Kit and Tully | Love or Music?

7 - Kit's Crush

Second week of July 199x 

Axel Carr drops me home on Sunday afternoon. Felice claims she's jealous because I live in the centre of town, but she never wants to stay over. We haven't discussed why, mainly since I suspect it's because she's picked up on Mum and Dad's veiled hostility.

I stand on the granite steps for a moment, staring up at the three stories of fine Georgian red-brick architecture looming over me, and try to prepare myself for the week ahead. Period houses like these are on-trend at the moment, but five generations of Lawless solicitors have lived behind this imposing front door with its well-preserved fanlight. 

The house weighs me down, heavy and oppressive with family and tradition.

"Your house could look sensational," Felice often tells me as she points out the photos in magazines. Beautifully proportioned rooms with high ceilings, painted in dark blues or greens, with a vivid dash of turquoise or orange.

Our interiors are all tired magnolia walls and plain ceilings with scuffed white gloss on the windows and doors.

"Is that you, Kit?" Mum calls out as I turn the key and push open the door. "Your father says Felice has dyed her hair blue? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if she'd come back from London with a tattoo."

Sometimes she's so close to the mark, she astounds me.

I often wonder if she seems so old-fashioned because she's older than everyone else's parents. She was thirty-nine when I was born, unusually late for a first child in that generation. But even with women her own age, she has little in common. She gets on better with people like Spike's grandmother, older ladies who still go to the hairdresser to get their hair set in curlers and never miss Mass on Sunday.

"St Catherine's has become so lax compared to my day," Mum carries on, "but surely they won't let her have blue hair? They must draw the line somewhere. It is supposed to be a school for young ladies."

Both my mother and my grandmother went to St Catherine's, so it's a family tradition. When I was younger, I was dying to go there too. I thought boarding school would be an escape, a new world to explore. Instead, it was just another form of prison, until last year, fifth year, when Felice arrived.

Mum wasn't too pleased about that, especially since Felice had been expelled from both her previous boarding school down the country in Tipperary and the one before that. She couldn't think why a prestigious establishment like St. Catherine's would accept a girl with Felice Carr's track record.

Poor Mum. She honestly doesn't seem to realise St Catherine's is just as much of a dumping ground for wealthy parents to get rid of their dysfunctional kids as any boarding school.

Besides, Mum has never had any time for Axel Carr. I'm not sure which she thinks is worse, that he's divorced or that he's made a fortune on a total gimmick. Axel has over a hundred stores in the More Video 4 U chain, but my mother still can't take video rental as a serious business.

"Really, Kit!" She frowns as she takes in my black oversized t-shirt and skinny jeans tucked into my docs, layered with chunky silver and leather jewellery. "I don't know why you young girls wear black all the time. It's so dreary, especially on a nice hot day like today. Why don't you put on a pair of shorts and go and lie out in the garden? Get some sun on your legs? You could look so pretty if you wanted to." 

She whisks into the kitchen, muttering. "If you'd only tie back that mane of hair, so we could see your face!"

She and I. We exist in different worlds.

I wander upstairs in my room and stick the stub of the ticket for the Black Death gig in pride of place, on the wall over my untidy desk.

Without my friends, there's nothing to do. I lie on my bed, gazing at the posters of rock stars on my walls, wishing I'd one of Mac Whitehead, but he's not that famous yet.