You Only Live Once Page 17

  ‘I’m nervous, actually,’ Til said as we walked.

  ‘Really?’ I was surprised. Til didn’t generally admit to any emotions other than bored, annoyed or hungry.

  ‘Yeah, course. I need 4s in maths and English AND a C in science to get on my course.’

  ‘You’ll get that though, won’t you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maths, though … Maths is an issue.’

  ‘Well, we’ll know in a minute, I suppose.’ It seemed too near the moment of truth to bother with any more words of encouragement than that.

  And then there we were, brown envelopes in hand.

  ‘Open them then, shall we?’ Til said, sighing and looking off into the car park. This was a long way from the excitement of the results day of my daydreams. This was depressing.

  I was glad, though, that Til was with me. That I didn’t have someone like Lucy crying all over the place, that I wasn’t in the middle of one of the groups of girls screaming and hugging. I could not have dealt with that right now.

  We opened them. I scanned down the list.

  I’d aced them. Three 9s. Five A*s. Three As.

  I felt nothing.

  I looked over at Til. She was staring at her paper, no emotion on her face.

  I didn’t know if I should ask, or just say nothing. I folded up my own results sheet and put it into the pocket of my jacket. ‘Wanna get a milkshake?’ I said, casually.

  Til turned her head to look at me. ‘I did well, Grace. Like, really well.’

  Candles

  She passed me the paper and I felt my eyes widen. ‘Five Bs, two Cs, three 4s and a … U?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Forgot to turn up to German, innit. But who cares about that. I got a B in science, man! An actual B!’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That is good.’

  As we turned out of the school gate, Polly Lynham called over to us. ‘Gathering back at mine – you guys coming?’

  ‘Now?’ Til said.

  Polly nodded as she walked away. ‘Yeah. I’m going now. But come whenever.’

  ‘You’re not going, are you?’ I said, looking at Til out of the corner of my eye. Til did not go to things as a general rule, any more than I did. The only difference was that I tended to turn things down because I wanted to study, whereas Til just couldn’t be bothered to talk to people.

  ‘Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe later.’

  We ambled down the road away from school and I found myself mumbling my way through an angry and not totally coherent monologue about the pointlessness of it all, about how stupid it was that people were jumping up and down or crying or throwing parties or whatever they were doing, all for some stupid letters on a piece of paper, and how all the information we’d spent all the weeks and months and years cramming into our brains was useless in the real world and why was everyone so brainwashed that they couldn’t see it and –

  ‘Jesus Christ, Grace, give it a rest, would you?’

  I looked at Til.

  ‘Like, I know you’re having your early mid-life crisis or whatever, and I know that whatever ten thousand A*s you’re hiding in there don’t mean nothing to you but I actually am pretty made up about mine so can you just stop raining all over my candles, yeah?’

  I opened my mouth. ‘I didn’t mean that your –’

  Til held up her hand. ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter. But either way, you’re doing my head in. I’m going round Polly’s. You coming?’

  I shook my head. I could feel tears in my eyes although I had no idea why. Til was always having a go at me. Why was it bothering me this time?

  ‘See you later then.’ Til turned and walked off in the direction of Polly’s house.

  I walked down the hill in the direction of town and the sea, picking up pace as I went. Rather than feeling guilty for ruining Til’s moment, I could feel myself getting more and more worked up.

  It was all pointless though, wasn’t it? All of it. All those facts they’d made us memorise. Yeah, so Til’s Bs were good, but what did it mean really, in the end? What is so great about being able to correctly list the sub-atomic particles of an atom? When were we ever going to have to do that in real life? What had happened to Til, for goodness’ sake? The one person who I thought could be relied on for grumpiness and cynicism, the person who had given me little else for the last two years, during which I had genuinely believed that it all counted for something? Suddenly now, just as I was having a moment of realisation, as I was finally seeing the light, she’d turned on me! She too had been brainwashed.

  While I waited for the man to turn green at the crossing at the bottom of Dyke Road, I punched out a few irritable, sarcastic tweets about a few letters on a piece of paper making the last two years of hell worthwhile.

