by David Belbin
All the way home, Rachel couldn’t stop talking about the gig. They got back at midnight, both incredibly aroused. The moment she and Mike walked into the house, they began to undress each other. They had sex in the living room, on the sofa, on the floor, against the front door. It was stupendous. Rachel never knew that it could be like this. It was like a continuation of the concert: like they were throwing themselves over the edge without looking down.
When they were finished, there were books, videos and other debris strewn across the carpet. They didn’t bother to clear up, but went for a shower and made love again in the bathroom. Still wide awake, they tidied up, played music and talked. Then they went to bed and began again: more slowly and passionately this time.
“What time of day were you born?” Mike asked, afterwards, pulling the curtains closed as the first light of dawn shimmered beneath the clouds.
“Eight in the morning, I think.”
“Then next time we make love, it’ll be legal.”
“It better not put you off me,” Rachel teased him.
They drifted to sleep, naked in each other’s arms.
It was afternoon when they woke. Mike made a pot of tea and gave Rachel the white linen dress he’d bought for her birthday.
“I love you,” he said, giving it to her. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Rachel hugged him and tried the dress on. It looked wonderful. Mike caressed her. They both wanted to make love again, but she was already late for her father’s. Reluctantly, Rachel left her gift behind in Mike’s wardrobe.
Mike drove her to Mapperley Park. On the way, they chatted unselfconsciously, like two people who knew each other better than anyone else in the world. Rachel was only twenty minutes late. Her alibi wasn’t in much danger: Dad was hardly likely to have phoned Mum to check where she was. He hated phoning Mum.
As Rachel was about to get out of the car, Mike stroked her arm, then gave her a warning. “Remember what we agreed. For the next few weeks, we have to knock it on the head, not give anyone reason to suspect. And you have to revise.”
“I know,” Rachel said, wishing that Mike didn’t have to come on like a school teacher just now. Who could think about exams at a time like this?
“I love you,” he repeated. “Happy birthday.”
“I love you,” she said, softly kissing him one last time. “I always will.”
Then she got out of the car and walked to her father’s house.
Rachel hadn’t seen Dad since the play, two and a half weeks before. She’d told him that she wanted money for her present. How much, she wondered, walking in, would he give her? It was a warm, sunny day. Rowan and Phoebe were playing in the garden. Rachel waved at them and both children called excitedly. They couldn’t run up to her, because the garden gate was kept locked. You could only get to the garden through the conservatory.
Rachel rang the front doorbell. She had a long wait before Clarissa answered it.
“Rachel!”
Clarissa had her hair tied back, and wore an old tracksuit. She looked worn out.
“Sorry I’m late,” Rachel said. “I ...”
“What are you doing here?” Clarissa asked, blocking the door so that Rachel couldn’t come in.
“For lunch. It’s my birthday. I ...”
Clarissa was shaking her head. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you ...” she said.
“Tell me what?”
Clarissa took a deep breath. “Eric doesn’t live here any more. We’ve split up.”
Rachel stared in shock at her father’s second wife. Then she turned and looked at the children playing in the garden. She didn’t know what to say.
“How ... did it happen?” she found herself asking Clarissa.
“I think it’s for your father to tell you that.”
Rachel blinked. She could tell that she was about to cry. A moment ago, her heart had been filled with tenderness and love for everything in the world. But now, an old bitter feeling shot to the front of her head and she knew that it had been there all along, hiding, waiting to take control when the tide changed.
“I’d like to hear it from you,” she told Clarissa. “Can I come in?”
Clarissa shook her head. She looked like she wanted to slam the door in Rachel’s face. “I don’t think so.”
The two women stared at each other for a few moments. She’s kicked him out, Rachel decided. That’s why she can’t face me. Maybe she’s even got someone else in there.
Clarissa spoke again. “You’ve got keys to this place, haven’t you? I’d like them back, please. I’ve already taken Eric’s. I don’t want to go to the expense of changing all the locks.”
Without thinking, Rachel took the keys from her pocket and handed them over. “How can you do this?” she said to Clarissa. “To Dad, to Phoebe and Rowan? You don’t know what it’s like, growing up without a father around ...”
Clarissa’s face reddened. “You know nothing, Rachel. Do you hear me? Nothing! Ask your father.”
This time, she did slam the door in Rachel’s face.
Rachel stood there, in silence, for several seconds. When she looked around, Phoebe and Rowan were standing on the other side of the locked garden gate, staring at her.
“Are you coming to play, Rachel?” Phoebe asked.
Rowan had a small yellow kaleidoscope in his hands. Rachel had given it to him for his last birthday. She used to make up bedtime stories about how it had strange, magic powers. Now Rowan poked it through the cast-iron gate, inviting Rachel to take it, to tell another one. From inside the house, the children’s mother called them.
“Are you coming?” Phoebe repeated.
Rachel couldn’t stop the tears welling up in her eyes. She leant forward and squeezed the children’s tiny hands on the other side of the dark, locked gate.
“Not today,” she said, softly, tasting salt water as she spoke. “I’m sorry. Not today.”
