Nearly five to seven. Dan looked down the street to see if Rose was on her way. Admittedly he’d turned up earlier than was necessary, but that was because he’d needed to get out of the house. He’d tried to spend the afternoon getting on with his homework, an assignment for computer studies, but his dad’s lawyer, Mr Charles Baker-Howard, had called round to discuss the upcoming trial, and the house was so tiny and the walls so paper-thin that Dan had been able to hear every word and had found it impossible to concentrate. His dad was due to appear at York Crown Court in a few weeks’ time. Dan calculated it would be the half-term holiday by then. That was bad news because it meant his mum would probably expect him to attend the hearing. Not wanting to listen to Baker-Howard’s upper-crust voice through the bedroom floor, Dan had put his headphones on and lain down on his bed, trying to shut out the thoughts that wouldn’t go away.
Apart from his dad’s trial, two things were bothering him. Scarlett and the motorcyclist. Dan hadn’t actually seen the motorcyclist in the street since that first morning leaving for school, but he was sure he’d glimpsed him from the second-floor window of the Chemistry lab on Friday, just before the end of the day. Parked in the shade of a leafy sycamore tree, Dan could have sworn it was the same guy and that he was watching the school. Dan had snapped him on his mobile phone, but the Harley-Davidson had been too far away to see the number plate. Leaving school fifteen minutes later, Dan had looked for him, but the guy had accelerated away just as Dan wheeled his bike onto the road. Now Dan was convinced he was being followed and the rider wasn’t just one of the neighbours. He was constantly on the lookout for anyone riding a Harley-Davidson, his ears primed for the distinctive roar of the engine.
The other thing that was bothering him was Scarlett. He’d done his best to avoid her since that encounter when he’d turned up late for his first class, but it wasn’t always easy. Like a bad penny, she had an annoying habit of popping up when he was least expecting it. And he wished she’d stop staring at him in front of Rose. He could tell that Rose wanted to ask him about Scarlett, but Dan had no desire to talk about her, to Rose of all people. And talking of Rose, where on earth was she?
~~~
Rose ran up North Marine Drive. She was going to arrive at the last minute and out of breath. She was surprised to see so many people outside the tiny cinema. She shouldered her way through the crowd, looking for Dan. She found him in his usual pose, hands thrust into his jeans pockets, hair flopping down into his eyes. He had that slightly worried look that he so often had when he was waiting for her to turn up. She really must try and be more punctual.
“Hi there,” she gasped, taking his hand and planting a kiss on his lips.
Relief flooded his face. “You made it then.”
“Only just. Couldn’t get away from Mum.”
Dan pulled a face, making her laugh. He feared her mother and she didn’t blame him.
“Come on,” he said, “we’d better get our tickets.” They joined the end of the queue.
“I didn’t see the last Bond film,” said Rose.
“You’re kidding!”
She shook her head. “No, sorry. So if there’s any important backstory you think I need to know then you’ll have to fill me in.” She waited for Dan to reply, but he was looking over her shoulder and frowning. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “Not them.”
Rose looked to see what the problem was. Three girls were approaching. At the centre of the group was Scarlett. Flanking her were her acolytes, Lisa and Maddy. With their short skirts and high heels, they were clearly dressed for a night on the town. Andrea would have gone ballistic if Rose had gone out looking like that.
Dan turned his back on the approaching group and kept his head down. The queue shuffled forwards. “Get a move on,” he muttered.
Scarlett and her friends drew level with Dan and Rose just as they were about to go inside.
“Hey,” called Scarlett. “You should have invited all of us. We think Daniel Craig’s cute.” Her friends giggled. Scarlett scanned Rose from head to toe, taking in her jeans and trainers. The look on her face said she thought Dan could do better.
Dan put an arm around Rose’s waist. “Sorry, Scarlett,” he said. “I’ve got nicer company.”
