by Noël Cades
"Let’s go and dance or something Becky," she said and steered Becky off to where the action was.
"I hate this music," Becky said. She was still stressing about Brett.
"They’ll get here eventually, you can hear it for miles. Come on." She bought some drinks and they made their way down the side of the dip. She nearly slipped down, the grass was so muddy and wet.
You really needed something to get this music, Alice thought. She had planned not to take anything, but the night would drag with Jules off with Leafy and Becky hooked up with Brett, if he ever arrived.
A skinny lad with shaved hair was dancing around near them, flailing limbs, uncoordinated, lost in his own zone. When a light flashed over his eyes she saw his pupils like pinpricks.
"You want some pills?" he asked.
He only had one kind and judging by his eyes it wasn’t what she wanted. She should have got Kate or Leafy to fix her up with something. Otherwise they’d just get ripped off.
They stayed and tried to dance for a while but Alice wasn’t feeling it. She didn’t really want to be here. It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now she wished she’d never agreed to come. She felt kind of bored and annoyed.
"Let’s go back and find Jules. Maybe we’ll find Brett if he’s made it."
Becky was grateful for a change of scenery and they scrambled up the bank together. It was so steep that you had to take a run at it. There were people slipping and falling, struggling to make it.
Jules, Leafy and the other crusties were still hanging around the van but Kate had vanished. They were all increasingly out of it, but not as bad as Mush who seemed to have passed out altogether.
Leafy fixed Jules and Becky up and half an hour or so later as the rush was coming on Becky saw Brett and the others. She went from being the happiest person in the world to the happiest person in the universe and ran up hugging them all.
"We got lost around Stroud," one of them said. "Going round in circles, we had to stop at a garage to get directions. Then there were police everywhere."
Mr Walker was there. Alice was blissfully happy to see him but she was blissfully happy to see everyone and she just wanted to dance. She was energised and the music was suddenly much better.
Jules got Leafy to sort out Brett, Grant and another player that Alice recognised from the barbecue. Mr Walker and another dark-haired guy declined and went for drinks.
"Chris sent Stewie to keep us in line," Grant was saying to Alice. "But we all know why he’s really here."
Alice was in love with the entire world, everything was beautiful. She hugged Grant then grabbed Becky who grabbed Brett and they headed back to the music leaving the others to follow. Alice could feel their joy. They were perfect.
It was a euphoric night. She lost all sense of time. They danced and danced for hours. Nothing mattered except the music and the night and all the amazing people around them. Alice was at one with the universe.
They were so high up on the hill, literally on top of the world. The lights of towns and villages were glittering like jewels.
Grant and one of the other guys had their arms around her and it was the best feeling in the world.
Then she found herself hugging Mr Walker. "I’m so glad you came. I was so hoping you’d be here."
Alice couldn’t even remember how he responded. She was aware he wasn’t happy like she was and she wanted him to be. "You are wonderful," she told him. She wrapped her arms around him and held onto him. She could feel every nerve in her body flowing into his. They were a single electric circuit. She could read his mind and it was more profound than anything she had known but she didn’t know what it meant.
She was dancing again with someone, the entire hill was a dance floor. Everyone was one. It was unity.
Much of the night was a blur because time seemed to be really odd. She had only been dancing for ten minutes but then someone said it was an hour ago. She remembered the music stopping and someone who’d tried to rob people being chased by a crowd, and then it all started up again.
Then it must have been in the early hours they were sitting on the edge of the hill, maybe she was coming down, the sky was lightening at the edge. Some guy was massaging her shoulders and it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Everyone was happy. Mr Walker wasn’t, he was nearby and he looked sad. Or was he angry?
"Why are you sad?" she asked him, trying to hug him again but he put her arms down from him. She picked up his hands and put them on her shoulders and for a moment he let them rest there and his very touch was like a golden light beaming through her flesh right into her soul, her skin felt orgasmic with joy, but then he took them off and walked away and she wasn’t desolate because everything was still perfect, it was the most beautiful dawn in the world.
They all watched the sun come up. They being everyone, she thought, not just Jules and Becky and Brett and the others, but everyone there. You could see for miles, the sun was blinding. They had been given the entire world. It was theirs.
* * *
She was lying on grass. Damp grass. It was quite warm in the sun but she had no idea where she was for a moment. Then she realised she was outside Mush’s van. Various other bodies were slumped down around her, and a few people were smoking perched on some plastic crates.
There was still music playing and people dancing but it all seemed thinner than she remembered.
Where was Becky? She could see Jules still passed out next to Leafy, if that heap of old army jacket was him.
God she was thirsty. And sore.
What time was it?
Everything was so flat. It was the most beautiful day, they were on top of the world, but it was a hollow world. An empty sky. He wasn’t there.
Where was he?
"Do you need something?" It was Mush, he was offering her a wrap of something.
"No, it’s ok." It wasn’t what she needed. What she needed was gone. She had blown it. There was only one person in the world who could make the world less awful and he was gone. She buried her head in her hands.
