by Maria Goodin
“Yeah, this is the right way,” I assured him, although I was having doubts.
Tom and I had come this way once before, and I’d suggested it as a shortcut home. But although I remembered skirting the overgrown, abandoned allotments, I didn’t remember trudging through them. We stumbled over dried clods of soil, hard and lumpy beneath the soles of our trainers.
“This is the right way, isn’t it?” I muttered to Tom, catching my ankle in a tangle of plants. The light was fading quickly and it was becoming a struggle to see where I was walking.
“Yep,” he replied, with certainty, “the canal’s that way, we just need to drop down there and follow it along.”
I could see he was waving his arm, presumably pointing to the things he had just mentioned, but the precise nature of his gesture was swallowed by the descending darkness. I trusted him though. We all did. He was always so sure of himself, it was hard not to. Tom and I lived our lives in competition with one another, and in most matters we were on a par, but he had natural leadership skills I lacked. Faced with options, I often faltered and looked to others for reassurance, whereas Tom quickly made a choice and stuck to it.
“Ah, crap,” shouted Max, “not again!” The rest of us laughed mercilessly, the sound of poor Max fighting a losing battle with the stinging nettles overriding any concerns about being late – or lost. “How come none of you are getting stung?”
“I’ve already been stung!” called Tom over his shoulder. “By a giant hornet!”
“Oh, man up!” I called back. “It was a tiny wasp.”
“Our legs aren’t getting stung ’cause we’re wearing jeans and not gay shorts,” Michael told Max, Max’s rather tight sky-blue shorts having been the butt of our jokes all evening.
“Yeah, well, that’s ’cause none of you have got sexy legs like me,” quipped Max. “The ladies were all lovin’ my muscular calves this evening.”
“Yeah,” joked Tom, “if by sexy you mean fat. And by muscular you mean—”
“Fat,” Michael and I chimed in at once, leading to more guffaws.
“And if by loving you mean they were all totally ignoring you,” Tom added.
“Or looking at you like you were a total div,” said Michael.
“They were weighing up the talent, gentlemen,” insisted Max, sounding slightly out of breath.
“They’d have trouble weighing anything about you up,” I said, evoking yet more laughter.
To be fair to Max, he wasn’t really fat, or at least he hadn’t been since primary school. In the last couple of years, his height had started to even out his weight, and his developing talent as a goalie meant he was putting his bulk to good use and toning up at the same time. But to us he would always be the lovable “Fat Max”.
“I don’t know how you can say I look gay, anyway,” said Max, “I’m not the one carrying a flippin’ stuffed polar bear.”
“Yeah, well, that’s ’cause you’d have no one to give it to,” I retorted, hoping to play the jealousy card, for want of anything wittier to say. Actually, there was no indication that any of them was jealous I had a girlfriend. Far from it, in fact. All I seemed to get were digs about being tied down, and jibes about how it must be luurrve and how I’d gone soft. Perhaps they were right. I was feeling a bit of an idiot walking around with a giant polar bear, and as I hugged the soft fur against my chest I was glad of the falling darkness.
“You gonna give it to her tonight then, Jamie?” asked Michael. He was by far the most sensitive one of the group, and the only one to show any genuine interest in my relationship.
“Nah, it’s too late. I’ll give it to her tomorrow.” I hoped she’d be pleased. I’d spent seven quid in my efforts to shoot a cardboard alien with an air rifle, which was clearly more than the bear was worth. But it seemed important, like a nice boyfriendy kind of thing to do. I wondered now if the guy would have taken seven quid for the air rifle. She would have probably preferred that.
“Yeah, you should definitely give it to her tomorrow, Jay,” Tom agreed, uncharacteristically helpful.
“You gonna give it to her at her place or yours?” asked Max.
“You should take her down the park and give it to her there, Jay,” said Tom.
“You should give it to her wherever it feels right to you, Jamie,” said Michael. “You could give it to her at the canal…”
“On the bench down the park.”
“In the woods.”
“In the back alley.”
“Ah, shut up!” I snapped, as they burst into laughter. I’d been an idiot to think they might have been seriously trying to help. “You’re so immature.”
“Either way, it’s definitely about time you gave it to her,” sniggered Max, drawing hoots of laughter from the other two.
“Ha ha,” I grumbled.
It was then I thought I heard a scream. The boys were still laughing, throwing out ideas about where I could “give it” to Libby, each suggestion more ridiculous than the last.
“The Natural History Museum. Combine it with education.”
“TGI Fridays.”
“PC World.”
I tried to listen beyond their voices.
“Shut up,” I told them impatiently.
“Ah, we’re just messing with you, Jay Boy,” laughed Max.
“No, seriously, shut up!” I snapped, stopping. “What was that noise?”
“What noise?”
The others came to a halt and we stood there, silhouettes against the night sky, the only sound the distant thud and rumble of the fairground music.
And then we all heard it.
“What the heck was that?” asked Max.
“That was a fox shagging,” stated Tom matter-of-factly. “It’s what they sound like. Like they’re being murdered. It’s well warped. Haven’t you ever heard—”
“That wasn’t a fox,” I interrupted, “that sounded like someone in pain.”
