Hoping I'm Always There
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This story continues the story of Rupert, 17th Viscount Hazlington, Kate and Piers' eldest son.
Some characters sneak up on you when you are occupied with others; They sink their teeth into you and keep shaking you. This is what Rupert did to me. He first appeared in 'I love Wednesday' when as a three year old, he picks up his mother's swearword. And later in 'Peace on Earth' and others. Each time grabbing more of my attention until he got his own story.
This story comes chronologically between 'Rites of Passage' and 'Not MichaelAngelo 's David.'
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The song I have chosen for this, is the essence of young love particularly Rupert and Tania's.
Paul McCartney's 'Here, There, and Everywhere'
To lead a better life I need my love to be there…
Here, making each day of the year,
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there's something there
There, running my hands through her hair,
Both of us thinking how good it can be,
Someone is speaking but she doesn't know he's there.
I want her everywhere and if she's beside me
I know I need never care,
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share.
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching her eyes, and hoping that I'm always there
I will be there and every where
Here, there, and everywhere.
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Hoping I'm Always There
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Mike had said that it was Toby's birthday next week, he was having a party and we were invited.
"Who's we?" I said.
"Us!"
"Lexi?"
"No, of course not. She'll be in school. Anyway, I doubt if Toby would ask her or if she would come, if he did."
I wouldn't have expected to be asked either. Toby Sheringham had stayed with us last Christmas, and had had a little romance with Lexi to which I took exception. She was very young, only just sixteen. It barely lasted into the New Year but I didn't like it or him. I get on with him somewhat better now, but I still don't trust him.
"I don't think so."
"Oh, come on Roop!"
'I don't like parties. You know that."
I hate parties.
They are an exquisite form of torture and humiliation involving my being struck dumb and/or big-foot-in-mouth-disease.
"Oh! he's shy." My family dismiss it lightly.
I shouldn't be!
They, my family, are the most outward going of people, our mother being in politics and our father supporting her in this for the twenty plus years they have been married. My old school curriculum is geared towards careers in government, diplomacy and politics, all dealing with people. I am reading for a degree in agriculture, estate and farming management at the RAU. I can handle with staff, tenants, business managers, lecturers perfectly competently. No problem!
Social events? Parties and...girls? A defective brain and paralysis of the tongue!
I have two brothers, both outgoing exhibitionists, and a confident, brilliant little sister so I should not be such a wimp with girls or at parties but … well, that brings me back to where we started.
"No! I am not going!"
Mike raised exasperated eyebrows at Pete, our younger brother; he shrugged and we left it at that.
I was not going and that was that.
There was another reason why I didn't want to go to this party, but I wasn't going to tell them.
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Of course, I went!
I arrived late. On my own. Quite deliberately! My usual ploy.
The later I get there, less time I have to spend there; if I go on my own, I can leave when I want and not have to wait for the bros.
My brothers were there already with some guys that we knew and we passed time together, until they got tanked up and cleared off to chat up any unattached totty.
I mooched around the edges of the room, carefully avoiding anybody else's eyes, allowing mine to sweep the floor about three metres before me. I reached the table that held the drinks and picked up another can of Stella. Another pretended casually disinterested glance around but really letting out a breath of mixed relief and shattering disappointment.
I took a long swig, put my can down and parked my backside on the edge of the table, my hands lightly grasping its edge, my feet crossed.
Music blaring, couples swaying slowly, dreamily, the room filled with blue gray smoke, a mixture of tobacco and tea.
When we were eighteen, like our contemporaries, we had tried most recreational junk; ciggies, booze, E's, MJ. Not any of the strong stuff though.
Mike, like most of his RADA mates, still smokes; Pete likes to relax with pot but I never took to either.
Sanctimonious sod, Mike calls me.
I know he doesn't mean it.
It isn't that .
It's just that they never did anything for me.
A few cans of beer, maybe an occasional whisky, that 's all I need.
Just as I was putting my can to my mouth, the dancers swayed apart and I saw her.
Through the gap, across the room, immediately opposite, looking straight at me.
Titania Cressida Sheringham is the daughter of Sir Richard Sheringham, knight of the theatre, and younger sister of Toby Sheringham, Mike's mate from RADA. I have known her for a while. Well, I didn't really know her. I knew who she was… She sort of hung around the periphery of their gang. She is little. All right, to be fair, she is taller than our old lady or Lexi but that wouldn't be very hard. Blonde, baby fine curls drifting around her shoulders. Eyes, the colour of a summer sky, pouty rosebud mouth, bosomy, tiny waist and curvy hips: vivacious, loud, noisy.
I didn't like her.
We got shoved together and she set out to take my virginity. That wasn't too difficult. I was more than willing.
That was two weeks ago.
I haven't seen her since.
I'm crazy in love with her.
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The gap closed and I realised I was holding my breath. I looked down at my can, swirled it around and put it down beside me and gripped the edge of the table.
