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Annie took a look at them; she’d seen them in the dining-room, second-year students who thought they knew it all.
One of them grinned at her. ‘Hi. I saw you this morning, you were with a set of first-years who came into ballet class on a tour of the school.’
‘Oh, you’re a dancer?’ Annie smiled back shyly, wishing she dared ask him questions about Roger Keats, but afraid of the questions he might in turn ask her.
‘No, I was playing the piano for the dancers. Mrs Gundy, the usual accompanist, is off sick, so they asked me to stand in for her.’
Annie hadn’t noticed him, but she remembered the music she had heard and looked at him, very impressed. ‘You play very well – did you ever think of doing music rather than
drama?’
The boy with Rob said maliciously, ‘He thought of it, but his father isn’t a governor of a music college.’
Rob gave him a lazy punch on the arm. ‘Shut your face.’
‘Just a joke, Rob!’
Annie stared at them both blankly. ‘I don’t get it, sorry.’
‘My father’s a governor,’ Rob said, offhandedly.
‘So how about a date?’ his friend teased, and Rob punched him again.
‘Shut up, Jeff.’
‘Whoops, sorry, I forgot you’re gay!’
Seeing Annie’s bewildered face, Rob said cheerfully, ‘Take no notice of him, he’s a fathead with a crazy idea that he’s a comedian. How do you like it here so far?’
‘I love it,’ Annie said breathlessly, and both boys laughed, as if they felt the same.
Time flashed by that first term at the drama school. She could hardly believe it when they reached half-term and were given a week off. It was November, cold and rainy, raw winds blowing the last leaves off the trees.
On the Sunday, Johnny had breakfast with her while her mother was at the shop, stock-taking. She had told Annie to stay in bed another hour.
The phone rang as they drank coffee and ate toast and egg and bacon which Johnny had insisted on cooking for them both.
He answered the phone and came back looking white and shaken. ‘I’ve got to go. Sorry.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My gran. She’s been taken ill. That was a neighbour. It sounds bad.’
He looked scared, suddenly younger. She knew by now how much his grandmother meant to him, the only family he had.
Uncertainly, Annie offered, ‘Would you like me to come with you?’
‘Would you?’ His face brightened, he gave her a grateful look. ‘Please. I’d like that; I’m scared of being alone.’
The words rang in her ears as they drove there on his old motorbike. If his grandmother died, Johnny would be left totally alone, with no family at all. How would I feel if Mum died? wondered Annie, and shivered.
He made Annie put on his helmet; he didn’t have a spare. She belted her old school raincoat round her waist. The wind drove into their faces and soaked them both to the skin. It took nearly an hour to get there, although he drove as fast as he dared. There was a lot of traffic until they got to the other side of London, the forest outskirts beyond the dormitory suburbs on the east. There the roads were less crowded. The trees on either side darkened the winter sky.
They arrived to find Mrs East, his grandmother’s neighbour, waiting in the house with the news that she had been taken to the local hospital in an ambulance. Johnny and Annie drove on there at once. The old lady was in intensive care in a small ward. The ward sister saw them and gave them a searching look, her face critical, as if she blamed Johnny for his grandmother’s illness.
‘You don’t live with her? A pity. If she hadn’t been alone she might not be so poorly.’
Johnny’s face grew even more haggard and the woman’s voice softened a little.