“Sounded like a person puking,” said Max.
“It’s nothing, let’s just get home,” said Michael, sounding nervous, and we all resumed walking.
But a moment later there it was again.
“Shhh!” I hissed, listening hard. “Sounds like someone groaning.”
“It’s over there,” said Tom, heading away from us. There were dark shapes looming around us that, so far, had turned out to be inoffensive run-down sheds, shacks and bushes. But now, with the mysterious groaning in the darkness, every shape appeared threatening. I wondered if I could see something moving.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To see what it is,” said Tom casually. “We’ve got to go this way anyway. Tenner says it’s a fox.”
“Are you sure that’s the way home?” I asked.
“Yes!” called back Tom, sounding irritated to be questioned again.
The rest of us stood there, unsure what to do. After a few paces, Tom realised that no one was following him and turned around.
“What, are you lot scared or something?”
Challenged, I walked in silence across the uneven earth, Michael and Max following behind. I think I was the first to see amber sparks dancing in the darkness.
“Tom!” I called, keeping my voice low, trying to alert him to what must be a fire burning behind… what? A hedge? A shed? It was too dark to tell what the obstruction was. Either way, Tom was too far in front, or I was too quiet. He just carried on walking, the back of his white Metallica T-shirt the only thing keeping him visible.
“Tom!”
I should have run ahead and grabbed him. Because someone burning a fire in the corner of some shabby, abandoned allotments late at night should have struck me as strange. Because I should have trusted myself that the sound I’d heard was someone groaning in pain. And because every instinct was now screaming at me to go home another way.
The obstruction turned out to be a dilapidated metal shed, and by the time I was close enough to figure that out, I could smell the burning. When I
got there, Tom was already peering round the side. I could hear voices, deep and mumbling. It could have been a couple of old men collapsed in their deckchairs – the last defenders of the allotments – enjoying the summer evening, relieved to be away from their nagging wives for an hour or so. But I knew it wasn’t. I felt it. Still, I pushed down my instincts. There was nothing to worry about. At least not until Tom turned to me, panic in his voice.
“Shit,” he whispered, “there’s some guy on the ground. I think he’s bleeding.”
Again, again, I have no idea why. Why would I have not just taken his word for it? Why did I have to look? I have no idea now. Disbelief. Morbid curiosity. The same reason I sat through the horror movies Tom put on, watching every rip and cut and scream, even though I felt sick and wanted to close my eyes. Because I had to see for myself.
I inched round the side of the shed. There, not far from us, a man was lying on the ground. He was trying to push himself up. It was hard to tell with his nose pressed against the soil, but I thought he was probably about my sister’s age – around nineteen, twenty. On the opposite side of the fire, three older men were talking, glancing occasionally at the guy on the ground, and swigging from a bottle they passed between them. More bottles lay scattered on the ground around the fire.
“What’s going on?” I heard Michael ask anxiously.
I felt hands on my back and my shoulders as the others tried to peer round me. Max’s heavy breathing was in my ear.
The man on the ground managed to lift himself up slightly, but as soon as he did, one of the other three men stepped round the fire and booted him hard in the ribs. I felt Tom jolt with shock beside me, and I grabbed at his arm and held on tight.
“Jesus!” hissed Michael.
The victim cried out in pain and fell back on the ground. My stomach twisted with fear and disgust. But his assailant was still not satisfied. Straight away, he delivered another powerful boot to the man’s side. This time, the victim let out a short grunt, as if he was giving up on even crying out, and rolled up in a ball on the ground.
“Leave him now,” one of the other men said. He had some kind of accent.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tom whispered, pulling at my arm.
“Yeah, let’s go,” mumbled Max. He sounded loud, right next to my ear. Perhaps he was loud, I don’t know. But just then the third man – the one who had been standing smoking a cigarette as if nothing unusual was happening – turned in our direction.
“Shit!” I heard Tom whisper, and he suddenly jerked backwards, pulling me with him.
But in that split second, just before I was wrenched away, the guy lying on the ground lifted his head feebly, gazing straight towards me.
And I saw who he was.
There was a scramble behind the shed, each of us grabbing at each other’s arms, pulling at each other’s T-shirts with no particular aim in mind. We were like a flock of panic-stricken sheep, fussing frantically but going nowhere. It seemed like Michael made a move to get away, flee in the direction we had just come from, but the rest of us were driven by the instinct to stay as still and as quiet as possible and we grabbed at him, pulling him into a huddle. If we’d have let him go, if we’d have all run then, would that have made all the difference?
We froze, none of us daring to move a muscle, clutching at each other, our faces close.
My heart was pounding, and my legs felt weak. I had never seen anything like that in my life – not that wasn’t on TV. The thud of the boot, the cry of pain. Maybe we should have run, but it seemed too late now. Now we just had to stay quiet and hope we hadn’t been seen.
I tried to tune into the distant thump of the fairground music, searching for any indication that civilisation was still nearby. But all I could hear was our breathing.
