A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  “I’d have been in a hell of a lot quicker if Luke hadn’t hidden my underwear,” I said grumpily.

  Harvey laughed. “More than I needed to know.”

  Something occurred to me. “Angel knows about this?” He nodded. “And Xander?” Another nod. “That’s why he was laughing. Does Karen know?”

  “Yes. She’s not too happy. She wanted you to do this on your own.”

  “Am I right in thinking this is a more direct order?”

  “From right across the pond. They think Doyle and Maretti could be after Marc.” He glanced out of the little door window at Marc, who was bent over a sketch pad, silent. “What do you think of him?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to tell. He’s in black again.”

  “So he knows.”

  “Or he’s just a miserable bastard.” I yawned.

  “Am I keeping you up?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I want to go back to bed.”

  “Didn’t sleep?” Harvey asked, hazel eyes dancing.

  “No. Not at all. Bloody Luke.”

  “I’ll remember that next time you two slope off somewhere. Right. Where’s your portfolio?”

  I bit my lip.

  “In the back of my car.”

  “Where is your car?” Harvey asked patiently.

  “At the back of my flat.”

  “You know, I could mark you down for this.”

  “You’re not really a teacher,” I reminded him. “And I’m not really a pupil either.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t this fun?”

  Was he insane?

  “Maybe for you,” I said.

  “I’d love to go back to high school.”

  He was insane. “We could swap?” I said hopefully.

  “Bit late now.”

  Story of my life.

  I borrowed a pencil from Lucy and got some paper from the pile and sat there trying to sketch Marc. But he was elusive, and I always need to warm up, sort of get in practice, before I can make a sketch look anything like its subject. I was relieved when the bell went and I followed him, as subtly as I could, back down to the room below the stage. It was dark in here, the bare bulbs shaded with lighting gels and even one stolen gobo that made the far wall look like a church window. The radio was playing something quiet—unusual, that, because even uncool teenagers like me always played the radio at full volume, no matter who was in the room and what they wanted to say.

  Clara was there, and her face lit up at the sight of Marc. She didn’t look so pleased to see me, however, and spent the next hour trying her best to ignore me.

  Lucy went straight over to Amber and they giggled together for a while, before looking up at me.

  “Hey, Sophia,” Amber said.

  “It’s Sophie,” I replied.

  “Whatever. Weren’t you wearing that last night?”

  Clara and Marc both looked up at me, as did Laurence, who I’d thought was dozing on one of the ugly props sofas.

  “Erm, maybe,” I swallowed.

  “What—don’t you have a washing machine or something?”

  “No, I—” Shit, what did I say? In any other company I would say I’d spent the night at my boyfriend’s house, why not, I was allowed to. And even though, theoretically speaking, a seventeen-year-old was allowed to too, it would just never happen. Not with parents around. Not on a school night.

  “Or didn’t you go home?” Marc asked, his piercing eyes on mine. For a second he reminded me of Karen, the same uncompromising stare that made you feel about three inches tall.

  Amber pounced on this. “That guy you were with. Luce, didn’t you say—”

  “You were snogging him outside Maccy D’s,” Lucy said.

  “I saw that too,” Clara piped up.

  I felt my face get hot. Dammit, why did I have to be a blusher?

  “Well, really he was snogging me,” I attempted.

  “And then later, was he shagging you, too?” Marc enquired, still cool and impassive, and the sudden thought flashed through me—I don’t like you.

  “Is that any of your business?” I asked.

  “Ooh.” Amber made clawing motions with her fingers. “Anyway, I saw him drop you off this morning. In his dad’s car.”

  His dad’s car. Luke’d love that.

  “It’s his car,” I said. “He’s thirt—” I broke off, wincing, because I should probably have played that down a little more.

  They all stared at me, even Marc.

  “Dirty old man,” Lucy exclaimed.

  He’s not, I wanted to say, that’s only a few years older than me, but “a few” sounded like I was covering up for “a lot”. And anyway, to them it was more than a decade. Which was kind of a lot.

