When people already have an over-developed sense of drama, you can’t expect them to behave too rationally when they’re faced with an actual crisis.
My Mom totally over-reacted to the whole thing. She went nuts. I mean, she completely lost her perspective. So I had skipped school – so what?
But for some reason, everyone in the house took it all so personally. Suddenly I was the bad guy.
‘Do you know how close we were to calling the cops?’ said Andre. ‘I mean your Mom had me going through the holiday snaps so that we would have a recent photo of you to show on the evening news. We were this close to calling Scotland Yard.’
I had to roll my eyes at that one.
Even Martina felt the need to chip in with a comment, although she did so with a smile.
‘You know that they had to finish filming early just so that your Mom could go home. Do you have any idea what that will do to their schedules? Plus, it will cost a fortune.’
‘Was it the uniform?’ asked Portia. ‘Could you just not stand to wear that thing a second longer?’
What was I supposed to say???
I knew that there was no way that I was going to win this one. The best thing that I could do was to lay low while everyone went collectively crazy. Mom would figure out a punishment and I would take it – whatever it was (just so long as it didn’t involve some rich kids’ boarding school in Arizona).
The funny thing was that everyone was so busy with their own theories and assumptions about my bad behaviour that no-one really bothered to ask me why. I had decided that afternoon, while I travelled back to London on the train, (oblivious to the panic that my absence had created), that I would take Mrs Moore’s last piece of advice to me. Can you believe it? I had decided to tell my Mom everything. There was no chance of that happening after the latest theatrics.
This was so not what I needed.
There was no reason for me to spill out my guts to any of them when they had all so obviously tried and convicted me without any of the actual facts.
I was better off on my own anyway. The solitary confinement of my bedroom would give me a chance to get my head around everything that had happened.
They had confiscated my cellphone, so it was impossible for me to talk to Marnie. Seeing her looking so small and shaken-up as she had stood next to Butler-Masterson wasn’t something that I could forget. This was totally my fault. I had dragged Marnie into my scheme and there was no way that I was going to stand by and watch her pay the price for my lying. Marnie had worked hard to get her place at St Saviours. I wasn’t going to give them an excuse for kicking her out.
I had to make them understand that she was really not involved. She didn’t even know who I was…
And who was I, anyway? My search for my Dad had done nothing but land me in a heap of trouble. Maybe it was better not to know than to deal with the more bitter truth of disappointment? Probably there was not and never would be a flesh-and-blood father who could match my vision of a dream dad.
But even though my journey had been tough, the fact was that it had really only left me with one option. By a simple process of elimination, there was only one man left who could possibly be my dad – and that was Robert Grand.
Did I really want to confront him? (That was, if I ever got to go anywhere alone again before my eighteenth birthday and I actually got my hands on his address). Could I handle it?
There was no choice to make. I knew that. Anyway, I was already in so much trouble that a little more couldn’t possibly hurt me.
Just then I heard the familiar knock of my Mom.
I sat on my bed and tried to mould my face into something that looked suitable contrite.
‘Come in,’ I said.
Mom looked tired. It was unusual to see her look anything less than perfect.
‘It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it,’ she said, sitting next to me.
She wasn’t wrong there – I nodded.
‘You really had us scared Bliss. Have you any idea how I felt?’
Great, we were back to how she felt – that must have been some kind of record.
She looked at me with tears in her eyes. But I wasn’t playing her game. I looked away.
‘Knowing that you were out there in a huge foreign city and having no idea whether you were safe or not…’
I had to put up some sort of defence.
‘Mom, I skipped school – that’s all. Nobody kidnapped me. I was never in any sort of danger. I am not a kid any more. So what if I fall off radar from time to time?’
That hit a nerve.
‘We discussed the security situation. You know that right now is not a good time to go falling off radar. I may not like the tracking device and you may not like the tracking device, but we have to accept that these things are for our own protection. It is simply not possible for us to have a normal life.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it is not possible for you to live a normal life. It doesn’t have to be that way for me.’
She stood up now.
‘The fact is that I am your Mom.’
‘You don’t need to remind me.’
‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’
‘Do you think that I am ever allowed to forget who my mother is? Think about it. I mean it’s because of you that those photographers are parked outside our front door. It’s because of you that nobody at school can know my real name and it’s totally because of you that I am supposed to walk everywhere tagged like a dog.’
My outburst took even me by surprise. Mom drew a long breath before she replied.
‘Don’t try laying this on me. I know that it’s not always easy for you, but there are plenty of benefits to having a Mom like me. You lead a very privileged life.’
She paused, obviously trying to calm her anger.
‘I’m not the only single Mom in the world and I’m not the only Mom who works to earn her living. I am sorry that sometimes I am too busy to spend a lot of time with you. But, you know, that’s life for lots of families. You alone are responsible for your actions and you must face the consequences.’
I said nothing. This was a hard-nosed side of Mom that I didn’t get to see very often.
‘Do you have any idea what happened when you skipped school today? Once the office phoned to check that you were actually ill, we had a full alert. Your friend Marnie was surrounded by a bunch of bodyguards within three minutes of that call. Can you imagine how frightened she must have been? Or how scared she must have been when she had to answer to the principal?’
‘Mom,’ I interrupted, ‘none of this is Marnie’s fault.’
‘I know that and you know that,’ she said, ‘but it has taken a lot of explaining to the school.’
‘You didn’t go down to the school, did you?’ I asked.
‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘I didn’t want to start a full-out media alert – that would not have helped. But I did have to make a lot of promises on your behalf, Bliss, so that you can go back to school after one week’s suspension.’
‘Like what?’ I said defiantly.
‘Like this will never happen again. Like you will have some leave so that you can travel to Paris with me before the your French exam. And like you will stay away from Marnie. Your friendship is officially over and if she means anything to you, then you will do what’s best for her and leave her alone.’
My face must have crumpled a bit then, because Mom’s tone softened.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘sometimes love is tough. I am doing this because I love you. Maybe it is selfish of me to have dragged you halfway around the world just so that we can be together. Maybe you would be better off and safer in that school in Arizona. I don’t know if this is going to work. But I have bought you one last chance. You have got to believe that you don’t need to do any of this to get my attention’.
She didn’t stick around for a response. It was pretty obvious that she had finished her sermon and like everyone else she had jumped to her own conclusions about what was going on with me.
I promised myself that if I ever had a kid of my own, then I would never make the same mistake.
How difficult would it have been to just ask me why I had skipped school? Was nobody interested in the truth? I mean, who could blame me for telling nobody about my search for my Dad? It’s not as though anyone would have listened to me anyway…
Five Ways for a Parent to Alienate their Kid
1 Never Listen
2 Punish first – ask questions later
3 Work long hours
4 Talk about nothing but their own problems, feeling, etc.
5 Issue threats
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Chapters 17 & 18
Chapter 17
When Mom decided to have a little talk with me about the ‘security situation’ just before I returned to school, I was less than focused. I had bigger and more exciting things on my mind. Besides, I figured that it was nothing more than the usual blah, blah, blah. My ears only really tuned into the conversation when I heard mention of a device.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘could you repeat that last part?’
‘Sure,’ said Mom, ‘in fact Bob can show you one right now.’
‘It’s very discreet,’ said Bob, holding out a red-coloured badge that was no bigger than a nickel. ‘You can just clip it on to your shirt or your skirt. This technology is so minute that some people even have them implanted under their skin.’
‘Are you crazy?!’ I exploded.
‘Honey, we only want you to wear it when you’re out of the house. It’s really no big deal. So long as you wear this tiny thing we’ll know exactly where you are and we’ll know that you are safe. I mean, it’s not as though we’re asking you to do something that I’m not prepared to do myself,’ said Mom, clearly showing me the small blue badge that was pinned to her bra strap.
‘Isn’t it enough that there are bodyguards and photographers practically everywhere I go? Why don’t you just put me on a leash? I mean, it’s not as though anyone actually wants me. All of this is about you and it is totally not fair,’ I said as I made my way towards the door.
There was no point in waiting for a reply. I knew that this whole device thing was totally non-negotiable. The best I could do was to bang a few doors just to show them how much the whole thing sucked.
The fact that all of my movements would be tracked on some electronic map suddenly made my plans to visit Edward Moore very complicated. As I returned to St Saviours I was certain of three things;
1 Marnie would have to cover for me while I skipped school and hopped on a train to see Edward Moore – she would need to wear the device so that everything would at least look normal.
2 And that meant that Marnie could not be told the truth. There would be no reason for her to help me if she hated me for lying to her about everything.
3 So, somehow, I had to keep Christine quiet…..
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to keep lying to Marnie. But I just couldn’t afford to gamble her support. So I gave her some lame story about my step-dad forcing me to wear this electronic tag so that my Mom and I wouldn’t try to skip the country without him. She totally bought the whole thing. It was almost painful to see that she trusted me so completely. I felt like a complete louse. But I promised myself that I would make it up to Marnie once I had settled things with my Dad. When all of this craziness and sneaking around was behind me I would tell her the truth. She would understand.
And even though I knew just how much trouble she would be in if we got caught, she agreed to help me just as soon as I asked. She didn’t even have to think about it. And so it was all set. I would skip school the very next day, while Marnie wore my tag.
All I had to do was to make sure that Christine kept her mouth shut…
Girls like Christine are depressingly predictable. If they have some dirt on you that they are keeping to themselves, it’s only because they want to make you sweat while they calculate the price of their silence. I decided to get straight to the point with Christine.
‘So what do you want?’ I asked.
She tried to look surprised by my question.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘don’t waste my time.’
Christine surveyed me carefully before replying.
‘You know, you can never have too many friends,’ she said, with her nose in the air. ‘There is absolutely no reason for someone with your credentials to go slumming it with the likes of Marnie Bradshaw when you really are more suited to me.’
I didn’t hide my snigger, but nothing was going to throw Christine; she was on a roll.
‘Think of it Bliss,’ she hissed into my ear, ‘we could do what friends do. You could visit me and I could visit you. I’d bet your Mother would just love to meet one of your little English friends. And you know I’d be the soul of discretion.’
So that was her price. She wanted to meet Angel.
It was never going to happen. But I needed to buy myself some time.
‘My Mom’s pretty busy right now,’ I said.
Christine looked unimpressed. I needed to offer something more concrete.
‘Just give me a week,’ I said, hoping that that would be enough.
Chapter 18
As I sat on the train the next day, I was too busy concentrating on the names of the stations that we were speeding though to worry too much about what was going on at school. The handover had gone pretty smoothly. I had stood at the gates of St Saviours with Marnie and we had waved goodbye to Andre. Once his very bright car had finally disappeared from sight, there had been just enough time for me to cover up my uniform with a black hooded jacket and to give Marnie the device before the bell rang. I had then hopped on a bus that I knew would take me to Waterloo station.
It was only when I found myself standing in the middle of that enormous, bustling train station that I almost lost my nerve. Everyone around me seemed to know exactly where they were going. And what did I have? All I had was a piece of paper with an address that was five years out of date.
But failure was definitely not an option. I decided to concentrate on the constantly changing information board while my tummy did somersaults. By the time that I had finally figured out the platform that I would need, I had pretty well calmed down.
It was a surprisingly short trip.
As the concrete maze of London gave way to a vista of fields and trees, I knew that we could not be far from Guildford. It was just a pity that I was not in tourist mode to enjoy the cathedral town in the busy commuter belt. I hadn’t exactly seen too much of England since my arrival.
I tried to look mature beyond my years as I hailed a cab outside the station. The last thing that I wanted was any awkward questioning from an interfering driver. So I busied myself by talking (to nobody) on my cellphone while I handed him the address.
His silence and my anxiety netted him a big tip once he deposited me safely outside No 7 Cherrywell Close.
I probably should have been scared when I found myself standing alone on the street once the cab had left. But for some reason it was impossible to be too freaked-out at the thought of knocking on the door of such a sleepy looking house, in such a quiet place.
It was all so wonderfully normal.
I had decided to play it cool. I’d say that my Mom had suggested that I drop in and say hi while I was in town. It would be no big deal, right? And anyway, what were the chances that this Moore guy would ever get an opportunity to tell my Mom that I had paid him a visit?
Somebody was obviously at home. The sound of the doorbell had caused some small-sounding dog to spring into action. The high-pitched barking was only quietened with the closing of some internal door. I could hear footsteps. This was it.
But when the front door was opened, I came face to face with a white-haired old lady who was no taller than me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘maybe I have the wrong address. I was looking for Edward Moore.’
Was it my imagination or did she blanche slightly?
‘You’d better come in dear,’ she said.
She led me into the front parlour. It was stuffed full of the most wonderful chintz that I had ever seen. The over-stuffed sofas, deep rugs and busy wallpaper were all as I had ever expected to find in an English living room. It was all so much more authentic than the bare wooden floors and modern furnishings of our London pad.
Even the old woman looked so much more like an actual grandmother than my own Grandma (this lady’s face had obviously never been introduced to the knife of a plastic surgeon). Her hair was tucked into a neat bun, although it was frizzy at the edges. And her lavender cardigan looked as though she had probably made it herself.
It all felt very real and very comforting.
But I was surprised when the old woman sat down in the armchair opposite mine. Where was Edward?
‘Have you come a long way?’ she asked, smiling gently.
‘Oh, you know, not too far, just from London this morning,’ I said, trying to sound way too cool.
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you sound as though you’ve travelled a lot further than that,’ she said.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, smiling and pointing stupidly at my throat. ‘Well yes, I am visiting from California.’
‘So you’ve come a long way to see Teddie then.’
‘Well my Mom said that I should drop in and say hi if I was in the area. They worked together a long time ago.’
There was a long and painful pause.
‘Listen, there is no easy way to say this, even after all this time. Teddie is dead.’
And with that bombshell, I felt myself burst into the kind of gut-wrenching sobbing that you would only generally witness among pre-schoolers. The tears could not be stopped. I cried uncontrollably.
It was a response that was as shocking to me as it was to the old lady. Her own grief-stricken face was now filled with concern. She sat next to me and held my hand as she offered me a beautiful, scented, handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan.
