by Anne Digby
'It's from Mum and Dad!' said Rebecca, jostling past Elf and snatching the blue airmail letter from the board. 'Oh, good.'
As the six friends walked across the grounds to the big hall in main school, Rebecca lagged behind, reading the letter as she went. Every so often she side-stepped to dodge a car trundling visitors to Commem – local dignitaries, old girls of the school, former members of staff, or even parents who lived near enough to come. Rebecca would have liked her parents there, too, but a letter was the next best thing. It was a warm, chatty, loving letter – and they had a special request to make.
We're longing to see you at the end of term! By the way, we're STILL waiting for the Trebizon Bay Hotel to confirm our booking! Can you go down there and check with them? If there's been a slip-up and they can't have us, try the Seaview . . .
A little tremor of pleasure went through Rebecca. Only a fortnight now before her parents came home! Of course, there was the little matter of summer exams before that. She had no idea how she was going to do in those, but wait till they heard the news about her beating Joss Vining and winning the county closed! And Mrs Ericson seemed positive she'd get to Eastbourne now . . .
And Mum and Dad will be home on leave all summer! thought Rebecca, joyfully. We'll all stay in Eastbourne together and they can come and watch me play my matches!
She made a mental note to cycle down to the Trebizon Bay Hotel after lunch, to sort out the booking for them, as requested. Then she folded the letter up, put it in her blazer pocket and started to run.
'Hurry up, Rebeck!' Tish was calling.
Long lines of girls were forming outside the big assembly hall. The annual service in honour of Trebizon's founder was about to begin.
Someone else had received a letter that morning. Joss Vining.
It was so noteworthy that Miss Welbeck actually referred to it in the principal's commemoration speech (which came right at the end of the morning's celebrations).
'Members of the school, past and present, continue to distinguish themselves in many different spheres,' she told the packed hall. 'I would like to add in passing a special word of congratulation to Josselyn Vining of IV Alpha. Joss is not yet sixteen – I believe her birthday is in September – but this morning she has received an invitation to join the England Under-18 hockey squad on their overseas tour in August.'
There were gasps and then loud and prolonged applause.
Afterwards, Rebecca raced to catch up with Joss in the few minutes before lunch, darting between the throngs of people who'd streamed out of the big hall, spilling on to the terraces and the school lawns, her eyes fixed on a brown curly head of hair bobbing off into the distance. Joss was striding off somewhere on her own. She looked a lonely figure, thought Rebecca. She often did.
She had to talk to her!
She caught up with her by the Hilary of all places. She was sitting on a bench, quite alone, staring at the little lake that fronted the Spanish style building that housed the music school. It was quiet here.
'Congratulations, Joss,' said Rebecca, sitting down beside her on the bench.
'Oh, hallo!' said Joss, still staring at the water. 'Thanks, Rebecca.'
'What will you do about Eastbourne now?' asked Rebecca, rather humbly. 'I mean, that's in August as well, isn't it.'
She stared at the stripes all squashed together on Joss's blazer pocket – purple, yellow, white. School colours in all three sports – phenomenal – and quite difficult to get them all on. There was something rather symbolic about that, Rebecca thought.
'I decided this morning,' said Joss. 'I'm not sending in my application form for Eastbourne. I've torn it up! I rang Daddy and told him I was going to.'
'What did he say?'
'He said that if I did that and if I accepted the invitation to go on this tour, it was up to me, but he wasn't interested. And he certainly wasn't going to bother to come to Commem this morning.'
Joss's parents lived at Clifford, only twenty miles away.
'And he hasn't come then?' said Rebecca.
'No.'
'And he usually does?'
'Always,' replied Joss. Her lip was trembling slightly and she bit it. It was the first time Rebecca had ever seen her look other than self-contained.
'Oh, Joss, I'm sorry,' she said.
'I'm not,' replied Joss. She'd recovered her composure immediately. 'I'm glad. Glad it's all over.'
She became quite talkative.
