by Jenny Twist
“Well, it’s to do with friendship again. Auntie Alison had a really good friend who died and the friend had this niece who was Patsy. Well, Patsy’s mother apparently was rubbish and her auntie, Auntie Alison’s friend, had more or less brought her up, so she was devastated when she died. And Auntie Alison sort of took over. Patsy loves Auntie Alison.” He paused. “And so do I. It was her who got my mother to change her mind about the Spanish. I don’t know what she said to her but she convinced her to let me do it.”
“What are you going to do with it when you’ve got it?”
“Well, I’ve already pretty much got it. I just need to practice speaking. But my plan is to find my father.”
“But he’s dead!”
“Well, maybe. But anyway I want to find out where he lived and how he died and – well- all that sort of stuff. . .” He tailed off.
He decided not to tell her about the dreams. He’d already told her more than he should have.
Samantha sat back in her chair and studied him. He was quite definitely the most interesting person she had ever met. She couldn’t imagine why she had been afraid of him. And then it came out, just like that. “Jones,” she said, “why are you always staring at me?”
II
“Because you are beautiful. I look at you because you are beautiful.”
Samantha sat in her bedroom remembering his words, repeating them in her mind over and over again. It was hard to believe it had actually happened.
An interesting, intelligent and - let’s face it - drop dead gorgeous boy had told her she was beautiful. As he said it he had stretched out as if to touch her and then snatched his hand back almost guiltily.
She had just stared at him with her mouth open. She must have looked like a half-wit. Even her own mother never said she was beautiful.
Then, as if he had said nothing of particular note, he went on to ask her about her family.
“Nowhere near as interesting as yours,” she had said. “Just me and my Mum and Dad and my little brother, who is a complete pain and the spawn of the devil.”
“I would have loved a little brother,” Rupert said sadly.
“You can have mine,” said Samantha.
Rupert grinned. “So what’s so bad about him?”
“He used to be lovely when he was a baby. I used to read him stories. Now he spends all his time trying to get me into trouble. Yesterday,” her voice rose with indignation, “he called to my Mum that I was hitting him and I wasn’t even in the same room!”
“Bloody hell! The rotten little sod!”
Samantha felt like hugging him. It was so nice to have someone on your side. She could have talked about Nigel’s vile behaviour all day, but Rupert changed the subject.
“So what do your Mum and Dad do for a living?”
“My Dad’s the Engineering Manager at Jackson’s. You know, the one on the Barnborough Road with a huge red sign outside.”
Rupert nodded.
“And my Mum works there too, in the accounts department.”
Suddenly Samantha began to giggle.
“What?”
She put her hand over her mouth, then dropped it again. “He came home the other day absolutely livid because someone had spray-painted graffiti under the sign.” She lost control and cracked out laughing again. “Under the – the sign that says ‘Jackson’s Tool Works’ they had painted ‘So does mine’.”
And so it was that the pair of them were laughing like loons when Rupert’s mum came home.
She was in the act of taking off her coat as she walked into the kitchen, took one look at Samantha, cried, “Oh my God!” and ran out of the room again.
Rupert and Samantha stopped laughing instantly and looked at each other, mystified.
“What was all that about?” Samantha asked.
Rupert shrugged. “I don’t know. She can be weird sometimes.” Then, raising his voice, “Mum, are you OK?”
A strangled voice came from upstairs. “Yes – er – slight emergency. I’ll be down in a minute.”
Samantha nodded knowingly. It was probably stress incontinence. She had heard her mother discussing it with a friend a few days ago and it sounded like all old people suffered from it.
****
“So,” Rupert’s mum looked from one to the other of them with a bright, artificial smile, “are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Rupert turned to Samantha. “This is Samantha Parkin. She’s in my Spanish class at school. Samantha, this is my Mum, Heather Jones.”
“Hello, Mrs Jones. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands politely. Samantha looked at her. “Don’t you work at the Travel Agent’s in the High Street?”
