Sugarcoated Read online

  – and I’m an aunty now,

  I went on, telling her about baby Sean and him being poorly and my dad jetting off to see his grandson.

  Just in case things don’t …

  I deleted that last sentence as soon I heard myself saying it. Swallowed my words in a minty gulp. Call me superstitious but I didn’t feel it was a smart idea to tempt fate by putting the worst-case scenario in writing.

  Anyway, Mum says she’ll send me out to meet my nephew later this year if I knuckle down,

  I dictated instead.

  But oh GAWD!!!! I just can’t. There’s more chance I’ll marry Elvis than pass anything. I’ve done zero work. So I’ll be dead and buried by the time you come home! You’ve seen and heard my mumsie on the warpath so you know what she’ll do to me if I fail two years running. Anyway. Hey,

  I wanted to change the subject,

  see if I do live to go to OZ you so HAVE to come with me. Aunty Clod and Aunty George can lullaby baby Sean with our beeyoootieefool singing. Yeah?

  Right. OK that’s enough about the baby. Time to tell you what’s happened to ME this week. You’d better be sitting down in your mudhut, G. Coz you won’t believe this …

  There were six more silent calls while I type-talked Georgina through the Three Most Amazing Days in the Life of Clod since the hammer attack. It was my longest ever email – a four butterminter by the time I’d filled Georgina in on what the thugs at Dad’s window looked like.

  How I’d been interrogated by Starsky and Hutch.

  Then picked up at a sweetie counter by the tastiest guy.

  Who wined and dined and even kissed me.

  Took me to his flash flat.

  Didn’t try it on, alas and alack.

  But took me shopping.

  When I met another guy …

  … well fit too, by the way. Dave he’s called and he threw himself on top of me … then gave me his phone number!!!! How mad is that?

  I even told Georgina how I was receiving silent phone calls as I typed my email. Then I explained how I was tackling the sixth one.

  I’ve just kept it ringing all this time I’ve been telling you about Stefan’s mobile going dead on me. Hey, by the way, what d’you make of that? Hope he’s not a piece of crap, G! coz he’s a major babe, Anyway, I’ve cued ‘Shut Up Shut Up’ on I-tunes and I’ve turned the volume full and I’m picking up the phone now and –

  Well I just kept starting the song over and over: ‘Shut up. Just shut up. Shut up …’ About twenty times. Then, not even putting the receiver to my ear I plucked the buttermint out my mouth to bawl, ‘I’m calling the police now. My uncle’s a Chief Superintendent,’ into the mouthpiece. Then left the phone off the hook while I finished off my email.

  Result.

  I reported to Georgina.

  Who’s the joker, though? Bet it’s that no-tits Linda. She hates me because she tripped over my feet in front of Tam Moore last week and her skirt split up the back and you could see her pants and Tam totally pissed himself laughing at her and he gave me a round of applause. Anyway, hope it is Linda. Not some stalker out there. Or a perv. Spying from the garden, ready to sneak in and saw me up and I’ll lie here rotting till Dad comes back and opens the front door and the strench of rotting flesh makes him gag and he covers his mouth and staggers upstairs and finds me writhing full of maggots and swarming with bluebottles like the Glutton corpse in Seven. Oh G!! That’s enough of the Scary Movie stuff. Just remember, OK? See if something horrible does happen, better save this email so you can show it to Starsky and Hutch as evidence. Ha! Ha!

  Anyway, better go. Luv to Adrian. And lotsaluv to you. E-back what you think of MY new MAN!!!! Still can’t believe a hottie so sweet wants to date me!!! Something to tell my grandchildren if I ever land a bloke who wants to bada bing me. Anyway, let’s not go there: Stefan hasn’t yet.

  Hope he’s not gay!!! Coz he’s something else! If he’s still MY BOYFRIEND when you come back you’ve gotta meet him …

  Two things dawned on me after I clicked SEND and the little wingy icon fluttered my thoughts and words and deeds away to Georgina. First of all I wished I hadn’t raised any of the stalker and the corpse-with-maggots stuff. Not tonight. Coz not all of it flew off with the email. Some of it flew up my nose and into my mind. Now it was worrying me. Making me hear noises that weren’t there: shuffles downstairs, creaks next door, footsteps in the loft. Arggg! Should have deleted all that freak-yourself-out stuff like I deleted the worst-case scenario sentence about baby Sean.

