Free Dance While You Can by Susan Lewis

about my muddy shoes and wind-torn hair when I got there – still holding the note he’d left inside his pillow-case that morning, asking me to meet him at four, when the sixth form were normally in their rooms studying, or playing records in the common room. Afterwards, when our bodies were bruised and tender, I giggled at the way I’d thrown off my matron’s uniform and tumbled into the hay with him – at the way we’d laughed and frolicked together like two lambs in a field.
    As several of the boys regularly visited both Miss Angrid and me in the cottage, no suspicions were aroused by Henry and Alexander coming too – though it caused some heated arguments between us when I wouldn’t let Alexander come more often, and alone. But there was one occasion, early in the evening, when he did come, just as I was about to get in the bath. The inevitable happened, and it was only a matter of seconds after we’d finished dressing that Miss Angrid knocked on my door and walked straight in.
    She eyed us suspiciously, and afterwards I was so shaken by the narrowness of our escape that it caused the first serious rift between us. I was stunned by the fact that Alexander didn’t seem to care, and yelled at him for being immature enough to think that Miss Angrid would be on our side. He hated being reminded that he was younger than me, so he hit back by saying that I was using my position to hide the fact that I was ashamed of him.
    ‘Well, I’m not exactly proud of what we’re doing,’ I said.
    His face turned white. ‘So, you are ashamed. I’m nothing more than a randy little schoolboy who suits your . . .’
    ‘Don’t speak to me like that! I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love you, but this kind of stupid irresponsible behaviour of yours sometimes makes me wonder how much longer we can go on. You’re not to come here again, do you hear me?’
    ‘Agreed! And don’t even think about slipping notes inside my pillow-case, I’ll burn them before I even read them.’
    We smouldered in silence for two days, until his resolve weakened and I found a note pushed under my surgery door. He wanted me to know that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said, that he didn’t mean to be cavalier, it was only that he loved me so much that he wanted the whole world to know. He could see now how childish that was, so would I forgive him and meet him later in the woods? I ignored it. There was another note the following day, and two more the day after that. Still I ignored them. The last note was delivered to the cottage, and told me to go to hell.
    Which is where I stayed, until he caught my eye at dinner and made me laugh. But that still didn’t stop me from getting into a state. I was so worried about what we were doing, so afraid of it all and how it would end that I just didn’t know what to do. That was how he found me one afternoon, alone in my surgery, sobbing my heart out.
    He looked at me, his face saying nothing as he reached out his hand and pulled me up into his arms. I tried to turn away.
    ‘No! Don’t!’ he said, angrily. ‘For God’s sake, why are you making us suffer like this?’
    ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. ‘I love you, I do, but Alexander . . .’
    ‘Look, we both knew this wasn’t going to be easy, so don’t let’s make it any worse. Now come on, just let me hold you.’
    And I let him hold me, because just at that moment I didn’t care who might walk in and find us. I loved him, and that was all that mattered.
    ‘They’re back!’ Alexander cried. ‘The bloody gypsies are back!’
    Henry looked up from his newspaper and Alexander winked as he saw me coming towards them. It was late in the afternoon, and they were sitting next to the tennis courts, reading that morning’s papers and calling out the odd rude remark to the boys who were playing tennis.
    ‘Thank God I’m not at home,’ Alexander said. ‘I can see my father now, his face will be an ugly shade of purple and that