Hurry Up and Wait

by Isabel Ashdown

  In the kitchen, Sarah shoves a pile of Dad’s dirty pots into the corner and fills the kettle. She rests her face in her hands to stem the tears, running her fingers along the contours of her brow, around her eye sockets, across her cheekbones, until they rest on the newly pierced earlobes which throb faintly beneath her touch. Everything’s wrong.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ calls her dad from the study, pushing the door open just a crack. ‘I’d love one!’

  ‘Coming up!’ she replies, slapping her cheeks sharply. She pours the tea and gets down a new packet of biscuits for him.

  As she pushes through the door, Dad twirls round in his chair and reaches out to take the tea and biscuits. He smiles at her with such pure warmth that she can’t hold it in any more. She crumbles on to his lap, her slender limbs awkward across his, her face pushed hard into his shoulder to conceal her fractured expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ she cries through heaving sobs, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  He holds her, his arms around her waist, his tone soothing and low. ‘What is it, Sarah-Lou? What’s happened?’

  As her breathing slows and her tears ebb, she lifts her creased face and gazes into her father’s old eyes. Without thinking, her hands reach for the newly pierced earlobes, and she sees in that split second, as he notices the sparkling diamante studs and gives a sad little smile, that he thinks that’s it. That it’s the ears she’s crying over.

  ‘Oh, you silly girl,’ he says hugging her closer. ‘You silly, silly girl.’

  She presses into his baggy wool cardigan and cries, and cries.

  After a long fitful struggle into sleep that night, Sarah dreams that she’s at school, where Kate and Tina are trying to make her look at something inside one of the lift-up desks in 5G. But Sarah doesn’t want to look at it. It won’t bite! Kate laughs. Then they hold her, one on either side, pushing her closer and closer to the desk, forcing her head down to look inside.

  When she wakes, her throat has closed up and she tries to cry out but nothing will come. The wind is whipping up outside, curling around the trees and rattling the glass of her windows. She pulls the sheets around her neck and listens. Time passes, and she slips from her bed, dressing rapidly before crossing the hallway to ease open the back window towards the sea. The moon is perfectly round and still, and Sarah can hear the distant crash of waves against shingle down on the shore. The smell of wet stone rushes in at her, as the breeze spreads her hair like a fan. Pausing to listen to her father’s deep breathing, she sprints through the dark house with the sound of dragging pebbles clear in her ears, and with growing exhilaration she slips out into the night. She runs towards the beach on light feet, her jacket flapping and snapping in the high wind, along Seafield Avenue and down through Sandpipers Lane, a moonlit shadow trailing her all the way, until she comes out at the beach. The giant water pipe is vast and clear in the white light, buffeted by thick foaming waves which greedily lap and crawl up its supports. The sea drags the water away from the pipe, sucking it back like a breath, before hurling it skyward in great arcs of fury. Sarah walks down across the pebbles, slipping and steadying herself as her trainers slide over the wet stones. She walks along the sodden wooden framework, bracing herself against the force of the wind, until she’s balanced at the head of the pipe, one foot on either wooden strut.

  The clouds pass the moon’s face in rapid movements, so that for a moment Sarah really believes the moon is travelling across the skyline. She turns her head to look along the upper beach, towards the darkened beach huts, still standing strong after all these years. A wave slaps hard against the pipe’s legs, sending spray and mist over Sarah’s face and body.

  Her tears flow, and she slides down on to the iron-cold head of the pipe, allowing the salt water to rage and spit around her legs as they dangle precariously low. She watches the water lap and growl, feeling strangely soothed by its unrelenting fury.

  The cold starts to seep into her bones. She pushes the tears away with the backs of her hands, rising to her feet. As she retreats up the shifting bank of stones, she looks over her shoulder, where the white tide continues to thrust and drag at the impotent shoreline.

  The fifth years have a lot more freedom once the final exams start. Much of their time is spent lying around on the playing field in the sunshine, or huddled together in the library, pretending to revise.

  After the Geography exam, Sarah and Tina collect their bags from the front of the school gym and go straight into town, where they’re meeting Kate in Marconi’s.