  After all – and this was the second thing that dawned on me – I HADN’T included anything in my email to Georgina about Dad’s cloned VISA and his missing passport problems and how all that only happened after my new boyfriend wandered into a room he should NOT have been in. Accidentally on purpose I’d left out that little snippet of dodgy information about Stefan.

  Actually, to be honest, I’d also accidentally-on-purpose skipped telling Georgina a few other snippets about Stefan: his evil, so not class snake tattoo, his attempts to force wine down me in his flat when I didn’t want any. Then him rough-snogging me in his garage, not to mention turning all Don Corleone on Dave Griffen …

  I didn’t let Georgina into any of this because she’s totally crammed with brains (why we’re best pals I don’t know since my head’s as empty as a tube of Pringles five minutes after I pop and don’t stop). Georgina – who plans to be a psychiatrist – is always trying to figure what she thinks people really mean when they say something, and has this theory that the language we use when we talk to each other is only the tip of the iceberg.

  What we don’t say is more important that what we do, G believes. That’s what I like to winkle out.

  Well, I didn’t want Georgina winkling anything out from what I did or didn’t say in my email. Not about Stefan. No thanks. Not yet. Not when my brain was already trying to build a worst-case scenario about who I didn’t want him to be.

  He can’t be a thief. Or a bad guy. He’s too smart. Bit of class. And NOTHING like the gangsters and thugs down at the station today in those photos. I swallowed the idea with the dregs of my Guinness. Just missed sluicing the brand new mint I’d popped down with it. Lucky, I bit down hard and just about clamped the sweet between my back teeth before it slid down and choked me. Recovered, I went back to thinking about Stefan: When he phones again, I promised myself, I’ll ask him straight if he nicked Dad’s card. In fact – I checked my mobile was switched on.

  Found Stefan’s number. Rang him.

  But the connection was still dead.

  So in case I’d missed a text from him, my thumb idled through my Inbox:

  No new messages.

  No new voicemail.

  ‘Where are you?’ I’d to sidewaggle my jaw to speak. A boulder of buttermint was cementing my top molars to the bottom ones on one side. And it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Oh well.’ My sigh over not hearing Stefan’s voice wanted to turn into a yawn now. A big one, flaring my nostrils already, pushing down softly but firmly at the muscles of my mouth. You never think of yawns being macho, but they must be. Because – think about it – even when you try to stifle them you can’t. Not completely. When tsunami-sized ones, like the one swelling up inside my mouth want out, they just force themselves.

  Even through teeth glued shut with sugar they force themselves, ripping molars from their moorings.

  ‘Ouch!’ By the time my yawn swept though me, half a tooth and a big silver filling were impaled in the slippery buttermint which plopped into my hand. Inhaled air converted into electric-shock tinfoil agony when it hit the newly excavated cavern at the back of my mouth – Great! – and when my tongue probed about I shot so high in the air I headered my lampshade and the bulb went out. Every nerve, not just the one in my exposed tooth, jarred and jangled. That explains why my thumb, still curled round my mobile, suddenly jerked. Hit a number. Dialled. In the seconds before my dental crisis I’d been scrolling through my pitifully small addres
s book: Dad, Mum, Georgina, couple of girls I pestered for homework help. Stefan, of course –

  Now my thumb had called Dave Griffen.

  ‘Dave Griffen?’

  Through a mush of head-pain I recalled the security guard putting his number in my phone. Telling me to call him when I wasn’t Stefan’s girl any more.

  ‘Oh God,’ I groaned. Whether I was still or had even ever been Stefan’s girl this was no longer an urgent priority. Controlling the raging agony in my jaw was more important. Forgetting about axe-murderers lying in wait for me beyond my room, not even bothering with lights, I moaned my way into the bathroom praying I’d find painkillers.

  ‘Or clove oil.’

  I’d forgotten I was still holding my mobile. Forgotten I’d dialled Dave Griffen at random.

  So when my accidental call was answered I was very confused.

  ‘Who this?’

  Despite my phone being miles from my ear I clearly heard a guttural male voice against a background of yelling. And despite the distraction of my toothache I knew he wasn’t Dave Griffen. Dave Griffen wasn’t foreign. And there was no reason why his voice could ever have reminded me of the skinny nutter who’d pranced and danced outside Dad’s shop, kicking Hell Dog Hall to death.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Who speak? Who want Dave?’ The second time the man shouted there was no background rammy. Just a listening silence.

