‘Great. As soon as my replacement turns up, we’ll go. Burgers first, yeah? Plenty of
chunky chips. Can’t beat ’em. I never can face a night of drinking on an empty stomach.’
‘Absolutely!’
Within a quarter of an hour we were walking side by side along one of the narrow
pathways that spread out, spider-like, towards the outer reaches of the campus, and out through the gates. Lenny’s big boots scrunched hard on the pavement, his breath billowing out in long
airy puffs as he spoke.
‘Bloody cold tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some snow.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s expected, so they say. Means my dad’ll have to get out to the sheep if we do.’
‘Oh, yeah. I forgot you’re from a farming family. Must be tough, having to worry about
the animals. We’ve only got a dog, and taking him out in the snow’s bad enough, but sheep . .
.’
‘Well, they do tend to look after themselves, most of the time. Woolly coats and all that.
It’s just making sure they have food. But right now, it’s feeding myself that’s top of the list. I hope Beth’s ready. I could eat a horse!’
‘You wouldn’t though, would you? Eat a horse, I mean.’
‘Don’t see why not. Cows, sheep, pigs, what’s the difference? If they’re bred for meat.
You surely don’t think we farmers give them all names and treat them as pets?’
‘Of course not.’ Suddenly I felt a bit stupid. The city girl, with no idea about country
life at all.
‘Don’t go turning vegetarian on me, Evie, or you and me will be seriously falling out!
Can put us out of business, an attitude like that . . .’
‘Veggie? Me? No way.’ I linked my arm through his, to show we were still mates.
‘Bring on the burgers!’
***
The bar was crowded that night, and we were lucky to get seats. Beth was drinking at least two
vodkas to every one of my glasses of wine and I could see her getting slowly more and more
giggly, even though, above all the noise, I could hardly hear a word she said.
31
The band were okay. Not exactly hit-record prospects, but they managed to keep the place buzzing, with plenty of bodies bopping about on the dancefloor. There were the usual
puddles of spilt drink to negotiate as I picked my way through the semi-darkness to the toilets, where the sudden bright light glaring above the mirror and the weird silence when I closed the
door behind me brought on an almost instant headache. Or maybe that was the booze, which
my body was no longer accustomed to in such quantities. I stood for a while, splashing cold
water over my over-heated face, then leaned on the sink, letting my mind clear a bit before
going back in. Perhaps it was time to call it a night, especially if I was going to have to get myself back to the flat. Any more to drink and I would have trouble walking in a straight line.
Beth and Lenny were nowhere to be seen and my seat at the small table in the corner
had already been occupied by someone else when I returned. ‘Sorry,’ I said, hoping to make
myself heard, as I tried to ease my coat off the back of the chair. ‘Could I just . . . ?’
It was only when he turned around that I saw who it was sitting in my seat.
‘Oh, I know you, don’t I?’ he said. ‘The girl with the cheese . . .’
‘Well, I’ve been called worse, I suppose. You’re Josh, aren’t you? Mr Can’t Be
Bothered. From that party . . .’
‘Is that really the impression I gave? Can’t be bothered? And there’s me thinking it was
my charm and stunning good looks that the ladies remember me by!’
‘I’m sorry. I can hardly hear a word you’re saying. Something about good books?’
‘Oh, trust you! I remember now. Eve, studying English, right? Bit of a bookworm . . .’
I bent closer, and a whiff of the most delicious aftershave hit me. ‘Sorry, Josh, if I could
just grab my coat, I was about to leave.’
‘By yourself?’
‘Yep. Time to get home to bed.’
I saw his eyes light up, shining with mischief. ‘Mmm, now there’s an offer I don’t get
every day.’
‘I didn’t mean that! About bed. Well, not together . . .’ God, he was maddening. How
did he manage to make me feel so flustered?
‘Of course you didn’t. How about a dance though? Before you go. We’re getting into
the slow ones now, and I’d look a right prat dancing on my own. I’ll walk you back after, eh?
Don’t like to think of a lady out alone at night.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
32
‘About the dance, or the walking back? Because they’re not mutually exclusive, you know. You can pick one with no obligation to take the other.’
I couldn’t help but smile. Talking like that, he was either extremely sober, or extremely
drunk, and I had no way of knowing which.
‘A dance then.’ I dropped my coat back down and took the hand he was offering. Solid,
warm, strong. ‘Just one dance. And then I’m going. On my own.’
But it didn’t happen that way.
That was the night it started, I suppose. Losing my sensible head. The whiff of romance.
Letting myself get near to a boy again without running a mile. The start of my growing
obsession with Josh Cavendish. Although obsession is probably too strong a word. Shall we
just say my interest, my attraction? My sudden determination to make him be bothered. About
me, anyway. Because there was just something about the way he looked at me, the way his
hand curled around my back as we danced, the feel of his chest, soft and damp against my chin,
and the warm citrusy smell of him . . . I was drawn to him, as if I’d been pulled unexpectedly
towards a magnet, and was stuck there, unable to drag myself away, even if I’d tried.
