Lauren Laverne - Candy and the Broken Biscuits

As I take in Clarence’s words, the cloud around me starts to move. Little smoky plumes of colour pull themselves into shapes, scenes, faces. The people I love, the things I want. I see a door and know BioDad is on the other side of it, waiting for me. Then suddenly I’m back on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, like in the dream I always have. Only this time it feels less like a dream and more like…

“Ahem!” A loud cough behind me. A very un-Clarencelike cough. The cloud evaporates along with my Fairy Godbrother. I plonk back down on to the bench and spin round.

“Evening…Didn’t mean to interrupt you. I thought you were on your phone there but, um…”

Oh. My. Freaking. GOD! Dan Ashton. Dan Ashton scratching his head.

“Who were you talking to?”

My heart is beating like a kick drum but he can’t hear that. Can he? Scratching the nape of his neck, brows knitted in confusion, Dan steps into the shelter and sits down next to me, placing a battered leather bag between us. I’m too nervous to look directly at him so I look at it instead. It isn’t properly closed; I see the spine of a book, the title begins Psychotic Reactions and Car …white headphone wires and a plastic bag.

“Hey – I know you! You come into the café sometimes. With that emo girl!”

Emo? Sometimes? I practically LIVE THERE!

“Uh huh. Holly you mean. She’s not an emo. Not now anyway.” With the concerted effort of ripping off a plaster, I flick my eyes up for a second, taking a snapshot of his face I will always remember. Brown eyes made as deep and black as the sea by the streetlights; that dark mess of hair falling into them; an expression something like a question mark; half-a-smile and frozen breath. A shadow under his cheekbone so perfect it looks drawn on. I get a sudden urge to reach out and touch it. I sit on my hands. The half-smile gains a quarter.

“And you?”

Oh God, questions. I’m so nervous. Note to self: BE COOL. DO NOT TALK TOO MUCH. I REPEAT, BE COOL .

“Emo? No way! I mean I like all kinds of stuff. Some of it’s all right, I suppose. Apparently it all started with The Smiths and I like them. My mum used to play Girlfriend in a Coma a lot, which I always thought was really freaky, though…”

What are you going on about? Stop talking now.

“…She had a boyfriend once who used to sing it to her, which was just wrong. He had a quiff. Before, like, before it was OK again…”

STOPTALKINGSTOPTALKINGSTOPTALKING!

“No, I meant your name. What’s your name?”

Oh. God.

“Oh God. I mean…Oh no. No…it’s Candy. Candy Caine.”

“Candy Caine.” My name on his lips: half as good as a kiss.

“I’m Dan. Ashton. Pleased to meet you.” He extends a hand towards me, I pull mine out from under my leg as gracefully as possible (which is not very, it squeaks on the plastic bench) and slip it into his. We shake, palm against palm and it feels like we really are on the edge of the world and have just jumped off. “Been somewhere cool?”

“A party. Birthday party.”

“Where are you heading now?”

“Home.”

“Yeah? I thought a girl like you would have more options than that on a Saturday night.”

What does that mean? I give a non-committal laugh and hope it’s something good. We sit in silence for three seconds. My chest feels like an overstuffed birdcage. If this goes on much longer I might cough up a feather. I’m trying to think of something to say next when Dan speaks.

“Ah…bus!”

It is indeed a bus. With impeccable timing, the 160 thunders towards us and into our stop. A hen party are piled into the back few rows, big girls in small clothes and pink cowboy hats giggling over half-hidden bottles. Dan stands, shoulders his bag and gestures for me to go ahead.

“After you.”

I’m one step on to the bus home with the boy of my dreams when I remember: Clarence. I can’t leave without Clarence. I turn around just as Dan starts to step up and smack straight into him. His nose whacks into my cheek and even through my coat I feel the mortifying squish of his hand against my boob. The contents of his bag go flying and he follows them down, attempting to retrieve them from the snow. I crouch beside him but I’m not sure whether he’d mind me touching his stuff so I just make ‘helpy’ arm movements without actually doing anything useful.

“Oh God! Oh no! Sorry! I’m sorry. Is anything broken? Listen, I can’t…I mean I just remembered. I’ve got to…”

“You’ve got to what?” Dan brushes snow off his iPhone then presses the button to check it still works. It lights up.

Thank God.

“I’ve got to…to get the next bus!”

“What?”

“Yep. The one after this. I’m going with a friend. He doesn’t really know his way around here so I’ve got to meet him and…”

I look out at the empty seafront, snow and blackness and nothing else. I sound completely mental .

The bus driver, who looks like a potato and is evidently just as romantic cuts in. “Are you two getting on or getting off?”

We straighten up. “Getting off,” I say. Just as Dan says, “Getting on…Shame. Hope you and your ‘friend’ have a great night, Candy. It was nice meeting you.”

Oh no! ‘FRIEND’? He’s annoyed. His eyes wander to the back of the bus. One of the younger prettier hens notices and starts to giggle in his direction, chugging on a bottle of something fluorescent.

“No! No, he’s not that kind of…he’s a friend. You know, like, just friends. I don’t have a – I mean, I’m…single.” His eyes find me again and there’s a flutter in my chest. I try to sound casual. “Single at the moment.”

By which I mean FOREVER.

“Oh, right. Well…I guess maybe I’ll see you in The Blue sometime?”

“Sure, yeah. Definitely. See you there. You will see me too! Unless there’s a freak accident and you go blind. Or I go invisible. Or both. Hopefully not, obviously. Do we have a nuclear power plant around here I don’t know about? Ha…”

Stop. Talking. Now.

I bite my lip. As the bus doors swing closed, Dan says, “Great dress, by the way.”

“What?”

What ?

The doors hiss closed and I look down to discover that in the commotion my coat has come undone, revealing…well, revealing pretty much everything. As the bus pulls away I fingers-and-thumbs my coat up, frantically scanning the moonlit street for Clarence at the same time. Suddenly he appears, hanging upside down from the top of the bus stop.

“Clarence! It’s a miracle! I spoke to Dan Ashton!”

He smoothes his right eyebrow with his finger. “And what’s more unlikely it appears you can almost flirt!”

“ Flirt ?” I attempt a casual dismissal of the accusation with an accompanying hand gesture; but I’m so flustered it comes out as a fit of spluttering, choking and arm-flapping. Like an angry ostrich trying to start a really old car.

“Well,” says Clarence, when I have eventually come to an embarrassed stop, “I don’t know if I’d really call it flirting, either, that being a delicate and balletic art. Whatever it was, that young man was lapping it up. He likes you!”

The words light a little candle somewhere inside my chest. The sensation is so strange – a quiet ache as sweet as it is strong – that I hardly hear Clarence say, “And that is going to be very useful indeed…”

“What is going on with you today, Can?”

Monday. I’m at Holly’s, in her room. We’re supposedly doing homework but actually listening to last.fm and laughing so hard we almost wet ourselves. Still in our school uniforms, Holly has fashioned a ‘Ramboesque’ headband from her tie and I am wearing my jumper as a turban. And people say kids have nothing to do these days. We lie side by side on the bed. Pirate being somewhat funsize and me lanky, her feet just about reach my knees.