"What?"
"Jay was right, turns out those year sevens were trying to get revenge on Wharton for that raid last year."
Taj leant forward. "But they weren't even here last year."
"Seems that Wharton's got the small Vikings on his side," explained Fred. "And they've been bragging about how Wharton pulled one over on us last year. Our little year sevens decided to take matters into their own hands."
Oh, wonderful, thought Luke. This is my fault. It wasn't just about him and Wharton any more. It appeared that half the school was getting caught up in this stupid feud. He'd made a promise to Ned, but how on earth he was going to stay out of it if the younger boys were going to start doing things like this in his name? Did Oliver and his friends join the gardening club just because of him, too? Luke resolved to take Oliver aside at the earliest opportunity and have a private talk with him. He needed to stop this before it got out of hand.
"I wish they wouldn't," he said.
"What, getting tired of your hard-man reputation already?" teased Jay.
"I've never been hard in my life!" protested Luke. Snorts of laughter greeted this remark and Luke shook his head in resignation as he waited for the hilarity to pass.
*
Luke and Pagan went to the park to hang out with Jay and the High School kids that evening, as they usually did, even though they could have had the cottage to themselves, thanks to Julia's date with Ned. The wind was in the north-east and it felt chilly. Luke didn't think the group would keep up this habit of meeting after school for much longer. It wouldn't be much fun sitting on the swings and the picnic table in the winter. By seven o'clock it was completely dark and a fine drizzle was starting to fall: the penetrating sort of rain that damps both clothes and spirits. The gathering broke up sooner than normal and Jay headed back to the school, leaving Luke and Pagan at the door of Pagan's cottage. Pagan unlocked it and flicked on the living room lights.
"God, it's freezing in here," said Pagan, blowing on her hands. "Mum must've forgotten to put the heating on." She went to the control panel for the central heating and slid a small controller sideways. There was an instant roar of response from the gas boiler in the kitchen as it fired up. Pagan peeled off her coat and hung it on a peg by the front door. Luke followed her example, placing his on the back of the sofa. Pagan was rubbing her upper arms and shivering.
"It'll take a while for the house to warm up. Let's go up to my bedroom and get under the duvet." She led Luke upstairs but stopped halfway up and turned to give him a stern stare. "Fully-clothed, I mean. Don't get any ideas, young man."
"I wasn't!" protested Luke, untruthfully.
They kicked off their shoes and curled up together in Pagan's bed. Wrapped in each other's arms, they soon got comfortably warm. After a while, Pagan sighed and sleepily rolled over to face the wall. Luke fitted his body around her back and legs. He could hear Pagan's breathing becoming slower and deeper and knew that she was close to dropping off. I should go back to school, he thought, but this feels so good. He closed his eyes, savouring the scent of Pagan's hair and the heat of her body against his.
There was a sudden blow to his midriff. For a moment, Luke was back in Regent's Park with Pagan, being punched by the mugger. His eyes flew open but instead of the hooded and pock-marked face of the mugger, they met the solemn brown gaze of Minnie, Pagan's cat, who was firmly planted in the centre of his chest. He was flat on his back in Pagan's bed. "Ugh, geroff, Minnie," he grunted, pushing the cat on to the floor.
Next to him, Pagan lurched into a sitting position. "What time is it?"
Luke checked his phone. 10:45. Shit. They both must have fallen asleep and he had missed his curfew time by a full forty-five minutes. He swung his legs out of the bed and pulled on his shoes. "Better run." He gave Pagan a brief but passionate kiss and then charged down the stairs. He was half way across the living room, grabbing his coat and heading for the front door, when it swung open towards him. Julia had her keys in her hand and behind her was Ned. Luke froze in mid-stride.
