‘Maybe it’s because I’m not a —’
‘Hang on, there was the fugly guy with the mullet when we went on the exchange trip to Poland, but oh yeah, he preferred me, didn’t he?’ Alice glanced over at Louis, who wore a look of utter bemusement like he didn’t have a clue what was going on. ‘Story of your life, Franny, isn’t it? They always prefer me.’
‘That’s because you’ve got big tits and you shove them into everyone’s face,’ I told her furiously. There was a nervous giggle from the front and a sharp intake of breath from behind me. ‘You’ve got off with pretty much every boy we know, so if I’m tight what does that make you?’
Alice reared up in her seat so she could jab one rigid finger at me. ‘At least I’m not some frigid cow with no tits who’s as moody as her mum. You’ll probably end up having a total nervo like her too. And have you ever thought that maybe you chickened out of taking your GCSEs because you knew you were too bloody stupid to pass them?’
Alice couldn’t have gone there because no one with a heart would have gone there. We hated each other but there was still an echo, a memory of the friends we used to be, that meant that some secrets we’d shared were sacred. Not any more, apparently.
But I had no comeback. I simply sat there opening and shutting my mouth. Louis patted my hand. ‘There, there,’ he said. ‘No one thinks you’re mental.’
I shook his hand away and before I turned to stare out of the window with eyes that stung from the effort of holding back tears, I caught sight of Alice. She’d sunk back on her seat and she didn’t look defiant or angry any more, but small and scared, the way she used to when we’d been caught doing something heinous like taking biscuits out of the tin without asking or smearing our faces in her mother’s make-up.
I’d have given anything to go back to then.
It took another hour to reach Camden. No one said a word, not even Louis, though he kept shooting everyone these anxious looks as if the terrible atmosphere was like nothing he’d ever experienced before and he was totally out of his depth.
At one point, as we passed a sign that should have thrilled me because it said Central London 6 miles, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.
It was Francis sitting behind me. He didn’t say anything but kept his hand on my shoulder, his fingers resting in the deep groove of my collarbone, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the roaring in my head and the darkness that was welling up in me, trying to suck me under.
Maybe I was having a nervo.
Or maybe I just couldn’t bear to be trapped in this minibus any longer with my former best friend who was now my arch-nemesis, my deadliest enemy, the one person I’d hate beyond all measure for the rest of my life.
The silence broke as we reached Camden and inched our way along streets thronged with traffic and more people than could possibly be contained in one place. The girls were jabbering excitedly, there was uproar as we passed the covered stalls of the market and panic from Olly because apparently we were stuck in a one-way system that he couldn’t get out of.
All I was waiting for was the magic moment when the van pulled into the kerb and Olly turned off the engine.
I didn’t wait for anyone else to move – I climbed over Louis, who yelped in surprise when he got my elbow in his face – and shot out of the door that Olly had just opened.
‘What’s the rush?’ he asked in surprise.
I was just about to jump down on to the pavement but I paused so I could turn and stare at Alice. ‘You are the nastiest, skeeviest slutbag I’ve ever met and that’s why you have no friends and I never want to see your skanky face again,’ I spat at her.
If I was as cool as I thought I was, I’d have said something way better than that but it still had the desired effect. Alice stared at me. Then, as if I’d flicked a switch, her face, which was always going to be beautiful and not skanky, crumpled up like a discarded tissue and she burst into tears.
‘Franny…’ someone called, I think it was Francis but I wasn’t staying to find out. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I started to run.
25
I stumbled fast and forward, not quite running any more because there were too many people in the way. It was easy to get pushed one way and pulled another, past a cinema, past a Gap, another Starbucks and come to rest by a bus stop, as a bus pulled up and the doors opened.
‘Franny! Wait!’
I got on the bus without thinking. The doors shut behind me. It was that easy. Or it was until the driver told me off for not knowing what an Oyster card was, then charged me an unbelievable two pounds forty pence fare.
I didn’t even get a seat but had to stand and the indignation (two pounds and forty pence for a measly bus ticket!) and the fear that Sage had been right and I was going to get mugged as soon as anyone looked at me made the previous events of the day recede. They weren’t gone or forgotten but right now my biggest priority was not getting stabbed.
An automated voice announced the unfamiliar names of the streets and I squinted out of the window at tatty discount stores, fancy little dress shops and imposing, minimalist boutiques that only seemed to stock two items of clothing. There were tower blocks and huge houses that looked old and posh. So much traffic. Too much noise. Everything was bright and blaring. Even the people on the bus were not like people on the buses back home.
The little old ladies in front of me jabbered away in a foreign language, a kid in a pushchair was eating half an avocado – I’d only had avocado once and it had tasted gross – there was a gang of young lads all talking gangsta, which made me miss Raj, and they were wearing weird drop-crotch tracksuit bottoms. I stared at two Japanese girls who were so cute I wanted to pack them in my bag and take them with me and a guy who looked like he could be a model and another guy who might have been the ugliest person I’d ever seen.
Maybe all these exotic people were looking at me in my completely not sexy leather dress and thinking I was exotic too. Somehow I doubted it.
