One Way Out- Chapter Three

Rachel woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. It was as though the beat of the music from last night had been locked inside her skull and now it was beating on the walls, demanding to be let out. After several minutes of lying staring at the white ceiling, Rachel sat up slowly and looked around.

A scene of destruction met her eyes, causing her to flop straight back down onto the soft brocade bed, which was bathed in glorious bright sunlight which caused her head to pound even more. She moaned and rolled over, causing her to come face to face with the sleepy face of Edward Huntington-Stafford. She groaned.

“What happened?” she said to herself, bringing her hands to her face and clutching her head as though that would stop the relentless pounding.

“Well,” Edward said, propping himself up on his elbow, “I believe you experienced your first real party. You see, until last night, you hadn’t experienced a party but now…well, you’ve partied enough in one night for the entire middle class.”

“No, I meant how did I get here, you know…” she said, “…in bed with you?”

“Ah,” he said, smiling lazily, “I’m not entirely sure whether or not I can answer that. You see, I can’t remember the logistics.”

“What did I drink?” she asked, massaging her temples desperately.

He leant over and sniffed her delicately. “Well,” he said, “judging by your…aroma, I believe you consumed a combination of cocktails and Bollinger.”

She groaned loudly. “My mother is going to kill me.”

“Is your mother here?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No?”

“Then who cares?” he said, rolling out of bed and onto the floor, “We’ve got to run before the clean-up crew arrives.” He started pulling on a pair of discarded chinos and turned around to look at her. “What’re you waiting for? Do you want to clean this place up?” he gestured to the cocktails and goose feathers than littered the floor. She shook her head frantically, “Good choice,” he said, “I wouldn’t want to be mopping this mess up either.”

He plucked her dress off the floor and threw it at her. She made a face when she saw the fine white powder that had been ground into the skirt of the fabric.

“Hurry up!” Edward said urgently, pulling his shirt over his head, tousling his hair, “D’you want to get caught here?”

“What d’you mean?” she hissed as she struggled to pull her dress on whilst keeping her body covered by the duvet.

“Because,” he said, running his long fingers through his hair, “the place is filled with coke.”

Her eyes widened and she stared in horror at the white particles which contrasted heavily with the black fabric. He followed her gaze.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, “I have a dry cleaner. She won’t ask questions.”

Before she had time to process the information, he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room. They made their way along the sumptuously decorated corridor, trying desperately not to trip over discarded bottles of champagne and debris from the night before. At the end of the corridor, a teenage boy was lying with his face in a pile of vomit which reeked of alcohol. Rachel glanced at him once before following Edward down the winding enormous staircase.

As she looked down at the hall below, she began to pity whoever would be stuck with the task of cleaning up the wreckage. Several paintings were hanging off their hooks, their haughty subjects oblivious to the fact that they were now wearing comedy moustaches and glasses, which had been drawn on by a group of delinquents the night before. Discarded drinks were scattered across the once-immaculate floor and the centre of the room was covered in a sticky blue liquid. More white powder dusted the surface of the bar and the Mayor of London was lying in a heap in the corner, completely dead to the world and wearing a suit which was covered in cocktails. At some point, someone had obviously decided that it would be a good idea to pierce his nose with an olive on a wooden stick. Rachel couldn’t believe that the passed out drunk lying in front of her was the man who everybody thought would take over as prime minister.

“We’d better put him in a car,” Edward said, nodding to the mayor, “his career will be over if he’s caught here and, well…the thought of a Labour prime minister is positively grotesque.” He shuddered and picked his way over to the snoozing man. He looked at her and she sighed before making her way across the room, sidestepping the puddle of alcohol and several drops of what looked suspiciously looked like blood.

“Right,” he said as soon as she had reached them, “I’ll take his arms and you carry his legs, okay?”

She nodded and picked up his legs, grimacing as her hands were covered in whatever had soaked his trousers. "Where’s the car?” she whispered as they made their way across the floor, weaving in and out of discarded bottles of Bollinger and Vodka.

“Outside,” he said, his low voice softer than usual, “I called Hopkins whilst you were sleeping.”

She nodded and adjusted her grip on the mayor’s legs whilst hopping over several shards of glass. “Tell me,” she said, nodding to the destroyed room, “do all of your parties end like this?”

He shrugged his shoulders, causing the body of the mayor to jolt. “Once a house got burnt down,” he said casually, “and at the last one, I ended up in Venice.”

“Venice?” She said sharply, almost dropping the mayor.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “one guy found himself on a plane to Australia once.”

“Wow,” she said to herself, “this is how the rich kids do it then.”

“Why,” he asked, his exotic eyes wide and innocent, “what were you expecting? Alcopops and games of truth or dare?”

She didn’t answer. He smirked and pushed open the front door with his back, looking behind him before beginning to descend the front steps. As soon as they had reached the comforting gravel, they hurried towards the Rolls Royce. He opened the back door and bundled the mayor in, pushing him over to the far side before ushering Rachel in, bowing in an attempt at chivalry before climbing in himself.

