How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty's Story

by Amanda Prowse

  It was a week later that Angus arrived. Until she saw him, her stomach remained knotted, and fretful thoughts disturbed her sleep; the idea that he might have had a change of heart, might have kissed another girl on his family trip to Cornwall, was horrible and persistent. She was sure there’d be plenty of admirers among the families with whom they had holidayed ‘forever’, and her feelings of inadequacy sat by her side like a shadow. She didn’t know how she would cope without his affection, especially at school, where having an older boyfriend, and a good-looking one at that, marked her out, had become her thing. It was a shield of sorts, a shield that kept the bullies at bay and was something to be proud of. She might not have been able to chitchat to her mother during the Thursday night phone calls or receive long letters from her full of questions and witticisms, but Angus Thompson, captain of the 1st XI was her boyfriend and that was enough to set her apart.

  For the first time ever, Kitty pored over articles on how to be beautiful. She’d begun taking an interest in her appearance and was spending far longer than was healthy pondering her many non-existent flaws. I wish I had bigger boobs. I wish I had boobs of any size! I’ve got massive thighs – what can I do about that? My skin’s so pale, I wish I had one of those Californian tans, and as for all my freckles… Urgh…

  The night before he was due to arrive, she conditioned her wild red hair, then gripped the disposable razor and with a grimace swept it over her shins and calves. The fair, downy hair went down the plughole, leaving her skin with a womanly sheen not dissimilar to the pictures in the magazines. Her armpits and groin were given similar treatment. She liked the way it felt, this new, shiny, squeaky, hair-free skin. Grown-up. It was one of a thousand moments when she wished she could ask her mum for advice or at least share news of this momentous occasion; it would have made the old Fenella chuckle with delight.

  Angus smiled as he walked into the hallway the next day, his sports bag slung over his shoulder, flicking his long fringe. His presence alone dispelled her anxiety. She might have only just turned fifteen, but she was old enough to know that had there been some other shinier girl in Looe to hold his attention over the summer, he would not have hotfooted it all the way up to the Highlands to see her, no matter how good the banter between him and her cousins. The way he held her gaze and the knowing look they exchanged told her they were still a couple. There was something that flowed between the two of them; if she’d had the words, she might have described it as a longing. His skin had been toasted brown by the Cornish sun and he looked handsome!

  Kitty swallowed the flames of happiness that flickered inside her – Angus could have anyone, so why her? He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the games room, kissing her roughly as he pushed her up against the wall with a sense of urgency that made her heart race and her legs go weak. A strange tingly feeling started in her stomach and radiated throughout her body; she didn’t know what it was, but she knew she wanted more of it.

  ‘Did you miss me?’ he asked, his white teeth coming in close once more, to nip at her bottom lip.

  ‘I did,’ she admitted, her voice hoarse with lust. ‘I was worried you might meet someone in Cornwall.’ She laughed nervously, hoping for a swift rebuttal.

  Instead, he placed his hand under her hair and cupped the back of her neck, holding her fast. ‘As if, Kitty!’

  Just hearing her name on his lips sent a jolt of pleasure through her. But then came the sound of her cousins’ feet thundering down the stairs; their cue to spring apart.

  ‘’Bout bloody time!’ Ruraigh punched Angus on his upper arm. ‘We’ve got bait warming in the sun but didn’t want to leave before you arrived. Grab your waders!’

  Hamish pumped his hand in the grown-up manner that she’d seen rehearsed at school a thousand times.

  Kitty slunk down on the wide sofa and grabbed a book from the shelf; it didn’t matter which book, she had no intention of reading it, but she needed the prop, something to steady her shaking hands and calm her flustered pulse, as she caught her breath.

  ‘SeeyoulaterKitty,’ Ruraigh called as the back of his head and the back of his raised palm disappeared from the room. Despite the lack of an invite, she was irritatingly glad that he had acknowledged her at all.

  Angus followed his friend but turned briefly in the doorway, keen to loiter, as if they had unfinished business. It was no more than seconds, but the look he gave her was so intense that Kitty’s stomach shrank.

