The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones (14 page)

“What's this?”

“Your birthday present. The one I was going to give you at your birthday party in the Cave. You remember that? The party I organized for you? The one you ran out of in tears, without a word of explanation, and never even said thank you?”

She presses her lips together, her face burning.

“I'm so sorry,” I mumble. I feel terrible.

“No, it's fine. You've got this other friend, who treats you like crap and upsets you, drags you away from your mates – you know, the people who actually like you. But it's fine that she's the one you want to hang with. Her, Merlin, whoever. I mean, I think we would've had a laugh if we'd hung out more – but, hey, not my choice. It'll be jammed in here for the Fest tomorrow; don't know if I'll see you again. So, here you go. Call it a leaving present.”

She folds her arms, tilting her head at the present expectantly.

Guiltily, I peel back the wrapping paper.

Rebel Without A Cause
, on DVD. Her favourite.

“We could go and watch this, together?” I say, hopefully. “Right now. We can go to your room, and while it's on you can dye my hair, and lend me earrings, and. . .”

Fozzie sighs and picks up another two sacks of popcorn.

“Have a nice life, Blue.”

She goes back inside.

Mags slams the Shed door shut behind her, glares at me through the window, and flips the sign over, hard.

Closed.

 

 

13.
Merlin

 

“What the hell are you doing?”

Red is standing outside Madame Soso's, feet planted.

“Go back in there!” she shouts, jabbing a finger at The Shed. “That was your chance to make things up with her, do you not get that? You might not get another.”

I scratch my fingernail into the plastic of the DVD box.

“So? I'm leaving anyway, it's not like it makes any difference.”

I don't mean it. Everything Fozzie said is sitting in my stomach, rolling over.

But Red won't stop. “You don't get any of this, do you? This was your second chance.
My
second chance. Do you know how many people get one of those? Do you know how many people would kill for one? And what do you do with it? You yell at Mum and Dad like a spoiled brat, treat Tiger's stuff like rubbish. You run around making friends and having a laugh and not caring, not even noticing when you let them down. Did you never think Fozzie might have been hurt that you ran off from the party? You didn't even thank her for the leaving present!”

I shake my overlong wing of hair off my face, flash my eyes, not caring that we're in the middle of the fair and I'm yelling at air.

“That's not my fault!
You
made me leave the party. You lied. Everything that's gone wrong is your fault!”

“How is it
my
fault?”

“Because I'm running out of time! I'm supposed to be a butterfly when we go. I can't go home still being stupid Bluebell who collects toy mice. I need to do it all before we leave: my hair, the earrings, the boots. . .”

Red starts back like she's been stung.

“You really think that's what this was all about – a haircut and a pair of shoes? You know what really proves you've grown up?
Acting
grown up. Caring about other people instead of just yourself. Taking some responsibility. Thinking about the consequences of your actions. Choosing what kind of person you'd like to be. Trying to be a better one.”

“I am doing all those things!”

“You're not.” She stares at me, her face crumpling. “I thought this time around I could at least get some of it right. Blue was a nice girl, you know. There was nothing wrong with who you were.”

“What would you know, you're not even real!” I can't believe how nasty my voice sounds, but she's hurting me: I want to hurt her back. “You're only here because I wished you here – and the only reason you're saying any of this is because I'm replacing you. Because I'm better at this than you are!”

“I thought you understood.” She shakes her head, bewildered. “I thought I'd said too much. Thought you'd see it coming a mile away. But you haven't heard a thing, have you?”

She turns and walks away.

“Fine! Go! I don't need lessons from you!”

She halts, hesitating before she looks over her shoulder.

“If that's true, Bluebell,” she says, her eyes tracking across my pinned-up hair, my ragged cut-offs. “Why are you trying so hard to be me?”

The hill up to the far side of town is steep, but fury powers me up. I can't believe everyone is ruining my last few days in Penkerry like this. Even Red. She's meant to be on my side. You can't trust anybody.

Merlin will understand, though. He's like me: different. Dissatisfied. And special, as well. Magical.

I pick out his huge white house from the row looking out over the bay, and step through the gate to ring the bell. It's not as white as it looks, close up. The paint is flaking away, and there's some sort of grey mossy stuff growing over it. The paint on the door's flaking off, too.

There's a long wait, so I ring again.

Eventually the door opens a crack, and half of Merlin's face appears. My chest feels tight, just seeing the shadow of his cheekbone, one hazel eye. No eyeliner today. Without it, he looks sleepy and clean.

“Hello?” He blinks a few times. “Oh. Blue. I thought we were meeting tomorrow, at The Bench?”

“We are.” My smile is automatic. “But – I sort of needed to see you now. Can I come in?”

He frowns, peering over his shoulder. “Uh. . .”

“Who's at the door?” says a woman's voice. “Who's at the door?”

I hear shushing, then the door is pulled open fully.

“Excuse my son's manners,” says a tall grey-haired man in a buttoned-up waistcoat, shirt and tie. He looks more like Merlin's grandfather than his dad.

Merlin, now I can see all of him, looks like someone else entirely. It's not just the lack of eyeliner. He's wearing flappy shorts and a red nylon football shirt, his hair flat and hatless. He looks as shocked as I feel.

“Come in, dear,” says Merlin's dad, leading the way down a carpeted hall.

