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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.’
‘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.
‘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.
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.
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 shopping bag, our T-shirts and jeans, rolled-up socks and crumpled undies rammed inside it, 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.’
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 chatting 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 disappeared. I don’t know if he had finished the last drops of beer somewhere over my head and chucked the empty can off to the side of the room or if it had just slipped from his fingers and was making soggy stains on Frankie’s mum’s carpet, but Paul now had two free hands and seemed intent on making the most of them.
‘Wannanother drink?’ he said after a while, his words all melding into each other close to my ear, as one hand twisted its way into my hair and the other clutched at my bum.
I nodded, glad to escape for some air and some much-needed thinking time – things were moving quite excitingly fast – and we made our way back through the hall and into the over-bright whiteness of the kitchen.
‘Sarah!’ Tilly was already there, pushing forward to whisper into my ear as Paul went looking for more drinks. ‘You’ve got a love bite!’
‘Have I?’ My hand went to my neck. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Don’t you know? Don’t you remember? Although I’d be more worried about how to hide it from your mum and dad if I was you.’
‘Oh, yeah. A big scarf maybe? Or a roll-neck pullover. I think there’s one in Eve’s wardrobe I could borrow.’ I giggled. Only one cup of wine, not even a full one, and I could feel its effects.
‘What? For school? I don’t think so.’
‘Make-up then. How bad is it?’
Tilly rummaged in her bag for a mirror and held it up in front of my face. I turned my head and looked. It was bad.
‘Here.’ Paul was back. ‘Couldn’t find any girl drinks, except lemonade, so will this do?’ He was holding out a small can of Guinness, and sipping from another just like it.
‘Yeah, okay,’ I said, having never tasted the stuff in my life before.
‘Wanna find somewhere a bit quieter?’ He had turned his back to Tilly and was looking out through the back door towards the garden where little lights twinkled along the path and I could see what looked like a fish pond in the middle of the grass and a greenhouse tucked away by the fence at the side.
‘Yeah, that’d be good.’
Tilly raised her eyes as we went and mouthed a ‘Be careful’ at me, but Paul had hold of my hand now and we were soon outside and making our way down the garden, which was much longer than it had appeared from the kitchen, and away from the lights and music. Right at the end there was a little paved patio area, with tubs around its edges, the fat tips of new plants just starting to poke their way through the earth. There was a wooden bench in the corner, sheltered by an arch covered in something unseasonably leafy and green, making it feel very private and secluded despite the nearness of the party.
I shivered, the thin silver dress being no match for a cold March evening.
‘Come here.’ Paul took the can out of my hand and placed it, alongside his own, on the ground at our feet as we sat down, then pulled me closer and draped an arm over my shoulders, his hand just skimming the top of my breast through the cloth. ‘I’ll keep you warm.’
It felt good, and very grown-up, being alone together out there in the dark. I lay back as his lips finally closed over mine, his tongue pushing forward and into my mouth. It was warm and wet and tasted bitter and boozy from the drink. I opened my eyes, wanting to see him, to watch what he was doing at close range. Stars shone in the blackness of the sky above his head, giving us just enough light, and I could see the little pores in his skin, his eyelashes fluttering as he rolled his head around and concentrated on his task.
His fingers, as cold as mine, found their way through the armhole of my dress and wriggled towards my nipple. The thought that someone might come outside and discover us at any moment sent a thrill through me. I felt my nipple harden, as if by magic, in his hand.
‘Paul …’
‘Don’t talk, Sarah.’ He pulled his face back, away from me, and looked right into my eyes. ‘You know I’ve always fancied you …’
‘Have you?’
‘Ever since I first saw you.’ He started kissing me again, picking up my hand from where it lay in my lap and placing it, palm first, against the lump in his trousers. ‘See. Can’t you feel how much I fancy you, Sarah? How much I want you?’
‘I … fancy you too,’ I murmured. A ripple of excitement ran through me. But I was scared too. ‘But I’ve never …’
‘Shhh. Me neither.’ He pulled back and looked me right in the eyes. Smiled. ‘But there has to be a first time, doesn’t there?’ Then he nuzzled at my neck again, his fingers still trapped inside my dress, rubbing and rolling at my nipple until I thought I was going to burst. ‘And I’d like mine to be with you.’
How could I resist that? I was special to him, just as he was to me.
‘Have you got any, you know, condoms?’ I felt wicked even saying the word out loud for the first time.
His hand slithered out from my dress and reached into his pocket, bringing out a small square packet. ‘Yeah. Do you want to put it on for me?’ He was unzipping his trousers, pushing me right back on the bench, moving his body over mine so the stars all disappeared.
