Young, Gifted and Dead

by Lucy Carver

  ‘Guy?’ I echoed.

  ‘Yeah. He’s mad about three-day eventing – didn’t you know?’

  Funny – I hadn’t pictured Guy Simons in dressage gear. Like Harry, he was more the rugby type, with muscles but without the flattened nose.

  ‘Anyway, Lily, Harry and Guy – they all stayed with us for a few days.’

  ‘And then?’

  Paige shrugged. ‘Lily went into one of her moods over something Harry said. She told me she was heading off to her mother’s cousin’s estate in the Highlands for the last week of the holidays. I didn’t believe her, though.’

  ‘Didn’t her mother check up on her? How come she just let her sixteen-year-old daughter float around the country?’

  ‘You haven’t met her mother,’ Paige pointed out, which struck me as vague though I didn’t follow it up. ‘Anyway, I reckon she never made it to Scotland.’

  ‘Which would give her free time to hook up with Jayden.’

  Paige nodded. We thought for a while.

  So here it is – my new theory.

  Lily finishes her GCSEs. She has a whole summer ahead and she’s in a state of rebellion. No one’s going to tell her what to do or where to be. She lies to her parents, says she’s fixing to visit friends and distant family then deliberately strays from her plans in order to spend time with lean and hungry Jayden. She probably has him marked out as some kind of Heathcliff figure – wild and dangerous, origins unknown.

  Guess the rest.

  She loves Jayden, is totally into him mind, body and soul, but he just uses her. When term is about to begin and she tells him she’s pregnant, he acts like a total shit.

  Goodbye, he tells her. Be seeing you. Adios.

  Doesn’t it make you sick to your stomach? Wouldn’t you just like to kneecap him or strike him dead the next chance you get?

  ‘Who did she send the suicide note to?’

  Word of Lily’s suicide message had spread beyond the honeyed walls and arches of St Jude’s, across the rolling hills to Chartsey Bottom.

  It was two days later and Paige, Jack Hooper, Harry Embsay and I had met up in the Squinting Cat cafe with Tom from the Old Vicarage and his Ainslee Comp mate, Alex Driffield. Alex was the one who asked the question.

  ‘Email actually,’ Paige told him.

  ‘So who did she send it to?’ Tom added.

  Paige and I shook our heads. The silence was thick with emotion – mainly shock/horror, even forty-eight hours after Adam’s visit.

  ‘Lucky for the family that there was an email,’ Alex said, knocking back the remains of his Coke as the waitress scooped up our empties. ‘Otherwise the filth would’ve been all over this.’

  ‘Filth,’ Paige mocked. ‘Did I hear you say that, or did I imagine it?’ That’s what she does – she shows contempt every chance she gets. But it’s a cover and we all tolerate it.

  ‘He’s right,’ Jack Hooper pointed out.

  The other Jack – my Jack – is nowhere on the scene, notice. Where is he? Where the hell’s he been since the suicide news broke?

  In fact, where’s he been all term? You’re bound to be asking this. After our romantic first date, you might think we’d have been joined at the hip. I wish.

  He’d called me the most beautiful girl at the party and we’d kissed in the stable yard. My heart was singing: ‘Love is a window that opens up your heart.’

  The Sunday after the party it was strange – I thought about Jack all day but didn’t run into him. I quickly got to thinking . . . Was he deliberately avoiding me, and, if so, why?

  ‘Stop pissing about, Alyssa. Go find him.’ Lily broke through her own misery long enough to offer me advice.

  Paige backed her up. ‘Yeah, you go, girl.’

  But I didn’t want to risk coming out into the open, showing Jack how smitten I was and making a fool of myself. That’s pride, you see – a kind of Achilles’ heel of mine. I dress it up as shyness but it’s definitely part pride too.

  Anyway, on Monday morning I was summoned to the bursar’s office before lessons.

  ‘You’re new here, Alyssa,’ were Terence D’Arblay’s ominous opening words. ‘And that’s the only excuse I can think of for Saturday night.’

  I swallowed hard.

  ‘Saturday night,’ he repeated patiently then waited.

  Whoa, did he think I would roll over and confess I’d gone out without a late pass? Well, think again, Mein Herr.

