by FJ Campbell
‘Yes, no doubt you will.’ She stood up, brushed off her coat, and walked backwards to the cottage gate. ‘If the last few days are anything to go by.’
Milo wondered if he could’ve played that better. She might have been flirting with him, just a bit, but he wasn’t sure. He racked his brains about what every word and look had meant. She’d called him Sleeping Beauty. But also a brain donor. What he could remember most was a blurry feeling of being warm and close to her. He was no good at this. It was making his head ache. Or maybe that was the lump.
Anyway, she’d only be at school for one more day, and after that, if either of them didn’t get a scholarship, they’d never see each other again. He had one day, then.
*
First up on Friday he had the interview with Mr Toms, the headmaster. Candidates were supposed to talk about their future ambitions: Milo wanted to discuss applying to Bristol University to study veterinary science. But Mr Toms was a big rugby fan, so he rushed through that and all the other questions and they talked about rugby for the rest of the time. Mr Toms told Milo that Mr Shepherd, the coach, would appoint him 1st XV captain for next year, but to keep it quiet until the summer announcement. He praised Milo’s leadership qualities, and said he’d been impressed with how he’d coped with school this year. Actually, when Milo shook hands at the end of the interview, he had the feeling that Mr Toms had done most of the talking. Is that a good sign? Not sure.
As he was leaving, Mr Toms asked him to hand out tickets to the fifth-form party that night. And there he had it – one more chance to speak to Elizabeth alone. He distributed the tickets in the different houses, leaving Norcombe House until last. Rugby practice started in twenty minutes, so he changed into his kit and hoped it would impress her, show her that he could do something other than spy on her and fall off ladders. Clutching the tickets in his hot hand, rehearsing what he would say, he walked up the hill to Norcombe House after lunch, hoping she’d be in Livvy’s room.
She wasn’t, but Livvy was. She was lying on her bed, reading a letter on a large piece of paper, each line of which was written in a different coloured pen. The girls’ bedrooms in the school boarding houses were very similar to the boys’ – big enough for two beds, two desks and a wardrobe to share. Livvy had decorated hers with African printed scarves and photos of herself and her friends on beaches and ski slopes, and a large poster of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in bed. Milo liked Livvy, she was always friendly to him; mind you, she was friendly to everyone. She was that girl – every school has one – who knows everyone, and also what their parents do, especially the famous and the rich ones. Milo couldn’t remember stuff like that and wasn’t interested in it anyway, and despite her friendliness, he wouldn’t have trusted her to keep a secret – had he been interesting enough to have one.
When he walked into her room, she put down the letter and swung her legs over the side of the bed, turning to face him. He handed the tickets to her and sat down on her desk chair. He took a deep breath. She smiled at him, a knowing smile, and raised an eyebrow, waiting. Milo looked around the room and his eyes fastened on the other bed. He looked away again.
‘I just wanted to ask you, you know, do you—?’
‘About Beth Atkinson? What do you want to know? She’s fifteen, lives in Melchester with her aunt, likes films and books, very brainy, a virgin—’
‘Whoa. Stop. No, nothing like that. I just wanted to know… if anyone has asked her to the party yet. Do you know if she’s going with anyone?’
‘Ah, OK, that. I don’t know if she’s decided yet, but Nate asked her, also Sam, and Golo, and Matt—’
‘Big Matt or Little Matt?’
‘Both. But I don’t know who she said yes to yet. Or she might just be going alone, with me, you know.’
He stood up to go, regretting that he’d said anything to Livvy. It’d be round the school before the day was out and probably she and Elizabeth would have a good laugh about him. He muttered something about rugby and turned to the door. But as he opened it, there stood Elizabeth.
‘Hi. How’s your head?’
‘Fine. Thanks. Thanks again.’
‘You don’t have to keep saying thank you.’
‘Oh, right. OK.’
She gave him a questioning look. ‘Did you come to see me?’
‘What? Oh, yes – I mean no. Doesn’t matter. Got to go. Pugby ractice. Rugby. Um. Thanks. Sorry.’
