by Katie M John
I flashed him a reassuring smile but it felt like a lie. Sam made a valiant attempt at hiding his disappointment. He hated his home, not that Sam really considered it a home. It was merely a place where his drunken father happened to live. At Sam’s house there was no space he could call his own. He slept on a pull out sofa bed and all his books and belongings lived either in his college bag, on the backseat of his battered mini or at my house. It couldn’t have been more different from the warm, eccentric home my mum, Martha, had created for me. As an illustrator of children’s books, she’d magically extended the fairy-tale into the fabric of our own house, meaning it looked part museum, part library, and part falling-down shack.
Even though Sam had his own ‘glorified cupboard’ at ours, I needed space to think about how I was going to handle the arrival of a certain Mr Beldevier. I couldn’t do that with Sam so close. There were many girls at college who would find my situation crazy. Sam was attractive, blonde and athletic. He stopped just short of being magazine-handsome, but he was sparkly and good and it drew the attention of other girls to him. I’d had to put up with their jealousy throughout our time together which had been made more vicious because we were an unlikely couple in every way. I was quiet; he was life and soul of the Rugby club. I read; he played the drums. I was Art and English; he was Maths and Physics. In almost all ways we were our own clichéd opposite.
Judging from the quiet journey home, I guessed Sam had already felt the first shifts begin. He dropped me off outside home and leant over, placing his finger under my chin and lifting my lips to his. Usually I loved to fall into his kiss then afterwards look deep into his gorgeous, sea-blue eyes. They were eyes that were soft and full of the promise of love. Tonight when I looked into them, grey shadows flickered across the violet blue, and I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that a great storm of sadness was about to take hold.
2. FIRE & ICE
The morning’s lessons were slow but not slow enough; Double Art History followed by Biology. I didn’t even know why I was taking Biology. It had seemed like a good idea at the time and as it was the one subject that Sam and I took together, I hadn’t found a good enough reason for chucking it in. But even though slow, I couldn’t escape the inevitability of lunchtime coming, and after lunch my English lesson.
By the time Sam and I made it to the canteen, the others had managed to grab a table before the uniform-wearing locusts descended. Daisy and Joe had their heads together in deep conversation about the upcoming ski-trip and although not an official pair like Sara and Matt, it was obvious to all of us, apart from them, that they were made for each other.
Daisy however, was currently wasting her time on a guy from Falmouth Art College who Sam and I had met once, and instantly disliked. We recognised a creep when we saw one. Sadly, Daisy was besotted with him and spent most of her lessons staring out of the window doodling love hearts with their initials entwined in them. I’d found it hard to hide my disapproval and general urge to puke.
Sara and Matt had been together over a year and because Matt was Sam’s best friend, we at first tolerated Sara and had since, in a funny and unlikely kind of way, come to like her. Although completely different in almost everyway to Daisy and me, who’d been friends since primary school, Sara added a certain glamour to our otherwise misfit group. Sara was always perfectly preened as if she’d just stepped off of some American High School series with her blonde hair, legs that went on forever and light healthy tan that she had even in the depths of winter.
We made our way through the canteen system, grabbing limp sandwiches and hot chocolate (the only thing drinkable from the vending machine) and started to snake our way through the slightly damp-dog smelling lower school. Before we had quite made it, Joe shouted out across to Sam, “Tell her Sam – she won’t have it. Wasn’t I James Bonding the Blacks last year?”
“Sure, Joe, just like Bond.” Sam nodded sarcastically and winked at Daisy causing her to collapse into a fit of giggles.
“You’re so full of it,” she said, elbowing Joe so that his sandwich missed his mouth and splattered mayonnaise on his cheek, furthering his humiliation.
Before Sam could take a seat, a small, still immaculately uniformed Year Seven, which we believed to be Matt’s brother no matter how often he denied it, swerved in from the side and plonked his skinny bum down on the chair.
“Oi! Out Weasel Head!” Sam said with full sixth-form menace.
“No chance. You snooze you lose, Moose Nose.” Weasel-Boy issued this insult as he stuffed a handful of Daisy’s chips into his mouth.
