by Cathy Bussey
She finally stopped forcing her eyes downwards and they shot to him as if they were magnetised. He was staring straight at her, oblivious to the noisy banter going on around him, and as soon as her eyes met his he smiled, a genuinely delighted smile that brought yet more colour to her already flushed cheeks. She looked down again hastily, but not before she had noted with extreme relief he didn’t look in the least like he was gloating or crowing at her expense.
After a while everybody lost track of who had spun last and just started jumping in and grabbing the bottle.
One of Paul’s friends, a handsome sixth-former Faith knew was called Gabe, spun Minel.
‘At last, somebody decent,’ Minel hiccupped and she kissed him extravagantly until everybody was bored senseless.
Paul turned to Ella, a girl he’d spun earlier, who was now sitting on his knee. ‘This game is bust.’
The haybarn, released from Paul’s chaperonage, erupted into a frenzy of shouting and laughing and snogging.
Rik, who had shot straight over to Faith’s side, eyed the carnal carnage all around them. ‘They need a cold shower.’
So do I, she thought, clenching her hands to keep them from just grabbing him. Shame there isn’t one in here, I’ll have to just use the — oh.
‘Shall we get the hose pipe?’ she asked Rik slowly.
He looked puzzled for a moment, then his face lit up. ‘Yes. Yes. You are an absolute genius. Let’s do it.’
‘Do you really think we should?’ She was always the one who got nervous about their more wayward ideas and his confidence and reassurance always gave her the final push.
‘We’re doing it.’
She nodded, her heart crashing against her ribs, and he took her hand, intertwining her fingers with his and locking them together. His palm fit straight into place, warm and dry against hers.
They slipped out of the side of the barn and he pulled her straight to him and kissed her, his enthusiasm almost knocking her off her feet. Faith felt the cold metal wall of the hay barn door behind her and leaned against it, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him like she was possessed. He moved against her restlessly and she arched her body up to him, squirming underneath his hands, which were creeping up her sides and rucking up the fabric of her vest. He had her pressed so hard up against the barn her head bashed into the metal, setting off a gong-like ringing noise.
‘Sorry.’ Rik paused and put his hand behind her head. ‘Did that hurt?’
She had barely noticed. I have done some fun things with him, she thought, but this is far and away our best mutual effort yet. Why did I never think of this before?
Just next to her she could hear voices floating out from the door. Why were they out here again? Oh right.
‘Hose pipe,’ she reminded him.
It was pitch dark outside but they both had excellent night vision — honing it had been one of their projects over the winter — and made short work of connecting the hose then Rik turned on the tap.
‘Come on.’ He pulled at her hand again and, giggling wildly, they dragged the hose into the barn. Faith gulped, but it was too good an opportunity and she took a deep breath and put her thumb over the end, sending a spray of water all over Minel and Gabe.
Minel screamed. Faith shoved the hose at Rik and ducked behind him as he aimed it at Paul and Ella, then turned it on to the room at large. Couples were breaking apart, choking and spluttering, and the onlookers were hysterical at the scene.
‘Come here,’ Paul bellowed, advancing dripping towards Rik and Faith.
Rik dropped the hose, leaving it spewing wildly as it writhed frantically here and there, and grabbed Faith’s hand again, pulling her out of the barn. Paul, Gabe and a few other boys came flying out, followed by a still-shrieking Minel and Ella. Faith ran as fast as she could, Rik lending her some speed, his hand still locked against hers. They both knew the land like the back of their hands and soon lost their pursuers, disappearing over the fence into the copse and leaping over the massive fallen log at the centre.
Rik slid down behind the log and pulled her down with him. She could still hear yelling and shouting and a great deal of laughing in the distance, but she knew she and Rik were out of the water — literally.
