Bitter Sixteen

by Stefan Mohamed

  ‘Was she cross?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Kloe. ‘But also kind of proud, I think.’

  She ended up dragging me around H&M because she needed to buy a top and wanted me to help her, and as we drifted around the women’s clothing section looking at bikini tops, T-shirts, strap tops and every other conceivable type of top, I had a thought that I didn’t really want to have. ‘Um . . . Kloe?’

  ‘Mm?’ she asked, distractedly, holding a white Pink Panther strap top against herself.

  ‘Did you go to the Prom?’

  She turned around very quickly. ‘What?’

  ‘Did you go to the Prom?’

  She looked at the ground. ‘Um . . . well . . . yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Great. ‘Who with?’

  She looked hurt. ‘Who did I go with? I didn’t go with anyone, you dickhead. I wanted to go with you, but you were sort of elsewhere.’

  ‘Sorry . . .’ Way to go, Stanly, you plank.

  She waved her hand. ‘No, I’m sorry. That was unfair.’ She put the top back on its hanger. ‘Basically, I got dressed up and went with a couple of friends. Spent most of the time talking and drinking from various hip flasks. Nearly lost it at the last song, ’cos it was a slow number, of course, but Lynsey asked me to dance and it was fine.’

  ‘Lynsey?’ Lynsey, Lynsey . . . ‘Blonde Lynsey?’

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Blonde Lynsey. She caught her boyfriend getting off with Tilly Sharpe halfway through the dance so we decided to dance together and take the piss out of all the slushy couples. Is that OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fine. I just . . . well. You know.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She took a powder blue T-shirt off the shelf and held it up. ‘What do you think?’

  Nice? I think? ‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Try it on.’

  She popped to the changing rooms, and emerged a minute later wearing the T-shirt. ‘What do you think?’ she asked again.

  ‘Um.’ I was going crimson.

  ‘Too tight?’

  No, just tight enough. ‘Um, a little, maybe? A bit. Um.’

  She settled on two tops in the end, one white and one blue, and we got to the cinema in plenty of time, bought far too much confectionary and sat down, ready for the film to begin. By the time Humphrey and Ingrid said goodbye at the misty airport we were both glassy-eyed, which I took as a good sign, and I squeezed her hand and she put her head on my shoulder. We left the cinema with our arms around each other, and Kloe asked what the time was.

  I looked at my watch. ‘Quarter past six.’

  She looked into my eyes. ‘What do you want to do now?’

  ‘It’s open now, but the music doesn’t start until later,’ I said. ‘What do you want to do?’

  We found a park bench and amused ourselves until seven.

  ‘So,’ said Connor. ‘It’s certainly a pleasure to meet the original Romeo and Juliet.’

  Kloe’s cheeks went a bit red, but she laughed. ‘Yeah. It’s pretty disgusting, isn’t it?’ She sipped her wine and gave me a cheeky look, and I smiled back like a lovestruck goon.

  Connor grinned. ‘Well I think it’s nice. And so long as you can avoid any misunderstandings with sleeping drugs and Friars who should know better, you should be fine.’

  ‘Check,’ said Kloe. ‘No suicide confusion. We were actually going to have mobile phones in the play ’cos it was modern dress, but Miss Stevenson decided we couldn’t because if everyone had phones, that would basically negate the entire plot.’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘maybe we should forget about that aspect of our courtship, for the sake of not jinxing it.’

  ‘Our courtship?’ said Kloe.

  ‘Shut up, I stand by my word. And yeah, we should definitely probably forget about the play. Otherwise you get into the whole Juliet-being-fourteen-years-old thing, and Romeo being a whiny douchebag. Plus, like you said, suicide confusion.’

  ‘It is a pretty shoddy love story.’

  ‘I know, right? So maybe . . . I dunno, at the most we’re like the best possible version of Romeo and Juliet, who were both of age, and Romeo wasn’t a whiny douchebag, and there was no issue with their parents, and everything was just fine. Rubbish from a tragic drama perspective, but better in pretty much every other possible way.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ said Kloe, and we shook.

  Connor laughed and glanced in Eddie’s direction. ‘Yo, Edster. You here?’

