Grace watched them, wondering to what degree their lives were already set. Freya was off to the glittering lights of Soho, Sarah clearly had found her calling as a lawyer – human rights most likely – and Gabby, who had spent her three years at Bristol trawling the students’ union for the most eligible Old Etonians, was sure that her research and determination would bear fruit in a good marriage. Grace’s parents had decided on her own fate from the moment she was born. But with her MA course tempting her, she knew she could change her destiny. Right here. Tonight, if she could find the courage to tell her dad she didn’t want to join the family business.
No pressure then, she said to herself, smiling, feeling a flutter of hope as the champagne bubbles went to her head.
‘To sexy men,’ said Freya, raising her glass and downing the gently fizzing liquid in one.
‘To Angel Cay,’ followed Sarah.
Grace felt a rush of hope and expectancy. ‘To tonight,’ she said, clinking her glass against the others’. ‘This is the last few hours of our youth and the start of the rest of our lives. Let’s make it a night to remember.’
2
Lying on the deck of Beautiful Constance, Robert Ashford’s ninety-five-foot motor yacht, Alex Doyle pushed his sunglasses further up his sunburnt nose, still not quite able to believe how a boy from a two-up two-down in Macclesfield was able to live a life like this. As far as the eye could see, turquoise waters stretched out towards the horizon, the blue sea broken only by the outlines of the cays. There were 365 islands in the Exumas – one for every day of the year – and as he lay there, Beautiful Constance was heading towards the most beautiful one of all. Angel Cay, the Ashford family’s private island, rose like a mirage out of the clear water. Peaks of tropical jungle – mango, palm and coconut trees – were ringed by sugar-white sands. The pale blue Caribbean plantation house stood on the crest of the tallest hill with a wraparound view of sea, sky and tropical vegetation. Squinting, Alex could see specks of bubblegum pink on the beach.‘Flamingos!’ he chuckled, pulling out his battered Olympus Trip to take this unlikely snapshot of paradise. Whoever said money didn’t make you happy hadn’t been to Angel Cay.
Today they had taken the yacht for some snorkelling off the cays, where the fish were as brightly coloured as Christmas baubles, and this afternoon they had cut out towards Harbour Island for some deep-sea fishing. Sitting in the chair struggling with the line, he’d felt like he was living some feverish Hemingway-fuelled fantasy. Over the course of this holiday Alex had experienced things he’d seen only in James Bond movies – private jets, Jacuzzis, tennis lessons and backgammon, fine wines that cost more than his mother’s car, liqueurs you had before and after your exotic dinners of lobster and quail. To think he hadn’t even wanted to go to Danehurst, the school that had put these opportunities within reach.
The truth was that Alex had been quite happy at Macclesfield’s Ryles Park comprehensive until his mother Maureen, a widow, had sat him down after football practice midway through his first year of secondary school.
‘I was talking to Mrs Kennedy,’ she’d said nonchalantly. ‘She had an interesting idea.’
‘Oh yes?’ he’d asked suspiciously. He knew that his mum had been Mrs Kennedy’s cleaner for many years and had become quite close to the rich old lady. He’d been out to her enormous house in the swish village of Prestbury near their home and had been impressed by the size of her cars and the garden; she even had a swimming pool, which to Alex was the height of wealth for anyone.
‘I mentioned your talent for music to her,’ continued his mother, ‘and she thought you could try and get into one of the top boarding schools off the back of it. They offer music scholarships, you know. Mrs Kennedy said i
t’s a brilliant way of getting a first-class education. ’
‘Boarding school?’ he’d replied, appalled. ‘I’m not leaving my mates for some posho place down south. No way. Never! Boarding school.’
Maureen Doyle, however, was a persuasive woman. She had finally convinced Alex to at least visit one of them. That was all it took; Alex had been seduced by the public school’s grandeur and history, the feeling that you were surrounded by the ghosts of people who had done great things and the bodies of people who would do great things. So finally, having scored one of their prestigious scholarships, he had agreed to go to Danehurst, a huge gothic pile in West Sussex, which, despite the lacrosse pitches and croquet lawns, felt marginally more normal than the other schools he had visited, plus it was co-ed and in the sixth form you could wear your own clothes. Even better, classes were actually voluntary, although everybody seemed to attend, and in any given year there was likely to be a rock star’s daughter or a movie star’s son in residence.
