Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [3]
One particular Sunday, when the dads were polishing their cars and the mums were washing up after Sunday lunch, and the older siblings were listening to the top forty and writing the list down to memorise before school, they both answered the reedy call. Tom let her choose first, and afterwards, when they had let Mrs Samways ask them some questions about school, he had said to Natalie, ‘Wanna go for a ride?’
‘S’pose.’ She had shrugged.
And that was how it had been between them, ever since. Tom was the instigator, Natalie the willing participant. He was older, in Bridget’s class at school. And braver. And more foolhardy, Natalie’s dad always said. It was Tom who had decided they should ride full pelt down the steep road and practise skidding to the left and right inches before the waist-high brick wall and, what was more he’d owned up to the idea, somewhat tearfully, in the back of Natalie’s dad’s car on the way to Casualty. It was Tom who had decided they should take the bottle of Martini from the drinks table at his parents’ summer do, at which they were supposed to be taking coats and handing out peanuts, and drink it in the garage. No one had to own up to that. They were very sick very privately, and no one ever missed the Martini. He had done everything first. School trip to France. Cigarettes. Snogging with the lights off at a party when the parents had gone out. O levels, A levels, university…
They’d had one serious fight. The year Torvill and Dean won the world championships with ‘Bolero’ in those floaty purple outfits. He’d got off with Susannah – who did a lot of random snogging – at the school disco, and Natalie had told him she thought it was disgusting, like snogging your sister. He had laughed, and said that Susannah was nothing like his sister, and that maybe snogging Natalie would be like snogging his sister, but that Susannah was a different kettle of fish. He had said it with an expression on his face that Natalie hadn’t seen before, and didn’t like at all, and she had slapped him – not across the face, but hard, in his stomach – and flounced off, and not talked to him for a whole week, until he bought her a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and said, with a very serious face, that he was sorry and that he would never do it again.
And they had had one kiss, when she was nineteen and he was twenty, and she had been dumped and he was picking up the pieces. Again. She’d been in love with some guy at college, only he’d taken this old girlfriend of his to some big London house-party instead of her, and she’d come home to mope. Tom had been home, too, getting ready to go Interrailing for the summer, and she’d sat on the floor of his bedroom watching him put pants and T-shirts into his rucksack, moaning.
‘You know what your trouble is?’ he had asked. ‘You have to fall in love. Every single time.’
‘I’m a romantic – what’s wrong with that?’ She had pouted.
‘Bollocks! It’s just a bad habit. You can’t possibly be in love that many times, Nat. Love isn’t like that!’
‘And when did you become such an expert? There’s me thinking you’re reading computer science.’
‘I’m no expert. That’s exactly my point. I’ve never been in love.’
‘Diddums.’
‘I don’t need your sympathy, honey. I’m not the one sitting there with a gob on. I’ve been in plenty of other things, thanks very much.’
‘Like knickers.’
‘Well, yes, since you’re asking. A few pairs. I’ve been in lust, I’ve had a laugh, I’ve cared, I’ve even really, really liked girls. But love? Not yet. And I’m in no hurry either, especially if this,’ he gestured at her, ‘is what it does for you.’
‘Boys mature less quickly than girls.’
‘That’s lame. You’re missing my point, Nat. You’re in love with love. You fall for the wrong guys, and you fall too bloody hard. And then we have