Sandra/Cassandra
To Rose, Julian was just the icing on the cake. But he was my lifeblood. Rose didn’t love him. She didn’t know what love was; she was a child playing an adult game. She would soon get bored with it but by then it would be too late.
The day before the dance, and after nights of lying unable to sleep and with my thoughts whizzing round my head like comets, I felt dizzy with anxiety, but I still had no idea what to do. I just knew that there had to be something.
‘If you want something badly enough you’ll get it,’ that’s what my parents always told me. And I’d thought, well, they can’t have wanted anything very badly at all. I wanted Julian so bad it felt like my insides were on fire. And it came to me that maybe I should just talk to them, the princesses, be straight, tell them what Julian meant to me and appeal to their better nature. I’d say to Rose, ‘Look, you can get any boy you want, so please – don’t take him.’
The princesses were crowded into Portia’s cube with Celia Hunter and Hannah Maitland. I stood in the doorway, a goblin peering in. Eliza looked up from pinning some kind of crazed corsage to the waist of Celia’s frock, and tried to give me a smile with a mouthful of pins. She finished the job and spat out the rest of the pins in the palm of her hand.
‘Aren’t you going to get ready?’ she asked me then turned to the others. ‘Cassandra’s dress is absolutely gorgeous. Brilliant colour, too.’
I smiled back. Oh, it was easy to be nice, I thought, when you have everything. ‘I wanted to have a word,’ I said. ‘With Rose mainly.’
Rose, who was plucking her already perfect eyebrows, turned round. ‘Sure. Shoot.’
‘Can I have your tweezers when you’re done?’ Celia asked Rose.
‘C’mon everyone, it’s only two hours to show-time,’ Portia said. ‘I haven’t even done my nails. Have you done yours, Rose?’ Rose held out a dainty foot. ‘You haven’t. Well, hurry up then. At least I’m wearing sandals but yours will have to be completely dry.’
‘I wondered if we could have a word in private,’ I said, looking at Rose. My voice was casual enough but I was looking at her intently, hoping she’d pick up on it being important. She didn’t. Nor did anyone else. Not even Eliza.
‘Look, Sa . . . Cassandra, can it wait? I’ve got masses of stuff still to do. We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?’
I actually looked quite good once I was dressed and ready. I had used the heated tongs Aunt Gina had given me for my birthday and for once my frizz did resemble golden curls. I used almost an entire can of strong-hold Elnette so as long as it didn’t rain the look should last the evening. Beads of sweat kept rising to the surface of my armpits and the palms of my hands. I dabbed them away with a tissue and sprayed on some more of the Fenjal deodorant. It was really expensive and I knew only one shop that sold it, but Julian loved the smell, he had told me.
The party committee had turned the assembly hall into a glittering grotto with the aid of some old sails and a load of fairy lights. It looked pretty cool, actually. Miss Grant, Miss Robbins and Mr Loftus, the three members of staff in charge, were wandering around trying to look as if they were comfortable. Mr Loftus looked ridiculous in a pink shirt and a black knitted tie. Miss Grant and Miss Robbins just looked like they always did but in brighter colours. The boys’ coach had arrived but I couldn’t see Julian anywhere. I couldn’t see the princesses either. I pushed through the throng to the far side of the room but still they were nowhere to be seen. ‘Oi, watch where you’re going.’ It was Celia. I hadn’t even realised that I’d bumped into her.
‘Have you seen Rose and Eliza anywhere? Or Portia?’
‘No. You look weird. Well, weirder. What’s the matter?’
I narrowed my eyes at her and she rolled hers and we walked off in opposite directions. I saw Hannah by the drinks table. I waved and called out. ‘Have you seen the others?’
‘What others?’
I swallowed my annoyance. ‘Eliza and Rose and Portia. Why aren’t they here?’
‘Are you all right, Sandra? You look . . .’
‘Don’t call me Sandra.’ The correction was automatic because just then I didn’t care what anyone called me as long as by the end of the night he, Julian, was back to calling me his baby.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Sorry. Always forget. Anyway, I don’t know where they are. Have a glass of punch. It’s almost as revolting as it looks.’
‘No, thank you.’ I continued on until I got to the emergency exit right at the other end of the hall. I slipped outside and the next thing I knew I was face to face with the three of them. ‘Hi, Cassandra.’ Eliza gave me a big smile as if seeing me was just the best thing that could have happened to her at that moment.
‘Don’t you look great. Doesn’t she look great, guys?’
She, of course, was looking amazing in a medieval-style green velvet dress that trailed the floor. She was wearing a garland of pale yellow flowers and her Titian hair tumbled halfway down her back. Portia had gone for public-school tart in a sleeveless short black dress and sky-high gold sandals and her blonde hair was arranged in an artfully messy up-do. And Rose . . . I found myself smiling at her before I realised what I was doing, because she was so beautiful it was impossible not to. She too was wearing flowers in her hair, white ones to match her dress, that was gauzy and fitted as perfectly as if it had been stitched straight on to her.
As I stared at her my smile died away. She was perfect and there was no boy on this earth who would say no to her. I felt the tears rise in my eyes and I muttered something and hurried off. I heard Eliza call after me but I didn’t stop until I was out of sight. The Folly was out of bounds for pupils at all times and for the evening they had gone so far as to fence it off with the kind of tape they use to fence off a crime scene. As if that would stop anyone.
I sat there on the cold stone floor listening to the laughter and the music, which seemed to come from so far away it might have been another planet. The princesses’ planet. It wasn’t fair, I thought. Rose was not particularly clever or funny or even nice. Other than for the way she looked she was ordinary. But if you were that beautiful people forgot to look for anything else. It was like being royalty. You smiled and everyone felt like the sun had come out just for them. You spoke, and even the most commonplace of your utterances was noted and savoured and brought out again and again to impress at dinners and family celebrations.
I don’t know how long I sat there but when I next checked it was ten thirty and the moon was high. I got up and went back into the throng of the assembly hall. I wanted to find Julian. I wanted to see him so badly it hurt but I couldn’t see him anywhere. On my way out again I spotted the princesses huddled in the corner by the door. I realised they must be going over their plan, their stupid, unfair, bad plan. Next, Portia peeled off, going off towards the dance floor. It seemed I wasn’t the only one looking for Julian. Rose and Eliza waited a couple of minutes before going outside. Another few minutes went by and then I too left, following them.