by FJ Campbell
‘Beth, may I speak to you please?’
‘Oh, Edward. Hi, yes, of course.’ She pointed away from the pavilion, where everyone was hurrying to get a cup of tea or cocoa to get warm. There was an unoccupied bench beside the tennis courts, facing away from the rugby pitch, where he waited until she had sat down, then sat down himself and cleared his throat. He saw her shiver.
‘Would you like me to fetch you a cup of tea?’ he asked, concerned.
‘No, really, it’s OK. Thanks, though.’
‘I’ve been meaning to speak to you since you sent me that note. It was a bit of a surprise, but I’d really love to go with you to the ball. Would you still like to?’ His voice was edged with anxiety. Please say yes, please say—
‘Yes, of course, that would be fun, wouldn’t it?’
His shoulders softened, his hands unclenched. ‘Well, that’s wonderful. What’s the form? I can pick you up, or would you like to pick me up, since you asked me?’
They made arrangements to meet at the entrance of his house at seven o’clock. They chatted about the rugby match, how well Milo was playing, and about the Cold Comfort Farm play. They were so deep in conversation, neither of them noticed that the teams were already out for the second half.
*
Milo noticed, and Guy did too; he nudged Milo as they ran out. Beth and Edward were both so tall and striking, even as they sat some distance away from the pitch with their backs turned to the game, it was easy to see who they were. Milo looked away, trying to concentrate on the game and the instructions the coach had given them at half-time. It was no good. He was distracted and kept fluffing his passes, his heart not in the tackles; he couldn’t see the openings or hear his teammates when they asked for the ball.
‘Mate, what’s up?’ gasped Guy, twenty minutes into the second half. ‘You need to get back into the game.’ It was 29-19. The coach was roaring angrily on the sideline, and the home crowd had grown silent, aware that their team was losing their grip on the match. Milo shook his head, his hair dripping with sweat, to clear it. He ran off, searching for the ball, trying to find the flow of the game, but it was useless. His loyal teammates tried to shield him, but he was a complete dud in that half. The Sherton Abbas team sensed the weakness, pressed their advantage and won the match 29-31.
As the Weatherbury Hall team trudged into the changing room after the match, they all heard Mr Shepherd, their coach, a giant Yorkshireman, outside the door with Milo, berating him loudly. ‘What the buggery do you think you were doing out there, lad?’ They didn’t hear Milo’s reply, but the coach stormed off, bellowing, ‘Somebody keep that ruddy wench away from my team next time.’
*
Edward and Beth didn’t even stay until the end of the match. They were so engrossed in each other, they didn’t hear or see anyone else. Edward saw she was shivering and her hands were turning blue. He had this aberrant urge to hold them and pull them to him, into the warmth of his coat, but instead he suggested that they walk back up to school. They passed the stables, where Edward and Bonnie’s horses were kept.
‘Would you like to say hello?’ he said.
‘Oh no, I don’t like horses.’
‘Are you allergic? Or frightened?’
She looked insulted. ‘I just don’t like horses. I’ve never had anything to do with them.’
‘Why don’t you come and say hello now? They’re the most beautiful creatures, up close. And they won’t hurt you, I promise.’
Beth shrugged her shoulders and followed him over the stile that led through the field to the stable door. Inside, it was warmer, the smell of the horses, straw and leather at once making Edward feel relaxed. He led her along a concrete path between two rows of stalls until the jet-black face of his horse appeared over the upper half of one of the doors.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Beth, her voice more timid than he had ever heard it.
‘This is Gilbert. And over there is Bonnie’s horse, Caspar.’
‘Gilbert and Caspar – like in Portrait of a Lady?’ Her eyes lit up. God, she was beautiful.
‘Yes, that’s right – Bonnie named them. We both love that book.’
‘Me too.’
‘Here, look, you can touch his nose here and stroke him, he won’t do anything. Like this.’ He took her hand and placed it on the horse’s face, drawing it down towards the nose. Gilbert moved his head to nuzzle them.
