Standing in the wings waiting. It seemed like we’d been doing this fucking play for ever. Rehearsing since the beginning of January and now, mid-April, at last, the fifth and final performance. Halle-fucking-luiah!
It was my own fault. I’d allowed myself to be flattered into auditioning by Mrs Slater, who’d said she had “the perfect part” for me. Naïvely, I’d conjured a vision of myself as a dashing Romeo, but my pretentions to leading-man status had been well and truly dashed when I’d been handed my script.
“Tybalt. Impetuous hot head,” was scrawled across the top. A thuggish troublemaker, the Capulet cousin of Juliet. My character would be dead by the interval, killed in a fight by Romeo.
The only upside, and really the only upside, was getting the chance to beat the crap out of Mercutio, the snivelling Billy Smythe, quite possibly the most annoying guy in the school. His prime motivation for being in the play seemed to be the opportunity to ponce around the stage in yellow tights.
And Romeo? Do you even need to ask? Ritchie Gasson, Head Boy. The stuck-up, arrogant twat had been ingratiating himself with the teachers ever since we started here, almost seven years ago.
And so, there we were, the final night, ready for my final scene. This was the worst bit now, watching that slimy prick, Ritchie taking my beloved Amy’s hand to ‘marry’ her. Amy, my Amy, the girl I’d secretly been in love for over a year. Now, as the school gossip went, Romeo and Juliet were shortly to become ‘an item’ in real life, not just on stage. I was heartbroken. He bent to kiss her and anger welled upside me. Still at least my rage meant I was pumped up for the fight scene to come.
The lights went dark for a moment, before Billy pranced on stage followed by one of the other boys. I waited for my cue, ready to lead my Capulet brethren out for the big confrontation.
The scene was in actually two parts, Billy and I (Mercutio and Tybalt) would fight in the first half, while Ritchie (as Romeo, now secretly married to Juliet and therefore my relative) tried to broker a truce. Maybe I was slightly biased, but I was pretty proud of the fights, and the three of us had worked hard to rehearse them. I’d devised the choreography (it really was more like a dance than acting) and every move had to be pretty carefully planned.
Although Mercutio was the first to draw his sword, the main aim of the first fight was to establish my character as the aggressive villain, in contrast to Romeo’s peacemaker role. It was important that, by the time the second fight between me and Ritchie began, that the audience was firmly rooting for him, but also that Tybalt was more than a credible threat to Romeo’s life. Establishing the treacherous side of my character was made easier by Shakespeare’s own stage direction, that I was to stab Mercutio under Romeo’s arm, after he’d established a truce between us.
The second fight was a little harder to design as the Bard had merely written: “They fight, Tybalt falls.” The duel was to be evenly balanced at the start, to establish Romeo and Tybalt as ‘worthy adversaries’, then, to build the tension, we’d disarm each other, with our swords being thrown towards each side of the stage. The disarming sequence was actually the most crucial, because it was important for Ritchie’s sword to fall in a relatively small area of the stage, but also with the hilt angled, so that he could pick it up right at the very end. Without swords, Romeo was unarmed, but I would bring out a dagger repeatedly swiping at Ritchie. The closer, more hand-to-hand nature of this part was supposedly more dramatic, and it had to look as if the tide had firmly turned in my favour.
For the climax, just as Tybalt might do Romeo in, the members of our respective gangs were to drag us apart. I was to struggle to break free, waiting for Ritchie to be positioned within arm’s reach of the sword that he’d lost earlier. Then I would charge forward, roaring across the stage towards him, both arms held aloft, gripping the dagger above my head and just as I lunged forward to deliver the fatal blow, he’d flip up his sword and pierce me through the heart.
Piercing me through the heart, the moment he stabbed me with his sword.
Piercing me through the heart, each time his Romeo kissed my Juliet.
–
I’d fallen hard for Amy. The first time I’d seen her was at the Christmas concert at the end of her first term at our school. She’d joined us aged 17, when her mum had changed jobs and moved her family to our town. Although we were in the same year group, we didn’t share any classes and so it wasn’t until that night that I really noticed her.
I remember her standing on the stage, radiant, in a plain white dress, illuminated from above by a single spotlight – the embodiment of angelic innocence. She gave a performance of the Coventry Carol, followed by a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu. From the moment she opened her mouth, it was obvious she was in a class of her own. Her voice was pure, strong and clear – her soaring melodies made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like nothing before. At once, I was enthralled, captivated, smitten.
But getting to know Amy was not as simple as you might have thought. I spent most of the school day in the science block, away from the main building and our paths rarely crossed. Occasionally I’d pass her in the corridor, but she never seemed to notice the friendly smiles of acknowledgement that I gave her. In fact, it wasn’t until almost a term later, that I actually spoke to her.
The school concert before Easter was more informal than its counterpart before Christmas. I’d asked to perform a couple of traditional Irish songs as a duet with my cousin Lauren (also in the same year group at the same school), accompanied by me on the acoustic guitar with her providing a steady beat on a hand-held drum. Like me, Lauren was a fair singer, but perhaps I should have thought twice about giving her the Bodhrán. I loved my cousin dearly, but it was difficult to describe her a subtle or sensitive musician. She was a big-hearted farm girl, with muscles at least as big as mine and if she hit a drum, whether with the tipper or her fingertips, everyone knew about it.
I’d been feeling confident in the week leading up the event, but then, with four days to go, Lauren went down with a virus and lost her voice. At any other point in the year, I might have considered this a blessing, but after twenty-four hours it was obvious that she wouldn’t be recovered in time for the concert, and so I reluctantly made my way across to the Music Department to tell the teacher that we’d have to pull out.
Mr Lane was obviously sorry to hear about Lauren being ill, but was desperate to avoid yet another act from pulling out of what was fast becoming a rather sparse programme.
“Could someone else take her place?” he asked.
“Don’t see why not,” I replied with a shrug. “Lauren was doing the top line and I’m the one on the harmonies, and the tunes are easy enough to pick up. If you’ve got someone in mind, I could give it a trial run with them.”
“Do you know Amy Norton?”
“Yes,” I said. “She did that amazing Pie Jesu at the Christmas concert. But isn’t she singing with someone else?”
Mr Lane shook his head. “She was going to, but the other girl’s gone down with this bug too, so they’ve dropped out. Listen, I’m teaching her last lesson today, so if you come back after that, the two of you could give it a go – if she agrees, of course.”
Fortunately Amy had agreed and, after only half an hour’s rehearsal, the two songs were sounding better than they ever had with Lauren and Mr Lane was trying to persuade us to add a third. The concert itself went very well, with an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the audience. Of course, I looked around after it had finished to thank Amy, but she’d disappeared before I had the chance to speak to her.
During the Easter Holiday she accepted my friend request on Facebook, and I tagged her in a photo of the two of us performing, but heard nothing more. Of course, I made a point of looking through her profile, scouring her photos for any hints that she might have a boyfriend, but most seemed to be of her with female friends from her previous school. From her pictures she seemed to have a fairly active musical life, but that wasn’t surprising as she was one of the few students at our school to be taking music A level. She played the violin in the town orchestra and sang in a local choir – I’m sure the musical standard of our school was way below her expectations when she joined us.
I started to see more of Amy during the Summer Term. Although she was studying for A levels in arts and humanities, and I was solely sciences, we’d both decided to apply to Cambridge University. The school put on weekly interview preparation courses for the two of us, plus the Head Boy (who was applying to Oxford). We spent most of the hour discussing current affairs, using newspaper articles as prompts. Amy was much quieter than either Ritchie or me, although when she did contribute her points were well thought through.
Outside of those classes I didn’t see much of her. When we passed in the corridor, she was friendly and polite, but not exactly chatty. I sought her out a couple of times at lunch, but she was quiet and shy, and it was difficult to sustain a conversation with her. She was mysterious, enigmatic, and I couldn’t get her out of my head.
We duetted together again at the July concert (more folk songs), although she seemed very concerned that Lauren would be offended that I wasn’t performing with her instead. After the concert I spotted Amy heading out of the hall, following a woman, who I presumed was her mother, in deep conversation with Ritchie’s parents. A few days later, I’d noticed that she’d changed her profile picture to a head shot that had been cropped from a bigger photo of the two of us on stage, but through the long Summer Holidays I heard nothing from her and she never showed at any of my friends’ parties.
