The Taming of Lilah May (16 page)

Things are getting a bit better. I said sorry for the way I exploded in the park that day, and the Old Dudes were really nice about it. They actually bothered to listen to me say how I am feeling, and they said that they understood and weren't angry.
Shockerola!

It's summer hols now, and I get to lie in bed late and not do any homework – awesome! Now all we need is for Jay to come home.

Somehow, I don't really know how, we manage to get through the next three months and fix up some sort of family life again.

It's like the shell of our old family life, but at least it feels kind of safe and full of routine, and it's the nearest we ever get to being normal again, so I'm glad.

Mum finally goes back to work full-time, but they have a big talk with me first about how I'm feeling, and she agrees not to do any more Sunday parties. Dad decides to cut down his hours at Morley Zoo so that he can be at home a lot more while I'm on summer holidays, and although I'm still angry a lot of the time, I make a super-human effort to try and be nice, because I can see that they're doing all this for me. And I love Benjie to pieces and it's not fair on him if I'm snappy all the time, so we go on loads of walks and runs in the park, and it all helps me feel less angry.

One evening Bindi rings me up in tears and asks if I can come over.

‘Spill,' I say, sitting cross-legged on her bed, where I'm trying on all her rings and bracelets.
‘You're scaring me. You never cry.'

It's true. Bindi hardly ever gets upset about anything. I know it must be something quite rubbish, as I haven't seen her cry since her cat died three years ago.

She takes a big shuddering breath through her tears and looks down past her elegant narrow nose while she gathers up strength to speak.

It takes another minute, during which I become aware of some gorgeous cooking smells wafting upstairs, and my stomach starts leaping about with hunger because I left home without having any supper.

‘Bind,' I say. ‘It's me, Lilah. You can tell me anything. I mean, how bad can it be? It's not like you're going to tell me you're pregnant or anything, is it?'

I fall back on her pink quilt laughing at my own witty joke, and then I become aware of something odd.

Bindi's not laughing.

I sit bolt upright in fright.

‘You're not!' I say. ‘No. You can't be. You don't
do
boys.'

The next silence is really heavy. I didn't know
that a silence could be so loaded full of stuff, like it's about to vomit it all out over the quilt, and flood the room and the hallway outside.

‘Omigod,' I say. ‘This is, like, total
stresserola
.' Trust me to slip in a Lilah-ism at that point. I always do it when I'm nervous, and Bindi's making me seriously nervous now.

‘Who?' I say. ‘Who did you sleep with?'

There's another silence.

Somehow the silences are doing all the answering for Bindi. She doesn't need to actually say a word.

I feel my legs start to tremble and go sweaty, so I stand up by the bed and look down at the shiny black hair on the crown of her head and the neat parting in the middle of her scalp. As I do that, it's as if everything that there's ever been between us just sort of slides away into a big bin of no return, and the whole framework of my rubbish teenage life crumbles and shakes with an earthquake that might actually register on some scale somewhere, and then it collapses to the ground around my feet.

‘Lilah, wait,' whispers Bindi, as I head for the door. ‘It was all a horrid mistake. He just showed some interest in me and I'd been feeling really miserable at home, that's all. I'm sorry.'

‘But you don't DO boys!' I yell. ‘You're going to have an arranged marriage!'

Bindi dissolves into more tears.

‘But that doesn't mean I'm happy with the idea, does it?' she whispers.

For a nano-second I look at my best mate in floods of tears and my heart leaps with pity for her, but then a vision of her and Adam pushes that aside and I realise that if I don't want to lash out at Bindi, then I'd better leave.

I shut the bedroom door behind me with admirable quietness.

Then I walk home kicking at every wall and every wheel of every car until my foot is throbbing, my eyes are screwed up in pain, my teeth are glued together and I've used as many rude words as I can find. Then I go home, slam upstairs, bang my bedroom door, and I sit on the bed and bang the back of my head on the cream-coloured wallpaper again and again until my brain feels dull and fuzzy.

She lied to me! BINDI. She's been lying to me for ages and ages.

The one person I thought I could rely on.

I close my eyes and continue to thud my brain to pulp on the wall behind me.

After a while my head goes numb, and little fragments of film start running through my mind.

I remember Bindi's sad face up in her bedroom while her little brother and sisters ran about the house yelling. And how she was quiet and withdrawn at school some days and hid herself away in the library to study.

