A Bended Family Read online

  I towed her back through to our bedroom as Charlie rose as instructed. On the carpet was a cake congregation. While the cake Zak had baked was already boxed away in the utility cupboard along with a jaundiced-looking Mum and Harry, the rest of the set clearly represented our family. Play-dough twins, me and Charlie. Play-dough Zak and Kitty. Play-dough Aimee and play-dough dogs.

  “Aww, Kit,” I said apologetically. “There just isn’t room.”

  “But I have to be on the cake! I am marrying Harry as my dad.”

  “I know,” I said, uselessly. “But there isn’t room.”

  Her face crumpled. Worse, there was no backup as our little sister descended into a soggy strop – Charlie, Zak, Ryan, Andy and Harry had disappeared next door.

  “Shut her up,” were Aimee’s words, when she emerged from the shower.

  Shut her up, like Kitty was so much more my responsibility than hers. Like she was an irritation and nothing more. I had to hope she’d never have children.

  “It’s not her fault,” I snapped. “She doesn’t understand.”

  “Because you know everything, of course,” was her unnecessary reply.

  “Girls, what on earth is going on?” asked Mum, appearing in the doorway. “Harley, where’s my dress?”

  “It’s next door,” I answered to the second question, taking the opportunity to dive into Kay’s room and retrieve it. Kay herself was nowhere to be found. I’d honestly expected her to expect to come.

  There was nowhere, really, to hide. Kay had protected the dress with sellotaped together plastic bags, and I didn’t want to run the risk of unwrapping it in her room for a look and then brushing it back past all those rich, dark fabrics.

  “Harley, where have you gone?” Mum wavered, in a panic. “Harley? Have you found Narnia after all?”

  “She broke the wardrobe,” I heard Aimee tell her, smugly.

  “Not the wardrobe, the wall!” giggled Kit.

  “I didn’t break it,” I grumbled, walking back into my room. “One of my friends tripped and fell. It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s not no big deal when our neighbours could just walk in,” Aimee pointed out. “Stupid kids, seriously.”

  “It’s not like they’re axe-wielding maniacs or anything.”

  “Oh. My God. Are you retarded?!” she exploded.

  “Girls!” withered Mum. “Aimee, language. Harley, I know you mean well keeping things to yourself but this is not helpful. I’ll add it to the list. Now I need my dress or we’re going to be late.”

  I peeled off the binbags to reveal something unexpected. The dress, now lightly pinked all over (but for a few dark splotches near the zip at the back), looked gorgeous. The accompanying note, galling. “Oops. Think it shrunk a bit in the wash. I am SO sorry!! xx”

  I grabbed it and hid it behind my back, figuring there was no need to get Mum upset before we’d even found out if it still fit. I mean, I imagined clothing shrinkage to be colossal, like in children’s stories where what was once a lady’s nightie ends up only fit for a Christening dress. Mum’s seemed more or less grown-up sized, if you ignored the bottom bit having been trimmed.

  Me and Aimee helped her into it, while Kitty watched. I didn’t know what I’d say about the splotches, but wasn’t it important to find out whether Mum could even wear it first? I really didn’t want to upset her.

  “It’s only a little tight!” announced Mum, with amazement. “I mustn’t have put on as much as I thought. Oh, what a relief!”

  I really didn’t want to point out that it was far from zipped up yet.

  “Wouldn’t… it look best with like a cardigan, or jacket?” said Aimee, tactfully.

  Aimee? Helping me out? Who knew she actually gave a monkey’s about how my mum felt on her wedding day?

  “It is a bit nippy even indoors,” Mum agreed.

  The four of us shuffled downstairs in search of something to go with it. Kitty was astonishingly, maturely silent. Maybe one of the “word”s Aimee had had with her about tattling had super sunk in. Mum settled on an old pastel shrug almost the same colour as the dress, and she and Aimee tittered in front of the mirror for what felt like ages. So much for not being late. I felt left out as I waited patiently with Kitty, for approval to get cracking on our own dressing up.

  When the time came, Aimee scoffed at Kay’s efforts with her vest top. “That’s lame!” she complained, while Mum was downstairs doing her makeup.

