Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,73
him pimply and ugly. But now I could see that he was actually very good-looking. In fact, he might have seemed girlish, with his long eyelashes and full, red lips, but for his thick eyebrows and the way his mouth, as he laughed, stretched into a wide, arrogant sneer.
“Oh, Stan, you’re such a joker,” Tracey said, laughing and flipping back her ponytail. “You really had us going there for a while. I thought you were going to run right into us.” I stared at her, astounded. Surely she didn’t think being terrified like that was funny.
“Christ, Stan,” Amanda snapped, “what did you have to go and do that for? You could have bloody killed somebody with an idiot trick like that.” Around her, Amanda’s friends, still breathless, nodded in agreement.
“Ah, come on, Mandy, I was just having a laugh,” Stan said as he dismounted his bike and balanced it on the kickstand.
“Oh, I knew that, Stan,” Tracey said, beaming in his direction.
“Shut your cake-hole, Tracey,” Amanda said.
“Shut up yourself,” Tracey mumbled. Then she turned to smile at Stan again. “You all right, then, Stan? Got a job yet?”
“Job? What do I want a fucking job for?” Stan said, moving past her and swaggering over to Amanda. He put his hand on her shoulder. “How was school, then? Boring as ever? Teachers still a bunch of wankers?” I noticed that the back of his leather jacket was decorated with studs and clumsy, hand-painted letters that read BLACK SABBATH RULES across his back. I remembered Tracey’s story about the vandalism in the Midham church. Surely the vicar must be a complete fool not to have found the culprit. The evidence was literally written on him.
“Get lost,” Amanda said. I watched her, delighted, as she shrugged his hand away.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Mandy. Like I said, it was just a laugh.”
“I told you I don’t like being called Mandy. And I don’t like being almost run over by your bloody motorbike, either.”
Silently, I egged Amanda on. Stan was clearly an idiot, and she was clearly far too good for him. It was ridiculous to imagine that she’d want him as a boyfriend. The sooner she sent him on his way, the sooner I could talk to her.
“Is this a new motorbike, Stan?” Tracey asked. “It’s a Suzuki, isn’t it? God, I just love Suzukis.” She spoke in the same dreamy tone she usually reserved for her pronunciations about David Cassidy.
Stan ignored Tracey and put a hand on Amanda’s arm again. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said, his tone more conciliatory now. “Really, I didn’t mean to scare you. It was just a laugh, that’s all.”
I watched, eager to see Amanda push him away again. Instead, I was surprised to see her let him rest his hand there, and even more surprised when, a second later, she turned to him. “Just don’t do it again, all right?” she said, her voice softer now. “You scared the living daylights out of me. Really, you did, Stan.”
“Come here,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. For a moment, Amanda stiffened and pulled back a little, then she let Stan ease her toward him. He took the cigarette she’d been holding, placed it in his mouth, and took a drag. Then he blew the smoke out sideways, tossed the cigarette to the ground, and, in a move that made my heart beat even harder than when he’d been pursuing us on his motorbike, leaned into Amanda to deliver a chomping kiss.
I wanted Amanda to push him away, to slam her arms against his chest and declare that she couldn’t stand him. I wanted her to yell at him, the way she’d yelled at Tracey and the boys who’d teased me that morning. Instead, she closed her eyes, leaned into Stan, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him back. As I watched this, I felt first a jolt of utter outrage, but, within moments, I was surprised to feel my anger melt, replaced by another heat that filled my body and made my face burn. While Stan pressed himself against Amanda, I imagined myself standing there in his place, my arms wrapped around Amanda, kissing her on the mouth.
“MUM,” I CALLED AS I stepped into the house after walking home from the bus stop. “Mum.” I pushed open the living-room door. “I like my new school, Mum.”
“Not now, love,” my mother said. “I’m watching this.” On the television screen a group of three- and four-year