Schemer (17 page)

Pam looked at her sister in horror. She hated the C-word. ‘You can’t go round calling people terrible words like that, Lin. No wonder the poor man barred you.’

When Cathy burst out laughing, Pam glared at her friend. ‘Don’t encourage her, Cath. I mean it.’

Slurping her lager out of the can, Linda began to giggle. ‘I only told the truth, he is an old cunt.’

Stephanie was incredibly nervous as Barry unclipped her bra under the quilt cover. He had touched her breasts before, but he had never actually seen them in the flesh. ‘You’re so beautiful, babe,’ Barry groaned, as he put his mouth around her right nipple.

Stephanie winced. The last boy Tammy had got off with had sucked her nipples and she had said it was great. Steph disagreed. Barry seemed to be sucking hers too hard and, instead of feeling any pleasure, all she felt was pain.

Even though they had been going out for over a month now, nothing sexual had taken place between them, and as Barry wriggled out of his Y-fronts and put Steph’s hand on his rock-hard penis, Stephanie felt her whole body freeze. She had never seen or touched a willy in her life before, and not knowing what she was meant to do with it, she decided to squeeze it and hope for the best.

‘Nah, don’t do that, babe,’ Barry said, grabbing her hand. He threw the quilt to one side and began wanking himself off. ‘Do it the way I’m doing it,’ he urged her.

Looking at Barry’s penis standing upright, Stephanie glanced at her naked breasts and began to freak out. This was all too much too soon. Not only did she feel stupid because she obviously didn’t have a clue what she was doing, she also felt way out of her depth. When she pulled the quilt back over herself and burst into tears, Barry stopped masturbating and put a comforting arm around her. ‘What’s a matter, babe? We don’t have to do nothing if you don’t want to, you know.’

Not wanting to admit that all she knew about sex was what she had learned from idle schoolgirl gossip and graffiti on toilet walls, Stephanie thought of the best excuse she could. ‘I can’t do it, Barry. I would if you weren’t going away to Spain, but I think if we do it, it’s gonna make me miss you even more. You don’t mind, do you? Can we just get dressed and have a cuddle?’ Stephanie wept.

Barry had never felt so frustrated before in his life. He wanted Steph badly, but he would never force himself upon her, even though a small part of him wanted to. ‘You get dressed, go downstairs and pour us both a drink, babe. There’s beers and cider in the fridge,’ he said, sensibly.

‘Ain’t you coming downstairs as well?’ Stephanie was worried her naivety might have put him off her and that he might have second thoughts about their relationship continuing.

Not wanting to admit that he needed to finish off masturbating, Barry smiled. ‘I’ll be down in a minute and I’ve gotta nice surprise for you. You go pour the drinks and I’ll see you down there in a tick.’

Stephanie felt incredibly stupid as she awkwardly chucked her clothes on and ran down the stairs. Her thirteen-year-old sister wasn’t frightened of having sex, so why was she? Perhaps she had something wrong with her and she would die a bloody virgin.

Barry thought of Steph’s breasts as he shut his eyes and brought himself to an orgasm. He really wanted to take the memory of their first sexual encounter to Spain with him to give him something to think about in the long dreary months ahead, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen now. In a way he was quite pleased that Steph seemed so prudish, as if she had turned out to be a nymphomaniac, he would have had far more to worry about in his absence.

Wiping the evidence of his little activity off his sheets with a piece of toilet roll, Barry put his tracksuit back on and took the two little black velvet boxes out of his bedside drawer. He had spent forty out of the fifty pounds that Steve had given him on this little gesture, and he really hoped Steph liked it.

Stephanie was sitting on the sofa feeling guilty and dreadfully sorry for herself when Barry walked in the room. She took a large gulp of cider and handed Barry a can of lager. ‘I’m really sorry, Bal. You ain’t got the hump with me, have you?’

Barry knelt down in front of Steph and placed one of the velvet boxes into her right hand. ‘I could never have the hump with you. Now open that.’

Stephanie gasped with glee. ‘Oh it’s lovely. What is it? Is it a locket?’

Barry shook his head and snapped open the other box he was holding. He took the gold pendant out and placed it next to Steph’s. ‘See what it is now?’

‘It’s a gold heart!’ Stephanie exclaimed.

