Life, Death and Gold Leather Trousers Read online

“Let him in!” Lily demands, no doubt thinking about her two quid.

  I glare at her. “No. I don’t want to see him, OK? Please, Lily. Go tell him … our dog’s escaped and I’ve gone out looking for him.”

  “For goodness’ sake, Clover,” Mum guffaws.

  “But we don’t have a dog,” Lily yells after me as I hurtle up to our bedroom.

  I perch on the edge of my bed, feeling faintly sick with Jurassic whiffs still burping up from my stomach. There’s more knocking, then another song starts up – louder this time – and I can just make out the front door being opened and Lily roaring something over the racket. I wonder what Riley will make of it. He’ll probably think it’s a family passion, and that I secretly love this kind of music too.

  And he’ll think, God, and I actually liked Clover Jones, for about four minutes. Close call.

  After a few moments, I creep to the window. A long-legged figure is crossing the road. He stops to glance back at our house, and I lurch away. What I really want to do is throw the window open and yell, “Riley! I’m sorry, OK? I’ll explain everything tomorrow. And please believe me that I don’t like this music…” But I can’t because Dad painted the window frame shut and even if he hadn’t, I’d never dare.

  Riley’s walking faster now, swinging his guitar, and then he turns the corner out of sight.

  Lily’s face pops round our bedroom door. She pads over to my bed and perches on its edge beside me. “Why didn’t you let Riley come in?” she asks. “Don’t you like him any more?”

  “Leave me alone,” I growl.

  Her face clouds, and she stomps over to our wardrobe and performs a handstand against it. I can sense her scrutinizing me from her upside-down position. Trying to blot her out, I curl up on my bed and delve around my brain for some comforting thoughts. Like that guitar lesson with Niall when I picked up new chords first time and he asked me to help everyone else. Or eating chips with Riley, and steamy vinegar smells drifting around us.

  Why did he want to come over, anyway? He probably does just want help with his guitar, which is fine, I guess. Maybe his dad’s been threatening to stop his lessons unless he improves. Or perhaps he’s trying to make Skelling jealous. They walk to school together, after all, and she’s always hanging around him like a bad smell. There’s no way he doesn’t fancy her. All the boys do.

  “Clover,” Lily pipes up, flipping back on to her feet, “will I still get my two pounds?”

  “What for?” I retort.

  “You said you’d pay me if I left you alone with Riley.”

  “But he didn’t come in! You didn’t have to do anything!”

  “Yes I did. I answered the door and I lied. I said you were out walking Bambi.”

  “Bambi?” I splutter. “Who’s Bambi?”

  “Our dog.” She grins.

  “We don’t have a dog,” I protest, “and if we did, we wouldn’t call it Bambi…”

  “But you told me to say we had one! If we did, what would we call it?”

  “I don’t know! Um…” I try to think of acceptable pets’ names but all I can dredge up is Cedric, our hamster, and Jupe’s mean old cat, Fuzz.

  “I still want my two pounds,” Lily says firmly.

  With a cursory snort I reach for my purse, delve through the pathetic remains of my birthday money after buying Ced’s tunnel, and fish out a two-pound coin.

  Lily studies it as if it were a jewel. “Thanks. Can we draw now? Please, Clover?”

  Mum’s put on another CD, so there isn’t much else I can do while my brain’s being destroyed by wailing guitars and cringey lyrics. “OK,” I say reluctantly.

  Lily rummages for paper and pens in our cupboard. “Will you show me how to draw a giraffe?” she demands.

  “I’ll try.” We sprawl on the carpet to draw pictures, although I’m finding it hard to be artistic after what’s just happened.

  “That’s not a giraffe,” Lily scoffs. “It looks like a table with a neck.”

  I try not to laugh but it bursts out of me anyway, and soon we’re both sniggering, drawing dumb pictures of furniture made into animals. Lily’s taking my mind off Riley Hart, at least. I suppose I should be grateful for that. Although it’s hardly worth two blinking quid.

  Skelling swished into school with a dramatic new hairstyle this morning. The yellowy curls had gone, and it sprung around her cheeks in honeyish layers. Although it kills me to admit it, the transformation was magical. “Mum let me go to the Cutting Room,” I heard her bragging at break. “I know it’s heaps of money, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys cutting your hair, know what I mean?”

