by Carmen Reid
‘We’re on washing up!’ Amy practically shrieked. ‘I can’t wash up – I’ve got to go out and get my dress! And think of our nails!’ she pleaded. ‘All the rubber gloves have holes in them. Our hands will get trashed. Couldn’t we swap with whoever’s on next week? One of the Year Three dorms? Pleeeeeeeease!’
‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Knebworth went over and looked at the rota taped neatly to the kitchen door. ‘Now why did I not think of the Year Four ball when I was making that up? No . . . two of next week’s dishwashers are away home this weekend, so I can’t help you there, I’m afraid.’
She turned round, and the expected look of sympathy came out looking very like a smirk; immediately, all four Daffodils were convinced she had done this on purpose.
‘I’ll wash,’ Niffy volunteered. ‘My hands are knackered anyway.’ And she held out her rough hands with their short square nails and chewed cuticles for inspection.
‘I’ve got really dark purple nail varnish – I’ll smarten them up with that tonight,’ Amy offered in response to this – in her opinion – selfless act of martyrdom.
The Arts Café was busy by 12.30. Almost every table was filled as Amy and Gina scoured the space for Niffy, sure that she would be here by now.
At first they didn’t spot her, because they were looking at the smaller tables, expecting to find her on her own, but then Gina pointed to one of the packed sofa corners, where four scruffily dressed boys were laughing loudly at a story being told by an equally scruffy girl perched on the very edge of her seat: Niffy!
‘Oh, hi!’ she called, spotting them hovering, laden down with Harvey Nichols white and gold shopping bags. ‘Over here! Finn will get you coffees. How did I manage to forget that my brother has a weekend out and said he would be in Edinburgh?’ she added, and smacked at her forehead with her hand. ‘Duh!’
‘Craigiefield boys,’ Amy quietly explained to Gina. ‘It’s a really posh boarding school for boys in the middle of nowhere. They only get let out once in a while, and Niffy’s brother, Finn, is one of them.’
‘Amy! You know everyone. Gina meet Finn, Euan and Jamie from Craigiefield and their friend Charlie from St Lennox’s,’ was Niffy’s casual introduction. ‘And show, show!’ she insisted, pointing at their bags.
‘No!’ Amy said firmly. ‘Not here. It’s a surprise. What about you? Any luck?’
‘Yes!’ Niffy reached down and fished around for her plastic bag. From inside she hoicked out a strapless, electric-blue taffeta mini-dress with a flared skirt and net petticoat. ‘Not bad, eh?’ She grinned. ‘Reduced to fifteen pounds.’
‘Really?’ Amy tried to sound enthusiastic.
‘Yeah, it’s a size sixteen – might need a safety pin or two – but a bargain!’
The boys were grinning and making approving noises.
‘Great colour!’
‘Great length!’
‘All girls should have to wear dresses like that.’
‘Yeah. It should be the law.’
Finn stood up, revealing a physique as long and gangly as his sister’s. Like the other three boys, he was draped in a mac, baggy jeans, several scarves and overgrown hair, which had to be regularly swept back from his face.
But despite the scruffiness, these were rich boys. They were tall, with healthy good looks, and Gina could see the expensive watches, the smart shoes, the discreet labels. Plus, she was beginning to understand that not everyone in Scotland spoke like these boys did, as if they were distantly related to the Queen.
‘What would you like to drink, girls?’ Finn asked.
‘Sit down, man, there’s a waiter.’ Jamie pointed to Dermot, who came over, skinny as ever and still dressed in the see-through white shirt.
‘Hello, dorm girls.’ He greeted them with only a brief smile: clearly the presence of the boys was putting him off.
Amy and Gina, both now squeezed between Euan and Charlie on one of the leather sofas, ordered Cokes.
As Gina took off her jacket and pushed it behind her, Charlie, a beefy blond guy who already looked about thirty-five, leaned in just a little too close.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ he schmoozed. ‘Now, I’m coming to a ball at your school tonight, but what about inviting my friends along as well?’
The fingertips of the hand resting on his knee were brushing ever so lightly past Gina’s leg. Why, in every group of boys, was there always one lech? And why had she been landed with him?
