The enthusiastic beat bounced around the car interior. A simmering excitement at being alone with Alex, combined with the hurtling tempo gave me an urge to tap my foot and sing along at the top of my voice. Very uncool, so obviously I did nothing of the sort. Instead, I restricted myself to drumming my fingers on the window ledge and adopting a moody, distant, almost pained expression, as if conducting a private critique of the rhythm and stylistics, not simply soaking up a banging good tune.
“Are you okay?” shouted Alex. He had an air of mischief about him. “I thought you just said you liked this song. You look as if you’re trying to hold in a fart.”
“Fuck off, you Boyz To Men, Radio Four, Celine Dion-loving, crap-at-maths loser.”
I’d read somewhere that listening to loud, upbeat music made people drive faster. Not Alex Valentine. We could have been trundling along to John Denver’s greatest hits the way he handled the car through the evening traffic. The bus home might have been quicker. Not that I was complaining. If he preferred to keep within the speed limits, it was fine by me. I wanted this journey, this warm, sheltered cocoon from the shitty weather and my shitty, ordinary life, to last all night.
It didn’t, of course, and once more, I’d have chewed on one of Brenner’s toenails before I let Alex Valentine drop me off outside my actual house.
“Just here again, mate,” I indicated, as the grey outline of New Cross Hospital loomed into view.
“I’m happy to take you all the way,” Alex replied pleasantly. And with no euphemism intended whatsoever. “It’s no bother. And I’m enjoying The Pogues. They’re really good. I don’t know why I’ve never listened to one of their albums before.”
“Because you’re as square as a boxing ring?” I teased. “Nah, you’re all right. Drop me here—I’m going to my mate Phil’s, anyway.”
“Is he the tall, good-looking one with gingery-blond hair? That all the girls go on about?”
I treated him to my sexiest lopsided grin, the dimpled one I copied from Brad Pitt and practiced in the mirror daily after I’d brushed my teeth. “Yeah, we’re identical twins.”
Bracing myself against the howling onslaught of icy water, I opened the car door. “You can borrow this CD if you like. Don’t fucking scratch it, though.”
“I’ll treasure it under my pillow,” the sarcastic bugger replied. “A thoughtful gift from Matt Leeson, school hard guy with a secret soft centre.”
That smile again, innocent, and friendly. Stupidly, I found myself blushing. “Don’t fucking tell anyone.”
BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY
(THE VERVE)
Juggling so many lies in my head, I struggled to keep track, so I decided to cancel this one by paying Phil a visit instead of going home. With a bit of luck, his mum would have some extra tea cooking. Brenner had landed on the same idea, and I found the two of them on the sofa, arguing about whose turn it was to play on the Nintendo. By rights, it was automatically Brenner’s, seeing as neither him nor me would ever have enough money to own one ourselves. About a year earlier, I’d taken the moral high ground and declared myself too mature for such childish pastimes. The truth? If I couldn’t afford my own then I’d never be the best at it, and if I couldn’t be the best, then I wouldn’t deign to try.
“Looking after your house guest, Phil?” I rebuked him mildly, shrugging out of my damp sweater. Another bonus about going round to Phil’s place—his parents could afford to turn the central heating on from time to time.
“Where have you been?” demanded Brenner, the fight for the video game momentarily suspended. “Phil blagged a lift with Alison’s dad, so I had to catch the bus on my tod. I hung around waiting for ages.”
I suffered a fleeting pang of guilt. But only fleeting. I’d read in a back copy of theNew Scientist, courtesy of Mr Cartwright, that in a very few years we’d all be carrying around miniature portable telephones that would allow us to send pictures and messages to each other. I’d have advised my best mate to catch the bus without me, for instance. I’d believe it when I saw it. Some London business types had them already, but they were the size of house bricks and weighed about the same too. Anyway, I didn’t feel too guilty. Staying behind to study with Alex Valentine and then joining him in his cosy little car had been the highlight of my year.
“Soz. Maths went on and on. Mrs Goodman wouldn’t bloody shut up.” More lies. “I ended up cadging a lift with some girl sat next to me in class.”
And who I fancy like crazy and want as my boyfriend because, you know, guys, I’m a homosexual, and actually, she’s not a girl at all, but a big, solid bloke. With a dick.
Phil grunted, his focus back on the game.“Do I know her? Is she fit?”
“If she were, you’d have already shagged her,” sniggered Brenner. He lived his sex life vicariously through Phil, which was kind of sad.
“Nah, you don’t know her, it’s that Denise bird I work with, and no, she isn’t.” Lies upon lies. Deceit upon deceit. My nose grew longer by the hour.
Thank God they resumed squabbling and didn’t push me further. Resting my head back on the sofa, I let my eyes drift closed, and tried to recall the lemony scent of Alex’s aftershave. Tricky, to be honest, in the presence of Brenner’s cheesy feet.
Even though, in Alex Valentine’s clear blue eyes, I had been elevated to genius status, maths wasn’t my favourite or strongest school subject. That accolade went to history—wartime history. With the notable exception of my new crush, I found dead people a hell of a lot more fascinating than living ones.
Mr Cartwright had unearthed my secret a couple of years ago after I’d become so engrossed in a lesson that I’d forgot to be a smart-arse and challenged his misremembering of the exact timing of the German assault on Ypres. Since then, he’d pointed me towards every modern warfare tome the school had to offer, and I inhaled the lot. Mr Cartwright spearheaded the campaign to get me to university and had become the focus on which I’d built my web of deceit, fobbing him off on an almost weekly basis.
Be that as it may, maths lessons had become pretty amazing too over the last few weeks. With no pretence that either of us were going to sit anywhere else. If I arrived first, Alex made a beeline for the adjacent chair. If he beat me to it, anyone tempted by the empty seat next to him knew by now they’d get their head kicked in. The car journeys afterwards were an exercise in self-restraint on my part, and a crash course in British indie music for Alex.
With my patient and nurturing approach to maths coaching, he was well on the way to achieving the required grades for med school. I believed Mrs Goodman still stood at the front of the class and taught, but frankly, they could have replaced her with a cardboard cut-out and I’d have not noticed. Denise noticed, of course, she observed everything, her black-ringed eyes slyly documenting my every move from under a curtain of greasy hair, her slash of pale mouth giving nothing away.
“Do you want to come over to mine for dinner on Saturday, after work?”