  And it set an idea smouldering in my head. If I’m going to keep my promise to Jupe and form a band, I can’t have a sad, straggly haircut, can I? I’m a teenager now, and should look like one. So I decide to broach the subject with Mum.

  I wait until after dinner. Mum and I are washing up while Lily de-festers Cedric’s cage in the back garden.

  “That Riley boy seemed nice,” Mum muses. “Are you going to ask him over again?”

  “Maybe,” I say with a shrug.

  “And maybe you’ll actually invite him in next time,” she teases. “What happened – did you have a shyness attack or something?”

  “Something like that,” I say quickly, drying a pasta bowl vigorously.

  “Well,” Mum says, tossing back her hair, “he must like you. You were a bit rude, Clover.”

  How can I tell her that it would have been pointless anyway, with her blasting that music of hers? It would have been awful. Mum gets all excited when people come over and would probably have started dancing. I can feel her scrutinizing me, as if she wants to say something else, and is mulling over the best way to put it. It hovers between us like an invisible cloud.

  I pray that she’s not about to divulge further details about Tony – that he’s come round to see her and tried to plant a fishy-lipped kiss on her face. I’m still having a hard time coping with the idea of Dad and Nudie Bernice. Mum smiles and pushes my fringe out of my eyes. “You need a trim, love,” she says.

  “Yeah, I know.” I hesitate, wondering how to bring this up. My thinking goes this way: if I ask for a trim at the Cutting Room, and not a hugely expensive cut-and-colour job like Skelling’s, I’ll actually be saving us money.

  “I don’t know how you can see where you’re going,” Mum jokes.

  Do it. Ask. She’s practically fed you the line. “Um, could I have my hair done at the Cutting Room?” I blurt out.

  Mum blinks at me. “What, that new place by the Odeon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Clover Jones? I’ve just walked out on my job, if you hadn’t noticed. D’you know what I’ve had to put up with, with Tony’s wandering hands?”

  “Mum, I—” I start.

  “Have you any idea how much they charge in there? I bet it’s three quid for a cup of tea before they’ve even picked up a pair of scissors!”

  “I-I don’t want tea,” I stammer. “I wouldn’t have anything to drink…”

  “I’ll get Babs to come over,” she says firmly. “I’m sure she’ll manage to squeeze you in before the carnival.”

  My heart dive-bombs. For years, Lily and I have had our hair cut and “styled” – I use the term loosely – by Mum’s friend Babs. She makes random stabbing motions while swigging red wine and chatting the whole time to Mum. I could lose an ear, an eye, anything. I’m sure there’s a law against being drunk and in charge of sharp scissors.

  “I was thinking, though,” I stumble on, “that just for a change, could I go to a proper hairdresser?”

  “Babs is a proper hairdresser,” Mum says with a frown. “She trained at a top London salon, remember?”

  “Yeah, about thirty years ago,” I snap.

  Mum peers at me. “So what? Sh
e’s experienced. What’s got into you, Clover? D’you think I’m made of money? Don’t you know the stress I’ve been through lately?”

  I stare at her, watching her mouth moving, no longer listening to what she’s saying. Then, with my eyes brimming with tears, I hurtle into the living room, let out a demented wail and belly-flop on to the sofa.

  I’m crying and snivelling on to our velvety cushions. Who cares if I make them wet and snotty and am being horribly immature? I’m sick of this. Sick of being Clover Jones with mad parents and flumpy hair and having to draw giraffes. I’m thirteen! Isn’t that meant to be some kind of milestone? Isn’t your mum meant to take you out to buy pretty lacy bras instead of horrible cropped vesty things, and let you have a proper haircut that’s not done by a drunk maniac with grey teeth? (Fact: red wine turns your teeth grey. Weird, I know. You’d expect them to go red. Even weirder, it makes your lips black, which is such a great look for a top London salon-trained hairdresser, I always think. Miaow.) Anyway, if Babs is so great, how come last time she coloured Mum’s hair she left a beetrooty tidemark on her forehead?

  Mum stomps into the living room and glares at me. “All I mean is,” she says in a calmer voice, “Lily doesn’t ask me for forty-quid haircuts and guitar lessons and God knows what else…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I mutter.

