Chapter 15

I walked straight through the kitchen and started up the stairs when I got back home. As I reached the top, I heard my father speak.

“Not now Pat, leave him be, for a while.”

“I think I’d better get back round home,” Mary said, then I closed my bedroom door on them.

I threw myself down on the bed and wept. I don’t know how long for, but it was a long time, and I wept myself to sleep. When I woke up someone had covered me in a blanket. That was a bit silly because it was a lovely warm summer’s day outside, but I suspect that it was just some member of the family showing they cared. What woke me was my phone ringing, when I looked at the caller ID, it was Geoff Merkin.

“Hi Geoff,” I greeted him when I accepted the call.

“Hi David, you got back then,” he replied.

“Yes,” I said, “late Tuesday night. We finished early.”

“So, when do we all get our invitations to the premiere?”

“I don’t know mate, but you’ve given me an idea.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s a thing that forms in your mind,” I replied.

“No what’s the idea?”

“Oh just an idea, I’ll have to see if I get arrange it. To what do I owe this honour?”

“I was just ringing to find out if you’ll still be joining our Friday night cinema outing, now that you’re a big star.”

“Probably not, but not because of that,” I answered, “you’ll see why on Monday.”

“Oh so now you’re being all mysterious. Next you’ll be telling everybody ‘I vonna be alone’.”

“Geoff that’s the worst Greta Garbo impression ever,” I said, but I laughed anyway.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m glad you’re home and still in one piece. Later, Bye.”

And he was gone.

‘All in one piece,’ I mused silently. I didn’t think so.

I wandered downstairs, to find my Dad sat watching Saturday afternoon sport on the TV in the lounge, and my sister in the dining room, doing homework. As usual she’d left it until the last minute.

“You all right son?” Dad asked as I sat down in one of the chairs by the fireplace.

“Not really,” I said.

“It’s tough isn’t it,” he said, “breaking up with your first love.”

“Yes, it is,” I replied, “but the trust has gone, and you can’t have a relationship without trust, Dad.”

“When did you become so wise?”

“I don’t know, I think it sneaked up on me.”

“So what are you going to do about Cal? She still lives next door, she’s still friends with your sister and you’ll still see her at school.”

“I could change schools,” I replied.

“That’s not an option son, you start again on Monday, we couldn’t arrange it in time, even if we were going to. I’m sorry son, but this is another life lesson you need to learn. Don’t worry, the pain will get less as time goes on.”

We settled back after that to watch the sport. The rest of the weekend was just a blur, I really didn’t notice anything that was going on around me. I went to bed on Saturday, got up on Sunday. I must have got my things ready for school on Monday, because on Monday morning they were ready, but I couldn’t tell you when or how. I was in a complete fog.

My first real memory is my sister walking into the kitchen just as I was finishing my breakfast.

“Come on slowcoach, you’ll be late for school,” she prompted.

“You go ahead, I’ll follow on,” I responded.

She looked at me quizzically.

“Suit yourself,” she said and flounced out.

I finished my orange juice, put my dishes in the dishwasher and went out to the hallway to get my school jacket and bag. I waited a couple of minutes to let my sister and her friend next door get far enough ahead as to be out of sight then set off to school myself. I didn’t go by the direct route, but rather round the back streets, as a result of which I was five minutes late.

“Starting the year as you mean to go on Barker?” a familiar if not welcome voice said. Peter Hague, short and bald, was my nemesis, and the school’s woodwork teacher.

“Sorry sir, I overslept, I’ve been away working.”

“Ah yes, our very own movie star, well run along boy.”

As always the first lesson of the school year was timetables and other administrative tasks. For the first time since I’d started school I walked into the classroom and did not sit next to Cal. Everybody in the room stared, first at me, then at her, then at the empty seat beside her. Nobody said a word, but we got a lot of funny looks. Then, when we walked, separately round the school to lessons, and in the school playground at break when we stood at opposite ends. It was Keith McEachern who finally broke the silence.

“Er, David,” he said as we walked together into the dining hall.

“Yes?” I asked, a little tetchier than I meant to.

“You and Cal, what’s wrong?”

“We broke up.”

“What?” I think his incredulous yell may have set of a seismometer somewhere. Everybody in the hall looked round, “you’re joking aren’t you?”

“No,” I replied, “she met someone else while she was in Germany.”

