Hey we have to talk I can’t come out could you come to Harrow please.
She read it again and her mouth went dry. What scared her the most was the lack of punctuation. Lara was militant about grammar and full stops and all those sorts of things. It was awesome and really sexy until you got a text that didn’t have any and said ‘we have to talk’ in some dreadful, ‘the world is ending’ sort of a way. She needed to check tumblr. And Facebook.
Book tucked under one arm, she headed home and flipped open her laptop. Her babies were behaving themselves and she had a couple of reposts on tumblr. She smiled and flicked her hair and jumped as her phone buzzed again. She pulled it from her pocket, looking sheepishly around her bedroom.
So can you come?
Oh. Yeah, she could have messaged back.
Yeah I cn cum b there 1 hr.
She stared at it for a minute, grinning broadly. Then she scrolled back through the messages and a bead of sweat popped out on her neck. She wasn’t sure this was something to smile about. She retyped it taking into account her girlfriend’s wonderful idiosyncrasies and sent it before climbing off the bed and riffling through her drawers.
There was something to be said for school uniform. You always looked terrible and fat and horrible, but at least everyone else did too. Summer holidays filled her with dread. Six whole weeks of having to find something to wear every day. On the plus side, she had no friends to laugh at her when she wore the same jeans for two weeks in a row. Actually, that wasn’t a plus side.
Her main aim was to just not look too lame next to Lara, which of course was pointless and depressing cos Angelina Jolie looked lame next to her girlfriend. Girlfriend. Heh. Hang on, what if the talk was to do with them going out? The world spun and she fallumped onto the bed face down, and grabbed her pillow to pull over her. If she lay here long enough, someone was bound to destroy the world and put her out of her misery.
An hour later and dressed adequately at best, she slipped out the front door. Mum’s purse had been surprisingly flush and mum had been sleeping, so all was well. It was much easier to steal once you decided mum’s purse was a person who had every chance to argue with your thievery and that silence from said person meant they didn’t mind. Magic was so cool.
The tube journey was like the bit in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where they were really stoned. Actually, it was just like the whole film. She tried to focus on the adverts, but they were either for holidays which made her think about Martin and get mad, or life insurance, which made her think Lara was going to tell her she had head cancer or something horrible.
She pulled her spell book out, but that only reminded her of Martin again and she ground her teeth. The people either side of her were looking at her funny so she put it away and closed her eyes. She could do this. It would be something silly, like she’d been grounded or something. Lara was so sweet. She’d been raised in, like, this Victorian household or something where wearing your skirt above your ankle got you beaten.
They’d been dating for seven months and Scarlet still hadn’t met her parents. She was fairly certain they didn’t actually exist. She’d been to Lara’s a couple of times when they’d been on holiday-skiing or cruise, of course-and seen photos, but she thought Lara probably made them up on photoshop. She’d rather think that, than believe they still didn’t know about her, which was, in truth, far more likely to be the case.
After a good eight solid hours of traveling, she emerged into the sunshine at Harrow and wandered down the narrow streets to Lara’s house. It reminded her of being here with Elt and Martin when Lara had been kidnapped by the cult. This couldn’t be worse than that, surely. She sent a text.
‘I’m here.’
Moments later, the reply pinged back.
‘I’m at the book shop. Dad’s here so we have to act like we don’t know each other.’
Or maybe you could introduce me.
It was easier when they weren’t face to face.
She waited, staring at her phone, but there was no reply. She sniffed and headed into the town. The bookshop was their favourite place when she came to visit Lara and the guy behind the counter gave her a wave. She smiled back and stopped, pretending to browse the little table at the front. It was like being in a spy movie. She needed gadgets, or maybe a really nice car.
Her covert glances found dad. He was real! He also looked really pissed and quite stressed out. He might look like that all the time, but that was just a horrible thought. Imagine waking up to that when you had a nightmare. Her dad had been good at that, when she was young. He wouldn’t tell her to forget about it. He’d ask her what happened and point out how daft it was and why she shouldn’t be silly. Worked every time.
She swallowed and strolled through the shop, passing within an aisle’s width of him. She could just stop and introduce herself.
‘Hi, I’m Scarlet. I’m in a relationship with your daughter. I do magic too. I hear you like wine.’
That was it, it’d be perfect. She kept walking and round the corner was Lara, sat in their seat trying to pretend she was reading. Scarlet bent down and pretended to look at a book.
‘You know, your eyes move like you’re at a tennis match when you read.’
‘Huh?’
‘You aren’t going to make a good spy at this rate.’
She flashed her a smile. Nothing came back and she stared at her girlfriend. Her eyes were red and bruised, her face drawn. She put her hand inside the arm of the chair and Lara took it, squeezing as hard as she could. Scarlet swallowed again. What was going on?
‘Hey, you alright?’
Lara sniffed and shook her head. ‘Told mum and dad I’m gay. They freaked out. Dad hasn’t spoken to me in, like, three days and they’ve banned me from going out or going anywhere at all. They want to send me to boarding school.’
‘Yeah, cos there’s no gay people there, oh no.’
They were silent for a moment. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Why was her dad such a dick? ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t know, but he’s, like, catholic, really strongly catholic. He doesn’t practice but his beliefs are really strong.’
‘Why didn’t you know?’
‘Apparently, he wanted me to make up my own mind. Only I think he meant I had to make up my own mind to be a catholic.’
‘So it’s be catholic and straight or be damned forever?’
Lara nodded and a tear rolled from her eye. Scarlet reached up, wiping it gently from her cheek. ‘It’ll be alright.’
‘Will it? He says I can’t see anyone, in case they corrupt me. I don’t think we can go out anymore.’
Next Instalment Friday 4th April