‘Yeah, I’ve told them about tonight’s thing at school,’ Niffy explained, ‘and I’m sure if they dressed up, no one would notice. I mean, it’s not like there’s a ticket check at the door or anything.’
Amy didn’t look so sure, but Finn seemed very enthusiastic. ‘Yeah, fantastic. We’re staying at Charlie’s for the weekend. His people have got a big place in the New Town.’
By now, Gina had learned that ‘people’ meant parents and ‘big place in the New Town’ tended to indicate a five-storey Georgian townhouse, Grade A listed, Scottish Heritage registered, price tag about £2 million.
‘We’ll borrow some clothes,’ Finn went on, ‘and turn up at seven thirty for some fun.’
Borrow some clothes? Amy just about choked. After all the trouble she’d taken to find the right dress! After all the trouble she was planning to go to: straightening her hair, applying her evening make-up, shaving, manicuring, plucking, and she would be dancing with cretins like this, who would show up, probably drunk, in clothes they had borrowed!
Surely Jason wasn’t going to be like this? When Amy thought of Jason at the dance, she imagined him in a dark, perfectly cut dinner suit, with a white silk scarf and a carefully knotted bow tie. He would ask her to dance; they would skim through a waltz, then maybe he would get her a drink (school non-alcoholic punch, sadly – no bubbles of champagne frothing in crystal flutes between them).
Amy, would you like to come outside, get a breath of fresh air? he would ask, and she’d shiver from head to toe because everybody knew what ‘would you like to come outside’ meant.
Just the thought of kissing him made her stomach flip and her toes curl. He’d ask her permission, of course. In his smooth and chocolaty voice, he’d utter words like: Amy, I’d really like to kiss you . . . do you think that would be OK?
And before she could even breathe, their lips would touch and his beautiful cheeks and silky dark hair would be right against her face, his arms pulling her towards him. It would be sooooo romantic. Nothing like the other kisses she’d experienced to date. She was sure, absolutely certain, that Jason was the one: he was going to be her first love.
‘Tomorrow – yeah, we’d love to, wouldn’t we?’ Niffy’s nudge brought Amy out of her daydream.
‘What?’ Amy asked, wondering what Niffy had agreed to now.
‘Go round to Charlie’s for afternoon tea?’
‘Fantastic.’ Charlie seemed to be breathing right into Gina’s ear now.
Dermot arrived with their coffees and banged them moodily down on the table.
‘Hi, Dermot,’ Amy ventured. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, fine,’ he said, but with a heavy note of sarcasm. ‘Having a ball, are we? And these are your dashing partners, I suppose?’
‘Dermot!’ Gina leaned back in her chair and turned round to face him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, but she could see from his expression that this wasn’t true.
‘D’you want to come?’ she asked suddenly, wanting to make him feel better. ‘I mean, if we can sneak these guys in without a proper invitation, I’m sure we could get you in too.’
Dermot was smiling at her now. ‘That’s a very kind offer,’ he told her. ‘I’ve never been to a ball before.’
‘Neither have I,’ she said.
His eyes held hers. ‘I can’t do country dancing.’
‘Neither can I! Come on, it’ll be fun.’
He ran his hand through his hair and laughed. ‘No, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
>
‘Too many reasons, Gina! Too many reasons!’ he told her. ‘Number one, I’d stick out like a sore thumb; number two, I’m working here till eleven p.m.; number three, funnily enough I don’t just happen to have a dinner jacket hanging in the back of my cupboard right now – it’s at the cleaner’s!’ he joked and gave her a wink.
Charlie inched his wallet out of his back pocket and peeled a tenner from inside. ‘Hey, waiter! I’ll take care of these,’ he boomed. ‘Anyone for anything else?’
Dermot smiled at Gina to signal the end of their little chat, then reached over to take the money from Charlie’s hand. He turned on his heel and headed off, forgetting to wait for any further orders.
‘That was a bit bloody rude,’ Charlie commented, loud enough for Dermot to hear.
‘Shhh!’ Gina insisted. ‘It’s packed in here – he’s probably just really, really busy.’
‘Oh, I forgot – Yank at the table: suck up to the staff, everyone!’ Charlie sneered.
