Playing with the Grown-ups Page 5

  'Don't let the buggers get you down!' Bestepapa shouted as they drove off into the fog that had descended.

  'Uh yuck, why can't your family give you chocolate cake for your birthday like everyone else?' Evie gave Bestema-ma's cake a sneer, the Goss boys pouting from her T-shirt.

  'Lemon cake is delicious, try it.' Kitty proffered a slice.

  Evie took a bite and spat it out on the floor.

  'Rank,' she said. 'On MY birthday my mother orders a cake from Fortnum & Mason, a chocolate one, which everyone likes. Oh well, not everyone can have a mother as perfect as mine, and I suppose yours is pretty, which makes up for a lot. Funny, you don't look anything like her, do you? Your sister does. Maybe you're adopted.'

  Nora had instructed her sister Molly in Dublin to send Kitty Bunty. At Hay, Nora bought it for her every Monday from Cutler's the newsagent's. Now she was gone, Molly sent a tightly rolled copy of Bunty to Dourfield religiously once a week. Kitty had never before valued her privacy, or questioned the things she read or watched because she just did them. They were a given. Now reading Bunty was symbolic of not quite rightness. Cool girls did not read Bunty. They read Just 17, Mizz or Smash Hits. Kitty was resentful of Molly for sending it to her, then filled with self-loathing for being so ungrateful for the precision of her neat brown packages, whose each arrival spelled social doom.

  At the end of each day they had to put their knickers in a big open basket that sat, till morning, in the comer of the room. Kitty sincerely hoped that she did not start her period at school, where everyone would know before she could even tell her mother. She knew she wasn't being paranoid either; she had already heard the Chinese whispers. 'Laura Hall's started, she's had it since she was nine and she's got double D boobs.' Laura Hall's knickers lay, a scarlet announcement in the basket amongst their childish whites.

  Even going to the loo was a potential minefield. She could not linger for hours with a book like she did at home. She had to run in furtively whilst the others were doing prep, because Evie was legend for standing on the cistern in the adjacent stall, peering over the wall and taking photographs of people unawares, which she then passed round the school. Kitty had seen a few of these gory documentations. Small heads bowed in concentration, innocently minding their own business. She sat there rigid with fear, listening intently to every suspicious footfall outside. Her eyes round and raised to the horrible open roof of the stall, in case of an ambush. This was a recipe for terrible constipation and frayed nerves.

  * * *

  She woke struggling, her feet and arms greeted by the cold air of the dormitory, and as the covers were rudely pulled off her she could feel sharp little fingers, the swishing of hair, and muted giggles all around.

  'One, two, three, bog flush!' She heard Veronica, her voice high, quivering with pack excitement.

  'You've got to be joking. Get off me.' Kitty aimed a kick, and made contact with a soft stomach.

  'She's going to be a difficult one, Evie. Come on, pull.'

  'Stop it,' Imogen murmured across the room from the safety of her bed, voice muffled by sleep.

  Kitty was outraged. Bog flushing was what they did to pasty first formers, too thin and weak to protest. Like a lynch mob in the night, they came, Evie and Veronica, with their omnipresent third wheel Susanna, carting the victim from the privacy of sleep, across the hall, into the bathroom, until turned upside down like a corkscrew, the girl was plunged unceremoniously into the lavatory bowl, as it was flushed over her head. They called it 'christening'.

  She was not going to be bog flushed.

  'What the hell are you doing?' she asked as they carried her across the darkened room.

  'You think you're so perfect. You're so prissy, with your little books you read before you go to sleep, and your posh voice. We're going to show you that you're not so perfect after all.' Veronica's doughy hand clung to her ankle.

  'I don't think I'm perfect, you stupid bitch. My voice is the same as your voice. I don't even want to be here.'

  'Exactly,' Veronica said.

  She let them carry her like a plank of wood into the bathroom. She struggled a little bit to lull them into complacency. Then, as they made an awkward procession into the stall, Kitty began to fight. She scratched Veronica in the eye, and kicked her legs out like an Olympic swimmer. Susanna had her in a headlock, and Kitty bit her freckled arm as hard as she could.

