The Islanders

by FJ Campbell

  ‘I said fine. Just drop it, OK? You’re only going on about it because you’re pissed off I didn’t tell you about my mum and dad before.’

  Livvy looked hurt. ‘That’s not true. But while we’re on the subject, you know, you don’t talk to me about anything. You don’t tell me anything important. I thought we were supposed to be friends.’

  Beth curled up on her bed with her back to Livvy. ‘I’m not used to having friends.’

  ‘Well, get used to it then.’

  *

  The person with whom she could most relax was Edward. He matched her mood and preferred to keep away from the crowd. They played chess or went for walks down by the river. He never asked her about her parents and wasn’t bothered by their glamour or fame, probably since his parents were also glamorous and famous. He did tell Beth that his mother had already known who she was. She was an artist, he explained, and had been part of that same in-crowd at the same time. When she first met Beth, she had seen the resemblance to her mother and had wondered whether Beth was the missing baby. She hadn’t been nosy enough to ask, and hadn’t told Edward, preferring to wait until Beth elected to tell them herself. Beth held everyone else at arm’s length, including Milo.

  *

  Milo watched them together and didn’t like to intrude, hoping that Edward might be able to bring more comfort to Beth than he ever could. He never thought of them as a couple, because they were too silent and cheerless with each other. It was more likely that Edward saw Beth as a substitute for his sister. Milo thought that Beth might be able to do him some good, too.

  Every so often, he managed to persuade them to join the group, even if it was just for a quick drink on a Saturday night at the sixth-form common-room bar, or to come and watch a school cricket match. He was trying to hold it all together as best he could, but he had a feeling that Edward wasn’t spending much time revising and Beth was merely going through the motions. He spoke to Anne and James often on the phone, but could only reassure them that Beth wasn’t going off the rails.

  Once, on the phone to Anne, he read some graffiti on the phone-box wall – Delilah is a bitch. He’d heard a group of younger girls talking about ‘Delilah’ but didn’t know anyone who had that name in the school. He asked Alice if she knew who Delilah was.

  She looked sheepish. ‘You really don’t know?’

  Milo shook his head.

  ‘It’s Beth. Everyone in the lower years hates her—’

  ‘Yes, I know, because of Zack. Which is really unfair, by the way. But I don’t get it – why Delilah?’

  Alice laughed, half amused and half ashamed. ‘It’s not all because of Zack. Look, who did Delilah get her claws into?’

  ‘Samson.’ Milo was still puzzled.

  ‘You still don’t get it? That’s very sweet, how modest you are. Come on, think – how did Delilah steal Samson’s strength?’

  Milo caught up. He blushed. He was Samson, with his shaved head. ‘That’s so stupid. I got them to shave my head in hospital when they stitched me up. It was nothing to do with Beth.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘You know what they say: why let truth get in the way of a good story?’

  *

  A few days before A Levels and GCSEs began, Milo heard his name spoken by a group of people gathered around the main school noticeboard. He stopped, then walked closer, wondering what was happening and why he was involved.

  ‘Congrats, West.’

  ‘Hey, Milo, nice one.’

  Two younger girls giggled and blushed, then scurried away, nudging each other.

  Of course – it must be the announcements for next year’s prefects, sports captains and such. The committee dinner had been last night, Edward had told him. They’d made the final selection based on the school election – each pupil had a vote. Milo must have been re-elected captain of rugby.

  As he approached the noticeboard, more and more people congratulated him, slapping him on the back, shaking his hand, making a big fuss about it, which was strange, because no one who was 1st XV captain in the lower sixth would ever be a surprise for the position in the upper sixth. He checked the list, starting at the bottom. There was his name, with the other team captains. His eyes travelled up the list, heads and deputy heads of houses, and finally, almost at the top, he found his name again. His eyes moved to the left and he had to double-check because he’d been made head boy. He stood there staring at the notice, not believing it. He thought that perhaps it was a joke and that someone would come along soon to take down the notice and put up the real one.