  “Hey, don’t shoot the delivery girl,” I reminded her, slipping into my black school trousers, the height of formal wear in my collection. “Anyway, that top is all you gave us.”

  Kitty, at least, approved of her designated dress. She cheered up considerably. “I’m the wedding fairy! Your awfully wedded stepfairy! Wheeeee!”

  “Look,” said Aimee, grumpily. “You can’t go out like that.”

  It took me a second to realise she was talking to me. “What?”

  “Plain bloody Jane. Let me do your makeup.” She spoke as if she was doing me a favour.

  I gracefully accepted, figuring that unless this was a ploy to make me look stupid, we had to start getting along sometime. Aimee moisturised my face, then smeared on liquid foundation, then puffed on powder. My cheeks itched underneath the cosmetic layers, but I forced my hands to stay in my lap. Next, she slicked on eyeliner. She poked me in the eye what seemed to be a deliberate amount of times so that they watered insistently, but I stayed still. Then came mascara, and lipgloss, and a teensy bit of pink eyeshadow as an afterthought.

  Finally, I was allowed to look in the mirror. Ugh. The sight that met my eyes was far from what I’d imagined: my whole face was orange, my lips frosted with powder underneath the clear veneer. Up top, my eyes were so heavily lined with kohl that I could’ve passed for one of Charlie’s lot, if it wasn’t for the fact that I looked like a Wotsit with inflamed eyelids.

  I wanted to scrape it all off and start over – this was even more disappointing than Kay’s idea of a haircut – but one thing made me force a smile and slip on my shoes instead. Aimee, when I really paid attention, looked exactly the same. OK, so she had the addition of acrylic nails and thick false lashes, and she also had blonde hair, but it definitely wasn’t as if she’d done this on purpose to spite me. She genuinely thought we looked good.

  And that was the thing. I finally felt somewhat able to tolerate Aimee, as long as she was trying to tolerate me. She wasn’t all that – it was an act, to intimidate us. So what if she was naturally pretty? You could hardly tell underneath all the slap and circumstance. She was bottle blonde with roots on top, and you could see outlines of unpopped spots underneath all the orange. I could definitely be getting along with a stepsister who looked as awful as I did on purpose.

  * * *

  When our taxi reached the registry office, we were already ten minutes late. Harry was nowhere to be found, but Zak filled me in on how he was waiting out of sight lest he catch a glimpse of Mum’s dress that he’d already seen in its last life. Zak, who was now dressed in a matching suit to Ryan and Andy.

  “What happened to your trousers?” I hissed.

  “They were too tight. Uncle Hugh had things for us anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Kay’s going to be devastated.”

  “Kay’s not here,” he pointed out.

  “And Charlie? Where’s Charlie?” I panicked. He wasn’t visible in the teeny congregation either. “And who’s giving Mum away? And who’s-?”

  “It’s all under control,” said Hugh, calmly. “I’ll be playing brother of the bride.”

  That was so typical of our family. Mum had two perfectly good brothers of her own, but they were nine years younger than her and miles away. She had a totally champagney sister, but she was of course in Australia. Both of her parents were still alive, and likely not even aware that she was getting remarried. Here I was with the feeling that even Mum’s own sons would rather be just about anywhere than a rent-a-room on a Saturday morning.

&nbs
p; “And who’s Harry’s best man?” I asked.

  “His dad’s come along.”

  Harry’s dad, it turned out, was an eighty-five year old man in a wheelchair. He didn’t look like he knew a cat from a caterpillar anymore, and had a carer to push him around. All the same, he handled his part in it all with dignity.

  It turns out that weddings are pretty much just about leading a lady up the aisle, sitting patiently, and eating cake. The dull, talky part didn’t last long. I’d naively briefed Kitty for a two hour wait, thinking I was only slightly exaggerating to be safe. Papers were signed, and the actual wedding part drew to a close. Kitty fidgeted beside me. “Is that it?” she asked, in a whisper like I’d warned her to.

  I nodded.

  She rose to her feet faster than I could stop her. “Is that IT?!” she demanded of the small audience we were a part of.

  Adults chuckled at that. They were probably amused that any child could want a wedding to drag on longer that it had.

  “Well is it?!”

