As the Clock Struck Ten

by Gill Mather

  Luke had been up to the house earlier that evening when his mother was there to have his usual shower and to do a massive wash of all his clothes. Don was about and Luke would have been prepared to be friendly towards him but Don ignored Luke and went off to his study. Grace had chattered on cheerfully apparently not noticing. Perhaps she just automatically expected Don to be prickly towards Luke. He had no idea whether Don had said anything to his mother about him and Emma. Grace made Luke a large snack and said that he could leave all his clothes for her to get washed and dried. He tried not to make a point of it but said he hoped they could all be done that evening.

  The plan was that they would leave the following lunchtime. Luke was to creep to the house in the early hours, collect Emma’s bag and keep it in the summerhouse. Emma would leave the house at the usual time as though going to work. Ant was to come and collect her at the gate which wouldn't be especially noticeable since she got lifts from different people. Luke would heave his rucksack and Emma’s bag over the hedge at the end of the garden. Ant apparently was highly entertained at the covert nature of their departure. They would both leave notes for their respective parents and text them a bit later in case the notes weren't discovered soon enough and panic ensued.

  Emma sat in her room composing hers on the morning of the leaving with mixed feelings of guilt and excitement. She decided to address it to Grace as well as her father. She hoped that that would appease her father a little. He had after all said that he wanted them to be a family!

  She wrote the following, popped it in an envelope addressed to her father and Grace and left it on her bed:

  Dear Dad and Grace,

  Don’t worry, we haven't eloped! Luke and I are going on a camping holiday to France with some friends of Luke’s. We thought it would be a good idea to get away for a couple of weeks. I’ve got the time off work. I’ll try and email you an itinerary in a day or two so you know roughly where we’ll be. Sorry I didn't say anything before but we only decided to go yesterday so I’ve hardly had a chance to get used to the idea myself. I’m so looking forward to it.

  Lots of love,

  Emma

  DON ARRIVED HOME from visiting clients just as Grace herself got home from work. He greeted her delightedly and kissed her before they went to the back door and let themselves in.

  A minute later from his study where he was firing up his PC so that he could make notes, he heard Grace call to him from the kitchen. She had probably poured out a glass of wine for them both. That was sometimes the routine. He stopped smiling however when he saw her worried expression.

  He noticed for the first time that there was an envelope on the table and a key. His first thought was that Luke had left and gone to live elsewhere and that Grace would probably blame him when she found out about his talk with Luke, as he would of course have to tell her now.

  “Don did you know anything about this? Look!” She handed him a folded piece of paper. He opened and read the short letter to his mother in Luke’s flowing artistic hand. The note just gave some very basic details about a forthcoming camping trip to France with Emma and some friends. It said that he had locked the summerhouse and had left the key with the note. It gave his expected date of return and ended ‘I love you, Luke’.

  “Emma?” said Don. “Emma’s gone too?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “She didn't tell me. No I didn't know.” Don was aghast.

  “Why would they suddenly go without telling us?” Grace asked.

  Don swallowed and looked out of the window.

  “Don?”

  He sighed. “They’ve been sleeping together. I found out yesterday and spoke to Luke about it. Basically I didn't think they should be. Not at Emma’s age.”

  “Emma’s age! She’s eighteen!”

  “Yes and I think it’s too young and that she isn't ready for that sort of relationship.”

  Grace frowned. “How did you find out?”

  Don sighed again and looked up at the ceiling. “I heard them early in the morning yesterday. In her room. I went to the summerhouse and waited for Luke to go back there and I spoke to him.”

  “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

  “I couldn't see any point. You implied that you wouldn't mind if they were sleeping together. I do mind and I just thought there wasn't any point our having to have an open difference of opinion about it.”

  Grace looked angry. He’d never seen her look angry before and it upset him. He was immediately contrite and walked towards her, taking her hands in his. “Darling Grace I’m most terribly sorry. Please forgive me. Please please. I didn't think it would drive them away.”

  “Well it has hasn’t it! Did you speak to Emma as well?”

  Don bowed his head. “No. Just Luke.”

  “Why not Emma? If you think eighteen’s too young, then Luke’s only twenty himself. You can't paint him in the role of the wrong-doer and your daughter as an innocent victim. It sounds as though you almost think he forced her against her will or coerced her or something!”

  “No, no. I didn't think that. Well not really. Just that she’s too young and inexperienced to make up her mind properly.”

  “And Luke isn't?”

  “Well, he’s….he’s….”

  “He’s what? Don you’ve seen what Luke’s like. He’s adorable and very, very loving. It’s very unlikely to be one-sided. She’ll be just as enthusiastic as he is. If I do say so myself, he’s charming and attractive. It’s little wonder she’d want to be involved with him.”

  “That’s rather my point.”

  “Sorry I still don't get this. Because he’s physically attractive and innately well-mannered and good-natured - though heaven knows he’s had no help in that direction from his father - you think that means that he should stay away from girls in case they’re helplessly ensnared?”

  “Well, I….I….”

  “What about Emma then? She’s a pretty girl. Maybe Luke’s bowled over by her. Maybe she’s a bit of a siren.”

