Honeybee, page 4
I want to match her excitement but I’m not quite there. I don’t really get excited, I’m too used to disappointment. Also, I’m scared of this; I don’t have the best history of living with friends. My last weeks in London were particularly bad. Also, Mum still hasn’t come down to say goodbye and I don’t even know why I’m surprised. She came into my room this morning and I thought she was going to offer to help, but she asked me to post something for her on the way to the flat. I have deliberately left the letter on the kitchen table. Oopsie.
‘That big silver thing is to extract honey, apparently,’ Renée says, pointing to a contraption and picking up one of my cases, wedging it next to hers in the back of Aunty Jo’s van. She only has one case in there. We lift my other one together and balance it on top. She closes the van door and pushes it shut with her bum. ‘It’s happening, are you ready?’
‘We’re not Thelma and Louise, Renée. It’s a seven-minute drive to the flat – hardly the journey of a lifetime.’
‘Not literally, no. But figurately this is massive. Come on Flo, get in the spirit of things. This is such a big move for us. Adults, in Guernsey, you not living with your mum any more, me not relying on Aunty Jo. No more head to toe, our own rooms! We can do whatever we want, we’re free! Let’s see a smile, go on, show me ya teeth.’
I offer her a pathetic smile, which eventually turns into a bigger one. I am looking forward to it, I think. ‘OK, OK, let’s go!’
As we drive away, I see Mum running out of the house. She is waving the letter and looks mad. Not my problem any more.
‘Shall we take a detour?’ Renée says, turning left instead of right at the end of my road. ‘Let’s go see our old haunts, mark the occasion with a trip down memory lane.’
We set off, the windows down, the island breeze blowing in our hair. ‘Come on slow coach,’ I say. ‘Crank it up a gear?’
‘Sorry, I’m still nervous on the roads.’
I feel bad for pushing her. Renée had an accident a few years ago. She let an underage boy drive her car while she was in the passenger seat. He crashed the car and died, it was awful and Renée was a mess, understandably. I give her knee a quick squeeze. ‘Sorry,’ I say, gently. ‘I’m here, right beside you.’
Soon we pull into the car park of Tudor Falls School for Girls. It’s pretty empty, being a Sunday.
‘Wow, look at that. The caretaker’s car. Like no time has passed,’ I say, remembering it clearly. A green Toyota, always parked in the same spot. ‘It’s just occurred to me how much work he must do for the place, for his car to always be there. He arrives before anyone else, leaves late at night and comes in at the weekends. I never appreciated that at the time. Looking after a school with four hundred students might actually be hard work.’
‘Yeah, and then throw in me messing around and cling-filming the toilet seats. He really had his work cut out. I wonder if there are any naughty students there now? Somehow it doesn’t feel like there would be.’
‘Sure, because you were the only naughty kid ever.’
‘I don’t mean it like that, I just mean things have changed, haven’t they? Like, maybe we were the last generation of kids who were truly free. There was no internet, no mobile phones. We acted more in the moment. I’m glad we were kids when we were; the world feels scarier now, somehow. Come on, let’s get out and explore.’
‘We can’t Renée, that’s trespassing.’
‘No, it’s not, we went to school here. Our DNA is everywhere, we practically own the place.’
We walk down the path by the side of the school and take a right to the sports pavilion.
‘Think of all the times we did the knicker-trick in there,’ she says, which really makes me laugh.
‘Oh my God, so funny. The lengths we’d go to in trying to take our knickers off under our swimsuits without anyone seeing our fannies. We must have all looked ridiculous. Stretching the fabric down past our knees.’
‘Unless you were Margaret. She didn’t give a shit,’ says Renée. ‘She’d just take her clothes off and stand there naked, her hairy fanny staring at us all. We should all have been a bit more Margaret. I always thought she was mad, but maybe she was just the only one of us who didn’t hate herself. I wonder what she’s up to these days.’
‘EVERYTHING! It drove me crazy. She was fun, though, my naughty partner-in-crime before I converted you to the dark side. Oh look, that weird stone bath. I did a séance in there once, trying to call the spirit of my dead mother. God, there are literally memories everywhere.’
