by Kevin Brooks
‘You can look if you want,’ she said.
I looked.
She moved her hands slowly down her belly, rested them for a moment on the waist of her jeans, and then she started popping open the buttons. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was sit there and watch, all dreamy and stupid, as she leaned back a little, slid out of her jeans, then got down on all fours and started crawling towards me.
She looked like some kind of miracle beast – her naked flesh in the candlelight, her dark eyes on fire – and for a second or two I felt strangely frightened. But the fear was nothing compared to everything else I was feeling. I was physically hurting now. Aching inside. My heart was pumping so hard that I thought it was going to burst out of my skin.
As Nic crawled up to me, I started moving my legs to give her some room.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Just stay there.’
She got to her knees, straddled my lap, and leaned in close to me, resting her hands on my shoulders.
‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt you.’
‘No…’ I muttered.
She stared into my eyes for a moment, her head cocked slightly to one side, then she gently ran her finger down my face.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she said.
I wanted to say – what do you think I’m thinking about? – but I didn’t. I just looked at her.
She smiled again. ‘You know what you said about Stella earlier on?’
‘Stella…?’
‘Yeah, you know… when you told Pauly that you hadn’t seen those pictures of her on the Internet.’ Nic raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Is that right? You really haven’t seen them?’
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to think about Stella… I didn’t want to think about anything. I put my hands on Nic’s hips.
‘I’m not interested in Stella,’ I said, trying to change the subject.
Nic took hold of my hands, keeping them still. ‘No,’ she said, ‘neither am I. I’m just curious, that’s all.’
I felt the first flutter of something I didn’t want to feel then.
Nic said, ‘You don’t mind me asking, do you?’
‘No,’ I sighed, ‘of course not. I just don’t see –’
‘I only want to know if you’ve seen them or not.’
Her voice was a little bit slurred now, and there was something unsettling in her eyes – a strange kind of uncontrolled steadiness.
She carried on smiling at me. ‘Can you imagine how Stella must feel? I mean, she must know what everyone’s doing when they look at those pictures… how do you think that makes her feel?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure I really want to talk about it –’
‘I mean, God… if that was me…’ She looked away for a moment, her eyes gazing at nothing, then suddenly she turned back to me. ‘Would you look at naked pictures of me on the Internet?’
‘Listen, Nic –’
‘No, come on, Pete,’ she said, pouting her lips and running her fingers through her hair. ‘What d’you think?’ She struck a pose – hands behind her head, thrusting herself forward – and although I knew she was only joking, mocking the artificiality of pornographic pictures, I kind of got the impression that she was only half-joking too. But while a part of me was still in thrall to the miracle of her half-naked body, she didn’t really look very sexy any more. She just looked drunk.
‘You don’t have to do this, Nic,’ I said quietly.
‘Do what?’
‘You know…’
She glanced down at herself, then looked up, smiling seductively. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?’
‘No, it’s not that… I just think –’
‘What? You just think what?’
Everything felt wrong now. Nic felt wrong, I felt wrong, the whole situation felt wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to her. ‘I don’t think we should do this.’
Her face froze. ‘You what?’
‘I just can’t…’
She smiled awkwardly, glancing downwards. ‘Is it… you know… is something wrong?’
‘No… no, nothing’s wrong. I just don’t think this is the right time.’
She frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘This,’ I said. ‘Me and you, it just doesn’t feel right…’
She grinned, shifting herself in my lap. ‘It feels all right to me.’
I moved away from her.
She stopped grinning and her eyes went cold. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? I mean, Jesus Christ…’
‘Come on, Nic,’ I said, reaching out to calm her down. ‘There’s no need to get angry…’
She slapped my hand away.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I was only trying to –’
‘Fuck you, Pete,’ she hissed.
There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I just sat there, letting her glare at me. Her face had completely changed now. It was dead-looking, vicious, hard as nails. Her once-glowing skin was dull and white, and her eyes were black with rage.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ she said nastily.
‘Of course I’m not –’
‘Humiliating me.’
‘I didn’t mean to –’
‘Making me feel like a whore.’
I shook my head. ‘Listen, Nic. I’m sorry, OK? I’m really sorry. I know how you must feel –’
‘You don’t know how I feel.’
She pushed herself away from me then, shoving me hard in the chest, and all I could do was sit there and watch as she picked up her clothes and started to get dressed. She was stumbling all over the place now, hopping on one leg, trying to pull on her jeans, almost falling over…
‘Do you mind?’ she said, glaring over her shoulder at me.
I lowered my eyes.
‘Christ,’ I heard her mutter.
I stared at the ground, dazed and confused, not knowing what to think or what to do. My head was spinning, my skull was tightening… I was nowhere. And I didn’t understand why. I just stared at the ground, not knowing anything, utterly incapable.
I didn’t raise my eyes again until I heard Nicole cursing and kicking an empty bottle out of her way as she moved towards the door. As I looked up, she paused for a moment, dug something out of her jeans’ pocket, and threw it over to me. It landed in the dirt at my feet – a packet of condoms.
