‘What are you doing sitting here all alone, anyway?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Yeah, I was with some mates, but … well, that’s them over there, dancing. If you can call it that.’
The DJ had decided it was time to please the male crowd, so he kept them on the dance floor with popular songs by Guns N’ Roses and Ugly Kid Joe. To Elliot’s surprise, Charlotte remained talking to him the whole time. She looked pretty in a denim dungaree dress and white blouse; every time he spoke into her ear, he couldn’t help but notice her perfume, which was lovely and sweet, like vanilla ice cream. He started to wonder …
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ Charlotte said, the tickle of her breath in his ear taking on a sensual note as the cogs of Elliot’s mind whirred.
‘Please do.’
‘There’s a friend that Lisa and I wanted to introduce you to tonight. A girl in our form. We’ve told her all about you and, er, she’s keen to meet you. Lisa was supposed to be the one to make the introduction, but she’s busy. What do you reckon? Are you up for it?’
This unexpected twist in the conversation totally threw Elliot. He didn’t know what to say. Part of him was disappointed, after allowing himself to think that Charlotte might be interested in him. He also feared a brain freeze at the prospect of chatting to a girl he’d never met before. And yet what did he have to lose? What was the worst that could happen?
‘Um, where is she?’ he asked. ‘And who is she? Why do you think we might like each other?’
‘She’s called Nicola. She’s on the dance floor. Come over with me and I’ll take care of things from there.’
Elliot decided to go for it, even though it set his pulse racing. He wiped his clammy palms on the back pockets of his jeans and fought to keep his breathing steady as Charlotte weaved her way through the bobbing mass of bodies and he followed, mumbling apologies to everyone he bumped into.
They reached a small group of girls dancing in a circle when ‘Vogue’ kicked in, welcomed by several high-pitched screams.
‘That’s Nicola,’ Charlotte shouted into his ear, nodding towards a slender redhead with pale skin, rosy cheeks and plaited pigtails, wearing ripped jeans and a Pearl Jam T-shirt. ‘I’ll introduce you after this song, okay?’
He nodded, pleasantly surprised, and spent the next five minutes watching those around him demonstrate their knowledge of Madonna’s dance routine while he stepped from side to side, hoping he didn’t look as awkward as he felt. As subtly as possible, he kept one eye on Nicola, noting with interest that she didn’t join in with the ‘Vogue’ routine and, although she must have known who he was, barely looked in his direction.
Then the song was over, replaced by a dance tune he didn’t recognise, and Charlotte had an arm around his waist, leading him over to Nicola. There was smiling and nodding and, before he knew what was happening, Charlotte and the other girls had moved away, so it was just the two of them dancing opposite each other. The whole thing was weird and Nicola looked as uncomfortable as he felt.
‘This is strange,’ Elliot said.
‘Sorry?’ she replied, leaning forward. ‘What was that?’
‘This feels strange, doesn’t it?’ he said as close to her ear as he dared. ‘Not us two dancing together, but the way they all moved away.’
Nicola nodded and gave him a pursed smile, but the blank look on her face suggested she hadn’t heard any of that.
For a few more minutes they danced in silence, eyes darting around and only occasionally meeting. Eventually, Elliot felt like he had to say something else.
‘You like Pearl Jam, then?’ was the best he could come up with.
‘Yes.’
He nodded for longer than felt natural, feet moving in time to the music. ‘What’s your favourite song?’
‘By Pearl Jam?’
‘Yes.’
‘Probably “Alive”.’
‘Maybe the DJ has it. Perhaps we should ask him.’
She nodded, but showed no sign of wanting to do so now or to continue the conversation.
It went on like this for a few more songs: Elliot saying something, Nicola giving a brief reply or nodding like she hadn’t heard him, and then more silent dancing. His mind was racing, not a clue what he was supposed to be doing. Was it acceptable to dance in silence, as Nicola seemed happy to do? Or was she as uncomfortable as he was? Maybe she couldn’t bear the sight of him and was dying for the whole interaction to be over.
