Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  Perhaps she fancied him.

  He’d read in the Sunday papers about these hoity-toity women liking a bit on the side with a man in a uniform. And while he wasn’t exactly a copper or a fireman …

  He swallowed hard. What would he do if she made a grab for him? He had his lumbago to think of. Never mind his old woman. They didn’t go in for all this modern stuff, all this wife-swapping and that, not round his way they didn’t. Although he had heard stories that there were certain housewives who waited for their husbands to go out, then they put a packet of Omo washing powder in their front window – OMO: Old Man Out – as an invitation for blokes to come round and join them. It made him feel quite unnecessary just thinking about it.

  But he needn’t have worried; Sonia hadn’t gone mad, she was not flirting, and she definitely had no intention of making a pass at him. Her odd behaviour had a simple explanation: for the first time in her life, Sonia Fuller was truly happy. She was in love.

  *

  It was almost eleven o’clock, and the girls, having spent the last of their money on an orgy of sugary, greasy junk that they had tucked into as if it was their last meal, were sitting on the sea wall, licking the final grainy remains of candy floss from round their mouths, watching the now booze- and pill-fuelled crowds from a safe distance.

  ‘What now?’ asked Angie, closing one eye and looking down her nose for any stray strands of pink sugar.

  She had enjoyed, far more than she thought she would, being part of this youthful, simmering pot of turbulence; well, more of a witness than a participant really, but that hadn’t been such a bad thing. A rocker had thrown a bottle that had narrowly missed Jackie and had shattered on the pavement in front of them. Rather than causing alarm amongst the crowd of mods it had been intended to strike, it had merely infuriated them. They spun round in formation, like a shoal of short-haired, Ben Sherman-shirted fish, and started running after the gang who had attacked them.

  It was then that Jackie and Angie had retreated with their goodies to the safety of the sea wall.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Jackie. ‘But I know I wouldn’t mind being indoors. It’s getting flipping freezing out here.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that. I really thought you wanted to sleep on the beach.’

  Jackie swung her legs idly back and forward, knocking her heels against the rough sea wall. ‘I imagine, somewhere, there’s got to be …’ She paused. ‘Dancing.’

  ‘Dancing?’ yawned Angie.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘In a lovely warm club.’

  ‘No. On the beach. By moonlight. More romantic.’

  ‘Do you reckon crabs and shrimps do the Hitchhiker?’ Angie shimmied and windmilled her arms. ‘With all their little legs waving about.’

  ‘Well they wouldn’t get very far doing the Stomp, would they? They’d sink in the mud.’

  ‘But they’d be good doing the Swim.’

  They had collapsed into childish giggles, a combination of tiredness and a surfeit of sugar, when they heard the first screams. At first, they thought it was someone larking around, maybe getting up to a bit of hanky-panky on the sands behind them, but when the screaming continued and they saw a group of hobble-skirted mods with tears streaming down their heavily made-up faces, and one with blood gushing from her nose, being chased by a pack of leather-clad, chain-wielding rocker girls, they realized it was more serious than a bit of adolescent horseplay.

  The next thing they heard was the defiantly aggressive sounds of male whooping and hollering, as a horde of blokes came barrelling out of a side-street towards the sea front, with another bellowing mob close behind.

  They were heading straight for where the girls were sitting.

  Angie grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘Bloody hell, Jack. Let’s get out of here.’

  They barely noticed the drop as they angled themselves round and plunged down into the darkness on to the damp sand below. With hearts racing, they crouched close to the wall, listening to the smashing and crashing of missiles being hurled between the roaring, shrieking gangs of rivals.

  When a house brick came flying over the wall and thudded on to the seashore somewhere in the gloom behind them, they knew they had to get moving.

  Jackie pulled off her red suede shoes. ‘We can leg it along the beach. To the steps by the bus shelter. All right with your blisters?’

  ‘Watch me.’

  With the wail of police sirens and the crunching of heavy boots adding to the clamour and confusion above them, the girls fled from what was turning into a full-scale riot on just the other side of the wall.

  They covered the four hundred yards to the shelter at adrenalin-fuelled speed, and hauled themselves up the steep steps back on to the promenade.

