Little Bang, page 18
Oh God, Little Bang. I don’t even know who to blame.
As I run through the list of people who could have let it slip, I realize how stupid I’ve been. There are a million ways it could have got out. Becca knows, Ella Platt knows, Matt probably knows, I don’t know how many of Sid’s friends might know. Leah has friends whose sisters are at our school. Jools’s cousin works at the GP surgery. Ruby’s mum is a teacher. Maybe the school nurse knows my doctor.
It’s pointless to even try to figure it out. There’s no such thing as a secret in high school. I know about Sara Hughes’s overdose and Ella Platt’s menstrual problems. I know who’s had sex and who hasn’t, and I know which teachers keep bottles of whiskey in the store. How did I ever think I could keep this a secret?
Footsteps clatter into the toilets, cubicle doors slam and a tap is turned on. Over the sound of running water I hear, “Are you sure?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“But are you sure it’s her?”
“Definitely.”
“That is bizarre.”
“I know.”
“I thought she was like super religious or something.”
“It’s always the quiet ones.”
“Not so smart now, is she?”
They clatter back out again, laughing.
Dad thought I should hold off telling the school until I’m showing. I don’t know if he was protecting me or just ashamed. And to be honest, I was happy to keep it a secret as long as possible too. Because I’m ashamed. Not of being “bad”. But definitely of being stupid. I’ve never been popular, but it never mattered because I was “the smart one”. It wasn’t the worst identity to have. Who am I now? “Stupid” is probably the nicest of the words they’ll use.
When the bell rings at the end of the day, I put my head down and push through the crowd going to their lockers or swinging on the coat hooks and chatting. People always hang around the lockers at lunch, but there aren’t usually so many after school. The back of my neck prickles like I’m being watched – you’re paranoid, you’re paranoid, you’re paranoid – as I reach up to put my key in the lock – paranoid, paranoid, paranoid – turn it, yank the door open – paranoid – and scream as an avalanche of nappies, dummies, rattles, bottles, wet wipes, milk cartons and water balloon condoms tumbles out on top of me, and an earthquake of laughter erupts.
I can’t even escape. There are too many people between me and the corridor. Some falling about laughing, some taking photos and videos, and all staring. At my soaked skirt, my red face, the sea of baby paraphernalia around my feet. I can’t see my way out through the tears rising, and I can’t blink them away because that would be crying, and I cannot cry now, not now. I have the most powerful urge to put my hand on my belly, protectively, but that’s the last thing I can do. Becca pushes through and reaches for my arm but I shrug her off. I try to look, oh my God, I am so unamused and whatever and get a life, but my whole body is shaking because they all know. Everyone knows.
Finally a teacher forces his way through. “What’s going on here? Clear this area – no loitering.” He sees me and he sees the stuff on the floor. I feel like I need to apologise, or explain it to him.
But he doesn’t even look surprised, just purses his lips, and that’s when I realize that even the teachers have got wind of it. They know too. The news is out, spreading like the milk pooling around my feet.
People step away from me. I realize I’m holding a tiny pink rattle that fell into my hand and I drop it, like I’ve been caught with cigarettes. Mr Finucane demands to know who’s responsible, but there isn’t much he can do if no one owns up. He comes close and leans down, and I step closer to him, expecting him to put an arm round me, lead me away. Instead he says, quietly, but loud enough that everyone hears, “Just go on to Mr Millar’s office. He wants to speak to you.”
But the way he says it. The way he looks at me.
The way everyone else moves a few steps away to let me finally walk away, stomach heaving, eyes burning, legs like jelly.
The way the office staff watch me walk into Mr Millar’s office, a room I’ve never even been in before. The way Mr Millar sits across the desk, clearing his throat, and saying, “There will have to be some discussions about … arrangements. Why don’t you take a few days at home while we speak to your parents and teachers and work out what’s most … appropriate. How we can … support you.”
The way Mr Finucane muttered to everyone, when I’d barely got round the corridor corner, “Let that be a lesson to you all.”
If he meant a lesson about contraception, it would have been our first.
Sid
“Nice houses.” Cassie whistles as we walk up our street. She looks me over and adds, “You don’t look like you live in a street like this.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“My mum would like it,” she says.
“Lucille hates it.”
“Really?”
“Hates the neighbours mainly. She says they’re all stuck up and no one talks to anyone. She grew up in the kind of street where people chatted over the back fence. I think she misses it.” Actually this is one of the few things I agree with Lucille about. When they meet over watering the front gardens, our neighbours just try to outdo each other with where they’ve been on holiday and which university their kids are at. When they ask Lucille where I’m going to uni, she says, God, no, I just want him to get a job and get out from under my feet, and they react like she’s said she’s selling my organs on eBay.
“Why does she live here then?” Cassie asks.
“Spite, I assume.”
She laughs. “Why are you working, like, six jobs? Why don’t you just ask your mum for more allowance? That’s the only good thing about my parents. They’re generous with money.”
Cassie never mentions her parents but she’s done it twice now, so I guess it’s OK to ask, “How come you don’t live with them?” as we turn into our driveway.
