by T L Blake
Pulling her eyes from Andrew in absolute disgust at her own traitorous body, Robyn cautiously flicked a glance around the room and was amazed to find that everyone was focused on the Head, who was now giving a review of last week’s games fixtures against their rival schools. Her heart began to regain its normal rhythm, until she saw Kat.
Listening to the girl’s netball team prowess, as the Head rattled off yet another victory for the squad, Robyn would have expected Kat to be bathing somewhat in the glory. Instead, she stood in front of the pigeon holes glaring at Robyn in anger. At first, Robyn didn’t understand, but then she observed the hurt in Kat’s eyes.
Robyn stepped away from Andrew, knowing that Kat had misconstrued her physical reaction to him. Robyn was no more interested in Andrew than she was in any other man, but Kat clearly didn’t believe that. Her friend stared Robyn down with narrowed eyes and squared shoulders, one hand clenching and unclenching continually at her side.
“And finally, I must inform you that Darren Pascoe will be out for the week. Because exams are getting nearer, I ask that all who teach him please leave suitable work at the front desk to be sent home. I wouldn’t want to jeopardise his chances of achieving good grades, he is, after all, one of our best.”
The meeting finished with that last statement. Darren was one of Robyn’s and she had heard rumours that he had been taken home ill after P. E. last week. She would pull out some worksheets for him later.
Andrew left the room as soon as the meeting ended. His frame was stiff as he stepped around Robyn, but she saw him raise a single eyebrow in her direction in abject dismissal before he exited. The gesture angered her.
Kat stalked over, grabbed Robyn’s arm and dragged her out of the room, past the staircase and into a relatively quiet corridor.
“You like him.” Kat hissed in her ear.
“What the hell.” Robyn wasn’t used to being dragged around. “Kat, what do you think you’re doing?”
“You like him, I saw you fawning over him.”
“Oh. No. I . . . ,” She didn’t like Andrew and certainly wasn’t interested. If anything, she was a little scared of her own reaction to him as in order to function normally she needed to control her emotions. Andrew; he took that control away from her. She should explain all that to Kat. . . hang on, what the hell was she doing? “Wait a minute. What if do like him? Are you going to ban me from seeing him?”
Kat all but growled like her namesake. “I told you he was mine.”
Robyn’s rage became a palpable thing. Her control snapped. “Is that right? Do you have rights over all the single men in town, in Cornwall, on the bloody planet? Because if that’s the case, just tell me now.” Kat let go of Robyn and stepped back. Robyn’s rage was feral, it coursed through her body making her shake with every word. She was unable to back down. “You’ve had every fucking man we’ve met, every one. Don’t you dare say that I can’t have this one.”
Kat blinked. “Robyn, you said you weren’t interested.”
“That’s not the fucking point, is it? You don’t want me to be interested in anyone that you like and you want them all. Afraid of the competition, Blondie? From now on, you don’t tell me who or what I can have.”
Robyn knew she’d gone too far, way too far, but nothing was going to stop her, the button had been pushed. Turning before she could say anything else, she stormed away.
CHAPTER FIVE
How do you say you’re sorry when you truly believe that you were right? Yes, she’d gone too far, Robyn had do doubts of that, but the gist of her argument remained true. Kat had no right to tell her who she could or couldn’t be involved with. The fact that the argument had been about Andrew Obursen was irrelevant, it could have been about anybody. Robyn was in no position to entangle herself in a relationship. She had no time or energy for such entrapments and was certainly not going to risk the fallout when things would inevitably go wrong. But Kat didn’t know that.
With neither willing to back down, the next few days saw Kat and Robyn living entirely separate lives. If one was in the house, the other was out. At work they were silent and at home, positively frosty. Robyn didn’t like it. It was like they were surviving, not living. Kat had become such an integral part of her life over the months they had lived together that losing her was like losing a limb. But the stubborn side of her just wouldn’t allow her to back down.
Days became weeks.
