Chapter Thirty - Peer Pressure

Thursday 30th November

'I'm well excited,' said Caitlin Moore.  'My parents are taking me shopping this weekend to get my new clothes for the trip.  I've seen this gorgeous dress...!'

Alex Collier was sitting with the group of girls she regarded as her best friends.  There was Caitlin, there was Ellie Rhodes, there was Sarah-Jane Ferguson and there was Molly Smith.  Although the Year Eleven skiing trip wasn't until the beginning of February, they were already spending their lunchtimes planning it in minute detail.  The school had been at pains to point out that all the sports equipment needed would be provided and that the children needed only to take suitable winter clothing, but that hadn't stopped Sarah-Jane's family buying their daughter her own skis, boots and suit and enrolling her on a course of lessons at the local ski centre.  Caitlin was more excited about dressing up in the evening.  Ellie, the shyest of the group, worried more about who she would have to share a room with if they were split up.

'I think we should all have extra lessons before we go,' Molly suggested, after they had all listened to another monologue from Sarah-Jane about how well she was doing and how lush her instructor was.  'If we went with you, every Saturday morning between Christmas and the trip, we'd be way better than the others.'

'Yeah, that would be brilliant,' Ellie agreed.  'If we could all get lessons together.'

'They do a beginner’s course for eighty pounds,' Sarah-Jane explained.  'I'm more advanced than that but it would do for you.'

Sarah-Jane spoke as if eighty pounds was nothing at all.

'Can you book us on it, next time you go?' asked Molly.

'I can do it now, if you like.'  She got her phone out.

Alex squirmed.  'I'll have to check with my mum,' she said.

'My parents can give you a lift,' Molly said.

'We'll have a car again by then,' Alex explained.  'It's just with the cost of the trip, and new clothes and now...'

'If you haven't got any experience, Al, you'll have to learn with the beginners,' Ellie said.  'If we could all say we knew how to ski already, we'll be able to do cooler stuff.'

'Like meeting rich boys, who go skiing all the time!' laughed Caitlin.

'If I book it, your mum will have to let you go,' Sarah-Jane insisted.

'How can you book it?' Alex asked.  'Don't you have to be eighteen?'

'I know my mum's log in...'

'Does she know?'

'She gave it to me, so I can change my lesson times if I need to.'  Sarah-Jane's fingers scuttled about on the screen of her phone.  'What about Saturday the sixth?'

'That's fine with me.'

'I'm good.'

'Yeah, fine.'

'Alex?'

'I suppose...'

'Done!  I'll tell mum tonight.  You'll need to pay her on the day, for the whole course.'

The bell rang and the group dispersed.  Alex was the only one of the five taking geography as a GCSE option, so she wandered away from her friends heading for the drama suite and started towards the social science block.

She couldn't believe she had been so stupid.  There was the slightest chance that her mum wouldn't go absolutely ballistic when she eventually admitted that she hadn't cancelled her school trip, as she had paid the whole amount using Leo Finn's loan.  There was even a chance she would be glad Alex hadn't, because things were going to work out alight with her job and the girls could go back to having all the things their friends had, and not be poor and living on benefits, which was the worst.  Mum was happy about that too, so happy that she hadn't noticed the laptop Alex said she had been given by Leo Finn was the old one her dad had replaced with the new tablet before Christmas, cleaned up to look new.  But she had told them last night there would be little money for Christmas presents this year, because she had to pay January's rent early, which was seriously unfair of Mr Stevens.

'She always says there's no money for things,' Kirsty said, when they were walking up to school that morning.  'That's just so we think she's doing us a huge favour when we get it.  Dad wouldn't have left her with nothing.'

Alex thought she was probably right but, if she was, it seemed mean to have told her to cancel her holiday. 

‘He might have done.  He didn’t know he was going to die, did he?’

‘No, but he always told us how much he cared about us and how he’d always be there to look after us, and mum.  He meant that.’

Kirsty had dropped behind to join her friends.

Alex had diverted to meet Ellie.  Standing at the end of Ellie’s road, waiting for her friend to appear round the corner, Alex thought about her sister’s confidence that her father would have looked after them.  If that was true, why was mum always worrying about money?  Like Kirsty, she had always had whatever she wanted from their father.  Mum said he spoilt them, which wasn’t fair.  Because she stayed at home all the time, she couldn’t buy things for them.  Alex thought that might make her feel like a bad parent compared to Dad, which was probably why she had often seemed sad or cross for no good reason.  Dad had said it was best for mum to stay at home but all of Alex’s friends had mothers who did some work.  If she had always gone to work, she wouldn’t have needed to claim benefits and now, get a weird part-time job for a place that helped other people claim them and even gave out free food to people who didn’t work.  Alex had been excited enough about the implications to tell her friends about her mother starting a new job, but quickly twisted her story so it sounded as if she was moving to a better job from one she already had.  Stuck when asked where, she said it was in a bank, which was sort-of true since it was in a foodbank and she advised people about money.  At least it would be easy to remember. 

