Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,151

the bus. I followed behind, feeling like an idiot. As Amanda reached the door of the bus, she set the suitcase on the ground and turned to me. “Thanks, Jesse,” she said.

“For what?” I asked. After all, I hadn’t even helped her with her suitcase.

“For wanting to carry my case for me. And for just … well, for being so nice, so sweet.” She smiled.

I shrugged, but inside I was singing. Amanda still liked me. Despite knowing that I had tried to kiss her, despite everything she might suspect about my feelings for her, she still liked me.

Her expression became more serious. “Listen, Jesse, you take care, now, won’t you? Don’t let our Tracey pick on you. And don’t … well, you take care, all right?”

“I will,” I said, confused by the intensity in her face. The last time she looked at me like this was that night after the disco, when she had kissed me. For a moment, I felt awash in all the feelings I’d had then, wanting to reach out and run my hand over the impossible softness of her cheek, the sleekness of her hair. Instead, I watched as she turned to lift her suitcase again and struggled up the stairs. “Have a nice trip, Amanda!” I called after her as she struggled to the back of the bus.

AS SOON AS THE bus pulled away from the bus stop, I looked at Tracey, excited. “You know, I think that’s really great what you said to Dizzy, Trace,” I said. “And I know Malcolm will be—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so bloody stupid, Jesse,” Tracey interrupted, shoving me against the window with both hands. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m not going to say sorry to that stupid little tosspot. And that fat four-eyed lump Dizzy can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“So why did you apologize to her? Why did you—” Tracey gave me an exasperated look. “God, Jesse, for somebody that’s supposed to be clever, you’re right bloody thick sometimes.”

“But I thought—”

“Yeah, I know what you thought.” She grinned, keeping her voice to an animated whisper. “And I suppose it was all right that you did, because that means I did a good job of convincing Dizzy as well. But I didn’t mean a bloody word of it.”

“You didn’t?” I tried not to reveal my pitching disappointment.

“Of course I didn’t. God, Jesse, don’t you know me by now?”

“So why did you say it?”

She looked at me, her face aglow. “Because I want to get him outside the school gates tonight. Because Stan and Greg are going to be there as well. And when that little poofter arrives they’re going to beat the living daylights out of him. It’s perfect, see. With goody-two-shoes Amanda gone on her stupid school trip, there’ll be nobody who’ll try to stop them. Stan and Greg are going to teach that little queer a lesson that he will never forget.” She looked utterly gleeful. “Great, isn’t it?” she said, jostling me with her arm. When I didn’t respond, she jabbed me with her elbow. “Hey,” she said, “don’t you say a word to anybody about this, Jesse. I’m not telling anyone, not even the Debbies. They’ll never keep their mouths shut, and then that poof will find out. But you’re my best friend. I know you can keep a secret.”

I SAW MALCOLM once that morning, across the playground as Tracey and I made our way to the gym for PE. Later, at lunchtime in the dining hall, I didn’t see him or Dizzy at their usual table by the door. During the afternoon break, I thought I caught sight of him moving among the crowds in the cloakroom in front of me and I had a momentary urge to push my way through all those uniformed bodies so that I could warn him not to go to the gates after school. But I didn’t. Instead, while Tracey became ever more excited as the end of the day approached, I felt my stomach fill with a sour and rising dread.

There had been only one occasion on which I had felt quite as torn as I did now, and that was in the cloakroom at the Christmas disco, when I watched Stan threaten to burn Kevin and beat up Malcolm, and gave Dizzy the opportunity to seek help by spraying the whiskey around the room. But even that surreptitious act had cost me dearly and, until Greg Loomis