Friends Forever! Page 5

  I buried my head in quadratic equations and infinite verbs and tried to ignore the whole mess.

  Eventually Cressida bought Claude a heart-shaped necklace to thank her for being “such an amazing friend during Year 11,” which Claude wore to her geography exam. This riled Fleur so deeply that she stopped texting Claude daft good-night messages at bedtime, something the LBD have done every night since Year 9.

  So, Claude refused to lend Fleur her green Morgan dress for the Blackwell Golden Centenary Barbecue, telling her to “buy her own clothes,” seeing as the Swan family “had more money than sense anyhow.”

  And by this point, I was finding it hard to like Claude. Or Fleur for that matter.

  And that pretty much brings us up to now.

  dizzy

  “Hmmm . . . well, you know what the moral of that tale is?” Nan asks, crashing open the oven door and producing a tray of sweet-smelling scones.

  “Er, no?” I say, my eyes red-rimmed.

  “Never trust a vegetarian,” she says. “Hitler was one, you know.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Absolutely,” she tuts. “A couple of plates of corned beef hash down his neck, he’d never have invaded Poland. What’s life without the odd lovely Scotch egg? Cuh! No wonder that Cressida Slime article is so bitter and twisted.”

  I gaze forlornly at Nan, who has flour on the end of her nose and a random sultana in her hairline. She winks at me before hobbling to the pantry and producing a tin of Lyon’s black treacle, a bottle of Glenmorangie whiskey and two small glasses.

  “Can I tempt you with a wee nip? Just for your nerves?” Nan asks, pouring herself a healthy-sized dram.

  “Nah,” I sigh. “I’ll pass.”

  “Very noble,” Nan smiles, tapping her floury nose, then taking a dainty glug of the pungent fluid. “So, anyway, what’s the lay of the land now? When did you last see Claudette and Fleur?”

  “Wednesday,” I tell her. “It was the last GCSE exam. English.”

  “And?” Nan prompts.

  “Well, the paper was fairly easy,” I sigh. “So I was really hoping we all might go to Ruby’s afterward for cakes to celebrate. But the second the bell went, Fleur chucked her pencil case in her bag and stormed out with her nose aloft.”

  “And Claudette?” asks Nan, picking up her whiskey and taking another dainty glug.

  “She just watched her go!” I cry, tears spilling down my face. “Like she didn’t care. And then the most awful thing of all happened!”

  “What?” says Nan, reaching up her sleeve, pulling out a fresh cotton handkerchief and passing it to me.

  “Then Cressida pranced over to Claude’s desk with an evil little smirk on her face. I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but it sounded like she was firing one of her servants or something! She thanked Claude ‘for all of her hard work,’ then breezed out without even saying good-bye!”

  “The little harridan,” tuts Nan, knocking more of her whiskey back. “She dropped Claudette too, once the exams were over?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “When I left the exam hall, I saw Cressida jumping into the back of Panama Goodyear’s Range Rover. Panama was driving and Abigail and Derren, two of the most vile snobs at Blackwell School, were there too! Claude was scurrying off up the street alone.”

  “Oh,” says Nan.

  “She won’t answer her phone,” I say.

  The cuckoo clock in Nan’s hallway chimes six times. I place my face in my hands and sigh deeply.

  “What do you think I should do?” I ask, not holding much hope that a half-tipsy octogenarian can save the LBD’s summer.

  “Hmmm . . . well,” says Nan, smothering a scone in clotted cream and pushing it in front of me, “that’s as plain as the nose on your face, Veronica. You have to save the LBD!”

  “Save the LBD?” I repeat.

  “Yes!” she nods. “And quickly, before this whole affair gets any sillier.”

  “It’s too late,” I sigh.

  “It’s never too late to patch things up,” smiles Nan. “Sure, it’ll take a bit of talking and pride swallowing. But you girls can do that.”

  “Hmpgh,” I bristle. “Maybe I don’t want to be friends with them again. Maybe I’ve seen a side of Claude and Fleur I don’t like!”

  “Veronica,” says Nan seriously, “no one’s perfect. If you allowed only people into your life that you liked all the time, well, you’d be a very lonely person. Friends make mistakes. That’s a fact of life. Bearing grudges gets you nowhere. Let an old fool tell you that for nothing.”