Kat’s triathlon was fast approaching and with the break in the weather finally indicating that spring was taking hold, Kat was out of the house training at every opportunity. She ran through the woods, cycled the hills and swam in the sea, at some little cove with a shingle beach that she had found just after moving in, almost every day.
The lack of Kat’s presence in Robyn’s life was a dull ache in her chest. Robyn knew that the triathlon had been only a pipe dream until they had fallen out. Something was missing, but Robyn couldn’t see how she could plug the whole. Not after all this time.
The day school broke up for half term, Robyn was sitting at the dining table attempting to mark an end of unit test before heading to bed, when she heard the door open. Kat was returning from a long run. It was after ten. She’d been doing a lot of late night running recently, but tonight she seemed buoyant upon her return and instead of heading straight up the stairs in her usual avoidance, she danced into the kitchen and headed to the sink.
“We must be missing something in this town. There’s a secret night life we didn’t know about.” She poured herself a glass of water and drank it straight down. She was out of breath and sweaty from her run, but she had colour in her cheeks and a jubilance that Robyn hadn’t seen in days.
Turning slowly to face Kat as she stood by the sink pulling her hair out of its ponytail, Robyn said nothing, aware that one wrong move could crumble this tentative bridge between them.
“I swear. I have just seen half the town out there.” Kat leaned on the kitchen worktop while steadying her breathing and pointed to the front door.
This was the first conversation that they had had since the incident in the staffroom. “Doing what?” Robyn kept it short, allowing Kat to guide the discussion.
“Queuing up outside the abattoir of all places. That’s up that little side road on the hill.”
“Why would they be doing that?” Robyn’s tone was filled with her disbelief.
“I didn’t stop to ask. I have to keep up the pace. But, I came out of the tree line to cross the car park there and go down the hill the other side, it’s really steep and good practice, and that’s when I saw them, all lined up waiting to go in.”
Happy that Kat was talking to her, Robyn didn’t question Kat’s story. “Why does that mean that we’re missing out?”
“Well,” Kat leaned one hip against the cupboards, “It’s Friday night and this town can’t seriously be as boring as it appears. My guess is that it was a rave.” She looked earnest enough, but Robyn knew when she was being goaded.
“Who was there?”
“It looked like most of the town, the Head, that Jane Symonds, the guy from the fruit and veg shop and that kid who was sick a couple of weeks ago, Darren something.”
“Pascoe,” Robyn completed the name even as she rolled her eyes. The image of the Head Teacher at a rave was not a good one. Well into his fifties, David Rowe was a staunch professional who always dressed in impeccably well pressed suits with matching ties with a shining gold tie bar.
Kat began to laugh and the sound was music to Robyn’s ears.
This was the opportunity she needed. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Kat stood startled by the frank apology. “I’m sorry I lost my temper too. I . . . I really liked him . . . more than I should. He . . . well, he resisted every one of my persuasions and I couldn’t understand why. When he helped you, I was jealous.”
Robyn finally began to understand why Andrew, of all the men that had been in and out of Kat’s thoughts, had become so important. He
hadn’t fallen for her charms. In the six months she’d known her, Kat had never been turned down. She knew how to flirt, how to get just what she wanted, but Andrew had resisted. Robyn didn’t know why, but she was happy to hear that piece of information even as she could hear the sorrow in her friend’s words.
“I’m not interested in him. I just used him as an example. There’s nothing between Andrew and I, nor will there ever be. I’m sorry. I won’t stand in your way if you really like him.” Robyn stood to take Kat’s hand.
Kat smiled. “I think, after all the effort I’ve been putting in, that I should move on anyway.” Kat took Robyn in a hug before pulling back.
“He hasn’t fallen for your charms?”
Kat laughed but it wasn’t full and heady like normal. She was embarrassed. “He hasn’t fallen for anything and I’ve really outdone myself. In fact, I’ve made myself look like a complete bloody idiot.”
Robyn smiled. “He wouldn’t have thought you were an idiot.”
Kat groaned. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. I think I might have lost my mind a little.”
She wasn’t the only one who could lose her mind around Andrew Obursen.
