by FJ Campbell
‘Humph.’
‘You know I’m talking sense.’ He reached up and ruffled Milo’s hair, punching him and giving him a dead arm. In return, Milo grabbed his wrist and gave him a Chinese burn.
At this moment they saw Edward, who was looking pale and tired, his shoulders a little less upright than usual, his hair not so perfectly combed back and his shirt unironed. From what Edward had told him, Milo knew that he was struggling even more than he was with the idea of Beth and Zack. Edward had thought that he could save Beth from the same fate as Bonnie. But Milo knew that Beth was different. She was tougher. At least, so Milo hoped.
Milo and Guy exchanged a grim look. They both knew what the other was thinking – Zack was not too far off the mark. Edward was losing it.
*
A week later, Milo was in the packed sixth-form common room, sitting on one of the bar stools, talking to Guy, when Neighbours finished and the news came on. Usually someone switched it over, but today there was a story about a British journalist who had been executed in Baghdad for spying, and there was an interview with Mr Markham, who had tried without success to intervene. Milo looked around, but Edward wasn’t there. Where did he spend his free time these days?
The next item was introduced – a book written by British author James Hurst about his sister and brother-in-law, a famous model and fashion designer whose sudden deaths in 1974 had shocked the world. Milo’s eyes locked on to Beth, who was sitting with Livvy on the sofa nearest to the TV. She glanced over her shoulder, her face ashen, her eyes panicking, and found Milo. He tried to smile at her, stay calm, stay calm, as everyone’s voices drowned out what James was saying, talking about the book – ‘Have you read it? Can I borrow it when you’re finished?’ Pictures of Beth’s parents flashed up on the TV.
The next news item was a related feature about a new kind of model called a ‘supermodel’, of which there were only a handful in the world, models that charged the highest fees and were the most sought after and successful. Milo stood up, ignoring Guy, who was in the middle of sharing his extremely personal feelings about Linda Evangelista, and went over to Beth. He crouched down behind the sofa and laid his hand on her shoulder.
‘OK?’ he whispered in her ear.
She nodded.
‘Wanna get out of here?’
She nodded again.
‘It’s OK, you know,’ Milo explained when they were outside, alone. ‘Nobody knows who you are. They can’t connect James to you and so they won’t make the connection between your parents and you.’
‘But those photos… someone will notice one of these days. Do you know, I can’t even change my hair to disguise myself. She had ten years of photographs taken with her hair short, long, blonde, dark, every style known to man. Anne told me that she was on the cover of seventeen separate Vogue issues. I can’t do anything.’
‘It’s going to be all right and then when it’s not, we’ll have to deal with it. Until then there’s nothing we can do. Just ignore it, act normally. It’s the only thing to do.’
‘I’m dreading it, Milo.’ She sat down on a bench, pulled her legs towards her and put her arms around them. ‘I wish James had never written that book. I wish we’d left it all alone. I don’t care about having all this money. I’d give it away tomorrow if it meant that I could avoid this happening. I don’t want anyone to stare at me and talk about me, and I don’t want to be famous. Not for that, anyway.’
‘It’s going to be OK. Try to relax.’
But Milo could see that it was on Beth’s mind more and more. He privately thought that she was lucky to have got away with it for so long, but she had convinced herself that she was going to make it through school anonymously and anything else was a disaster.
They walked down to the river together, leaving the school and its noise behind them. The sunny day reminded Milo of the first time he had seen Beth, a year and a half ago. She told him about the fear she had of being someone else’s property – the daughter of someone, the wife of someone. It would drive her crazy, she said, if she couldn’t create something interesting or original of her own in her own way.
‘It’s like my mother – what did she ever do that was her own? She couldn’t do anything or say anything without it being commented upon. What’s she wearing? What’s she done with her hair? What’s she eating? Who’s she with? Nothing was private, so in the end, it’s no wonder she was a nutcase – how could she have known what was real and what not? I don’t want my life to be like hers. It would kill me.’