Michael’s breath was coming in short, shaky bursts in my right ear. And in my left ear, Tom was breathing quietly, almost silently, as if he was fighting the urge to breathe at all. But Max, opposite me in the huddle, was breathing heavily, and I wanted to reach out and smother his mouth with my hand. In the silence, his breathing seemed too loud, just like everything about Max – too big, too heavy, too noisy. I wanted to tell him to shut up, but I didn’t dare speak. Squashed into the middle of the huddle was the polar bear, and I dipped my head, breathing into the soft fur to muffle the sound, feeling the warmth of my own candyfloss breath.
For what seemed like forever, all I could hear was the sound of our breathing, the four of us, clinging together.
We waited.
I think now that we should have run.
I remember her saying: “This one’s for two strawberry laces and a flying saucer, okay?”
We were lying on our fronts in the long grass. Libby placed her lollipop into her mouth, picked up her binoculars and handed them to me.
“What’s that swimming in front of Carpe Diem?”
“Carp what?” I asked through a mouthful of gummy bears.
She removed her lollipop. “Carpe Diem. The blue boat two down from ours.”
“Is that French or something?”
“No, silly, it’s Latin. It means seize the day.”
“Stupid name for a boat,” I muttered.
I put the binoculars to my eyes, chewing lazily. Magnified grass stems, bulrushes, sun-dappled canal water, a heron – they all swam in front of my vision as I tried to find a familiar point of focus. I scanned the marina until Libby’s narrowboat – Isabelle Blue – suddenly came into view.
I held the binoculars steady. I could see my mum and Libby’s mum sitting in the bow of the boat, slumped in their deckchairs. Libby’s mum was smoking a cigarette; mine was sipping a glass of wine. I swung the binoculars to the right, past Lady Grey whose roof was covered in blossoming flowers pots, and onto Carpe Diem, a run-down boat with two bicycles and several bags of coal on its roof. There in the water a little black bird bobbed around in circles.
“A moorhen,” I said confidently. Placing the binoculars down on the grass, I held out my hand for my prize.
“Nope,” said Libby, smugly, “it’s a coot.”
“Oh, I knew that,” I moaned.
“Red for moorhen, white for coot, don’t forget it,” she grinned. “I get to pick three.”
I threw my paper bag at her. It annoyed me that she knew so much stuff. I was meant to be smart, but she knew tonnes of stuff I didn’t. And she didn’t even have to go to school.
“Cola bottle, shrimp and… oooh, twisty marshmallow thing, I love those.”
She dropped my sweets into her own paper bag, which by now was looking significantly weightier than mine, and sat up cross-legged in the grass.
“I don’t want to play this anymore,” I said, worried that I’d soon have no more sweets left.
“Do you want to go down to the bird hide?” she asked.
“Nah,” I said, pulling up a piece of grass.
“Do you want to go build a den?”
I shook my head. It was hot and I was feeling lazy and tired. I wondered if my mum was ready to go home yet, but once she got talking to Libby’s mum, there was no stopping her.
“Do you want to kiss me?”
I squinted at Libby. She took her lollipop out of her mouth and examined its decreasing size, a string of long brown hair falling down over her face.
“What for?” I asked.
She tucked the lollipop back into the side of her cheek and shrugged. “I dunno. To see what it’s like.”
I pulled up another blade of grass and twiddled it between my thumb and forefinger.
“Mmm… I dunno. I don’t mind. If you want to, I guess.”
“Sit up then,” she ordered.
I slowly lifted myself up. My arms seemed to have gone to sleep.
“You have to close your eyes,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Why?”
“’Cause that’s how you do it, silly.”
I closed my eyes and waited, the light filtering through my eyelid
s.
“Where are you going to kiss me?” I asked, suddenly opening my eyes again. Libby, crawling towards me on her hands and knees, stopped and looked at me like I was stupid.
“On your lips, of course.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure what I thought of all this. “Okay then.”
I closed my eyes again. I couldn’t remember what it was like to be kissed on the lips. I seemed to remember being kissed on my lips before – by my mum, I guessed – but I was too big for that now. I had an idea that it might be quite wet.
“Don’t do it for too long, okay?” I said, opening my eyes again. Libby’s face was so close to mine that the first thing I saw were the freckles on her nose.
She sat back and looked thoughtful. “Three seconds?”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
I closed my eyes again, my legs crossed, the grass tickling the bare space between my socks and the hem of my jeans. I heard shuffling in front of me, and then the light was blocked out. There was a warmth in front of my face, and the sweet scent of cherry lollipop. She placed her lips on mine. They were drier and warmer than I had anticipated. Neither of us moved a muscle. I wasn’t sure how I could breathe with her face pressed so close to mine, so I didn’t. I held my breath and counted the seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi…
I was starting to feel the squeeze on my lungs. But if I tried to breathe in now how would I do it? Her nose was pressing into mine on one side, and my free nostril would probably make that weird noise, like the tiniest bit of air coming out of a balloon. Or did I need to breathe out, release the air caught inside my chest? But then I’d be breathing right onto her face. Was that okay? Was she breathing? I couldn’t hear her. Was this how you were meant to do it? Because on TV they sometimes kissed for a really long time, and I wasn’t sure I could go much longer.