Elliot was about to suggest that they should move to somewhere quieter, so they could hear each other speak, when things took on a whole new level of awkwardness.
The DJ took to the microphone and announced: ‘Okay, guys and gals, we’re getting towards the end of the night. It’s that time the lovebirds among you have been waiting for. Let’s slow things down and get romantic with the new one from Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”.’
And with that everyone suddenly paired off or left the dance floor, so the only people remaining were couples pressed up against each other, slow dancing.
Oh dear. Elliot had never done this before. He looked around, dumbstruck, watching what everyone else was doing. And then he turned back to Nicola, whose expression was also one of terror, and gave her an awkward smile. ‘Shall we?’
She nodded, thank goodness. He had feared that someone into Pearl Jam might not take kindly to slow dancing to Whitney Houston, but luckily that didn’t seem to be a problem. They moved closer together and, both apparently copying those around them, she put her arms around his neck and he put his around her waist. This meant their faces were looking in opposite directions, over the other’s shoulder, which came as a relief to Elliot, who’d feared even more discomfort if they’d had to gaze into each other’s eyes.
They remained in this position, silently swaying from side to side, for the entirety of that song and the three further slow ones that followed. Nicola smelled nice. She didn’t seem to be wearing any perfume, so it was subtler than with Lisa and Charlotte, but pleasant nonetheless: a lightly citrus scented shampoo mixed with fresh laundry. Initially, Elliot’s main concern was that having the curves of Nicola’s body pressed against his own might cause him to get excited and embarrass himself. He found himself counting down from one hundred and pretending he was dancing with Prime Minister John Major, which had the desired calming effect.
As he was starting to relax and even to enjoy the moment a little, he felt a tap on his upper right arm. He looked over and saw Lisa’s face beaming a huge smile at him from its position on Neil’s shoulder. He smiled back, although it felt weird, and then the other couple swung around so it was Neil’s face now grinning at him. His classmate even gave him a thumbs-up and then, a moment later, they were snogging again, causing Elliot to look away.
He’d noticed a few of the couples around them had moved from dancing to kissing, despite the watchful eyes of the teachers standing alongside the dance floor. Apparently they didn’t mind, as long as it went no further. He’d only seen them intervene on one occasion all night – and that was in the case of an older couple who’d been getting frisky on a window ledge, behind a thick set of curtains.
So the next thing to occupy Elliot’s mind was whether he should move in for a cheeky snog. He had no idea whether or not Nicola was up for it, as despite their close proximity, he hadn’t seen her face for several minutes. She was still there with him, which was a good sign, he supposed. She hadn’t made any obvious indication that she wanted him to kiss her, but she was pretty timid, from what he’d seen so far. Plus it was the boy’s job to make the first move, right?
The problem was that he’d never kissed a girl before. He was desperate to do something about that; to find out what all the fuss was about. In his imagination, it had been Lisa he’d pictured himself kissing for the first time, but things had changed. He knew almost nothing about Nicola. However, she was pretty and seemed nice enough, albeit a little shy, so he realised he probably ought to strike while the iron was hot.
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At the same time, he feared making an idiot of himself. So he waited, swaying from side to side and keeping his hands firmly in place around Nicola’s waist, careful not to slip too low, as some of those dancing nearby had, for fear of offending her. And then suddenly, as the DJ faded out Vanessa Williams’s “Save the Best for Last”, it was all over. The lights came on, the doors swung open and Elliot knew that he’d missed his chance.
Nicola’s hands slipped from around his neck and, in turn, he dropped his from her waist. They stood apart and Elliot felt a bizarre need to rub his eyes, as if he’d just woken up. Instead he grinned at Nicola and, receiving a sweet smile in return, decided on the spot to lean forward and give her a quick goodnight kiss. Unfortunately, at the very moment he opted to do this, something to Nicola’s side caught her attention and she looked away, meaning his lips landed on her ear.
