Page 41 of The Cut
The endless weeks of revision and the stress of their GCSEs have taken their toll.
Hours cooped up in sweltering classrooms, desks lined up facing the wall, inky fingers and aching necks from the head-down, frantic splurge of knowledge: from brain to paper.
And now it’s the calm before the storm, the no man’s land before the exam results come in.
Ben knows his grades will be shit, one more reason for Farmer John to keep him away from his daughter.
Dave’s dad has ridiculous expectations for his son.
Annie has it for nothing; she’s got a photographic memory, so her exams are always a breeze, except when she’s distracted.
The Davis twins would most likely suffer the most, having done zero work, fancying their chances to just wing it on the day. It hadn’t gone well.
Mark is just about to descend from the top of the chimney stack when he notices Dave Patel and Chris Davis on the wall of the reservoir by the water wheel.
The sluice running from the brook is little more than damp mud.
The wheel is still intact after all this time, half of it preserved in silt, half of it bolted together with a makeshift scaffold.
A shopping trolley, old cans of paint, car tyres and pieces of timber have blocked up the tail race and the whole stinking soup is an absolute death trap.
Chris has a rope around the branches of a tree that has sprouted in the walls of the old covered tunnel and Dave has a crowbar and tent mallet.
He’s hacking at the bricks around the roots while Chris hauls on the rope, gradually dislodging the tree as the crumbling ancient masonry loosens and a section of wall gives way.
The smallest trickle of water begins to fill the sluice as Patel sets to work with his mallet.
Cat and Annie have set up a picnic blanket by the edge of the water and are lying on their bellies, picking daisies, making tiny holes in their stems with their fingernails and linking them together.
Annie is adjusting her crown of flowers when she spots Mark at the entrance to the mill. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Up there.’ Mark turns back and regards the tower, from which he’s just descended, with pride. He starts to jog over.
‘Mark, wait! There’s a load of cow sh—’ Too late. Mark lifts his foot from the grass, flip-flop dangling ankle-deep in stinking green-brown gunk.
‘Whoopsie.’
Cat puts her hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh. ‘You can say that again.’
‘Very funny.’ He hops towards the edge of the water to wash his foot. 227
‘Want some squash?’ Annie calls out, holding a blue plastic flask from her open lunch box. ‘We brought sarnies too, corned beef and Branston, and some Bakewell tarts if you’re hungry. Mum made them.’
Mark flops down, all cleaned up. He flips the lid of the flask and takes a sip. ‘Oh my gosh, it’s scorching … I’m so hot.’ He lies back on the blanket and lifts his foot, thrusting it into Cat’s face.
‘Eeuugh … it stinks. Get off.’ She rolls off the blanket and charges towards the water to cool off.
Annie takes a piece of tart from the lunch box and offers it to Mark. They both chew on the almond sweet pastry, the midday sun beating heavily down on their heads.
‘He promised to leave you alone, Mark.’ Annie fills the small plastic cup with lemon barley water.
‘What?’ Mark’s mouth is full of jam and pastry. ‘Who?’
‘Ben. I asked him to.’ Annie sips her drink and swats a fly buzzing around the food.
‘Oh no … what did you say to him?’ Mark stops chewing and looks grave for a second, as a long shadow creeps up his legs and body.
‘What did she say to who?’ Ben is standing behind Mark and, in the glare of the sun, he cuts a heroic silhouette in nothing but football shorts.
Annie glares at Ben. ‘Nothing. Talking about you, not to you.’
‘Bad-mouthing me to your little friend?’ He casts his eyes towards the mill: Dave and Chris are hobbling over, head to toe in mud, red-faced and sweaty. ‘HEY … DID YOU DO IT?’
Chris drops the branch he’s carrying and jogs over. ‘Yep, next torrential rainstorm and the wheel should move … Patel nearly committed Mata Hari.’
‘Hara-kiri, numb nuts.’ Ben laughs and heads over to join them. 228
Patel calls over to Mark, ‘Come on, Cherry, don’t think we haven’t noticed that you haven’t been in the drink all day.’ Goading him.