Under any other circumstances they would have crowed for at least an hour over their mutual brilliance but instead they just launched themselves at each other and she twined herself around him as joyously as an otter, letting him pin her to the ground with the weight of his body. She felt like she had crashed through a door to a new and wildly exciting side of him and she didn’t care in the slightest that she was gasping frantically and her teeth clashed against his and a few stray sticks from the woodland floor were pressing uncomfortably into her back. Rik pulled her top all the way up and his hands were so light and they moved as gracefully as the rest of him and it was almost unbearably exciting, her nerve endings were jumping and firing and suffusing all of her with heady, raw energy.
‘Oh Faith,’ he said in wonder, tearing his mouth from hers momentarily, ‘it is you.’
‘Did you forget?’ she asked, affronted.
‘No!’ He giggled. ‘I’ve just wanted this forever and I’m a bit worried I’m dreaming it.’
If this is a dream, Faith thought, it’s the best one I’ve ever had.
‘You’re not,’ she said. ‘I can pinch you, if you like.’
‘You can do whatever you want to me,’ Rik said fervently and she felt several jolts of something very primal and pulled his head back down to hers.
When a pair of headlights swung into the gravel drive at 10.58pm, Faith knew it would be Judith arriving to pick her up at eleven on the dot.
‘I had better go,’ she said reluctantly.
Rik pulled a regretful face. ‘She can wait a couple of minutes, can’t she?’
Faith shook her head. ‘You know what she’s like. Any excuse to ground me.’ She adjusted her vest anxiously. ‘Do I look like I’ve been up to no good?’
‘God yes.’ He sounded so blissfully happy about it she couldn’t help giggling. Her skin was still warmed and sensitive from his hands, her lips were fuller and more swollen than usual, her cheeks were glowing and her own hands carried an energetic imprint of him, a whole new knowledge of somebody she’d thought she already knew inside out.
‘Seriously Rikki. She’s not going to know just from looking at me, is she?’
‘Turn around,’ he instructed, and she felt him picking some stray twigs out of her hair. ‘You’re good,’ he said. He brushed his hand lightly down her back, removing the final detrius from her vest. ‘And you’re gorgeous,’ he sighed, ‘and sexy, and Faith — you’re not going to regret this, are you?’
She turned back to face him. His eyes were very wide and black in the gloom.
‘I really, really like you,’ he said. ‘Much more than I’ve ever liked anybody else. I’ve never really liked anybody else, to be honest. I really want to be with you.’
I really want to be with him too, she thought. I can’t believe how much, but —
‘I don’t want to tell anybody about this,’ she said firmly. ‘Minel would die laughing and your spotty friends would be nudging each other grinning and yelling obscenities in the hallway at school and it would be a nightmare. I don’t need all that, I’ve got exams this year and —’ God, could she sound any more like her mother? ‘So don’t tell anybody. No talking about me with your mates, no bragging, no nothing.’
‘OK,’ he said, looking startled. ‘I won’t tell anybody. I won’t do anything in front of anybody. But does this mean you want to?’
She could see hope rising in his eyes, then he smiled at her and she felt her heart leap and she nodded slowly, almost reluctantly.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to.’
Chapter 7
On Saturday Faith decided she needed a break from Westchester, to get her thoughts in order, so she drove back to the flat to collect her things. It was torture. The Land R
over choked and spluttered, and Faith watched as her hands shook on the steering wheel until she practically had pins and needles.
She had hoped Rob would be out, but of course he was on the sofa watching TV, and his delight at seeing her quickly slipped into indignant self-pity as he plaintively asked her to explain, yet again, why she was leaving.
She found she didn’t have the patience for it and snapped at him too harshly, then felt worse than ever at the hangdog expression on his face.
‘You look different,’ he said sorrowfully as he watched her throw her clothes into bags and boxes.
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she tipped her entire underwear drawer into a waiting cardboard box, watching the waterfall of plain, sporty knickers and bras, all blacks and whites and greys, form a pile in the bottom of the box. Rob had asked why she insisted on wearing such boring underwear. ‘Why don’t I buy you something pretty?’ he’d suggested once, back in the days when he still noticed her underwear and what was inside it.
