He feels so small now, a fractional part of something vast and unknowable. Because everyone, everyone in the world, has an equal loss. Everyone has a billion things that haven’t happened. He is nothing special.
He shivers. Then walks into the kitchen to get what he came for. When he goes to open the fridge he discovers that his fingers are crossed. He looks at them.
Lucky Jack. How long will his luck hold?
CHAPTER 10
MEETING KELLY JONES
NOW it is evening and the forces of night are gathering. Of course, many bad things happen in daylight too and many nights pass peacefully. But not this time.
Jess has been home after the day spent practising. It had been perhaps half past seven when she’d got home and her mum had been nippy with her.
“I’ve already eaten. I couldn’t wait any longer,” Sylvia had said. And indeed the kitchen had shown signs of this, with a single plate and single knife and fork sitting there by the sink. Not the wine glass, for that was not finished with.
“I did text, Mum.”
“Well, you know what I’m like with my phone.”
“Yes, well, if you want me to text you it might be sensible not to be like that with your phone.”
“Yes, well, if only everyone was as sensible as you, Jess, darling,” her mother had said.
Ah, so there’s still a headache going on, Jess had thought, but hadn’t said it.
Anyway, she’d made something to eat for herself, had a shower, thrown clothes all over her room as she tried to find the right items. What are the right items for the first night of a new life? All the usual problems come into play when deciding how to dress for this ordinary unordinary night – mustn’t try too hard, mustn’t not try hard enough, mustn’t wear something which will show sweat, must wear something that goes with favourite bag/shoes/necklace, must show enough but not too much.
But let’s not dwell on this, for none of it will make much difference to what happens. Jack and Jess will do what they do, say what they say, whether Jess wears the blue or the brown, the floaty or the tight, this or that. She looks great anyway.
At about ten o’clock, she is ready to go. She leaves her mother in front of the television. Sylvia has tried to engage Jess in conversation at the last minute, not because she really wants to know the answers to her questions but because she faces the rest of the night alone.
“So, tell me about this boy,” she says, remarkably brightly for someone who only a few hours earlier would have described herself as definitely within spitting distance of death’s door. She takes another large glug of wine and the glass twangs against her teeth.
“He’s nice. You’d like him.” Jess is trying to leave. “Say hello to Julia for me.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Jack. You know it’s Jack. I must’ve told you four times.”
“What does he look like?”
“Just nice, Mum. I expect you’ll meet him soon. Look, I’ve really got to go.”
“What time will you be back?”
“We agreed already – two o’clock, max.”
“That’s awfully late, Jess. I don’t know.”
“Mu–um – we’ve already been over this. Exams are finished, and there’s no school tomorrow, and no one else will be going home any earlier. You don’t want me to walk home alone, do you?”
Sylvia shrinks into herself and picks up the TV zapper. “Just be safe, darling, OK? You got your key?”
“Do I ever not have my key?”
“No. You’re a good girl, Jess.” Oh God, not now, please. Not the weepy bit, please not now.
“See you later, Mum. Love you.”
And she does, love her. But she will have to leave her. Both now and later, properly. She knows this now more clearly than she ever did. Somehow, she will do it.
So, Jess is approaching the bar where she is meeting Jack and the others. She hopes he is outside waiting for her so that she doesn’t have to hang around like a loser. He is. His body is very close to hers as they squeeze past people. She smells his scent.
Ella, Chris and Tommy are all there at a table in a booth and they greet her, making room for her. Everything is black and chrome and not at all comfortable. But Jack squeezes in after her and the fact of things not being comfortable ceases to matter. On the table, there’s a pitcher of vodka mixed with something pinky orange and lots of ice and a few bits of leaf. Someone pours her a glass and she sips from it, but in her head she tells herself that she is going to be careful tonight.
Which is sensible, but sensible may not be enough.
She notices that Jack has a glass of the vodka+whatever drink, so the not-drinking-thing is more of a drinking-sometimes-thing. This is something of a relief, because he won’t be judging her.
“Cheers!” they all say, clinking glasses together. “Here’s to Schrödinger’s Cats!” The conversation eases and flows. She finds out a bit about them. Tommy – who has a drummer’s jangled hairstyle – is at the same college as Jack, and his dad is in the army and has just gone to Afghanistan. Ella works in a clothes shop and is saving for her own flat. Chris is looking for a job – he lives at home and is not getting on with his parents, who don’t like him spending all his time with the band when he should be settling down. It’s all normal stuff.
And then Jack swears under his breath. He turns his head away from the bar, as though trying to avoid looking at someone. He is trying to avoid looking at someone. Jess can’t see who.
“Kelly,” mutters Jack. “Don’t look now.”
“Kelly who?” asks Jess.
“Kelly Jones. You must know her. She goes to your school.”
“Oh God, her. Yes, I know her. I can’t stand her.”
“Why did she have to come here? Isn’t it a bit classy for her?” asks Ella.
