Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Rachel had opened her eyes.

Tricia had made a face at her and grinned, and Rachel had grinned back and said, ‘Yeah, but the P7s think they’re royalty or something.’

It hadn’t really been all that funny. But Tricia had yelled with laughter, and come and stood with them, leaning against the wall and chucking her rucksack down on the floor.

Fifteen minutes later they’d all four of them been standing in the headmistress’s office, trying to explain what they thought was funny about putting their bags in a row in front of the porch door – which for some reason opened outwards – so that people coming in, unless they happened to glance down at their feet, tripped over them.

‘Didn’t you realise how dangerous that was?’ Mrs Campbell had snapped at them.

Gail and Susie had been crying.

It was the first time any of the three of them had ever been in real trouble.

But Rachel had caught Tricia’s eye and copied her insouciant expression. And on the walk of shame back to their classroom, Tricia had jumped up and flicked a hand at the catch on a window, punching it open to the rain, and said: ‘Hey Rache, wanna come back to my place after school tomorrow? My parents don’t get back for maybe two hours. And my brother can’t stop us doing whatever we want.’

‘Oh!’ she had squeaked. ‘That would be… yeah, that would be great!’

Susie had looked at her expectantly but she had turned away, watching Tricia’s fingertips trailing along the wall. Tricia had had elegant fingers with long nails which made a shishing sound against the wall. Rachel later found out that her mum let her have long nails for playing the guitar.

Tricia had walked very slightly in front of the others, the hand trailing in front of them like she was marking an invisible line for them to follow.

Not them .

Her.

Rachel.

Rache.

‘Can we come?’ Gail had asked.

Tricia had pretended not to hear, talking over her.

Rache had pretended not to hear, laughing at what Tricia was saying.

Why couldn’t she have smiled, and said that sounded like fun, but could they all come? Why couldn’t she have told Tricia that she couldn’t make it?

She hadn’t even looked at Susie and Gail, she’d looked only at Tricia, at her long dark hair slapping her back as she walked, at those long nails trailing on the wall.

She still remembered the smell of those corridors: smelly gym shoes and polish and boiled beetroot.

I’ve got one of they microcloths and I’m going round Bekki’s room wiping the plastic Elsa and Anna and Sven the reindeer figures, and the castle, and the sparkly brush and hairclips and jewellery box on her wee dressing table, and the lamp that’s a toadstool with animals keeking out the windaes, a badger and mouse and that. Me and Mandy did the whole room over before Christmas in a Frozen theme, like all the wee lassies are still wanting even though the film’s been out a while, but we left the toadstool lamp because what wean’s gonnae care it doesnae go, eh?

Before Frozen we’d went for a jungle theme because Pammie had said Bekki loved animals and was into that film Madagascar and lemurs. I found this wallpaper with trees on it, and got Connor to fix up some real branches and dangle wee stuffed animals off of them. Looked magic. The duvet cover was called Cheeky Monkeys and had cartoon monkeys and chimps and gorillas on it, although Connor was like that: ‘Chimps and gorillas arenae monkeys.’ Like Bekki was gonnae care.

But all the lassies are into Frozen now, eh?

I go to the wardrobe and open the door and take out the Elsa and Anna costumes. They’re no Tesco shite, they’re from the Disney store. One’s all shiny, ice-blue, with glittery sequins on the bodice and a see-through snowflake cape. There’s two skirts, a see-through one on top of a shiny one. Like it’s made of ice.

The other one’s even bonnier. It’s got a wee red satin cape and a black velvet bodice with bonnie flowers all embroidered on it, and gold trim, and a satin blue skirt with more bonnie flowers at the hem. And at the neck there’s a wee gold brooch.

When Carly saw them she went, ‘She’s eight, but? Too old for dress-up.’

But I’m minding me and Mandy and they princess dresses. I was eight year old and Mandy was ten, and we wasnae too old for dress-up. We loved they dresses. Maybe our lives were shite, but when we put on they dresses we were wee princesses. Mandy was Princess Vicky and I was Princess Sarah.

We called ourselves for Vicky and Sarah Ramsay, the doctor’s daughters. After school this time, Mandy was crying in the lavvies because she’d lost one of her gloves and she was feart to go home, and Sarah Ramsay finds her and goes, ‘Don’t cry. Here, have my gloves,’ and she asks Mandy if she’d like to come to her birthday party. Sarah Ramsay was in another class and Mandy didnae even know her.

Mandy goes, ‘Can my wee sister come an’ all?’ and Sarah goes, ‘Yes.’

That birthday party was pure amazing. There were sausages and miniature pies and sandwiches and salty biscuits with cream cheese and cucumber, I ate my weight of them so I did, and a shitload of crisps and nuts, and strawberry and vanilla and mint choc chip ice cream, and a big chocolate cake with ‘Sarah is 11!’ on it in white icing, and bowls of all different kinds of sweeties you could rake in whenever you wanted and Mrs Ramsay just smiled when you put a handful in your pooch. The Ramsays’ house was a fucking mansion and all us wee lassies was allowed to go mental, running through the rooms and up and down the stair, and when Mandy was sick on the carpet Mrs Ramsay just went, ‘Aw Mandy, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. Are you all right? Come and get a glass of water.’

The best game was sardines – one of us hid, maybe under a bed, and the other lassies had to find that first one, and then hide with her, until the last one found all the others and we’d all jump out and shout ‘Sardines!’ so loud it hurt your throat.

Magic.

When it was my turn to hide, Vicky went with me because I was scared in that big house on my own. Vicky was older, maybe fourteen. She could have been a model she was that bonnie, long blonde hair on her and a right bonnie face. She opened a door in Sarah’s bedroom and it was like one of they stories Miss MacGregor read us at school, it was a whole other wee room that Vicky called a cupboard, and there were all these bonnie clothes on hangers all round the walls and my gob was dropping open, and I touched one of the dresses and I went, ‘Are yous princesses?’

That was a right daft thing to say.

I wasnae a babby, I was eight year old.

Vicky laughed, but not in a mean way, and she went, ‘Actually Sarah’s too big for that dress now. Would you like it?’

When we went home we each had a carrier bag with a princess dress in it and we couldnae believe it. Mandy hid them up her coat when we got to our bit. We kept them under the bed in our room and at night we’d put them on and pretend we was Princess Vicky and Princess Sarah and we’d go to our servant: ‘No they diamonds, they ones, you stupid fucker!’ Mandy’s dress was too wee for her and one of the seams ripped but it still looked dead nice. It was purple with shiny blue stripes on the skirt and a blue frill round the neck and on the ends of the sleeves, and tiny wee buttons down the front of the bodice that looked like maybe they were jewels, all sparkly blue. Mine was pink with a white lacy layer over the top and if you looked close at the lace you could see there were the shapes of flowers and that in it, and I’d stand and birl round one way and then the other and the pink skirt under the lace would swirl like it was water.