  'You animal!' Susanna said, dropping her against the porcelain.

  Kitty did the things she was taught not to do as a toddler. She bit, she scratched, she kicked, she spat. She wanted to kill all three of them.

  'This isn't fun any more,' Evie said. She stood back panting. 'You're being a psycho. Stop it.' Kitty stood up and she laughed.

  'If you ever try to do that to me again, I'll curse you. That Indian man on my pinboard is a dark master. He can curse you by just thinking your names. I'll make sure he has them. We can start now . . .' She took a deep breath and whispered dramatically, 'I call on you, Master Swami, I call on your forces of darkness, your servants of the night . . .' She began to incant the words of her mother's chanting tapes, and rolled her eyes far back into her head as though she were in a trance.

  'Bhutayan, Narayan . . . Jhoti Krishna Govinda, Hare Hare . . .'

  All three of them stood stock still. The powers of serendipity were on her side, as the wind chose to shriek at that moment, high, like a widow's keen. They all jumped. Veronica pissed on the floor.

  Kitty stopped chanting and gave them a thorough searching look.

  'Goodnight. Sweet dreams.'

  She swished out, pretending that she was wearing not a teddy bear nightdress, but robes of velvet, midnight blue.

  She waited by the call box, willing the phone to ring. Her appointed phone time was seven-forty, and she was allowed to be on the phone for eight minutes. They set an egg timer.

  'Is that my Magpie?' Her mother's voice was giggly, far away. 'I'm calling you from a car phone in a limousine; imagine that! So as you're standing in Wheaton, I'm zipping around Fifth Avenue. Isn't that funny?'

  'Ish.' Kitty scowled at her reflection in the window.

  'Darling, let's not waste our precious phone call being grumpy. Tell me about school. Are you having the best time? NO, take a right here please, that's it, 740.'

  'Where are you going?'

  'To meet a gallery owner for lunch. Can you believe I've already sold four paintings, and I've been offered a show too - I've never worked more in my life. You might even have a rich mummy soon. It's so inspiring and alive here. Until the new house is ready we're staying in a hotel. The Mark, it's called. Violet thinks she's Eloise, and she and Sam have pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast every day. What do you have?'

  'Alpen,' Kitty said grudgingly.

  'That's nice. I've made lots of friends; people keep throwing parties for me, it's very jolly. What parallel lives we're leading, you and I, both new girls at school.'

  She couldn't remember anything she wanted to tell her mother, and though she had written a careful list of all those things, highlighted in order of importance, it was left on her locker in the dorm, and she knew if she ran to get it, three minutes would be gone. Kitty heard New York in the background, the sirens and traffic, a taunting steady whine.

  'I can't think of anything to say,' she said.

  'That's all right, I'll talk for both of us, and when you remember, you can write me a letter.'

  'It's not the same.'

  'I know, but what can we do? You could send me a psychic message, I'll get that. Have you seen Bestepapa and Bestemama?'

  'Yes, they took me out for tea.'

  'Well, would you mind not telling them anything about me, darling? I don't need them poking their noses into my life any more. Did they ask about me?'

  'No,' Kitty said.

  That night she made her mind white and blank until it was a page and her one thought the pen. 'Call me back, Mummy,' it wrote over and over again. If you call on Mrs Phelan's
line you can say it was an emergency and I'll be allowed to take the call. She waited for Mrs Phelan's now familiar footfall, the soft catch of the door.

  'Kitty,' she'd say, 'your mother's on the phone from New York, she HAS to speak to you, it's urgent.' She would get out of bed, and she could tell her mother everything that she'd forgotten, and they would laugh.

  The page of thought became black with words, and Kitty struggled to keep her eyes open, but sleep came, the message returned to sender.

  * * *

  'Dear Mummy,' she wrote, 'I have three hairs under my left armpit and two under my right. I am on the reserves for netball. I have been meditating for half an hour every day. Mrs Phelan says I need more practical mufti clothes, in darker colours. Olivia has started her period. How are Violet and Sam? Please kiss Nora's ears for me. Could you send me some more writing paper, as I have run out. I am seventy-five per cent homesick, which is an improvement, down from ninety-eight.

