Midland by James Flint

Author:James Flint [Flint, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783525973
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2018-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Meet me in Stratford next Saturday night?

Caitlin unfolded it and inclined her head to read it so that her hair fell forwards and hid her face.

‘Okay,’ she said.

—————

Matthew now faced the crucial problem common to all teenagers living in the countryside: how to date without being able to drive. Before he even got around to asking anyone out, he had to make sure that someone in his family was available to be his taxi service for the evening in question. Real taxis were too expensive, as they charged a premium to venture out into the maze of lanes that began a few miles beyond Stratford’s town limits. And buses were non-existent, with the nearest stop a good hour’s walk away.

Even if he could get a promise from his parents ahead of time, or from Emily, or from Alex if his brother was around, it would invariably come with escape clauses and conditions attached. The driver could, and often would, withdraw the offer at any time, and Matthew would have no comeback. If he so much as looked disappointed they would point out that they were doing him a favour and whether they did it or not was up to them, which made his disappointment immeasurably worse, because they were, and it was.

And of course any girl that Matthew was trying to meet up with was likely to be in much the same situation. Factor these two sets of variables with the likelihood of getting an agreed date in the first place, and the possibility of having a successful encounter of any kind with a member of the opposite sex started to look vanishingly small. As for losing his virginity … Matthew tried not to even think about it, though in fact he thought of little else.

Having suffered so many let-downs in the past, for his date with Caitlin he’d broken with convention and asked her out before organising any kind of transport. Maybe it was a karmic thing, he’d told himself. By being too structured in the past he’d communicated his expectations of success to the universe, and the universe, being a shitty kind of a place, had stymied his plans and had a good joke at his expense. Perhaps if he pretended not to care the universe would waive its chance to trip him up, and the necessary arrangements would somehow fall into place with only gentle prodding.

Some hope. On Wednesday he’d asked Emily if she would drive him into town that night, but she had tickets to go and see Good Morning Vietnam in Leamington with a group of friends. If only he’d asked her earlier, she’d told him, devastatingly, she could have arranged to see the film a different night. He’d then asked his mother, but she was involved with one of her charity evenings and was going to be ferrying trays of vol-au-vents to some village hall the other side of Ullenhall, so no joy there. And with Alex away at university that left only his father.

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