‘Enjoy yourself,’ she said coldly.
I looked up at her.
She turned away and stooped down to the door.
‘Are you going to be all right?’ I asked her.
‘What do you care?’
‘I can walk with you along the lane, if you want…’
She laughed, a dismissive snort, and then she was gone. I listened to her angry footsteps stomping down the bank, and I heard her stumble once or twice, and then after a while her footsteps faded away and there was nothing to hear but the stillness of the night and the sigh of my own stupid heart.
Six
I didn’t want to go to the fair after that – I didn’t want to do anything – but I didn’t feel like going home either, and I knew if I stayed where I was, sitting alone in that soured silence, trying to think myself into a time and a place where nothing had happened and everything was still all right… well, I knew that was hopeless. Something had happened. Everything wasn’t all right. And if I carried on trying to think myself out of it, I’d probably just end up crying instead.
Crying for what, I didn’t know.
For being an idiot?
For getting things wrong?
For trying to make things right?
I had no idea.
All I knew was that I couldn’t just sit there feeling sorry for myself – I had to do something. And the only thing I could think of – the only thing that had any point to it – was going t
o the fair to find Raymond.
I took a final swig of tequila, shuddered and coughed, then got to my feet and got going.
It wasn’t as dark along the lane as I’d imagined. The night sky was starless and black, and the moon was nowhere in sight, but there was just enough light drifting up from across the wasteground to let me see where I was going. It was a strange kind of light – a hazy mixture of distant street lights, headlights passing on the dockland roads, and a muted glow from the Greenwell Estate on the other side of the river – and as I walked along the narrow path, everything around me seemed to shiver with an unnaturally dull luminescence. The gas towers shone black. My trainers were bright white. The wall of a factory building at the top of the bank shimmered with a grey-green flatness, like the deadened shine of a blank TV screen.
I wondered if it was real, or if it was just me. Me and the drink. Me and the dope. Me and the stifling black heat. I didn’t really feel drunk or stoned any more, but I was definitely still feeling weird. Kind of buzzy, liquidy, all warm and tingly inside. My senses were heightened, and I was acutely aware of everything in and around me: the ground under my feet, the darkness, the light, the distant sound of the fairground, the sweat on my skin… I could even feel the blood in my veins. It was throbbing in time to a faint metallic roar that was rushing around in my head – whi-shoosh, whi-shoosh, whi-shoosh – like the sound of an old washing machine in an empty basement.
I felt sick.
Numbly nauseous.
I was aching in places I didn’t know existed.
But, for some inexplicable reason, none of this seemed to bother me very much. In fact, in a weird kind of way, it somehow felt quite pleasant. And as I walked on through the dreamy grey darkness, I actually started to feel a bit better. I still didn’t feel great or anything, and my head was still twisted up with all kinds of stuff, but I was beginning to accept that whatever had happened with Nicole, and whoever’s fault it had been, it wasn’t the end of the world.
It was just one of those things.
I mean, no one had died, had they?
No one had been hurt.
It was just one of those mixed-up, shitty little things…
That’s what I kept telling myself anyway – it was just one of those things… there’s no point worrying about it, trying to understand it… it was nothing, just something that happened – and by the time I’d reached the end of the lane, I’d pretty much convinced myself that I was right. There wasn’t any point in thinking about it any more. All that mattered now was getting to the fair, finding Raymond, and getting us both safely home.
Of course, if he’d had a mobile phone, I could have just called him instead. But he didn’t. His parents had never let him have one. And it’d been so long since I’d called Eric or Pauly that even if I’d had their numbers, they’d more than likely have changed them by now.
Not that I really wanted to speak to either of them anyway.
And, besides, I was almost at the recreation ground now.
The sounds of the fairground were getting louder and louder – a swirling cacophony of music and machinery, screams and laughter, the booming crackle of amplified voices – and as I came out of the lane and headed down a little street, I could feel the excitement rippling through the air.
The recreation ground is usually locked up at night – not that that stops anyone getting in – but tonight the gates were wide open, and the usual dark emptiness of the night-time park was ablaze with the lights of the fair. The fairground itself only took up a small part of the park – a ragged circle of rides and trailers at the far end of a pathway on the right-hand side – but the flashing lights and the whirling noise spread out all the way across the playing fields, and as I headed up the pathway towards the fair, everything seemed weirdly mixed up and out of place. The lights in the darkness, the noise in the emptiness, the sounds of excitement surrounded by dullness…
The night was still hot, and the air was getting thicker and heavier. It smelled thundery and electric. I could smell other things too – the meaty stink of overcooked burgers, the sweet scent of perfume and candyfloss, the heat of exhaust fumes and burning lights. It was all too much for me, and for a moment I thought I was going to throw up. But after I’d paused for a minute and taken a few deep breaths, the nausea quickly passed, and in its place I was suddenly filled with a burst of skin-tingling energy.
As I moved on along the path, I felt like I was walking on air.
