Authors: Noël Cades
"But I was all over him and he pushed me away. I think I embarrassed him," Alice said.
"He probably didn’t want to take advantage," Jules said.
Alice wasn’t sure what she should do any more. The ball seemed to be in his court, but left alone he might just find it easier to avoid her.
"You should confront him. Get him into the pavilion again and see if he’ll have his wicked way with you."
It was a tempting thought but Alice didn’t rate her chances of success.
He was blanking her again completely on Monday. Alice really didn’t think she could take it any more. It was distracting her from her studies.
Not really caring if she made him even angrier she hung around until the end of cricket practice and went to speak to him. He was by the nets.
"Can I speak with you?"
Mr Walker looked around. There was only one other boy still left, clearing up some equipment. "OK, if it will only take a minute". He looked resigned. "You can go," he called to the boy who made a quick exit.
"Why are you ignoring me again?"
"Alice, we’ve been through this. There’s nothing happening." He was trying to brush her off, busying himself with packing up cricket gear, not facing her.
"Why did you come to the rave then?"
"To keep an eye on the guys. Chris asked me to."
"They’re grown men, they don’t need babysitting. And why couldn’t Chris do it?"
"He had a function." He looked up at her. The expression on his face showed finality.
Alice summoned her courage and looked directly back at him. "I know that’s not why you came."
He said nothing for a few moments. She hoped he was wrestling with himself and that he would finally admit to it. But his better nature won out. "Alice, this isn’t right. You know why. I work at your school. I’m old enough to be your father."
"Hardly." Not unless he was some kind of child bridegroom, he was at least twenty years younger than Richard. "My father is in his fifties." Her stepfather, but that was beside the point. Her real father would have been not far off also.
"I’m not discussing this any further. Just focus on your exams and forget about it."
She tried one final tactic.
"If I hadn’t been at the same school, if I was just some girl you met in the Dog & Duck, would it be different? Would you be interested?"
He was silent and for a second she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.
Then he said, his voice lower, "Maybe."
It was enough. One thing Alice had learnt from working at the vet - with animals and also with their owners - was that you had to be patient. They wouldn’t trust you immediately, all at once. It took time, bit by bit, day by day. You built the trust. Just as she could wear Mr Walker down.
She was sure of it. She could have said something like "I know you want me" but it would have been too much. She needed him to think about it, let it linger in his mind.
So she left him, without saying anything more. She had won, and it might have seemed the slightest thing, but as an admission it was momentous. He did want her. He wanted her badly. At some point, his good resolutions would have to give way. She just had to be there when they did.
* * *
It didn’t help that they got into a row with Maddy Pullen that week. Maybe it was the stress of exams, or just the time of change in their lives, but old rivalries seemed more bitter than ever. Or maybe Maddy saw her high school crown slipping into irrelevance as the year reached its end and wanted a final showdown.
It started in a Biology revision lesson which included both Becky and Alice. The teacher went out of the room to fetch something and for some reason an argument broke out. Afterwards Alice couldn’t even remember what started it.
"You’re such sad slags, hanging around with cricketers. Everyone knows what a groupie you are, Becky, you’re giving yourself the worst reputation," Maddy said.
Alice couldn’t sit back and leave Becky undefended. "At least she has a reputation, your name’s just dirt everywhere."
Things devolved into a vicious slanging match ending with Becky and one of Maddy’s friends having to physically pull the two of them apart.
The Biology teacher arrived back and sent both of them off to Mrs Paddington with a note.
Alice approached the Senior Mistress’s door with dread in the pit of her stomach. She envied Maddy the fact that the she didn’t even seem to care. She was just furious at Alice.
"Look what you’ve got us into now."
"You started it," Alice said. "You had no right slagging off Becky."
"She’s just a stupid little slag."
Alice ignored her this time - if only she had managed to do so the first time - and they went in together after knocking.
"Why are you here, girls?" Mrs Paddington asked.
Alice handed her the note.