"This’ll help."
She looked at him. He was being kind but of all things there was school tomorrow, she just had to get through this. "Have you got any water?"
He handed her a bottle and she took a sip. She should be hungry, she thought, but she had no appetite. Jules wasn’t even stirring. Alice was worried about Becky. Perhaps she’d gone back with all the boys. And Mr Walker. Or maybe she was still here?
She was certain he wasn’t here. She felt now that she would always know, in her soul and in her skin, if he was near. She was wired to him now. Even if it was only one way, even if he had been sober and hadn’t felt it. Even if all the warmth and the glow were gone now.
Maybe she had made an idiot of herself. But that was too much to contemplate right now. She closed her eyes again and lay back on the grass, the sun burning red through her eyelids. She could have covered them with her arm but she didn’t. She wanted it to warm her brain.
* * *
Then they were back at Jules’, God knows how Kate was in any fit state to drive but she got them back in one piece. No one had known where Becky was. But then there was a message left for them saying that she had gone back with Brett.
Alice wondered how she was. She hoped being with Brett would have eased the comedown.
"I always hate the day after but it was so worth it," Jules said.
"We probably should eat something healthy." Alice actually felt nauseous, but she thought this was probably more to do with low blood sugar. She was anxious about Mr Walker. Had she made a fool of herself?
"I feel like pizza or chips," Jules said. "Or a burger. But there’s none of that here so it looks like toast."
They made a pile of toast with various jams and honey. The sugar did little to perk Alice up.
"You look miserable. Is that after effects or something else?" Jules asked.
"I think I blew it with Mr Walker."
"I doubt it. Grant said h
e was only there because of you."
"But I was all over him and he pushed me away. I think I embarrassed him," Alice said.
"He probably didn’t want to take advantage," Jules said.
Alice wasn’t sure what she should do any more. The ball seemed to be in his court, but left alone he might just find it easier to avoid her.
"You should confront him. Get him into the pavilion again and see if he’ll have his wicked way with you."
It was a tempting thought but Alice didn’t rate her chances of success.
10. Confrontation
He was blanking her again completely on Monday. Alice really didn’t think she could take it any more. It was distracting her from her studies.
Not really caring if she made him even angrier she hung around until the end of cricket practice and went to speak to him. He was by the nets.
"Can I speak with you?"
Mr Walker looked around. There was only one other boy still left, clearing up some equipment. "OK, if it will only take a minute". He looked resigned. "You can go," he called to the boy who made a quick exit.
"Why are you ignoring me again?"
"Alice, we’ve been through this. There’s nothing happening." He was trying to brush her off, busying himself with packing up cricket gear, not facing her.
"Why did you come to the rave then?"
"To keep an eye on the guys. Chris asked me to."
"They’re grown men, they don’t need babysitting. And why couldn’t Chris do it?"
"He had a function." He looked up at her. The expression on his face showed finality.
Alice summoned her courage and looked directly back at him. "I know that’s not why you came."
He said nothing for a few moments. She hoped he was wrestling with himself and that he would finally admit to it. But his better nature won out. "Alice, this isn’t right. You know why. I work at your school. I’m old enough to be your father."
"Hardly." Not unless he was some kind of child bridegroom, he was at least twenty years younger than Richard. "My father is in his fifties." Her stepfather, but that was beside the point. Her real father would have been not far off also.
"I’m not discussing this any further. Just focus on your exams and forget about it."
She tried one final tactic.
"If I hadn’t been at the same school, if I was just some girl you met in the Dog & Duck, would it be different? Would you be interested?"
He was silent and for a second she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.
Then he said, his voice lower, "Maybe."
It was enough. One thing Alice had learnt from working at the vet - with animals and also with their owners - was that you had to be patient. They wouldn’t trust you immediately, all at once. It took time, bit by bit, day by day. You built the trust. Just as she could wear Mr Walker down.
She was sure of it. She could have said something like "I know you want me" but it would have been too much. She needed him to think about it, let it linger in his mind.
So she left him, without saying anything more. She had won, and it might have seemed the slightest thing, but as an admission it was momentous. He did want her. He wanted her badly. At some point, his good resolutions would have to give way. She just had to be there when they did.
* * *
It didn’t help that they got into a row with Maddy Pullen that week. Maybe it was the stress of exams, or just the time of change in their lives, but old rivalries seemed more bitter than ever. Or maybe Maddy saw her high school crown slipping into irrelevance as the year reached its end and wanted a final showdown.
It started in a Biology revision lesson which included both Becky and Alice. The teacher went out of the room to fetch something and for some reason an argument broke out. Afterwards Alice couldn’t even remember what started it.
"You’re such sad slags, hanging around with cricketers. Everyone knows what a groupie you are, Becky, you’re giving yourself the worst reputation," Maddy said.
Alice couldn’t sit back and leave Becky undefended. "At least she has a reputation, your name’s just dirt everywhere."