Before Sam could respond in defence of his nose, Weasel-Boy dived straight into conversation with Matt, giving the impression of a small, orange cement-mixer and leaving Sam with nothing to do but stand with his tray in one hand and quietly feel his nose with the other.
“Matt, we wants to know if you can help us out on Wednesday after school? Merrik says we can play a set at the Year Seven disco but we need some help from the Sixth-Formers.”
Sam glowered at Matt, and Joe shook his head in a dramatic ‘noooo’ action.
“Sure thing, Little-Man,” Matt said as he extended a clenched fist out to power-pound the ginger haired rat. “Count us in. My man Joe will come and help out as well.” Matt thrust two thumbs up in Joe’s face.
The little ginger kid moved off the seat and as he did, he looked at Joe and flashed him a large sarcastic smile of latent child menace before skipping merrily back to his table where he was greeted with a collection of high fives from equally rodent-like small boys.
“Matt, why do you do it man? They drive me potty!” Joe said hitting the palm of his hand to his head. “And they’re getting cheekier. I’m sure we weren’t that cheeky when we were in lower school.”
“It’s the decline of man, Joey-Boy,” he replied taking a swig of coke from his can as if dramatically concluding a complex point of philosophy.
Matt and Joe had achieved an almost unprecedented cool status amongst the Lower School boys because of their recent performance at the school Charity Gig. Their band, The Space Cadets, had finished their set, rather controversially, by performing the now iconic anthem adopted by most of the year eight boys, which included the inspired lyrics;
‘School ain’t no place for learning books,
Maths with Rogers really sucks,
I like to imagine how Smithy… cooks.
Needless to say, the young and very pretty Food Technology teacher, Ms Smith, had been less than impressed when the Year Eight boys had taken to singing it at the top of their voice, replacing the carefully crafted last word. I suspected that had been Matt’s intention all along.
Sara and Daisy had moved onto planning our usual Friday night gathering and were in full-animated flow. I took the last empty seat by the window, which gave me a clear view out onto the playing fields. At this time of the year, when the day never really got going and the dawn bled into twilight, they were eerily grey and empty. A fine layer of frost still coated the blades of grass from the night-frost and a low heavy fog had settled so that even the huge, black skeletal oak trees looked more like shadows than anything of solid. I lost myself in it, mentally armouring myself for my next meeting with Blake. I’d always been the first to scoff at the idea of ‘love at first sight’. I’d thought that only idiots believed you could look at somebody and feel instantly as if your heart might implode. Sam and I had spent many conversations shaking our heads and sighing heavily at Daisy’s habit of falling headfirst for some nut-job. We’d prided ourselves on being the fortune tellers of complete car-crash relationships and yet… I sighed heavily. Then there was Blake Beldevier and the crazy thing that had happened in English. My skin prickled at the memory of his ghost-like presence.
I’m not sure where I was in my thoughts when I heard the noise, but even though the canteen was bursting with the noise of over excited kids, there was a sound, way beyond the glass, that grabbed my entire attention and made every other noise fall quiet.
Impossible as it was, the thunderous sound of a charging horse travelled towards me as if riding on the mist. Its hooves pounded the hard winter earth like the beating of a war-drum and it beat in perfect sync with the rhythm of my heart. I was in no doubt that it was coming directly towards me, and directly towards the plate-glass window of the canteen. Panic surged and my body, preparing itself for impact, started to fold in on itself. I gasped and shut my eyes waiting for the explosion of glass. Nothing happened. The sound abruptly stopped. Opening one eye, I glanced back to the table expecting to see everybody in the same shock and panic as me but they were all still involved in their own conversations and totally oblivious to the events outside the window.
“Did you hear that?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Yeah, I think there is a storm coming.”
“It wasn’t thunder,” I whispered. “It’s the wrong time of year.” A series of disinterested shrugs spread through the group.
Outside the window, I expected to see the animal close up; its warm breath misting the window and its rider in shock but there was nothing; just a shifting of the fog through which I was sure I could see the shimmering glint of metal.
