Clementine and Rudy Read online

  I grin. “Mission accomplished. Where’s Tyler?”

  “In the kitchen, helping Sid make banana bread.”

  “Cool.” I let myself behind the counter and enter the kitchen. The warm air smells of a delicious mixture of banana and cinnamon. Sid’s peeling potatoes at the counter and Tyler’s washing dishes at the sink, his long dark hair pulled up into a man bun, showing off his fresh undercut. Three freshly baked loaves of banana bread are cooling on a rack on the table. I take off my coat and put on a clean apron.

  “Hey, Rudy!” Tyler calls when he sees me.

  “Morning!” Sid says. “Any sign of Trev out there?”

  I nod. “Yep. He’s just arrived, with some killer spinach apparently.”

  “Ace!” Sid’s eyes light up like I just told him Santa’s outside with a sack full of presents. As Kale and Hearty’s head chef and vegetarian-in-chief, he gets stupidly excited about fruit and veg. “Better go and pay him.” Sid puts down his peeler and heads outside.

  “Well?” Tyler’s brown eyes are wide with expectation.

  “Well, what?” I say, even though I know exactly what he’s asking.

  “Did you do it?”

  I nod before going over to the counter by the industrial-sized fridge. On Monday morning it’s my job to prep the salads.

  “No way!” Tyler comes over and high-fives me. I notice that he’s added even more leather bracelets to his thin wrist. “Did you take a picture?”

  “I forgot. A fox made a noise in the alleyway and scared the crap out of me. But don’t worry. I’m going to go back this evening and take one.”

  “What was it like, doing it?”

  “Awesome. And you know I don’t use that word lightly.”

  Tyler grins. “I didn’t think you used it at all.”

  “Exactly.”

  He flings his arms round my shoulders and hugs me. “I’m so proud of you, Jedi sis.”

  “Thanks, Jedi bruv.”

  Tyler and I became each other’s honorary bruv and sis years ago, to make up for the fact that we don’t have any actual siblings. We became Jedi bruv and sis when Tyler got all obsessed with the Star Wars movies – and passed his obsession on to me. In every other way, though, we’re like chalk and cheese. I’m black, he’s white. I like hip-hop, he likes nineties rock. I like real world entertainment, he’s obsessed with video games. I like thriller movies, he likes sci-fi. I love art, he loves all things sound. But the one thing we have in common is our dream of making a living from our passions. In my case, making art; and in his, being a sound designer on movies. We’re constantly pushing each other to find the courage to fulfil our dreams, or “feel the force”, as Ty likes to put it.

  Tyler takes off his apron and hangs it on the back of the door. As always, he’s wearing black jeans and a vintage rock T-shirt. Today’s choice, faded Guns N’ Roses. “Right, better get ready to feed the starving millions,” he says with a grin. Tyler’s worked full-time in the café on an apprenticeship since leaving school last year at sixteen. He said he didn’t want to stay on at sixth form because the education system is obsessed with “turning us all into robots and killing our creativity”. But even though I agree with him, I know that there’s more to it. Tyler’s mum has MS and his dad lost his job last year. I think he had to leave school for the money.

  “OK, Jedi bruv,” I call back as he heads into the café. “May the force be with you.”

  CLEMENTINE

  In my favourite Emily Dickinson poem, she talks about hope being like a bird, perching inside our soul, singing endlessly. As I hurry out of school at lunchtime I try to conjure up the image of a hummingbird hovering inside me. But although it’s opening its beak, it’s making no sound. I’d hoped that things would be better after the Christmas break. But, a month in, they feel even worse. Everything about school seems old and tired. Especially my friendships. I’m not sure if I’ve outgrown my friends or they’ve outgrown me but one way or another, we just don’t fit together any more. All they want to do is talk about their boyfriends – when they’re not hanging out with their boyfriends. I don’t have a boyfriend. I like to tell myself that this is totally out of choice but the truth is, no boy has ever asked me out. On the positive side, I’ve never met a boy I wanted to go out with. None of them match up to my dream boyfriend.