By 6.50, the atmosphere on Year Four’s floor of the boarding house was close to hysterical. Eighteen girls were rushing about in various stages of dress and undress, screaming for hairdryer sockets, quick-drying nail polish, make-up corrector wipes and lost lipsticks.
Zips were jamming, hair was misbehaving, mascara was smudging . . . it was pre-party pandemonium. In just forty minutes, the summer ball, the social highlight of the whole term, would begin.
A girl called Jo was in tears because a glass of water had just been spilled on her satin dress. Selina’s freshly highlighted hair was deemed to still ‘stink of bleach’ even though she’d washed and dried it twice. A friend was spraying expensive perfume into the offending locks.
In Daffodil dorm there had been frenzied activity, but now something approaching calm was descending. Min looked sweet: she’d borrowed a bright-red, knee-length, strapless silk dress from Amy which glowed against her black hair and freshly moisturized brown skin. Amy wasn’t mad about Min’s choice of sensible black patent pumps, but Min had ruled out squeezing her feet into the heel-crushing red shoes again.
Gina was in baby pink, a slinky little cocktail number, her shoes the kind of baby-pink suede confections that made Amy gasp in admiration.
‘Isn’t your dress a bit tight for dancing?’ she had already warned.
To which Gina had replied, ‘Like I care! I can’t do a single one of your crazy Scottish numbers anyway.’
‘You have to dance!’ Amy had insisted. ‘What’s the point of going to a ball if you don’t dance? That’s the best bit!’
And suddenly, at the thought of holding Jason’s hand and feeling his arm at her back as they spun round the dance floor, Amy had felt almost sick with nerves. What if he didn’t ask her? She wouldn’t be able to bear it. What if he did ask her? She wouldn’t be able to bear it!
She stood in front of the mirror one last time, turning her shoulders side on and looking for any detail she might have missed. But there was already no doubt which of all the Year Four girls had the best dress.
After phoning her father from the personal shopping suite in Harvey Nichols and begging him to approve an immediate extension on her credit card limit, Amy had bagged the ballgown of her dreams. The ballgown of any girl’s dreams.
With a draped bodice of creamy chiffon and a wide skirt, ballerina length, trimmed with (wait for it) feathers – actual real, snowy, fluffy feathers – this was a dress made in heaven. It had certainly come with a price tag that was out of this world.
‘Are you sure? Are you really, really sure about this?’ Gina had double-checked with her friend as they had looked once again at the four-figure bill. Amy had just nodded and handed over the plastic.
Now, with her pale hair piled up loosely, light make-up and the shimmer from understated drop pearl earrings, Amy looked sensational. Of course she was going to be the most beautiful girl at the ball. A dress like that had authority. It said: Pay attention – I am the most precious jewel here in the most exquisite setting.
‘It’s just wonderful,’ Min said, coming up to stroke Amy’s skirt. ‘But aren’t you worried it might get spoiled? What if someone spills coffee on it?’
‘No chance!’ Amy assured her. ‘This is a work of art. Even people like Penny will respect that and stand back.’
‘Oh, fluffy bum! I’ve ripped my tights! Does anyone have spares?’
Niffy’s question brought an exasperated sigh from Amy. ‘Yes, but hurry up, we have to go! We’ll have to wear our day shoes, walk over to the school block and then change there. So unbelievably inconvenient!’
Niffy struggled to get her long legs into the new pair of tights.
‘Don’t pull so hard!’ Amy warned her. ‘You’ll rip those ones too.’
‘But they’re not long enough,’ Niffy complained, ‘and this dress is so short, I’m going to have my gusset hanging down!’
She stood up. Despite Amy’s best efforts with her hair and nails and Min’s diligent pinning of her bodice, the effect wasn’t great.
Niffy looked like a messy, schoolgirl version of a bunny girl. The dress was so short and her legs were so indecently long.
‘Well?’ She held out her arms and attempted a curtsey. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s really nice,’ Gina assured her.
‘Funky, huh?’ Niffy asked. ‘Are we set? Shall we go?’
‘Shoes,’ Min pointed out. ‘You need to put on your shoes.’
‘Shoes?’ This seemed to confuse Niffy. ‘Shoes!’ she repeated.
‘Yes, your shoes,’ Amy said, as if speaking to a naughty toddler.