  No one replied. Too busy celebrating, I figured.

  As I arrived at Vicky and Spider’s flat, they were just leaving. Spider was carrying a six-pack of beer.

  ‘Good timing,’ he said. ‘Beach?’

  I nodded but I didn’t smile.

  ‘What’s up with you, kiddo?’ Vicky said, hooking her arm through mine.

  ‘Just got my exam results.’

  ‘Not good?’

  ‘Yeah, good. But …’ I shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  They didn’t ask any more questions and I followed them down to the beach, where Spider set about lighting a disposable barbecue.

  ‘You going to show us then?’ he said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘These exams results.’

  I was going to argue but then I didn’t see the point. I passed him the paper. He scanned down.

  ‘Woah, Gracie. This is an incredible set of results.’

  I shrugged. ‘So?’

  Vicky took them from him.

  ‘I never know why they make people learn all this stuff,’ she said, looking at the page. ‘History? What’s the point? It’s all in the past. French? Who speaks French anyway? Apart from the French, and most of them speak English. Geography? Just buy a map. What’s the point in any of it?’

  ‘No idea,’ I said, picking up a pebble from the ground next to where I was sitting. I passed it from one hand to the other and looked out to sea.

  ‘You know, I dropped out of school when I was fifteen and it hasn’t done me any harm,’ Vicky said. ‘Learnt everything I ever needed from life itself. You know what I mean?’

  I nodded without looking at her.

  ‘Anyway, it’s behind you now, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Goodbye to all that … rubbish.’ On the word ‘rubbish’ she held the paper over the flickering flames of the barbecue and the whole sheet quickly caught light.

  I just blinked. I hadn’t had time to stop her even if I wanted to. I hadn’t even shown my mum yet. But then … Oh, anyway. What did it matter?

  I held the smooth, round pebble in my left hand and watched as my results shrivelled down to a flimsy grey film, and then turned to ash.

  On the way home, I passed the Age Awareness UK shop just as William was coming out.

  ‘Oh, hello!’ he said with a wide smile. ‘I have just sent two emails, completely unassisted and it took me less than one hour!’

  ‘Great!’ I said.

  ‘And,’ he said, ‘I opened one reply! From Jerry!’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  ‘Cheerio then, thanks again!’ and off he went down the hill.

  As I watched him go I had the strange realisation that I felt more proud of helping William keep in touch with his family and friends than I did of any one of those A grades.

  PART 6

  During which I discover my entrepreneurial spirit and learn to converse with the departed

  Money

  In the first few days I spent with Vicky and Spider, I didn’t give too much thought to where their money came from.

  There was always food in the flat – albeit rarely the ingredients of a coherent meal – avocados, satsumas, tubes of Pringles. Raisins in small cardboard packets. And drinks too – I rarely saw either of them witho
ut a beer in their hand. On that first day I’d met them in the park, Spider had told me that part of their reason for being in Brighton was to find casual, tourism-based work, but I hadn’t seen much evidence of that.

  Once, after a heavy afternoon’s drinking, Spider played his guitar down on the seafront while Vicky swayed around with her hula hoop in some kind of tribal-looking movement. Spider had put down an old flat-cap to collect money but when they’d eventually been moved on by a Police Community Support Officer (‘Not even a real copper!’ as Vicky had drunkenly shouted at him), we counted up the coins and found we hadn’t even hit the seven-pound mark.

  Another day, when I arrived at the flat, Spider told me that Vicky was at work.

  ‘She got a job?’

  Spider nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I was surprised too. Sweeping up hair in the barber’s on the corner. No idea how long she’ll last though. Vicks isn’t too keen on being told what to do.’

  Spider was right to be concerned. Vicky returned to the flat just two hours into her shift.

  She threw her bag down on the sofa.

  ‘What an absolute drongo!’ she raged.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  Spider and I exchanged a nervous glance.

