Kate, Tina and Sarah arrange to meet at the oak tree on Signing Out Day, an hour before the photograph is scheduled outside the gym. Sarah is sweating profusely by the time she arrives, having remembered at the last minute to clear her locker and pick up her PE kit. She slides into the shade of the tree, kicking off her shoes and fanning her shiny red face with a notebook.
‘Blimey, did you run here?’ asks Kate, budging along to give Sarah more space. ‘Your face looks like a radish.’
Sarah shakes her head. ‘No, I’m just boiling.’ She removes her jumper, pulling it up over her head and chucking it on the grass in front of them.
Kate stares at Sarah’s breasts. ‘What’s going on there, Sar?’ she asks, pointing.
Sarah looks down at her chest. Her white shirt is pulled tight across her torso, key-holing where it’s become too small. She grabs at the hem of the shirt, trying to straighten herself out and make her chest seem less obvious. ‘What?’ she says.
‘Your knockers! You were flat as a pancake this time last year. We used to call you fried egg tits, didn’t we, Teen?’
Tina laughs, spitting a mouthful of crisps across her lap. She nods, apologetically.
Kate prods one of Sarah’s boobs. She recoils; they’re so tender she can hardly stand to touch them herself.
‘Wow, they’re pretty impressive,’ laughs Kate.
Sarah scowls at her. ‘Weirdo,’ she says.
Kate has brought a hip flask of vodka and lemonade, and Tina has an old bottle of Malibu she nicked from her kitchen cupboard.
‘So, what happened to you on Friday?’ she asks Sarah. ‘Thought you were coming to the Summer Disco?’
She offers Sarah the flask and she takes a swig.
‘Urghh,’ she shudders, still fanning herself frantically. The heat is spreading up her neck yet her hands feel cold and damp. ‘I wasn’t feeling well. My dad got us some fish and chips for supper, and one minute I was feeling fine and the next I was chucking up. I think the fish was off. It smelt vile, like the fishiest fish you’ve ever smelt.’
‘Oh, you really missed out, Sar. It was a right laugh,’ says Tina. ‘Your dad was being a complete loony, wasn’t he, Kate?’
Kate kicks off her shoes and wriggles up her skirt so that the sun can get to her legs. ‘He was all overexcited about the quarter-finals on Sunday, so he kept making everyone shout “Engerland!” every time he put on a new track. It was funny. Mind you, he’s not in such a good mood now.’
‘Why’s that?’ asks Sarah.
Kate looks incredulous and pokes her with her toe. ‘Well, they lost, didn’t they? Honestly, you should have heard my dad when it happened. I thought he’d lost the plot altogether, and he’s still not over it. He was reading the paper last night, going on and on about Maradona. “Hand of God?” he said. More like “Hand of Cheating Argey Sod”.’
Sarah searches through her bag, looking for some tissues. She finds a crumpled handkerchief and wipes the sweat from her face. The heat in her skin is unbearable.
‘Try a bit of this,’ offers Tina. ‘It’s lush. It’s all coconutty. Mmmm.’
Sarah tries the Malibu, swallowing a large gulp. The sickly liquid slides down her oesophagus like snot, and the nausea is instant.
‘Oh, that was horrible,’ she mutters, pushing herself to her knees. Her head feels as if she’s buried in cotton wool, and her vision has diminished to a small pinprick of light. She manages to crawl away from the tree just before she throws up.
Kate jumps to her feet and stands over Sarah. ‘Jesus! What happened? It can’t be the drink – you hardly had any! You must have a bug or something.’
Sarah groans and shakily returns to the tree, taking her water flask from her bag. ‘Don’t know. I have been a bit off-colour lately. I think the heat got to me.’
Tina puts the Malibu back in her rucksack. She glances over at Sarah’s vomit pile and slaps her palm across her mouth. ‘Can we go and sit somewhere else?’ she mumbles through her hand.
They pick up their bags and walk back down the field, stopping halfway between the tree and the school building. The chairs are being counted out for the back rows of the fifth year photograph, and Mrs Whiff and Mrs Jensen are directing the photographer as he unpacks his equipment. Sarah sips water from her flask and sits down on the grass beside Tina, curling her feet beneath her legs.
