By the time they got to the doors of the Tate Modern, Natalia was so woozy from the taste of Neill that she had almost forgotten where they were, and on sight of what looked like a playground inside the huge vast entrance, felt even more confused.
‘Well there’s our modern art!’
Neill strode them toward a sprawling orange network of dozens of swings that weaved through the entire Turbine Hall, and was inundated with visitors and children of all ages running amok.
‘Oh, it’s not art, it’s a Hyundai commission,’ he stopped now by the plaque. ‘Got to keep this place open somehow. ‘One Two Three, Swing!’’ he read with gusto. ‘‘Swinging with two other people has greater potential than swinging alone!’ Well, we are meeting Ed in a bit,’ he chuckled. ‘‘Swinging as three, our collective energy resists gravity and challenges the laws of nature!’ …Filthy mares.’
Natalia came alongside. ‘‘Superflex is by a Danish artist collective, and challenges society’s apathy towards the political, environmental and economic crises of our age.’’
‘Oh, fuck off, fart student.’
She laughed.
‘I’d say it’s more a chance for you to celebrate your last evening being a faff-teen year old. Shall we, my child?’
They took up a swing together, laughing and kicking up their heels as they rocked it forward and back in tandem, just as a girl of around thirteen years old, ran up to them and motioned to the third seat on the other side of Neill.
‘You want to join us? Jump on, no need to talk to the stranger. Goodness,’ he now glanced at the two girls either side of him. ‘No jokes about Savile’s row.’
As the girl jumped off and ran away, Natalia added, ‘the swinging sextease?’
‘Don’t,’ he muttered, ‘God, I’ve kissed a schoolgirl. Before she’s even 16. Am I going to hell?’
‘Yep, we’re driving back there tomorrow.’
‘Well at least you didn’t say the mouth of hell was today.’
They continued swinging, watching kids of all ages laughing and screaming.
‘Am I the youngest… that you’ve…?’ she blinked shyly.
‘Not when that ADHD girl there swinging to the ceilings knocks herself out and I’m obliged to deliver CPR.’
‘Please don’t. That will definitely catch the coppers’ attention.’
‘I’m done with the play-park. Russian exhibit’s on Level 3 East. Take the lift?’
‘Like the one you gave me on the bridge?’
‘You may weigh something like a bag of Tate and Lyle sugar but I meant the elevator.’
They wandered across the hall to the queue.
‘Too many people waiting. I’ll race you up the stairs!’
She made a bolt toward them as he caught up and grabbed her arm to push ahead - jostling one another up three flights - Natalia in a flood of giggles and a sheepish glaze whenever her eyes met his, whilst he would linger at the end of his words with his gaze running across her face for a second longer.
‘Here we are!’ as they arrived breathless at the Eyal Ofer Gallery. ‘‘Enter the fantastical world of the Kabakovs, to coincide with the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution!’’
They hushed their panting and giggling with repeated nudges and ‘stop-its’, as they came into the mouse-quiet installation of a room in disarray.
The walls were covered in Russian posters, with an old stretcher, bench and shoes left behind, and what appeared to be a bungee in the middle that had launched off the inhabitant.
‘‘The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment.’ Better than Branwell’s?’
‘What is it about messy bedrooms in all the museums we end up in?’ she whispered back.
‘Clearly, it’s the serendipity of the universe and your Headmaster - same thing really - hinting that you need to clean your own room, young lady…’
‘This does represent my room after I’ve rocketed off to London.’
‘Your Gipton quarters are on par with the restriction of individual freedom in the communal apartments of the Soviet Union?’
‘About the only Russian connection I feel.’
He laughed.
They now approached a corridor full of photographs and collages telling the story of the artist’s mother.
‘I can tell the story of my mum. Just give me a bunch of empty beer cans and I’ll arrange them like I saw in the living room the other night.’
‘Tat Modern?’
‘Free entry into my mum.’
‘Good grief girl.’
They now approached the entrance of a dark room where they could see glowing lights and signs inside.
‘‘Not Everyone Will Be Taken into the Future,’’ he read.
‘You go first.’
‘If you want to make sure you get the grade for a bright future, I can give you the rest of your Maths lesson in there?’
She laughed. ‘Well, it’s dark enough again for you not to see the spot on my chin…’
‘What spot.’
‘Can’t you see it? - Well, don’t look!’ as her hand shot up to guard it. ‘Didn’t Sleazy Santa see Year 11’s acne pretty well?’
‘Natalia, there is no acne on you. Acne does not even know you—’ as he promptly pushed her inside the exhibit, and as their eyes adjusted, they could see the glowing lights of a train carriage leaving a station platform, piled with disused artist canvases.
‘Go read that plaque and find out what the fuck this is,’ she breathed.
Neill stepped over. ‘‘It reminds us that artists are often at the whims of patrons who discard them if they are not willing to toe the line. Only a few will be taken – the best. Those whom the headmaster chooses – he knows whom!’’ He delivered the last words in a whispering boom in Natalia’s ear. ‘How very apt for an obedient art student on a field trip with me!’
‘Feel trip?’
‘Hardly. I’ve been a gentleman remember.’
‘But if I’m not good and don’t do everything you say, I’ll be booking a train back?’
‘You’ll be trained to get on your back for a good booking alright.’
She snorted. ‘Some gentleman,’ lingering at the plaque to blush to herself in the dark whilst Neill wandered out to the next exhibit.