“You are kidding,” he said, “you and her have been together since you were five, she’d never do that.”

“Well whether or not, she did. His name’s Wolfgang, and he plays the piano.”

“So she’s kicked you into touch?”

“No, I did the kicking. She cheated on me, I can’t be with her any more.”

“Shit man, that’s harsh.”

“McEachern, language, see me at registration,” a teacher’s voice rang out.

Of course, by the end of the lunch break everybody in the school, with the exception of the new first years was talking about the end of the greatest love affair since Romeo and Juliet, and of course we all knew how that one ended too.

By the end of school I’d been slipped four pieces of paper with mobile numbers on them together with the words ‘Call me’ and a variety of little drawings ranging from the cute to the positively pornographic written on them in decidedly girlish writing. That would have been the highlight of my day, had I not seen John Sollberger pleading with Cal to go out with him, and her giving a very firm NO!

On my way out of the building to go home I was surprised that Tom hadn’t come up to me and told what part I’d be playing in this term’s school play.

I got home before my sister or my brother, but then, he had to come five miles from his sixth form college, while I was only a mile or so from my school. I opened the cupboard and got a bottle of Pepsi out, and sat at the table to drink it.

Alison walked in and flopped down beside me, reached over and took my bottle.

“Thanks,” she said, “why don’t you get yourself one too?”

I did and sat back down.

“So how was your first day in year two, sister dear?”

“Awful,” she said.

“Oh? Why?” I asked.

“Because everybody in school thinks I know everything there is to know about the hottest topic of conversation in school.”

“Which is?”

“Why my brother and my best friend do not appear to be speaking to each other.”

“And what are you telling them?”

“That all I know is that you broke up over the summer, and that I’m stuck with you as my brother and I choose her to be my best friend. Is that all right?”

“That’s the perfect answer,” I said.

“Funnily, all the rumours spreading round school suggest that she finished with you over various acts you performed with actresses in Hollywood,” she told me, “it wasn’t that was it?”

“No, it wasn’t Pip,” I confirmed, “nothing like that.”

“Whatever it is, can’t you fix it?”

“No, love, I can’t. I don’t think it is fixable.”

“That’s silly, everything is fixable. What did you do?”

“Me?” I asked, “nothing, other than go to California for six weeks.

“Then what did she do?”

“I think it’s her place to tell you that Pip, if she wants you to know.”

“I hate it that my two best friends in all the world aren’t talking to one another,” she said.

“I’m sorry love, but I can’t see a way around it,” I said, hugging her.

“There has to be,” she said, “and I’m going to find it.”

With that she stood up and headed upstairs to her bedroom.

My brother arrived shortly after, leaving his bike in the hall, which meant that when Mum came in from work, she’d tell him to move it to the garage, then there’d be an argument, before he did it, and all was peaceful again.

I went off upstairs to change out of my school clothes. I was just pulling my T-shirt over my head when there was a tap at the door and my sister walked in.

“I can’t believe she did that,” she said, each word coming out separately and slowly.

“What?”

“Cal, I rang her, and she told me why you finished with her.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That she met another boy in Germany and she had sex with him. Is that true?”

I just nodded.

“How could she. Well that’s me and her finished too. And when I tell everybody at school.”

“No, Alison, you can’t do that,” I said, in a panic, “think, if it gets round the school that that’s why we broke up, every boy in school will be trying to do the same with her. We can’t let that happen.”

My sister looked at me strangely when I said that.

“You still love her don’t you?” she said quietly.

I nodded my head in assent.

“But I can’t trust her any more.”

I sat down on my bed and put my head in my hands.

Alison came and put her arm round my shoulder.

“It’ll all work out,” she said, “hey what are these?”

She’d pickled the four slips of paper that I’d been passed at school.

“Phone numbers,” I said.

“Of who?”

“Girls at school, I was passed them this afternoon.”

She started scrutinising the papers.

“That’s Kathy Kearford, Mike’s sister,” she said passing me one, that’s Sue Noble, the third is Judith Wright and the fourth one I don’t recognise. You should ring them and ask them out.”

“I don’t want to think about that sort of thing just now,” I protested.

“Of course you do,” she said, “it’s like learning to ride a bike, if you fall off you have to get straight back on.”

“No, Pip, I’d rather wait a while.”

“Well at least talk to them, let them know you’re interested, but just not yet.”