‘He’s lovely,’ Beth said in a soft voice and Edward lifted his eyes from the horse, his heart thudding against his ribs, and dared to look at her. Her eyes were glowing now, her face turned to his. He swallowed, his mouth dry.
He broke eye contact and looked back to the horse. ‘Shall I teach you to ride? Caspar could do with being ridden more regularly; I think he’d like to get to know you.’
‘Mmm, yes, why not?’ She took her hand off the horse and looked down at her coat. She picked a piece of straw from it and then said, ‘Oh. What time is it? Shouldn’t we…? I think we should go. I need to get ready for tonight.’
When they emerged from the stables, the playing fields were empty, a low mist settling all the way down to the trees by the river, obscuring the bottom half of the H-shaped rugby posts. Strange how the time has gone, thought Edward mildly. He was sure the game would still have been going on. The light was fading. He checked his watch; it was getting late. They wandered alone towards the school and parted at the turning to Norcombe House.
*
Beth hurried up to the courtyard and flung open the door, running in excitement to find Livvy. She was in their room with two similar-looking girls who were cousins, Tabitha and Savanna, swigging Coke from cans and doing each other’s hair. Soul II Soul was blaring out of the stereo, and they were giggly, excited about the party. Beth showered and washed her hair, lounging on her bed while it dried, sipping from the Coke cans, which she now discovered had been filled up with generous shots of vodka.
They wriggled into their dresses. Beth had bought a new jade-green silk mandarin gown, with a high neck and delicate stitching along the edges, very tight-fitting and slashed from the knee right up her thigh. Everyone oohed and aahed over it. By virtue of her height and slimness, Beth was spared the usual clothes-swapping ritual that most of the girls, including Livvy, Tab and Sav, were so mad about. They were constantly wearing each other’s clothes and even shoes, but Beth was relieved not to have to share her wardrobe with anyone.
‘It’s really nice that you two have each other,’ she said to Tab and Sav. ‘I wish I had a sister.’
‘But we’re not even sisters.’ They chuckled and rolled their eyes.
‘You can be my sister,’ said Livvy.
Beth grinned and hugged her. ‘I’d like that very, very much. But I’d have to marry your brother. Hey – which one?’
‘Marry whichever one comes through the door first,’ said Tab. ‘They’ll be here soon to pick us up.’
At that moment, there was a knock on the door. The four girls looked at each other and held their breath. Henry’s head popped round the door and he started to say something to Livvy but was drowned out by their laughter. He looked confused, but managed to get the gist of the story and dragged Livvy out of the door so they could make a few final preparations at the party.
They waited a bit longer, but Beth said she had to go and fetch Edward. The girls, light-headed, flushed and giggly, made their way out of Norcombe House, agreeing that getting ready for a party was invariably better than the actual party itself. Billy and Jake were late, running up the hill, but made it up to them by being so charming, bowing down low, exclaiming how beautiful the girls looked and presenting each of them with a white rose. At the turning to Shottsford House, they waved goodbye and wished good luck to Beth, who turned the corner and followed the road away from the school. Her heels had not, perhaps, been the best choice; she was unsure how to walk in them and wobbled a few times.
At the door to Shottsford House stood Edward, wearing a dark blue suit and look
ing take-your-breath-away handsome. He had a bunch of twelve red roses in his arms. His face lit up when he saw Beth teetering up to the door. She was nearly as tall as him. He brushed a shy kiss onto her cheek, gave her the flowers and offered her his arm without saying a word.
In the dining hall, there was a gigantic Christmas tree lit up with hundreds of candles. The room had been transformed with holly trees in pots, ivy hanging from the walls and an incredibly large amount of mistletoe from the ceiling. In the middle of the ceiling, a disco ball was rotating. The music was already pumping out, but nobody was dancing yet.
Livvy dashed up to them. ‘So, what do you think?’
‘It’s awesome, it looks fantastic,’ said Beth, and Edward smiled and nodded his agreement.
‘Like the mistletoe?’
Edward stuttered, ‘Very… yes. I’ll just… um… drinks?’
