The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge Read online

‘If I must.’

  ‘I have a map,’ Casper said, searching inside his blazer. ‘If you don’t want to.’

  ‘Oh, I want to alright,’ Liam said before he had a chance to check his words. If Casper had asked why he was so keen, he would have said because it would make him late for music and he hadn’t done his homework, but he qualified his enthusiasm more honestly. ‘Give us a chance to talk about what to play. If you’re up for it?’

  ‘I am,’ Casper said as they left the room. ‘I don’t have anyone to accompany me at home. Maybe we can get together. I was told you do clubs and things on a Wednesday afternoon. Will they let us work together then?’

  ‘They might,’ Liam said. ‘But I go climbing on a Wednesday.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Casper said. ‘I’ll sign up to that too.’

  Liam should have asked how he could possibly practice for a concert while trudging across fields and dangling by their fingertips from a cliff face, but he was too thrilled. This guy had stumbled into his life not ten minutes ago, and here he was offering the certainty of the friendship so lacking in Liam’s life.

  That had been less than two years ago. The nickname Mozart had stuck and so had the friendship, which was so natural, people assumed they had grown up together.

  The memory was a great deal warmer than their current situation. Casper was still staring at him, the rain was pelting, and the wind was gusting with unnerving force.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Casper asked.

  ‘I just remembered the way you spoke to Mr Stark and got away with it.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘That you’d have to get your oboe teacher’s permission to join his mediocre school band,’ Liam said, grinning. ‘Although you didn’t quite say it like that.’

  ‘She’d warned me,’ Casper admitted. ‘They knew each other, and although Mr Stark is a reasonable teacher of theory and second-class fiddle playing—her words—he wasn’t to get his hands on my technique.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  Liam changed position and lay on his back. His toes were cold even inside his thick socks and hiking boots, and he wondered if they should get beneath the sleeping bag and huddle for warmth. The idea didn’t feel appropriate as it was far too early to sleep, and he wasn’t tired. Besides, Casper had something to tell him and to suggest they snuggled up might put him off. What he meant, he realised, was that it might give off the wrong signals when he revealed his own secret.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘What were you going to tell me? What got you so bothered earlier?’

  A sigh filled the tent and condensation rose to join the cloud in the apex.

  ‘Yeah,’ Casper said, shuffling and lying down. ‘I want to tell you something, Lee, and I don’t want you to freak out.’

  That didn’t sound good.

  ‘I won’t,’ Liam said.

  A pause followed during which he imagined Casper gathering painful words and putting them in a tactful order. He didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what Casper said next.

  ‘Did you know you’re my only friend.’

  It was a surprise because Casper had so many hangers-on and not just the clutch of hopeful girls. The sports jocks liked him, he was admired by the orchestra, and popular with the teachers because he was so bloody clever.

  ‘Don’t believe you, Cass.’

  ‘It’s true, you’re my only real friend,’ Casper explained. ‘I never had any at my previous school. No-one there had time for me because I’m Greek. Racists if you ask me, but to be honest, I just kept my head down, concentrated on the books, the athletics, oboe, and ignored them. When I met you, I knew you would be… No, hang on, that’s not right. I meant I knew from that day in the broom cupboard that you were going to be a good mate. It was in the way you played. It was perfect. And, before you butt in again, let me get this out because it’s not easy.’

  Liam swallowed. Sensing rejection, he braced himself and said nothing.

  ‘I’m not very good at this,’ Casper continued. ‘This personal talk, I mean, but you know I think a lot of you, don’t you?’

  Liam nodded silently. Aware that Casper was looking at him, he closed his eyes in case what was said made him cry.

  ‘You’ve always been good for me, Lee. I mean, not just the music, but putting up with me. I’m a temperamental arsehole sometimes.’

  There was nothing to put up with, Liam relished every minute they were together, and Casper’s occasional dramatics, far from being a problem, lent him more intrigue. Liam ignored them because anything he said when he was going off on one was never meant personally and always apologised for later.

  ‘The thing is,’ Casper continued, and Liam felt breath on his cheek. ‘That night in Wales, not the camping night, but the one when we were all down at the lake by the hostel. You and I left the others to their contraband cider and rough jokes and took a walk. You said something then that’s stayed with me. We both said it, actually. You remember?’

  Liam did, and it was embarrassing to recall. It hadn’t been embarrassing at the time, and he had meant it sincerely, but they were sixteen then, and hormones were running wild. Not sexually speaking, although that was going on too, just not with Casper, but emotional hormones if such things existed.

  ‘I said something childish about us being friends for life,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, you said that you’d never had a better mate,’ Casper corrected. ‘And that we would always be friends because we were soulmates.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I tend to speak like a slushy screenplay.’

  ‘Me too. I said that I’d always be with you. You know, that kind of soppy line you get just before someone gets unexpectedly killed. It was straight out of something I’d watched, but I meant it, Lee. Honest. I promised you we’d never be apart.’