  Eddie nodded distractedly. ‘Yeah.’ He kept fiddling with his empty glass and glancing towards the bar, where Hannah was talking animatedly with a young scarlet-haired jazz violinist who had finished playing about twenty minutes ago. Now there was a hiatus. The place was fuller than last time, and I was sitting with Kloe, Connor and Eddie at what I’d now decided was ‘our usual table’. Sharon had developed a headache and decided to stay at home. The other patrons were an amusingly varied mix: a pretty blonde girl in a blue dress sitting with a clean-shaven denim model-type guy; a distinguished-looking man with white hair, dressed in a suit, sitting alone; a guy and girl with matching hemp outfits and dreadlocks who had been texting pretty much the whole time they’d been there. The violinist’s companions – a bald guy who played the piano and a young woman who sang – were sitting at a table near the back, drinking silently, while the violinist chatted to Hannah. I could see why Eddie was getting pissed off, although he was making it embarrassingly obvious, and I was trying to think of something not Hannah-related to say to distract him when he very abruptly stood up, excused himself and disappeared to the men’s toilets.

  ‘What’s up wit yo cousin?’ asked Kloe.

  ‘He and the girl at the bar used to go out,’ said Connor. ‘He gets jealous.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kloe didn’t look convinced. ‘But he was sort of strange outside when we first met.’

  ‘He’s sort of strange generally,’ said Connor. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s my best mate and I love him but . . . well, Stanly, you know, don’t you? He’s weird.’

  ‘Always has been,’ I said.

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ said Kloe, sticking her tongue out.

  This public flirting thing is really kind of sexy.

  You think?

  You enjoyed snogging on a park bench while the world and his wife and our Mrs. Reynolds wandered by, didn’t you? Face it. You like other people seeing how all over each other you are.

  So what if I do?

  Man, I don’t care. Just so long as she keeps —

  ‘Hey,’ said Kloe in a low voice. ‘Look at that lot.’

  Connor and I looked in the direction she was pointing as casually as we could. There was a group I’d not noticed before sitting at the very edge of the room, right by the toilets. Four guys. Two of them were black and two were white, and their outfits were all blacks and greys. None of them seemed terribly cheerful, and one kept glancing at his watch. I definitely didn’t like the look of them, and nor did Connor, by the tone of his Meaningful Expression.

  ‘Do you know them?’ asked Kloe.

  Connor shook his head. ‘No. But they don’t look friendly.’

  ‘We could talk to Hannah,’ I said.

  ‘And tell her what?’ asked Connor. ‘“I’m getting a wicked bad vibe off those clowns at the back, please throw them out”? And anyway, she’s too busy charming the strings off that violinist.’

  He has a point.

  Kloe was looking suspicious. ‘Do you guys, like . . . fight dodgy people with your magic powers, or something?’

  ‘I wish,’ I said. ‘And they’re not magic.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Connor tried to change the subject. ‘So. Do you reckon Eddie’s going to play?’

  ‘I bet he will,’ I said. ‘He’ll play solo ’cos he won’t even want to make eye contact with Hannah, let
alone talk to her. And he’ll play the best he’s ever played in his entire life because he wants to make the violinist look like a tone-deaf corpse plucking a toilet brush.’

  Kloe laughed. ‘You’re funny.’

  ‘He is,’ said Connor. ‘I like him.’

  ‘I like him too.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I like me too.’

  Just then the door to the club opened and a guy entered. He could have been anything between nineteen and thirty-something, and something about him immediately felt off. Skinny and pale and dressed in what I can only describe as charity-shop detritus, he had a shaved head and many piercings and was incredibly twitchy, fiddling with his hands as he made his way hurriedly across the room, and constantly glancing behind him as though he was being followed. Hannah clocked him and her face shifted instantly to worry . . . and anger.

  I wonder . . .

  I turned to Connor, who looked almost as pleased to see the guy as Hannah did. ‘Is that . . .’

  ‘Hannah’s brother, yeah,’ said Connor. ‘Billy. Bad news.’

  Kloe shot me a questioning look, and I tried to communicate the phrase I’ll explain later with just my eyes.

  Hannah came out from behind the bar to intercept Billy and they spoke in low voices, Billy gesturing randomly and moving nervously from foot to foot. It looked like she was telling him to get lost, but he wasn’t having any of it. Now Eddie emerged from the toilets and he clocked Billy, and I actually felt a jolt in my chest, because if someone had ever looked at me the way Eddie looked at Hannah’s brother, I think I would have literally pissed myself with fear. He stalked over to them and didn’t bother to moderate his tone. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Billy?’

