Do You Remember?

Mandy Baggot

A division of HarperCollins
Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

To Sue and Linn - for always being there xx

August 2005

His skin was like perfectly browned toast, but with the smooth perfection of chocolate spread. It had been almost a week already and Emma still loved watching him. It was his athleticism and sheer passion for the game, even just in fun with the children, that she admired, gawped at and lusted after.

He was rangy; almost six feet tall, already with the muscular frame of a man He couldn’t be more than eighteen, could he? His hair was dark but flecked with gold from the French sun and his eyes were the colour of wet grass – cool and crisp, like giant green mirrors, looking into the soul of anyone that he met. Emma had said four words to him in six and a half days.
Bonjour
and
Oui, ca va
. Why hadn’t she learned more French? Or why didn’t she just talk to him in English? She knew he spoke it well, to the children he taught football skills to and to all the other girls who weren’t too scared to approach him and demand his attention. They giggled and adjusted the straps on their tiny bikini tops, flicking their hair and gazing at him with adoration in their eyes. She didn’t blame them. He was something of a god on their Riviera campsite. He deserved all their flirtation and amorous advances. She just wished she had the guts to join in.

‘Brie baguette, Emma?’ her father, Mike called. He placed a plastic plate on the wobbly table in front of her and launched himself into the canvas seat opposite.

She didn’t reply.

‘Haven’t you finished that book yet? You remember what Mr. Devlin said. You must read the required text by the time we get back.’ He bit down into the impossibly tough bread, made so by the blistering sun and the lack of refrigeration facilities in their four-man tent.

‘I know, Dad. I’m getting there.’ She slipped her copy of
Cosmopolitan
down from her lap and under the table as discreetly as she could.

Chaucer was one thing. But knowing how to put your eyeliner on properly when you were just feet away from the most gorgeous specimen you had ever encountered was far more important. Not that she had got close enough for Guy to have a chance of noticing her eyes, or the make-up outlining them. In fact, the closest they had got was at the clubhouse. Guy behind the bar, her behind her Dad, waiting patiently for her Orangina. Her mousy hair un styled and wet from the cold shower she’d just had.

She bit into the baguette. The fusion of bread and soft cheese warmed her all over and smothered her in gladness. She was so happy to be in France.

It was almost six months since her mother died and it was only on this holiday - her dad’s attempt to get them out of the house and away from the memories of her mother’s slow, painful demise – that she’d started to feel like the teenager she was. Living alongside cancer aged everyone. She could see it in her dad’s face and feel it inside of herself. They were both changed forever. She was that little bit more grown-up and her dad … well, he was supposedly still grieving for his childhood sweetheart. Three weeks in France couldn’t heal them completely, but perhaps it would plaster over the cuts and bruises, act like a liniment and give them the strength they both needed to go on.

Emma took a deep breath and raised her head towards the sunshine. France had so much going for it after all. They had the best food, the best weather and apparently the best-looking boys. They just didn’t make them the same in England. Guy was bright and funny. He made everyone around him feel special just by being in his company. His voice was thick with a low, sultry accent and when he laughed it made her insides tighten. That had to be a good thing no matter how weird it felt.

She was contemplating actually taking a glance at Chaucer when there was a loud shout in French and suddenly she found herself with a football in her face, a baguette on her lap and her backside on the floor. The camping chair upended and lay next to her.

‘You alright, love? Here, come on, let me give you a hand up,’ Mike said, leaping from his seat and going to his daughter’s aid.

He was beaten to it. As Emma slowly began to realise what had happened, an olive-skinned hand was taking a delicate hold of hers, as if handling the most fragile of objects.

‘I’m so sorry…we play too hard…I should take more care,’ he said, his hand resting in hers.

She couldn’t speak. His beautiful face was only inches from hers, his blanket of chestnut brown hair flopping forward over his cut-glass eyes. He could have been reciting Shakespeare and she wouldn’t have heard it. She was struck dumb, mesmerised by his spell. All she could see were his deliciously full lips as he mouthed the word
care
and all she could feel was the slight pressure of that tanned hand in hers.

‘You OK, love?’ her dad said again looking at her bewildered expression with concern.

He probably thinks I’ve taken a blow to the head,
Emma thought, realising her blue eyes were wide from staring at the French boy and her mouth was parted in a rather pathetic pop-star groupie kind of way.

She closed it up and struggled to get to her feet. He helped her. He took her arm with one hand, righted the camping chair with the other and then, supporting her with both his hands, he lowered her into her seat. If she died now, gave in to the heart attack she was surely having, she wouldn’t care. She’d be content to go just because he had touched her.

He picked her book up off the floor and ran his fingers over its cover, removing the dust.

‘Chow-cer,’ he said, looking at the illustration and trying to get the pronunciation right.

‘Chor-cer. It’s not my book of choice. I mean I have to read it, for school. It’s for A-levels, you know, exams,’ she babbled. She knew her freckled cheeks were reddening. She knew it wasn’t because the factor thirty sun cream was wearing off. It was him. She was blushing. It was hormonal. Ally had told her all about it.

‘I love to read. Not Chow-cer perhaps, I do not know. You think I would like this book?’ he asked, flicking open the pages and observing the text.

The only thing Emma was observing was him. The way his fingers stroked each page, the way he was looking at the words. He looked at them as if they were important, as if they might move something in him.

‘I’m not sure I like him, I mean his style of writing. It’s all in really old English, like relic stuff. No one talks that way now. Well, apart from Mr. Devlin who seems to revel in it. But he’s like a character out of Dickens…on skis.’ Emma added as Guy raised his head to study her.

He threw his head back and laughed, his green eyes alive, his hair drooping over onto his forehead.

‘On skis? What is this on skis?’

‘We just say it, in England. Well, me and my friends back home. It’s just like saying someone is something and then a hundred percent more,’ Emma attempted to explain.

Why had she said that? Stupid Ally Thomas and her made-up phrases to try and sound cool. It didn’t sound cool. Not when you were trying to explain it to a hot French boy you couldn’t keep your eyes off.

‘Like…how you say? The girl is beautiful - on skis,’ Guy said, his eyes locking with hers.

‘Yes, just like that,’ Emma agreed, having to force the words up her throat.

‘I’m Guy,’ he said. He extended his bronzed hand towards her.

She knew this. Everyone knew who he was and what he was called. He was the pin-up of the campsite, the person everyone wanted to know and be known by. But she loved the way he pronounced it. Gey like key. To her it was the best name in the world, oozing his laid-back coolness.

‘I’m Emma,’ she said. She took his hand and gave it a professional handshake she might have reserved for a careers advisor.

‘I know,’ he answered, smiling.