Two people arrived next to her.
‘Kabakov was Anna’s father’s name,’ a preened-moustached old man muttered to the other. ‘They always used to confuse it with the writer Nabokov.’
‘Was he the…?’
‘Yes…’
‘Wasn’t Anna’s name Kabokova?’
‘Yes but the masculine is Kabakov. Without the A, you see, traditional for Russian men, unless the family’s been over for a few generations, and as her father Dimitri lived in Moscow…’
His voice tapered off, as they slunk away to another next exhibit, and Natalia frowned to herself, going the other way.
She found Neill gazing at many pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.
‘Oh, the dressing room of the Saucepan Man,’ she giggled coming to his side.
‘No, this is social Realism, torn apart by Social Reality. Hmm,’ he sighed. ‘Without the dissolution of the Soviet Union, would your mum and dad - and their cynical little offspring - even be here?’
Natalia rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t believe to hear myself saying I would prefer a Maths lesson.’
He chuckled. ‘Always rushing and rooting to get away from your Russian roots.’
‘Well, I can’t avoid them. I just heard someone talking in there about men’s names being different from women’s. Made me wonder about my name. Molova has an A on the end but my dad’s parents were still in Russia so… he probably wouldn’t have been called Molova? But what… Molov? Mum’s never mentioned it.’
‘I have no idea, mah’ love. Ask your fountain of beer - I mean, knowledge - when you get home.’
Natalia lingered at the next plaque with Neill breathing down her neck. She, wondering when he might kiss her again - and not being brave enough to ask - turned to him now, her eyes flickering all over his lovely lips and eyes, observing how he was now in a boring intellectual mode, and pretending to listen.
‘It says these are ‘realised and unrealised utopian projects and public sculptures.’ That basically means some of this old junk wasn’t finished in time,’ he frowned. ‘Well, I can give you a History lesson. We’re never coming back to the Tate.’ He firmly led her out by her hand, as she laughed giddily from his touch.
‘I’m not that sure what modern art is,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m not even entirely sure why I brought you here.’
‘Probably because, like me, you think you like galleries till you see what’s in them?’
‘Maybe it gives us the serenity we’d crave from a church or library, just with marginally better coffee and a gift shop.’
‘The shop - now we’re talking!’ She jogged his arm. ‘Soviet teatowel time!’
‘I wouldn’t mind buying one of those communist saucepans to keep you in line, you little capitalist traitor. But first, let’s see if what’s on the next floor is any worse than this…’
They went down the stairs and perused a small show of Cubist paintings.
‘Not bad. I could bear this on my wall if I had to.’
‘Bookshop time,’ she urged, tugging on his coat.
‘Alright alright, you devil.’
She led him to the ground floor like a child pulling her father’s hand to the toy shop. He followed her like a delayed shadow as she perused each stall of glossy book titles.
‘Well, I had it right in my story about how we met. You’re more the bookworm than the art student.’
‘Mmm. I like both,’ as she picked up 50 Women Artists You Should Know.
‘Do you want that for your birthday?’
‘The positive discrimination thing I find boring,’ as she put it down again. ‘It feels like it impedes people by their gender.’
‘You mean women artists are getting accolades because they’re women rather than… great artists?’
‘Yes.’
‘So if you were an artist would you turn down being featured in that?’
‘No.’
He laughed, then pulled open a pocketbook of Pre-Raphaelites.
‘Hmm. She looks like my first wife.’
‘Oh, I like those!’
She took and perused it for over five minutes whilst Neill wandered the stall and back again, finally plucked the book from her fingers, tapped his card on the counter, and handed it back in a paper bag.
‘There we go. Rose is all yours.’
‘Happy to have her,’ Natalia smiled.
‘I was, once. Come on, let’s go.’
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*
‘Almost six o’clock. We’re meeting Ed at the Princess of Wales at 6.30,’ as he watched her exaggeratedly shivering, back outside. ‘Do your coat up. I’d better not kiss you again because you need your legs for this thirty minute walk…’
‘Ohhh…’ she whined softly, then giggling as he barked: ‘Come! Walk!’ with the mock air of a sentinel, taking her wrist with a decided shake as he frogmarched her on, till she was soon puffing and laughing toward a noisy group of brightly-dressed African street performers with steel drums on the Embankment. Further on, living statue artists sprayed in white and gold that made Natalia jump in surprise when one glared at her; intermittent buskers on guitars and harmonicas; someone dressed up as a London phone box, waving his red gloved hands like a lunatic.
‘Quite lively for January! There’s the Oxo Tower,’ Neill pointed, as the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre came into view. ‘London Eye’s further down, but not sure we have time. You’ll be high enough when I give you this spliff.’
‘What, tonight?’
‘Probably not the best idea at a London pub. Doormen everywhere. We’ll save it for tomorrow.’
They approached another bridge. ‘Back over the water we go! Ah, Golden London and her silver Thames, throng’d with shining spires and corded ships!’ Neill exulted, ‘…that’s William Blake when he had good things to say about London!’ The hand of her Headmaster husky pulled her on through an onslaught of human traffic, at one point delivering a stern telling-off to an aggressive homeless man who knocked into Natalia.
‘God,’ she remarked, ‘he was like the Saucepan Man looking for his saucepans. Going the right way to the Tate.’
‘Who on earth is this Saucepan Man you speak of, young lady?’