“Mina… Mina... Earth calling Mina! What do you fancy? Blood and gore or something more romantic?” Daisy pulled me to attention, snapping me out of my bizarre hallucination.
“What?” I asked having no idea as to where we were in the conversation.
“Film. Friday. Romance or gore?”
Without taking my eyes from the window, I responded robotically, “Gore definitely – no contest.” I turned to look at her briefly.
“Really, do we have to?” Sara chimed in. “I hate all that stalker-killer stuff. It is always freaks me out so I can’t sleep. What about the new Anniston film, you know the one about some love triangle?”
Sara, true to form, flicked her expensively highlighted hair as if this might somehow seal the deal. Clearly it was a move that got Matt to agree to anything she wanted. The very thought of seeing a film about love triangles made me want to freak!
“Mina?”
“Really, I don’t mind – I’ll go along with everyone else.” As I said it, I was already thinking up the excuse of a coursework deadline.
By the time the lunch bell went, I’d decided I was going to bail on the afternoon, ensuring no more weird aftershocks from the Blakequake. Feeling slightly pathetic about it, I convinced myself that Blake wasn’t the only reason I had a headache. It wasn’t entirely untrue; I couldn’t get the sound of the horse’s galloping hooves out of my head. Only now the sound seemed to have altered ever so slightly to be more like the beating of somebody else’s heart nestling along side my own.
*
I didn’t tell Sam I was leaving early because he’d only have worried and fussed. He’d also have insisted on giving me a ride home and I really wanted to try and walk off the fever that was burning.
I wasn’t long into town when I began to regret the really foolish decision to walk. The dry-ice day had grown thick and heavy with sleet, and having had a lift with Sam in the morning, I was completely underdressed and now violently shivering. Weighing up the very real possibility of freezing to death before I made it home, I took a turn into the bookshop, tempted by the warm yellow lights and the thought of the thick, velvety hot chocolate they served whilst you lost yourself in big saggy sofas.
Within minutes of sitting down, hot chocolate warming my frozen hands, the bell above the shop door went. Bent over, and fleeing the miserable weather outside, Blake entered. “Damn it!” I muttered. Clearly he too had decided to skip the afternoon lesson with Mr Dwell.
He stopped at the door, wiped his feet and shook out the snow-rain from his dark curls before pulling himself up to his full six-foot height. With one hand, he undid his coat and with the other he loosened his scarf, which looked bizarrely more like the remains of an old flag then the more usual woollen number. Despite a really conscious attempt to ignore him, I couldn’t help but check him out head to toe.
Unlike me, he was dressed for the cold weather, wearing a simple but obviously expensive pair of jeans and a thick black jumper beneath his thigh length woollen coat. His clothes gave the impression of subtle wealth and, although simple in their design, it was obvious they were of serious quality. Sleet hung to the fine, soft wool of his navy coat, almost like someone had threaded small diamonds into the weave. Even at this time of the year he had a slight tan, the kind of tan that is burnt in by wind and activity. He flashed a smile in response to something the pretty sales assistant said and made his way towards the literature section.
He didn’t spend long looking. He seemed instinctively to find whatever it was he was looking for. His hands moved deftly along the spines of the books and I caught myself thinking about how his hands would feel running themselves over my thighs. The delicious thought made me blush and the sudden rush of blood to my cold cheeks caused a strange prickling of my skin.
I watched him pull out several versions of the same text, Tennyson’s Collected Works, and then he settled on the one with the image of Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott on its cover. His finger traced the outline of her face and he offered a wry smile, as if smiling at some private joke. Suddenly he went rigid, aware that this private moment was being watched. I tried to look casual, despite my pounding heart, my blushing cheeks and quickening breath; as if somehow, I hadn’t noticed him and this sudden recognition was as much of a surprise to me as it was to him.
“Hello, it’s Mina, isn’t it?” he asked softly with a slight lilt in his voice.
“Yes, hi!” I cringed inside as my voice came out in a strange, almost strangulated squeak.