  “I sincerely doubt it.”

  “I sincerely doubt if you’ve got any idea and any way of knowing what she’s like with young men, Luke or anyone else.”

  “But you saw what she was like when she found us together in the kitchen to begin with. She was horrified.”

  “Don, forgive me, but people of Emma’s and Luke’s generation would necessarily be horrified and worse to think of people of our age having any sex life at all. That’s just how it is. And at that time, you said to me that she should grow up. Actually I thought that was a bit harsh. But now you’ve gone far too far the other way. Your daughter’s entitled to have fun Don.”

  Several sentences ago, she had pulled her hands away from his. Now she turned her back on him and started to ferret around in the fridge to make a start on their dinner.

  Don looked bleak. He felt bleak. “I suppose I’d better go and see if Emma’s left a note for me too.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Grace.

  He came back very soon with Emma’s letter. “Do you want to read it?” he said.

  Grace scanned the few lines quickly. “Well she’s obviously been dragged kicking and screaming out of the country! She’ll be lucky if he doesn't sell her to the white slave trade at the end of the holiday having got full use out of her himself!”

  “Grace!”

  Grace shook her head and carried on with the meal. Don escaped to his study but he couldn't do any work. He just sat there cupping his chin in his hands. How could he have made such a hash of things and have got it all so wrong? It must be the man thing. Luke being another male and he automatically doubting him. And he still most of the time pictured Emma as a little girl. A little baby girl being bottle fed and looking up at him with trusting blue eyes, little legs kicking occasionally; Emma sitting on her potty while they sang nursery rhymes and did simple jigsaws together; little Emma’s first school uniform, her first and subsequent party dresses, her excellent
school results; helping her with her homework; walking with her to the bus stop and waiting there for the school bus to arrive to take her to secondary school and collecting her later; her wonderful GCSE results and later A’ level results.

  Him and Emma. He should of course be pleased that she was having fun. He was pleased at some level. And with someone as nice as Luke who signed a letter to his mother ‘I love you’. It was just that she was his little Emma and he didn't want anything horrible to ever happen to her and now, because of him, she’d gone off to France when she could be here safe at home.

  He was still sitting there with his head in his hands twenty minutes later when Grace came in to tell him dinner was ready. She put her arms around him and he turned and buried his face in her soft warm bosom and clutched her to him.

  “She’ll be all right Don,” said Grace softly. “She’ll be having a wonderful time. And Luke’ll look after her.” Don nodded and got up and they went to have their dinner together. At least she wasn't angry with him any more.

  MEANWHILE, OVER IN Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Luke was quickly and expertly erecting his tent while Emma inflated their mattresses using the footpump and got out the sleeping bags. Ant and Natasha wanted to go to the campsite bar and soon disappeared, but as Luke was starting off the driving early the following day and it was going to be a long journey, Luke and Emma decided to turn in. Taking advantage of the fact that the tent next to theirs was empty, and that they had no time restriction, no heavy parent who might turn up and disrupt things, they made love over and over again. Luke wondered if in fact he actually was in love with Emma and was on the verge of telling her he loved her several times. But he stopped himself from actually saying it and after a time they fell asleep, curled up blissfully together in the hot little tent.

  014 The Sun

  EMMA WAS STIFF as a board and she already wanted to go to the toilet. And they were only an hour into the journey that Luke had said would take at least nine hours. Also she wasn’t at all sure about their travelling companions. Actually Ant was quite nice but Natasha was loud and over-confident and, to her mind, horsy. In fact practically the first thing she’d said to Emma when they had met in the back of the car the previous day was to ask did Emma ride. Emma didn't. Did she go to Young Farmers’ meetings? No. Did she ski then? Emma didn't ski. That seemed to exhaust Natasha’s repertoire of essential activities of any interest and after that she had slumped down in her seat and looked out of the window.

  The other thing was that as soon as she and Luke had met up with Ant in the car (Natasha had been collected on the way), Luke’s accent had altered. She was used to him using an Essex accent. She was aware that her own accent was by no means top drawer, that her vowel sounds were fairly “estuary”. She’d been surprised to learn this on attending a linguistics module during her first year at uni but it seemed that it was so. Before that she’d thought herself accentless. Suddenly, with Ant, Luke had assumed a cut glass upper class English accent. Actually it was quite sexy, but it just wasn't the Luke she’d got to know and it was unsettling. And Ant and Natasha had the same accents and the three of them had talked ten to the dozen like old friends who’d known each other for many years, notwithstanding that Luke hadn't met Natasha before.

  When Natasha had left the car to go to the loo at a service area, Luke and Ant had talked about how Ant had met Natasha and it seemed it was in some posh nightclub in Knightsbridge frequented by celebs and the royals. Ant said it was the only time he’d been there but Natasha was well-known in the upper echelons of society. Daddy’s estate was mentioned and his connections to landed gentry. Ant had said he wasn't in the same league and thought it would just be a fairly fleeting association, but Emma could see why Tash, as Ant called her, might have been attracted to Ant. He was similar to Luke with a muscular physique and a laid back, friendly, open manner. Emma had sat and listened to the banter without joining in a great deal. These were not people like her and in truth, she wasn’t great at socialising and small talk at the best of times. She mostly preferred serious topics, not frivolous piffle.

