Mark sat with Stewart in the school gardens on Monday as they ate their lunch. The good weather had continued and it was a hot May afternoon, so most of the students were also outside doing the same.
In the distance, Meredith was sitting on the lawn with Cameron, Imogen and Kerry. Imogen had obviously just made some joke and the other three were laughing; Mark sighed in frustration at the fond smile that appeared on Stewart’s lips as he watched her. He decided to distract him and change the subject to what had been on his mind for the whole weekend anyway. ‘Stew … Kerry said something kind of weird at the party on Saturday night.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah … she said … She said that Cameron was gay.’
Stewart took a drink of water before responding. ‘Oh?’
‘You don’t sound that surprised.’
‘That’s because I’m not,’ Stewart admitted.
‘You already knew?’ Mark asked, shocked.
Stewart nodded.
‘For how long?’
‘Since that night at Catherine’s.’
‘She said he kissed Blake way back in December.’
‘So it happened more than once …’
‘What?’
Stewart looked at Mark for a minute, as if weighing up whether to continue, but there seemed no point in holding back now and he was sure Mark could be trusted. ‘They pulled again at the camping trip at Catherine’s.’
‘And then Blake ran off first thing in the morning?’
‘Yep. Pretty shitty of him.’
‘Pretty shitty of Cameron to do that to Catherine,’ said Mark. ‘At her own party, like.’
‘That’s also very true.’
Mark fell silent and stared over at Cameron before speaking to Stewart again. ‘I really thought I knew him.’
‘You do, mate. I think this is something no one knew about for definite, not even Cameron.’
‘I bet she knew. I bet she’s known all along and kept it secret.’
There was no need for Stewart to ask who ‘she’ was and he stood up in irritation, grabbing his schoolbag. ‘Come on, Mark: not this again! You’re always giving off such stink about how the whole school’s obsessed with Meredith Harper, but there’s no one who thinks about her more than you do. Your best friend, the guy you’ve been mates with since you were kids, has just realized something that’s changed his whole bloody life and all you can think about is how Meredith must’ve known about it before you did! She has nothing to do with it, Mark. I’ll see you in Chemistry.’
Mark sat in a grumpy silence in class. When was he going to learn not to mention Meredith to anyone? He never came out of any conversation about her looking good. He either sounded like a madman with a grudge or a crazy stalker.
Still, it was not OK for Stewart to talk about Mark’s friendship with Cameron like that. It had definitely been uncalled for – as if Mark didn’t have enough to stress out about after finding out Cameron was gay. He also hadn’t liked the implication that he didn’t care about Cameron any more. Angry with Stewart, Cameron and with himself, Mark spent most of the day moodily brooding over the whole messy situation.
He was still huffing when the fifth-years were herded into the assembly hall, where the headmaster was standing at the front, waiting to speak to them. ‘Good afternoon, students,’ he smiled. ‘You have been summoned here today for a formal and very important announcement. Today is the first day of your study leave. You will all now be allowed to remain at home to commence private and individual study for the forthcoming examinations, which start in three weeks’ time.’
‘Damn,’ hissed Imogen under her breath.
‘You should all go now to the school office and pick up your individual examination timetables, and … Quiet at the back, please! I really can’t stress how important it is for you to have these and pay close attention to them. And now, go with God and with good luck. I am sure you are all going to do this school very, very proud.’
Over the next few weeks, the beautiful May sunshine meant that Meredith, Imogen and Cameron spent more of their time at each others’ houses, relaxing outside with their books open on the table next to them – more for show than anything else. Meredith was currently on the sun-lounger reading the ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’ column in Tatler and nodding at every other sentence. ‘God, it’s so true,’ she sighed. ‘It is so true.’
Lying next to her in a crêpe de Chine dress by Chanel with star-shaped sunglasses, a plethora of rings, bangles and a Marlboro Light for accessories, Imogen was mentally debating whether to go Brazilian or Hollywood for the group’s forthcoming holiday to Mexico, and Cameron was drinking a cold Diet Coke and pondering what it might be like to actually want to work on a day like this.
‘What are your plans for revision, Imogen?’ asked Cameron, taking another drink of Diet Coke.
‘Saint Jude,’ she replied. ‘Well, I mean, it’s sort of staggered really. I’ll start off with Saint Giuseppe and Saint Thomas Aquinas, but I think in the end it’s all going to come down to Saint Jude.’
‘Oh, he’s very good,’ said Meredith.
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. I’ve used him before. He really comes through. He’s very efficient.’
‘What kind of levels of efficiency are we talking about?’ asked Imogen.
Meredith paused to think. ‘Saint Teresa.’
‘Not as good as Saint Anthony?’
‘No, but then, he’s the best, isn’t he?’
‘He’s fabulous,’ said Imogen, lighting another cigarette. ‘I think he’s absolutely tremendous. I love his work. He’s like the Ronseal saint – does exactly what it says on the tin.’
‘Well, as long as you both have a plan,’ sighed Cameron lazily.
On the morning of the first exam, Catherine had got so nervous she had rushed to the toilet three times already. Sitting in one of the cubicles, she heard the voices of Anastasia, Natasha and Tangela, as they arrived to reapply their lipglosses at the bathroom mirrors. ‘Did you see him?’ asked Natasha.
‘I know, right?’ said Tangela.
‘I told you,’ sighed Anastasia. ‘He’s weird.’