The queue moved forwards and Dan practically shoved Rose through the door. Rose glanced back over her shoulder to see Scarlett scowling at them. She looked away quickly. She didn’t know what had gone on in the past between Dan and Scarlett and wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but it bothered her. Had they gone out together? It seemed unlikely, but it was possible. They bought their tickets and a large bucket of popcorn to share and had to clamber over pairs of legs to the two free seats near the back of the auditorium. They sat down and started on the popcorn. Rose was biting her tongue, not sure whether to say something about Scarlett or not. But then the lights dimmed and the adverts started and the moment had passed. Just leave it, she told herself. What good could it do, raking up the past?
The film was terrific and Rose soon put Scarlett out of her mind. Dan kept a protective arm around her shoulder as if he wanted to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about. Three hours later they were leaving the cinema, their arms around each other and Rose had virtually forgotten about the encounter with Scarlett.
“Want to get some fish and chips?” asked Dan.
“Sure,” said Rose. The night was cool, but not so cold yet that you couldn’t walk along the sea-front with a bag of freshly battered haddock and chips to keep you warm. And it was only ten o’clock. When her mother had said not to be late back, surely she hadn’t meant that Rose should go home that early?
Down by the harbour the inky black sea lapped against the sea wall and the lighthouse flashed out its warning every few seconds. They bought takeaway fish and chips doused in generous sprinklings of salt and vinegar from one of the late-night chip shops on the sea-front and then walked along the promenade munching on the fat chips and the melt-in-the-mouth fish. Before she moved here Rose would never have imagined that fish and chips eaten with her fingers out of a paper parcel would become her favourite food of all time.
Dan talked non-stop about the film. He went on and on about the plot and the gadgets and the car chases. It occurred to Rose that he was talking about the film in an effort to prevent her asking him about Scarlett, but when they came to the amusement arcade that his father used to own Dan fell silent and a pained look crossed his face. The metal shutters at the front of the building were down and there was a large estate agent’s sign advertising the place FOR SALE. Spray-painted graffiti defaced the shutters and discarded fast food wrappers were accumulating in the corner. There was a smell of stale urine. It had the desolate air of an abandoned warehouse on a rundown industrial estate instead of an amusement arcade in a seaside town.
Next door, the old Futurist cinema wasn’t looking much better, although there was at least evidence that the place was being renovated. Ten-foot high builders’ boards surrounded the front of the building, protruding awkwardly onto the pavement so that pedestrians had to walk in the road. The boards were plastered with construction signs about health and safety and the compulsory wearing of hard hats. David had told Rose that back in its heyday the Futurist had been a two thousand-seater cinema, then it had been turned into a stage-theatre, but in recent years it had closed, having failed to attract large enough audiences to the tired shows of comedians long past their prime. After a prolonged campaign to save the building, the council had sold it to the highest bidder and there was speculation it was going to be turned into a nightclub, which wouldn’t be a bad thing in Rose’s opinion. It would be somewhere to go on a Saturday night.
Rose dumped her empty fish and chip wrapper in a bin and put her arms round Dan. “What are you thinking?” she asked. Dan was staring at the boarded-up amusement arcade, his mouth drawn into a tight line.
“I’m thinking that I used to hate working there, being stuck in that booth, handing out bags of
change and crappy prizes to people, but I hate seeing it like this even more. I never thought I’d say this but I think I actually miss it. I wish we didn’t have to sell it. No one’s going to want to buy it looking like this, especially not in the winter.”
As if to prove his point, a sudden wind gusted from across the North Sea. Dan shivered. Even the seagulls were staying out of the cold tonight.
“Come here, let me warm you up,” said Rose. She pulled Dan close and hugged him tight, enjoying the closeness of their bodies. Then he suddenly pulled away from her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s him.”
“Who?”
Dan didn’t answer but started sprinting down the pavement. Rose had no idea why. All their dates seemed to involve running after someone, or away from someone. She ran after him, catching up with him about twenty yards down the road. Dan had stopped and was standing with his fists clenched.