‘From Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree. Thought you were literary?’
‘Oh! Oh yes, of course, the scholarly classics.’
‘He’s the rude man who bangs around and talks loud at everyone,’ she explained, as Neill scooped up her arm to cross them past Victoria Embankment Gardens toward a small and bustling pub.
‘And there he is! Ed! Over here!’
‘It’s like the Cabinet of Curiosities again,’ Natalia remarked as she saw the black and dark green, multi-panelled Victorian fascia of the Princess of Wales pub.
‘Give it a few hours and it will be,’ Neill chuckled, as people milled around inside and out, laughing and chatting, a constant clink of glasses, the holler of people that seemed so standard in London; cigarettes and beer and car fumes pungent in the air, and always it seemed, a waft of warm underground heat from wherever a Tube station was within fifty feet.
‘Hey Rich. Natalia, hello again!’ as Ed stepped over and they exchanged kisses.
‘It’s packed here!’ stared Natalia.
‘A far tamer fare that the nightclub would be, teenybopper. Let’s get inside,’ as they squeezed through people at the doors, and inside the heaving, deafening interior, there was not a free seat in sight, as Natalia marvelled at how this was night and day from the quiet Black Bull in Haworth.
‘Shall we go somewhere else?’ shouted Neill.
‘Nope! The pies are worth it! Here, here, squash on!’ Ed beckoned them to a short portion of free bench on a table opposite three uproarious lipsticked women. ‘Alright if we perch here, ladies?’ - ‘Sure, sure!’ - as Natalia now relished that she was going to go - yes she guessed it - straight onto Neill’s lap, or rather, toppled back onto it, stiffly in their winter coats; his snickering mouth at her ear where her wide grin had reached, whilst Ed raised an eyebrow at them, leaning to catch Neill’s holler:
‘Get me a pint of IPA! Malibu and Coke for Natalia!’
‘Malibu? Alcohol?’ she murmured back up to him.
‘Just like the sunscreen, we need to blend you in,’ he squeezed her waist. ‘Once you’re pissed they’ll know you’re 18.’
‘Hope I won’t end up like my mum by the end of the night!’
‘I don’t think five-star hotel mattresses are allowed to squeak, darling.’
She laughed sarcastically.
The women now upped from the table, as Neill and Natalia shifted along to settle down properly, take off their coats and shove the used beer glasses to the end.
Ed returned with a tray of drinks, throwing to Neill a ‘she’s alright’ ogle at the back of one of the women, as he sat down opposite Neill and Natalia.
‘So here we are. How was your day?’
‘Not bad,’ as Neill swiftly sipped his beer. ‘We’ve had a good look round the Tate, a nice walk, a nice nap even.’
‘Nap, hm?’ Ed grinned. ‘Hotel ok?’
‘Very nice,’ said Natalia.
‘Bentley,’ added Neill.
‘Rich done alright then. He been a good boy?’
‘Oh, never.’
They all tittered. Natalia wondered what Eddie would think if he knew she’d only just received the first kiss of her life, that made her legs feel weaker than this Malibu and Coke was already doing.
‘This pub is named after Diana, right?’
‘Nope. George IV’s secret first wife.’
‘Ooh. Bit like Bertha then,’ Neill’s knee nudged Natalia.
‘It was a Catholic woman he was ineligible to marry,’ added Ed.
‘Natalia was - or is - a Catholic, aren’t you?’ Neill turned to Natalia whose wide eyes blinked over the rim of her Coke.
‘Was,’ smirked Ed. ‘I think Rich should be ineligible to marry. Twice now he’s blown it. What do you think, Natalia?’
‘Er, well…’
‘Leave her alone, she’s getting over the racket of fifty Saucepan Men in this raucous pub without you rabbiting on at her. So, what pies do they do?’ Neill plucked a menu. ‘I’ll have the beef rib and pulled brisket. Natalia? Chicken and truffle mushroom, yes? I’ll go order, I need the bog anyway…’
‘Order me the pale ale steak. Take my card, seeing as you got brunch,’ Ed flashed it up between his fingers.
‘Muchos gracias. Look after her won’t you, Ed?’
Ed nodded cynically as Neill left the table.
‘A funny one, isn’t he?’
Natalia smiled.
‘Really good bloke though,’ he genially raised his pint.
She nodded at his recuperation of some politeness, and felt she ought to mitigate it with the response:
‘Although, in Claire’s words, a bit of a sex fiend.’
‘Ahh ha, yeah…’
Natalia groaned, realising that through her casual mention of Claire’s words, she’d validated not only the notion of having a sex life with Neill but that Ed could bank on it not being an arcane assumption to joke about, and next he said with a wry smile:
‘I hope he’s not tiring you out.’
‘Well, we got as far as the South Bank…’ she began, but then came another inward groan.
Eddie looked bemused. ‘Somehow he gets away with being a cheeky bastard even being a Headteacher and all.’
Natalia, glancing up to check Neill wasn’t back from the toilet yet, asked:
‘What do you mean? Goes through a lot of girlfriends as well as wives?’
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. It’s just not often he’s introduced us to a girlfriend, you know. Not girlfriends that we meet, anyway.’
He paused to drink some beer, and eyed Natalia.
‘The way he dotes on you is a bit special,’ he smiled. ‘But then again my memory might be rubbish and I might drink too much of this.’ He politely hicked.
‘You mean, the honeymoon period as they call it?’
