Fifth Year Friendships at Trebizon

by Anne Digby

  'But you're in a splendid position yourself, Rebecca,' Miss Darling pointed out. 'Another full year as a 16-U!'

  Rebecca's birthday wasn't until July.

  'Even better than you think;' added Mrs Ericson. 'D'you realize just how many girls above you on the computer had their birthdays in the autumn? A whole army of them has had to move up to 18-U!'

  'Who's still left?' asked Rebecca eagerly.

  'Well, Rita Sullivan and Rachel Cathcart.'

  'I've beaten Rita! Remember – at Bristol last year!' said Rebecca excitedly.

  She'd never played Rachel Cathcart.

  'Well, if you beat them both at Bristol this year and then one or two others in the Prudential at Easter, you could find yourself the Number One 16-U in the country!'

  Rebecca went very quiet, as this amazing thought gradually sank in. Her two coaches were rustling application forms now, talking above her head about useful tournaments, county tennis fixtures, coaching sessions at the indoor school at Exonford. Then Bristol at half-term. Rebecca didn't take in all the details but got the general gist.

  'Well, you are going to have a heavy programme,' smiled Mrs Ericson, rising to her feet. 'Here! It's all typed out. I'll see you at Exonford on Sunday, then? Did you get your Results Sheet off by 3 January? Don't be disappointed when your new ranking comes through. You've lost three months' points, being out of competitions. We'll have you bouncing back again soon. The next lot of rankings will be a different story!'

  'Honestly?'

  Rebecca left the sports centre in an excited daze. She hurried along the lamplit footpaths that led across the school grounds, back to the boarding house. The wind was cold and she wrapped her school scarf round her head to stop her ears from tingling. Why did it have to get dark so early? She'd have liked to have fetched one of her tennis rackets and gone and thumped a ball relentlessly against the wall of Norris House. All night if necessary.

  As soon as she got back, she pinned the typewritten tennis schedule on the notice-board in her cubicle. Then she glanced over to her work-table, guiltily. Spread out there, waiting to be done, was the rest of her history coursework. She hadn't managed to finish it on the coach, after all. She'd been about to tackle it after tea and had been summoned over to the sports centre instead.

  Beside the school work lay a thick envelope. The letter from Robbie! She hadn't even had a chance to open it yet.

  But the history had to be handed in to Maggy first lesson, didn't it? Not too much to do on it now. She'd promised herself to try and get all A or B grades in her GCSEs and she only had a term or so to do it in now. Mocks were in March! They were going to be in January, but the school had decided to postpone them. Even so, less than eight weeks to go! Nothing, not even tennis, must be allowed to spoil her chances.

  She'd save Robbie's letter. She'd read it in bed.

  She'd think about tennis tomorrow.

  It was lovely and quiet. The others were all out. No excuses, then. Nothing to distract her.

  Right now she was going to get her history done.

  THREE

  SOMETHING PLEASANT . . . AND SOMETHING AMAZING

  Robbie's letter was very long. Enclosed with it was his rejection letter from Oxford! It was a standard printed letter and they'd even forgotten to write his name in at the top, so it just began 'Dear —'.

  'We very much regret that you have not been successful in your application to this college,' it said and ended: 'In order not to build up false hopes, we must inform you that your application is no longer being actively considered by any other college.' How brutal it sounded. How final. After all his hard work.

  Well, that's me, isn't it, Robbie wrote to Rebecca. Dear blank. That's just how I feel at the moment. Totally blank and miserable. I haven't shown the actual letter to anyone else, but you might as well see what a failure I am. Do what you like with it. It would make a paper dart for instance, or might be useful for standing teacups on.

  I'm looking forward to getting back to school, just to get away from Dad! He accuses me of stupidity in applying for Politics and Philosophy at Oxford – and elsewhere, too. Well, he's right about that; I can't think why it seemed such a good idea at the time. But what really upsets him is that I don't want to be a doctor, like him! Tish may want to but I certainly don't. He wants me to change my applications to the other universities and ask if they'll consider me for Medicine. No fear. I don't think I'll bother to go to university at all, as I can't think what to do.