She shrugs. “They were moving again and I decided to come here to do my A levels and help Gran out.”
“Moving again?”
She counts on her fingers. “New York, London, Singapore, Dubai, London again…”
“Wow. They must have really cool jobs.”
“Meh. I’d rather they were really cool people.”
“At least they gave you music lessons. Lucille cut the lead for my amp with a steak knife,” I say, fishing in my pocket for my door keys.
“They got me music lessons because it was someone to watch me after school, until the au pair delivered me to dance class or whatever. Seriously, when I came to stay with Gran they didn’t even notice for a week that I’d left.”
I laugh. Maybe it’s not that Lucille’s a nightmare. Maybe no one’s that impressed with their parents, I think as I push open the front door.
There’s an enormous pram sitting slap bang in the middle of the hall.
Nope, Lucille is definitely a nightmare.
“Um … my cousin’s,” I say, ushering Cassie quickly past it.
When I’ve played my entire set for Cassie three times in a row, the two of us sitting cross-legged on the floor of my room, I finally ask the question I’ve been putting off.
“So. Are they shit or what?”
She wrinkles her nose. It’s not going to be a five-star review then.
“It’s just…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Most songs aren’t about parents and school and your flirtation with veganism.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? They’re original?”
“Yeah. But songs aren’t original, are they? They’re about relationships. All of them. Couldn’t you write something, I don’t know, romantic?”
Another perfect moment to mention Mel and the baby. But I don’t. It just feels like it would change everything, and, although I am one hundred per cent committed to being a dad, it’s also kind of exhausting already and Little Bang isn’t even here yet. Right now, hanging out with Cassie is the only space in the world where I don’t have to think about all that.
“People love love songs,” Cassie says. “I love love songs.”
“Yeah, but your brain’s probably affected by all the ink poisoning. So basically the songs are shit, that’s what you’re saying. Why are we even bothering then?” I don’t mean to sound like a huffy toddler, but that’s how it comes out.
“No, they’re not shit,” Cassie says. “There are bits of them I really like. I like the chorus in ‘On the Hill’. I like the hook in ‘Dropout’, although … it’s sort of a dirge.”
“A dirge?”
“You couldn’t dance to it or anything.”
“It’s about failing school!”
“OK, OK, I’m just saying. You should think about writing some new stuff anyway. I mean, you can’t just play the same songs every week.”
“I don’t have time to write anything.” I rake a hand through my hair. It needs cut but I don’t have time for that either. “I should just call Gavin and pull out.”
“No, don’t do that! What if you never get another chance?”
“I don’t think it’ll be a big loss to civilization or anything.”
“Fuck civilization. What about you?” She looks exasperated. “OK, I barely know you and, to be honest, you’re kind of secretive in a weird way, but I can tell music is important to you. And really, what else have you got? You dropped out of school and all you do is work shitty jobs. What are you going to do – sit in your room with your goldfish for the rest of your sad life? This is your thing, Sid. You can’t just let it go.”
We stare at the carpet for a moment, both of us wondering if I’m going to take offence.
“You know, you’re kind of a pain in the hole?” I eventually say.
She grins. “You should write a song about that.”
“I did. It was called ‘Cassie, I Hate You’.”
“You did not!” She chucks a plectrum at me. I never actually put music to “Cassie, I Hate You” but I improvise a few chords and start singing.
Cassie, I hate you –
You’re a pain in the arse—
She throws a capo and then a pen at me.
Cassie, you haven’t a clue –
And if you think that bouncy little smile and big eyes routine is going to work on me,
yooouuu…
She scoots over and tries to wrestle the guitar off me, both of us laughing, so I can hardly get the words out.
Must think I’m soft.
She puts a hand over my mouth, kneeling over me, and I struggle to stay upright, still mumbling behind her fingers, helpless to defend myself if I want to keep my hands on the guitar.
I know you too well.
Her fingers loosen slightly, so I can feel them on my lips. Smell perfume from her wrist. Her smile becomes shy and she swallows. I swallow. She takes her hand away slowly, so there’s nothing between our lips but a few inches of air, and she doesn’t move as the last chord rings out.
Just sod off.
She snorts and sits back, giving me a shove as she does so. “If you play that one I’ll boo you.”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t play it at The Stage. With all the verses, it’s way too long.”
“Ha ha. You know, you’re about to lose one hundred per cent of your fan base,” she huffs.
“Sorry, Cassie, sorry, sorry, sorry, you’re wonderful, please be my fan again. In fact, let me be your fan.”
She grudgingly gives in. “My smile is ‘bouncy’?” She raises an eyebrow.
I blush and shrug. “Yeah, you’ve got that whole Tigger thing going on. Y’know, excitable but not too bright?”
“Oi!” She launches a whole notebook at me and I dodge it and we’re laughing so hard neither of us hears the footsteps stumbling up the stairs until the door bursts open and Mel is standing there, staring at us, red-faced and sobbing.
“Shit, what’s wrong? Are you OK?” Cassie and I scramble guiltily up from the floor. At least it feels guilty, though we weren’t doing anything wrong. Nothing actually happened.
