Kiss in the Dark (5 page)

THE STRONGEST GIRL I KNOW

We read about gin blossoms in English class, though it could just as well have been history: gin was the cheap drink of the English urban lower classes in the late-nineteenth century. It was called Mother’s Ruin, for obvious reasons, and even little kids would drink it to help them sleep, dull their hunger pangs (it was cheaper than food, believe it or not), or just escape the misery of their lives. If you kept on drinking gin, the capillaries on your face, which are the very small fine veins near the surface, would burst and give you away.

Certainly Mr. Barnes, with his nice, well-paid job-for-life and his tied cottage, has a lot less excuse than starving Dickensian orphans to be hitting the bottle. But his gin blossoms, a thick tracery of red veins on his cheeks, are very visible, as is his strawberry nose. Jase says his dad’s preferred tipple is actually whisky, not gin, but clearly the effects are the same.

Once Jase told me that his dad was drop-dead gorgeous when he and Jase’s mum got married. In fact, Jase said he looked like that actor from the old Star Wars films, Harrison Ford. Tall, dark, and handsome. I believe him, because (a) Jase has never lied to me, and (b) Jase is so handsome himself (blush) that it only makes sense that his dad must have been really good-looking too.

It’s sad that Mr. Barnes has drunk so much over the last eighteen years that you can barely imagine that once he was as handsome as a film star. I almost feel sorry for him. Or I would, if, when he got drunk, he weren’t chasing us over the school grounds, waving his torch menacingly and calling me a whore. That kind of thing tends to cut down on the available sympathy I have for a person, I find.

Instinctively, I take a step back on finding myself so close to him. I’m sure that if Mr. Barnes is visiting my grandmother on a Sunday afternoon, he won’t be stupid enough to be drunk while doing it. But drunk or sober, he still has a nasty temper, and he’s a lot bigger than I am.

Sure enough, he’s glaring at me from under his thick gray-flecked brows.

“I was just coming to see my grandmother,” I say unnecessarily. Now it’s pretty obvious that I’m very unnerved by him.

Mr. Barnes grunts something, and I take another step back, giving him plenty of room to move past me. He’s dressed in the kind of Sunday best people wear in the country: an old tweed jacket, corduroy trousers, and a white shirt, certainly a step up from the mucky old clothes he and Jase wear when they’re gardening. The smart (for him) clothes make him look more human, less like a monster who chases you in the dark. Bravely, I try my best to smile at him. Even more bravely, I say politely, as he grunts again and walks past me, down the corridor:

“Have a nice Sunday, Mr. Barnes.”

God, what am I doing? I sound like an idiot. It’s a bit too late to show him what good manners I have and what a nice girlfriend I’d make for his son. I hope I haven’t sounded as if I’m mocking him.

It goes down like a lead balloon. Mr. Barnes swings around and raises his hand, pointing at me with a big gnarled finger. His hands are red and chapped from working outdoors in all kinds of weather.

“I’ve warned you already,” he says hoarsely. “I don’t want you near my son. You’ve been told enough times.”

Then he turns and lumbers off down the corridor, his Sunday-best shoes squeaking on the polished boards.

My shoulders sag. It’s not just because I messed up that encounter; it’s because, for the life of me, I can’t think of anything I could have said or done that would have been more successful. Mr. Barnes is a lost cause for me. As is Aunt Gwen.

This depressing thought makes me debate my impulse to visit my grandmother and talk to her about the situation with me and Jase. We’ve got two of the most important adults in our lives implacably opposed to our being together; it’s too dangerous, as Taylor would put it, to run the risk of being 0 for 3. What if Lady Wakefield agrees with Aunt Gwen and Mr. Barnes? My grandmother is like God here at Wakefield Hall. No one dares to go against her will. She’s a benevolent dictator, but cross her at your peril.

The heavy mahogany door to my grandmother’s private quarters is on a slow release catch. It finally swings shut, the latch clicking into place with a small metallic sound. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, in a long sigh.

I’m bottling it. The sight of Mr. Barnes has broken my resolve. I don’t have the guts to march into my grandmother’s private sanctum and demand she give Jase and me permission to see each other.

