Prologue.
There were two reasons he loved her. The first reason was perhaps less obvious than the second. And of course she was beautiful but that was outside the careful reasons he had noted down in his golden book. The thing was he knew she must love him. He was her choice( he felt that) and after all choices when one was an adult tended to be less impetuous and ill conceived than choices one made in the heat, nay the welter of youth.
Simon picked up his parker pen for the second time that morning and made a small yet beautiful note about love. The ink swam across the page, letters forming almost at will, words capturing the mystery of his feeling. Ink fitted her he reflected. She was always just a bit inky somehow and this carelessness was beguiling, yes that was it, beguiling. Smiling he looked up and saw that she was staring out of the window and in danger. He raised his hand and waited for the background noise to falter.
‘Yes, Simon. Are you clear on the use of the storm? I had hoped I had made everything clear….’
Is that Dramatic irony then Sir? Because I don’t think Pip can ever be clear can he? He mixed up for life…he can’t give up on his love or on anything really…he’s lost in his obsessions?
Lucy-on-the-left-with -red -lipstick agreed and offered her regular ‘letting go’ idea which had sustained her through all her GCSEs and was now doing great things for her A level studies too.
Her best Friend Alice nodded as if she had never heard about letting go before and hoped that Lucy would ask her to Sam’s party later. She unzipped her pencil case twice for good measure.
Harry pulled at his black hat and thought about Lucy naked with him and Amy and even Miss Thomas. God! He stroked his long fringe and hoped everyone could tell what he was thinking about. .
And of course they did because he was always thinking about ‘shapes and sizes’ and ‘bits and pieces’ and wild cries in the night, but this afternoon they all could tell that Simon was on the verge of a declaration and no one was going to leave double English without a story. January needed a good story.
Phil Garside waited to see if Demeter would speak. Rain always distracted her and he had once made up a verse about her and heavy rain and he had burnt it in his mother’s garden. He looked pointedly in her gorgeous direction and coughed. A manly cough – something to separate him from these ever ready lads.
Demeter stopped staring at the rain and
Sorry Phil. Sorry and Demeter frowned and looked short sighted or something annoyingly sexy and Simon flushed and tried to catch her eye.
He’s always listening for that foot on the stair all his life….it’s like the graveyard with Magwitch, they are really the same thing aren’t they, tolling for him? Demeter blinked and Simon really really wished she would button her blouse more carefully or he was going to have to smash that leering git’s nose one day very very soon. He clenched his fist ready.