Girls Out Late Read online

  ‘So, what happens now? Are you going to go out with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he’ll ask me. He was just being friendly because of the art thing.’

  ‘Ellie! Are you being deliberately irritating? He’s obviously nuts about you.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ I hiss, delighted.

  Nadine sighs. ‘Look, when I get off the bus I’ll clear off down Weston Avenue and go that way home, OK? I don’t want to play gooseberry.’

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘Oh, yeah, well I’m not going to stand and file my broken fingernails while you stand snogging on the doorstep.’

  ‘I’m not going to snog!’ I forget to whisper. Nadine nudges me. Russell is staring at me. Oh God, did he hear what I said?

  ‘Of course you’ll snog,’ says Nadine.

  ‘I don’t think I want to.’

  ‘Don’t you fancy him?’

  ‘I . . . don’t know,’ I say stupidly. ‘What do you think of him, Nad?’

  ‘Well, he’s OK. I mean he’s not really my type.’

  ‘Do you think he’s good-looking?’

  ‘Sort of. Well, he’s not totally nerdy, but it’s hard to tell when he’s wearing that awful uniform.’

  ‘Nadine, when you snog – like now, first time – are you supposed to do the tongue thing?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want.’

  It’s true. I always dreamt of a romantic encounter like this – and yet now it is happening it’s so overwhelming I’m kind of scared. I almost wish Russell had gone after Magda or Nadine. No, I don’t really wish that. I wish Russell had never started sketching me, and that now I was going home on the bus with Nadine after a perfectly normal girls’ night out.

  ‘Come on, it’s our stop,’ says Nadine.

  ‘Maybe he’ll stay on the bus,’ I say.

  ‘You’re mad, Ellie. Look, he’s getting up too.’

  ‘Nadine, don’t go down Weston Avenue. Come my way. Come via my house. Please, I don’t want to be on my own with him,’ I hiss urgently.

  ‘Grow up, Ellie!’

  That’s the trouble, I’m not sure I want to grow up.

  We get off the bus, Russell, Nadine and me.

  ‘Well, cheerio, you guys,’ says Nadine.

  ‘Nadine!’

  ‘See you tomorrow, Ellie.’ She nods at Russell.

  ‘Bye, Nadine, nice meeting you,’ says Russell. Then he turns to me. ‘Which way do we go?’

  ‘We can go Nadine’s way,’ I say.

  But Nadine is already running off, clonking a little in her new Shelley shoes.

  ‘We’ll go your way,’ says Russell. ‘Or thereabouts. Shall we go for a little walk first?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I’ve got matching silver bangles jangling on my wrist instead of my watch – but I know it’s getting late. Not just getting. It is late. I am a Girl Out Late. I’ve got to get home. He can walk me to my door and then I will give him a quick little kiss on the cheek and then I’ll scoot indoors. That’s what I’ll do. That’s what I want.

  It’s not what he wants.

  ‘Come on, Ellie!’ He’s looking all around. ‘Is there a park round here? Come and show me so that I can imagine a chubby little Ellie feeding the ducks.’

  ‘No duck pond, no ducks. Swings.’

  ‘Swings are better. A little swing in the park for five minutes. Ten at tops. Yes?’

  My head nods automatically. We walk towards the park. Russell edges nearer to me. He reaches out. He takes hold of my hand.

  Oh God, I don’t know what to do with my fingers. They’re crooked uncomfortably but if I fold them over they may stroke his palm in a suggestive way. My hand starts sweating, or is it his? If only it was the bitter cold winter and then we’d be wearing gloves.

  But it’s spring and I’m getting uncomfortably hot inside Eggs’s tight sweater. What am I doing? I want to go home, and it really is late. I’m going to get into trouble.

  ‘I’ll have to get back soon, Russell, really.’

  ‘Sure, well, so will I.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Oh, around here.’

  ‘No you don’t, not if you don’t even know where the park is!’

  ‘It’s . . . over there.’ He gestures vaguely with his free hand.

  ‘Totally wrong. Come on, where do you live specifically?’

  ‘Near the park.’

  ‘Lies!’

  ‘OK, near a park, Pembridge Park.’

  ‘That’s miles away!’

  It’s also the posh part of town, with huge great Victorian houses. I once went to a party there and I remember being astonished by the stained glass windows in the hall – I went into the living room expecting pews and an altar. Some of the grandest houses surrounding the park certainly seem as big as churches and induce a similar feeling of reverence. And I’m hand in hand with a Halmer’s boy who lives there.

  ‘A big house?’ I say.

  ‘It is, but we just have a basement flat. Well, it’s called a garden flat but the garden is outside and we only have a fifth of it. The house is all split up. So are my family. I live with my dad now and my sister lives with my mum. There is also my dad’s girlfriend, but the less said about her the better. I hope she fades out of the picture soon. I certainly don’t fancy her as a stepmother.’

  ‘I’ve got a stepmother. She’s OK, though. We didn’t used to get on but now we’re friends.’

  Anna won’t be friends any more unless I go home now. She’ll worry.

  ‘I’m never ever going to be friends with Cynthia. Honestly, what a classic name – my stupid besotted dad is sinning with Cynthia. I don’t know what’s up with him. We used to get on great, Dad and me, sort of us two guys together – but now she’s there all the time. It’s pathetic. So I try not to hang out too much at home now. Who wants to be cooped up in the living room with his dad and his girl snogging on the sofa like teenagers?’

  ‘In front of you? That’s a bit gross.’

  ‘Well, whenever I go out of the room. Then they spring apart when I go back in. It’s like I’m the parent. So I mostly clear off to my bedroom, draw and do homework and stuff. But sometimes it really gets to me, stuck there like someone in solitary confinement – so I push off by myself.’

  ‘Don’t you have any friends?’

  ‘Oh, yes, heaps. No, don’t get the impression I’m this poor sad guy without a social life.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that!’

  ‘It’s just, well, I’m OK at school, there’s this little mob I go around with. But out of school – well, there’s two types at Halmer’s, there’s the really intense anoraks and they just swot away and come top in everything and their idea of a big social thrill is accessing some porn on the Internet. Then there’s the other really hip set, the ones that go to all the parties and get all the girls and drink and take drugs – and I’m a bit too wet and weedy to join in.’

  ‘You’re not a bit wet or weedy,’ I say.

  ‘But it’s kind of different for boys anyway. You have mates, but you’re not really close to them. Unless you’re gay, which I’m definitely not, in spite of all the tales you hear of infamous encounters behind the Halmer’s bike sheds.’

  I giggle. Magda was once chatted up by this Halmer’s boy in Year Eight and he swore half the Year Elevens were at it – behind the bike sheds.

  ‘It must be great to have friends to go round with, like you and those two girls.’

  ‘Nadine and Magda. Yeah, they’re both my best friends.’

  ‘Which do you like best?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘You don’t ever fall out?’

  ‘Well, we have arguments sometimes. And last year Nadine had this ultra creepy boyfriend so we didn’t see much of her then – but we’re like this now.’ I cross my fingers on my free hand.

  We are still clasped, albeit a little sweatily. We’re nearly at the park now. A minute or two, the