  ‘I’ll bet Arthur’s getting what for,’ said Jackie, in a creditable impersonation of the Yorkshire woman’s accent.

  ‘God help the poor sister-in-law,’ panted Angie. ‘All this’ll be her fault.’

  The girls carried on their act of composed nonchalance as they sat on the wall behind the shelter, in what they hoped were its impenetrable shadows, brushing the sand from their feet, but they were both shaking. The naked hatred they had just witnessed was like nothing they had ever seen before, and it had terrified them. And the sounds of chaotic, frenzied battle, still so close, were not dying away; if anything, they were growing louder and more angry.

  ‘That girl. The one whose nose was bleeding. Do you think one of those other girls could really have done that to her?’

  Jackie nodded, as she leaned on Angie, while she pulled her shoes back on. ‘Definitely. Sandra, this girl at work, she told me about her mate. She’s a mod. And this rocker girl, know what she did to her?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The rocker called Sandra’s mate a slut, and then she ripped the pierced ear-rings right out of Sandra’s mate’s ears.’

  Angie clapped her hands protectively over the tiny gold sleepers she had only just been brave enough to have put in her own ears.

  ‘A copper come up and grabbed them both. And, you won’t believe this, the rocker girl only wore Sandra’s mate’s ear-rings to court. When she was in the stand being done for assault.’

  ‘That is so disgusting.’

  ‘I know.’

  Angie swallowed hard. ‘If you’d told me that before, I’d never have come.’

  ‘Tell you the truth, Ange, I never really believed it. Not till I saw all this here tonight.’

  ‘I think we should go home. I know we were going to stay overnight and everything, but this is getting dodgy.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree with you more, but how on earth are we going to get to the station without an armed guard?’

  Angie rubbed her goose-pimpled arms. ‘I am so cold.’

  ‘Let’s at least get out of the wind, while we wait for it to quieten down.’

  They crept round into the shelter, huddled into the corner, and sat there in the dark, lost in thoughts of warm beds, sand-free feet, and nice places where you didn’t have to look out for bottles being aimed at your head or chain-wielding greasers wanting to bust your nose.

  At the sound of loud male voices accompanied by running footsteps, the girls grabbed on to each other and pressed themselves back against the slatted wood.

  They watched, in dry-mouthed silence as two blokes stumbled into the shelter and leaned heavily on the wall for support.

  ‘Did you see that?’ asked the first voice, almost choking with laughter.

  ‘How could I miss it?’ asked a second, drink-slurred voice. ‘Wonder he never got arrested.’

  Jackie leaned forward. No. It couldn’t be.

  There was a sudden, huge roar of anger from outside, and then an amplified police demand for calm, booming through a megaphone.

  ‘Bit of luck we left the scooters behind, eh?’ It was the first voice again. ‘Mind you, you’re so pissed, Mart, I doubt you could even have balanced on yours.’

  ‘Must have a piss,’ the other on
e muttered.

  ‘Martin! Shit!’ The loud expletive had left Jackie’s lips before she could do anything about it.

  ‘Jackie?’ the now drunk and shocked, second voice asked. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Jackie shook her head self-pityingly. Just her flaming luck. It was Martin. Her big, rotten brother. This was all she needed, him knowing she was here. Why, with all these people, did she have to bash into him? He’d never let her forget it. He’d have her running around after him for months if he had this to hold over her.

  She’d have to strike first.

  She took a deep breath, stood up and marched across to him. ‘You’ve been drinking.’

  Martin nodded happily, and grinned at his friend. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ She lifted her chin at his tall, rather good-looking companion. Unlike Martin, he appeared fairly sober, but, in all other ways, they looked very similar. Both of them wore gingham shirts, stone-coloured trousers, desert boots and parkas, and, as her vision adjusted to the dim, half-light, Jackie could see that, also like Martin, his friend had short, neat hair and, the sign of the true mod, a swipe of blue eye shadow and mascara.

  Had she not wanted to attract any passing rockers, she would have whooped with pleasure. Mod style or not, she’d never let her brother live this one down. Not only half-cut, but wearing eye make-up. She would play this one for all it was worth.