Clarissa called again. Through blurred eyes, Rachel saw the children’s bewildered faces. Then she ran up the path, out on to the road and turned down the street which Mike had driven her up less than five minutes before.
“Good Easter?” Phil asked, when he’d finished describing his Greek island holiday. He’d arrived home, deeply suntanned, while Mike was taking Rachel to her father s.
“Pretty good.”
“See much of Rachel?”
Without answering directly, Mike launched into a blow- by-blow account of the concert the night before. He didn’t mention seeing Emma, or the barbed comment about Rachel that her brother made before walking away: “School outing, is it?”
“And where did Rachel’s mother think she was?” Phil asked.
“At her father’s. Her parents don’t talk to each other.”
Phil gave Mike a censurious look. “You know, Trace and I talked about this a lot on holiday. I persuaded Trace that she’d been a bit hard on you.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, grudgingly.
“But we both agreed,” Phil went on, “you have to stop seeing her outside school - at least until Rachel finishes her exams and you’ve got another job. More for your sake than hers, though seeing you can hardly be helping with her school work. If you get found out ...”
“You don’t have to rub it in,” Mike said. “Rachel and I agreed this morning - we’re knocking it on the head until the summer.”
“Maybe you’ll both have grown out of it by then,” Phil added.
“I doubt it,” Mike told him. “I doubt it very much.” He changed the subject. “What about you and Tracey? Are you moving in together?”
Phil nodded. “We were together twenty-four hours a day for ten days. I’ve never managed that with anyone before. We never got bored with each other. Even when we ran out of things to say, the silences were comfortable. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Mike said. He pictured himself and Rachel on holiday abroad. For a moment, it seemed real.
It
was two-thirty when Rachel got back to Stonywood. She’d needed to recover herself, to work out how to explain to Mum that she’d spent the night in Mapperley Park, but hadn’t seen her father. She needn’t have bothered. When Rachel got to her street, there was a police panda parked outside the house.
The front door was ajar, so Rachel walked quietly in. She could hear the policewoman’s voice from the narrow hall.
“We spoke to one of the friends whose name you gave us. She was very vague, but thought she’d heard Rachel mention that she might be going to a concert last night.”
“Who with?” Mum asked.
“Some lad whose name she claimed not to know. That’s the most likely explanation, I assure you. With girls her age, it happens all the time.”
Rachel wanted to leave, but resisted the urge. She opened the living-room door to face the music.
“I’m sorry,” she told her mother. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I thought if I said I was at Dad’s ...”
She collapsed into an armchair. The police officer gave Rachel a lecture, but Rachel didn’t listen to it. She hadn’t had enough sleep and felt exhausted. When the woman had gone, Mum sat down opposite her.
“Your father rang at six last night,” she told Rachel. “He said that there were unforeseen circumstances and he’d have to cancel lunch today. I’ve been going out of my mind ever since. Where were you?”
“I went to a gig, in Sheffield.”
“I’m not sure I believe you, Rachel. All this deceit for a concert?”
Rachel produced the ticket, her proud souvenir. She handed it to Mum, who checked the date, then tore it into tiny pieces. Rachel didn’t protest.
“And where were you since then?”
“At this boy’s place.”
“He has his own place?”
“Yes.”
“And a car. And he can buy you expensive concert tickets. He’s quite a catch, isn’t he?”
“I love him,” Rachel whispered.
Mum came over. She gripped Rachel’s shoulders and began to shake them. “Then why can’t I meet him? Why don’t you tell me who he is? Can’t you see how worrying this is for me? I’m imagining a criminal, one of those long-haired people with dogs you see on the streets. I’m imagining someone who’s giving you dangerous drugs. I don’t mind if you’re sleeping with him. You’re not under age any more. It’s your decision. But I need to know that you’re safe.”
“I’m safe,” Rachel said, quietly.
“Then why can’t I meet him?” Mum pleaded. “Why can’t you at least tell me who he is? Is he married?”
“He’s not married,” Rachel told her. “And he’s not a criminal either. You can’t meet him because, because ... he has to go away for a while, on work. And I want to concentrate on my exams. When he comes back, you can meet him then.”
Mum looked at Rachel with undisguised distrust and concern. Rachel wanted to tell her about Clarissa, but couldn’t. Mum never wanted to know about Clarissa.
“Did Dad say anything else?” she asked.
“He said he’d call to make sure that you’re all right, but he wouldn’t be able to see you for a while. Reading between the lines, I think he’s split up with number two.”
“Yes,” Rachel said, but didn’t add anything further. “I want to go to bed for a bit now. I’m very tired.”
“All right,” Mum told her, resignedly.
Suddenly, Rachel threw her arms around her mother. “I don’t like having secrets,” she said. “I do love you, Mum. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Rachel,” Mum said, stroking her daughter’s hair, “you scare me more and more all the time. But I love you, too. I’m here when you’re ready to talk. Remember that.”
“Thanks,” Rachel told her, taking the tissue Mum offered to wipe her eyes. She turned to go up to her bedroom.
“By the way,” Mum said, “happy birthday.”