‘No. You do it. I’m not sure I …’
‘Okay.’ There was the sound of ripping, the fumbling of fingers, a quiet gasp as his own hand found what had been lurking in his trousers and released it.
‘Are you sure?’ he mumbled, already slipping my underwear down my legs. The new lacy ones I had bought just in case someone might get to see them, but he wasn’t looking at them at all. Just at my face, my eyes. ‘Sure you want me to do this?’
I nodded and he pushed himself at me, haphazardly, thumping against my thighs, my skin, my bones, as if trying to find his way. He felt hard and wet, his movements becoming more urgent.
‘Open your legs wider,’ he ordered, his voice suddenly sharper, more desperate, as he pulled my knees apart, shoving hard at me and finally finding his way inside me, groaning loudly. Three pushes and he was done.
We lay there, stuck together, my dress crumpled around my waist, my white knees bent upwards, the wooden slats of the bench cutting into my naked bottom.
Was that it? Was that what all the fuss was about? It hadn’t hurt the way I’d expected it to, hadn’t sent any special feelings rushing through me, hadn’t done anything much to me at all. I felt disappointed, exposed, and suddenly a bit embarrassed. I didn’t say anything as he pulled away from me and sat up, adjusting his clothing and giving me time to adjust mine as I felt about on the ground for my lost knickers, found them in one of the plant pots and shook the earth out of them before awkwardly pulling them back on.
He didn’t speak either. Just picked up the two cans of Guinness and handed one of them to me. ‘I think I need this,’ he said, laying his arms along the back of the bench and tipping his head back, gazing at the sky.
I took a swig. It was thick, strong, nasty, and I pulled a face, but I drank it anyway.
‘It’ll be better next time,’ he said, talking about the sex, I assumed, and not the drink. It was good to know that there would be a next time, that this wasn’t just one of those spur-of-the-moment drunken lunges that happen at parties. Somehow that made it all right. It was all about learning, wasn’t it? Trying out new things. And at least we had tried it, done it, together.
‘Yes, I expect it will.’
We sat there a bit longer, thighs touching, until the cold started to seep into our bones, and the liquid he had squirted inside me started to trickle out down my legs.
And then, I don’t know why, but I started to laugh and, a few seconds later, so did he. A release of tension, I suppose. And knowing that, despite the uncomfortable let-down it had all turned out to be, neither of us was a virgin anymore. Another tick on the way to adulthood. And freedom.
I wished I could tell Eve about it, the way I had always told her everything, but I also knew that this time I couldn’t, and that I probably never would.
Chapter 7
EVE
I had successfully avoided Josh for almost two weeks, taking care not to walk anywhere near his block, staying away from the bar, keeping one eye open for him whenever I was in any of the places he might suddenly appear. But I couldn’t hide forever. Fate finally caught up with me in the library. Josh was standing right in front of me as I looked up, a pile of books tucked under his arm and a stupid smile on his face.
‘Eve.’ He didn’t say any more than that. Didn’t move away either.
‘Oh. Hello.’ At least in the library there would be no shouting, no arguing. I kept my voice low. And my eyes.
‘I haven’t seen you around for a while. Not since …’
‘No. Sorry,’ I interrupted. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Too busy for a coffee? Could we, do you think? Only, I’d like to try to …’
‘Umm …’ I hesitated. I knew only too well what he wanted to try to do. Interrogate me. Push me for answers. What had he done wrong? Why had I run off like that? Was I okay? I just wished I could give him some sort of answers that made sense, but I didn’t know where to start.
‘Come on, Eve. Just for half an hour. A coffee. A bun. My treat.’
I looked up at him, felt my insides lurch. The attraction was still there. But so was the fear.
‘Please.’
‘Okay then.’ I took a deep breath. Time to get it over with, then I could stop hiding. ‘Just for half an hour, then I really do have some work to do. An assignment due in.’
‘I won’t get in the way of your assignment, I promise. I can see your course is important to you. Poetry before people, right?’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’ I gathered my papers into my bag, watched him check out his books, and followed him out through the big glass doors. The weather was improving, clumps of bright-yellow daffodils dancing about in the borders and a few leaves starting to reappear on the trees. I saw his hand reach out for mine but chose to ignore it, switching my bag from hand to hand instead, making sure it hung there between us, like a barrier.
The coffee shop was busy but we found a table in a corner and Josh went up to the counter, returning a few minutes later with two coffees and three cakes on a tray.
‘Three?’ I said, nodding towards the cakes. ‘Are we expecting someone else, or do you just have a big appetite?’