He turned towards the bar and Beth shook her head at Livvy, mouthing, Don’t.
Livvy hurried off again and Beth checked she wasn’t under some mistletoe, leaning against an ivy-covered pillar. Edward walked slowly back to her with two glasses of white wine, and they stood awkwardly, sipping and not speaking above the roar of the disco. Now some of the couples were starting to dance. Beth turned her mouth towards Edward’s ear and shouted, ‘Can you dance?’
‘Not really, I’m not very good. Can you?’
‘Everyone dances differently here from my last school.’ They both watched the dancers for a while, some shuffling from side to side, others flinging their legs and arms in the air.
‘What was your old school like?’ asked Edward, leaning close to her.
‘Rough. It’s not so cool to be clever there. I didn’t have a lot of friends.’
The song finished and a slower one came on.
‘Shall we?’ asked Edward, with a sideways nod of his head. He held out his hand. Beth wasn’t really that keen, but the shuffling looked like something she could manage, so she flattened down her dress, tucked her hair behind her ear, took his hand and followed him to the almost full dance floor. Nobody looked at them as they moved between the other couples in the shimmering light of the disco ball. Last Christmas was playing and Beth put her hands around Edward’s neck as he hovered his hands near her waist, so she could barely feel them. They drifted around together and Edward spoke.
‘I hate these things normally. But with you… I wanted to ask you if maybe you’d like to do this again? I mean, go out with me…? I mean, not to a party or perhaps… it… it, umm…’ He swallowed and closed his eyes, sighed and opened them again. She could see he wasn’t finding it easy to speak. ‘Would you like to go out with me?’
She took a little breath and twitched her mouth upwards into what she hoped would look like a smile. ‘Er, I, um… how do you mean? Go together out somewhere? Or do you mean…?’
‘I’d like to spend time with you, get to know you, take you out on a date. I guess what I’m trying to say is, would you like to be my girlfriend?’
‘Oh, OK, I see. Well, it’s really nice of you to ask me, but I don’t really want to have a boyfriend, you know, not now. Maybe we could be friends?’ she babbled, the smile still fixed on her face.
‘Friends?’ He looked so downcast, and she felt so sorry for him. ‘I was hoping, when you sent me that poem, that perhaps we could be more than friends? I thought that was what you wanted too.’
‘Oh. I’ve been meaning to talk to you since I sent you that poem. I did want to ask you to the party, I thought it would be nice. But I didn’t mean… um. I like you, but not in that way.’ She felt awful for him. He was so glum.
The next song came on, one of her favourite U2 songs, With or Without You. Unfortunately it was still a slow one, so Edward continued to hold her, a little harder now, around her waist. She concentrated on the lyrics of the song, which everyone was joining in singing, but it wasn’t helping her situation.
He tried again. ‘If you need more time to think about it, I don’t mind. I can wait. It’s important. You’re worth waiting for.’
‘Really, I don’t think it’s going to happen, Edward.’
‘But will you maybe think about it for a while? Over the Christmas holidays perhaps? You know what – we’re going to France, skiing, at New Year. Why don’t you come too? It would be good for us, maybe, to have some time together away from school. Will you come?’
‘Won’t your mum and dad mind, you asking me like this? Shouldn’t you ask them first?’ Beth stalled, taken aback by the offer.
‘No, it’s really fine, we’re always allowed to ask someone. Come. Please. Val-d’Isère. Will you?’
‘Seriously?’ She couldn’t concentrate, her mind was whirring. ‘I… I don’t know.’
‘Please come.’ His eyes were desperate, pleading with her to accept.
Beth couldn’t think clearly. The vodka and the wine and the lights and the dancing were all making her confused. She scanned the room and her eyes lit on Milo, who was looking three sheets to the wind, head resting on his hand, sitting in a corner with a few other boys. She thought about what Milo would do, and about that day when Edward had passed them in the main corridor and he’d looked at her disapprovingly. She thought about his honesty and his straightforwardness.