Heather nodded. Rupert leaned over and whispered in Samantha’s ear, “She owns it.”
“Now, Rupert,” Heather said, but she looked pleased.
And so she should, Samantha thought. She wasn’t doing badly for a single mother. It can’t have been easy. She deserved to be proud.
Heather sat down and chatted to them for a bit – the sort of inane stuff people always say to young people, asking how you’re doing at school and what do you like doing for fun. Samantha noticed she avoided asking her what sport she liked to play. It would have been rude to draw attention to the fact that Samantha was far too fat to be a success at anything physical.
At last, to everyone’s relief, she stood up and said, “I really must be going. Can I give you a lift anywhere, Samantha?” Rupert raised his eyebrows.
“I’m going to Auntie Alison’s,” she said. “Just making arrangements about something.” She made a kind of vague hand movement that suggested these arrangements were not very important.
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs Jones,” said Samantha, “but it’s not far. I can easily walk from here.”
When Heather looked a little worried, Rupert added, “Don’t worry, Mum. I’ll walk her back.”
Heather, if anything, looked rather more worried. “OK,” she said. “See you then,” and left the house.
Rupert frowned. “Now, what was all that about? She never normally goes out again straight after coming home. In fact, she hardly ever goes out at all.” He shrugged, then dismissed his mother’s strange behaviour. “Now tell me more about the brother from Hell.”
****
“Alison?”
Heather knocked on the door of Alison’s house and when she got no reply, pushed it open.
“Alison?” she shouted as she walked in.
A head appeared at the top of the stairs. “Yes?”
Alison came down the stairs, wearing a dressing gown and drying her hair on a towel as she came. “Heather! I didn’t expect to see you.” Then, seeing the expression on her friend’s face. “Is something the matter?”
“It’s Rupert. He’s got a girlfriend. And she’s enormously fat!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say enormously. Fat, certainly – but it’s probably just puppy fat. Think how chubby Patsy was at that age.”
“That’s not the point,” Heather screamed. “The point is she’s fat. She’s fat now. Rupert fancies fat girls.”
“I’ll open a bottle of wine,” Alison said, heading for the kitchen. “Red or white?”
“White – no, red. It doesn’t matter.”
Five minutes later, calmer, between sips of wine, Heather said, “I knew this would happen. I always knew this would happen. I should never have agreed to the Spanish lessons.”
Alison shook her head. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. He was already half-way fluent when I took him on. He’d taught himself. He’s a bright boy. You know that.” She paused to take a long drink of wine, then wiped the back of her hand against her mouth. “He would have met her anyway. They’re at the same school. You have to admit she sort of stands out.”
Heather glowered at her, tossed off the rest of her glass, then stuck it out for a refill.
“He’s seventeen – old enough to smoke and to marry. In a year’s time he’ll be
old enough to drink and to vote. He is absolutely bound to go to Spain. They all do. They go there for their stag parties and birthdays and just boozy holidays. At least when he goes he’ll have a half-decent chance of looking after himself if he can speak the language.”
“Yes, but those places – Torremolinos, Ibiza – they don’t even need to speak Spanish and I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about –“
“Yes, I know what you’re worried about.” Alison reached out and put her hand over Heather’s. “And he’ll go there eventually. He wants to know. It’s reasonable that he should want to know. I think we should have told him years ago.”
Heather gazed at her with haunted eyes, knocked back the newly-filled glass of wine and poured herself another. “How can he find out if we don’t tell him?”
“He’ll find out,” Alison said quietly. “He’s a bright boy. I think we should tell him.”
“Noooo,” Heather wailed. “Don’t tell him. Please don’t tell him.”
Alison reached for her friend’s hand again.
“I won’t tell him unless you say I can, but I still think we should have told him before.”
Heather clutched her head with both hands and began to weep. “I couldn’t tell him,” she said. “How could I tell him? How do you tell a child his father was a monster?”