Her friends didn’t like benefit scroungers.  They sometimes watched programmes about them, which showed them smoking and drinking and buying stupid things with their money. According to Caitlin, her father, a Conservative councillor, thought the best thing would be to do away with benefits altogether, except for seriously disabled people, who would go to live in special homes as it was cheaper than keeping them in the community and having to adapt everywhere to suit them.

Alex avoided talking about politics.  She felt hurt when her friends went on about people on benefits as if they were all like the horrible people in the programmes.  Alex couldn't avoid Leo Finn, however.  He was in her tutor group.

'You're going to have to start paying me back soon,' he'd said, cornering her as they left for their first lessons of the morning.  'You owe me twenty a week from now until we break up.'

'You said fifty altogether!'  There were still three weeks after this.

'Only if you paid it all at once.'

'You originally said the tablet would cover it all.'

'It didn't, did it.  They aren't worth as much since the new models came out for Christmas.'

'What if I can't pay you this week?'

'It'll be thirty next week and the same until Christmas.'

Alex didn't know what to do. After that confrontation, she had planned to ask her mother for the money and pretended it was for something else, except now there was something else she wanted the money for, although she couldn't ask for that without giving away the truth about the trip.  If she did that, she might as well own up about the loan from Leo too.  She made up her mind that, when she got home, she would tell her mother the truth and persuade her to let her have the money, so she could get Leo off her back and have her skiing lessons.

She sat with her second-best friends in Geography, Chloe and Katy.  They weren't as high-maintenance as the others and weren't going on the skiing trip, although they were seriously envious that Alex was.

'There's a band on at The Fighting Temeraire on Saturday,' Katy announced, as Alex took her seat beside them.  'We're going to see them.  You coming?'

The pub was a fairly easy walk from Alex's house but there was no way her mum would approve.

'I don't know.  I might be busy.'

'Jamie's going,' said Chloe.

Alex said nothing.

'You might get off with him.'

'Who says I want to?  I can’t stand him.'

Jamie Neill, the alleged object of her affections and his mate, Ryan Taylor, walked in to the class, followed by Mr Dawson.  The girls stopped chattering.

Alex struggled to concentrate.  She wondered if she could persuade her mother to let her have some money so she could go to see the band and get a taxi back, but not really go and give the money to Leo Finn.  She might find something else she could trade for the rest of the debt or he might give her more time to pay him back.  Maybe, if she went to that pub or one of the others, she could get a job in the kitchen or the restaurant.  She could still enjoy the gig but walk home, not get a taxi, so she had some money for Leo and, if she got a job, she could pay him and pay for her skiing lessons and have new clothes for the trip and everything. There was even the chance she would get such good tips from the well-off customers that she could save up for driving lessons the year after next, and get a car.  She might meet a rich boy who would take her out and buy her fantastic clothes and jewellery, even better than Sarah-Jane’s, although she would probably have to have sex with him for that, which would be okay since she was fed up with being a virgin, when her friends – except Ellie - had already slept with their boyfriends.  So they said, anyway.  Alex thought Molly was probably lying.

She didn't care about seeing Jamie Neill at the gig, or anywhere else.  He was an idiot.  He tried to talk to her, sometimes, but he always ended up saying something cruel or stupid to make his friends laugh.  She could never think of a good reply until a long time later, when there was no point saying it, because everyone except her had forgotten the so-called joke.  He was going on the skiing trip, unfortunately, although it would be hilarious if he fell on his arse while she and her friends were all skiing brilliantly due to their lessons.  That would be revenge. 

When the lesson finished, her friends had English while Alex had a science module.  Jamie Neill caught her up as she walked along the corridor with her arms folded, trying to ignore him.

‘You’re definitely on the ski trip?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’ 

He stepped in front of her, blocking her way and forcing her to stop.

‘Ryan says he heard you borrowed the money for it from Leo Finn.’

‘It’s none of his business.’

‘You did, though?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But if you did…’

‘Look, I don’t want to talk to you, okay?’  She sidled around him., but he ran after her.

‘Be careful, that’s all.’

‘Careful of what?’

‘Leo Finn.’

‘I told you, it’s none of your business!’

‘He’s bad news, Alex.  His dad’s a loan shark.’

‘A what?’

‘An illegal money lender.’

‘His dad’s something at the boatyard.  You’re talking crap.’

‘I’m not.  He’s dangerous.’

‘You are out of your mind!  You don’t get loan sharks somewhere like this.  You get them in cities and rough estates.  And anyway, who says I’ve borrowed anything from anyone?’

‘Ryan does.  He bought your tablet.’

‘I’m getting a better one.’

Alex stalked off along the corridor. 

‘See you at the gig?’

‘No chance!’

Jamie Neill was an idiot.  Ryan Taylor was an idiot too.  However, if he had her tablet, there might be some chance of persuading him to let her have it back.