  “What does he do?” Amber asked, fascinated.

  “He’s, er, he’s a PSA,” I said, then had to explain. “Passenger Services Agent. At the airport. He’s on check in.” Well, he used to be. While he was undercover.

  “I thought you had to be gay to do that,” Laurence said.

  “You’d know,” Amber flashed back. “Does he get to fly?”

  “No. That’s cabin crew.” And most of them are gay.

  “How long have you been going out?”

  Wow, I was interesting. They wanted to know about me. And suddenly I remembered that when I was at school, the girls with boyfriends in their class were slightly cool, the ones with boyfriends outside school were cooler, and the ones with boyfriends who didn’t go to school were subzero.

  Like me.

  I’m cool!

  I was enjoying the attention so much I almost didn’t want to leave for English. Actually, scrub that, I didn’t want to leave at all. But at least the three girls and Marc were going too. Laurence, from what I could tell, didn’t go to any classes at all, but spent his whole time sleeping behind the stage.

  They commandeered the big table in the centre of the room and I, spying an empty chair and recalling with ferocious effort that it had also been empty yesterday, casually took it. Amber even shared her Sons & Lovers with me as we looked up Oedipal quotes.

  “So,” she said in a low voice, “was it him who called you yesterday? In Drama?”

  I hesitated. I’d been telling them mostly the truth, that being much easier to recall than a tangled web of lies, but with certain glaring omissions. Like that I wasn’t a seventeen-year-old A level student, for instance. Little things like that.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He wanted to know if I was going out. He’s big on bowling.”

  “I saw,” she said. “He got loads of strikes. I’m not too good.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I saw him teasing you. He’s really cute,” she blurted, and I preened happily.

  “Yeah, he is.”

  At the end of the lesson, we walked out together, and the girls asked each other what they were doing now.

  “History,” Clara said, looking depressed.

  “Free now, but Business Studies fifth,” Amber said, and Lucy gave a dispirited nod.

  “Marc?” Clara asked.

  “I’m done,” he said. “I’m off home.”

  “You drive?” I asked, and he nodded. “What?”

  “Corsa,” he said, a touch defensively, but I didn’t react. A Corsa was a perfectly good car for a seventeen-year-old.

  “Where do you live?” I asked hopefully, even though I knew.

  “Miles away, past the airport.”

  My eyes must have lit up, because Amber started laughing.

  “Someone wants a lift,” she sang.

  “Well, I didn’t bring my car this morning.” I smiled hopefully at Marc. “I live right on the main road…”

  Clara was glaring at me but I ignored her.

  “And why didn’t you bring your car?” Marc asked.

  “I, er, didn’t go home last night.”

  “I knew it,” Amber breathed.

  “Can I please have a lift?” I begged, and Marc shrugged.

  “Your boyfriend won’t mind
?”

  “He’ll be at work,” I said. “And besides,” I added belatedly, “he doesn’t live at my house, so he won’t know, will he?”

  Marc took a set of keys out of his pocket. “Come on, then.”

  His car was behind the gym, where mine had been yesterday. An unremarkable ten-year-old Corsa in an unremarkable shade of blue. I wondered why, if his parents were so damn rich, he was driving a car like this.

  Marc was silent as we got in the car, reversed out and waited at the crossing for the kids changing lessons to stream across the road. It couldn’t be good, I thought, to have a road like that in the middle of the school. Someone could get hurt.

  I frowned. If Shapiro’s men turned up, someone probably would.

  “So,” I said, as we eventually turned onto the main road, “how come you left Longford in the first year?”

  “Second year,” he said. “My parents split up.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you live with your mum or your dad?”

  “Used to be my dad,” he said. “I went to boarding school and then over to his place in France in the holidays.” France, eh? I’d have to remember that.

  “So why’d you come back here?”

  “Got chucked out,” he said shortly.

