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Rudge
You never let Mr.Hector know (although you’re pretty sure he guesses) that every time you’re in his class, you’re wishing you were out in the field.
You love the honour in the game, the look of respect in the other man’s eye, the quiet.
Most of all you love the swing and the way your foot twists.
Your mum always says you’re a golfer at heart, that you stared at the greens when you’d drive by at the rather early age of four.
The way your father grins, you have a feeling that’s exaggeration.
But the fact is, nothing, not an A and two B’s, not being among the elite, not getting into one of the top universities of the world (and you do know that, whatever the others might think), nothing equals the field. Nothing ever has or ever will.
Timms
At the start of term, there was maybe a small crush on Fiona.
Alright a big one Jimmy, stop fucking kicking me.
But I got over it. Because I am wise and clever and not even half as good looking as fucking Dakin.
Alright, not even a quarter.
Point is, I got over it. I mocked Irwin, snorted at Posner, who was possibly the only person in class (or on earth) more clueless than me. That song, that wretched song. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to laugh so hard so much. Scripps didn’t help with his grins at Dakin. Did not help.
So Fiona. She was nice.
Shut up Jimmy.
Lockwood
Personally, Timms’ ‘little’ infatuation with Fiona was the highlight of the term.
Well, all right, I’m exaggerating, but the way his little eyes used to just pop out of that fat head of his…priceless.
I guess for most of us, the most trying part of the term was Mr. Irwin’s classes.
After years of facts and swotting, of memorising timelines and global impacts and figures and small histories of each figure in history that we were writing about, after all that, to suddenly have to find ways to make all that is real and true false and precipitate.
That was hell. I could tell Posner liked it after a while, even while he argued with Dakin (now that was a surprise). Maybe it was the creativity it required, the stretching of one’s abilities, but he liked it. Of course, Mr.Irwin was too busy staring at Dakin to notice who his star pupil really was.
But then it was usually like that.
Crowther
When Mr.Hector discovered his particular affection and affinity for the theatre, he gave him a copy of King Lear, misty face.
Let’s just say, he was not the biggest fan of the play. More towards Comedy of Errors, or if there was to be a push towards a serious play, Timon of Athens. He loved the end.
And yes, he liked Oscar Wilde. The man was good. He could be funny and sarcastic and simply the perfect amount of silly.
He did his best not to think about the fact that Posner could recite Lady Windermere’s Fan perfectly. Sheer coincidence.
Akhtar
His sister Amna is growing up and she stares at Scripps a little too hard when he drops by to borrow a book (which he in turn had borrowed from the school library so double borrowing technically, not to be confused with double counting). He knows it’s nothing, childish appeal and Scripps is too much of a nice guy to repeat it or do anything but be incredibly nice to her.
Which doesn’t exactly help because now it’s a week, two weeks, a month of constant Scripps-worship and Scripps-talk around the table and the conversation tilts back to the old words of third grade (why don’t you invite your friends over?).
It’s because the house is too small and there are too many kids and his mother tends to simper and smother guests, forcing food down their throats. But he loves his mother and he loves his siblings so he says none of that, pleading the upcoming exam as an excuse.
Unfortunately, he can’t do anything to shut Amna up. He can’t claim that Scripps is an awful human being who tortures rabbits for fun, which is what he did when Javairiya started liking Dakin. Really, they all need to stay the hell away from his house.
Dakin
The first time he realises that he’s talking about Irwin far too much is when his hand is on Fiona’s thigh and she makes an impatient noise, grabs his wrist and pulls up until his fingers touch her panties. And well, she tells him to shut the fuck up. That was probably the more obvious turning point.
He starts out on the sexual question with clinical detachment. Not an odd looking bloke. If a girl had eyes like those and a big enough rack, he’d be after her in a heartbeat. Lips are too thin. Especially when he’s annoyed, which seems to be all the fucking time. Too thin overall.
He thinks Posner would like him if he didn’t like him. When he states this, Scripps raises his eyebrows. And refuses to say anything.
Sanctimonious little prick.
He likes Irwin’s hands though. Which is strange since he never really notices hands on women. So many other things to look at.
That’s probably the point where the clinical detachment sort of stops.
Scripps
He used to think something was wrong with him.
Kneeling in a church, his mind would wander, cool wood under his elbows. Wondering if he’d completed his math homework, if he’d brought the milk in.
The most annoying part would be if he started thinking about girls. This celibacy thing. He was sure that you did think about it more when you weren’t doing anything. There were girls everywhere all of a sudden and too many of them smiled and their necklines seemed to be moving lower and lower, was God out to kill him?
Dakin claimed they liked him more because he was unavailable. Which was stupid but probably true. As if he wasn’t oversexed enough. Or undersexed enough.
Posner’s neighbour gave him a note. And tended to lean down a lot when she’d stop by to drop off a cake, pastries and pie, on successive days.
Maybe he should have stopped coming to Posner’s. Who was enjoying his discomfort a little too much. The same guy who was having trouble keeping his eyes above Dakin’s waist level when they were practising French in a ‘military hospital’ scene.
That will never stop being funny.
She leaves and he heaves a sigh of a relief.
“Need a moment in the lavatory?”
“Fuck off.”
Posner
Loving Dakin is probably the major event of his young life.
It’s not even remotely romantic and every single person seems to know about it about a week after he figures it out himself.
He thinks Scripps knew about it before he knew it. Which is if possible, even more embarrassing.
Scripps mutters banalities from time to time, and he means well, obviously. Except nothing can really make him stop thinking about Dakin all the fucking time and that awful, sickening feeling never goes away when Dakin is around. He maybe hates Dakin a little, or hates himself, that makes more sense. He’s sick of it, sick to death of it.
When he tells Irwin that he hopes Dakin will love him if he gets in, he doesn’t possess any real conviction.
When he says that he hopes he’ll stop caring, there’s not even any fake conviction.