LITMIR.BIZ

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face and then made his way to the entrance and went outside where it was cool and the sound of the music faded.

      ‘Hello, Adam.’

      He turned around and found Angela smiling at him. ‘Hi,’ he said and for a second or two was at a loss for anything more to say. She wore jeans and a pink T-shirt with the imprint of a pair of lipsticked lips on the front like a big kiss. With the touch of make-up she wore and her hair done differently she looked older. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said eventually.

      ‘Were you waiting for me?’

      He wasn’t sure what to say. His heart was beating faster than normal. ‘Would you mind if I was?’

      ‘No.’ For a moment neither of them spoke, absorbing the fact that they seemed to have crossed some kind of invisible boundary. ‘What are you doing out here anyway?’ she asked.

      ‘It was hot inside.’

      She gestured towards the children’s park next door. ‘Shall we go over there then?’

      ‘Don’t you want to go in?’

      She looked at the door. ‘Not really.’

      The park was deserted, lit with a single overhead lamp. Angela sat on a swing and caught the chains in the crook of her elbows. They talked for a while about nothing much, the sounds from the hall drifting over to them. He told her about his job and she told him that she liked art at school but didn’t know what she wanted to do when she left.

      ‘What about you?’

      ‘I think I’d like to be a journalist.’

      ‘You mean work at the Courier?’

      ‘No. I mean for a national paper. Or perhaps a magazine.’

      ‘You’d have to live in London or somewhere wouldn’t you?’

      ‘I suppose.’

      ‘Don’t you like it here then?’

      ‘Sometimes I do,’ he said, and grinned at her.

      She smiled. ‘Like now?’

      ‘Yes.’ Suddenly emboldened he said, ‘I’m glad you came tonight.’

      She reached across and found his hand. ‘I’m glad too.’

      They went for a walk hand in hand around the park. It was warm and the air felt thick and soft in the darkness. The sounds from the hall grew fainter.

      ‘Shouldn’t you go back inside?’ Angela asked. ‘Who’d you come with?’

      ‘David and the others. I think Graham and Nick were talking to some girls though.’ He frowned, looking back at the hall, thinking perhaps he should go back, though he didn’t want to.

      Angela squeezed his hand. ‘David’ll be alright. All the girls fancy him.’

      He was surprised, but when he thought about it he supposed it was true. David was popular and easy-going and he made the girls laugh. He experienced a faint twinge of jealousy. ‘What about you? Do you fancy him too?’

      ‘David?’ She laughed at the idea. ‘I suppose I never thought of him like that. I prefer the dark serious type,’ she teased. ‘I remember the first time I saw you after you moved here. I felt sorry for you.’

      ‘Sorry for me? Why?’

      ‘You looked lonely.’ She squeezed his arm and he smiled though he was slightly uneasy that she had felt sorry for him.

      It was late when Graham and Nick came out of the hall with the two girls they’d been talking to. When Nick put his arm around one of them she laughed coarsely and pushed him away, but then the four of them made their way around the back of the building and vanished in the darkness.

      Angela raised her eyebrows and looked amused, then looked at her watch. ‘I should be getting home.’

      ‘I’ll walk you,’ Adam offered.

      ‘Alright.’

      ‘I better just go and tell David.’

      ‘I’ll wait outside.’

      It was crowded in the hall and at first he couldn’t see David anywhere. He looked twice around the hall until he finally found him talking to the gypsy girl he’d noticed earlier while her friends looked on with sullen suspicion. One of them in particular stared with obvious hostility. He had the same general look as the girl and might have been her brother.

      ‘I’m off,’ Adam said when he went over.

      ‘Alright. See you later.’

      The girl went back towards her friends and David followed her with his gaze.

      ‘Did I interrupt something?’

      ‘I just asked how long they were staying.’

      ‘I don’t think her friends liked her talking to you.’

      ‘They’re gyppos, Adam. They don’t like outsiders much.’ David looked around the hall. ‘Where’ve you been anyway?’

      ‘Just talking to Angela Curtis.’ He tried to make it sound casual, but he didn’t think it worked. ‘I said I’d walk her home anyway, so I better go.’

      David grinned and said he would see him later. When he got outside Angela was leaning against the wall beyond the light from the door. ‘I thought you’d got lost.’

      ‘Sorry, I couldn’t find him.’

      She smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

      As they started walking towards the road she slipped her hand inside his.

      Approaching the end of a long hot August, Castleton and the surrounding country seemed smothered in a sleepy stupor where late in the day nothing much stirred. Cows lay down in the shade of oak trees in the fields and buzzards circled lazily in the thermals high above the fells. Then something happened which abruptly shook the town from its lethargy.

      One Saturday afternoon Adam was waiting outside the shop when Angela finished for the day. She wore a band in her hair and a denim skirt that ended mid-thigh. They walked along by the river where she took off her shoes, holding on to his shoulder for balance as she stood on one leg. They followed the path away from the town, past the sawmill and along the edge of Castleton Wood. At one point they passed the gypsy camp on the other side of the river where a woman was hanging washing on a makeshift line and some grubby children were playing with an old bike. The woman stared at them as they passed.

      ‘I wonder why they live like that,’ Adam mused aloud. ‘Do you think they’re as bad as people think?’

      ‘My dad doesn’t like them coming into the shop. He thinks the kids will nick anything they can get their hands on. When I was young he used to tell me I should stay away from them because gypsies sometimes stole children.’

      ‘That’s a bit strong isn’t it?’

      She smiled ruefully. ‘It’s true the kids will nick from the shop though. You have to watch them like hawks. Little buggers.’

      Half a mile further on there was a bend in the river where a willow tree grew and made a pleasant shady spot to sit. The water was shallow close to the bank where it flowed crystal clear over pebbles and rocks. They sat in the long rye grass that was flecked with splashes of vivid red from the poppies that grew in the field. Angela tilted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath.

      ‘I love that smell, don’t you?’

      It was the sweet smell of hay from a nearby field from where they could hear the drone of a tractor.

      A week ago they had been to the cinema in Brampton and on the way home had taken a shortcut through the graveyard. They had paused under the big oak tree by the south wall and kissed. Adam remembered the feel of her body pressed

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