  Her appetite over supper was non-existent, partly in anticipation of what might lie ahead for her and Angus, but also, much to her shame, because her mum had joined them at the table and preoccupation with her strange behaviour killed Kitty’s appetite. Her mum sat quietly, an ethereal presence that seemed quite unaware of the conversations happening around her; she just sat there pushing the steamed vegetables around her plate and nibbling no more than a tiny cube of venison before politely making her excuses and slipping from the table and the room like a ghost.

  As if choreographed, shoulders collectively sank around the table as she exited. Kitty tried not to notice the way the boys looked at one another, wide-eyed and aware, their silent exchanges speaking volumes. She was embarrassed, upset and furious on her mum’s behalf. Her dad did his best to change tack and she loved him for it. He clapped his big, cupped hands loudly to draw their attention and ready them for one of his tales. This time it was the one about the badger the size of a man that he swore he found sitting in the leather chair behind his desk in the estate office.

  ‘All he was missing was a wee pair of round gold-rimmed spectacles and a natty waistcoat with a fob watch.’ He wheezed his laughter. ‘And he looked up at me and we both paused and I swear in my head he said, “Can I help you?”’

  She had heard it before, of course, but it was no less funny for that. She loved him for his theatre and more so for recognising the need for it.

  Stephen’s diversion worked, to a point. After supper, Kitty and the boys gravitated to the library. Hamish was fixated on burning things in the roaring fire, his focus and analysis of the task in hand worthy of any good scientific experiment. He held a crisp packet on tongs into the flames and watched intently as it shrivelled and gave off a steady noxious stink. This was followed by an old playing-card box, found under the sofa and riddled with dust. It actually fizzed in the flames, emitting a momentary green glow. She knew it was a sign of their boredom that they were all equally rapt by his exploits, quietly watching from the sofas or, in her case, from the ancient Indian leather pouffe with a tired-out Champ slumbering across her legs.

  They might have all been staring at the fire, but she was aware of the current, a silent crackle of communication that flared between her and Angus on the other side of the room. It was a little after eleven that he stood and said his goodnights before loping up the wide sweep of the stairs. She knew this was her cue and counted down the minutes she considered to be a prudent interval, not wanting to cause suspicion. She even managed to execute a perfect fake yawn. Sleep, however, was far from her mind as her body pulsed with excitement.

  Thankfully, her cousins had turned their attention to backgammon and now sat at the card table, illicitly sharing one of their uncle’s cigars, puffing like enthusiastic amateurs as they studied the wooden chips.

  Kitty knew every dark corner of Darraghfield: which stairs creaked, what picture would swing from the wall to reveal a safe, and which doors led to narrow corridors or secret passages. She knew which window frames not to poke because the damp wood was too far gone to be patched up with paint and would leave a fingertip-shaped hole, and she could direct visitors to warm corners inside old pine wardrobes where folded motheaten blankets made the best hiding spots ever. Yes, Kitty knew the house back to front and inside out, and yet tonight, as she padded barefoot along the dark ships’-timber flooring, she felt as if she was venturing nowhere she’d been before.

  Slowly she turned the handle of the spare room in the east wing, then closed it behind her. Angus was
already under the blankets and for this she was grateful, not sure she could have coped with anything less surreptitious than simply sneaking into the bed alongside him. The low-wattage bulb nestling behind the faded tassels of the lamp on the writing desk sent dark shadows leaping up the floral-wallpapered walls. The light was dim and she was glad about that too.

  Kitty pulled back the blankets and stared at Angus’s legs; unlike hers, they were covered in fine down, turned blonde in places. She noted the line on his thighs where his shorts had blocked his dark tan from taking hold in the Cornish sun and above which the skin remained pale. He turned onto his side, and with a heady sense of inevitability she slipped against him, holding her hands up above her head like a child in need of assistance as he peeled her T-shirt from her body and pushed her shorts down with his long toes.

  *

  She had discussed what sex might be like with Isla, her friend from the village, and had listened with interest to the late-night chats between the girls in her dorm, but now, as she lay there after the event, she felt very little. In fact, she felt less than very little; she felt… nothing.