Kate unwraps a scotch egg from a square of tinfoil and bites into it, revealing a grey-yellow yolk at the centre. ‘You don’t half look pale, Sar,’ she says, accidentally dropping a greasy lump of sausage meat into her own lap.
‘Murderer,’ Tina mutters.
Kate shakes her head irritably. ‘Veggie freak.’
The eggy stench hangs in the air and Sarah averts her eyes, fighting the rising bile. She lies back against the warm grass, running her fingertips over the springy carpet of cloverleaf.
‘What are you doing after the photo?’ she asks, gazing at the clear sky overhead.
‘Nothing much,’ replies Tina. ‘My mum said she’ll treat me to a hot chocolate in Marconi’s. So I said I’d meet her in town.’
‘What about you, Kate?’
‘Dad’s picking me up. I’m helping him redecorate the youth club. We’re painting the main hall, because they don’t have enough cash to pay to get proper decorators in. They’re so lucky to have my dad there. They don’t appreciate just how much he does.’
Sarah’s eyes are closed against the sunlight, and she feels as though she’s slipping away, losing consciousness as she lies here. Kate and Tina flop out on the grass beside her and everything goes quiet for a while, as if someone has muted all sound. She’s aware of the sun singeing her skin and pinning her limbs down with liquid heat.
It’s all over; no more exams, no more school.
January 2010
John and Sarah step out of the old Citroën and into the damp January night.
She tugs at her coat collar and shudders, as John locks the driver’s door with his manual key.
‘Don’t desert me in there, will you?’ she says.
He smiles, pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his heavy wool jacket.
‘Not unless you want me to.’
There’s a strange shyness between them, the result of so much time passed, and they walk stiffly, side by side, approaching the gaudy-bannered opening to the school gymnasium.
Inside, the large hall is already filling up. Directly ahead, there’s a DJ desk on a raised platform against the wall bars of the gym, with coloured flashing lights just like the ones on the system Kate’s dad used to operate. The smell of plimsoll rubber is overpowering, clean and sweaty all at once; Sarah flinches as a strobe light circulates the room and pierces her eyes. The DJ looks at least fifty, and it’s clear he’s trying to model himself on Gary Numan, judging by his shiny black hair and heavy eyeliner. He rifles through the record collection, chewing gum and bopping his head to each beat of the music as Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’ blasts from the giant speakers on either side of the mixing desk.
Sarah and John locate the makeshift bar in the far corner, next to the gym cupboard where Kate was caught snogging Simon Dobbs at the fifth year Spring Disco. The drinks are set up on low school tables so that it looks more like a cake sale than a bar. Sarah feels suddenly furtive, certain she shouldn’t be here, as she tries to work out if the women serving are teachers or ex-pupils.
‘You OK?’ asks John, handing her a large plastic tumbler of red wine.
A man in his forties walks past wearing a frilly black shirt and face paint. He grins and gives the thumbs-up to a group of Bowie impersonators beside the bar.
Sarah cringes. ‘I’m starting to think this might be a terrible mistake.’
‘What?’
‘This,’ she says, sweeping her arms wide. ‘We must be the only people not in fancy dress.’ She looks down at her own outfit, a simple striped top and black jeans. She readjusts the little red scarf at her neck, wishing she’d worn a dress
after all. ‘God, it’s going to be a nightmare.’
‘Forget about it,’ he says, running his hand through the back of his hair. ‘You look fine – you look like you.’
‘Do I?’ she asks, tipping her head. ‘I must look a bit different.’
John leans against the climbing bars and shrugs. ‘Only a bit. I mean your hair’s different. It was blonder before and shorter, and of course we’re all a bit older. But you still look like you. I know I’d recognise you if I passed you on the street.’
‘I don’t know if I’d even recognise me.’ She tucks a lock of tawny brown hair behind her ear.
He smiles. ‘You would. So, tell me about Dorset.’
Sarah joins him against the wall, perching on a low bar. She takes a sip of the cheap red wine, grimacing at the sharp tang. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Well, how come you ended up staying there?’