  At last it sunk in. It was another few minutes before he could rouse himself to check the list again for his friends’ names. Susanna, Henry and Livvy were prefects, but Beth’s name was not on the list. Milo knew she wouldn’t be bothered about it, but he was bothered for her. He ran his hand through his short hair, growing back at last and covering his scar, annoyed about the pettiness of everyone at the school. To the majority of the girls, especially below sixth-form level, Beth was the reason why their hero and heart-throb Zack had been kicked out. Never mind how many times Milo explained, with steadfast loyalty towards her, that it was Mr Markham who had insisted, Beth had never said anything against Zack, and he wasn’t expelled anyway, his mum had taken him out of the school; it seemed that the truth would never be more important than the story they wanted to believe.

  Milo saw Edward walking out of the library and asked him if he had time for a game of chess.

  ‘Not today, I’ve got a German oral practice session. But congratulations, for head boy I mean. I’m so glad it’s you.’

  ‘What happened with Beth? Wasn’t she even considered for anything?’

  Edward looked annoyed. ‘I argued her case at the committee dinner, but they can’t consider anyone who hasn’t got the votes from the rest of the school. It’s a flawed system. Still, I don’t suppose Beth is that bothered, is she? As she hates the limelight so much. See you, and well done again. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Edward’s A Levels – English, history, politics and German – were due to start the following week and he was totally unprepared, having done little or nothing since he got back from Berlin. He had a place at Cambridge to read law, conditional on at least three As, but he was a long way past caring about all that any more. Why, again, had it been so important to him? What did it matter?

  The one thing he found he could really focus on was Beth. Zack was gone – the restraining order, the expulsion; he’d never be able to harm her or Bonnie again. What a blessed relief to be rid of that lowlife. Now Edward had a chance to keep the girls safe and that was all that mattered. Eventually, Beth would forget Zack and might – just might – come to see that it was Edward whom she really loved. He bought her presents and wrote her letters. He kept a diary to record his feelings about her. Late into the nights, he wrote stories about their future life together, imagining them somewhere far away from the people who wanted to do them harm and the places that meant nothing to them. Beth Markham, he wrote in these stories. Edward and Beth Markham. B. M.

  He dreamt that she loved him and that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, disturbing dreams that sometimes morphed into violence. After he’d been woken up by a nightmare, he stayed awake all night, writing down what he had dreamt, hoping that if it were on the page, he could make it leave his head.

  He spoke to Bonnie often, on the phone and also long, rambling conversations in his head. He spoke to her when he was alone, which was almost all the time, telling her about the mundane details of his day. In his head, Bonnie was riding, reading, recovering, a little happier every day. He couldn’t remember what she’d really said and what he’d made up. He didn’t care. It was all Bonnie anyway.

  The Island became an alien place to him. He rushed from building to building, afraid to be outdoors for too long, sticking to the same routes, seeing threats in the faces of all the pupils and the teachers. He disliked the dining hall, but if
Beth or Milo were there he would sit with them and if not, he would find a place alone, at a table near a wall, with his back to the room.

  *

  On the evening before his exams began, his mother called to wish him luck. She was looking forward to him being home for a while, when they were over, before he went up to university. They spoke about his eighteenth birthday, which was a week after the end of term, and she asked him if he’d like to have a party. She and his father would go with Bonnie to Scotland, so he could use the house without them ‘cramping his style’, and he could travel up to Edinburgh on the train the following day to meet them. At first he thought it was a terrible idea, but he remembered how he and Beth had enjoyed their weekend at his place, before everything started to go wrong, before he went to Berlin, before she and Zack got together. He thought, if she came, and Milo, and it was a fun party, with good music and lots of friends, that Beth would be sure to relax with him and let herself be persuaded that they were right together. So he said yes, and his mother sounded relieved.

  ‘Try not to let things get on top of you, darling. You sound so tired.’

