Another sunny school morning, Monday morning to be precise, and John Lock waited by the stile for his first love Margaret Short. They walked across the field together, every weekday, to school. The field was the next one to John's garden and a few hundred yards from Margaret's house. At the bottom end of the field was a long gravel track that went slowly downhill ending in an overgrown thicket that boarded a shadowy copse.
The field and copse were owned by John's parents along with the farm cottage and smaller field on the other side. Both fields were full of bright yellow rape that John's dad grew for seed to sell for the oil. The stile was their daily meeting place for their walk to school, hand in hand, both in their own bubble of love.
Margaret loved their school and so would John if it wasn't for the fact that Gary fucking Smith went there. John always called him that or sometimes Gary fucking bastard Smith if he had particularly rubbed John up the wrong way that day.
Gary Smith was an arrogant little prick and John hated his fucking guts. He was always chiding John about something and he was forever trying it on with Margaret. The fact that she didn't let him get to her and just brushed off his amateurish advances, didn't make the slightest bit of difference. Gary just wouldn't let up, only last week he had poured ink into John's pocket without him realising it until his leg felt wet. His best school trousers were ruined and his leg was still tinged blue three days later.
Living in the village of Soton and being in junior school in the sixties was hard work if you had a prick like Gary fucking Smith on your back.
Margaret was John's soul reason for getting up each day and walking through the rape fields in the sunshine with her was the reason he hadn't tried to strangle Smith way before now. Margaret had said a few times that she thought Gary was probably just misunderstood and despite all the upfront bravado, underneath she felt he was quite a nice guy.
As 10 year olds, John and Margaret had only ever held hands and cuddled. The fact they thought of themselves as "girlfriend and boyfriend" was down to the fact that they had known each other so long and, if truth be told, actually loved each other very much. John and Margaret could never see themselves ever being apart and neither of them wanted to be.
The last year of junior school turned out to be the hardest and worst of all for John. Gary got even more obnoxious and his bating scaled new heights, as the volume of John's hatred was turned up several notches. Through all this Margaret kept right on defending him and insisting he was a nice guy really.
The class was split up into smaller groups according to skill level in different subjects. John was in different groups from Margaret and Gary for reading, science and mathematics. This meant that considering the boys and girls were split as well for PE, John only got to see Margaret at the beginning and end of the day and the occasional lunchtime. Breaks and most lunchtimes were staggered because of the size of the kitchens and food kiosks.
Days were long and lonely and spent looking forward to the walk home. Margaret didn't seem to miss him as much as he did her as all she seemed to do on the walk home was talk about what fun she had during the day's lessons. Gary fucking bastard Smith's name cropped up a lot more than John wished it had.
On the second to last day of term John knew that Margaret had the same lunchtime as him and he looked around the school for her. He found himself looking across the playing field to to edge where there was a long row of birch trees. John had run along behind those trees many times as they mapped out the end of the cross country run to insure the runners completed the whole course.
He could see the two of them facing each other, close enough to touch but not quite hugging. A weird sick pain shot through his gut, making him almost throw up, and he had to force down a dry heave.
John stopped himself from running towards them and appearing desperate yet he found himself walking faster and faster towards them. Suddenly he came to a stop a couple of yards behind them, just as Gary leaned into her and pressed his lips against hers.
He stood there, mouth open, breathing hard his heart beating so hard that he felt in that moment that the whole school must have been able to hear it.
"Oh, John.. No.. John it's not, it's not what.. John no." Margaret spluttered.
John said nothing, he just stared at her, with his mouth still agape.
"John I, I, John it just happened."
Gary stepped back and away from her.
"Oh just fuck off and leave us be" Gary moaned, "she's always liked me better, so just fuck off."
John just slowly closed his mouth and turned his head to stare at Gary. Not having a clue what to do or say he just stood there stunned.
As he turned back to Margaret with the soul intention of saying something, anything but at least speaking. Then BANG, a sharp pain in the mouth, and he was falling backwards his lip swelling as he went down, and then BANG another sharp pain in the back of his head.
Gary had punched him hard in the face and knocked him off balance and he had hit his head against the bottom of the tree behind him. Everything went black for a few seconds and then he could gradually see a face coming into focus in front of him.