Of course I didn’t leave. We stayed on the dancefloor, pressed together, swaying along
with the music, surrounded by others doing exactly the same. We soon gave up trying to talk,
knowing it would be impossible to hold any sort of meaningful conversation, our bodies
moulding into each other’s curves and echoing each other’s movements, his heart next to my
ear, pounding out a rhythm that seemed to match the one throbbing through the floor, and I
didn’t want it to stop. Any of it. But it did. Of course it did. The shutters came down over the bar, the music died away, the DJ said goodnight, the last stragglers edged towards the doors,
rummaging about for lost coats, and the lights came on.
Lenny had been right about the snow. Tiny flakes were fluttering down like a scene
from a lacy Christmas card. It was shockingly cold, and I staggered a bit, the wine I’d drunk
earlier still having an unbalancing effect. I managed to do up my coat at the second attempt,
fingers fumbling with the buttons, and felt around in my pockets for my gloves, but Josh
grabbed for my hand. His fingers tightened around mine, warmer than any glove, and I just
shoved the other hand deeper into my pocket and left it there. He asked me where my room
was, which block, and we started to walk back towards it together. Other late-nighters passed
us, laughing, shouting, hugging goodnight, and gradually dispersing in different directions,
until we were alone in the dark, with just the crunchy sound of our footsteps and the magic of
the snow.
33
‘Well, Eve,’ he said, turning me to face him when we reached the foot of the exterior
concrete staircase that led up to my flat, his hands resting on my shoulders. ‘This has been . . .
nice. Can I say that word?’
‘Nice is okay.’
‘It just seems a bit inadequate somehow, but words aren’t my strong point. Just a
regular, spontaneous kind of a guy, me! Say what comes into my head. I don’t really do deep
and meaningful. But with you being into literature and everything, you’d probably prefer me
to say something a bit more profound, wouldn’t you? Poetic, even. Like something from . . . I
don’t know . . . Keats or Shelley?’
‘Do you know any Keats or Shelley?’ I laughed, suspecting the drink was making him
ramble such utter nonsense.
‘No.’
‘Then nice is fine.’
‘Good.’ He was bending forward, his face just inches from mine, our cold noses almost
touching. He was going to kiss me. I was sure of it. I closed my eyes in anticipation, felt his cold hand come up and gently cup my cheek, and then the other struggling with a button,
angling to find a way inside my coat.
Arnie! Suddenly all I could think about, all I could feel, all I could see was Arnie. The two of us, alone in the dark, in the silence. Nobody else to hear me, to save me, to believe me.
His face close to mine. His alcohol breath, hot and sweet on my face. And his hands. Touching
me, probing me, forcing me . . .
I pushed the hands, the arms, the body away roughly, forcefully, my heart now beating
so loudly I swear I could hear it through the silence. My eyes flew open as Josh staggered back, gasping, his hands reaching to steady himself, to grab at me again, a voice asking me what was
wrong, what had he done? But it was what he was about to do that mattered. Like Arnie, trying
to have his way. Trying to take control. To take me . . .
It was happening again. And I couldn’t let it. All I could do was run. Get away from
him as fast as I could, up those concrete stairs, my breath puffing out of me in short sharp
frozen clouds, finding my key quickly, stabbing at the lock, flinging the door open and
slamming it hard behind me.
34
CHAPTER 6
SARAH
Is sixteen too young to lose your virginity? I knew what the law said, of course, but I also knew exactly what Mum and Dad would have said – not that I had any intention of asking them.
When you’re ready, you’re ready, it’s as simple as that, and it made a lot of sense to get that first awkward clumsy go at it out of the way as soon as possible, ready for the better times to come. Or that’s what I told myself at the time.
‘Make sure you’re home by eleven,’ Dad had said as I walked down the garden path to
where my friend Tilly from next door was waiting at the gate. ‘And no coming back on your
own. You girls stick together, and call me if you need a lift. There are some bad people out
there . . .’
We giggled as we strode off down the road, arm in arm, young and cocky and utterly
invincible. Anyone would think the big bad wolf was out there, hiding behind a lamp post or a
dustbin, just waiting to pounce on us. Dad could be such a worrier sometimes. And so horribly
embarrassing.
The party was to celebrate our friend Frankie’s birthday. She was sixteen, like us, but
an only child and given pretty much whatever she wanted, her parents being posher and a lot
richer than ours. They had promised to go out for the evening, leaving their big detached house to the temporary mercy of a horde of teenagers, something neither mine nor Tilly’s would ever
have contemplated, so, despite the slight pangs of jealousy, expectations and excitement levels were definitely high. According to Frankie, everyone who was anyone had been invited, from
our school year and the one above, and I felt certain that ‘everyone’ would be bound to include the gorgeous Paul Jacobs.