‘There, there dear,’ she consoled me. ‘Just you let the tears out. Let the tears out and you’ll feel much better, I promise you.’
She sat with me for some minutes before my sobbing subsided. It was only then, when I had begun to calm down that she offered to make me a nice, sweet, cup of tea.
I tried to pull myself together while she was busy in the kitchen. It was insane for me to feel so devastated by the death of a man who I had never met, even if that man had a 50 / 50 chance of being my father.
It was then that I spotted the cluttered shrine of photographs and awards that Mrs Moore had obviously created on the shelving next to the fireplace.
My eyes ran across the many pictures of Edward Moore, looking for clues that might tell me something of the kind of man that he had been, and, more crucially for me, for any similarities that we might share. The pictures told a story of the too-short life of a much-loved man. There were film awards – lots of them. Tons of photographs had been taken on various holidays and movie sets; some even showed Teddie with some pretty impressive celebrities.
It was then that I spotted the crucial evidence.
Tucked away, at the back of the middle shelf was a photo of Teddie with Mom. It was even signed; ‘To my Teddy Bear, with all my love, Angel.’
So it was true, then.
I stood, paralysed to the spot, holding the picture of Teddie & Angel – holding the picture of my Mom and Dad.
It was almost too much.
I didn’t even hear Mrs Moore return with her tray of tea and biscuits. She joined me in silent reflection of her dead son before she handed me a mug of tea.
‘You must sit down dear,’ she said, fussing over me in a way that felt warm and reassuring.
She drank from her own tea and watched me with quiet concern before she spoke again.
‘Would you like to talk about it? I’m a good listener, I promise you that.’
It felt as though a dam was about to burst inside of me. I wanted to tell her everything.
‘I think that Teddie was my dad,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.’
She glanced down at the photo in my hand before she responded.
‘So many people loved Teddie. From the time he was a little boy you could see that he was like a magnet – everyone was drawn to him. He just had a lovely way of making the people around him feel happy and relaxed. It was a gift, I suppose. At his funeral there were so many flowers… And so many friends, with so many memories to share.’
She stopped for a moment and smiled sadly to herself.
‘He was a magnificent man. But if there was one certainty that I had to face with a son like Teddie it was this – I knew that he would never make a grandmother of me.’
I opened my mouth in silent protest, my hand pointing towards the photo of Mom and Teddie.
‘Dear, I know, I know. There were always so many girls around Teddie and he loved them, he really did, but only as friends. Nothing more. How should I say it?…. Let’s just say he was not the marrying kind.’
The tears were flowing again. This time they spilled onto the photo that I now held in my lap.
‘You’re sure?’ I asked, although I knew that the old lady wouldn’t have been able to lie to save her life.
She nodded her certainty.
‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re such a beautiful girl…so lovely, and I know you’ve travelled all this way. If my Teddie were alive today, I know that you’d be friends. And I only wish that I could be Grandma to a fine girl like you.’
And then she hugged me. I let the tears come freely and I held onto her. What was I grieving for? Was if for a father who never was or for a life that was so achingly normal and yet so far out of my reach?
I hadn’t expected any problems in getting home.
The plan was that I would meet up with Marnie outside the school gates at the end of the day. I figured that I would be able to blend into the crowd of ‘young ladies’ without being noticed. All that Marnie had to do was to return the security device to me before Andre spotted us.
It couldn’t have been any simpler.
I should have known that something was up once I saw just how pale and tense Marnie looked. She did not look pleased to see me. As I got closer to her I saw that she was silently mouthing some sort of message to me. Was it a warning? No, it was an apology. She said the words over and over again – I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
And it didn’t take too much figuring out to see why. In the doorway behind Marnie’s tiny figure stood Mrs Butler-Masterson with Bob.
Bob gave me a long hug before he spoke.
‘You have no idea how much trouble you are in,’ he said.
When Mom decided to have a little talk with me about the ‘security situation’ just before I returned to school, I was less than focused. I had bigger and more exciting things on my mind. Besides, I figured that it was nothing more than the usual blah, blah, blah. My ears only really tuned into the conversation when I heard mention of a device.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘could you repeat that last part?’
‘Sure,’ said Mom, ‘in fact Bob can show you one right now.’
‘It’s very discreet,’ said Bob, holding out a red-coloured badge that was no bigger than a nickel. ‘You can just clip it on to your shirt or your skirt. This technology is so minute that some people even have them implanted under their skin.’
‘Are you crazy?!’ I exploded.
‘Honey, we only want you to wear it when you’re out of the house. It’s really no big deal. So long as you wear this tiny thing we’ll know exactly where you are and we’ll know that you are safe. I mean, it’s not as though we’re asking you to do something that I’m not prepared to do myself,’ said Mom, clearly showing me the small blue badge that was pinned to her bra strap.
‘Isn’t it enough that there are bodyguards and photographers practically everywhere I go? Why don’t you just put me on a leash? I mean, it’s not as though anyone actually wants me. All of this is about you and it is totally not fair,’ I said as I made my way towards the door.
There was no point in waiting for a reply. I knew that this whole device thing was totally non-negotiable. The best I could do was to bang a few doors just to show them how much the whole thing sucked.
The fact that all of my movements would be tracked on some electronic map suddenly made my plans to visit Edward Moore very complicated. As I returned to St Saviours I was certain of three things;
1 Marnie would have to cover for me while I skipped school and hopped on a train to see Edward Moore – she would need to wear the device so that everything would at least look normal.
2 And that meant that Marnie could not be told the truth. There would be no reason for her to help me if she hated me for lying to her about everything.
3 So, somehow, I had to keep Christine quiet…..
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to keep lying to Marnie. But I just couldn’t afford to gamble her support. So I gave her some lame story about my step-dad forcing me to wear this electronic tag so that my Mom and I wouldn’t try to skip the country without him. She totally bought the whole thing. It was almost painful to see that she trusted me so completely. I felt like a complete louse. But I promised myself that I would make it up to Marnie once I had settled things with my Dad. When all of this craziness and sneaking around was behind me I would tell her the truth. She would understand.
And even though I knew just how much trouble she would be in if we got caught, she agreed to help me just as soon as I asked. She didn’t even have to think about it. And so it was all set. I would skip school the very next day, while Marnie wore my tag.
All I had to do was to make sure that Christine kept her mouth shut…
Girls like Christine are depressingly predictable. If they have some dirt on you that they are keeping to themselves, it’s only because they want to make you sweat while they calculate the price of their silence. I decided to get straight to the point with Christine.
‘So what do you want?’ I asked.
She tried to look surprised by my question.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘don’t waste my time.’
Christine surveyed me carefully before replying.
‘You know, you can never have too many friends,’ she said, with her nose in the air. ‘There is absolutely no reason for someone with your credentials to go slumming it with the likes of Marnie Bradshaw when you really are more suited to me.’
I didn’t hide my snigger, but nothing was going to throw Christine; she was on a roll.
‘Think of it Bliss,’ she hissed into my ear, ‘we could do what friends do. You could visit me and I could visit you. I’d bet your Mother would just love to meet one of your little English friends. And you know I’d be the soul of discretion.’
So that was her price. She wanted to meet Angel.
It was never going to happen. But I needed to buy myself some time.
‘My Mom’s pretty busy right now,’ I said.
Christine looked unimpressed. I needed to offer something more concrete.
‘Just give me a week,’ I said, hoping that that would be enough.
Chapter 18
As I sat on the train the next day, I was too busy concentrating on the names of the stations that we were speeding though to worry too much about what was going on at school. The handover had gone pretty smoothly. I had stood at the gates of St Saviours with Marnie and we had waved goodbye to Andre. Once his very bright car had finally disappeared from sight, there had been just enough time for me to cover up my uniform with a black hooded jacket and to give Marnie the device before the bell rang. I had then hopped on a bus that I knew would take me to Waterloo station.
It was only when I found myself standing in the middle of that enormous, bustling train station that I almost lost my nerve. Everyone around me seemed to know exactly where they were going. And what did I have? All I had was a piece of paper with an address that was five years out of date.
But failure was definitely not an option. I decided to concentrate on the constantly changing information board while my tummy did somersaults. By the time that I had finally figured out the platform that I would need, I had pretty well calmed down.
It was a surprisingly short trip.
As the concrete maze of London gave way to a vista of fields and trees, I knew that we could not be far from Guildford. It was just a pity that I was not in tourist mode to enjoy the cathedral town in the busy commuter belt. I hadn’t exactly seen too much of England since my arrival.
I tried to look mature beyond my years as I hailed a cab outside the station. The last thing that I wanted was any awkward questioning from an interfering driver. So I busied myself by talking (to nobody) on my cellphone while I handed him the address.
His silence and my anxiety netted him a big tip once he deposited me safely outside No 7 Cherrywell Close.
I probably should have been scared when I found myself standing alone on the street once the cab had left. But for some reason it was impossible to be too freaked-out at the thought of knocking on the door of such a sleepy looking house, in such a quiet place.
It was all so wonderfully normal.
I had decided to play it cool. I’d say that my Mom had suggested that I drop in and say hi while I was in town. It would be no big deal, right? And anyway, what were the chances that this Moore guy would ever get an opportunity to tell my Mom that I had paid him a visit?
Somebody was obviously at home. The sound of the doorbell had caused some small-sounding dog to spring into action. The high-pitched barking was only quietened with the closing of some internal door. I could hear footsteps. This was it.
But when the front door was opened, I came face to face with a white-haired old lady who was no taller than me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘maybe I have the wrong address. I was looking for Edward Moore.’
Was it my imagination or did she blanche slightly?
‘You’d better come in dear,’ she said.
She led me into the front parlour. It was stuffed full of the most wonderful chintz that I had ever seen. The over-stuffed sofas, deep rugs and busy wallpaper were all as I had ever expected to find in an English living room. It was all so much more authentic than the bare wooden floors and modern furnishings of our London pad.
Even the old woman looked so much more like an actual grandmother than my own Grandma (this lady’s face had obviously never been introduced to the knife of a plastic surgeon). Her hair was tucked into a neat bun, although it was frizzy at the edges. And her lavender cardigan looked as though she had probably made it herself.
It all felt very real and very comforting.
But I was surprised when the old woman sat down in the armchair opposite mine. Where was Edward?
‘Have you come a long way?’ she asked, smiling gently.
‘Oh, you know, not too far, just from London this morning,’ I said, trying to sound way too cool.
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you sound as though you’ve travelled a lot further than that,’ she said.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, smiling and pointing stupidly at my throat. ‘Well yes, I am visiting from California.’
‘So you’ve come a long way to see Teddie then.’
‘Well my Mom said that I should drop in and say hi if I was in the area. They worked together a long time ago.’
There was a long and painful pause.
‘Listen, there is no easy way to say this, even after all this time. Teddie is dead.’
And with that bombshell, I felt myself burst into the kind of gut-wrenching sobbing that you would only generally witness among pre-schoolers. The tears could not be stopped. I cried uncontrollably.
It was a response that was as shocking to me as it was to the old lady. Her own grief-stricken face was now filled with concern. She sat next to me and held my hand as she offered me a beautiful, scented, handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan.
‘There, there dear,’ she consoled me. ‘Just you let the tears out. Let the tears out and you’ll feel much better, I promise you.’
She sat with me for some minutes before my sobbing subsided. It was only then, when I had begun to calm down that she offered to make me a nice, sweet, cup of tea.
I tried to pull myself together while she was busy in the kitchen. It was insane for me to feel so devastated by the death of a man who I had never met, even if that man had a 50 / 50 chance of being my father.
It was then that I spotted the cluttered shrine of photographs and awards that Mrs Moore had obviously created on the shelving next to the fireplace.
My eyes ran across the many pictures of Edward Moore, looking for clues that might tell me something of the kind of man that he had been, and, more crucially for me, for any similarities that we might share. The pictures told a story of the too-short life of a much-loved man. There were film awards – lots of them. Tons of photographs had been taken on various holidays and movie sets; some even showed Teddie with some pretty impressive celebrities.
It was then that I spotted the crucial evidence.
Tucked away, at the back of the middle shelf was a photo of Teddie with Mom. It was even signed; ‘To my Teddy Bear, with all my love, Angel.’
So it was true, then.
I stood, paralysed to the spot, holding the picture of Teddie & Angel – holding the picture of my Mom and Dad.
It was almost too much.
I didn’t even hear Mrs Moore return with her tray of tea and biscuits. She joined me in silent reflection of her dead son before she handed me a mug of tea.
‘You must sit down dear,’ she said, fussing over me in a way that felt warm and reassuring.
She drank from her own tea and watched me with quiet concern before she spoke again.
‘Would you like to talk about it? I’m a good listener, I promise you that.’
It felt as though a dam was about to burst inside of me. I wanted to tell her everything.
‘I think that Teddie was my dad,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.’
She glanced down at the photo in my hand before she responded.
‘So many people loved Teddie. From the time he was a little boy you could see that he was like a magnet – everyone was drawn to him. He just had a lovely way of making the people around him feel happy and relaxed. It was a gift, I suppose. At his funeral there were so many flowers… And so many friends, with so many memories to share.’
She stopped for a moment and smiled sadly to herself.
‘He was a magnificent man. But if there was one certainty that I had to face with a son like Teddie it was this – I knew that he would never make a grandmother of me.’
I opened my mouth in silent protest, my hand pointing towards the photo of Mom and Teddie.
‘Dear, I know, I know. There were always so many girls around Teddie and he loved them, he really did, but only as friends. Nothing more. How should I say it?…. Let’s just say he was not the marrying kind.’
The tears were flowing again. This time they spilled onto the photo that I now held in my lap.
‘You’re sure?’ I asked, although I knew that the old lady wouldn’t have been able to lie to save her life.
She nodded her certainty.
‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re such a beautiful girl…so lovely, and I know you’ve travelled all this way. If my Teddie were alive today, I know that you’d be friends. And I only wish that I could be Grandma to a fine girl like you.’
