Of course she was disappointed and wrinkled up her pretty nose.
‘What? That’s it?’
‘Trust me,’ I replied, ‘that’s enough.’
Then we stared at each other for ages, until she blinked and I won.
‘You should have a drink.’ I pointed to the desk. ‘Third drawer down on the left.’
She reached over and pulled at the drawer and a half-drunk bottle rolled towards her.
Whisky, of course. That was definitely one of my top-ten moments.
I’d never have dared drink Dad’s whisky before, but now it felt better than perfect. Very soon Nic started doing impressions of people at school. She was very good and would’ve made a brilliant actress or model or TV presenter. After she’d done Mrs Queripel with her manic-secret-nose-picking, she did Adèle Mauger and her dying-pig laugh, then she jumped up and grabbed a wad of papers.
‘Well! Top marks again, Cathy, you bring History to life! Gosh, you put us all to shame. I’m rather overcome. I can’t hold back any longer. Come here and give me a kiss.’
She leaned in and puckered up and I had to burst out laughing. It was a pretty good impression of Mr McCracken, our form teacher, who also taught History, which was (of course) my best subject.
‘He thinks the sun shines out of your arse, and he’s your next-door neighbour. Star-crossed lovers!’
I pointed out that Mr McCracken lived three doors down at La Petite Maison, and that star-crossed meant doomed.
‘Still. He’s obviously into you, the way he always smiles at you and talks to you after class. I mean, what a sleaze. He’s gagging for it.’
I shrugged.
‘And do you see him much out of school?’
‘On the cliffs sometimes.’
Nic fluttered her eyelashes and crossed her hands over her heart, ‘I bet he plans it! So it’s like you and him and the wind and the waves?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it should be! What are we doing here? Let’s go and find him.’
I’m glad to say we didn’t find him that day. If we had, I’m sure Nic would’ve embarrassed me horribly. She could make me blush tomato-red, and teasing me about Mr Mac became her favourite sport. So what if I played along. That’s not a crime, is it? And I didn’t take it seriously – it was just a silly game. If she was rude about him it annoyed me, but what could I do? I knew that our friendship wasn’t equal. I suppose it was more like a marriage, where one person is always more in control. Nic was beautiful, so she could do and say whatever she wanted. I didn’t think of myself as weak or under her thumb, I just thought I was happy. I’d always said and done everything right up until then but I hadn’t felt alive.
Most people are not by nature good – they’re just afraid of getting caught being bad. Even Mr McCracken. Poor Mr McCracken. Mrs Perrot had told him to be firmer with his pupils, but he wasn’t really built for it. He’d always say ‘Please’ and ‘Now, quiet. . . that’s enough!’ and blush as badly as me. Maybe it didn’t help that he had cheekbones like cliff edges and all that flicky hair. But what was he thinking, coming to work at an all-girls’ school? Talk about asking for trouble.
Nic was trouble. She said I was his pet but it was never like that. I was polite and attentive to all of my teachers. Maybe I was more relaxed around Mr Mac, but that was because I saw him all the time – in his garden and cleaning his car, and out on the cliffs with his camera. He was a mad-keen photographer and used to wander on the beach for hours, fiddling with his lenses.
Just to be clear, when I went out on the cliffs I didn’t go because Nic suggested it, and I wasn’t in search of Mr Mac. No. Not at all. I just went to check the Moorings, like I did every week.
The Moorings are these slime-covered cement steps that wind down the side of Fermain Bay. If the tide is high enough you can dive off them into the sea, but at low tide you can walk straight onto the beach. Dad used to time his swims precisely so he could dive off them every day. Have I mentioned he was a champion swimmer? He wasn’t bothered by the sub-zero temperatures.12 He could execute a perfect dive off the top landing and he sometimes didn’t surface for a full five