Wasted (2 page)

None of this would have mattered if Jack hadn't walked past the door when he did. After all, he shouldn't have been there. Didn't even go to Northseas High School. He used to – he'd left to go to a nearby sixth-form college two years ago, the same time Jess had arrived in the area and started at Northseas, so he'd never met her.

So, why is he there? Well, Jack has a band and they have been signed up to play at the leavers' prom at Northseas. Jack is supposed to be meeting the deputy head to sort out details. He's signed into reception as a visitor, got his visitor's ID badge thing, smiled at the receptionist as he agreed that yes, he did still know the way. The receptionist had always liked Jack. A nice boy, she thought, though his hairstyle had now become rather unusual. If she'd been his mother she'd have made him get it
sorted
, but she suspected that Jack thought that sorted was exactly what it already was. Besides, as everyone knew, he didn't have a mother.

There are two routes Jack could have taken to the deputy head's office: the shorter way past the library or the longer way through the music department. He has chosen the longer way, even though he is running late. Why?

You might think: well, he is a musician, drawn to the music department. But this is Jack, this is school, so no, the school music department has no special magnetism for him.

It was Kelly Jones. Walking along the corridor towards him, accompanied by Samantha. They didn't see him, but they would have if he'd continued that way. There are many unpleasant bits of Northseas High and Kelly and Samantha are extremely prominent on the list of them. There's a specific reason for Jack wanting to avoid Kelly, but we won't go into that now. It's complicated. And uncomfortable to remember. Though Jack does not yet know how important it will become.

For now, he has more pressing stuff on his mind than Kelly. Problems in his band: Janey, the singer, has walked out. At any other time this wouldn't have mattered. She'd been a pain in the neck anyway, a prima donna with a serious attitude problem, and late for practice most times. Trouble is, it's only two weeks before the event and Jack's band has no singer. Jack has decided not to tell the deputy head, Mrs Willow. He'll find a singer somewhere. The rest of the band said he should tell Willow, but he disagreed. And sometimes there's something about Jack that makes it hard to argue with him. So, eventually, they let him decide it by tossing a coin.
Heads, we tell her; tails, we don't and something will turn up.
And the coin had fallen tails up. Which is enough for Jack, whose life has in the past been ruled by luck so horrible that he reckons he's used up all the bad fortune he is ever going to have.

Jack knows – believes, trusts, assumes, in a way that looks perhaps like arrogance, endearing optimism or foolish naïveté – that something will turn up. It always seems to if you look for it enough and make the right sacrifices to luck. Lucky Jack, you might say. Though someone whose mother has died twice is hardly lucky.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whether you call it luck or something else: Jack is walking along the corridor as Jess begins to sing. It is an amazing voice, deep, rich, warm. Very sexy. He doesn't know the song but he wants to.

He stops and listens. Surely this must be a recording. It cannot be real. Not in a school.

Jess often comes here now. Exams have finished for her, so she doesn't need to come for classes, but the equipment is here and perhaps she's clinging to something familiar while she gets used to the strange idea of school being nearly over. A few of her friends are still immersed in exams; the others, like Chloe, have disappeared on weird leavers' courses designed to prepare them for the “real” world and keep them out of trouble.

But, for Jess, music is not about exams or teachers. It is all of her, or all she wants to think about. She's written a new song and so she keeps coming to the school's state-of-the-art recording studio, putting on the headphones and losing herself as she writes it down, makes it just right, getting used to using a mic. The guitar chords are tricky, but she has them almost perfect now and she can let herself go, not needing to think too much about the fingering. She closes her eyes. This is what it would be like to be professional, singing for a career. A swooping feeling clutches at her stomach every time she dreams it.

It's only when she's actually singing that Jess can believe this dream. The rest of the time, there seem to be way too many obstacles. Decisions. Should she have applied to music college after all? She'd wanted to, and her teachers had encouraged her but money wasn't easy and her mum had played that card hard – probably because college meant Jess going away. And Jess knew what her mother felt about that. So she didn't apply and then she got caught up in exams anyway. She kind of thought that something would turn up, or she'd maybe take a year out, earn some money, go travelling and then think about it again.