Alison got up to fetch another bottle of wine. It looked like it was going to be a long night.
****
By Easter Rupert and Samantha were pretty much established in everyone’s mind as a couple. Over the intervening weeks they had become inseparable, meeting in the breaks at school when they could and spending their evenings revising together. At school they were no longer referred to separately as Miss Piggy and the Geek but had become collectively ‘the Geeks’.
Alison and Heather watched anxiously for a couple of weeks and then relaxed when it became clear that Samantha was not suffering any sudden dramatic weight loss.
It’s OK, Alison thought to herself, he either doesn’t take after his father or he has got better control of it.
Not that they were a couple in the usually accepted sense. Despite saying he thought she was beautiful, Rupert did not seem to actually fancy Samantha. He had never attempted to kiss her, never even touched her. She sometimes felt that he wanted to but drew back. But maybe she was just imagining it. She found herself thinking about him all the time, her mind worrying at it. Did he fancy her at all? Just because you think someone is beautiful it doesn’t mean you fancy them, does it? She thought her mother was beautiful, and her cat, but she didn’t fancy them.
She wasn’t even sure whether she wanted him to kiss her. She loved the friendship she had with him, her first ever real friendship, and she was afraid of spoiling that. And then again, she wasn’t sure she fancied kissing anyone. Some of the kisses she’d seen on the screen were quite disturbing. They looked like they were eating each other. She had no desire to be devoured. And then there was the logistics of the whole thing. Like, where did the noses go? Obviously you couldn’t go for it front-on or you’d just smash your noses together. But what if you both went to the same side, like people trying to step out of each other’s way on the pavement and ending up doing a funny little dance as they both keep trying to move into the same space?
The whole thing seemed fraught with difficulty and possibly discomfort and embarrassment. And yet . . . and yet, she did want him to. She wanted to know what it was like.
Up until now she hadn’t had too much time to worry about this as they had both been working like mad revising – she for the end of term exams, he for his mock A levels. For the first time ever she had had someone to revise with – someone who would ask her questions and make suggestions. They spent long evenings together going through previous essays, text books and old exam papers, and she had revelled in it.
Now it was all over and there seemed to be no obvious reason for meeting every night. Except that they enjoyed each other’s company. Well, she did – enjoy his, that is – and she was sure the feeling was mutual. Every so often he would look up from whatever he was reading and gaze at her with such an intense expression that she felt sure, absolutely sure, that he was in love with her. Then he would carry on as if nothing had happened and she would be left with a strange, empty feeling.
Bugger it! She really was going to have to put all this stuff out of her mind.
Rupert was finding it hard to keep his cool. Samantha had the strangest effect on him. He found most of the time that he felt perfectly relaxed with her and could tell her all sorts of things he would never dream of telling anyone else – except the dreams of course. He wouldn’t tell anyone about the dreams, especially not Samantha. But every so often he would be gripped by a desire so intense that he could barely hold back. He had to just keep breathing until the feeling passed. He wanted to hold her and kiss her so badly that holding back was almost a physical pain. He couldn’t tell whether she felt the same way. It didn’t matter anyway. He daren’t kiss Samantha. He didn’t trust himself. He must be happy with what he’d got – the best friendship he’d ever had with someone his own age. But he wondered. He found himself wondering all the time . . .
****
“Samantha? Sam?” Rupert came banging into the house, dropping his bag of books in the hallway. Samantha’s mother came out of the kitchen looking slightly miffed. She didn’t approve of Samantha’s name being shortened to Sam. But she smiled when she saw Rupert. He was such a lovely boy it was difficult to be cross with him.
“She’s upstairs,” she said. “It’s fine for you to go up.”
“Thanks, Mrs Parkin.” Rupert gave her a grin and ran up the stairs, his gangling legs almost tripping over each other in his haste.
Samantha opened her bedroom door and grinned at him. “What’s all the hurry?”
