Page 52 of The Cut

‘Let me help you.’ Dave kneels down in front of Annie. His gentle voice makes her tears flow more freely.

‘It’s OK, Dave, I can call my dad. Have you got any change for the phone?’

Dave puts his arm around her waist and they limp across the empty school hall floor, littered with streamers and sticky with spilled fizzy pop.

As she dials the number, Dave pushes the coin into the slot and gently lifts Annie on to a table full of football trophies.

He carefully draws her foot up on to his knee and pulls back the torn ballet tights.

‘Hi, Mum, it’s me. Can you ask Dad to come and pick me up? Yeah, from the party at school. Oh, OK, well, I can wait … no, no, I’m fine.’ Annie hangs up the receiver and turns to Dave. ‘Mum says he’ll be about twenty minutes.’

‘It’s actually not that bad.’ He gently pulls out a piece of glass, lodged in her big toe. She flinches at his touch. ‘Sorry. Small cut and a bucket of blood … You look like Carrie.’ He smiles at her and wipes his hands on his Obi-Wan dressing gown.

‘Who’s Carrie?’ Annie sniffs and dabs her eyes with her sleeve.

‘Stephen King … she gets a bucket of pigs’ blood tipped over her at the high school prom.’ Dave takes a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, strips a length of cloth from Annie’s gown and gently bandages her injured foot. ‘I think it’s stopped bleeding.’ 286

‘What happens to Carrie?’ Annie smiles at him.

‘Oh, nothing much. She just sets fire to the school and incinerates everyone with her laser eyes.’

They both burst out laughing. ‘Thanks for helping me.’

‘Well, my dad is a doctor, so …’ Patel flushes.

‘Is that what you want to be?’ Annie draws up her knees and looks at her toe. ‘When you leave school?’

‘Yeah, I want to try and get a place at Bamford for sixth form and then hopefully go to med school, specialise in cardiology.’

‘You’re going to be a heart surgeon?’ Her fingers brush his as he withdraws his hand.

‘That’s the dream.’

‘I think I want to study fashion at Saint Martins.’ Annie’s face glows as Dave smiles back at her.

‘You’ll be famous.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to do something … creative with my life.’

Dave smiles. ‘Don’t want to be a farmer then, or a shepherdess?’ He chuckles.

Annie kicks him in the tummy with her injured foot. ‘Very funny.’

After a few minutes of Dave’s emergency first aid, Annie’s wound is bandaged. She hops on one foot with her arm over Dave’s shoulder as she pulls on her trainers, wincing in pain.

‘Gonna be my knight in shining armour and drive me home then?’ Annie turns back with a smile.

‘I came on the bike … only one helmet … sorry.’ Then Patel suddenly remembers. ‘Shit … my camera.’

Annie puts her head against his shoulder. ‘Oh, I saw Mark pick it up. He’s probably outside filming the fireworks.’ 287

Annie and Dave head outside, sheltering under the canopy of the school as the summer storm blows stronger. The plumes of the glittering gold fireworks fizzle out in the sky.

‘Bit of a waste in this downpour.’ Patel squints out over the village.

The school playing field, backing on to the landfill peppered with gas pipes, appears to glisten with water.

A dense thicket of trees shields a row of Tudor cottages forming a small hamlet that runs towards Cheney End and Blackstone Mill.

‘Some bright spark is setting them off from over at the mill,’ Annie says. ‘I wonder who …’ A deafening bang cracks across the night sky, and a cloud of smoke is followed by a series of Roman candles, whizz bombs and a huge golden fountain, all carelessly expended in one giant explosion.

‘DAVIS!’ The two of them burst into laughter. These pyrotechnics have Chris Davis’s fingerprints all over them.

Another flurry of glittering red and green spinning fire jacks explodes from behind the tall chimney stack, illuminating the treetops and night sky in the distance ahead of them.

‘You should go on without me,’ Annie smiles. ‘Don’t want you missing all the fun.’

‘It’s OK, I’d rather wait here with you.’ Patel links his arms through hers, but Annie retracts.

‘I’ll be fine. Go and get your camera back.’

Dave puts his arm around Annie and pecks her cheek. She laughs awkwardly. ‘Get out of here.’

‘If you’re sure?’

‘Go on, my dad won’t be long, I’ll be fine.’

Patel stands and sighs. It’s the end of school. Who knows when he’ll have this chance again? ‘I really like you, Annie.’

Annie frowns slightly. ‘I know you do, Dave, but …’ 288

‘I know, you don’t have to tell me.’ Dave winces slightly. ‘Is it because I’m …’

‘No, of course not.’ Annie pre-empts the question, placing her hand gently on his.