  My dream boyfriend is called Luc. He has dark floppy hair and big soulful eyes and he writes poems and lives in an attic apartment in Paris, above a bakery. He spends his weekends browsing secondhand bookshops, eating cheese and freshly baked bread and flâneuring. Flâneuring is one of my favourite words and pastimes. It originated in Paris and it means strolling around with no particular place to go, simply watching the world go by. I love watching the world go by. And so does Luc. When I finally meet him, we will spend entire days flâneuring – when we’re not browsing secondhand bookshops. The thing I love most about my dream boyfriend is that he’s genuinely interested in me and he encourages me in my passions for dance and poetry. I so hope a boy like this actually exists because it seems to me that as soon as a woman enters a relationship, she has to shove her true self away in a closet like an embarrassing dress. My so-called best friend, Becky, is a classic example. I say “so-called” because I hardly ever see her now that she’s going out with Justin. She’s always watching him play rugby, or round at his house playing Call of Duty on the PlayStation. Becky always hated rugby. She said it was just an excuse for guys to grope each other and they ought to go get a room. And as for Call of Duty… Becky’s family are Buddhists and she won’t even tread on an ant because of karma issues. Now she’s shooting up Nazis and terrorists online just to keep Justin happy. She used to spend all her spare time going to the cinema or plays or musicals with me. Has Justin ever once gone to something like that with her? No. Because it’s all about him, just like Mum’s marriage is all about Vincent.

  I hurry up the hill, heading for the alleyway that cuts from Hove to Brighton. I need an injection of Brighton buzz to keep me going through the afternoon’s lessons. It’s only when I’m halfway down the alley that something stops me dead. A picture has been stuck on one of the doors. It’s of a black girl with a huge Afro, dressed in an emerald-green catsuit, gazing into a gilt-framed mirror. Although she’s been drawn by hand, the mirror is a black and white photo, its frame painted over in gold. I vaguely remember doing something like this in art class. I think it’s called mixed media. Although the girl looking into the mirror is muscular and slim, her reflection is so bloated it almost takes up the entire frame. It’s like one of those distorted mirrors you get in a fairground that make you look crazily fat or short or tall or thin. But I don’t think this woman’s in a fairground. I think the distortion is coming from her mind. I grab my phone from my bag and take a couple of photos. Already, words are sparking to life in my mind. Once I’ve got a photo I’m happy with, I hurry from the alleyway and head down to the sea. I sit on the first empty bench I find and open Instagram on my phone. I find a filter that most clearly defines the lines of the drawing and makes the gold of the mirror-frame shine, then I click into the description box. Sometimes I’ll have a piece of street art on my phone for weeks before I can find the right words to accompany it. Others come straight away, as if they were just waiting for me to find their picture. This is one of those times. I type the poem into the box, make a few tweaks, then add the usual hashtags: #brightonstreetart #urbanart #streetarteverywhere #micropoetry #poetsofig. I’m about to upload the post when I realize I haven’t credited the artist. I study the photo and see a tag sprayed in black at the bottom. It says, FIERCE. I add a couple more hashtags – #fierce #fiercestreetart #fiercestreetartbrighton. I don’t know if the artist is from Brighton. I definitely haven’t seen any of their work before. I make a mental note to look out for more, then I press SHARE.

  I feel the same release I always do when I’ve published a post. Like the tension inside me has been turned down a notch or two. I lean back on the bench and stare out at th
e sea. I love the beach in winter and how the icy wind strips it clean of tourists and I can pretend it’s all mine. I watch as the slate-grey waves slide in and out, in and out. Things may seem as if they’re never changing but they are. Time keeps ticking and a larger, invisible tide is pulling me towards the life I’m meant to be living. The hummingbird inside me starts to sing.

  RUDY

  “Hey, baby girl!” Mum calls from the kitchen as soon as I walk through the front door.

  I read my mum’s greetings the way other people read tarot cards. From every greeting I can tell what has happened in the recent past and what is about to go down in my future. “Hey, baby girl” means that Mum’s had at least one glass of wine, she’s spent the day with her Idiot Boyfriend Dave, and I’m about to get a hug and probably a kiss.

  “Hey, Mum.” I come into the kitchen and drop my backpack on the floor.