‘No, I can’t, Edward. It’s not going to happen.’ She broke away from him and walked as best she could in her stupid shoes, grabbed her bag with her cigarettes in it and headed for the door. She barged past a boy with messy blond hair snogging a girl she didn’t know up against the wall, nearly knocking the pair of them sideways.
Edward, head hanging, stood still for a few moments, gathered up the roses, which she’d left on a chair by the door, and left the party.
CHAPTER 8
Beth wasn’t proud of her behaviour. She liked Edward and wanted to be friends with him, but she felt uncomfortable, because her flirty poem had been a crappy joke to play on him. She’d underestimated – by a long shot – how ‘romantic and fascinating’ he’d become. On the day after the party, she went to his house to explain herself again, but he wasn’t there. She left him a note to say that she’d enjoyed the party and that she still wanted to learn how to ride on Bonnie’s horse, but that she definitely couldn’t come skiing and she didn’t want to be his girlfriend. Could he accept her friendship instead?
She had considered it, of course. There was an attraction to going out with someone like him. They looked good together (Livvy said they looked alike – both tall, dark and handsome). They had lots in common, and Beth knew she couldn’t do much better than him.
But the truth was, it was much more fun to be single than to have a boyfriend. Who wanted to be tied down, spending every spare minute with the same person? She had watched some of the couples at school, sitting next to each other in the dining hall for every meal, walking arm in arm everywhere and finishing each other’s sentences. Dull, duller, dullest. It was a strange thing about this school, she thought, that with no parents around and everyone living merely metres away from each other, couples progressed from magical first kiss to boring married bliss in a matter of weeks. Beth was the undisputed queen of the school, and she wasn’t ready to give up that position to become someone’s girlfriend, even if he was the head boy.
In that last week of term, Beth worked on the final draft of the play every spare minute she had. Milo had cajoled the headmaster’s secretary into typing it out for them. Luckily neither Beth nor Milo had any more squash or rugby training, and the teachers were winding down the amount of homework. Beth was worried about Milo: he was listless and distracted. He answered her questions in monosyllables and avoided looking at her if he could. There was a coldness she had never felt before between them.
‘Do you think this is right? Taking the novel and making a play out of it. Are we right to do this?’ she wondered out loud to him. They were sitting in the sixth-form common room, at their usual corner table, where everyone knew to leave them alone if they were working on the play.
; ‘How do you mean?’ he sighed.
‘Well, I want it to be something special. And now I think, is this really art, when all we’re doing is copying the words that someone else wrote? Is that art too, or just plagiarism?’
‘I thought this is what you wanted to do?’
‘I did. I do. But I want it to be perfect.’
He looked at her and shook his head. ‘Not everything has to be perfect, you know. Sometimes, the first time, you just have to—’
‘I don’t agree. Everything I do, I want it to be the best. Otherwise it’s not worth doing. What’s wrong with you these days anyway?’ she griped. ‘Why are you always so moody?’
Milo didn’t answer.
‘What is it?’
He stood up, towering over her. ‘Got a coat?’
She nodded.
‘I need to speak to you alone.’
She rolled her eyes but stood up and found her coat, leaving their notes and folders on the table. She followed him out of the room and, instead of turning left towards the stairs up to the main corridor, he turned right, heading towards the end of the corridor where she’d never been before. There were locked storeroom doors to the left and right and at the end, Milo fished out a key from his pocket and unlocked a blue door. He opened it and ushered her through, locking the door again when they were on the other side. Now they were in another corridor, unlit, completely empty and silent. There was a set of narrow stone stairs leading up and outdoors and Milo, ignoring her look of confusion, strode towards them and climbed them two at a time.
The stairs emerged around the back of the tennis courts, behind a small house or hut. He walked past it, not looking back at her. She had to run to keep up as they followed a path away from the school, between woods on one side and a high wall on the other, for about ten minutes. The wall became higher, at least three metres high, and at that point Milo turned a corner and used another key to open a small wooden door in the wall, hidden by overgrown bushes and vines. Again he held open the door for her, without saying a word. She hesitated before she stepped inside. He had to crouch down when he followed her through the door.
