Soul Love

by Lynda Waterhouse

  So not everybody thought the festival was a good idea, then. As I was staring at the poster something caught my eye. You could hardly miss a large gaudy vase like that. The price tag attached to it was pretty breathtaking too. I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

  It was still there.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘Is it better to hurt someone quickly by telling them some bad news or better to say nothing and just wait for them to find out for themselves?’ I asked Gabe later that evening. We sat side by side in a corner of the treehouse sharing a bag of cherries.

  ‘If you’re thinking of dumping me then I’d prefer to be told right away.’ He hurled a bad cherry out of the window.

  I told him about seeing the vase in the shop, Sarah thinking I had something to do with it, and my suspicions about Kai having stolen it.

  Gabe shook his head. ‘Kai can be a bit of a smoothie where the ladies are concerned and his poetry sucks, but I can’t believe he’s a thief. Besides, he doesn’t need to with that valuable record collection of his.’

  I nearly choked on a cherry stone. ‘Are you telling me that that box of old records is actually worth something?’

  ‘Thousands of pounds. But I don’t think he’d ever sell them. He thinks of them as his children.’

  ‘Then why leave them behind?’

  ‘He probably thinks that is the safest place for them whilst he’s travelling round for the summer.’

  ‘In the meantime Sarah has to manage the shop alone … She totally refuses to see any of Kai’s bad points,’ I said.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why Sarah assumed that you might have had something to do with it?’

  ‘Because I am a bad girl with a terrible reputation,’ I replied bitterly. Then a weird thing happened. Out of the blue, I exploded into tears. A huge volcanic eruption of hot tears and snot completely overwhelmed me.

  Gabe just let me get on with it. Then he handed me a crumpled tissue from his coat pocket.

  ‘You can talk to me about it … if you trust me.’

  I nestled against his T-shirt, breathed in his sweet smell, and considered. I wanted to tell him …

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. Even though I’ve only known you a few weeks, there’s something about you. You’re solid. But you’re not always open with me and I totally respect that, because I’m just the same and I know how you hate people making assumptions about your life … And I want to tell you, but … Oh my, I’m babbling on like a total fool.’

  Gabe said, ‘Who cares? There’s no one around for miles. Apart from me.’

  ‘That’s the point. I care about what you think of me. I don’t want you to think less of me,’ I said, my voice getting smaller.

  ‘How do you know that I will?’ Gabe looked into my eyes.

  I looked down and said, ‘Because when I allow myself to think about what I did, I feel so bad that I start gasping for breath.’

  Gabe squeezed my arm.

  ‘I don’t think I could ever think badly of you, Jenna. People make mistakes, have regrets … Sometimes you have to learn to live with them, learn from them.’

  ‘Sometimes the mistakes you make can really hurt people. Mum was desperate to get me into Coot’s Hill School. It’s incredibly hard to get into and I’m not a super-genius or anything. She had to spend a lot of money on a house in the right area for me to be considered. That and my musical ability got me in.’

  ‘I didn’t know you played anything.’

  ‘The clarinet, and I sang in the choir at my primary school.’

  ‘You are full of surprises, Jenna. I didn’t take you for a choir girl.’

  ‘Not all of them are good surprises …’ I tried to laugh, but my face felt tight. I was aware that this was my chance to get it off my chest. Find out Gabe’s true feelings. Let Gabe know what I was capable of and see how he liked me after that.

  ‘I pretty much hated the school from Day One. The atmosphere was too stuck up and competitive. Life in Year Seven was pretty tough. I didn’t know anyone as we’d only recently moved into the area. When I started Year Eight, Mia moved in next door and joined the school. She was fearless and right away she helped me fit in better at school.’

  ‘Having someone to look out for you is important,’ Gabe added.