And then she hugged me. I let the tears come freely and I held onto her. What was I grieving for? Was if for a father who never was or for a life that was so achingly normal and yet so far out of my reach?
I hadn’t expected any problems in getting home.
The plan was that I would meet up with Marnie outside the school gates at the end of the day. I figured that I would be able to blend into the crowd of ‘young ladies’ without being noticed. All that Marnie had to do was to return the security device to me before Andre spotted us.
It couldn’t have been any simpler.
I should have known that something was up once I saw just how pale and tense Marnie looked. She did not look pleased to see me. As I got closer to her I saw that she was silently mouthing some sort of message to me. Was it a warning? No, it was an apology. She said the words over and over again – I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
And it didn’t take too much figuring out to see why. In the doorway behind Marnie’s tiny figure stood Mrs Butler-Masterson with Bob.
Bob gave me a long hug before he spoke.
‘You have no idea how much trouble you are in,’ he said.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Chapters 15 & 16
Chapter 15
Christmas cheer wasn’t exactly in abundance at home or at school.
British tabloids had somehow gotten hold of the story of Mom’s stalker problem. A huge bouquet had been delivered to the house while Mom had been working at the studio one day, and luckily Bob had decided to check it out. He found a razor in the heart of each of he twelve red roses. You can imagine how Mom reacted. I mean, who wouldn’t be freaked? And once the press heard about it (somebody was obviously blabbing) they just wouldn’t leave us alone. There were so many journalists and photographers camped outside our house that, even if I hadn’t been grounded, I really wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere.
Trips to school had evolved into high-speed dashes that left me hiding under blankets on the back seat until I could be certain that we had shaken off the paparazzi. It wasn’t the best way to start the day. But with only three days left to go before the end of term, I didn’t want to blow my cover.
Christine had been unusually silent since sending me that note. But I knew that it was just a matter of time before she made her move. She was obviously looking for something… Why else would she have tried to freak me out with that note? She would have just blabbed unless she wanted to use her information to bribe me in some way. I knew that she wouldn’t blow my cover without making some sort of demand of me. All I could do was wait until she made her move.
Plus, as if I didn’t have enough to worry about, I had finally flunked French. The results were posted on a noticeboard for all to see, and for the first time in my life my name was listed next to the word FAIL. It was all very brutal and very public. Obviously St Saviours’ was less concerned with the self-esteem of its pupils that it was aware of the many benefits of peer pressure. A note was pinned to the wall instructing me to see Mrs Butler-Masterson at my earliest convenience.
There was no point in stalling. I set out towards her office to get the inevitable tongue-lashing over and done with as soon as possible.
As it turned out, Miss Fairgrove, the school secretary (and the oldest person I knew to still plait her hair) was unusually absent from her post. The door to Mrs Butler-Masterson’s office was open and I was just about to walk in when I heard a familiar voice. It was Marnie.
‘Thank you Mrs Butler-Masterson,’ she said.
‘And so you should thank me Marnie Bradshaw,’ she said. ‘You scholarship girls are almost over-indulged. Not only are you pardoned our considerable fees, but you expect free books and uniform expenses as well!’
‘Here, take these books for next term. I expect to see them back, in mint condition mind, when the year has ended. Just keep up those grades and take my advice – steer clear of the American girl. I really shouldn’t have to remind you that you cannot afford to get into trouble.’
Marnie muttered her thanks and I only just managed to hide myself under a desk before she made her exit. I knew that she wouldn’t have wanted a witness to her humiliation.
But before I could get too mad on behalf of the school’s scholarship girls, and Marnie in particular, I was joined under the desk by the unmistakable Doctor Martin boots of Miss Fairgrove. A single plait dangled down as she bent over to see me.
‘May I help you?’ she asked.
There is never a good time to bring home a bad school report. But flunking French so soon after the whole business with Martina and while my Mom was so stressed-out was spectacularly bad timing.
Given those circumstances I felt that my decision to bury the bad news until after Christmas was totally understandable. Madame Le Maistre had given me a pile of studying to do over the holidays so that I would have a better shot at passing my re-sit of the exam in January. I fully intended to hit the books pretty hard.
But before I could do anything to put a positive spin on the situation, Mom decided that she needed to have a quiet word with me in her office.
I knew then that something was up.
People only ever want to deliver bad news one-to-one. Awards and victories are always big, public affairs. No good ever came out of these confidential conferences – not for me, anyway.
The disappointed look in Mom’s eyes told me all that I needed to know. It was obvious that she had heard about my results. I should have guessed that a school like St Saviours would never trust its pupils to hand over the school reports – especially the bad ones.
She grasped both of my hands in her own as she sat down beside me on the sofa.
Now there is something that you have really got to understand here – my Mom is the highest paid actress in the world for good reason. There is nobody on the planet who can beat her when it comes to displays of raw emotion – both real and imagined. It’s something that has always complicated things between us. Mom could always beat me, hands down, when it came to any actual domestic drama. It wasn’t fair! Wasn’t I supposed to be the one with the unpredictable hormones and the mood swings? When exactly did I get to have crying fits and temper tantrums? At times like these I had learned to just let my Mom get on with it and to be clear of the situation as quickly as possible.
‘Honey, are you happy at school?’ she asked.
‘It’s okay,’ I lied.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
‘You know that I want you to be happy sweetie, I want that more than anything…’
Oh no, I thought, here comes the drama – easier to just cut to the chase. I decided to come clean.
‘You know that I failed French,’ I said, matter-of-factly.
‘Honey, I’m sure you did your best,’ she said with tears in her eyes as she squeezed my hands even tighter.
‘It’s okay, I’ll just do the re-sits at the end of January,’ I said. But Mom would not be swayed from her own pre-pepared script.
‘I may not be the best Mom in the world, I know that,’ she said, pausing for either dramatic effect or for some protest from me.
‘It can’t be easy for you with me being so busy and all of this craziness.’
What could I say? She was right on the money with that one.
‘Anyway, like I’ve always said, I’m sure that everything always happens for a reason. And guess what? I got the dates for my promotional trip to Paris just this morning when I heard about your French results.’
Dear God, no, I thought. Not another trip.
‘Mom, you know how busy you always are with these press junkets and opening nights – we wouldn’t have any time together.’
‘Honey,’ she said, looking at me straight in the eye, ‘I will make the time. You and I will go to the opening night of “Soldier Sisters” wearing the latest French fashions. We will have a lot of fun.’
My hopes for a low-profile future suddenly took a nosedive.
But I smiled anyway.
Chapter 16
Maybe it was because Thanksgiving had been such a total disaster, or maybe it was because we had to make the best out of being thrown together at a time that had everything to do with real families, but we all made an effort to enjoy our Christmas in London. The weather was our only real disappointment. After years of hot Christmases in L.A. we had hoped for some snow, but all we got was the same cold drizzle that had dogged us since our arrival.
It was almost noon before everyone finally showed up in the main living room – there had been some serious partying the night before. Andre and Portia looked positively ill. But since we had declared that Christmas would be a day for slobbing out (p.j.s and sweats were mandatory, all diets were strictly forbidden), they blended right in.
Apart from the shopping spree, Mom insisted that gifts be kept simple (the only exception had been the diamond earrings that she had given to me). Part of the fun of the day was seeing what presents everyone would come up with when they were limited to either making each item or spending less than ten dollars.
Being the only official kid present, I was the sole focus of an uncomfortable amount of attention. It was just as well, then, that I actually liked most of my presents. Andre had managed to knit me a multi-coloured pouch for my MP3 player. Bob gave me a cool looking whistle on a little silver chain that I actually wanted to wear and Tony was just a little too keen to try out the skipping rope that he had bought for me (could that man ever sit still?). Thankfully, Sebastian was absent. He had opted to spend Christmas with some theatrical friends of his and he had neglected to leave any presents (surprise, surprise).
Portia’s gift confused me at first. What did I want with a copy of French Vogue? But it turned out that it was her very individual way of offering me a little help with my French. Who knew that she had lived in Paris for two years?
The only truly crumby gift came from Martina – but then I hadn’t exactly expected too much. She certainly made her point when she handed me a new diary ‘to help me get organised.’ But I wasn’t about to lock horns with her. I mentally listed the reasons why, just to keep myself smiling;
1 I didn’t want to ruin Christmas day for everyone else
2 I did not want to be grounded for a minute longer than I had to be
It was a desperate hope for more normal Christmases to come that helped me make it through the huge dinner. I waited until the champagne began to flow before I made my exit.
The badly-wrapped gift that was waiting for me outside my door was a surprise… There was no tag attached and when I picked it up it felt like a sweater. Had Andre knit me yet another gift? And would I actually have to wear this one?? Andre had a worrying affinity with bright colours and as I unwrapped the gift I made a mental note to myself that I would only wear an ugly sweater within the privacy of the house. But I quickly realized that this gift had not come from Andre…
It was immediately obvious that the garment that I removed from too many layers of paper had not been produced by Andre’s knitting needles. The blue sweater looked like some sort of sports kit. As I held it up against me in front of my mirror I noticed two things;
1 It was way too big for me
2 There was an envelope hidden inside..
I picked up the sealed envelope from the floor. It had my name on it, but I didn’t recognize the writing. I tore it open, ignored the cheesy design of the Christmas card cover and began to read. It was from Peter.
Bliss,
Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. So now you have the official strip (last season’s – sorry) for Chelsea, the greatest football team in the world (forget anything you may have heard about Manchester United). And you also have your secret email, which I’ve sealed to the back of this card for extra security.
Happy Christmas,
Peter
My fingers quickly pulled at the folded sheet that Peter had taped to the card. And then I saw it;
Subject: Edward Moore
For a second I almost couldn’t breathe.
I read the text twice. There was no mistake. Enclosed was the last known address of the lighting director Edward Moore. The details that they supplied were five years old, they said, and they did not have a telephone number. They were still trying to source contact details for Robert Grand (the director) and it was possible that he had moved abroad.
But the fact was that I now finally had the address of a man who had a 50 / 50 chance of being my father.
I was ecstatic.
The New Year would be the best year of my life.
Christmas cheer wasn’t exactly in abundance at home or at school.
British tabloids had somehow gotten hold of the story of Mom’s stalker problem. A huge bouquet had been delivered to the house while Mom had been working at the studio one day, and luckily Bob had decided to check it out. He found a razor in the heart of each of he twelve red roses. You can imagine how Mom reacted. I mean, who wouldn’t be freaked? And once the press heard about it (somebody was obviously blabbing) they just wouldn’t leave us alone. There were so many journalists and photographers camped outside our house that, even if I hadn’t been grounded, I really wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere.
Trips to school had evolved into high-speed dashes that left me hiding under blankets on the back seat until I could be certain that we had shaken off the paparazzi. It wasn’t the best way to start the day. But with only three days left to go before the end of term, I didn’t want to blow my cover.
Christine had been unusually silent since sending me that note. But I knew that it was just a matter of time before she made her move. She was obviously looking for something… Why else would she have tried to freak me out with that note? She would have just blabbed unless she wanted to use her information to bribe me in some way. I knew that she wouldn’t blow my cover without making some sort of demand of me. All I could do was wait until she made her move.
Plus, as if I didn’t have enough to worry about, I had finally flunked French. The results were posted on a noticeboard for all to see, and for the first time in my life my name was listed next to the word FAIL. It was all very brutal and very public. Obviously St Saviours’ was less concerned with the self-esteem of its pupils that it was aware of the many benefits of peer pressure. A note was pinned to the wall instructing me to see Mrs Butler-Masterson at my earliest convenience.
There was no point in stalling. I set out towards her office to get the inevitable tongue-lashing over and done with as soon as possible.
As it turned out, Miss Fairgrove, the school secretary (and the oldest person I knew to still plait her hair) was unusually absent from her post. The door to Mrs Butler-Masterson’s office was open and I was just about to walk in when I heard a familiar voice. It was Marnie.
‘Thank you Mrs Butler-Masterson,’ she said.
‘And so you should thank me Marnie Bradshaw,’ she said. ‘You scholarship girls are almost over-indulged. Not only are you pardoned our considerable fees, but you expect free books and uniform expenses as well!’
‘Here, take these books for next term. I expect to see them back, in mint condition mind, when the year has ended. Just keep up those grades and take my advice – steer clear of the American girl. I really shouldn’t have to remind you that you cannot afford to get into trouble.’
Marnie muttered her thanks and I only just managed to hide myself under a desk before she made her exit. I knew that she wouldn’t have wanted a witness to her humiliation.
But before I could get too mad on behalf of the school’s scholarship girls, and Marnie in particular, I was joined under the desk by the unmistakable Doctor Martin boots of Miss Fairgrove. A single plait dangled down as she bent over to see me.
‘May I help you?’ she asked.
There is never a good time to bring home a bad school report. But flunking French so soon after the whole business with Martina and while my Mom was so stressed-out was spectacularly bad timing.
Given those circumstances I felt that my decision to bury the bad news until after Christmas was totally understandable. Madame Le Maistre had given me a pile of studying to do over the holidays so that I would have a better shot at passing my re-sit of the exam in January. I fully intended to hit the books pretty hard.
But before I could do anything to put a positive spin on the situation, Mom decided that she needed to have a quiet word with me in her office.
I knew then that something was up.
People only ever want to deliver bad news one-to-one. Awards and victories are always big, public affairs. No good ever came out of these confidential conferences – not for me, anyway.
The disappointed look in Mom’s eyes told me all that I needed to know. It was obvious that she had heard about my results. I should have guessed that a school like St Saviours would never trust its pupils to hand over the school reports – especially the bad ones.
She grasped both of my hands in her own as she sat down beside me on the sofa.
Now there is something that you have really got to understand here – my Mom is the highest paid actress in the world for good reason. There is nobody on the planet who can beat her when it comes to displays of raw emotion – both real and imagined. It’s something that has always complicated things between us. Mom could always beat me, hands down, when it came to any actual domestic drama. It wasn’t fair! Wasn’t I supposed to be the one with the unpredictable hormones and the mood swings? When exactly did I get to have crying fits and temper tantrums? At times like these I had learned to just let my Mom get on with it and to be clear of the situation as quickly as possible.