Mel just shakes her head. “Sorry,” she hiccups, completely confused. “The door was… I didn’t know… Who’s this?” She scrubs at her blotchy face, embarrassed and trying to hold it together.
“Um, this is Cassie. I told you about her – she’s Mrs Edgar’s granddaughter.”
“Hi!” Cassie holds a hand up in a wave.
Mel nods at it blankly. “But I thought—”
“This is Mel,” I interrupt. This is getting ridiculous. I might as well get everything out in the open right now. It’ll be a relief. So before I can think about it, I say, “Hey, Mel, did you see the pram?” detonating the whole bomb in one go.
“What? Oh, yeah, it’s great. Tell Lucille thanks.”
Cassie’s eyes widen at the mention of the pram as she glances over Mel, trying not to cry in her rumpled school uniform. But she only says, “It was nice to meet you, Mel. I’d better get going,” before hurrying out.
“Give me one sec, Mel,” I say. She nods and sits on the bed, hiccupping, while I see Cassie out, wondering if she’s angry that I’m only telling her about Mel now. Probably not though. She’s probably not even interested in me. She’s just bored in a new town and needs a project.
But at the door she whispers, “Your cousin’s kind of young.”
“What?”
She looks at the pram and winces. “That sucks, poor girl. Hope she’s OK. I’ll let you get back to her. See you at Gran’s!”
And I don’t say a word as she trips down the path.
Mel
“He said what?!”
I sob at Sid’s kitchen island while he paces the tiled floor.
“They can’t expel you for being pregnant!”
“They haven’t.” I sniff. “They just said they’d have to make special arrangements and I should stay at home for a few days. But it doesn’t matter what they said because I am never going back there.”
“That’s not the point! They had no right to treat you like that. If you don’t go back, it’s like they’ve won.”
I stare at him. “I don’t care who wins, Sid. I’m not putting myself through all that just to make a point.”
“I’m going to go down there,” he says.
“What?! No! Don’t you dare!”
“You think I can’t handle a tosser like Finucane?” he says, insulted. “I’m not completely useless, Mel.”
I just start crying again. The last thing I need is the teenage father of my baby going down there and reminding them how ridiculous we are, but I can’t say that. These days I am bursting with things I can’t say, while everyone else just says any old thing that comes into their heads.
Like about how inappropriate we are, Little Bang. And how stupid I am.
And oh my God, they’re right. I am stupid. I mean, what did I think would happen? That everyone would congratulate me? That I could waddle in to do my GCSEs with a pregnant belly bulging out of my school uniform? Do A levels between feeds? What a joke.
I don’t even care how they look at me, but how will they look at you, when you arrive? I can’t stand the thought of them pitying you for having such a rubbish start in life. They must have shoplifted all that baby stuff in my locker because no one our age can afford to buy nappies and bottles, and the irony of that is not lost on me.
Do you know, Little Bang? Do you know how unlucky you are? Do you know you got the short straw? Cos everyone else does. Did you see, on your way from wherever it is babies come from, that you were getting this universe? That you were getting us? And did you think, Aw, fuck?
I’m supposed to protect you, Little Bang. But I had no idea what to do today. I couldn’t think what to say; I couldn’t put it into words. I just stood there. Maybe parents have to have the right words, as well as the right jobs and houses and education and all those other things me and Sid don’t have.
“I thought you sold your guitar,” I say to Sid eventually, mainly to get him to stop cracking his knuckles and kicking the skirting board. I’m supposed to be the upset one and instead I’m calming him down. I wish Lucille was here. If I’m honest, I think I came round to see her, not Sid.
He waves a hand vaguely. “I thought I could get a better price for it. Cassie’s thinking of buying it, that’s why she was here. Do you want tea? Lucille has this herbal stuff – it’s rank but there’s no caffeine in it, so—”
“No, I’m— Wait, Cassie’s the girl who draws on you, right? You said she was a little kid.”
“No, I never said that. Why would I say that? Bollocks, there’s no milk. Should I go and get some? I can go and get some.”
“I assumed she was a kid.” I’m trying to remember what he said, but my brain is fried and I haven’t the energy.
“Well, she’s not.”
“OK, but you never set me straight though,” I mumble.
He turns to face me. “What’s the problem? Forget it, she was just looking at the guitar.”
I glance at his hands, one of which has some sort of bird drawn on it, and he jams them in his pockets. He’s acting strangely, but we’re both agitated and maybe this is just what he’s like when he’s agitated. It occurs to me that I haven’t known him long enough to tell. Whatever. I don’t need more things to be upset about.
“I don’t want tea. I just want to go home.”
“I’ll walk back with you. We can take the pram.”
I shrug and he puts on his coat.
We wrestle the pram through the front door and down the drive, and even though it’s empty I feel massively exposed. Like I’m wearing a big PREGNANT sign. But everyone knows now anyway, I remind myself.
“Tell Lucille thanks. It’s a nice pram,” I sniffle, pushing it down the road.
“She didn’t buy it or anything, it was my aunt Sue’s.”
“Well, why should she buy it? It’s not her baby,” I mutter.