Part Three
One
It was a fine spring. There were four weeks of term before study leave began. Mike’s year-eleven group had finished all their coursework. Now they had two exams to prepare for. Mike kept giving them practice papers, creating huge mounds of marking for himself. He didn’t mind. The harder he worked, the more he kept himself from missing Rachel. They talked on the phone two or three times a week, but it wasn’t easy, seeing each other all the time without being able to see each other properly.
Mike applied for jobs, but there weren’t many about. Most of the ones he found in the Times Educational Supplement were in the south of the country, where he knew no one and it was expensive to live. He couldn’t afford to take Rachel with him and support her on a schoolteacher’s pay.
What did Rachel want? The redundancies would be announced soon. Mike didn’t know if he was on the list. Judith Howard said he wouldn’t be. If that was true, Mike had to make a decision. What did he want most: a job, or Rachel? Mike wished that he could talk things over with his girlfriend, but it wouldn’t be fair. Rachel had other things on her mind. He didn’t want to burden her with hypotheticals about the future.
One week, Mike was runner up for a job in Northampton. The next, he withdrew from an interview at a sixth-form college in Wakefield. He’d wanted to teach sixth form, but the conditions of work for lecturers were awful and staff morale non-existent. He couldn’t face it. Anyway, if Rachel came with him, they’d come up against the same problem they had at Stonywood - he might be teaching where she studied. Better to stick to schools.
At the beginning of May, Phil moved in with Tracey. Now that Mike had the house to himself, it was harder for him to resist seeing Rachel. When she rang him, early one Wednesday evening, he asked if she could get away.
“I thought we agreed ...”
“I know, but ... I miss you so much.”
“Me, too. I’m meant to be revising round at Becky’s in half an hour. I’ll go round there and explain. Meet me in the usual place at eight.”
It was nearly twenty-past when he got Rachel back to the house, and she had to be home by ten. They went straight to bed and, afterwards, Mike was unable to stop himself dozing off. At quarter to ten, Rachel woke him up.
“We have to go soon.”
Mike blinked. “I’m sorry. I really wanted to talk.”
“It’s all right,” Rachel assured him. “I enjoyed holding you, watching you sleep. I never normally get to do that.” They dressed and got back into the car.
“What did you tell Becky?” Mike asked Rachel.
“The truth.”
“The truth?”
Instead of starting the car, he turned to her.
“She guessed,” Rachel said. “After the play. I couldn’t lie about it.”
“How did she guess?” Mike demanded to know.
Rachel looked flustered. “Something about the way we behave with each other. Guilty looks. That kind of thing. But she won’t tell anyone. She promised.”
Mike put his head in his hands.
“Two and a half more weeks,” Rachel said, wanting to change the subject. “Then I’m on exam leave.”
“How’s the revision going?” Mike asked, forcing himself to sound casual, but trying to think about the implications of Becky knowing, too.
“You don’t want to know,” Rachel replied.
Mike still didn’t turn the key in the ignition.
“Look,” Rachel said, “I know you’re upset about Becky, but she’s my best friend. One day, I hope she’ll be your friend, too. I have to have someone to share things with. After all, you’ve got Mr ... Phil.”
“Not any more I haven’t,” Mike muttered.
He tried to get his head around being Becky’s friend, of him going out with Rachel, Becky and Becky’s boyfriend, a travel agent, as a foursome. But he couldn’t picture it.
“Mike,” Rachel said, “we’d better hurry. I don’t want Mum ringing up Becky’s house to find out why I’m late. She thinks that my mysterious boyfriend is working abroad, or somethin
g.”
“Sorry,” Mike said. He drove towards the ring road, his indicator nudging past the speed limit.
“Not so fast,” Rachel said. “We don’t want to get stopped again.”
As they slowed down near Rachel’s street, she asked, “When can we see each other again? The weekend?”
“I’d like that,” Mike said. “Call me. We’ll see if …” he swore. “Duck!”
Walking down the road towards them were Kate Duerden and Lisa Sharpe. Mike accelerated. Rachel did as she was told. The two girls looked round at the speeding car. Mike prayed that they hadn’t recognized his rusty Escort, or its occupants.
“What was all that about?” Rachel asked, when he parked.
Mike told her.
“And did they see us?”
“I’ve no idea. I doubt it. But we’ll have to be even more careful.”
Rachel looked at her watch. It was ten-fifteen. “I’d better go.”
She squeezed his hand.
“I wish I wasn’t your teacher,” Mike said.
“But then I wouldn’t know you.”
Mike sighed. “Yes. That would be worse. But we mustn’t meet again, not till the exams are over.”
“All right,” Rachel said, reluctantly.
She got out of the car without kissing him. It was a mild night, but Mike was sweating and shivering at the same time. In two and a half weeks, he reminded himself, Rachel would have had her last lesson from him. Maybe then he could breathe again.
Two
Rachel waited by the bus stop for Becky. Despite their best intentions, the two girls had found little time to revise together. But it wasn’t the exams which were uppermost in Rachel’s mind. She was feeling isolated, and badly needed someone to talk to. It had to be Becky. Rachel couldn’t talk to Mike, and every conversation with Mum seemed to lead to some kind of row. Maybe, this weekend, they could... Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.