I’m not listening any more. I’ve frozen. My feet won’t move. I think the clouds even stop.
‘Do you remember that day, Renée?’ I say. She knows immediately what I mean.
‘I do, like it was yesterday. When Miss Grut came to get you from French class and told you to go with her.’
‘I was taken to the headmistress’s office where she told me my dad had died. Mum didn’t even tell me herself. I’ve still not forgiven her, maybe I never will.’
‘You don’t have to, it was shit.’ Renée takes my hand in hers. ‘As soon as I found out, I knew I had to find you, like you were the only one who might understand me, and like I was the only one who would understand you. I was right.’
I’ve been holding something back from Renée since we met again just over a week ago. Like I have to protect myself from her. Like I can’t fully admit how much I’ve missed her. But here, on school grounds, with memories hitting me like those hockey sticks used to smack our cold bare shins, it’s hard to hold things back. I know that if she hadn’t come after me when Dad died, I’d have totally fallen apart. I hug her as hard as I can. ‘I love you,’ I tell her. Because I really, really do.
‘I love you too. Come on, let’s get out of here. Let’s go to our flat.’
‘You betcha, roomie.’
We walk back to the van. As we’re getting in, the caretaker storms over. ‘Fuck, Renée, DRIVE!’ I shout, my heart thumping. Being caught by the caretaker is even more terrifying than it used to be. She reverses and flings the car around. We fly out of the school gates, the caretaker shaking his fist behind us.
‘See?’ she says, laughing. ‘We’re just like Thelma and Louise!’
‘Don’t slam the front door,’ I say in a loud whisper, making Renée squash herself into the wall.
‘Why? Fuck, who’s coming?’
‘No one, it’s just the old lady who lives on the ground floor,’ I say whispering. ‘Julian said you have to be really quiet coming in, probably because she complains or something. Just close the door gently and walk up the stairs quietly. Here, I’ll take the front of your case. You hold the back.’
‘Who are you?’ a voice says from behind us. We both scream like we’re about to be bludgeoned to death and drop the case, which goes crashing down the stairs. ‘Who are you?’ the person repeats.
It’s the old lady. She is standing at her door. She’s tall and skinny with a colourful top and Mary Jane shoes. She looks cross, and really stylish.
‘Sorry, we didn’t mean to disturb you,’ Renée says. She’s so good at talking to people. I think I swallowed my tongue. ‘We’re moving in today. This is Julian’s sister, Flo, and I’m her friend, Renée.’
‘He didn’t tell me this. You’d think he’d let me know I could expect new people living above me.’
‘I’ll tell him you’d rather have known,’ I say, pulling myself together.
‘Well, I mean there’s no point now, is there? You’re here,’ she says.
‘I guess not,’ I say.
‘Well, like we said, sorry to disturb you. We have a few cases to bring up but will try to do it quietly,’ Renée says.
The three of us stare at each other for what feels like ages, until the old lady goes back into her flat.
‘Fucking hell, what a moody old bitch,’ Renée says. ‘She’s like Mrs Mangel from Neighbours.’ We head up to Flat 2, laughing at the cultural reference. ‘This carpet is gross,’ she says, looking down at the unvacuumed, crunchy fabric beneath our feet.
‘I know, it’s an ugly entrance but inside is great. And you can do what you want to your room, cover it in Dolly Parton posters if you like.’ It takes me a minute to get the key to turn in the lock, but eventually, we’re in.
‘Flo, wow, this place is so cool,’ Renée says, gesturing towards the Indian fabric throws, Mexican rug and Venetian paintings. Julian and India have travelled a lot, this place is like a museum of their adventures.
‘Is it weird that we’re living surrounded by other people’s memories? We haven’t been to any of these places,’ I say.
‘No, it’s not weird, it’s nice. We can go through it all and decide where we want to go. And look, a sombrero, I’ve been to Spain, so I feel right at home.’
She throws herself down on the low sofa. ‘I could sleep for a month,’ she says. ‘Moving is exhausting. Wake me up when I have a job and can afford this place.’ She pulls a large cushion over her face and screams into it.
