Beth
Beth
As she straps herself into the passenger seat of his Peugeot 106, Beth feels something that makes her uncomfortable, in the circumstances. A tingle of excitement, of longing, of… awakening.
But Nick is seeing Anna. Her flatmate Anna. And her grandad is seriously hurt. What the hell is wrong with her?
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to reset her brain.
There’s a tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rear mirror. Vanilla-scented. But fighting a losing battle against the stale smell of cigarette smoke that lingers inside the car.
A thin veneer of dust coats the plastic dashboard. Other than that, the car is immaculate. No discarded takeaway boxes or old carrier bags. Nothing except for a windscreen scraper, tucked neatly into the cubby hole in her door.
‘Your car is really tidy,’ she remarks, and it sounds more like an accusation than she meant it to.
‘Maud is my pride and joy,’ he says, winking.
‘Maud?’
‘Don’t you think it suits her?’ He taps the steering wheel lightly.
She laughs.
‘I can’t believe you have a name for your car.’
The sky has taken on an ethereal light – not quite dawn, but the darkness shifting.
‘Do you know the way?’ Nick says, as he pulls the seatbelt across and straps himself in.
‘I… think so.’
‘Great. M1, then M25, yes? Then you can direct me once we get past London.’
‘OK.’
He turns the key to start the engine and she reaches forward and lays a hand on his arm. He turns to look at her.
‘Thank you,’ she says, softly. ‘This is really kind of you.’
He shrugs, gives a lopsided smile.
‘I adored my grandad,’ he says, his voice calmer than usual. ‘I’d want someone to do the same for me. If it was my last chance to see him.’
‘Anna won’t mind?’ she asks now, tentative.
‘Anna?’ he says, then he pulls a face that seems to imply she’s crazy for asking. But she notices him swallow too.
‘She’s so nice,’ Beth says, blandly. ‘Smart too.’
Anna is studying Chemistry.
‘Smarter than me, for sure,’ Nick replies, pulling out onto the main road.
She looks at him. Beth has no idea how serious their relationship is. Although they’ve hung out together a few times, she’s avoided being alone with Anna, and on some level she knows why, even though she won’t admit it to herself.
It’s all her dad’s fault.
‘How’s it going with you two?’ she asks, trying to keep her tone light and failing. But he doesn’t notice. He’s clueless. ‘You’ve been together since day one, right? Is it serious?’
He screws his nose up as though she’s said something funny.
‘Serious?’ he says. But he doesn’t answer her question. She’s made him uncomfortable.
Beth hasn’t met anyone at all since she arrived. Despite all the nights out dancing in bars. Despite the fact she’s met more new people in the past month than she’s met in her entire life. No one seems to be interested in her, and she hasn’t seen anyone she’s been interested in either.
The other night, Meredith, a girl from her course, told her she wasn’t ‘putting out the right vibes’.
But is the reason more simple than that?
Is this boy, sitting next to her and tapping his hand lightly on the steering wheel… is he the real reason she hasn’t been attracted to anyone since she got here?
Because she suspects she’s feeling those vibes now, despite how inappropriate it is.
‘Do you think you’ll be in it for the long term? You and Anna? That would be romantic, wouldn’t it? To meet your life partner at university.’
Her mouth won’t stop talking. Why is she asking this? Masochism.
‘Christ,’ he says. ‘It’s only been a few weeks. I haven’t thought about it to be honest.’
So, he doesn’t like the thought of commitment much. But then again, he’s only just nineteen, so that’s hardly a surprise.
‘What about you, Mrs Romance?’ he asks.
Her heart thumps. He’s asking about your love life. This means something.
‘What about me?’
Feigned ignorance at his question. Surely neither of them are convinced?
‘How’s your love life?’
She tries for a noise of dismissal but it comes out like a snort.
‘Non-existent.’
‘What about back at home? Did you have a boyfriend in sixth form?’
‘Not really. I mean, no.’
There was someone the year before. Liam, a boy from the local pub. They spent time together over the summer holiday before her final year of sixth form. Liam was really into camping. She lost her virginity to him in a tent and told herself it was OK that the experience was completely underwhelming, because it was meant to be. But afterwards, whenever she thought about it, she burst into tears.
He played songs for her on his guitar, and wrote her poetry, but it wasn’t very good poetry. She started to feel a little humiliated for him, so she ended it.
The next week, he started dating a girl in Year 10.
‘I was really sick all summer. I didn’t go out at all. I didn’t even get to have a holiday romance. But to be honest…’ She pauses, a flame of anger rising from somewhere. ‘I’m not interested in all that. Relationships. They just mess with your head. I’m too ambitious. I want to focus on my degree, and beyond that, my career.’
She sounds like such a bore.
‘Oh…’ Nick pauses. ‘Well, that’s a shame. You’re a catch you know, Beth.’
‘What?!’ Her heart thumps again.