‘Um, goodnight,’ he mumbled, so mortified that he wished the dance floor would swallow him up. ‘Lovely to meet you. I’ve, er, got to go. Goodnight.’
Nicola, whose cheeks had turned a deep pink, looked down at her trainers and nodded. ‘Bye.’
Before he could make any more of a fool of himself, Elliot headed for the door, hoping desperately that no one else had witnessed his humiliation.
‘What an idiot I am,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘What a loser.’
CHAPTER 16
NOW
Monday, 23 July 2018
‘Careful!’ Lisa said. ‘You nearly hit that wall.’
‘What? No I didn’t.’ Mike frowned at his wife, who was sitting next to him in the front passenger seat of their silver Octavia estate.
Lisa hadn’t been such a backseat driver when she’d had her own car. Now they were down to one, meaning she drove the Skoda to and from work every day during term time; she seemed to think she knew how to drive it better than he did.
‘If you’d rather drive, be my guest,’ he said, knowing full well that she wouldn’t want to do so. Lisa had always preferred to be driven, which suited him fine, apart from when she made such comments. Thank goodness for satnav. Mike could still remember the blazing rows they used to have in the car when they were reliant on maps.
‘Better I tell you than you damage the car,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m the one sitting on this side and, trust me, you were really close.’
Mike sighed.
Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes as the car raced along the winding road through the hilly countryside to Harrogate. The views on either side were lush, sprawling and spectacular, despite the clouds above granting just fleeting moments of sunshine.
He had always enjoyed driving this route. It was so much more satisfying than a boring motorway journey. He turned up the stereo. It was tuned into Radio 2, although Lisa would have preferred Radio 1. He couldn’t understand why she liked listening to all that chart pop stuff at her age, but there was no changing her mind. She said she found Radio 2 stuffy.
Their tastes were so different these days. Sometimes Mike wondered what the two of them still had in common, apart from the kids. Mind you, he remembered reading an article in a newspaper supplement about how the most successful couples often had very different interests and temperaments. It was the old opposites attract thing, apparently.
Glancing over at his wife, who he still found hugely attractive, Mike reminded himself how lucky he was to have her. She’d put up with a lot from him in recent times, not least his awful behaviour at the restaurant last Friday, which he was still supposed to be making up for. And then there was his disappearing act to the pub yesterday after he’d suggested that Elliot shouldn’t have employed the Heimlich manoeuvre on Ben. Boy had that led to a tongue lashing later on. Honestly, he was surprised she’d still come along with him to visit Aunt Jenny today.
Also, as Mike regularly tried to remind himself, Lisa had been and continued to be amazingly understanding about him not working. He couldn’t have wished for someone more sympathetic and supportive when he went through the Liam Hornby nightmare. And how had he repaid her? By jacking in his teaching career no sooner than he’d been cleared of the charges.
And then when he’d eventually found another job, he’d messed that up too. Seeing a white van shoot by in the other direction was all it took to cast his mind back to that fateful day a few months earlier.
Mike was in the third week of his new job as a delivery driver. It was quite a step down from what he was used to doing professionally, but it felt good to be out there again, having a function.
Battling through school run traffic on a Wednesday around 3 p.m., with only a handful of stops still to make, he found himself whistling along to the radio. For the first time in ages, he felt happy.
Why had he chosen this job? Because apart from being able to follow a satnav and to drive quickly without picking up speeding tickets, it didn’t involve much hard thinking or tough decisions. He simply had to turn up on time and deliver everything he was expected to in a timely fashion. He didn’t even have to worry about what to do when people weren’t in, as most of his packages were to other businesses. And unlike plenty of other driving jobs on offer, he wasn’t required to provide his own vehicle. He had a white van, with the small but busy company’s colourful logo emblazoned on the side.
