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  'Yes, sir.' And Spud had studied as hard as he knew how.

  'I dunno about the others, Mikey,' he now said with his customary bravado, 'but you and me, we'll get in, no two ways about it. Like my old man says, carpe diem.' His dad had picked up the expression in some pub somewhere. 'It's Latin,' Sean Farrell had boasted to his son, 'means "seize the day",' and Spud had adopted the expression ever since.

  Spud was really firing himself up more than Mikey. What did it matter if Mikey didn't get in? Mikey didn't need Mod, his parents could afford to send him to private school. Heck, they already had him booked into his dad's old school, Scotch College. The only reason Mikey was sitting for the entrance exams was because his mum had gone to Mod, and his dad reckoned that she'd had a better scholastic education than he had. 'Dad reckons Mod offers the best education in the state,' Mikey had said. Jeez, Mikey had it easy.

  Spud was envious, but not bitter. It was a simple fact of life: there were the 'haves' and the 'have nots', and he was one of the latter. But he didn't mind firing Mikey up. Mikey was his mate and, besides, they were always best when they worked as a team.

  'We're winners we are, you and me,' he said.

  Spud proved right about a number of things that summer. He was right about Mr Logan getting them through. Ten students from Colin Logan's class found their way to Perth Modern School the following year. The previous record for Claremont Primary entrants had been five.

  The grateful students of sixth standard A, knowing their hero to be an inveterate smoker, pooled their resources and bought him a Ronson cigarette lighter, which Maggie McAllister took to the jewellers and had personally engraved.

  'I told you we were winners, Mikey,' Spud said. He'd been right about that too. He and Mike McAllister had been amongst the ten selected. But it had been Spud who had won the full scholarship. And he hadn't cheated once!

  'Look out, Mod, here we come,' he crowed. Spud Farrell was on his way.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At nearly fifteen, Mike and Spud were obsessed with sex, or rather with the thought of it: neither had actually performed the act yet. But it was only a matter of time. They talked at great length about losing their virginity, and Spud had definite views on the subject. Their female contemporaries at Perth Mod were out of the question in his opinion. 'Too young,' he said with a worldly wisdom. And the final-year female students, the objects of both boys' lust, were simply out of their league.

  'A woman outside of school – older, and with experience – that's what we need,' he declared. 'You shouldn't pick a virgin first time round anyway. Best to set your sights on one who knows the ropes.' It was a direct quote from his old man.

  The fact was, Spud was getting desperate. He'd tried to score with any number of girls at Mod but he'd rarely got beyond the kissing stage, and that was only with the younger ones who were interested in their own form of experimentation and saw him as a fellow innocent. They'd been shocked when his hands had groped at their budding breasts. And when, in a reckless attempt, he'd tried to chat up one of the older students, she'd told him to get lost.

  Spud hadn't changed much since he was twelve, not in the physical sense anyway. His mind had certainly matured, he was well advanced for his age mentally, but in appearance he was younger than his contemporaries. He was below average height, his body hadn't yet filled out, and he remained the snub-nosed, freckle-faced boy he'd always been. It annoyed the hell out of him when girls called him Smiley after that simpering kid in that pukemaking picture.

  He envied Mikey. Mikey had been shaving for a whole year now, and Spud didn't even have bum-fluff on his chin. Mikey was already as tall as the final-year blokes and he had a body to match. He could easily pass for seventeen – eighteen even. Christ, Mikey had it made. The girls thought he looked like Tony Curtis, not bloody Smiley. If Mikey hadn't been his best friend, Spud could easily have grown to hate him.

  But Mikey was his best friend, wasn't he? And they'd always been a team. If he stuck with Mikey, Spud thought, he was bound to get lucky. Mikey attracted the girls like flies to shite, as his old man would say. At the bowling alley or the Claremont footy club, away from Mod and out of school uniform, Mikey had no trouble conning girls about his age. Hell, he'd nearly made it all the way with that bird Jeannette after the Saturday night jazz session at the Dalkeith Hall. And she had to be at least seventeen.

  'Yep,' Spud said, 'I reckon we should aim for older women. What do you say?'

  'I reckon you're right.'

  Mike knew exactly what Spud was after, but he wasn't prepared to pave the way for his mate and risk crippling his own chances. This was one time when he and Spud weren't a team, he'd decided. It was each man for himself, and Mike had his own plans, which involved Hilary, the new teller at the Claremont post office. Hilary was nineteen, blonde and sexy as all get out. He'd been flirting with her for a whole month now, and she'd agreed to go to the pictures with him this Saturday night. But he wasn't about to tell Spud that. Spud'd probably front up at the pictures and blow his cover. Not deliberately, of course, but he'd blow it simply by being there.

  'You're a bit young for me, aren't you?' Hilary eyed the kid up and down. God, but he was handsome. He'd come in to the post office a number of times since she'd been working there – buying a few penny stamps, flirting with her outrageously – and now he was asking her to the pictures. 'How old are you? Seventeen?'