‘Honey, are you happy at school?’ she asked.
‘It’s okay,’ I lied.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
‘You know that I want you to be happy sweetie, I want that more than anything…’
Oh no, I thought, here comes the drama – easier to just cut to the chase. I decided to come clean.
‘You know that I failed French,’ I said, matter-of-factly.
‘Honey, I’m sure you did your best,’ she said with tears in her eyes as she squeezed my hands even tighter.
‘It’s okay, I’ll just do the re-sits at the end of January,’ I said. But Mom would not be swayed from her own pre-pepared script.
‘I may not be the best Mom in the world, I know that,’ she said, pausing for either dramatic effect or for some protest from me.
‘It can’t be easy for you with me being so busy and all of this craziness.’
What could I say? She was right on the money with that one.
‘Anyway, like I’ve always said, I’m sure that everything always happens for a reason. And guess what? I got the dates for my promotional trip to Paris just this morning when I heard about your French results.’
Dear God, no, I thought. Not another trip.
‘Mom, you know how busy you always are with these press junkets and opening nights – we wouldn’t have any time together.’
‘Honey,’ she said, looking at me straight in the eye, ‘I will make the time. You and I will go to the opening night of “Soldier Sisters” wearing the latest French fashions. We will have a lot of fun.’
My hopes for a low-profile future suddenly took a nosedive.
But I smiled anyway.
Chapter 16
Maybe it was because Thanksgiving had been such a total disaster, or maybe it was because we had to make the best out of being thrown together at a time that had everything to do with real families, but we all made an effort to enjoy our Christmas in London. The weather was our only real disappointment. After years of hot Christmases in L.A. we had hoped for some snow, but all we got was the same cold drizzle that had dogged us since our arrival.
It was almost noon before everyone finally showed up in the main living room – there had been some serious partying the night before. Andre and Portia looked positively ill. But since we had declared that Christmas would be a day for slobbing out (p.j.s and sweats were mandatory, all diets were strictly forbidden), they blended right in.
Apart from the shopping spree, Mom insisted that gifts be kept simple (the only exception had been the diamond earrings that she had given to me). Part of the fun of the day was seeing what presents everyone would come up with when they were limited to either making each item or spending less than ten dollars.
Being the only official kid present, I was the sole focus of an uncomfortable amount of attention. It was just as well, then, that I actually liked most of my presents. Andre had managed to knit me a multi-coloured pouch for my MP3 player. Bob gave me a cool looking whistle on a little silver chain that I actually wanted to wear and Tony was just a little too keen to try out the skipping rope that he had bought for me (could that man ever sit still?). Thankfully, Sebastian was absent. He had opted to spend Christmas with some theatrical friends of his and he had neglected to leave any presents (surprise, surprise).
Portia’s gift confused me at first. What did I want with a copy of French Vogue? But it turned out that it was her very individual way of offering me a little help with my French. Who knew that she had lived in Paris for two years?
The only truly crumby gift came from Martina – but then I hadn’t exactly expected too much. She certainly made her point when she handed me a new diary ‘to help me get organised.’ But I wasn’t about to lock horns with her. I mentally listed the reasons why, just to keep myself smiling;
1 I didn’t want to ruin Christmas day for everyone else
2 I did not want to be grounded for a minute longer than I had to be
It was a desperate hope for more normal Christmases to come that helped me make it through the huge dinner. I waited until the champagne began to flow before I made my exit.
The badly-wrapped gift that was waiting for me outside my door was a surprise… There was no tag attached and when I picked it up it felt like a sweater. Had Andre knit me yet another gift? And would I actually have to wear this one?? Andre had a worrying affinity with bright colours and as I unwrapped the gift I made a mental note to myself that I would only wear an ugly sweater within the privacy of the house. But I quickly realized that this gift had not come from Andre…
It was immediately obvious that the garment that I removed from too many layers of paper had not been produced by Andre’s knitting needles. The blue sweater looked like some sort of sports kit. As I held it up against me in front of my mirror I noticed two things;
1 It was way too big for me
2 There was an envelope hidden inside..
I picked up the sealed envelope from the floor. It had my name on it, but I didn’t recognize the writing. I tore it open, ignored the cheesy design of the Christmas card cover and began to read. It was from Peter.
Bliss,
Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. So now you have the official strip (last season’s – sorry) for Chelsea, the greatest football team in the world (forget anything you may have heard about Manchester United). And you also have your secret email, which I’ve sealed to the back of this card for extra security.
Happy Christmas,
Peter
My fingers quickly pulled at the folded sheet that Peter had taped to the card. And then I saw it;
Subject: Edward Moore
For a second I almost couldn’t breathe.
I read the text twice. There was no mistake. Enclosed was the last known address of the lighting director Edward Moore. The details that they supplied were five years old, they said, and they did not have a telephone number. They were still trying to source contact details for Robert Grand (the director) and it was possible that he had moved abroad.
But the fact was that I now finally had the address of a man who had a 50 / 50 chance of being my father.
I was ecstatic.
The New Year would be the best year of my life.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Chapters 13 & 14
Chapter 13
Turning to Peter for help wasn’t exactly my first choice, but, you know, I really didn’t have a lot of options. I couldn’t plead my case to Mom without getting into even more trouble. And I couldn’t use anybody else’s computer without leaving a very incriminating trail.
So I had to ask Peter.
But for some reason the idea of having an actual conversation with Peter produced much the same physiological effects as a serious coronary episode; my heartbeat raced, my stomach clenched and the palms of my hands got all sweaty. And the confusing truth was that there was nothing unpleasant about the feeling… Hormones were obviously beginning to corrode my teenage brain.
Was Peter Worthing even aware of my existence?? Not that you would have noticed. Contact between us had become limited to occasional greetings when we passed on our way to and from school. And if Peter was distracted by thoughts filled with the wonder of me, then he hid it very well.
Why would he want to help me?
Thankfully, I was spared the awfulness of having to knock on Peter’s door. The cosmos must have been smiling on me or something, because, less than twenty four hours after the Martina episode I found Peter in the back yard, fixing his bicycle. Peter’s dedication to cycling was almost as excessive as his love of soccer. Every morning I watched as he weaved his way past the cars of the waiting reporters with all of the speed and focus of Lance Armstrong on his way to another yellow jersey.
‘What do you want this time?’ he said.
He spoke without turning around to see me. Just how long had I been standing there looking at him?
‘Can’t a girl just get some air in her own back yard?’ I replied, hoping that my flushed cheeks would not betray me.
‘Relax’ he said, and he turned around to face me, revealing a face smudged with oil. How was it even possible that he looked even more cute that way?
‘I was only pulling your leg,’ he said. ‘Besides, I could do with a bit of help.’
I looked at his oil-covered hands as he held the chain of his bike and realized that the cosmos may in fact have been having some twisted fun at my expense. It wasn’t that I was worried about getting my hands dirty, but the fact was that my mechanical gifts were strictly limited to replacing the occasional print cartridge.
‘Can you pass me that spanner?’ he asked, with a quick nod towards the toolbox.
‘Sure,’ I said, sounding way too enthusiastic. My gaze hovered over the toolbox. ‘But you’ll have to give me a clue or something.’
‘Girls,’ he sighed deeply. ‘It’s just there, on the right.’
I presented the spanner with a flourish. But Peter’s hands were too full of the oily chain to take the tool. He looked flummoxed.
‘Here, let me,’ I volunteered as I sat on the ground opposite Peter and took the chain in my hands.
Peter was clearly impressed. But he said nothing. Instead he quickly got to work on putting the bike back together.
‘You can let go now,’ he said, before spinning the front wheel of the upturned bike. Everything appeared to be working to his satisfaction. And only then did Peter Worthing turn his full attention to me.
‘Look at the state of you,’ he said as he grabbed my hands and started to rub them with a dirty cloth. His attempts at cleaning only made things a whole lot worse. But I did not object. For some reason I didn’t want to do anything to spoil the moment.
‘Sorry,’ he said when he finally gave up.
‘Don’t be,’ I shrugged, trying to look cool but secretly examining the oily fingerprints that now covered my hands.
Hormones were clearly at work.
‘Thanks for the help,’ said Peter.
‘Actually I was kind of hoping that you could help me out with something,’ I said.
Peter raised an eyebrow.
‘What are you up to?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said a little too quickly. ‘It’s just that I’ve had a little trouble at home and, you know, my computer’s been confiscated.’
‘Woah,’ said Peter, ‘I thought you Hollywood Princesses were never denied anything. You must have done something really bad.’
I decided to ignore that remark.
‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I just can’t live without my computer.’
‘Completely understand,’ said Peter.
‘And I’m expecting some really important emails.’
‘So you want to use my computer?’ said Peter.
He was actually volunteering to help!
‘Maybe if you could just check my emails for me?’ I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to get suspicious. I’ve written down my password and everything that you’ll need.’
Peter took the piece of paper and read the details.
‘Funny,’ he said, smiling, ‘you don’t look like an Arnie to me. Is this some sort of alter-ego that you have going on? No, wait… don’t tell me. Something tells me that I really do not want to know.’
Peter stood up and then offered me his hand to help me up. He seemed to be examining my face for some sort of clue when he drew me up to his height and for a moment he said nothing. And then he quickly let go of my hand and turned on his heel.
‘I’ll pass any messages to you as discreetly as I can,’ he said as he walked away. ‘Just don’t get me into any trouble.’
Chapter 14
My return to school on a dark and wet Monday morning was a stark reminder that my run of bad luck had not been ended by a brief episode of flirting with Peter Worthing. I was beginning to notice that St Saviour’s Academy for Young Ladies had a way of depressing the spirit. News that the qualifying round of the debating championship was scheduled for later that week came as a blow. But I had to do a double-take on the notice board to make sure that I had correctly read the topic for debate. It was written large;
The Truth Shall Set Us Free.
I would be arguing in favour. Christine would be arguing against. Only six of the sixteen girls taking part would make it through to the finals.
Great, so all that I had to do was to get up in front of the whole school, with my false name and my false identity and argue the case for honesty. Was this some kind of sick lesson in karmic justice?
It didn’t help when Marnie pointed out that Christine’s Dad was, in fact, some big-shot lawyer who worked for the Prime Minister or something.
Maybe Doctor Banks had been right about the dangers of acting on impulse… How had I gotten myself into this mess? What hope did I have of teaching Christine a lesson that she would never forget?
I knew that I was at a humungous disadvantage. Plus, I was at a complete loss to know how I should prepare. My experience of speech-making had been limited to listening to the tearful acceptance routines of actors at glitzy award ceremonies. And I had never found any of those to be even remotely convincing. Campaigning politicians were similarly suspect.
So just who were the great orators of the 21st century? Nobody sprang to mind… Although the guys on the shopping channel could be pretty convincing – they certainly knew how to inspire Andre to reach for his credit card. I had seen them argue the merits of a gold-plated necklace for twenty minutes – and I only had to speak for five.
In a cynical world it seemed that people had to be sold their dreams.
And I had witnessed enough razzle-dazzle in my thirteen years to know exactly how that worked.
Plus, how hard could it be to sell the idea of truth?…
But as I soon discovered that the Young Ladies of St Saviours made a tough crowd. And as the last of the sixteen to speak, I had many stomach-churning opportunities to watch those before me crash and burn. As I waited to test my theory of the power of the Razzle Dazzle Factor it occurred to me that I should maybe have hit the library.
Not that copious notes and rigorous research did anything to help Beatrice Bonlatter. She’d gotten off to a pretty shaky start. It was obvious that she’d hit the books pretty hard, but there was precious little appreciation for her argument - coming as it did from the moral highground. By the time she got around to her eulogy for some medieval saint (which I figured was her climax), she had developed a pretty bad case of dry mouth. And her concluding argument was delivered at a whisper only after Miss Moore had attempted to rescue her with a glass of water.
Sure, Beatrice Bonlatter had sucked, but she didn’t need anyone to tell her that. A slow, apathetic hand clap from the girls and a dismissive nod from Mrs Butler-Masterson told her all that she needed to know.
The poor girl looked shrunken when she finally returned to the row of chairs at the back of the platform where all of the speakers were seated. With her pale face and slumped head, you just knew that she would avoid all possibilities of public speaking in her future life.
Christine Smythe, who sat beside me, threw her eyes to the ceiling and sighed deeply at the sight of Beatrice.
‘What an utter embarrassment,’ she said to herself, but loud enough for Beatrice to hear.
‘Let’s see if you can do any better the,’ I said. ‘You’re up next.’
If I had expected any flicker of anxiety on Christine’s face then I was certainly disappointed. Christine rose to her feet with the absolute confidence of someone who was the product of many generations that had thought themselves born to rule.
‘Watch and learn,’ she said.
Before walking slowly to the podium she smiled and pressed a note into my hand.
I had been expecting some sort of dirty trick – Christine had been unusually quiet around me in the days before the debate. It made sense that she would pull some stunt to freak me out just before it was my turn to speak.
And so I flipped open the note, expecting to see some sort of lame put-down.
But what I saw almost made me lose my lunch.
‘I know who you are,’ it read.
What? How?!
It took all of my powers of concentration just to stop me from bolting. I re-read the note, hoping that it was all some sort of bad dream. But the words didn’t change.
I know who you are.
I know who you are.
Crushing the note in my hands didn’t change things, but it was some release from my growing sense of panic.
It was impossible to concentrate on Christine’s argument when everything had changed. I wondered if the ground beneath my feet would open up and swallow me whole. Nothing seemed certain. And the sight of Marnie waving to me from the audience only added to my sense of terror.
The applause that signalled Christine’s obviously successful conclusion should have been my cue to prepare to speak. Only my problem now wasn’t so much dry mouth as empty head. I must have been on some sort of automatic pilot to have even made it as far as the podium. Everything was happening in the sort of sickly slow motion that seems to be reserved for only the most awful moments of your life. The expectant faces of teachers and girls suddenly looked like some vast ocean of vultures, just waiting to pick over my bones.