“Are you alright? You’re shaking.”
I blushed as I imagined the state I looked, red and blotchy from the cold. “I forgot my coat,” I said as my heart hammered in my chest.
Instantly, without a moment’s hesitation he started to slide out of his coat. “Here, borrow mine. I’ve got the car outside.”
I was about to protest but before I could, he’d already deposited the coat on my lap. It weighed a tonne. The lining was as red as blood.
“I can’t borrow your coat, you barely know me,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous; you can give it back to me in class tomorrow.”
“Talking of which, why aren’t you there now?” I asked.
“Well I could ask you the same question.” He smiled. “I guess we’ve caught each other out.”
“I guess so.” I found myself blushing like an idiot with a smile that almost hurt.
“Well, I’d better get going,” he said, tapping the book. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on by the looks of it. Nice to meet you again, Mina Singer; I look forward to seeing my coat in lesson tomorrow.”
With that he headed towards the counter to pay. In his place lingered the smell of wild-flower meadows and the warm smell of sun-kissed barley fields. I returned to my hot chocolate, strangely curious about the physical effect Blake had on me; I was trembling.
“Sorry to disturb you again,” Blake’s voice startled me, causing me to spill some of my hot chocolate, narrowly missing the expensive wool of his coat, “but it’s started to snow quite heavily. Would you like me to drive you home?”
I flushed hot and wondered if he could see me blushing.
“No, really. No, it’s fine. I’ve… I’ve…” I stammered, trying to think of a reason that might sound slightly believable. I changed track and with an embarrassing amount of over-enthusiasm, blurted out, “It’s snowing? That’s great! I LOVE snow! All that… white flaky stuff. Brilliant!”
He raised an amused eyebrow and smiled. “As you wish, My Lady. See you tomorrow.”
As he left I could hear him amusedly muttering to himself, “White flaky stuff. Brilliant!”
I sat there no longer cold. The fire of total humiliation had warmed me up a treat.
3. HYACINTHS
I arrived home just after the d
ark had settled in for the night. Mum had switched on the fairy lights in the trees, giving the narrow garden an otherworldly feel. Unlike the usual feeling of magic, tonight it exaggerated the concern I had about my rapidly sliding sanity. The snow had given the garden the look of a wild and dangerous wood and I found myself huddling down the garden path as if to avoid the wicked witch. It was only when I heard the deadlock of the red front door click behind me that I took the chance to stop and breathe.
Home, as always, was warmly lit. Dusty, our ancient and cantankerous cat came into the small hallway, swirling his way around my ankles and purring a welcome that was really a poorly disguised demand for supper. I slipped out of Blake’s coat and folded it up into as small a ball as it would go, trying to force the bright red lining out of sight. All the way home the coat had almost sent me half demented with the warm spiced smell of his body and I was strangely grateful that the house was filled with the rich smell of roast chicken in the hope that I could now be free of it.
Mum was sat huddled between her desk and the wood burning stove and Sam was sat at the dining table with several science textbooks sprawled out. He had his headphones in and hadn’t noticed me come in. Standing outside of the half-open door and looking in at the peace and warmth of the room, I felt a sudden wave of guilt, which felt like a distressing blend of love and claustrophobia all rolled into one.
Mum stretched, removed her glasses and stood up before making her way to the kitchen. As she passed Sam, she placed a hand on his shoulder. It was the action of a mother who loved her son dearly. One big happy family! Something about it all suddenly freaked me and I took a step back knocking over Martha’s umbrella and sending it skittering to the floor in a noisy commotion.
“Mina, is that you? Run up and wash your hands. I’m about to serve supper and don’t forget to feed Dusty before we eat.”
As if my guilt couldn’t get any worse, I pushed my bedroom door open to find a small bunch of hyacinths lying on top of my pillow. A small card had been slotted into the top of them on which Sam had written in his spider-like handwriting the simple and yet most important of all words, I love you! I lifted the flowers to my nose and breathed in their pretty sweetness. Immediately the events at the bookshop flooded back to me.