Me Myself Milly (14 page)

‘Oh, okay, let’s go and ask him then,’ said Effy as if it was the simplest thing in the world and before I could stop her or warn her that he was probably going to be pretty
hostile, she’d knocked on the front door.

Devlin’s dad opened the door. I’d never met him before. He looked like Devlin, or more accurately Devlin looked like him. He had the same brown, wavy hair and blue eyes.

Effy was asking if Devlin was in. Devlin’s dad, for some reason, was hugely amused that there were girls calling for him. He called for Devlin to come downstairs and when Devlin appeared
his dad said, ‘We’ve only been here a few weeks and already the girls are lining up at the door!’

Devlin went bright red.

‘Yes, and there are three more dying to meet you,’ said Effy.

‘So what are you waiting for?’ said Mr Wade.

I could plainly see Devlin’s dilemma because it was similar to mine a minute ago. He couldn’t make up an excuse because his dad was standing there and he’d know it wasn’t
true. I didn’t dare look at Devlin. He’d hate me for this.

Devlin grabbed his jacket and we piled out the door. I was relieved when Effy took over and introduced herself. By the time we got to the café she’d found out that Devlin
hadn’t wanted to come to England (no offence), he’d tried to get his parents to let him stay with a friend but his mum wasn’t having any of it and said it would do him good. But
there weren’t any baseball teams here and he was missing his friends. He didn’t say anything about a girlfriend and I was willing Effy to ask but she didn’t.

Effy was being very sympathetic. She was saying how hard it must be for him and that she was sure it would get better once he’d settled in. She said she’d be terrified if she had to
move to LA and leave all her friends behind. I thought that was pretty ironic really as she had more or less done just that. Okay, so our new school wasn’t three thousand miles away, but it
was a world away from St Bart’s.

Molly, Katy and Harriet were waiting for us at the café. Posh Nosh was another irony. There was nothing posh about the café or what it served. It was a sort of health food place
run by ageing hippies and it was always really busy because the food was good and not too expensive. All sorts of people came in here, from business men to the homeless, from school kids to
pensioners.

We found a big table and ordered our drinks. I took a sneaky look at Devlin to see how he was coping in the company of five girls. He looked fine. In fact, he looked perfectly happy. None of the
others were shy and they were all talking to him. By the time the drinks arrived they’d asked him what his best friend was called ( Jake) and what his favourite subjects were at school (math
and science) – they laughed at him for calling it math instead of maths. He told them about his dog (Gimbo) who’d died last year and how hard it was because they’d been together
since Devlin was two and how much he missed him. They even found out which was his favourite baseball team (Angels of Anaheim), as if they knew anything about baseball. Which they obviously
didn’t because they said the Angels of Anaheim sounded like a really good fantasy film. Devlin took it well.

I sat and listened and got more and more depressed as I realised that Devlin was actually really chatty and friendly and fun to be with – obviously it
was
only me that he had a
problem with.

The girls wanted to know if Americans were really like the ones in the films or on
Friends
or all the other sitcoms they’d seen. Devlin just laughed and asked whether British people
were like the ones on the television here and they had to admit they weren’t really – not even on the ‘reality’ programmes because even those people weren’t
‘normal’, they were all acting up for the cameras.

It was impossible to stay depressed for long, though, and everyone was calling me Emily which was nice because today I really felt like Emily for the first time.

I went to the toilet and when I was washing my hands Harriet came in.

‘Why didn’t you tell us how gorgeous he is?’ she said, checking her face in the mirror. ‘I’d have made more of an effort if I’d known.’ Our eyes met in
the mirror. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell the others to back off.’ And before I could put her straight, she’d gone. When I got back to the table Devlin looked up and smiled at me and
it wasn’t until he looked away and started talking to Harriet that I realised I’d forgotton to smile back. Now he’d think it was me who was being unfriendly.

After we’d eaten we hit the shops. I was expecting Devlin to make some excuse and go off home but he seemed perfectly happy to hang out with us.

We bought a frisbee and ended up on the green at the Royal Crescent. While it wasn’t exactly hot, with it being autumn, the sun was out and there wasn’t any wind. There were loads of
people dotted over the grass, kicking footballs about or just sitting around. It was the sort of thing that Lily would have enjoyed and I felt guilty.

Then it was time to go to Katy’s for the marathon film night.

‘You can come too,’ Katy told Devlin. He politely declined and said it sounded great but he’d better get back or his parents would think he’d been kidnapped. I thought
that was very tactful as he was probably thinking there was no way he was going to spend the evening watching a load of girlie films.

When Effy’s dad dropped me home it was pretty late, but Mum was waiting up for me.

We had a drink in the kitchen while I told her all about my day. When I finally went to bed it was very quiet in our room. I looked over at Lily’s bed. I unwound her scarf from my neck and
laid it on the end of her bed. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered into the darkness, but there was no reply.

As I got undressed I realised that I felt happy. It was the first time since The Incident that I’d truly felt happy. I was filled with a sense of panic. Shakily, I climbed into bed and got
my journal out. If I finished writing about The Incident I’d quash any happy feelings. It felt wrong to be happy.

I climbed up the last bit of the slope and reached the other two at the top. We were standing on the brim of a gigantic bowl. A bowl full of mud soup.

‘What is it?’ said Archie.

‘I think it’s some sort of reservoir,’ I said, though it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. Somebody had dug out a huge dip in the ground and lined it
with bricks. I reckoned that most of the earth that had been dug out had been used to make the bank that ran round the edge. The square brick structure with the concrete top must house some sort of
pump, I thought. I guessed it was pretty old, Victorian or something by the look of the bricks. They were small and worn with age.

