Jubilee (17 page)

One Saturday they decided to go down the shops. The Jubilee was a few weeks away and they’d just been told they should wear red, white and blue to the party.

‘My mum’s given me money for something new,’ Mandy told her. ‘D’you fancy a look in Valerie’s?’ Valerie’s was Bourne Heath’s only clothes shop, a boutique next door to Mac Fisheries in the little parade at the centre of the village. Valerie was a real person, the mother of one of the kids in their class.

‘Yeah. Let’s go. I’ll see if Mum will let me have some money, too.’ She did, four pounds; Sarah stuffed it into her purse.

On the way there they played ‘My House, Your House’, a travel game that Sarah’s parents had taught her, adapted by the girls for the short walk into the village. Mandy and Sarah would take it in turns to claim ownership of each house they passed, giving free rein to their disgust or envy at the way the lots fell. After Sarah staked possession of Ragstones, a picturesque Victorian semi, Mandy performed an impromptu impersonation of Gerry Carter, its ancient inhabitant, shambling her way past its dirty windows. Their headmaster Mr McLennan lived a few doors along from Ragstones, and when his house fell to Mandy, Sarah knew her lines: ‘Ooh, you could live with him there! Lenny McLenny, I love you, ooh!’

They stopped off at the Wavy Line before they went to Valerie’s and bought a supply of sweet cigarettes. Sarah had watched her sister Diane smoking for real, her hand stiff, her wrist slightly bent; she replicated this, and Mandy copied her, as they made their way to the boutique, the powdery-sweet taste in their mouths.

Valerie – Mrs Weston – was undressing a window dummy when they came in. As she turned to greet them the figure wobbled and tipped.

‘Whoops!’ She righted it. ‘Hello girls. You doing a bit of shopping? Your mums with you?’

Sarah nodded a yes, Mandy shook her head, no. The dummy stretched a frozen hand towards them. The fingertips had bits chipped off.

‘Lovely! D’you need me for a minute? Or are you happy to browse?’ No, yes. The girls smiled and retreated into the shop.

‘I’ve already got blue,’ Sarah said. ‘Jeans. So I want a top, red or white. What are you looking for?’

Mandy considered. ‘Dunno. Maybe a skirt. I like those tiered ones.’

‘I’ve got one of those,’ Sarah said. ‘My orange one.’

Mandy fiddled with a hanger. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Mrs Weston let them try on lots of things, even things they couldn’t afford to buy. The window kept her busy for a while, and then she came over and asked them, ‘What sort of thing are you looking for?’ Sarah remembered the way her mother talked in shops, and tried to talk like that.

She bought a halter-top in the end, a white one, and you could really see her boobs in it. So now she had blue and white. At the counter there was a little stand with pendants on it. She liked the leather ones, tooled with suns or rainbows or birds, but they weren’t the right colour. There were some hearts on silver chains though, a brilliant, deep red and really pretty. Mrs Weston was wrapping the top.

‘How much are these necklaces?’

Mrs Weston squinted at the tag. ‘One pound twenty,’ she told her. ‘How much have you got?’

‘Three pounds ninety-eight.’

‘Sorry, love. The top’s three ninety. The necklace will still be here on Monday. Go home and ask your mum if you can have it as a treat.’

‘OK.’ Sarah looked longingly at the pendant, imagined it dropping down towards the V of her new top, the perfect finishing touch. She paid and left the counter while Mandy bought the skirt she’d chosen. Next to a display of belts and hats were some bras: Triumph. She knew these from the TV advert –
Triumph has the bra for the way you are
. It showed all the different kinds of girls who might wear Triumph bras and when she watched it, Sarah tried to pick out the type she was: sophisticated, cheery, romantic. As she and Mandy left the shop they sang the jingle:

‘Whether you’re
ooh-ee

Or whether you’re
doo-wop-wop-wop

Triumph has the bra for the way you are!’

They didn’t see Lee Davis coming towards them until it was too late; he must have heard them singing that stupid song. But it was only Lee after all. Sarah had seen him at playtimes, hanging around the infants’ area with his little brother: a real no-no. Cai never played with him and he was generally considered a bit of a spaz. He smiled at them and, as she kept walking, Sarah realised that Mandy wasn’t with her any more. She’d stopped to talk to Lee. Sarah turned back immediately.

‘… some clothes for our Jubilee party,’ she caught her friend saying.

Sarah intervened quickly. ‘You coming, Mandy?’

Mandy looked at her for just a second, then dropped the smile from her face. ‘Yeah, of course,’ she said, and swung away from Lee.

