FLASHBACK # 9
Thin snow floats in the yellow light from the Ballroom window. A tawny owl shrieks from the treeline across the field. It speaks of knives & violence. Shivering, you step away from the long window & peer into the night. This is your soundtrack rather than the dull pulse of Roy Orbison’s Running Scared that has the couples on the floor sliding into each other’s arms for a slow dance. Teachers move swiftly through the lolling throng, some humorous, some affronted as they prise the couples apart. There, at the epicentre, Pete Cutlipp & her, slung together like drowning creatures. He has his face buried in her white-blonde hair; she’s smiling, eyes closed. Such pain, this time in the throat, like that’s where the tears are brewed.
And you set it up. You carried the note she wrote in Junior Prep. A stubby pencil gripped tight, like a child; she lets you watch her trail the looping letters across the lined paper. 'I just want to know where I stand cos I really like you & I know you thought I did but not in that way…’ Secretly you despise the barren language & the fact that he’ll read only romance into it. She asks you does it sound right & you say that it does. Will you wait, she wants to know, while he reads it & then will you bring the reply & leave it on the Girls’ Landing jut before lights out, under the mop bucket by the banisters? Yes, you will. She touches your hand with her fingertips & tilts her head in that way she has. Does she know how I feel? you wonder, appalled. No. No, she likes you but not in that way. It’s like you’re her brother. She only has sisters, she sighs. She’s so glad she’s got a brother now who she can talk to. She stretches her legs out under the table & tugs her skirt up to her thighs. Her legs are bare & downy; she wears white ankle socks. A shudder goes through her & you know she’s thinking of him. She glances at you sideways & smiles thinly.
You try to tough it out in the Christmas Dance. You sit with Jeppy & watch the Sixth Formers jiving. He reckons that Dalia isn’t wearing any knickers & every time she spins away from Paddy Brassington & her skirt whirls up around her waist, Jeppy ducks down like he’s tying his shoe. But you can’t concentrate, either on Dalia’s state of dress or the music. (Doddy Bell’s spinning the discs & he slips in some raw rock’n’roll – Gene Vincent singing Who Slapped John?)
Because they aren’t in the Ballroom. Everyone else is there – all of the 4th & 5th Form, & Roger is taking a register. You know where they are because Pete told you last night after lights out. The five of you lay in your beds in the dark letting the day fall away. Jeppy was under the bedclothes listening to Radio Luxembourg. Remus was snoring already. Eddie was studying his football programmes by the light of a pencil torch. Pete was on the top bunk; you were on the bottom. You knew he was lying on his back with his hands under his head. The bunk creaked as he stretched luxuriously. “You know”, he whispered, “I think she really loves me. And I think I’m in love with her”.
You despise him. His cow-eyes. His weird, looping walk. The way he smokes a fag, with the tip pointed into his palm. His Adam Faith hairstyle. The snow thickens – big, flat, white shapes, yellow in the window light. It begins to settle on the low stone wall at the edge of the terrace. You shamble across the gravel & lie full length along the wall. Your face crumples & tears begin to flow. Let them find me here tomorrow in my white winding sheet…
11:14:16 PM 
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