'It's the end of a dream for Daddy. It's all he's thought about for as long as I can remember – my becoming a tennis pro and going right to the top. The year in the States was all supposed to be part of the process. The only trouble was I got to play with a fantastic hockey team while I was out there and found myself looking forward to those matches more and more. Looking forward to the tennis matches less and less. As a matter of fact I like being part of a team – working with other people, making it all come together. It's exhilarating – it's fantastic! But if you want to be a tennis star you've got to like it out there on your own, being the centre of the stage. You need to revel in it! And if you don't, it doesn't matter how good you are, when you start to play the top players, their egos will smash your ego every time. I did so marvellously well from about the age of nine that I never got the chance to sit down and work out why I hated the big matches, even though I usually won them, and my father was pushing me so hard I guess I just wanted to please him all the time.
'But for months now I've been trying to explain to him. He's never listened. He just hasn't wanted to know –'
Joss folded her arms, suddenly looking very serene, all the inner conflict and tension of the past year behind her at last.
'Well, he knows now,' she said.
'Oh, Joss –' Rebecca was almost lost for words. 'What a thing to have to live with. What a headache.' It explained so much. It explained everything.
'It's all resolved now!' replied Joss. She smiled wryly, giving Rebecca a sidelong look. 'You helped me, you know. You helped resolve it. You're quite likely going to be the tennis star one day, not me.'
For some reason the joy that Rebecca experienced upon hearing those words was not quite as unconfined as it might once have been. They both fell silent, staring at a duck that was bobbing on the water near a huge water lily.
'And the letter this morning clinched everything?' Rebecca said, at last. 'What a triumph that is, Joss, It's marvellous! Fancy its arriving at Commem. Your father will feel so proud of you, when he sits down and thinks about it.'
'No he won't,' said Joss.
Rebecca got to her feet. She felt indignant.
'It's your life, Joss. Not his.'
Then she burst out:
'Nobody should be allowed to inflict their dreams on other people! We have to be allowed to have our own dreams . . . don't we?'
And she hurried away, to find the others.
'Oh, Rebecca, now I shall never be a film star,' said Mara, when she got back. 'Look, they are leaving!'
The other five were amongst the big throng of people on the terrace outside the dining hall who were waiting for lunch. She'd guessed that was where she'd find them.
'TV star you mean,' said Margot. 'It's going to be a TV film.'
'TV star, film star, what does it matter,' pouted Mara. 'Whatever it is, I'm not going to be it. Oh, why are they leaving so early!'
It was true. The cameraman and sound recordist who'd been stationed at the back of the hall during the morning had packed up their equipment and were preparing to leave Trebizon. The slight dark-haired man, Mark Coughlin, the film's director, was standing at the far end of the terrace – formally shaking hands with Miss Welbeck and various members of the school's governing body – obviously saying his goodbyes.
'Apparently they've finished filming, they've got enough film now,' explained Elf. 'Miles of it. They're not staying on for the matches or the gym display or the dancing display this afternoon, or for Commem Ball tonight. They say they're in a tearing rush!'
'Oh, what a shame!' said Rebecca. 'The Ball would have made a lovely climax to the film! The hall always looks so beautiful – and the rose garden! Not to mention you in your fabulous dress of course, Mara. I'm amazed! Fancy them not staying for tonight!'
But sure enough, when they all surged into the dining hall at one o'clock, Rebecca was in time to see the white Silent Eye van through the opposite windows – sliding away towards the school drive with the mysterious Miss Angel at the wheel and the rest of the crew presumably on board.
Rebecca glanced at the trestle tables, groaning under the weight of the sumptuous buffet lunch that had been prepared. There were huge plates loaded with sausage rolls, cold ham, cheese straws, vol-au-vents and stacks of delicious sandwiches, all decorated with lashings of salad. And a mouth-watering display of gateaux and trifles to follow up with. She looked from that lovely food to the back of the departing van, fast disappearing down the drive.
'They didn't even stay for lunch!' she exclaimed to Margot.
She thought no more about it then, because a hand suddenly touched her arm.
'Mrs Lazarus!' exclaimed Rebecca in delight, gazing at the elderly Latin scholar whom she'd got to know the previous summer. She was one of Trebizon's oldest 'old girls'. 'How are you? How's Tommy?'