“Everywhere’s a bit classy for her,” says Jack. There’s a real edge to his voice.
“Not your best memory from Northseas High, then?” asks Jess.
Tommy looks at her and then realizes. “Oh, you weren’t there when Jack was there, were you?”
“No.”
“Ahhhh. So you don’t know why Jack and Kelly don’t exactly get on?” No one is smiling.
“No, but I don’t think you should tell me now – she’s coming over.”
Jack looks at Jess with a plaintive Get me out of here! look, which is quite amusing. Jess is intrigued. She does not know that a moment is about to happen when it really will matter what she says.
“Jack Redman. The oh-so-wonderful Jack Redman. And his merry band.” Kelly is now standing right beside them. Jack has not looked up.
“Ignore her,” he says quietly.
Kelly is not alone. She is with Samantha and Charlie, as usual. She is looking as tartily gorgeous as always. People look at them, and don’t they know it? Kelly herself is tall – well, they all are, but whatever each of the others is, Kelly is just a little bit more. Which is why she’s the leader. Her long, straight, sweeping hair is the palest blonde to the roots. Her facial bone structure is cover-girl-perfect, lips large and soft, skin pale and undeniably interesting, cheekbones to die for and accentuated by the clever use of blusher. Bubble-gum-pink strappy top, stopping just on her navel, with flesh on show beneath it. And a tight little stomach with nothing bulging anywhere. She works hard at the being beautiful thing.
Her legs are long and bare. They are smooth, lean and flawless, beneath a very short white skirt. Heels push her centimetres higher. She’s a walking cliché. Straight off the pages of a cheap magazine.
But it’s when you see her face that you decide whether you do or don’t like Kelly Jones. She could smile at you angelically, and often does at teachers, or she could turn you to ice with the arrogance of her sneer. To be honest, even when she’s doing the angelic bit, “likeable” wouldn’t really be the word, unless you were some rather short-sighted elderly relative taken in by her sugary voice. Or a boy who wasn’t interested in “likeabl
e” anyway. If beauty is within, even the most powerful torch would fail to find it in the furthest depths of Kelly Jones’s soul.
Arrogant sneer is definitely what is on show right now, as she looks down at Jack. Samantha and Charlie stand a little behind. Charlie’s skin is expensively tanned, with hennaed hair tumbling deliberately over her shoulders. Samantha is the paler version, razor-thin eyebrows arching over highly decorated eyes in an opal face, her hair streaked with gold and straight as paper.
All are slim, tall and very high-maintenance.
“Why, it’s Charlie’s Angels,” says Ella.
“What do you want, Kelly?” asks Jack, not looking at her.
“I heard that there’s some crap band playing at the leavers’ prom,” says Kelly, her voice drawly.
“Yeah,” adds Charlie. “We heard that somebody’s daddy persuaded Willow to let his little boy play.”
“And how do you imagine he did that?” Kelly looks at each of her friends in turn.
“Maybe lots of money for the school library?” asks Samantha.
“Or something more, um, personal?” Kelly looks at Jack now. Kelly Jones has been watching too much television and she has the LA-bitch smile down to a fine art.
Jack’s face shows his anger. He opens his mouth to say something. But Tommy speaks: “Ignore her, Jack. She’s not worth it.”
Then Kelly seems to see Jess for the first time. Something else crosses her face now as she looks from Jess to Jack, sees how closely they are sitting.
“Well, look who’s here! Hanging out with losers as usual, I see.”
Which is when Jess makes her mistake. “Drunk as usual, I see,” she says. She does not quite know why she says it. It just slips out. It’s one of those insults that can be equally useful in many situations. Kelly, in fact, does not look particularly drunk, but then the night is yet young and she may well be later.
But that is what Jess says and it is, by chance, the one thing she should not have said. Not if she wants to keep the forces of darkness chained up for the night. But then she does not know this.
There is an intake of breath and the noises of the bar swell around them. Over the smooth shoulders of the three girls, Jess is aware of other drinkers, laughing, shouting, doing the things that they do on an ordinary night out. And then her attention comes back to her own group.
Several things happen in exactly the same moment.
Kelly seems to grow another few centimetres, as she bristles like a cat about to fight.
“Uh-oh,” says Chris, with a grimace.
“OK, bye, then, Kelly – see you around, eh?” says Ella, firmly.
Tommy sinks his head down and slowly bashes it against the table in mock despair.
Samantha and Charlie both narrow their eyes. Charlie puts her hand on Kelly’s shoulder. Jess wonders what’s going on. OK, it’s quite annoying to be accused of being drunk, but there’s more to this than that.
Then Jack seems to have had enough. “Look, Kelly, you asked for it. Off you go now.”
“You bastard!” spits Kelly. “I said I’d get you back. And then I thought I’d forgive you, be big about it, you know? But if you’ve told your new girlfriend, then you can forget it. And it looks like she’s not the only one you blabbed to. Can’t keep your trousers on or your mouth shut, obviously.”
