All of the Above Read online

  You can’t force it, little girl

  Said the bird to the girl.

  Leave the window wide

  And trust it’ll blow back.

  I said ‘you can’t chew trust’

  He said ‘you chew enough doubt.’

  Can’t punch the wind

  Or get time in a headlock.

  Can’t unglue your feet from the earth

  When you keenly feel gravity’s thumb.

  Someone said it was a war,

  That I required tanks and steamrollers.

  What I needed was a ladder

  And binoculars.

  Turned off Google Maps

  Let the poem find me.

  Chapter Six

  Moonlight

  My Halloween costume was pretty easy. It was decided that I was going to go as Lydia Deetz, the Winona Ryder character from Beetlejuice. I wore a black-and-grey kilt, an old school shirt and a black cardigan. The only thing I had to really endure was a scratchy black Cleopatra wig.

  As a group we looked pretty cool. Beasley’s Beetlejuice costume and make-up were perfect and Polly was almost unrecognisable as Miss Argentina. She wore a swimming costume and heels, making her well over six feet tall. She really did look like a supermodel, albeit a green-skinned one.

  I love Halloween, I always have. My mum describes me as a morbid child – way more interested in vampires, ghosts and witches than fairies and princesses. But Halloween is great for two reasons. First of all, it’s an excuse to carve pumpkins and watch horror films (both of which we did at Beasley’s house earlier that week – Halloween and Evil Dead ) and, secondly, it’s the earliest date at which you’re officially allowed to be excited about Christmas.

  Mrs Wolff drove us to the Old Vicarage where Zoë lived. Polly’s mum lived up to her hype. She looked like an especially sour-faced newsreader, with big dyed hair the same colour as her golden skin, like a human Labrador. ‘I mean it, Polly,’ she said as she pulled up outside the vicarage. ‘I’ll be back here at twelve on the dot and I don’t want you to be in a state. Is that understood? I’m not having a repeat of last Halloween.’ My mum was many things, but she’d never dressed me down like that in front of my mates.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Polly droned robotically.

  The Old Vicarage was right at the top of the hill, overlooking the bay. It was tumbledown in a Secret Garden kind of way, with willow trees and pampas grass spilling over the garden railings. It would be enchanting enough, but Zoë had draped lanterns from tree to tree and hung ‘corpses’ from branches. Two leering pumpkins greeted us at the gate like sentries.

  ‘This is so cool!’ I said.

  ‘Halloween is Zoë’s thing,’ Beasley explained.

  ‘Doesn’t her dad think we’re all doomed to Hades for all this pagan witchcraft voodoo evil?’

  ‘Bob – yeah, we call her dad Bob – is the sweetest guy in the world,’ Polly said as we followed the ramshackle path towards the front door. ‘When Zoë was twelve, he sat her down and asked if she was gay and that whatever she said, both he and Jesus still loved her.’

  ‘Wow.’ I felt instantly bad for being judgy. There was a severed arm hanging out of the letterbox, but the door was ajar so we pushed our way in. I could hear laughing and music – the party was already underway.

  Everybody was in the lounge, kitchen or back garden, from what I could tell. I saw that Zoë had got some of those red plastic cups off the internet so it felt like a proper American house party – nice touch. The crowd looked pretty chilled – I recognised a few people from the Judas Cradle gig and some Music People from school. Others I didn’t know and I guessed they were from the sixth-form college. These were Good People though, I could tell. No Mean Girls or jocks drinking beer through a funnel.

  A game of spin-the-bottle was already happening in the lounge – I saw Etienne and some of his fans getting involved. ‘This time with tongues,’ someone screamed gleefully. We passed them and headed into the kitchen where we found Daisy with Alice and Alex. Daisy had gone her own way and come as Jake from Adventure Time. Just when I thought she couldn’t be more adorable.

  We got some drinks and headed into the garden. I’m not gonna lie – I don’t like being drunk – more specifically, I have a irrational fear of vomiting. I know, I know, it’s insane, but it’s a thing so I’ll have to live with it. After three drinks I usually bow out quietly and switch to Diet Coke. My mum is hardly good advertising for heavy drinking either, is she? Zoë, as Catwoman, was smoking outside with her arm round a gorgeous girl dressed as a skeleton in a figure-hugging catsuit. ‘Hey hey hey, you made it. You got drinks, yeah?’ Zoë’s eyes were puffy and squinty. I could tell at once she was high.