It was a bad time to remember that public performances were totally not my thing.
A cough from Christine broke the silence in the vast hall and drew added attention to my frozen hesitation. All eyes were on me.
But I guess there are times when it really does pay to be the kid of a big star, because in a flash of showbiz inspiration I remembered everything that my Mom had ever said about stage-fright. Welcome the nerves; I had heard her say that a thousand times while she had tried to calm herself before some public appearance or other. Welcome the anxiety, she had said, it will help to keep you on your toes. Just remember to smile and to relax your shoulders. If you look relaxed, then everyone will believe you are and pretty soon you might even feel it too.
So I drew a deep breath and contorted my face into an uncharacteristically wide smile. I probably looked like some kind of scary poster child for Colgate, or something. All I had to do now was to say something meaningful if I wanted to avoid looking like a complete moron. My notes were useless to me. I had no choice but to wing it.
‘Have you ever left the washroom with your skirt tucked into your panties or looked into the mirror only to discover that you have had spinach stuck to your braces since lunch?’ I said.
There was an explosion of laughter, although Mrs Butler-Masterson looked livid.
Good, I could work with this.
‘Wouldn’t it have been better if someone had spared your embarrassment by telling you the truth?’
‘Sure the truth can hurt sometimes, but sooner or later it has a way of catching up with us all…’
And so I delivered what turned out to be a winning speech (at least it was good enough to get me into the finals). The response that I eventually got from the audience left me feeling so good that by the time I took my seat next to Christine I knew that I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Bring it on, I thought.
Turning to Peter for help wasn’t exactly my first choice, but, you know, I really didn’t have a lot of options. I couldn’t plead my case to Mom without getting into even more trouble. And I couldn’t use anybody else’s computer without leaving a very incriminating trail.
So I had to ask Peter.
But for some reason the idea of having an actual conversation with Peter produced much the same physiological effects as a serious coronary episode; my heartbeat raced, my stomach clenched and the palms of my hands got all sweaty. And the confusing truth was that there was nothing unpleasant about the feeling… Hormones were obviously beginning to corrode my teenage brain.
Was Peter Worthing even aware of my existence?? Not that you would have noticed. Contact between us had become limited to occasional greetings when we passed on our way to and from school. And if Peter was distracted by thoughts filled with the wonder of me, then he hid it very well.
Why would he want to help me?
Thankfully, I was spared the awfulness of having to knock on Peter’s door. The cosmos must have been smiling on me or something, because, less than twenty four hours after the Martina episode I found Peter in the back yard, fixing his bicycle. Peter’s dedication to cycling was almost as excessive as his love of soccer. Every morning I watched as he weaved his way past the cars of the waiting reporters with all of the speed and focus of Lance Armstrong on his way to another yellow jersey.
‘What do you want this time?’ he said.
He spoke without turning around to see me. Just how long had I been standing there looking at him?
‘Can’t a girl just get some air in her own back yard?’ I replied, hoping that my flushed cheeks would not betray me.
‘Relax’ he said, and he turned around to face me, revealing a face smudged with oil. How was it even possible that he looked even more cute that way?
‘I was only pulling your leg,’ he said. ‘Besides, I could do with a bit of help.’
I looked at his oil-covered hands as he held the chain of his bike and realized that the cosmos may in fact have been having some twisted fun at my expense. It wasn’t that I was worried about getting my hands dirty, but the fact was that my mechanical gifts were strictly limited to replacing the occasional print cartridge.
‘Can you pass me that spanner?’ he asked, with a quick nod towards the toolbox.
‘Sure,’ I said, sounding way too enthusiastic. My gaze hovered over the toolbox. ‘But you’ll have to give me a clue or something.’
‘Girls,’ he sighed deeply. ‘It’s just there, on the right.’
I presented the spanner with a flourish. But Peter’s hands were too full of the oily chain to take the tool. He looked flummoxed.
‘Here, let me,’ I volunteered as I sat on the ground opposite Peter and took the chain in my hands.
Peter was clearly impressed. But he said nothing. Instead he quickly got to work on putting the bike back together.
‘You can let go now,’ he said, before spinning the front wheel of the upturned bike. Everything appeared to be working to his satisfaction. And only then did Peter Worthing turn his full attention to me.
‘Look at the state of you,’ he said as he grabbed my hands and started to rub them with a dirty cloth. His attempts at cleaning only made things a whole lot worse. But I did not object. For some reason I didn’t want to do anything to spoil the moment.
‘Sorry,’ he said when he finally gave up.
‘Don’t be,’ I shrugged, trying to look cool but secretly examining the oily fingerprints that now covered my hands.
Hormones were clearly at work.
‘Thanks for the help,’ said Peter.
‘Actually I was kind of hoping that you could help me out with something,’ I said.
Peter raised an eyebrow.
‘What are you up to?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said a little too quickly. ‘It’s just that I’ve had a little trouble at home and, you know, my computer’s been confiscated.’
‘Woah,’ said Peter, ‘I thought you Hollywood Princesses were never denied anything. You must have done something really bad.’
I decided to ignore that remark.
‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I just can’t live without my computer.’
‘Completely understand,’ said Peter.
‘And I’m expecting some really important emails.’
‘So you want to use my computer?’ said Peter.
He was actually volunteering to help!
‘Maybe if you could just check my emails for me?’ I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to get suspicious. I’ve written down my password and everything that you’ll need.’
Peter took the piece of paper and read the details.
‘Funny,’ he said, smiling, ‘you don’t look like an Arnie to me. Is this some sort of alter-ego that you have going on? No, wait… don’t tell me. Something tells me that I really do not want to know.’
Peter stood up and then offered me his hand to help me up. He seemed to be examining my face for some sort of clue when he drew me up to his height and for a moment he said nothing. And then he quickly let go of my hand and turned on his heel.
‘I’ll pass any messages to you as discreetly as I can,’ he said as he walked away. ‘Just don’t get me into any trouble.’
Chapter 14
My return to school on a dark and wet Monday morning was a stark reminder that my run of bad luck had not been ended by a brief episode of flirting with Peter Worthing. I was beginning to notice that St Saviour’s Academy for Young Ladies had a way of depressing the spirit. News that the qualifying round of the debating championship was scheduled for later that week came as a blow. But I had to do a double-take on the notice board to make sure that I had correctly read the topic for debate. It was written large;
The Truth Shall Set Us Free.
I would be arguing in favour. Christine would be arguing against. Only six of the sixteen girls taking part would make it through to the finals.
Great, so all that I had to do was to get up in front of the whole school, with my false name and my false identity and argue the case for honesty. Was this some kind of sick lesson in karmic justice?
It didn’t help when Marnie pointed out that Christine’s Dad was, in fact, some big-shot lawyer who worked for the Prime Minister or something.
Maybe Doctor Banks had been right about the dangers of acting on impulse… How had I gotten myself into this mess? What hope did I have of teaching Christine a lesson that she would never forget?
I knew that I was at a humungous disadvantage. Plus, I was at a complete loss to know how I should prepare. My experience of speech-making had been limited to listening to the tearful acceptance routines of actors at glitzy award ceremonies. And I had never found any of those to be even remotely convincing. Campaigning politicians were similarly suspect.
So just who were the great orators of the 21st century? Nobody sprang to mind… Although the guys on the shopping channel could be pretty convincing – they certainly knew how to inspire Andre to reach for his credit card. I had seen them argue the merits of a gold-plated necklace for twenty minutes – and I only had to speak for five.
In a cynical world it seemed that people had to be sold their dreams.
And I had witnessed enough razzle-dazzle in my thirteen years to know exactly how that worked.
Plus, how hard could it be to sell the idea of truth?…
But as I soon discovered that the Young Ladies of St Saviours made a tough crowd. And as the last of the sixteen to speak, I had many stomach-churning opportunities to watch those before me crash and burn. As I waited to test my theory of the power of the Razzle Dazzle Factor it occurred to me that I should maybe have hit the library.
Not that copious notes and rigorous research did anything to help Beatrice Bonlatter. She’d gotten off to a pretty shaky start. It was obvious that she’d hit the books pretty hard, but there was precious little appreciation for her argument - coming as it did from the moral highground. By the time she got around to her eulogy for some medieval saint (which I figured was her climax), she had developed a pretty bad case of dry mouth. And her concluding argument was delivered at a whisper only after Miss Moore had attempted to rescue her with a glass of water.
Sure, Beatrice Bonlatter had sucked, but she didn’t need anyone to tell her that. A slow, apathetic hand clap from the girls and a dismissive nod from Mrs Butler-Masterson told her all that she needed to know.
The poor girl looked shrunken when she finally returned to the row of chairs at the back of the platform where all of the speakers were seated. With her pale face and slumped head, you just knew that she would avoid all possibilities of public speaking in her future life.
Christine Smythe, who sat beside me, threw her eyes to the ceiling and sighed deeply at the sight of Beatrice.
‘What an utter embarrassment,’ she said to herself, but loud enough for Beatrice to hear.
‘Let’s see if you can do any better the,’ I said. ‘You’re up next.’
If I had expected any flicker of anxiety on Christine’s face then I was certainly disappointed. Christine rose to her feet with the absolute confidence of someone who was the product of many generations that had thought themselves born to rule.
‘Watch and learn,’ she said.
Before walking slowly to the podium she smiled and pressed a note into my hand.
I had been expecting some sort of dirty trick – Christine had been unusually quiet around me in the days before the debate. It made sense that she would pull some stunt to freak me out just before it was my turn to speak.
And so I flipped open the note, expecting to see some sort of lame put-down.
But what I saw almost made me lose my lunch.
‘I know who you are,’ it read.
What? How?!
It took all of my powers of concentration just to stop me from bolting. I re-read the note, hoping that it was all some sort of bad dream. But the words didn’t change.
I know who you are.
I know who you are.
Crushing the note in my hands didn’t change things, but it was some release from my growing sense of panic.
It was impossible to concentrate on Christine’s argument when everything had changed. I wondered if the ground beneath my feet would open up and swallow me whole. Nothing seemed certain. And the sight of Marnie waving to me from the audience only added to my sense of terror.
The applause that signalled Christine’s obviously successful conclusion should have been my cue to prepare to speak. Only my problem now wasn’t so much dry mouth as empty head. I must have been on some sort of automatic pilot to have even made it as far as the podium. Everything was happening in the sort of sickly slow motion that seems to be reserved for only the most awful moments of your life. The expectant faces of teachers and girls suddenly looked like some vast ocean of vultures, just waiting to pick over my bones.
It was a bad time to remember that public performances were totally not my thing.
A cough from Christine broke the silence in the vast hall and drew added attention to my frozen hesitation. All eyes were on me.
But I guess there are times when it really does pay to be the kid of a big star, because in a flash of showbiz inspiration I remembered everything that my Mom had ever said about stage-fright. Welcome the nerves; I had heard her say that a thousand times while she had tried to calm herself before some public appearance or other. Welcome the anxiety, she had said, it will help to keep you on your toes. Just remember to smile and to relax your shoulders. If you look relaxed, then everyone will believe you are and pretty soon you might even feel it too.
So I drew a deep breath and contorted my face into an uncharacteristically wide smile. I probably looked like some kind of scary poster child for Colgate, or something. All I had to do now was to say something meaningful if I wanted to avoid looking like a complete moron. My notes were useless to me. I had no choice but to wing it.
‘Have you ever left the washroom with your skirt tucked into your panties or looked into the mirror only to discover that you have had spinach stuck to your braces since lunch?’ I said.
There was an explosion of laughter, although Mrs Butler-Masterson looked livid.
Good, I could work with this.
‘Wouldn’t it have been better if someone had spared your embarrassment by telling you the truth?’
‘Sure the truth can hurt sometimes, but sooner or later it has a way of catching up with us all…’
And so I delivered what turned out to be a winning speech (at least it was good enough to get me into the finals). The response that I eventually got from the audience left me feeling so good that by the time I took my seat next to Christine I knew that I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Bring it on, I thought.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Chapters 11 & 12
Chapter 11
The email that contained Douglas Prattling’s phone number and address looked like any other in my inbox. It was delivered with no warning. There was no offer of counselling on the emotional dangers of my search. And as I stared at the details of the stranger who had a one in three chance of being my Dad, I felt frozen and totally sick with excitement all at the same time.
I tried his name on for size;
Bliss Drew Prattling – sounded like an insult
Bliss Prattling – too weird
Jayne Prattling – now that was an English name all right
A picture was forming in my head of a whole new me and of a whole new life. Like all bad-idea fantasies the picture that I was cooking up was sugar-coated and way off-base. I didn’t even know this man. He could have been some sort of psycho or slob. I could not allow one email to snowball my imagination into some picture-perfect vision of family life in the English suburbs.
There was only one way that I was going to stop all of this craziness….I reached for the phone.
It was a local London number. There was no time to think. The number was ringing.
‘Good morning, Prattling residence. This is Douglas Prattling speaking.’
My mind was blank. What had I done? If I just put down the phone would he try callback? Martina would know I was up to something…
‘Hello,’ he said again, sounding impatient, ‘how can I help you?’
I couldn’t put down the phone.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Yes hello,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’
I hesitated. What was I supposed to do next?
‘My name is Jayne Drew…’
‘Aah,’ he said, ‘you must be one of Victoria’s little friends. Coming to the party then are you?’
‘The party,’ I said, trying to sound as near-normal as I could under the circumstances.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’ll be coming on Saturday then will you?’
‘The thing is,’ I said, trying to think on my feet, ‘I’ve lost my invite..’
‘Shouldn’t worry about it,’ he said, obviously trying to hurry me along. ‘Just turn up at the house about one-ish. You can join the melee.’
‘Is there anything that Victoria would like?’
‘Quite honestly lovey you’d have a better clue of the tastes of a twelve year old girl than me. Generally I find that if it’s pink and glittery then there are no complaints. Bye now.’
