Shocked, Gwen dropped the bottles rather heavily in the center of the circle, but Nathan had only punched his friend rather lazily in the bicep and grinned. “Well, what is it, then? It’d be fucking impressive. Imagine turning Evian into Cab Sauv.”
“S’when the communion wafer becomes the Body of Christ.” Edmund tossed his heavy hair from his eyes and tore into one of Gwen’s bags of kettle chips, without acknowledgment. “You take the host.” He laid a large crisp on his own extended tongue in illustration.
Nathan hooked his arm around Gwen’s neck and pulled her closer, his exhalations loud and heavy against her ear. She was pleased by this display of possession and desire, and somewhat less pleased by the smell of his breath and the slightly glazed look in his eyes. He had grown sloppy, and his laughter came in loud, forced shouts. The group was raucous with freedom but Nathan seemed further gone than the others, his head lolling, occasionally pulling her to him and plunging a rather clumsy tongue slightly too deep into her mouth.
The afternoon settled. The boys played a brief game of football but soon gave up in the heat, balled their obsolete school jackets, and stretched back in the grass. Gwen lay down dutifully beside Nathan, who rolled over and began to kiss her, messily and ostentatiously, until Charlie threw a Wine Gum at them and to Gwen’s relief he stopped. She sat up again. By now she’d hoped to be alone with Nathan, perhaps somewhere in this park, walking, talking, holding hands, shaking their heads in awe at the extraordinary bond they shared.
Today marked a momentous transition, and counting down toward it had steadied her in some of her darkest moments. She had pictured that first moment in which the huge oak doors creaked open. She’d imagined Nathan swinging her around with joy at his liberation, not only from school but from all the academic constraints that had hampered his ability to take care of her. Today, Nathan would assume the mantle of his responsibilities, solemn as a graduation gown. She would see him come back to her, and see her once again. It had already begun when, on the walk here he had hung back from the others, had pulled her for a moment down a quiet stable mews, cobbled, blue plaqued, and she had recognized in him the old fresh urgency, undiminished. Though she now found even the idea of sexual contact repellent, almost intolerable, her heart had leapt. Teenagers have always been forced to take these quiet public corners and make them private, temporarily, and here, with Nathan’s heavy breath and roaming hands, was proof that they were once again normal teenagers. The daylight and his waiting friends ensured she was safe to sigh, and pull him tighter, and imitate his frustration. She found herself rising above the scene. She saw her red head bent close toward his dark one. They could have been parents, bound together inextricably, and eternally. Can you believe it? Those two down there, kissing—forever united. Look at them!
? ? ?
AT HALF PAST FOUR the group began to stir. There was a general agreement that they should go back to Yard and meet those who had been in afternoon exams and then move the celebrations to a pub behind Victoria Street, or perhaps to Marina’s house, in Vincent Square. Gwen tugged on Nathan’s sleeve and whispered, “Now we can go to Covent Garden.” It was already much later than she’d hoped. They would have to rush if they were to make it to the Taiwanese bubble tea place, before heading home in time for James’s barbecue.
“Come and meet Dom and the others from Geography, ma petite.”
She shook her head. “We’re meant to do something just the two of us.”
“I tell you what.” Nathan stepped back unsteadily and slung an arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “This is what’s going to happen. You go and do what you need to do in Covent Garden. She needs to go shopping,” he whispered to Charlie, confidentially, “and then you come back and meet us in the pub. We’ll be in the pub, and you can come back and meet us.”
“Or at Marina’s,” added one of the girls, unexpectedly. She was a few feet away; though they had seemed busy gathering their belongings, collecting crisp packets, brushing grass from their clothing, everyone was in earshot.
Gwen shook her head again. “I’m going.” Her voice came out louder than she’d intended. “I’m not coming back again. I’m going home.”
“Okay, baby, have fun. I’ll be home in . . . soon. I’ve just got very business— I’ve got very important business to attend to, which is the business of celebrating.”
She set off across the lawn and he loped a few steps to catch up with her.
“Are you pissed, baby?” he asked, in a different, private voice. She didn’t care. Respect concealed from his friends had no value. Shouldn’t he want to be alone with her?
“No,” she snapped, “you’re pissed.”
“Both can be true, in very different ways,” he said, sorrowfully, “the American way and the British. I prefer the English way, in this case. I’m pissed in the British sense; you’re absolutely right and I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend it. Don’t be pissed with me.”
“You said we’d talk after the exams. You said we’d hang out, and we’d talk about everything—”
“Fuck, seriously?” He bent down and began bundling his jacket into his school bag. “Not now. I am not thinking about that today. It’s literally the last thing I want to think about, I’ve just finished my exams. S’the end of my exams. S’s my big day.”
“I spent the last day of my exams in hospital. And P.S., it’s all I think about. All the time. It’s not like, a choice, I can’t just decide, ‘Oh, I don’t want to think about this today.’”
“Well then you should get over it,” he said shortly, standing up again.
She stared at him and he nodded vigorously, in agreement with himself.
“Seriously. Get over it! Come get drunk, come toast the end of my exams. You missed it for yourself because of the thing, so come toast the end of your exams, too! We should be celebrating the fact that you can drink; drinking’s awesome. Not drinking is just . . . a waste. Come toast the fact that we had a fucking lucky escape, we got like a, a get-out-of-jail-free card, baby; we should be toasting. Cheers!” He raised an invisible glass to her, squinting slightly.
Perhaps he sensed that he had gone too far here as he then lurched forward and tried to kiss her with sloppy tenderness, but Gwen jerked herself free and began to run across the lawn, lowering her head and succumbing, finally, to her sobs. When she reached the path she turned to see that Nathan had lit a cigarette, and with this dangling from his lower lip was bouncing a football from knee to knee with a maddening, surprising coordination. She did not wait, in case he didn’t look up. A lucky escape. She hated him, and herself.
42.
Today Nathan would come back for the long summer holidays. It had been a blessed relief to be without him, but Gwen had been so excited earlier, racing up and down to model outfits, carefully painting too much garish color on her pale face. For Gwen, and for James, Julia gathered her strength and went to welcome the children in the hallway when she heard the key.