Sarah laughs and covers her face again. ‘A large one, please.’
They stand side by side in the drinks queue, their upper arms touching conspicuously.
‘Maybe we could go out for a drink or something, before you go back to Dorset?’ John fixes his eyes on the space ahead, his hands clasped politely behind his back. He turns to her for an answer.
The space behind her ribcage ripples nervously. ‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Great,’ he says, pulling at a lock of his hair, trying to hide his smile. ‘Yeah. That’s great.’
Kate joins them in the queue, swiping her brow, her shiny cheeks vibrant and flushed.
‘Oh, what a laugh! You’ve got to come and dance in a minute, Sar. There’s a bunch of lads from the boys’ school down on the dance floor and they’re cracking me up! D’you remember Tom Brant?’
Sarah shakes her head.
‘Used to be really tall and skinny? Blondish hair. Oh, well. Get me a vodka and lime while you’re up there, will you? I’ll be over by the 1986 sign – I’ve gotta sit down for a minute!’ She pinches the front of her T-shirt and wafts it vigorously as she zigzags towards the seats at the side of the room.
John orders the drinks and they carry them over towards Kate, who’s sitting on a plastic seat, running a brush through her hair.
‘You’re a lifesaver,’ she says to John with a big grin. ‘Sar, I’ve asked the DJ to put on some of our old favourites. Keep an ear out for them – you’ll know which ones they are!’
There are only two seats, and John indicates to Sarah to take the other one. Just as she moves towards the seat, Jo Allen taps her on the shoulder.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ she says. There’s a gaping hole above and below her eyebrow where it looks as if she’s let a recent piercing close up. She’s swaying slightly, her eyes subdued by drink.
Bev Greene stands a little way behind Jo, uncomfortably squeezing and releasing an empty plastic cup.
‘Sarah Ribbons,’ says Sarah, tapping her collarbone. ‘We were in the same year.’
‘Oh, yeah. I remember. ’Spect you was a brainbox? We didn’t do any classes together, did we?’
‘Um, Maths, I think. In the second year?’
Jo looks at Bev.
Bev nods. ‘Yeah, I remember. You used to sit behind us.’
‘Who’d you used to hang about with, then?’ asks Jo, warming up.
Sarah takes a sip of wine. ‘Mostly Kate Robson and Tina Smythe.’ She turns to look at Kate, but John is blocking the view. He steps aside. ‘Remember Kate?’
Jo’s expression turns to one of repugnance.
Kate stands, dropping her shoulders and pushing out her chest. She starts to leave, but Jo reaches out and grabs at her T-shirt, causing her to spin round and snatch it away. Kate’s rage pushes into the room, and she stumbles backwards to increase the space between her and Jo.
‘Alright, Kate?’ says Jo with a laughing sneer.
Kate turns to leave again.
‘How’s your dad?’ Jo shouts over the music.
Kate halts, turning on her heel to stride back into the group. ‘What did you say?’ She pushes her face at Jo’s.
Sarah steps back, colliding with John. He steadies her, resting his hand on her upper arm. She wants to vomit.
‘I said, how’s Jase? How’s. Your. Dad?’
‘How dare you – ?’ screams Kate, lashing out and catching Bev with the side of her hand.
‘Hey!’ shouts Bev moving in behind Jo.
John steps in and guides Kate backwards, as Sarah watches on in horror.
Jo knocks back her drink and hands the empty tumbler to Bev. Her upper body is thrust forward now, as she yells in Kate’s face. ‘Hey! I bet they miss ’im down the youth club! Tell you what, bet it’s not the same down there since he left?’
Kate lunges at her, screaming, flailing her arms as John leads her away.
‘They got a youth club where you moved to?’ Jo shouts after her. ‘Hope not, for everyone’s sake!’
Kate ploughs into the dense crowd, raging and sobbing, heading out towards the corridor and the toilets beyond. Jo snatches the empty cup from Bev’s hand and throws it over her shoulder where it falls to the ground and rolls beneath the paper-covered tables at the side of the gym. They march off in the opposite direction, shoving their way through the group and out through the wide entrance at the front of the gym. Sarah stands beside John, gripping her plastic cup with frozen fingers, immobilised.
‘Who was that?’ asks John.