Just like that all my other doubts kicked in too, as it suddenly dawned on me that I was on my own in London without a clue where I was going or what my next move should be. I couldn’t even go back to Camden because how could I face any of them ever again? Not after what Alice had said. They all knew about Mum now and thought I was an utter headcase just like she was. Maybe I was – I certainly wasn’t behaving like the poster girl for rational thought.
‘The next stop is Notting Hill Gate station.’ There was a flurry of activity. Pushchairs primed, shopping bags gathered up and I was stepping forward too because I knew about Notting Hill. Like, I’d seen the film countless times. It was where celebs lived and it had a market with second-hand clothes stalls. And there was an address in Notting Hill that I’d committed to memory. In fact, it was engraved on my heart and it was reason enough to get off the bus.
I walked without taking any of it in. I passed vintage clothes stores and rail upon rail of faded, pretty dresses without stopping, which proved I wasn’t in my right mind. I was simply a stupid girl with stupid ideas and I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t quite sure where I belonged but it wasn’t on these winding, narrow streets packed with people, the houses painted in pretty colours; mint green, cobalt blue, egg-yolk yellow.
And though I had an address engraved on my heart, my crappy BlackBerry wouldn’t load Google maps. Despite my very fragile state of mind, I had no choice but to find someone in the sea of scary London people and ask for directions. I stopped a homely-looking old woman but she barked something at me in a harsh-sounding foreign language. Then I tried a middle-aged couple (it seemed like a safe bet that middle-aged people wouldn’t give me any grief) but they simply walked past me like I wasn’t even there.
I was beginning to feel like I really wasn’t there. That maybe Alice had pushed me from the minibus into the oncoming traffic as we travelled down the motorway. I’d ended up under the wheels of one of those big articulated lorries that my dad drove and now I was a ghost. A see-through girl, invisible to all.
I sighed heavily as I got to the end of another unfamiliar street. On the corner was a huge house painted a beautiful sludgy pink. Like I was looking out of my bedroom window on to the seafront and marvelling at how the navy-blue sky was streaked through with the same shade of pink.
I didn’t even bother to check the street name or number. I knew it was the address I’d been searching for. It was where Martin Sanderson had lived when he first came to London in the late seventies to study at Central St Martin’s. He’d squatted in an empty house with his punk friends and held his debut fashion show in the derelict front room. Later, when he’d got his degree and Barneys in New York had ordered his entire collection, he’d bought the Notting Hill house and opened a shop downstairs while he lived and worked upstairs. Even though he now had shops all around the world from Peking to Sydney, Moscow to Mumbai and even on Bond Street, he still had that first shop in Notting Hill in the building he’d painted a sludgy pink so it would remind him of his Merrycliffe roots.
I gave an excited little cry and rushed forward. There was his name on the window in the minimalist font I knew so well and on a dress form was one dress. A simple, elegant black dress, high-necked, long-sleeved, which was cut so severely, so perfectly it made me sigh with longing.
I wanted to wear a dress like that. Mostly, though, I wanted to be able to make a dress like that. And that made everything easier because although I still didn’t know what I was doing at this actual moment on this actual day, I knew how I wanted the rest of my life to be. If I wanted it hard enough, then I’d make it happen. I was sure of that, at least.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dress. I wondered what it was made from to make it drape like that. It didn’t even hang, but curved lovingly around the form. Maybe it was silk jersey. God, I’d never even touched anything made of silk jersey.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there, but suddenly there was a movement to the left of me and my eyes popped so hard that they hurt. A short man wearing a black leather jacket, dark indigo jeans with an audacious turn-up and a red woolly hat was stepping through a side door. He was the definition of dapper; all sleek and tanned, like he lived well and enjoyed living well and no wonder. Jesus. I’d recognise that pencil moustache and those sideburns anywhere.
I had to bite my lip hard to stop myself from crying out. All I could do was stand rooted to the spot as he turned to shut the door and the moment was gone. Almost gone, if I hadn’t left it too late and…
Say something, Franny. Say something cool and amazing so he sees how cool and amazing you are and gives you a job. In Paris! Say something, you twat!
‘Martin! Martin Sanderson!’ My voice had never sounded like that before. Thin and rusty, like I’d only just learned to speak after years of being mute.
It worked though. I had his attention. Or rather he was frowning at me and not looking terribly impressed. He was looking the absolute opposite of impressed, then he turned away and was almost gone again; the door was swinging shut and…
‘I’m from Merrycliffe! Market Diner! The fifties milk bar and that gentlemen’s outfitters on the High Street that’s had that weird yellow mac in the window for as long as I can remember.’ Jesus. I was talking gibberish, but he was paused on the doorstep, neither going in nor out, but staring at me with what seemed like a horrified fascination. ‘I’m on the fashion course at Merrycliffe College and I’m being taught by this lady called Barbara who says that she knew you back in the day but we’re not sure we believe her. She said that the first thing you ever made in class was a pair of trousers with the legs sewn together.’