‘Maybe once you see beyond the sex fiend you’ll find out,’ Ed said, as their eyes raised to see Neill returning.
‘Been on holiday, the time you’ve taken in there, Rich?’ remarked Ed.
‘I’ll spare you the details.’
‘You see that’s the thing with Rich, you never know whether he’s going for a shit or a wank,’ Ed chortled at Natalia, as Neill frowned.
‘Ed! Comport yourself, there are ladies present!’ He shuffled up to Natalia. ‘Has he been picking on you whilst I’ve been gone?’ He slipped one hand round the back of her neck, squeezed and stroked it whilst she girlishly inclined into him.
‘Not at all. He’s been… lovely.’
‘I’d hardly call him that,’ he took up his pint. ‘Although I might even miss you up North a tiny bit, Ed.’
‘You should come down more often, Rich.’
‘Just a four-hour shlep.’
‘The most North I’ve been in years now is Wales.’
‘I take it you’re not referring to this pub, but the holiday home?’
‘Yeah, I rent it out. But it’s a getaway when I need it.’
‘From Andrea?’ Neill winked.
‘She’s just got a lot on at the moment. But I wouldn’t buy a new suit anytime soon.’
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The waitress arrived with three pies, as the men ordered more beers, and as they unwrapped their cutlery from their serviettes and dug into their steaming plates, Natalia reflected on just how different this was from a table of school kids in Haworth.
Hours away from Yorkshire on an illegal jaunt, sitting in an ear-splitting posh pub with two abrasive men that had seemingly out of nowhere become trustworthy enough to lean and yawn against. That long morning drive felt like it was years ago! And it wasn’t even her birthday yet, but slowly gnawing within her already, was the anxiety that even if tomorrow passed like a year, it would still be too soon to go back into the prison garb of her school uniform no matter how many redesigns the New-Age Beer Head sitting next to her engineered. The fact she was a schoolgirl was a truth dragged around with her like a ball and chain only she and Neill could see; he helpless to truly sever it no matter how many times he lied, denied and decried the law. Was this trip a good idea after all? To glimpse at what freedom and joy could be like with a loving Lothario of a man who was miles ahead of her in experience, who desired a woman’s body at a level she couldn’t satisfy?
‘You ok?’ Neill nudged her knee. ‘I can always tell when the cogs are turning.’
‘Just thinking about all the stuff I’ve got to do when I get back, you know…’ Her bladder twinged from the alcohol.
‘Me too. Still plugging through pupil applications for September,’ said Neill, shovelling his steaming beef pie into his mouth. ‘One big ball ache.’
‘Your big balls are always aching, my friend.’
Neill and Ed grunted and chuckled at each other.
‘What are you doing tomorrow? Your birthday isn’t it?’ Ed nodded to Natalia.
‘Might take her to Borough Market.’
‘Nice.’
There was a silence as they finished up, the men polished off their beers and Natalia yawned leaning into Neill’s side, his arm coming round her with a paternal murmur she began to wonder was pretence anymore:
‘Tired, darling?’
She burrowed her face against his booze-scented body as they muttered in esoteric blokey conversation that Natalia had long zoned out from, till Neill looked at his watch.
‘Right. Better get this one to bed.’
‘Ok lovebirds,’ as they arose. ‘Just remember she’s tired, Rich…’
‘Like I said,’ repeated Neill.
‘Well, have a good night guys. Guy and lady, I mean. Nice to meet you Miss Natalia.’
‘You too, Ed.’
‘Think we’ll get a cab. Too much agg getting the Tube.’
‘You let me know if he’s any trouble!’
‘Bye and bugger off Ed,’ as Neill promptly gave a loud holler into the road, and within a minute a door was opening into a London black cab. ‘A day of firsts, hmm?’ he murmured to Natalia, before starting flamboyant chit-chat with the driver through the hatch, whilst Natalia sat watching the passing lights and screams of Saturday night central London, and the lewd banter from today spread out like cards on a table in her mind.
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Ed’s bawdiness she wasn’t sure was bemusement at her youth, ogling her, jibing his best mate, or all three. You test drove her red raw? Remember she’s tired, Rich! Then there was Neill in the Tate, saying she’ll be getting trained alright, to get on her back for a good booking!
He lamented that he kissed a schoolgirl before she was 16, and the hours counted down now to her sweet-sixteenth itself. Why had he been so excited when she first told him it was her birthday, and booked a five-star hotel for it? Bentley mattresses don’t squeak, darling! If her mum knew, she’d cackle her cynical head off that a man wasn’t planning to shag her! ‘No man pays that much for a cuddle!’ she once said of a Coronation Street love rat. And here was Neill walking her over the bridge, literally from 15 to 16, and kissing her amorously in the way movie characters do just before they pull each others’ clothes off.
The 16th book from the box was Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This birthday trip idea was ‘pretty fucking obvious’ in his words…
And oh no, oh no! She’d signed his contract in cock!
Her heart flashed fire, watching Neill tap his card and open the cab door, ushering Natalia out from the seat - who for a moment feared her face looked like Damien the omen child being driven to church - before she shook it off with a laughing bound onto the pavement.
‘Let’s have a fag first, then we’ll go up,’ he grunted.
‘Oh…’
I’ll have one right before, and one right after!
She felt she was turning as pale as the living statue man on the South Bank.