Sarah shakes her head, feeling the thump of music pounding inside her chest. ‘Jo Allen,’ she replies.
John’s expression shifts as something troubled passes across his eyes. ‘Jo Allen?’
She can barely hear her own voice over the noise. ‘Do you know her?’ Sarah watches for the slight changes in John’s face: the deepening crease between his eyebrows, the minute parting of his upper and lower lip, the flare of his nostrils, in, out, in, out.
‘No,’ he says, finally. ‘No.’
The opening bars of ‘Sunday Girl’ play out over the speakers and Tina weaves across the room, waving her hands in the air. ‘Knew I’d find you here,’ she smiles, her eyes half-closed with drink. She throws her arms around Sarah’s neck, falling on to her for support. ‘It’s your track!’ She grabs Sarah’s hand and tugs her.
John pulls up a seat and waves her away with a resigned smile. ‘Go!’ he urges her. ‘I’ll be right here.’
Tina scurries ahead, jumping up and down, beckoning her on to the dance floor. Sarah mouths an apology to John, and pushes through the throng to join Tina at the dance area below the DJ desk.
‘Where’s Kate?’ Tina shouts above the music.
Sarah pretends not to hear, but scans the room as she dances, trying to catch a glimpse of Kate or Jo. She feels every nerve-ending shake beneath her skin.
Tina pulls a puzzled face as she dances, pulling Sarah closer. ‘Kate was the one who asked for this track – ’cos she knew it was your favourite. But then I saw her with Simon Dobbs an hour ago, so who knows?’
‘I don’t think she’s with Simon Dobbs,’ Sarah shouts back.
‘Mmm. I saw them dancing together earlier, and he had his hand on her bum. She didn’t seem to mind much, so I thought I’d better leave ’em to it. Same old Kate.’
‘But I saw her a few minutes ago. She wasn’t with him then.’
‘Whatever.’ Tina rotates her neck. It looks like a yoga warm-up.
Sarah leans closer so Tina can hear. ‘But she’s married, isn’t she? Kate? I thought Kate was happily married.’
‘Don’t know about the happily bit. You know what Kate’s like. Grass is always greener. You know she’s had a few flings over the years, but she always ends up sticking with Nigel. Dunno why he puts up with it. He’s a nice enough bloke.’ She makes little maraca motions with her fists as she moves her feet in tiny pixie steps.
‘Trouble is,’ Tina continues, putting her face close to Sarah’s, ‘she’s never satisfied with her lot. Always wants what everyone else has got. Take me. My husband left me a few months back, with two kids to bring up alone, and she tells me I’m the lucky one, and what wouldn’t she give to be in my shoes? It’s bloody amazing, really. Here I am, nearly having a nervous bloody breakdown, and Kate thinks she’s the unlucky one.’
Sarah shakes her head. ‘Do you still see a lot of each other?’
Tina nods. ‘We do now she’s back in the area. But you know she moved away for a while, after all the trouble. With her dad.’
A cold flush sweeps through Sarah’s skin. ‘What trouble?’ she whispers into the noise.
‘Uh?’ says Tina, frowning blindly. ‘You heard what happened, didn’t you?’
Sarah shakes her head, and guides Tina away from the speakers to prevent her from knocking them over.
‘I can’t believe your mate John didn’t tell you. Everyone knew about it.’
Sarah looks over to where John is si
tting. He’s completely obscured by the crush of bodies between them.
Tina blinks. ‘It must’ve been, what, a couple of years after we left school?’ She tilts her head as if she’s trying to locate the exact date. ‘Anyway, you remember Jo Allen? How she had that baby when she was still at school?’
Sarah stops dancing, as she stands and stares at Tina, listening intently, knowing what will come next.
‘Well, when the baby was two or three, Jo’s mum marches her down the police station and she makes a statement, saying the baby’s his. Jason’s. Jo reckoned they’d been going out together in secret since she was thirteen, and that it was his baby. That’s what she said: “going out together”, like she was totally in love with him or something.’
‘No,’ Sarah whispers.
‘What?’
Sarah recalls Jo’s pallid skin as she passed the grease-smeared window of Marconi’s all those years ago. ‘You don’t “go out with” a thirteen-year-old,’ she says.