She moved sideways, but stayed in the doorway so that when he stepped past her, no part of him touched her, but every part of him almost did. He couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. Down the steep path, through the trees towards the rugby pitches, and only one thought: Elizabeth. At least now he knew he had zero chance with her. She had the pick of the boys at school – why would she choose him?
Then he heard footsteps behind him. A small hand slapped him on the shoulder and he stopped. Elizabeth was panting, waving her hand while she caught her breath. She rushed out the words.
‘I’ve just heard from Livvy you came to ask me to some party or other and she thought it was a great joke because she told you loads of boys had already asked me. It’s not true. Nobody’s asked me.’ She stopped and the colour rose in her cheeks. Was it from running after him, or from embarrassment? He wondered. And waited.
‘It was a bit harsh of her. I don’t know why she did it, just to tease you I think, because you… I mean… Well.’ She shrugged.
Milo blushed and grinned at her. He didn’t know why he grinned, but perhaps he did stand a chance after all. According to Guy, Milo looked like a village idiot when he smiled; his mouth was too wide and his eyes crinkled up and his dimples took over everything. Guy’s theory was that boys should never smile at girls; they prefer the brooding bastard look anyway. But Milo couldn’t help it – that was the effect she had on him. He looked in her eyes and she was smiling right back at him.
‘So… if nobody else has asked you, would you, umm, like to go with me?’
The smile disappeared.
‘Oh. Um. Well, I didn’t mean that I want to go with you; I only meant to tell you that Livvy was teasing you. I’m not even going to the party, you see. I don’t… it’s not really my thing to go to parties with boys. I think you got the wrong idea.’
OK, so now he was really confused. Livvy’s stupid joke was one thing, but now Elizabeth was saying that she’d rather not go to the party at all than with him. Huh, he thought, she can’t stand me. Or perhaps this was part of the joke. Perhaps she would go back to her room and the two of them would snigger over it all. But that didn’t seem right; they wouldn’t be that cruel. Would they? There was no getting round it: Milo West knew nothing whatsoever about girls. He sat down on a tree stump next to the path and, before he knew what he was doing, he took her hand and pulled her down to sit next to him. Her hand was small and felt cool and smooth next to his.
He took a deep breath and rushed out the words before he could change his mind. ‘I don’t care about the party and whatever Livvy said. I just… ever since I saw you I can’t stop thinking about you. I mean, ever since I saw you on Wednesday morning, not in the pool, you know… sorry. I know I’m not good enough for you, but—’
She wriggled her hand out of his and interrupted, but her voice was kind.
‘Honestly, you don’t even know anything about me and if you did, you wouldn’t be saying all this stuff. It’s you who’s too good for me. Anyway, I’m not interested in boyfriends and that sort of thing. You’ve got to stop all this now, it’s absurd.’
She was so close to him and he could see her eyes, dark and clear. Her body was rigid, her hands clenched in white fists. She edged away from him.
‘OK,’ he answered dully. ‘I understand. It won’t happen again.’
And that was the last time he saw her before everything fell apart.
CHAPTER 2
‘Oi, you, oi! Your Majesty. Slow down.’
Beth sped up. Crap. This was all she needed. He was all she
needed.
He caught up with her. ‘Did you not hear me? I said wait.’
‘I heard you,’ said Beth. She glared at the boy. His name was Steve Dean, but everyone at her school in Melchester called him Bueller, or rather, she suspected he made everyone call him Bueller because he reckoned he looked like Matthew Broderick. But his eyes were too piggy and he had a mean, thin mouth. ‘What do you want?’
‘I think we should walk home together, babe,’ said Bueller. To her endless annoyance, he lived on the same estate as her and tried as often as possible to escort her home from school.
‘You can think? That is an astonishing development.’
‘Oooh, an astonishing development. La-di-da, aren’t you, Your Majesty?’
Beth shrugged and walked on.
He shouted after her, ‘I know a secret about you.’