‘Don’t you want to see your room?’ I ask, and she jumps up with a sudden burst of energy. ‘The bedrooms are upstairs.’
‘The stairs are so creaky,’ she says, noticing all the issues with the flat. ‘Could do with a lick of paint.’
‘All right Mary Poppins, stop complaining. You can moan about the walls when you can afford to have them painted. For now, be grateful, we’re getting this place for next to nothing. We’re part renting, part looking after it.’
My brother had initially told me to find a housemate who could pay £400 a month, but when I said it was Renée and she could only pay £300, he just replied with ‘don’t fucking wreck the place’, and I’ve hardly heard from him since.
‘OK, this is your room.’ I walk in slowly and Renée creeps in behind me, as if there might be someone in it already. ‘Well, what do you think?’ I ask her.
‘It’s cool. Big. I like the skylight,’ she says, walking over to the bed and sitting on it. She bounces a few times, as if testing it. She seems happy enough with its firmness. ‘It’s so empty. I have nothing to fill it with.’
‘That’s OK, it will happen over time. You have a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. We can find some cool bits and bobs, and in a few weeks, it will be your own little nest.’
‘I don’t know what I was expecting. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I mean, I love it. I guess I’ve only lived in rooms in other people’s houses where there were things on the walls already, or bed sheets, or a rug. Do I have to do all that myself?’
‘Yes, but it can be fun. You can use my spare bed sheets for now. Hey, to celebrate moving day, how about we get the bus over to Cobo, get chips and sit on the wall? We can take drinks over in plastic cups from the pub. We can watch the sun go down. I’ve got my first day at work tomorrow, but I need a last hurrah. We need to remind ourselves why living on this island is so special. We’re not going to realise that sitting here surrounded by stuff from the rest of the world, are we?’
‘That might be a good idea,’ says Renée. ‘Especially the booze bit. I feel like I’ve just walked into a different world. I need that part of my personality that only alcohol seems to have access to.’
She’s joking, but I know exactly what she means.
Renée
As the bus chugs happily across the island, from the depot in St Peter Port, to the small roadside stop in Cobo, we both sit quietly and look out of the window.
‘Hey Flo, I basically carried you home along this road once, after one of Carla and Gem’s parties,’ I say.
Memories, everywhere. It seems like we have a story for every road. When you leave a place like Guernsey and move to the mainland, it can feel like life is just beginning. And yet, being back here, I’m reminded of how much we’ve lived. I’ve learned since leaving and meeting people who weren’t raised on a tiny island that we had more freedom than most kids our age. We never realised that at the time. I suppose the trick now is keeping hold of that sense of freedom and bringing it into adulthood. Rather than seeing Guernsey as restrictive, we need to see it as extraordinary. This strange little bubble with its dramatic coastlines and sandy beaches. A speed limit of 35 mph and nowhere to buy booze on a Sunday unless you order food. There are local beers and Silk Cut Red, the island’s very own brand of cigarette. We grow great tomatoes, make jumpers for fishermen and produce the best cheese in Europe. Our butter is bright yellow, our milk thick with cream. We get spring four weeks earlier than England, the tidal system is so dramatic that the coastline changes every six hours, right before your eyes. You can earn £200k a year and surf every day before work on this cheeky little tax haven, if that’s what you want to do. A grand total of 24 square miles and you’re never more than ten minutes from the sea. This island that once felt like it wouldn’t let us go, is now welcoming us again with open arms. Maybe it has a lot to offer two twenty-two-year-olds. It’s idyllic, really, when you break it down. Mine and Flo’s happiness depends on us embracing all of these things, seeing ourselves as lucky as opposed to trapped. We can do that, if we let go of where we thought we would be and just accept where we are.
Chips in hand, the smell of vinegar wafting from the bag, we walk along the wall to the German bunker that overlooks the beach. We didn’t bother with pints from the pub and just got two bottles of cold white wine and some plastic cups from the Co-op instead. I threw a bottle of red in there too, a third bottle of white would be warm by the time we get to it. We settle down, tear open our chips and pour the wine into plastic cups.