They sat down by the river. It was a picture-perfect scene – from the blue sky, sunshine filtered through the trees that framed the river. The shouts and laughter of the rowers barely registered with Beth. She remembered how, that first day at The Island, eighteen months ago, she’d been so thrilled to see the rowers on the river, and now it seemed totally normal to her.
As they walked back to school together, Beth asked if Milo had seen the ‘love the spring’ flowers outside her house.
‘I heard about them, but I haven’t been up to look yet. Are they pretty?’
She glanced sideways at him. He wasn’t blushing; he looked totally normal. These days it was getting more difficult for her to read him.
‘They’re really pretty. Why don’t you come up now? They won’t last much longer, will they? The flowers, I mean?’
‘Mmm. Should be all right for another couple of weeks. Then the flowers will die back, but they’ll be there again next spring.’
‘Aha. You seem to know a lot about these flowers.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘I didn’t say it was. You just said it was, though.’
‘No, I said it wasn’t me.’
‘It’s OK. My lips are sealed. I think it was a lovely idea. So does everyone. You should be proud of it.’
‘I would be, except it wasn’t me.’
‘Suit yourself.’
They reached Norcombe House and stood looking at the flowers. Beth was suppressing a smile. She looked at him again, but he was just standing there with his hands in his pockets. She gave up. Before she left him, she hesitated, looking slightly bashful.
‘I have to ask you a favour. It’s about the play. I can’t carry on learning lines with Zack; we… umm… we get a bit distracted. Will you take over and get him to learn his lines? Please? I’ll do the sessions with Alice.’
‘Alice is fine, she knows her lines. She’s word-perfect.’
Beth glanced at him. Again, his face wasn’t giving anything away. She was still suspicious, though. She’d seen the way Alice gazed at Milo, like he was a living god. What on earth did those two get up to when they were alone? Still, if Milo was right and Alice was word-perfect, they obviously must have learnt some lines between snogs.
*
March turned into April and Milo was really, really worried about Zack’s attitude to the play. He was always late to their one-on-one rehearsals and sat there trying to change the subject, which infuriated Milo.
‘What are you playing at?’ he growled at Zack once, when he had fouled up every line of the scene where the American agent comes to the farm and takes Seth away to Hollywood. ‘I thought you wanted to be an actor. Why won’t you learn your lines and do this decently? You never know when someone might be in the audience who could spot you.’
‘Here? At this school? You must be kidding. Who would come here to see some stupid school play? This part sucks. Seth doesn’t even have any decent lines, he just glowers and struts around. I only auditioned for the part to pull Beth.’ He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at Milo.
‘Well, now you’ve “pulled” Beth, learn the lines and don’t ruin her play. You said it: you don’t have that many lines – but you are in a lot of scenes and you’ll ruin it if you don’t know what you’re doing. She’s going to be so pissed off if you carry on like this.’
‘I don’t need any advice about my girlfriend from you, thanks, West. I can handle it myself.’ He pee
red at Milo. ‘Isn’t it time you got over her? Even if she weren’t going out with me, I doubt you’d be next in line. She’s way above your level and you know it.’
Milo was silent.
‘You’ve got such a chip on your shoulder, always have. It’s so sad. You know, you need to get out of this shithole once in a while. You think this play’s important? Grow up, would you? You think you’re in love with Beth? There are a million girls like her out there, in London, in the big wide world. I’ll tell you what, come up to mine sometime and I’ll introduce you to this chick I know, Annabel, she’ll blow your mind.’
Milo muttered, ‘Shut up.’
‘What was that, West, I didn’t catch that?’
‘I said, shut up. Stop being such an arsehole. Learn your lines. Be nice to Beth. Or I’ll take you up on that fight you offered me on your first day at school, you little twat.’ His face was up against Zack’s now; he was shaking with anger. ‘I’ll forget that I ever made a promise to your father that I’d look out for you. I’ll forget that we used to be like brothers and I’ll beat the living shit out of you.’
Zack’s eyes flashed with fear for the tiniest of moments before he recovered his usual smirk. He scraped his chair, stood up, said, ‘I think that went well. Don’t you?’ and left the room.