Amy grew more confident as our university entrance classes continued through the Autumn Term. Encouraged, I invited her to my eighteenth birthday party at the end of October, (I say my party – it was a joint one with Lauren down on the farm), but she politely declined saying she was busy. Neither of us performed in the concert before Christmas, the pressure of preparing for our Cambridge interviews put paid to that, but on the final day of the term, as Mrs Slater had handed me the script for the play, I noticed that Amy had been given the role of Juliet.
–
I sat in the car, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for Lauren. The two of us were heading to the cast party at James’ house. Lauren had been our stage manager and had also done a lot of the set decoration. It was a role that suited her well and, despite being totally disorganised with her academic work, she had an aptitude for managing practical tasks, particularly when relatively large groups of people were involved.
We were ten minutes late already and we hadn’t even left home yet – not that that was unusual. I seemed to spend half my life waiting in the car for her. My cousin and I were next-door neighbours, living in adjacent houses on the farm that our parents shared. I was the older by three weeks and, as we were both only children, we’d grown up pretty much as brother and sister.
Living a good fifteen minutes by car from the school, it was imperative that we learnt to drive as quickly as possible: I’d passed my test on the first go within a couple of months of turning seventeen, but Lauren had been less lucky and had only passed on her third attempt over the summer. We’d been fortunate that our grandmother had given up driving around the same time and had given the car to the two of us. I’d had pretty much exclusive use of the vehicle for the first nine months and suddenly having to share it required some adjustment, mainly because the interior of the vehicle was fast resembling the floor of Lauren’s bedroom.
I’ll admit I wasn’t the tidiest of people, but at least when I’d been the sole driver, the only items in the car were a handful of petrol receipts in the driver’s door pocket and a pair of riding boots behind the passenger seat. Now various items of clothing (many brand new and unworn) were festooned across the back and every conceivable nook and cranny at the front was filled with bottles of hand lotion, makeup brushes and general hair paraphernalia. Since ‘earning her wheels’, Lauren had undergone a remarkable transformation from tomboy to shopaholic teenage girl.
I loved the little black Polo, even if it was now always full of my cousin’s junk. It was the most basic model and cost a fortune to insure us both, but the freedom it gave was simply incredible. I was no longer dependent on my parents for lifts anywhere or on the hourly train service from the village railway station. I could pretty much come and go as I pleased, and my social life had benefitted considerably.
I cast my impatient eyes around the car, setting myself the task of counting the number of Lauren’s pins, clips and fasteners, while I waited.
“Ah,” I said sarcastically as she opened the car door. “Need a hair band?”
“What are you doing with those?” she asked, pointing at the rings of elastic in my hand.
“I was just tidying them for you, and I thought you might like to take them up to your bedroom when we get back,” I suggested mischievously.
“How about I take them out when you remove your smelly riding boots, dear cousin?” she hit back.
“Well, firstly my riding boots aren’t smelly,” I said slowly, “and secondly they don’t go flying across the windscreen whenever we go round a roundabout!”
We bickered away as I drove the two of us towards town. It was a gloriously hot mid-April day. The cast party wasn’t an official school event (there’d be no teachers) and, as James had a large house and garden with a pool, his house was the natural home for this sort of celebration. He had two older brothers at university, and the school sports teams had been partying there for almost a decade.
I dropped Lauren off at her friend Alicja’s house, where she was planning to stay the night – the two of them would make their way to the party a little later. I’d packed my sleeping bag and air mattress in the boot of the car, to kip down at James’, (in fact most of the male cast members would likely be doing the same).
Next, I headed across town to Danny’s. Danny Curran was my oldest friend. We’d been in the same class together since we started together at the local nursery aged four and had gone on to the same primary school. In fact, James had been with us up until the age of eight, when his family had moved abroad for his dad’s work and it wasn’t until we began secondary school at the age of eleven that the three of us were reunited.
I rang the doorbell and Danny appeared. His mum was standing beside him, plastering her son with sunscreen and issuing dire warnings about the perils of dehydration. We fled, clutching our pride and joy – the Curran-Hardwick patent vodka traffic light jelly, before she could start lecturing us on the dangers of alcohol.
Danny and I had ‘discovered’ vodka jelly around six months previously and we’d been perfecting our recipe ever since (a process that had required considerable rounds of optimisation). Together, Danny and I had worked out the optimum alcohol content and setting time (which could be substantially reduced using the spare freezer in the Currans’ garage).
Perhaps Danny’s parents had thought it strange that their teenage son and best friend had suddenly become fixated on a five-year old’s party treat, but neither had made any comment. Danny was convinced that his mum was oblivious to the vodka content. I suspected his dad knew something was up, but was wisely staying silent, for fear of setting off an overreaction. (Not for nothing had our group of friends nicknamed Danny’s mum the ‘ceiling-breaker’!)
Now, our masterpiece was ready! Our creative talent knew no bounds. Willie Wonka’s ingenuity was not a patch on ours! What’s more, Danny was certain our traffic light jelly was sure to impress Becky.
Becky was the stunner of our year group: tall, slim with pert breasts and a butt to worship. She’d mesmerised every male student (and most of the male teachers) the moment she’d joined the school a year and a half before (the same time as Amy). Her long blonde hair would shimmer as she walked, and her laugh cascaded down the corridors like the sweetest peal of bells.
Although Danny was smitten, there was no real evidence that Becky had noticed him above any other of the other teenage boys similarly afflicted at our school. Several times throughout the previous six months or so, he’d boasted to me that he’d taken her on dates and be oh-so-close to making out with her, but as time had worn on, it was clear that much of this was simply in his head.
Not that I blamed him – I couldn’t have been the only guy to have jerked off over the Facebook photos of Becky and two bikini-clad friends cavorting on a beach in Ibiza. There had even been a point at the end of last summer when I thought I might even be in with a chance with her. But I was realistic – we were friends and absolutely nothing more.
–
Danny and I pulled up outside James’ house around half two. He lived in the nicer part of town, and his house was one of the smartest (if not the smartest) in the area. Unusually for an English suburban house, the Masters’ residence had an outdoor pool, an asset which the family deployed to their full advantage.
We slipped down the side passage into the back garden, rounding the side of the house. A vision of true beauty greeted us as Becky, chased by James, darted across our path, blonde hair streaming out as she turned her head and shrieked with laughter. We stood still, mouths wide open, ogling her in her minute red bikini – she really was perfection personified. James stretched out his arm to catch her, but she danced away from his grasp and headed round the far side of the pool.
“Hey guys!” called James as he skidded to a halt in front of us. He was bare chested, wearing long, navy blue board shorts. He’d clearly spent a lot of time in the gym recently and his biceps and pecs glistened with beads of sweat.
“Hey!” I answered. (Danny was still unable to summon the power of speech.) “We brought the vodka jelly!”
“Cool!” he replied. “Tell you what, drop it in the kitchen, get changed and come outside.”
I followed Danny through the sliding double doors into the sitting room, turning right along the hallway towards the kitchen.
James’ mum was there, unpacking sausages and burgers for the barbecue.
“Hello Mrs Masters,” said Danny. “We’ve bought a jelly for later. Can we put it in the fridge, please?”
James’ mum looked a little nonplussed as Danny opened the fridge and placed the jelly inside. He exchanged a few pleasantries with her about the end of term and then turned to head back out, presumably in search of Becky.
“Is there anything I can do to help, Mrs Masters?” I asked.
“David and I are going out later, so let me show you where the food is for this evening,” she replied “and then if you can wait a second, you can take this plate of sausages out to the barbecue for me.” She opened the fridge and then the cupboard waving vaguely at packets of crisps, dips and pizzas that would be consumed later in the day.
“I did show this all to James,” she said, “but you know what he’s like.” She looked hesitant, then, with Danny gone, leaned in towards me and said quietly, “I’m pleased you’re here, you’re the sensible one!”
I looked back at her, confused, wondering in which universe I could be described as ‘sensible’. Then again, when compared to James and Danny…
Our mobile numbers are here,” she said, showing me a card, which she replaced behind the cordless phone. “If there are any, erm, difficulties this evening, you will call us, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” I reassured her, not only wondering what potential difficulties were envisaged, but also still baffled by what she meant by ‘sensible’? Was I the boring one? What did she think might go wrong?
