Pandora’s Box

‘I’m sorry. I am taking it seriously. Look, can’t you think of something to put off the hair appointment? Have it done the day before you see him. It’ll keep better. Krok will be so disappointed if we don’t go to Blackberry Common.’ I don’t know if that last bit is true, but it sounds good. ‘And what if Jallal is the possessive type and he never lets you out of the house once you’re his wife? Won’t you regret it then?’

There is a stunned silence for a minute. Then, failing to find any bin in my room, she pops the stale chewing-gum back into her mouth.

‘Kieran…will be there? You mean we’re picking up the tickets from him, himself?’ Surinda sounds a little too enthusiastic for my liking, all of a sudden, and why does she call him Kieran? ‘Well why didn’t you say so before?’ She stands up and looks at herself in the mirror behind my bedroom door. ‘Oh god, Shell, you should have said. Of course I’ll come.’

‘We’ll have to take the bus,’ I warn her.

‘The bus. Right.’ Her eyes have gone a moist, glowing shade of black. She fancies him. I can’t believe it. She fancies my Kieran. ‘There was a lovely picture of him in this week’s Telly Stars magazine.’

Was there?

‘He’s only a contestant on a game show,’ I tell her shortly. ‘Are you sure it was Kieran? He isn’t actually a telly star, is he?’ Surinda’s uncle owns a corner shop so she gets to look at all the trashy magazines as soon as they come out.

‘He’s on the telly. He’s drop-dead gorgeous and people have noticed him,’ she asserts. ‘Someone from Corrie has offered to introduce him to her agent, apparently. I think it’s them blue eyes, myself.’

Blimey. At this rate the world and his wife will all know about my Kieran. Maybe this Beat the Bank show wasn’t such a good idea after all? All those beautiful girls out there will see him and then what chance have I got?

‘Well anyway, about the tickets, you can’t tell anyone,’ I warn her. ‘My mum must never find out. She’ll kill me.’

‘Not a soul,’ she breathes. ‘Not a soul.’

‘You can make it then?’ I watch anxiously as she smooths down her school skirt over ample hips.

‘I’ve lost weight, haven’t I?’ She turns to look at me and I nod rapidly in agreement. Who knows if she has or not? Who cares?

‘I’ve not been eating a thing,’ she glowers. ‘Apart from my food, of course. Ohmigod. Kieran O’Keefe! I’m going to meet Kieran O’Keefe.’

‘Well, I am, actually. You’re just coming along for the ride,’ I remind her sharply. ‘You’ve got Jallal to look forward to.’

‘Course I do,’ she laughs. ‘We’ll both be sorted then, won’t we?’

I wish I could trust her more, really I do. I don’t trust her. But then, what option have I got? There is no one else who I could ask to take me there so it’ll have to be her.

‘It’s going to be so hard not to mention it to all them other girls at school, innit?’ Her eyes are dark as blackcurrants. I wish I could see into them. If she tells anyone and word gets back to my mum—which it will, if Michelle gets wind of it—then I’m done for.

‘If anyone finds out and my mum stops me going then you won’t be going either.’

‘If anyone finds out what?’ Daniel is standing at the doorway, his skateboard under his arm, looking from Surinda to me and back again.

‘Don’t you knock on your big sister’s door?’ Surinda gives him a withering look.

‘Mum’s gone out,’ he says to me.

‘I know.’

‘Why has she gone? How long will she be?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’ I’m going to leave it at that—I don’t want him in here interfering when I’m planning something as important as this. But on the other hand I don’t want to be mean to him either. Especially since I don’t know how much he’s heard.

‘She won’t be too long, I don’t think. She’s gone to Solly’s.’

‘I’m going to go to Mote Park,’ he says. ‘With Lloyd. His mum’s taking us. Is that all right?’ If he’s going with an adult that should be okay, I think. ‘They’ve got a skate-ramp now,’ he adds, his eyes gleaming. They didn’t when Danny and I used to go there, I think. ‘They’ve got a whole new host of things down there that they never had before. You’d love it, Shell.’

