you get to speak to Dad yet?’ Shelley speaks softly to me, peeling the garlic in the corner. ‘About the trip?’
‘I’ve left a couple of messages. I’ll get on to him tomorrow, definitely.’ I don’t add that he’s already got back to me this morning with a resounding ‘No!’
‘What if he says no?’
‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ I tell her. ‘How did you find out about Michelle’s party?’
She shrugs. ‘The girls were all talking about it on the Internet last night. Bryan hired out the whole of the top floor at Maxime’s for her, apparently. It was formal attire. Not really my scene, though, you’ll agree?’ I look at her closely, searching for any hint of regret at having been left out, but I can find none. Shelley accepts it; it is me who can’t accept it.
‘You’ll go to Summer Bay,’ I tell her. ‘No matter what happens, you’ll have your wish, I promise you that.’
‘Okay, Fairy Godmother,’ Shelley grins, dropping the peeled garlic cloves onto the chopping board. ‘I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’
If I know Bill, though, it is going to take more than a wave of a magic wand before he will let her go.
It is going to take something more akin to a miracle.
I feel so…so pathetic and stupid and helpless now that Annie-Jo has gone. I’ve got all those I-should-have-saids twirling round in my brain like a snowstorm in a bottle and to what end? For what?
I’ve just pulled the tray out of the bottom of the toaster to get to all the crumbs. This is a job I never do, not ever. It is one of the least necessary things in my life and yet I am doing it now because…if I don’t do something constructive with all this energy I fear I may pick a chair up and hurl it through the window.
I am never going to mention to Annie-Jo how hurt I was that Shelley didn’t get an invite; I won’t, because there is simply no point. It’s gone. You can’t bring the past back. I can’t change anything, can I?
It’s the same reason why I don’t see any point hanging on to all the trash that people accumulate about the past. Like all the things Pandora sent me that I’ve shoved behind the pedal bin. What could possibly be in there that anyone could have judged worth keeping for all these years?
In fact, now that I’m down here throwing the crumbs away I can see I really need to clean out this cupboard under the sink, too. There are no less than three dried-up used teabags under here that never quite made the bin. And Pandora’s blooming box is taking up too much space. It makes the pedal bin stick out at the front so the door won’t close properly. It’s a darn nuisance having to hang on to all this for Lily, it really is. Pandora should have sent it all to her in the first place. Still, there is nothing stopping me from sticking it all in a slightly smaller (and fresher-smelling!) box that will fit more neatly behind the door. I don’t know where else I would put it; we’re bursting at the seams as it is.
Oh my god, there’s my old diary. I can’t believe she kept that! I just hope Pandora never read any of it. How embarrassing. I must have written pages and pages, what on earth did I go on about? Better take that out before Lily gets her mitts on it!
8 February 1978
Today my feet hurt and my legs hurt so much. We have to strengthen all our muscles, Mrs Legrange says. We have to keep on practising daily, practising and smiling, all the way through the pain because that’s what the pros do. Ha, if only she knew there is no way I am ever going to do this as my grown-up job, no way, ever! The competition season is coming up again and that means extra lessons which we’ve got no option but to go to because once it’s paid for, Dad says, it’s paid for and we go. But—here is my big secret—at the moment I don’t mind.
There’s this boy called Gordon. He’s sixteen. His partner is called Amelie and she’s two years younger than him. They aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, though. You can tell it by the way they automatically separate once the dance is over. Their gaze goes to different things. She looks up to the balcony where someone else is watching her. He looks around at the edges of the dance floor, scanning the other couples, sussing out the opposition. He’s very focused. You can just see, he so much wants to win. He’s got what Dad calls ‘the hunger’; he says he’s one to watch. So I do; oh, I do.
I watch him when he’s dancing with Amelie; I watch the way that he looks at her, his eyes melting right into the very heart of her, and I find myself wondering, what might it be like if only he looked at me like that? Just the thought of it is enough to make me shiver. Just thinking about what it might be like if—just for one day—I could be his partner instead of Amelie, it’s been enough to get me into trouble with Legrange for not ‘paying proper attention’ already.
Oh, wow, I remember him now. I do. I remember how I used to hang about after class, looking out for him. He used to turn my insides to jelly! Just thinking about it is bringing a smile to my face because I can remember how it used to be, god, what it is, to be in love. I suppose it must be just a teenage thing, because I never remember feeling anything like it with Bill. Not that I didn’t love Bill, I did, but it wasn’t this kind of head-over-heels, all-consuming thing that I felt for this boy Gordon. And here’s the strange thing. When I think about it, I can hardly remember Gordon at all. I cannot bring to mind his face, or hear the sound of his voice any longer, it’s all faded. What I do remember, reading this, is how I felt about that boy!
4 March 1978
He asked me my name today. He’s been looking out for me. Well, that’s what I think anyway. My class finishes ten minutes earlier than his but three weeks in a row he’s come through the door into the hall at exactly the same time as me—can that be a coincidence? I told him, ‘Rachel’. He said that’s real nice. He’s got a soft voice but it’s got a strength about it, you can tell. He might be a dancer but he’s not the kind of boy any of the other lads would want to mess with. He told me his name was Gordon, and I already knew that but I pretended I didn’t.
I got some other info from his partner, Amelie, too. He’s got a younger sister who’s only six, and he’s got a dog called Blanche and he’s into Guns N’ Roses. She told me all that without me having to probe too much and I don’t think she even suspects I’m interested in him yet cos I was pretty casual about it.
Gordon didn’t say anything else to me apart from ‘That’s real nice’ and then he kind of shrugged and said, ‘Well, see ya’. And then Lily came out at that moment so I was pretty glad he was gone because I don’t want her getting involved. Next week I’ll get to talk to him for longer because she’ll be at the dentist and I’ll have the field clear, all to myself. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next seven days without seeing him. It’s torture. But a kind of wonderful torture at the same time because him being there has made going to practice so much more exciting. I’ve been trying to find out what other times he and Amelie are there but I’ve got to be careful. If anyone finds out they will make so much fun of me that my life will be one Holy hell, as if it isn’t bad enough already.
It’s all because I have to be the one to dress up and be the ‘boy’, of course. When we were younger it didn’t matter. Nobody cared. But now that the other kids are older it’s the kind of thing they notice and they laugh at me for it and I hate, hate it! I don’t want to be a bloody boy, I never did. But now Mum and Dad say me and Lily have got to stay together for at least one more season because we’ve been dancing together for so long nobody else is going to be able to partner her as well as I can.
I don’t want to have my hair cut short any more. I don’t want that nasty top hat or to have that moustache painted onto my face.