‘Cheers. This is the life,’ I say, holding my cup up to Flo’s.
‘Cheers.’
‘I don’t know if I ever appreciated how beautiful Guernsey was when we were growing up,’ I say. ‘Not that we’ve finished growing up, but you know what I mean.’
‘I do. You were too busy trying to get off with everyone.’
‘True. Hard to take in a sea view when your face is buried in someone’s pants. Bleurgh, blow jobs. They’re only fun when you’re in the mood, aren’t they? When you’re not in the mood, the idea of them is awful.’
‘Yeah, can we talk about something else?’
We sit quietly for a while. Eating, sipping, looking at the horizon, taking long, deep breaths.
‘Is something on your mind, Flo?’
‘It’s just a lot, isn’t it?’ she says, putting down a chip that was about to pass her lips.
‘Oh don’t get all boring about portion size. You used to want seconds.’
‘Not the chips, Renée. Growing up. Being an adult. There’s so much to think about, isn’t there?’
‘So much. Like, at least at school if you were shit at something you’d just go into the lower set. It felt so hard at the time, but all you really have to do at school is get through.’
‘Exactly. Now if you aren’t good enough, you get paid shit, or even lose your job. And then you have no choice but to find another one because if you don’t, you can’t afford your home, car, food. Being a grown-up means you have to stay good at things. You can’t just be shit for a bit, because if you drop the ball then it will all fall apart and you’ll lose everything and maybe even die.’
Flo’s chest is rising and falling. She’s staring at her lap as if looking out to sea, at the unknown, is all too painful.
‘What happened to your dad won’t happen to you, Flo.’
Her dad was going through a really rough time before he died; it’s clear she still bears the scars of it all.
‘It might.’
She’s right, it might. ‘It won’t,’ I say, anyway.
She finishes the wine that’s in her cup, then fills it all the way to the top and gulps down half of that too. ‘Need a top-up?’ she says, waving the bottle over my cup. I hold it out for her. ‘Do you ever want to do something mad, just to prove you’re alive?’ she says, making me spit my wine out all over my chips.
‘Excuse me?’
‘What?’
‘I just … I don’t know. That’s the kind of thing I’d say, not you.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe I’ve changed. And anyway, do you?’
‘Always, what do you have in mind?’
‘I dunno, jump in the sea, flash our tits at cars as they drive by, knock on doors and run away.’
I can’t stop myself laughing. I spent most of our teenage years trying to get Flo to do crazy things, and now she’s the one instigating it.
‘OK, let’s flash our tits. But I bet you don’t.’
‘Oh yeah?’ She stands up and faces the road. ‘Here comes a car, you with me or not?’
‘Oh Flo, sit down. I’m not drunk enough for that.’
She bends down, filling my cup as close to the top as she can, and then drinks more of hers. ‘Come on, here comes another one.’
Reluctantly, I stand next to her. My hands gripping the bottom of my top, though I’m sure she’ll inevitably chicken out and sit back down. But before I know it, she’s pulled her top up and her boobs are bouncing up and down as she screams with pure delight. The driver of the car presses down on their horn until they’ve passed us. I’m too stunned to do anything.
‘That was fun!’ she says, sitting back down. ‘We should do that kind of thing more often.’
Flo’s like a totally different person after a few wines. I stand above her, words struggling to form in my mouth.
The next morning, I wake up freezing at 8 a.m. I’m lying on the bed in my new room with leggings, socks and a jumper. I have another jumper over me, and I’ve used more clothes as a pillow. I didn’t like the idea of using someone else’s mattress, duvet and pillow without covers on them, and Flo was too drunk to get me her spare sheets when we got back last night. She passed out on the sofa.
I hear clanging in the kitchen. She’s up. I get off the bed and take a second to look around my new room. It’s so empty, apart from my pink suitcase that has now exploded with clothes on the floor. I rummage through the pile and find my slippers.
‘Oh, you’re up,’ says Flo, cheerily, when I walk into the kitchen. ‘Tea?’
