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It was Friday before I stopped to wonder why nobody had phoned or texted me about the planned picnic. The get-together had been a good idea. Apart from Justin, Will and Simone, I barely knew the other students that were also going to the castle. The willowy girl with short dark hair was called Sun and in my contemporary class, but the shorter girl and the quiet boy? In the presence of Aleks, everyone else had only been seen peripherally, eclipsed by his brightness and beauty. I thought about what I did know about them as I looked for my phone. The quiet boy was black, handsome and an extremely skilled dancer. The short girl was plump, and not so gifted with dancing ability. She had been struggling through lifts with Will and finding Aleks’s amalgamations very difficult. She was also a friend of Simone’s, which didn’t bode well.
I finally discovered my phone lying dormant on the coffee table. Once charged, it played increasingly irritable voice messages from Justin. The picnic had been on Wednesday, a good time had been had by all, and I was now universally resented and disliked.
“Ah, this. You must not be angry.” Aleks assumed the sad, sorry little-boy expression that anger could never be directed at. “I put both our phones on silent. I wanted you all to myself this week. They will have you soon enough.”
“But they’ve all bonded without me. They went boating on a lake together, and they all ate ice cream, even Simone.”
“If you want to go on boat, I can take you.”
“That is not the point.”
He nuzzled my neck. “But we are to have this whole day and night apart. Really is two days, is so terrible. Then, because we are secret, only the night will be ours.”
He drove up to Scotland on Sunday, partly because teachers were supposed to arrive before the rest of us on Monday, but also so he could have the car there. I spent the day packing and baking and imagining the two of us taking romantic drives against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains, dark forests and misty lochs.
I noticed Aleks’s medication, forgotten in the bathroom cabinet, and popped it into the side pocket of a bag, though I wasn’t sure if he needed it all. I’d never seen him take the anti-depressants.
There were leftovers in the fridge, and I invited Justin over to eat them with me.
“Can’t,” he said. “Busy.”
“Sulking?”
“No. Well, yes, a bit, but no. Ed’s coming over. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
So I spent a quiet evening with one of Aleks’s books. There was a late-night phone call from Scotland. The castle was described as cold, grey and desolate.
“Text me when you are on the train,” he said. “I will feel better knowing you are on your way.”
“I don’t know if I want to go anymore. It doesn’t sound nice at all.”
“Malphia, do not be joking about this. Is not funny.”
The guard blew the whistle as I was trying to pull my case and bags up onto the train.
“No boyfriend to see you off then, Treadwell?”
“No.”
Was Will’s question hypothetical? If not, how deep did it go? Did he know about Aleks? He lifted my case with a humiliating lack of effort and rammed it into the luggage area.
Sun appeared and offered to take a bag. “Justin’s been telling us about your boyfriend, Phi,” she said as we joined the others in the carriage where a group ‘hi’ took place.
“Can’t expect me to keep all your secrets, darling. Not after last week,” said the informer with a grin, delighting in my discomfort as he played with his phone.
“Have to say, I was surprised,” continued Sun. “I thought you were a totally chaste and devoted ballet girl.”
I lurched into the seat opposite Will and Justin as the train moved off. Sun took her place by Simone. The other two, ‘Short’ and ‘Quiet,’ sat across the table from them.
A text from Justin put my mind at rest:I didn’t tell them who he was.
“There have always been rumours,” said Simone. “The ones about you two were patently ridiculous.” She gestured towards Justin and me as she spoke. “But Gavin Tuesday, and now Aleks? Any truth in those?”
“None whatsoever,” answered Justin, back on side. “My Phi is a good girl. Look at her.” Everyone did. It was cringe-making. “Leaving her rich, well-endowed boyfriend to study ballet at the North Pole? That’s dedication. Don’t look so grateful, Phipot. I’m still a bit aggrieved.”
“I made cakes,” I said, pulling the storage box out of a bag, “to apologise for missing the picnic.”
“Cupcakes!” Justin helped himself to three. “The ones with the icing inside too.”