There are lots of doors. There's a smell, too: like bins, and wee. Maybe they've got a cat.

I follow them into a huge kitchen. Merlin's dad sits down to ruffle a newspaper. Merlin just stands there in his shiny shirt, awkward.

The smell's stronger in here. There's food everywhere: used pans on the stove, empty Pop-Tart boxes left by the toaster – and things, in piles, stacked against the walls: more newspapers, crockery, plastic tubs with tiny cardboard boxes inside. It's like someone forgot to tidy up, for about a year.

“So,” Merlin says, shuffling his feet. “You . . . you needed something?”

My eyes shift over to his dad behind the newspaper. I want to go to another room. Talk to him properly. Have him hold my hand, and be magical again.

“We're leaving. I'm leaving. On Sunday. So I'm only here today, and tomorrow.”

His face falls. He swallows. Jerks a hand out towards me. Pulls it back, self-conscious, eyes straying across the room to his dad. Puts his hand out again.

I lift mine too and our fingers weave together, a knot. His fingerprints press against my bones. His thumb strokes my palm.

“Gareth?
Gareth?
”

It's the woman's voice again, very quavery.

Merlin's face closes up.

I expect the old man to go, but Merlin slips his hand from mine and darts out into the hallway.

“It's OK, Mum, I'm coming,” he calls.

His dad goes on reading the paper, chewing on a sandwich.

I don't know if I'm supposed to stay, or follow Merlin. The smell and the stillness start to stick to me, greasy and sad.

“My wife has early onset Alzheimer's disease,” announces the old man, not looking up from his newspaper. “It means she has dementia. Do you understand?”

We did a project on grandparents in primary school. Harry Parker's gran had dementia. She had to go into a home.

I nod, then realize he's not looking at me. “Yes. It means you forget things.”

“It means other things too,” he says heavily, putting down the paper and clasping his hands on the table. “But yes. You forget things. First the small ones, like where you've left your handbag. Then the words for things: people included. Then the things themselves. Finally yourself.”

He says it like facts, like what's on TV. He doesn't look upset, or angry. I suppose those things pass.

“Is that why she called Merlin Gareth, just then? She's forgotten his real name?”

Merlin's dad purses his lips disapprovingly.

“Gareth is his real name. ‘Merlin' is an affectation we don't tolerate in this house – much like that costume he so likes to wear.” He nods at me: at the tailcoat I'm still wearing. He picks up the paper, shaking it out. “It confuses her, you see.”

I grip the too-long sleeves, drawing the coat around me.

He keeps reading, and I slip out, back down the hallway.

There's an open door. I can hear Merlin – Gareth – softly reading from a magazine to a pale woman in a high-backed armchair. She's about the same age as my mum. With curly dark hair, and fluffy pink slippers that aren't quite on her feet.

Merlin's head tilts up, his neck red in patches, clearly having overheard.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

I don't know what else to say.

He nods, slowly.

I slip the coat off my shoulders, wanting to give it back to him, all of it. Merlin the Magician. The life I thought he had. The coat sags on the doorknob, tails trailing on the floor.

“Will you be there, tomorrow?” he asks, his voice soft but urgent.

“Of course I will. Yes. You?”

“Do my best,” he says, his smile weak.

I want to say goodbye to his mum, but she's looking at Merlin, watching his lips move.

He smiles down at her, and starts reading the magazine again.

I linger at the front door, listening to the low purr of his voice reading about beauty surveys and skincare regimes. Then I let myself out.

Outside it's all blue skies, bright and fresh.

It feels obscene. The sun warms my skin, as if nothing is wrong.

Behind the peeling white front door, everything is wrong.

I'm wrong.

I thought I knew him but I don't. I thought he was special – but he's not. He's an ordinary boy with a too-real life, who wants the world to think he's a butterfly.

I can't blame him. I can't imagine how awful it must be. The blank, black space left where she should be.

So he puts on a costume, to paste over it. And I think suddenly that we're all doing it: showing the world something not quite honest. Purple boots and retro shades. Yoga bottoms and third eyes. Black dye to cover up the greys onstage. A brave face for baby. We can't help ourselves.

Maybe it is honest, after all. Nothing's hidden. We show to the world our intimate hopes, our longed-for dreams. Our better selves. There's not much more personal than that.

But the end of the day Merlin the Magician still has to go home, wipe his face clean, and be Gareth again.

My hands are shaking. I busy them in my bag, knuckling the bottle of hair dye aside, ashamed. I find Diana instead, her chunky plastic reassuring under my fingers. The process is comforting and familiar: line up, focus, wind on. I snap off a series of shots, click click click.

Here's where I took a photograph
.
Here's where I took a photograph
.
Here's where I took a photograph
.

That's what Merlin said, in the Cave: that I was wasting my time. The sky is big and cloudless, an expanse of blue above an endless glittering sea, impossible to cram into the viewfinder. Not the fairground swirl of music and screams. Not salt, chips, fresh air and sugar on the wind. Not tears on my face, for everything I've got wrong. For Merlin.

I'm taking pictures, not memories. But the pictures will remind me, for ever, of how huge and strange and tragic this moment is. I
can
remember it. I didn't know how important that was.

How lucky I am.

I put the camera away and do nothing but look.

I am a camera. I see, and remember.

I think: I don't want to be anyone else.

I'm ready to be me.