Chapter 14 - 500 Miles

Janet stood in the cold street. The wind was blowing her perfectly prepared hair, the cold was biting at her facial features and dust whipped around her ankles. She twitched the purple silk of her dress with nervousness. Where was the bus? The GNER "express" train had left Leuchars fifteen minutes ago, but no public transport had yet turned up. She had changed in the tiny toilet cubical as the train pulled out of Edinburgh Waverly and had sat between a group of drunken rugby fans and a couple of tracksuited neds drinking cans of Tenants, who would have gotten out at Kirkcaldy had the train not been redirected around the Fife Circle due to a brick on the line. The station master would have removed it were it not for having to spend four hours filling out the necessary risk assesment forms. As a result, the train had arrived at Janet's stop later than she'd intended.
Would she make it to the Bay Hotel before the ball ended?

***

Holly and Matt stood in the middle of the dance hall, their chests heaving. Holly stared openly for the first time through the grime on her dance partner's glasses and into his eyes. They twinkled, making Holly's stomach tumble. He wanted her.
"Holly," he said, gasping with what she knew to be emotion, "you're crushing me."
"Oh, sorry," she said, quickly releasing her grip. Matt whiped the tears from his eyes and took a deep breath.
"That's better," he said.
Holly continued to stare back into his eyes.
"Shall we get a room?" she asked.
"We bloody won't, do you know how much they cost here?" Matt replied. "We'll head back to your place."
So the pair left, palm in sweaty palm.

***

The dance floor was empty. Not because the ball was over, but because Henry's underpants were now compeletly see through.
"He can't be a vegetarian," said one onlooker, "you can see his meat and two veg."
Henry, however, was oblivious to the stir he was causing. All he could hear was the music, and it was turning him into a dancing machine. He was the king of cool, the ace of spades. He was, without a doubt, the hippest link leader St. Andrews had ever experienced.
He was so focussed on the music that he didn't notice the solid bulk heading towards him like a steam train. As such, he was taken by complete surprise when a large hand grabbed him by the neck and shunted him off the dance floor and into the wall. People screamed as they watched the seemingly naked body smash against the flaking plaster.
"Where's Matt?" asked Simon, for his was the hand around his neck.
Henry was too stunned to reply. The music was still pumping and he had a desire to shimmy out of the Geordie's grip and return to his grooving.
"Where is he?" he shouted into his ear.
"He... er... dissapeared?"
"Where?" he bellowed.
"I don't know."
"Where?"
Henry didn't reply.
Simon dropped him to the ground and steam rollered towards the DJ, told him to "Shut it," and roared like a coal truck to where Henry had stopped his girrating and was looking around confusedly in the sudden silence.
"Now tell me where he is?" he yelled.
"Erm... why do you need to know?"
Simon got his face so close to Henry's that each could see the other's gold teeth. "Because," he said, "he asked me to say Byker Grove."
Henry chuckled. "You sound just like PJ and Duncan."
"Where is he?" Simon shouted, his eyes bloodshot with anger.
"Erm, I think he went off with Holly."
Simon dropped him again and stood, towering over him, pointing down. "Don't mess with the Geordie Mafia again."

***

Jim and Amandine were oblivious to the events on the dance floor, too busy starring into each other's eyes.
"Tu know somesing, Amandine?" asked Jim.
"I sink, mousieur Jim, zat je do," she replied.
"Je was oping tu'd say zat." And he moved his lips closer to hers.

***

Janet was sat on the top deck of the bus, trying to avoid the stares of the neds who were muttering incomprehensibly at her and dropping cans of Tenants in attempts to see up her dress.
She glanced out of her window as they progressed up North Street and noticed the light on in Holly's bedroom window. She looked closer, knowing Holly was supposed to be at the ball. She wasn't too late, was she? She hadn't missed it?
Her fear was replaced by horror, however, when she saw in the velvet framed mirror on Holly's ceiling the reflection of her friend's large hand on a nobbly knee.
A nobbly knee she recognised.
The nobbly knee of Matt.
The nobbly knee of the man of her dreams.