  He and the other upper-sixth-formers, including Billy, Jake and Finn, started their exams, and Edward ransacked his brain, clutching at ideas he thought he’d read and learned a lifetime ago. His pen moved across the paper, line after line, words forming and reforming in his head and melting onto the pages in front of him.

  And so it went on, day after day, the same routine, and he smiled and nodded when people asked him how it was going, and the leaden feeling inside him grew until he felt so heavy, he had to drag himself out of bed in the mornings.

  A package arrived from his mother with the invitations for the party, professionally printed. She was hiring a catering service and a DJ. All taken care of, she wrote. Hope your exams are going well; this party will be something to look forward to. Edward handed out the invitations to everyone in his year, plus the group of Beth and Milo’s friends from the lower sixth. Almost everyone accepted – it was the first time Edward had ever had a party. They were curious to see the home of the Foreign Secretary and wondered if Bonnie, the mysterious sister of their soon-to-be-ex-head boy, would be there.

  *

  On the day that Edward finished his final exam, he scraped back his chair from his desk, walked past the other desks in their neat rows and followed the rest of the pupils out of the sports hall into the bright late-morning sunshine. He felt like there should have been some sort of a fanfare, a crowd of cheering well-wishers waving flags and holding up banners saying CONGRATULATIONS, EDWARD MARKHAM.

  There was nothing. He felt deflated and empty as he looked at the backs of the others as they jumped and screamed with joy, throwing bags, notes and files into the air.

  He didn’t know what to do with himself. He wandered down to the school post office to see if Bonnie had written, but there wasn’t a letter from her, so he drifted towards the tennis courts behind the main school building. He watched a couple of games and lay back on the grass slope, wondering what was going to happen next. Not just this afternoon, which stretched yawningly in front of him, but tomorrow, and the weekend, and the summer holidays and the rest of his life.

  This time last year he’d been so sure of his future. Now he saw it only in the vaguest and dullest way, like a mist had descended and obscured what had been the clear path ahead. His head felt scrambled and he couldn’t unscramble it. Was this normal? It didn’t used to be.

  The sun thrummed onto his head. The grass was damp and cool beneath his shirt. He sat up with a start and remembered that Beth had asked him to stop by her room after the exam. Quick; he mustn’t on any account miss her. He scrambled back up the slope and walked briskly up the hill towards her house. He knocked on the window, but neither she nor Livvy were there. As Edward cursed in disappointment and anger at missing a chance of spending time with Beth, a piece of paper on her desk caught his eye. He could read his name written on it in large purple letters. He hurried round to the front door of Norcombe House and sprinted to Livvy and Beth’s room. It was a note to him with instructions and a map.

  The map showed the way to Greenhill Bridge. Milo had told Edward about this place, but it was outside the school’s boundaries so he’d never been. It was upstream of the school, about half an hour’s walk through the woods and along the river. Underneath the bridge was a weir where you could swim and plenty of shade and hiding places. He wasted no more time, taking the path into the cool, dappled woods.

  It was a good map and he had no trouble finding the right place. When he drew nearer he could hear voices, so it wasn’t only Beth, Edward thought with regret. When he emerged from the woods, he saw BJ, Livvy, Henry, Guy, Milo and Beth lying on the grass. There were rucksacks and a couple of towels, some Tesco shopping bags and a guitar. They shouted hellos and made room for him between Livvy and Beth.

  ‘How did your exam go?’

  ‘How does it feel to be finished?’

  ‘Where were you? We waited for ages.’

  ‘Did you see Melanie or Susanna and Finn? We lost them.’

  He shrugged, shook his head and smiled, relaxing and forgetting the tension of the exams. Billy lit up and passed round a joint. Edward had never tried marijuana before, so he watched Billy and Livvy when they took a drag and when she passed it to him, he took it and raised it to his mouth.

  ‘Ed – are you sure?’ Beth whispered to him. Everyone was staring at him, amazed. Milo had frown lines across his forehead.