In other words, he could do most of it on autopilot, leaving his mind free to think about more pleasant things, such as that screenplay he was going to write one day.
After shadowing another driver for a few days, he’d been let loose. And so far, apart from almost running out of diesel once because he’d forgotten to take the fuel card, things had gone pretty smoothly.
Even before the shitstorm that had led to him leaving teaching, his job as a primary school deputy head hadn’t always been easy. He had enjoyed it, for the most part. He’d been good in his role and on track to become a head in the not-too-distant future. But it wasn’t the kind of job you could switch off from when you got home. Even during the long holidays that non-teachers envied so much, he’d often had to work. And when he hadn’t been working, school-related matters had often remained on his mind: anything from problem pupils to cutting his way through the latest red tape.
Lisa could compartmentalise things. She was far better than Mike at leaving work issues at the school gate. However, she’d never been a deputy head, and a lot of Mike’s extra hours had come from trying to juggle the managerial side of things with the teaching. Lisa said this was why she wasn’t interested in rising through the ranks, despite being tapped up several times. It certainly wasn’t down to a lack of ability.
Despite the workload and stress, Mike had never thought of leaving the profession until he saw the dark side of things. Until he experienced what it was like to be falsely accused by a psycho pupil; to be hauled before the court of public opinion and presumed guilty. He’d expected much more support than he’d received from the head and his other colleagues. They’d known the truth about what Liam Hornby was like – and still he’d felt cut off by them.
Driving a van from one destination to another – handing over a parcel in return for a signature – was bliss in comparison. Plus it was infinitely better than stewing at home, wondering how they would be able to make ends meet as a family. The money wasn’t great – nowhere near what he’d earned previously – but it was a start.
Stopping at traffic lights, his van dwarfed by a lorry behind him, Mike remembered wanting to be a truck driver for a while as a child. A friend had shown him the film Convoy, starring Kris Kristofferson, and the two of them had spent weeks afterwards pretending to be truckers with CB radios. He’d sit in one room, using the handle Hot Dog, with his pal in the next, calling himself Popcorn; they’d chat using a wired walkie-talkie.
That probably had something to do with the fact that Mike’s initial plan for a new job had been to learn to drive a HGV. Lisa had talked him out of it on the grounds that he’d always be away from home. So he’d chosen this instead. Although Lisa had never said so, Mike k
new she thought the job was a waste of his intelligence and qualifications, seeing it as a stopgap until something ‘more appropriate’ came along. He, on the other hand, could see himself doing it for a while.
The lorry driver honked his horn and Mike snapped out of his daydream, realising the lights had changed.
He pulled away and, obeying the satnav, arrived at his next destination minutes later. It was an independent stationery shop on a busy high street. He’d been here before and knew he’d be lucky to find parking.
Crawling along the road, hoping to find a space, he spotted one a little way ahead on the other side, only for a large black 4x4 to pull into it. Dammit. Next thing, he was outside the small store. He cast his eye up and down either pavement for traffic wardens and, not seeing any, decided to risk double parking for a moment to get the job done. It was only one parcel. He looked over at it on the front seat next to him, having taken it out from the back at the last stop in case this happened – to speed things up. They were never very busy here, from what he’d seen previously, so he expected to be in and out in seconds.
Unfortunately, once he got inside, there wasn’t a member of staff in sight. The place was deserted apart from him, so he called out: ‘Hello? Anyone around? I have a delivery.’
No reply.
He was tempted to leave the package on the shop counter and fake a signature. Several of the other drivers had told him they did this from time to time, but he was still new to the job and he didn’t feel comfortable doing so.
‘Hello?’ he shouted, louder this time. ‘Delivery! I’m double parked and in a rush.’
There was a door behind the counter. Mike put the parcel down and, having first peered through the window to check the van was still okay, he went to open it, hoping to find someone out back. It was locked.
Stand by Me Page 13