The nagging fear of leaving school with no plans was something she brushed away at first – it seemed like another world. But now it doesn't and the closer it comes, the more Jess is churned by anxiety. Sometimes it makes her dizzy to think about it, especially when she sees her friends get their plans sorted out.

But she feels excitement too. For the freedom. Away from school and exams and rules and some people she's spent too long looking at every day. Away from home, too, though
that
isn't going to be simple. Nothing that involved her mother ever was. Not that she actually wants to think about her mum being on her own. It's an issue. But, much as she loves her mum, it is not her job to look after her. It should be more her dad's responsibility. Yeah, right: responsibility. On the other hand, her dad doesn't know about the drinking. Jess hasn't told him. She wants to protect her mum, and she knows what he'd say.

Confusing, this. All of it. She is entangled.

Jess's mum, Sylvia, is what you'd call “needy”. Arty, flighty, moody, fragile. She has a vague rabbit look of fear in her eyes when they discuss Jess's future. She'll start fiddling with her cigarette lighter. And she drinks a lot more than she used to. Or maybe she always used to and Jess didn't notice before, because Sylvia used to be better at hiding it. But probably it has crept up on Sylvia as gradually as it has dawned on Jess. Neither really wants to face it. Jess wants to think she's wrong, or that it will solve itself.

When she's singing, she can forget about all that.

A sound makes Jess jump. She opens her eyes, stops singing halfway through a word, rips the earphones off and glares at the face at the door. A boy is there, looking at her. The door is ajar and he is half inside the room, hair hanging over one eye, mouth open slightly. He has a large mouth. And not in a bad way.

“Hi,” he says. “Look, I'm in a hurry and I just need you to say yes.”

“Who are you?”

“You won't regret it.”

“I'm regretting it already. What do you want? And it's probably no, whatever it is. And who are you?”

“I need you.”

She rolls her eyes, flicks the page of her music. But she can't help a tiny smile inside. She's only human.

“No,” he holds up his hands, “not in that way. This is not a corny chat-up scenario. I need you in my band. Please say you're not in a band already.” His skin is smooth, the jaw strong, that smile huge.

“I don't know anything about you, or your band. No, I'm not. And I don't know if…”

“Just say yes. Please. I'm desperate. You'll save me. And you should be in a band. You should be in the best band. Mine.”

“What's the band?” Jess already knows she is going to say yes, but she will spin it out a bit.

“Schrödinger's Cats. We're…”

“You're playing at the prom!”

“Not without a singer. That's why I need you. We lost our singer and I'm just going for a meeting with Willow and I'd really like not to have to lie to her. Please. You don't want me to lie, do you?”

She can only see one of his eyes because the other one is hidden by a flop of hair, but the one she can see is warm and blue, the lashes dark. Assuming that the other one matches, they are great eyes. Great hair too, obviously a lot of effort going on there. Sort of swooping bits at different angles. Like several ski jumps designed by someone with a sense of humour and serious engineering skills. Some streaks that might be the sun or they might not. Maybe he is one of the surfing types that hang out at the beach and get themselves looking all Australian. Though his skin looks a bit pale for that.

“But it's only two weeks away. How can I learn the songs?”

“I'll teach you. You can do it. You have the most brilliant voice. It's perfect! We need you badly. You have to say yes. How can you not?” His words are falling over themselves.

She hesitates. Deliberately. Looks away from him, to hide her excitement. “Well, OK, but I can't promise I'll be able to learn everything.”

“Yesss!” And now he is smiling and his smile is… “Look, can I call you later and can you be free this evening? Here, write your number on this. And what's your name?”

“Jess. And yes to the other things.” She writes her number on the scrap of paper he rips from a pile on the table. She feels his eyes on her as she writes. It's not an unpleasant feeling.