  With something close to disappointment and an unsatisfied ache, Kitty looked at her bundle of clothes that lay in a heap by the foot of the bed and wondered if she could restore them without waking Angus, who was now sound asleep beside her.

  Underwhelming though that first sex was, that summer changed everything. Kitty felt different. Not that she could talk to anyone about it. The girls in her dorm, her new friends, all had long-standing plans, Isla was working over on Mull at her aunt’s B & B, and her mum, the one person she wanted to confide in, was lost to her. Her cousins, even if they had been the type of boys she could have chatted to about such matters, still kept her at arm’s length socially, and even though she and Angus walked hand in hand, she still felt like the unwanted younger sibling tagging along and trying to fit in.

  Kitty found it hard to sleep, her mind full of questions. What she and Angus engaged in felt like the most natural thing in the world, and yet, although she would never say so to another living soul, the more they did it, the less of a big deal it seemed. Eventually it reached the point where it held about as much mystery and excitement as kissing; it was just sex, that was all. It was both predictable and quick and left her wondering what all the fuss was about. That struck her as a bit of a shame. When sex had been unchartered waters, the idea of doing it had been exciting; thinking about what it might be like had taken up a lot of her thoughts, but now that they had done it seventeen times, it was very much ‘just sex’. And if Kitty were being honest, she rather missed the mystery and thrill that had once surrounded it.

  She used to think that when she had sex for the first time she would learn some great secret, something that all non-virgins knew and kept to themselves, something that bound them all in the non-virgins club. But there was nothing. No big reveal, no secret, no code… Her expectations had definitely been higher. She didn’t feel sexy – she didn’t feel anything. And afterwards she felt happy that once again they’d got away with it without being caught, and happy that he loved her. This she felt certain of because surely if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t have sex with her, would he?

  *

  ‘So, back to school, eh? Where did those weeks go?’ Her dad smiled at her, as he crept into her room and, as had become usual of late, she looked away, embarrassed by the knowledge she now possessed, worried that he might be able to read her non-virgin state on her face.

  ‘I’ll be back for exeat and it’ll soon be Christmas,’ she mumbled as she packed fresh notebooks and pristine fountain pens into her bag.

  ‘Christmas? Good Lord, Kitty, I haven’t given up thoughts of summer yet. I’m clinging to the prospect of some autumn sunshine, so please don’t make me start thinking about Christmas.’

  ‘I love Christmas.’ Her smile broke wide at this truth. It was the time of year when Darraghfield came into its own. Fires roared in every grate and Marjorie went to town preparing vast amounts of food. Kitty loved the leftovers best, wolfing down slices of cold turkey, peeling hunks of baked ham from the bone with greasy fingers and placing them on rips of freshly baked bread, then slathering everything with dollops of Marjorie’s homemade chutneys and pickles, which would be lined up on the table in ribbon-wrapped jars. Her mum dressed the hall and staircases with garlands of pine heavy with cones and interspersed with bows of Montrose tartan, a fiddly job, but the end result was always beautiful and much admired by everyone who came to the festive drinks party. Those parties nearly always ended in an impromptu ceilidh, with the dancing finishing in the early hours. It had turned into a tradition that, weather permitting, as dawn broke, everyone would sway arm in arm on the brow of the front lawn to watch the skies turn lavender-coloured as the sun rose over the glen.

  ‘Do you think Mum might be feeling a bit better by Christmas?’ she asked, pausing her packing for a moment, her voice quiet.

  Her dad walked over and crushed her to him in an unexpected hug. He spoke into her hair and there was desperation in his voice. ‘We’re doing all right, aren’t we? We can do this, Kitty – I have to think we can!’

  She swallowed to quash the nerves that were making her stomach churn; the prospect of leaving him alone was not a happy one. ‘We can, Dad.’ She nodded against his chest and closed her eyes, sending her wishes up into the ether, hoping they might reach the cloistered bedroom in the turret. ‘We will all be fine, Dad, just fine.’