‘Do you not want to? That’s fine, you go on. I’ll say goodnight here then…’
He ushered her down away from the hotel doorman, looped her neck into his arm, and pressed a warm, heavy ‘mwah!’ into the top of her hairline.
‘Say goodnight?’ she croaked.
‘Ye-es, Natalia,’ as he fumbled for his fags. ‘Isn’t that customary in Gipton? Well, it’s not even nine o’clock but you seem exhausted and I’d like a good go at exhausting you again tomorrow.’
He was frowning into his cupped hands, lighting up. ‘You got your key?’ He glanced to her. ‘Please tell me you kept it safe?’
He crouched to look into her eyes.
‘Oh, yeah yeah,’ she said hurriedly now, breaking out into a smile as her shoulders suddenly felt light, and her head fell back into a laugh. She reached for the fag from his fingers.
‘Oh so you do want a fag with me?’ he chortled.
‘Just a little.’
He shook his head. ‘Such a sillypants.’
He looked back at the hotel doors where the doorman was letting people in. ‘Come back, come back here, he motioned her, ‘don’t let them see Daddy teaching daughter dirty habits,’ as she giggled, sidling up against him as his smokey sigh transmitted into the top of her head, followed by another kiss planted there and a rub of her back.
‘You like the sound of a bit of sightseeing and shopping tomorrow, my pretend GF? Or shall we do Starbucks, McDonalds and cinema for a chick flick like your good friend Sarah with her hairy bollocks would?’
‘No way,’ she laughed.
‘Do you want to meet up with my friends again?’
‘Er.…’
‘Good, I’ve had my fill of them too. Right, come on.’ He chucked the stub on the ground. ‘It’s well past your bedtime.’
They dropped apart as they went indoors and up the lift, and as they approached their rooms, he drew Natalia over, tousled her hair, whispering:
‘Goodnight, sweet dreams. See you in the morning.’
And she was left with a cold lonely arm and head, but a somewhat relieved rest-of-body, that remained hers for hibernation in that plush bed, half wondering if he’d knock at midnight, or rather, fantasising about if he did.
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Head nestled in the deep white pillow, everything from the day seemed to land now from the opulent blue ceiling, right on top of her, piece by piece.
What a day. Neill drawing his petite ‘kitten’ into his lap, commanding she hug him even if she cries, declaring her beautiful as she jumped into his arms from the truck, goodness, was that all today? Cuter when you’re happy! Gorgeous, stunning college girl drawing cock and screwing him back at his cottage - what an image. Her protector barking off the pushy London tramp and guiding her underground, overground, gosh what would it be like on her own here?
The sailor-dip kiss at brunch, and then that second kiss… oh god, that second kiss; she reddened from temples to neck now, just to recall that sensation of Neill’s tongue upon hers, invading the part of her where only bananas and salted caramel biscuits and pound cake had been. The kiss still hung in her body as though someone had spiked her bloodstream and she wasn’t convinced that time would completely expel it, certainly not one night’s sleep - in fact, she was convinced, both excitedly and worriedly - that she would never be the same again. After all, everyone says they never forget their first kiss, and were most people quite as floored as she was, being seized by the most majestic Machiavellian man of all?
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Goodness, what about Joan? Resigned up North, whilst here is a girl from Year 11 instead, paraded like a prime ware to his prized mates, rubbed up against his thighs and neck and lips to ‘get you used to it,’ and yet, to offset fear he was using her as some ephemeral object, there was the thread of chum-like amicability running through, that characterised their rapport right from the start: ‘here, you,’ ‘my Natalia,’ ‘sillypants,’ ‘little darling,’ and even just the way he bit his lip as he looked her up and down before pulling her in for a squeeze or a tousle of her hair - like he adored her, she enthralled him - didn’t think Ryan deserved her brains nor the gift of her body stuffed into a Christmas stocking… deserved, reserved instead by a real badboy - the Headmaster himself?
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Now to unwind those day-long aching limbs, mind and vulva against the crisp, cool linen sheets of this huge, indulgent bed, it seemed as natural as anything that she must now be rude - it would be rude not to! - wander a hand down, pull off and toss away her knickers completely, and lay and think and wank, oh wank with easy throbbing emphasis now, just as she did at home, but she’d been since utterly doused, internally now, in the flavour of Neill, and he was next door! In bed! Undressing, sleeping, on a trip with her! And not pursuing her for sex as she feared, oh shit, this turned her dials to the max! What a man unlike her mum’s soap love rats!
Her groin having been marinating in its own juice all day from the onslaught of body contact, kisses and cheeky talk, and then deluged like a natural disaster upon the Blackfriars Bridge, as dark and wet as the river she kept staring at; it was almost too wet to wank at all, she could only slip and slide her hand around like a drunk man trying to walk a flooded kitchen floor, a comic sketch of legs giving way - just like hers when he kissed her - massaging this mass of wetness she found herself spinning out, orgasming from a wider vaguer area, filling her whole bottom with longing, desiring herself through the eyes of Neill, making her feel worthy, just as he did that first time he asked her why she truanted. And now she truanted with that very man who listened so intently to her plea for worthiness.
What a rebel! She knew that he knew that she knew, he was a hundred badboy Ryans, and could probably catapult her to kingdom come fifty badboy times over; do the Maths Natalia, what’s filfty times Ryan. Sehxty times Ryan… she lost count of the moans she made in this one long pool of ecstasy, and coughed now, hoping the hotel walls were thick, for she’d not heard any sound from Neill’s… the man who you don’t know is going for a shit or a wank, Ed said. Had Neill wanked in the toilet after their kiss?! She didn’t even want to think that far. All she knew was that the alien landscape of a man’s lips had touched hers, and that blew her mind, blew her knickers, almost too much to take.