  Nan picks up her enormous white handbag, which always lives beside her ankle. She fishes around in it for a while, pulling out an envelope containing a pile of well-thumbed black-and-white photographs.

  “Edith Warburton,” Nan announces, handing me a photograph of a pretty dark-haired girl aged about twenty-five in a 1940s dress. “Dizzy, that was her nickname. Ahhh . . . the boys loved Dizzy! I never got a look in with those American airmen when she was around. Mad as a hatter, she was!”

  “Was she your friend?” I say, examining the photo.

  “For fifty years,” Nan says, nodding. “I was there when she gave birth to George, her first boy. Ha! What a night that was. You’ve never heard language like it!” Nan looks at the photo again, biting her lip a little.

  “Did you ever argue?” I ask.

  “Oh, now and then,” Nan says a little sadly. “But we always made up again . . . well, until 1987, when we stopped speaking altogether.”

  “What happened?” I gasp.

  “Well,” Nan says, sighing. “Young George, he got engaged to a girl called Marie. Nice girl she was, worked as a teacher . . . lovely teeth . . . Anyhow, George and Marie, they decided to get married at the local registry office. Y’know, what with them both being, er, athleticists . . .”

  “Atheists?” I suggest. “They didn’t believe in God?”

  “That’s it!” says Nan. “So anyhow, I says to Dizzy, I’ll not bother wearing a hat to the wedding, seeing as it’s not a religious do. Well, Dizzy took great offense at that! She said, ‘Leticia, if you don’t want to take George’s big day seriously, then don’t come at all!’ ”

  Nan gives her best derisive snort. “Ha! As if I was going to buy a brand new hat to stand in a drafty council office,” she tuts. “But Dizzy, she said I was just jealous because none of my kids had managed to get wed. The cheek of her! So I didn’t go.”

  Nan looks at the photo again, then puts it away. “We never spoke to each other ever again,” she says sadly.

  “You fell out over a hat?” I splutter.

  “A hat,” repeats Nan. “I wouldn’t phone Dizzy, Dizzy wouldn’t phone me. Then George and Marie moved to Devon and she went with them.”

  Nan’s eyes become a little glassy. “Anyway, she’s gone up there now,” she says, pouring herself another very small Glenmorangie.

  By “up there,” I’m surmising Dizzy’s gone somewhere a little farther than Devon. “That’s a shame, Nan,” I say.

  “I know it is,” she agrees. “Life’s too short for silly arguments. That’s why you’ve got to get your girls together again. Now! Plan yourselves an adventure! A holiday? You’re sixteen years old! Oooh, if I was sixteen again, I’d—”

  “I can’t!” I protest. “Mum’s making me get a waitressing job at the Wacky Warehouse.”

  “Eh?” splutters Nan. “Whatever for?”

  “She says I can’t freeload off her all summer,” I say. “She says I need to know the value of money.”

  At this moment, Nan begins to howl with laughter. In fact, she laughs so much she has to hold on to the oak table. Her face has dissolved into a million wrinkles.

  “Hoo hoo! My Magda actually said that?” guffaws Nan. “Oooh, I’ve heard the lot now! Did she care to tell you what she was doing at sixteen?”

  “Mmm . . . ,” I ponder. “Something about being up with the lark doing housework?”

  Nan nearly explodes with mirth.
“Ha ha ha!” she howls. “She was never up before midday! She never saw the sun! It was like living with a bat.”

  “Are you sure?” I say, feeling slightly disoriented.

  “Yes, I’m sure!” says Nan. “She drove me absolutely doolally! Her and Susan Fitzpatrick—out at nightclubs until all hours! The stupid clothes! The endless procession of long-haired lout boyfriends! Then, Magda meets your dad one night at one of them ravey parties, drops out of catering college and takes off to Tenerife to work in a nightclub with him. That girl turned my hair white!”

  “Pardon?” I say incredulously. “My mother dropped out of college? Mum told me she finished college before she went to Tenerife.”

  “Veronica,” chuckles Nan. “Your mother has a very selective memory.”

  I will never listen to anything Magda Ripperton says, ever again.

  It’s 8 P.M. I already promised Mum I’d come home tonight for babysitting duties tomorrow morning, so I have to get going.