"I expect Pagan will be asleep by n-" Julia stopped mid-sentence when she saw Luke. The two adults stared at him and an awkward silence fell upon the room. All three of them were immobilised, as though someone had pressed a 'pause' button on the scene. Thumps from the staircase announced Pagan's entrance and Luke turned to look at her, mainly to avoid having to meet Ned and Julia's eyes. Then he wished he hadn't. Pagan's face was pink from the warmth of her bed and her usually-smooth hair was a tousled mess. The awkwardness of the silence intensified. Luke involuntarily pictured Mr Wilmot writing it on a whiteboard as an equation:
(a + b + c)n
Where a was the embarrassment of being caught out of school after hours by Ned, added to b, the certainty that he had just ruined the end of Ned and Julia's date and c, the dishevelled state of Pagan. And then all this was multiplied to the power of n, the natural suspicion that forms in an adult's mind about the intentions of a teenaged boy towards a teenaged girl.
Why am I thinking about algebra at a time like this? thought Luke. Why am I thinking about Mr Wilmot at a time like this?
Reluctantly, Luke turned back to Ned and Julia and read everything that he'd just thought in their shocked expressions. Julia was the first to speak. Well, shout, in fact.
"What have you been doing?!" She rounded on Luke, doing an excellent impression of an enraged sabre-toothed tiger defending her young. Pagan crossed the room, matching her mother's fierceness as she pushed herself between Julia and Luke as a human shield.
"We fell asleep!" she yelled back. "Nothing happened; the house was cold, so we curled up under the covers and fell asleep. It wasn't Luke's fault, it was mine. Look-" she gestured down at herself, "I'm still fully dressed!"
Luke wasn't sure this was helping. "I'm sorry," he said to Julia. "I didn't mean to nod off. I'm late, I really better get back to school."
"I'll walk back with him," said Ned to Julia. His voice did not sound friendly and Luke wanted to say 'Please, don't bother', but suspected that this was not going to be an option. From the look on Julia's face, Pagan hadn't heard the last of this yet, either.
"Bye, Pagan," he said. "See you soon."
"I wouldn't bet on that," warned Ned, holding the door open so that Luke could walk past him out of the house. Ned spoke briefly to Julia and then followed Luke to the street.
"Are you going to gate me?" Luke asked, as they started to walk towards Hawley Lodge. He assumed Ned's remark meant he was going to be banned from leaving the school for a while.
"It's a house matter, so it will be up to your housemaster, not me," replied Ned. "I imagine it will depend on how well you've been getting on with Mr Wilmot lately."
Given the year tens' confrontation with the housemaster the night before, Luke didn't feel optimistic. He wondered whether Ned was aware of the young Romans' attempted raid on the Vikings' dormitory, but decided it was best not to ask. It was good that Ned had offloaded the school discipline side of things onto Mr Wilmot, though. Their conversation now had nothing to do with breaking school rules - point a in Luke's Equation of Awkwardness - and everything to do with points b and c. Luke wasn't anxious to examine those at all, but he knew he owed Ned an apology and wanted to get it over with quickly.
"I'm sorry about all that," he said. "Ruining the end of your evening, I mean."
"I think it's Mrs Randall you should be apologising to," commented Ned.
So Julia was 'Mrs Randall' all of a sudden, Luke noticed. "I did try," he said, "but I don't think she was in the mood to hear it."
They were passing underneath a street lamp as he spoke. Ned halted and put a hand on Luke's arm to stop his progress. In the orange pool of light he stared into the teenager's face.
"Luke, you were there last year, you know why Pagan ran away from home. You must have some idea of the way her mother feels about what happened to her and why she reacted in the way she did."
"But that was different," protested Luke. "I'm n
ot doing anything Pagan doesn't want me to do." That sounded wrong and he hurried to correct himself. "We weren't doing anything. We just fell asleep!"
"Luke, you slept together, in Pagan's bed. I think that is enough of an abuse of Mrs Randall's hospitality, don't you? I think you need to give to think about giving them both the respect they deserve."
Luke didn't reply. He felt that both Julia and Ned were over-reacting, but he didn't want to make matters worse by saying so.
*
Pagan had no such scruples. "Mum, you're making a big fuss about nothing. Lighten up, can't you? Nothing happened!"
"I'm just trying to protect you, Pagan, can't you see that?"
"I don't need protection now," snapped Pagan. "Last year, that's when I needed protection, when your boyfriend was trying to grope me every five minutes and you never even noticed! It's a bit late to start getting over-protective now."
Julia gasped as though Pagan had chucked a bucket of water over her. "Are you going to carry on throwing that in my face for the rest of my life?" she demanded.