  The other patrons were taking notice now, looking nervously at one another and muttering. ‘Connor,’ I said. ‘Should we . . .’

  ‘Maybe.’ Connor stood up slowly, keeping his eye on what was happening.

  ‘Get out of my face, asshole!’ yelled Billy in a high, nasal voice, pushing past Eddie and heading for the toilets. Touching him felt like an impressively ballsy move, considering how close Eddie seemed to be to throwing a punch. My cousin moved to follow, but Hannah grabbed him by the arm and shook her head. The door to the men’s toilet slammed behind Billy, and immediately the four bad-vibe guys sitting nearby stood up and moved towards it, and I was sure I could see the butt of a weapon inside one of their jackets. Oh shitting hell. ‘Connor,’ I said again. ‘Those guys . . .’

  He’d seen them too, and started towards Eddie and Hannah, but then the door to the club burst open and three more men entered. One was big and wore an expensive-looking black coat, while his two companions were short and shorter, respectively. Short Guy wore a black leather jacket and carried a silver handgun, while Shorter Guy wore a brown leather jacket and was wielding some sort of machine gun. Big Guy had a sawn-off shotgun, and he was . . . was he grinning?

  Yeah. He’s grinning.

  The four guys by the toilets saw the new arrivals and immediately whipped out weapons of their own. Somebody screamed. ‘Where is he?’ said Big Guy.

  ‘He got off the train at Go Fuck Yourself Park!’ yelled one of the other group, a ratty blonde guy who also had a machine gun of some kind.

  Oh God. It’s —

  ‘Everybody get down!’ bellowed Eddie. ‘Now!’

  Then violent things started to happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO said that being shot at is the most exhilarating thing in the world – I’m pretty sure someone did – but whoever they were, they were wrong. During the next few frenzied minutes I came to the inescapable conclusion that there is nothing remotely exhilarating about having bullets fired at you.

  The first thing was the noise. The gunshots were loud, so loud, so much more than loud. Each one was like being punched in the eardrum. The next thing was terror. Terror like I’d never felt outside of a nightmare, terror that drove any thought of superheroics from my head, so that all that was left was the noise and don’t get shot, oh God, don’t get shot.

  Eddie dived forwards, grabbing Hannah and pulling her around to the side of the stage to safety. Connor, who had moved so fast I was barely aware of it happening, was already dragging Kloe and me down, bringing our table with us to create an impromptu shield. I pulled Kloe to me, one eye on the chaos reflected in the mirrored glass wall above the bar. The violinist who had been talking to Hannah had scrambled over the counter, and now the blonde guy who had shouted before ran across the room and leapt after him. The rest of the gunmen had scattered, diving for cover and firing off rounds, and someone had been caught in the middle, a random guy, multiple blasts tearing shreds out of his chest. He went down immediately, floppy like a ragdoll. I fought the urge to throw up.

  This isn’t happening.

  All around us, people were screaming. The old man had fallen off his chair and was lying on his back, clutching his chest and moaning inarticulately. The violinist’s companions had thrown themselves to the floor, and now the singer was screeching and crying, trying to crawl towards the bar to reach him, but the piano player was being sensible and holding her down. Kloe was screaming too, and I held on to her as Connor hooked another table with his leg and pulled it over to provide more cover. The beautiful couple sitting near us had run towards the door and the man had made it out, but the girl had not been so lucky. A stray shot caught her in the arm and the force of it spun her right around and she collapsed against the wall, howling in pain, blood spurting.

  In the arm, though?

  That’s OK, isn’t it?

  No-one dies from being shot in the arm?

  Do they?

  I was disorientated but I could still see everything clearly. Does that make sense? No it doesn’t, but then again, this situation didn’t make sense, whichever way you put it. My only experience of gun battles was in films, all balletic grace and unlimited ammunition and doves flapping in slow motion, and generally innocent people didn’t get caught in the crossfire. This was different. This was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  Big, Short and Shorter had all taken up positions behind tables, and they and their four opponents were firing blindly. The shotgun went off with a thunderous ker-boom, tearing chunks of plaster from the ceiling. Pictures shattered and fell to the floor. A stray bullet hit the piano with a discordant plunk sound. I could hear Hannah yelling and crying, and now Blondie popped up from behind the bar and squeezed off a few rounds. He quickly disappeared again, though, because the answering clatter of fire came from the machine gun, a horrendous motorcycle rattlesnake sound. Bottles exploded in showers of multicoloured liquid and tinkling glass, spirits flowing along the countertop in rivers, and Blondie’s hand emerged from behind it waving his gun and laying down more shots.