  ‘I think you said you’d never leave me as if we were newlyweds.’ Liam had almost said the word lovers, but that was too close to the knuckle and with his own confession looming, was best avoided.

  ‘Yeah, well, we’re not,’ Casper said. ‘But we are, in a way, a couple, and I did make you a promise. We promised to apply to the same university, didn’t we?’

  ‘That’s still the plan.’

  ‘Share digs, be roommates?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Ah, gamoto.’ Casper swore quietly.

  Liam jolted. Casper had taken his arm, and he looked straight into his friend’s face where Casper’s large, brown eyes were watering. It might have been the cold, but he had never looked so pained.

  ‘I wanted to keep those promises, Lee,’ he said. ‘But I can’t. I’ve got to go into the army.’

  Nine

  The statement made no sense. It wasn’t because Casper had gone back on a promise made months ago, and initially, it wasn’t the thought of being apart, they had WhatsApp, Facebook and the telephone. The implications of Casper being away would sink in later, but first, Liam had to understand what he was going away for.

  ‘The army?’ he said, pulling his head back and grimacing. ‘You want to join the army?’

  Casper let go of his arm. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘But I have to. All Greek men do.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, mate, really. Okay…’ Their faces were inches apart, the puffed sleeves of their jackets touching. ‘Every Greek boy has to do National Service at some point after they turn nineteen. That’ll be me next October. I can postpone it, and they’re more lenient when you live abroad, but my mother says I should get it over with.’

  ‘When would you go?’

  ‘Summer, when school finishes, but hey…’ Casper caught Liam’s arm again and gripped tightly. ‘I’m not asking you put off Uni or anything. I only need to do it for nine months.’

 
The talk of months brought home the meaning behind Casper’s news, and as it sank in, so did concern. Liam wouldn’t see his friend for nearly a year, and when Casper did get back, he would be changed, surely?

  ‘I’m really sorry, Lee,’ Casper said. ‘Honestly. I should have told you ages ago, or waited until after your big day at least, but… I don’t know. I thought that as I’d messed up with my rucksack, I might as well go the whole hog. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying that.’

  Concern turned to anger, but Liam fought it off, and the practical side of his mind started hunting for ways around the impending separation.

  ‘I’ll take a gap year,’ he suggested. ‘I could get a job.’

  ‘You might, but you can’t mess up your plans.’

  ‘My plan was to be at Uni with you. Let’s face it, who else have I got to hang out with?’

  ‘Jason?’

  ‘Fuck Jason.’ A little of Liam’s repressed anger seeped through. ‘Where will you be? Near your yoyo? Could I stay with her?’

  ‘Yaya,’ Casper said, his brow furrowing. ‘But no, I don’t know where I would be. Crete to start with, probably, then back near the family on Rhodes.’

  ‘That’s a holiday island, isn’t it? I’ll get a live-in job at a hotel or something.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that.’ Casper released him and threw his arm across his face as he lay back. ‘They keep you in barracks most of the time. I’d have a day off now and then, but the other cadets would expect me to hang with them.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’ The dam holding back Liam’s anger was constructed from straws, and he clutched at each one as they were washed away. ‘I’ll find a place nearby. We could get a place together for when you’re free. My dad would probably pay the rent. Do you have to live in the barracks all the time?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Casper moaned. ‘There are other things.’

  ‘I’ll pick up the language. I already know how to say, what’s your name, I love you and fuck off. I won’t embarrass you.’

  ‘I would start the army in the winter. There wouldn’t be any work.’

  ‘Dad’ll sort me out.’

  ‘No!’ Casper was suddenly as angry as Liam, and he slithered away as far as the tent would allow. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Lee,’ he said, looking away and holding himself back. ‘But it’s more than having to do National Service.’

  Confusion joined the unwanted party of emotions, and all Liam could do was shrug.

  ‘They’d expect me to stay,’ Casper said. ‘The family, Yaya… After my dad left, my mother always said we’d stay here until I’d finished school. After that… I’m expected to return to Greece with her and…’ he fell silent.

  ‘And what? Stay in the army? You said a few months.’

  ‘And get married.’ Casper delivered the words as if he was handing down a prison sentence. ‘Stay there, be a good Greek boy, go to a Greek university then work with my uncles.’

  The temperature inside the tent was matched only by the chill of Liam’s blood.

  ‘You wouldn’t come back?’

  Confusion, anger and now loss danced their macabre routine as the full implications pierced like a dagger, and when Casper shook his head, it was all Liam could do not to leave the tent and force Casper to fret about him all night. It would teach him a lesson, and so what if Liam didn’t survive the night?

  ‘I can’t change it, Lee.’

  One of the most shameful things in Liam’s life was that he cried too easily, and tears were already running.

  ‘How long have you known this?’

  ‘Since I was ten.’

  ‘It’s not right,’ Liam said, his voice cracking. ‘You’ve kept it from me… You let me think we were mates… I don’t get it.’