  Picture the money man’s smooth expression, slicked-back hair, expensive suit, a hint of seedy cabaret host, total grasp of detail. Get it?

  ‘There’s no point your denying it,’ D’Arblay broke the silence. ‘You were seen climbing back into school grounds with Jack Cavendish. In fact, we caught you on our security camera.’

  Shit. I shrugged and kept my mouth tight closed.

  ‘It’s very disappointing,’ D’Arblay went on.

  ‘Disappointing’ is a killer. It’s the teacher word, the parent or guardian word when you let them down and they dump a load of guilt on your shoulders.

  ‘All you had to do was come and knock on my door and ask for an official pass,’ he said in his high, clipped voice, his hooded eyes dark as currants. ‘There would have been no argument about my granting you one. It was only Jack who’d been grounded.’

  I met his gaze, didn’t grovel.

  ‘So I can only surmise that you didn’t quite grasp the rules, Alyssa, or that you assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that Jack had secured passes for both of you.’

  No comment.

  ‘And for that reason I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt,’ D’Arblay concluded.

  Which rock did this out-of-touch guy crawl out from under? What was he doing on the staff at St Jude’s, which Aunt Olivia had chosen for me precisely because it was supposed to ‘foster each student’s exceptional talent and individuality’? That’s what it says in the prospectus. Somebody ought to tell that to this crusty dinosaur who was currently giving me the benefit of his doubt.

  Anyway, the result was that D’Arblay issued a warning, but didn’t ground me.

  ‘The guy’s a wanker,’ was Paige’s verdict when she heard that the bursar had grounded Jack for a further week.

  ‘A shit-head,’ Lily muttered.

  I did run into Jack at dinner that evening – saw him from behind, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, standing in line at the serving hatch.

  ‘Grounded for another week,’ I said with a sympathetic tut. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It was worth it,’ he grinned. ‘D’Arblay told me I was a bad influence.’

  ‘You are.’ I grinned back.

  ‘I have to be a good boy, otherwise he might not let me fly out to California on Saturday – I’ve got a placement in a special tennis academy over there, where I get coached by two ex-Grand Slam players.’

  ‘This Saturday?’ I echoed. Selfish me – I straight away felt my heart sink like a stone. ‘How long for?’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘Three weeks?’ That took us to half term. It was an absolute age, a whole era. The Earth’s crust might even shift.

  ‘Will you miss me?’ he asked, too flippantly for my liking.

  ‘No!’ I lied. Yes, yes, yes! But what was he thinking, kissing me and not telling me he’d be away for three weeks? Why had he taken me to Tom’s party and made me fall in love with him then thrown me into this abyss? OK, I’m totally overreacting.

  The force of my one small negative seemed to throw Jack. He shuffled off with his tray of pasta and salad and went to sit with Luke and Harry. No more smiles, no more special looks, not even eye contact.

  The light went out. Panic set in. What about our slow dance, our walk through the woods, our kiss?

  ‘Hey,’ he said to me the next day and the next, obviously waiting for a thaw in my demeanour.

  Outside I was frosty, inside I was burning up. What did Jack want me to say, do, feel? I didn’t know so I acted like a rabbit caught in headlights –
not a squeak of protest, not one single move to save myself.

  By Thursday I couldn’t take any more. ‘What about your trip?’ I asked him in the quad after lessons had finished. I ran into him in his tennis gear – nothing deliberate. ‘Will D’Arblay let you go?’

  He nodded. ‘I thought you weren’t talking to me.’

  I blushed. ‘Funny – I had it the other way round.’

  The puzzled frown came back. ‘Alyssa – what happened? What did I do wrong?’

  And this shows you how clunky and immature I am, how I just couldn’t handle the tsunami of emotions and hormones that had swept over me the previous Saturday night.

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ I told Jack Cavendish coolly in our last conversation before he set off for California to join all those toned tennis babes and west coast surfer girls. I spoke as if I didn’t give a damn. ‘Bye, Jack. Have fun,’ I said.

  I slammed the love window shut. I convinced myself I’d been blinded by his quads, fallen into lust and got it all wrong. Sorry, my mistake.

  He’d go to be coached in California and he’d come back with a tan. In the meantime, in my own mind I dug a division between us that was the depth of the Grand Canyon. I guess it might have been to protect myself from any deeper hurt, but then I’m not a trained shrink.

