From The Moment I Saw Him ....

by MacDonald, Catherine

  Nick telephoned when I got in from school.

  “Would you be able to come and stay the night? We‘ve all been invited to a party next door. It’s going on late so Mum says bring your things, if that’s okay with your parents. The spare room’s made up for you.”

  “Wait - I’d better just check.”

  There was no objection at all from my parents. They didn’t really know the DeLisles, but were faintly in awe of them.

  “Great. I’ll come and pick you up about seven, then.”

  Nick had recently passed his driving test, and was the proud possessor of a black Mini.

  I put on a party dress, and packed a bag with my nightie and clothes for the next day.

  “What time do you want her home tomorrow?” he asked my mother when he arrived. They had become great buddies, and he flirted with her in a way that made her laugh and seem younger.

  “No rush dear, we never worry about her when she’s with you.”

  I thought he seemed a bit funny. As we were driving back to his house, he appeared to be preoccupied, and I wondered if he was feeling unwell.

  The house was very quiet when we arrived. I couldn’t see any lights on, either.

  “Have your parents gone on without us?” I enquired, as our footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. Nick put my bag down on the floor.

  “Darling, darling Eithne. There is no party, there are no parents; they’re in Ireland for the weekend. We have the house to ourselves.”

  “You mean - stay the night with you?”

  My voice sounded squeaky as I spoke.

  “Yes. Is that so terrible?”

  I was silent, surprised and apprehensive. I knew what that meant.

  “What about - what about....”

  I was trying to find words to ask about contraception but they wouldn’t come. He understood anyway.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got all that sorted.”

  He turned, and led me upstairs.

  Wordlessly, he began to undress me. I started to speak, he stifled my mouth with kisses. He would always have an answer to any protest I could make.

  The next morning, Nick prepared breakfast, humming the latest hits along with the radio in the kitchen.

  “I suppose we couldn’t get your parents to agree to your staying the night again tonight?” he asked, plonking down a pile of rather burned toast on the table. I was hunched up in an old dressing gown of his, feeling self-conscious and somewhat ill at ease.

  “My mother appears to agree to anything you ask, but perhaps we’d better not risk it.”

  I thought with a sudden pang of my small, white, virginal bed at home, not so virginal any more.

  Nick looked at me, trying to gauge my mood.

  “Don’t be so woebegone. Didn’t you enjoy it at all?”

  “Well - the first time was a bit - uncomfortable. It was better later,” I admitted, not wanting to say that it hadn’t exactly been the sublime experience I had anticipated.

  To my horror, I began to cry.

  “Oh Christ. Don’t, Eithne.”

  He put his arms round me, while I sniffled a bit. I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I hadn’t expected to be so muddled afterwards - I felt a curious mixture of pain, embarrassment and excitement. It horrified me to think that I was the first to take this momentous step amongst all my friends, and how little persuasion I had needed. I didn’t want to be the Shona McQueen of my year. And there was no going back now.

  Nick stroked my hair.

  “Look. We’ll go into town for the morning, and then have lunch back here. One of the boys is having a do tonight, and I’ll buy you that necklace you liked in Fenwicks. Eat your toast now, there’s some lovely honey, your favourite.”

  “I’m not a child you have to placate with treats,” I said, with some dignity. Momentarily, I remembered Martin at the party.

  “Yes, you are. I always forget what a babe in arms you are really. Oh, don’t start crying again. I thought you’d be pleased to get it over with; I promise you you’ll be fine later on.”

  He was very sweet and kind to me all day. We went into town, and, like thousands, millions of girls before me, I wondered whether I still looked and moved like the same person. Obviously I did, because we met a number of friends while we were out - I felt I was giving out visibly sparky vibes which shrieked “I’ve slept with Nick!” - but they didn’t seem to notice anything different about me.

  Later that afternoon, he coaxed me back into his bed, and there seemed little point in resisting; not that I ever could resist him for long.

  And this time, I began to appreciate that sex could be something enjoyable, rather than the sequence of uncomfortable surprises I had experienced the night before. I was more relaxed; now my body responded rather than reacted to his, and I was very happy afterwards as we lay together, entwined and breathless. It was wonderful to feel we were so close, I didn’t want to let him out of my arms.

  “Don’t go round telling everyone,” I begged, as we prepared for the party later on. He rolled his eyes, but I hoped I could trust him. I could not bear to think of being labelled as another one of his conquests; could hardly bear to think that there had been others before me.

  When we got to Dave’s house, everything was in full swing. Another set of absent parents meant that whoopee was being made all over town, apparently. As well as Nick’s usual friends, there were a number of girls from St Faith’s, our rival school, in attendance.

  I saw appraising eyes slide towards Nick, as ever, the coolest boy at the party in a new leather jacket. One girl - loud, dark, heavily made up, accosted him with an air of familiarity, and bore him off into the kitchen, where they seemed to be sharing a private joke.

  I was miserable. After the events of the night before, I would have preferred to spend a quiet evening with Nick, not attempt some forced jollity in a noisy crowd. None of my special girlfriends were there, and everything seemed rather hostile and hard work. My body was sore and I felt bereft.