“Hopkins,” he called to the driver, “we need to drop this one off,” he jerked his head at the mayor, “before getting back to college.”

Hopkins nodded and started up the car just as the sound of police sirens penetrated the cold winter air.

“Can you be quick about it?” Edward asked urgently, leaning forwards as Hopkins accelerated down the drive way. He turned to Rachel, “I told you we had to get out of there quickly.” He said as they reached the road just as several police cars turned into the drive way leading up to the destroyed house.

“D’you think they saw us?” Rachel asked, glancing behind her at the now empty road.

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “and besides, we have the mayor with us so it wouldn’t matter if they had,” he grinned at the snoring mayor, “he might be a useless politician but he can get anybody out of a sticky spot.”

“Why does he go to student parties?” she hissed, looking at the drunken mayor.

“Because,” Edward said, lowering his voice and turning to look at her, “these parties aren’t just student parties; they’re a chance to meet people who will be very important.”

“I thought you wanted to ride horses?” she asked sharply, “I didn’t have you down as a political animal.”

“Darling,” he said, smirking, “we’re all political animals and besides, I need people to sponsor me so…” he gestured to the mayor, “I have to befriend useless imbeciles like him.”

She snorted, “So much for the death of elitism.”

He laughed quietly, “Darling,” he said through chuckles, “don’t be so uptight. Morals are for the middle class.”

She frowned. “I thought I was middle class?”

“Not for long,” he said smiling and lacing his fingers with hers, “besides, if you can’t beat them…”

“…you might as well join them,” She finished, before turning to grin at him, “perhaps Oxford is the place for me after all.”

He laughed again, his face becoming illuminated by his bright smile. “I told you one party would change your mind.”

She turned away. “Well, perhaps I’ll actually manage to please my parents for a change… it’ll be a first.”

His expression sobered. “Do you know,” he said quietly, “in my experience, parents will never be pleased unless you become a copy of the person they wanted to be and do you know what?” he paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts, “you’ll be neither happy nor pleased if you do become that person.”

“So I should just give up?” she asked, her black eyebrows drawing together, “that doesn’t sound very British.”

The left corner of his mouth tilted up slightly to form an alluring half smile, “The only people who believe in Britain are the middle class,” he said sagely, “We toffs merely choose to adapt and survive whilst embracing the inevitable.”

“Do you know what?” she said turning back to face him, “I never thought I’d say this but I prefer you lot to the people at my school.”

“Ah,” he said, his pale face breaking into a wide smile, “I see I have managed to convert another one of the lost sheep.”

“The lost sheep?” she asked quizzically.

“Yes,” he said simply, his thumb tracing an intricate design on the back of her hand, “the poor souls who have been lost to the morality and snobbery of the middle class.”

She snorted incredulously. “I thought you rich kids were supposed to be the snobbish ones?”

He laughed derisively. “No,” he said, “It’s only new money that’s snobbish; we toffs don’t have two morals to rub together and besides,” he looked pointedly at the white powder on the skirt of her dress, “with what we get up to, do you really think we’re in a position to judge?”

She laughed and tried to brush some of the powder off. “No, you’re not.” She said quietly.

“Ah,” he said as the car stopped in front of a tall red-brick house, “we’ll drop him off here.”

He flung open the door and strode out into the empty street. Rachel followed him out as he dragged the mayor out by his shoulders. They climbed up the stone steps and Edward pushed the doorbell with his long nose. After several minutes, the sound of heels on a wooden floor could be heard on the other side of the door and a small blonde woman flung open the black door and sighed.

“Not again?” she said, looking accusingly at Edward, “I keep telling him that he’s getting too old for this.”

Edward laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “He still thinks he’s a student and besides, he pays for the champagne.”

“Well,” she said crossly, ushering them inside, “just make sure he doesn’t get into this state again. How much did he drink anyway?”

Edward considered for a moment as they carried him into a lightly-painted living room, “A few cocktails…a bottle of Bollinger?” he said, laying the mayor on a vintage sofa.

“A bottle of Bollinger at his age?” screeched the scandalised woman, “Cocktails? Christ alive, he’s going to be in a mood when he wakes up.” She sighed and looked at the pungent body of the middle—aged mayor, “and you two had better get out of here before I wring your necks.” She said, ushering them into the hallway. Something about the steely glint in her pansy-blue eyes told Rachel that he woman might be serious and she hurried to the door.

“Who was that?” she asked when they were safely in the car and speeding back towards Oxford.

Edward grinned. “My aunt,” he said sheepishly, “she’s his second wife.” He added.

“She seems lovely.” Rachel muttered.

“She is,” he said earnestly, “it’s just she gets annoyed when I let him drink.”

“It’s understandable.”

“Like I said, he’s convinced that he’s still twenty.”

