How Hard Can Love Be? Read online

  “I’m trying not to think about that.”

  A thick biography of Vincent van Gogh caught my attention – laid out adorably on Kyle’s pillow. My heart lurched and I picked up the book. I opened the pages, fanning them out, turning to the section of the book that showed all the colour photos and paintings.

  “You like Van Gogh?”

  Kyle exuded a shrug. “I’m really into reading biographies, and I’m only halfway through that one. But I’m liking it so far. Van Gogh seems like a dude…”

  A dude…

  One of the greatest painters and visionaries to ever grace this fair planet…a dude.

  “Isn’t that the guy who cut his own ear off?” Whinnie asked.

  I withheld a sigh. “He did do that yes, but…”

  But he did so much more. With his oils, with his lines, with the mood he could create using only an easel, paints and his fingers…but that was art stuff, and only I seemed interested.

  Russ stretched his arms up, bored. “Can you stop poking around our stuff so we can discuss what the hell we’re doing this evening?”

  We left Kyle’s tidy cabin and stepped into the harsh sunlight of the clearing. I sat on a log and fanned my face. It was even hotter, if possible. The air was so dry, like someone had sucked all the moistness out with a Hoover. I remembered Mum telling me I’d miss the fog of San Francisco. She was right.

  Sometimes she was right.

  Sometimes…

  My arms were already crossed just thinking about the upcoming evening. I hated people looking at me. A lifetime of being too tall meant I was too used to it.

  Kyle lay back in the dust and kicked his legs up. “So what do we do, guys?”

  Russ sat down, then stood up with inspiration.

  “I know,” he said. “We’ve got Amber in our group. We should do something British!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, that’s not obvious.”

  Russ looked confused. “What do you mean? It’s pretty obvious?”

  Kyle grinned at me. “Amber’s being sarcastic,” he explained. “Contrary to popular belief, we Yanks do understand sarcasm. Though, yes, maybe we’re not all such cynics.”

  “I’m not a cynic,” I protested. “I’m a terminal pessimist with an edge of angry realism.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful.” He smiled again.

  I smiled back. “It’s true. What are you anyway, Prom King? An if-you-wanna-see-rainbows-you-gotta-put-up-with-the-rain person? Do you, like, post motivational quotes on a blog somewhere?”

  He grinned wider. “And what’s wrong with rainbows?”

  “Enough enough enough!” Russ waved his arms against the blue sky, interrupting us. “We’re losing time. What British things do you know, Amber?”

  I wracked my brain and looked at Whinnie. “Erm, Winnie the Pooh?”

  “I’m not doing Winnie the Pooh,” Russ said.

  “You’ll only violate his values anyway,” Whinnie said.

  “Why don’t we just sing American campfire songs with morals in them?” I asked. “Isn’t that what campfires are for?” I got a sudden memory of a CD collection Mum brought on one of my childhood holidays to America. We’d played it over and over. “How about Peter Alsop?” I asked, fumbling for the name in my head. “It’s perfect for a campfire, surely?”

  Whinnie and Russ pulled a huh-what? face. “Who?” they asked, just as Kyle said: “You’re kidding me. You know Peter Alsop?” His face lit from within, making his tan more golden. “I swear NOBODY knows him.”

  “Yeah, I know him. I thought everyone in America knew him? In England no one has heard of him. My friends always thought I was weird when I played his CDs at my birthday parties.”

  “Who the hell is Peter Alsop?” Russ asked. “Is he, like, in a band?”

  Kyle and I grinned at each other, with that shared positive energy from finding someone who knows the same obscure thing you do.

  I thought about how to explain him. “Peter Alsop is a children’s singer.”

  “But he’s also a child psychologist,” Kyle added. “And a hippy, I think. He writes all these songs for kids, teaching them important life lessons and stuff.”

  I jumped up off the log and started to sing. “My body’s nobody’s body but mine. You run your own body, let me run mine!”

  Kyle jumped up too. “Ahh, yes! Oh my God, the please-don’t-touch-me song. I never got that as a kid. Do you remember ‘Where will I go when I’m dead and gone’?”

  “That one that teaches you about death? Yes!”