People like Miles Ashford, thought Alex, as he peeled off his T-shirt to catch some last rays of sun. Miles was glamorous, rich and connected and had arrived in the sixth form in a silver Bentley and a cloud of rumours, having been expelled from Eton when a master had found a small lump of hashish in his room. He and Alex had not become friends immediately; after all, there were plenty of other privileged neo-aristos for Miles to hang out with at Danehurst. Alex had, unsurprisingly, been considered an outsider, with his northern accent and his strange taste in indie rock, but in the end that seemed to be what Miles was drawn to.
‘You’re interesting, Alex Doyle,’ he had declared, walking into Alex’s room one night. ‘I’m so bored of all these rich halfwits. You think for yourself, you go your own way.’
Of course, it wasn’t long before Alex was going Miles’ way, visiting him in the holidays at the family house in the country, or being invited on head-spinning trips like this end-of-term blow-out on the island. But it wasn’t all one way; Alex had become Miles Ashford’s best friend because, unlike anyone else in his life, Miles knew he could rely on Alex, whatever happened.
Alex reached across to the ice box, pulling out another cold can of Red Stripe, and picked up his Walkman headphones. Ah, the new Pavement EP; he loved the way they were melodic, but spiky and angular at the same time, the way—
‘Arrggh! What the . . . !’ Alex leapt up howling as he felt a cold splash of water across his bare stomach. Wrenching off his sunglasses, he saw Oscar and Angus McKay, two of his Danehurst classmates, doubled up with laughter like stupid little schoolboys delighted at their prank.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ cried Alex, desperately trying to towel off his Walkman and praying it wasn’t ruined.
‘Just checking you’re still alive, Dolly.’ The twins knew their nickname for him grated on his nerves, but at least it had never caught on at Danehurst.
‘What are you listening to anyway? Brass band music?’
Angus, the smaller of the twins, was still so amused he was clutching his rib cage. Alex fought the urge to punch the little squirt. Don’t screw it up on your last day here, he thought. Don’t let them get to you.
Although Danehurst was a liberal, progressive school which tended to attract the children of a rich media crowd, there was still a sprinkling of snooty and arrogant upper-class bores and Oscar and Angus typified the breed. Their father was a Scottish lord, their mother a minor Hollywood actress, and they had inherited both centuries-old snobbery and nouveau riche superiority from their parents. They had invited Miles to spend Easter in Aspen with them and they had all returned to school as thick as thieves, full of private jokes and stories. The twins had jealously tried their best to squeeze Alex out of Miles’ affections, and while it hadn’t worked, they had spent the final term making his life miserable. Somehow they had found out that his mother was a cleaner and had begun to make snide comments about the dust on the school cups or how their socks needed laundering. And the digs had continued on holiday. To his dismay, Alex had found that two of Grace’s friends, Gabby and Freya, had joined in. It’s human nature to want to follow the pack, even if you know you’re doing something wrong, thought Alex.
‘Well, make the most of lying about in the sun, Dolly,’ said Angus with a cruel smile. ‘Tomorrow it’s back to processed peas and meat pies. Where are you spending the rest of the summer – stacking shelves in Kwik Save, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, well. Maybe I’ll have an island like this one day,’ said Alex defiantly. ‘When I’m a famous rock star.’
‘Yah, right,’ said Oscar. ‘Dolly wants to be the new Billy Bragg. Up the workers, down the bourgeois. Better not tell the fans about your time moonlighting as a paid-up member of the rich. Then again, interloping hardly counts.’
Alex closed his eyes and pictured himself pushing both of them over the side of the yacht. He would have done it too, if he’d thought that Miles would take his side, but you could never tell with Miles. Besides, after five years at Danehurst, despite his mum drilling her mantra into him that ‘these people are no better than you’, Alex still didn’t feel secure enough in this world to make a stand.
Seeming to lose interest in baiting Alex, Angus pushed past him and grabbed a beer from the cooler.