8
I finish my last mouthful of strawberry cream sponge with a sigh.
‘Oi,’ Lily says, jabbing Frankie in the ribs. ‘Didn’t you lot say you had to be going?’
‘Did we?’ Frankie echoes.
‘Yes, you did,’ she insists. ‘Places to go, things to do, that’s what you said.’
‘I’d better head off, anyway,’ Kurt admits. ‘My gran will be wondering where I am.’
‘I, also,’ I say. The three of us get to our feet and Lily grins and shifts along a little to sit closer to Dan. Then her face falls, because Dan stands up too, saying he can’t let us go out in that rain, he’ll walk with us, bring the big umbrella.
‘You only just got here!’ Lily protests.
‘It’s OK,’ Dan shrugs. ‘No hassle.’
Lily scowls. ‘Well… I guess I’ll come too.’
We pull on damp jackets, push our chairs under the table. ‘Not leaving the wings, surely, Dan?’ Frankie teases, and he laughs and pulls them on. The cafe is quieter now, with just a few lingering customers and the little-brother waiters wiping down tabletops. A tired-looking woman with the same caramel skin as Dan is sweeping the floor.
‘Won’t be long,’ Dan tells them. ‘Five minutes, OK? I’ll help you clear up.’ He ruffles the hair of the littlest brother on his way out.
That’s how I end up walking down Lark Lane in a downpour, squashed under a big umbrella with Frankie, Kurt, Lily and a brown-eyed boy in dripping angel wings. Lily, who has managed to hide her own umbrella, links arms with Dan.
‘It must be tough, Anya,’ Dan is saying. ‘Starting over in a whole new country where you don’t even speak the language…’
‘Yes, it is!’
‘We’ll help you, though,’ Frankie says. ‘That’s what friends are for. Right?’
Kurt and Dan nod, grinning, but Lily rolls her eyes.
‘Try talking a bit more,’ Kurt suggests. ‘Get to know people.’
‘I don’t have the words,’ I explain. ‘Is all… tangled up in my head. Yes? People do not understand!’
‘We understand,’ Dan points out. ‘Your accent’s weird, but it’s kind of cute too!’
I decide maybe I will try to talk more often, if Dan Carney thinks my accent is cute.
‘Whatever,’ Lily says crossly. ‘Just don’t make such a fuss about it, Anya. You’ll be OK.’
For the first time since we got to England, I think maybe I will.
We leave Frankie outside her flat at the end of Lark Lane, wave goodbye to Kurt at his gran’s little terraced house near the main road. Lily’s house is a smart Victorian semi with a pretty front garden, the kind of place I imagined us living in, and I try not to dislike her for having what I wanted and didn’t get.
She pauses beside the blue painted gate, giving Dan her sparkliest smile.
‘Want to come in and dry off a bit?’ she asks. ‘My parents will be out till late, and I’ve got that new Katy Perry CD…’
Before Dan can answer, a light goes on inside the house and two figures can be seen moving about inside.
Lily rolls her eyes skywards. ‘Oh, great,’ she huffs. ‘Another time, OK?’
‘See you, Lily,’ Dan calls, then turns to me. ‘Where now?’
‘Across the park,’ I tell him. ‘Flat above fish and chip shop.’
Now it’s just Dan and me, under the umbrella, and the rest of the world seems to fade as we go through the gates into Princes Park and squelch across the grass, dodging puddles.
‘Boy, am I in trouble,’ Dan sighs, shaking his head. ‘The school are bound to write, or ring, or something… I don’t usually do stuff like that, Anya. I lost the plot, y’know? It’s not like I was trying to burn down the school. I just didn’t want to read my work out in class, that’s all. No big deal.’
We walk past the boating lake, and Dan stops short, his face all frowny and anxious. ‘You must think I’m a real loser.’
I shake my head. I can think of a lot of words to describe Dan Carney, but loser isn’t one of them. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘Not a loser.’
Dan rakes a hand through ink-black hair and swears under his breath. ‘How come I always get things so wrong?’ he growls. ‘What is it with me?’
He kicks out at a broken-down bit of wall just beside the far gate, then slumps down on to it, head in hands. I stand for a moment in the pouring rain, then Dan tilts the umbrella and pats the wall beside him and I sit down too. The wall is damp and cold and uneven, but it doesn’t seem to matter because Dan is right next to me. The umbrella tilts forward, shielding us from the world, so that just our legs and boots stick out into the rain.
‘I feel like a loser,’ Dan huffs. ‘It’s just… Miss Matthews asked us to write about personal stuff, right? Then she asked us to read it out, but private stuff is supposed to stay private! I didn’t want the whole class knowing my business. So when Lily handed me the lighter… I didn’t even think, I just wanted to get rid of what I’d written. When I get angry, I act first and think later. Big mistake, huh?’
That’s kind of an understatement. Dan must have wanted to keep his writing secret pretty badly if he was ready to set fire to it rather than read it out in class.
‘Bet Fisher excludes me,’ Dan says, kicking out a bit of crumbling brickwork. ‘Mum’ll be really upset, and Dad will go crazy, and things will get even worse at home. Nightmare. Stupid cafe. Stupid Dad. Stupid school…’
The dark, scowly frown fades from Dan’s face and he sighs heavily, shoulders slumped. Now he doesn’t look angry so much as lost, a sad-eyed boy in wet angel wings with all the cares of the world on his shoulders. He looks at me sideways.
‘Don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ he says. ‘You don’t even know what I’m saying, do you? Not all of it, anyway. Just as well. I’m not much of an angel, that’s for sure.’
I want to tell Dan that I understand a lot more than he thinks, but I can’t find the words, so I just smile. Dan smiles back, his brown eyes shining, and then, before I can even see it coming, he leans across and kisses me softly.
I have never been kissed before.
Dan Carney smells of milkshake and vanilla. The umbrella drops to the ground and cold rain falls on us like confetti, but Dan’s lips are warm and sweet as sugar frosting. Then he pulls back, moving away from me.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘We’d better get you home.’
Home? My mind has emptied of everything except Dan. I don’t want to come back into the real world, but Dan seems to be in a hurry. He scoops up the umbrella and pulls me to my feet. ‘Where did you say you lived?’ he asks. ‘The flat over the chippy, right?’
He takes my hand, steering me through the park gates and across the road. The chip-shop windows are streaming with rain, and the hot stink of frying fish drifts out as we stand on the pavement, discarded chip wrappers at our feet.
Dan frowns. ‘One thing you should know about me, Anya – I’m kind of a mess, OK? Bad news.’
‘Bad news?’ I echo.
‘Sorry, Anya… I’ll see you around.’
He walks away, crossing the wasteground that’s littered with broken glass and scrunched-up chip papers, hunched under the big white umbrella.