  “Anyway,” she adds, looking slightly uncomfortable now, “seeing as we’re on the subject of guitar lessons, Clover, I’m sorry, but I can’t afford them any more.”

  I spring up from the sofa and blink at her. “What? What d’you mean?”

  She sighs and her face softens. “Look, love, I know it doesn’t seem like much, but now I’m not working we’ll all have to pull together as a family.”

  “D’you mean … I have to stop?” I ask faintly. “Please, Mum, I…”

  “Not for ever,” she interrupts. “I’m not saying that. But you’ll have to put them on hold until I have a job sorted out. I know your dad’s paying the rent, and he says he won’t see us go short, but there’s nothing left for extras at the moment…”

  “My guitar lessons aren’t extras!” I shriek. “It’s the only thing I do! Some people go to drama workshop and ice skating and I don’t do any of that. I’ve always come home and looked after Lily…”

  “You don’t mind doing that, do you? Looking after your sister, I mean?”

  I glance at the door, my heart thudding furiously. Lily has wandered in from the garden and is staring at us. “Do you, Clover?” my sister breathes, clasping Cedric’s cage to her chest.

  “No,” I say gruffly. “Of course I don’t.” I stare down at our worn carpet, conscious of both of them staring at me. Obviously, Mum’s gym membership and wrinkle creams don’t count as “extras”. And we’re not talking cheap brands, oh no, unless it’s hospital shampoo for me and Lily. I bet one pot of Mum’s eye cream would convert into at least five lessons with Niall. I’ve even spotted special moisturizing bubble bath with real gold particles floating in it. How much did that cost? Why does anyone need real gold in their bath? Obviously it’s more important for Mum to stay skinny and obliterate her non-existent wrinkles than for me to be a brilliant guitarist.

  My brain buzzes with possible solutions. I could save up for tutor books and teach myself – but you need to be shown by a real person, or at least I do. Niall shares musicians’ secrets, stuff you’d never learn from books. He’s so patient, too, and makes me want to get better, just like Jupe did. Can’t she understand that I need him?

  “Couldn’t I have a lesson every two weeks?” I ask, desperation creeping into my voice.

  “Clover,” Mum sounds exasperated now, “I’ve tried to explain, OK? There must be free music lessons at school.”

  “Only trumpet and trombone…”

  “Then why can’t you—”

  “I don’t want to play the stupid trombone!” I yell, grabbing and flinging the first thing within reach, which happens to be a damp tea towel draped over the radiator. See what a pathetic specimen I am? I don’t smash glasses or plates. I don’t fling TVs through the window like rock stars did back in Jupe’s day.

  No, I throw a tea towel with little birdies on it. Whoo, scary.

  In the sanctuary of my bedroom, my breathing comes ragged and tight. I won’t stop going to Niall’s. There must be something I can do. I yank my guitar from its case and try to play something soothing, but had forgotten that I still haven’t got around to replacing the broken string because I don’t have enough money to buy new ones. And I know how Mum’d react if I asked her. How many strings could you buy in exchange for one bottle of gold-particle bubble bath?

  I play anyway, wondering if Dad would donate some money to the cause – at least for new strings. He’s phoned me a couple of times, just to ask about school and Cedric and nothingy stuff. But I’m scared to call him, even on his mobile, in case Nudie Bernice picks it up. What would I say? What if she tried to make friends with me and invited me over for tea or something? Sometimes, when Dad’s name comes up on my mobile and I don’t feel like I can pretend I’m OK, I just let it go to voicemail instead.

  “What’s a trombone?” Lily asks, sauntering into our bedroom.

  I carry on strumming, trying to blot out the dangling broken string that I haven’t even got around to taking off.

  “I said what’s a trombone?”

  “It’s like a trumpet with a long slidey thing,” I mutter.

  “What kind of slidey thing?”

  “Like this,” I say, performing a half-hearted mime.

  “Oh, I know! Like those old-man bands at the seafront. Why don’t you want—”

  “I don’t want to play in an old-man band, OK?”