  ‘Felipe! The barber. Geriatric moron!’ Vicky went to the fridge and took out a beer. ‘Kelly rang – you know Kelly, from back home? – and I hadn’t spoken to her for like … forever, so I had to take the call. So I’m just outside on the phone for like, ten minutes, fifteen max, and he’s giving me the eye the whole time. And then he comes out and says, “Are you doing any work today?” Like, seriously sarcastic. I’m not some school kid, for Christ’s sake! Absolute drongo,’ she said again. ‘So I told him to shove it. Told him he could stick the job.’

  ‘But what about the cash, Vicks?’ Spider groaned. ‘We need that money.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ Vicky said. ‘Took that from the till before I left.’

  She reached into the front pocket of her bag and put two ten-pound notes and a five-pound note on the arm of the sofa. ‘No way I was leaving without that.’

  Spider looked at the money and sighed. Then he went into the bedroom and shut the door. It was the nearest thing I had ever seen to an angry outburst from him.

  On one occasion, Spider was out with a friend and Vicky asked to borrow a tenner off me to go and buy frozen pizzas from Tesco. I’d stayed in the flat and waited for her to return but, an hour and a half later, I got a text from her telling me to get my ‘pasty English butt’ down to the beach. I’d done as instructed and no mention was made of the pizzas, and I didn’t want to appear uptight by asking about my ten pounds. After all, I reasoned, I had particularly latched on to Vicky and Spider because I admired their carefree, no-stress nature and way of life. I wanted to learn from it. I couldn’t start quibbling about the odd tenner – that was hardly the spirit.

  Another morning, we went to a cafe for breakfast. It wasn’t a fancy place and I think we only had scrambled eggs on toast so I don’t think our bill can have come to more than ten pounds. I gave Vicky a small handful of change, she slipped it into the pocket of her dress and wandered off towards the front counter. Fifteen minutes later, we were walking back down Western Road towards the flat and Vicky bought a magazine from a man in a kiosk. I don’t know why I noticed it even, but I saw Vicky reach into the same pocket at the front of her dress and take out two of the pound coins I’d given her. I suppose that didn’t mean anything in itself – maybe she’d kept my change and paid with a note or whatever – but my instincts must have told me something wasn’t quite right because I found myself saying, ‘You did pay the bill, at the cafe, didn’t you?’

  Vicky turned to look at me, frowning. ‘I thought you did?’

  I shook my head and we both looked at Spider.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said to Vicky. ‘You went off to do it!’

  We just looked at each other for another couple of seconds, then Vicky started to giggle.

  ‘Oops. Guess we better not go back there any time soon then.’

  Spider laughed too, so in the end that’s all I did. I didn’t want to be the one to suggest going back like some kind of self-righteous do-gooder.

  After that, there were two more non-paying incidents, both of which I was fairly sure were not accidents.

  We went for pizzas in an old-fashioned Italian restaurant that let you bring your own drinks. When we’d finished, Vicky said, ‘I’ll go and ask where the toilet is. While he’s not looking, you guys run for it. I’ll join you after.’

  As before, I wasn’t quite sure what to say about this so in the end I just went along with it, even though I felt horribly guilty as we hid behind a skip outside, watching the little old Italian owner sighing and shaking his head as he cleared our table, realising he’d been swindled.

  The time after that though, I did say something.

  We were in a cafe down on the beach. It was a fish-and-chip place, but it wasn’t like all the other places – selling overpriced tiny trays each holding no more than about four chips. This was the real deal – a proper traditional English fish-and-chip restaurant serving huge plates of fresh fish and piles of chips, with thick slices of bread and butter and mushy peas. It seemed to be being run single-handedly by a woman of about sixty with a strong Irish accent. She was lovely to us for the entire duration of our visit – chatting about everything from the weather and the seagulls to her son, and Vicky’s childhood in Australia. She’d even thrown in a free basket of bread and bottle of lemonade because she knew ‘young folk don’t have much money in this day and age’. So when, at the end of the meal, Vicky looked at us, crinkled her nose mischievously and said, ‘Ready to run?’ I decided to say something.

  ‘I dunno …’ I said quietly, looking down at the table.

