The Dating Club

Skiving, Serious Faces and Stories of Sailors

Chapter 21: Skiving, Serious faces and Stories of Sailors



I stare at him in confusion and bewilderment. "Eh?"

     "No time to explain! Just get your bag and let's go!" Says Nathan impatiently, tugging on my arm like a little child.

     I shake my head. "First of all - how would we even sneak out of school at this time other than by running out the back gate while the teachers aren't looking? Secondly - you know how touchy my Dad is about school at the moment, with Parma sending him false reports and everything! And thirdly - I want an explanation pronto - and no, it can't wait until we make this imaginary escape from school. Where have you been for the last three weeks? Why did you leave? I'm confused and I want answers!"

     I stop to breathe and I notice Nathan staring at me with a look of amusement. "What?" I say hotly, afraid that I have made a fool of myself.

     "Nothing, it's just you seem different. Have you had a haircut? New jumper?"

     "Don't try and flatter your way out of this buddy. Talk."

     "I went away to think about some things. To go and see someone. Just to collect my thoughts."

     "Where did you go?"

     "Oh come on please can I tell you in the car?"

     "No! Hey! What are you doing?!" I shriek as Nathan suddenly picks me up and slings me over his shoulder. "We're leaving," he says, before panting a bit and placing me on the ground again. "Yeah that's why I didn't take PE," he says, groaning and stretching his back. I roll my eyes and push open the door.

     "Well you've managed to make me twenty minutes late to my lesson so I suppose I had better just go with you. How did you get in? You weren't in my class this morning."

     "I went through the main door. I'm a family friend of yours, you have a music exam at two o'clock and I've come to pick you up," he grins, twitching his fingers like quotation marks when he says '"family friend"' and '"music exam"'.

     "An exam? I don't even take music!"

     "Shut up and walk."

     I do as I am told, huffing as we approach the reception. Surprisingly Nathan's plan works and we bypass the tired looking receptionist and are soon in his car on the way.

     "Where are we going?" I demand after ten minutes of silence in the car. I have allowed him this time but I am getting impatient.

      Nathan is quiet still and I see his face deep in thought. It amazes me how he can go from looking so young and happy to so mature and clever and someone with a lot more knowledge. This doesn't make him the old wise man in all the fairy tales my mum used to read to me - just someone who has experiences things other people our age may not have. I contemplate what it could have been as we enter the passage to Brayford Waters.

     "My mum might have mentioned to you that my family own a boat. Or rather, I own a boat. I bought that boat with the money left in my father's will to me. I was supposed to use it for my university tuition fee but my father was in the Royal Marines and I wanted to remember him this way," says Nathan, stepping out onto the boardwalk from his car.

     I am aghast. I stop suddenly in the process of leaving the car, steadying myself with the car door. "Your... Your father is... Oh my gosh, I am so sorry Nathan. I never knew..."

     "Don't be sorry. I know you understand. I've seen it in the way you look sometimes. You've lost someone too haven't you?"

     I nod, but I don't say anything else on the subject of myself, and who I have lost. This is because I have come with Nathan to discuss him, and also because I am in no mind to talk about my mum today.

    "And last week was the day one year ago that my father died."

     The atmosphere has changed abruptly - Nathan's words have not ruined my good mood but have rather given me a new respect for my school friend and date. I look at him and instead of seeing an immature seventeen year old with a passion for loud rock music and arcade coin machines I see someone... Well, someone a lot like me.
"Is that why you left? Where did you go?"

     "I took my boat. I bought enough supplies to last me a few weeks and then I went in my boat down south to visit the site where my father was buried. I followed the canals. Sometimes I had to stop and sleep at a bed and breakfast. Sometimes I had to sleep in my boat. It took me a week to get there and then I went to his grave and I paid my respects. The thing was... My Dad and I, well the last words I said to him weren't pretty. So I apologised. It may be of no use to him now but... Well, maybe they were. I don't know. It would be nice to think they are though.