““He said nothing, but his hands told their own story. They mirrored the girl’s, gripping his knees, knuckles white.””
The boy. She still had no distinct idea of who he was, only that he, like her, was struggling with the summer heat, and that he struck her as unusually serious. Not the feigned seriousness of other boys she had been out with, their gestures picked up from films and books, but something deeper, more buried. It was not at all attractive, not even romantic, but the discovery of it rendered him somehow her possession, and she felt protective suddenly as she studied the streaks of damp blond hair pressed against his temples, and the soft beads of sweat bloom on his brow. He seemed, to her, to be on the edge of making some terrible mistake, and maybe she could stop him if only she could discover what it was. She’d had a glimpse of its nature earlier, she thought, one of the moments in the pub when he was struggling to be heard above the noise; a hectic look in his face. It was like a problem she could solve if only she put her mind to it, but just now the answer wouldn’t come. If she could sit down, perhaps-
‘Have you got my purse?’ she asked, accidentally scraping her shoe on the curb as they crossed from the shaded side of the street. She’d had it when she came out that morning, a small satin purse with a silver clasp.
His voice was quiet and distant: ‘You didn’t have a purse.’
She felt light-headed, drunk. They’d both shared a beer at the fair that afternoon, and by the time they’d got back into town it was too late to eat so they’d gone to the pub and she’d had a gin and tonic and he’d bought a pint of stout. Not enough to make them drunk, but it had been hot all day and she was sure she’d caught too much of the sun. Now the colours against the pavements stung her eyes and her head felt heavy. The burnished red in the cracks of the paving slabs held the dirt up like gold. Behind the corn exchange the late evening sun shone dim and small, as though masked by a curtain of calm water. It was all too strong for her to look at and she longed to be back on the far pavement, in the shadows where she thought she might be all right if only he would let her go.
The girl. Her hands clutched the hem of her skirt as though she were hanging on. As though if she let go she’d fall away, he thought.
‘You don’t have to wait with me for the bus,’ she told him, and she shivered and the boy felt it through her dress. He was trembling himself, even though it was hot, too hot. He didn’t know what the hell it was, but they’d both caught it. He clapped his hand to the back of his neck, felt the feverish damp there. Cold flesh. There was an insistent spasm in his knee that wouldn’t stop, the deliberate tic of a muscle. His legs ached. Perhaps it was only a summer cold. It would be gone tomorrow, he told himself.
‘What bus do you get?’ he said, taking hold of her left hand and prying it away from her skirt. He was afraid he was hurting her, holding on too tight, and he released her briefly to achieve a gentler grip.
‘Don’t-’
‘What’s the number?’
‘The 56.”
He walked with her to the bus station, holding her by the elbow as she walked unsteadily, the heels of her shoes tapping a faltering rhythm on the pavement. She was leaning against him now and he smoothed the hair away from her face once and glanced into her eyes to see how she was.
‘Can we sit down?’ she asked, looking down to the ground.
At the station he led her along the walkway between the bus stands, following the shadows where it was cool and dark.
‘Here.’ He eased her down to the hard bench.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I feel stupid. I’m not usually like this.’
‘Maybe the wine was bad. I should have taken you to a better pub.’
She still hadn’t opened her eyes. Her lips were pink and full and pale, the lipstick all but gone.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he added. ‘It’s all right.’ His voice rang out across the empty station, echoing lightly under the iron roof. Despite the heat or because of it, the air inside the stand tasted damp, metallic, like the memory of a teaspoon in his the mouth when he was a boy. He’d been thirteen and they’d prescribed medicine for a sore throat. There was a doctor with wire spectacles who had leant across him. The doctor’s false teeth had dislodged as he’d concentrated on staring down across the boy’s depressed tongue. The next day his parents had taken him to the infirmary, promising him ice cream, but instead he’d been ushered into a room where a doctor and a nurse proceeded to cut free his tonsils, which they said afterwards, trying to placate him, were the size of overripe grapes. And the ice cream, he remembered, when it came later that night tasted unpleasant, with the texture and flavour of congealed blood.
To the girl the strange quality of light reminded her of the last time she’d gone to the seaside with her mother and father, before the divorce, standing on the Whitby pier and looking to the distant coastline, hoping for a different outcome. That was the summer before last, and she hadn’t felt truly happy since.
‘I think I had a turn,’ the girl said, when finally she opened her eyes. They had become wet around the lids and some of her mascara, painted a little too thickly, had smudged against her cheek. She wiped it away with a handkerchief she took from the sleeve of her sweater. Smiling, she sat upright and breathed deeply, her hands on her knees, struggling to refrain from laughing at how pale the boy’s face had become. ‘I suppose I must have given you a fright.’
He said nothing, but his hands told their own story. They mirrored the girl’s, gripping his knees, knuckles white. She could see his fingers tense and relax, and the cuffs of his shirt, she noted, were dark with sweat.
They sat for nearly an hour, the boy and girl, lost in their own memories until her bus turned into the station. Neither had realised fully that at some point in the last six hours – between the moment they had met by the Waltzer and he had come over to her and asked shyly if she was the girl from Brown’s, and this very instant sitting in the shade of the bus station, alone but for the pigeons on the concourse – they had fallen in love. They were still lost in their own thoughts as the bus pulled away from the station and disappeared behind the high buildings opposite. Then they climbed to their feet and began to walk back into town, neither talking, but as they walked their hands found each other and held on tightly, in case one or both of them might fall away.