Beth’s insides went cold, but she forced herself to carry on walking. He couldn’t… how? It wasn’t possible. He was bluffing. Bueller was full of shit, end of story. She heard his feet on the tarmac as he pulled level with her again. Her upper lip twitched but she turned it into a scowl.
‘’Cause I know where you were last week,’ he said with a triumphant smile on his face.
Oh, that. Thank Christ it’s only that. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You were doing exams at that posh school in the middle of nowhere. Waterbury, Wankerbury or whatever. Want to know how I know?’
‘Not really,’ sighed Beth. Try as she might – and she didn’t try very hard – she couldn’t get used to this half-aggressive, half-amorous attention she received from the boys at her school, the illustrious academic institution of Melchester Comprehensive. Bueller was displaying all the usual signs: puffed-out chest, overconfident leer, nervous shuffling and standing so close to her that she could see his dilated pupils. She took a step backwards.
It hadn’t always been like this. She had spent most of her life trying to be normal so that nobody would notice her. But when she was twelve, her body had decided that being ordinary was no longer the modus operandi – it had grown up and up, like a beanpole, like a long streak of piss, to quote two of the special nicknames she acquired at that time. She was teased for being clever too, and spent her time at school alone, shoulders hunched, face down – still trying, but failing, to be invisible.
Then last summer, her fourteen-year-old body had rebelled again. She was minding her own business that summer, reading The Count of Monte Cristo in the shade of a tree in the park near her house, and while Edmond Dantès languished in the Château d’If, Beth was filling out a little, in some places a lot. While he planned his escape and swam to freedom, her hair became shiny and her skin flawless. When he took his revenge on those who had betrayed him, Beth’s dentist took off her train-track braces. In the space of that summer, she became extraordinary.
Now, when she walked down the street, open-mouthed men would watch her as she passed by. The boys at her school harassed her for a different reason than before and the girls, jealous of her new beauty, were bitchy and suspicious that she would steal their boyfriends. But she didn’t know anything about boys and didn’t care about the ones at her school. She grew a thick skin, concentrated on her schoolwork and told herself that friends were overrated. Or just plain unwanted, e.g. Steve Bloody Bueller Dean.
‘My old man’s a teacher there,’ he persisted.
‘Really, Steven? A teacher? What of?’
‘Well, not a teacher as such. He’s… he’s a…’
Beth watched as Bueller searched in the furthermost corners of his tiny brain. Didn’t take him long.
‘He’s the groundsman.’
‘Bullshit. The groundsman’s name is Mr West. If your dad works there, which I seriously doubt, then stop fannying about and admit that he’s a cleaner or a skivvy or whatever he is. And yes, I did go to Weatherbury Hall to take the scholarship exams and I can’t wait to escape from this execrable dump and hope never to lay eyes on you abysmal bunch of tossers again.’
Bueller un-puffed himself and the leer disappeared, replaced by terrified piggy eye-flicks to check no one else was listening. He waited until she’d finished and then muttered, ‘Fuck off, you stuck-up bitch.’
She leaned in close to him, noticing with great pleasure that he flinched, and said, ‘Consider it done.’
*
Just before Christmas, Beth and her Aunt Anne, who was her guardian, had a surprise visit from her Uncle James, Anne’s brother, who was a teacher and lived in London. He’d been writing a book for the past three years, a biography, and he had a letter from the publisher with a contract to sign.
‘It’s make-our-minds-up time,’ he said. ‘We all have to be one hundred per cent sure about signing, otherwise it’s not fair. Anne, you first.’
‘I vote yes. It would be so lovely to be rich, for once.’
‘I think “rich” is pushing it a bit. We’re talking pocket money, a holiday every now and then, maybe some new clothes, nothing big. Don’t get your hopes up.’
‘I still vote yes.’
James turned to Beth with a worried look. ‘I’m sure we can arrange it so that none of this comes back to you, at least until you finish school, or even university. You know I think that eventually, someone will figure out who you are. But this way we get to control the story, at least to some extent, and make some…’ he gave his sister a pointed look, ‘money out of it. So I vote yes, too.’