Tina shrugs. ‘So, to cut a long story short, he got arrested, but he said Jo was making the whole thing up. That she just had a crush on him, and he couldn’t help that, could he? The police couldn’t prove anything, could they? Not back then they couldn’t. Patty nearly went completely doolally over the whole thing.’
Sarah runs her thumbnail across her lower teeth, tracing back in time. ‘Kate’s mum?’
Tina nods knowingly. ‘Explains why she was on those happy pills, if you ask me.’ She’s still bopping around, wriggling her bony shoulders up and down to ‘Chain Reaction’. Sarah’s chest is pressing in so hard, it feels as if it might crack in two at any moment.
Tina leans in again, so close that Sarah can feel the heat from her clammy skin. Her breath smells of pear drops. ‘When the police got involved, they found out about loads of other girls, mostly from down the youth club. Turns out he’d been doing it for years.’
Sarah can barely form the words.
‘So what happened to him?’ She’s standing in front of Tina, swaying lightly from side to side, her breath coming in small, hot stabs.
‘Well, I heard he had a friend in the police, and they managed to convince the girls he wouldn’t get done ’cos there wasn’t enough evidence or witnesses. So when it came down to it they all backed out.’ She runs her fingers through her thin mousey hair and waves them above her head. Just like in the Diana Ross video.
‘What about Kate? How did she take it?’
Tina looks around conspicuously, checking to make sure Kate isn’t within earshot. ‘She wouldn’t believe it; said they were all making it up. She said Jo Allen was such a slapper it could’ve been anyone’s. She said her dad wouldn’t touch Jo Allen with a bargepole. Anyway, Kate and her folks had to move away because of the scandal.’
‘What, and Patty stayed with him?’
‘Yup.’
The music’s deafeningly loud now, and a small drunk man keeps bumping into Sarah from behind, brushing his sweaty wrist against hers. She moves away, pulling Tina towards her.
‘What do you think, Tina?’
Tina carries on dancing, spinning in wide circles, swaying her head from side to side.
‘Tina!’ Sarah shouts into the music. ‘Teen! Do you believe he did it?’
Tina stops dancing and clasps Sarah’s forearms to stop herself from stumbling. Dark shadows circle beneath her eyes. ‘I know he did it, Sar. I’ve known since I was fourteen.’ Her careworn expression glazes over and she closes her eyes and sways to the beat of the music.
The DJ desk is thumping, its traffic lights flashing out over dancing bodies and swirls of hair. Images of Jason crowd in, uninvited. There’s Tina again, sitting in the bright glow of the bonfire in Kate’s back garden, giggling and blushing at Jason’s every remark. There’s Jason, buttoning up the flies of his jeans, pleasure dancing at the edges of his mouth. There’s the fresh greasy smear of chicken korma on the polished glass of Patty’s new coffee table, and the gentle indentations of fifteen-year-old fingers on a can of cider. The smell of filth is in Sarah’s nostrils. ‘Club Tropicana’ plays out, and a group of women crowds on to the dance floor, shrieking and whooping in chorus. Sarah takes flight through the stampede, stumbling and breathless as she races out of the gym hall, past the chattering queue at the girls’ toilets, deep into the darkened corners at the far end of the corridor, away from Tina and Kate and talk of Jason. She stands in the shadows, her back pressed against the cool metal plate of the boiler room door, fighting back the tears. Her breaths come short and fast, and she wrestles the scarf from around her neck to let the air through, using it to blot away the perspiration which now covers her brow. She squeezes her eyes shut and presses back against the door, feeling for the handle as the red scarf floats to the polished floor like a streamer.
It’s Signing Out Day at school, and her eyes are closed against the sunlight. She feels as though she’s slipping away, losing consciousness as she lies here. Kate and Tina flop out on the grass beside her and everything goes quiet for a while, as if someone has muted all sound. She’s aware of the sun singeing her skin and pinning her limbs down with liquid heat. It’s all over: no more exams, no more school.
‘Shit!’ Kate suddenly cries out, leaping to her feet.
They sit up, shielding their eyes with the flat of their hands. Across the field, by the open doors to the gym, the photographer is fiddling with his camera tripod, as Mrs Whiff and Mrs Jensen move the fifth year girls into position on the edge of the playing field.