  ‘He’s right,’ Jack Hooper said. We’re back in the Squinting Cat, discussing Lily. ‘Much better for Lily’s relatives if the coroner’s verdict is suicide.’

  ‘Or an open verdict.’ Like I said – Alex was into TV crime and Sky Sports, not much else. Girls didn’t feature in his world. I guess he was saving them until he got to uni and could more freely expand his horizons. ‘That’s where there’s not enough evidence to prove that the victim killed herself. It spares the family the guilt of not having done anything to help.’

  ‘Nope. There was an email.’ Suicide – case closed, according to Tom, who looked at his watch. ‘Hey, what time does the five-a-side match start?’ he asked Jack.

  Hooper rolled his eyes. ‘Do I look like I would know?’

  He’d never kicked a ball in his life or raised a bat or a racket in anger because he’s more the cerebral type, following in his family tradition (mother a society photographer snapping the Duchess of This and the Earl of That, father a bestselling author). And Jack’s already had three short stories and one novella published in online literary magazines. He’s sweet, shy and vulnerable – all that stuff.

  ‘Five thirty.’ Alex supplied the answer. He picked up his sports bag and made a move towards the door.

  ‘Who’s playing for your team?’ Realizing that her ‘filth’ comment had left a bad taste, Paige made an unconvincing attempt to show an interest in the indoor football match between Ainslee Comp and St Jude’s.

  ‘Me, Alex, Micky, Sammy and Jayden,’ Tom told her. ‘Sorry, got to go. We’re late.’

  St Jude’s Sports Centre is huge and state of the art. It’s well set back from the Jacobean part of the campus, hidden behind copper beech trees in summer but in winter exposed to the strong west wind that blows down the valley and robs the trees of their canopy of dark red leaves. There’s a car park to one side, and further over to the right another shiny building that houses the new school library and a ton of IT equipment.

  ‘I take it you’re not going to watch the match?’ I asked Paige as we stepped off the bus outside the school gates and made our way up the drive.

  This late in the year it was already dark and the gothic windows and arches were lit up from within. A wind was blowing sleet into our faces.

  ‘Duh – no!’ Paige laughed.

  ‘Luke’s playing,’ I reminded her. Since Tom’s party, she and Luke had limped along. Their on-off relationship wasn’t good for her nerves, but at least they were on for part of the time, which is more than Jack and I were.

  You might have already gathered that I don’t like Luke. His family’s filthy rich and he’s hot in an R-Patz way, but he knows it. He looks in the mirror too much and he treats Paige like dirt. I kept trying to convince her that tall, blond Tom Walsingham, party-giver and streetwise football player, was much better boyfriend material.

  She tutted and threw back her head. ‘It’s Wednesday. I have dressage with my trainer in the indoor arena.’

  ‘Sorry – I got your priorities all wrong.’ We’d passed under the main arch into the quad and were ready to go our separate ways.

  ‘If you insist on watching the match, keep an eye on Jack,’ she told me. ‘He’ll be playing against Jayden. That should be interesting.’

  It wasn’t a football match, more a gladiatorial contest between Jack and Jayden, with a supporting cast of eight other players.

  Guy Simons was the referee. He showed five yellow cards and used his whistle a lot.

  Whistle – foul tackle by Jayden. Whistle – hand ball by Jack. Whistle – Jayden forgot about the ball and scythed Jack’s legs from under him. Whistle for half time with the score at 1–0 to Ainslee, with Jayden the scorer.

  The teams gathered in two huddles at opposite ends of the pitch, the Ainslee players grinning and cock-a-hoop, our team forming a circle and locking arms, heads down to discuss tactics for the second half.

  ‘Harsh,’ Zara muttered as the ref pocketed his whistle and took a breather.

  I turned to my neighbour on the St Jude’s supporters’ bench. ‘You’re talking about Guy?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s definitely the type who could abuse his authority.’

  ‘Maybe power goes to his head.’

  We paused for a while and considered Guy Simons. I reckoned he was mid thirties, a typical sports fanatic with too much brawn and not enough brain. If he hadn’t trained as a teacher, I could see him joining the army and running around deserts, camouflaged and carrying a weapon.