‘Yeah, leave your gay little teddy bears’ picnic and get on that swing.’ Chris grabs Mark by the arm and hauls him to his feet.
Annie makes eye contact with Ben, a warning not to break their pact, not to renege on their deal. Ben, sulking, heads off towards the water’s edge.
‘OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF!’ Dave claps, as Chris pulls on Mark’s T-shirt. Lynette, arms freshly covered in lick’n’stick tattoos, jogs up, joining in the chant.
‘All right, I’ll go.’ Mark pushes Chris as he tries to pull down his shorts. ‘GET OFF ME! I can do it.’
‘OH MY GOD! He-Man? Haaaah!’ Lynette bursts out laughing at Mark’s Masters of the Universe swimming trunks, having been stripteased out of his trousers. ‘Come on then, He-Man, let’s see what you got!’
Annie and Cat sit quietly, saying nothing.
Mark approaches the willow as the chanting and clapping continues, and grips on to the rope for dear life, terrified as the gang pull back on the tyre. The bough of the willow creaks and cracks ominously.
‘One, two, three.’ The push that comes is too violent and far too high.
Mark swings out above the water and his hands release from the rope.
For a second, he is suspended in mid-air, a look of utter shock on his face.
Then he plummets, falling heavy as a stone, face-first into the pond, belly flopping on to the surface of the water.
It smacks him in the face with a force like landing on concrete. Everything goes dark.
The sound of water and the sudden shift from hot to cold create a strange sensation that Mark hadn’t prepared himself for.
He 229 could just lie here, still and silently floating, suspended, calm and happy.
The feeling of sinking is oddly comforting.
Sinking into the dark, he curls himself into a foetal position and takes a deep breath in.
The sound of voices around him, muffled and distant, gurgle into focus.
A hard, painful pressure pounds on his chest, and something warm is clamped over his mouth, suffocating him.
He’s gagging, about to vomit. The ground shifts and he’s tilted sideways.
Daylight seeps in through his eyelids and he’s sick, water exploding from his mouth and ears, out on to the warm grass.
‘Oh, thank God. Mark? Mark? You’re OK. You’re OK.’ The drifting voices swim in and out of his waterlogged ears, as he lies on the ground coughing. He opens his eyes and, gently falling into his eye line, Ben’s face hovers over him.
‘Quite a good kisser,’ Ben laughs, looking down at the boy he just saved, white as a sheet and panting with exhaustion. ‘You OK?’
Mark buries his face into the grass and vomits water again. ‘I’ll be fine, leave me alone.’ He can barely speak.
‘All right. Keep your knickers on.’ Ben tuts and gets up off the grass.
‘Yeah, keep your He-Man poofter pants on!’ Chris chips in.
Mark flushes with rage. Everyone is gathered round in a circle, staring at him. Smirking. Mocking smiles, whispering behind their hands. For once in his life, it becomes too much to bear.
‘Just fuck off, Ben Knot! Fuck off, all of you!’ Mark staggers to his feet trembling with white-hot anger, his fists clenched, spit forming on his lips.
‘Come on then, have a go.’
Mark squares up to the tall blond real-life He-Man who is towering over him.
Nobody breathes. But then, almost out of 230 nowhere, Mark’s arm swings wide, cracking Ben across the side of the face.
Ben reels back in shock, holding his hand to his cheek as Mark waits for the inevitable retaliation.
Trembling from head to toe, adrenaline pumping and tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘I just saved you from drowning, you little prick!’ The look on Ben’s face shifts from shock to menace.
He steps forward. ‘Was that your first kiss with a man? Well, it definitely won’t be the last, will it?
’ He is close up in his face, but then turns to the crowd.
‘We know all about you. He really is a bender!’
Mark swallows hard, his vision blurs and his head spins. His whole world is collapsing around him. How did Ben know? He looks at Annie Maddock. It must be her. She’s betrayed him and now they all know. He pushes his way through a circle of shocked faces. Annie follows behind, catching his arm.
‘Mark, are you OK? Come here.’ She’s holding out a blanket to cover him.
‘Leave me alone!’ The fury in him rises to his throat. ‘Traitor.’
He couldn’t forgive and would never forget.
She was dead to him.