Sara Waters - Dancing with Mr Darcy - Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

‘I think,’ Charlie retaliated archly, ‘that I may as well buy it.’

Behind the cash desk were pictures of African people with goats and spice baskets and piles of woven blankets in sunburned colours. The assistant reached forward and Charlie noticed too late that it was Malcolm, the work-experience boy with the speech impediment, whose mouth didn’t ever seem to close properly. He always had a fine thread of drool running down the side of his chin. Malcolm used to be Special Needs and now Charlie’s mum supervised him at work. Sometimes he helped Charlie with the stock check. It took ages longer.

‘Pretty,’ Malcolm declared, running the fabric of the dress across his hand. ‘It’ll suit y—y—you.’ The expression on Kelsey’s face drilled loudly through the back of Charlie’s head.

‘Working Thursday this week, Malcolm?’ She pulled her shoulders into line. Vital not to show weakness.

‘Ei—Ei—Eileen’s off. She’s at a we—we—wedding.’

Charlie wrenched her purse from her blazer pocket.

‘It’s in I—I—Ireland.’

‘That’s nice.’ She realised now that the dress was dreadful, beyond any hope of resurrection through minor means such as a change of buttons or a new neck insert of cotton lace. Why had she ever imagined that might work?

‘Seven pounds p—p—please,’ said Malcolm. He was staring at Kelsey without apprehension. He carried on staring.

It struck Charlie like a giant paper dart soaked in cold water. He fancies her. The idea was so awful she thought the whole room might actually implode. They’d all be buried neck-deep in hideous garments and ethically-sourced chocolate bars.

Worse, any moment now poor Malcolm would be telling them about his newest computer game, or even the buses he’d spotted in his lunch hour. Charlie had a ten pound note in her hand, practically her entire remaining earnings from Saturday. She banged it down on the counter. ‘I don’t want the change.’ Then she bolted for the door, ushering Kelsey’s attention towards a poster in the window.

‘“Ten pounds buys three sacks of seeds for a poor farmer.”’

‘Oxfam shops. Good places to spend money.’

It was Josh. Impossibly just there, on the pavement, ranged with Ben and Grant and Callum. Looking like they’d dropped off the cover of Cool Guys Monthly.

You could hear Kelsey’s brain changing gear. She gained three inches in height and more in chest size. ‘It’s, like, you’re giving them a donation,’ she declared. ‘For poor people in LEDCs.’

Josh nodded. ‘What did you buy?’

Charlie rearranged her grip on her bag and relaxed into the spectacle of Kelsey’s orange face working overtime while her mouth remained obstinately slack.

Charlie’s phone buzzed.

‘Megan?’ Instead of relief at the change of topic, Kelsey’s lower lip displayed asymmetric derision.

Revise quadratic equations tonite?

Then Josh – they were still here, Josh and Ben and Grant and Callum – kicked thoughtfully at a bit of gravel. ‘Megan Edwards?’

‘Yes.’

‘Paul Edwards’s sister?’

Kelsey glanced at Charlie.

‘Yes.’ Charlie realised that Kelsey, Bex and Lucy had no idea of Paul’s existence. Megan’s older brother was barely seen in real life. He was thin and gangly and had rosy, hairless skin like a toddler.

‘Going to Cambridge,’ Josh went on. ‘Natural Sciences. Fast bowler.’

Thus was Paul Edwards alternatively defined. Ben’s and Grant’s and Callum’s feet scraped the pavement in agreement.

There was a pause, and Charlie waited for some recollection from Kelsey of best friendship with Megan and Paul. Aligning herself for reflected glory was an accomplishment, sometimes jaw-droppingly effective.

And it was always a mistake to underestimate her.

‘Last exam tomorrow,’ Kelsey began, her utterance of the word knocking Charlie off-balance. ‘Maths. Anyone like to help me out?’

Charlie fingered her phone. ‘Actually—’

‘Josh,’ Kelsey rounded on him, chemically aglow. ‘You’re a maths bod.’

He smiled back. ‘We have nets this evening.’

‘What?’

‘Cricket practice. Team selection for the weekend.’

‘Oh. Yeah.’

Charlie blinked as Kelsey failed to grasp the implications. The boys turned to walk away and jagged lines appeared around them. The sun became unexpectedly brighter. Charlie imagined a migraine would be like that. Or an acid trip.

Cricket. Why hadn’t they thought of it?

She flipped open her phone, scrolled to Megan’s text and pressed Reply.

Warm, grassy afternoons. Cold beer. No more exams. Leg before wickets and no balls and silly mid-offs. It surely wasn’t rocket science to mug up on this stuff. You just had to have some working brain cells. The right connections. A plan.

With enough determination, tables could be turned. Flipped right over – if your friendships were already fatally flawed. Thinking hard, Charlie twisted a strand of uncooperative red hair around her forefinger and yanked it tight.

Ouch.

Kelsey, Lucy and Bex always knew what they wanted, and grabbed it.

Four doors further down the street Charlie skipped into the Age Concern shop and dropped the blue dress into a box by the counter. After a moment she did the same with her school blazer. Recycling, she thought happily. Setting things in motion all over again, somewhere around the loop.

My inspiration: An apparently anachronistic scene from Pride and Prejudice in which the Bennet sisters are discussing a shopping trip. Lydia defends her impulsive acquisition of a bonnet: ‘I thought I might as well buy it as not…there were two or three much uglier in the shop…’ My story puts a modern day spin on such essential teenage issues as vanity, flirting and the ill-considered purchase of unattractive garments.

Ellie sat, book in hand, trousers around her ankles, momentarily winded by the familiar words:

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;

A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound,

They came like bad news in an unexpected phone call, disarming her. Flicking to the front page of the book she saw her father’s shambolic scrawl and felt a pang of envy that it was in her sister Marianne’s possession. Simultaneously she heard his voice in her head reciting the lines like a mantra. It was he who had underlined the section and placed the red leather bookmark within those pages: he who had taught his daughters to be open to love and to ‘never settle,’ quoting from Shakespeare to illustrate his point. And Marianne, despite breaking off her engagement and fleeing to a rented bedsit, had dutifully placed The Hundred Greatest Love Poems Ever somewhere it would be seen daily – as reading material in her new bathroom. To stay open to love, Ellie supposed.

She washed her hands thoughtfully; the words ringing like a melody stuck in her head; her father’s lilting tones both a comfort and a menace. She couldn’t work out how to be now, on leaving the bathroom. She had thought to find a laughable cliché about love and emerge triumphant, chastising her sister for keeping such a silly book in her loo. Yet here she was, disrupted by Shakespeare and gulping back tears. It had brought something back, a value: a benchmark. Now was not the time. Ellie was supposed to be the sensible one. Her sister looked to her for answers.

Marianne sat slumped by the kitchen table in the same position she had shuffled to at ten o’clock that morning, a cloudy cup of tea beside her, cold. A blue towelling dressing gown hung limply about her and her bed-head fringe stuck up like a shoot from an onion. The bedsit was small, a waist-high partition dividing the bed from the kitchen and the curtains were still drawn despite it now being past noon. As Ellie re-entered the room, inhaling the stale air of unwashed feet and sleep, Marianne lifted glazed eyes to meet hers. For a moment, with her spindly fingers, grey skin and sorrowful, helpless look she reminded Ellie of ET.