Finding Audrey (6 page)

I don’t want to give this paper to Felix any more. I want to fold it up and keep it somewhere where I can look at it in private. Study his writing. Think about him forming my name with his pen.
Audrey
.

I grab a fresh piece of A4 from the side table where all my school supplies are stacked, and scribble on it:

Well, it’s been nice chatting or whatever.

See you.

I send it off with Felix, and half a minute later the reply comes:

See you.

I’m still holding the first paper; the one with my name on it. I press it to my face and inhale. I think I can smell his soap or shampoo or whatever.

Felix is pressing his nose to the other paper and he looks at me over the top with huge eyes.

‘Your pocket paper smells like
poo
,’ he says, and bursts into laughter.

Trust a four-year-old to ruin the mood.

‘Thanks, Felix.’ I ruffle his hair. ‘You’re a great messenger.’

‘Draw more words,’ he says, patting the paper. ‘More words.’

‘We’ve finished our chat,’ I say, but Felix picks up a crayon and hands it to me.

‘Make red words,’ he commands me. ‘Make “Felix”.’

I write ‘Felix’ and he gazes at it lovingly as I draw him close for another restoring cuddle.

I feel kind of exhilarated. And kind of emptied out. Which may seem like an overreaction, but then, in case you hadn’t picked it up, I am the Queen of Overreaction.

The truth is, if you don’t communicate with anyone new, ever, at all, then you lose the knack. And when you go back to it, it’s sort of draining. Dr Sarah has warned me about that. She says I should expect even the tiniest tasks or new steps to be a bit exhausting. And believe it or not, that silly little exchange of notes was.

Nice, though.

MY SERENE AND LOVING FAMILY – FILM TRANSCRIPT

INT. 5 ROSEWOOD CLOSE. DAY

Camera pans towards a closed door.

AUDREY (VOICE-OVER)

So this is my dad’s study. This is where he works when he’s not at the office.

The door is pushed open by a hand. We see Dad, slumped at his desk, gently snoring. On the screen is an Alfa Romeo sports car.

AUDREY (V.O.)

Dad? Are you asleep?

Dad jumps up and hastily closes down his monitor.

DAD

I wasn’t ASLEEP. I was thinking. So, have you wrapped your present for Mum?

AUDREY (V.O.)

That’s why I’m here. Do you have any wrapping paper?

DAD

I do.

He reaches for a roll of wrapping paper and hands it to Audrey.

DAD

And look what else!

He produces a white pâtisserie box and opens it to reveal a large birthday cake. It is iced with a big ‘39’.

There is silence for a moment.

AUDREY (V.O.)

Dad, why have you put ‘thirty-nine’ on Mum’s cake?

DAD

No one’s too old for a personalized birthday cake.

(He twinkles at the camera)

I know I’m not.

AUDREY (V.O.)

But she’s not thirty-nine.

DAD

(puzzled)

Yes she is.

AUDREY (V.O.)

No she’s not.

DAD

Yes she—

He breaks off and gasps. Aghast. He looks at the cake and back at the camera.

DAD

Oh God. Will she mind? No. Of course she won’t mind. I mean, it’s one year, what’s the big deal—

AUDREY (V.O.)

Dad, she will SO mind.

Dad looks panic-stricken.

DAD

We need a new cake. How long do we have?

We hear the sound of a door banging downstairs.

MUM (OFF-SCREEN)

I’m home!

Dad looks freaked out.

DAD

Audrey, what shall I do?

AUDREY (V.O.)

We can fix it. We can change it to ‘thirty-eight’.

DAD

With what?

He picks up a Tipp-Ex pot.

AUDREY (V.O.)

No!

There’s a knocking at the door and Frank comes in.

FRANK

Mum’s home. When are we doing her birthday tea?

Dad is uncapping a Sharpie.

DAD

I’ll use this.

AUDREY (V.O.)

No! Frank, go to the kitchen. We need some writing icing or something. Anything edible you can write with. But don’t let Mum know what you’re doing.

FRANK

(baffled)

Anything edible you can write with?

DAD

Quick!

Frank disappears. The camera focuses on the cake.

AUDREY (V.O.)