‘You’re not trussing me up like a Christmas turkey,’ Faith had retorted.
What did he see in me? she wondered.
‘I don’t like it,’ Rob said. ‘Have you met somebody else?’
‘When would I have time to meet somebody else?’ she demanded. ‘All I’ve done is work.’
He scowled. ‘When I rang your office they said you’d taken leave.’
‘You rang my office?’
‘You won’t answer your mobile.’
‘That’s because there’s nothing left to say,’ she said. ‘We’ve been through it over and over. What new information can I give you?’
‘I’m on leave doing a gardening project,’ she said. ‘All summer.’
‘Where? Who with? Why?’
‘With Minel, at Hollyhocks.’
‘Who else?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s none of your business, Rob. No.’ He had started to interrupt her and she held her hand up. ‘What I did until last week was your business. I don’t have to explain myself to you any more.’
She sent up a silent thanks to her previous self for never telling Rob about Rik.
Even so, he’d suspected there was something about her group of friends back home she wasn’t telling him, and on the rare occasions they’d come to Westchester Rob had complained afterwards that Faith had been behaving like she’d had something to hide.
Once she’d packed everything into the straining Land Rover she gave Rob a quick, reluctant hug. ‘Take care,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay my share of the rent and bills until the lease is up.’
‘Please don’t go,’ Rob said. ‘We can try again — I’ll try again, Faith. Anything you want.’
You can’t give me what I want, she thought. You can’t be somebody else.
She drove back listening to the radio and singing along to all the songs, which by some horrible twist of fate seemed to be reminiscent of times long gone, and lost loves.
A car in front of her braked and Faith stood on the middle pedal of the Land Rover, feeling the car almost sigh with relief as it slowed down. She was just outside London, she noted, she was making good time. What time was it? She looked at the clock on the dashboard.
Two thirty.
The girls she used to ride track bikes with would be gathering at the velodrome in an hour’s time for their weekly skills session. Faith hadn’t been in a while, Rob had complained about her taking off on Saturdays and leaving him at home by himself. But she’d liked the gang she’d met there and she could probably do with some repetitive motion to help her process her thoughts.
The contents of her mind were as circuitous as the track she was headed for, going round and round with no beginning and no end.
The fact that her feelings for Rik seemed to be bubbling back to the surface, no matter how hard she tried to push them down. The jolt of familiar pain and sadness when she reminded herself how it had all ended, then the fresh shock of having an entirely different perspective on the crucial event that had led her to terminate their relationship before it really got started. Then she would find herself wondering what might have been had she confronted Rik instead of shutting him out, allowed him the chance to explain himself, and what would have happened if she’d accepted that explanation as the truth, as she was becoming increasingly convinced that it must be. And then she’d be right back to reflecting on everything she’d felt for him, and everything they’d been through, both before and after Minel’s godforsaken birthday party, and then the betrayal again, and on and on it went, round and round until she could swear she was making herself physically dizzy.
The track girls were delighted to see her, flocking around her in their shiny Lycra, talking nineteen to the dozen. Where had she been? What had she been doing? Was she back for good now? ‘We need more riders,’ Shaun, the coach, said reprovingly as he wheeled out a track bike for her to borrow. ‘You need to commit, Faith.’
‘She doesn’t have to,’ Lucy, one of the younger and more adventurous riders, interjected. ‘She’s welcome here any time.’
‘All right ladies,’ Shaun roared. ‘Let’s mount up.’
‘Wonder what torture he’s got in store for us today?’ Crystal, who had acted as something of a mentor to Faith when she’d first come to the track, mused as Shaun began barking out orders.
‘I’m going to regret this tomorrow,’ Faith agreed.
The session was intense and Faith had no time to worry about being out of shape and out of practice. She could barely catch her breath as Shaun drilled them around the track, separately and in pairs, then had them swapping lanes and diving up and down the banks of the velodrome.
‘My legs are in bits,’ Crystal gasped as they once again set off around the track.