“So, are we back to being friends again?” Robyn asked tentatively.
Kat put her arm around Robyn’s shoulder, emphasizing their height difference and pulled her into a hug. “Yeah, about that.”
Robyn stiffened.
“You recall that you owe me a favour for driving you everywhere for a week?”
“Yes.”
“Could you drive me to the train station tomorrow and pick me up on Wednesday? I don’t want to leave the car there if I can help it.”
Robyn’s knotted stomach relaxed. “Of course. That’s no problem at all.”
“You don’t mind?”
Robyn grinned. “I don’t mind.”
Robyn was awoken by clattering noises emanating from downstairs. Sauntering down the narrow staircase, she found Kat packing in haste. The woman was perhaps the most disorganised person on the planet.
“You didn’t think to do that yesterday?”
Kat looked up and grinned. “Nope, I like a challenge.”
Kat threw things into a large backpack and ran up the stairs as Robyn swept into the kitchen. She had time for a cup of tea.
Before long they were in the car on the journey to the station. It took nearly an hour to get there thanks to a combination of distance and the other traffic on the narrow winding roads. Half term and the unseasonably clear weather had brought with it a deluge of tourists. The slow cars clogging up the roads frustrated Robyn, but the constant bends and high banks made overtaking difficult if not impossible.
They got to the platform with about ten minutes to spare and Kat wandered off into the ticket office to buy her ticket, never one to be organized and purchase it online in advance to get the discount.
As Robyn waited patiently on the platform, she studied the other passengers as they stood looking up the lines awaiting the train’s arrival. Though not busy, there were a few passengers about to start their journey, whether going away or heading home. She imagined herself popping up to London for the weekend, seeing a show, going out, eating somewhere nice, shopping on Oxford Street and thought about running the idea past Kat.
Wondering about each of the individuals destinations, Robyn noticed a man taking a bit too much interest in her. He was in his late thirties wearing tatty jeans and a dark leather jacket that had deep, cracked creases along the sleeves. He was handsome in his own way, but he was unshaven and swarthy, and the way he looked at her gave her the chills. His eyes were dark and there was something hollow about them and something possessive about his stare. She broke the eye contact and looked down at her shoes.
When Kat reappeared with her ticket in hand, she picked up her stuffed pack and despite its size and weight, deftly slung it onto one shoulder.
“It’s an open return, but I’ll be on the 3 o’clock Wednesday afternoon if you’re still okay to pick me up? I can get a bus and taxi you know.”
“No it’s fine, I’ll be here. A bus and taxi will cost you more than next month’s rent.” Robyn smiled, knowing that the money never worried Kat. She wasn’t a great spender. In fact, she had very little stuff at all.
At that moment Kat’s phone rang, well, not a ring really; it shouted at her “Answer me! Answer me! Answer me!” over and over again, persistently increasing in volume until she answered it. This, of course, got them a lot of attention. The other passengers looked over at them until Kat pulled out her phone.
The phone was bright, even Robyn knew that, she also knew it was fuchsia pink although she couldn’t see it, and it was covered in ‘bling’ as Kat called it. The cover was encrusted in plastic jewels. Set between the pink ones were white stones, making up heart shapes against the fuchsia. The faceted stones glinted in the sunlight as Kat placed it to her ear.
“Hello . . . . Yeah . . . Can’t really talk now I’m waiting for a train. . . . Yes I’ll be up there soon . . . I know. I’ll see him on the start line. . . Nope, neither of you will see me again after the first bend. . . No, he has so not seen my arse. . . Well, he’ll have a good view of it if I’m in front won’t he? . . . Bye.” Most of the other passengers had lost interest but the swarthy man who had been staring at Robyn earlier, now studied Kat. She noticed of course, and scrutinised him rather obviously.
“He’s a bit of alright. A little old perhaps, but you can learn a lot from older guys.” She dug Robyn in the ribs with her elbow.
“A bit creepy if you ask me.” Robyn eyed him suspiciously.