  'Eighteen.' Mike decided to go for broke. 'I'm off to uni next year.'

  'Really?'

  It had worked, he could tell she was impressed.

  'So what do you say? Want to come to the pictures?'

  'Why not?' Hilary's casual shrug successfully masked a faint shimmer of excitement. She normally preferred men in their twenties, they had more style, but heck, if a bloke was this good-looking what did it matter if he was a bit younger? And a uni student too!

  'How about the Windsor?' Mike kept his eyes intently trained upon hers, for fear they might stray towards the dramatic cones of her breasts, which were pointing, machine-gun-like, at him through her tight knitted top. 'Bus Stop's on at the Windsor.'

  He'd decided to opt for the cinema in Dalkeith. In Claremont, everyone knew everyone, and if he chose the local just down the road he was asking for trouble. Besides, Marilyn Monroe was in Bus Stop – although he doubted whether he'd be watching Marilyn if Hilary was sitting beside him. She might not be up to Marilyn's standard, but hell, Hilary was the real thing! The breasts and blonde hair and big red lips were flesh and blood, not a fantasy up on the screen.

  But she shook her head. 'I've seen Bus Stop,' she said. 'Why don't we go to the open-air pictures? I love the deckchairs, and Trapeze is on. They say it's terrific.'

  'Sure,' he agreed with a nonchalant grin. Damn, he thought. The open-air pictures meant Claremont.

  Spud was suspicious when Mikey said he wasn't coming bowling with the gang that Saturday night. Fairlane, the brand new ten-pin bowling alley in Adelaide Terrace, was a great place to meet girls.

  'I'm studying,' Mike said. 'Exams next week, remember?'

  'Studying!' Nobody studied on a Saturday night. 'You're studying?'

  It was a pretty lame excuse and Mike knew it, but he hadn't been able to come up with anything else. He and Spud always spent Saturday nights together.

  'Yep,' he said firmly, and Spud walked off in a huff, convinced that Mikey had something lined up and wasn't letting him in on the action. Mikey was a bloody awful liar.

  Mike and Hilary met outside the Claremont open-air picture theatre.

  'You wait here, and I'll get the tickets,' he said as they stepped into the foyer. He could see old Tom Russell in his customary position behind the counter.

  'G'day, Mike,' Tom said jovially, looking up at him – crikey, but the boy had grown this past year or so. 'Spud not with you?' He was surprised. Young Mike McAllister and his mate Spud Farrell were normally joined at the hip.

  'Not tonight, Mr Russell,' Mike muttered. 'Two tickets, thanks,' a
nd he put his money on the counter.

  'One child, one adult, is it?' Tom asked, peering over Mike's shoulder at Hilary, who had taken her lippie from her clutch bag and was doing a quick touch-up.

  'Yeah.' Mike focused on the spidery hands as they carefully tore off two tickets from two different-coloured rolls – one for the grown-ups and one for the children.

  'Got yourself a new girlfriend, have you?' A bit of a wink, harmless, just a joke.

  Mike gave him a sickly grin and bought a box of Jaffas. He wished to hell they'd gone to the Windsor.

  As they walked to the open-air auditorium with its well-trodden grass and its sea of canvas deckchairs, he surreptitiously slipped the tickets to the usherette, careful to hide them from Hilary so that she wouldn't notice the different colours. Then he took her boldly by the hand and led her up the back.

  Hilary didn't mind. She knew what the seats up the back signified, and she stowed her clutch bag under her deckchair and settled herself comfortably.

  It was still half-light, and while they watched the ads and then the trailers, they sat in silence, sucking away the sugar coating of their Jaffas, but Mike wasn't tasting the chocolate inside. Only six months previously, if it had been an indoor picture theatre and he'd been with Spud, he'd have been rolling the lollies down the aisle like all the kids did. But Jaffas were the last thing on his mind tonight.

  As dusk faded and the Movietone News started, he quietly slipped the box of lollies under his chair. He reached out and took Hilary's hand, and his heart pounded wildly as he felt her fingers entwine with his.

  Mike had taken girls to the pictures before and he'd discovered that indoor theatres were better than outdoor. You could drape your arm around the back of the seat and your hand could casually creep over the girl's shoulder, and if she didn't react, you could let it rest there, sometimes teasingly close to her breast. You couldn't do the same thing with deckchairs. But tonight was different. Hilary was not a fourteen-year-old school girl, she was the real McCoy, and the deckchairs were working to Mike's advantage. His hand, linked with hers, was resting on her knee, and she was bare-legged beneath the flimsy cotton skirt. The proximity of her naked skin was unbelievably tantalising.

  Tom and Jerry came and went, and the support feature started – a black and white British comedy with Alec Guinness and the regular Ealing line-up – and Hilary made no objection when, ostensibly seeking a more comfortable position in his deckchair, Mike's hand moved a little higher up her thigh, her own hand moving with it. He frantically considered what his next move should be, but all of a sudden she started guffawing and rocking about in her chair. Hilary adored Terry-Thomas. And then she disengaged hands to light up a cigarette, so Mike decided to save his move for the main feature.