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*
She lay on a cloud in the sky, waking to Sunday 14th January and sixteen years of life.
It took a second to work out which life she was in. The taste of Neill somehow still on her palette, Neill’s hand-me-down phone next to her, and a message on it from Neill:
‘Many happy returns! Breakfast 8.30?’
And oh, a reminder that Neill himself is next door. Already this birthday couldn’t get better.
‘Morning! Thanks! Ok! x’
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After an opulent marble shower and examination of her now-thankfully deflated zit, she opened the knocking door in her checkered dress, to find her smiling Headmaster in maroon smart casual.
‘Well well! You went in 15, and now look at you,’ he beamed. ‘All grown up! You look lovely. The dress is lovely.’
‘Thank you,’ she smiled back. ‘You too. I mean…’
They were all polite breathy laughs and smiles in a renewed formality as they pinged down the lift to breakfast.
‘Round table in the corner?’
There was a pristinely presented, silver-glinting buffet, as well as a waitress on standby for bespoke orders, as Natalia and Neill smiled their requests for teas and cappuccinos and poached eggs on sourdough toast, and with demure sipping and biting, now chuckle at each other over an unknown joke.
‘So did you sleep well?’
‘Yes. Amazing room.’
‘All well deserved on your birthday. Well I was thinking that today we should head east to Borough Market, and along the way we’ll see plenty of sights…’
‘Like Buckingham Palace?’
‘Yes, that’s en route. And you know I want to buy you a present today, and I don’t want you to argue with me about it, because even though—’
‘Oh, I already know what I want.’
‘Oh really, Veruca Salt?’
‘I want the world. I want the whole world,’ she sang softly grinning over her teacup rim. ‘I want to lock it all up in my pocket…’
‘So now you’re serenading me?’ he smiled amused. ‘I hope it’s a new bag you want?’
‘Yes… but I would love a new coat. Like Alana’s,’ her eyes lit up.
‘And what does dear Alana have?’
‘She has this lovely grey coat with a fur collar—’
‘Fake fur, obviously. For the animals!’ he imitated.
‘I think it’s from River Island. Costs over £100. Well, obviously I don’t want the same as hers, but…’
‘Oh you won’t have the same as hers. We’re off to Harrods.’
‘Harrods?’
‘Yes, the big store…’
‘Yeah I know Harrods… but Harrods?!’
‘Well it’s on the way. Perfect stop-off.’
‘Won’t that be expensive?’
‘Oh, not at all.’
‘Ohh-k…’
Natalia smiled, jumping up to fetch more from the buffet as Neill carried on eating.
‘Well, it was fun meeting all your friends yesterday,’ as she set down a plate of croissants and cupcakes. ‘Claire and Eddie had interesting stuff to say about you.’
‘Oh really? And what did the sneaky bastards say?’
‘Nice things to say about you, and about me too. They also seem to reckon you’re quite saucy,’ she lowered her voice. ‘Sex fiend kind of guy they said,’ she laughed.
‘I’m sure that’s no surprise they would say that, from what you know of me.’
‘No, but it’s just… kind of weird, that they think we’re doing it.’
‘That’s just something they’re forced to conclude because of the pretence, of course,’ as he took a mouthful of coffee and blinked across the room.
‘Unless you think there’s some… danger to the assumption?’
He shrugged as his eyes fell back on her. ‘Well it’s still an assumption. We can always fall back on the notion you’re Roman Catholic and don’t believe in sex before marriage.’
‘I don’t know. It’s like drop one lie and pick another.’
He reached for a mini cupcake from her plate. ‘Well if it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. The simple truth is, you don’t have anything to worry about. I don’t fuck 16-year-olds.’ He bit into the cupcake.
‘Mm.’
She shifted in her seat, sipping her tea, looking down at the floor.
The waitress came to clear the cups, as Neill thanked her and stretched with a sigh. ‘Let’s go up, rest, have a morning tip-out, and meet outside the rooms to check out at 10.30?’
‘Yes, ok.’
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*
A whirl of thoughts flew in Natalia’s head as she busied herself packing her bag, and was still unfinished when Neill knocked.
‘Time to go!’
‘Sorry, sorry. Nearly there—’
She shot round the room picking up the last of her things. Planting his bag at the door to hold it open, Neill stood idly for a moment before wandering in.
‘How messy did it get in here, Branwell? Don’t forget to check your bathroom.’ Then he nodded toward her bed:
‘Are you leaving a tip?’
She followed his line of sight to her white knickers tossed up on the dishevelled duvet, almost camouflaged against it.
‘Oh!’
She scooped them into a tight fist and at last, he chuckling and wandering back out, she was ready and following him downstairs. Loitering by the painting again whilst Neill checked out and retrieved his car keys, soon he was stuffing a tip into the valet’s jacket, the bags into the boot, and a fag into his mouth before they’d reached the first traffic light.
‘Want some?’
‘No it’s ok.’
‘Still got the birthday joint for you later, miss. Let’s get to Harrods first.’
Natalia took in Kensington High Street with fresh rested eyes. ‘It’s beautiful here.’