‘He’s just so rude recently and I seriously don’t understand why Catherine’s still with him,’ Tangela said. ‘I mean … she can’t be that desperate.’
‘Obvo she is,’ said Natasha as she puckered her lips. ‘Everyone’s talking about how moody and angry and weird he is and how she doesn’t even seem to notice.’
‘Because she is that desperate. Obviously.’
As the three girls walked out, still gossiping about her and Blake, Catherine had to put a hand on her chest to try and steady her breathing. What had happened? What had Blake done that had made the whole school change their mind about him – about them? And why had no one said anything to her? Maybe it was just Anastasia’s group that felt that way? After all, Anastasia had always thought he was kind of stupid … maybe that’s what they meant? With great difficulty, she put their comments to the back of her mind and tried to ignore what she had just heard – the very same policy she had employed with Blake for the last three months.
As she returned to wait outside the assembly hall before the exam started, Catherine was distracted from her worrying by the sight of panic-stricken students all around her. Kerry was holding an unblemished copy of Macbeth in her right hand and was digging her nails into the arm of a terrified-looking, well-prepared Patsy Harris, hissing: ‘What do you mean she kills herself? I thought her hands were just dirty!’ In a corner, Imogen’s lips were moving in furious, rhythmic prayer. She had just finished rattling through Saint Thomas’s prayer for a student and she had now embarked on another round of Hail Marys. The only person who seemed calm, of course, was Meredith, who hadn’t even bothered with last-minute revision cards. With twenty minutes still to go before the doors opened, Catherine sat down to have one last read of her Macbeth notes and Cameron wandered off down the corridor to use the bathroom.
When he pushed the swing door open, Cameron was confronted by the sight of Mark Kingston, with his hands placed on either side of the sink, ashen-faced. Turning to see who it was, the relief was palpable on Mark’s face. ‘Cam … Cameron, I’m so worried. I forgot I got like this at exams. I … I need to do well.’
Cameron went over to him and put one hand on his shoulder and another on his arm, patting it reassuringly. ‘Mark, it’s OK. It’s fine. You always freak out and you always do well.’
‘Cameron … I have to do well. Doing well. It’s important to me. I can’t … I can’t fuck them up.’
‘You won’t.’
‘You don’t know that!’
At that point, a bullet-shaped third-year walked in and saw the two of them. He looked at Mark’s face for about five seconds before Cameron snapped. ‘Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer!’
‘What’s your problem?’
‘You, obviously.’
‘There’s no need to be so gay about it all.’
‘Why don’t you get out?’
‘Why don’t you fuck off?’
‘Because I’m older than you and I’m better than you. So, off you trot and try not to make a mark on the door with your hooves as you leave.’
As the third-year slunk off muttering angrily to himself, Cameron returned to comforting Mark. ‘Listen, you’ll be fine. You’re smart and you’ll definitively have done enough revision. Mark, if someone like you isn’t going to do well in these exams, then what chance has anyone else got? I promise it’ll be fine. Just like it always is.’
Mark nodded and took a big gulp of air to steady himself. ‘Thanks, Cameron. Thanks.’
With normality more or less restored, awkwardness settled over them as they remembered the tensions of the last five months. ‘I should probably get back to the hall,’ Mark muttered. ‘Thanks and …’
‘Yeah. I’ll see you around,’ said Cameron. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mark, walking away. ‘Yeah, thanks and … good luck.’
By and large, the GCSEs passed without any real incident, apart from the frankly horrifying moment when Kerry realized there was coursework for Business Studies that she had never handed in; Cameron’s total inability to recall how to say anything in his Spanish Oral that wasn’t in the present tense; and, of course, the unforgettable terrified squeak from Imogen at the beginning of the History exam, when she had opened the first page to see the title THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR before realizing that their module – WEIMAR AND NAZI GERMANY – was actually listed three pages later. For a split second, she’d thought that she had paid such poor attention in class that she’d revised for the wrong country and wrong century. Her eyes had shot heavenward, with an accusatory glint in them, but after turning more pages she breathed a sigh of relief and then looked up again with an apologetic smile.
And so it was on a blisteringly hot summer’s day in the middle of June that the last GCSE exam took place for that year at Mount Olivet. Walking out into the sunshine in his school uniform, Cameron breathed a happy sigh of relief and was about to call Meredith to see what the plans for that night were, when Mark walked up behind him. The two hadn’t spoken since the day of Mark’s ritual pre-exam panic in the boys’ bathroom, almost three weeks earlier.
‘Hey. What’d you think of the exam?’
‘It was OK,’ answered Cameron. ‘Although I don’t think they could’ve asked any more questions on Blood Brothers if they’d tried.’
‘Yeah, I know! What are your plans now?’
‘Em … nothing definite,’ said Cameron, wary of mentioning Meredith’s name.
‘You probably have plans with Meredith and the girls later on?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s cool,’ answered Mark, in a tone that sounded friendly, if slightly forced.
‘OK. Well … I hope you have a good night. Em … bye.’
‘Cameron, wait! I thought you might fancy catching the bus to Newcastle and going for a walk up to Tollymore Forest. It’s a good day and we used to do it all the time.’
Cameron looked totally startled at the suggestion. ‘Oh … God … I don’t know.’
‘Or anywhere, really. It’s important. I’ve got a lot to say, Cam – honestly. Please.’
Cameron hesitated, but he could read the look of sincerity and urgency on Mark’s face, so he nodded. ‘Tollymore it is, then.’