In truth, perhaps this wasn’t so unreasonable; James’ parents had absented themselves from their house during our parties before, but previously at least one of his older brothers had been around as a ‘responsible’ adult. Now that we were all eighteen, perhaps they felt compelled to leave us to our own devices.
–
James’ parents had a strict policy on eating, drinking and swimming, rigorously enforced after two of his eldest brother’s friends had chundered into the pool after drinking a teaspoon of vodka. Although I generally joined in the communal moaning about how unfair this was and how much more responsible we were, these iron rules actually suited me. Sunshine and alcohol were a pretty bad combination for me, and I tended to get a headache if I started drinking too early.
I grabbed a burger and sat down on one of the wooden garden benches that lined the patio between the house and pool. Stijn plonked his tall, lanky frame down next to mine – he’d arrived with his girlfriend Rachel (one of Becky’s ‘Ibiza beach photo friends’). Stijn (pronounced Styne rather than Stidgin) had moved from the Netherlands when he’d been seven or eight, and he still had a wonderfully laid-back Dutch accent. He and Rachel had been the first students in our year at school to ‘couple up’, and three years later, they were still going strong.
I looked across at Stijn’s muscular frame – he’d bulked up considerably since the previous summer and his chest, like mine, now sported a light covering of blond hair.
“Hey, nice pack!” I said, punching his arm. “Been working out recently?”
“Yeah, I got into the gym in a big way”, he smiled goofily. “Rachel seems to like it though,” and he extended his arm as his girlfriend bounded over to him.
I shuffled across to give her room to sit.
“You’re alright,” she said as she perched herself on her boyfriend’s knees.
Stijn made an exaggerated ‘ooff’ noise as his legs took her weight. She turned, beamed at him and tickled his nose.
“Can I sit here?” asked a small voice. I turned to my left – it was Amy – I hadn’t actually noticed her arrive.
“Yeah, sit here,” replied Stijn indicating the space between him and me.
“Oh, hi Amy!” I said, trying to sound casual, my heart beating nineteen to the dozen. “Your parents enjoy the play?”
I didn’t actually know if her parents had been at the play, but thought it was a safe bet that they had.
“Yeah,” she replied. “My step-brothers really enjoyed the fight scenes! Actually, my mum took some photos from the audience. You wanna see?”
I nodded and Amy dug in the pocket of her denim shorts and fished out a scratched smartphone, leaning towards me as she tilted the screen. She scooted a little closer as she opened the first photo, her bare left arm pressing against my right. I leaned towards her to avoid the reflection.
I paused. Was that too close? Unnaturally close for two people looking at photos on a phone? She was pressing against me quite firmly. She began scrolling through the pictures; they were mostly of her and, understandably quite a few also included Ritchie. We’d got to the end of the first half and there were some shaky action shots of the fights.
“Oh Stijn!” laughed Rachel over to my right, jolting me back into the present. “Your legs are just too bony!”
She got up and squeezed herself onto the bench between Amy and her boyfriend.
Amy pushed even closer to me. The right side of my body felt simultaneously numb and electrified, as if my brain had shut down my sense of touch anywhere not in direct contact with her arm or leg. Her skin was soft and smooth, yet cooler than I was expecting.
“I think that’s the last one,” she said as she swiped her thumb across a photo of the whole company at the final curtain call.
I gasped, hopefully not audibly. The next photo was of Amy, lying on her side on the beach, her upper body propped up on her elbow, legs pointing away, her head turned forwards, directing a radiant smile at the camera. Her long, dark, curly hair was tied back, clear of her face and chest, the red-and-white striped bikini showing off her breasts, which looked considerably fuller than I’d appreciated before. Stunning, a true picture of beauty!
“Oh that’s just a photo of me on the beach in Tenerife,” she said, trying to sound casual. There was a slight strain to her voice – she sounded a little nervous, but didn’t immediately pull the phone away from my gaze.
“Hey Jake!” called James, as he strode across to our bench carrying a bottle of lemonade. “Want a top up?”
I bent forward, picked up my glass from between my legs, and offered it to James to refill.
“Hey Stijn,” asked Rachel. “Do you need a glass?”
“Yeah, please,” he replied. She got up and walked towards the house, returning a minute or so later, clutching two plastic beakers.
I sort of expected that, with Rachel gone for at least a minute or two, Amy would shuffle back across towards Stijn. She made a couple of half-hearted wriggles, as if attempting to move away from me, but the contact between us hardly seemed to lessen.
James moved away to refill others. I looked straight ahead, desperately trying to think of a way of engaging Amy in conversation. The sides of my leg and upper arm, throbbed with an exquisite intensity where her limbs were pressed against mine. Inside I was beating myself up. I was normally so good talking to girls. Why on earth was I suddenly tongue-tied?
I reached for my phone and flicked through some of my own photos from the play, tilting the screen so that Amy could see. There were only a dozen or so, mostly taken during rehearsals and none of them featuring me. Then there were quite a few shots of members of the cast, taken before the dress rehearsal, having their makeup applied. I always liked the ‘in makeup’ shots – there was something almost magical about observing the transition from real life to the world of the play, as actor became character.
I reached the end of the play photos and I paused. Should I show her the photos of the Danny and me on our cycling holiday to the Lake District? Like she showed me the photo from Tenerife? Or was that just lame? Lame, because it was directly copying what she’d just done? Lame because it was the fucking Lake District and not Tenerife? Lame because it would look like I was trying to force photos of me and Danny wearing tight cycling shorts on her?
I panicked for a second. What if she started liked the look of Danny in cycling shorts more than the look of me in cycling shorts? What if she started fancying Danny? Or was it obvious that Danny only had eyes for Becky? And did she fancy me anyway? Didn’t she want Ritchie? Did the body contact between us mean anything? Or was this just two 18-year-olds sitting on a bench? Or rather four 18-year-olds attempting to sit on a bench designed for a maximum of three? And more importantly did I fancy her?
Was I more interested in a quick fumble than something meaningful? Was she interested in a quick fumble or did she want something more? Should I just drop being a sanctimonious arsehole and get the first notch on my bedpost?
I decided to press on and mumbled something incoherent about more photos and flicked through the shots on my phone. Rachel returned with two glasses of lemonade and deposited herself on the bench; Amy jammed herself up against me, even more tightly than before.
She leaned in to peer at my phone with undeserved fascination, giggling generously at my long-winded description of Danny grappling with his inner tube as we’d repaired a puncture in the rain. Finally, I reached the photo that I was most proud of.
I’d stood on a rocky outcrop, side on to the camera, one hand on the saddle of my bike, head turned away staring out across the valley below. My lycra shorts compressed my tackle into a prominent bulge and I’d squeezed by butt cheeks together to give myself the perfect rounded behind. It had taken me quite a few goes to marshal Danny into exactly the right position for the shot.
I’d joked at the time that I’d use this photo for my Tinder profile, but it seemed to be having the intended effect on Amy. She gave an audible intake of breath as she studied the photo intently, before turning her head to give me a cheeky smile, her eyes dancing in excitement. My cynicism melted away as I held her gaze for a few seconds, her cheeks reddening with, what I hoped was excitement.
A dark shadow passed across us, blocking the sun.
“Hey Amy,” Ritchie said, ignoring me completely. “You alright?”
“Oh, hi Ritchie,” she replied. “Jake’s showing me some of his photos of the play.”
Ritchie fished in his pocket for his phone. “Hey Jake,” he said, “my dad videoed our fight, you wanna see?”
‘Not particularly,’ I thought. ‘Why can’t you just fuck off and let me hit on Amy in peace?’
“Uh, yeah sure,” I replied, noncommittally. I’d seen almost endless videos of the fight at various stages of rehearsal, filmed from multiple angles in the audience, so we could get it to look right for everyone. I was thoroughly bored of watching myself die.
Ritchie scooted round behind the bench and leaned forward, extending his arm as he held the phone out for us to view. His head was perfectly positioned to look straight down Amy’s cleavage and she could almost certainly feel his breath on the back of her neck.
He pressed play. Two blobs, who could have been anyone, darted back and forth across the stage in the pattern we’d rehearsed a million times. The phone was shaking around a fair bit and almost everything was out of focus. But Ritchie’s message was clear: He was the winner and I was the loser; he, the prince, rescuing Amy, the damsel in distress, from me, the villain.
