by Jean Ure
“You could always change your mind and come with us,” said Maggie. “You know what they say…all work and no play?”
For a moment I was actually tempted. But then I reminded myself that I was going to meet Alex. I was going to meet Alex! How could I even have thought of going with them?
Suddenly I couldn’t wait for them all to be off. The minute the front door closed I turned and rushed upstairs—only to come to an abrupt halt at the top. There on the landing was a familiar grey shape, faint and floating, shrouded in mist. Patty. For the first time, I felt a twinge of apprehension. I am not scared of ghosts…but I was in the house on my own! There were the old ladies, living in their rooms on the other side of the partition, but what use would they be? They couldn’t come to my rescue! And then I thought, well, but what harm could she do? She was an old lady herself. What was more, she was a dead old lady. And she was trying to ruin my big day! The day I’d been looking forward to for so long. How would she have liked it if some stupid old interfering busybody of a ghost had hung around when she was going off to meet Frank?
“I wish you would just give up,” I said. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out, but that is no reason to come here haunting me.”
And with that I brushed crossly past. I didn’t have time to waste communing with ghosts! I had barely half an hour to wash my hair and change my clothes.
When I came out of the bathroom, my hair wrapped in a towel, the landing was empty. Just a faint hint of reproach seemed to hang in the air, like, “How could you do this to me?”
I don’t know why it made me feel guilty. I hadn’t asked to be haunted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was almost late. I couldn’t believe it! I’d waited so long to be with Alex, and now I was having to tear up the road with my heart hammering, praying that I got there before the train. I just made it! As I pelted into the station, I saw him coming through the barrier. I waved and called out.
“Alex! Over here!”
He turned, and saw me, and his face lit up. He walked towards me, smiling, and oh, I’d forgotten how beautiful he was! The next minute I was flying into his arms and we were pressed together, kissing like we were never going to stop. Like the world had come to a standstill and we were locked in each other’s embrace for eternity. I was dimly aware, in some distant part of my brain, that there were people all about us. That some of these people might just know the Aunties, they might even know me. But what did I care? Alex and I were back together and nothing and no one could separate us!
I don’t know how long we stood there, enclosed in our little private bubble of time. Maybe minutes, maybe only seconds. But it felt like for ever. Finally, reluctantly, we broke apart. Alex took my hand and we moved slowly towards the exit. To my dismay I saw that the rain had started coming down again. Quite heavily too.
“Where we go?” said Alex.
“I don’t know!” The words came wailing out of me. I’d imagined us sitting on the beach, golden and glowing, soaking up the sunshine. Now what were we going to do? I didn’t dare go back to the Aunties’. I supposed we could always find a café somewhere and sit down, but then there would be other people. I didn’t want other people! I wanted to be on my own, with Alex.
“Maybe if we went down to the sea front,” I said, “we could huddle in one of the shelters.”
“OK! We do that. We go!”
Alex took my hand and we made a mad dash out of the station. The rain was sploshing all about us, bouncing off the rooftops and splatting in the gutter. After a few seconds Alex stopped and took off his jacket. He said, “Here! You wear.” I tried to protest, but he was insistent. He said it didn’t matter if he got wet, he didn’t mind a bit of rain.
“I dry later. No problem!”
I thought that I could also dry later, and why should he be the one to get wet, just because he was a man? But I also thought that it was nice to be spoilt for once, even though it was not very feminist. Katie would have had a right go at me, she is really into feminism. So am I, as a rule. But Alex was so sweet and old-fashioned! He was what Auntie May would call a gentleman. I felt a bit guilty, but I didn’t give him his jacket back. Instead, I snuggled inside it as we pounded along the sea front in search of a shelter that wasn’t already occupied.
We found one at last and instantly fell into each other’s arms, soaking though Alex was, and me with my hair all dripping. But being wet didn’t seem to matter. Being together was all that mattered.
Vaguely I became aware of another couple about to cram into the shelter with us, but they obviously thought better of it and moved on. They could see we didn’t want company!
“Tamsin, I miss you so much,” said Alex. “You miss me?”
“Like crazy,” I said. “So much that it hurts! I’ve been counting the days. I’ve been counting the minutes! But you’ll never believe—”
Pause, while we kiss. “You’ll never believe—” Another pause. “You’ll never believe the things that have been happening!”
