Girls, Muddy, Moody Yet Magnificent (19 page)

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37

‘Oh, he was just some guy Tam was mixed up with,’ I said, trying to make it all sound terribly unimportant. ‘It’s over now. He dumped her.’

‘Who was he?’ Mum looked shocked. How could any man on earth dump her baby, especially a man who could afford a week in this palace?

‘Oh, some guy . . .’ I shrugged and strolled towards the balcony as fast as my little legs would carry me. ‘A businessman.’

‘How old was he?’ demanded Mum. I shrugged again. Any minute now I would sprain my shrugging muscles. ‘And why did Chloe look so guilty for even mentioning him?’ She turned on Chloe, who literally cringed. She was still covering her mouth with her hand, like somebody in a comic.

My mind raced. I could so
not
tell Mum Ed was a married man. She would never give Tam any peace. I had to think of something.

‘Tam didn’t want you to know about him,’ I said, trying to sound casual. What could I say? There had to be something about Ed which Mum would despise. Despising is her favourite emotion. Hundreds of images flickered through my mind: glimpses of men, or types of men, my mum has despised over the years. It was quite an archive.

The Prime Minister, paedophiles, arms dealers, mass murderers, scroungers and spongers, people who eat imported strawberries in January, show-offs who drive Porsches too fast through suburbs . . . men with pony tails . . .

‘It was just that Ed was a mass murderer, Mum. I mean, he was a lovely guy and everything, but there were five bodies under his patio.’
. . . ‘
Well, it wouldn’t have mattered, as long as Tam was happy
.’ . . . ‘
But Mum, he eats strawberries in January!’
. . . ‘
The irresponsible idiot! How could she ever get involved with anyone like that? I’m going to lock her in a tower till she’s thirty!
’

‘He was . . .’ It had to be dull, too. I didn’t want Mum looking him up on the Internet. He couldn’t be an artist who made sculptures out of elephant dung. (Though I hear they’re becoming very commercial.) Suddenly I thought of it: ‘He smokes!’

Mum’s eyes narrowed in hatred.

‘And drinks! – Like, for England!’

‘I wonder what on earth she ever saw in him, then,’ snapped Mum, losing interest nicely and sliding into comfy contempt (one of her other fave emotions). ‘How did he make his money?’ she demanded, hands on hips, her eyes swivelling all around our luxury apartment. ‘If he was going to pay for all this?’

I shrugged again.

‘The Internet,’ I said. Thank God for the web! However did the cavemen manage, back in the 1950s?

‘Oh, look! There’s a pair of binoculars,’ said Dad, suddenly leaping up and heading for a shelf. Dear old Dad. Trust him to change the subject from things uncomfortably near home to things far away – so far away, you need binoculars.

We all went out on to the balcony and scanned the beach in turn. I was hoping for a glimpse of Oliver on the arm of a fat tyrant but I couldn’t see anybody who even looked like anybody I knew.

My phone bleeped. It was a message from Beast.
WHERE ARE YOU? I WENT BACK TO B&B AND SATAN SAID YOU’D LEFT.
My heart started to race. A wave of totally new, thrilling excitement swept through me. He had called at the B&B, hoping to see us! How soon could I get him here? I knew Mum and Dad would want to thank him for helping last night, so I had the perfect excuse to invite him.

Hastily, with trembling fingers, I composed a reply.
MY PARENTS HAVE RENTED AMAZING APARTMENT No. 2 BLUE OCEAN FLATS. GREAT VIEW. JUST PAST THE BIG GREEN CINEMA. COME UP AND SEE US! (NOW IF POSS?)

An answer whizzed back right away.
GOT A BEACH RUGBY MATCH THIS MORNING — MAYBE CATCH YOU LATER.
I felt my stomach sink with disappointment. This was so, so weird. Just yesterday I was hoping to avoid bumping into Beast, now I’d kill to get a glimpse of him across a crowded room.

When I told Chloe there was a beach rugby match scheduled, her eyes lit up. ‘Let’s go!’ She grinned. ‘I love to watch guys beating one another into a pulp!’

I was relieved that she wanted to go down and watch the match. It was good to see her cheerful and full of beans again after so much heartbroken sulking. But I was going to have to keep quiet about my feelings for Beast, for a while at least – until I’d got used to them, if nothing else.

We checked our make-up, fired off a text to Toby and Fergus to meet us on the beach, and headed out. The parents stayed behind, planning to doze and chill out after their long drive through the night.