“Oi Jake!” Danny shouted.
Perfect timing!
“Get your swimming stuff on! We’re going in the pool.”
I leaned in front of Amy and looked across at Stijn, who had his arm around Rachel.
“Coming Stijn? Coming Ritchie?” I asked.
Stijn nodded and began to get up as I rose too, squashing my way past Amy’s leg. Ritchie didn’t move, he was still leaning over Amy, leering at her cleavage. The hand holding his phone was perfectly positioned for an ‘accidental’ collision with her left breast.
“What do you reckon to Ritchie and Amy?” I asked Stijn as we headed inside.
“I think he likes her a lot,” he said in his cool, laid-back accent. “But I’m not sure she’s so into him.” He winked at me.
I shrugged.
–
There’d been bad blood between me and Ritchie for a long time. We’d actually started off in the same nursery class, but the only reason I remember him from back then, was the hot-headed tantrum that he’d erupted into when I beat him, aged five, in the sack race on Sports Day.
When Danny and I had started at Primary School at the age of six, Ritchie’s dad had secured a promotion at his job in London, and he’d moved to a fee-paying independent school in the neighbouring town. But at the age of eleven, under somewhat shady circumstances, his father’s city career had come to an abrupt halt and Ritchie had landed in our Secondary School with a chip on his shoulder.
For reasons I never could quite work out, he had taken a particular dislike to me from the very start and would sometimes hold his nose or ask his coterie if they could smell manure whenever I walked past. Things had deteriorated between his friends and mine, after he’d had a fight with James in the school playground in Year 9. (James had been excluded for a week and, needless to say, Ritchie had walked away scot free.)
Despite being a bully, Ritchie did have his strong points. He was certainly a talented sportsman, particularly strong in both rugby, football and athletics, although he shared my dislike of cricket. He was also bright, one of the most academic in our year group, although perhaps not quite as intelligent as he liked to think he was. He was also a confident public speaker and good looking with it as well. (His height, two inches taller than my six foot, certainly helped.)
His greatest asset was his ability to charm anyone in any sort of authority, especially teachers, but behind their backs he was perfectly comfortable playing to the student crowd. He was a cunning backstabber and I often thought he’d make a consummate politician. He was the kind of guy to drop you as soon as you outlived your usefulness to him, in such a way that you thought he was doing you a favour.
But the worst thing about Ritchie was his snobby mother, who ran the school’s Parent Teacher Association and from whom her son had inherited his ability to schmooze and manipulate. It came as no surprise to anyone that Ritchie had been made Head Boy at the start of our final year and that had made the pair of them even more insufferable. My Mum had first met Mrs Gasson for when waiting to pick me up from nursery one day and recalled that when she found out that our family lived in one of the tiny farm workers’ cottages at the edge of our village (we swapped to the farmhouse when my grandfather retired), she refused to speak to her!
There’d been one fly in the ointment. The term he’d been crowned as Head Boy, Richie had applied to Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, the flagship undergraduate degree studied by future prime ministers. Had he got in, Ritchie would have been even more insufferable than he already was, but fortunately the tutors at Oxford saw through his bullshit and rejected him. The pill was made even harder for him to swallow, by the fact that I’d been awarded a place at Cambridge to study Veterinary Medicine, the first student from our school to be heading for either university in three years.
Of course his mother told everyone how PPE was the hardest course to get into at Oxford and how the tutors had told him to reapply the following year, when they we certain to give him a place (the first part wasn’t true as Computer Science and Medicine had more applicants per place and if the second was the case, then why didn’t hadn’t they offered him a guaranteed deferred entry for the following year?).
I looked back again at Ritchie as he bent over Amy and my heart sank. She was listening intently to his patter, as he scrolled through photos on his phone.
‘Oh well,’ I thought. ‘If she’s falling for his crap, she’s not the girl for me anyway.’
–
Danny and I bounded down the stairs in high spirits, almost colliding with Lauren and Alicja in the hallway.
“Oh hi Danny!” Lauren said, “you about to get in the pool?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Coming to join us?”
“Sure thing,” she responded. “Give us five minutes,” and the two of them sprinted up the stairs to change in the guest bedroom.
Danny charged through the patio doors into the garden. There was something about the combination of water and sunshine that made him go even softer in the head than usual. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the clumsy fool ended the afternoon with a bruised elbow or scraped knee.
I followed a little more calmly. My heart sank as I saw Ritchie still in conversation with Amy. I watched them for a few seconds. Perhaps Stijn was right, maybe he was keener on her than she was on him. Time for a rescue mission?
“Hey Ritchie,” I called as I approached, “you coming in the pool?”
He twisted his head over his shoulder, curling his lip in annoyance at being interrupted. I’d reached the bench and was beside them now.
“You bring your swimming things too?” I asked Amy. She looked up at me and nodded.
“You can go up and change in the guest bedroom,” I explained. “Lauren and Alicja should be up there.”
She smiled and rose from her seat, then walked back towards the house, pursued by the Head Boy. I watched the pair disappear through the patio doors and into the sitting room.
‘Oh well,’ I thought. ‘At least Lauren and Alicja will give her some time away from Ritchie – if she wants it.’
A violent splash shook me from my thoughts. Danny… Danny desperately trying to impress Becky, who was in deep conversation with James and not paying the slightest bit of attention.
“Will there be anything left in the pool for us to swim in?” I asked sarcastically, “or are you just going to water the plants instead?”
“Fuck off Jake, you miserable git!” he bantered back. “By the time you get in, the water will have evaporated.”
I flung my towel down on a bench and dived in. I swam a couple of widths as I adjusted to the temperature of the water.
James fetched a couple of water polo balls from the summerhouse and tossed them to us. I noticed he was wearing a particularly tight pair of black speedos, rather than the more usual board shorts that I’d seen him in when we arrived. I watched, transfixed, as he jogged across to the pool, noting that, like Stijn, he’d bulked up quite a bit since the previous summer. His broad shoulders offset his narrow, muscular waist and his pecks pumped lightly as he ran.
“Get a grip, Jake!” I muttered to myself under my breath. I wasn’t gay, was I. Was I?
We’d had so many parties at James’ house and there was a well-rehearsed pattern to the time we spent in the pool: The girls (normally half a dozen at most) would sit on the side, with their legs in the water, gently declining our entreaties to get in, on the grounds that they ‘didn’t want to get their hair wet’. We (the boys) would horse around, generally trying to prove how macho we were, while the girls would disinterestedly tap away at their phones, and giggle. Occasionally one of the lads would swim over and try to chat one of the girls up (almost always Becky), only to be politely toyed with and then dismissed.
Every ten minutes or so, two or three of the girls would retreat to the sun lounger, rubbing sun cream into each other’s backs. Of course, we’d generously offer to help apply this vital protection, but we’d always be firmly, yet respectfully rebuffed. The whole choreographed routine would then repeat until it got too cold to swim, at which point, the boys would heave themselves out of the water like a pack of walruses to dry off in the sun’s dying rays.
Today felt different, it was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was just that Becky had already changed into her bikini and wasn’t hanging back with the main gaggle of girls, maybe Lauren’s presence affected things – she’d always revert to her tomboy type where sporting activities were concerned, particularly if there was an opportunity to compete with her cousin. Or maybe it was different because we were all finally eighteen – older, uninhibited, high on the freedom of adulthood.
I glanced back towards the house. Ritchie and his snivelling satellite, Billy Smythe, were slithering towards the pool. Amy was a few paces behind talking with Frankie, the girl who’d played the part of the Nurse in the play.
I slid under the water and swam across to the other side for a better view. By the time I resurfaced, the four of them had reached the wooden bench where we’d been sitting earlier. I watched discreetly, keeping my shoulders below the waterline.
Frankie wasn’t bad looking, but Amy was beautiful – there was no disputing it. She’d caught the sun a little, and the delicate features of her face had a healthy red glow. Her long, black hair was tied up, ready for swimming, revealing her tall, slender neck. Her breasts, small yet pert and perfectly framed by bikini top, gave the lightest bounce as she walked.
My eyes slipped lower, across the perfect flatness of her stomach, to her slender, boyish hips and smooth elegant legs. My heart skipped a beat and I felt my cock twitch in my swimming shorts.
