Chapter Ten
‘Did you make her do it?’
It’s Dianne who speaks, her small face taut with anger. ‘Did you? Men like you can drive a woman to anything,’ she hisses.
Dan looks appalled.
‘No—’ he begins.
Dianne’s out of her seat, rage quivering in every part of her.
‘Thank you, Dianne,’ says Rose. She rises from her chair too, but she’s commanding, firm, utterly in control. ‘Let me continue for now.’
Dianne’s mouth tightens. She does not sit back in her chair, though: she’s bolt upright, tensed for action. If Dianne had a spear in her hand, Rose imagines her stabbing Dan, so great is her fury.
‘Dianne.’
Rose moves to Dianne and puts a hand on Dianne’s arm.
Dianne jerks at the touch.
‘Please, it’s going to be all right. I promise,’ Rose says softly.
‘You can’t promise,’ says Dianne, and her eyes are opaque with pain.
‘I can,’ says Rose.
Keera and India are on the edge of their seats now, each ready to step in.
‘Please,’ Rose says to Dianne, still touching the other woman’s arm. ‘I can help you, you know,’ she says very softly.
‘Nobody can,’ says Dianne in a whisper, wrenching her arm away, but she sits.
Rose manages to gain enough self-control to sit back in her throne-like seat and turn her attention to Dan.
This is a pivotal moment for him. She has to keep her focus on him or she’ll lose him.
‘You’ve been together for a long time?’ asks Rose.
‘Since we were teenagers,’ Dan replies.
‘Then it does seem odd that you haven’t ever moved in with each other,’ she goes on. ‘Is there a reason for that?’
‘Her cousin, Miriam, owns a lovely house in Bath. They’re very close.’
Dan has a quick, well-rehearsed answer.
‘What about the rest of her family?’
‘They’re not close. Apart from Miriam, that is.’
OK, thinks Rose. Lack of family support for poor Julia. Another piece of the puzzle.
She tries a different tack.
‘You say that you’ve always been there for Julia, Dan. What would happen if you weren’t there? What would she do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says, sounding confused at this change of direction.
Rose continues: ‘Julia would have to choose whether to survive or not. You say she needs you but in this scenario, you are not around. What would she do then?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know.’ Dan’s face is now puzzled.
‘Let’s imagine another scenario,’ she suggests. ‘Let’s imagine you get back together, after this break, but then Julia decides to leave you.’
Dan inhales audibly.
‘She packs her stuff and goes to another country, starts a new life, maybe even meets someone new. What would you do then?’
The questions have to be relentless.
‘Can you stop her going? What if you try to stop her going but she still leaves?’
The other five are staring at Dan, apart from Dianne, who still has the opaque look in her eyes. She’s staring off beyond the infinity pool, not seeing the blissful ocean.
‘That wouldn’t happen,’ says Dan fiercely. ‘She needs me.’
Rose cheers inwardly. Dan has reached the important point.
‘What way does she need you?’
‘Every way,’ he says, confused. ‘She calls me first thing every morning and tells me what her day’s going to be like. I sort out her bills, do her taxes. She’s funny about accountants.’ He smiles. ‘I get her car serviced, fix things around the house for her and Miriam. We have dinner once a week.’
Rose interrupts.
‘This sounds like a very one-sided relationship, one in which your needs are not being met. You’re afraid of Julia leaving you and you do everything to prevent that. Essentially, you sacrifice yourself to make sure Julia’s needs are met, don’t you think?’
He’s shaking his head.
Rose changes tack, throws in the final important point: ‘I want you to think about something, Dan: we can’t control other people. Julia is an independent person; she’s not your child to be taken care of. She makes her own choices and your choices are based wholly around what she does.
‘Your fear of her leaving you is entirely rooted in how you feel about yourself. Do you feel that Julia saved you from something?’
Daniel is the second tallest boy in lower sixth in St Anselm’s. The tallest is Willem, who’s half Dutch, home of the tallest people in the world.
Willem and Daniel tie for top marks in all the science subjects in their year. Willem is also doing Dutch in European Languages, which he admits is a bit of a fudge, but hey – it’s an easy A-level for him.
‘Why do you not take French as an extra subject?’ Willem asks him. ‘Think how good that will look on your CV. All the sciences and French.’
Daniel’s stepfather is French but he so rarely speaks to Daniel that there’s no way they could manage the conversation to precede actual French lessons.
‘Don’t want to,’ he says to Willem.
He doesn’t bother to explain that his actual father lives in Switzerland, with a Belgian girlfriend.
Willem doesn’t ask anything else about the French thing – he’s a very easy friend.
Willem’s family also move around the world a lot, so he’s used to the life Daniel leads: where endlessly ex-pat families, new half-siblings and lots of step-everythings translate into a person becoming very self-sufficient.
‘What do you think of the new girls?’ Willem asks Daniel.
They’re walking across the square to the magnificently appointed science wing, which is certainly one of the reasons why St Anselm’s is one of the top-rated public schools in the UK.
The school famously takes a cohort of girl students for A-levels, meaning an influx of girls into lower sixth in a way that focuses the minds of the male students in both the upper and lower sixths. The school is also excellent at preparing students for the Oxbridge exams.
‘Haven’t noticed the new girls,’ Daniel jokes.
Willem laughs and gently punches his friend in the arm.
‘Liar. That tall blonde one likes you. The one with the legs, the lips and the Essex-girl accent. You should ask her out.’
‘Rubbish, Willem, none of them are looking at me,’ says Daniel, which isn’t entirely true.
He knows exactly which girl Willem means. Julia.
He’s heard her name being called, the way popular people are always being called.