Mr Mann was one of John's teachers and was smiling at him.
"Ok John, slowly now, slowly." He spoke gently.
John was trying to pull himself up as his head thumped, but his vision cleared.
"Come on now son, take it easy." The wise voice ordered.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, I just bumped my head a bit." John moaned.
"Ok, ok, but we need to get you to the nurse, just to check." Mr Mann stated.
Glancing around John looked for Margaret and Gary but apart from what seemed like his whole school year, he could see neither of them. In fact that was to be the last he would see of either of them for a long time.
Margaret.
There wasn't a second gone by that Margaret didn't regret her first kiss. It should have been with John, the boy she loved so much, but of all people it had to be with Gary fucking Smith. That's what John called him so it had kind of stuck. Gary hadn't really forced her, he had just been very persuasive. And of course her curiosity had got the better of her. The moment she saw John standing there with a look of horror on his handsome face, she knew her life's direction had taken a sudden change.
Gary had hit John and knocked him out, or so she thought. Suddenly there were lots of people everywhere and Mr Mann was trying to wake John up. Gary pulled her away and with his arm around her, walked her back towards school
"It's ok, he's fine, teach'll sort him out, can't believe he went over like that, I hardly touched him, Jesus I'm hard, if I'd punched him with all my power I .."
"Stop it Gary, you shouldn't have hit him." Margaret chided.
Still shepherding her towards school with his arm around her shoulders, Gary kept up his banter. "He's such a fucking wimp, you're better off with me like I keep telling you," he bragged.
Margaret just suddenly realised that John was absolutely right about Gary, he was a fucking bastard, and she wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. "Get off of me you idiot, John was always telling me what a nasty boy you are, and now I know he was right." She cried.
Ducking away from him she turned and ran back towards the field leaving Gary standing there with a bewildered look on his face. As she got nearer to the place it had all happened she realised that everyone had gone back to school. She ran as fast as she could but as she got there she could see everyone had returned to class.
"Sir, I need to see if John Lock's ok, I won't be lo.." She stated
"No need dear, he's fine and he has all the help he needs now," Mr Lovell ordered.
"But Sir I just need to.." She retorted, getting cut off for second time.
"If you carry on it'll be the headmaster you'll see, now sit down and take out your work and let's not hear any more out of you about anything but the parts that make up a flower," stormed Mr Lovell.
At the end of school Margaret waited for John in their usual place so they could walk home together but he didn't show. Walking across that field alone made her feel worse than she had all day.
As she reached the stile the tears started and she sat there for a few minutes with her face in her hands. Why had she even thought about kissing that prick? What was she actually thinking? Or was she thinking at all? Maybe a zillion questions went through her mind but they all had the same answer, she just didn't know.
Her mind in turmoil she suddenly found herself at John's door, knocking with what was left of her hope in her clenched fist. She didn't know how many times she had knocked without an answer. Why didn't John come to the door? Ok maybe that was a stupid question. But if he didn't want to talk to her, ok she could understand that but at least he could have shouted at her, he could have screamed at her out of the window.
Even if he didn't want to talk to her himself, either of his parents could have at least answered. The final walk from John's cottage to her house was made in floods of tears, she didn't realise she could cry like that until now. Despite her parents comfort she ate very little supper and went to bed early where sleep came slowly.
Maybe John had been taken to hospital yesterday and he wasn't back when she called. If that was the reason maybe he would be waiting by the stile in the morning. With that thought she finally dropped off into a restless sleep.
Bright and early the next morning Margaret waited hopefully at the stile. John never showed and sadly Margaret made her way across what always had been such a bright sunny field, but was now so much more dull and sad. School was much the same, as John never showed up there either and Margaret's last day of junior school just did even more to feed her depression without John.
Everybody at school was happy and jolly and full of the holiday cheer, exchanging gifts and excitingly chattering to each other about what senior schools they would be attending and who would be their teachers and what house they would want to be in. Margaret didn't much care about any of it and soon everybody realised it and left her alone. Gary was his usual self but after Margaret's third put down he decided that he needed to play the long game and hopefully with John out of the picture, as he thought, his chance would come.