  Kate waves at them from the back of the café, where she’s bagged a four-seater in the shadowy smoking area. There’s a used cup and plate on the table in front of her.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ asks Sarah, checking her watch.

  Kate wrinkles her forehead. ‘A while. Dante’s being a dickhead, so I left him and Ed pissing about at the memorial.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ hisses Kate as Tina slides across on to the red vinyl seat opposite. ‘There goes Lilo Lil. I don’t know how she’s got the nerve to show her face in public!’

  Sarah sits down next to Tina and turns to follow Kate’s gaze.

  The three girls watch as Jo Allen passes on the other side of the glass, her shoulders slumped over a pram, her pallid skin the colour of dough. To Sarah, it seems as though it’s all happening in slow motion; she feels as if she can see every pore of Jo’s skin, every hair on her head.

  ‘Everyone knows she’s the town bike,’ Kate adds, breaking Sarah’s thoughts. ‘It was only a matter of time. So, you seen anything of Ed, Teen?’

  Tina’s trying to keep her face blank. Ed chucked her last week. ‘No. If he can’t handle the fact that I’m a vegetarian, then he can stick it for all I care. Meat-head.’

  Kate smiles mischeviously. ‘Dante said you dumped Ed’s burger in the bin when you met him in town last week.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d already told him I didn’t want to be around him when he was eating dead animals. He knew that. And he laughed in my face and went and got one anyway. So, I knocked it out of his hand and stamped on it.’

  Sarah and Kate splutter. ‘No way!’ says Sarah.

  ‘So, is that why he finished with you?’ asks Kate.

  Tina shrugs. ‘I like your top,’ she says.

  Kate plucks at her new T-shirt. It’s black and floppy, hanging off one shoulder to reveal a purple vest underneath. ‘Thanks. So, how’d it go?’ She looks at them both expectantly.

  ‘What?’ asks Sarah, looking confused.

  ‘Your exam, stupid!’

  ‘Oh, that. Crap. Ungraded probably.’ Sarah rubs her eyes. ‘I never wanted to do Geography in the first place. They only made me do it because I wasn’t good enough to take another language.’

  ‘Won’t your dad mind if you fail it? God, I was up till midnight all last week, revising for History. I swear, I’ve been dreaming about Jethro Tull’s seed drill ever since.’

  Tina and Sarah exchange a puzzled look and burst out laughing. Kate tosses her hair. ‘If you did History you’d know what I was on about.’

  Tina and Sarah queue at the counter and order hot chocolates and flapjacks, returning with them precariously balanced on a grubby-looking tray.

  ‘Ugh,’ says Sarah pointing out a jammy splodge on the corner.

  ‘It’s rank in here,’ agrees Kate. ‘Dunno why we even come here.’ She looks around at the other customers with a sneer. ‘It’s full of Casuals. Saddos.’

  Tina eats her flapjack hungrily, her knobbly hands poking out of the frayed edges of her school jumper. She’s like a mouse, with her sharp little nose and whiskery movements.

  Kate lights up a cigarette and blows the smoke into the air between them. Dreary windows run all the way down the external wall of the café, looking out on to the alleyway which leads to one of the main car parks in town. The daylight streams across the tables on that side, bathing the crumbs and tea slops in white light. On the table adjacent to theirs, someone has left an empty cup of tea and a
half-eaten sausage roll. Sarah can see the grease on the pastry, shining wetly in the sunlight. She can almost smell it from here.

  ‘You alright?’ asks Kate as she cradles her own mug. ‘You’ve gone all greenish.’

  Sarah bites down against a sudden rush of nausea, and runs her hands through her hair distractedly. ‘I think I’m just hungry,’ she says, breaking her flapjack in half and taking a small bite.

  ‘You’ve got to keep your strength up. That’s what my mum keeps saying.’ Tina says, wiping her mouth. ‘She’s always fussing. The other day she started pulling down my eyelids and talking about how menstruation makes you need extra iron because of the blood loss. We were having steak and kidney pie at the time. Well, they were. My dad was so embarrassed he picked up his plate and went and ate in the other room.’

  Kate snorts and runs her finger around her plate, picking up the sugar residue from the doughnut she’s eaten. ‘At least she’s not a miserable cow like mine. Don’t suppose you have to put up with all this, do you, Sar?’