With a pang, I realise that Bindi's been really, really lonely.

And that maybe sleeping with Adam meant that she had somebody who liked her, and wanted to spend time with her.

And that maybe I could have spent a bit more time with her myself, if I hadn't been so caught up in Jay all the time.

I bang my head against the wall again, but this time I'm angry with myself as well as with Bindi.

Usually, when I have a mood, my parents ignore me because they're too busy stressing out about Jay, but tonight I'm in for a surprise.

Dad bounds upstairs to my bedroom and comes in without knocking.

It isn't actually a Taming Lilah day, but he watches me banging my head for a moment longer, and then he comes over and sits on the bed next to me
and places his hands on my shoulders.

Dad pulls me away from the wall.

His hands feel very strong and firm on the tops of my arms.

‘Geroff,' I mutter, trying not to look at him. ‘You don't care. You care more about animals than you do about me. Or Jay. He felt lonely. You and Mum were never here for him when it mattered.'

He tips my chin up so that I have to look him in the eye, and then he speaks to me in the voice he keeps for untamed lions and angry tigers, and I know from the way his eyes are full of hurt and sadness that I've gone too far this time, and that he doesn't really love his animals more than me or Jay.

‘Enough, Lilah,' is all he says, but it works. It's what I need to hear.

‘Enough.'

I drift through life for a few days. It's difficult going into town. Sometimes I run into Bindi, and even though I cross the street and walk away, I can feel her anguished eyes boring into the back of my head and carving out the word ‘SORRY' in my skull. I know
full well that she really IS sorry, and that she has her own problems and I should have noticed them like a proper best mate would have done.

One day she catches me out.

My mobile rings while I'm out shopping with Mum, so I answer it without looking to see who's calling me.

‘Lilah, it's me,' she says. ‘Don't hang up!'

I catch my breath and put my finger over the red button which will cut her off, but somehow I can't quite press it. I want to hear what she's got to say, even though another part of me doesn't want to hear anything at all from her ever again.

‘What do you want?' I say.

Mum is making faces at me. Big, encouraging smiles and dramatic nodding of her head. She knows all about what's happened with Bindi.

‘To say sorry,' whispers Bindi. ‘I really am. And now I'm in such a mess, Lilah. I don't know what to do.'

I walk out of the shop and leave Mum holding up a black cardigan and screwing up her mouth in concentration in front of the mirror.

There's a wall outside in the car park and I sit on it and swivel my legs up into the sun,
hugging my knees.

‘Spill,' I say. Bindi gives a small laugh.

‘Stop using my expressions, Lilah May,' she says, and for a moment it's like the sun just got a bit brighter.

‘Adam's going to stick by me,' she says, and it feels like the sun's gone straight back in again, to be replaced by a thundering black sky.

My heart misses a beat and then makes a deep twang.

Heartache
, I think.
This is really what it feels like
.

‘Yeah?' I say. ‘That's big of him.'

I curse myself for being snappy and angry yet again, but it's too late to pull back what I've just said, so I don't even try.

Bindi's trying not to cry.

‘My mum and dad are going to support me and we're going to bring up the baby together at home,' she says.

I laugh. It's not exactly what Bindi's mother had planned for her daughter.

‘It's not funny, actually,' says Bindi. Her voice has taken on an edge that I've never heard before. ‘When I first told Mum, she screamed at me and shut herself in the bedroom and cried for hours. Dad wasn't
exactly over the moon either. He said that I had let the entire family down.'

I've never seen Bindi's mother, Reeta, look anything other than calm and smiley.

‘So no more arranged marriages,' I say. ‘You must be pleased about that.'

Bindi sniffles and gives a small hiccup.

‘Pleased?' she says. ‘How can I be pleased? My parents say that they've wasted money on my education. I've upset everybody and ruined my life. And now I've ruined our friendship too, haven't I?'

I know that at this point I am supposed to be calm and reassuring and say that of course I'll stick with her to the ends of time, no matter what.

But then Adam's lovely face and punk hair shoot in front of my eyes and I get that pang again. Adam Carter. He was supposed to be mine.

‘I don't know,' I say. ‘I need some time to think about all this. Sorry.'

Then I press the red button on my phone and go back to join Mum.