Sandra/Cassandra
We were in the common room. The princesses were fussing around the two-ring stove, heating milk for hot chocolate. We had only just been given the privilege of making ourselves hot drinks this term and you would have thought we had been granted the freedom of a city or something, the way they carried on. ‘How about it, girls,’ one of them would say in the corridor as a group of juniors passed. ‘Shall we go and make ourselves some tea/chocolate/coffee?’ And then the other two would say, in equally loud voices, ‘Let’s,’ and off they’d trot with little glances all around, hoping no doubt for envy. And they got it. The juniors couldn’t wait until their lives got that glamorous. It was pretty pathetic when you thought about it, the way the smallest, most day-to-day treat became a huge deal in a place like this. No one at my old day school would put up with a single week here. Cubicles with curtains instead of doors would be unacceptable not to mention sleeping in beds with two-hundred-year-old mattresses made from unwashed horsehair or whatever it was. No privacy, no wardrobe space. And now this, thinking it was the biggest deal being able to make yourself a hot drink.
‘Aren’t you having one?’ Eliza asked me.
I told her I couldn’t be bothered. This obviously puzzled her. Then her brow cleared. ‘You can have some of my chocolate if you’ve . . . run out.’
‘Sandra, sorry I mean Cassandra, has a humongous tin,’ Portia said. ‘Her mum sent it by return.’
It was obvious that my mum had got it wrong again. Around here you could go on a Kenyan safari for your Christmas holiday but if you wanted some chocolate powder you saved up or waited until your birthday. If I lived until I was a hundred I’d never work out all the little snobby rules of the princesses’ existence. I couldn’t believe how much I used to care, too. Before it happened. Before my life changed.
‘Porsh, is Julian going on the excursion?’ It was Rose asking.
I had been rummaging in my satchel for my cigarettes but now I looked up.
‘He said he was.’
‘Looks like it’s you and me sitting together then, Porsh,’ Eliza said, grinning at Rose, who flushed beetroot.
I tried to stifle the grin spreading across my face but it was impossible so I pulled out my hankie and pretended to blow my nose. My heart was beating faster the way it always did when they mentioned his name. I had been trying to find a reason to say it myself, to suck the sweetness from each letter. J.u.l.i.a.n. I wanted to tell someone about us. No, I wanted to tell everyone. I wanted to shout it out and sing it out and for everyone to know. To know about how it was true that love made you go weak at the knees, literally. How it was true that love hurt and how it was as if a band were tightening around your chest until you felt breathless. How it made you wake each morning so full of energy you wanted to dance instead of walk. And how it made you feel sorry for everyone else in the world simply for not being you. I wanted to tell everyone all of that. But I couldn’t. I had promised Julian. He said it was extra special only us knowing. Like we had a private world. Anyway, he couldn’t stand PDA – public displays of affection. It cheapened a relationship. But we wouldn’t keep it secret for ever, obviously. Maybe the trip would be a good time to go public. The princesses would be in their seats, Portia and Eliza next to each other and Rose would be across the aisle with an empty seat just happening to be next to her. We’d stop at LABs to pick up the boys. Julian would climb on board, pause and look around. Rose would blush all cutesy and Portia would call him over in that bossy proprietorial way she had with him. And then it would happen. Julian would push his fringe back the way he did when he was determined about something and then he’d saunter down the aisle, past the empty seat next to Rose, and, ignoring his sister, right on down to where I was sitting. Then, and in full view of the entire bus, he would smile that slow lazy smile that showed the dimple in his right cheek before slipping into the seat next to me, next to poor old Sandra/Cassandra.
‘Cassandra, you look weird. What’s up?’ I was so deep in my daydream that when Rose spoke to me I flipped my arms back, knocking the mug of chocolate from her hand. It was almost empty but what little was in there splashed across the wall as the mug crashed to the floor and broke.
I couldn’t believe it but Rose, seeing it there in pieces, started to cry. And not just any crying but she cried like a little kid, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, not even bothering to look away.
‘Shit,’ Eliza said. ‘Her mother gave that to her.’ She put her arms round Rose and hugged her close. They looked like little girls, all foal-legged and lost.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you a new one.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Eliza hissed at me. She turned to Rose and her expression changed. ‘We’ll get it mended, Rosie,’ she cooed. ‘It’ll be as good as new.’