  Sarah sips her drink. ‘I know I’ve only got my dad to deal with, but sometimes I think he’s twice as hard work as two parents.’

  ‘Are you gonna leave that?’ Tina asks, pointing at Sarah’s half-eaten flapjack.

  Sarah pushes the plate towards her.

  ‘So what was your mum like, Sar?’ asks Kate.

  Sarah feels a sickening rush as the hot chocolate hits her stomach. ‘I’m not sure. You know, she died soon after I was born.’

  ‘But your old man must’ve told you about her? It was a heart attack, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. Apparently it was brought on by the pregnancy, some really rare sort of heart condition. But I don’t know all that much about it – Dad always tries to change the subject when I ask him. He’s not very good at talking about that kind of thing.’

  Kate puts down her mug dramatically. She leans in, talking low. ‘Oh, my God, Sar. You don’t think he killed her or something? Maybe she didn’t die of natural causes and that’s why he’s so secretive.’

  Sarah frowns. ‘Don’t be stupid. He just doesn’t know how to handle it, that’s all.’

  ‘Mmm. Do you believe in the afterlife?’

  ‘What, like ghosts and that?’ asks Tina, looking suddenly interested. ‘I do. My aunt used to go to a medium, and she got all sorts of stuff right about her, like how many kids she’d have and how her husband would get ill. She even knew about his fallen arches.’

  Sarah doesn’t answer.

  Kate stacks the plates in the middle of the table. ‘What if your house is haunted, Sar? Your mum might still be there, floating around the house at night. Wouldn’t that be creepy?’ She laughs, giving Sarah a little push across the table.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ says Sarah. ‘Maybe she is there. Sometimes I hear things at night, or when I’m on my own in the house. The other day, I couldn’t find my keys anywhere. They turned up on the upstairs landing, near her photo.’ She pauses dramatically. ‘I didn’t put them there.’

  Kate and Tina look at each other and both let out a little scream.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve never said anything before!’ says Kate. ‘That’s so cool!’

  Sarah shakes her head. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ she says, gazing across at the window beyond, pleased to give Kate something new to think about.

  The Spring Disco is the first time that the two schools have brought the boys and girls together for a shared event. Designed as a reward and incentive for all the work towards their O-levels and CSE exams, the disco is exclusively restricted to the fifth years, to be held in the girls’ gym on the last Friday before half-term.

  Sarah’s dad drops her off at the top of School Lane just after six, where she’d arranged to meet Tina and Kate ten minutes ago. Neither of them is there, and she wonders if they’ve gone ahead without her. Already, a steady snake of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds makes its way through the iron gates of the school, whooping and chattering impatiently. A pair of teachers ushers them in, checking them for alcohol and cigarettes. There’s an untidy tangle of confiscated cans on the floor at Miss Tupper’s feet, which another teacher is transferring into a cardboard box. Dad hasn’t noticed. He bends low to speak to her through the passenger window.

  ‘It’s alright, Dad, you can go,’ she says with hushed urgency. ‘I do know my way from here.’

  ‘So, I’ll meet you here at ten. It was ten o’clock? Not a moment later!’ He stretches across to wind up the window.

  Sarah wraps her arms around herself and taps her toe on the pavement as she waits for him to go. He toots the horn as he turns the corner and vanishes from sight. She looks down at her outfit critically. This afternoon, she went through everything in her wardrobe until she found something that looked OK, opting for an oversized white shirt and cropped blue jeans. A wide black elastic belt pulls the billowing shirt in, and she’s crimped and backcombed her hair so that it’s just like Debbie Harry’s. She looks at her watch: 6.20. They must be inside.

  Sarah joins the line of kids wandering towards the entrance, surveying the crowd for a glimpse of Tina or Kate. Once she breaks from the mass, she finds Tina waiting outside the wide exterior entrance to the gym, in snow-washed jeans, ankle boots and an off-yellow ‘FRANKIE SAYS RELAX’ T-shirt.

  ‘Where’s Kate?’ Tina asks as Sarah approaches. She’s scowling, sounding miffed.