She scans the room. There are people everywhere; hundreds and hundreds of people. ‘Dorset? I don’t know really. We just did. We went there that summer, after my exams, and we stayed in a cottage belonging to one of Dad’s old college friends. It’s tiny, right down by the sea. Anyway, it was up for sale and after we’d been there for a week or so, Dad said, “How about we stay?” And that was that. He put the Seafield Avenue place on the market and bought the cottage.’
‘Wow,’ says John. ‘He never struck me as the impulsive type.’
Sarah runs her thumb around the rim of her plastic cup. ‘He wasn’t.’
‘And what do you do for a living?’ he asks, bending to place his bottle of lager on the floor between his feet. ‘This feels so weird,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know a thing about your life now.’
For a moment they are locked in an intimate gaze, unobtrusive and comprehending.
Sarah pushes her hands together, feeling the knuckles of her middle fingers crack. She looks across the room. ‘I went up to London when I was twenty, for a trainee job at the Natural History Museum. I ended up working in the education department, you know, taking kids around the museum and running workshops. It was great fun; I really loved it.’
‘So, you don’t do it any more?’
‘No. I had to move back to Dorset a couple of years ago, when Dad got very ill, and after he died I just stayed on.’ As Sarah speaks, she realises how intently John is listening. The noise of the room subdues as the party fades in and out of focus. ‘I know I don’t want to go back to London,’ she says with a lurch of startling urgency. ‘I really do need to decide what I’m going to do next.’
John rubs his chin, frowning. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your dad. I only met him a few times, in the chemist’s, but he seemed really nice.’
Sarah picks up John’s empty cup and leaves him beside the wall as she joins the queue at the bar. After a moment or two, she realises that it’s Jo Allen in front of her, with her best friend Bev Greene. They’ve put their hair up in backcombed single side bunches, and they’re both wearing red plastic earrings and off the shoulder tops. Sarah takes a backward step, folding her arms across her body and dropping her chin as she listens in on their conversation. She hasn’t seen Jo since that afternoon in Marconi’s, when she walked past the window with her new pram. Sarah recalls the pallor of her skin, the detached expression etched across her face.
‘Which one’s the vodka and Coke?’ Bev asks the woman serving, indicating towards the two plastic cups on the table in front of her. She raises her voice over the music. ‘Here, put a slice of lemon in the Bacardi, will you, so we don’t get mixed up? Don’t wanna go mixing our drinks this early, do we, Jo?’
Jo reaches for her own drink and turns round to see Sarah standing a couple of feet behind her in line. Jo’s eyes are made up with shimmering blue and green eyeshadow and her lips are a thin slick of iced pink. As she meets Sarah’s startled gaze, she shows no sign of recognition whatsoever.
‘Here, Bev, get us some crisps, will you?’ she says, stretching across to look at the selection. ‘Cheese and onion. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’
They pay and leave the queue, drinking from straws and nudging each other as they spot old faces. Sarah imagines Jo thrashing about in the emergency room, before that poor little baby popped out and got the shock of its life. ‘Toyah, they called it,’ Tina told her that day in the chemist’s. Toyah. Sarah orders her drinks and returns to John at the climbing bars.
‘So, what about you, John?’ she asks, handing him his drink. ‘The last time I saw you, you were off on your travels again. Turkey, wasn’t it?’
He nods thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I travelled for about six months or so, then I came back and worked for Mum so I could concentrate on my music. Remember I was in that band with Sol from the record shop? Well, we kept that going for a bit, gigging in local pubs and bars, that kind of thing. We really thought we could make it big.’ He laughs, shaking his head.
‘Must have been good fun, though? I wish I could have heard you.’
‘Yeah, it was. But we were stony broke most of the time, and that wasn’t such a good laugh. I finally got my act together when Mum paid for me to complete my piano diploma. Anyway, about ten years ago I met this media guy through my music teacher, and he gave me my first break, writing little bits and pieces of music for TV and films. And that’s what I do full-time now.’
‘Really? Any films I’d know?’
He scratches his head distractedly. ‘A few documentaries.’ He looks at his feet. ‘Um, that last Spielberg film…’
Sarah laughs and claps her hands. ‘John, that’s amazing!’