Although I was already used to the lights and the noise of the fair, the sudden explosion of sound and movement as I entered the fairground literally took my breath away. It was staggering. The blaring music, the crashing drums, the strobing lights, the flashing lasers… people screaming, sirens wailing, everything spinning… whirling wheels, stars and spaceships, thousands of faces, a million booming voices swirling around in the air – HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! EVERYONE’S A WINNER!… IT’S C-C-C-C-CRAZEEE!
I could feel the sound of it all thumping in my heart.
B-BOOM BOOM BOOM…
The lights burning my eyes.
C’MON C’MON! ANY PRIZE YOU LIKE!
The crash of the rides rolling and ripping all around me – TERMINATOR! METEOR! TWISTER! FUN HOUSE! – throwing out madness into the night.
It was hard to feel sane as I moved along the walkways between the stalls and the kiosks and the giant spinning rides. There were so many people – pushing and shoving, laughing and shouting – and so many different sounds blaring out from loudspeakers on poles… everything was all mixed up together – rock ‘n’ roll music, twanging guitars, Wham, Madonna, Duran Duran…
Jesus Christ.
It was like listening to the favourite songs of a dozen middle-aged lunatics all at the same time – WAKE ME UP BEFORE… MY NAME IS… YOU GO-GO… HER NAME IS RIO AND… WE WILL WE WILL… WHO LET THE… JUST LIKE A CHILD… DOGS OUT… ROCK YOU…
I couldn’t see where I was going through the bustle of the crowds, but it didn’t really matter, because I didn’t know where I was going anyway. I was just walking – just going with the flow, hoping to find Raymond. I was also hoping to find some toilets. My bladder was beginning to ache, my belly felt worryingly shitty, and I was starting to feel sick again too. I paused by a stall for a moment and let out a quiet burp. It tasted sour.
‘Try your luck, mate?’ I heard someone say.
I looked round at the stall and saw a ponytailed man offering me three cheap-looking darts. He nodded at a dartboard at the back of the stall.
‘Forty-five or more,’ he said, ‘any prize you like.’
I gazed around at the prizes – stuffed animals, Scooby-Doos, Garfields and Tweety Pies. A row of teddy bears were fixed to the wall, hanging by their necks, like furry little dead men hanging on the gallows.
‘Pound a throw,’ the ponytailed man said. ‘Any prize you like.’
But I wasn’t listening to him any more. I’d heard something from somewhere over to my right, a subtle change in the sound of the crowd, and as I stepped away from the stall and leaned to one side to see what was happening, something inside me already knew what I was going to see. So I wasn’t too surprised when I spotted Raymond’s face up ahead, and just for a second I felt a warm glow of relief spreading right through me… but it didn’t last very long. When I saw who Raymond was with, and what he was doing, everything inside me suddenly went cold.
He was with Stella Ross.
I couldn’t believe it.
Raymond and Stella…?
What the hell was he doing with her? And, more to the point, what the hell was she doing with him? She was Stella Ross, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t hang around with people like Raymond. Even when she was at school, before she got famous, she wouldn’t be seen dead with people like Raymond. But there she was now, strolling along through the fairground with him… her arm round his shoulder, hugging him, talking to him, smiling her bright white smile at him.
As I moved closer, pushing my way throu
gh the crowd, I realized that they weren’t alone. Stella had her people with her – a couple of big security guys, a bunch of well-dressed hangers-on, a guy with a film camera on his shoulder, another one with a big furry microphone on a pole. They were all trailing along behind her, and the guy with the camera was filming her, and everyone around them – all the ordinary people – were getting out of their way, then lining up as they passed to get a better look at Stella Ross in the flesh. And there was a lot of flesh to look at. She was all dressed up in some kind of trailer-trash chic – tight denim shorts, thigh-length boots, a cut-off cowboy shirt with most of the buttons undone.
She was kissing Raymond now, holding him close and planting her bright red lips on his cheek… but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were grinning at the camera. And as she kissed him again, smearing lipstick all over his face, I could see all the people around her smirking at each other, having a good laugh, watching the beauty playing with the beast.
I didn’t know why, but that’s what she was doing. She was playing with him, toying with him. Pretending that he was her boyfriend or something. It was just a big joke to her – the beautiful celebrity flirting with the weird-looking loser – and it made me feel sick. It was like watching someone teasing a dog. And, just like a dog, Raymond didn’t seem to care. He was just playing along with it – smiling at Stella, wide-eyed and excited, grinning while everyone laughed at him…
I didn’t get it.
Raymond wasn’t stupid.
He must have known what was going on.
But he didn’t seem bothered at all.
At least, he didn’t look as if he was bothered about anything. It was hard to tell with Raymond. But I was pretty sure that he wasn’t doing anything he didn’t want to do. And that was the only thing that made me hesitate for a moment as I moved through the crowds towards Stella. He’s happy enough, a voice in my head said. Why not just leave him alone? But it didn’t strike me as much of an argument, and it didn’t do anything to slow me down.
I’d nearly reached Stella and Raymond now. The crowds had thinned out in front of them, and as I closed in on the slow-moving entourage, I could see that the camera was pointing at me, and the two big security guys were moving out in front of Stella to cut me off.