  Russ and Whinnie looked totally bewildered but we ignored them, high off the reminiscing. “What’s your favourite?”

  Kyle beamed at me again. “Easy. It has to be ‘I am a Pizza’.”

  I AM A PIZZA. THIS GUY KNEW “I AM A PIZZA”.

  “I can’t believe you just said the words ‘I am a Pizza’ to me. That makes me so happy inside.”

  “And then there’s ‘You Get a Little Extra When You Watch TV’. And ‘It’s No Fun When Ya Gotta Eat an Onion’.” Kyle practically jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Onnnnnnniion,” I sang, remembering the old lyrics instantly.

  Whinnie and Russ just stared at us, their mouths open.

  “You two are weird,” Russ stated. “I think that needs to be acknowledged.”

  I sat down on the log with a thump, a smile stretching to the widest cracks of my mouth. “You would understand if you had Peter Alsop in your childhood too.”

  Russ actually waved his hands to make us shut up.

  “Guys, guys. We have a show to put on! And Whinnie and I don’t understand your weird psychobabble singer. I still think we should do something British. Amber, you’re useless, especially as you’re actually English. Kyle, any ideas?”

  Kyle’s face had transformed in the short interval I’d not been looking at him. His wide grin gone, he nibbled at a hangnail and stared into the dust. He gave a big boy shrug. “I don’t know,” he said, all personality-transplanty. “Whatever.”

  Whinnie and I exchanged another look.

  “How about Monty Python?” she then suggested. “Surely we all know that?”

  “Monty Python,” I repeated. Dad was obsessed with the Python people and forced me to watch the films all through my childhood. I’d loved the weird animations in them that broke up random scenes. They were so delicately drawn, so perfectly painted – yet all that effort for utter nonsense.

  “Monty Python could work,” Russ said. Kyle said nothing, but nodded into the dust.

  I sighed with resignation. “I’m in.”

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  Americans

  +

  Attempts at English accents

  +

  Vodka

  Nine

  I had an obligatory “family” dinner to get through before the obligatory campfire humiliation.

  Bumchin Kevin had made fajitas. I think to try and make peace after the previous night’s row. He kept saying the word all high-pitched: “Fa-HEE-taz”. It was like torture – so much so that if you recorded it and played it back to me on a loop, I’d tell you all the secret information I held about my country.

  I felt a bit sick anyway – from leftover hungoverness, sunstroke, and the thought of all the children arriving tomorrow.

  “Here they are,” he said, carrying a sizzling plate of chargrilled vegetables over to the tiny dilapidated dining table. “Fa-HEE-taz. Tuck in everyone.” He carefully put everything into the middle.

  Mum acted like he was a caveman who’d just dragged in a mammoth he’d killed with his bare hands. “Kevin, these look INCREDIBLE. Don’t they, Amber?”

  I nodded, wishing there was meat in them. Wishing I could be eating in the rec hall like everyone else.

  “Don’t they look lovely, Amber?” she pressed again.

  I nodded again. “That’s why I nodded.”

  “You could say thank you to Kevin too.”

  Kevin waved his h
ands. “Don’t be silly, it’s my pleasure.” But Mum gave me a “look” over the steam of the burning onions.

  “Thank you, Kevin.” My voice sickly sweet.

  I jumped when Kevin thumped his glass down on the table.

  “Don’t talk to me like that in my own house.”

  “What?” My heart thumped from the shock of him banging the glass down. “I said thank you.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Amber!”

  “I…I…”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d broken through Kevin’s fakery, within a day. I was half pissed off, half quite impressed that he wasn’t pretending any more.

  “Well, they look great. Just great,” Mum repeated, trying to cut through the tension, taking plates and dolloping on piles of veg before passing them round.

  We ate in an anything-but-contented silence. I stared at Kevin’s beer bottle for a long time. He slurped from it occasionally, tipping his head back, dribbling some into his bumchin.

  Dad never used to drink in front of Mum. I wondered how she could stand it. But she seemed not to notice as she sipped at her iced tea.

  “So, Amber.” Kevin downed more beer. “You looking forward to the kids arriving tomorrow?” He said it sternly, daring me to be rude again.

  “I guess.”