  During interval he went off to buy them a couple of Smacks while Hilary made a quick trip to the ladies. He would normally have bought the threepenny tubs rather than the expensive chocolate-coated ice-creams, but as he forked over two sixpences he didn't give a damn that tonight was costing him a whole week's pocket money. He'd do anything to impress her.

  Back in their seats and half an hour later, with the Smacks demolished and the film well under way, he once again reached out and took her hand. Again, his mind could encompass little other than the thought of the naked skin beneath her skirt, but for the first time since they'd entered the cinema, he found himself taking in what was happening on the screen. Gina Lollobrigida had to be the sexiest woman on the planet, he thought. And what an excellent choice Trapeze had been – it was one of the hottest pictures he'd ever seen, a real turn-on. He stole a glance at Hilary. Was it having the same effect on her? It appeared to be. She was gazing at the screen mesmerised, her mouth slightly open, lips glistening invitingly, and through her thin skirt he could feel the warmth of her thigh. He wondered whether he dared relinquish his hold on her hand and make direct contact with her skin as he desperately wanted to.

  He sat motionless. Up on screen, Tony Curtis was about to kiss Gina Lollobrigida. Jeez, he thought, they looked as if they were on heat, the two of them. Then, beneath his hand, he felt Hilary's thigh move as she wriggled slightly in her deckchair. He glanced at her again. She remained, as before, mesmerised, her focus solely on Tony and Gina who were now hungrily feeding off each other. Then she gave another slight wriggle.

  He swivelled his body in the deckchair and leaned forward to kiss her neck. It seemed safer to start there – if she pulled away from him then he'd immediately back off. But she didn't pull away. She turned to him instead, and the open mouth and glistening lips he'd been admiring were suddenly devouring him, just like Gina and Tony up on the screen.

  Mike was on fire. They both were. He could feel the whole of her mouth, her tongue and her teeth, and she made no protest as he freed his left hand from hers and found his way beneath her skirt. Far from it. She was clutching at him, running her fingers over his chest and his shoulders, just the way Gina had been doing to Tony. Mike's right hand sought frantically from one rigid pointy breast to the other, desperate for the feel of flesh beneath the formidable brassiere, but to no avail. He started to lift the knitted top from the waistband of her skirt.

  Then, as quickly as she'd initiated the action, Hilary called a halt. She pulled away from him, adjusting her skirt and top, and sat back in her deckchair, her breathing a little laboured but her eyes once more steadily focused upon the screen.

  Mike, forced to follow her lead, also sat back, fiercely willing his erection to disappear, and both remained eyes front, no bodily contact, throughout the rest of the film, conscious of other couples in clinches in nearby deckchairs.

  'It was terrific, wasn't it?' Hilary said, as the credits started to roll and the shadowy shapes of people moved towards exits, beating a hasty retreat before the lights came up and the general exodus started.

  'Yep.' Mike had forgotten the picture. He'd even forgot-ten Gina Lollobrigida. All he could think of was the pashing session and whether she'd let him go further. Was tonight the night it was going to happen? How was he to go about it? Where could he take her?

  'All of my girlfriends who've seen it told me it was terrific.'

  Her girlfriend Maureen had told her that Trapeze was sexy and that she had the hots for Tony Curtis. Well, Hilary thought, Maureen hadn't been wrong. God, she'd been turned on. She'd surprised herself, she shouldn't have allowed it to go that far. A bit of a cuddle was all right, but groping like that . . . and on a first date. Crikey, she'd been so hot and ready she could have done it right there and then.

  'Shall we go?' she said, picking up her clutch bag and making a move in her chair, about to join the shadowy figures.

  'No hurry.' Mike wanted to race out of the cinema right now. He'd thought of the boatshed – the perfect place if he could get her there. He'd ask her to go for a walk by the river, and then he'd take her to the boatshed at the back of the house. But he'd seen the Brown brothers, Len and Brucie, rising from their chairs two rows down. Len was in his class at school. He couldn't afford to bump into one of his mates on the way out. 'Let's wait until the rush dies down,' he suggested.

  'Oh. Right then.' Hilary settled back and contemplated lighting up another cigarette.

  He sensed she was a little restless, so he took her hand again, half-expecting she might withdraw it, but she didn't. Then the lights came up and he smiled winningly, praying that she'd forgive him for having groped her, and praying that she'd let him do it again.

  My God, she thought. The heavy-lashed, earnestly boyish eyes – she'd just seen them up on the screen. 'You look like him,' she said.

  'Who?'

  'Hasn't anybody ever told you?'

  'What?'

  'You look like Tony Curtis.'

  'Really?' Jeannette had told him exactly the same thing the night he'd nearly scored with her. He didn't think he looked at all like Tony Curtis. Tony Curtis was a bit girlie, he thought – he'd much rather look like Burt Lancaster. But if it turned girls on – as it had J
eannette, until she'd discovered he was only fourteen – then he was more than prepared to go along with it.