Part 1 (1/2)
FORBIDDEN LESSONS.
Noel Cades.
This book is dedicated to Helen & Charlie.
”Verb.u.m dei lucerna”
”I've been fighting this for so long.”
A muscle twitched as he clenched his jaw. He was looking at her, serious, no joy in his expression. His eyes seemed almost sad.
Her stomach was lurching. It was the moment she had longed for, dreamed about, and yet it felt more like a terrible taboo than ecstasy.
He stroked his hand down the side of her face, brus.h.i.+ng her hair back.
”This is something that could ruin both our lives,” he said.
She couldn't speak. She wanted to tell him that she didn't care, that she only wanted to live for the moment. But she was terrified.
”Wanting you this much... it makes me willing to risk everything.”
PART I.
Feeling.
The fire falls asunder, all is changed, I am no more a child.
Ann Lowell.
1. Old and new.
Old and new mingling and fighting - it was the smell that always characterised the start of a new term. It swirled around Laura, dragging her in, bringing her back.
The old desks, cla.s.srooms, wooden floorboards, dusty library books, the ageing metallic tang of the chemistry lab, the stale remembrance of boiled cabbage in the dining hall. Invaded by the smell of new exercise books, school shoes, fresh paint, gym equipment.
The battle lasted a few days, but old always won. Within a week, all the newness was absorbed into the school. It was too much for anyone or anything to fight against.
New faces. Everyone moved up a year together, but there were always a few girls that left at the end of each year and a handful of new ones that came to replace them. They were the great curiosity. Teachers too. Everyone always hoped that a strict old dragon had left, replaced by a new, younger person with more interesting teaching methods.
”Mr Carlisle has left, gone to run a school in Botswana.”
”Mrs Ayers is still here, worse luck! If only I could drop Geography.”
”Have you seen the new music rooms?”
Excited chatter at seeing old friends, with the start-of-term homesickness and the reality of the months of grind ahead not yet sinking in.
Laura found her two best friends, Margery and Charlotte. They'd managed to secure a dorm together this term, and so far the fourth bed wasn't occupied. There was always the hope it might remain empty. Charlotte, the sporty one, had wanted to see the hockey pitches so they'd escaped and headed for the grounds. Unpacking could be done later. Even Matron showed lenience on the first day back.
Softened by the golden September light and seen from a distance, the red-brick Victorian school buildings looked temporarily less grim.
”Such a great decision, ditching Geography for German,” Charlotte said, stretching her legs out over the thick gra.s.s under the copper beech trees that lined one side of the pitches.
”Whoever's teaching it, they can't be as bad as Mrs Ayers,” Laura agreed.
”That's hardly a good reason to change subjects,” said Margery. She was slightly huffy. ”German is an important European language. You're not supposed to take it just to get out of another subject.” Margery's father taught modern languages at another school and she was the studious one of the three.
”Don't be so sensitive!” Charlotte said. ”We all know it's not a soft option. But I truly could not stick that hag for another year. She deliberately gave me detentions so I'd keep missing practice.”
Laura lay back and closed her eyes. The summer was fading fast, nearly gone. The vast expanse of the autumn term, with its growing cold and darkness, lay ahead. The holidays and Christmas, even half-term, were so far away.
Charlotte changed the subject. ”Onto more important matters. We need a strategy for combatting Teresa Hubert's vile posse and making sure we grab the hottest Dunks guys for the half term dance.”
St Duncan's was the ”brother” school to Francis Hall, with pupils from each school occasionally allowed to meet at carefully supervised coeducational social occasions such as school concerts and joint orchestra performances. Teresa Hubert and her friends - or henchwomen, as Charlotte termed them - were a constant irritation. War had broken out in the Fourth form over something long forgotten, but the hostilities endured.
”I heard there's going to be a joint play this year, performed by both schools. Miss Vine managed to get permission from the Headmistress to do Romeo and Juliet for the Christmas production. Sixth formers only though,” Margery said.
”How utterly unfair! They're supposed to be busy with A-levels, it should be us,” Charlotte retorted. ”Miss Vine is such a sweet idiot. I mean what could possibly go wrong? I predict a dozen buns in the oven by curtain up, unless Matron starts doling out the Pill.”
Laura laughed. ”It won't be that bad. Most of the Dunks boys wouldn't know what to do if it stared them in the face.”
”What makes you such an expert?” said Charlotte.
”I'm not. But they're just boys aren't they, most of them, even the sixth formers? I just feel that this summer I've kind of outgrown all that.”
Charlotte, who had been lying down as well, sat up and looked at Laura. ”Spill!” she said.
”Oh there's nothing to tell. Truly. I kissed one French boy at the hotel dis...o...b..t my parents were in the next bar, which you know all about because I told you in great detail, and beyond that it was an absolute drought.”
”One thing I do think is that Mr Peters will be mightily p.i.s.sed off,” Charlotte said, stretching out once again in the last of the day's sun. Mr Peters was the Head of English and Miss Vine taught drama. The former's seniority and more forceful presence meant that the school play had until now remained entirely his domain. ”His casting couch will lie empty.”
There were longstanding rumours that Mr Peters seduced sixth form girls, usually by casting them as Juliet or Ophelia in the school play and giving them private acting lessons. Laura doubted - or found herself wanting to doubt the rumours - because she personally thought Mr Peters was repellent. He had thinning grey hair, an over-mannered voice, bad breath and must have been nearly fifty.
But the evidence - albeit technically hearsay by the time it reached Lower School ears - was so extensive and so detailed that even Margery considered it gospel.
”I think we should all be more serious about our studies this year,” said Margery. ”Boys are a distraction we really don't need.” Margery's posture of studiousness masked a lack of confidence and experience when it came to dating. Both Laura and Charlotte knew this, and tried to be tactful.
Charlotte was the tall, attractive athletic one of the three, with her supermodel figure already turning heads wherever she went. Laura's dark blonde hair and amber eyes contributed to her unusual attractiveness. But even Margery, with her frank blue eyes and rose-flushed cheeks, had charms she wasn't yet aware of.