‘It’s a heart broken in two pieces, but when you join ’em up they fit together. I’m gonna wear mine every day in Spain to remind me of you, and I want you to do the same in England. It’s like a broken heart, ain’t it? And that’s what ours will be while we’re apart. But every time you feel sad, I want you to remember that when I get home, that heart will fit together again, forever.’

‘Oh Barry, that’s so romantic.’

Barry took the pendant from Stephanie’s hands and did the clasp up around her neck. ‘You’ll never be able to forget about me now, babe, will you?’

Stephanie let out a tortured sob. ‘I will never forget you, Barry, not ever.’

At six a.m. on the Monday morning, Stephanie was glued to the bedroom window as Barry helped Jake carry the suitcases out to the waiting taxi.

‘Please come down and say goodbye properly,’ Barry shouted up to her.

Totally distraught, Stephanie shook her head and sobbed like a baby. Her tortured breathing was steaming up the glass window and she rubbed it with the sleeve of her dressing gown just to get one last proper look at the boy she adored so very much.

‘Pull yourself together and go down and say goodbye, Steph,’ Angie urged her. She was rather enjoying her sister’s heartbreak and wanted to watch Steph mug herself off in full view of the street.

‘I can’t make myself look a fool – and I’ve got my pyjamas on,’ Stephanie cried.

Angela leapt out of bed and handed Stephanie her black Puffa jacket. ‘Quick, you’ll regret it if you don’t.’

About to take her sister’s advice, Stephanie saw Marlene walk out of the house dressed in a long fur coat. ‘Get in the cab, you soppy little bastard,’ she shouted at Barry.

Fingering the piece of gold heart around her neck, Steph opened the window. ‘I love you, Bal,’ she yelled.

Barry smiled at her. ‘And I love you too. I’ll write to you as soon as I get there, and I’ll bell you at the weekend at the time we agreed.’

As Marlene clouted Barry around the head, then glared at her, Stephanie quickly shut the window. When the taxi driver started the engine, Barry glanced up one last time and waved. Holding her pendant tightly in her left hand, Steph waved back with her right. Seconds later, the love of her life was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the days that followed Barry’s going away, Stephanie was in absolute pieces. She couldn’t eat properly, was barely sleeping, kept bursting into tears in her classroom, and spent hours sitting on the stairs waiting for the postman to deliver his mail. She also turned fifteen and had the worst birthday ever.

‘You’ve gotta snap out of this, Steph. You’re making yourself ill and you’re making me ill with worry at the same time,’ Pam informed her daughter, as her face crumpled once again when the postman arrived and there was still no letter from Barry.

‘I can’t relax until I’ve heard from him, Mum. Say the plane crashed or something? He promised he’d write to me everyday, but I ain’t heard a word yet. Say he’s met another girl and forgotten all about me already?’ Stephanie wept.

Pam took her daughter by the hand, led her into the lounge and sat down in the chair opposite her. Steph’s erratic behaviour had worried her so much this week that she had rung up work this morning and told her boss that her daughter was ill and she would need to take a day or two off to care for her. ‘Barry will write to you, I know he will, but I told you only yesterday that his letters will come by airmail and they take ages to arrive.’

‘But he promised he’d write to me every day.’

‘And he probably has! Once you’ve received the first one, you’ll probably get letters off him most days after. You must remember, though, he is working, Steph, and he might not have the time to write to you every single day. Now, you’ve not eaten enough to keep a rabbit alive this week, so how about me and you shoot down to Broad Street where Cathy works and get ourselves a nice bit of scran in her café. You’ve gotta eat, angel. Barry ain’t gonna want you if you’re all skin and bones, is he?’

‘I so wish he hadn’t gone to Spain, Mum. I ain’t got nothing to look forward to now. I hate his mother, she is such a bitch.’

Pam moved over to the sofa where Steph was sitting and held her in her arms. She knew her daughter was bound to be upset after Barry had left, but she hadn’t expected her to be anywhere near this bad and she was beginning to wish that the old slapper hadn’t emigrated after all. To make matters even worse, Marlene’s daughter was still living at the house opposite and her Indian boyfriend had now moved in with her. Day and night they had music blaring out, and Pam was sure that they were serving up drugs from there as well, as they seemed to have more visitors than a whorehouse handing out free prostitutes.