As they waited to cross the road Sarah pushed out her lower lip with her tongue and asked: ‘Were you habing a mice time with Lee ben, Manby?’ – and Mandy laughed and said, ‘God, he’s such a spaz,’ and then it was clear and they crossed.

As they turned into Cherry Gardens Mandy stuck her hand into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I’m glad you didn’t buy that necklace at Valerie’s. I’ve been meaning to give you this.’

On her palm, tangled up in a lump, was a red heart on a chain. Sarah looked at it.

‘It’s the same as Mrs Weston’s.’

‘Yeah, I know. My mum bought it for me, but it doesn’t suit me. It’ll look better on you. Go on, have it,’ and she pushed her hand towards her friend.

Sarah reached out for it. She undid the knotted chain, easing it apart gently. ‘It’s just the same,’ she said again, when she’d finished and was holding it up between them.

‘Yeah. She probably got it from there. Don’t tell her I gave it you. She’ll be upset.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

‘You’ve got the whole thing now – red, white and blue.’

‘I have. Maybe I’ll get my mum to buy me red shoes, too.’

It was lunchtime. Both girls would be wanted back at home. Sarah walked to her house alone, thinking about the Jubilee party and how great she’d look in her red, white and blue.

On Jubilee Day she did look good, she knew it. As predicted, her mum had bought her some red sandals, grown-up wedgies she’d had to practise walking in before the day. They were the same colour as the pendant Mandy had given her; she looked like a fashion picture in one of her own magazines. Colette, yapping beside her as she got ready, had said as much, and then she’d said, cutting straight across the warm feel-good of the morning, that she had something else to tell her, ‘something about Mandy’.

Sarah knew it couldn’t be true. Mandy had told her, swearing her to secrecy, that she fancied Cai, and that he fancied her back. The two girls had planned the first kiss together; Sarah made Mandy practise on the back of her hand. She’d taught her about Frenchies: he should do it first, then you know it’s OK for you to do it. Not too much tongue. Even if he’s a sloppy kisser, never, ever wipe your mouth afterwards – it makes you look like a kid. Close your eyes. When it had happened (Jennings Field after school one day) Mandy had come straight to Sarah afterwards, and they’d gone over it together. Scale of one to ten? (Seven, said Mandy.) Length? (Dunno. It felt like a long time.) What did he do with his hands? (He put one on my shoulder. He held his bike with the other.)

So Sarah knew it wasn’t true, what Colette was saying. But she was saying it anyway, and that could ruin things for Mandy – for both of them. Mandy needed to be warned.

Sarah found her sitting on her bed in a pair of
Love Is
pants. Across the floor tops, skirts and trousers were scattered.

‘Hi,’ Mandy greeted her. ‘It doesn’t look right. I don’t know what to wear now. Oh! You look nice. The necklace is great.’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Sarah closed the bedroom door. ‘Listen, Mandy. I’ve just been with Colette. She told me something – well, it’s really silly, but you could still get into trouble over it.’

Mandy frowned. ‘What?’

‘She says – well, you know what she’s like, she’ll say anything – she says she saw you
kissing
Satish!
Kissing!
In his
bedroom
!’

Mandy’s hands went up to her face, covered her mouth and nose. Over her fingertips, her eyes were wide.

‘Oh, no!’ she was saying, and her voice echoed a little in the hollow of her hands.

‘I know. What if she says that to someone else? And what if they believe her? Satish!’

‘Oh no!’ Mandy said again, and when she took her hands away from her face Sarah could see she was laughing.

‘It’s not funny, Mandy. Your parents will kill you!’

Mandy stopped her giggling. ‘I know. I know they will. It’s not funny.’ Then she smiled again, sheepish.

‘She said her dad had seen you, too. What was she talking about? Do you know?’

Mandy wasn’t smiling now. ‘Her dad saw?’

‘She says. What did she mean? Were you at his house or something?’ Sarah had perched next to her friend and was looking solemnly at Mandy: crisis mode.

Mandy had found something interesting on the quilt cover and was tracing the swirly pattern with her finger. Then she looked up at Sarah again. ‘Oops,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I was in his room.’ Mandy stretched across the bed to where a denim skirt lay crumpled, and started to pull it on.

‘
Why
were you in his room?’

Mandy was still not looking at her, Sarah noticed. She faced away and tugged at the zipper in little jerks. ‘We were just chatting,’ she offered. ‘Just – you know – looking at the street. The decorations.’

Sarah stood up, listing sideways on her new heels. She went round to plant herself in front of Mandy, stared down into her face.