  ‘Jackie,’ said Martin, enunciating with the pointed care of a drunk. ‘This is my pal. Keith. From the petrol station.’

  ‘I didn’t think he was one of your stuck-up college friends. Not wearing make-up.’

  ‘Keith.’ Martin narrowed his eyes, and wagged a finger in Jackie’s face. ‘This is my gobby little sister. Jacqueline.’

  ‘She don’t look so little to me, Mart.’

  ‘Hello, Martin.’ Angie stepped out of the shadows and smiled shyly. All the horrors that were taking place only a few hundred yards along the beach had melted away, dissolved by the radiant presence of Martin Murray.

  ‘All right, Squirt?’ He looked her up and down appreciatively. ‘You’re looking prettier every day.’

  ‘You can say that again. You’ve been keeping these two a right secret.’ Keith flashed his eyebrows in appreciation. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got hidden away in here, shall we?’

  He mimed a kiss at Jackie and produced a pint lemonade bottle from a deep pocket inside his parka.

  ‘Vodka and orange,’ he said, gesturing with the bottle towards the interior of the green-painted shelter. ‘Care to join us, ladies?’

  Jackie smiled back at him. He was a bit of all right. Things were definitely looking up. ‘Yeah, you can keep us warm. We were freezing our bits off in there.’

  ‘And we can protect you from all them nasty rockers,’ Keith leered.

  Vodka and orange was something neither Jackie nor Angie had had before; their drinking was usually limited to halves of lager and lime and the occasional, sickly Snowball, but it slipped down surprisingly easily, and soon the bottle was empty.

  ‘You said someone never got arrested. Who?’ Jackie was sprawling tipsily on one of the three benches that ran round the walls of the shelter. She felt all mellow and restful, especially now that most of the noise outside had died down.

  ‘The WOW man.’ Martin hiccuped, folding his arm more tightly round Angie’s shoulders. Angie wasn’t cold any more but she liked being cuddled up to his soft green coat. Liked being cuddled up to him.

  ‘He’s got a “W” tattooed on each side of his bum,’ chuckled Keith. ‘So when he drops his pants and bends over …’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Jackie, feigning disapproval.

  ‘Give us a kiss.’ Keith suddenly pounced on her. ‘You’re gorgeous.’

  Angie felt embarrassed sitting so close to her friend while she snogged Keith with all the subtlety of a blocked vacuum cleaner, but she didn’t dare move in case Martin took his arm away.

  With some difficulty, Jackie untwined herself from Keith’s clutches. ‘Let’s go round the back of the shelter,’ she whispered, dragging him up from the bench. ‘I can’t snog in front of my brother.’

  Jackie needn’t have been so dainty, Martin was now too drunk to notice anyone other than Angie, over whom he had draped himself like a wet towel.

  ‘Why isn’t Jill like you?’ Martin breathed into her hair.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You like me, don’t you, Squirt? You wouldn’t try and push me away if I kissed you.’

  Angie could barely speak. ‘No,’ she rasped, turning to look up into his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t push you away.’

  ‘Or if I touched you?’

  She went to shake her head, but Martin already had his mouth pressed hard against hers, his tongue forcing and searching its way between her lips. He tasted of booze and cigarettes, but Angie didn’t care, her head was swimming and her body was buzzing.

  Martin was kissing her, and he was running his hand up and down her thigh, closer and closer …

  Suddenly he pulled away from her, staggered to his feet, tore off his parka and, with a bit of effort, spread it out on the narrow bench seat. ‘Lay on that,’ he muttered.

  Angie stared at the coat. Her head was muzzy from the vodka.

  ‘So you don’t hurt yourself. When I take down your lovely white lacy tights. And lick that daisy.’ Martin closed one eye so that he could focus on the black and white felt flower that Angie had so carefully cut out and stuck on to her thigh with eyelash glue. ‘Then I’ll lay on top of you and—’

  ‘Do you mean you want to …’ She couldn’t say it.

