Caught in the Act. Gemma Fox

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      ‘Now you be careful,’ teased Raf. ‘We’re expecting you to phone home every night. Don’t go talking to any strange men and if they offer you sweeties or to show you their puppies—’

      ‘I’ll tell them to bugger off, pull out my plastic dagger and then get Diana to flash them the wart.’

      ‘Good, now have you got a clean hanky?’ he continued in the same jokey paternal tone.

      Behind them Jake thundered down the stairs, taking the last few steps two at a time and then swung round the newel post so he was standing right in front of her. ‘And there’ll be no staying up late, no drinking, no drugs and no monkey business,’ he said, wagging a finger at her.

      Carol stared at him. ‘What?’ she spluttered.

      ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Just make sure you behave yourself, young lady,’ he said, all mock-parent and raging acne.

      To her horror Carol felt her colour rising furiously as she hugged Jake goodbye. Of course she would behave herself. Wouldn’t she?

      ‘Ollie?’ Carol called, struggling to regain her composure. She glanced down at her watch to hide her discomfort; it was high time she was gone.

      Ollie was in the kitchen, excavating something from the Mesozoic layer in the bottom of the fridge.

      ‘I’m off now, love,’ she said cheerily.

      ‘So’s this yoghurt,’ he huffed miserably. ‘I might have got food poisoning or something.’

      Carol took the offending article out of his deeply disgusted paw and dropped it into the pedal bin. ‘For God’s sake, Ollie, you’re a new lad, you’re not supposed to read the sell-by dates,’ Carol growled. ‘You’re meant to eat it and then burp appreciatively, green hairy mould and all.’

      Ollie’s expression of unrelenting disdain did not waver. Carol held up her hands in surrender. ‘OK, OK, my mistake. You can go and buy more tomorrow. Organic, low fat, no fat—whatever.’

      He sniffed.

      Carol pulled him closer and brushed her lips across the top of Oliver’s spiky hard-boy haircut. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll be back on Sunday evening to mop up any unused emotional blackmail and residual maternal guilt.’

      His eyes twinkled but his expression remained steadfastly hard done by. ‘Just as long as we’ve got that perfectly clear,’ he said.

      Carol resisted the temptation to scrunch his carefully teased and heavily gelled hairstyle into prepubescent fluffiness. ‘Have a good time without me.’

      ‘Yeah, right, we will. Bye, Mum,’ Ollie said grudgingly.

      At least he helped her to feel slightly better; resentment and grumpiness made Carol feel she had every right to go. After all she did for them, ungrateful buggers. She sighed; who the hell was she trying to kid? Although she did want to go and meet everyone and see what they had been up to—she and Diana had got a brilliant response from their ad on Oldschooltie’s message board—Carol knew that the main reason she was going was so that she could take a long hard look at Gareth Howard. Not only to see what the years had done to him but also to see if there was a flame still burning after all.

      What if she had met Mr Right all those years ago and had been too blind or too young or too naïve to see it? Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back and pick up the pieces.

      She’d had a thing for Gareth for years—but it wasn’t until they started rehearsing the play that he suddenly seemed aware of her for the first time.

      ‘I was looking for you,’ he’d said, bounding up to her in the corridor on impossibly long legs. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to read the script through some time before we start rehearsals?’ Carol had been hurrying out of the common room, her arms full of books.

      ‘Sorry, that was the bell—I’m supposed to be in History…’ Ah, that was it. And she had turned away and Gareth had caught hold of her elbow and turned her back towards him. ‘When’s your next private study? It would be good to go through the play a couple of times—you know, get a feel for it.’

      Carol could feel her colour rising; wasn’t this what she had been daydreaming about for years? Her annoyance at being held up faded to a kind of self-conscious discomfort. Get a grip, she thought, and tried smiling.

      ‘This afternoon, after lunch I’ve got a double free,’ Carol had heard herself saying, stumbling over the words, trying to forget the pile of work she had to catch up on.

      And then Gareth had grinned and brushed his fringe back off his face; he had been playing cricket and tennis and had a tan that made his eyes seem far too blue. ‘Great. Me too, any idea where we could go?’

      Carol stared at him; where the hell did you go with somebody you had been lusting after since you were fourteen?

      ‘How about the library?’

      He pulled a face; so maybe it wasn’t the best choice but it was all Carol could come up with under pressure. ‘Someone is bound to complain about the noise. We need somewhere quiet where we can read through without being disturbed. How about if we go over to the pavilion; we could sit out on the veranda. At least it will be out of the way.’

      Carol felt her stomach fluttering. The cricket pavilion was up on a bank overlooking the cricket pitch, sheltered on two sides by huge horse chestnut trees with a view back over the main school. People mostly went there to smoke or snog.

      ‘Sure, sounds like a good idea,’ Carol said, with a confidence she didn’t feel.

      ‘OK,’ he beamed. ‘See you there first period after lunch then?’

      All these years on and Carol could still feel that intense little flutter in the pit of her stomach that he had made her feel then. Across the kitchen Raf was looking at her quizzically.

      ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look a bit pale.’

      Carol made a real effort to smile. How could she possibly tell him? ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘I love you,’ Raf said gently. ‘And I’ll be here…’

      What was that supposed to mean? For an instant Carol wondered if Raf had some inkling of what was going through her mind, some Celtic intuition that told him that she was floundering. She stared at him. Why didn’t she want to commit herself to living with Raf? Was that what all this hankering after Gareth was re ally about? Wasn’t she aching for a fantasy, some perfect love that had never re ally had the chance to blossom, or go wrong or get dull or cruel? Fancying Gareth after all these years was like loving a dead war hero; in her mind he hadn’t aged, he didn’t fart in bed and his hair hadn’t thinned or been combed over.

      Raf’s expression crinkled up a little. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

      Carol waved her thoughts and his words away. ‘Just a bit nervous, that’s all. I mean, do I re ally want to see just how wrinkly everyone else is and know they’re thinking the СКАЧАТЬ