‘With Satish? Just looking at the decorations?
With Satish?
’ She searched her friend’s expression, tried to find some sense in what she was saying. ‘Why?’

‘Just … did.’ Mandy turned away, fumbled in the wardrobe and came out with a white T-shirt. There was something else, thought Sarah.

‘Was Colette right? Did you kiss him, then?’

Mandy dived into the T-shirt. Through the top of it, Sarah could see a circle of dark hair. Her friend stayed inside, pulling the fabric back against her face so that you could make out her nose, her lips, the sockets of her eyes. She nodded.

‘Bloody hell!’ Sarah shouted. ‘Satish! Bloody hell! Mandy!’

Mandy emerged. ‘Keep your hair on. So Colette and Mr Brecon saw me. Why should he care? And if Colette tells anyone, no one will believe her, she’s just a kid.’

‘She might tell Cai. He might believe her.’

At this, Mandy sobered slightly. ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Bloody and bugger, Mandy! And yuk anyway. Yuk! Splatish? I bet he smelled horrible.’

Mandy paused. ‘No, he didn’t, actually.’

‘Then I bet he
tasted
horrible.’

‘Not really.’

Sarah heard movement downstairs, then Mandy’s mum shouting up. ‘Are you girls all right up there?’

Mandy moved to the bedroom door. ‘Fine, Mum. Just trying on stuff.’ They heard her go back into the kitchen.

‘Can’t you see how this could really get you into trouble?’ Sarah asked. ‘Can’t you see how wrong Satish is?’

‘He goes round with us.’

‘Cai lets him hang around,’ Sarah corrected. ‘But he never, ever plays with him at school. Haven’t you noticed that? At home – well, he lives next door. Cai sort of has to let him come too.’ Then she hesitated. Did he? Why did he? ‘Anyway,’ she rallied. ‘Kissing him! It’s so
wrong
. Can’t you see that?’

‘No.’

That was absolutely typical.

‘Mandy, you’re useless! I have to tell you everything, don’t I? Look at all this!’ Her spread hand took in the posters on Mandy’s walls, the contents of Mandy’s dressing table, the clothes on Mandy’s floor. ‘Your clothes are nice now, and you go round with fun people at school, and you’re friends with Cai, the Chandlers, that lot. It’s been really hard work, helping you do that.’

‘Hard work?’

‘Yeah. But it’s OK. You go round with us now. What’s going to happen if they find out about this? And what about me? If they think I’m your friend, and they know you’ve done this …’

She’d hit home, she thought. Mandy walked over to the dressing table and looked down at it, at the bangles and necklaces and the little can of hairspray she’d bought for the party. Sarah moved closer to her, lifted her arm to put it round her friend’s shoulder, but Mandy stepped away.

‘So what?’ she said. ‘So what if they know? Why should I care? I
like
Satish. Satish is fun. He’s a laugh. I like talking to him.’

Her voice was getting louder and Sarah felt her mouth slacken. This wasn’t the Mandy she knew. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then she realised – oh my God! – and she moved to the door before delivering her
coup de grâce
, the blow Mandy wouldn’t recover from.

‘You fancy him!’ she told her friend. ‘You
fancy
him!’

At last, this seemed to stop Mandy. She opened her mouth, frowning. She gazed across at Satish’s house. Then her face closed off and she got that hard look which meant she wouldn’t see sense.

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she said finally. ‘I do fancy him. I fancy him a lot. I think Satish is brilliant and I don’t care what you think. I don’t care about Cai or Cai’s dad. I don’t care about the Chandlers or any of that lot. And mostly, I don’t care about you.’

‘Mandy!’

‘Take it and stick it up your bum!’

When Sarah left Mandy’s house, her first thought was to closet herself in her bedroom for a while and work on some damage limitation. Then she glanced over to the other side of the street, across the long table with its Union Jack covering, the cups and plates in place, ready for the party. It’s pretty, she thought. Opposite her, Satish’s house was unreadable: door shut, windows unoccupied. Then she looked across at Cai’s place, and the Chandlers’. Her eye snagged on something incongruous, a thatch of blond hair poking up from the pavement on the other side of the table. It was Cai, squatting down in front of his garden wall.

It’s the early hours, and Satish is still awake. Maya lies beside him, her breathing shallow, her feet finally warm, resting against his. He’s pushed them away but they keep moving back towards him, and although it’s a complete invasion of his space, if he keeps disturbing her she’ll wake up and require conversation. He’s been staring at the dark shapes of their bedroom: the irregular skyline of Maya’s perfume bottles on the dresser, the lattice at the foot of their iron bed, the wardrobe door slightly ajar, a deeper darkness inside.