Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Wednesday. Long shot of me, Jamie Hampton, still our hero, but doesn't look it as he plods towards us, head bowed, a lot clearly on his mind, e.g.:

·Are Speak No Monkey going to play at the ball? Dad did not pick up when I phoned him last night. I really needed some reassurance.

·Are we going to sell enough tickets to even have a ball? The phone rang last night during dinner. Mum never picks it up after five because she knows it'll be for me.

"I've only sold five, how about you?" It was Debbie, her voice tense.

"One," I replied.

"Oh, shit," she said.

"It's early days," I told her. "It'll be fine."

·Does being an optimist actually damage my chances of success? i.e., does my assumption that things will be OK mean I don't take action to ensure they in fact will be?

·Is Beth going to find love and leave me behind?

·Why can't I be happy that Beth might find love? Why can't I encourage her? Help her, even? Am I possessive and controlling? Why? Is that weird? Am I the unlikeable protagonist of my own story?

·Who is my Mystery Pen Pal? And is he even a pen pal if he never replies? And has he not replied because my reply was just "Hello!" and it was so pathetic and uninspiring that he's lost the will to live?

Day three, so it was my third rugby top. Two-tone blue: baby blue and navy, if you're interested. That was another thing. What the hell was I going to wear tomorrow?

Popped into the library before registration – the book was still sticking out slightly and nothing more was written inside.

Popped in during break – still nothing.

Each time, Mrs C's eyes followed me in through the door, and found me again after I emerged from around the bookshelf hiding non-fiction. She said nothing, but she didn't need to. She seemed to know what I was up to and was happy to leave me to it.

But I didn't like to think about that.

It was English lit before lunch, and at least that was something to look forward to. Aside from liking the subject itself, we had quite a nice class, and a very small one too, which always gave lessons a more informal, chatty sort of feel.

*

A Level English Lit.

The cast:

Me, Jamie Hampton (Obviously keen, wants to be a writer one day)

Beth (Sits next to me)

Debbie (Aspires to work in journalism so English is an obvious choice)

Adam (Openly admits he took it because "he thought it would be easy" and because "Debbie's doing it".)

Zara (Intelligent and brilliant to the point of being intimidating. Once wore a beret, and has never lived it down. Often has extra books on feminism in her bag. Bloody loved it when we did The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.)

Rob (Complete mystery – usually bunks off anyway)

Ms Wilkins (Fresh out of teacher training college, really passionate about the subject and wants to change lives.* Adored by Zara. Intimidated by Rob, although we all get the sense she fancies him a bit.)

For once, the cast was all present, but Ms Wilkins decided to "mix things up" and put us in pairs we don't normally work in to devise a family tree and plot summary of Wuthering Heights. Beth was put with Debbie, Adam with Zara (you should have seen her face – completely appalled – and his, terrified), and me with Rob.

Just great.

If there was ever going to be a group project, you could guarantee everyone else in my group would let me down and I'd end up doing all the work. So, on that note, meet Rob West: he'd only joined at the start of the lower sixth last September, having been "transferred" from a private school down in Surrey, which was widely interpreted to mean "kicked out". The rumours were unsubstantiated, but too juicy not to spread like wildfire: fighting, drinking and drugs, basically. And something about a possible prostitute. He'd kept his head down since getting here, but he still had a reputation. He was generally considered to be trouble – frequently absent from lessons, always in detention, and a nasty temper to boot – but because his dad was the local MP (Sir Jeremy West), it had never got to the point of him being suspended or actually expelled. He was the Teflon kid – the bad stuff just didn't stick.

He looked me up and down as I approached his table. Judging me.

He made me nervous because I couldn't work him out. On the one hand, Rob had this bad-boy reputation. On the other, he had this preppy, clean-cut look (Ralph Lauren polo shirt and chinos, dark brown hair: short back and sides), he lived in a massive house on the edge of town and his father was knighted for goodness' sake. It would have been so much easier if he'd just conformed to some sort of Breakfast Club stereotype – leather jacket, long hair, ripped jeans, broken home – at least you know where you are with that.

He kept his eyes on me as I sat down. Yes: he had the intimidating thing down to a T.

Time for an icebreaker, I thought: "Got your ball ticket, Rob?"

He took a slow breath in and out. "You might like to know there are rumours about people gate-crashing."

"What? How?"

"By getting in over the fence at the far end of the field and then blending in with the crowd."

"We're having wristbands," I said quickly. "We have that covered."

He shrugged. "Who's monitoring it, though? Who's checking? And if half of the sixth form from Louth High turn up, what you gonna do?"

My eyes widened. "Louth High? Is that what people are saying? Other schools are gonna gate-crash too?"

Rob nodded.

I closed my eyes. Shit. Another problem to talk to Debbie and Adam about. I'd given Mrs Prenton my word that everything would be OK – specifically, no trouble – and I felt like all this was ultimately on my head.

"Now you know, you can do something about it," Rob said flatly, not looking or sounding like he cared either way.

"Yeah." I released a breath. "Anyway! Got your ticket?"

He rolled his eyes. "No offence, but it's really not my thing."

"It'll be a fun night!"

"No, it won't."

"But—"

"I'm not coming, Jamie."

I left it there.

But I would work on him.

I would work on everyone.