‘Anyhow,’ I told Archie, ‘it’s not in use any more.’ That was stating the obvious. Rather than being filled with water, as I supposed it was meant to be, it was
half full of gunk. It looked like black, peaty mud topped with a thick layer of leaves and branches that had soaked up so much moisture that they were all black and had turned to a pulpy mess.
There was a strong smell coming off it but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was earthy and woody. The peat soup came halfway up the brick incline, though judging by the slimy marks at intervals down
the side, it was slowly drying up.

‘Whatever,’ said Lily, looking totally unimpressed. ‘I want my lunch.’

The obvious place to have it was on top of the graffiti-covered brick cube. We helped Archie up, then climbed up ourselves. We sat with our backs to the brick bowl, looking out towards the
woods instead. I scanned the tree line but couldn’t see any sign of the boys. Blue Hoodie must have gone into the pub with his mates after all.

I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework when I heard the squeak of the gate at the top of the basement steps. I looked up and saw Devlin coming down the stairs. I
jumped up and opened the door before he could knock.

‘Hi,’ I said. No marks for originality.

I hadn’t seen Devlin for a couple of weeks, not since we’d been out to Posh Nosh. I’d wondered what he’d been doing and I’d even crept up the stairs a couple of
times and pressed my ear to the door to see if I could hear anything, but guilt and a fear of being seen by Lily put a stop to that.

Of course the girls kept asking me about him and they’d spent a couple of lunchtimes trying to come up with a plot to see him again without being too obvious. But short of going round and
knocking on his door and asking for him, nobody had had any bright ideas.

I moved aside so he could come in, but then I spotted a leaflet he was clutching in his hand and I realised he’d probably just come down to put it through the door and hadn’t planned
on talking to me. The look of embarrassment on his face confirmed my suspicion and wiped the welcoming smile off my face.

He held the leaflet out. It was advertising some upcoming lectures at the university.

‘Dad thought your mom might be interested in going,’ Devlin said.

I took the leaflet from him. ‘She’s not in at the moment.’ There was an awkward silence. Devlin ran his fingers through his hair.

‘Look, can I come in?’

I opened the door wider and he came inside. As he walked past I could smell his shampoo, or deodorant or something. Whatever it was, it was nice.

The awkward silence was there again and I wondered what he wanted.

‘Do you want a drink?’ I said to fill the gap.

‘Yeah, thanks. Have you got any Coke?’

‘No, sorry.’ I didn’t want to go into an explanation about Mum’s dislike of that particular drink and how she was always saying she’d rather we drank beer than
Coke. It would probably make him think she was deranged or something. I tried to remember my manners. ‘We’ve got tea, coffee or . . .’ I opened the fridge and peered inside.
‘ . . . guava juice.’

‘I’ll try the coffee,’ he said, so I switched the kettle on. Devlin sat down at the table.

‘Homework?’ he said, looking at my school books. Full marks for deduction.

‘Yes, I have to write about the worst day of my life.’

God, what was I prattling on for? I could have just said yes.

‘So what are you writing about then? The day you had to show me around town?’

He was grinning at me. I smiled back. ‘Yeah, how did you guess?’

‘I’m really sorry about that. I’ve wanted to apologise for ages but I’ve been too embarrassed.’

I didn’t know what to say so I just looked at him. He’d picked up my pen and was fiddling with it, popping the end in and out.

‘The truth is . . .’ Devlin started to say then stopped.

The truth was what? That he didn’t like me? That the very thought of me repelled him?

‘What?’

‘The truth is . . . I . . . The thing is . . .’

Whatever the problem was he was having real trouble getting it out. You know when someone has a stammer and they can’t get the word out and the urge to finish the sentence for them is
overwhelming?

‘You don’t like me. It’s okay, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ I blurted out.

Devlin looked puzzled.

‘No, you’ve got it wrong, it’s not that . . . I do like you! It’s just that . . . Right, the thing is .. .’

‘For God’s sake – just spit it out will you!’ I was flustered because he’d said he liked me.

‘I’m trying to! You keep interrupting me!’

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I won’t say another word.’

‘Right. I’ve got a kind of problem and it sounds pretty stupid but I can’t help it . . .’

Oh no, he was going to tell me all about his girlfriend back home. I didn’t want to hear it.

‘It’s okay, it’s fine . . .’ I told him.

‘You said you wouldn’t interrupt!’ Devlin was seriously exasperated now.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled and mimed zipping up my mouth.

‘Right . . . The truth is . . . and the reason I was acting so strange . . . Promise you won’t laugh?’

Oh, for heaven’s sake! I nodded at him.

‘Okay, well . . . I’m aquaphobic.’

The last bit came out in a rush and because it wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say it took me a moment to understand.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You were fine when we went out the other day – and we went to the park and everything.’

Now Devlin was looking confused. Then his face cleared. ‘No, I said aquaphobic – not agoraphobic. I have a fear of water, not open spaces.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘I know, it’s stupid, isn’t it? I hate myself for it, believe me, but I can’t help it.’

‘Yeah, but I still don’t get it.’

‘You mean why I was so uptight when you showed me round town?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, first off you said we were going across a bridge. That can be a problem sometimes. As it turned out it was the best bridge I’ve ever seen because you can’t see any water
when you’re crossing it so that turned out okay. Then you took me to the Roman Baths and when I saw what it was like on the leaflet I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to be enclosed
in a small space with all that water.’ He looked embarrassed again.

‘And then you suggested a river cruise,’ he continued. ‘By that time I was wondering if it was a wind up and Mom had told you about my problem and you were just having a
laugh.’