The beach was awesome: a huge bowl of brilliant light, towering cliffs on all sides, and surfers riding the waves and toppling in with graceful crashes. It wasn’t the rocky little beach by the harbour where I had met Beast on the previous day. It was a vast airy space of thundering waves and rainbow spray and ripping wind which thrashed against our bodies, making us scream in delight. Toby and Fergus appeared in the distance – a dot and a little dot. Toby rang me on my moby. ‘I’m on the beach!’ he yelled.

‘I can see you, you moron!’ I yelled back. We met with much hugging and I was glad to find the boys no longer smelt of urine. One’s always grateful for those little courtesies.

‘Ferg and I are going to learn to surf, but not till tomorrow!’ shouted Tobe, as the wind ruffled all the little golden tips of his sticking-up hair. ‘First I have to learn to embroider cushions and make strawberry jam!’

‘WeJustSawBeastAndHisTeam,’ said Ferg. ‘The Antelopes!’

‘The game starts in five!’ said Toby. ‘Come on, let’s get back there!’

My heart started racing in a mad, giddy way. In just a couple of minutes I was going to see Beast again. I tried to control my emotions, but it was impossible. I had fallen for him with a truly deafening crash, but it was all so painful: I knew that I was the one girl on earth he would never, ever ask out. If only I could go back in time, I would act so very differently. But what could I do? Short of starting all over again, what hope was there? We set out, walking into the wild wind, towards the crowds of guys about three hundred metres away. I couldn’t see which was Beast, but I knew he was there. I had to find a way of starting over again. There had to be a way.

‘Hey, Zoe!’ I turned, and with a strange, jarring jolt I saw Oliver, with a girl wrapped round him, her dark hair streaming in the wind. ‘Morgan,’ said Oliver. ‘This is Zoe and Chloe and Toby and Fergus. Guys, this is Morgan.’

Morgan wasn’t exactly the girlfriend I would have selected for Oliver. I would have chosen a lardass or Miss Potato Head or somebody with an extensive handlebar moustache. Morgan was petite and her dark shiny hair was snaking about in the wind, and her eyes were huge and melting like a puppy’s.

‘Hi, guys!’ Morgan smiled, fastening herself even more closely to Oliver’s torso. She was as completely wrapped round him as a tortilla around some refried beans. Oliver looked slightly uneasy, and, to be honest, cheesy. This was wonderful. I had fallen out of love with him just in the nick of time.

‘Oh, hi, Morgan! Are you going to watch the rugby?’ asked Chloe.

‘No way!’ said Morgan decisively. ‘They kicked Olly out of the team because he didn’t want to join in their moronic lifestyle. Beast dumped him. He’s such a prat.’ A soaring rocket of indignation suddenly shot through my insides. How dare she diss the adorable Beast?

‘Oh, really?’ I said icily. ‘I heard Oliver had dropped out himself because he couldn’t be bothered to turn up for training.’ Oliver flinched and blushed. ‘And didn’t even turn up for some of the matches,’ I added.

Morgan frowned and looked up at her beau. He managed to squeeze out a tiny ironical smile from somewhere.

‘There may be a grain of truth in that.’ He shrugged. ‘But what those guys don’t realise is, there’s more to life than rugby.’

‘They’ll be starting in a min,’ said Chloe, looking down the beach to where the teams were gathering.

‘Come on, Olly!’ commanded Morgan. ‘We’re going shopping.’ Oliver looked embarrassed at the word
shopping
. He clearly didn’t want us to think he was a big girl’s blouse. He and Morgan strolled off, and our little gang turned our faces to the wild wind again. Toby slid in beside me and gripped my arm.

‘Hang in there, Zoe, pet!’ he whispered. ‘I heard them having a row earlier. He’ll soon get tired of her, and he’ll realise how goddam perfect you are!’

‘No thanks, Toby!’ I shook my head. ‘I am so over that guy.’

‘Wow!’ said Fergus. ‘SomeFitGirlThough!’

‘Mmmm,’ agreed Toby. ‘Ten out of ten for sex appeal.’ The swine! He was supposed to say, ‘Oh, no, Ferg, she’s all cheap tricks, she can’t compete with Zoe!’ Toby still has a lot to learn.

The rugby had started when we arrived. It was brilliant, watching it with a backdrop of shining surf. We witnessed several bone-crunching tackles and saw the flying spit and heard the manly grunts.

I realised, with a thrill, that Beast was an ace performer. He could run really fast and he was muscular and strong. He scored two tries and at the end of the match he was lifted up shoulder high by his team, who carried him to the water’s edge and chucked him in the sea. I think it was some kind of sacrifice to the gods.

After the match, Beast and his mates seemed to be heading somewhere important: a shower block, presumably, because by now all of them were dripping with sea-water and lightly dusted with sodden sand.

