The Forever Girl

14



The ceremony at the Prep School to mark the end of the school year took place while David was in New York. The leavers, now aged twelve or thirteen – thirteen in the case of Clover and James – were presented with a certificate bearing the school motto and a message from the Principal about embarking on the journey that was life. The Governor attended and the school band played a ragged version of “God Save the Queen”; the Governor, in a white tropical suit, stood stiffly to attention, and seemed to be interested in something that was happening on the ceiling; one or two of the younger children, fidgeting and giggling, attracted discouraging looks from the teachers. Then the choir trooped onto the stage and sang “Lord Dismiss Us, With Thy Blessing”. Hymns had made little impression on Clover, but the words of this one were different, and touched her because she sensed that it was about them. “May thy children may thy children, Those whom we will see no more …” The children were sitting with their parents; Clover was with Amanda and Margaret, because David was away. Margaret knew the hymn, and reached for Clover’s hand. “That’s you, isn’t it?” she said quietly. “Leaving your friends, saying goodbye.”

Clover turned away, embarrassed; she did not want to be told how she felt. She looked around the hall, searching for James, and found him just a few rows away, seated between his parents. He was whispering something to his father, and George nodded, whispering something back. She watched them, willing him to turn his head slightly so that he would see her. I’m here, she thought. Here. I’m here.

At the end of the ceremony, the parents left, and the children returned to their classrooms. The leavers were each given a large bag in which to put the things they wanted to take away with them: the drawings, the exercise books, the pictures from the walls that the teacher said could be shared out amongst those who wanted them, as mementoes of the school.

James was in a different class, and once outside in the corridor, she lingered until she saw him emerge from his own classroom with a few other boys. They were talking about something under their breath; one gave a snigger; boys were always doing that, laughing at something crude, something physical.

She waited until the other boys were distracted before she approached him.

“Do you feel sad?” she asked.

He looked round. “Clover …”

“I mean, do you feel sad about leaving everybody? All your friends?”

He shrugged. He was smiling at her; he seemed pleased to be talking to her, and this encouraged her. “I’m really sorry to be saying goodbye to everybody,” she continued.

“We’ll see them in the holidays. We’re not going away forever.”

“No, but …”

She felt her heart beating loud within her. She could ask him; there was no reason why she could not ask him. They were meant to be friends, and you could ask a friend to your house if you wanted to.

It was as if somebody else’s voice was speaking. “Do you want to come back to my place? We could have lunch there. Margaret’s made one of her cakes.”

He glanced at the other boys. “I don’t know …”

“Please.”

He hesitated, and then replied, “Yes. All right.”

She felt a rush of joy. He was going to be with her. The others – Ted, these boys she did not know very well – none of them would be there; it would just be her.

Her mother was out; she had said something about a lunch for the Humane Society after the event at the school; they were always raising money for the homeless dogs shelter. Billy was with Margaret, being spoiled.

“Those dogs are rich by now,” she said, as they went into the kitchen. “They raise all that money for them – just a few mangy dogs.”

“It gives them something to do,” said James.

“The dogs?”

“No, the parents. The old people too. They raise money for the dogs because they haven’t got anything else to do.”

She frowned as she thought about this. Did adults play? Or did they just talk? “Have you ever thought what it’ll be like when we’re old? Twenty? Thirty?”

He sat down at the kitchen table, watching her as she took Margaret’s cake tin out of the cupboard. “Do you mean, will we feel the same?”


She nodded. “Yes. Will we think the same things?”

“We’ll feel the same inside, maybe, but we won’t think about the same things. I think you feel tired when you’re that age. You run out of breath.”

“When you’re twenty?”

“I think that’s when it starts.”

She cut two slices of the lemon cake that Margaret had baked the day before, and slid each onto a plate. He picked his slice up eagerly.

“Everything’s going to start to get different,” she said. “From today onwards.”

“Because we’re going to boarding school?”

She said that this is what started it. But there would be other things.

“Such as?”

She did not have an answer. “Just things.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“Neither do I.” But it was bravado; she did. She had lain awake the night before and fretted over what it would be like to be with a group she had never met before, sharing a room with another girl, which would be a new and confusing experience.

“How do you decide when to turn the light out?” she asked.

“When?”

“At school – when you’re sharing.”

He was not sure, but he thought they probably told you. “There’ll be a rule. There are lots of rules. You just have to follow them.”

She watched him lick the crumbs off his fingers. “Are you nervous?”

He affected nonchalance. “About going off to school? No, of course not. What’s there to be nervous of?”

Everything, she thought.

He finished the last of the crumbs. “I’d better go home.”

She caught her breath. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I just should.”