Tilly had brought a big shopping bag with her, her own parents being far less curious
than mine and unlikely to enquire about its contents. Inside it were our new shimmery super-
short dresses, bought with many weeks’ saved-up pocket money. We had vodka too, the last
of the cheap stuff I’d pilfered from Eve’s apparently forgotten secret stash and now hidden in
an innocent-looking plastic bottle so it looked like water. And a whole host of make-up, two
pairs of ridiculously high-heeled shoes we’d found in a charity shop weeks earlier, and some
brand-new underwear. Well, you never knew when there might be someone who’d get to see
it, and the shapeless white cotton pants we wore for school just wouldn’t do.
35
There was one of those big public toilet cubicles on the corner outside the library, and we’d already earmarked it as our changing room. It was a bit damp and smelly, and someone
had left a ball of screwed-up toilet paper on the floor, but there was room for two, standing side by side to apply our make-up, peering into the mucky mirror over the sink. Then Tilly held the
bag and passed out the items I needed, while I balanced on one leg, pulling on lacy knickers
and trying to squeeze my feet into shoes that were not entirely the right size, before we changed places and I did the same for her. By the time we emerged, the transformation was complete
and even our own families would have had trouble recognising us.
The front door was open when we arrived at the party ten minutes later, tottering on our
unfamiliar heels, our legs bare and cold and covered in goose bumps. Music and people spilled
out onto the street. Tilly took out the vodka and pushed it into her handbag, and we hid the
under a bush in a dark corner of the front garden, hoping it would still be there for the return trip but with absolutely no back-up plan if it wasn’t. Live for the moment. That was our motto back then. And the moment stretched invitingly before us, promising a whole evening of proper
grown-up partying.
‘Coats upstairs,’ someone said, pointing us up towards a small bedroom where a pile of
discarded coats covered the bed. We sniggered as the pile moved, two heads emerging from
under it and telling us to bugger off, but we dumped our coats on top anyway, touched up our
make-up in the bathroom, and then went downstairs, pushing our way through the crowds to
the kitchen at the back of the house.
I took a couple of disposable plastic cups from a stack on the sink, not sure if they were
new or already used and not caring much either way.
‘We’ll hang on to the vodka for later,’ Tilly said, spotting a queue of people jostling
each other to get at a box of wine. ‘Might as well have what’s on offer first.’
‘I can’t believe Frankie’s mum and dad have let her have booze! You know, out in the
open like this. I thought it would all be secret bottles in coat pockets, and pretending we were drinking lemonade.’
‘How the other half lives, eh?’ Tilly had made it to the front and turned the plastic tap
on the box, catching a cup and a half of the slowly trickling red liquid before it ran dry. With a bit of careful pouring she managed to divide it fairly between us and we headed back into the
hall.
‘Hello, Sarah.’
36
I could feel the blush rush into my cheeks before I even turned around. I’d have known that voice anywhere. Paul Jacobs was standing right next to me, an open can of beer in one
hand and a sausage roll in the other. The hallway was quite dark, the lights off, a few people
sitting cha
tting on the lower stairs, so I hoped he wouldn’t be able to see my face, in all its sudden pink glory, too clearly.
‘You look nice,’ Paul said, his eyes cast downwards and staring perhaps a bit too hard
at my legs.
‘Do I?’ I stammered. I could feel Tilly nudging me from the other side, as if to say: talk
to him, you idiot. ‘Oh, I mean thanks . . .’
‘Pretty dress.’
I had never been chatted up before, never received a proper compliment from a boy,
and I didn’t quite know how to handle it. ‘Yes, it’s from that little shop opposite the baker’s.
Liberty Jane, I think it’s called. I bought it specially. You don’t think it’s too short?’
He smirked. What was I thinking? Boys had no interest in dress shops. But he did seem
to have an interest, all of a sudden, in me.
‘Definitely not too short,’ he said, his gaze rolling over me, his speech a bit slurred.
‘Suits you . . .’
I turned to Tilly for support but she had slipped away, leaving us to it. She’d probably
gone into the living room where, through the open door, I could see the dusky shapes of too
many squashed-together bodies all moving to the way-too-loud music that was making the
floor vibrate under my feet.
‘Wanna dance?’ he said, ramming the last of his sausage roll into his mouth and using
his now empty hand to grab mine, the beer can still clasped in the other.
‘Umm. Yeah, okay.’ I drained the last of my wine, dumped the cup on the edge of the
stairs and followed him into the room, where I found myself instantly pressed against him –
and just about everybody else – as arms and legs and bodies battled for space in the dark. I
could feel a trickle from the beer can slide down the back of my neck as Paul’s hand moved up
to pull my head closer to his. His breath smelled of alcohol and pastry, and his eyes, up close, looked decidedly glazed.
And so we danced. If it could be called dancing. More a shuffle of feet and a swaying
of shoulders and a chance for the boys to get close enough to nuzzle the girls’ necks and feel
the unfamiliar pressure of breasts pushing against their sweaty shirts. After a while the can