Flora's World: Love and other stuff Read online

  This. Is. Bad.

  Tuesday 22nd January

  Hair is starting to look a bit better. The strands of coily spaghetti are starting to look a lot smoother and rounder....wish I'd kept the picture of smug Mizz girl now so I could check the progress....oh well

  Meena has agreed to go on a double date with me and Brad. We are going to Wimpy after school tomorrow for a milkshake. John and Meena are doing this weird smiling at each other thing but not actually speaking to each other....I'm so lucky as Brad and I have loads to talk about as well as a lot of snogging. I think Trisha is feeling a bit left out...

  Mum and dad are still arguing over this invitation to the Castle. Mum won't stop going on, dad says he's not going budge on this. Mum must have got Nanny June to phone up and try to speak to dad about it but it didn't go very well, dad put the phone down on her and mum shouted at dad saying now whose rude to their mother! I asked yiayia if she knows why dad won't go to the ball and she said:

  'Darli mou I don know' shrugging her shoulders, I think she does but is just not saying....

  Wednesday 23rd January

  Not sure if it's going to go anywhere with John and Meena, we went for that Milkshake and they seemed to get on fine. I can see how smitten John is with Meena but I don't know if she likes him as much. Brad asked me what I think and I said I don't know.....he said John really, really likes Meena. I phoned Meena after Eastenders and she said she’s not sure, she likes him but he wears braces and she's worried about having to snog him and that her lips might end up getting caught up and ripped on his brace and she said the elastics in his mouth put her off too...Well I suppose I can see what she means but as far as I have ever heard nobody ever got their lips ripped off from snogging someone with braces.....mind you could be wrong......

  Saturday 26th January

  1.30pm

  I need to knuckle down and get on with some coursework, only four months until we go on study leave for GCSEs. I can't wait for all this to be over, thankfully I don't have many exams to sit as a lot of the subjects I have taken are mainly coursework - phew! I hate exams and hate revising. I am hoping to get into college to do Art. I could take Art A ‘level in sixth form but Katie says our sixth form is rubbish and she wishes she went to college to do her A ‘Levels instead. She said her friends that decided to go to college love it and say you get treated like an adult and even get to call the teachers by the first names! How cool is that!

  Anyway the Art course I want to do is really specialist and will be much better at the college. When I told yiayia I was going to do Art she said

  'But don you want to be a doctor or a lawyer?'

  I said 'No yiayia, Katie is the brains of the family, I will leave those sort of jobs to her' yiayia shrugged her shoulders and said 'eh'

  Nick is a mechanic at the local garage, he's always been car mad, and so yiayia's only hope of getting a doctor or a lawyer in the family is Katie.........most definitely not me!

  Katie says she is going to do the pregnancy test tonight whilst her parents are at the chip shop working and would I go round and be with her when she does it. She's going to boots in town to get the test as she said there is no way she would get it from Mrs Shah's chemist as Mrs Shah and Yiayia are neighbours.....can you imagine!

  8.30pm

  I'm sitting on the bed in Katie's room, she's just peed on the stick and we are waiting the 3 minutes for the blue line to appear or not appear. Blue line pregnant, no blue line not pregnant. I swear to god these are the longest 3 minutes of my life. Katie and I are holding hands, well she is holding my hand, squeezing it so tightly, it's really hurting but I don't say anything as in approximately one more minute her life could change forever. 30 seconds to go. 10 seconds...................5 seconds................

  No blue line...............NO BLUE LINE!!!!!!! We jump up and down hugging each other, we check it again just to be sure, by now it's been five minutes, no blue line!!!!!!!

  'Thank god for that, thank you god, thank you' Katie says and she reaches under her bed and pulls out an ashtray, it's got a few long butts in it - Katie says you never know when you are going to run out of fags and need to light up a butt - ewwwww! She doesn’t light up a butt though, those are for extreme emergencies when she doesn’t have any ciggies, she takes a packet of silk cut out of her hiding place and her pink zippo lighter, opens the window and sparks up a cigarette.