  Casper no longer cared about him, that was all there was to understand. Liam’s rock, his lifebelt in the storm, would be ripped away, and worse, Casper had known all the time that their friendship was temporary.

  ‘I’ll write,’ Casper said. ‘We’ll stay in touch.’

  It didn’t help. The internal storm raged as fiercely as the one beyond the tent, stirred by betrayal and fed by deception.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Liam spat, and rolled to face the wall. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’

  ‘Like what? Pissed off? You lose your fucking bag and all our supplies. You fuck up our trip, and then you tell me you’re fucking off. Just shut it, Casper.’

  ‘You’re acting like a kid.’ Casper barked. ‘You see? This is another thing.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You doing this like I was the only friend you’ve got.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Oh, a stupid child am I now?’ Liam was shaking, but determined not to let Casper see his tears. He felt foolish enough as it was.

  ‘Yeah, you are sometimes,’ Casper said, rummaging with something behind Liam’s back. ‘And if you want to know the truth, you’re annoying. Always around me, won’t do anything unless I’m there, clinging to me like a girl with a crush.’

  The words stung, but Liam had no defence.

  ‘Just be quiet,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to know you anymore.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Lee. We’re only mates.’

  ‘Were.’

  In Liam’s world, there was no such thing as only mates. Friendship was the most important thing in his life, not the music, not his father, and not the chance of a place at a good university. They were nothing without Casper.

  Casper said something in Greek, and Liam told him to fuck off.

  ‘You’re behaving like a brat,’ was Casper’s reply.

  ‘At least I’m an honest brat. Anything else you want to get off your chest, “mate”?’

  The howling wind and lashing rain were the only answers, and through them, Liam heard the zip of the tent flap and felt a lash of frozen wind.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Despite everything, he didn’t want Casper running off and doing a Wuthering Heights across the moors.

  ‘Going for a piss.’

  ‘You’ll get wet.’

  ‘I’ll dry.’

  ‘Use my bottle.’

  ‘We need the water.’

  Whatever Liam said, Casper would find a way to get away from him, and perhaps a blast of frigid air would bring him to his senses.

  ‘Kneel at the door,’ Liam said. ‘Don’t point into the wind.’

  Lying there, his world crumbling around him, he listened to Casper in the extension. At least he’d followed his advice and not wandered into the storm.

  Casper was right. Liam was behaving like a child, but this was the first time they’d argued, and he didn’t know how to cope. His face was wet, and his nose was running, but he wasn’t going to turn around and display his weakness. Instead, he lay with his eyes shut picturing the Ribblehead Viaduct four miles away and forcing himself to remember his mother in the hope that thoughts more tragic than losing Casper would dry his eyes. They only made him worse, and he turned his anger in on himself. If he’d been stronger, he would have wished Casper well and supported him; he obviously didn’t want to return to Greece, Liam could tell from his tone. If Liam had more experience, if they had argued like this before, he would have known how to control his emotions, and if his father hadn’t spoilt him, he wouldn’t be acting like a brat, or a love-sick teenager, or whatever the hell he was at that moment.

  He was justified, surely? That night by the lake. No secrets, they had said, be together forever as best mates, go to Uni together, the Lee and Casper combo. Mozart and Einstein, an unlikely friendship that could never be broken.

  Except now it was, and worse, Liam had also been kee
ping a secret. How could he take the moral high ground knowing what he was planning to tell Casper? The simple answer was he couldn’t, and his mind raced to the hideous thought that when Casper found out, the friendship would never recover.

  They’d never spoken about ‘gay’ as a subject, just accepted it as something people were, something that didn’t concern them, other people’s business.

  There was always the possibility Casper was a closet homophobe, what with his Orthodox upbringing, his church and now talk of marriage—marriage for fuck’s sake. Casper was only one month older.

  Five minutes ago, Liam would have said their bond was strong enough for Casper to cope when he came out. Now, the revelation might just be the last beat in an unfinished symphony.

  Who cares? He’s got it coming, he thought, and resolved to tell Casper that night. Casper would probably blow up again, accusing Liam of being as bad as him and not telling him sooner, and he would be right. However, coming out wasn’t the same as joining the army. That would be over after a few months while being gay wasn’t going to pass, and if Casper freaked at the news, and for want of a better word, dumped him, so be it.

  With secrets shared, they would be equal again, and if Casper felt betrayed, at least he would know what it felt like to be Liam.

  The wind blasted, and the zip squealed.

  ‘Have you got a towel?’

  ‘Bottom of my bag.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Silence fell like a plate-glass barricade that only their silence penetrated, underscored by the storm and made more intense by their proximity, and Liam let his nose drip for fear of giving himself away with a sniff.

  Casper’s news had sunk to the bottom of his stomach and taken up residence. He’d been so sure of their future, there was no point trying to persuade Casper otherwise. It was clear he wanted nothing more to do with Liam.

  Mustering what was left of his dignity, he mumbled, ‘We should eat something.’

  ‘Half a packet of digestives each.’