  ‘Well, I’m not really head boy any more, am I?’ Edward put the joint in his mouth, pressing it lightly between his dry lips. His heart beat more quickly as he breathed in the dry, bitter smoke filling his mouth, and swallowed it. He gave a splutter and smiled. ‘I don’t feel anything.’ He passed it on to Beth.

  ‘Sometimes you don’t, the first time.’

  Everyone had a drag except for Milo, who passed the joint straight on to Melanie, who had arrived with Susanna and Finn. Milo walked over to the river and retrieved a six-pack of beer which he’d hidden last night between two rocks in the water, one of which he opened and the rest he passed round. Edward shared with Beth, enjoying the cool liquid trickling down his parched throat and the feeling that his lips were where hers had been a few seconds before. When the joint came round to him a second time, he felt his head lighten as he breathed in. It rippled through him gently and his shoulders relaxed as he exhaled.

  ‘Oh.’ He lifted his head up towards the cloudless sky and leant back on his elbows.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ said Beth, lying down next to him.

  ‘Lovely.’ He closed his eyes and opened them again as his head span. ‘Better with your eyes open.’

  They finished the first beer and drank another. Beth was humming a tune, and someone asked her what it was.

  ‘Sing it for us, will you?’

  ‘Only if Milo plays the guitar.’ She sat up and turned her face to him with a sly smile.

  ‘What? West, can you play the guitar?’

  He blushed. ‘I told you not to tell anyone.’

  Edward felt a pang of jealousy. How come Beth knew so much about Milo? What other secrets did they have?

  ‘Why isn’t Beth allowed to tell us?’

  Milo shrugged.

  Beth was laughing – the first time Edward had seen her laughing for ages. ‘It’s because he thinks he looks stupid when he plays.’

  ‘OK, this is why I don’t tell you stuff,’ muttered Milo.

  ‘Oh, come on, big man, you can’t look any more stupid than usual,’ said Guy.

  Milo was shaking his head. ‘Cheers for that.’

  Everyone was doubled over with laughter.

  ‘What does he look like, Beth?’

  ‘Well, he just sort of looks very… concentrate-y.’

  ‘Is it a bit like this?’ asked Guy, putting his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and screwing up his eyes.

  ‘Yes. Just like that. How did you know?’
<
br />   ‘Oh, because that’s how he looks when he’s in class.’

  ‘And when he’s working in the library.’

  ‘And when he’s deciding what to eat.’

  ‘And when he’s masturbating,’ added Guy.

  Milo said, ‘I’m going for a swim.’ He took off his T-shirt and shorts, leaving on his boxer shorts, which were grey and had clearly seen better days.

  Melanie stood up. ‘I’ll come too.’

  There were whistles and shrieks of delight, but Milo ignored them all and strode into the cool water, lying on his back in the middle of the river and letting the current carry him downstream. Melanie sat on the bank in her underwear with her legs dangling into the water. Jake and Guy crept up behind her, lifted her by the arms and threw her in, jumping in themselves and splashing her as she spluttered and swore at them. The others started stripping off to their underwear. They all had tan marks around their necks and upper arms and legs. Soon Edward and Beth were the only ones left on the blanket.

  ‘You not going in?’ she asked him.

  ‘I will if you will.’

  ‘I need a wee first.’ She stood up, stretched and walked towards the trees.

  Edward caught up with her. ‘I’ll come and guard you.’ She gave him a funny look, so he said, ‘I’ll look the other way, promise.’ He turned his back and watched the river as he heard a stream of liquid hitting the ground.

  She moved around the tree and leant her forehead against its rough bark. ‘Thanks. Pissing in the great outdoors is not my favourite thing. Sometimes I wish I was a boy.’

  Edward turned to her and fastened his eyes on hers. ‘I never wish you were a boy,’ he said softly, and moved closer.

  ‘Don’t, Ed.’ She looked sad and shook her head. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I mean I don’t want you to kiss me.’ She moved around him, taking off her T-shirt as she walked, throwing it on the pile of clothes, hopping out of her skirt and running towards the river in her plain white bra and knickers.