*
Something Milo said must have sunk in, because in the dress rehearsal Zack was almost spot on with his lines and was more or less in the right place at the right time. He really can act when he wants to, thought Milo, watching from the wings as Beth sat out at the front and videoed it. You had to hand it to Zack, he was brilliant as Seth.
On the afternoon of the performance, Milo and Guy had just finished hockey practice. They saw a sports car roar up the driveway and, a few minutes later, it sped back past them.
Guy turned to Milo. ‘Was that…? No, it couldn’t have been. Was it…?’
‘Was it who?’
‘I just thought I saw Zack in the passenger seat of that Ferrari.’
Milo glanced back, but the car had disappeared around the corner. ‘Nah. It couldn’t have been. Why would he be leaving school now? We’re meeting in an hour for costumes and make-up. We’re onstage at seven.’
Guy said with a shrug, ‘Must have been some other idiotic long-haired posh public schoolboy in the car. They all look the same to me.’
They didn’t dare mention it to Beth, but as six o’clock turned into half past six, they began to worry that Guy’s eyes hadn’t been deceiving him. Beth enlisted a bunch of third-years and sent them off in different directions to find Zack. To his house, to the library, to the sports hall, the swimming pool. To the woods.
She was storming around looking like thunder. ‘Quarter to seven,’ she said, ‘then we get the understudy ready.’ Who is the understudy? thought Milo, checking their notes from the auditions. At that moment, one of the boys who’d been sent off to find Zack returned, looking scared.
‘I’ve been to his house and I met his housemaster and he says that Zack’s gone home to London, something about his mother being ill.’
‘Whaaaaat?’ screamed Beth, and the boy scarpered. ‘Milo, who’s the understudy?’
Oh shit, thought Milo. As in, hitting the fan. He gulped. ‘Big problem. The understudy is Hugh Hill.’
‘And? Where is he? What’s the problem?’
‘He’s… he—’
‘He’s got glandular fever,’ interrupted Guy, trying to save his friend from delivering the bad news.
‘Well, then, go and tell him to stop having glandular fever. We need him.’
‘They won’t let him out of the san. He can barely stand.’
‘Whaaaaaaat? What the fuck? So we have no Seth? I cannot believe this. This is not happening.’ She thudded down onto a seat and put her head in her hands. ‘Think, think, think, what can we do?’ she murmured to herself.
Before she had lifted her head, Milo already knew what she was going to say. He backed away. Other members of the cast, who had been hovering in the wings, disappeared; even Guy crept away with an apologetic look on his face. Bastard. Milo turned around, and somehow she was right next to him.
‘I can’t. I can’t do it. I already told you, I’d be rubbish. I can’t act.’
‘Milo, you know how important this is to me; I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t. I need your help. You have to come through for me. You always do. You can do this standing on your head. Only we don’t have much time now, so you have to step up.’ She looked at him, her face pale but determined.
‘You always get what you want, don’t you?’ he mumbled.
She flashed him a smile. ‘Does that mean you’ll do it? Yes, of course you will. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are absolutely the best ever friend ever.’ She spun him around by the shoulders and marched him backstage, all business again.
They had five minutes until the play started, but luckily Seth didn’t appear until the second act. Livvy found Milo a costume and ran through the lines and stage positions with him, but he hardly needed to listen; he knew everything off by heart. How had he let this happen to him? Never, never in his whole life had he wanted to act in a play in front of hundreds of people. He wondered idly whether Beth had had an inkling that Zack might let her down, and that was why she had asked Milo to go through his lines with him. Where was she? Of course, out front, where he should be, sitting next to that friend of the author, what was her name, oh never mind. Everyone was rushing about; he watched them through a haze. His eyes were sweating. He saw Guy’s mouth open and shut but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Alice had to go, she was in every scene, but she squeezed Milo’s hand and kissed his cheek and wished him good luck. He sat in a daze while Livvy whispered to him. Breathe, breathe. Halfway through Act One, his stomach heaved. Livvy whipped a bucket out of nowhere and he emptied his lunch into it. She patted him on the back and redid his make-up.