  'I love you with great alacrity; you are the best mother in the world.'

  Mrs Phelan flicked her eyes over the letter dismissively. This was part of the Saturday night ritual at Dourfield. Letter home, shoes polished, then the tuck shop. Which wasn't a shop, just a shelf of sweets in Matron's office.

  'Very good. Shoes?' Kitty showed her the loafers she had polished.

  'Perfect. One pound for you, the tuck shop's open.'

  Her mother didn't send letters by post. Kitty got letters from Federal Express in big white and purple envelopes. Marina's writing was very big, and four sentences took up one page. 'Please don't be homesick, there is no point. Be "home well". There is nothing to miss here, life is very boring, and everything keeps breaking; the central heating, the telephone, and my heart. That is a joke! I had a boyfriend who lives in California, and I went to stay. You would like it there. It is hot, and we had picnics on the beach. He is not my boyfriend any more because he still loves his old wife, who is not old, but ex. Isn't it good we have God, so we don't need men? Imagine what life would be like if we didn't have GOD? I love you, Mummy.'

  Kitty wondered who 'we' was.

  Nora was shy and formal on the phone, but she always was, so it was comforting.

  'Hello, Kitty,' she said. 'How are you?'

  'I'm fine, how are you?'

  'I'm very well, thank you. How's school?'

  'Good. How are Violet and Sam?'

  'They're well, thank you. Naughty. I had to put hot sauce on Violet's tongue as she bit Sam. I don't think she'll be biting in a hurry.'

  'My minutes are up.'

  'It's worse than a prison. Well, I love you.'

  'I love you too. Quickly, do they have Angel Delight in New York?'

  'Actually, they do,' Nora said, a smile in her voice.

  The train to London took four hours, the coach to the train station thirty-five minutes. By the time she reached Hay, it was dark and she couldn't make out anything familiar in the black.

  Bestepapa stood at the train station, smoking his pipe.

  He wore a grey raincoat and green wellingtons.

  'There's my girl,' he said. 'I thought we'd walk so you could get a feel for home. You don't get that in the car. Sweet?'

  He handed Kitty a lemon barley, and took her small case from her, the one with her initials on it.

  The smell was the thing that made it all feel real, a smoky woodsy smell, and Bestepapa next to her, with his smell of tobacco and India lime. They trudged up the lane, treacherous with frost, the only light a flickering ember from the bowl of Bestepapa's pipe. They spoke in hushed voices, as though they might disturb sleeping giants in the woods.

  'It smells of home now,' Kitty said.

  'What are you reading?'

  'The Great Gaaby. I imagine that Daisy looks like Mummy.'

  'Ha! No red dot though.' He laughed.

  'Bestepapa, why do you think there has to be change?'

  'I used to think there had to be but now I'm not sure. I think change is unnecessary. The old ways are the best ways.'

  'Well, I liked it before, just so you know. I like the old ways too,' Kitty said.

  'I think, my Kitty, that you and I were born in the wrong time then.'

  The table was covered in candles, and it looked long without everyone at it. Bestepapa sat at the head, carving the lamb.

  'Thought we'd go to the farm in the morning, get some eggs. Would you like that?'

  'She probably wants to go to town, and buy records from Our Price.' Besternama handed Kitty the spinach.

  'No, I don't need to go to town,' she said.

  'After supper,' Bestepapa said in a jovial voice that didn't sound like his real one, 'we'll have to take Ibsen up to the woods for his walk. He didn't have a long enough one today, so he's itching to go.'

  Ibsen lay prostrate on the floor, sleeping.

  Kitty wanted to stay awake, savouring every minute of being at Hay, lying in Ingrid's bed, surrounded by Ingrid's things, a poster of Adam Ant grinning down at her. This is what it feels like to go to sleep being Ingrid, she thought. An old copy of Madame Bovay was on her bedside table. Kitty rubbed the cocoa butter from the Body Shop on her elbows and knees like Ingrid did, and fell asleep.

  It was raining, and the sky was moody. Kitty revelled in waking up on her own, of her own volition. She went downstairs in her nightdress. Bestemama was making lunch. She kissed her.