They both looked at Beth, waiting. She remembered how she’d felt when she thought Bueller had known. She thought with apprehension about how her life would change if anyone found out about her connection to the book. But extra money, some control, more time – it all sounded so sensible. Didn’t it? And she loved Anne and James so much, after all they’d done for her.
‘Yes. I vote yes.’
*
Beth received her own letter, congratulating her on winning the Springer’s Scholarship and inviting her to attend Weatherbury Hall School in September 1989. She started crossing off the days on a calendar and she daydreamed about her new school. The thought of it made her heart lift. Weatherbury Hall. My new school.
That first day of the scholarship visit, when Anne had driven her there and they’d turned a corner at the end of the long, tree-lined driveway, Beth had stared in wonder at the main building. It didn’t look like a school, it looked like a French chateau: three storeys of red brick with tall white-framed windows and red-and-white chimneys surrounded by pristine green lawns. So this is what it feels like to be out of your depth, she thought. Well, there’s a first time for everything. She checked her face in the mirror to give herself a little time to recover her nerves.
When Milo West spoke to her as she wrestled with the locked doors, he made her jump, which made her angry. Good thing too – she was on the verge of running after Anne’s car, but pulled herself together and glared at him. The first thing she noticed about him was how tall and wide he was. He had a mop of curly blond hair and dark blue eyes and wasn’t exactly good-looking, but wasn’t hideous either. He sort of mumbled at her and so she summoned up a hostile glare, one of her medium-petrifiers – after all, he was trying to help – and that shut him up.
Beth didn’t think about Milo for the rest of that day, because she only had eyes for Weatherbury Hall. She never knew schools like this existed. They were taken on a tour of the grounds by a sixth-former: there were libraries (plural), a computer room, a room in the art block that was only for sculpture, a post office, a tuck shop, music rooms, each with its own piano – she counted twenty pianos. There was a photography darkroom, there were squash courts, grass tennis courts, stables for horses, a boathouse by the river, a fleet of minibuses for sports teams, a twenty-five-metre swimming pool, and best of all, a theatre. It had eight hundred tiered seats, proper lighting and sound equipment, everything to professional standard.
But it wasn’t just all that, although that would have been enough. What astounded Beth the most was how she f
itted in. She felt right away that she belonged here. She wasn’t the tallest girl, she wasn’t the prettiest or the cleverest and she certainly wasn’t the richest. There was nothing out of the ordinary about Beth Atkinson when she was at Weatherbury Hall. There were people who looked at her and some – like Milo – who even stared. But she thought that people liked her, for whatever reason. She made friends. This was new for her, and she liked it. She couldn’t get enough of it.
*
She called Livvy with the good news about the scholarship and they arranged to meet up the next day, when Livvy was in Melchester for Christmas shopping. They sat together at a table near the window in McDonald’s, watching the other shoppers struggling with huge bags and grim expressions through the driving rain.
‘I think I’ll just get Our Price vouchers for my whole family. Job done,’ said Livvy. ‘It’s going to be fantasmagorical, next year at school. Dibs we share a room, pretty please, say you will?’
Beth smiled. ‘Who else would I share with?’
‘And you’re so brainy, you’ll help me with my homework—’
‘We’re not going to do the same A Levels, Livs,’ Beth pointed out.
‘Oh. Ah well, never mind, you can help me anyway.’ Livvy giggled. ‘I can’t wait. We can share all our clothes.’
Beth raised her eyebrows.
‘Fair enough, you’re right, I’ll never fit into your stuff.’ Livvy sighed as she looked Beth up and down. ‘Those poor defenceless boys won’t know what’s hit them.’
‘Sounds painful, when you say it like that.’
‘Oh, speaking of poor defenceless boys, do you remember Milo West?’
‘The big gentle one, with the curly hair?’
Livvy’s lips flickered into a smile before she straightened out her mouth. ‘That’s the one. Word on the street is, he has to leave our school because he didn’t get the scholarship, and go to the local comp.’
Beth frowned. ‘In Melchester?’
‘Not sure.’