“What on earth did you do that for?” asked Rose, gasping for breath. She wasn’t as fit as Dan.
“Did you see that?” He pointed down the road.
“No, what?”
“The motorbike. A guy on a Harley-Davidson was watching us and then he rode off. I was trying to get his number plate.”
“Are you sure?” asked Rose. It sounded like an unlikely story to her. He had to be imagining it.
“Of course I’m sure,” snapped Dan. “I’ve seen him before. I told you.”
“When?”
“On the first day at school. When you were getting on the bus I asked if you’d seen a guy on a motorbike.”
“Oh, yeah.” She remembered now but there’d been so much new stuff to take in during her first week that she’d forgotten about it. She couldn’t understand why Dan was getting so worked up over it. It wasn’t like them to argue.
“I think I should go home,” said Rose, shivering from the cold. “It’s getting late.”
Dan grunted a reply which Rose took for “okay” and they walked back along Foreshore Road in silence.
~~~
The next day, Sunday, Rose tried to concentrate on her homework, an essay about Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, but she couldn’t get the exchange with Dan out of her head. She didn’t want them to argue about mysterious motorcyclists of all things. But Dan had obviously been worked up about it. He was probably worrying about nothing and she hoped that once his dad’s trial was out of the way he’d calm down, although if his dad went to prison then life could get really tough for him.
She turned back to The Merchant of Venice but the text was making her stomach muscles clench. She was re-reading the famous court room scene because the essay title that Mr Dickens had set was How far is Shylock justified in demanding his pound of flesh? The merchant Antonio had, foolishly in Rose’s opinion, signed a contract with the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, agreeing that Shylock could extract a pound of flesh from Antonio if Antonio failed to repay a loan of three thousand ducats. Inevitably Antonio had defaulted on the loan and now Shylock was demanding his pound of flesh in a court of law, even though Antonio’s friend, Bassanio, was offering to pay Shylock twice the original amount. But a contract was a contract and Venetian law was about as flexible as a stick of Scarborough rock. The wise and beautiful Portia, disguised as a doctor of the law, (Rose applauded Shakespeare’s feminist stance - if anyone was going to sort out this mess, it was the women) made a compelling speech about mercy dropping as the gentle rain from heaven, but it fell on deaf ears. Shylock’s demand for justice clearly went further than just a wish to stick to the letter of the contract. Shylock wanted revenge on the Christians who had wronged him.
Revenge. It was a chilling thought. Rose put the book down and closed her eyes. She saw the figure of Max looming over her with his gun as the boat lurched and then finally capsized into the freezing water of the North Sea. Now she knew why Shylock’s demands were making her so nauseous. Max would be exactly like Shylock. If he ever turned up he would demand his pound of flesh in return for the fact that she and Dan had destroyed his drugs business. Damn him!
She opened her eyes and leaned across to her laptop, typing the name Harley-Davidson into the Google search box. She still hoped Dan was worrying about nothing, but it wouldn’t hurt to know what a Harley-Davidson actually looked like. The company website featured stylised images of high performance motorbikes ridden by macho males. Rose made a mental note and returned to her essay.
The next day at school she handed in her essay which she’d struggled to finish late on Sunday night. It wasn’t her best work. She’d tangled herself up in arguments about mercy versus revenge. The problem, she knew, was that it wasn’t just Shylock and Max (if he were still alive) who wanted revenge. Writing the essay had made her ask herself whether she would be as merciful, in the face of her enemy, as Portia advocated, but the harsh truth was that if she ever encountered Max again, any mercy would have to be wrung out of her like blood from the proverbial stone.