  He held her close to him and nuzzled her neck. ‘I like you, Squirt, d’you know that?’ he slurred into her ear. ‘I really like you.’

  ‘And I like you,’ she whispered back.

  ‘Lay down then.’

  Angie closed her eyes. Martin wanted to do it. With her. She hadn’t thought she would ever do it with anybody, not so quickly. She wasn’t that sort of girl.

  But this was Martin.

  Her Martin.

  Her mouth was now completely dry, and she felt almost sober, as she stretched out on the bench and held out her arms to him.

  Martin squeezed clumsily on to the bench alongside her, stuck his hand straight up her dress and began an inept search for the waistband of her tights.

  ‘Taking you to a party.’ His head felt strange. ‘Next Saturday. Party.’

  Angie’s heart was racing so fast, she thought she might faint. ‘I’d like that,’ she panted, as she felt and heard her new tights rip. ‘I really would.’

  ‘So would I. I would like that. I would …’

  The bus shelter began to spin, and Martin passed out cold on top of her.

  Chapter 6

  ANGIE WAS SITTING on the sofa in the front room, with her legs tucked up under her, watching Cathy McGowan on the television, introducing Ready, Steady, Go! with an excitable squeal: the weekend starts here.

  ‘I told you Jackie’s mum would get fed up with you hanging around there all the time.’ Vi sounded like she looked – sullen – as she dragged viciously on the cigarette she had just lit from the stub of her previous one. ‘She’s all on top, that Tilly. A right toffee merchant. Pretends she’s so bloody perfect.’

  ‘If you must know, Mum, she’s not fed up with me. She said I’m always more than welcome.’

  ‘Eeuuh!’ sneered Vi in a mocking voice. ‘More than welcome. So why did you get ready to go out in here then?’

  ‘I didn’t want to take liberties, that’s all. It’s bad enough Jackie and Martin fighting over the bathroom, without me being under her feet as well.’

  ‘Pity you don’t worry about your own mother for once.’

  Angie turned, disbelievingly, to face her. ‘Are you really going to start all that hard-done-by act again?’

  ‘Well, what am I meant to do? Look at this place.’

  ‘Looks all right.’

  ‘It’s a mess.
And Nick’s coming round in a couple of hours. There’s tights hanging over the bath, the sink’s full, and … Aw, I don’t know.’

  Angie returned her gaze to the television, tapping her foot agitatedly to the Kinks’ latest. ‘You know none of that mess is mine. I’ve cleared up after myself all week. Even though I’ve been working. While you’ve sat around all day and done nothing. You figure out whose fault it is.’

  ‘You are so ungrateful. Who walked all the way up the shops and got the fish and chips you’ve just eaten?’

  ‘Big deal.’

  ‘I am not saying all this for fun, young lady. It is not some sort of game. I am being serious.’

  ‘Am I laughing?’

  Vi clapped her hand dramatically to her forehead, spraying the carpet with ash from her cigarette. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Angela.’

  Angie didn’t take her eyes off the television. ‘I’ve grown up, Mum, that’s what.’

  ‘Too grown-up, if you ask me. You can wipe all that stuff off your face, for a start.’

  ‘Leave off, Mum. Please. I don’t want to argue with you.’

  Vi pouted pathetically. ‘Why aren’t you my sweet little Angie Wangie any more?’

  ‘You’re not getting round me. Not this time.’

  Pathetic Violet suddenly turned into Furious Mother. ‘I won’t have it, young lady. If this is your attitude. Then you’re not going out tonight.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mum.’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Violet leaped from her chair, her nylon housecoat flapping about her like quilted, lavender wings, and snapped off the television. ‘If that’s your attitude. You can get out. Go on. Leave. See how you manage without me.’

  Angie sighed. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Just try me. Go on.’ She pointed dramatically to the window. ‘You go out tonight and I’ll lock the door on you.’

  ‘Who’ll do all that ironing? You won’t have a thing to wear.’

  Vi said nothing for a long moment, she just pursed her lips tightly and snorted down her nose. Then she turned her back on Angie and flounced out of the room.

  ‘I’m having a bath,’ she shouted, slamming the door so hard it rattled on its hinges.