  “Well, that works out nicely,” Nan says as we walk down the hallway. “My program begins at 9 P.M. Autopsy Squad—do you watch it? It’s the best thing on the box.”

  “I saw the episode with the kidney snatcher,” I wince.

  “Wasn’t that great?” beams Nan, passing me my coat. She’s also shoved something into my hand. An envelope.

  “What’s this?” I say, raising an eyebrow.

  “Money,” she winks. “For the summer.”

  “Nan . . . you don’t have to . . . ,” I begin.

  “Oh, shush,” she smiles. “Go and have a good time. Buy something daft with it!”

  Nan opens the door. It’s a balmy June night. Daddy longlegs are crawling around the lamp outside. I give her a big hug, trying not to crush her.

  “I’ll call you soon,” I say. “I’ll give you an update on events.”

  “Good girl!” smiles Nan. “You tell your mum I love her. I’ll call her tomorrow after Miriam’s put my curlers in.”

  “Sure thing,” I say, walking down the garden path. As I reach the small gate, I turn around for another wave.

  “Cheerio, sweetheart!” Nan shouts, her walking stick supporting her tiny frame. “Oh, and you remember what I said, eh? Save the LBD! Have courage—it’s not too late!”

  “I hear you!” I chuckle, walking away up Dewers Drive in the twilight clutching my warm tinfoil parcel of scones. “Love you, Nan. See you soon.”

  “Ronnie,” Dad says. “Ronnie. Sweetheart? Are you awake?”

  “Gnnngnn . . . Dad,” I moan, opening one eye.

  Dad’s sitting in the armchair in my bedroom. It’s 11 A.M. Visiting Nan must have bought me some major brownie points—they never let me sleep this late.

  “I promise I’m getting up now,” I say. “Will you tell Mum I’ll do Seth’s lunch feed?”

  There’s a long silence. I open my eyes and sit up. Dad’s sitting very quietly, peering at me. He stands up and opens the curtains.

  “Er, Ronnie babe?” he says. “Sit up. I need to talk to you.”

  Oh God, he’s going to start doing my head in about summer jobs again. “Can it not wait?” I say huffily.

  “Not really, darling,” he says.

  Something about Dad’s tone makes me slightly uneasy.

  “What’s up?” I say, propping myself upright.

  Dad looks at me. He looks lost for words. “Erm, Ronnie, it’s . . . your nan,” he finally says.

  “Oh, Dad!” I say, beginning to laugh. “I should have said last night. She’s not gone mad at all. You’ll never believe this . . . she’s only got herself one of those police scanners from dodgy Tony down the road! What a woman!”

  Dad looks at me blankly. He sits down on the side of my bed. “Ronnie, darling, your nan died last night.”

  I feel like somebody has punched me in the mouth.

  “But . . . but . . . no,” I splutter. “She . . . she was . . . I was there . . . there last night!”

  “I know you were, petal,” says Dad calmly.

  “And she was fine!” I say. “She was . . . she was totally fine. She baked scones!”

  My head’s spinning. I think I might be sick.

  “And I . . . I was telling her about Claude and Fleur!” I say. “She . . . she was telling me what to do!”

  “That sounds like Leticia,” says Dad sadly. He reaches out, placing his big rough hands over mine. Thick tears are streaming down my cheeks.

  “Dad . . . Dad, this makes no sense!” I sob. “Are you sure? Maybe there’s been a mistake.”

  Dad reaches forward and cuddles me into his chest. “No, Ron,” he says. “Miriam found her this morning. She was lying in bed. Miriam says she just looked like she was asleep. Your mum’s gone there now to meet the undertakers.”

  “But . . . she was okay last night, Dad,” I sob uselessly. “She was fine.”

  “She was old, Ronnie,” says Dad, smoothing my hair with his hand, blotting my tears into his shirt. “She was just really, really old.”

  Chapter 3

  a good turnout

  My dad and Tony, Miriam’s son, and some other Little Chipping men help carry Nan’s coffin. It’s tiny. Not exactly £900 worth of stained golden oak, which is the price Sneddon and Sons Funeral Directors charged.

  Nan would have been livid at that price.

  “Wrap me in newspaper and put me in the rubbish!” That’s what she used to tell us. “I don’t want any fuss!”