  At about ten o’ clock, Nick - I had hardly seen him for an hour - came across and took me by the elbow.

  “Eithne’s tired, I’m going to take her home. Be back later,” he called over his shoulder.

  I was tired, and I didn’t protest as he walked me to the car, but I didn’t like his last words.

  “You’re not really going back to Dave’s?”

  “I am. Sam’s got some great dope. I’ll probably crash there.”

  He knew I didn’t like him taking drugs. He turned the car radio up loud, to fill the silence between us.

  Always polite, he fetched my case from the boot when we arrived at my house, and then enveloped me in a hug. It felt false to me after the intimacy of the afternoon and previous night, and I was suddenly apprehensive.

  “Sweet dreams, E. I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. Then, seeing my long face, “Don’t be so down. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  I heard irritation in his voice, saw exasperation in his eyes. I couldn’t let him leave me like that. Quickly, I reached up and kissed him, for once, the initiator.

  “I’m looking forward to the next time,” I whispered.

  He drove away, and left me standing in the darkness. It occurred to me that I had slept with a boy who couldn’t wait to get back to where the action was. How on earth had I been such a fool?

  Chapter 6

  Next day, I waited for the telephone to ring. I didn’t know it then, but this was to become a familiar scenario over the next few months. I was scratchy with apprehension and impatient for reassurance that nothing had changed between us.

  He finally called about five o‘clock.

  “Hi, E. Sorry - it was a late one and we didn’t surface until after lunch.”

  It took all my willpower not to ask who “we” were. I hoped he meant the other boys.

  “Can you come round?”

  “Nah, I’ve got an essay to finish. But I’ll pick you up after school on Tuesday as usual,
okay?”

  I told my mother that my red eyes were due to the beginnings of a cold.

  But on Tuesday he was there, smiling, affectionate, and my spirits soared. Back at his house, I needed little persuasion to fall into bed with him, and we passed a blissful hour as if nothing had occurred to upset our intimacy. I wished we did not have to get up and dress so hastily afterwards, but even the insouciant Nick did not want his mother to discover just how far our relationship had progressed.

  I sat, drinking my tea at the same kitchen table where I had wept on Saturday morning, and vowed to cultivate a more adult attitude to things. After all, I was properly grown up now, and I would gain nothing by being miserable every time something went counter to my wishes. If there was a forced gaiety in my chatter, Nick didn’t seem to notice it. He seemed relieved that I had gone back to being the reasonably cheerful person I had been before.

  The truth was - I was now completely in thrall to him. I dimly recognised that there was a fatal imbalance between the love smitten schoolgirl and the handsome boy who was used to getting his own way, but at the same time, I was too green to see where this would inevitably lead.

  The weeks passed, and we continued to pursue our stealthy but satisfying sex life. Now I had taken the plunge, I found myself wanting to sleep with him all the time, not just because I adored the physical pleasure we shared, but because it was a way of asserting my possession. I could not get enough of his lithe, lean body, I loved the taste and smell of him. I wanted to sink my teeth into his flesh and mark him as my own.

  Sometimes after making love, I would catch a reflective, speculative expression in his dark eyes, as if he was perplexed by the transformation from shy girl to enthusiastic lover. He didn’t appear to object.

  Summer came, and with it, A levels. Although neither of us needed to achieve specific grades to take up our Oxford places, the pressure was on to turn our attention to academic matters.

  This began to affect our weekends together. We still met several times after school on weekdays, but I spent a few Saturdays on my own, while Nick acceded to his parents’ demands that he stay in and study.

  I found this surprising, as Nick had never shown much regard for his parents’ wishes in the past. Perhaps he was now growing up a bit.

  One Sunday morning, Eva called.

  “Are you okay? I didn’t see you at Bobby’s party last night.”

  “I didn’t know he was having one.”

  My heart sank. I knew what that meant. “Was Nick there then?”

  “Well - yes, I did see him. Sorry, Eithne, I shouldn’t have said -”

  “No, I’m glad you did.”

  Pride stopped me from asking whether he had been with anybody. I was surprised, annoyed, and hurt.

  He had asked me to tea that afternoon (his parents would be there, which rather restricted our preferred activities), and I could not decide whether or not to tell him what I had discovered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out too much more.

  It was a hot day, and we sprawled in garden chairs under the big cedar tree in the DeLisles’ back garden. The place was immaculate - striped lawn, blazing flower beds, cascading tubs of scarlet geraniums - surface perfection, rather like the DeLisles themselves, no doubt achieved by someone else’s hard graft, I thought cynically. I was fidgety with apprehension, and Nick noticed immediately.

  “What’s up, E?”

  I disliked him shortening my name. He’d been doing it a lot recently.

  “Please stop calling me E. I don’t like you reducing me to a letter,” I said sharply.

  “Just an affectionate nickname, babe.”

  He reached out a languid hand and stroked my arm, looking a little surprised at my tone of voice.

  “I hear you had a good time at Bobby’s last night.”

  It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. He was silent for a moment, the hand dropped.

  “Ah - Eva, I suppose.”