Rose was tired and irritable after working so late the night before on an essay that she wasn’t happy with. And the process had brought to the surface her own less than charitable feelings towards the man who had left her emotionally and physically scarred. So she wasn’t in the best of moods when she ran into Scarlett in the cloakrooms at lunch time. Rose normally kept her distance from Scarlett, only too aware of the waves of antagonism that radiated from the other girl like gamma rays from a malfunctioning nuclear reactor. Rose had to resist the urge to turn on her heel and leave the room. To do so would have made her look weak and she sensed that Scarlett would exploit any perceived weakness with the ruthlessness of a tigress going in for the kill.
Scarlett was leaning towards the mirror, reapplying her mascara. The school allowed sixth form girls to wear discreet make-up but Scarlett took this liberty as far as she could push it, boldly wearing thick black lashes that Rose thought resembled squashed spiders. As Rose brushed her hair and retied it, Scarlett glowered at Rose’s reflection in the mirror. Rose snapped.
“What is your problem?” demanded Rose. “You glare at me all the time. I’ve overheard you calling me a bitch so don’t try to deny it. You’ve hated me from the moment I arrived at this school. What have I ever done to you?”
Scarlett’s eyes widened. She clearly hadn’t expected that outburst from the normally quiet Rose. Then Scarlett turned on her, jabbing her mascara wand towards Rose’s face. “I’ll tell you what the problem is. I don’t like girls who steal other girls’ boyfriends.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play all innocent with me! You came here on holiday and you should’ve gone back to London where you belong. But you had to stay and steal Dan from me, didn’t you?”
Rose bit back the urge to laugh out loud. What on earth was Scarlett talking about? “Dan wasn’t going out with anyone when I met him,” said Rose, although as she said it she wondered how she could have known that. She had just assumed that was the case, partly from the rather sweet, blustering way in which he’d asked her to go to the fair with him. He had seemed like a boy who wasn’t used to chatting up girls.
“How could you possibly know that?” asked Scarlett. “You’d only been here five sodding minutes.”
“Well he didn’t say he was.” Was Scarlett seriously suggesting that she and Dan had been an item? Rose found it hard to believe. Was Scarlett living in fantasy land or something? “Are you sure you’re not imagining all this?” she asked.
It was the wrong thing to have said. A look of such fury filled Scarlett’s face that for a moment Rose thought Scarlett was going to stab her in the face with the mascara wand. But then the door opened. A younger girl walked in and started plaiting her hair in front of the mirror. Scarlett put her face up close to Rose’s and said in a low voice, “Dan and I had something going. We’d have got back together if it wasn’t for you.”
“Back together? So you weren’t actually going out with him over the summer? Who finished it?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Well you’ve made it my business by bringing it up.”
The other girl finished plaiting her hair and glanced nervously in Scarlett and Rose’s direction. Please don’t go, thought Rose. If Scarlett was going to get really nasty, then she wanted a witness.
“This is not over,” hissed Scarlett, ramming the mascara wand back into its black tube. Then she turned on her heel and stormed out of the cloakroom, slamming the door behind her. Rose smiled weakly at the younger girl who almost ran from the room.
Rose leaned on the edge of the sink, all her bravado drained out of her. She felt hollow and defeated. She shouldn’t have taunted Scarlett like that. It had been a foolish thing to do. But at least she knew the truth now. And it explained why Dan was always so keen to avoid Scarlett. Badly shaken, she shoved her hairbrush back in her bag and went to her next class.
After that afternoon’s history lesson, Rose told Sophie about the encounter with Scarlett as they were walking back to the common room. She was secretly hoping Sophie would refute Scarlett’s claims that she and Dan had gone out together. But Sophie confirmed it was true.
“It didn’t last very long,” said Sophie, leaning close and talking in hushed tones. “She made a pass at him at a birthday party and after that they went out for a bit. He claims he was drunk at the time. I don’t think he was ever that keen on her and he finished with her before the end of the summer term. She got pretty stroppy about it, but then she went off to Greece for the whole of the summer and you turned up.”
Scarborough Ball (Scarborough Fair Book 2) Page 5