  In the end, Nan’s funeral is a bit “fussy,” but I think she would have approved. Nan loved a good funeral. She liked the singing and the flowers and the after-party where everyone gossips and eats pork pies. Mum once accused Nan of scouring the Local Daily Mercury’s obituary section for fresh deaths, because she had more fun at wakes than at bridge club.

  Mum and Nan were always taking the mickey out of each other.

  I don’t cry at all during the service, although I nearly do when we sing “Amazing Grace,” Nan’s favorite hymn. It just doesn’t seem right to blubber when Mum’s face is so stiff and dignified. I’m determined to cope just for her.

  However, when we arrive at the Little Chipping Hotel for Nan’s wake, I begin to feel totally hideous. All of Nan’s gang from her Tuesday Club are gathered: Tilly, Philly, Kitty and Sissy, all with their fluffy candy-floss hair, chunky handbags and walking aids. In the function room, a long, grand oak table is laden with sandwiches and sausage rolls. Old-fashioned china cake-stands heave with scones, macaroons and cream éclairs, and two huge steaming teapots are perched ceremoniously in the center of the table, waiting for service.

  In the corner, Aunty Susan and Miriam sit on either side of Mum on a sofa, holding her hands, while she gazes into the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, Dad wanders about, dispensing extra chairs to the elderly and announcing, “Crikey, what a turnout!” to random passersby.

  The whole thing is beyond surreal.

  I stand for at least half an hour in the center of the room, making small talk with the cotton-wool heads about my exams, waiting patiently for something to happen.

  Something. Anything. I’m not sure what. It just feels like something isn’t right. Then, eventually, as the guests tuck into the sandwiches and begin complimenting the scones, it finally hits me:

  I’m waiting for Nan to show up.

  At some weird level, I’ve been expecting her to hobble through the door and begin piling a plate with jam tarts and potted-meat sandwiches—which is totally ridiculous, as I’m never going to see her again.

  I have to get out of that room.

  In a flurry of limbs, I rush out a side door, narrowly missing a woman carrying a huge teapot, stumbling into the rather majestic hallway where at least the air is cooler. To my right is a grand sweeping staircase where, halfway up, I see a young man with his head in his hands. It’s Tony, Miriam’s son.

  “Tony?” I say, climbing the stairs to where he sits. “Are you okay?”

  Tony looks up at me. His hands are marked with bad tattoos. His da
rk brown eyes are full of tears.

  “Oh . . . don’t mind me, Ronnie . . . I’m just being soft,” Tony smiles, wiping his wet hands over his shaved head. “It’s just your nan . . . she was just . . . y’know, a really nice woman. She never had a go at me about stuff.”

  “Yeah, Tony,” I say, sitting down on the step beside him. “I know.”

  And then I start to cry too.

  Eventually, Dad finds me and decides to drive me home.

  chess

  “Oh dear, Ron,” smiles Dad as we turn into the Fantastic Voyage’s parking lot. “We may have intruders. Shall we call the police?”

  “Eh?” I grunt. I’ve not uttered a syllable during the entire drive home.

  Dad points across at our beer garden where two girls are playing on the man-sized chess game: one blonde, another with dark bunches and spectacles.

  I can’t believe my eyes.

  Claude and Fleur!

  “Oh my God,” I gasp, jumping out of the car. Dad smiles and says nothing.

  As I approach, Fleur is waving Claude’s white bishop above her head with victorious glee while Claude glares back at her.

  “I thought you said you played chess, you numpty!” Fleur shouts smugly. “Were you getting it mixed up with Hungry Hippos?”

  “I can play chess!” retorts Claude. “You just take so flipping long to make your moves I lose the will to live. It’s like playing with a sloth!”

  “Oh, whatever,” tuts Fleur, adding the bishop to her vast pile of vanquished pieces. “A sloth who’s whooping your ass!”

  The girls spot me and stop bickering.

  “Ronnie!” Fleur shouts, rushing over to me with her arms open. “How’s it going, babe?”

  “Hey,” says Claude, running over and joining the hug. “We heard about your nan. Your dad called our mothers. We can’t believe it. We’re so sorry, Ronnie.”

  “Thanks,” I say quietly, feeling all juddery again. I’m so relieved to see them both.

  “Today has been just totally horrible,” I sniff, taking a hankie out and blowing my nose. “Just totally surreal.”