  “You really set someone on fire?”

  A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. “You know that thing where you flick a match on the box and set it on fire midair?” I nodded. I could hardly ever do it right, though. “Well, the match landed on someone.”

  “Ah.”

  “A teacher.”

  “Oops.”

  “And then I dropped my cigarette on him too…”

  “Say no more.” How to put this? So did you move back here because your dad was found floating in the Hudson, or was this a decision made before that?

  I guess Harvey would find that out, but would he share?

  But I left it too long, and Marc unexpectedly filled the gap with, “Why did you come here?”

  “What? Oh. Closest sixth form to where I live, I suppose…”

  “No, why’d you leave your old school?”

  Shit, what was my reason?

  “Company move,” I said. “Dad got relocated.” Phew.

  “D’you miss your old school?”

  I shrugged. “Miss my friends.”

  “You seemed to have a few last night.”

  Double shit!

  “They’re Luke’s,” I said hastily. “His friends.”

  “Right,” Marc said slowly. “And you met him…when?”

  He was testing me, I realised. Dammit. People are always playing me at my own game. What did he suspect? Or was he just bored?

  “At the airport,” I improvised wildly. “We were flying out to—Antigua, and the flight was horribly delayed. And he was the poor sod who had to hand out LRVs,” I said, warming to my subject. This was a job I despised.

  “LRVs?” Marc asked.

  “Light Refreshment Vouchers.” Oops. “For the delay. And people were being really horrible about only getting a voucher, and you could see he was totally out of his depth, it was like his second week or something—he says only newbies get that job—so I said I felt sorry for him, and we got chatting, and…when we came home he was meeting the plane and he remembered me, and we went back to Baggage together and he asked for my phone number…”

  Damn, I should be a romantic novelist. It was certainly a hell of a lot better than the way we’d really met. At the airport, yes, but Luke had been undercover as an Italian called Luca and got me into all sorts of trouble before I found out who he really was, got first hired, then seduced by him.

  “Like a movie,” Marc commented.

  “Yeah, it was,” I said, thinking “movie” was an American word.

  We were in Stansted now, and he slowed down a little. Not too much though. He was seventeen.

  “Whereabouts are you?” he asked, and I thought, I can’t let him see I live in a flat by myself.

  “Just pull into the pub car park,” I said, pointing. “You can’t park outside my house.” Besides which, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know I lived there. There was something about Marc that freaked me out.

  He let me out and I walked down the hill to my building. I wasn’t lying when I said you can’t park outside it—well, not really. Docherty once left the Vanquish there, but the traffic flowed around it like people around a beautiful sculpture. The car park is down a narrow lane at the back of the building, and my flat opens onto a little courtyard off this lane. It’s nice. I have my own outside door, and in summer I guess I could sunbathe out there, if there were ever any sun. Or have barbecues, if indeed I owned such a piece of equipment.

  Tammy was sunning herself in the three-by-five patch of light by the door. She squeaked eagerly at me, obviously hoping I’d feed her. Must be nice being a cat. Eat, sleep, be adored. Don’t worry about money or relationships or sex—and if someone starts neglecting you, run off and find someone else.

  Actually, that part’s not true. Tammy’s feeding pattern is somewhat erratic—she wasn’t fed this morning, for instance—but she still comes back. Because I tell her how beautiful she is and cuddle her. And then give her tuna and a big bowl of milk.

  When I got in there was a note from Luke stuck to the mirror by the door (first and last place I check. Cheeky bugger). Tammy fed 9.30. How did you get home? L x

  Wow, I merited a kiss.

  I hauled out my phone and called him.

  “Haven’t I been a clever girl?” I said.

  “I don’t know, have you? More literary discussions?”

  “Not quite. I got to sit with the cool kids, though.”

  “Well done! How?”

  By being cool, I almost said, but had to admit, “By turning up fifteen minutes late in yesterday’s clothes, smelling of you.”

