you mean, when I’m trying to get another scholarship am I going to wreck my cerebellum for the sake of what the kids are calling “a high”?’
It’s not what Becky means. She wants to ask: Will anyone drug you? Will you lose your sense of who you are? What if you’re attacked? Will you be unsafe? Who will prey on you? But instead she says:
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have some wine and maybe a smoke but that’s it. I’m not really up for getting expelled.’
Maisie’s school is beautiful to look at, expensive to attend, and prides itself on a newly strict drugs policy brought in after a sixth-former got caught dealing coke to fifth years. It is a red-brick and sandstone confection of buildings with soaring arches and narrow windows and turrets curled skyward, like an Oxford college. There are playing fields for rugby and hockey, where a fete is held every summer. Every day there are three hot options for lunch, three cold, plus an extensive salad bar including vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free choices. Maisie is there on a full scholarship and, even so, the annual bill for uniform and extracurricular classes and school trips leaves Becky swearing in disbelief and saying things she never thought would come out of her mouth, like ‘There has to be a cheaper way to play lacrosse.’
Becky always feels the gulf between her and other parents, but Maisie seems not to notice it.
The last time Becky went to a parents’ evening at the school, someone mistook her for a sixth-former and asked her for directions.
Ding, Siobhan: Brace, brace
‘Mum, can I? I’ll have my own room. Jules is going to sleep in a different room.’
‘I don’t care whether he sleeps in Glasgow.’
‘His parents will be there. You can call his mum if you want to discuss my revision schedule with her.’ The veer into acid sarcasm. The assumption of disappointment. ‘Mum, come on, I’ll be the odd one out if I have to say my mummy won’t let me go.’
Siobhan, ding. Where are you? Seriously, BRACE.
‘Oh for fuck sake, Siobhan, I’m coming,’ Becky shouts at her phone.
Maisie is startled.
‘I have to shower,’ says Becky to Maisie. ‘I’ll talk to Adam about the sleepover.’
She wants to be bold and brave, a pirate queen of a mother who encourages her daughter to take risks and trust her friends and strike out for the horizon set on gathering experiences. But every map marks monsters where the known lands end, and how can Becky be there to unwrap every tentacle, to declaw and defang, to empty the new world of snakes and sharks so that her daughter can wander through it, imagining her own courage, but never having to test it?
Hampstead, London
13 September 2003
Mary whoops a greeting to someone Becky has never met before which sends a curious surge of panic and betrayal through her: did Mary mislead her when she said that she didn’t know that many people going to this party? This is Hampstead, populated by a lot of North London private school kids. These are not their people, but Mary doesn’t seem to know that.
Everything around her feels too big, too wide, too loud or too high: oversized drum and bass beats tumble out of the amps, there are paintings on the wall bigger than her fridge and a curling staircase worthy of a stage set. A vase on a plinth: Becky has no idea of how to exist in the same space as a plinth, and then it occurs to her that perhaps the truth of it is that none of these things are too grand or too big. Rather she in fact is too lowly and too small – which is an irony, a conundrum, a conflict, a terrible clash in her mind, because when Becky looks around she knows she is far from small. She is, without doubt, the tallest girl there. She is always the tallest girl everywhere, never feeling as imposing as she knows she looks.
A girl with a tiny waist, goth-black hair and electric-pink lipstick turns to Mary and says in the sweetest sing-song voice that she loves her dress. Then Mary yammers on about the shop she bought it at and just like that the two of them are friends, moving on to name all the people they might have in common. Becky doesn’t quite catch every word and instead she just hovers and watches – watches how Mary’s confidence shines from inside her like a disco ball. She wants to stop time and take Mary aside and ask her flat out: How do you do it? How do you draw people to you like that?
Soon Mary and Becky are the girls hanging out with a group of five boys. The boys’ voices are louder than the girls’ and their volume makes Becky feel like they have more to say, even though there are times she listens to their name-calling and football scores and feels like this assumption might not prove true, in the cold light of day. There is, she notices, an asymmetry to every conversation. Mary always says things to get Brendan to listen to her, and Brendan wants his friends to laugh at his jokes. Becky soon realizes that the best things she could say will be things that are funny or interesting, making her a cool friend, or to tell stories that cast Mary in a favourable light. This realization makes it hard to say anything at all, so she settles for watching things play out.
Mary has been friends with Brendan a long time and in the last year Brendan’s currency has begun to rise, what with his new haircut (short at the back and a forelock at the front which he is able to jerk away from his eyes without having to touch it) and a subtle yet clear change in his choice of clothes (bomber jacket especially appealing). Mary has decided to explore the possibility that she and Brendan could be more than just friends. Tonight is about edging further in his direction while at the same time not having to make that attempt solo.
Becky is her Sherpa. There to hold the luggage when Mary summits.
It’s not that Becky doesn’t enjoy being part of this group of people who are increasingly the subject of scrutiny, what with their nice haircuts and confidence and how together they look like a sort of rock band. But there is a limit to how other Becky is prepared to become. She knows she isn’t girly and bubbly and entertaining, nor quite loud enough or tomboy enough or confident enough to be one of the lads. What then, does she bring to the party?
‘You look hot,’ Brendan says, and Becky is so caught up in her thoughts that she thinks he is talking to someone else. He is wearing black jeans and DM boots and a black ‘Lemonheads’ T-shirt. He jerks his hair clear of his face: there is something oddly flattering about the gesture, thinks Becky, like he can be bothered to clear the path for a conversation with her.
She realizes that Brendan has said these words too loudly, in earshot of the other boys – almost as if he needed one of them to hear him say it more than he wanted Becky to hear it. Is this how it’s done? Showing the world what you mean to do before you do it. Is this what confident boys do?
Very quietly she says, ‘Thank you.’
Brendan then turns away to talk to someone else and Becky knows that her subdued response hasn’t given him enough to get his teeth into. She has failed a personality test that she hadn’t chosen to take. Will he tell Mary? Will she laugh? What did he mean by it anyway? Was he just trying to be nice? Is hot a word that he uses ten times a day, for anyone, meaning anything?
Becky feels light-headed. She hasn’t eaten since lunch because her jeans don’t allow for anything other than a flat and therefore empty stomach, but until she can track down some booze to numb the hunger pangs, a cigarette will have to do. She slides one out of the box, suddenly feeling grateful for an action that allows her to bow her head and hide from Brendan and the rest of the room for a moment. She sparks it up, lighter metal scuffing her sore thumb pad, the smoke hitting the back of her throat. The unwelcome taste of coal. But she inhales deeply anyway, elbows bent in at the waist, one forearm slung protectively across her middle, watching Mary talk to the pink-lipsticked girl. The combination of nicotine and hunger is making her feel nauseous. Vomiting on the floor in front