  Kitty didn’t want to leave Darraghfield, didn’t want to leave her mum and dad and Marjorie, but it wasn’t as if she had any choice, and at some level she knew it was easier for all concerned if she was away at school; one less thing for them all to worry about.

  *

  As soon as the taxi pulled into the car park at the front of Vaizey College, Hamish and Ruraigh grabbed their bags from the boot and ran eagerly towards the dorms and the friends they had missed, leaving her on the back seat, forgotten.

  As she stared up at the imposing façade with a sinking feeling in her gut, she saw Theo walking across the quadrangle with his suitcase under his arm. His trousers were a little high on his ankle after his summer away, and his blazer was tight across his back. He was sporting a deep, envy-inducing tan and had clearly grown quite a lot, his physique now something that drew her attention, along with his handsome face. She felt a warm glow at the prospect of catching up with him, knowing that if she could talk to anyone about her strange summer, it would be him. She tapped on the window of the cab, but with his head low and his stride determined, he didn’t hear her.

  ‘Thank you!’ She smiled at the driver and grabbed her overnight suitcase from the boot, lifting it against her hip and tilting forwards as she walked, keen to try and catch up with Theo. The three trunks were being forwarded separately. She made her way across the car park and by the time she got to the quad, there was a small group of boys standing in the middle and quite a lot of noise – calling out, yelling. She wondered if it was some kind of sport being played, highly illegal within the quad walls. Kitty stopped in her tracks and dropped her heavy case to the ground. Her heart raced and her breathing came in fast bursts as she recognised Wilson and his friends and saw Theo with his fingers curled into his palms.

  Wilson was bouncing on the balls of his feet with his fists raised, and with horror Kitty realised that he and Theo were fighting! Judging by the look on Theo’s face and the red stain on his cheek, he’d already been hit. She raised her hand to her mouth, unsure whether to cry out or simply cry. Knowing how private and acutely sensitive Theo was, she stepped back into the shadow of one of the quad pillars and dragged her bag with her. From this hiding place, she watched, unseen, as events unfolded.

  ‘Too scared to hit me, faggot?’ she heard Wilson shout as he rocked his head from side to side and jabbed a couple of mock blows. The third, however, landed on Theo’s left eye socket. And this was when Kitty started crying for real; seeing her friend hurt was more than s
he could bear.

  Theo held a cupped palm over his face and Wilson’s idiot pals skittered about like excitable pups, whooping and hollering as they cheered their leader on. ‘Poof!’ Dinesh yelled. Kitty had never hated anyone more.

  Theo tried to stand up straight, but Wilson’s next blow caught him on the side of the head.

  ‘What sort of bloke doesn’t fight back? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Wilson spat. ‘Is it like the homo code?’

  In the heat of the moment, she became aware of someone running into view and then she saw Wilson’s head jerk sideways as something struck him on the side of the face with force.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Wilson yelled, in a high-pitched voice that told her he was hurt, embarrassed, and she was glad.

  It was only when Kitty looked away from Wilson that she realised that the person who’d hit him was none other than old Mr Porter, the groundsman at Vaizey, someone she knew Theo was very fond of. Wilson said something Kitty couldn’t hear and Mr Porter slapped him again. Blood trickled over his chin and down his shirtfront and he remained kneeling, shocked and subdued by Mr Porter’s intervention, as was Kitty.

  ‘What is going on here?’ Mr Beckett, the scary housemaster of Theobald’s House, yelled across the quad.

  Kitty knew it was time to leave. She grabbed her bag and walked the long way round to her house. Her heart pounded in her chest and her tears flowed. Theo, her sweet, calm, kind friend… Even the idea of him fighting with someone was crazy – the boy who didn’t say boo to a goose; the boy who once built a small envelope for a ladybird to crawl into before carefully placing it on the outside window so it wouldn’t be hurt. But she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had fought back. She knew he got taunted and called a poof quite a bit. She sometimes wondered if he might be gay, if that might explain why he didn’t have a girlfriend at Vaizey despite being so handsome and lovely to be around. But he’d never said anything to her and she would never ask.