Gloomily, feeling beaten, I turn away and march off in the direction of the library, my hand closed tight around the little jewelry box in my pocket. And then an awful thought hits me: what was Mr. Barnes doing in my grandmother’s quarters? I just assumed it was some estate-related business, her giving him his orders for the latest round of grounds maintenance.

But what if he went there to ask her to forbid me and Jase to date?

Oh God. I’m going to bury myself in the library till dinner time and do my very best not to think about anything but the research I’m doing for my latest history essay. Suddenly the short, brutal, torture-ridden reign of Bloody Mary Tudor looks a positively cheerful prospect by comparison with my own existence….

Rats. I forgot it was red bean chili and rice for dinner tonight. That means only one thing. I need to get my piece in first, before Taylor has a chance to comment.

“I know!” I say, sliding in to sit next to her on the long bench as the dinner ladies thunk down big serving dishes of steaming chili and boiled white rice at either end of the Lower Sixth Form table. “This is totally not chili in any recognizable shape or form. If a Texan turned up here for dinner by some freak accident, they would have a heart attack at us dumb Brits having the audacity to call this horrible, bland food chili. Because it bears absolutely no resemblance to proper American red bean chili, which is spicy and tasty and ooh, talking of which, did you bring your—”

Taylor reaches into her pocket and pulls out her prized possessions: three bottles of Tabasco sauce, which she places on the table in front of her.

“Not that you deserve any,” she says, grinning, “but I’ll share these with you just ’cause I feel nothing but pity for you dumb Brits and your horrible bland food.”

“Thank you.” I grab my favorite, the habanero Tabasco, and apply it liberally to the sludgy reddish chili. “It’s just, you say the same thing every time we have chili, and I thought I’d get in first for a change.”

“They put ketchup in it!” Taylor says, agonized. “They cook chili with ketchup in this freaky godforsaken country! I mean, I’m from Pennsylvania, which is, like, farther from Texas than this tiny little island is from, I dunno, Australia, and even I know you don’t put ketchup in chili.”

“It does taste a lot better with the Tabasco,” I admit.

“Everything tastes better with Tabasco,” Taylor says sweepingly, drenching her own heaped plate with a carefully calculated mixture of the habanero and chipotle Tabascos. Then she adds a few swirls of the green one on top for decorative effect.

“Oh, look at Scarlett and Taylor. Aren’t they sweet?” Plum’s voice echoes from the center of the table. Her super-posh accent, clipped and cutting, not only carries effortlessly but slices through the rest of the chatter too, interrupting everyone else’s conversations. “What a lovely couple they make! What are they sharing—hot sauce?”

I can’t help but admire the amount of twist Plum manages to put on the words hot sauce. She’s like a tennis ace, slicing a ball so it spins in the air, going places her opponent can’t anticipate. Girls down the table start sniggering automatically.

“Does Jase Barnes know you’re sharing Taylor’s hot sauce?” Plum continues, smiling triumphantly. “Isn’t he jealous? I mean, Taylor’s the closest thing we’ve got to a boy at school—apart from Sharon Persaud, I suppose.”

Sharon Persaud, surrounded by the other members of the hockey and lacrosse squads, glowers at Plum. I wouldn’t like to get Sharon angry; she’s built like a brick shithouse, to use a rugby term, and has already taken out several girls’ front teeth with her legendary lavender hockey stick. But Plum thinks she’s above us all here at Wakefield Hall, an exotic orchid in a field of common daisies and dandelions. She doesn’t care who she pisses off.

“No offense, Sharon,” Plum trills, flashing a smile at her. “It’s just that your legs are so marvelously robust. But you’re not butch, like Taylor over there. I mean, just look at her.”

I feel Taylor’s whole body stiffen.

“If I were Jase, I’d be wondering what you two get up to when you’re alone,” Plum carries on. “I mean, you and Taylor do spend a lot of time together getting hot and sweaty, don’t you, Scarlett?”

More nervous giggles are triggered by this sally. I sigh. I really just wanted a quiet dinner; I’ve got enough going on in my life without dealing with Plum’s latest bitch offensive. But keeping my head down won’t cut it with her. I tried that when we were at St. Tabby’s together, and it wasn’t exactly a successful strategy; it just encouraged her to go even further.