  I was suddenly aware that Connor was speaking and I turned my head to hear what he was saying. Bullets whizzed over the top of the table, impacting against chairs and tables and, by the sounds of it, another person. ‘Don’t even think about doing anything!’ he yelled. ‘Let them shoot it out!’ At any rate, I think that’s what he said. Every word was punctuated by gunshots or more explosions, or hysterical and obscene screaming. The gunmen were yelling insults at each other. Insults. A slagging match! For God’s sake, this is a battle to the death! I managed to offer a nod, and hugged Kloe to me and stroked her hair. She was shaking, and I whispered that it was all right, which might have been the biggest lie I’d ever told anyone. Somehow I felt like the only reason I wasn’t having a nervous breakdown was because of her. Because I had to keep it together.

  At least, that was what I told myself to avoid hyperventilating.

  I chanced another look at the rest of the bar. The air stank of blood and alcohol and hot metal, and one of the first lot of guys, Billy’s allies, or whoever the hell they were, was lying on the ground with holes in him, b
lood spreading from underneath. Now Blondie and Big jumped up at the same time and Blondie emptied into Big’s face and I gagged, feeling vomit at the base of my throat. No. Not what this situation needs. I forced it down. Hannah screamed her brother’s name, and Eddie yelled something indistinct to her, and Connor yelled, ‘Eddie, don’t be a dickhead, just stay where you are man!’

  Eddie? Stay where? What’s he going to —

  Then I heard Blondie cry out as his gun clicked on empty, and there was a thud as he dropped back down to hide, and Short took that opportunity to jump up and fire over the table. One of the other guys went down, choking on blood bubbles, and the other came up and fired straight into Short’s chest, pulling the trigger again and again until there was nothing left in the weapon. The force of the attack sent Short stumbling backwards against the wall, and the pictures behind him were splattered with dark red. He coughed, gurgled and slumped to the floor, and I saw one of Billy’s guys cast away his empty weapon and reach into his jacket to draw another one, but Shorter had waited for his turn and wasn’t going to waste it. He jumped up and fired one bullet, although the trigger kept on clicking uselessly as he tried to make more come from nowhere. His target keeled over backwards, knocking a table over, and lay still on his back, smoke rising from the centre of his skull.

  Immediately Blondie jumped up again, having reloaded, and fired. He took Shorter down, then slid clumsily over the wet bar and hit the floor on his knees. ‘Ah, bollocks,’ he said, wincing. The gunfire had stopped but people were still crying and moaning, and Blondie stood up and barked in the direction of the toilets. ‘Billy! Get out here!’

  Billy didn’t appear, and Blondie raised his gun and fired into the air. ‘Billy!’ he yelled. ‘Get out here! Everybody else stay down, or you’re getting a fucking bullet! Billy! Get your worthless arse out here now!’

  I heard the toilet door, and Billy emerged looking even paler than before, if that was possible. Blondie nodded at him. ‘Come on,’ he said, and ran towards the door. He left the club without looking back and Billy stumbled after him, but he was too slow, because now Eddie was on his feet. He tripped Billy and the guy went over hard, slamming face first into one of the few tables that was still upright. He cried out in pain and Eddie yanked him to his feet, turned him over and slammed him down on the edge of the stage. ‘What have you done?’ he yelled. ‘You little piece of shit!’ Connor got up and hurried over to them, talking to Eddie in a low voice, something about calming down, about leaving it for the police, whatever, I didn’t even care, I didn’t care how it had happened or what was going to happen. I stood up, ears ringing, and Kloe came shakily with me, and I hugged her to me and said what you were supposed to say. I told the girl I loved that everything was all right, even though it wasn’t. Not by a long shot, no pun intended. I could hear those ever-present sirens in the distance, and now they were finally on their way somewhere, and supposedly they would take care of everything. They were the police. The law. They represented stability and consequences, and they would make things right.