My eyes skim over the skateboard. He hasn’t got the best sense of balance, my brother. I hope he’s telling the truth about Lloyd’s mother. He’ll need to have someone there for him if he falls. It should be someone like me, really.

‘I guess I would have,’ I shrug. ‘If I were your age. Take my mobile so I can get hold of you, okay?’

That seems to satisfy him. When he turns on his heel and walks out again, his hair looking like a complete scruff at the back, I notice he seems to have got even taller, taller than he was yesterday. My kid brother, how does he do it? He’s a pain and it’s unbelievable that he’s got to come and poke his nose in just when for once in my life I’ve got something confidential going on, but I still feel an ache in my heart every time I look at him because I know I’m going to miss him. Wherever it is that I go to, when I go, I’m going to miss my Danny like crazy.

‘Solly’s having man troubles.’ I roll my eyes at Surinda once Daniel’s left.

She giggles. ‘Not like us, eh?’ She pushes her hair back from her face and I see she’s been experimenting with her eye-liner. I might just ask her how she gets that kohl-eyed effect, it makes her eyes look less piggy I don’t like to admit it but I feel this little conspiratorial thrill as she leans closer to me, all confidential-like, and says,

‘So, what are we both wearing on Saturday? We’ve got to look the business, sister.’

12 Rachel (#ulink_0e04d825-29d6-5f7c-a431-81e5e76f759d)

‘So, Darryl turned to me and said—you wouldn’t believe what he said to me, Rachel—he said, “If I had a face that was as wrinkled as yours I wouldn’t bother with cosmetic surgery, darling, I’d just have my whole head chopped off.”’

Cripes.

‘You don’t need any cosmetic surgery, honestly, Solly!’ He doesn’t. He’s obsessed with the idea that he’s getting older and he can’t bear it, that’s all.

‘Now, why don’t flowers like this grow in my garden?’ I’m trying to throw him off the scent of last night’s disastrous dinner party. Commenting about his pride and joy of a garden usually does the trick.

‘Careful with that. That’s Molly the Witch.’ He snaps off the delicate stem of a sunshine-petalled flower and holds it up to my nose. ‘This one’s for you. Direct from the Caucasus mountain range in the wilds of Azerbaijan.’

‘What, for real? I thought you got it from Nelson’s Nurseries.’

‘Nelson had to get it from somewhere, didn’t he? Anyway, I was saying—Justin—do you know what he did when Darryl said that to me? He tittered.’

I can imagine Justin tittering. I twirl the flower around near my face. Butterscotch, I think, I can catch the faintest whiff.

‘Young people can be so thoughtless, can’t they?’ I’m thinking about Michelle and her blasted party. But I scotch that thought. I’ve got to let it go, I really have. Shelley was waiting for her friend Surinda today. I wonder if she turned up in the end? I wonder if I should check in with her, just to make sure?

For some reason Solly looks mortified.

‘Am I thoughtless, do you think? Be honest with me, darling.’

I join him by the Calendula Officinalis. We’re in the ‘orange’ section at the moment. Solly orders his garden like his wardrobe: by colours. I have to think about this one. If I say ‘yes’—and it’s true, sometimes Solly can be thoughtless—then he might get offended. If I say ‘no’—does that put him in the bracket of ‘old people’ (who aren’t supposed to be thoughtless) as opposed to the ‘young’ ones who are?

‘Why in heaven’s name would you ask me that?’ I evade. I rub my hands together and the powdery earth falls like a tiny black dust storm all over his lawn. He’d normally tell me off for that but today he doesn’t notice.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says disconsolately. ‘Sometimes I just think that I must be. Thoughtless and just too…fancy free. You know.’

‘Are you regretting your misspent youth now?’ I grin.

‘Oh no,’ he interjects. ‘I regret nothing of my misspent youth. I intend to keep on misspending it till it’s all used up in fact. What’s this?’ He picks up a folder that I’ve brought with me. I found it in the bottom kitchen drawer last night.