‘They’re all over there! Hurry up, or we won’t get in the picture,’ Kate says, and she grabs her bags and sprints across the field. Tina follows close at heel, while Sarah rises to her feet, the wooziness folding in over her.
She starts to run towards the group, and has just reached the shade of the building when she feels the first stabbing pain slice through her abdomen. It’s acute, and she presses her fingernails into the twisted cord of her PE bag as she fights it, determined not to double over in front of the whole year group. The teachers have their backs to her, and she slips in through the wide doors to the gym and out into the corridor towards the toilets. The pain is intensifying now, crushing and dragging all at once, and as she turns the corner to enter the loos, the blood comes in a excruciating rush.
The door to the toilets is closed; bolted shut. There’s a strip of yellow ribbon barring entry: OUT OF ORDER.
Sarah gasps, her awareness wavering, as cold perspiration covers her body like a film. She clutches her PE bag to her chest as she staggers along the corridor, her knees clamped together to stem the flow. She’s sobbing now, desperate not to be found this way, and when she reaches the door to the boiler room it gives against her weight and she steps on to the splintered wooden stairs into the humid, stone darkness of the basement below.
Down here, nothing has changed. The drip-dripping, churning guts of the boiler continue to roar, as if they’ve never paused since 1986. Sarah’s fingers find the switch on the way down, and the overhead strip light flickers and buzzes above her head.
She reaches the bottom steps, breathing in the damp oiliness of the basement room. Nobody knows she’s here; she’s completely alone, as all those old pupils dance and drink in the gym overhead. The distant thump of music fades into nothing as she draws closer to the crash and churn of the boiler tank. Sarah presses her back into the cool brick wall and squeezes her eyes shut. She grasps at the fractured memories that flood and rush from every dark corner.
She glances towards the steep wooden steps which lead to the outside world, and slides down the wall, pressing the palms of her hands against the cement floor. The pain of the place jolts through her fingertips. She draws herself into that same position, and she’s there again, back in the boiler room where it all ended.
The mechanical rhythm of the water system drowns out her low whimpers, and she lies, small and foetus-like, curled up beside the large main drum of the boiler room, her PE kit hugged tight to her chest like a pillow. There ar
e no lights, but she grows gradually accustomed to the darkness and her eyes can now make out small details around the cavernous basement. It’s summer, and the humidity is stifling but the concrete floor feels cool against her waxy face, the sharp sensation of grit on her skin strangely soothing. A metal bucket stands several feet away, and between the groaning strains of the boiler she can just make out the small regular sound of water drops falling from the overhead pipe with a shallow plop. Her abdomen is gripped by a corseting spasm of pain, the contractions intensifying with each wave. She grabs at her school skirt, hitching it up and away from the blood now pooling on the grey floor beside her thighs. She slips in and out of consciousness. The machinery thumps and hisses away, heating the water pipes for the hundreds of girls walking about in the real world overhead. Thump-thump-thump-shhhhhhh. Pain crashes through her like a rolling winter wave, and her solitary grief pours out into the darkness.
The flickering buzz of the overhead light rouses Sarah. Pulling herself upright, she sits against the wall of the basement, straining to put together the remaining fragments of Signing Out Day. She sees herself dousing her PE shirt in the water bucket, sweeping it down the lengths of her legs to wash away the blood. Faintly, she recalls standing at the bottom step, gripping the wooden railing; the wood was rough under her fingertips, unlike the smooth polished banister of her own staircase at home. It must have been late by the time she left, because the school was quiet. But she could tell that the caretaker was around, because he’d propped the fire door open at the end of the corridor; the evening light flooded across the wooden floor, orange and warm. How long had she been down in the basement? She made her way across the hushed grounds, the only sounds coming from the songbirds and the soft whirr of teatime traffic beyond the school walls. But the journey home: there’s nothing there at all. As she crept in through the front door and eased it shut, Dad had called from his study, his voice light and playful. ‘Cup of tea, you say? I’d love one!’ She’d dropped her PE bag in the hallway and filled the kettle, pressing into the sink to stop herself from falling. ‘I’m just running a bath,’ she called back. That’s all; nothing more.
Hurry Up and Wait Page 26