And with that he was gone.
I was left to deal with the news that there was a one-in-three chance that I had a sister. Siblings were not something that I had ever really considered. For a second I thought that my head might just explode.
Marnie was my only hope for an alibi at such short notice. She agreed to go along with my scheme only when she heard that I was planning to travel alone on the subway for the first time in my life. My safety obviously mattered more to her than her very real reluctance to lie to anybody. I tried to reassure her that I would keep the necessity of lying to an absolute minimum. Mom wouldn’t stop us from going to the movies so long as Andre dropped us off and collected us. We would pay a quick visit to the Prattling party while the movie played and would get back before Andre knew that we had even left the building. There would be no lying involved.
Movie-going is a serious business in my family. Trips to the movie-theatre were rarely made on a whim. Mostly we went so that Mom could show her support to one of her many Hollywood ‘friends’ by attending their over-hyped opening nights. But the nights that we spent in our screening room back home were the sort of fun that you could never get at one of those glitzy events. We usually got copies of the best movies before they ever even hit the big screen. And when we watched at home like that, Mom got to chill out in her sweats, while Portia gave a running commentary on the bad wardrobes and Andre gave us all of the gossip from the set.
So when Andre studied the movie listings at the huge multiplex cinema in London’s Leicester Square, he did so with an experienced and critical eye.
‘Please tell me that you are not going to give one dollar to line the pockets of that Barney McMagnate – you know he worked that whole crew for practically minimum wage. That man needs a flop to teach him some manners.’
‘And I hear that Bella Longchild had so much cosmetic surgery before she made this latest disaster that her acting range was reduced below its usual pathetic low.’
At this point I kicked Andre as hard as I could without Marnie noticing.
‘Really Andre,’ I said, ‘I think you’ve been reading too many Hollywood gossip columns. You can’t believe everything that you read in the papers. Marnie, is there anything that you’d like to see?’
‘This looks good,’ she said, pointing at a poster for one of my Mom’s more recent movies.
It had never occurred to me that Marnie might be a fan of my Mom’s.
Even Andre was struck dumb by her suggestion.
‘Sure, ’ I said quickly. I mean, it was not as though we were going to have to watch the movie or anything.
So Andre bought our tickets and before we could do anything to stop him, he had also bought us each a bucket of sweet popcorn and a jumbo Cola. We watched him leave, wondering how we were supposed to make our way to Kensington and back in just two hours with this kind of cargo.
Marnie wouldn’t hear of me just trashing our gigantic snacks, so in the end we had to find a couple of kids who looked like they would not say no to freebie munchies. This was surprisingly difficult to do.
By the time we got out of the cinema I felt as though my whole life depended on making this trip. I didn’t want to think too hard about what I was doing and I certainly didn’t have the time, so I grabbed Marnie by the hand and I started to run through the tourists and the Christmas shoppers that clogged London’s West End.
‘Where are you going?’ Marnie screamed.
‘To the subway,’ I said, running blindly.
‘Well you’re going in the wrong direction for the Tube,’ she said, yanking me towards the opposite side of the road.
It was only after we had raced down the enormous escalators and jumped into the shabby confines of an old subway carriage that I started to feel a growing anxiety about the task that lay ahead of me. Maybe I really had bitten off more than I could chew. I mean what was I actually planning to do, just walk up to this guy and say, hey, are you my Dad?
Thankfully Marnie interrupted my thoughts.
‘Have you brought the present?’ she asked.
It was good to remind myself that things were in fact going to plan. I reached into my bag and pulled out the very brightly wrapped gift. I had taken Douglas Prattling’s at his word, and gone for pink in a big way. Deciding on the gift itself had been tough. I mean, if this Victoria did turn out to be my sister, then I didn’t want her to remember her first gift from me as being lame or tacky. But I also didn’t want to give her anything that would be too conspicuous. Besides, I could only really choose from my own stuff, so it had to be cool. In the end I whittled it down to either a never-used denim purse (much too girlie for me) or a set of groovy nail colours that Portia had given to me the week before. The nail colours had been easier to pack. I had simply signed the gift card with the initial B.
Number 56 St Martin’s Terrace was only a five minute walk from the station. The house was a tired, three-storey terraced style that lined all of the streets in this part of West London. Balloons and the booming of the sort of lame girl-band music that would normally have had me moving in the opposite direction distinguished number 56 from all of the other identikit homes.
There was no opportunity to stall outside – the door was wide open and a tired looking woman hustled us indoors as soon as she caught sight of the gift.
‘Names?’ she shouted, so that she could be heard above the deafening noise of partying girls and bad pop tunes.
‘Jayne and Marnie,’ I said nervously. I hadn’t counted on getting past this sort of up-front security.
She scanned through several sheets of badges while she rubbed at her forehead.
‘Really, Vicky didn’t tell me the half of it,’ she said to herself. She scrawled our names on two pink badges and handed them to us absent-mindedly.
‘Dancing’s down there, food’s in there and loo is back there,’ she said pointing lazily. ‘You can just throw your present there,’ she said, indicating an overflowing sack at the bottom of the stairs.
Just then a familiar voice shouted down from upstairs.
‘Lovey, got anything for a headache?’
My heart skipped a beat – it was definitely Douglas Prattling.
‘Men…totally useless,’ the woman muttered bitterly to herself before she replied. ‘Try the medicine cabinet.’
A door at the rear of the hall exploded open to the sound of screaming, and a girl who had clearly used too much glitter in her hair came running towards us.
‘Mrs P, Mrs P,’ she said, ‘Lucy’s been sick.’
Mrs Prattling made a quick exit, leaving Marnie and I alone.
‘You’ve got to go up there,’ Marnie said, ‘we don’t have much time.’
I nodded, aware that fear had stripped my already pale face of any colour.
‘What about you?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry about me. Just get up those stairs before she comes back.’
It was hard not to feel wrong about snooping around in somebody else’s house. But I was driven by something greater than the fear of being busted. One way or another I knew that I would leave with the truth.
I had to sneak past a maze of bedrooms and bathrooms before I finally reached the study at the very top of the house. The hum of a laptop computer on the desk told me that the room had only recently been vacated. I would have to be quick if I was to have any hope of finding some clues.
My eyes quickly scanned the many photos that covered the walls. Signed photos of too many second-rate actors littered one entire wall. Most of them had funny messages made out to ‘Duggie’. There was nothing from my Mom.
The desk itself was a mess of paperwork. A shelf above it was the only truly tidy area in the room – it was home to an array of awards. He was obviously proud of those babies.
I was just about to make a closer inspection of the trophies when a huge gangling man came thumping into the room. He didn’t look at all surprised to find me there.
‘I think you’ll find that the loo’s downstairs, lovey,’ he said as he swallowed some painkillers.
‘Don’t wish to be rude or anything,’ he said, taking a gulp from a mug of tea, ‘but I do believe that I may be allergic to twelve year old girls – at least when they are travelling in packs.’
I was frozen to the spot. I knew that I couldn’t leave now.
‘You haven’t got an Oscar then?’ I asked, stupidly.
‘Huh!’ he snorted, ‘you really think I’d be working thirteen hour days on bleeding-heart documentaries if I had one of those babies?’
He collapsed into his old leather chair and massaged his forehead with venom. It was hard to imagine what colour hair he once had – but what little he now had was silver grey.
‘Have you ever met any really big stars?’ I asked, ‘have you ever met Angel?’
‘Please don’t get me started,’ he said, swinging suddenly back on his chair with his hands behind his head. I was hit by an immediate wave of very bad body odour.
‘I worked with Angel all right,’ he said. ‘Knew her before she made it really big; even back then she behaved like a complete madam. Issuing orders to me like she was the director, you know. I was glad to see the back of her, believe me.’
‘Of course, they’re all the same, you know, these people and their demands. Take my advice,’ he said, looking at me with his sulky eyes, ‘and stay well clear of the lot of them. They may get paid millions – but they’re not worth a tuppence.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, moving his chair in towards his desk, ‘it’s been a pleasure, but if you’d shut the door on your way out I’d be most grateful. Hop along now, there’s a love.’
I didn’t waste any time in making my exit. As instructed, I pulled the door behind me and took a large breath of fresh air; glad that I would not have to worry about inheriting any significant problems with my sweat glands, and certain that neither of my two remaining potential fathers could possibly be as obnoxious or patronising as Douglas Prattling.
So I was one down, two to go.
Chapter 12
Martina was the last person that I wanted to see that afternoon – particularly as she was smiling. She only ever smiled in my direction when there was trouble heading my way. And this time was no exception.
‘Your Mom has decided that you have gone too far with your latest little spin on the web.’
I tried my usual tactic, which was to ignore her.
‘Listen, I have no idea what it is that you are talking about,’ I said.
But she wouldn’t let me pass her in the hall. She stood with her hands behind her back.
‘Well, let me refresh your memory,’ she said. ‘Does the Cybernetic Dating Agency mean anything to you?’
‘Martina, what you choose to do in your free time is none of my business,’ I said, trying to look surprised. ‘If you want to trawl the Internet looking for love from some fairly suspect nerdy types, then I say good for you.’
Now she looked mad. Her expression made it all worthwhile. Maybe now the control-freak would finally realise that I did not need to diary time with my own Mom!
‘I have had ten calls on my cellphone this afternoon. Most of them seemed to be under the impression that I am some kind of lingerie model.’
This was so much better than the nose job scam. I didn’t even try to hide my joy.
‘Well you wouldn’t be the first person to stretch the truth,’ I said. ‘I hear that these virtual lonely-hearts groups get a lot of that.
She was ignoring my comeback.
‘This cellphone number is private, or at least it was until you published it. Do you realise how serious this is? What if Stephen Spielberg had been calling?’
‘I’m sure he would have called again if it had been important,’ I said, trying to sound confident (but secretly remembering that it was behaviour like this that had landed me in those awful impulse control sessions with Dr Banks).
‘And what about security?’ she said, smiling again. ‘Did you even think about our stalking problem before those busy little fingers of yours started typing up trouble?’
Game over. She totally had me on a technicality.
With a flourish, she produced my Apple iBook from behind her back.
‘Your computer privileges have been terminated,’ she said, finally moving so that I could pass her.
‘And I hope that you enjoyed your day out because you are grounded until Christmas.’
I refused to give her the satisfaction of a response. There was only one way to play this scene; I had to be cool. Martina might have managed to strip me of my computer and my last shred of freedom, but I would deny her the pleasure of any visible display of my misery and frustration. I walked casually towards my room, still smiling.
But she hadn’t quite finished with me.
‘You know I got a very interesting brochure this morning,’ she said, waving a glossy in my direction. ‘It looks like The Sterling Oasis Institute could be the perfect school for you after all. They’ve got great facilities and just the sort of security that you need. Who would have thought that a school in the middle of the Arizona Desert could be so much fun?’
It was a bad end to a bad day.
I carefully closed my bedroom door, took a deep breath and slowly knocked my head against the wall.
The email that contained Douglas Prattling’s phone number and address looked like any other in my inbox. It was delivered with no warning. There was no offer of counselling on the emotional dangers of my search. And as I stared at the details of the stranger who had a one in three chance of being my Dad, I felt frozen and totally sick with excitement all at the same time.
I tried his name on for size;
Bliss Drew Prattling – sounded like an insult
Bliss Prattling – too weird
Jayne Prattling – now that was an English name all right
A picture was forming in my head of a whole new me and of a whole new life. Like all bad-idea fantasies the picture that I was cooking up was sugar-coated and way off-base. I didn’t even know this man. He could have been some sort of psycho or slob. I could not allow one email to snowball my imagination into some picture-perfect vision of family life in the English suburbs.
There was only one way that I was going to stop all of this craziness….I reached for the phone.
It was a local London number. There was no time to think. The number was ringing.
‘Good morning, Prattling residence. This is Douglas Prattling speaking.’
My mind was blank. What had I done? If I just put down the phone would he try callback? Martina would know I was up to something…
‘Hello,’ he said again, sounding impatient, ‘how can I help you?’
I couldn’t put down the phone.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Yes hello,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’
I hesitated. What was I supposed to do next?
‘My name is Jayne Drew…’
‘Aah,’ he said, ‘you must be one of Victoria’s little friends. Coming to the party then are you?’
‘The party,’ I said, trying to sound as near-normal as I could under the circumstances.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you’ll be coming on Saturday then will you?’
‘The thing is,’ I said, trying to think on my feet, ‘I’ve lost my invite..’
‘Shouldn’t worry about it,’ he said, obviously trying to hurry me along. ‘Just turn up at the house about one-ish. You can join the melee.’
‘Is there anything that Victoria would like?’
‘Quite honestly lovey you’d have a better clue of the tastes of a twelve year old girl than me. Generally I find that if it’s pink and glittery then there are no complaints. Bye now.’
And with that he was gone.
I was left to deal with the news that there was a one-in-three chance that I had a sister. Siblings were not something that I had ever really considered. For a second I thought that my head might just explode.
Marnie was my only hope for an alibi at such short notice. She agreed to go along with my scheme only when she heard that I was planning to travel alone on the subway for the first time in my life. My safety obviously mattered more to her than her very real reluctance to lie to anybody. I tried to reassure her that I would keep the necessity of lying to an absolute minimum. Mom wouldn’t stop us from going to the movies so long as Andre dropped us off and collected us. We would pay a quick visit to the Prattling party while the movie played and would get back before Andre knew that we had even left the building. There would be no lying involved.
Movie-going is a serious business in my family. Trips to the movie-theatre were rarely made on a whim. Mostly we went so that Mom could show her support to one of her many Hollywood ‘friends’ by attending their over-hyped opening nights. But the nights that we spent in our screening room back home were the sort of fun that you could never get at one of those glitzy events. We usually got copies of the best movies before they ever even hit the big screen. And when we watched at home like that, Mom got to chill out in her sweats, while Portia gave a running commentary on the bad wardrobes and Andre gave us all of the gossip from the set.