  He laughed. “Excellent. Damn, I wish you’d been at my school.”

  “Would they let a girl within fifty paces of Eton?”

  “Not to my recollection. Are you at home?”

  “Yes. Marc gave me a lift on his way home.”

  “Nice one. You talk to him?”

  “Yeah, a little bit.” I was curious about where he lived, though. “Luke, you fancy going out tonight?”

  “More teen thrills?”

  “No, just a quiet drink.”

  I could tell he was suspicious, but he agreed to come with me.

  I needed to take a shower—which quickly became a long bath—and eat something, since my insides were hollow, so I arranged to meet him at his place and go out for a drink in Green Roding, which, coincidentally, was where Marc lived.

  I drove to the Rodings, of which there are about half a dozen. They’re all small hamlets about twenty minutes’ drive from me down tiny twisty lanes. These sort of lanes make me sick as a parrot when I’m a passenger, but I’m better in the driving seat, so Luke didn’t ask me too many questions. Of course, investigating Marc’s house was not an unreasonable thing to want to do, but I couldn’t quite think of an explanation as to why I wanted to do it.

  The Spotted Dog in Green Roding was the sort of old, low, dark pub that could be smoke free for generations and still be perfumed with Eau de Marlboro. I actually love the smell of old pubs, the smoke and the beer. It reminds me of my childhood, which probably says something about me.

  “So how was your day?” Luke asked me cutely as he paid for the drinks.

  I shrugged. “The cool kids like me. Well, actually,” honesty forced me to admit, “they like you.”

  He grinned. “Excellent. Always nice to know I’m useful.”

  We took a table in a far corner. I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew here, but then again, anyone at all could be listening in.

  “Any news about Doyle and Maretti?”

  Luke narrowed his eyes. “How do you know their names?”

  “I’ve been clever again. Is there any news?”

  He sipped his Guinness and put it down with
a shrug. “None whatsoever. No bodies, no shootings, no attempted hit’n’runs… How’s your leg, by the way?”

  I shrugged. “No better, no worse. An interesting mixture of shades.”

  He smirked. “I remember.”

  “Yes, and did you have to keep squeezing it?” Seeing him grin and lean back in his chair, I lowered my voice. “I was in pain this morning.”

  “I’ll kiss it better later. How did you know about Doyle and Maretti?”

  I took my time having a drink. When I put my glass down, I said obliquely, “I met my new art teacher today.”

  Luke blinked. “That’s nice.”

  “Yes. So is he.” I took another sip.

  “Sophie…” Luke said warningly.

  “He’s so nice I was thinking of setting him up with someone. Say, Angel, maybe?”

  Luke was quicker on the uptake than I’d ever be.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he said, bouncing forwards in his chair.

  I shook my head.

  “The son of a bitch! I’ll bloody skin him.”

  “Direct orders,” I said. “Higher powers.”

  Luke got out his phone and tapped out a furious text. Then he glared at me.

  “This bloody place has no signal.”

  As if it was my fault.

  “That’s because it’s in a time warp. Luke, don’t take it out on Harvey.”

  “I was texting Karen. You’re supposed to be doing this on your own—”

  “Yes, and if it wasn’t for—” I glanced around “—Harvey’s boss, then I would be. He said she’s really mad.”

  “Insane, I should think.” Luke thumped his phone down and sat back, fuming.

  “Well, look at it this way. Harvey has four classes a week with him. I have twelve. Plus Registrations. Study periods—”

  “When you do so much studying,” Luke said sarcastically.

  “No, I do work, Luke. I already got a lift with him. I asked him about his parents.”

  “And?”

  “Unforthcoming.”

  “That’s not even a word.”

  “It is in my dictionary. Why are you so bad moody?”

  “Pissed off with Harvey. What if someone makes the link between him and Xander?”

  “They won’t. It’ll be okay.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “I looked up Marc’s address,” I told him as a distraction. “It’s just down the road from here.”