"Only when it seems to still be making you act like an idiot," retorted Pagan. "I like Luke and he's no threat to me at all. Perhaps if you got yourself a proper boyfriend you wouldn't be so obsessed about what I'm doing with mine all the time."
Pagan knew that this remark was bordering on spiteful. But Julia did not fight back. She simply dropped onto the sofa, her indignation punctured. To Pagan's horror, tears began overflowing from her mother's eyes as she put her elbow on the arm of the chair and sank her forehead into her hand.
"Oh God, I'm sorry Mum, I didn't mean that!" Pagan flung herself down next to Julia and hugged her. For a while, neither of them spoke.
"I thought we'd got over the Brian business in the summer," said Julia eventually, fishing a tissue out of her bag and wiping her eyes and nose. "But we never manage get back to the way we were before it all happened. And now I'm terrified of getting close to another man in case the same thing happens again."
"Ned's nothing like Brian," Pagan reassured her.
"Ned's lovely," agreed Julia, "but it's not that simple, Pagan. He's my boss, for one thing. And our landlord, for another."
Pagan dismissed those objections with a wave of her hand. "That doesn't matter and I'm sure he likes you; he just needs a bit of encouragement. The odd goodnight kiss, perhaps?"
Julia snorted. "If we can ever get to say goodnight without being interrupted by our children."
Pagan blushed and Julia laughed, returning her hug. "Just be careful, sweetheart. I know you're sensible, but it can be quite easy to get carried away. Luke's very existence is proof of that."
*
Ned and Luke were getting closer to Hawley Lodge. Luke's thoughts were turning towards how he was going to explain his late arrival to Mr Wilmot and to the other year ten Romans, but it seemed Ned still had things he wanted to say.
"You just have to take things slowly with Pagan and use a little self-restraint and common sense," Ned said.
"Like you did with my mother you mean?" retorted Luke, who was getting a little tired of Ned's preaching.
There was a pause in the conversation and Luke wondered if he'd gone too far.
"I was actually coming around to talking about that, yes," replied Ned, apparently unruffled by Luke's attack. "That was a perfect example of how not to handle these things. And it was your poor mother who got lumbered with the consequences.
"Although," he added, "you do seem to be making sure that I get my fair share of strife these days."
Luke couldn't help but laugh at this and was feeling happier as they entered the school. Then he saw Mr Wilmot prowling the hallway near the signing-in book and his optimism faded. The housemaster was obviously waiting for him to turn up, late. Mr Wilmot looked up as they approached, his disgruntled expression changing to one of puzzlement as he looked from Luke to Ned.
"Brownlow inadvertently fell asleep at his girlfriend's house, Mr Wilmot," explained Ned before either the housemaster or Luke could speak. "It was an honest mistake, I believe. I've told him that getting in late is a house matter and that it is up to you to decide on the appropriate course of action. We had a talk about privileges and responsibility on our walk back and I think he understands the seriousness of the situation."
Luke tried to set his features into an appropriately contrite expression, while inwardly cheering at Ned's intervention, which translated itself in Luke's mind as 'I've already chewed him out, so give the kid a break.'
"Well," finished Ned, "I'm off to bed myself. Remember what I said, Brownlow."
"Yes, sir," said Luke, humbly. Ned dropped the merest hint of a wink in his direction before turning away to go back to his cottage. Luke's spirits rose even further and he had great difficulty keeping his face sombre as he waited to hear Mr Wilmot pronounce sentence.
The housemaster seemed confused by the fact that his prey had been delivered back to school by the headmaster. Luke was sure that he was mentally tearing up the script of the lengthy lecture he had been preparing for him.
"Well then," said Mr Wilmot, frowning down at Luke, who decided it was safest to say nothing at all. "You're gated until the weekend," he declared. "Now sign yourself back in and get off to bed."
Luke nodded. "Goodnight, sir," he said, and did as he was told. He suspected the confrontation would have gone a lot more badly if Ned had not been there to defuse Mr Wilmot's initial anger. He sent grateful thoughts in his neighbour's direction as he climbed up to the top floor.