  ‘Claudia. Cloddy, I mean,’ I answered automatically although something was telling me I shouldn’t be saying anything back to the voice on the other end of the phone.

  But it was too late.

  ‘Claudia.’ The angry, shouting, foreign voice repeated my name.

  Deliberately. This time the silence behind him was a thinking one. It ticked for a few seconds. Ended with a noise that I just knew was someone being slapped. Hard.

  ‘Ayahhh!’ The cry from this new male voice suggested pain on a par with my toothache. ‘Watch out, Cl-’ it went on before the angry shouting man shouted it down. Yelled, ‘Wrong number!’ at me.

  Cut the call.

  26

  open wide time

  Get real. You don’t know the slapped guy was saying ‘Claudia’! Loads of names begin like yours: Clare, Clementine, Chloe, Cleopatra, Claudette, Clareeeeeessssss …

  And you don’t know he’d been slapped either.

  Could’ve been Dave Griffen’s mates. Messing.

  You barely know the guy, after all.

  And you definitely don’t know it was his proper number you rang.

  He could’ve stuck a wrong digit into your moby.

  Slip of the finger. It happens.

  So bet you did ring a wrong number. Like the angry man said.

  And there are loads of reasons why it’s dead every time you ring back …

  ‘So please, please, please go to sleep now.’

  Seven hours of non-stop tossing and turning after I went to bed, I was still pleading with myself. Still trying to shut down my thoughts. Although, since I wanted to beat the rush for an emergency dental appointment, it was time to get up.

  Like an annoying kid brother you don’t want anywhere near your bedroom, daylight was creeping under the curtains already, and I hadn’t slept a wink. Despite tossing back a neat whisky (Note to self: Dad’s wrong: A medicinal wonder my arse! Does it hell knock you out) and stuffing a wodge of clove-soaked cotton wool in my poor tooth, it had throbbed all night. So had my brain. It niggled and needled me over that accidental call I might have made to Dave Griffen’s mobile.

  If it even was his mobile in the first place …

  ‘Oh, don’t start. Forget it.’ I hauled myself out of bed, queasy from the bitter sweetness of clove-tinged whisky furring my tongue. The inside of my skull felt like moosh.

  ‘The crappest night,’ I spluttered under the shower, wincing when water scalded the exposed nerves in my tooth. Great, the pain reminded me: a crappier few hours ahoy.

  But no Mussolini essay today. There was something. Another school skive! I only realised this when my dentist’s receptionist told me to expect a fair wait till I could be seen. Pain or no pain, that cheered me up instantly! Settling into the comfiest-looking chair in the waiting room, I almost chuckled. This was despite regular reminders of impending torture from the duelling drills whirring up and down the pain octave in surgeries beyond the walls. I searched through my dentist’s out-of-date pile for the mag with least writing and the most pictures. To keep calm I made a mental list of the treats I’d lavish on myself if I behaved during Open Wide Time and didn’t, as on my last visit, bite Mr This Won’t Hurt while he was numbing my mouth. Drilled and filled, I’d have an afternoon of convalescence; little nap perhaps. A DVD. A Chinese. And who knows, I promised myself, there might be a call from –

  ‘Stefan?!?’

  OH MY GOD! When I saw what I saw in the Scottish celeb mag I was flicking … Or rather when I saw who I saw, I yelped so loud the receptionist burst into the waiting room. ‘All right, Claudia?’

  ‘Just my tooth. Aw!’ I lied, although the photograph I was staring at was worse for my nerves than root canal treatment without pain relief.

  There was my sweet-talking guy. Stefan … Only not exactly as I knew him. He was posing in a line-up of Premier Division footballers and their WAGS and STV newsreaders and weathergirls in their gladrags. He was all Jay Gatsby spivved in a white tuxedo. Slicked back hair. He’d his left arm slung over a blonde, his right circling the waist of a wasted-looking redhead. Gorgeous she was though: small-boned, creamy skinned. About half the width and height of me. Stefan had her pulled very close to him. Hip to hip they were, his eyes laughing into hers.

  Or was it Stefan in the picture?

  Was it?