‘I haven’t got any shoes,’ Niffy revealed. ‘I didn’t think about shoes.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Nif!’ Amy’s patience was well and truly exhausted now. ‘What do you mean you didn’t think of shoes? Everyone thinks of shoes! Everyone who buys a dress works out which shoes to wear with it. What are you? Fashion retarded? No one has feet as big as yours! What the bloody hell are you going to do?’
By the time the boarders arrived in the school hall, many of the day girls were already there doing double takes, hardly recognizing each other at first glance now that they were out of uniform and in full-on glamour mode.
Niffy’s outfit drew plenty of friendly comment. The strange thing was, as soon as she’d strapped on the clumpy but clean tall riding boots with buckles, the mini-dress seemed to work much better. Maybe she’d just relaxed into it, now that she was wearing her favourite boots. Because Nif was as tall and thin as a rail with fabulous rider’s posture, it didn’t matter that she had a big nose, horsy face and cheap dress; tonight she looked like a catwalk model in some mad designer’s latest brainwave.
But she wasn’t drawing gasps in quite the same way that Amy was: gasps of admiration from friends; gasps of envy from others.
In that dress, Amy didn’t stand a chance of escaping the inevitable showdown with Penny and friends. In fact, Penny, in a floaty floral green number, was already circling.
‘It’s a dance, Amy, not a performance of Swan Lake,’ was Penny’s starter for ten.
‘Yeah, so I heard.’ Amy turned away, hoping to escape any further remarks.
But Penny went on, ‘Daddy bought you the wrong thing then, did he? But then he’s probably never been to a ball at a proper school, has he?’
Amy looked back over her shoulder at Penny, whose pretty face was spoiled by the sneer spread across it. Why couldn’t she just leave Amy alone? At least for tonight. This was a big hall – there was plenty of room for them to avoid each other.
‘Yeah, Penny,’ Amy began, not able to walk away from the insult, ‘I suppose that’s why Llewellyn isn’t here tonight – because he’s not at a proper school either. You know, I’m just sooo sad that my dad is loaded and can buy me whatever I want. I mean, it’s not exactly tragic, is it? The only thing here that’s tragic is the dress that you’re wearing.’
With that, Amy let her dainty white and silver shoes carry her away to the
other side of the room as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, this was the moment when the first busload of boys was decanted at the school. Troupes of them – in tweedy kilt jackets and multi-coloured kilts or sleek black dinner jackets with bow ties coolly askew – thronged into the hall with their tousled hair and goofy grins. They looked just slightly older and slightly wilder than the roomful of girls, who all seemed to pause for a moment . . . make a collective gasp, then start up again with the buzz of chat at a much higher level of excitement. There were frantically self-conscious conversations going on all round the room, as everyone pretended not to notice The Boys. But cheeks were flushing and hearts were skipping nervously as deep voices and testosterone started to flood the room.
‘Niffy! There you are!’ The group of gatecrashers, including Finn, headed over. Niffy, Gina and Min were relieved to have familiar males to talk to so soon, instead of having to stand about waiting for the ice to be broken. Amy gave a warm hello, but couldn’t help scanning the room beyond them for any sign of Jason.
The ceilidh band began to play and everyone noticed, then pretended not to notice, prompting nervous boys to ask the girl standing closest to them to dance. Hardly anyone ever plucked up the courage to ask the girl with whom they really wanted to dance.
On the dance floor, it was tense, anxious, sweaty-palm central.
At least there was a formality to Scottish country dances – complicated steps to concentrate on instead of how to prolong or avoid eye contact. Little bursts of stilted conversation came between the different steps:
‘So which school are you at?’ Min was asking her partner.
‘Oh, do you know Johnnie as well?’ the boy dancing with Amy wanted to know.
‘You got in then? What a blast!’ Niffy said, swooping across the dance floor with her brother. ‘Bum,’ she cursed. ‘This dance is much more complicated than I thought.’ Then she trod firmly on someone’s toe.
‘Ouch!’
Gina had been whisked into Charlie’s arms for an Eightsome Reel despite her protests that she couldn’t dance. He was twirling her too hard and pushing her around. He seemed to take it as a personal insult that she didn’t know the required steps, when everyone else around them seemed to be dancing so effortlessly.