  'Oh my god Katie phew, I’ve never been so worried about anything in my life' I said

  'That's it Flora' she says 'I am never having sex again'

  We roll around on the bed laughing, her with relief and me at the statement she has just made, Katie not going on about sex is like is like me not eating chips!

  Thank god. Yiayia gets to have her picture of Katie on the wall in her hat and cape and Uncle Costi won't be sending her to Cyprus to marry a village goat herder after all!

  Wednesday 30th January

  Meena has decided that she doesn't want to have to snog John and his elastic bands. Somebody told her that they French kissed a guy that had braces with elastics and their tongue got caught and the elastic flew out. It was really awkward and embarrassing and they never saw or spoke to him again. Meena said if that happened she would have to see John every day at school and it would be too embarrassing so no she doesn't want to go out with him. I told Brad and he passed the message on. John is now walking around school with the face of a wounded puppy but I can see that Trisha is secretly pleased as she is not going to be the only one of her mates without a boyfriend.

  Mum and dad are still rowing about this ball! They're okay until mum brings it up and sets dad off. The atmosphere at home can get a bit frosty at times and now yiayia is going home, her bathroom is finished and she’s leaving tonight. I am going to miss eating yiayia's dinners. I mean to be fair yiayia is here a lot anyway and we are always popping round there but yiayia's food is divine, mum doesn't really do any Greek cooking and what she does do isn't as good as yiayia's anyway. Plus without yiayia here unless mum or dad back down over this Castle business this house could turn into a war zone!

  Saturday 2nd February

  Last night after our shift in the chippy Danny was waiting around the corner to pick us up. Katie told me she was going to finish it with him, that all this pregnancy business had really put the willies up her (ha ha quite literally) and she knows that if she is ever going to get out of here and get to Uni she needs to concentrate on her A ‘Levels and forget about boys and sex. She's always going on about sex, I do wonder if it is all it's cracked up to be......... I wonder if I will get to find out one day......... soon?

  'I thought you really loved Danny though?' I ask her

  She tells me that when I grow up a bit I will understand that a girl has to do what a girl has to do. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is it really that distracting for her having a boyfriend? Maybe it's the sex part, perhaps she's a sex maniac or something. I heard Mum and Auntie Eleni say that about Nanny June once, that she was a sex maniac and had ‘It’ on the brain. Perhaps Katie is one too.

  She rang me this morning to tell me the break up didn't go very well. Danny was really upset and can't understand why out of the blue she wants to break up. Of course he has no idea about the pregnancy scare. She said when he dropped her off he put his foot down and drove down to the bottom of the road like Nigel Mansell, skidding like a mad man and she thought he was going to crash into the lamp post!

  Nanny June is coming to pick me up in a bit and take me to get a manicure! Nan gets these false red nails put on, it takes hours and every now and then she takes me with her to get a mini manicure. I love getting my nails done but it takes sooooooo long for them dry under the air blower thing, I wish they would invent a faster system. After we get our nails done, we always go to Maxwell's for lunch. Which is actually the best bit........I’m never going to get rid of this big bum and lose any weigh am I? I like eating too much! I have decided the only way I am going to find out about this Castle
business is by asking, I will just have to come out with it and ask her what the problem between dad and Auntie Anne is. If I don't ask, I won't find out and it's about time people round here stopped treating me like child, I'm going to be 16 soon and I've got a boyfriend, I'm practically an adult for goodness sake!

  Chapter Four

  Revelations

  Sunday 3rd February 1991

  I waited until we were in Maxwell's and had ordered our lunch - Me the cheese and bacon potato skins and salad (I am trying to be good, although I can’t stop thinking about the Knickerbocker glory for dessert....) and Nan orders the chicken Cesar salad. As we are tucking in I broached the subject of the invite.

