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.

  15

  Amanda usually went to the airport to meet David when he returned from one of his trips abroad. Going to the airport was something of a ritual in George Town – the outing to the small building that served as the island’s terminal where, with Caribbean informality, disembarking passengers walked past palm trees and poinsettias and could be spotted and waved to from the terrace of the coffee bar. She took Billy, but left Clover with Margaret, who liked to take her with her to the ballroom dancing academy she frequented where, if one of the instructors was free, Clover was sometimes treated to a lesson.

  On the way back to the house Billy dominated the conversation, asking his father about New York and telling him a long and complicated story about an iguana that, injured by dogs, had limped into the back yard of one of his friends from school. She slipped in a few questions, about her father, whom David had visited. Her father had been widowed a few years previously and had taken up with a woman they were not sure about.

  “She drags him off to exhibitions all the time,” he said. “He was about to go to one when I arrived to see him. She kept looking at her watch while I was talking to him; it made me like her less than ever.”

  Billy said: “This iguana, see, had a big cut on the side of his head. A dog had bitten him there, I think, and you’d think that he would have died, but he hadn’t, you see.”

  “I think she must feel frustrated. He’s obviously not making up his mind.”

  And Billy said: “There was another iguana – not the one that had been bitten by dogs but another one. Maybe it was his brother. He had these big spikes on his back and …”

  “I wish he’d come down here to see us. She discourages him, I think.”

  “That happens. Perhaps you need to let go.” And to Billy, he said: “How big was the iguana again?”

  When they reached home, he took a shower and then swam in the pool. It was hot, and the doors of the house were kept closed to keep the cool air inside; in the background, the expensive air conditioners hummed. There was a cost here to everything, she had once remarked; even to the air you breathed.

  She watched him through the glass of the kitchen door. It was like watching a stranger, she thought; she could be standing in a hotel watching one of the other guests, an unknown man, swimming in the pool. He was towelling himself dry now, and then he threw the towel down on the ground, and she thought: I’ll have to pick that up.

  She went outside, taking him the ice-cold bottle of beer that she knew he would want. He took it from her without saying anything.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. It was what she said to Billy, to remind him of his manners. It was what every parent said, time after time, like a gramophone record with a fault in the grooves.

  He looked at her sharply. “I said thanks.”

  She went over to examine a plant at the edge of the patio. He followed her, beer in hand; she was aware of him behind her, but did not say anything.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me: did you have coffee with John the other day?”

  She answered without thinking. “John Galbraith? No. Why would I have coffee with John?”

  He took a swig of the beer. “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “I told you: I didn’t.”

  She had lied instinctively, self-protectively, as people will lie to get more time.

  It was as if he had not heard her answer. “It seemed odd to me, you see,” he continued. “Because you never mentioned it to me.”

  “I didn’t mention it because it didn’t happen.”

  He looked at her in disbelief. “But it did.”

  She sighed. “You’re picking a fight.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m simply asking you something.”

  She struggled to remain calm. “I told you. I didn’t have coffee with John. I don’t know why you should think I did.” She paused, thinking of how rumours circulated. It was a small place; inevitably somebody had seen her and had talked about it. Why should she be in the slightest bit surprised by that?

  “Whoever told you must be mistaken,” she said.
“Maybe it was somebody who looked like me.”

  “Or looked like John?”

  There was an innuendo in his comment that she ignored. “People think they’ve seen somebody and they haven’t. It happens all the time.”

  “It was me,” he said.

  This stopped her mid-movement.

  He was staring at her. She noticed that he was holding the bottle of beer tightly – so tightly that his knuckles were white with the effort. For a moment she imagined that he might use it as a weapon; instinctively she moved away.

  “Yes,” he said. “I saw you because I had called in somewhere earlier that morning and was coming back to the office. I walked past that coffee bar near the entrance to our building. I walked right past and saw you sitting there with him.”

  She said nothing. She averted her eyes.

  “And then,” he continued, “when I was in New York, I asked John directly. I said: what were you and Amanda talking about the other day?”

  It felt to her as if there were a vice around her chest.

  “And do you know what?” David went on. “He said: I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s what he actually said. He flatly denied it. I let the matter go.”

  She felt a rush of relief, of gratitude. John was covering for her. He was as good as his word. “Well, there you are,” she said. “You must have imagined it. Or you saw two people who looked a bit like us. The eye plays tricks, you know.”

  He took a step forward, bringing himself almost to the point where he was touching her. Now he spoke carefully, each word separated from the word before with a pause. “I saw you. I did not make a mistake. I saw you.”

  “You imagined you saw me.”

  “I saw you. I saw you.”

  She fought back. “Even if you did, then so what? So what if I have coffee with one of your friends. I know him too, remember. And anyway, are you seriously suggesting that there’s something between me and John, of all people?”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “It’s why you should lie to me – which you’ve done recently on more than one occasion.”