I was so full of news. Bursting with news! I wanted to tell him Patty’s story. How she and Frank had run off together. How she’d been haunting me. I wanted to tell him about Maggie. How she’d come all the way from New Zealand specially to meet the family.
“They’ve all gone off for the day, but I daren’t take you back in case anyone sees. If Auntie May found out, we’d be in huge big trouble.”
“We be all right here,” said Alex. He laughed. “Like our own little place!”
“But it’s horrible,” I said, “having to creep round like we’re a couple of criminals!”
“Soon all be over.” Alex pulled me to him. “We be together all the time. You, me…no trouble! No one say he too old, you too young…you be sixteen. All OK!”
Why did a little cold shiver run down my spine when he said that? Why, suddenly, did I find myself shrinking back?
You’ll have to come over on a visit someday. Maybe in your gap year…
I wasn’t going to have a gap year. Katie would have one! She’d go on to uni, just like we’d planned. She’d still be there, at school, working away without me. People would wonder where I was. Katie would tell them, “She’s run off with her boyfriend.” Yesterday, it had seemed so romantic! Just yesterday. I’d been so sure it was what I wanted. So certain that I couldn’t live without Alex. Why was I starting to have doubts? What was happening to me?
Alex smiled, reassuringly. “No more worry, Tamsin. No problem.”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know.
I said, “Alex…”
“No talk!” He laid a finger on my lips. “Too much talk!”
“But A—”
“Tsh!”
“But—”
“I say, no talk!”
It would have been so easy to give in. Just to let things happen. I loved him so desperately! Surely that should be enough?
But I knew that it wasn’t. I knew that I had to tell him. I had to break it to him. I said, “Alex—” And then I burst into tears and the truth finally came blurting out.
“Alex, I lied! I’m only thirteen…I won’t be sixteen for another two years!”
I realise now—now that I really am almost sixteen—that I did a very terrible thing, deceiving Alex. I could have got him into so much trouble! And he could have been so angry with me. I know how fortunate I am that he was such a sweet and gentle person. Lots of boys would have been furious. Most people would probably say they had a right to be. But Alex wasn’t like that—which actually, in some ways, made things worse. If he’d yelled at me, I would at least have felt that I was getting what I deserved. That I was being properly punished. Instead, he just went very quiet. He seemed, like…dazed. As if he couldn’t quite get his head round it. And it didn’t matter how many times I said that I was sorry, I was so sorry, I knew that I had hurt him.
I remembered him telling me how Marta hadn’t believed I was as old as I said I was. How Alex had laughed and said, “She just jeal
ous!” Did he remember that? I should have told him then, all that time ago. I shouldn’t have let him go on believing a lie.
Yet what did it matter? Fourteen, fifteen? What difference did it make? We still loved each other!
I tried to say this to him. I tried to believe it…age wasn’t important! But maybe it is, when you’re only thirteen. In my heart of hearts, I think I knew it. Alex knew it, too.
“Tamsin,” he said, “this cannot be!”
I wept, and I pleaded, but he shook his head. “I love you, Tamsin. I love you so much! But this is not right.”
I sobbed and protested that love was always right. Alex said, “I wish this is true. But is not. And you cannot be here with me like this. I understand, now, why your mum, she get mad. Is my fault!” He tapped his chest. “Even though I believe you nearly sixteen, I know you not yet sixteen. So I the one doing the wrong.”
It nearly cracked me up when he said that. How could he possibly blame himself?
“I think you must go now, Tamsin. Please! You go.”
“I can’t!” I wept. “I can’t leave you!”
“Tamsin.” He held me away from him, looking at me quite sternly. “You only thirteen. I too old! Your mum, she know this. You also, you know this. This why you say to me you nearly sixteen.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was just a stupid little baby!”
“I never think you stupid little baby. I love you! I always love you. For me, you the best thing that ever happened. I so lonely before I meet you! You bring me much joy. Much happiness. But now is time to say goodbye.”
He let me walk back with him to the station, but he wouldn’t let me wait to see him off. He gave me one final kiss, very innocently on my forehead, and that was it. The last time I saw him. We spoke just once more on the phone; the saddest conversation I have ever had. I wept and pleaded, but Alex was firm. He said, “I love you, Tamsin. But is not right.”