So when Andre studied the movie listings at the huge multiplex cinema in London’s Leicester Square, he did so with an experienced and critical eye.
‘Please tell me that you are not going to give one dollar to line the pockets of that Barney McMagnate – you know he worked that whole crew for practically minimum wage. That man needs a flop to teach him some manners.’
‘And I hear that Bella Longchild had so much cosmetic surgery before she made this latest disaster that her acting range was reduced below its usual pathetic low.’
At this point I kicked Andre as hard as I could without Marnie noticing.
‘Really Andre,’ I said, ‘I think you’ve been reading too many Hollywood gossip columns. You can’t believe everything that you read in the papers. Marnie, is there anything that you’d like to see?’
‘This looks good,’ she said, pointing at a poster for one of my Mom’s more recent movies.
It had never occurred to me that Marnie might be a fan of my Mom’s.
Even Andre was struck dumb by her suggestion.
‘Sure, ’ I said quickly. I mean, it was not as though we were going to have to watch the movie or anything.
So Andre bought our tickets and before we could do anything to stop him, he had also bought us each a bucket of sweet popcorn and a jumbo Cola. We watched him leave, wondering how we were supposed to make our way to Kensington and back in just two hours with this kind of cargo.
Marnie wouldn’t hear of me just trashing our gigantic snacks, so in the end we had to find a couple of kids who looked like they would not say no to freebie munchies. This was surprisingly difficult to do.
By the time we got out of the cinema I felt as though my whole life depended on making this trip. I didn’t want to think too hard about what I was doing and I certainly didn’t have the time, so I grabbed Marnie by the hand and I started to run through the tourists and the Christmas shoppers that clogged London’s West End.
‘Where are you going?’ Marnie screamed.
‘To the subway,’ I said, running blindly.
‘Well you’re going in the wrong direction for the Tube,’ she said, yanking me towards the opposite side of the road.
It was only after we had raced down the enormous escalators and jumped into the shabby confines of an old subway carriage that I started to feel a growing anxiety about the task that lay ahead of me. Maybe I really had bitten off more than I could chew. I mean what was I actually planning to do, just walk up to this guy and say, hey, are you my Dad?
Thankfully Marnie interrupted my thoughts.
‘Have you brought the present?’ she asked.
It was good to remind myself that things were in fact going to plan. I reached into my bag and pulled out the very brightly wrapped gift. I had taken Douglas Prattling’s at his word, and gone for pink in a big way. Deciding on the gift itself had been tough. I mean, if this Victoria did turn out to be my sister, then I didn’t want her to remember her first gift from me as being lame or tacky. But I also didn’t want to give her anything that would be too conspicuous. Besides, I could only really choose from my own stuff, so it had to be cool. In the end I whittled it down to either a never-used denim purse (much too girlie for me) or a set of groovy nail colours that Portia had given to me the week before. The nail colours had been easier to pack. I had simply signed the gift card with the initial B.
Number 56 St Martin’s Terrace was only a five minute walk from the station. The house was a tired, three-storey terraced style that lined all of the streets in this part of West London. Balloons and the booming of the sort of lame girl-band music that would normally have had me moving in the opposite direction distinguished number 56 from all of the other identikit homes.
There was no opportunity to stall outside – the door was wide open and a tired looking woman hustled us indoors as soon as she caught sight of the gift.
‘Names?’ she shouted, so that she could be heard above the deafening noise of partying girls and bad pop tunes.
‘Jayne and Marnie,’ I said nervously. I hadn’t counted on getting past this sort of up-front security.
She scanned through several sheets of badges while she rubbed at her forehead.
‘Really, Vicky didn’t tell me the half of it,’ she said to herself. She scrawled our names on two pink badges and handed them to us absent-mindedly.
‘Dancing’s down there, food’s in there and loo is back there,’ she said pointing lazily. ‘You can just throw your present there,’ she said, indicating an overflowing sack at the bottom of the stairs.
Just then a familiar voice shouted down from upstairs.
‘Lovey, got anything for a headache?’
My heart skipped a beat – it was definitely Douglas Prattling.
‘Men…totally useless,’ the woman muttered bitterly to herself before she replied. ‘Try the medicine cabinet.’
A door at the rear of the hall exploded open to the sound of screaming, and a girl who had clearly used too much glitter in her hair came running towards us.
‘Mrs P, Mrs P,’ she said, ‘Lucy’s been sick.’
Mrs Prattling made a quick exit, leaving Marnie and I alone.
‘You’ve got to go up there,’ Marnie said, ‘we don’t have much time.’
I nodded, aware that fear had stripped my already pale face of any colour.
‘What about you?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry about me. Just get up those stairs before she comes back.’
It was hard not to feel wrong about snooping around in somebody else’s house. But I was driven by something greater than the fear of being busted. One way or another I knew that I would leave with the truth.
I had to sneak past a maze of bedrooms and bathrooms before I finally reached the study at the very top of the house. The hum of a laptop computer on the desk told me that the room had only recently been vacated. I would have to be quick if I was to have any hope of finding some clues.
My eyes quickly scanned the many photos that covered the walls. Signed photos of too many second-rate actors littered one entire wall. Most of them had funny messages made out to ‘Duggie’. There was nothing from my Mom.
The desk itself was a mess of paperwork. A shelf above it was the only truly tidy area in the room – it was home to an array of awards. He was obviously proud of those babies.
I was just about to make a closer inspection of the trophies when a huge gangling man came thumping into the room. He didn’t look at all surprised to find me there.
‘I think you’ll find that the loo’s downstairs, lovey,’ he said as he swallowed some painkillers.
‘Don’t wish to be rude or anything,’ he said, taking a gulp from a mug of tea, ‘but I do believe that I may be allergic to twelve year old girls – at least when they are travelling in packs.’
I was frozen to the spot. I knew that I couldn’t leave now.
‘You haven’t got an Oscar then?’ I asked, stupidly.
‘Huh!’ he snorted, ‘you really think I’d be working thirteen hour days on bleeding-heart documentaries if I had one of those babies?’
He collapsed into his old leather chair and massaged his forehead with venom. It was hard to imagine what colour hair he once had – but what little he now had was silver grey.
‘Have you ever met any really big stars?’ I asked, ‘have you ever met Angel?’
‘Please don’t get me started,’ he said, swinging suddenly back on his chair with his hands behind his head. I was hit by an immediate wave of very bad body odour.
‘I worked with Angel all right,’ he said. ‘Knew her before she made it really big; even back then she behaved like a complete madam. Issuing orders to me like she was the director, you know. I was glad to see the back of her, believe me.’
‘Of course, they’re all the same, you know, these people and their demands. Take my advice,’ he said, looking at me with his sulky eyes, ‘and stay well clear of the lot of them. They may get paid millions – but they’re not worth a tuppence.’
‘Anyway,’ he said, moving his chair in towards his desk, ‘it’s been a pleasure, but if you’d shut the door on your way out I’d be most grateful. Hop along now, there’s a love.’
I didn’t waste any time in making my exit. As instructed, I pulled the door behind me and took a large breath of fresh air; glad that I would not have to worry about inheriting any significant problems with my sweat glands, and certain that neither of my two remaining potential fathers could possibly be as obnoxious or patronising as Douglas Prattling.
So I was one down, two to go.
Chapter 12
Martina was the last person that I wanted to see that afternoon – particularly as she was smiling. She only ever smiled in my direction when there was trouble heading my way. And this time was no exception.
‘Your Mom has decided that you have gone too far with your latest little spin on the web.’
I tried my usual tactic, which was to ignore her.
‘Listen, I have no idea what it is that you are talking about,’ I said.
But she wouldn’t let me pass her in the hall. She stood with her hands behind her back.
‘Well, let me refresh your memory,’ she said. ‘Does the Cybernetic Dating Agency mean anything to you?’
‘Martina, what you choose to do in your free time is none of my business,’ I said, trying to look surprised. ‘If you want to trawl the Internet looking for love from some fairly suspect nerdy types, then I say good for you.’
Now she looked mad. Her expression made it all worthwhile. Maybe now the control-freak would finally realise that I did not need to diary time with my own Mom!
‘I have had ten calls on my cellphone this afternoon. Most of them seemed to be under the impression that I am some kind of lingerie model.’
This was so much better than the nose job scam. I didn’t even try to hide my joy.
‘Well you wouldn’t be the first person to stretch the truth,’ I said. ‘I hear that these virtual lonely-hearts groups get a lot of that.
She was ignoring my comeback.
‘This cellphone number is private, or at least it was until you published it. Do you realise how serious this is? What if Stephen Spielberg had been calling?’
‘I’m sure he would have called again if it had been important,’ I said, trying to sound confident (but secretly remembering that it was behaviour like this that had landed me in those awful impulse control sessions with Dr Banks).
‘And what about security?’ she said, smiling again. ‘Did you even think about our stalking problem before those busy little fingers of yours started typing up trouble?’
Game over. She totally had me on a technicality.
With a flourish, she produced my Apple iBook from behind her back.
‘Your computer privileges have been terminated,’ she said, finally moving so that I could pass her.
‘And I hope that you enjoyed your day out because you are grounded until Christmas.’
I refused to give her the satisfaction of a response. There was only one way to play this scene; I had to be cool. Martina might have managed to strip me of my computer and my last shred of freedom, but I would deny her the pleasure of any visible display of my misery and frustration. I walked casually towards my room, still smiling.
But she hadn’t quite finished with me.
‘You know I got a very interesting brochure this morning,’ she said, waving a glossy in my direction. ‘It looks like The Sterling Oasis Institute could be the perfect school for you after all. They’ve got great facilities and just the sort of security that you need. Who would have thought that a school in the middle of the Arizona Desert could be so much fun?’
It was a bad end to a bad day.
I carefully closed my bedroom door, took a deep breath and slowly knocked my head against the wall.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Chapters 9 & 10
Chapter 9
You know, lying is a complicated business.
Actors make their living out of lying. Sure, you can dress it up and call acting an art, if you like, but the fact remains that they get out there and pretend to be something that they are not. And what do they get? They get the applause and the fat paychecks.
But like so much else in life there is one rule for actors and another for us lesser mortals.
The fact was that I was lying to Marnie. And that wasn’t something that I was proud of. But, you know, lying has a sort of a snowball effect. That’s how it goes. You know, you start off using your middle name and wanting a little privacy and before you know it you’re in way over your head. One lie always leads to another.
So why didn’t I just tell Marnie the truth? Well, for one thing I was too selfish. The time that I spent with her was the most fun and the closest to normal that I had ever experienced in my life.
I couldn’t risk losing all of that.
Plus, you know, I had painted Marnie a pretty detailed picture of my life in London. What was I supposed to do? Tell her that none of it was true? Tell her that my cover story of a wealthy step-dad (who was paranoid and would allow no visitors), my lawyer Mom, and my manny Andre was a complete crock? Nobody would stick around when they had been fed some a complete pack of lies. Nobody. And the truth was that whenever I was with Marnie I felt more authentically like me than I had ever felt before. So I lied about the details. So what?
The fact was that Marnie Bradshaw was the only person on the planet who knew the truth about what was most important to me.
I had finally told her about my search for my Dad after a particularly ugly French lesson. The stress of the late nights did not exactly put me in a particularly positive frame of mind to face the terrors of a class with Madame Le Maistre. Our French teacher seemed to be intent on using my pathetic accent and grammar as some sort of cautionary tale to the other girls in the class.
Now I know that most Europeans think that Americans are just lazy when it comes to learning foreign languages. But the fact is that most Americans – at least most Californians – do speak a second language. I have been taking Spanish lessons since the age of five. The whole Hispanic thing is so cool.
But St Saviour’s had no Spanish stream. A language course was mandatory but the choice was strictly limited to Latin or French. (Tell me, please, why would any girl waste her time learning to speak a dead language???) So the choice of French was a no-brainer.
Big mistake. Huge mistake. For a start Madame le Maistre refused to speak anything but French. (Was I supposed to learn through some sort of osmosis or something??). And for another thing my accent sucked. It was a complete embarrassment. At best I sounded like I was afflicted with severe nasal congestion and a serious speech impediment. And Madame le Maistre’s insistence that I read in front of the class didn’t exactly help me to improve. In fact, my stuttering and blushing did nothing but entertain Christine Smythe and her bunch of lame-brains.
My confession to Marnie came in the post-traumatic afterglow that always followed one of those torture sessions. I guess I was pretty quiet as we made through the maze of corridors, on our way to the science laboratory for our next class.
‘You know you mustn’t let Christine get to you,’ said Marnie.
‘What?’ I said distractedly, ‘what do you mean about Christine?’
‘She was totally out of order,’ said Marnie. ‘Honestly, if her family wasn’t practically funding this school you can be sure that she would have had her arse kicked in the direction of Mrs Butler-Masterson’s office. Everybody heard her snorting and sniggering while you were trying to read that passage. It must have been very off-putting for you. But I really wouldn’t let her get you down, you know.’
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to Marnie.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘Christine Smythe could paint herself in the French Flag and sing their national anthem for all I care. She’s just another pathetic little spoilt brat who needs to be taught a lesson, and one day, believe me I will teach her a lesson that she will never forget. Christine Smythe does not have the power to make me feel bad.’
‘So what’s up?’ asked Marnie.
I started walking again as I figured out my reply.
‘Remember when I told you that I wasn’t sure if I had a Dad or not?’ I said.
‘It’s not the sort of answer that you forget in a hurry,’ said Marnie.
‘Well, I’ve been digging around, you know. Nobody knows about this. It’s a complete and total secret. But I’ve come up with a list of three names and I know for a fact that one of them is my Dad.’
It was Marnie’s turn to come to a halt.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said, ‘bloody hell ! This is enormous.. in a fab way..! What are you going to do?’
‘Well I can’t do anything until I get my hands on some phone numbers or some addresses you know. But I might need some help.’
‘Anything,’ she said as she beamed a gap-toothed smile, ‘anything.’
My anxiety level lowered a significant notch or two. At least it did until I noticed the enormous exam schedule that had been posted on our notice board.
