So except for the love-bite affair, as Lesley called it, and Gordon’s pepperminty performance, I was entirely unkissed. And possibly also immature, as Miles claimed. I knew that at sixteen and a half, it was getting late, but Lesley, who had stayed with Max for a whole year, thought kissing in general was overrated. Maybe she’d just had bad luck, she said, but the boys she’d kissed so far definitely did not have the knack for it.
Kissing, said Lesley, ought really to be taught as a school subject, preferably instead of religious studies, which nobody needed.
We often discussed what the ideal kiss would be like, and there were any number of films we’d watched over and over again just because of the good kissing scenes in them.
“Ah, Miss Gwyneth. Will you condescend to speak to me today, or are you going to ignore me again?” James saw me leaving the Year Six classroom and came closer.
“What’s the time?” I was looking around for Lesley.
“Do I look like a grandfather clock?” James was indignant. “You ought to know me well enough by now to be aware that time means nothing to me.”
“How true.” I went around the corner to take a look at the big clock at the end of the corridor. James followed me.
“I’ve only been gone twenty minutes,” I said.
“Gone where?”
“Oh, James! I think I was in your father’s town house. It was really lovely there. Gold all over the place. And the candlelight—it was so soft and glowing.”
“Yes, not dismal and tasteless like all this,” said James, with a gesture that took in the mainly gray corridor. I suddenly felt very sorry for him. He wasn’t all that much older than me, and his life was already over.
“James, have you ever kissed a girl?”
“What?”
“I asked if you’d ever kissed a girl.”
“It’s not done to talk about such things, Miss Gwyneth.”
“So you’ve never kissed anyone?”
“I’m a man,” said James.
“What kind of answer is that?” I couldn’t help laughing at James’s expression. “Do you know when you were born?”
“Are you trying to insult me? Of course I know my own birthday. It’s on the thirty-first of March.”
“What year?”
“1762.” James thrust out his chin challengingly. “I was twenty-one three weeks ago. I celebrated at length with my friends in White’s Club, and my father paid all my gaming debts in honor of the day and gave me a beautiful bay mare. And then I had to get that stupid fever and go to bed. Only to find everything different when I woke up, and a pert minx telling me I’m a ghost.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “You probably died of the fever.”
“Nonsense! It was only a slight indisposition,” said James, but there was a look of uncertainty in his eyes. “Dr. Barrow said it was not very likely that I’d have caught the smallpox at Lord Stanhope’s.”
“Hm,” I said. I’d have to Google smallpox to find out more about it.
“Hm? What do you mean, hm?” James looked offended.
“Oh, there you are!” Lesley came running out of the girls’ toilets and flung her arms around my neck. “I’ve been dying a thousand deaths.”
“Nothing too bad happened. I did end up in Mrs. Counter’s classroom when I came back, but there was no one there.”
“Year Six are visiting Greenwich Observatory today,” said Lesley. “My God, am I glad to see you! I told Mr. Whitman you were puking your guts up in the girls’ toilets, and he said I should go back to you so I could hold your hair out of your face.”
“Disgusting,” said James, holding his handkerchief to his nose. “Tell your freckled friend that a lady doesn’t talk about such things.”
I took no notice of this. “Lesley, something kind of funny’s happened … something that I can’t explain.”
“I believe you.” Lesley held my mobile out to me. “Here. I took it out of your locker. Call your mother now, right away.”
“Lesley, she’s at work. I can’t just—”
“Call her! You’ve gone back into the past three times now, and I saw you do it with my own eyes the third time. All of a sudden you simply weren’t there! It was really terrible! You must tell your mum, this minute, so that nothing else awful will happen to you. Please.” Did Lesley actually have tears in her eyes?
“That freckled girl is in a dramatic mood today,” commented James.
I took the mobile from Lesley and breathed deeply.
“Please,” Lesley begged.
My mother worked in the administrative office of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. I dialed the number of her direct line, looking at Lesley.
She nodded and tried to smile.
“Gwyneth?” Mum had obviously recognized my mobile number on her display. She sounded worried. I’d never, ever called her from school before. “Is something the matter?”
“Mum … I’m not feeling too good.”
“Are you sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ve caught that cold that’s going around at the moment. I tell you what, go home, go to bed, and I’ll leave work early today. Then I’ll squeeze you some fresh orange juice and make a warm compress for your throat.”
“Mum, it’s not a cold. It’s worse. I—”
“Maybe it’s the smallpox,” said James.
Lesley looked at me encouragingly. “Go on!” she said under her breath. “Tell her.”