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07-01-2010

6M

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Over the Edge

By

Rosamunde Bott

 

Extract from Chapter 10 of Over the Edge

 

 All around the college nature was slowly taking its own course, as it will do, despite the comings and goings of befuddled, baffled and bemused human beings.  In its own quiet way, oblivious to the loves and hates, hopes and fears, petty jealousies and passionate rages, stress, Inspection fever, and all the emotional superfluence of the human condition, it was getting on with the business of preparing for spring.

 Under the large copper beech tree by the main site car park, the snowdrops, winter's last trumpet call, were already at their full peak; and a few steps away by the lime trees on the asymmetrical side of the quad, crocuses were just beginning to show their heads.  Daffodils were showing promise of golden hosts in weeks to come, and everywhere, shrubs and fruit trees were beginning to bud.  The sheep in the field between main site and Cothall were thick with unborn lambs, and the hazy sun hinted at warmth yet to come.

 Hayden Roberts noticed all this as he walked - at an unusually quick pace - up to Cothall.  He smelt the spring in his nostrils more powerfully than he had ever smelt it before in his short life.  Nature's promise held more significance than ever before, and held his heart in a gladder, more elevated position than his limited experience had yet offered.  The sight of snowdrops, the smell of the abundant earth, and the sound of the stream rushing through the field at a greater thrill than it had done all winter, were all having a profound effect on him.  But it wasn't just the growth of nature around him that was having this effect; it was a greater, deeper profundity that was turning his stomach to ripples of excitement and his eyes to saucers.

 Hayden Roberts was in love.

 It had happened only a few moments previous to Hayden's trot to Cothall.  How suddenly the call of nature descends on a lad just turned 18, and what an earth-shattering and unexpected, but pleasant shock it was to him.

 He would turn over that moment in the library in his head for weeks to come.  There he had been, the same Hayden he always had been for 18 years, carefully studying a book on science for a soil assignment, with the same free-floating anxiety that seemed to hover over him wherever he was, whatever he was doing, when, in a few short exchanges, his whole world had turned upside-down and inside out, leaving him feeling quite dizzy and breathless.

 It was the usual thing.  A group of his fellow students had been hanging around the library, irritating him because they were really just chatting and giggling when there was work to be done and how were they going to get their assignments finished and pass the course if they behaved like that all the time?

 Then they started asking him for advice.  That was the worse thing, because he knew it wasn't for real.  He was used to this - it had been the same at school...it was a form of mockery.  They took the piss because he worked really hard and was shy, and talked funny, and couldn't spell... they isolated him because he was different and jibed him because he was a 'swot'.

 'I can't remember what you're supposed to do with an acid soil - do you know, Hayden?'

 'Yes...thank you.' said Hayden, colouring up.

 'He's keeping it to himself, aren't you Hayden.  And why shouldn't he?  He doesn't want everyone getting a distinction, does he?  Go and read a book, Sam.'

 'Well, I might as well read what Hayden's put...it's just the same as reading a book, ain't it?'

 'Not if you want to spell it right it isn't...!'

 'Leave him alone!' said a small voice.

 'We're only asking for help - it's supposed to be a compliment, you know.    We just want to find out how he always gets the best grades in assignments - only so we can improve our own work - what's wrong with that?'

 A steely glance from Mel Gallagher at that moment quietened the increasing volume of the argument, and the group got bored and wandered off to the other end of the library.  Or so Hayden thought.

 A quiet voice in his ear made him jump.

 'Don't take any notice of that lot.  They're only jealous.'

 He looked up.  It was Claire, the same person who had told them to leave him alone.

 It was almost the first time he had heard her speak, apart from answering questions in class.  He noticed that her voice was much softer and gentler than when he had heard it before.  He also noticed that her long mousy hair was really quite silky looking, and that behind the spotty, freckled skin was a slight flush high on her cheekbones.  She was a small, frail little thing, almost unnoticeable in a crowd.  She was no beauty; nor was she pretty, yet Hayden's heart was suddenly pounding in his ears.

 Her eyes lowered, as if suddenly embarrassed by what she had said.

 'I've got to go and do my pH test now... See you later.' she said.

 'Bye.'  Hayden managed to croak, and then watched her diminutive figure weave its way across the library and out of the exit.

 She was as shy as he was.  Yet she had stood up for him against those loud mouthed idiots.

 He suddenly felt tall.  He felt brave.  He felt as though he could move mountains.  He could take on the whole lot of them single handed.  He was smooth and confident, magnetic and cool.  He demanded respect, and he would be listened to.  He was Hayden, Hayden the Brave, Hayden the Tall...

 He stood up and knocked his chair over backwards, only just managing to stop himself from falling over the upturned chair leg by putting his hand on the desk, thereby knocking several library books onto the floor.

 The blood rushed up to the tips of his ears, which then burned and tingled painfully as he grovelled on the floor picking up the books, knowing that all eyes would be upon him - probably sniggering amongst themselves.

 Hayden the Clumsy is more like it, he thought to himself, picking up the chair and scuttling out of the library as fast as he could.

 But when he hit the open air, and the smell of spring invaded his nostrils, and he once more thought of Claire, a surge of energy bolted through him, and he sped towards Cothall with the sudden delightful and yet alarming idea of helping Claire with her soil test.

Gary Bland was walking down from Cothall and passed Hayden, both of them unaware that the other was charged with the same current.

 But where Hayden was lit up with the new light of hope, vistas opening up ahead of him that he never knew existed, a sense of wonder opening up his eyes and heart, Gary's experience was very different indeed.  His thoughts were dark, channelling into an ever-narrowing tunnel with no way back.   There was no sense of wonder here - Gary knew only too well what lay ahead.

 Gary, too, was in love.

 Thus Cupid's arrow falls in such arbitrary fashion, paying no heed to pleasure or pain.  It has no sense, and no logic to it.  Cupid, being blind, does not aim well.

 And did Gary notice the bursting forth of spring?  Did it tingle in his nostrils and delight his eye?  Did he hear the rush of the stream as he crossed the bridge and feel the sun's first attempt to break through the damp, cool February air?

 Oh yes.  Yes, he did.  The hint of promise was just as powerful...but it shattered as it fell onto his consciousness, breaking into sharp shards of bitterness to remind him of a dream that could never be shared.

 To fall in love with a guy as straight as Kevin Morris was stupidity beyond reason.  Yet, it had happened.  It had reached the point of not return.  Having foolishly imagined that he could admire the lad from afar and purely enjoy being in his company, he soon realised that being close to him without being able to express his feelings was a torture fast becoming unbearable.  Yet when he did not see him all he thought about was the next time, and time would just drag in melancholy dullness until he set eyes on him again.