  ‘They call this a classless society,’ Zara sighed.

  After almost a term at St Jude’s, I was at last getting to know her. It had taken some time because Zara wasn’t a girls’ girl and she seemed to spend most of her time effortlessly seducing boys. I mean, if you look like a combination of Scarlett Johanssen in her perfume ad and Kate Winslett in Titanic, what chance the rest of us?

  ‘What do you mean?’ Finding it hard to take my eyes off Jack in the centre of our huddle, I didn’t pay much attention.

  ‘It’s war out there,’ she explained. ‘Comprehensives versus fee-payers. Them against us.’

  ‘Things did heat up towards the end of the half,’ I agreed. Sammy had kicked Luke in the left shin and been shown a yellow card, then Jayden had hacked Jack’s feet from under him again as Jack made a run for goal. Guy Simons didn’t see it and the St Jude’s appeal for a penalty had been turned down. Zara and I had shown our disgust. ‘But if you ask me, it’s more personal than simple class warfare would suggest.’

  ‘So who wants to kill whom?’ Zara wanted to know. (‘Whom’ – dative form of ‘who’ and grammatically correct. You don’t often hear that in anyone under fifty.)

  ‘Jayden hates Jack and vice versa.’ (‘Vice versa’ – phrase of Latin origin. Wow, we’re sophisticated!)

  Zara and I sat for a while watching the teams take up position for the second half. Jack and Jayden stood in the centre spot, eyeballing each other with pure rage while waiting for the whistle.

  ‘That figures,’ Zara agreed. ‘Jack never forgave Jayden for stealing Lily from him.’

  My jaw dropped as the whistle went and Jack booted the ball out on to the left wing.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ she said sweetly. ‘Jack and Lily were an item all through Year Eleven, until Jayden got his hooks into her. Of course, that was long before you arrived on the scene.’

  ‘I never knew that!’ My voice had come out as a dry croak, as if someone had punched me in the throat. ‘Lily and Jack – are you sure?’

  My secret, start-of-term obsession with Jack had hardly registered on Zara’s radar so she didn’t think to spare my feelings. ‘Sure I’m sure. Jack adored Lily. We
all did.’

  The match ended and I left the sports centre to wander in the grounds alone. It was still sleeting.

  ‘You’ll get wet,’ Guy warned en route to the teachers’ quarters. He’s not exactly the caring sort – too extreme-sport for that – but even he could see that walking in the December dark without the proper gear wasn’t good for a girl’s health.

  ‘I need a breath of air,’ I told him.

  He gave me a strange look and yomped on.

  It was quiet by the lake, you might say deathly quiet. Truthfully, I hadn’t been down here since they’d found Lily and I wasn’t conscious of where I was heading until I reached the bank and gazed out across the black water. I felt my feet squelch through mud and my legs brush against tall, coarse grass. These must have been Lily’s last sensations – squelching and brushing – as she waded to her death. I shuddered. Tears and raindrops blinded me; I felt I had no one in the world to turn to.

  So what was new and how could I ever have been expecting it to be any different? I’d arrived at St Jude’s as an outsider, not expecting to fit in, maybe not even wanting to. After all, it had been Aunt Olivia’s idea for me to sit the scholarship exam and I just happened to have the type of brain that takes in facts and regurgitates them on demand.

  Eidetic – OK, it’s a term that still needs some explaining. ‘Eidos’ – Greek for ‘seen’, but actually any of the five senses can kick-start me into reliving an event – it can be visual, but it can also be a sound, a touch, a taste, a smell even. And – whoosh – I’m back in the original moment. In other words, I remember things with uncanny precision, which, I’ll remind you (because your memory probably isn’t as good as mine – yeah, hate me now!), is how I passed the entrance test for St Jude’s.

  ‘You’ll love it, Alyssa.’ Aunt Olivia didn’t ask me – she told me – in the weeks and months before she dumped me in the quad with my M&S bags.

  I hadn’t been convinced, but Lily had welcomed me with open arms, then I’d caught sight of wonder boy Jack stepping out of his dad’s Maserati and for a few brief, very brief, days I had hoped that my aunt was right – slow-dancing at Tom’s party, walking through the forest, running across the stubble field, falling into Jack’s arms.