  It seemed to be obligatory for the boys to sit in the front and the girls in the back and she caught Luke looking at her from time to time in the mirror on the inside of the sun visor. He would give her a little wink and from what she could see of his face a reassuring smile. She put her hand up and gave him a little wave back and looked forward to being on her own with him again.

  THAT HAD BEEN yesterday on the way to the port. Today Emma was again stuck in the back of the car with Tash who had practically had to be hauled out of the tent at six thirty and who had then sat bleary-eyed and watched everyone else dismantle the tents and pack up. Emma had boiled up a saucepan of water on the little gas stove and made a couple of flasks of coffee ready for the journey. They intended to stop later for some sort of breakfast along the way. Tash had laid on the grass groaning and moaning. It seemed she and Ant had spent far too long at the campsite bar and disco and were both fairly seriously hung over.

  Now, Tash’s full weight was on Emma’s shoulder as she cuddled up to her and slept. Emma looked down at her and shook her head. You couldn't really dislike someone who cuddled up to you however brash and loud she was and Emma gave a half smile. Luke made eye contact with her in the rearview mirror and smiled at her. Ant was snoring in the front passenger seat with a pillow up against the nearside car door. Except now they were driving on the right, he was on what the Europeans would presumably call the offside. Or would they since it wasn't the driver’s side in this right hand drive car. Emma gave up trying to work it out.

  She hoped the class and age difference wouldn't upset the holiday. The class issue had never occurred to her before. She kind of realised that her dad was quite well spoken, but he'd never corrected Emma's speech. Presumably he'd felt that if he couldn't afford to send her to a private school, then he shouldn't attempt to make her different from her class-mates at her state school.

  The age difference was however something else. Having been young for her year she was always at a bit of a disadvantage apart from academically. But in primary school she’d been put up a year making her almost two years younger than a lot of the people in her year. Her father had sought it because he had felt that she was languishing in her state primary school and was not being allowed to make sufficient progress. She had had to have a psychological assessment for this to happen and had been adjudged able to cope. Without knowing it, she’d been a serious child which must have translated to the psychologists as more grown up. Now she did sometimes wonder about this cranking up of her educational level, whether she had really benefited from it or not.

  While her A’ level results had been good, they hadn't been good enough for her to take a medical degree as had been hoped by her father and her comprehensive school teachers, which is how she’d ended up doing bio-science at Northampton and now she was quite happy there. In fact between them, she and her father had made a bit of a hash of the university applications. Her mother had been so very ill, in and out of hospital, and in the resulting turmoil, Emma hadn't actually applied for any courses other than medicine and when her results weren’t good enough, she’d had to hurriedly go through clearing for other suitable courses.

  She hadn't wanted to go to London. She couldn't have afforded it anyway. Nor somewhere too far away. So when she was offered a place at Northampton, she was happy to take it. Her father had liked the idea that it was a campus based university so she’d have everything she basically needed within the campus. He had felt it would be safer. And of course she was only seventeen then and she too had felt safer in that situation, rather than at a university that involved traipsing miles across a town or city every day to get to some remote facility. And her course might possibly provide a route later into medicine. Emma was keen to pursue medicine in the end but for the time being she liked biology and that was all she was bothered about. She’d only reached the age of eighteen in June this year and a career wasn't something she was
that serious about yet.

  But when Emma regarded someone like Natasha, she had to acknowledge that she was a serious person who regarded academic achievement as more important than anything else. That Natasha might have ridden horses since infancy, learned to ski practically before she could walk and was maybe looking to get married off to a rich farmer’s son was all well and fine for Natasha. However none of these things could have the least attraction to someone like Emma who’s primary aim was to pursue her chosen academic subject. Fun along the way was fine. This summer and her exquisite interlude with Luke could only be an interruption to her studies.

  She looked again at Luke’s dark eyes in the rear view mirror, concentrating on getting them all as quickly and safely as possible to their destination and she felt a tremendous warmth and affection for him. He was similar to her, wanting of course physical human love and comfort, but like her older than his years and at his heart he had his ambition as the most important goal. They were neither of them, she knew, ready to make any long or even medium term commitment. They would enjoy the rest of their summer together and then whatever would be would be. Emma hoped to do some reading during this holiday as she expected that Luke would want to paint and sketch. But for quite a few days and certainly this coming weekend, she was looking forward to the sunbathing and swimming and eating regional dishes in quaint restaurants and perhaps some clubbing and having a wonderful time with Luke.

  The journey wore on. Emma tried to read but found it hard to concentrate. They got takeaway stuff for breakfast at about ten from a service area which they took back and ate in the car. Luke asked this time for Emma to sit in front with him so that she could feed him coffee from time to time. Ant fell asleep in the back with Tash. Luke had bought a French book of maps at the service station and Emma did some map reading which turned out to be not that hard. She also read details off the Michelin route that Luke had downloaded and printed off in England.