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16. The Last Of The Egg Sandwiches; and The Miraculous Recovery
After a while the music stopped playing and we stood there holding on to each other. “Perhaps we should sit down again,” Julia said, but she made no move to do so.
Then I saw a couple strolling nearby. It wasn’t hard to recognise who one of them was. “It’s Rosie and some girl,” I whispered to her. “Don’t let them see us.”
“You’re funny,” Julia said quietly. “It doesn’t matter if anyone sees us.”
“It’s not that,” I whispered urgently. “It’s Rosie. He mustn’t get the idea we might have seen him!”
We sat down and watched as they walked past. They were a little distance away on the other side of the tamarind tree and Rosie was the closer of the two. His attention was turned toward his companion and away from us, so we were fairly safe. Besides, we were sitting in the deep shadow of the tree.
“Who is Rosie?” whispered Julia.
“Our Prefect,” I whispered back. “His name is Peter DeRosario. Who’s the girl, do you know?”
“I think her name is Maria Angelique. She goes to school in Ingham.”
“Gees, look! They’re kissing! Rosie’s kissing her! —Oh no. I’m dead!!! He’ll kill me if he finds out I was watching.”
“But who’s going to tell him? —Anyway, I think we should go back now. My mother might be wondering where I am.”
“Wait up!” I whispered urgently, grabbing her hand in case she decided to stand up – and because I very much wanted to hold her hand. She gave my own a reassuring squeeze, then we watched until Rosie and Maria had moved further away. After that we started back to the hall.
Half way there the gramophone began playing again and a few couples were starting to dance. I could see some of the boys reworking the supper tables, too, as we came nearer the hall, thoughtfully making sure none of the food was going to be wasted.
We stopped briefly at the outskirts of the gathering and Julia turned to face me. “Thank you for the dance, Kevin,” she said, taking both my hands and giving that gentle, soul-disturbing smile. “I think you’re really nice.” I couldn’t reply, though. All I could do was stand there watching her wander off to find her parents, utterly paralysed and awash with pleasure.
After a time I drifted back to Planet Earth … and realised I needed to effect a pose more in keeping with my image pre- the very recent past in case my rough-and-tumble associates noticed my intoxicated state. With this in mind I headed to the supper tables, the notion being to grab anything edible from amongst the carnage then find where my own parents were sitting.
I had just helped myself to the last of the egg sandwiches when Sash appeared. He had a paper plate heaped with cake fragments and other scavengings from at least four different tables.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked. “I tried to save you a piece of Mrs Finnegan’s pavlova round the back of the hall, only some mongrel must’ve seen me ‘cos a couple of ‘em bashed me up and bloody took it! I dunno who they were, it was too flamin’ dark, ay!”
“Gees, Sash. You look as if you went under a running maul,” I said. “Are you all right?”
“Course I’m all right! But if you see a kid with a chewed ear an’ his nose bleeding just let me know. Him an’ his mate didn’t pay for the bloody pav’. …Gees, Casey, it was the last two pieces, ay.”
Sash had certainly scored a few trophies from the encounter, including the beginnings of a beautiful black eye. Such was the nature of Mrs Finnegan’s pavlova … and Sash’s loyalty to his mates.
“I was doin’ all right ‘til another bludgin’ rat grabbed me from behind,” he added. “Then they both beat the shit out of me.”
“And you’ve no idea who it was?”
“No. And I’d better not bloody find out! —Anyway, where were you? Someone said they’d seen you with a girl.”
I immediately effected a determined study of casual off-handedness.
“Yeah. Julia, erm…” I hesitated, pretending not to remember her name. “…I dunno. Something. —A blonde girl. I bumped into her when I went over to look at Angus’ old Blitz.
“We walked back to the hall together,” I added – to show him I was being perfectly frank about the encounter.
“Julia?!! Julia Sanderson? You were walking with Julia Sanderson?!! —Gees Casey, what’s she like? What’d she say? What’d you do?”
“We didn’t do nothin’, Sash.”
“Yeah, but what’s she like?”
“She’s real nice. She said she’d better get back or her parents would wonder where she was.”
“And so you walked back with her.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Reeeeel slow. Come on Sash, what’s so great about that?”
“Gees Casey, don’tcha know? There’s only about half the boys in Ingham been beatin’ their brains out f’the last coupla years – like tryin’ to make friends with her. Only she’s real shy and quiet, ay. She’s always friendly and polite but there’s no favourites. She ain’t got no boyfriend.”
The next morning it was apparent that two Gower Abbey boys had come down with some sort of debilitating malaise, probably as a result of the previous evening’s excitement. The most obvious symptoms were a total listless apathy and complete loss of appetite, though neither boy had any sign of a temperature.
A third boy had abrasions and a prize-winning black eye. Rosie told him to wait in the dormitory until Mrs Finnegan came, despite his insistence that he was perfectly all right.
Mrs Finnegan arrived at nine thirty. She saw the third boy first, applied ointments and plasters to his injuries and then discharged him to the classroom. She then checked the temperatures and pulse rates of the other two, following which she went to the school building and gave strict instructions that anyone visiting the dormitory was not to disturb her patients.
At lunch time she returned with some of her legendary chicken broth, in the hope they might take a little nourishment. She helped them sit up and fussed about in a motherly way generally, all the while murmuring, “You poor dear…” every couple of minutes.
In the evening she asked the other boys to leave her charges alone and to make as little noise about the dorm as possible. Then, while the others were at dinner, she brought them some more chicken broth.
Later she explained to Father how at some stage during the previous evening they must have become over-wrought with excitement. He was not to worry, she told him, as she’d dealt with this sort of thing plenty of times before. Nor was there any need to contact their parents, she assured him, as in a couple of days they’d be “right as rain”. By the weekend they’d be ready to go home for Christmas.
It was only on my second day’s terminal adolescent heartbreak that I learnt Rosie was suffering from the same affliction – him as Prefect being in a different part of the dormitory with a small more private area. And though it didn’t seem possible, his condition was reportedly much worse than mine.
In fact it was this gem of information that was responsible for my own miraculous recovery, it being impossible to remain hopelessly love-sick when all you want to do is keep bursting into maniacal laughter.
Big Man Rosie! – our mighty leader; our Prefect and School Captain; our better example; our part-time bully and the toughest kid in the school – maundering about in his bed-clothes like a love-sick puppy.
Lemme outa here Mrs Finnegan! I NEVER FELT BETTER IN ME LIFE!
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