  She frowns. “But I only—”

  “Why does everyone want me to play trombone?” I yell. Lily’s face droops. “Sorry,” I sigh. “Me and Mum, we just had a … a thing…”

  “S’all right,” she mumbles, chewing a fingernail. Now I feel rotten. None of this is her fault. She’s only eight – what does she care about my guitar lessons? Her life revolves around sleepovers and gaining her next Brownie badge. And she’s right – why shouldn’t I learn the stupid trombone? I can see myself now, marching through town in a brass-buttoned uniform with a drum being whacked in my earhole. That’d give Skelling something to snort about. More, even, than olive oil day, or my appearance as a hamburger in last year’s carnival. I can picture her and Riley having a right old laugh over that.

  “What was the thing about anyway?” Lily ventures.

  “Oh, just me, explaining that I don’t want Babs to do my hair any more…”

  “I like Babs cutting my hair,” Lily says.

  “Yeah, but only because she gives you chocolate.”

  “Lily!” Mum calls upstairs. “Lily, darling, how d’you fancy making us all some cookies?”

  Ha! So Mum’s trying to redeem herself by baking doughy lumps that even the birds will reject. “OK, Mum,” Lily calls back, giving me a confused look before bounding out of our room. Obviously, Mum’s Cookies of Doom are preferable to my brooding presence.

  I’m relieved Lily’s gone. Now I can examine myself in our dressing table mirror and figure out a plan. Whilst I can’t do much about the guitar situation, I can try to fix my appearance, which is particularly tragic today. My skin’s not bad – creamy pale with a faint scattering of toffee-coloured freckles – and my eyebrows are nicely curved and kind of graceful. But who gets excited over eyebrows? Anyway, my hair’s so overgrown you can’t even see them. I pick up a wodge of fringe and let it drop. “She trained at a top London salon!” I crow into the mirror. “D’you think I’m made of money?”

  Mum said herself that I can hardly see where I’m going. Doesn’t she care that I could walk smack-bang into a lamp post and get concussion and damage my brain? Something catches my eye on our desk. Scissors
. It’s easy to cut your own fringe. I read about it in one of Jess’s magazines. They even had step-by-step pictures showing you exactly what to do. OK, they were only drawings, and things never go wrong in drawings (unless you’re trying to draw a giraffe, obviously). But it still looked less traumatic than having a drunk maniac blasting her wine breath in your face.

  All you do is stick a strip of tape across your forehead and snip along the line. Why can you never find any Sellotape in our house? I rummage through mine and Lily’s desk drawers and chaotic cupboard. Out falls a pile of Lily’s old drawings. Most are of cats – ginger cats, tabby cats and Midnight, Betty’s moggy that got run over by a delivery lorry on Christmas Eve. R.I.P. MIDNIGHT, she’s written. Angel wings sprout from his back. Poor, sweet Midnight who loved me and Lil.

  There’s one drawing that’s not of a cat, but a girl (although her green eyes are distinctly feline). She has thick dark hair and a guitar strapped across her body. It’s me – at least, a flattering version of me. I look determined, verging on fierce. The kind of girl who might throw a spectacular tantrum, not a damp tea towel with birdie-wirdies on it.

  Underneath her drawing, Lily has written: For my sister Clover.

  I blink at it, and my insides twist with shame. She wouldn’t want to draw me now as I unearth the Sellotape from the back of the cupboard and press a strip across my fringe (or at least, where my new-improved fringe will finish). I’m pretty certain that Skelling’s never been driven to such desperate measures.

  I grab the scissors and take a massive breath for courage. I’m not even sure I’ve got the Sellotape straight, which doesn’t bode well for the cutting part, but I’m too charged up now to stop. Maybe I can do this. I could start trimming fringes at school for guitar lesson money, working up to whole haircuts. I picture my own salon, with “Clover’s Cuts” painted in elaborate purple swirly writing above the window. I’d treat customers to posh herbal teas instead of the builder’s type Mum drinks. And all the drinks would be free. Once business was flourishing, I’d start styling models’ hair for magazines, which would be ironic, as Mum thinks magazines are a waste of money (like guitar lessons and proper haircuts). And all the time I’d have my band and we’d rehearse and rehearse until we were ready to play live and I’d hand over Clover’s Cuts to a trusted friend like Jess.