  Zoë and Polly chatted as Skeleton Girl took the joint and took a long toke. I knew what was coming next. ‘You want some?’ the girl said.

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine,’ I said, worried I was sounding like a Tea Party member. I might as well have clutched my pearls. Look, I know she wasn’t offering me crystal meth, but at some point when I was little that whole DRUGS ARE BAD message had installed itself so deeply that now I couldn’t shake it.

  ‘Have some,’ Zoë insisted, being polite, not peer pressure-y. ‘It’s good shit, man.’

  I shook my head and gave Polly a subtle glance. Sparing me any further embarrassment, Polly took the spliff instead. ‘I’ll take that, thanks.’ She took a drag and passed it back to Zoë. I could have hugged her.

  ‘Hey!’ Beasley stuck his head out of the kitchen door. ‘Come play spin-the-bottle!’

  ‘**** off,’ Polly said instantly.

  ‘Oh OK,’ I said, wanting to be away from the pot before I became a heroin addict. That’s just how my brain works. I figured spin-the-bottle was the lesser of two evils. I set off towards the kitchen and Polly reluctantly followed.

  Etienne had grown bored and was now setting up a playlist on Zoë’s laptop. We gathered in the lounge. I was thrilled to see Nico was in the group.

  ‘Oh hey,’ he said. ‘I didn’t recognise you in your wig! Beetlejuice, right?’

  ‘Correct! And you’re …?’

  ‘A mime. Terrifying.’ He pulled out a beret and stuck it on his head. The rest of his stripy ensemble now made sense.

  ‘That is scary. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for invisible boxes and suitcases. Are you playing?’

  ‘Are you?’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, might as well. I’ve never played spin-the-bottle; I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puberty jigsaw.’ Nico laughed and I was pleased at my wit – check me out making little jokes! Guys like funny girls, right? Wait, is that right or do they just see them as mates? Damn, it was harder than I thought.

  We formed a circle on the living-room floor. Alice forbade Alex from playing and Daisy just wanted to watch, so it was me, Polly, Nico, Beasley and a few other people I didn’t recognise. There was only one other fit guy, so it was more like Russian roulette than I’d have cared for.

  First spin: some girl with braces called Ella spun first and got Beasley. There was screaming and cheering as they leaned in and very briefly kissed. It was the kind of kiss you gave a cousin.

  ‘Ooh racy. I’m moist,’ Polly said with an arched brow.

  Second spin: Beasley got Nico. I caught Polly’s eye and she could barely conceal her amusement.

  ‘I’m game if you are,’ Nico said with a grin.

  ‘Oh he’s game,’ Polly muttered under her breath next to me.

  ‘Oh whatever,’ Beasley said, blushing. ‘One, two, three …’ They leaned into the centre of the circle and their lips brushed together. Ridiculous, but I was jealous.

  Third spin: Nico got Polly. ‘Just like old times,’ he said.

  ‘Only this time I’m sober!’ Polly leaned in and they kissed. Their kiss was the longest yet and I couldn’t look.

  Polly spun the bottle and it whirled round the circle. I knew, just KNEW, it would land on me and it did. Nico and Beasley had set the bar for sexual fluidity and
now if I refused I’d look uptight or, worse, homophobic. Oh, sod it. Polly was obviously the hottest girl at the party; there were worse options in the circle. Rather Polly than the sweaty mosher guy sat opposite her. I turned to her and we kissed. Her lips were cashmere soft. It was nice.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me … I need to be by myself …’ Nico said with a sly grin.

  ‘Pervert!’ Polly said.

  ‘Girls don’t get it on for guys to wank over,’ Zoë said from her perch on the sofa.

  The game went on for a while. The rules changed and before we knew it, we were swapping costumes and spitting vodka into each other’s mouths. It was stupid fun, but it was fun.

  The game drifted apart. There’s only so much screaming at kissing you can do, and someone got out a Twister mat instead. As the circle broke up, Nico took my hand and we weaved towards the stairs. I stalled in the hallway, suddenly more sober than I’d ever been in my whole life. I’d seen enough TV to know what happens if you are led upstairs by a hot guy. My heart hop-skip-jumped. I wasn’t ready, both in terms of having not worried about this moment enough for it to be satisfying and also in that I hadn’t trimmed my pubes. Rookie mistake.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, sounding like a scared little girl.

