Mhairi McFarlane - Don’t You Forget About Me

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Mhairi McFarlane 2019

Cover design: Holly MacDonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover illustrations © Abbey Lossing

Mhairi McFarlane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008169336

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008169329

Version: 2018-10-30

For my niece, Sylvie

A small superhero

Love’s strange so real in the dark

Think of the tender things that we were working on

Simple Minds

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Then

Chapter 1: Now

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Mhairi McFarlane

About the Publisher

‘ You loved me – then what right had you to leave me? Because … nothing God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.’

My most truculent fellow pupil, David Marsden, looked up and wiped his chin on his sleeve. He had given Emily Brontë’s Gothic novel the emotion of reading from the menu at Pizza Hut. As a teenage male, it was important you kept it monotonous to avoid allegations from other teenage males of being a massive bender.

The room was muggy with that syrupy heat you get as you near high summer, the sort where your clothes feel grubby by midday. In our squat box of a Sixties building, the windows heaved halfway up as poor man’s air con, we could hear the liveliness of the school field in the distance.

‘Thank you, David,’ said Mrs Pemberton, as he closed his paperback. ‘What do we think Heathcliff means in this passage?’

‘He’s nowty again because he’s not getting any,’ said Richard Hardy, and we guffawed, not just as it delayed proper academic discussion, but because the person making the joke was Richard Hardy.

There was some muttering but no proper answers. It was six weeks to the final exams and the mood was a febrile stew of excitement at imminent freedom and a bottleneck of panic about the reckoning that awaited. The tortured inhabitants of these pages were starting to get on our nerves. Try getting some real problems, like ours.

‘“Then what right had you to leave me” is a bit creepy, isn’t it,’ I said, if no one else was going to break the lengthening silence. Mrs Pemberton could get testy if they ran on, and make the homework bigger. ‘I mean, the idea Cathy had to stay with him or she deserves to be unhappy is a bit … ugh.’

‘Interesting. So you don’t think Heathcliff is justified in saying that by denying her feelings, she ruined both their lives?’

‘Well,’ I took a breath, ‘it’s the thing about how her love for Heathcliff is like the rocks underneath, constant, but gives her no pleasure,’ I say this in a rush due to the inevitable mirth at the word ‘pleasure’. ‘It doesn’t sound like it was going to be much fun? It’s all about her obligation to him.’

‘Perhaps then the love they share isn’t conventionally romantic but deep and elemental?’

‘It’s mental, alright,’ said a male voice. I glanced over and Richard Hardy winked at me. My heart rate bumped.

My teacher had an annoying way of taking me seriously and making me do actual thinking. She once kept me back and told me: ‘You play down your intelligence to enhance your standing with your peers. There’s a big wide world outside these walls, Georgina Horspool, and exam grades will get you further than their laughter. Pretty faces grow old too, you know.’

I was furious afterwards, the kind of fury you reserve for people who accuse you of something that’s absolutely true. (I was quite pleased at the ‘pretty face’ bit though. I didn’t think I was pretty, and I wouldn’t be old for ages.)

A murmur of chatter spread around the class, and the air was thick with no one caring about Wuthering Heights.

Mrs Pemberton, sensing this fatal straying of attention from the text, dropped her bombshell.

‘I’ve decided you’re going to change places. I don’t think sitting with friends is doing concentration in this room many favours.’

She started going from desk to desk, swapping one in for one out, amid much grumbling. I was convinced I could smart mouth my way out of this.

‘Joanna, you can stay put, and Georgina, you’re at the front.’

‘What?! Why?’

Obviously the front row was reserved for the problematic, lazy, or outcasts – this was deeply unjust.

The seating layout respected invisible but rigid castes: swots and oddities at the front. Averagely well likeds, who worked for good approval ratings, like myself and Jo, in the middle. At the back, the super cool girls and boys, like Richard Hardy, Alexandra Caister, Daniel Horton and Katy Reed. Rumour had it that Richard and Alexandra were kind of seeing each other but also kind of not, because they were cool.

‘Come on. Shift.’

‘Aw, miss !’

I got up with a sigh and slung my pens in my bag at a speed that emphasised my reluctance.

‘Here you are. I’m sure Lucas will be glad to have you,’ Mrs Pemberton said, pointing. There was no need for that phrasing, which caused a ripple of sniggers.

Lucas McCarthy. An unknown, who kept himself to himself, like all future murderers. Not social contagion, but not who I would’ve chosen.