  “I can’t wait for them to try out your new art class. We’ve never done art here before.” His voice was falsely enthusiastic, but with threat underneath.

  “Hmm.”

  I hadn’t exactly planned my “art classes” yet – though technically I was supposed to have created my own syllabus. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that loads f American children were rocking up the next day and I was supposed to look after them. All I’d thought about was Mum. I was jolted by another memory…

  Of one of the good weekends I occasionally got before she went into the centre. Of us sprawled on the carpet of her dank flat, Sellotaping paper together to make one giant sheet, like we were both children.

  “Mum, I’m supposed to be doing my art homework.”

  “You can do that later.” She waved her hand in the air, a thick felt tip clasped in her fingers. “Creativity is about fun. Okay, let’s try and draw every single Harry Potter character.”

  And my homework hadn’t got done, and Dad had yelled, and Mum had forgotten to pick me up the next weekend, and I’d ripped our giant picture up and dramatically tried to set it on fire in the garden and Penny had flipped out, and Dad had tried to explain, and it was all a mess.

  I felt angry suddenly as I looked at her – angry about the way she sipped her iced tea, angry about how she chewed delicately on her fajita, angry about how she seemed like a washed-out version of the mother I used to know, like she’d been put through the laundry too many times. Old Mum wasn’t a vegetarian – we’d have rib-eating competitions at the shitty cowboy themed restaurant in town. Old Mum wasn’t “wholesome” – she was loud, and brash, and all over the place – and yes, sometimes it was embarrassing and she wouldn’t remember and would never say sorry – but it was energy, it was real. Old Mum definitely didn’t wear gingham. And definitely didn’t follow men around like a lovesick puppy… She never looked at Dad the way she looks at Kevin.

  After two years of yearning and wanting and missing, now suddenly all I had was bitterness and resentment and confusion. Was the Mum I knew even still in there? She wasn’t…bad any more. But, since I’d arrived, she also wasn’t…good?

  Yet, when she pulled me in for a hug before we left for the campfire, I clung onto her like a limpet covered with superglue. She laughed and stroked my back.

  “I saw you laughing with Whinnie at training today. It’s nice to see you’re making friends.”

  I just kept hugging her.

  “I knew you’d love Whinnie, she’s so unique, isn’t she? And I thought it would be interesting for you to get to know Russ, he lives on a pueblo, did you know? Who else is in your group tonight?”

  “Kyle.”

  Mum heard it in my voice, before I even knew there was anything there. She pulled away, gave me this hard look, and said, “Don’t go falling in love with him now. I had enough of that last year.” She wagged her finger.

  “What? What are you talking about?” I protested. But I sort of knew what she meant…he was very good-looking…and genuinely, well, very nice too.

  She studied my face quietly. “He worked here last summer, and I swear my job became less manager and more The-Kyle-Recovery-Centre. Every other minute some girl would come up to me, crying that he’d rebuffed them when they were so sure they shared a connection.”

  So sure they shared a connection…

  I thought of Peter Alsop, Kyle walking me back in the dark, his Van Gogh book…

  “Be careful,” Mum warned, in an uncharacteristic bout of motherly advice. “Guys like him seem to make connections with lots of people, without even meaning to…”

  I instantly felt so stupid.

  I was in the middle of The Spirit Circle.

  The vodka felt warm in my belly. My face felt warm in my head. My everything felt warm from the fire behind us.

  … So I didn’t mind so much that I had a tea towel on my head and was yelling, “We are the knights who say NIIIIII.”

  “NIII,” Whinnie shrieked, also bedecked with a tea towel.

  “NI.”

  “NI.”

  Kyle stared at me, a tinfoil crown we’d made atop his head. “You’re the prom king, you play King Arthur,” Russ had said. Kyle’s lips trembled as he struggled not to laugh. The audience weren’t struggling at all. I could hear their howls behind me.

  “Bring me a SHRUBBERY,” I demanded. “A nice one. Not too big.” Just as the audience was on the cusp of hysteria, I threw in an extra “NI” for good measure. Whinnie joined in and everyone dissolved around us. Even Russ and Kyle were bent over now, their hands on their knees, shaking. Bumchin Kevin’s donkey laugh hee-hawed louder than everyone else’s.