‘It’s like a wet T-shirt competition,’ whispered Toby. ‘It’s almost enough to turn me gay!’

I’d half expected Beast to come over and talk to us, but he gave us a cheery wave and was clearly too busy with his mates. I felt a stupid disappointment that he was going away, even if it was only for twenty minutes. When you fall for somebody it really does turn you into a prize idiot. But it feels so delicious, you don’t give a damn, anyway.

Chloe started to play a game of tag and tickling with Toby and Ferg to prove that she hadn’t got a hangover. I wasn’t in the mood for tag and I dread tickling because, to me, tickling is the ultimate torture. I start to feel trapped and hysterical as if I’m going to faint or die. So I just went on walking by the waves and feeling kind of glamorous and deliciously alone like someone in a movie, and imagining how fabulous it would be if Beast was walking towards me.

Suddenly I realised that somebody was walking towards me, along the edge of the ocean, but it was Oliver. He was alone, too. Maybe he’d ditched Morgan big time, or maybe she’d just nipped into town to buy some extra, extra thick mascara to frame those gorgeous melting eyes. In some cheesy movie we would run in slow-motion towards each other and embrace in the surf, while the music of Beethoven or somebody throbbed away in the background.

But this wasn’t a movie and that wasn’t going to happen. Not if I had anything to do with it.

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38

I stood and stared out to sea with my beady little rodent’s eyes, but I was kind of watching Oliver secretly, sideways, all the time he was coming towards me. I put my hands in my pockets to show how nonchalant I felt. My heart was thumping, but not in quite the same way as it used to. I wasn’t scared in case I made a fool of myself. I was scared in case he made a fool of himself.

As we met he gave a sort of theatrical start, as if he hadn’t seen me.

‘Oh, hi, Zoe,’ he said.

‘You missed a good match,’ I said.

He twitched in an odd kind of way. ‘Rugby doesn’t really do it for me, to be honest,’ he drawled.

‘Morgan is gorgeous!’ I enthused, suddenly changing the subject in another uncomfortable direction. Uncomfortable for him, that is. I felt weirdly, magnificently comfortable. I felt stronger with every second that passed. I had crossed some sort of divide between the old days when I was totally in his power, and the glorious present in which I suddenly felt I could say what I liked, and I didn’t care what he thought. ‘Where did you meet her?’

Oliver kind of winced and tilted his head on one side. ‘At a party . . .’ he said, pulling an unenthusiastic face as if he was describing his meeting with a rancid old dog. ‘Her dad owns a hotel, well, a string of hotels, in fact . . .’

‘Hey, terrific!’ I was teasing him relentlessly now. ‘You could inherit big time.’ Oliver went a bit pale, and moved the sand about with his feet. I’d always thought his awkwardness was touching, but now I began to realise it might be all an act to avoid taking responsibility for anything.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It’s just . . . uhh . . . you know . . . I’m not sure really how . . . You know, uh, weird things happen.’ Then he gave me a strange look. A kind of anguished burning look as if to say,
Morgan grabbed me when I wasn’t paying attention, otherwise I’d be at your side, you gorgeous pouting creature, Zoe Morris!

I understood every tiny detail of his look: he was asking me to keep up the adoration without giving anything back. Just keeping his options open. But I wasn’t having any! I stepped back slightly and gave him the most dazzling, ironical smile.

‘Well, I think Morgan’s just amazing!’ I grinned. ‘And I reckon you’re a very lucky guy! She seems totally besotted with you.’

He must have known I was taking the piss, but he seemed lost for words. He plainly hadn’t got used to the new, free, confident me – he was so expecting me to throw myself at his feet and lick his boots just like I always used to. Maybe he’d expected me to say, ‘Morgan’s a very lucky girl’, not the other way round.

‘Oh, I dunno . . .’ He shrugged, and gave me a sly smile – a last try to winkle some ego-boosting drivel out of me. But I refused to oblige. I was actually quite shocked that he hadn’t got the courtesy to accept compliments to his girlfriend, even if she was so clearly a demented slapper. He so should have said, ‘Yes, I’m really lucky.’
But instead all he could manage was a treacherous shrug.

I finally realised that despite the fact that he looked like a hero in a medieval fairy tale, he didn’t have a gallant bone in his body. Last night, when Chloe had sent out her cry for help, he’d just sat there in the cybercafe and let me go off on my own, into a goddam
fight
for goodness’ sake! If anybody was a medieval knight around here, it was me!

‘Well – gotta go – I’m visiting Tam in hospital in a min,’ I said. Oliver kind of flinched.