  ‘Then in April, at the start of last term, Jackson arrived. He’d been at my primary school. So for the first time it felt like I had a group of friends. We fell into a habit of mucking around. We all got off on the wrong foot with our new French teacher, Ms Rose. She had a really sharp tongue and a way of looking down her nose at you if you made a mistake. Even Rebecca Worth, a complete swot, struggled with the homework – and she has two brains. I used to like French, but I found myself losing interest and, eventually, confidence.’ I looked up at Gabe. He smiled back at me. No matter how many times I swallowed, my throat felt dry. The aftertaste of the cherries in my mouth made me feel sick.

  ‘Ms Rose had arranged a day trip to France. The plan was to leave really early in the morning, spend the day in Calais and return on the ferry in the evening. Mia, Jackson and I were fooling around like we usually did before we got on the coach. Ms Rose threw a huge wobbly, said she had had enough of our rudeness and wasn’t going to take responsibility for us on the trip. She told us to report to the head teacher’s office. What really put our backs up was the fact that we weren’t really behaving any differently than we usually did and she threatened to withhold our trip money. I could tell the other teachers thought she had overreacted, but they didn’t say anything.

  ‘So as the coach set off we went back to the classroom. We were really angry. I had been looking forward to the trip for ages. I’d nagged Mum to find the money and now I was going to lose it and I didn’t think our behaviour had been any worse than it usually was.’

  I looked at Gabe to gauge his reaction, but he was sitting with his head in his hands. He was probably too embarrassed to look at me.

  ‘Instead of reporting to the office we sneaked into Ms Rose’s private office and made ourselves a cup of her special French coffee. Then Jackson drew a moustache on one of her posters. Mia found a handbag in a desk drawer. It was a ridiculous pink, fluffy one and we all spent ages posing with it and doing exaggerated impressions of Ms Rose. We were all laughing hysterically. I can’t remember the exact order of what happened next, but one of us looked inside the bag and found a credit card. So we sneaked out of school back through the car park. Most people thought we’d gone on the trip. We hopped on a bus to the West End. Jackson said he had heard about an electrical shop that never asked any questions.

  ‘At the time I knew what I was doing was totally out of order, but we kept egging each other along and reminding ourselves that we were only spending our own money after all. We had convinced ourselves that if Ms Rose was going to hang on to our trip money then we deserved some of her money.’

  My heart was pounding as I relived that moment.

  Gabe could see I was worked up. ‘You don’t have to tell me any more,’ he said.

  But I had to carry on. If I stopped now I’d probably never have the courage to talk about it again.

  ‘Mia marched into the shop. Jackson and I watched her through the window. My heart was pounding and everything seemed to be on fast forward. Any second now I kept on telling myself someone’s going to find out and stop her. But the bloke didn’t seem that bothered on checking the signature and it was all too easy.

  ‘Mia came out with a carrier bag. She had bought a digital camera. When I saw the camera I started to freak out and I kept on saying, “We’ve got to take it back! We’ve got to take it back …” until Mia slapped me hard in the face. She caught one of her nails in my hair clip and shrieked, “You’ve broken my nail.” That seemed to bother her more than anything.

  ‘Jackson giggled, but then, sensing my state of panic, he turned to me and said that we could always return the camera later. Get the money put back on the card. Then no one would be a
ny the wiser. I cheered up.

  ‘We messed around with the camera and sent the photos to Mia’s computer in an internet café. Then we went for an ice cream. Mia volunteered to take the camera back while Jackson and I waited in the café. We were coming down off the buzz. “That was crazy,” Jackson kept on saying. I think he was starting to feel bad. I know I was feeling queasy and the sides of my head throbbed.

  ‘Ten minutes later Mia came back. She handed me the credit card to look after. I shoved it in my pocket. “Get rid of it,” Mia told me. “Or am I expected to do everything?”

  ‘We hung about until the end of school. I knew we’d made a terrible mistake. I couldn’t throw the card away. I wanted to put things right, put it back in Ms Rose’s handbag. After all the camera had been returned, hadn’t it? So there was no money actually taken from the card. Ms Rose would think that they’d got her number mixed up.