  'Nan' I said 'the atmosphere at home is really bad at the moment (lay it on thick Flora) mum and dad are constantly arguing and it all seems to have started when the invite from Auntie Anne came'

  Nanny June looks at me, twiddles her gold dangly earring with her newly shiny red nails and says 'Oh dear darling, that must be awful for you'

  It’s working…….

  'Oh it is' I say trying to look really sad 'And it is really stressing me out which isn't good for me as you know I am doing my GCSEs and going on study leave soon and all this shouting is very distracting. Do you know what the big issue is with dad and Auntie Anne?' I think laying it on thick with the exam business might just do it.

  She takes a sip of her sparkling Perrier water and says 'Well It's all a bit complicated really, has your dad never spoken to you about it?'

  I tell her that I guess he's never had a reason to as we don't really speak about Anne and until that invite turned up I had never even thought about it before. I tell her I asked yiayia and she said she didn't know but I think she said that because she didn't want to get involved and the atmosphere in the house isn't great at the moment and quite frankly I am too scared to ask for fear of getting my head bitten off.

  Nan sighs and says 'I suppose you should know, then you’ll understand why your dad is so cross about it'

  Well it turns out that Nanny June's third husband Vince 'The Crook' was actually a friend and associate of Uncle Eddie - Auntie Anne's husband. Vince and Nan met at Eddie and Anne's wedding and he swept her off her feet, it was a whirlwind romance, he was tall dark and handsome and absolutely charming, had loads of money and showered Nan with gifts and holidays and gave her absolutely everything she wanted. Nan wasn't badly off herself as her first husband Eric died at work and was insured so there was a massive pay out and when she and my grandpa Peter split up and he went to Australia he went with the shirt on his back and didn't ask for anything else. He said that she and the kids could have it all and as he was going out there to be a bush man wouldn't need anything anyway. So by all accounts she was very well off herself, but of course she found the lure of Vince and his charm irresistible. Vince had done many a deal with Uncle Eddie and Eddie had no reason to think that there was anything untoward when Vince was looking for investors for some property development in Spain, a whole load of time share apartments. Vince told Nan that it was a fail safe investment and after Eddie assuring Nan that it was a great idea she went ahead and invested a hell of a lot of money. Nan says that Dad had never taken to Vince and warned her that there was something dodgy about him but Nan was too head over heels in love with her charming husband to listen or to care what he thought. Dad even spoke to Anne about it but she was too busy with hospital appointments trying to have test tube babies and worrying about getting pregnant to care about Vince and Dads ideas about him. Anne told Dad that he was mum's husband and she do could as she pleased with her money. Dad wasn't happy about this, a lot of Nan’s money was about to get invested into goodness knows what. Anne never worried about money as her husband would one day be Count Dun Lochie and Dad felt she didn’t care. It turns out that my Dad was right about Vince, he was a crook, all the money from his investors including Nan's had disappeared without trace, there were no properties being built in Spain, it was all a sham. Vince had also embezzled millions out of the company that he worked for and one day he just disappeared, vanished into thin air. He was on the run for a month before the police caught up with him and he ended up going to prison for a ten year stretch. The money was never recovered and to this day Nan doesn't know where her money went. She never spoke to Vince again and the divorce happened whilst he was in prison. After that dad blamed Auntie Anne and Uncle Eddie for not taking better care of Nan and introducing her to and letting her marry a con man and he blamed Eddie for not knowing what his friend was really like. Eddie said Dad couldn't blame him as Vince had never done anything previously to make him suspicious and he was Nan's husband so what right would he have to intervene in her investments? Anyway after that things were never the same again between mum and dad and Anne and Eddie. As Nan finished telling me the story she wiped away a tear with a torn off piece of serviette.

  'I hate it that my children don’t get on, they used to be close….. I hate it that you never see your Aunt and your cousins, I know your mum thinks It's about time your dad let bygones be bygones and Anne and Eddie are willing to make amends, It was my idea for them to send the invitation but your dad won't have any of it'

  I really feel for Nan, I do understand how Dad must feel but all this did happen a long time ago, surely it's time to let it go?