  So Doctor Anderson wanted his son to follow in his footsteps! Robbie was pouring his heart out to Rebecca. He'd never really done that before. Suddenly she understood the odd little remark he'd made to her last term, when the broken bones in her left wrist and forearm had finally knitted together successfully. 'Dull but useful,' Robbie had said, quite startling her. 'Doctors.'

  The letter ran to four pages. It ended:

  There! Now I feel better to have got all that off my chest. I've videoed your film and Tish is bringing it back to school for you. I'm going to take our copy to show people at Garth. The best bit's the end. It quite cheers me up to look at it. Lucky Rebecca. Your future seems pretty clear-cut. One of these days when you're jetting round the world with some tennis circus and I'm sleeping under newspapers somewhere, remember who taught you to serve! Your loving –

  ROBBIE XXXXX

  Rebecca read the letter through again and then stuffed everything into her bedside locker for safe keeping. She put out the side-light and shed a tear or two on the pillow before she went to sleep.

  Poor Robbie. He was in such a muddle.

  But if her own future was really as clear-cut as all that, she ought to rejoice.

  Oughtn't she?

  Walking over to main school next day, for the first assembly of the new term, she asked Mara's opinion. Mara tended to be very sensitive, very intuitive.

  'Rebecca, nothing in this world is clear-cut,' said the Greek girl, her dark brown eyes unfathomable. 'So you will have to wait and see.'

  The first days of term were hectic, a foretaste of things to come. The teachers were piling on work now, quite remorselessly it seemed to Rebecca: piling on the pressure! Not only were there several pieces of coursework still outstanding, but all the Fifths faced mock GCSE exams straight after half-term, at the beginning of March. The mocks were a practice run to prepare them for the real exams in the summer term.

  The final grades awarded on their General Certificate of Secondary Education depended partly on the coursework they'd been doing since the beginning of the Fourth Year and partly on the summer exams. So obviously the latter were very important. In Rebecca's case her grades in three of her subjects, French, German and Latin, were decided purely by the examination! There was no coursework element in language subjects under the Wessex Board regulations. Presumably people might cheat too much and use a dictionary! Was that the reason?

  'Don't think the mocks don't matter and you'll have plenty of time to learn things afterwards,' warned Mr Oppenheimer in biology on Tuesday. 'You won't. We're nearly through the syllabus now. By the time you take your mocks, now they're in March, I'll have taught you everything I can. If you don't know it by then, you're not going to! The purpose of the mocks is to give you experience of exam conditions, how to time yourself properly and work IN SILENCE!' he barked suddenly at Roberta Jones, who'd been whispering to Debbie Rickard.

  'You may pick up one or two weak areas from your mock results,' he concluded, 'and that gives you a chance to revise. But that's all. Don't think you can leave most of the work to next term! Now, let's return once more to the food chain, and I am not referring to Tesco's!'

  Rebecca felt nerve-wracked. Mr Oppenheimer tended to have that effect on her.

  Next lesson, Latin, came as a positive relief. They were just a small group and she loved Pargie! Mr Pargiter was such a good teacher that everything seemed to sink in and stay there, without your noticing it. He also made you feel clever, as though all things were possible! Today h
e helped Rebecca with a difficult section of Dido and Aeneas and when she'd worked out the case endings and what belonged where, she had a feeling of deep satisfaction, as if completing a difficult crossword puzzle.

  'Lovely, Rebecca. You're going to sail through your mocks at this rate. Just wait till we get started on some Greek next year. Yes, Tish? You look like Aeneas reaching the Entrance to the Underworld!'

  'And I feel like it, too,' laughed Tish.

  As for French lessons, the planned trip to Paris had added much zest. Monsieur Lafarge, the Div I teacher, would be in charge of the party. They sidetracked him into talking about the delights of the French capital whenever they could. As he insisted that these discussions be conducted in French, he probably had the last laugh.

  The dates of the trip still weren't finalized. M. Lafarge was finding it something of a headache sorting them out with his counterpart at Trebizon's twin school in Paris. Something to do with not clashing with a skiing trip.

  'I hope it doesn't clash with my music heats!' Sue whispered.