  'You must have been tired, darling,' she said. 'I've never known you sleep so late. I thought you must need it, so I decided not to bother you.'

  'What time is it?' Kitty felt a trickle of panic.

  'It's twelve. We'll have lunch in half an hour, quick walk, and Bestepapa says he'll drive you back, so you don't have to do that miserable train journey again.'

  'I've missed the morning!' Kitty said. 'Why didn't you wake me up? I've missed the morning, and the same one will never happen again.'

  'That's all right; there'll be many mornings for you. Your body wanted to sleep.'

  'It wanted the morning! It wanted to do normal things. Now I don't have time, now I'll be rushed. I've ruined the whole weekend! Now it's not the same. I had a list of everything I wanted to do, and now I can't do any of it!' Kitty started to cry.

  'Darling, we'll do everything on your list in double the time, that's all. Please don't cry. Everything here will still be here the next time you come. Take a deep breath. Would you like a nice cup of tea? nice cup of tea?

  * * *

  She was in a cave, and it was empty. The whole world had ended and she was the only person left. She could hear the voices of Sam and Violet calling her urgently, but she could not find them. There was another voice too, one she did not recognise, smooth and male.

  'Kitty! Kitty! Where are you? We can't find you. We're with someone who wants to meet you!'

  They were ducking and weaving in the silence, like ghost children.

  The male voice called through the rocks, 'Kitty, I can only stay for a bit. I have to go, I have an appointment. I want to see your face before I go.'

  'I'm here!' she called back. 'Mr Fitzgerald, I'm here! Please don't go!'

  She ran among the rocks pounding at them with her fists and arms, but they were immobile. The male voice left, and Sam and Violet's voices died with his, whispers that turned into thick black nothingness.

  When she woke up, her arms looked like she had torn through a bramble patch.

  'Vampire get you in the night?' said Evie, and she laughed.

  'No, it was my master communicating with me.' Kitty glowered at her darkly.

  'You are such a spas, Kitty,' Evie said.

  On the phone her mother said she thought it would be fun to fly to California for the Christmas holidays.

  'The sun always shines there,' she said. 'Can you imagine a place where it never rains?'

  Palm trees swayed, and neon Father Christmases skied with snowmen on lush green lawns, untouched by frost. It was warm enough to swim, even though her mother didn't.

  On Christmas D
ay, Kitty played mermaids in the pool with Sam and Violet, in a new Adrienne Vittadini swimsuit she had bought from the gift shop in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was white, and in it her bosoms pointed high and men looked at her, which Kitty sort of liked.

  Her mother said that Christmas in California was out of the ordinary, and that's why she chose it. They watched movies on the movie channel, and ate enormous strawberries and grapes that were so cold they made Kitty's mouth ache.

  It was the opposite of Christmas at Hay. Kitty ate shrimps for lunch with lots of happy strangers.

  'I like it traditional,' Nora said. 'What is Christmas without a turkey?'

  Marina told Nora she was a creature of habit. They opened their stockings in her room which was pale pink with a huge marble fireplace that roared so they could make believe it was cold outside.

  Her mother seemed to have friends wherever she went: tanned women with gold jewellery and houses that had belonged to Rudolph Valentino or Gloria Swanson. Kitty stole up to their bathrooms and tried on dusky scents with names like Giorgio and Poison.

  Nora took them to Disneyland, and Kitty wanted to go on the Peter Pan ride again and again. She convinced Sam that it was his favourite ride, so they could keep going back. Flying up, out of the Darlings' window over London, swooping down on the island of Never Never Land, which was sunny with a soundtrack.

  California orange juice was the best orange juice she'd ever tasted. Kitty thought maybe America was a decent place after all. At night the dry Santa Ana wind blew hotly over her as she slept, carrying away with it any thought of what they were doing at Hay on the first Christmas they were not a complete family.

  Dear Kitty,

  Your mother tells me that you are progressing well with your studies and that is good. I have just returned from Paris, which was unseasonably warm. If you need supplies ETC, please do not hesitate to call my secretary, Anna. She will assist you.