Hard.
And waited.
There she was, standing beside me, her back to the room, gripping the table's edge too, so close that our fingers almost touched.
"You bastard!" she whispered, very softly but anger was shot right through it. I shot a narrowed glance sideways. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that.
"Who? Me?" I muttered back.
"Yes! Yes, you! You bastard."
When we had met before, she had managed to infuriate me which somehow drove the shyness away.
It was happening again.
"You have some basis for that?"
"You slept with me!" she hissed. "You spent the night in my bed, and couldn't wait to leave in the morning. Didn't have the grace to—to call or even text me."
"Forgive me," I said, in my most superior Old Etonian tone. "but my recollection of the event is somewhat different." My whisper was taut. "As I remember it, you seduced me. You invited me into your bed and, in the morning, you couldn't wait to throw me out of the house before your old lady came home. As for texting you," I said loftily. "I fail to see how I could do that without your number."
"I gave it to you."
"No! You did not!"
"Yes! It's on your mobile."
"I don't think so."I said.
"Give it to me."
"No!"
"Give it to me!"
I fished it out of my pants pocket and held it out.
She flicked through my Contacts.
"There!" she said triumphantly, holding it up to show me.
TANIA 0774 9171 02
I couldn't believe it.
"I didn't put that in."
"I put it in, that night. Under T."
"You didn't tell me. I would never see it there. I wouldn't go to T. I don't know any body in T."
"Toby?"
"I haven't got Toby's number. Why would I ring Toby? He's Mike's mate, not mine."
I watched her ring it.
She let it ring a few times and switched off and gave it back to me.
"There. I can pick up your number from missed calls on mine later." "Anyway, if you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you ring Hazlington? It's in the book."
"We agreed," her tone was softer now, more defensive. "Not to let the brothers know."
I chewed my lip.
We had. She hadn't wanted her brother to know for her own devious reasons and I didn't want my brothers to know for mine.
Her little finger moved closer to mine until they almost touched.
"Mike said you weren't coming tonight. He said you hated parties."
"I do."
I decided to tell her, even if it was humiliating.
"I wasn't going to come. I only came because I thought you would be here."
She turned and looked up at me, a soft curl falling over her eyes,
I reached out and brushed it away from the baby blue eyes that I was drowning in.
She leaned her cheek against my hand.
"Let's find somewhere quiet." she said.
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"It's your Dad's house, of course you know."
"Let's just get out of here." she said.
She took my hand and we slipped out through the patio doors along to the open back door of the kitchen. A quick look in and she lifted a key from the rack just inside. Three steps led us down off the patio and along a narrow path overhung with roses and honeysuckle, right to the end of the garden to a small summer house. She struggled with the key. I took it from her, opened it and followed her in.
"You'll have to lock it again or it will keep on banging. And someone will come looking."
"That will never do, will it?"
She giggled, a soft carillon that lifted me. There was a double basket chair pushed to the back. I lifted her and sat with her on my lap. Touching her face, stroking her hair, until she held my ears and pulled my mouth down on knowing how long we kissed, just lost in the touch, the taste, the scent of each other.
She twisted my hair around her finger, her face against my throat.
"Roopy?"
"Mmmm,"
"Roop, um, Roopy. . . you know I'm at the Slade ? . . . I've won a bursary. . .
"Well done you!"
She moved off my lap and sat on her heels beside me.
"Yeah, well . .. .I'm going to Florence in a few weeks."
"For how long?"
"Almost three years."
I still had over a year at Cirencester.
Silence now.
"And?" I said, the lightness leaving me and a sick dread beginning to creep in.
More silence.
"And?" I repeated.
She was fiddling with my shirt buttons now. I captured her hand with mine.
"Well, I wondered, well, that is, what you thought . . I mean . . . if you want to dump me, I'll understand. . ."
"Dump you?"I said coolly. "One night, and less than three quarters of an hour at a party, you feel the need of a formal dump?"
"Yes, no, I mean . .. .I mean. . .I don't know. I mean, perhaps we, this, has meant more to me than to you." she whispered.
"Is that what you think, Tan?"
"I don't know. I don't know what you think. Three years is a long time." her voice wobbled a bit.
Dread was beginning to loosen its grip on my chest and I could feel the beginnings of a smile on my mouth. I turned and pulled her back on my lap. Everything in me was singing.
"I've got relations in Italy. I can come and see you. If you want."
"Do you want?"
She was watching me, chewing the inside of her cheek.
"I might."
I pulled her close, dropping tiny kisses on her hair. There was the start of a smile.
"Would you? Could you get away sometimes?"
"Ithink I'll manage somehow. We'll manage."
"Roopy, you are the sweetest boy I ever met. You know I think I might love you."
I turned her hand over and kissed her palm.
"You should be careful of what you say; I might hold you to that."
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