  ‘I managed to get back into the classroom unnoticed and located the handbag, but just as I had got the handbag open I was spotted by one of the cleaners who told one of the teachers and I was caught.

  ‘I didn’t say much at first. I wasn’t going to grass Mia and Jackson up. Mum was sent for and I was suspended pending a full enquiry. Mia sneaked round to my house that evening. She was boiling mad. I didn’t understand why. “You did take the camera back, didn’t you, Mia?” I asked her.

  ‘She didn’t answer me – instead she launched an attack on me. “What difference does that make to you getting caught with the card? What an incredibly stupid thing to do. What were you thinking of, trying to put it back?” and so on. She said she didn’t mind admitting what she did, but thought we should keep Jackson out of it, because he got in trouble at his last school and was asked to leave. His mum had said she’d send him to school in Nigeria if he got into any more trouble.

  ‘So I agreed to leave Jackson out of it. And he kept his distance from me at school and I assumed whatever relationship we had was over. That hurt me a lot. But Mia was all smiles and pleaded with me to keep quiet.

  ‘She wanted me to wait until her dad got back from his business trip to the States before owning up. Her mum can be a real terror to deal with. She said he’d be on our side. That he was a whiz at working out deals. And he was always getting into trouble himself when he was at school. Plus he donates tons of money to the school. Then she promised to admit her part when he got back.

  ‘So I took the rap. I admitted that I had taken the credit card and gone shopping with it. I answered all of their questions. I was scared, but also a bit relieved actually. Getting found out helped to ease the anxiety and guilt. I just figured that once Mia owned up too, then I wouldn’t feel so isolated.

  ‘The money had not been credited back on the card and Mum had to pay it back. Mia must have lied to me about returning the camera. Mrs Kelly wanted to call in the police, but Ms Rose said no. I said that I’d bought a camera but panicked and thrown it away She just kept looking at me and saying that, as I was so weak and easily led, I had been punished enough. I think she knew that Mia and Jackson were involved too, but she didn’t say anything. So I was sent to Sarah’s.’

  I buried my head in my hands and waited for Gabe to respond. The sides of my head throbbed and my hands shook. I had no idea what kind of reaction to expect from Gabe. Disappointment, horror, disgust, shame maybe. I certainly wasn’t expecting what I got.

  I looked up. Gabe was smirking and trying to stop himself from laughing!

  I stormed off as fast as I could.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Jenna, stop!’ Gabe raced down the hill after me. ‘I opened up to you and all you could do was laugh!’ I screamed as he tried to grab my arm. I snatched it out of his reach.

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you. I was relieved. I was really scared that you were going to tell me something horrible. Your mistake is one that can be undone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not like you’ve committed a murder. There’s no going back from that, is there? This isn’t that bad. You can live this down. But you’ve been badly let down by your so-called friends.’

  ‘Mia said that she’d speak out just as soon as her dad gets back. He’s away on a long business trip to the States. She promised me she would put things right,’ I said.

  ‘And you believe her? Mia and Jackson have stitched you up.’

  Gabe grabbed me, but I shook him off.

  ‘No, they wouldn’t do that to me. I’m their friend,’ I insisted, though it was half-heartedly. It was one thing thinking about it and quite another to admit my fears out loud.

  ‘Sounds like that’s exactly what they’ve done. Shown their true colours.’

  ‘I’m not going to get Jackson or Mia into trouble. Jackson would get sent away.’

  ‘He’s a big boy. He should take responsibility for his part. He knew about the shop, didn’t he? He should have been more careful if he was at risk of being sent away. He’s quite happy to see you sent away from home.’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘Stop it! You’re the first person I’ve trusted to tell. I wish I hadn’t now. Stop being so heartless.’

  ‘But I don’t believe that Mia and Jackson are true friends. Or that Mia will ever own up. Maybe she will when the moon turns pink! Believe me, Jenna, I’m not heartless. I seem heartless, but I do have my reasons.’

  He grinned and something snapped inside me. I was furious.