  I remembered too late the awfully-wedded stepdaughter thing. Kitty had waited patiently this whole time for her moment to be asked the traditional questions. Mum and Harry glanced, bemused, this way and that, taking no responsibility at all for the false promise.

  “Well, that just about wraps things up,” said the man who was marrying them. “I wish you all a pleasant day.”

  The wedding guests piled outside into the car park awkwardly, no one wanting to be stuck behind while the precocious child was reprimanded. (Except she wasn’t.) Me and Mum and Aimee and Kitty went home to the afterparty in a separate taxi like earlier.

  At the door of our own house, we were greeted by Kay’s artificially cheerful gran, Ben, and Kay herself. Instead of throwing a wobbly that the boys weren’t dressed as expected, she had nothing to say to either of them. Inside, in the kitchen, the table was stocked with buffet treats, and the sloppy pink-iced cake in the middle. It looked a lot like Mum, who was presently falling apart with emotion and being comforted by an old friend. The dogs were locked in the Cold Room (now Harry’s study), and there was not a stray cat in sight.

  All our friends (i.e. not just Kay) were there – they’d all been conveniently doing Saturday stuff when I’d asked at school for a plus-one. “Saturday stuff” had been the actual excuse of Keisha, who was totally present and accounted for after all, once Mum and Harry were safely welded together by the invisible force of wedding rings.

  It was cramped, even though mine and my siblings’ friends outnumbered the adult revellers 2:1. I danced with everyone. Well, not everyone – with my friends and with Kitty; not with either of my brothers, Aimee, or (sadly) Jordy. He’d stolen, or to be a bit Englisher, filched my heart, and gone to lean on it by the refreshments with no intention of popping some moves.

  The music was paused for speeches, which I mostly tuned out of in favour of interrupting Kitty’s attempt to sneak the other figures onto the small surface area of the yet-to-be-cut cake. They didn’t look too bad – it was just a matter of tradition (and space). Except for Harry’s comically oversized hands, and Mum’s hairy arms (which turned out to be supposed to be part of her dress), and the fact that they both had blue hair.

  Like all Hartley house parties, it went on for hours past reason. Only one or two people had left by the time it got dark. Harry had gone for a suspicious wander, but turned out to have been out in the garden planting the fireworks Zak had whinged about missing on the fifth when we moved in.

  He meant well, but it was a terrible idea. We’d run out of those firework fortnight pills from the vet. The dogs whined to be let out the entire time, so I found it pretty hard to enjoy and had to release them as soon as the last had gone off. A strong whiff of poo emanated from the study. Drinks were knocked over and noses were buried in generous portions of cake, in the excitement to reach the garden. Hendy leapt up at me as if to slow dance, which everyone thought was aww­-cute, while all I could think was eurgh-dogbreath as he tried to lick me on the mouth.

  I still held out hope that my first proper kiss would be of the human variety. It’s a pity our pets don’t seem to understand that dog snogs are best carried out with their own species, with whom they can exchange without prejudice the rich tastes of different canned-munchie brands.

  Only Fisty seemed unscarred. I’d asked Harry once if she was frightened of fireworks, and he’d said she loves them – I should’ve guessed; Fisty is in love with the vacuum cleaner, and has to be moved away from the telly so she doesn’t interrupt The X Factor, which by this point most of the females had gathered like children on the carpet to watch.

  Kitty huffed and yawned and was taken to bed by Kay, Danielle and Fern. Charlie sulked at the end of the garden with his friends. Zak and Ryan went over the road for a gaming sleepover. I shut myself up in the odourous Cold Room with the dogs after the last of my friends had left, to munch the remaining crisps and read a book. Mum’s old mates could very well drink and titter until the cows came home. Eventually I was joined by Harry and a generous helping of Febreeze. It was almost companionable, with only the swish of pages turning and the occasional doggy snuffle to remind us where we were. And thus concluded the much-anticipated wedding day.

  #14 A Circus In My Mind

  After a disastrous Sunday afternoon at the circus, I stayed over at Kay’s. Charlie and Chan’s first/last date had come to include a falling trapeze lady (that’s what nets are for), and the “happy” couple’s hair glued together by Kitty’s candyfloss.