Exams had never rattled me back home. I mean, I knew that I was smart and I could always nail pretty much any paper. Plus, of course, in my old school it had practically been a federal offence to do anything that might injure the self-esteem of the already hugely-confident and rich students. So Little Johnny could never really fail a class, even if he tried. Just showing up pretty well guaranteed that he might ‘look forward to reaching a higher potential.’
But Mrs Butler-Masterson ran a much tighter ship. Exams were regular and public rites of cruelty. All exam results were published on school noticeboards and the shame of failure in any subject was made all the more public by the additional listing of all girls who would be required to sit repeat exams in the next term.
There was no way that I was going to be branded a failure. I knew that I needed to squeeze in some serious French revision before the holidays. Although something told me that only the intervention of a miracle would save me from a wipeout in my least favourite subject.
But Marnie wasn’t looking at the schedule of exams.
She was staring at another new addition to the notice board. It was the poster that invited applicants for the annual debating championship and it had only one signature; Christine Smythe. Marnie didn’t have to say anything. I knew what she was thinking. This was my perfect opportunity to teach Christine a lesson; it was definitely payback time.
I signed my name onto the poster with a dramatic flourish.
Honestly, you’d think that I would have learnt something from my experience with Bo Hoppermann and all of my subsequent sessions with Dr Banks, but when the opportunity arose to publicly humiliate Christine Smythe with the full blessing of the school, I could not let it pass. So what if debating had never been my thing? My talent for arguing was well-recognised at home.
I knew that Andre wasn’t exactly paying me a compliment on the days that he swore that I would make a great lawyer. But the fact remained that I knew how to argue my corner.
And Christine Smythe needed to be taught a very public lesson.
Three Other Notorious Mistakes That I Have Made When I Have Acted on Impulse
(besides signing up for the debate contest and the infamous Bo Hoppermann incident)
1 Well there was that time that I locked my nanny in the poolhouse, although in my defence, the woman was a witch and anyway, what is a six year old girl supposed to do when their care-giver fails to understand that she has no interest in going to any stupid ballet lessons?
2 And who could forget the unfortunate incident of the photographer who got a little more than he bargained for when he turned his lens on me and my Mom on our last ever outing to a fast-food restaurant…Who knew that the cost of repairing that sort of high-tech snooping equipment when it’s had just a little milk shake damage?
3 This one is strictly between you and me…but Martina may have another little surprise coming her way courtesy of the Web.
Chapter 10
The fact that I was actually looking forward to a little retail therapy should have been a huge signal to me that I was not myself. If people hadn’t been so excited about our exclusive visit to London’s biggest department store then they might have even checked to see if I was running a fever. It was totally out of character for me to tag alone to one of these celebrity expeditions without putting up some sort of fight.
But somehow I hadn’t got the energy to fight anymore. It occurred to me that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Things were not going well. I wasn’t getting any further in my search for the contact details of my possible dads. Marnie didn’t even know who I really was. There was every chance that I was going to fail the French test and I had been dumb enough to volunteer to make a fool of myself in front of the whole school. Everything that I touched seemed to get all messed up. And the worst thing was that I couldn’t even tell anyone the whole story.
Lying could be a lonely business.
So even though Mom didn’t know what I was thinking, I was grateful for the chance to be with her for a mindless evening of shopping. I listened to her tales of the terrors involved in making an English period drama without complaint, as we travelled though the streets of London in a limo that was roughly the size of a bus. I didn’t even tell her to drop the phoney English accent that she had adopted since we had arrived in London.
Normally I couldn’t stand the fawning shop assistants that were an inevitable part of these private evenings. But the store was the size of an impressive shopping mall, and the only staff present seemed to consist of two matronly personal shoppers who did not look as though they would be reaching for their autograph books anytime soon.
Mom made her usual ‘surprise’ gesture of announcing that every member of the team had exactly one hour to choose three Christmas gifts each – no expense spared. Once Andre and the others had disappeared, I was glad to have a little time alone with my Mom. I didn’t even try to escape when she gave me one of her embarrassing hugs.
‘Are you happy honey?’ she asked.
I nodded yes immediately, because in that precise moment I knew that I was; I finally had Mom all to myself.
‘Tell me,’ she said as she held me just far enough away from her so that she could look into my eyes. ‘Tell me what you want.’
Suddenly I could feel the truth welling up in me like a huge eruption that was just below the surface. Maybe I could be honest with my Mom? Maybe I could tell her that I really had to know where I came from and that I really had to know my whole family?
But before I could speak excitement had gotten the better of Mom.
‘I’ll bet you want a neat little MP3 player!’ she said.
Probably that was the point where I really should have thrown some sort of a hissy fit. Biting my tongue then probably left me with no option but to go skulking around behind my Mom’s back, lying to everyone.
Who knows what she would have done if I had spoken the words that I had really wanted to say?
I want to know my Dad.
I want a family.
I want to be normal.
But as usual the truth didn’t even come a close second to the promise of a little retail therapy.
You know, lying is a complicated business.
Actors make their living out of lying. Sure, you can dress it up and call acting an art, if you like, but the fact remains that they get out there and pretend to be something that they are not. And what do they get? They get the applause and the fat paychecks.
But like so much else in life there is one rule for actors and another for us lesser mortals.
The fact was that I was lying to Marnie. And that wasn’t something that I was proud of. But, you know, lying has a sort of a snowball effect. That’s how it goes. You know, you start off using your middle name and wanting a little privacy and before you know it you’re in way over your head. One lie always leads to another.
So why didn’t I just tell Marnie the truth? Well, for one thing I was too selfish. The time that I spent with her was the most fun and the closest to normal that I had ever experienced in my life.
I couldn’t risk losing all of that.
Plus, you know, I had painted Marnie a pretty detailed picture of my life in London. What was I supposed to do? Tell her that none of it was true? Tell her that my cover story of a wealthy step-dad (who was paranoid and would allow no visitors), my lawyer Mom, and my manny Andre was a complete crock? Nobody would stick around when they had been fed some a complete pack of lies. Nobody. And the truth was that whenever I was with Marnie I felt more authentically like me than I had ever felt before. So I lied about the details. So what?
The fact was that Marnie Bradshaw was the only person on the planet who knew the truth about what was most important to me.
I had finally told her about my search for my Dad after a particularly ugly French lesson. The stress of the late nights did not exactly put me in a particularly positive frame of mind to face the terrors of a class with Madame Le Maistre. Our French teacher seemed to be intent on using my pathetic accent and grammar as some sort of cautionary tale to the other girls in the class.
Now I know that most Europeans think that Americans are just lazy when it comes to learning foreign languages. But the fact is that most Americans – at least most Californians – do speak a second language. I have been taking Spanish lessons since the age of five. The whole Hispanic thing is so cool.
But St Saviour’s had no Spanish stream. A language course was mandatory but the choice was strictly limited to Latin or French. (Tell me, please, why would any girl waste her time learning to speak a dead language???) So the choice of French was a no-brainer.
Big mistake. Huge mistake. For a start Madame le Maistre refused to speak anything but French. (Was I supposed to learn through some sort of osmosis or something??). And for another thing my accent sucked. It was a complete embarrassment. At best I sounded like I was afflicted with severe nasal congestion and a serious speech impediment. And Madame le Maistre’s insistence that I read in front of the class didn’t exactly help me to improve. In fact, my stuttering and blushing did nothing but entertain Christine Smythe and her bunch of lame-brains.
My confession to Marnie came in the post-traumatic afterglow that always followed one of those torture sessions. I guess I was pretty quiet as we made through the maze of corridors, on our way to the science laboratory for our next class.
‘You know you mustn’t let Christine get to you,’ said Marnie.
‘What?’ I said distractedly, ‘what do you mean about Christine?’
‘She was totally out of order,’ said Marnie. ‘Honestly, if her family wasn’t practically funding this school you can be sure that she would have had her arse kicked in the direction of Mrs Butler-Masterson’s office. Everybody heard her snorting and sniggering while you were trying to read that passage. It must have been very off-putting for you. But I really wouldn’t let her get you down, you know.’
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to Marnie.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘Christine Smythe could paint herself in the French Flag and sing their national anthem for all I care. She’s just another pathetic little spoilt brat who needs to be taught a lesson, and one day, believe me I will teach her a lesson that she will never forget. Christine Smythe does not have the power to make me feel bad.’
‘So what’s up?’ asked Marnie.
I started walking again as I figured out my reply.
‘Remember when I told you that I wasn’t sure if I had a Dad or not?’ I said.
‘It’s not the sort of answer that you forget in a hurry,’ said Marnie.
‘Well, I’ve been digging around, you know. Nobody knows about this. It’s a complete and total secret. But I’ve come up with a list of three names and I know for a fact that one of them is my Dad.’
It was Marnie’s turn to come to a halt.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said, ‘bloody hell ! This is enormous.. in a fab way..! What are you going to do?’
‘Well I can’t do anything until I get my hands on some phone numbers or some addresses you know. But I might need some help.’
‘Anything,’ she said as she beamed a gap-toothed smile, ‘anything.’
My anxiety level lowered a significant notch or two. At least it did until I noticed the enormous exam schedule that had been posted on our notice board.
Exams had never rattled me back home. I mean, I knew that I was smart and I could always nail pretty much any paper. Plus, of course, in my old school it had practically been a federal offence to do anything that might injure the self-esteem of the already hugely-confident and rich students. So Little Johnny could never really fail a class, even if he tried. Just showing up pretty well guaranteed that he might ‘look forward to reaching a higher potential.’
But Mrs Butler-Masterson ran a much tighter ship. Exams were regular and public rites of cruelty. All exam results were published on school noticeboards and the shame of failure in any subject was made all the more public by the additional listing of all girls who would be required to sit repeat exams in the next term.
There was no way that I was going to be branded a failure. I knew that I needed to squeeze in some serious French revision before the holidays. Although something told me that only the intervention of a miracle would save me from a wipeout in my least favourite subject.
But Marnie wasn’t looking at the schedule of exams.
She was staring at another new addition to the notice board. It was the poster that invited applicants for the annual debating championship and it had only one signature; Christine Smythe. Marnie didn’t have to say anything. I knew what she was thinking. This was my perfect opportunity to teach Christine a lesson; it was definitely payback time.
I signed my name onto the poster with a dramatic flourish.
Honestly, you’d think that I would have learnt something from my experience with Bo Hoppermann and all of my subsequent sessions with Dr Banks, but when the opportunity arose to publicly humiliate Christine Smythe with the full blessing of the school, I could not let it pass. So what if debating had never been my thing? My talent for arguing was well-recognised at home.
I knew that Andre wasn’t exactly paying me a compliment on the days that he swore that I would make a great lawyer. But the fact remained that I knew how to argue my corner.
And Christine Smythe needed to be taught a very public lesson.
Three Other Notorious Mistakes That I Have Made When I Have Acted on Impulse
(besides signing up for the debate contest and the infamous Bo Hoppermann incident)
1 Well there was that time that I locked my nanny in the poolhouse, although in my defence, the woman was a witch and anyway, what is a six year old girl supposed to do when their care-giver fails to understand that she has no interest in going to any stupid ballet lessons?
2 And who could forget the unfortunate incident of the photographer who got a little more than he bargained for when he turned his lens on me and my Mom on our last ever outing to a fast-food restaurant…Who knew that the cost of repairing that sort of high-tech snooping equipment when it’s had just a little milk shake damage?
3 This one is strictly between you and me…but Martina may have another little surprise coming her way courtesy of the Web.
Chapter 10
The fact that I was actually looking forward to a little retail therapy should have been a huge signal to me that I was not myself. If people hadn’t been so excited about our exclusive visit to London’s biggest department store then they might have even checked to see if I was running a fever. It was totally out of character for me to tag alone to one of these celebrity expeditions without putting up some sort of fight.
But somehow I hadn’t got the energy to fight anymore. It occurred to me that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Things were not going well. I wasn’t getting any further in my search for the contact details of my possible dads. Marnie didn’t even know who I really was. There was every chance that I was going to fail the French test and I had been dumb enough to volunteer to make a fool of myself in front of the whole school. Everything that I touched seemed to get all messed up. And the worst thing was that I couldn’t even tell anyone the whole story.
Lying could be a lonely business.
So even though Mom didn’t know what I was thinking, I was grateful for the chance to be with her for a mindless evening of shopping. I listened to her tales of the terrors involved in making an English period drama without complaint, as we travelled though the streets of London in a limo that was roughly the size of a bus. I didn’t even tell her to drop the phoney English accent that she had adopted since we had arrived in London.
Normally I couldn’t stand the fawning shop assistants that were an inevitable part of these private evenings. But the store was the size of an impressive shopping mall, and the only staff present seemed to consist of two matronly personal shoppers who did not look as though they would be reaching for their autograph books anytime soon.
Mom made her usual ‘surprise’ gesture of announcing that every member of the team had exactly one hour to choose three Christmas gifts each – no expense spared. Once Andre and the others had disappeared, I was glad to have a little time alone with my Mom. I didn’t even try to escape when she gave me one of her embarrassing hugs.
‘Are you happy honey?’ she asked.
I nodded yes immediately, because in that precise moment I knew that I was; I finally had Mom all to myself.
‘Tell me,’ she said as she held me just far enough away from her so that she could look into my eyes. ‘Tell me what you want.’
Suddenly I could feel the truth welling up in me like a huge eruption that was just below the surface. Maybe I could be honest with my Mom? Maybe I could tell her that I really had to know where I came from and that I really had to know my whole family?
But before I could speak excitement had gotten the better of Mom.
‘I’ll bet you want a neat little MP3 player!’ she said.
Probably that was the point where I really should have thrown some sort of a hissy fit. Biting my tongue then probably left me with no option but to go skulking around behind my Mom’s back, lying to everyone.
Who knows what she would have done if I had spoken the words that I had really wanted to say?
I want to know my Dad.
I want a family.
I want to be normal.
But as usual the truth didn’t even come a close second to the promise of a little retail therapy.
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