Amy was turning away from me now, laughing with Frankie as she reached forwards to put her towel down. Her bikini bottoms were pulled tight against her skin, revealing the pert perfection of her petite butt. I followed her curves to the gentle swell of fabric that hid her lips from my prying eyes. How I wanted to reach out, to touch her, to explore her softness with my fingers.
I took a deep breath – thank goodness I was in the pool and not on dry land.
A shadow passed between us, blocking my view. Ritchie was bending over her, whispering something in her ear, resting his hand on her back.
Indignation rose within me; that oily twat was touching my girl. How dare he!
“Ouch!” I cried as a polo ball ricocheted off the side of my head.
“You’re supposed to catch it!” teased Lauren as she swam in front of me.
I lost sight of Amy as we tossed the ball around – more of our school mates were joining us in the water now. I think Rachel was the first girl to get on a boy’s shoulders (unsurprisingly she chose Stijn) and James helped Becky onto his. To my surprise, Lauren jumped onto Danny’s. I looked around, abandoned by my usual female teammate – Amy was sitting behind me on the poolside.
“Hey Amy,” I asked, “do you wanna get on my shoulders?”
She hesitated, glancing across apprehensively to where Rachel and Becky were trying to unseat each other.
“How does this work?” she asked. “I haven’t done this before.”
“Well you get on my shoulders,” I explained, “and your job is to grapple with one of the other girls and try to push her into the water.”
“But I’m not very strong,” she protested.
“It’s not really about being strong,” I said, “it’s about balance. I’ll stay low in the water to keep you stable. All you have to do is redirect the other person’s strength, so if they make a lunge at you, don’t try to resist them, just pull them forward so they topple over. It’s easy really.”
Amy looked a little doubtful.
“It’s alright,” I said, “they won’t hurt you. Just try it for a couple of minutes and if you don’t like it, we’ll stop.”
“OK,” she agreed hesitantly.
I turned and manoeuvred myself between her legs, placing my back against the side of the pool.
“Try to sit as far forward as you can,” I advised, as she gingerly shuffled forwards.
I felt her transferring her weight onto me as I gripped her ankles gently but securely. She was light, much lighter than Lauren.
“Let’s stay in the shallow end for a bit and you can get used to being on my shoulders.”
“I’m not too heavy for you am I?” she asked, as I took my first few steps.
“Light as a feather,” I replied.
We crossed the width of the pool twice, returning to the side nearest the house. I explained the remaining ‘rules’ and Amy had a chance to observe the others.
“There you go,” I said. “Told you it was easy. Now you’re an expert rider, let’s go do battle!”
Amy murmured in protest, but I headed towards Lauren and Danny, the nearest couple to us. They would be good first opponents, not least because Danny had the poise and coordination of a new-born foal on sheet ice, but also because I was hoping that Lauren would play along.
“Oi Lauren,” I shouted. She turned her head towards me and I winked at her, as Danny swung round with the agility of a pirouetting elephant, almost sending her flying backwards into the water.
“They’re not going to last long,” I muttered, half to myself and half to Amy.
Whether it was Danny slipping, Lauren deliberately falling in, Amy’s newfound wrestling skills, or a combination of all three, our opponents were soon toppled. Becky and James were a more formidable pairing, especially as Becky was almost a head taller than Amy. Unseating her required me to wait until the two girls had a firm grip of one another, then I launched vertically upwards, catching them both by surprise. Becky, whose position on James’ shoulders was fairly insecure to begin with, was easily caught off-balance and tumbled, shrieking with laughter, into the water.
Our third opponents were Rachel and Stijn and, had I had the choice, I would have avoided ‘fighting’ them. They’d been together as a couple for so long, they could anticipate each other’s movements and tactics. Rachel, who played volleyball for the county youth team, was also considerably stronger than Amy and knew how to hold on securely to her man. We held out for about twenty seconds, before superior strength overwhelmed Amy and she fell sideways into the water, almost taking my head with her.
She emerged spluttering, but managed to find her feet on the bottom of the pool.
“You OK?” I asked.
Amy nodded back, her eyes shining in excitement.
“Two wins out of three,” I said. “Not bad for a first time.”
I was about to invite her to get back on my shoulders to tackle Nick and Frankie, when behind her I caught sight of Becky and James. They were facing one another in the corner of the deep end, staring deep into each other’s eyes. It was difficult to tell, but it looked like they were holding hands under the water. My jaw dropped as James leaned forward to kiss her. Clearly it wasn’t the first time.
Stijn was standing next to me in the pool.
“Did you know?” I asked, indicating the newly revealed couple with a jerk of my head.
He nodded. “I was going to tell you, but…” his voice petered out.
Danny! I swung round, wondering if he’d witnessed the same thing, but he was horsing around with Lauren in the shallow end and was either doing a brilliant job trying to ignore it, or was still oblivious.
There was a splash behind me and I turned to see Ritchie surfacing.
“Hey Amy,” he said, “why don’t you get on my shoulders?”
‘Why don’t you fuck off instead, Ritchie!’ I thought. ‘That was my game.’
I lost interest as Amy climbed aboard and waded back to the shallow end to join Lauren, Danny and a couple of others, who were throwing a polo ball between them.
“Lost your partner?” Lauren asked, arching an eyebrow.
“She upgraded to a taller horse,” I replied, jabbing my thumb towards Amy, who was now balanced on Ritchie’s shoulders.
“Sometimes two extra inches makes all the difference,” she quipped.
I shrugged.
–
Although it can get fairly hot in southern England in mid-April, the sun is never very high in the sky and the air turns rapidly chilly as evening approaches. And so, after an hour of messing around in the pool, we started to troop back into the house to get changed, with a few pausing to polish off the food remaining from the barbecue.
Getting changed at James’ house was something of a ritual for our female friends, if not for the boys. They were assigned the Masters’ large guest bedroom at the far end of the house above the kitchen and, we assumed, took full advantage of the precious time away from us to exchange notes and gossip on the first half of the party. They’d spend well over an hour on hair, makeup, you-name-it, before they’d rejoin us.
For the boys, changing normally meant throwing on jeans (or chinos if we were trying) and then a shirt. For the extra keen, there was the opportunity to add aftershave, deodorant or hair gel. Since there were invariably more of us than the girls, we were given James’ brothers two bedrooms, which looked out over the pool. Later in the evening, it wasn’t uncommon to find an amorous couple seeking refuge in one or other, and there’d been several occasions over the past few years, when I’d had to retrieve the holdall with my clothes whilst trying not to disturb a pair of lovers.
I slipped on a clean pair of socks and looked over to Danny, who was leaning on the windowsill clad only in his boxer shorts. He was staring intently at something in the back garden. I walked over and stood beside him, trying to work out what or who he was watching.
Beyond the pool, half-hidden by the bushes, Becky and James were standing together, kissing passionately, locked in a tight embrace. They’d attempted to be as discreet as possible, and they’d chosen one of the places that couldn’t easily be seen from the ground floor of the house or most of the patio.
I put my hand on Danny’s shoulder. “You alright?” I asked cautiously.
“Yeah,” said, “more surprised than anything.”
“She’s not worth it. Plenty more fish in the sea!” I said glibly, “There’s a special lady out there waiting for you and I’m sure you’ll find her really soon.”
“Thanks Jake,” Danny replied, still looking a little crestfallen and ignoring my insincere optimism.
“You alright to stay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he smiled weakly. “It’ll just take a bit of time to get used to.”
“Come on,” I said, “put some clothes on and I’ll whip your ass at table tennis downstairs!”
–
“I’m getting hungry,” James announced, as he put down his bat. “Can you give me a hand with the food, Jake?”
I nodded and the two of us made our way to the kitchen. We’d developed a system over the years for cooking the pizzas, honed during the years when we’d catered for James’ older brothers’ parties. It was a scheme that we’d been excessively proud of as thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds and was based on an old lateral thinking puzzle. The oven in the Masters’ kitchen could only cook three pizzas simultaneously, which meant that waves of pizza would be served with ten minutes (the cooking time) between each one. The wheeze was to remove each batch after five minutes (filling every available space on the working surface with half-cooked pizzas) and then to return them to the oven to finish them, thus halving the interval between servings.
James set to work on removing the pizzas from the packages as I assembled the various dips, crisps and other nibbles. I was about to interrogate him about his newly revealed relationship with Becky when Amy appeared in the doorway.