"Fighting? In the Upper Sixth, just weeks away from your exams? Surely one would hope for better behaviour than this. No, there’s no excuse Madeleine, I don’t care who started it or whether you’re stressed over exams or not. It’s unacceptable."
Not for nothing was the Senior Mistress called the Padlock. She gave them both a detention for the following afternoon which was Friday. This was pretty bitter as everyone liked to leave as early as possible at the end of the week.
"Better still you can report to Miss Symons for clean-up. Getting outdoors and some exercise will do both of you good."
Alice thought this was far worse. Regular detention just meant sitting back in a classroom and revising. With exams nigh, no one would make them waste their time writing lines.
Clean-up, which was a weekly sweep of the school grounds by those being disciplined for various offences, meant that everyone would see them. It was humiliating. Which was probably the point. At least Maddy, with more social prestige to lose, would hate it even more than Alice did.
* * *
Jules laughed her head off when she found out. "I’ll bring a camera, this must be the last chance I’ll get to photograph you in public disgrace. Pity it’s too late for the yearbook."
"And the first actually, as it happens," Alice said. She had never been condemned to clean-up before. It was nearly always only juniors that got roped into it, making it all the more humiliating for them. Which was probably Mrs Paddington’s aim.
Becky felt guilty and upset that Alice had ended up getting punished for her sake but Alice assured her it wasn’t her fault. "I went off at her, I didn’t need to."
"I’m glad you did," Jules said. "I’ve been wanting to slap her for over a year."
"How do you think she knew about Brett?" Becky asked. "I haven’t seen her out anywhere."
"No idea. Maybe her sister saw us, she works in the Dog & Duck," Jules said.
"She wasn’t there that night, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see her."
"Maybe one of the other bar staff told her. If not that, then maybe someone saw us all at Selsley. I don’t know."
Alice hoped it was the latter. If not, it meant Maddy might also have heard about her kissing Mr Walker. Maddy Pullen was absolutely the last person on earth she wanted to know about something like that.
Maddy’s source would have to remain a mystery for now. Becky wasn’t doing anything wrong dating Brett, and she was known as a sweet girl generally, so Alice wasn’t too worried on her behalf. Getting involved with a staff member though was quite a different story.
It gave her more sympathy for Mr Walker’s reluctance, not that she planned to let it go. She liked him too much for that and she was pretty sure, after confronting him this week, that he felt the same attraction.
"You seeing Leafy this weekend?" Becky asked Jules. Gloucestershire were playing away in Yorkshire so Becky wasn’t seeing Brett. Which worked out well as she and Alice planned to spend the weekend revising for their Biology exam next week.
"Probably."
"What do you guys actually do? I mean is he always out of it?"
"No." Jules sounded defensive. "We just hang out and stuff. We talk about things."
"You’re not planning to get dreads are you?"
"Maybe, when school’s over. My hair’s such a nightmare."
"I don’t see why you need them. Kate doesn’t have them," Becky said. This was beside the point since Kate’s school wouldn’t have allowed them either. "And I don’t get how you can wash your hair if it’s all matted."
"You use special shampoo. Or baking soda and vinegar."
"That’s why they smell," Becky said.
Alice tried to change the subject as this couldn’t end well. Privately she agreed with Becky but she didn’t want to take sides.
"We should do something to celebrate next weekend," she said. "Surviving the first week of exams. I haven’t got any the following week."
"I hate how they’re all spread out and then clumped. It’s like they don’t give any consideration to what would make best sense in terms of revision. Why put both Economics ones in the same week?" Jules said.
"Still, once you’ve done Economics it’s all over," Becky said.
It was amazing to think this was now only four weeks away. The end of school forever. Alice still got a sick feeling in her stomach when she thought about the approaching exams. The days were flying by far too fast.
"So what about you and Mr Walker?" Becky asked. Alice had told them about her conversation with him on Monday. They were all convinced something would happen eventually.
"Nothing more yet."