She asked him whether he would stay – just for a short while. He looked at her, and smiled. He likes me, she thought; he likes me again because he wouldn’t smile like that if he didn’t.

“We could have a swim.”

He looked through the open kitchen door; the pool was at the back of the house, on the edge of the patio, and the water reflected the glare of the sun back into the building.

“I haven’t brought my swimming trunks.”

“There are some in the pool house. We keep them for visitors. Come on.”

He got up reluctantly, following her to the pool house under the large sea-grape tree that dominated that end of the garden. Inside, it was dark and cool. There was a bench used for changing and a shower. The shower could not be completely shut off, and dripped slowly against the tiles beneath. There was the smell of water.

She opened a cupboard. There was a jumble of flippers and snorkels, used for the sea; a rescue ring, half eaten away by something; a long-poled net for scooping leaves from the surface of the water. The net slipped and fell onto the floor.

“The pool-men bring their own stuff,” she said. “They come to clean the pool every week. The man who supervises them is almost blind now. My mother says he’ll fall into a pool one of these days.”

“He should stop,” said James. “You shouldn’t do jobs like that when you’re blind.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

She moved the flippers, looking behind them. “There were some trunks. We had some. Maybe the pool-men took them …”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She looked away. “You mean you don’t need them?”

He hesitated. “I didn’t mean that. I meant that I don’t have to swim.”

She felt her breath come quickly. “Have you ever skinny dipped?”

He did not answer for a moment, and she repeated her question. “Never?”

He laughed nervously. “Of course I have. Once at Rum Point. Off my dad’s boat too.”

“I dare you,” she said.

“You serious?”

She felt quite calm. “Why not?”

He looked about him. “Now?”

“Yes. There’s nobody around.”

“And you too?”

She nodded. “Of course. I don’t mind.” She added, “Turn round, though. Just to begin with.”

He turned his back, and she slipped out of her clothes. The polished concrete floor was cool against the soles of her feet. She felt goose-bumps on her arms, although it could not be from cold. Is that because I’m afraid? she asked herself. This was the most daring thing she had ever done, by far; and the goose-bumps came from that, obviously.

He said, “And you have to turn round too.”

“Okay.”

She turned round, and faced the wall. But there was a mirror, for doing your hair after the shower; her mother used it; he had not seen it, or it had not occurred to him that she could see him in it. She saw it suddenly and found herself watching him. She could not help herself. She thought: he’s perfect. And she felt a lightness in her stomach that made her want to sit down, it was so overwhelming, so unexpected.

Naked now, he turned round, and immediately he saw the mirror. Their eyes met in the glass, and she saw him blush.

“You shouldn’t cheat,” he mumbled. “It’s cheating to look in the mirror.”

She made a joke of it. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t put the mirror there.”

He put his hands in front of himself, to cover his nakedness. But she saw his eyes move down her own body. She did not say anything; she wanted the moment to last, but was not sure why she should want this. There was a feeling within her that she had never before experienced. She recognised it as a longing, because it was like other longings, other experiences of wanting something so much that it hurt. This hurt, she thought; it hurt and puzzled her.

He said: “I’m going to get into the pool. Are you coming too?”

She followed him. She watched him. She wanted to touch him, but she thought: I should not be thinking this. I should not. And it frightened her that it should be so strong, this confusing, odd feeling, of wanting to touch a boy and put her hands in his hair and kiss him, which is what she had sometimes dreamed of doing, and she wondered what his lips would taste like.

He entered the water cleanly, and she followed. With the protection of the water, there was no embarrassment, and they laughed, not at anything in particular, but because they were aware that something had happened, a moment had passed. He splashed her, and she responded, the water hitting him in the face and making him splutter. He swam up to her and would have ducked her head under the water, but she dived below the surface and escaped him, although his hand moved across her shoulder. He dived too, but she kicked him away; she felt her foot against his stomach. She said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” and he said, “You didn’t.”

He swept back his hair, in the way she liked him to do, and then he looked up at the sun and said, “I’ve got to go home now.”

“Don’t. I don’t want you to go. Can’t you stay?”

“No.”

He swam back to the edge of the pool and he climbed out on the curved metal ladder, and she could not help but watch him and feel again that lurch in her stomach. He ran to the pool room; she saw the water dripping down from him, and she noticed something she had been told about but never seen, and thought: it’s because of me. She stayed where she was, and was still there in the pool when he came out, clothed, and shouted to her that he would see her again, sometime, and thanks for the cake. She whispered goodbye and then, after he had gone, climbed up the steps and ran, as he had done, to the pool room although there was nobody to see her naked. She sat down on the bench where he must have sat, for there was a puddle of water on the floor below it, and she put her head into her hands and felt herself shivering.