Everyone was getting ready for bed when Luke entered the dormitory. He was greeted with shouts of "Where have you been?" as he walked through the door.
Luke explained what had happened, although he decided not to mention that he had fallen asleep in Pagan's bed. Saying so might have given him some temporary kudos with his friends, but it didn't take a big leap of imagination to picture the story getting back to Pagan. If she heard that he'd been bragging about sleeping with her, he was certain that their relationship would come to an abrupt end. He involuntarily rubbed the place on his arm where she had punched it in the summer. It would probably be a painful one, too.
Chapter Seven
Luke didn't encounter Julia again until the next meeting of the gardening club on Friday afternoon. He was dreading seeing her, but she was perfectly friendly towards him during the meeting, which puzzled him at first. But then he realised that he was seeing Julia's professional face, the one she presented to all of the other students. Why are my relationships with adults always so complicated? Luke thought.
After their meeting he waited behind and, bracing himself for an instant change in Julia's attitude, said: "I wanted to talk to you about the other night."
Sure enough, Julia's smile switched off. "Oh. Why don't you give me a hand returning these tools to the shed and then we can talk in my office."
Five minutes later, they were in Julia's office. It was a small room on the main floor of the school, next to the administration office. Luke had not been inside it before and he looked around in interest. Julia's desk was in front of the one tall window, which offered a view over the courtyard beyond. Between the desk and the door there were two low, greenish chairs of the type found in staffrooms everywhere. Between them was a small table on which a white vase full of orange and yellow flowers had been placed. Luke fleetingly wondered whether they had been a gift from Ned.
A photograph of Pagan smiled out of a silver frame on the desk. The sight filled Luke's heart with courage. Julia gestured him to one of the green chairs. She didn't take the other, but perched on the edge of the desk, obscuring Luke's view of Pagan's picture. Did she do that deliberately? thought Luke. The counsellor folded her arms and waited for him to speak, her expression now less friendly than it had been in the garden. Without Pagan's smile to sustain it, Luke felt his courage began to ebb away.
"I'm sorry if I -" Luke scrabbled around in his memory for the words that Ned had used on Wednesday night, "- abused
your hospitality."
A tightening at the corner of Julia's mouth (the merest shadow of a smile) suggested that she was well aware that this was not a phrase that Luke had come up with by himself. She said nothing, however, leaving Luke to blunder on unaided.
"It just was a mistake; I wouldn't do anything to hurt Pagan. I'm sorry that I upset you."
Julia sighed. "I expect you agree with Pagan, who informs me that I over-reacted, big-time."
Luke raised his right shoulder in a sort of half-shrug. "Well, I know it looked bad," he admitted. "And after everything that happened last year I can see why you reacted like you did. I just wanted to apologise."
Julia unfolded her arms and sat down in the other green chair. Luke interpreted her shift in position as a sign of forgiveness, something that her next words seemed to confirm. "We'll say no more about it. I'm sure that you and Ned discussed it at length on Wednesday night."
"Just a bit," Luke agreed with a wry smile, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes.
"Did you get in a lot of trouble for being late back?"
"Not too much," said Luke. "I think it helped that Ned was with me. It put Mr Wilmot off his stride a bit. I'll be able to see Pagan again this weekend. If…"
Luke left the sentence hanging, giving Julia a hopeful, sheepish look. She laughed at him.
"Yes, you can visit. You can come for lunch on Sunday if you like."
Now he knew he was forgiven. For Julia, making food for people was a declaration of affection.
"Thanks!" he said. "That'll be great." He got up to leave, his smile as broad as the one on Pagan's face in the photograph on the desk. "See you Sunday!"
Julia waved him away and he ran up the stairs to the Forum, taking them two at a time in blatant disregard for the school rules about running indoors.
*
Meals at Hawley Lodge were usually relaxed, self-service affairs, but on special occasions and on Sunday evenings the dining arrangements were more formal, with the younger students taking it in turns to serve a three-course meal to the rest of the school. The staff table was at the front of the hall, with four tables, one for each house, stretching away down the length of the room. The older boys sat at the end nearest the teachers' table, with the rest of each house arranged roughly by age, so the youngest students were closest to the back of the room.