I cried into my pillow, quietly and fiercely, trying to keep it from Ellie, for three nights in a row; until gradually, almost without my noticing, little by little, I started to feel less miserable. I found myself one day, shortly before Mum came back from tour, confiding in Maggie. She was due to fly home to New Zealand the following week, and I felt I had to talk to her. She listened in sympathetic silence as I poured it all out, and then she said, “It sounds to me as if your Alex is a very lovely young man,” which just set me off crying all over again.
“It also sounds to me,” said Maggie, “as if he’s a very honourable young man. He did do the right thing, you know.”
I nodded, through my tears. I knew that he had. I said, “I think your gran was trying to warn me.”
“My gran?” Maggie sounded surprised. “What makes you say that?”
So then I told her about the ghostly form on the upstairs landing, and how I’d recognised it as Patty. “I don’t know whether she was trying to get through to me, or to herself when she was young.”
“She was certainly trying to get through to someone,” said Maggie. “Those were almost her last words…I can’t get through to her.”
We had a long talk all about Patty and Frank—and ghosts—and how easy it was to get carried away by love. Maggie said we must be sure to keep in touch, and we have; we email all the time. Mum has said if I like, before starting at uni, I can fly out to New Zealand to stay with Maggie and her partner, Jeff. I’m really looking forward to that!
Katie and I made up. She didn’t gloat or say I told you so when I admitted that Alex and I had broken up. She is a true friend. I can see now how difficult it must have been for her, with me having a boyfriend and her being left on her own. She must have felt deserted. Maybe even a bit jealous. I know this because last term it was Katie who had a boyfriend and me who was on my own and I hated it. It made me desperate for Alex all over again. Fortunately it didn’t go on too long as I started seeing this boy from Year 11, Dillon Mackenzie. We’re sort of an item, though it isn’t anything serious. I mean, we’re not in love, or anything. I told Maggie that I didn’t think I would ever love anyone the way I’d loved Alex, and she agreed that I probably wouldn’t. She said that your first love is very special.
“But you will love again. I promise! It won’t be the same, but in its own way it will be just as exciting.”
I find that really hard to imagine. On the other hand I do think Maggie is quite a wise person and knows what she’s talking about. As long as I live, I’ll remember the few wonderful months that I had with Alex. I’ll remember the way he smiled, the way his eyes used to crinkle up. I’ll remember the touch of his hand, warm and a little bit rough, and the feel of his arm round me. I really did love him, so very, very much. But maybe, one day…
I caught a glimpse of Alex the other week, just fleetingly, from the top of a bus. My heart immediately started churning, and I felt this mad impulse to jump off at the next stop and go running back; and then I saw that he was with a girl, and that they were holding hands, and for a moment I felt devastated. But then after a bit the feeling passed, and a sort of peace came over me. I craned my neck, looking back out of the bus window, and I discovered that I didn’t feel upset at the thought of some other girl holding his hand. Instead I felt glad for him. I want so much for him to be happy!
I told Maggie that same evening, in an email. I thought it would hurt but it really didn’t. I just felt glad, for his sake. But I do still love him! I don’t understand what this means. How can you love someone and be happy that they’re with someone else?
Maggie emailed straight back: It’s precisely because you love Alex that you can be happy for him. Now you must move on and be happy for yourself.
Well, I am! There are so many things waiting to happen. Year 12 next year—Katie and I think we might go to sixth-form college. That will be fun! Then there will be my gap year in New Zealand, then uni. And maybe one day I will meet someone else and fall in love. I’m beginning to feel a bit more hopeful.
But it doesn’t mean that I will ever forget Alex.
If you enjoyed Love and Kisses, check out these other great Jean Ure titles.
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Also by the Author
Star Crazy Me!
Hunky Dory
Gone Missing
Over the Moon
Boys Beware
Sugar and Spice
Is Anybody There?
Secret Meeting
Passion Flower
Shrinking Violet
Boys on the Brain
Skinny Melon and Me
Becky Bananas, This is Your Life!
Fruit and Nutcase
The Secret Life of Sally Tomato*
Family Fan Club
Fortune Cookie
Special three-in-one editions
The Tutti-Frutti Collection
The Flower Power Collection
The Friends Forever Collection
and for younger readers
Dazzling Danny Daisy May Monster in the Mirror
*Also available on tape, read by John Pickard
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