  ‘You don’t have a heart because you were born like that,’ I yelled back. ‘Who do you think you are? Mr Perfect? Believe me you’re far from that. You’re moody and impossible and your obsession with privacy drives me nuts. Do you think you’re so special that everyone is dying to know your business? Just because Cleo worships the ground you walk on doesn’t mean that the rest of us do. Just because you’re an aristocrat doesn’t mean that you’re any different from me. You have the same blood running through your veins!’

  ‘I was born HIV-positive, Jenna,’ Gabe said.

  I started to say something, but I froze. It took me a few moments to take in what he’d said. It felt like my stomach filled with ice water.

  ‘What?’ I mumbled, too stunned to think clearly and afraid of what he’d say next.

  ‘I’m sorry. No way should I have blurted it out like that.’

  Gabe began pacing around. ‘In fact, I shouldn’t have told you at all. Big mistake. Really big bad mistake. Just forget you ever heard it. Erase it from your memory … what am I saying? It’s not like you could do that … could you?’

  ‘Gabe.’

  That was the only thing I could say out loud. My brain was racing. Gabe couldn’t be HIV-positive. AIDS was a terrible disease … Oh my God, was Gabe going to die soon?

  Thousands of terrifying thoughts swirled round inside my head. The chill in my stomach started to spread through my body, making me suddenly desperate for the bathroom.

  Gabe became really agitated. ‘Jenna, you can’t tell a single soul,’ he said, looking fiercely into my eyes. ‘This is really important. You’ve got to promise me not to say anything. Not to Sarah, to your Mum or any of your friends. Not anyone.’

  I was still too stunned to speak. Instead I just nodded.

  ‘Swear it. Go on.’ There was desperation in his voice. He grabbed my arm roughly and pointed up to the sky.

  ‘Swear on the lives of your family that you won’t tell.’

  Gabe’s eyes were wild.

  ‘By all that I hold dear, I absolutely promise not to say anything.’ I tried to make my voice sound convincing, but I was really scared. I was freaked out by what Gabe had told me, but I was also scared of hurting him. Maybe even losing him. Gabe was still pacing about manically in circles.

  ‘I really should be going. I have stuffed up big time here and I’m going to be late taking my meds.’

  I took hold of Gabe’s hand, ignoring that part of me that kept saying, Should you be doing that – or anything that’s close now that you know about h
im?

  I stamped on those fearful thoughts and squeezed his hand tighter.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  My whole body shut down under the weight of Gabe’s announcement, and I slept like a log that night. My brain sent me to sleep because it was too afraid to think.

  As soon as I opened my eyes it hit me again. My heart began to race. At first I told myself that Gabe was playing some kind of cruel practical joke on me. Or that perhaps I had misheard him. That he had only said he was afraid he might be HIV-positive. He said that he was born HIV-positive, but perhaps he’d grown out of it by now. Babies grow out of illnesses, don’t they? Maybe he was some kind of attention-seeking hypochondriac … I buried my head under the covers.

  I wasn’t even sure what being HIV-positive really meant. I knew it was a virus that was spread by unsafe sex or sharing needles. There were tablets that you could take to get rid of it, weren’t there? It didn’t mean you had to die a horrible death.

  I wished I’d listened more in sex education classes at school. Not that Coot’s Hill went in for full and frank discussions when it came to sex. Some of the parents and governors had objected to what little advice we were given.

  I usually switched off when the issue was raised on the news. It was confusing. Some people said it was an epidemic in Africa and other people, in the Western world, believed it was an illness that affected only gay people. A lot of people complained about the cost of the drugs. I’d watched a programme about people with AIDS in England, but they were mainly drug users. This sort of thing happened to other people, not to the son of Lord Netherby. Not to Gabe.

  I sat up in bed. How could it be affecting Gabe? He didn’t look sick. Then another thought struck me. I had kissed Gabe. Did that now mean I could be infected too? You caught AIDS through exchanging body fluids, didn’t you? I might have had a cut in my mouth or an ulcer.