“Oh no, I like them dark and mysterious, it makes it all the more interesting. Besides, I’ve told myself to move on.” And with that, Kat gave him a brilliant smile. He had to have been in no doubt that she was interested. “I think right now is just as good a time as any to start.”
“Kat, I haven’t even asked you where you’re staying.” Robyn knew very little about Kat’s plans actually.
“Oh, with an old friend, Danny. That was her then. She’s a runner.” She smiled as the train pulled in but Robyn still felt discomfort inside. Kat didn’t speak much about her old friends. She sporadically used Facebook but didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on relationships of the past. Kat liked to move around and move on. Robyn was surprised that she had made contact with this Danny at all.
The train pulled into the station as Kat leapt at Robyn, holding her in a tight bear hug. It was a show of friendship, a show of forgiveness and one that was over too swiftly as Kat ran for the train.
“Remember, 3 o’clock on Wednesday,” Kat shouted as she played the damsel in distress role a little too perfectly and the swarthy guy, seeing his opportunity, helped her drag her oversized pack onto the train. Kat flung back a grin.
“Come back with a medal.” Robyn shouted as she turned.
With one last wave, Kat was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
The brilliance of the morning sun flooded into the bedroom through the small, square, glass panes. Robyn awoke early to the welcoming rays and watched dust motes swirl before throwing her legs out of the bed. The wooden floor was warm beneath her feet, adding to her hopeful feeling about the day.
Rain had lashed down in the night but the day was supposed to remain dry.
Robyn walked to the window. Refreshed, the natural beauty outside was breath-taking and compelling. Her work was completed for the half term and with little else to occupy her time, Robyn decided to find the little cove that Kat was always talking about.
Packing a book, towel and snacks in a backpack, Robyn exited the small secluded cottage and took a moment to glance back at her picturesque home. It was fanciful in many ways. The walls had been constructed from a chaos of materials that up close didn’t match or blend, but like all great pieces of art, it was meant to be seen from afar, where the texture and colour of the brick, stone and pebble gave the walls life. Topped with thick thatch and covered in ivy, it was cho
colate box. The cottage lay nestled all alone, down a narrow lane, tucked into a great swathe of trees. Great conifers shot to the sky all around it, desperately reaching for the life giving sunlight after the months of cloud, but mixed in between the evergreens were the dark and barren branches of deciduous oak and beech and ash. The winter had rid the boughs of the golden hues of autumn and now they stood cold and proud, awaiting the soon to come spring to clothe them in bright greens.
Robyn sighed. It was a sight meant for those who could see the brilliant colours of nature but even in black and white it stole the breath.
Robyn found the start of the path easily as it ran behind the house, but as it continued it became more treacherous. The recent wet weather had saturated the ground and turned the soil underfoot into soft mud. The rotting detritus that carpeted the forest floor lay on top of this sodden, slippery loam. With each footstep, her trainers danced across this frictionless surface and repeatedly she had to find alternative routes around deep puddles of water or thickets of brambles. Robyn moved slowly, grasping low hanging branches and great, thick, ivy covered trunks to aid her balance.
As Robyn walked deeper into the forest, rays of bright sun poured through the thin canopy above. It not only brought light but warmth and life to the ground. The forest was vibrant underneath the sun’s glow, but when the sun ducked behind a thin cloud, the crooked and gnarled limbs took on a darker manifestation. Robyn walked in the shadows as the spindly, withered boughs above her head appeared to claw at the sky, as if reaching for the light, reaching for absolution. She saw the ivy, that had once coated the tree trunks with a rich hue, change and appear black in the shadow of the clouds above. It looked like the strands strangled the trees rather than caressed them as its mass of thin shoots wound around the bark. Even the lichens, pale in the light, were transformed in the shadows into a mottled vision of plague. They became the fungal growths of incurable disease before her eyes. When the sun was blocked, horror filled the scene, sending shivers through Robyn’s bones. Then the brilliance of the sun would re-emerge from behind the cotton cloud and the scene would lighten and brighten once again, morphing the branches into a source of wonderment.