“Patsy’s back!”
Samantha felt a sudden jerk of alarm.
“Come on, put your shoes on. I want her to meet you.”
“No, hang on. I’m not ready. I’ll have to get changed. Put make-up on.”
Samantha was so distracted by the thought of meeting Patsy that she didn’t notice the expression on Rupert’s face. Patsy was important to him. She was terrified of not making a good impression.
“What for?” Rupert looked completely baffled.
“What for what?”
“Why are you putting make-up on?”
“Well, you know.” Samantha spread her hands in a vague gesture. “I want to make a good impression.”
“She’ll love you. And anyway why ever would you paint a different face on top of your own beautiful one?”
She stopped dead. He said it again. He said she was beautiful. She stared at him, lost for words.
“You are beautiful.” He took her face in both his hands and gazed intensely into her eyes. Then — and she was never sure afterwards who initiated it — they had their arms around each other and he was kissing her. It was all right. The noses didn’t get in the way. He didn’t try to eat her. It was soft and yielding and utterly wonderful. All the things she had worried about, like whether you could breathe, whether you could feel each other’s teeth, whether your stomach would rumble or you’d need to sneeze or, worse still, have a wee, none of those things happened. They just seemed to slide into the kiss as if they had years of experience.
Then suddenly, just as she was really getting into it, Rupert pulled back.
“Oh Samantha, I’m so sorry. Sorry Sam.”
She stared back at him, completely confused.
“What? What is it, Rupert? Was it horrible?”
Rupert spread his hands, his expression one of despair.
“No, no. It was wonderful, perfect. I just can’t do it.”
“But why? I don’t understand. I thought it was wonderful too.” And now he was spoiling it.
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
“Hurt me! Rupert, you’re not making any sense. Why would you hurt me? You were gentle.
I loved it. Tell me what you mean.”
She was so frustrated and confused she wanted to stamp her foot and have a tantrum.
“I – I can’t tell you.”
Samantha glared at him. “You can’t just leave it like that, Rupert. You’ve got to tell me. It’s not bloody fair!” And she actually did stamp her foot. Like a bloody four-year-old. She felt humiliated and ashamed.
“Rupert!” She reached out and grabbed both his hands, holding them firmly between her own. Then she began to speak more calmly. “Rupert, whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m safe. You know that. I would never betray a secret.”
And so he told her, speaking slowly at first, then getting more confident as he lost himself in his story.
“I have these dreams. The same ones, over and over again. It’s always in the same place. I’m standing on a mountainside watching the sunset. Below me the valley drops away and in front of me there are more mountains, but not so high. In the far distance the sky becomes a darker blue and I think it’s the sea, but it’s too hazy to be sure.
“Beside me there is a dark figure – a man. He is talking to me. He calls me his son, but then he calls me by the wrong name. I can’t see his face. He is taller than me and he is wearing a big hat, like the cowboys in the Wild West. He is carrying something on his shoulder – some kind of sack, I think.
“It’s getting darker and I can’t see anything very clearly.
“He points down the valley to a little village below and he says - “See that, Ignacio? That is our village. It is the place where I was born. Those are our people. Come with me and I will show you”- and I start to walk down the slope beside him. Then –” Rupert stopped and choked on the next word. Samantha said nothing for fear that he would stop altogether. “Then he goes into a house and there’s a young woman on the bed and he leans over to kiss her. Only he isn’t just kissing her, he’s sort of. . .sucking. And I know – I don’t know how I know – but I know he’s slowly killing her, sucking out all her substance, all the fat from her body.” Rupert shuddered, then went on, “And sometimes it’s me. I’m him. I’m doing it.” He stopped and put his head in his hands, moaning. Samantha reached out and put her hand on his knee and he dropped his hands and looked at her, his face a mask of pain. “It’s all right, Rupert. It’s only a dream. Here.” She put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug.