  Nico looked confused for a second. ‘Oh! Oh no! This isn’t like a date-rape thing; I just wanted to show you something. Shit, I realise that is exactly what I’d say if I was going to date-rape you, but I actually mean it.’

  I smiled and let him lead me on. ‘I’ll trust you on this occasion.’

  His grey Pugs not Drugs T-shirt was stuck to the base of his back, a little dark circle of sweat. Why did that make my skin flush? ‘Come on. This’ll blow your mind.’

  We went past the first-floor landing and into the attic, which was up another flight of stairs. The room was musty and cobweb strewn, full of boxes and old furniture covered with dust sheets so they looked like crap ghosts. The room had a cool, silvery sheen and it took me a second to figure out why. There was a gangway cleared through the junk to a huge arched window. Pearly moonlight flooded the attic and it was ethereal somehow. ‘Come take a look,’ Nico urged, leading the way. He unlatched the window and threw it open. To my horror he ducked down and climbed outside.

  ‘Nico! Are you freaking insane?’

  ‘Don’t jump! It’s not worth it!’ he said in his most melodramatic voice. ‘It’s fine – there’s a ledge.’

  Which was stronger? My dislike of heights or my lady-boner for Nico? Turns out hormones can override paralysing fear – just. I gripped the window ledge and tentatively poked my head outside. Nico was right, there was a sturdy balustrade running all the way around the roof – we couldn’t fall unless we climbed over it.

  ‘Oh wow,’ I said, breath officially taken.

  ‘I know, right?’

  The attic window looked out over all of Brompton-on-Sea. The moon rippled on the sea like cream in black coffee, with boats drifting along the horizon. Far below, cars buzzed along the coast road like fireflies. It was a toy town or model village and, up here, we were like the gods of Olympus. I pinched a cargo ship between my thumb and forefinger. ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘It looks nicer from up here, doesn’t it? You can’t see how crap it is. You can’t see the needles on the beach or the boarded-up shops.’

  ‘I suppose everything looks nice from a distance.’ We leaned back against the roof tiles, looking up at the sky and out over the town. I don’t recall at what point I’d gripped Nico’s hand for support, but I had. ‘It’s beautiful. I can see my house. It looks like a doll’s house.’

  ‘Look how tiny it is,’ Nico said. ‘Down there it feels pretty big, but the whole town is from here to here.’ He held his hands up, a metre apart, sandwiching the whole town within. ‘God, I can’t wait to leave,’ he sighed.

  It made me sad. I didn’t want Nico to leave. I wanted us to stay on this roof forever. A gust of wind blew my wig askew and I clung harder to his hand. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, my voice frail. ‘If I hadn’t come here, I’d have never met you … guys.’

  Nico looked right at me, into me, and my legs may as well have been hollow elastic tubes, that’s how wobbly I felt. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘well, you’re a complication.’

  I was pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Ha! No, you’re an excellent spanner in the works. It would have been so easy to set fire to this town and walk away in slow motion with the heat on my back, but then this amazing girl washes up like a bottle on the beach and I don’t know …’

  I gulped hard, and it felt like there was a stone in my throat. ‘Are you saying I’m an amazing girl?’

  ‘No, I’m talking about some other girl! Of course I mean you!’

  ‘Good!’ My heart inflated like a balloon, fit to burst. I forced myself to reply and not just gurn like the village idiot. ‘Well, strictly speaking, my dad drove us here down the M1; I didn’t wash up on the beach.’ I smiled and he smiled right back.

  ‘You know what I meant, pedant! I’m glad you came, Tor. I’d sort of given up on this town and then you arrived.’

  There was a pause like the pause at the peak of a roller coaster.

  He moved his face closer to mine and I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. He licked his lips. He didn’t say a word, but he was searching for permission to kiss me, I could tell. I did so by moving a fraction closer, and he took his chance.

  The roller coaster plummeted and we fell into the kiss.

