I’ve seen you in assembly,’ said Sam.

‘And I’m Leela, mate of India Jane’s, but I get the feeling no one has even noticed I’m here.’

I put my arm around her.‘I’ve noticed you’re here,’ I said, but I knew what she was thinking: very soon she was going to be the only one of our gang of mates without a
boyfriend.

On the way home, I popped in to see Aunt Sarah and see how things were progressing there since Tom and the boys had moved in during the half-term. I still had my key and found
her curled up on the sofa in the front room with a book.

‘What are you reading? I asked, after she’d got up to give me a warm hug.

She showed me the cover.‘
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
by John Gray,’ she said. ‘It’s so true. Men really are from another planet.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said.‘How’s it going?’

Aunt Sarah sighed.‘OK, early days but I guess I had got more used to being on my own than I realised, you know, having the whole double bed to myself, having my own bathroom. It’s
weird having to share again. Having to stay on my half of the bed, not diagonally across and he snores
and
nicks the duvet! I wake up and I think,Why am I so cold? Then I look over and
there’s Tom, all snuggled up with it wrapped around him double!’

I laughed.‘What about the boys? How are they doing?’

‘How long have you got? Being boys, they all leave the toilet seat up and Tom leaves the cap off the toothpaste – it’s going to drive me mad.’

‘Why don’t you say something?’

‘Too soon. I want them to feel at home. Also, I don’t want to go on about it, because I don’t want him to think that he’s moved in with an old nag.’

‘Poor you. At least I haven’t had living with Joe to contend with.’

‘You’ll have to one day – if not Joe, then some lucky chap and I can tell you, it’s not always easy. There are little things you don’t notice until they move in
– like when Tom watches telly, he waves his foot as though listening to some imaginary music. I never noticed when we were going out but he can’t sit still.’

‘Joe does that. When we go to the cinema, he twitches, if it’s not his foot going, it’s his hands, flicking his thumb or drumming his fingers over and over.’

‘And if you say anything, they get defensive.’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed. I curled up on the sofa opposite Aunt Sarah, happy to have her to talk to about it all. ‘And if it got back to his mate Sam that I’d said anything,
he’d just love that. He hates me as it is.’

‘Probably jealous but, yes it is a case of love me, love my friends. And love me, love the fact that I like to lie on the sofa and watch football to relax. Honestly, India, I wish
I’d given Tom a questionnaire before he moved in – but then that’s not very romantic, is it? I think we’re going to have to watch TV in different rooms: me in one so I can
watch my soaps, Tom somewhere else so he can watch his sport, and the boys somewhere else again so they can watch the cartoons that they’re addicted to. So much for our cosy family
life.’

‘Are you OK, Aunt Sarah? I mean, are you having doubts that it’s going to work?’

Aunt Sarah held up the book.‘I will try to
make
it work. The first year of any relationship is an adjustment. If I have learned anything from my past experiences, it is that it
takes time to learn each other’s ways. Time to get to a point where the silences are comfortable.’

‘First
year
!’ I gasped. That seemed like an awfully long time but, then again, Aunt Sarah was living with her boyfriend; Joe and I were only dating. There had to be a
difference. ‘So what does the book say then?’

‘I’m only halfway through, but it seems to be saying that men need appreciation or they get sulky and woman need acknowledgment or they get resentful.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘Like I’ve been doing these itineraries for Joe and me of places we can go at the weekend, partly for fun but mainly because they are related
in some way to our syllabuses. It’s taken a lot of time and he hasn’t even said thank you. He just makes jokes about me being his social secretary.’

‘And I have been making a huge effort to cook lovely meals for Tom and the boys and, same thing, a thank you, a little gift or bunch of flowers would make all the difference but, as it is,
I already feel taken for granted as chief cook and bottle washer – and I didn’t sign up to a new relationship for that.’