  Wednesday 6th February

  Bradley and I go to the park after school, we sit on the bench all huddled up, it’s freezing but Brad has his arms around me keeping me warm. I look up at him and his kisses me on the lips, not a full on snog just a warm soft kiss. Brad has the most amazing lips and when he kisses me my heart always skips a beat.

  'I love you' he says really quietly and softly

  I look at him and say 'What? Really?

  Oh. My. God. Bradley loves me!

  'Yes' he says, 'I really do'

  'I love you too' I say back and snuggle right in to him.

  Has this really happened? Have Bradley and I just exchanged I love you's? This is the best day of my frickin life. Bradley loves me, he really does, and I love him. I am officially in love. I skip home on cloud nine and can't wait to phone Katie and tell her.

  'Yeh just wait until he tries to get into those great big knickers of yours' she says

  She always has a way of spoiling things!

  'Katie!!! How can you say that?!' I say. I am truly appalled she thinks in that way, just because she can't wait to rip her panties off and nearly get pregnant does not mean that I am too!

  She tells me it’s all back on with Danny. Well that didn't last long I say to her. She tells me that he kept turning up where he knew she would be and begging her to take him back. Apparently they had amazing 'make up' sex. She told him that it was almost being pregnant that prompted the split and he agrees they need to be more careful, no way he wants her getting up the 'duff' is what he said. He's too young to be a father. So they are now back together.

  What on earth is 'makeup sex'?

  'What happened to a girls got to do what a girls got to do?' I ask her

  'I have needs' she tells me 'And I need Danny, he’s like a drug to me Flo' A drug? What sort of drugs? What’s drugs got to do with it? I think I was right, she is showing all traits of being a sex maniac, I think she might need some help, I think I may need to get her on that Kilroy show or something....

  Friday 8th February

  Bradley picks me up after my shift in the Chippy and walks me home. It's really dark and the stars are shining so brightly. I look up at the sky just thinking about how happy I am that Bradley is my boyfriend and how beautiful he is when we get to my house. Bradley points to the brightest star in the sky and says 'See that star up there, see how bright it is, that’s how bright my love is for you' I nearly melt, that is the sweetest loveliest thing anyone could ever say, I pull him close and kiss him. I don't think that any girl could love any boy as much as I love my Bradley.

  Sunday 10th February

  Yiayia has invited everyone over to hers for S
unday dinner. Yiayia always has dinner ready for 3pm, I think It's a Greek thing as whenever we get invited to any Greek people's houses on a Sunday its always for 3pm but English people always seem to have Sunday lunch between 12 and 1pm. Uncle Costi and Dad are in the bathroom inspecting the plumbers handy work. Yiayia chose the avocado suite, not sure that I like it to be honest, Meena's mum and dad have just done their bathroom and theirs is peach, which I much prefer.

  'Oh Jim, I wish we could get a new bathroom' mum says admiring the new suite

  Our bathroom is that vile turquoise colour that was so fashionable in the 80's.

  'When we've got a bit more spare cash Soph' says dad

  We must be so poor or something because that's all I ever hear mum and dad saying - I wish we could do this or that or I wish we could go here or there and then they sigh and say 'One day when we can afford it'

  Auntie Eleni and mum are chopping up the salad and yiayia is pulling trays of potatoes and meat out of the oven.

  'Wherrr is that Nick?' Yiayia says tutting 'Always late'

  'He went over to pick Monique up ages ago, I don't know why he's taking so long' says Katie

  Yiayia, Katie and I start bringing the dishes over to the dining table whilst mum and Auntie Eleni dress the salad. Yiayia's house is very chintzy, the Greek crocheted doyleys are in every space available, on the little coffee tables, the sofa arms......Greek tapestries adorn the walls, decorated with sparkling sequins and beads and silk worm cocoons. A massive wall unit which looks like it belongs in Southfork Dallas full of cut crystal glasses and vases which are only allowed to be used at Christmas or when visitors come round, usually those of the Greek Cypriot variety.