  At first he was inquisitive: light brushes against my lips. As I responded he got braver, his tongue searching for mine. I forgot the cool wind as his arms absorbed me, bodies pressed together. We were coiled together like a pair of horny snakes and it was brilliant. Our hands scouted out bold new territories, exploring arms and waists, fingers tracing my spine or slipping under the rim of my wig. Instinctively, I ran my hand over his hard chest and continued on to his equally taut stomach. I wondered if I was supposed to reach for his crotch, but he surfaced for air, so I didn’t have to worry about it for long. ‘God, I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you,’ Nico said, pulling back an inch.

  I wasn’t sure whether to be cool or be honest. ‘Same.’ I settled on honest. This time I initiated the kiss, drunk on the taste of him. He tasted like beer and spearmint gum.

  I have no idea how long we were up there, and I would have stayed forever if my fingers and face hadn’t started to go numb. ‘We should go inside …’ I said. I didn’t want to stop but I was still aware I wasn’t quite … ready. This wasn’t how I wanted to lose my penis virginity: half frozen and on display to passing aeroplanes. I needed time … time to process things. It would have been so, so easy, but something inside me was hitting the brakes.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fricking freezing,’ Nico agreed without a trace of disappointment.

  As I went to clamber back in through the window I saw Beetlejuice, or rather Beasley, watching us from the front garden. How long had he been watching for? Oh crap.

  ‘Oh balls,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I might need to go have a quick word with Beasley. I would very much like to do more kissing though, please.’ Damn, that was Queen of Needy.

  ‘Tor, we can kiss as much as you like. I just wasn’t sure if you had me in the Friend Zone or not. I’m your Tesco Express for kisses – 24/7.’

  Oh helium heart! That was exactly what I needed to hear. At the very back of my mind there had been a niggling worry that it might have been a one-off party snog. Apparently not.

  The party was even busier when we got downstairs – a load of pierced, tattooed types had arrived, and it was a little more raucous than before. I made a beeline for Beasley who was trying to pour himself a Malibu and Coke, alone in the kitchen. I say trying because he was so blinky-wobble drunk, he was struggling to line the bottle up with the cup.

  ‘Hey, Beas, let me get that for you.’

  ‘There’
s Toria! We lost you!’

  Maybe he hadn’t seen us, but I wasn’t buying it. I poured him a very weak drink – he’d already had enough – and led him to the sticky kitchen table.

  ‘Are you OK, Beas? You seem a little wasted. Like ex-Disney Channel girl wasted.’ I sat opposite him.

  ‘I’m FINE!’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘Maybe the problem is, you’re not drunk ENOUGH. Do a shot! Do a shot! Do a shot!’

  ‘I’m OK, thanks. Look, I know you saw me and Nico on the roof and I know you might … have a problem with that.’

  He swayed and blinked for a moment. ‘And this, this my friend, is why you never tell Polly Wolff anything. You know she’s such a bitch … I never told anyone when she thought she was pregnant. Oops!’ He clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘She wasn’t by the way. Don’t tell her I said that, she’ll kick my ass.’

  ‘I won’t. But can we talk about it? Beasley, I love you but not like that. You’re totally one of my best friends though. Isn’t that better?’

  ‘NO,’ he moaned. He rested his heavy head on the table. He looked up at me like a sad beagle. ‘It’s not fair. I never get anyone.’

  I took his hand across the table as there was a loud crash from the lounge, followed by Zoë screaming at some of her guests to be more careful. ‘You don’t have to answer this question, but you should. Is it really me you’re after or is it Nico?’

  His eyes narrowed like he was about to get angry but instead he slumped more over the table. He closed his eyes and a tear pooled in the corner by his nose. ‘Of course it’s Nico. It was always Nico.’ His voice quivered.

  ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. You don’t need to say anything else.’

  He nodded, eyes screwed shut to hold back the flood. ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I won’t. I really, truly promise.’ I stroked his arm. ‘But you know Nico isn’t …?’

  Beasley shrugged. I was about to talk further when there was a cry from upstairs. Shouting … arguing.

  ‘Just ******* call a ******* ambulance!’ It was Polly.

  Beasley sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. ‘Is that Polly? What’s going on?’ he said, sniffing. We stood together and followed the voices. People were leaking out of the lounge to see what the fuss was. I pushed past them and hurried up the stairs, pulse skittering in my neck.