“Wow, Plum, you’re obsessed with Taylor, aren’t you?” I retort. “Honestly, it sounds like you’re the one who’d like to share some hot sauce with her!” I turn to Taylor. “Taylor, what do you say? Why don’t you take Plum for a run sometime? She could do with being a bit less spindly, and it sounds like she’d love to get sweaty with you.”

This goes down very well with the sporty crowd, who don’t like Plum’s attack on Sharon, their de facto leader. They laugh obligingly, shifting to see Plum’s reaction.

By now, pretty much the entire Lower Sixth table has abandoned any pretense of conversation and is listening avidly. What a bore. The system in the dining hall—each year of girls seated at one very long wooden table, benches on each side, like something out of an Oxbridge college—usually works very well, because no one is isolated. Everyone from that year has to sit together, but you can save spaces for friends, or squash up if you need to. The arty people sit together, the sporty ones ditto; it’s generally friendly, with girls making room for other people’s friends if they want to swap places.

Or it was, until Plum arrived, took one look at the setup, and decided that she was going to rule the Lower Sixth dining table, as she did everything else in her life. Since she came to Wakefield Hall, Taylor and I have picked seats as close to the end of the table as possible, trying to stay out of her way. And it’s worked fairly well so far—or it did last term, when Plum was still establishing her position.

But she came back from the Christmas holidays loaded for bear. It’s as if she feels that she’s achieved full princess status now; she’s taken her throne and she’s going to make us bow down to her, whether we like it or not.

Seated on either side of her are Lizzie and Susan. Lizzie’s cleaving to Plum I understand, as Lizzie’s always been a big suck-up, and very weak-willed; she’ll automatically run around after the strongest personality she can find. While Susan—well, that’s very clever of Plum. Susan is such a natural beauty that she could be a dangerous rival to Plum. I’m sure a lot of the younger girls have huge crushes on her. By bringing her into her circle, letting her sit beside her, Plum is taking the power of Susan’s beauty and incorporating it into her own.

“Want to share, Plum? Want some of Taylor’s hot sauce?” I pick up one of the Tabasco bottles and wave it in Plum’s direction, waggling my eyebrows suggestively at her.

Sharon Persaud grins at me encouragingly. I’m on a roll.

And then I feel a sharp, stiff nudge in my ribs. Wow, Taylor really doesn’t know her own strength. I have to brace myself with my quads to stop myself being knocked sideways. I look over at Taylor to see what the hell she’s doing. Her head is ducked, but she glares up at me briefly through her shaggy fringe, a tiny shake of her head indicating very clearly that she doesn’t want me to take this any further.

I’m baffled. Taylor is usually tough as nails. This defeated stance of hers is completely unprecedented. I lower the Tabasco bottle to the table, my next planned salvo dying on my lips, and Plum, who’s used to this kind of verbal fencing and very fast to sense weakness, jumps right in.

“Ooh, did Taylor give you that necklace?” she asks nastily. “I haven’t seen it before. Was it a love token? How sweet! Shame she couldn’t afford anything better.”

I haven’t even had a chance to show Taylor Jase’s necklace yet; I just put it on before dinner. It looks lovely, delicate in design, with the blue stone exactly matching my eyes, and I keep touching it in sheer pleasure. That might have been what called Plum’s attention to it. She’s as sharp as a whip.

“It’s an aquamarine,” I snap, my hand rising up to touch my necklace protectively, and that’s it, that’s the moment I let down my guard and she disarms me and pins me against the wall.

“Oh, please. Is that what your girlfriend told you? They barely ever cut aquamarines that shape. It’s cubic zirconia, I can tell from here,” Plum says gleefully, slicing her rapier in and twisting it for good measure. “Though really, semiprecious stones, cubic zirconia, who cares? Cheap cheap cheap.”

Lizzie Livermore, the richest girl at the table, giggles obediently, fiddling with one of her platinum-set solitaire earrings.

“I mean, these are just glass.” Plum fiddles with the silvered-bead bracelets at her wrists. “Murano glass, of course, hand-blown. I got them in Venice over the holidays. But they’re not pretending to be something else. They’re just glass. I mean, I’m not wearing cubic zirconia and pretending it’s aquamarine!”