How did you get her age wrong? I mean, how did you manage that?

DAD

(clutches head)

I don’t know. I’ve spent all month writing financial reports about next year. My whole mindset is next year. I guess I lost a year somewhere.

Frank bursts into the room holding a squeezy bottle of Heinz ketchup.

AUDREY (V.O.)

Ketchup? Seriously?

FRANK

(defensive)

Well, I didn’t know!

Dad grabs the bottle.

DAD

Can we turn a ‘nine’ into an ‘eight’ with ketchup?

FRANK

You won’t fool her.

AUDREY (V.O.)

Go over the whole number with ketchup. Make the whole thing a ketchup cake.

FRANK

Why would you ice a cake with ketchup?

DAD

(hurriedly icing)

Mum loves ketchup. It’s fine. It’s all good.

OK, so here’s a life lesson. Don’t try fixing a birthday cake with ketchup. Tipp-Ex would have been better.

As Dad brought out the cake, Mum’s jaw dropped. And not in a good way. I mean, if you take a white iced cake and pipe all over it with ketchup, it basically looks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We all launched into ‘Happy Birthday’ extra loudly, and as soon as we’d finished and Mum had blown out her (one) candle, Dad said, ‘Great! So let me take that away and cut it up—’

‘Wait.’ Mum put a hand on his. ‘What IS that? That’s not
ketchup
?’

‘It’s a Heston Blumenthal recipe,’ said Dad without blinking. ‘Experimental.’

‘Right.’ Mum still looked puzzled. ‘But isn’t that . . .?’ Before anyone could stop her, she was scraping the ketchup off with a napkin. ‘I thought so! There’s a message underneath.’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Dad quickly.

‘But it’s piped in icing!’ She wiped away the last blobs of ketchup and we all stared in silence at the smeared red-and-white cake.

‘Chris,’ said Mum at last in an odd voice. ‘Why does it say thirty-nine?’

‘It doesn’t! It says thirty-eight. Look.’ Dad’s hand traced over the vestiges of the ketchup. ‘That’s an eight.’

‘Nine.’ Felix pointed confidently at the cake. ‘Number
nine
.’

‘It’s an eight, Felix!’ said Dad sharply. ‘Eight!’

I could see Felix staring at the cake in puzzlement and felt a twinge of sympathy for him. How’s he supposed to learn anything with nutso parents like ours?

‘It’s a nine, Felix,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘Daddy’s joking.’

‘Do you think I’m thirty-nine?’ Mum looked up at Dad. ‘Do I
look
thirty-nine? Is that what you think?’ She squashed her face between her hands and glared at him. ‘Is this a thirty-nine-year-old face? Is that what you’re telling me?’

I think Dad should have just junked the cake.

So this evening my dad is taking my mum on a date for her birthday – as you can tell from the clouds of perfume that suddenly descend onto the landing. Mum isn’t exactly subtle when she goes out. As she always tells us, her social life is practically non-existent since having three kids, so when she goes out, she makes up for it with perfume, eye-liner, hairspray and heels. As she totters down the stairs, I can see a little fake-tan blotch on the back of her arm, but I won’t tell her. Not on her birthday.

‘Will you be all right, darling?’ She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks anxiously at me. ‘You’ve got our numbers. Any problems, you tell Frank to call, straight away.’

Mum knows I’m not brilliant with phones. Which is why Frank is officially on baby-sitting duty, not me.

‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’

‘Of course you will,’ she says, but doesn’t let go of my shoulders. ‘Sweetheart, take it easy. Have an early night.’

‘I will,’ I promise.

‘And Frank . . .’ She looks up as he lopes into the hall. ‘You will be doing homework only. Because I am taking
this
with me.’

She brandishes a power cable triumphantly, and Frank gapes.

‘Did you—?’

‘Unplug your computer? Yes, young man, I did. I don’t want that computer going on for a nano-second. If you finish your homework you can watch TV or read a book. Read some Dickens!’

‘
Dickens
,’ echoes Frank in disparaging tones.

‘Yes, Dickens! Why not? When I was your age—’

‘I know.’ Frank cuts her off. ‘You went to see Dickens live. And he rocked.’

Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Very funny.’

‘So! Where’s the birthday girl?’ Dad comes hurrying down the stairs, bringing with him a cloud of aftershave. What is it with parents and too much perfume? ‘Now, are you guys OK?’ He looks at me and Frank. ‘Because we’ll only be round the corner.’

My parents
cannot
leave the house. Mum has to do a final check on Felix, and Dad remembers he left the sprinkler on in the garden and then Mum wants to make sure that her Sky+ is recording
EastEnders
.

Eventually we chivvy them out and look at each other.

‘They’ll be back in, like, an hour,’ predicts Frank, and heads off to the playroom. I follow him because I don’t have much else to do, and I might read his new Scott Pilgrim. He goes to his computer station, rummages around in his school bag and produces a power cable. Then he plugs in his computer, logs in, and up pops a game of
LOC
.

‘Did you know Mum was going to take your cable?’ I ask, impressed.

‘She’s done it before. I’ve got, like, five of them.’ His eyes glaze over as he starts playing and I know there’s no point talking to him. I look around for the Scott Pilgrim, find it under an empty jumbo Hula Hoops packet, and curl up to read it on the sofa.

It seems about a moment later that I glance up to see Mum at the door, standing there in her heels. How did
that
happen?

‘Mum.’ I blink, disoriented. ‘Aren’t you out?’

‘I came back for my phone.’ Her tone is sweet and ominous. ‘Frank? What are you doing?’

Oh God. Frank. Frank! My head whips round in apprehension. Frank is still moving his mouse around the mat, his earphones on.

‘Frank!’ Mum barks, and he looks up.

‘Yes?’

‘What are you doing?’ says Mum, in the same sweet, ominous tone.

‘Language lab,’ says Frank, without missing a beat.

‘Language . . . what?’ Mum seems wrong-footed.

‘French homework. It’s a vocab-testing program. I had to find an old power cable to do it. I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

He points at the monitor, and I see
armoire
floating around the screen in a big red font, followed by
wardrobe
in blue.

Wow. He must have moved quickly to get that up on screen.

Actually, playing
LOC does
improve your reaction times. I mean, that’s a real thing.

‘You’ve been doing language lab all this time?’ Mum glances at me with narrowed eyes, and I look away. I am not getting into this.

‘I’ve been reading Scott Pilgrim,’ I say truthfully.

Mum’s focus returns to Frank. ‘Frank, are you lying to me?’

‘Lying?’ Frank looks hurt.

‘Don’t give me that! Are you telling me, hand on heart, that you’ve been doing your homework and nothing else?’

Frank just stares at her for a moment. Then he shakes his head, his face sad. ‘You adults. You think teenagers lie. You assume teenagers lie. That’s the starting point. It’s infinitely depressing.’

‘I don’t assume anything—’ begins Mum, but he cuts her off.

‘You do! All of you make these easy, obvious,
lazy
assumptions that anyone under the age of eighteen is a pathological, dishonest sub-human with no integrity. But we’re people, just like you, and you don’t seem to get that!’ His face is suddenly passionate. ‘Mum, can’t you just for once believe that your son might be doing the right thing? Can’t you just for once give me an ounce of credit? But, look, if you want me to disconnect the computer and
not
do my French homework, that’s fine. I’ll tell the teacher tomorrow.’

Mum looks thrown by Frank’s little speech. In fact, she looks quite chastened.

‘I didn’t say you were lying! I just . . . Look, if you’re doing French homework, that’s fine. Carry on. I’ll see you later.’

She tip-taps down the hall, and a few moments later we hear the front door close.

‘You’re sick,’ I say, without looking up from my book.

Frank doesn’t reply. He’s already engrossed in his game again. I turn a page and listen to Frank’s mutterings, and wonder whether to go and make a hot chocolate, when suddenly there’s the most almighty banging on the window, from outside.

‘FRAAAAAAANK!!!’

I jump a mile, and feel myself start to hyperventilate. Mum is at the window, staring in, her face like some monstrous demon. I mean, I’ve never seen her look so furious. ‘Chris!’ she’s yelling now. ‘COME HERE! I’VE CAUGHT HIM RED-HANDED!’