'I am fit – and Tommy is wonderful!' said Lottie Lazarus. She leant forward and kissed Rebecca on the cheek, then stood back and gazed at her. 'How lovely to see you again, Rebecca. You've grown. In more ways than one, I gather from Mr Pargiter!
'Oh?' asked Rebecca in surprise.
'You've grown in mental stature, Rebecca,' said the elderly lady, her eyes twinkling. 'Mr Pargiter assures me so and I know his judgement is sound. He tells me you have linguistic gifts and that you are putting down good foundations. Oh my beloved Latin! A "dead" language so-called, but alive and well in many a word we utter! De mortuis nil nisi bonum.'
'Speak nothing but good of the dead?' hazarded Rebecca, shyly.
'Precisely!'
They both laughed and then Lottie Lazarus disappeared as suddenly as she'd come, tugged away into a whirlpool of people, calling over her shoulder: 'Carry the torch, Rebecca. Carry the torch!'
Rebecca never saw her again for she grew frail soon after that and increasingly eccentric – but she never forgot her.
Silent Eye Productions Ltd had not finished filming, after all. Not quite. Rebecca discovered this by accident, when she cycled down to the Trebizon Bay Hotel in jeans, just before three, to sort out her parents' room booking.
At first, seeing the white van parked outside, she assumed they'd succumbed to the idea of having lunch after all, here at the hotel, and had been taking a long time over it, before booking out. Although that didn't quite square with Elf's intelligence that they were in a tearing rush.
It was only after Rebecca had seen the hotel receptionist (and discovered that her parents were safely booked into the hotel but the confirmation had been sent in error to the London address) that she noticed the sign, just as she was leaving.
It stood at the entrance to a cordoned-off side corridor that led from the hotel's main foyer and said:
NO ENTRY. SILENCE PLEASE. FILMING IN PROGRESS.
Peering down the corridor she saw double glass doors at the end, probably leading into the lounge, thickly curtained. The curtains had been pulled across the glass doors but they didn't quite meet in the middle, so a thin shaft of bright light shone out through the gap, casting a torch-like beam down the dark corridor.
'I wonder what they're filming here for?' wondered Rebecca.
She turned to go then, glancing round the deserted foyer, she suddenly turned back. On impulse, she ducked under the cordon and tip-toed down the forbidden corridor, her footsteps silent on the thick pile carpet. Holding her breath, she squinted through the gap in the curtains.
The scene in the hotel lounge was lit up in front of her eyes, like a brilliant tableau. She stared at it, mesmerized for a few seconds.
Both cameras were whirring. An interview was being filmed. The interviewer was Mark Coughlin, neatly groomed in his dark suit, smiling ingratiatingly and holding out a microphone with a trailing lead that led back to the film unit's sound recording equipment.
The person being interviewed was seated opposite him – a rather stout, bristling sort of a woman, her face turning this way and that towards the cameras. She was wearing what appeared to be her best dress, all frills and flounces, and her hair from the back looked newly set and stiff with lacquer. Rebecca recognized her somehow as being somebody local, somebody connected with the town.
Miss Angel was standing behind the cameras, making little hand signals, creating the curious impression that she was in charge of the whole proceedings. She seemed to be signalling to the woman to keep her head still, just to look straight at the interviewer.
The woman in the chair was droning on in a high-pitched, rather indignant-sounding tone. It seemed to be a monologue but Rebecca couldn't catch any of the words.
Then, getting the message at last, she turned full face to Mark Coughlin. The double chin was quivering, the plump features stained a happy, self-righteous crimson.
Rebecca recoiled, shocked.
It was Mrs Tarkus.
She seemed to be having a field day.
Heart thumping, Rebecca slipped away, ducked under the cordon again and then raced out of the hotel, no longer caring if the receptionist saw her or not. Outside, she leapt on her bike.
All the way up the hill, panting and puffing, turning the pedals as fast as they'd go, the alarm bells were ringing in Rebecca's head.