  'Oh, Sue, that would be awful!' replied Rebecca. It was so exciting. Mr Barrington, the Director of Music, had entered Sue for the Wessex Young Musician of the Year competition and the first heats were to be held this spring.

  'It's already clashed with my hockey tour,' said Josselyn Vining, with a shrug. 'I can't possibly do both.'

  Joss was in the England 19-U women's hockey group. And she was only sixteen! As they were going to tour Europe, she should worry, thought Rebecca. She herself started daydreaming, with a sense of pleasurable anticipation, about staying with Emmanuelle. She'd never actually been abroad before, unlike a lot of the Trebizon girls, who seemed to flit about all over the place. It was going to be a real holiday. Wow, she'd certainly need one by the time this term was over!

  For, of course, spurred on by the earth-shattering thoughts that Mrs Ericson had put into her head (Number One in her age group – a dream, surely?), tennis loomed large in Rebecca's life. She had some intensive, and very useful, one-to-one coaching with Miss Darling in double games on Wednesday. But most of all she was grateful to Joss. She was so lucky to have someone like Joss Vining at Trebizon.

  Effortlessly brilliant at everything she touched, including schoolwork that she seemed to sail through without actually ever doing any, Joss had really been England's top junior at one time. Only her temperament and greater interest in hockey had made her decide to give up serious tennis competition. But she was still a formidable opponent and gave Rebecca some excellent games in the lunch hours.

  The school's all-weather courts were taken over by netball and sometimes hockey (when the pitches were water-logged) in the winter. But the staff court was playable for the weather was cold but not cold enough for frosts. As she slammed the ball all over the court, Rebecca felt her confidence returning by the hour. However, scurrying hither and thither to scoop up balls as they played, she remembered Naomi Cook's offer to act as ball-girl sometimes. She might take her up on it! At the same time, she frowned slightly. She was a bit breathless, wasn't she? She was still rather out of condition. She'd join Tish for a run tomorrow. For nearly a year now, Tish's great craze had been distance running. She was up every morning at first light, off down the fire escape, off to pound across the damp misty sands of Trebizon Bay before breakfast.

  But Rebecca was getting the measure of Joss once more! These lunchtime games were getting closer by the minute, neck and neck.

  By Thursday evening, exhausted, Rebecca lay on her bed to read up some geography. It was peaceful, up here on the attic floor of Court House. Girls were quietly working away in their individual cubicles, the very faintest tinkle of pop music coming from a dozen sets of headphones. In the corner cubicle, on the other side of the door to the fire escape, Tish was writing up some chemistry notes.

  Some people were out. Elf and Margot had gone to play table tennis. Sue had taken her violin case and caught the minibus to Garth College. There was Joint Orchestra practice tonight. Mara, who had recently started learning the flute, had gone with her. She wasn't good enough for the orchestra yet but she liked to go along and listen.

  Some time during the evening, fully dressed on top of her duvet, Rebecca fell asleep, her geography book slipping from her hand.

  The next thing she knew, Sue was waking her up, just back from Garth. She was holding an envelope.

  'Wake up, Rebecca!' smiled Sue. 'A note for you. Justy gave it to me to give you. It's from Robbie.'

  Justin Thomas, Sue's boyfriend at Garth College, was a friend of Robbie Anderson.

  'From Robbie?' Rebecca was startled. 'What's wrong?'

  'Don't think anything's wrong,' laughed Sue. 'Justy says Robbie's suddenly got more cheerful. Hadn't you better get into your night things, Rebeck?' And Sue headed across to her own cubicle, yawning with tiredness herself.

  Dear Rebecca, said the note. No, I haven't shot myself. In fact, I've been told something pleasant. I've got my self-respect back. Tear up that miserable screed I sent you. Can I take you out to tea on Sunday? Justy says I can borrow his car. It's not cycling weather, is it.

  Rebecca hastily scribbled a reply.

  Dear Robbie. Relieved to hear you're alive and well. Longing to see you. I've got to go to Exonford this Sunday – tennis training. How about Saturday week? The Saturday afternoon? Can I ask Mrs Barry if we can go out to tea then instead? Can you re-book the car!