  ‘What’s up, kiddo?’ Vicky said, her head on one side, looking at me like I was a toddler starting to grizzle for no good reason.

  ‘It’s so harsh, just not paying all the time,’ I said. I held my breath. I honestly thought this could be the end of our friendship.

  Vicky looked at Spider and he looked at her and they smiled at each other in a sort of knowing way, like I was a child asking cute questions about Father Christmas.

  ‘Explain it to her, Spidey,’ Vicky said.

  Spider leant back in his chair.

  ‘The thing is about the world, Gracie, is that it’s all messed up. Wonky, you know? You’ve seen Vick’s paintings, right? Amazing, aren’t they?’

  I nodded because that seemed to be the expected response.

  ‘Ask her how much money she’s made from them.’

  I frowned slightly.

  ‘Go on,’ Spider prompted, nodding towards Vicky. ‘Ask her how much.’

  ‘How much?’ I said.

  ‘Nada,’ Vicky replied. ‘Zilch.’

  I looked back at Spider, wondering where this was going.

  ‘Nothing,’ Spider said, in case I wasn’t clear. ‘But then this –’ he gestured down at the last few chips on his plate – ‘people will pay money for. Stuff that clogs your arteries. Who’s making all the money in the world? Bankers. People who sell petrol and cigarettes and pretty teenage boys who write songs about how much they like their own hair. People who are no good. I know she seems like a nice old Irish lady but it’s the same, just on a smaller scale. I bet you anything she makes an absolute killing from this place. She’s charged us, what?’ He picked up the bill from the saucer in the middle of the table. ‘£17. But I guarantee you it would have cost her no more than three quid to put that food together. Businesses are all about bleeding people dry. We’re just trying to redress the balance. Put things right.’

  I realised he was right. I had been sucked in because the woman was sweet and friendly and Irish but that didn’t change the fact that the world was set up all wrong.

  ‘We can’t change the system,’ Spider said. ‘All we can do is resist from the inside. So yeah, maybe sometimes we d
on’t pay what’s asked. But sometimes, we pay what isn’t asked – when it’s what we believe in.’

  ‘Like when?’ I said. I was genuinely curious.

  ‘Street musicians. Artists. Charity. All of us has the power to choose where to spend our money. It’s the only power we do have, really,’ Vicky said.

  They were both looking at me so intently, so seriously, I don’t think it even occurred to me that I’d never seen either of them give any money to any artists or charity collectors, and the only time I’d seen them hand anything over to a street musician was when their friend Andy who played the panpipes down by the pier had asked Vicky for the tenner she owed him.

  Everyone’s Invited

  That evening Twitter and Instagram seemed to be full of photos and updates from an eighteenth birthday party being thrown by some twin boys – Nathan and Blake – from a couple of years above me.

  The boys had gone to our school but were now at the college and it seemed like eighty per cent of both institutions had been invited. Needless to say, I did not fall into that eighty per cent, so I was at home, in my bedroom, experiencing the party through the medium of everyone else’s increasingly drunk updates and photos.

  Nathan and Blake’s parents lived in an enormous mansion by Hove Park, complete with swimming pool, tennis courts and a dedicated ‘party room’ which they seemed to be making quite some use of tonight. I scrolled through the photos feeling a mixture of vague curiosity as to who was there and what they were doing and slight resentment that I had been left out. I saw several familiar faces in various states of drunkenness, including a few people I was on friendly enough terms with, but no one interesting or entertaining enough to make me truly wish I was there instead of at home.

  That was until one photo made me stop scrolling immediately, and hold my phone closer to my face for a better look.

  It was Sarah, sitting on a bench next to a girl I didn’t recognise, laughing at something out of shot. I felt a sharp pang of something I couldn’t quite identify – longing, perhaps. Jealousy. I didn’t know who the girl was and there was absolutely nothing to suggest that she and Sarah were anything more than friends. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that she and Sarah were anything more than momentary bench companions, but still. Just for a second I felt like I hated her, whoever she was, with her stupid brown curly hair and her laughing mouth. Laughing at a joke that she had heard and that Sarah had heard but that I had not.