“Can I do anything to help?” she asked.
“Er, you can help cut some carrots into battens,” I said, a little awkwardly, indicating the open bag. “There’s another chopping board down there.” I pointed to the cupboard. I snuck a quick glance at her butt as she bent down, fighting the urge to reach out and give her a cheeky squeeze.
Amy and I set to work cutting up the uncooked vegetables for the dips as James coordinated the cooking. Together, the three of us worked efficiently to accomplish a task that really only needed two people maximum, leaving us waiting on the oven.
“You decided on your uni offers?” James asked Amy.
Amy looked a little shy. “I’m going to pick London as my first choice, but I’m still torn between Bristol and Exeter for my backup,” she replied.
“Exeter’s my second choice,” James said, “but I wanna go to Bath, for the rugby mostly,” he added. “Bristol’s your second option isn’t it Jake?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I was thinking about Nottingham. Trouble is there’s not much choice if you wanna be a vet.”
What grades do you need?” James asked Amy.
“It would be an A* and two As for London or just three As for the other two,” she replied.
I flipped the penultimate batch of pizzas out of the oven, replacing them with one final half-cooked pizza. James deftly cut slices, then picked up the plates.
“I’ll take these in, then I’ll go round with drinks,” he said. “I’m sure the two of you can manage the last one.” He winked at me then turned and disappeared down the hallway.
“You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to,” I said to Amy. “I can finish up here on my own.”
“That’s OK,” she said, “I’ll give you a hand.”
A silence hung in the air, which became a little awkward.
“What are you doing this holiday?” I asked. “Just revising or..?”
“Yeah,” she replied, “pretty much. You?”
“Yeah, same,” I said.
Another awkward pause. Why was I so tongue-tied?
Amy looked through the glass oven door. “It’s just about done,” she said, straightening up to turn off the power.
She bent down again to take the final pizza out of the oven, my eyes falling once again to her pert backside. My arm stretched out, commanded by a primal urge, driven by a hitherto unknown part of my subconscious, and touched her – the lightest, briefest stroke of her right buttock. I took a step back, startled by my own action, but Amy turned her head and looked back at me over her left shoulder. She smiled, before blushing and breaking eye-contact. My heart skipped a beat and I swallowed nervously.
Amy turned back to the oven and retrieved the final pizza, dropping it onto the plate that I held out. I turned away, not really sure what to do, half of me wanting to apologise for what I’d just done, while the other half willing me to make contact again. But instead I placed the plate down on the working surface and deftly cut the pizza into slices with the wheel.
“You take that in and I’ll bring the jelly,” I said to Amy as I handed her the plate, too embarrassed to make eye contact.
She nodded and turned to go.
“Hey,” I said, “save me a spot on the sofa.”
Amy smiled and disappeared down the hallway. I turned and retrieved the vodka jelly from the fridge, then, carrying a stack of cheap paper bowls in the other hand, I conveyed our creation to the sitting room.
Amy was just sitting down as I entered. At the opposite end of the same sofa James and Becky were entwined, like kissing was going out of fashion.
‘Oh well,’ I thought, ‘at least Danny has a chance to regain some kudos with the vodka jelly.’
Actually, where was Danny? I hadn’t seen him for well over an hour. It was definitely not like him to miss an opportunity to make a song-and-dance about his fucking jelly. My eyes scanned the room, trying to pick him out of the mass of moving bodies in the middle. No, not in here. Had he left and gone home? Was he more upset that I’d thought about Becky and James?
I checked my phone. No messages – nothing – not even a sarcastic taunt. It seemed a bit unlike him to just disappear. I knew he wasn’t upstairs. Amy was looking at me hopefully, but I raised my hand to indicate I’d be back in a minute. Was he outside?
I slipped out of the back door. The pool area was deserted, but I spotted a couple of empty glasses on one of the tables and headed over to pick them up. It was chilly now and the earlier heat of the day was long gone. I stared philosophically into the still water of the pool.
‘Be honest Jake,’ I told myself. ‘The only reason you’re pretending to look for Danny is ‘cos you’re too chicken to go and talk to Amy.’
I took a couple of deep breaths and was about to turn to go back, when in my peripheral vision I saw a shadow moving at the bottom of the garden. I stared into the gloom, trying to pick out the form. Yes, there was definitely someone there.
I skirted cautiously round the pool, then quietly descended the steps at the side of the patio, following the hedge line downhill. At the bottom of the garden there was a line of tall conifers, behind which was a rough, scrubby area with a couple of sheds, a compost heap and open ground that was occasionally used for bonfires. We’d spent a lot of time down there building dens when we were younger. I pushed through the trees.
“Danny!” I exclaimed. “What the fuck?”
Danny was hunched on an old bench, his head in his hands. There was an empty bottle of vodka beside him. I squatted beside him and put my arm round his shoulder. He reeked of alcohol and vomit.
“Danny mate, you OK?” I asked.
He looked up at me. He’d obviously fallen over at some stage and there was a gash above his left eye, which was still bleeding.
“It’s not fair,” he moaned, “I love her.”
‘Oh dear,’ I thought. This was no way to deal with ‘losing’ Becky to James.
“Listen mate,” I said. “I’m going to go and get you some water, and then let’s get you back home, OK?”
Danny moaned again and I offered a few words of reassurance, confirming that the world hadn’t ended, that I was sure that Becky wasn’t good enough for him and that there were, indeed, plenty more fish in the sea.
I got up, walked briskly back to the house and located Lauren in the dimly lit sitting room.
“I’m going to take Danny home,” I said quietly into her ear. “He’s a little the worse for wear.”
Lauren turned, looking concerned. “Is he OK?” she asked. “Do you need any help?”
“I think the last thing he wants is to see anyone else,” I replied, thinking of Danny’s dignity. “I’ll be about an hour. I’ll see you later if you’re still here.”
Lauren nodded. As I rose, I glanced across to the sofa opposite. Amy was sitting there, on her own staring at the two of us, a scowl of displeasure written across her face. I smiled to her, but as I held my hand up in a friendly greeting, Ritchie crossed in front of me, sitting down in the space that she’d been keeping free. Amy turned and smiled broadly at him, engaging him in animated conversation.
I turned and walked quickly back to the kitchen, where I filled a plastic beaker with water and picked up a couple of paper towels.
“Drink this,” I instructed Danny, once I’d reached him again, dabbing at the wound on his forehead with a moistened towel to clean it.
He flinched and pulled away from me.
“Hold still you idiot,” I hissed.
Danny muttered something about people who disrespected him, finishing the sentence with a string of expletives.
“OK,” I sighed. “Let’s get you home.”
I pulled him up off the bench and slung his arm over my shoulder to support him. We slowly made our way up the garden and around the pool. I manoeuvred him along the side passage into the front garden.
I’d done the walk between James’ and Danny’s houses at least a hundred times over the years, and must have cycled it as least as often. I knew the route like the back of my hand. Under normal circumstances, it would take about twenty minutes, but with a drunk teenager to support it was a different matter. I’d briefly considered the idea of driving him back in my car, but decided that I didn’t want his vomit all over the seats and I hoped that the walk might sober him up a little before we had to deal with his mother.
So it was almost an hour later, having stopped a couple of times for Danny to throw up into a bush and to sit down for ‘a rest’, that we finally made it to his house. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his parents’ car was missing from the driveway. I rang the doorbell and Emma, his fourteen-year-old sister answered.
She took one look at Danny and burst out laughing. “Mum’s going to be so mad at you, when I tell her,” she taunted.
“Emma,” I said sternly. “One day you’re going to come back home in a state like this, and then you’re going need Danny to be on your side. So if I were you, I’d keep your mouth shut and give me a hand with him!”
Despite Danny protesting that he didn’t need any help, that he wasn’t drunk and that he could manage fine on his own, he still managed to trip over the step up to the front door. His sister and I manhandled him inside and up to his bedroom, where I managed to help him out of his vomit-covered clothes. I sat him up in bed and Emma brought him a glass of water, most of which he promptly spilt down himself.
“Can you put these in the washing machine?” I asked her, presenting her with his jeans and t-shirt.
“What about your shirt?” she asked, pointing to a smear of vomit that had rubbed onto me.