‘The Ivy over there,’ Neill pointed as they crawled through the traffic. ‘Inevitable celebrities to spot. We’re coming into Knightsbridge, famously posh.’
Soon he pointed: ‘Ah, here we are. I’ll just find somewhere to park up. I think this gentleman’s leaving…’
Natalia stared up at the huge green iconic building and Harrods logo, as Neill parallel-parked the Merc and tapped his phone to pay.
‘An hour in here, no more. Gives us a deadline. Come!’
Inside Harrods, Natalia’s jaw dropped at the phantasmagorical series of departments that flashed past her as she was led along by the brisk pace of Neill intent on locating the women’s coats section. A few queries and escalators later, she was rifling through a rail of fur:
‘Bloody hell. This is beyond just a fur collar! Hang on… is this real fur?’
Neill checked the label. ‘Yves Salomon, Lamb Fur Reversible Wrap Coat. Try it on… oh yes. You look lovely, my little lamb. Russian style, I’d say, how apt. And oh, now you literally are Veruca.’
She laughed, admiring herself in the mirror then caught the hanging tag.
‘£500!’
‘It’s on sale. Cheap, if you ask me. There’s another one here for four grand…’
‘Neill, it’s five hundred quid. This isn’t a Wuthering Heights teatowel…’
‘I should hope not. You will go from pumpkin to Cinderella in this, thanks to your hairy God, mother-fucker. Checkout’s this way—’
‘But is fur allowed in Thornwood?’
‘I run the school darling, so from now on yes.’
‘Won’t it look like the scene in Goodfellas when the women walk in wearing all those ostentatious coats and crowns and everyone wonders who was murdered to make the dosh?’
‘The only thing ostentatious about you is your vocabulary—’
‘Exactly.’
‘And the only thing I could murder is a spliff - or you, if I get a £200 parking ticket. Come on.’
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Back in the car, Natalia had the coat in her lap, laughing as though it were her new extravagant pet.
‘You’re like the Bond villain stroking his cat. Look, we’re coming up to Hyde Park Corner,’ Neill pointed, ‘where there’s a whole collection of war memorials from round the world. Over there is the Royal Artillery Memorial’ - as Natalia craned her head to see. ‘There’s one soldier I used to pass by on the number 9 bus, that always got me. He’s got a cape on, with his gas mask round him…’
‘Let’s go see it! Have our spliff there?’
‘Are you interested in war?’
‘Nope.’
He chuckled.
‘But you are…’
‘Natalia, it’s your birthday.’
‘It will be a present for me to see something you like! Come on, let’s go see it…’
‘Alright, alright. I’ll go round the one-way again.’
He muttered as he parked up: ‘Probably best we smoke here, than Tower Bridge - one of the most heavily policed areas of the country, if not the world - for a Headmaster to take his favourite schoolgirl for a joint!’
She laughed. ‘Oh, favourite?’
‘Only if you smoke it properly this time.’
‘Oh, I’m going to.’
‘Damn, we don’t have anything ready for the munchies…’
‘We do! My cookies! Still wrapped up in my bag.’
‘Very good!’
They parked up. ‘So, there it is,’ he pointed over at a statue right by the side of the busy road. ‘Sculpted by Charles Sergeant Jagger back in 1925. So powerful, and yet so tired and sad. I always admired how it dignifies war yet doesn’t seem to glamorous it.’
Natalia gazed up the imposing black sculpture of the soldier. From his huge boots, up his thick thighs, right up to his bent head, he was a strikingly solemn sight.
‘Wow. Like Jesus on the cross. Larger than human size. Takes your breath away.’
They wandered the other monuments. Another soldier, laying down dead, his helmet covering his face. Natalia stared at his huge fingers laid neatly by his side.
‘Let’s chill out further down by this plinth. Grass is dry.’
She followed him as they sat down with their backs to the stone, legs splayed in front of them.
‘Here, honey. Here—’ as she took the joint and he lit it, she knowing she didn’t want to miss her chance to go through the door this time - for she was literally in Narnia now, wearing the fur coat - on her birthday of all days! She copied him exactly, inhaling the smoke deep into her chest, which felt hot, invasive and scratchy, but finishing it and handing him the final bit to stub out, she rested her head onto her folded arm, inches from his shoulder, and took a deep breath, watching a dotted line of tourists ahead.
‘Mild weather for January,’ he murmured. ‘We lucked out this weekend.’
They were silent for a few moments, watching the continual flow of cars, black cabs and red buses pass round the square.
‘Well, I’m feeling something,’ she said quietly.
He glanced at her.
She swallowed curiously. It felt as though a phantom bubble was caught in her throat.
‘It feels like I’ve swallowed Wonka’s fizzy lifting drink…’
‘Ha.’
Something was softly nudging inside her body, as if in the inside of her skin. A delicate buoyancy was building in her legs and feet, and the more she sat utterly motionless, the more it seemed that a million-throng army of atoms, like tiny ants, were vibrating somewhere in or around her.
‘It’s like I have a smile stuck to my face.’
‘Finally,’ Neill chortled softly, as he laid back and closed his eyes. ‘Just relax. It will take how you feel and amplify it.’
Natalia suddenly giggled. ‘Oh, dear,’ unable to stop it now, ‘this is so surreal. I mean, I feel surreal. Almost like I’m softly lifting off the ground.’
‘You’re high.’