She shuddered as she thought of the pungent aroma that had seeped out of his pores. “I hope we never end up like that.”

Edward laughed again, the deep noise making the leather seat vibrate. “Trust me,” he said darkly once his laughter had subsided, “we’ll be worse. Far worse.”

“How?” she asked seriously, “I don’t think we’re that bad, are we?”

“We do the same drugs, drink the same stuff and yet, unlike our parents, I can’t see us working as lawyers and doctors and politicians…” he said, shrugging his shoulders casually.

“Our parents lived through the eighties, didn’t they?” she reminded him, all the while imagining her own uptight mother with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It was an image that she never wanted to see again.

He wrinkled his nose. “That was different,” he said, “life was simpler, easier.”

“Yes,” she snorted, “the threat of a nuclear holocaust was easy.”

He looked at her quizzically, his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “Are you defending our parents?” he said incredulously.

She gulped. “No,” she said, “I just think that they must’ve been young once.”

“If they were they destroyed all traces of it.” He said.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders and pressed her face against the window, her warm skin relishing in the icy coldness of the pane of glass. Ignoring the sound of the motorway that surrounded her, she closed her eyes and allowed her tired body some respite from the world.

***

“Rachel?” a voice in her ear hissed urgently, “you have to wake up now.” And the owner of the voice began to shake her gently. She moaned and rolled over, falling onto the floor with an almighty crash.

“What the-?” she muttered as her spinning head registered the scene before her. She was in her room at the university. Edward-or his chauffeur-must’ve carried her there and now he was standing over her, his thin face twisted with anxiety.

“The police,” he said quietly, “someone died last night. We have to leave now.”

She was too tired and too dizzy to answer any questions so she allowed herself to be bundled into a thick black coat and led outside to a waiting motorbike.

“Here.” Edward said, picking up a black motorbike helmet, which was sat on the leather seat, and handing it to her.

She shook her head. “They make me feel claustrophobic.”

He snorted. “I’d love to give you therapy or whatever,” he said, “but now really isn’t the time. Just put it on.”

Coming to her senses, she closed her eyes and held her breath before shoving the motorbike helmet over her head. It was too tight. It was getting smaller. Her breathing began to quicken and her pulse started to race. Her palms were sweating.

“Get on.” A voice said and she opened her eyes to see Edward sat on the motorbike, wearing a helmet and indicating to the seat behind them. There wasn’t anything she could do. Silent as an assassin, she slid onto the seat behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

All of a sudden, for the second time in one day, the sound of wailing police sirens filled her ears. She gripped Edwards’s waist tightly and he accelerated the motorbike until they were twisting through the streets of Oxford at breakneck speed. She looked over her shoulder at the tourists who were walking up and down the street wearing their ‘authentic’ Oxford University jumpers, oblivious to anything other than the next gift shop.

The sirens were getting louder. She ignored the way the helmet was digging into her neck and adrenalin began to pump through her veins, forcing her to let go of all of her rational thought processes. All she cared about was that they had to get out of the city. Now.

Her knuckles were white from gripping onto Edward’s jacket like a koala gripping it’s mother. The motorbike swerved violently to the left and she was jolted back to reality as the sound of squealing car breaks filled her ears and the nauseating smell of burnt rubber began to waft up her nostrils. She looked around her. The tourists were beginning to stare.

“KEEP GOING!” She shouted in Edward’s ear as he began to slow down.

He began to accelerate just in time; a police car had just turned around the corner, its lights flashing. Rachel swore. They were going to be caught. She was going to go to prison. It wouldn’t matter if she hadn’t actually killed the man. Then again, she couldn’t vouch for her actions. She had been drunk and high but there was no way she’d actually killed someone, was there?

The sirens were getting louder. The motorbike was getting slower. Her hands started to shake. All of a sudden, Edward twisted the motorbike sharply to the left and they raced down a narrow alley. The uneven cobblestones made her jolt up and down, causing her already painful head to pound harder and harder in protest. Then her heart stopped. It was a dead end.

Her head whipped around and her heart stopped; two police men were advancing towards them. This was it. Her life would be ruined. They would incarcerate her for life. They would call her a murderess…but she wasn’t a murderess, was she?

Edward started turning the motorbike around but it was too late. The policemen were already there.

“Get off the bike son.” One of them shouted when they were five metres away. Edward turned to look at her; something in his eyes told her that he knew how hopeless it was. She nodded and he got off the bike, turning to face the policemen.

“You too.” The second one called. Rachel nodded and dismounted, going to stand next to Edward. The helmet was getting tight again. She had to take it off. It was closing in, threatening to crush her skull. Her pulse was racing and she was breathing heavily.

“Is she okay?” the first policeman asked, nodding to her.

“Sorry,” Edward muttered, “she doesn’t like helmets. Claustrophobic.”

He turned to her and undid the chin strap before tugging the helmet over her head. She sighed. Nothing was constraining her head and neck. Everything was going to be alright.