I pulled the shirt off and gave it to her, then grabbed a spare t-shirt from Danny’s wardrobe.
“Just check on him every half hour or so and try to get him to drink some more water,” I advised as Emma and I went downstairs. “Hopefully he’ll just sleep it off and all he’ll have to deal with tomorrow is a headache. That cut on his forehead isn’t as deep as I thought.”
I said goodbye to his sister and headed out into the dark, mid-April evening. It was getting chillier and I immediately regretted not having borrowed a sweater too. I checked my phone; it was a little before nine. The party would still be in full swing when I got back to James’, although I didn’t really fancy staying.
I reached the Masters’ house around twenty minutes later and crept in through the back door into the kitchen. I’d decided to go straight home and not to stay the night as originally planned. Without Danny and with James ‘distracted’ by Becky, there wasn’t much reason to hang around. Amy was welcome to Ritchie; I couldn’t have cared less at that stage.
Ignoring the music blaring from the sitting room, I headed up the stairs to collect my bag. The door to James’ middle brother’s room was shut, as it had been at similar points in the evening at numerous previous parties.
‘Oh dear,’ I thought. ‘Which couple is it this time?’ Well if it was Ritchie and Amy, I’d just have to suck it up.
I pushed open the door. Stijn was naked on the bed, with another body (presumably Rachel’s) beneath him.
“Oi fuck off, Jake!” he shouted.
“Just getting my bag,” I mumbled. There was nothing I hadn’t seen before, especially with those two. I reached down to grab my holdall. Danny’s was there next to it, and I picked that up as well.
I shut the bedroom door behind me and headed back downstairs, dropping both bags by the front door next to my guitar. As I picked up my coat, I realised that Lauren’s was missing.
‘Good, she’s gone home with Alicja already,’ I thought to myself.
I ducked into the small under stairs bathroom to relieve myself and to splash some water over my hands and face. I glared at myself in the mirror – a fun afternoon had become a shit evening. How could one girl make everything so complicated?
I turned and opened the door; there was a shrieking sound coming down the hallway towards me.
Amy flashed past me.
“Get off, leave me alone!” she was crying.
I opened the door fully and stepped out, colliding immediately with Ritchie, who was barrelling along after her.
“Problem?” I asked innocently.
“Fuck off Jake,” he snarled. “Get out of my way, she’s just playing hard to get!”
“Ritchie,” I said firmly, “she doesn’t want you. Now fuck off and leave her alone!”
He stepped back, sizing me up, pulling himself up to his full height. He puffed his chest out, then he moved forward, throwing a clumsy punch towards me. I sidestepped, deflecting him against the stairs. He staggered slightly, losing his balance, hitting his head on the bannisters.
I bent over him.
“Listen to me Ritchie,” I growled into his ear. “You’re drunk and I assure I am stone-cold sober. Try that again, and the night will end very badly for you in a very short space of time. Understand? She’s not interested and never will be. Now get out of my sight!”
I pulled him to his feet and shoved him away. He slunk back into the sitting room to lick his wounds.
I turned and walked back into the kitchen, my heart pounding. Amy was standing by the sink in tears, shaking. I put both arms around her to reassure her.
“It’s OK,” I said. “You’re safe here. He can’t get at you.”
I held her close for a few minutes, letting her rest her head against my chest until she became calmer. She looked up at me.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been here.”
I didn’t really want to think what Ritchie would have done unhindered.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s take you home.”
She looked at me concerned.
“It’s alright,” I said. “I’ve got the car outside.”
I took her by the hand and led her down the hallway to the front door, gathering my coat, guitar and the bags. I opened the front door and ushered her out into the cold night air.
Amy walked slowly round to the passenger door as I unlocked the car.
“Sorry,” I said as we strapped ourselves in. “It’s a bit untidy. This is all Lauren’s junk.” I indicated the various hair bands, brushes, makeup compacts, lotions and random plastic bags strewn around the interior. “She takes the car shopping for a couple of hours and when she gets back there’s a tonne of rubbish in here!”
Amy looked at me incredulously. “Lauren’s insured on your car?” she asked astonished as I started the car.
“Well, it’s both of ours,” I said. “Our grandmother gave it to us when she stopped driving. We share it really, or try to share it.”
“Hang on,” she said, “you’re related?”
Now it was my turn to look surprised. “Yes, we’re cousins! Her mum is my Dad’s sister. We don’t have the same surname, but we’re all part of the same family. Our parents co-own the farm. Didn’t you know?”
She shook her head. “But that explains a lot,” she said quietly. “I thought…”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s OK, it’s nothing,” she murmured in response.
I’d thought that everyone at our school knew that Lauren and I were related, but because it was one of those things that everyone knew, I suppose no one talked about it. It was very plausible that since Amy had arrived at the school a year and a half ago, it had never come up in conversation around her, especially as she’d taken a while to make friends and settle in. Added to the fact that Lauren and I did act like a married couple sometimes (and we’d often arrive and leave together), Amy could have assumed that we, like Stijn and Rachel, were one of those teenage sweethearts who’d been together for years. The invitation to our joint birthday party might have further confused matters.
Amy was quiet for a few minutes as we drove away from James’ house, but she relaxed more as the distance increased.
“It’s such a relief to be away from there,” she said. “Thank you.”
I nodded, not really sure what to say.
“It’s OK,” I said, repeating the words I’d used earlier, “you’re safe now.”
I knew vaguely where Amy lived, but as we neared her neighbourhood, she directed me to turn into her road and I parked in her driveway. I stopped the engine and looked up at the house. All the lights were off.
“Let me see you inside,” I said.
She nodded and opened the car door.
As we walked towards the front door, she felt in the pocket of her jeans.
“Oh no,” she said, the sound of despair in her voice. “My key – I think I left it at James’! It must have fallen out of my pocket. We’ll have to go back.”
“Is there no one at home?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, they’re away for the night,” she replied.
My heart sank. The last thing I wanted to do now was to drive back to James’ house. Especially if it meant rooting around for a key in a room where Ritchie might still be.
“Does your neighbour have a key?” I asked, “or do you have one hidden somewhere?”
She shook her head.
I toyed with the idea of taking her back to the farm, but decided that that option caused a similar number of problems.
I walked over to the side of the house and looked up. There was a window open, not the largest gap I’d ever climbed through, but certainly not the smallest. There was a route up over the garage roof. Yes, definitely doable.
“I can get in through that window,” I told her.
She looked at me as if I was mad.
“Easier if I’ve got a ladder, but if not, I can get in over the garage,” I added.
She shook her head. “No Jake,” she said, “it’s too dangerous. It’s dark and you might fall.”
“Is there a ladder in there?” I asked, pointing to the garage.
She nodded. “But it’s locked.”
I walked over to the door. It was a standard pressed-steel design with a lock that prevented the handle from moving, but which didn’t actually secure the door into its frame. It was as cheap as it was useless. All I needed to do was to slip the catch and that meant pushing a thin strip through the centre of the gap at the top of the door to hook it open. I’d done it hundreds of times, as had many thousands of British teenagers over many years.
I walked back to the car and picked up one of Lauren’s combs. That should do it. Then, standing on tip toes, I inserted it through the gap at the top. There was a bit of resistance, but I felt the latch move against its spring. I pulled the door open, trying to hide my triumphant smile.
“Jake,” Amy exclaimed, “how did you do that?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
The centre of the garage was clear for a car, but there was a long ladder to one side, which I lifted out and leaned against the wall of the house below the open window. I instructed the still protesting Amy to hold the bottom, then shinned upwards and levered myself through.
I straightened up. As I’d expected from the frosted glass, I was standing in a bathroom. In front of me was a shower cubicle and on either side there were two doors. I opened the one on the right. It was dark, but I was clearly in a children’s bedroom with two single beds.
I removed my shoes, picking them up and carrying them with me out to the upstairs landing. I flicked the light switch on and descended the stairs. The whole operation had taken less than two minutes.
As soon as I opened the front door, Amy ran inside, and threw both arms around me. She laid her head on my chest.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s so good to be back home.”
I held her close for a few seconds, then cautiously kissed the top of her head. She realised what I’d done and lifted her head and smiled back at me.
“Amy,” I said. “I need to put the ladder away. You stay here, and I’ll be back in two ticks.”
I slipped my shoes on again, then removed the ladder from the side of the house and stowed it away. I made sure that the garage door was as secure as it had been before I’d broken in and returned to Amy.