  I stared and stared, doing all I could to convince myself: Nah. But the harder I stared, the trickier it became to deny it was anyone else.

  Even though the information on the photograph’s caption was wrong:

  Glasgow promoter Mr Joe and mystery companions celebrate the opening of Shocking! Scotland’s exclusive members’ only nightclub.

  He’s not a promoter. And he’s not called Joe …

  ‘That can’t be Stefan,’ I tried to reassure myself yet again. But unless Stefan had an identical twin, who was I kidding? There was my Stefan’s smile. His dimples. I could even see the head of that snake tattooed on his wrist. It peeked beneath the cuff of the hand draping the breast of the blonde.

  A couple of hours later, when my dentist whipped off his safety glasses, bared his perfect teeth at me and said, ‘I’d to dig right down to New Zealand for the root of that one,’ it didn’t twig that I’d lost a tooth. Not until he rattled a plastic jar at me. ‘Give that whopper to your boyfriend to wear round his neck as a love-token,’ he chuckled at me. When I didn’t laugh back he frowned.

  ‘Sore? Or still numb?’

  I shook my head. Both. Very, was the truth. Though the way I was feeling had nothing to do with the dentist. NO. My real pain started when I set eyes on that photograph. Now it was twisting my guts, leaving me way more distressed than last night’s toothache.

  Thought you weren’t really one for the ladies, so what’s the deal here? And you told me you’d no girlfriend. So who are your mystery companions? And I thought you were a student. Helping run your dad’s business. How come you’re posing for the High Life pages? Using a different name?

  These puzzles tormented me all the way home. I’d walk a few steps. Stop.

  Unfold the page I’d ripped from the magazine.

  Who are you? I kept asking the smoothie guy in the tuxedo, wanting him to look me in the eye and give me some answers. ‘And who’s she?’

  A fix of chocolate might console me, I decided, but d’you know what?

  Standing in the nearest newsagent’s, swithering between a Mars Bar or a Topic, I realised that even the pleasure of eating chocolate would never be the same again. Thanks very much, Stefan. As for Minstrels, I’d never eat another. Couldn’t even
bear to look at the shiny brown packets of my favourite sweeties of all time. Alas and alack, the very sight of them time-travelled me to a different newsagent’s where a guy in a suede jacket appeared beside me out of nowhere and spoke in my ear, and his fingers brushed mine and we talked and he asked me out and everything seemed to be just …

  Too good to be true. I grabbed a box of Maltesers. Handed the newsagent a fiver. You hardly knew the guy anyway, I told myself. He was just there. Never did find out why.

  Waiting for my change it dawned on me that I’d never even winkled out Stefan’s business in Green-wood Shopping Centre. Despite him being so totally out of place. And more totally not the kind of guy to chat me up. So why were you there?

  Because my thoughts were preoccupied with the kind of questions any half-decent telly sleuth would ask herself, and my sleepless night was making me more clumsy than normal, I managed to drop all the change the shop assistant was handing me. Coins scattered over the newspapers piled on the counter, rolled down spaces between them.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  The newsagent tutted at my apology. Attended to the queue behind me while I scrabbled for my change. I’d never have seen the second photograph of someone I recognised otherwise. Nearly missed it as it was. Because it was just a little one. Head and shoulders shot. My fifty-pence piece covered it.

  But there was no mistaking Dave Griffen’s face. He was smiling out, right into my eyes, from the cover of the Evening Times:

  Attack Leaves Sport’s Star

  Student Critical. Details p. 3

  27

  missing links

  A Glasgow University science student remains critical in the Western Infirmary following a vicious assault. David Griffen (19), a Scottish Judo Team member, was discovered in Kevingrove Park at 7am this morning. ‘I thought he was dead,’ said John McLean (45), the dog-walker who found Griffen in undergrowth beside the Kevin Walkway. ‘He was unconscious and I couldn’t find a pulse. There was blood everywhere.’ Griffen, who remains in a coma, sustained fractures to his skull, arms and legs. Trauma surgeon, Angela Murphy, believes it is ‘too soon to rule out the possibility of brain damage.’ A police spokesperson admitted that there is no clear motive for this assault. ‘Dave Griffen is a regular student in his second year of biological sciences, who, until recently, also worked as a part-time security guard in a city-centre fashion store. This attack on him appears to be an unprovoked act of violence,