Outside

Chapter Six

When we were sixteen and studying for our mock ‘A’ Levels, my school’s Sixth Form organised one of those American-style prom nights as an end of year bash. Abi and I loved to laugh at the cheesiness of it all, but at the same time we were excited by its possibilities.

It was to be held in three weeks’ time, at the end of June. The theme was Sixties Psychedelia and we’d already notched up several hours experimenting with hair straighteners, false eyelashes and powdery pale pink lipstick.

I didn’t have my eye on anybody special to go with, but Abi was besotted with a boy called Samuel who lived in the village. We’d first met him and his best friend, Johnny, in a local pub garden.

Nobody made a big deal of the fact we were all under-age. We weren’t getting drunk, just hanging out with our friends, drinking half pints of lager and eating salt and vinegar crisps. Taking time out from tedious end-of-year exam revision, we’d taken over two long trestle tables and were planning our forthcoming prom night and our far-off summer holidays.

On the next table sat two eye-catching blokes, one of whom I recognised as the blond tousled-haired, good-looking-but-knew-it, Samuel Bletchley. My parents vaguely knew his family, but I didn’t know him to talk to. His friend was less obviously handsome, but had a cool self-assurance, with broad shoulders and dark cropped hair.

I kept catching his eye and looking away. They were smiling and laughing together and I knew they were discussing me and my friends. Abi sat opposite me and I told her about the nice view over to my right.

‘Don’t look over,’ I hissed. Of course she leaned right back in her seat and stared directly across at them. I shouldn’t have been surprised as this was typical Abi behaviour. I was mortified and pleased all at once.

Samuel got up and walked over to Abi. He cast his eyes over her and asked if she would mind if he and his friend joined us. Abi smiled and gave him the cliché that it’s a free country. So they lifted up their table and joined it onto the end of ours, spilling their pints in the process.

‘So, you have to say yes, when Johnny asks you to the prom,’ Abi said, tossing the magazine down onto my bedroom floor. She lay on her stomach on the bed, with her feet on my pillow.

‘Ask me to the prom? He’s not going to ask me to the prom.’

‘Course he is. Sam’s going to ask me, so his best mate will ask my best mate.’ She gave me one of her cyanide smiles.

Samuel was a player and I guessed it would take more than sixteen-year-old Abigail Robbins to tame him, but she was determined to give it a go. Johnny came from the south coast but was living with Samuel while he studied at university in Bath. Their families went way back, apparently.

‘So don’t let me down, Ellie. It’ll be a laugh anyway,’ Abi said.

‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘It’s not like there’s anyone else I really like at the moment.’

‘Cool. So that’s sorted then.’

Things being what they were, two weeks before the event, Johnny and Samuel asked us if we would like to accompany them to the Prom. Abi was ecstatic. I’d never seen her so completely smitten and it was the first time she’d been flustered by anything or anyone.

My parents were far from happy with Johnny’s interest in me. If I’m truthful, neither was I. He was five years older than me and I thought he would expect more than I wanted to give. He was very rich, very intelligent and had just finished his third year at Uni, studying Chemical Engineering. He was handsome, but not in a heart-stopping way, and he seemed nice, but something harder glinted behind his smile.

The only reason my parents didn’t forbid me from seeing him, was because he came round to see them, to charm them and reassure them I would be safe in his company. Also, my wise mother knew that if she imposed a ban, it would only make him more attractive to me.

Samuel worked for his father, who owned Bletchley’s, a long-established Prestige Car Showroom on the A38. Consequently, Abi and Samuel arrived at the Prom in style, with Samuel behind the wheel of a jaw-droppingly cool Maybach Exelero. Johnny’s ride was far from shabby. He called round to my house in his own Aston Martin – a silver V8 Vantage. Despite my indifference to cars in general, I couldn’t help but be seduced by this low-slung beauty.

The evening exuded glamour and sophistication. We’d persuaded the teacher in charge that holding it in the school sports hall would be just too sad, and so they’d hired out a local nightclub for the event.

The four of us sat upstairs on the balcony above the heaving dance floor. Abi and I wore psychedelic mini dresses and zip up boots. And we had poker-straight sixties-style hair. We knew we looked good, but that still didn’t help me to relax, as most of the time I felt completely out of my depth conversation-wise.

Samuel shouted above the noise of the music. ‘Yeah man, I was completely wasted and I told her to…’ He held his hand in front of his face and mouthed something to Johnny.’

‘Sam,’ Johnny shook his head, ‘you are one sick little puppy.’

Abigail ran her hands up and down Samuel’s thigh, while she kissed his neck and nibbled his ear. He virtually ignored her and carried on bragging to Johnny about this girl and that girl, this car and that car. I wouldn’t have put up with it, but Abi didn’t seem to care. She looked relaxed and happy, gazing adoringly at him all evening.

I think Johnny sensed they weren’t quite hitting my wavelength, and he nudged Sam.

‘Hey, Sammy, tone it down a bit. I don’t think Eleanor and Abi are interested in your list of conquests.’

‘Whatever, mate, whatever.’

By this time, I’d already decided I would much rather have spent the evening having a laugh with my friends, than trying to act grown-up around someone I wasn’t even really attracted to. As soon as I realised I didn’t actually fancy him, I relaxed. And then Johnny just seemed more of a temporary inconvenience than the scary grown man I’d been trying to impress all night.

Before the end of the evening, Sam and Abi disappeared off somewhere. She’d hinted earlier she might sleep with him that night. She’d said you were duty bound to sleep with someone on Prom Night, stressing this in a fake American accent. She said she liked the clichéd kitschness of it.

She’d already lost her virginity a year earlier and, at the time, I had assumed that would be the end of our friendship. We were at different stages. I didn’t feel anywhere near ready or inclined to sleep with any of the boys I knew and felt sure she would ditch me for a worldlier friend, or we’d just drift apart, having so much less in common. But she liked this shift in our relationship and enjoyed being the one to tell me what I was missing.

One thing I will say for Johnny – he acted like an absolute gentleman all night. He didn’t try to grope me once. Just leaned in for a goodnight kiss when the taxi reached my house. I felt obliged to kiss him back and was surprised to find I enjoyed it. A lot. He pulled away first, which took me aback.

‘Goodnight,’ I stammered.

He smiled and touched my cheek briefly. ‘Night, I’ll call you.’