  ‘I thought we were all meant to meet out the front,’ Sarah replies. ‘I’ve been out there for fifteen minutes and she’s not there.’

  Tina’s hostility appears to melt away.

  ‘Maybe she’s made up with Dante,’ she says, tutting. ‘Maybe they’ve made up and she’s decided not to come after all.’ She scans the faces as they walk past. ‘I’ve never known a couple to fall out so much.’

  Sarah shakes her head. ‘Even if they have made up, she’d still come. She was going home to dye her hair straight after school and she had her outfit all planned. She wouldn’t miss this for anything.’

  Tina nods, and they stand side by side, arms folded, watching the pupils crossing the netball courts to file in through the entrance beside them. ‘So what’s she gonna wear, then?’ asks Tina. ‘She changes her tune so much, I’ve lost track.’

  ‘She said she’d bought a black leather waistcoat when she went to Tighborn market with Dante. I think she’s going to wear that with some leggings.’

  Tina utters a disgusted sound from the back of her throat. ‘Leather. That is so gross. What is wrong with the world?’

  ‘What’s wrong with leather?’ asks Sarah.

  ‘It’s all butchery. Just because you wear it on your feet or whatever, it doesn’t mean an animal didn’t die for it!’

  Sarah pushes away from the wall and stands in the entrance to the gym trying to spot Kate. ‘Isn’t leather a by-product? I mean, the animal died for meat in the first place, but then they use the leather for shoes and stuff to save throwing it away. It’s better than wasting it.’

  ‘You’ll never understand, Sarah,’ Tina sighs. ‘Meat is Murder. So is leather.’

  ‘Leather is lovely,’ says Kate, sneaking up on Tina and grabbing her by the shoulders so that she yelps. She caresses her black leather waistcoat and gives them a twirl. Her stripy grey and black leggings taper down into a pair of black winkle-picker slingbacks, and her loose white vest top drapes low over her rounded bosom. ‘Whaddayathink?’

  ‘You look great,’ says Sarah, wishing she’d worn something else. ‘I love the waistcoat. And the hair! It’s really dark!’

  ‘Damson, the packet said.’ She leans out to check her reflection in a glass panel.

  ‘Looks more like plum to me,’ says Tina.

  ‘A damson is a plum, you pleb! So, who’s here then? Have you seen what Marianne’s wearing? Oh my God, I don’t know why someone doesn’t say something. She’s got this pale blue jumpsuit on, and I swear it’s two sizes too small. Her bum looks massive!’

  Kate slips between Sarah and
Tina and links arms, leading them into the gym. It’s crowded out now, and the multicoloured lights flash and strobe from the DJ desk at the back. The DJ is a thin young lab technician from the boys’ school, and he’s fussing over the decks, looking strained, checking the plug sockets, scratching his temples.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Kate, dropping the girls’ arms and striding towards him.

  She talks to him for a moment, fiddles with a few cables and places a record on the turntable. He smiles, wiping his brow and offering to shake her hand. Kate waves a hand through the air, jumps off the platform and sashays towards Tina and Sarah, turning back once to smile broadly at the technician.

  Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ plays out into the hall, met by the grateful screams and cheers of several hundred Selton teenagers now crowded into the gymnasium. There’s a sudden surge as girls rush towards the DJ desk to dance and shriek and laugh.

  ‘Should’ve asked my dad to do the DJ-ing. That bloke up there hasn’t got a clue.’

  They make their way over to the refreshments area at the far side of the hall, and buy crisps and cans of drink. Kate ushers them into a corner, and slips a hand inside her big cotton bag to pull out a half bottle of vodka. They all drink a few mouthfuls of their Coke before she pours a good slug of spirits in through the opening to each can. They stand at the edge of the room, watching, discreetly assessing the outfits and hairstyles of their peers; absorbing the attention of every Selton boy who passes by.

  ‘How are things with you and Dante?’ Tina asks.

  Kate rearranges her vest top so that it shows off her bust to best advantage. ‘So-so. We’re still together. But that doesn’t mean we have to live in each other’s pockets, does it? He likes to go out with his mates, and I like to go out with mine. Which is how it should be, you know?’