‘Listen to me, Steph, and listen to me carefully. If that boy truly loves you and you love him, then you will end up together, no matter what. Your dad was in the army when I first met him. Away for months on end he was, and I barely saw him for the first year we were together, but we still ended up getting married, didn’t we? I know that Barry going away is horrible for you, but instead of moping about, darling, you need to look at it as a small blip. Nothing will ever get in the way of true love, remember that. Now, I’m bleedin’ Hank Marvin and so must you be, so let’s go and put some food in our stomachs, shall we?’

For the first time in days, Stephanie managed a weak smile. ‘OK, and thanks, Mum.’

Another person worried about Stephanie’s mental state was her best friend Tammy, and as she explained the situation to Wayne Jackman, he seemed just as concerned as she was.

‘Perhaps I should have made more of an effort to check that Steph was OK. I promised Bazza I would keep an eye on her for him and I sort of guessed she would be a bit down this week. Shall I talk to her and see if I can cheer her up a bit?’ Wayne asked Tammy.

‘I dunno. Nothing I’ve said or done seemed to help and she ain’t even come into school today. What about if we go and knock for her tomorrow morning and take her out somewhere for the day? I think we should go for a drink. It’ll do her good to let her hair down, and she might even have had a letter or phone call from Barry by then. He promised he was gonna ring her every Saturday morning at nine o’clock, English time, so if we knock for her about ten, she might have lightened up a bit if he’s phoned her.’

‘I’m meant to be going West Ham tomorrow, but I can meet yous early evening. Why don’t you go round there in the morning, take her for a mooch round Romford or somewhere, and then meet me at Heathway Station at six o’clock. Then we can all get pissed together. My nan and grandad go up the Millhouse on Saturday nights, so we can sit round mine and play some music and stuff, if you like? It’s better than hanging about on street corners in this cold weather, ain’t it?’

Tammy grinned. ‘That sounds like a fab idea, but you ain’t bringing Cooksie and Potter with you, are you?’

‘Nah. I still see ’em at football and in school and stuff, but I don’t really hang about with them any more. I’ve been knocking about with Danno instead.’

‘Who’s Danno?’

‘Danny MacKenzie. Top lad he is, but I think it’s best if it’s just the three of us tomorrow in case Steph’s still upset and stuff. I shouldn’t think she’s gonna wanna spill her guts in front of strangers, and Danno’s in my year, so she won’t know him that well.’

Thinking what a nice chap Wayne Jackman had turned out to be, Tammy stood up. ‘See you tomorrow at six then.’

Stephanie woke up feeling a lot better the following morning. Not only had getting some food inside her and the chat with her mother done her the world of good, but she was also extremely excited, as today was the day that Barry had promised to phone her.

Seeing her sister buzzing about like a blue-arsed fly, Angela sat up in bed. ‘What you gonna do if he don’t ring?’ she asked.

‘Of course he’ll ring if he said he will. Why wouldn’t he?’ Steph replied, anxiously.

‘Because he might have met another girl. Even if he ain’t yet, I bet he does when the holiday season starts. That Spain is full of pretty birds in bikinis and stuff and Barry ain’t exactly shy, is he?’

‘How do you know what Spain’s like, Ange? We’ve never been no further than Camber Sands.’

‘Because I’ve seen it on the telly. All the girls walk about naked and stuff. If I was you, sis, I would forget all about Barry and find yourself another boyfriend who lives in England.’

With her sister’s words dampening her sprightly mood, Stephanie sank onto her bed and put her head in her hands. ‘I won’t forget about him, Ange. Not ever.’

Pam sang away happily to a song on the radio as she put the sausages into the pan of lard. This was only the second Saturday she had taken off work in over a year, and when she had called in this morning to tell her boss that she would return on Monday, he had promised to pay her her full week’s wages. ‘Steph, Ange, breakfast is nearly ready,’ she shouted out.

‘I don’t want mine yet. It’s quarter to nine and Barry’ll be ringing soon,’ Steph replied, bounding down the stairs. Her stomach had butterflies and she knew that she would be unable to eat a morsel, let alone one of her mother’s massive fry-ups.

‘It won’t be ready for another five minutes or so, and if Barry does ring, I’ll keep it warm in the oven for you.’

‘Why did you say it was ready now then?’ Angela asked, appearing behind her sister.

‘Because I wanted to know if you wanted beans or bloody spaghetti with it,’ Pam yelled. Sometimes she wished she had given birth to two boys, as they couldn’t be as much aggravation as girls, surely?