  He paused. “Yes, I did look in for a bit. So what?”

  A fly buzzed around his head. He lifted an arm to swat it away, and his collar fell open revealing the side of his throat.

  “You’ve got a love bite on your neck!”

  My voice cracked on a high note of accusation. Nick sat up quickly.

  “Look here, Eithne. So I went to a party, I had a few drinks, I snogged someone. It’s no big deal.”

  His jaw took on a tight look I had never seen before. “We’re eighteen for Christ’s sake - we’re not tied to each other.” He swatted angrily at another insect.

  I felt my mouth trembling, I had thought that we were.

  “Oh God. Don’t turn on the waterworks.”

  He got up and knelt by my chair, sighing a little as he did so. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked softly. “I can’t look at another girl without you going off the deep end. You’ve got to chill out. It’s too hard otherwise......”

  He tugged gently at my hair. “Don’t you know I’ve been going out with you for longer than anyone else before?”

  His face seemed to register surprise as he said it. I felt somewhat abashed and silly.

  “No, I didn’t know,” I murmured.

  “Well, I fancied someone for a whole year once in Primary School, but I suppose it’s not quite the same thing.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment. There was an undercurrent of tension which I couldn’t quite account for.

  “The fact is, we’ve been seeing an awful lot of each other,” he continued, looking away from me into the distance and twiddling with the grass. “Now the exams are looming, we ought to concentrate on those for a bit. Afterwards, things will be easier again.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  I tried to keep my voice level, it was an effort.

  “No - no, don’t be silly. Just explaining why we need to cool things for a week or two. You’ll be grateful when you get your exam results.”

  His mother called from the back of the house, and he got up to fetch a tray with the tea things. Somewhat to my surprise and irritation - I really wanted to have it out with Nick about the party and the need for “cooling” things - she accompanied him back to our spot under the tree. I would have to play the polite guest rather than the aggrieved girlfriend.

  Although I had met Mrs DeLisle many times, I had never really got to know her. There was something of a smooth carapace about the DeLisles as a family which was impossible to crack. They were always charming and capable, just as Martin had warned me all those months ago, but one felt it was impossible to get under the surface. However, I liked Nick’s way with his mother - fond, teasing, gentle- the way I would have liked him to be with me, I suppose.

  I complimented her on the garden.

  “Ah yes - Brown does a good job.”

  She looked around vaguely, as if she expected nothing less. We talked about our exams. She said Nick was working hard and she was sure I was too. It would be fun when we were both at Oxford together.

  Then she said something which was a surprise.

  “I expect Nick’s told you about our French trip.”

  I looked over at Nick. His expression was smooth and guileless, which immediately roused my suspicions.

  “Not much,” I said cautiously, not wanting to give away the fact that I knew nothing about it at all.

  “Yes - after A levels are over, we’re taking him out of school for the rest of term and going to visit our French relations in Cannes. I am half French, I expect Nick’s told you.” (He hadn’t.) “It will be nice for him to spend some time with his French cousins and their friends,” she continued, passing him the plate of little cakes.

  I gazed at him, sprawled elegantly in his chair, dark hair over one eye as usual. I thought of sunny Mediterranean beaches, of tanned and topless French girls, splashing in the clear water, youthful body close to youthful body as they stretched out on the hot sand. No wonder he hadn’t told me.

  Now I was angry, and strangely, this
helped me to keep calm.

  “It sounds wonderful,” I said politely, taking a cake myself. “It will be very good for his French as well.”

  His eyes glittered at me in the bright sunshine - don’t get worked up, don’t over-react, they said.

  “And what about you, dear? What are your holiday plans?”

  “Well, I’m not quite sure. We’re probably going to visit relations in North Berwick at the end of July.”

  Another picture came into my head - me, stomping along the rocky beach, well wrapped up against an easterly wind blowing in from wild waves, deafened by the grating shrieks of swooping seabirds, cold, damp and miserable. The contrast was almost too much for me, it wasn’t fair.

  Mrs DeLisle looked puzzled.

  “North Berwick - where exactly is that?”

  “It’s just east of Edinburgh, on the coast,” I murmured.

  “Ah, you’ll know Edinburgh then?”

  We talked for a while about the Scottish capital. Her firm were opening a branch there in the autumn. Nick was very quiet. I chatted with a grim brightness which grated on my ear but seemed to deceive the other two.

  Eventually she said,

  “Well, I must attend to a few chores. Don’t keep Eithne too long darling, I expect she has revision to do.”

  I watched her elegant form drifting over the grass to the house. There was an awkward silence which I was determined not to be the first to break. My throat felt constricted with the effort of sounding normal.

  “I expect there’ll be lots of beefy Scottish boys for you to flirt with,” Nick observed, after a while. He grinned, but his eyes were wary. “You can find out what they wear under those kilts.”

  “Oh piss off, Nick!”

  I sat up. I thought “He’ll expect me to make a scene because I didn’t know about France. I won’t do it.”

  Instead, I said, “Well, perhaps I had better be getting back. Are you okay to give me a lift home?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He stood up, looking relieved, and extended a hand to help me from the chair, then pulled me into his arms.