His nostrils flared. ‘They were bondage trousers. The legs were meant to be sewn together,’ he said huffily. The door opened wider, I glimpsed a woman standing there and Martin Sanderson stepped past her. I waited for him to turn round, maybe invite me in, but he just said to her, loud enough for me to hear, ‘God, these bloody kids,’ and then he was gone.
But he was coming back. I was sure of that.
He wasn’t coming back. The woman gave me a quizzical look. She was tall and skinny. Taller and skinnier even than me and she was wearing a black dress similar to the one in the window but short-sleeved so I could see that both her arms were covered in seamless, intricate tattoos. ‘He gets very annoyed when people try to doorstep him,’ she said gently. ‘Don’t take it personally.’
I couldn’t take it any other way. Just like I couldn’t help saying, ‘But I’m from Merrycliffe!’
She folded her beautiful, multi-coloured arms. ‘And what exactly are you doing on our doorstep, Miss Merrycliffe?’ she asked.
‘Well, the reason I’m in London… I came down with friends… they’re in a band… well, actually they’re not really my friends. Not now.’ Oh God, I knew what was going to happen next and I could stop it if I really tried but somehow nothing I did worked and I was saying it, ‘I’ve run away,’ and if that wasn’t bad enough, then I burst into loud, snotty tears.
I was still crying ten minutes later as I sat in the kitchen above Martin Sanderson’s shop as Jamie, the tattooed woman, placed a mug of tea in front of me. It wasn’t some fancy London tea with an unpronounceable name but strong, sweet tea made with the same Yorkshire teabags we used at home.
She also made me toast from a nutty, brown loaf and smeared it with boysenberry jam, though I wasn’t entirely sure what a boysenberry was but I didn’t really care much right then because I was too busy working my way through the box of tissues she’d placed in front of me.
Eventually, when there were no more tears to be squeezed out from my gritty, swollen eyes and I was gratefully gulping down the tea to ease the ache in my throat, Jamie pulled up the stool next to mine.
‘So, why did you run away?’ she asked and took a sip of her own tea. She wasn’t even looking at me but at the pile of post in front of her.
I didn’t want to bore her with the details. Also I was now deathly afraid that Martin Sanderson might suddenly appear and shout at me but I’d already made a total show of myself and Jamie not looking at me made it easier. Like, she was a disinterested third party and anyway she could have left me weeping on the doorstep if she hadn’t cared at all.
So I told Jamie about my five-year plan that ended with me graduating with a BA Hons in Fashion from Central St Martin’s and a sell-out final collection. But she was frowning like she didn’t understand why the thought of that had had me sobbing and snotting all over the place.
I didn’t know who Jamie was. Whether she was Martin Sanderson’s right-hand woman or his cleaner or his favourite niece. So, I really was going to keep my mouth shut, be all enigmatic and self-controlled and stuff, but she kept making these encouraging ‘hmmm hmmm’ noises every time I paused and it all spilled out. About Mum and not taking my GCSEs and how my parents’ plans for my future felt as if they were nailing shut the lid on my coffin. And then I found myself telling her about Louis and Alice and about the horrible things she’d said.
‘I didn’t want to run away but there was nothing else I could do,’ I said, when I got to the end of my sad, sorry tale. ‘It all got out of control very, very quickly.’
‘Well, obviously. You’d have probably put on a coat if you’d planned it,’ Jamie said.
She didn’t say anything else but carried on flicking through the mail, dividing it into stacks; now that I’d stopped crying and finished ranting, I wanted to pinch myself hard enough to leave bruises. Then I wanted to get my phone out and take photos because if I tried to tell anyone about this, they’d be all ‘Pics or it didn’t happen.’ I mean, I was right here in the flat above Martin Sanderson’s first shop. Even I couldn’t believe that I was really here.
‘Martin uses this flat as a bolthole when he gets tired of Paris,’ Jamie said suddenly. ‘I know, right? It’s hard to understand how anyone would ever be tired of Paris, but when he gets stuck or he’s feeling uninspired he says he needs to be in London. It’s impossible to be stuck here. Just walking along these stree
ts…’ She tailed off and I wished I knew what she meant. That I’d walked down those streets and sucked it all in instead of stumbling about in a daze.
By now I’d drunk my tea, eaten my toast and overshared like I’d never done before and it was time to apologise profusely and leave the beautiful blindingly white kitchen with its brushed steel worktops.
Jamie still wasn’t saying much. She was everything I expected a fashion person to be. Although she wasn’t pretty – everything on her face was long and sharp – it was a face you wanted to keep staring at. A bold face made bolder by her jet-black hair, which was even shorter than mine after Alice had done her worst, and a slash of fuchsia-pink lipstick. She was elegant and cool. Probably the coolest person I’d ever met. Everything about her, from the way she didn’t say much to the tattoos to her bulbous silver thumb ring, was cool.
I had never felt less cool in my life. And then Jamie looked up in time to catch me staring at her in much the same way that I used to stare at Louis. The blush, it burned. ‘Well, I should be going,’ I said, slipping down from the stool. ‘Thanks for the tea and the toast and I’m sorry that I went on and…’