  I felt quite proud of myself.

  Proud, and a little pissed.

  Russ had passed around a hip flask before our performance to “give us comedic courage”.

  It had worked.

  I was drunk. Again.

  We stumbled our way to the end of the scene, stopping regularly to let the laughter calm down. Finally, we took our bows. The four of us stood in a line and dropped our heads. Everyone got to their feet and applauded hard. I looked up for Mum in the crowd. She was standing on top of a log, whistling using two fingers. I waved and she gave me such a watery look of pride that I had to bow again, using gravity to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Kyle pulled me into a big hug.

  “You were incredible, Miss England,” he said.

  I couldn’t reply. His touch had done something to me. Mum’s advice came back to me.

  Lots of girls think they have a connection with Kyle.

  I stiffened as my defence mechanisms kicked in.

  “It was good, wasn’t it?” My accent had never sounded so plummy and cold and unfriendly British.

  Kyle stiffened too and released the hug. He coughed, looked down, and then pulled Whinnie in for one. “You did great, Pooh Bear,” he told her. I instantly felt jealous that Whinnie was hugging him, and not me.

  Russ high-fived us and we returned to our seating area. The Spirit Circle was in a large natural clearing, with space enough for a bonfire right in the centre. The Opening Ceremony night wasn’t going as bad as I’d thought. Kevin had started things off by dragging out his acoustic guitar and making us sing campfire songs I didn’t know about cowboys. Then we’d played some team building games before The Show, seeing who could build the highest human pyramid. Everyone was drinking and Mum and Bumface were either pretending not to realize, or really just didn’t realize. Now we were sitting around the crackling flames, watching each group perform their skit. There’d been a makeshift Shakespeare, some ill-advised raps – our Monty Python was definitely winning s
o far. I settled back onto my log and tried not to sense Kyle sitting next to me.

  Kevin made his way to the front, still applauding.

  “That was great, guys, just great.” He gave me a thumbs up in front of everyone and I ducked behind my hair. He was so cringe, overcompensating for losing it over dinner. “Now, we’ve only got one group left to perform. Melody? You said you needed these?” He pulled out an old iPod and some big portable speakers.

  Melody leaped up in her bare feet. “Thanks,” she said, and called to the rest of her group. “Come on, girls.”

  They got up less gracefully behind her. Her group was all female, and none of them were wearing many clothes. A pocket of dread blodged into my belly about what might happen next. Melody wore just a bikini top with a tiny pair of denim hot pants. I stared enviously at her body as the girls got into a dance formation. Her tummy was so flat, a Malteser would stay perfectly still on it and not roll off if she lay on her back. Her bum cheeks didn’t merge into her thighs like mine did. Even her feet looked thinner than mine. We waited for the music to start and I turned my face away, accidentally catching Kyle’s eye. He gave me this weird smile.

  The beat started. I recognized it instantly and held back a groan.

  The Pussycat Dolls. “Don’t Cha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?”

  Melody and her mates clumped together, touching each other’s limbs provocatively then grinding down to the floor.

  All the guys started cheering, and Melody did this self-satisfied smile that made me hate her. The clump broke apart at the chorus and they shimmied into a series of synchronized moves. The cheers got louder. Everyone started clapping in time to the music. I gave Whinnie a desperate look, wishing so much that Evie and Lottie were here to tell me everything I thought was right. But Whinnie obliged by sticking her tongue out and pointing to the back of her throat.

  I reluctantly clapped along. I didn’t dare look at Kyle and Russ – not wanting to tarnish our fledgling friendship by seeing them drooling.

  The chorus hit and Melody and the others strutted forward. Melody made a beeline right for us.

  Not us, Kyle.

  I saw his face as he twigged what was going on. He gave me the tiniest look, or maybe I imagined it, then broke into a grin. Melody pointed at him and he gestured down at his torso all overdramatically, like, Who me? She flicked her hair, nodded and plucked him from beside me, dragging him into the middle. Well, “dragging” implies a lack of willingness. Kyle didn’t look like he lacked anything right then. The rest of the dance posse pulled in three other guys, including Watersports.