You Are Dead

68

29 December, 1976

He was fifteen, home for the Christmas holidays from the boarding school he hated so much, The Cloisters, in Godalming, Surrey. Everyone said it was a beautiful school, in a fantastic location, and if you wanted to be a cricketer there was no better place. Situated on top of a hill, the ground drained fast, leaving a good wicket even after torrential rain. And the school’s list of legendary old boy cricketers was a hall of fame in its own right.

Except that he wasn’t interested in cricket, or in any ball games. The only sport that interested him was one not on the school curriculum, potholing. He was also interested in caves as well as any kind of tunnel.

Which was why they called him Mole.

No one actually liked him, they all found him creepy — and swanky. He boasted about his rich parents, their flash cars, their heart-shaped pool, their enormous yacht. They liked him even less for that. Even the teachers didn’t like him. He had no friends. The truth was, he was used to that. He’d never had any real friends, and it didn’t bother him a jot. He had his imaginary friends and they were far more fun. And he could trust them implicitly.

But on Valentine’s Day he had received a very loving anonymous card from a secret admirer, which he had proudly showed off to everyone at school, although he hadn’t figured out who had sent it. I’ve got a girl, see?

It turned out the same group of boys who always taunted him had sent it as a joke. They teased him about it for days, chanting whenever they saw him, Mole’s got a girlfriend, Mole’s got a girlfriend, Mole’s got a girlfriend.

But the taunts over the Valentine card weren’t as bad as the night, a few days later, when they had crept up on him and pulled back the sheets on his bed, to reveal him wanking with a torch gripped in his mouth and a Playboy centrefold open in his left hand.

That so hurt. So much.

He was determined to show them all. It would be different next year. Now he had a girlfriend for this Christmas holiday — well — sort of. Maybe not quite The Cloisters’ — top people’s school — standard. But she had big tits. Well, they looked pretty big beneath her blouse. When he peered down at her rack he could almost — almost — see her nipples. He imagined them, red, ripe, luscious. The thought made him hard. He had to put his hand in his pocket as he walked with Mandy White towards the ponds of Hove Lagoon. Had to put his hand there to stop the bulge from showing. Not that he needed to worry, Mandy was up for it, he was sure of that. Her mum was the cleaning lady for his parents. Mandy was just a cheap slut with big tits.

But no one at The Cloisters would know that.

They’d been to Marjorie Bentley’s ballroom dancing classes a few days earlier in a room near Hove Station. They’d danced close with his big hard thing pressing against her. She’d whispered into his ear that she would like to give him a blow job. But his mum had been waiting outside to drive him home.

Tonight was different. He’d taken her to a pub near Hove seafront for drinks, which he got away with because he looked older than his age. Then he’d suggested walking her home — she lived in a house opposite Shoreham Harbour. It was a bitterly cold night, the temperature way below freezing as it had been for over a fortnight. He gave her a cigarette and they smoked as they walked, making him feel very grown up. And he was horny as hell. But despite the drink she seemed strangely reticent and distant, not at all like when they had been dancing.

He’d persuaded her, despite her reluctance, to walk down from the promenade into the darkness of the playground that was Hove Lagoon. It was ten o’clock and the whole place was deserted. Just the two frozen lagoons, the faint glow of the street lighting shimmering on the inky black ice. And Mandy’s big tits shimmering, bulging out of the top of her low blouse beneath her coat. For him. His hard-on was pressing urgently against the front of his trousers.

As they walked around the perimeter of the larger of the two lagoons, he suddenly stopped, pulled her around to face him and pressed his lips against hers.

Instantly she turned her face to the side and pushed him firmly away. ‘No!’ she said.

‘It’s all right, I got some thingies. You know. Protection.’ He ducked his face and nuzzled her breasts, voraciously.

She gave him such a hard push he almost fell backwards onto the ice. Then she turned to walk away. ‘I want to go home.’

He grabbed her arm. ‘You said you wanted to give me a blow job last week, before Christmas, in the dance class!’

‘Yeah, well you didn’t have spots all over your face then, did you? And you didn’t stink of aftershave.’ She broke free and strode away.

The acne rash that had broken out on his face in the past few days had acutely embarrassed him. Several of them were big, livid pustules and he’d done his best to mask them with Clearasil ointment. He’d also doused himself for his date tonight with Brut aftershave, which he’d seen in a telly commercial. It showed women going crazy for it.

‘You fucking prick-teaser!’ He ran after her and grabbed her again.

‘Lemme go!’ she said, her voice raised.

He tried to kiss her again, and she kneed him in the groin.

‘Owwww!’ he howled, winded.

She broke into a run and he sprinted after her, grabbed her by her coat belt.

‘Lemme go, you fucking spotty perv!’

‘Just give me a hand job then.’

‘Yech. Let go of me.’

He put his arms around her and tried to pull her tightly to him. As she pulled away, he stumbled, losing his balance. Holding her tightly, they fell together, to the left, shattering the thin ice into the freezing cold water of the Lagoon.

Mandy screamed. ‘Help, police, rape, police!’

He pushed her face down under the water, crying out in fear and in anger, ‘Shut up, you bitch, you cheap, prick-teasing bitch.’

He felt her struggling under him in the shallow water, thrashing with her arms and legs, but he kept her face submerged with both hands pressed against her forehead. She was writhing like a mad thing, but he just kept on holding her down, weakening with the exertion.

He kept up the pressure, holding her head below the surface, invisible in the inky darkness.

Gradually, her struggling lessened. Then she became still, inert. He continued lying there, shivering, his hands growing numb with the cold, his entire body growing steadily numb, his brain racing.

Then, finally, when he was sure she had been under the water for long enough, he scrambled to his feet, climbed back onto dry land, and ran across the grass and up the steps to the promenade. Then, waving his arms like a mad thing, dripping with water, he ran out into the road, screaming, ‘Help me, help me, someone! Oh God, please help me!’

A passing car pulled up and he ran, crying, over to the driver’s window. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Please help me.’