  She'd post it to Robbie first thing in the morning, from the school pillar-box. It was funny, the way they both at the same time didn't feel like using the phone any more. It was as though the things they had to say to each other were too special for their boarding-house payphones, which were public, to say the least. Notes were much better.

  Over the next few days she wondered what the 'something pleasant' was that Robbie had been told. She'd hear all about it on Saturday.

  In the meantime, she was told something pleasant herself. It wasn't simply pleasant: it was amazing.

  FOUR

  THE MEREST GLlMPSE

  It was after tennis training at Exonford, the county town. Rebecca had been to church in the morning and then spent a gruelling afternoon at the Exonford stadium. After an hour's workout in the gym, she found herself on one of the indoor courts, at the receiving end of a barrage of shots from two members of the senior squad. Then, coaching. She was pleased with her progress and so was Mrs Ericson.

  'Good, Rebecca. You're getting fluent again and your forehand's quite formidable. What did they do to you at that hospital! Now go and shower. Come and see me in the office before you leave. I've some interesting news for you.'

  Refreshed by her shower, a clean T-shirt under her red county tracksuit, she reported to the county coach as instructed. She was intrigued. What did Mrs Ericson want to see her for?

  'Well, Rebecca. Somebody wants to come and watch you play next Sunday. Here. At the Indoor.'

  'Watch me?' exclaimed Rebecca. An indoor tournament had been arranged for the county Seniors next Sunday and she'd been invited to join them. 'Who, Mrs Ericson? Why?'

  'A young woman called Brenda Brogan. She phoned me yesterday and asked permission. She saw you play at Eastbourne. She's coming all the way from London.'

  'Why?' Rebecca repeated in amazement. 'Who is she?'

  'She works for Herman Lasky. The agent.'

  'I've never heard of him!' exclaimed Rebecca.

  'There's no reason why you should have done. But he's a very successful agent. He handles, let me see –'

  Mrs Ericson reeled off the names of four teenage tennis stars. They were all of them crowd-pullers. All of them rich. All of them glamorous.

  'It seems that Mr Lasky might be interested in you, Rebecca. Just thought I'd better warn you.'

  'Well, thanks,' was all Rebecca could think of to say. What amazing news!

  The palms of her hands felt clammy as she picked up her sports bag to leave the office.

  'Hurry now, Rebecca. Mind you don't miss your train. Se
e you next Sunday!'

  'Rebecca!' yelled a cheerful voice at the railway station, and a boy with spiky hair came bounding up to her. 'How are you? Don't tell me they've let you out of prison!'

  'Cliff!' laughed Rebecca. She used to go to school with Cliff Haynes in London and they'd recently met up again. His family had moved to the West Country and he attended Caxton High, the local state school. He'd taken Rebecca to a disco there last term. 'What are you doing in Exonford on a wet Sunday afternoon?'

  'Been to watch some football,' replied Cliff. 'You?'

  'Tennis training,' explained Rebecca. 'I –'

  She was about to blurt it out, what Mrs Ericson had told her. But the train was arriving. By the time they'd got on board and Cliff had gone to buy her a can of lemonade at the buffet, she'd collected her thoughts.

  There was nothing to tell, yet. It might come to naught. In which case, if she got excited and started telling people, she could look a bit silly, couldn't she? She wouldn't say a word about it to anyone, not even Tish and Co. Better see what happened next Sunday, first.

  So as the train rattled back to Trebizon, Rebecca and Cliff talked about their GCSEs and pop music and how they'd spent the Christmas holidays. Cliff obviously hadn't seen the film on Boxing Day, so there was no reason to talk about tennis at all.

  But she told Robbie, the following Saturday. She couldn't help herself.

  They sat by an upstairs window in the restaurant at Dennizon Point, right on top of the cliffs there.

  There was a breathtaking view across the fierce, angry winter sea. A large fishing-boat was pitching and tossing on the horizon. It made Rebecca feel seasick just to look at it.

  Robbie was cheerful and relaxed. He was wearing a thick red polo-neck sweater, his dark curly hair all springy on the neck. Tish's was the same way when life was going well. You could always tell if the Andersons were pleased with life, by their hair; or perhaps those were the only times they bothered to wash it!