  On the iPod dock Ray Charles is singing about taking these chains from his heart; two empty frozen pizza boxes are sitting on the counter, along with the usual chaotic jumble of Mum’s books and make-up and magazines. The air smells of burned cheese. I make a mental note that “Hey, baby girl” might also mean ruined dinner. Mum comes over and gives me a hug and kisses me on the cheek. Her hair smells of Dave’s aftershave and her breath smells of wine. Just call me Psychic Suzy.

  “How was school?” Mum sits back down at the table and starts fixing her make-up. She always wears loads of make-up to work – extra-long eyelashes and glossy red lips. She says it’s her mask, so the customers don’t get to see the real her. She says only God and Jesus and I get to see the real her, which is probably the only time I’ll get to be part of a holy trinity.

  “It was OK.” I go over to the oven and open the door. Once the cloud of smoke has cleared, I see two blackened pizzas smouldering on the shelves. I quickly take them out and plonk them onto plates. A piece of charred cheese hangs mournfully from one of them like a teardrop. I mentally sketch a black teardrop in my mind. Nice. Something to try later, maybe. “Dinner is served – or should that be cremated?” I say as I place the pizzas on the table.

  “Oh, whoops!” Mum giggles as she applies a coat of cherry-coloured lip gloss. “I wasn’t that hungry anyway. Dave and I had kebabs at lunchtime.”

  Can’t beat a kebab for romance. Mum might think that the sun shines out of Dave’s butt and he’s *quote* “the kindest man I ever met” but I’m pretty sure he’s a kebab-munching loser. And when it comes to being a poor judge of the opposite sex, Mum has most definitely got previous.

  Mum clicks open her purse and hands me a five-pound note. “Here, take this. Go and get a burger or something.”

  I shake my head. “It’s OK. I ate at Kale and Hearty.”

  Mum gives a sarcastic snort. She doesn’t really get the whole vegetarian thing. When I told her I’d stopped eating meat she gawped at me like I’d told her I’d started eating human babies. “Well, keep it in case you get hungry later.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  Mum’s phone bleeps. She picks it up and giggles. “Dave’s so funny,” she sighs, like a love-struck kid.

  Yeah, he’s so funny till he dumps you like all the others did. “I think I’ll go to my room,” I say. “I’ve got some homework to do.”

  “OK,” Mum replies, tapping away on her phone.

  I don’t actually have any homework, but I’m dying to get stuck into some of my own work. It’s weird because although I’m taking art at school we’re always told exactly what to do and my work doesn’t feel like my own. I feel like I have to hold back, like I need to do the right thing to get the right marks so I can eventually go to university. If I go to university. I’m not even sure about that any more. Sometimes I think the only reason I want to go is so I can get away from here. I follow the narrow hallway down to my bedroom at the end of the flat. As soon as I enter the room I hear the thumping beat of the upstairs neighbour’s music pounding through the ceiling. I feel so trapped here, in this block of flats, in this life. I dump my bag on my bed and kick off my trainers. I lay my sketch pad on the floor and turn to my work-in-progress. Unlike my last one, this one’s a self-portrait. Self-portraits are my form of therapy. So far I’ve sketched a picture of me tied to a chair. When I create the final piece I’m going to use a photo I took of this really cool antique dining chair I found in Snooper’s Paradise and I’m going to stick a cross of black tape over my mouth. I think of the idea I had earlier, inspired by the burned pizza, and add a black tear to my face. It looks great.

  “I’m off to work, sweetheart,” Mum calls from the hall.

  “OK. Have fun.” I used to hate the fact that Mum worked at night, but that was when I was younger and I didn’t realize that I could turn it to my benefit. That was when I still got creeped out by random noises around the flat, convincing myself that there was a psycho killer hiding under my bed.