Things devolved into a vicious slanging match ending with Becky and one of Maddy’s friends having to physically pull the two of them apart.
The Biology teacher arrived back and sent both of them off to Mrs Paddington with a note.
Alice approached the Senior Mistress’s door with dread in the pit of her stomach. She envied Maddy the fact that the she didn’t even seem to care. She was just furious at Alice.
"Look what you’ve got us into now."
"You started it," Alice said. "You had no right slagging off Becky."
"She’s just a stupid little slag."
Alice ignored her this time - if only she had managed to do so the first time - and they went in together after knocking.
"Why are you here, girls?" Mrs Paddington asked.
Alice handed her the note.
"Fighting? In the Upper Sixth, just weeks away from your exams? Surely one would hope for better behaviour than this. No, there’s no excuse Madeleine, I don’t care who started it or whether you’re stressed over exams or not. It’s unacceptable."
Not for nothing was the Senior Mistress called the Padlock. She gave them both a detention for the following afternoon which was Friday. This was pretty bitter as everyone liked to leave as early as possible at the end of the week.
"Better still you can report to Miss Symons for clean-up. Getting outdoors and some exercise will do both of you good."
Alice thought this was far worse. Regular detention just meant sitting back in a classroom and revising. With exams nigh, no one would make them waste their time writing lines.
Clean-up, which was a weekly sweep of the school grounds by those being disciplined for various offences, meant that everyone would see them. It was humiliating. Which was probably the point. At least Maddy, with more social prestige to lose, would hate it even more than Alice did.
* * *
Jules laughed her head off when she found out. "I’ll bring a camera, this must be the last chance I’ll get to photograph you in public disgrace. Pity it’s too late for the yearbook."
"And the first actually, as it happens," Alice said. She had never been condemned to clean-up before. It was nearly always only juniors that got roped into it, making it all the more humiliating for them. Which was probably Mrs Paddington’s aim.
Becky felt guilty and upset that Alice had ended up getting punished for her sake but Alice assured her it wasn’t her fault. "I went off at her, I didn’t need to."
"I’m glad you did," Jules said. "I’ve been wanting to slap her for over a year."
"How do you think she knew about Brett?" Becky asked. "I haven’t seen her out anywhere."
"No idea. Maybe her sister saw us, she works in the Dog & Duck," Jules said.
"She wasn’t there that night, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see her."
"Maybe one of the other bar staff told her. If not that, then maybe someone saw us all at Selsley. I don’t know."
Alice hoped it was the latter. If not, it meant Maddy might also have heard about her kissing Mr Walker. Maddy Pullen was absolutely the last person on earth she wanted to know about something like that.
Maddy’s source would have to remain a mystery for now. Becky wasn’t doing anything wrong dating Brett, and she was known as a sweet girl generally, so Alice wasn’t too worried on her behalf. Getting involved with a staff member though was quite a different story.
It gave her more sympathy for Mr Walker’s reluctance, not that she planned to let it go. She liked him too much for that and she was pretty sure, after confronting him this week, that he felt the same attraction.
"You seeing Leafy this weekend?" Becky asked Jules. Gloucestershire were playing away in Yorkshire so Becky wasn’t seeing Brett. Which worked out well as she and Alice planned to spend the weekend revising for their Biology exam next week.
"Probably."
"What do you guys actually do? I mean is he always out of it?"
"No." Jules sounded defensive. "We just hang out and stuff. We talk about things."
"You’re not planning to get dreads are you?"
"Maybe, when school’s over. My hair’s such a nightmare."
"I don’t see why you need them. Kate doesn’t have them," Becky said. This was beside the point since Kate’s school wouldn’t have allowed them either. "And I don’t get how you can wash your hair if it’s all matted."
"You use special shampoo. Or baking soda and vinegar."
"That’s why they smell," Becky said.
Alice tried to change the subject as this couldn’t end well. Privately she agreed with Becky but she didn’t want to take sides.
"We should do something to celebrate next weekend," she said. "Surviving the first week of exams. I haven’t got any the following week."
"I hate how they’re all spread out and then clumped. It’s like they don’t give any consideration to what would make best sense in terms of revision. Why put both Economics ones in the same week?" Jules said.
"Still, once you’ve done Economics it’s all over," Becky said.
It was amazing to think this was now only four weeks away. The end of school forever. Alice still got a sick feeling in her stomach when she thought about the approaching exams. The days were flying by far too fast.
"So what about you and Mr Walker?" Becky asked. Alice had told them about her conversation with him on Monday. They were all convinced something would happen eventually.
"Nothing more yet."
"You know he’s divorced?" Becky said. Alice hadn’t known. "I don’t think Brett knows many details, just that he was married and they split up a couple of years ago. Maybe that’s why he’s so careful."
Alice hadn’t known and it unsettled her. She was immediately obsessed with knowing what his ex-wife was like.
"She’s his ex. So he obviously didn’t want to be with her, or he would be, wouldn’t he? Plus she’s millions of miles away in Australia," Jules said.