  They parted on fictitious headlouse terms, with Charlie sick of Chantalle’s clinginess, and Chantalle in a huff because she thinks rinsing your hair in the sink is the height of skankiness. (It probably didn’t help that it was Kay’s sink.)

  Part of the reason I’d stayed at Kay’s was the general post-wedding stroppiness in our house that had warranted the separation of Charlie and Zak, and Kitty and Aimee respectively. Mum had finally figured out about the stains and the zip, so she wasn’t too happy with me either. It was also, partly, because I’d managed to upset Kay when she was being weird about the trapeze artiste incident. (Who knew? Maybe she’d been put off another career option by harsh reality – and heights.)

  Trying to sleep, my mind was spinning out millions of alternative versions of my life story, like a list of outdated soap spoilers: nice ones, bad ones, happy ones, mad ones, and some were terrifying. You see, Kay had told me about how her mum (who we think must’ve had the baby blues) ran away with the circus – taking her with her. I had told Kay about what it was like when Dad lived with us. Kay had told me about how she’d been taken into care during a UK tour, because she was supposed to be in school. I had told Kay about how Charlie went slightly nuts after Dad left, even though it was all he’d ever wanted. Kay told me about how she thought the woman from the circus had been her mum, even comparing a picture she had of them together with the picture from the circus brochure, and then she went on about how her dad could be anyone – even my dad – and just as it was getting too much for me, she’d announced that she was tired and closed her eyes and said nothing else.

  I had to put it all out of my head. Obviously Kay wasn’t my sister. I’d been crazy to suggest that we looked remotely alike. It was having that thought that made me miss you. Because you’d gone to sunny Australia and left me in blustery Britain. And now it was like Charlie had gone too. Off his trolley again, that is. It occurred to me then, as the rain kept pattering on Kay’s skylight, a shiny foster sibling to my bodge-job woodframed one, that as much as I liked to joke about the sanity of my friends and family, something was seriously wrong in Dad’s head, and he was still out there somewhere.

  No, I didn’t like him.

  Didn’t even love him, in that automatic way you’re supposed to, even if your dad’s a shade creepy like Chantalle’s.

  But what of all the people who might have to be around him all day, forced to quietly go as mad as him? To have to watch someone they love be treated like the sm
elly corner of the hamster cage, or to be that someone, stuck to the damp sawdust of their personal prison, clawing to get out of that tray.

  Much as he annoyed me daily, particularly when he was tantruming ungratefully over an unreachable bitchy girl against favour of a totally willing, also-bitchy girl, I hoped that all the death and gloom Charlie was obsessed with was nothing more than a fashion statement in the end; that his sulks and angry outbursts were just called Being A Teenager, and that of course it was different for boys, and different for him because he wasn’t like me.

  But then, in its usual style, my tangent went off at a tangent of its own, and soon I was drifting off to trivial thoughts of the empty space where my best friend used to be, and letting that gap out to non-matching puzzle piece Kay for maybe a year. Obviously she wanted to be close to me. It wouldn’t pay to get like Charlie had with Chan. After all, none of the other puzzly gaps I had were as achingly serious – boyfriend, attention span, looks, courage …a life. All I wanted for Christmas was a girly friend to bounce ideas off and waste the boring school days with until you came home.

  #15 Return Of The Mini-Dice Hairbands

  When I got home properly on Monday evening (the popping home for school gear didn’t quite count – I count being “in” as having my shoes off for more than a moment), it occurred to me that I may have had post. Kay had already received a reply from the infamous Alfie.

  Harry does all the sorting and stuff every morning (scavenging for bills and work-related letters), and he’d thoughtfully left my envelope on the phone table so I’d find it after school.

  So Gerardo had bothered to reply?

  I’d decided I didn’t care if he didn’t like what I’d written – whatever he thought of my sense of humour, I was most looking forward to my Male Opinion. Alfie had said that he thought Kay was beautiful, so I might even merit a “nice”. It was harmless, just a more personal version of a magazine Mate/Date/Slate column.

  Just as I set to the envelope with the very-almost sharp letter-opener (wooden with a sun carved into the top), Charlie barged past me, close to tears again.

  Riding on my cloud of excitement over the letter, I followed him upstairs, leaving the v. almost sharp letter-opener poised half-dug into the envelope. I hovered in his doorway.