  I wait until I hear the front door close. Then I go to the window and listen for the click-click of Mum’s heels on the pavement. She walks through the glow of the streetlight, spine straight and hips swaying, as if she’s on a catwalk. “Never forget that you’re a queen,” she always used to say to me, when we had girls’ nights on the sofa doing our make-up or nails. It used to make me feel great when she said this, like she and I were some kind of superheroes and could do anything. But now I’m older, and I’ve seen the crap she’s put up with from her boyfriends, it makes me sad. It’s like she didn’t quite believe the words she was telling me were true for her too. I watch until she disappears round the corner then I go over to my wardrobe. It’s big and ugly and made of dark, scuffed wood that doesn’t even look good in an ironic or “vintage” way. Mum got it from a clearance sale. She got most of our furniture from a clearance sale. She had next to no money when Dad left and less than no money when the guy after Dad left, as he disappeared with the wide-screen TV and all of Mum’s savings. I grab hold of one side of the wardrobe and start shuffling it into the room. The wall behind is covered in a rainbow spectrum of paint. Mum would go nuts if she knew but I need somewhere to practise and I’ll just paint it magnolia again before I move out. I take my paints from my wardrobe and put on my oldest tracksuit bottoms and hoodie. Then I flick through the playlist for Jazzmatazz by Guru, pop a stick of gum in my mouth, put on my headphones and smile. Finally, I’m in the zone.

  CLEMENTINE

  My bird of hope ended up carrying me all the way through the rest of the day at school – even when Becky turned down my suggestion of a hot chocolate on the beach because she had to go and help Justin buy some new trainers. It’s only when I sit down for dinner that hope’s song starts to fade – drowned out by Vincent’s annoying voice.

  “Did you hear that new feature I did on the show today, babe?” he asks Mum as he shovels a load of pasta onto his plate. “The one about the worst dates.”

  Mum shakes her head. “No, I didn’t listen to the show. I was too busy.”

  Vincent snorts. “Busy? Doing what?”

  Lately, Vincent keeps making digs about Mum not working. Even though he was the one who insisted she give up her job when she had Damon.

  “I was busy cleaning this place,” Mum replies, her face flushing beneath her immaculately applied make-up.

  I glance around the dining room, at the perfectly arranged flowers on the side and the sparkling chandelier creating pools of gold in the sheen of the polished table. The more time Mum spends polishing this place to perfection, the more her personality seems to disappear, as if she’s rubbing it away too with her cloth.

  “Right,” Vincent replies. “Well, some bird rang up and said that this geezer asked her to smell his earwax – on their first date!” He snorts with laughter and Damon starts to giggle. I feel sick. I’ve always got on well with Damon but what if Vincent brainwashes him into becoming a miniature version of him? Surely it’s my big sisterly duty to try and save Damon from the evils of misogyny.

  “Hey, Vincent. The 1970s just texted. They want their sexi
st language back.”

  Vincent looks at me blankly. The bags beneath his eyes and wrinkles on his forehead make his dyed brown hair look even more ridiculous. Ditto the leather string with a pendant saying DUDE around his neck. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, calling women birds.”

  “That’s not sexist. How is that sexist? Calling someone a bird isn’t a bad thing. It’s an affectionate thing.” Another annoying thing about Vincent is that he speaks with the twang of an East London gangster, even though he was born in Berkshire and went to private school.

  This is why you shouldn’t have bothered saying anything, my inner voice of reason says. There’s no way you’ll ever get him to change. I decide to ignore reason, which I’m aware is never the advisable thing to do, but I’m too angry now to wind myself in.

  “I can honestly say I don’t know any woman or girl who likes being called a bird.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Vincent snaps. “This is exactly what’s wrong with this country. All this PC bullshit.”

  “Vincent!” Mum looks pointedly at Damon.

  “What? Oh, come on, Julia. Don’t you go all militant on me too. It’s like living with a bunch of feminazis.”

  “What’s a feminazi?” Damon asks.

  “A woman with no sense of humour, son.”

  “I’ve got a sense of humour,” I say.

  “Do you know what, I really don’t need this.” Vincent pushes his plate away.

  “It’s OK, darling. Clementine didn’t mean to be rude, did you?” Mum looks at me.

  What the hell? “I’m not the one being rude.”

  Vincent gives a sarcastic snort.

  “Now, Clem, let’s just all have a nice dinner together.” Mum’s voice is shrill. She turns to Vincent. “So, did the new feature go down well?”

  The frown on Vincent’s face fades. “Yeah. Very well. The listeners loved it.” He looks straight at me.