Mrs Tarkus! What on earth are they putting HER in the film for? She hates Trebizon! She's always complaining! She can probably recite off by heart every bit of trouble there's ever been, going back the last twenty years!
What were they putting HER in the film for?
What kind of film was this going to be ANYWAY?
She turned in the school gates, was soon bumping rapidly along the drive, staring at the main building in the distance. The mellow stone was bathed in summer sunshine. The parkland all around, dotted with old oaks in full leaf at last, was at its most breathtakingly beautiful.
Then Miss Welbeck's words, spoken near the beginning of term, came echoing back, like a cold, chilly whisper.
It can take a hundred years to build up a fine reputation for a school. It con be destroyed almost overnight.
Rebecca turned the handlebars and plunged into the shrubbery, pedalling down the path that was a short cut to Court House.
TWELVE
ACTION COMMITTEE
'They're making a horrible film about Trebizon!' gasped Rebecca, bursting into the big room. She fell on to the nearest bed, lying on her back and gulping to get her breath back after the cycle ride. 'It's going to be one of those "expose" films! Everything rowdy here – no discipline – parents wasting their money – all that sort of thing! No wonder TV want to take it!'
'Whaa – at?'
Tish switched off her hair dryer. Sue rubbed her nose. Mara's eyebrows shot up. Elf's cheeks started to bulge. And Margot simply said: 'Rebecca, you look as though you need a nice baby glass of water!' and raced off to the kitchen to get one.
'What's happened, Rebeck?' asked Tish.
'Oh, thank goodness you're all here,' gulped Rebecca, sitting up and looking round. Even as she said it she remembered it was almost time for Tish to go to her big athletics meeting and the others were here to see her off. 'It's going to be a nasty film. I know it, I know it, I know it. Oh, thanks, Margot.'
She took the glass of water, sipped it gratefully, and with them all gathered round her she told them about Mrs Tarkus.
'Oh, no,' groaned Tish.
'Maybe – maybe they just want to get, you know, a sort of balanced picture?' suggested Elf feebly, but without conviction.
'Some hopes!' said Sue. Her face had gone ashen.
'If they'd wanted that, they'd have had Miss Welbeck or somebody
there to answer Mrs Tarkus's complaints!' pointed out Rebecca. She was quite positive. Everything added up now. 'For a start, why didn't they film lessons and people working hard, instead of people in the sea all the time, like a holiday camp –?'
'Me surfing,' said Margot, looking alarmed. 'They kept filming me surfing all the time.'
'And you running, Tish,' said Sue, pointedly. 'In Mulberry Cove, remember?'
Tish had gone silent. Susan looked at Rebecca, appalled, and Rebecca nodded her head. She'd thought of it, too. It was almost the first thing she'd thought of.
'They must have known. I don't know how, but they knew before they came! About our spending the night on the island.'
'They were taking some shots of the island,' said Tish, very slowly. 'That's what they were doing in the cove, early Monday morning! What else? I never even thought! Why else come to the cove? They wanted to get the island. It was almost the first thing they filmed! And then I appeared on the scene, jogging along in my track suit – just like a re-run of the actual event. What a bonus for them!' Tish ran her fingers through her black curls, still very damp after washing her hair under the shower. She, too, was looking appalled now. 'Grief !'
'Oh, they were probably expecting you,' said Rebecca. 'They probably had that all planned, as well.'
'Action committee!' exclaimed Mara, eyes bright and angry. 'We must be the action committee again! You must think of something, Tish!'
'How can I?' wailed Tish. She was still in her dressing gown. 'Angela Hessel's coming for me in a few minutes!'
The former Olympic medallist was driving Tish to the West of England athletics meeting. She wanted them to be there before six o'clock and the drive would take nearly two hours.
'I know something we can do,' said Sue, suddenly. 'We can find out for sure if we're right. If it's the sort of thing we think, there's somebody else they'll have filmed. Isn't there –?'
'Holly Thomas!' exclaimed Rebecca.
'Quick, Sue, go and find Holly,' said Tish urgently, but Sue was already moving towards the door.
