Page 27 of The Cut
John Maddock has his eye fixed on Ben, whose face is pressed to the window of the back seat.
Ben was hoping that Annie’s dad would have warmed to him by now, but it hasn’t happened; he’s as cold as ever.
Marcello was supposed to have put in a good word.
The little shit has let him down. Mr Maddock still sees him as nothing more than a bad influence on his little girl; he’ll never be good enough for her.
‘Please be careful, sweetheart.’ Annie’s mum cups her face. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’ She looks to Catherine, who stares at her shoes, reddening.
‘Mum …’ Annie’s eyes flick to her dad, who looks away, embarrassed. Then he presses a ten-pound note into her hand. ‘Dad, it’s too much … you can’t—’
‘It’s for both of you, for emergencies. Don’t spend it.’ Mr Maddock hauls their backpacks into the luggage area under the coach and glances up to the boy sitting on the back seat. There’s no one here to see Ben away safely this morning.
The kids pile on the coach with the usual scramble, ‘bagsying’ their seats with their besties.
Mark Cherry is last to get on as usual. He makes his way down the aisle, looking for a place as far away from the trouble-makers as possible.
He sees Ben at the 152 back of the bus and acknowledges him with a secret wave, but is met with daggers.
He takes his seat alone and rolls his sweater into a pillow, leaning against the window.
The coach finally pulls out of the school gates at 5.
30 a.m. in the dark, leaving early to avoid the traffic on the A46 as they hit Tewkesbury.
It’s a slow road over the Welsh border, cutting through the Wye Valley and deep into the wilderness of the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.
The Black Mountains to the west and the famous Pen y Fan to the east will provide the dramatic setting for the challenging four days of camping on the banks of the River Taff.
‘If it’s good enough for the SAS, it’s good enough for Barton Mallet Secondary School.
’ Ben leans forward across the aisle, passing a bottle of Coke to Annie, who is sitting next to Cat.
Girls have to sit next to girls, and boys next to boys.
No smoking, no radios and no fumbling under blankets.
Those are the rules, although Mr Ashton has been assigned to marshal the trip and he’s a pushover.
He nodded off just after Solihull, so those silly rules are crying out to be broken.
Lynette Davis has taken off her Doc Martens and has her feet up on her twin brother’s headrest, kicking him in the skull.
Her Sony Walkman emits a tinny beat of Duran Duran.
She’s bleached her hair to look like Nick Rhodes and her crispy perm is pulsing in time like a demented chicken.
Annie passes the bottle of Coke to Cat, who takes a sip and then passes it down the line until it reaches Lynette, who swigs a mouthful.
Chris passes her a packet of sweets over the back of the seat.
She opens the Mentos Mints and pops one in her mouth before taking another swig and secretly spitting it into the Coke bottle and holding her hand over the top.
She rises from her seat, shaking the bottle vigorously before the whole thing explodes across the coach. 153
‘Take that, ya muvvers!’
‘Eeeww!’ The screams of protest across the back row wake the whole coach and the driver suddenly brakes. Students tumble off seats and dive for cover as a shower of sticky projectile foam spurts down the aisle, while others hide under blankets, squealing in a riot of jeers and laughter.
‘DAVIS!’ Mr Ashton is up on his feet and storming towards the back, as the coach slows to a crawl and pulls into a lay-by.
‘Sorry, sir, the bottle exploded.’ Lynette slumps back into her seat, chewing and smirking to herself.
Mr Ashton glares at her and pulls out a huge roll of paper towel. ‘Clean it up.’
‘No way, sir.’ Lynette tries to disappear into her seat. ‘I wouldn’t touch their shit with someone else’s barge pole, let alone—’
‘I SAID clean it up.’ Ashton isn’t a tyrant, he finds it quite hard to keep a straight face, but he knows exactly who the culprits are as his eyes shift to Chris, who is red-faced and giggling, eyes nearly popping out of his head. ‘Both of you.’
‘Sir, my seat is soaked.’ Annie Maddock is on her feet, wiping her jeans with paper towel.
‘She can sit next to me, sir … This one’s dry.’ Ben pats the seat on the back row next to him.
Dave, sitting across from him on the other side of the rear seat, watches intently as Mr Ashton agrees and Annie moves to the one next to Ben. Beaming, Ben wraps his arm around her as she snuggles into his shoulder.
‘Cheers, Lynette,’ Ben calls through the gap in the seat.
He pulls the pillow from behind his neck and props it under Annie’s head.
Now that the disapproving parents are out of the way, he has her all to himself.
The camping trip is off to a cracking start; they are in for the best weekend ever. 154
Lynette stares open-mouthed and slumps back, pulling on her headphones, as Aerosmith’s ‘Love in an Elevator’ nearly blows her head off.
Unbeknown to any of them, Dave has his camera hidden under his coat and trained on the unfolding events.
Peeping between the seats at the conspiratorial antics of the Davis twins, zooming down the aisle to Mark Cherry passing a bag of Black Jacks and Fruit Salads across the aisle to Catherine, and most importantly keeping watch on the lovers in the back seat.
Patel now turns his lens to the window and the pink breaking dawn over the Malvern Hills.
‘Shepherd’s warning,’ he mutters to himself, then notices something in the reflection of the glass.
The camera catches Ben and Annie snuggling under the blanket as the sun rises.
Dave’s stomach lurches, he feels sick, and his face burns hot with jealousy.
He zooms in, watching closely. Ben’s arm gently slides down Annie’s shoulder to her waist, then to her thigh, crossing her leg, reaching for somewhere forbidden.
He kisses her sleeping head lovingly, but Annie’s body suddenly tenses, she sits upright and pushes Ben’s hands off her.
She stares at Ben in disgust. Then she shrinks away and slides out from under the blanket.
Patel keeps filming through the reflection in the glass, pretending to be asleep.
‘Annie … wait.’ The hissed whisper has no effect. She doesn’t want to make a scene, so she quietly moves forward to the centre of the coach and takes the empty seat next to Mark. Her head disappears behind the headrest and Ben pulls the pillow tight into his chest.
Dave’s eyelids close as the rocking of the coach lulls him to sleep with a smile on his lips, and they head out into the unknown wilderness of Pen y Fan.