"You know he’s divorced?" Becky said. Alice hadn’t known. "I don’t think Brett knows many details, just that he was married and they split up a couple of years ago. Maybe that’s why he’s so careful."
Alice hadn’t known and it unsettled her. She was immediately obsessed with knowing what his ex-wife was like.
"She’s his ex. So he obviously didn’t want to be with her, or he would be, wouldn’t he? Plus she’s millions of miles away in Australia," Jules said.
"You don’t know that. And she might have been the one to end it." It was going to torment her. "Did they have kids?"
"No, I don’t think so."
"My stepmum’s still on really good terms with Kate’s dad. But there’s nothing more there any more. She said they married too young and ended up like brother and sister. Maybe it’s like that?" Jules said.
The thought of Mr Walker having a childhood sweetheart was even worse to Alice but she didn’t say anything. Now she was going to be stuck brooding about it all week. And she couldn’t go out and drown it out because they all had to behave that weekend. There was too much at stake.
Maddy was already arguing with Miss Symons when Alice arrived by the playing fields to join the rest of the group condemned to clean up. As well as Maddy there were half a dozen or so younger pupils there.
"I’m absolutely not wearing that. It’s broad daylight." Maddy could be as stubborn as a mule when she wished. Alice was actually surprised she’d shown up at all.
The bone of contention was an orange reflective band which they were meant to wear for safety. Most people assumed, probably quite rightly, that its purpose was actually for humiliation.
"Madeleine, you will wear the band. It’s required."
"My punishment is coming here and cleaning up. We have rights you know. You can’t just deliberately embarrass us, even prisoners don’t get that."
Miss Symons was getting increasingly exasperated and didn’t want Maddy giving the younger pupils ideas. She turned her attention to Alice.
"You’re late, Alice. I need you all to hurry up and get your collection bags. I won’t be able to supervise you today, I have a meeting that’s just come up. Mr Walker has kindly agreed to take my place."
Suddenly detention was simultaneously the most awful and the most amazing thing in the world.
Alice saw him approach, and from his face she could tell that he had no idea she would be there. He must realise that there was no way she could have known either.
"Thanks for helping out at such short notice, Stewart." Miss Symons hurried off, forgetting about the orange bands.
Alice felt odd and slightly resentful to hear her call him Stewart. I’m more familiar with him than you are, she thought.
"Are you supposed to be wearing these?" he asked them when Miss Symons had gone.
"No, they’re just for the juniors," she lied.
Taking charge, he divided the juniors into two groups and sent Maddy off with the first to one side of the grounds. She scowled but obeyed.
Then instead of making Alice go with the second group he sent them off in the other direction without her.
This left the two of them walking alone with just Alice’s collection bag as chaperone. Alice was both pleased and surprised. Her patience, she felt, was paying off.
"What are you in trouble for?" he asked.
"A disagreement in Biology. I think we’re all a bit stressed about exams."
"Just a disagreement?" He raised his eyebrows. God, she loved being with him, even in these circumstances. He was so magnetic. When he looked at her she was mesmerised.
"A bit of a fight. Some stuff was said and I should have ignored it but I didn’t."
He was concerned. "About you?"
"No, about Becky and Brett. Really it was nothing." She wanted to change the subject because it didn’t present her in a very good light even if she had been defending Becky. "Are you enjoying it over here? England, I mean."
"It’s not too bad. It has its attractions." His eyes lingered on her for a moment. Was he flirting with her? He really seemed to blow hot and cold.
"What will you do when term ends?"
"There’s some coaching work at Gloucestershire, mainly for the youth squads."
So he would be here over the summer. She rejoiced.
"And you’re off to be a vet?" he asked her. Alice didn’t remember telling him that, someone else must have done so. She hoped this was the case since that meant he must have been asking questions about her.
"Only if I get the grades. And not immediately, Jules and I are going travelling first for a year. In Asia and Australia." She looked at him on this last word, and he looked back at her.