Dave turns his face away. ‘I understand … you belong to Ben … I get it.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone.’

Dave’s heart sinks at the rejection; his dad was right. He covers his hurt feelings with that dazzling smile. He pulls his Obi-Wan hood over his head and dashes out into the rain towards his chained-up motorbike. He pulls on a helmet and throws a leg over, straddling it like a Hell’s Angel.

‘All right, Mad Max!’ Annie shouts over to him, and he kickstarts the engine and speeds away, heroic robes flowing in the wind.

The rain pattering on the overhang of the school begins to slow as the storm passes over. In the distance, the booming rumble of thunder makes Annie start. She’s dressed in little more than a tablecloth and her underwear, and she suddenly remembers her sports bag inside.

She hobbles back into the school hall and heads across the dance floor towards the changing room.

In the centre of the room, she pauses for a second as a pang of sadness catches her breath.

This is it; their Pearls Before Swine is over.

It feels as if she has spent her entire life in this school hall.

In a way she has, from the very first assembly when she was four years old, learning the Lord’s Prayer, trying to sit still, cross-legged, putting her hand up to go to the toilet.

The school dinners she hated, unless there was strawberry milkshake on Fridays.

Making Christmas-tree decorations out of blown eggs and sequins to take home to her parents.

Bringing tins of unwanted mushy peas to the Harvest Festival collection box.

Her whole childhood seems to have happened 289 within the walls of this school.

But now it’s time to leave. Like Alice, she suddenly feels too big for the room; the world she knows is shrinking before her eyes, already fading into memory.

The honk of a car horn outside startles her.

‘Dad? That was quick,’ she mutters to herself.

She hops into the changing room, grabs her sports bag and limps back to the front entrance.

The rain is coming down heavier now and a pair of headlights flash across the glass doors of reception, dazzling her momentarily.

The high beam dims as the car pulls forward and the door swings opens.

But it’s not her father. The familiar battered old blue Ford Fiesta sits waiting with the engine turning over, as Ben leans out over the passenger seat.

It’s hard to see his face under the silver-grey tape and long nails protruding from his head; the bone-rib waistcoat has been thrown into the back seat.

‘Come on, get in.’ Ben shouts over the rain, the rubber Pinhead mask puckering around his mouth. ‘I’ll whizz you home.’

Annie glances back into the hall, that well of sadness still lingering inside her. This is the last time she’ll be here and maybe the last time she’ll see Ben, for a while at least.

‘I shouldn’t … my dad said he was on his way.’

‘Come on.’ Ben holds out his hand.

Annie takes a deep breath and steps into the passenger seat and closes the door. ‘Goodbye, Barton Mallet.’

‘Your buns are all soggy.’ Ben puts the car into gear and speeds up the driveway of the school.

Annie cracks a smile, pulling off her Princess Leia earmuffs and leaning her head back into the seat. ‘Sorry I shouted.’

The car smells of damp dog and strong alcohol. Ben has been drinking.

‘Flash my dad if we pass him on the road. He’ll be worried.’ Annie wipes the condensation from the windscreen and fiddles with the 290 demister. Ben remains silent, focusing hard on steering in a straight line as they exit the car park and head off through the driving rain.

‘That was the turn for Forest Hill.’ The little blue Ford Fiesta whizzes past the green gates of the cemetery and suddenly swerves left at the dog rescue. ‘Ben, where are we going?’

‘Back to where we began.’ Ben grips the wheel and turns to her. ‘A nostalgia tour.’ The sign for Water Ford Gate flashes red as they approach.

‘It’s under water, Ben, you won’t make it through.’ Annie grips the dashboard as Ben starts to accelerate down the hill towards the ford and the weir.

Ben steps on the pedal and screams out at the top of his voice, ‘Whhhoooohoooo!’

Annie screams and covers her eyes as the car ploughs into the deep ford, waves hitting the air vent and pouring over the bonnet, windscreen and roof, spurting plumes of water like fins behind them.

For a second the car wheels leave the ground and float free, aquaplaning across the river.

The tyres find the road surface again as the battered old car miraculously makes it across to the other side and speeds away.

‘Oh my God … you are an absolute psycho, Ben Knot!’ Annie’s hands leave her eyes. She is flushed and shaking.

Ben, still whooping, continues towards the turn for Cheney End.

As they round the corner, the car begins to buck violently, the carburettor coughing and chugging.

Warning lights across the dashboard flash red as the engine peters out.

Ben steers into the lane leading down to Doggers Dive and depresses the clutch.

The car freewheels down the hill and slowly judders to a halt in the car park.

Ben brakes, the car stalls, lights flicker off and the engine dies.

‘Alone at last.’ Ben swallows nervously. ‘So now what are we going to do?’