‘It’s more than that. It’s like a window opening up that I daren’t go through.’ She sat up and shook her head from side to side, as he cocked open a bemused eye at her.
‘It’s like I think I’m dizzy but I’m not.’ She tilted her head again. ‘It’s like something is swimming around inside of me and I’m not sure how to harness it…’
He chuckled as he closed his eyes again. ‘You funny thing. Angels appearing, like I said.’
‘It would be interesting to write whilst feeling this…’
‘Creatives world over through history have used it.’
‘Hmm.’
She lay on her back again sighing, then opened her eyes, smiling, as if basking in something radiant.
She glanced at Neill, who must have felt her gaze as he opened his eyes, in his own quiet stoned reverie.
‘So how you do feel when you smoke this?’ she asked now.
He exhaled a long breath. ‘It heightens my awareness of where I channel a feeling. A bit like putting my thoughts on a cinema screen.’
‘Pleasant thoughts, Mr Neill?’
‘I try not to probe too far as I might not always like what I find.’
‘Thoughts about life?’
‘Indeed, on doing the right or wrong thing.’
‘Like we’re doing now?’
‘Yet not so wrong. So many people smoke, eat and use this as medicine. It’s criminal it was ever made criminal. But that perception’ - he cast her a cheeky look - ‘had its advantages for our purposes a few weeks ago, being the serious offence it is for a pupil to possess.’
‘And here you are sir, giving a pupil it.’
‘Yes,’ he smiled with relish, ‘for you to be part of the real world, busy regions full of life, in Brontë’s words, just as you wanted. A new world, I’d fancy, where consciousness and recreation co-mingle and we can excavate our inner shadows without fear of repercussion from those who have decided they can decide for us how much we’re permitted to excavate.’
‘Your soul is sitting on your lips, in Brontë’s words.’
Like Jane, she felt the depth of Rochester’s conversation escape her, and yet it felt like her body was hearing something from his words that her ears couldn’t; an ignition in her hips that was surging a ball of energy.
‘Big thing for you seeing London for the first time, hmm?’
‘To be honest even the first glide through those blue signs on the motorway were enough for me.’
‘Well I could have taken you to Woolley Edge Services and done your birthday there, cheapskate,’ as his hand came to tousle her hair.
It scattered sensation all over her body and she tried not to sigh too loud.
‘But I still want another present…’ Her heels were jumping about like two baby rabbits at a hutch door.
‘Haven’t you had lots?’
‘Nothing you pay for…’ Her voice tapered off, muffled into the crook of her arm.
‘So have you enjoyed everything so far?’ he said still stroking her hair.
‘Oh, I loved brunch. And the Tate. And the pub.’
‘And you liked the hotel? Did you fall asleep straight away or did you think about Ryan for hours?’
She laughed. ‘No, it was such a lovely day I was tired out.’
‘So you fell asleep smiling?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Oh, good,’ he chuckled, as his hands went back to his chest.
There was another silence, Natalia writhing closer to him, and then she propped her head on up his arm.
His eyes opened a curious slit at her, as though she was a dog waiting for a treat.
‘Well I don’t want another present, but a lesson,’ she murmured. ‘Weren’t there… three minutes left?’
He shook his head softly, then grinned faintly.
‘Why don’t you come give me it.’
‘Nooo…’ she whispered, burying her face back into her arms.
‘Come on, girl. I won’t grade you.’
‘Stohhp it…’
There was a pause, then he sharply inhaled:
‘Lay on your back and close your eyes.’
‘No way…’ she giggled.
‘You said you wanted it.’
‘Not like that…’
They were both in stop-start breaths of laughter, as her face pushed into his woolly armpit and chafed her hairline restlessly to and fro.
‘You’ve got twenty seconds to lay on your back or you’re not getting it,’ he said finally.
She turned over with a begrudging grunt, wrestled with a skyward grin, then drew a breath into composure. Feeling his body shift next to her, darkness came over her eyelids, and a voice in her ear:
‘This is probably going to feel a little bit different when you’re stoned…’
Her body like a hot lump of toffee, the scent of his face came over hers, and his lips had caught that soft gasp from hers as if anticipating it; as that manly moistness made its third visit - goodness, like it was familiar this strange weekend! - but softer than before, tingling! Permeable, as if she would go right through them!
‘Ohhh, fuhh…’ Her mouth felt like it was talking into his, as though there were no solid barrier, and then a tongue came from nowhere and conjured the image of fire; licking at her palette, her teeth, all inside her head… as though she were burning, coolly, pleasantly, peacefully, on fire with his wet tongue, or was it hers?… His emitted breath was heard - no, felt - like he was a gentle wind and she the forest, the very top of the Faraway Tree, and it seemed to whisper through her now, purely telepathically: Natal-iahh, Natal-iahh. Shush, shush… 26Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjOGS8pyhI
She had tears in both eyes,her mouth was left hanging open, and he’d stopped several seconds before she’d realised. Her eyes flickered open to his two cool blue question marks, that seemed to ask without the help of the now whispered words:
‘Are you ok?’
‘Yeahh…’
‘I take it that felt different?’ he chuckled.
She blinked to find there were no tears after all.
‘Yeah, a bit.’
‘My mouth is so dry, I’m sorry. Munchies are kicking in. Let’s get the cookies out, and do you have that water?’
They sat up, shoulder to shoulder.
‘We’ll have these and get on our way, shall we?’
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