‘Oh yes! How is she? I heard she’d had her appendix out . . .’

‘Yeah. It all happened last night, right after the fight behind the silver door. It was some evening. Crisis after crisis.’ I gave him a hard look to indicate,
And you didn’t lift a finger to help me.

‘Give her my – er, regards,’ said Oliver. ‘And say I hope she gets better soon.’

‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘Catch you later, OK?’ And I walked off. I have rarely felt so triumphant. I didn’t look back.

I walked over to where Chloe and Toby and Ferg were still wrestling in an idle sort of way, as if they were running out of steam.

‘So what did Oliver say?’ hissed Tobe. ‘Did he say, “I’ve ditched the slapper and I’ll be yours till the end of time, Queen of my Heart”?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’ I grinned. ‘And I told him he could take a running jump.’

‘Really?’ Chloe came up close and stared deep into my eyes.

‘Oliver,’ I announced, ‘sucks.’ There was an uncertain silence for a moment, and then they all cheered. ‘The only mystery,’ I added, ‘is why it took me so long to realise what he was really like.’

‘I never rated him,’ said Toby. ‘He kind of acts superior all the time.’

‘He’sFromAnotherPlanet!’ giggled Ferg.

‘OK, no more about Oliver!’ I insisted. ‘Too boring!’

‘Right,’ said Toby, ‘I’m going to spend the next couple of hours with a beautiful girl in bed.’

‘What?’ I gasped. But Tobe hadn’t got unexpectedly lucky. It was his way of saying he wanted to visit Tam in hospital. ‘It’s just an excuse to buy some lilies and grapes.’ He grinned.

I knew I’d be visiting Tam later, with my family, but I thought I’d send her a little message. I tore a page out of my notebook.

Hi, Tam! See you later. So sorry I didn’t realise you had the big A. Hope you’ll feel better soon. Loads and loads and loads of love, Z. xxx

I scribbled a little drawing of Tam in bed with a rabbit and a chick looking after her.

When Toby and Ferg had gone, Chloe and I strolled up and down the beach again. We couldn’t get enough of it. The wind whipped our hair about and made our cheeks tingle.

‘So you’re over Oliver, and I think I’m over Brendan,’ announced Chloe. ‘I had a weird kind of depression after he went off to Edinburgh, but now I realise he was just a stupid flirt.’

‘The fellow’s a frightful cad,’ I said in a 1940s film voice. We walked some more. The waves were crashing wonderfully. Surfers soared along then toppled into the foam. Chloe took my arm and squeezed it.

‘Are you sure about Oliver, though?’ she asked. ‘Morgan’s just a distraction; she’s so obviously wrong for him. Toby reckons he’s going to dump her by tomorrow.’

‘I don’t care if he never dumps her,’ I told her. ‘I realise now I’ve been going off him for ages. Every time I met him I felt kind of disappointed afterwards. I know he’s good-looking, but he just kind of can’t be bothered. I used to think he was divinely shy, but I realise now he’s actually just lazy. And vain. He likes being adored. And he’s always dissing other guys. Well, I’ve had it up to here with adoring. As far as I’m concerned, I hope they stay an item for ever, and that she makes him cringe every half hour for the rest of his life.’ I grinned.

‘Harsh,’ commented Chloe thoughtfully, ‘but maybe he deserves it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t go out with him if he was the last man left alive.’ The ironical echoes of this statement reverberated in my secret heart. If only Chloe knew how things had changed for me! Oliver was only half the story.

We walked along the beach some more, arm in arm. Eventually Beast and the guys appeared in clean togs and started playing some more beach games. My heart started to dance again. They waved. We waved back. But I just held on to Chloe’s arm and we went on walking.

As Chloe and I strolled up and down, I thought about the last time I’d used that phrase about not ever fancying somebody if he was ‘the last man alive’. It was only a few weeks since Beast had turned up out of the blue at my house, but it seemed like some freaky incident from a previous life. Beast fancying me and asking me out – and me getting in a rage and giving him several mouthfuls of abuse.

Now he seemed like a different person. What was going on in his mind? The memory of what I’d said to him tormented me
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I had misjudged him totally. I had believed the rumours about Beast without bothering to get to know the real Harry Hawkins. And as a result, we were finished before we’d even had a chance to begin.

Did he ever think about that night? Did he assume I still hated him? Did he hate me for rejecting him so rudely? I had to find out what he thought of me. I had to try and put things right, to let him know how my feelings had changed. Maybe there was the tiniest hint of a chance for me. But I wouldn’t just need a brilliant strategy and a large slice of luck to turn things around. Frankly, I’d need a miracle.