‘I mean, you must know that. You have a mirror in your room. I know you do because there’s one in every room.’
She feels her neck flushing, the red creeping up to her cheeks. Her heart’s going absolutely crazy now. Thank God it’s still relatively dark, thank God his eyes are squarely on the empty road ahead.
‘An acquired taste,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘That’s what someone once said about me. Or more, accurately, about my face. That it was an acquired taste.’
‘Jesus.’
Why the hell did she tell him that?
The silence that follows is unbearable. She scrabbles around for a change of subject, her eyes falling on the air freshener.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ she says.
‘I don’t anymore. I miss it though. I’m not used to having nothing to do with my hands. I need to… I dunno, take up guitar or something.’
‘That seems like quite an extreme reaction.’
He glances sideways at her.
‘Do you play any instruments? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You look like a… flute kind of girl to me.’
‘What does a flute kind of girl look like?’
‘A flute kind of girl looks… like you.’ Their eyes meet again, briefly, and he winks.
She flushes, ever so slightly.
‘We didn’t really have the money for that kind of thing when I was growing up. And to be honest, I was pretty obsessed with acting.’
‘I know I probably have it all wrong, but don’t actors have a reputation for being… I don’t know… show-offs? You’re kind of the opposite of what I’d expect.’
‘Acting is not about showing off.’
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It is really. At least a little bit?’
She frowns.
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘What is it then?’
She sighs.
‘Acting is… there’s a quote I like that really sums it up. Acting is doing things truthfully under imaginary circumstances.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know how to explain it. You’d have to come and watch one of my shows.’
‘I will do,’ he says.
There’s another pause.
‘I know it sounds cheesy, but honestly, it’s a vocation. I can’t think of anything else I want to do.’
‘I’ve actually never been to the theatre before,’ he says, after a while.
She stares at him, wide-eyed, but his eyes are fixed on the motorway ahead.
‘Never?’
‘Nope.’
‘I don’t believe you! Not even panto?’
‘My mum doesn’t go out much. She’s a bit…’
He tails off. Beth cocks her head to one side thoughtfully.
‘A bit what?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says, looking down. ‘We’re not really a theatre sort of family.’
‘What did you get up to when you were younger? I bet you were a right tearaway.’
‘Nah,’ he says. ‘Sorry to disappoint. My mum… needed a lot of looking after. More than most parents. It was just the two of us. I had to grow up quite quickly.’
She bites her lip, worried she’s upset him. Something shifts, an understanding that there’s more depth to this boy than she first gave him credit for. That his cheery demeanour is a front for something. But what?
‘I’m sorry. Was she poorly?’
‘Not exactly. It’s not a big deal,’ he says. He doesn’t want to talk about it. ‘Let’s just say my dad buggered off when I was a baby and I had to grow up fast. But now I’ve left home, I feel free, and I’m determined not to waste a single second of my life.’
‘Well we agree on that,’ she says.
She doesn’t know what to say next, so instead she reaches forward and jabs the button for the stereo. The car fills with loud dance music.
‘XFM?’ she says, barely audible over the din. ‘Really? Have you cut holes in the parcel shelf and hooked up sub-woofers too? So that you can drive around being really obnoxious?’
He switches it off without comment.
Why does she always do this? Some twisted defence mechanism. Being snarky to someone she actually likes. He’s being so kind. Driving her all the way to Sussex so she can see her grandad for possibly the last time.
This is why she’s single. Because she’s so damn mean.
But he’s still smiling.
‘Look in the glove compartment,’ he says, throwing her a look over his shoulder. ‘There are a couple of CDs in there that might be more up your street.’
She pulls it open as he suggested, reaching her hands into the dark hollow, scrabbling her fingers around until they settle on something hard and plastic, pulling it out.
‘Backstreet Boys?’
For some reason, this makes her convulse with laughter.
‘Oh God, no, not that one. That’s Anna’s.’
Anna leaves her CDs in his car.
Her heart does the opposite of thump this time. It practically sags.
‘Yeah right. I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’
‘Look underneath!’
She pulls out another CD.
‘Dire Straits?’
She’s heard of them, she thinks. Some old-school rock band that people like her dad listen to.
‘Here, give it to me.’
She takes the CD out of its case and he slides it into the slot in the centre of the dashboard.
‘Listen,’ he says, as a gentle guitar riff begins to play.
She recognises it. Settles back into the seat and lets the music wash over her.
‘Romeo and Juliet?’ she asks, after a few lines of the first verse.
‘I’m impressed!’ he says, and he looks, briefly, genuinely happy.
She smiles, listening to the lyrics, trying to ignore the feeling that they mean something. That this – the two of them listening to this together, alone, in the middle of the night – means something.
But he has a girlfriend. He’s seeing Anna, their flatmate.
‘I’m sure my dad has this album,’ she says.
‘Your dad has good taste,’ he replies, without realising how much a comment like that could sting her, and then he winks.