“Will you stay for a bit?” she asked, biting her lip a little nervously.
“Yes, of course”, I replied. I followed her inside and down the hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house.
As we entered, she threw her arms around me again.
“Thank you, Jake, thank you so much,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
I kissed the top of her head and she pulled me more tightly to her. She smiled – a wide, radiant smile.
“Would you like a drink?” she offered. “I think my step-dad has some beer and there might be some white wine in the fridge.”
“It’s OK,” I answered. “I definitely don’t feel like alcohol right now. How about something warming – do you have hot chocolate?”
She opened a cupboard and brought out a tub of chocolate powder. I stood beside her and put one arm around her as she heated a pan of milk.
“Amy,” I said quietly, “I know this is probably the worst night to say this to you, but, but, I really like you.”
That sounded so lame. I blushed.
“I really like you too, Jake,” she replied, glancing downwards, her cheeks reddening.
Apprehensively I bent my head again and gently kissed her forehead. I straightened up again and looked down into her eyes. We held each other for several seconds.
Amy turned back to the pan, which was beginning to simmer. She added the chocolate powder, then poured the dark liquid into two mugs.
“Let’s go and sit down,” she said.
She lead the way down the hallway, turning right into the sitting room as I followed with the drinks.
We sat down on one of the sofas, at opposite ends, clutching the mugs in our hands, intently blowing air across the surface of the hot liquid.
I cautiously took a sip. “Thank you,” I said. “This is lovely.”
A silence descended, which was rapidly becoming awkward. I was completely tongue tied – the way that we were sitting seemed so formal. I wanted to put my arms around her again, but needed an excuse to make body contact.
I put my mug down on the low table in front of the sofa and pulled out my phone. “Would you like to see my lambs?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” she replied, perhaps grateful that I’d made the first move.
I held my phone out in front of me and found the right folder, then scrolled through my photos. Amy scooted across to me, placing her leg against mine and leaning into me. I held my phone out in front of us and scrolled through the photos. They were of the lambs that had been born back at the end of February, but it wouldn’t have mattered whether they were pictures of the inside of the sewerage system. We were both just grateful for the excuse to snuggle against each other.
It certainly wasn’t the most comfortable of positions, so I moved my left arm out from under her, placing it around her. She leant further into me and ran the back of her hand across my chest.
“I like your t-shirt,” she said.
“Oh, it’s not mine.” I said. “It’s Danny’s! It’s too small for me really.”
“Danny’s?” she asked, “is he your cousin too?”
“No,” I laughed. “He er, well, he drank a bit too much, too quickly when he saw that James and Becky had got together this evening and so I, er, took him home. That’s where I disappeared to earlier on. He very kindly vommed all over my top, so I borrowed this when I got him home.”
“So that’s what you were whispering about with Lauren,” she giggled.
“Well, I was just trying to make sure that my guitar didn’t end up in the pool!”
“Was he OK? Danny? When you got him home?” she asked.
“He was pretty wasted, but his parents were out, and I swore his sister to secrecy. He’ll have to explain the cut on his forehead tomorrow, but it looked worse than it was.”
She smiled again and stroked my chest with the back of her hand. “Well, I think you should wear this t-shirt more often – it makes you look more muscly,” she giggled.
“Amy?” I asked nervously. “Can I kiss you?”
She said nothing but lifted her head so our lips met. I felt a tingle of electricity as our tongues touched. Her lips were soft, smooth and warm. I stroked her cheek gently.
My cock instantly jumped to attention – harder than I’d ever been before, straining at my jeans to burst out.
I tried desperately to ignore the throbbing in my pants, to lose myself in the moment, in her tender kiss. She pulled back gently, making a soft guttural whine as we broke contact.
“Hmm,” she murmured. “You’re a good kisser! You taste all chocolatey!”
She lay back against me again, closing her eyes contentedly. I moved my arm down from the back of the sofa to hold her and kissed the top of her head. She shifted her legs so that they ran across mine.
We kissed again, more deeply this time. I stroked her forearm, drinking in the smell of her hair, the tenderness of her lips and the softness of her cashmere sweater. My heart began to race and I heard her breathing become louder and deeper.
We broke apart and Amy picked up the mugs again, handing mine to me. The chocolate was cooler now and we drank slowly, as I held her gently against me.
I picked up my phone and swiped across to see the time.
“Do you have to go home?” she asked, anticipating what I was about to say. There was a note of disappointment in her voice.
“I was going to sleep at James’,” I said. “My stuff’s in the car, but I guess I’ll just go back home.”
“Can you stay here?” she asked, “Please? Not to do anything,” she paused, frowning, “but just to be here?” Her eyes, pleaded with me, seeking reassurance.
“Yes, OK” I said. “I can sleep down here if you’d like. I’ve got my sleeping bag and my air bed.”
“Air bed?” she asked.
“Yes.” I replied. “I got fed up of sleeping on floors and sofas after parties, so I keep an air mattress in the back of my car now.”
“You’re just so organised!” she said, raising her lips to kiss mine again. Feeling a little more adventurous this time, I brought my right hand up to run my fingers gently through her hair, as our tongues danced.
We kissed, perhaps for five minutes or more.
“Amy,” I said. “Let me get my stuff out the car and then we can cuddle for a bit before we go to bed. If you’d like that of course.”
I brought in my holdall and the bag containing the air bed, which I unwrapped and spread over the floor as Amy watched from the sofa.
“The pump’s a bit noisy,” I said apologetically, before switching it on to inflate the mattress. Once complete, I rolled out my sleeping bag and placed my pillow at the head end.
Amy stood as I straightened up and we embraced in the centre of the sitting room.
“Thank you for staying,” she said. She slipped her hands lower and grasped my buttocks through my jeans. “Mmm,” she murmured, “you do have a lovely bottom.”
We kissed again.
“Goodnight Jake,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight Amy,” I replied as she disappeared through the door. I listened as her footsteps lightly ascended the stairs.
I was alone. I took some deep breaths and attempted to process everything that had happened that evening. If anyone had told me an hour earlier that I would be sleeping on Amy’s sitting room floor that night, having just shared my first kiss with her, I would have laughed at them.
–
Coming from a farming family, rising early is second nature and, on a normal day, it would be unusual for me to sleep past six. But the thick velvet curtains made Amy’s sitting room surprisingly dark and the sunrise that would have woken me hours earlier at home, was all but blotted out.
I reached across and checked my phone. Nothing from Mum, or anyone at the party. I decided to message home to say I’d be back ‘in the afternoon’, hoping that if I promised I was going to ‘do some revision with James at his house’, this would (at least temporarily) stave off awkward questions. I toyed with the idea of texting Lauren to ask her to cover for me, but figured this was more trouble than it was worth – not only was Mum unlikely to ask her where I was, but I knew that Lauren would interrogate me when I did finally get home.
I pulled on my clothes, opened the curtains and looked out at the front garden. It was raining gently and little puddles had formed on the driveway.
Ordinarily I’d jump straight in the shower, but I certainly didn’t want to go upstairs uninvited or risk waking Amy. I deflated the air bed, rolled up my sleeping bag and packed them away next to my holdall.
I opened the door and walked down the hallway to the under stairs bathroom. I splashed some water over my face and squinted in the mirror. At least there was one advantage of the ridiculous haircut that I’d got for the school play – my hair was permanently on end, not just when I woke up.
I walked into the kitchen and made a cup of tea. I sat at the table and waited for Amy to come down. It was half past eight – surely she’d appear soon?
–
I’d finished my first cup of tea and was almost through my second. I didn’t want to wake Amy, but equally didn’t want to leave before we had a chance to say goodbye – that would surely be the worst thing I could do! I walked back to my holdall and took out my maths notes, which I’d planned to go through with James later that day.
‘Might as well make a start on the revision now,’ I thought.
I opened the folder on the kitchen table, extracted a bundle of revision questions and began to work.
“A group of Egyptian slaves is building a pyramid for the pharaoh,” I read. “They are required to drag a cube of limestone of mass 500 kg up an inclined plane at an angle of ten degrees to the horizontal. Assuming that the acceleration of objects on the earth’s surface due to gravity is 9.81 m/s2, calculate the coefficient of friction which…”
I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door.
I froze.