I wanted Eliza to speak to me that way, and look at me so sweetly. Maybe she would once she knew about Julian. Maybe then she would see that I was more than just the annoying bumpkin hanging around the perimeters of the group.
Rose had stopped crying and was looking at her with those big blue eyes. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
We were on the bus, waiting for the boys to board. My heart was beating so hard I felt as if my blood were being whisked, bubbling up to my brain, and I imagined my head lighting up red like a beetroot or a lamp in a prostitute’s window. But no one seemed to notice anything different as I made my way to the back. It was amazing, the princesses were sitting just the way I had imagined they would with Portia and Eliza next to each other and Rose on her own with an empty seat next to her. Both Gillian and Celia had been about to join her but Portia had stopped them, literally throwing herself across the aisle. I was actually beginning to feel a bit sorry for Rose. She would feel completely humiliated when Julian walked past her to sit with me. I used to wish I were she, with her perfect looks and Eliza for her best friend. But after today she might be wishing she were me.
As the engine of the bus idled I thought of Julian limp and grateful in my arms. He had chosen me, just the way I was. I had been tempted to ask him, why me? But I always held back. I didn’t want to break the spell. Because maybe that was what it was, a spell. Some fairy godmother bored with princesses who had it all had rolled up her sleeves and got down and dirty, making so that Julian, when he looked at me, saw perfection. Maybe that was the spell. ‘Whenever Prince Charming looks at you, my thin-lipped, frizzy-haired child, he shall a perfect beauty behold.’ Or some crap like that.
Then I spotted him on the forecourt with his friends. Julian was actually shorter than the others, which was weird because his sister was so tall, but he’d told me his father had been the same but then he’d had a late growth spurt. I told him he was just right the way he was. Anyway, taller men didn’t live as long. I’d read that in the paper just the other day. The spring sunshine was turning his chestnut hair copper and when he turned his face towards us it was as if the whole bus shivered with a moaning sigh. In front of me Portia twisted round and grinned at Rose. The two of them made me sick, behaving as if he were a piece of prime steak to be divided between them.
The doors opened. I sat back in my seat as if I were about to go to sleep and half closed my eyes while I looked out for him coming towards me. I had my hand ready to pat the empty seat next to me in a gesture that only he would see. I watched, from under lowered lids, as he hung back with his friend David, the boy Eliza liked, letting the others pass, and he was looking round as if searching for someone. I sat up straighter and lifted my hand just a little in a tiny wave. But he wasn’t even looking in my direction, having spotted his sister. I realised that someone was talking to me and I looked up to see Gareth Penning.
‘Is this seat free?’ he asked again. Gareth was the only boy I could think of who would ask and not just plonk himself down. He was a complete loser, unfortunately.
‘No, no, it isn’t,’ I said. And he lumbered off to sit on his own somewhere. If I hadn’t been so excited I might have felt sorry for him.
I craned my neck in time to see Eliza and then Portia signalling to Julian and David. Julian was coming up to Rose’s row. I couldn’t stand it any longer so I got to my feet.
‘Hi,’ I called. Julian turned and looked in my direction. I gave him a smile and a wave.
It had gone quiet. Everyone was watching. I held my breath as I waited. This was when it was going to happen. This was when they were all going to find out. I exhaled and relaxed my shoulders and the air escaping through my lips whistled like a steam-train.
Slowly Julian raised his gaze and looked straight at me. I widened my smile, God, I must have looked as if I were about to swallow him, and gave another wave. But Julian let go of my gaze with no flicker of a smile back. David said something to him and then they laughed. Eliza turned round and looked and as our eyes met she went pink and looked away. I realised I was still standing. As I sank back on to my seat she turned to look at me again. She seemed to be asking me if I were OK. I pretended not to notice. She half rose to her feet but Portia grabbed her arm and said something and she sat back down. Just as well, because if she had come over I would have smashed her stupid face through the bus window.
The bus pulled out and as I turned away my heart exploded into little shards that went all over the place, piercing my throat, my breasts, my stomach, my groin. I breathed in and out, slowly, rhythmically, the way Dr Curtis had taught me when I was little. The bus turned on to the main road.