Faith swerved to avoid the rider in front and crashed straight into the barriers. ‘Ouch,’ she howled, as she slammed down uncomfortably onto the crossbar. ‘That’s my childbearing years over before they even began.’
‘Concentrate!’ Shaun bawled at her. Faith flicked him a V-sign as soon as he’d turned away. Crystal giggled. ‘If he sees you he’ll have you doing laps no-handed,’ she warned.
They had a short break then Shaun rolled out the gigantic speakers. Faith loved riding to music. They turned it up so loud it shook the ground and Shaun, who was old enough to have appreciated early 90s rave when it was actually contemporaneous, shared her taste in music. ‘All right ladies,’ he shouted again, sounding rather like Paul addressing his mob of recalcitrant teenagers. ‘Let’s get this party started.’
They flew round the velodrome, and Faith felt her thoughts spiralling up and around her head like mini tornadoes. The hypnotic motion and the responsive, twitchy bike beneath her took up all of her physical focus and as she rode round and round, she slowly began to hone in on the most crucial of all the issues, which was the new information Rik had given her yesterday.
There are two possibilities here, she mused. One is that this is all a gigantic elaborate lie. Which, she admitted, wasn’t likely. Why go through all the effort to think of a plausible alibi? If he did cheat on me, he clearly never cared about me, and if he didn’t care about me, why would he care what I think of him now?
Which can only mean that he is telling the truth. And that would explain why he seemed to have genuinely no idea why I finished with him, and why he seemed so angry and hurt afterwards.
And it would explain why he’s blanking me now, she thought uncomfortably, and why he’s acting like I’m the one who should be taking the initiative, because if he really didn’t cheat on me then I just dumped him for no reason whatsoever, with no explanation, and never spoke to him again.
Because of course if he was telling the truth then maybe he really was in love with me, and maybe he really was that sweet, heartfelt boy I thought he was after all.
If that all is the case, she thought even more uncomfortably, then what I did must have absolutely ripped his heart out and I can’t blame him in the slightest for
never wanting to see or hear from me again, and I can understand why he never comes back. And I can also understand why he’s come back now, because he must have thought if there was at least the slightest possibility he could get some answers from me, it was a risk worth taking.
So it looks like I do owe him an explanation after all. And that, she thought with resignation, is going to make rejecting Rob’s proposal and leaving him the very same night look like a teddy bear’s picnic in comparison.
‘What shall we do now?’ Lucy demanded as the final tune — or ‘banger’ as Shaun insisted upon referring to them — finished. ‘I’m totally pumped. Let’s go out.’
‘I can’t,’ Faith sighed regretfully.
‘Oh, don’t tell us your boyfriend won’t let you,’ Lucy grumbled. ‘Honestly Faith that guy sounds more like your dad.’
He did a bit, now she thought about it. ‘We split up,’ Faith said.
Lucy and Crystal exchanged a high five.
‘We were hoping you’d kick him into touch,’ Crystal said. ‘We miss you on the track and the last few times we saw you you really didn’t seem happy.’
‘You’re not going to get back together with him, are you?’ Lucy demanded.
She shook her head. ‘No chance of that.’
‘Then we need to celebrate your freedom.’
‘I really can’t,’ Faith said. ‘I’m skint and I have a car full of stuff parked out front. I only dropped in on my way from packing up the flat. I have to go home and sort it all out. But as soon as I’ve got a bit of cash, we’ll go out.’
‘Not me,’ Shaun said quickly. ‘Can’t think of anything worse than you lot out on the lash.’
‘Do you promise?’ Lucy demanded.
‘I promise,’ Faith said. ‘I really have to get going, but I’ll definitely be back.’
Why did I let Rob stop me from riding bikes, Faith wondered as she drove home. And talk me into saving for a house I didn’t want, and encourage me in a job I didn’t like. It wasn’t his place to help her follow her dreams, she acknowledged, but it really hadn’t occurred to her just how much he was firmly putting himself in the way of them.