The Girl Who Cried Wolf(21)

This memory had been uncomfortably buried, but it is so vivid now as I recall my first taste of whiskey, how it burned through me like fire down to the pit of my stomach. He had held my hand firmly as he led me upstairs and lay me on the bed and I obediently consented. Half curious, half petrified beyond imagining. This boy was a stranger to me. High school was just a soap opera to my girlfriends and I. We were only supposed to play the parts of the on-screen adults; holding hands down corridors, flicking our hair flirtatiously as we watched the boys kick a ball around, and rolling our eyes dramatically at one another as we complained of their latest antics.

My heart had pounded as he roughly tugged down my jeans and underwear in one pull, unzipping his fly, and offering me the occasional peck on the lips to show his gratitude. Panic gripped me, but I could not have stopped him. Rebecca Hartwood had done that last year and spent all of Year Eleven being called frigid. My mind felt numbed by the whiskey but there was no escaping the pain as he jabbed away between my legs. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be feeling, but surely not this? He came with a surprised look on his face and although he never told me so, I had imagined this was his first time too. Neither of us knew what to do afterwards, and perhaps he could see I was close to tears, for he gave an empty laugh and told me to lighten up. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for months, Anna.’ Shrugging his shoulders, he pulled up his jeans, and shortly afterwards, left.

I can remember curling up into a ball, tenderly touching between my legs and seeing only a little blood on my cold fingertips. Not the gallons of gore Nancy Page in Year Twelve had led us to believe.

With mixed emotions, I had eventually risen and pulled on my pale pink pyjama bottoms, looking at my reflection as I splashed cold water onto my face. I looked the same. ‘No big deal,’ I told myself with a lot more nonchalance than I had felt at the time. ‘At least I’ve actually done it now.’ I was left slightly bewildered what all the pandemonium about sex amongst adults was about, and began to wonder if we had even done things correctly.

Needless to say, I’d been in no hurry to repeat such a performance, and had ended my relationship with Daniel soon afterwards.

***

I must have eventually fallen asleep because I am either dead or dreaming when the sound of a horse’s thundering hooves pierce my unconscious mind.

I sit up in bed as the sound quietens, then picks up volume again. Starlight has been gone for years, and the hooves beating powerful circles into the meadow are not his dainty gallop. I can hear some excited giggles from outside my bedroom door and in a wave of confusion, I pull the blankets off and run to the window. As I pull back the heavy drapes I see Michael, standing in the meadow, while a black and white horse canters in circles around him. Michael holds the lunge rein taut and clicks, to which the horse responds in an obedient, muscular canter.

Once again, I hear Izzy’s uncontained giggles and the squeak of floorboards as she hovers outside my door.

‘EYEBROWS!’ I yell at her, and she is in like a flash, my freshly brushed wig in one hand and makeup bag in the other.

It takes me a long time to get ready and my annoyance at seeing Michael sitting in the kitchen talking to Mother abates the instant he looks up at me. No wheelchair.

‘Anna.’ He stands up and with only a slight limp, walks towards me as she scuttles into the conservatory. His hair is blond and shaved very close to his head, like a new army recruit. His eyes are bright and bluey grey, perhaps a little worried-looking.

‘You look so beautiful,’ he says, and I feel beautiful under his ardent stare. I step forward and he reaches out to hold my hand. For a moment I think he is going to shake it, but he pulls me towards him and I swear a thousand fireworks go off somewhere in the world as we fall into our first real kiss.

His mouth sets my whole body on fire until he pulls back and plants hard kisses on my jaw and my neck. ‘God, woman.’ He breathes and my legs feel unsteady. ‘I’ve missed you.’

We pry apart and I look up at him, smiling. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. I was so unkind to you.’

‘I accept the exceptional circumstances. You’ve got a brain tumour; you didn’t know what you were saying.’

I laugh because we both know I knew exactly what I was saying.

‘Anyway, I always wanted a stroppy, seriously ill, crazy girlfriend and you trump all those departments!’

I don’t hear ill or crazy or stroppy … I just hear ‘girlfriend’.

‘Well, I always wanted an annoying boyfriend with spinal damage. Who listens to everything my mother tells him!’

And that was that, we were Michael and Anna. Together despite everything, and apparently thanks to Mother, because she had called him yesterday and said I might like to see him. Perhaps she has slightly redeemed herself.

I am pleased to see a fair-sized bag under the breakfast bar. It seems like he plans to stay a few nights, although he must have feared I would send him packing.

I suddenly remember the horse. ‘Michael, did you ride here?’

‘No!’ he says, laughing. ‘I came in the horsebox with a surprise for you.’ We wander out the back door, through the little rose garden and into the meadow. ‘This is Pinto; he’s a beauty, no? You can try western riding, like you said you wanted to.’

I look up at the sixteen-hand horse and think that sounded like a much better idea when I was snuggling up to Michael in the day room, trying to sound adventurous. ‘Ooh I’d love to ride in a real western saddle. I haven’t ridden since I was fourteen, but Father said I was a natural.’