‘Julia, look over here, Julia, Julia …’
She’s their age, almost as tall and has spectacular long legs. She doesn’t attempt to hide them in her first weekend outfit of appallingly sexy black leggings worn with a long grey and pink striped cardigan and knee-high suede boots. Pupils can wear non-uniform clothes on Saturdays and Sundays.
The boys wear sweatshirts and chinos. Few boys notice what their male friends are wearing. But at least ninety per cent of St Anselm’s boys notice the girls’ clothes: hip-hugging jeans, swinging skirts, sweaters that cling to narrow waists and pert breasts.
Daniel has stared at Julia surreptitiously many times: her face is oval and her eyes are widely spaced like a fawn’s, only fawns don’t use eyeliner and mascara to emphasise eyes the violet blue of a precious gem.
The colour of tanzanite, Daniel thinks. He loves geology.
On Monday, Julia turns up in biology class with her grey uniform skirt turned up to mini-skirt level, a lesson in ingenuity given that it has many pleats.
Looking carefully, Daniel thinks she might have stapled the hem.
‘You’re a distraction, Miss Chance,’ announces Mr Carter, who is known for preferring girl students in the blue-stocking dress of eighty years ago.
In other words: glasses, an earnest manner and a traditional uniform that would not shock his mother.
‘Kindly leave and come back to us when you are wearing garments in a manner fitting this laboratory.’
Julia smiles minxily, says nothing and collects her things.
The entire biology class is watching her, hips swaying as she leaves the classroom.
One eye, flicked up with painted-on liner and half hidden by strands of silky pale-gold hair, winks at Daniel as she leaves.
‘Sir?’ Daniel stands up.
This is code for heading to the lavatory.
Mr Carter nods and goes back to his slides about cell structure.
Daniel slides his books from his desk and into his rucksack, leaves the room and heads right, following Julia.
He breaks into a half-run and catches up with her.
‘You OK?’ he asks, which is probably the most he’s ever spoken to any girl since reaching puberty.
‘Sweet Dan, coming to get me,’ she says, her face breaking into that exquisite smile.
Her full lips are pink and faintly glittery as if she’s found lipstick the fairies make.
Her eyes – Daniel has never understood how the Romantic poets could fall into women’s eyes till now but, suddenly, he gets it.
He’s part of her, melded to her: she has power over him with her mystery and her beauty.
‘I’m going onto the roof to smoke,’ she says, and his eyes can’t move from those pillowy lips. ‘Want to come?’
‘Yes,’ he says instantly. She wants to spend time with him!
Daniel doesn’t smoke but sits in the September sun on a piece of flat roof on top of the girls’ rooms. It’s hard to know which is more forbidden.
Leaving a class for no good reason, being above the girls’ rooms – strictly out of bounds for any male student, being with someone who’s smoking long dark-coloured skinny cigarettes which give off a strange, almost cinnamon scent amid the tang of nicotine.
Julia lies back on the roof, letting the sun heat her body, school bag discarded and her sheet of blonde hair splayed out around her.
‘C’mere,’ she says, patting the roof beside her. ‘I don’t bite.’
She talks differently to most of the students in the school. This difference is fascinating to Dan. He’d never have had the nerve to stalk out of Carter’s class.
She pats the roof again.
‘I’m sure you don’t bite,’ he replies, startled at his own savoir faire in this situation. He shoves away his rucksack which contains the essay he has to hand in at physics class inside it. Physics is next but there is no way Daniel is going to make it.
Not now. Not when he can be doing this.
‘I’ve been watching you,’ Julia says, offering him her cigarette.
Daniel shakes his head and watches her face, studying it.
Willem has said that Julia likes him, but Willem was joking, surely? She’s even more beautiful when she’s lying down, like a Renaissance painting of a girl lounging on a couch, a knowing look in her violet blue eyes.
‘How can I kiss you if you’re not smoking too? I won’t taste nice, will I?’ Julia says with a hint of petulance, a smile still dancing over her lips.
Daniel’s transfixed by her lips. Pillowy, sheeny with a full lower lip. Her lips look as if they’ll taste of strawberries.
Can he kiss her? Does she want that?
He’s never kissed anyone, never thought that anyone would want to kiss him.
He’s one of the serious science boys at school, never on the top teams, likes running but the team sports leave him cold. Plus, he wants to hold on to his brain cells and not have them bashed out on the rugby field.
Jarvis in his year is six months younger, hopeless at lessons but captain of one of the A rugby teams. Jarvis has had girlfriends since second year, has a sister at Wycombe Abbey and has cut a swathe through the girls in her year.
Daniel’s sister, Vicky, is much younger than he is, currently abroad with his mother and stepfather, and her friends are other sweet nine-year-olds.
‘Would you like to kiss me?’ Julia asks.
Smart scientist boys don’t get girls like this, thinks Daniel, but he ignores all the old messages in his head.
There’s new data in and it’s good.
He takes her cigarette, takes a drag and, somehow, manages not to cough.
‘Are we even now?’ he asks, wondering what part of his brain is managing these James Bond-type answers.
‘Even,’ murmurs Julia.
Daniel leans down, puts a very gentle hand behind Julia’s beautiful head and presses his lips to hers.
Instantly, her small tongue snakes its way into his mouth and it’s the most erotic thing Daniel has ever felt.
His insides swoop with excitement.
He loves this girl, this exquisite creature.
He lies down beside her, cradling her head in both hands now so she won’t get hurt on the rough cement of the roof, and kisses her as though both their lives depend upon it. She is a precious princess and he must take care of her.
Right now is the most glorious moment of his life. He wants to say he loves her but how can he, this quickly? Yet she sees him, sees exactly who Daniel is, he can tell. And she still wants him, wants to kiss him.
Daniel hopes they can go on kissing for ever, hopes she’ll be with him for ever. Nothing in his life has ever felt like this before. They’re destined for each other.