Act One finished. It was time. Breathe. Alice came in for a costume change and her brow furrowed at the sight of him. ‘Milo, it’s going to be OK. I’ll be out there with you. Just talk to me, OK, like we did when we practised my lines? Don’t look out at the audience – talk to me, focus on me. Can you do it?’
He nodded and was sick again.
Someone pushed a plastic cup of clear liquid into his hand and he tipped it into his mouth. It burnt his throat, but felt good. He smiled and dragged himself up. Someone else pushed him to the wings and he listened for his cue. This is really happening, he thought. Bollocks.
*
Afterwards Beth thought with relief, That could have been much, much worse. Milo was a little wooden at first, and needed a prompt when he looked out into the audience early on and panicked. But he warmed up and relaxed, and played the part of Seth to perfection. He growled and grunted and strutted and smouldered. It was spectacular. Guy put it all down to the tequila. Backstage, the cast finished the bottle and Mr Gifford turned a blind eye. They ran screaming down the corridors to the sixth-form common room and drank a couple of beers together. Waves of people came up to Beth and Milo to congratulate them and slap them on the back. Milo was grinning, enjoying every minute of it, but still looking a bit spaced out.
Livvy was chatting to some people from Zack’s house and came back to where the group was sitting. She looked nervous. ‘There’s something fishy about Zack’s story. Someone overheard him on the phone to his supposedly ill mother; he didn’t sound worried, he was buzzing, they said.’ She hesitated. ‘Sure you want to hear this?’ she asked Beth, who nodded, her mouth set. ‘Well, shortly after that phone call, he was spotted climbing into a flashy motor and a couple of fourth-year girls asked him what he was doing. He told them his mother was having a party and this talent scout from America was coming and wanted to meet him.’
There was a silence from Beth as she let the news sink in. Her boyfriend and leading man had nearly scuppered the whole play. He was selfish and thoughtless, and had lied. He wasn’t even brave enough to come and tell her
himself. Everyone waited, holding their breath, for an explosion.
Beth shrugged. ‘It’s kind of funny, don’t you think? That it happened to Zack like it happened to Seth in the play?’ She found that she really didn’t mind as much as before. She was still angry with him and thought less of him, but as Milo had been so fantastic and everything had worked out in the end, she didn’t want to ruin the party by having a massive sulk.
At ten o’clock, the bar closed and everyone wearily made their way towards their houses. Milo took Livvy and Beth back to Norcombe House and set off for the cottage.
Beth called after him, ‘Will you be all right? Wouldn’t you be better staying in Casterbridge House tonight?’ She had never seen him drunk before; he was swaying and his hair was all messed up, and he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.
‘I’m not that drunk. Look, see.’ He walked straight along a line painted on the road. ‘I’m far from sober, though, very far from it, so I’m going home to sleep off my hangover in peace.’
They said goodnight, and Livvy and Beth signed in to Norcombe House. Then Beth changed her mind, grabbed something she’d been saving up from under her bed and quietly slipped out of the door before it was locked. Livvy would let her in their bedroom window later.
A little way into the woods, she caught up with Milo, crashing through the undergrowth.
‘Shhhh. Don’t make so much noise,’ she shouted. She wasn’t entirely sober herself.
Milo laughed. ‘What are you doing out?’
‘Ta-da.’ She opened her coat to reveal the bottle of champagne. ‘It’s warm, but I thought we should celebrate. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
They tramped on a bit and couldn’t decide where to go.
‘Your place?’ suggested Beth.
‘Wouldn’t you rather be outdoors tonight? How about the secret garden?’
It was almost a full moon and the air was still warm. Milo fetched a couple of blankets from a small shed in the far corner of the garden and they lay on their backs, looking at the stars and propping themselves up on their elbows every now and again to swig the champagne straight from the bottle. They talked about everything except Zack. But now she was away from the others, she couldn’t help thinking about him and her eyes filled with tears. Ridiculous, feeble girl; she couldn’t seem to hold them back.