“Thanks, Jess! I'll call you later.”

“What's your name?” But he has gone.

Jess is surprised to find her heart beating hard, her body hot and a smile on her face that will not go away. She closes the door, firmly, and tries to get back to the song she was singing, but it doesn't work. She's heard that Schrödinger's Cats are good, even though they are just local. And even though they've got a weird name that sounds a bit pretentious. All at the sixth-form college, she's heard. She almost went to a gig once but the bouncers had other ideas and her fake ID wasn't good enough.

Her friends will be amazed when they find she is singing with the band that is playing at the prom.

Jack hurries through the school, along the familiar crisp-strewn corridors with their smell of disinfected toilets. He had known something would turn up and it has. This girl, Jess, that voice, the kind of Mediterranean hair, caramel skin and huge dark eyes, everything. She must be part Greek or Italian or something. He grins and is still grinning when he knocks on the door of Mrs Willow's office.

He is about ten minutes late but her annoyance soon melts in the face of his charm. Jack has always got away with things. It's difficult for an adult to believe that a boy with such a smile, such artistically arranged hair and two dead mothers to his name could mean any harm.

And he doesn't. Mean any harm. But Jack is dangerous to know. He killed his first mother during his own birth, just by being born – a cerebral haemorrhage, horribly rare, and everything happened too quickly for them to save her. Chance in a million, the doctors said, shaking their heads, as his father held this wrinkled scrap of baby in his hands and wondered how he would get through the next few minutes, days, weeks. Obviously, Jack doesn't remember that mother. His father married again when Jack was two years old. He does remember this new mother. She lasted three years, died when he was five, on his first day at school, and he was there that time too. She'd been playing football with him. In the kitchen. It was the sort of thing she did. Spontaneous, lived for fun, his dad said to him in later years. Didn't do things the normal adult way. She loved mess and breaking rules and wearing the wrong clothes for the occasion – not that he remembers that, but his dad said.

His dad is the sensible, organized one, the one who thinks things should be done in their proper places, or chaos ensues. Trouble is, that afternoon his dad wasn't there, otherwise the dishwasher would not have been open, the cutlery rack full, sharp knives pointing upwards, while his wife and young son were playing football in the kitchen. They should have been tackling Jack's brand-new reading book, but while Jack was getting the book out of his school-bag, he had dropped the football he was trying to carry at the same time. And when the ball had rolled towards her, it had been too tempting to ignore, so she'd made as if to dribble it; which had been too tempting for him to ignore, so he'd responded by kicking a beaut of a shot straight past her to the imaginary goal in the corner. It was a game they'd often played. Nothing had gone wrong before. Apart from a broken plate once, but what's a broken plate when you're having fun?

“Brilliant!” she had shouted, a split second before losing her balance and falling backwards onto a long kitchen knife sticking up in the dishwasher rack.

He remembers that. He remembers laughing because she had looked so funny falling backwards, her face split open in wide-eyed surprise as she tried to grab something on her way down. Her shoes had made a funny squeak on the floor, he remembers, like a squashed mouse. Not that a squashed mouse is funny.

Then he'd stopped laughing. “Mummy! Get up! Get up!” But she didn't get up. She didn't move at all, apart from a strange juddering that he did not understand, until suddenly her body relaxed and he ran out of the kitchen. He could hear someone screaming and years later he realized that it must have been him, as there was no one else in the house.

Now “mother deceased” is in his school file. “Mothers deceased” might have been more accurate. So everyone knows that he is the boy whose second mother died on his first day at school, though often they forget, because he seems so OK. After all, it was many years ago now. There have been a couple of “aunts” and a couple of “friends” and Jack's life does not lack a feminine touch. Social services were a nuisance at first, but they have long since given up, once they realized that Jack's father could manage perfectly well. Jack's father is not going to risk trying to provide a mother for his son again.