I had to. I didn't want the ball to be a massive humiliation I'd be remembered for for ever.

There was too much on my mind. I set myself up in the library again at lunch, but no one went anywhere near the book. A quick check at the end of the day, and still nothing.

I was starting to lose hope. And I couldn't work out, when I got home that evening, why I was so angry. I'd allowed this situation to build and build in my head; I was thinking about it far too much, and why? I'd only written a friendly note back to someone who sounded like they could use a pal. If they didn't want to reply, then so what? Why did it matter so much to me that they did? Why was I acting and feeling like some lovelorn twelve-year-old who wanted to pass love notes in class?

Pathetic!

Grow up, Jamie!

What are you even thinking?!

It was Electra. She's the one who put the idea in my head in the first place. Whatever was going on with me, seeing her and hearing voices, it needed to stop. I needed to get back to some kind of normality.

I slammed through the front door, threw my rucksack down against the wall, charged up the stairs, into my room and raised my hands to rip down and destroy Electra—

"Have you considered," she calmly said, "that he might be as scared as you?"

"Huh?"

"Have you considered that he's seen your message and he's wondering not just how to respond but if he even should?"

"Why would he be wondering that?"

"It's one thing writing something, but it's an entirely different ball game if someone actually responds. If he replies, everything changes, he knows that."

"Nothing changes," I said.

Electra smiled a smile that said Oh, you naive child.

"Nothing changes, Electra!" I insisted. "He replies, maybe I reply, what's actually gonna change? It's not like we would ever meet and…"

She arched an eyebrow.

"I'm not talking to you, anyway," I muttered. "You don't even exist."

I ignored her chuckling like I'd amused her in some way.

"I only wanted to help him," I told myself. "That was all."

For some reason my throat and chest tightened, and I could feel the tears pricking my eyes. I had to get a grip. What the hell was wrong with me? Was this stress? Had I taken on too much with the ball and all my schoolwork? Was I having some sort of breakdown? Zara's mum had a breakdown a few years ago. They found her walking in the middle of the high street talking to imaginary geese. It seemed like I was dangerously close to something similar.

"Whoa, fuck!" I jumped. Electra. She was sitting opposite me now on a chair! As real as day! In the flesh. Electra. No longer a voice from a poster, but … an actual person!

I stared, unblinking, terrified, but also unable to look away – rubbernecking my own car crash of a mental state.

"You know who you remind me of, kiddo?" she said. "Holden Caulfield."

We did Catcher in the Rye last year. I remembered one of the essay titles: "Is Holden Caulfield a narcissist?" Electra clearly didn't think much of me.

"He talks about standing in the rye, catching small children so they don't fall over the edge of the cliff," she continued. "That's a bit like you, isn't it?"

"Because I want to help him?"

"Bit similar, isn't it?"

"It's nice to help people. That doesn't make me like Holden!*"

She leaned towards me slightly and lowered her voice, making me lean in too. "What's interesting, though, is why? Why does he want to catch them? Because one argument, that you yourself explored in an essay, Jamie, is that Holden is suffering from trauma and he wants to save others from similar trauma. He wants to protect them."

"I haven't suffered trauma," I said quickly. "Holden did, I agree, but not me."

"Sure about that?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm sure. What, my parents got divorced? I wouldn't count that as trauma."

Electra nodded. "Maybe have a think. And maybe consider the notion that fear is a terrible thing, but facing it with someone else might help. And that's why it's worth being patient."

What?Just as I was about to tell her to leave, she vanished anyway, back to staring down at me from the poster on my wall.

I went downstairs. I needed some real human company, a bit of reality, even if it was Keith and Mum. He was busy watching an old Wave Warriors episode, repeatedly hitting rewind on the VCR so he could assess all the strategies and moves … or maybe just to perve over the female athletes emerging from the pool in their swimsuits some more.

I grabbed a packet of crisps and a slice of Battenberg cake from the kitchen, flopped down on the sofa and picked up the newspaper sitting next to me, idly flicking through a few pages while munching on some cheese and onion, before finding a headline: Are We Being Run by a Gay Mafia? The comment piece was all about gay politicians and people in positions of power, and suggested these men had a secret agenda to indoctrinate the public into thinking being homosexual was a good thing.

I stopped crunching on the crisps. I felt sick.

I'd seen so many pieces like that over the years. The headlines flashed in front of my eyes, a montage sequence…

Gay Sex Lessons for Schools!

Britain Threatened by Gay Virus Plague.

Articles about how hardly anyone thinks gay people should be allowed to marry. Repulsive.

Immoral.

A symptom of a sick society.

Slimeball MPs keen to lower the gay age of consent.

Margaret Thatcher, at the Tory party conference, October 1987 – I'm ten years old, but I see her on the news: "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay."

Perversion. Corruption. Dangerous. Paedophiles. Sick. Threat.

So many headlines.

So many speeches.

Years upon years upon years of them.

My attention was drawn by Electra being interviewed on the TV show after winning her contest. She leaned into the microphone and looked directly at me through the screen.

"You sure you've never experienced any trauma, Jamie?"

*She left teaching after three years and retrained as an aromatherapy practitioner.

*I like Holden and won't hear a word said against him. His detractors are the same people who hate protagonists who are anything less than perfect – i.e., phoneys, which is ironic.