He bobs his head modestly.
‘Where do you work from?’ she asks.
‘I’m still at Mum’s place,’ he replies.
Sarah can’t hide her surprise. ‘In West Selton?’
John’s thumb moves in a small circular motion over the top button of his waistcoat, clockwise, then anti-clockwise.
‘Mum passed away five years ago, and she left me the house. I set my studio up in the top room, so it looks out over the sea.’
‘But it’s huge,’ says Sarah. ‘I can’t imagine you there on your own.’
He stretches his legs out and wriggles back on to the horizontal bar. ‘It’s nice. It’s quiet.’
They gaze out across the crowded room.
‘I really missed you, Sar,’ he says, still facing ahead.
A hard knot of regret forms in her chest, like a blockage. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
John turns to face her, brushing his knuckles over her wrist so that she has to look up. ‘You just never came back.’
The gym is almost wall-to-wall with people now, and the DJ increases the volume to compete with the growing wave of voices that pushes out across the room.
‘Shall we have a walkabout?’ John suggests.
Sarah follows in his steps, untucking the hair from behind her ears and letting it fall across her face. Hopefully no one will recognise her. Bodies seem to press in from every direction: a crush of hair and skin, of big, tall men, of bony white shoulders and inappropriate necklines. Even now, she feels smaller than most of the other women here, and she’s gripped by the haunting sense of once again being outside the action. It’s as if she missed an important lesson right at the start of school, when everyone was told how it all works. Where was she when everyone else learned how to be a teenager, a girlfriend; a woman?
Sarah gasps as Mr Settle squeezes past her in his tweedy suit, holding his scotch and ice high above his head. She grabs on to John’s elbow so she doesn’t get separated from him and he turns, looking at her over his shoulder as if he’s hating this too. In the multicoloured light of the disco lamps, Sarah is struck by the sharp contours of his face. His bone structure borders on the gaunt, but he looks so much like himself, so much like John Gilroy, and no one else. Her eyes brim with unexpected tears.
‘You alright?’ he mouths to her.
She nods, tightening her grip on his elbow as she hears her name shri
eked above the noise.
‘Sarah Ribbons!’
Sarah recognises her instantly. Through the crowd, a few feet away, is Kate Robson. She’s a good couple of stone heavier, and her hair is different, but it’s her without a doubt. And next to her, almost a head shorter, is Tina, stretching her neck like a terrapin, to navigate the crowd in Sarah’s direction. Sarah sucks in her breath, stuck to the gym floor, pinned in from every angle, as Kate and Tina force their way through the mass of people. Kate’s arms wave above the crowd, one hand clutching a beaker of white wine. It slops over the edges, splashing the face of a man who stands between them.
‘Oi!’ he yells, blocking her path.
‘Sorry!’ she yells back with laughing eyes, reaching up to wipe his face.
He grins. ‘Get you another one?’ he asks, pointing to her drink.
Sarah watches through the ebb and flow of bodies. Tina stands beside Kate, looking redundant.
Kate runs her hand through her fringe, pulling it down across one eye, as she fixes the other on the stranger. ‘Maybe later?’
‘Deal,’ the man replies, and he moves to one side to let her through.
‘Sarah Ribbons!’ Kate repeats when she reaches her. She throws her arms around Sarah’s shoulders and squeals into her ear. ‘Oh, my God! You look great! Look at her, Teen!’
Tina’s smile seems fixed to her face, and she stands uncomfortably to one side as Kate commandeers Sarah.
‘Wow,’ says Sarah when Kate releases her. She’s acutely aware of her own stiff body, her awkward limbs. A passer-by bumps her from the left, shoving her into the side of Tina. Sarah puts her hands up to steady herself, smiling broadly. ‘Wow. It’s been years.’
Kate turns from Sarah to Tina with wide eyes. ‘Years? It’s been twenty-four years, to be exact! Have you seen anyone yet? We got here early, and we’ve already seen Mrs Whiff, Mrs Carney, Pervy Potter – ’
Hurry Up and Wait Page 23