Tommy pretends to have died. Ella covers her eyes. Chris looks at Jess and makes a face which says something like, Now it’s war and although it was technically your fault, you couldn’t have known.
Jack starts to get up, but Kelly and her cronies have gone. They march on their long, long legs over to the other side of the bar, where they join some boys who seem to know them and who buy them more drinks. Soon, they will leave, after a hurried and furious conversation, but Jess and Jack and the others will not notice. Or would not think anything of it if they did. Though they should. They should be very careful from now on. And they will need all the luck that Jack believes surrounds him.
“OK, so what was that about?” says Jess. Ella pours them all another drink from the pitcher.
The noise in the bar is rising and something’s turning ugly over the other side of the room. Someone has spilt a drink and someone else thinks it was deliberate. One of the bar staff is calming the situation with some practised jokery. It’s the sort of argument which could go either way, flare or fade.
It’s not even worth thinking about, because Jess wants to hear the story of Jack and Kelly, which sounds somewhat more interesting.
CHAPTER 11
KELLY, JACK AND SERIOUS COMPLICATIONS
JACK twists his head to look at Jess and tell the story directly to her. “Something happened, couple of months ago. We’d all been out – Ella’s birthday – and we ended up at a party in someone’s house. Kelly was there. She was pretty pissed.”
“For a change,” says Ella.
“Hey, does anyone want anything else to drink? I know this story,” says Tommy.
“Yeah, thanks – orange juice please,” says Jack.
“Me too,” says Jess.
“Anyway, without going into the sordid details,” continues Jack once Tommy has squeezed past them, “Kelly started chatting me up and, as you can imagine, it was extremely blatant and yes, I know she’s pretty and all that but frankly I’d rather be kissed by an eel. Anyway, I knocked her back. I don’t think it had ever happened to her before.”
“You should have seen her,” says Ella. “Totally flipped.”
Jess is thinking that Jack really does seem not to be under Kelly’s spell. She likes this story more and more.
Jack continues: “I didn’t think any more about her until I was cycling home after the party was over. I heard this noise in someone’s garden. It was Kelly, lying on the ground, virtually unconscious, and throwing up. Charlie was with her and frankly she wasn’t much better but she was at least conscious. I said we had to get help. Charlie tried to stop me but what could I do? I seriously thought Kelly could choke on her own vomit.”
This is not a pleasant image.
“So I went back to where the party was and I had to get hold of the parents, who were next door keeping out of the way and not best pleased to have to be involved. And to cut a long story short, they called Kelly’s parents and she ended up in hospital for the night. Then I think she was grounded for ages – oh, and she had to go and apologize to the people whose garden she’d thrown up all over. She’d puked on a gnome and the woman made her replace it. And that story made her a laughing stock too.”
“And all Jack’s fault, you see?” says Chris.
“And she’s still pissed off about it now?” asks Jess.
“Ah, well, that’s not quite all,” says Ella.
“She accused me of trying to assault her, as in sexually.”
“The cow.”
“Stupid too – no one believed her. She’s an idiot – I had witnesses who’d been with me all night and everyone knew how pissed she was.”
“So, major humiliation for Kelly Jones.” Jess can’t help feeling quite satisfied.
“Exactly.”
“I can see why she hates you.”
“And I rather suspect that you are now included in her circle of hate. Anyway, can we please not think about her? She’s not worth it.”
Tommy has come back with the drinks. Jess takes her orange juice, but she also pours herself something from the pitcher that appears. Her mouth is feeling pleasantly tingly and her feet heavy, but she is perfectly well in control of everything she wants to be in control of. Jack leans towards her to say something but she cannot hear over the rising noise of voices. His mouth is close to her skin and she can feel his breath, see the lines on his lips. When he touches her hair to push it behind her ear, her heart tumbles. A cliché, but true, she discovers. Skin-tingling and all the rest.
This and other moments like it take them all through the next hour and it is time to move on, to go to the club, where music, more drinks and dancing are
supposed to occupy the rest of the night.
Before they leave, Jess and Ella go to the toilets. It is very possible that Kelly might be there or might see them, but she isn’t and therefore doesn’t, and they have more or less forgotten about her. Which is pleasant but unwise.
“So, how much do you like Jack, then?” asks Ella. Jess grins as she says she likes him a lot. “It’s obvious he likes you,” says Ella. “I’m really pleased. He needs someone like you. He’s great and everything but he can be intense and that thing with the coin… Well, he takes risks. You know? Sometimes it’s as though he doesn’t care what happens. It’s like tempting fate, challenging it to come and get him.”
“I know what you mean,” says Jess. “He told me about the game thing. It seems kind of weird, but interesting. Kind of deep.”
“Yeah, I suppose. You know about his mother, don’t you?”
“I know his mother’s dead but no details.”
“Well, ask him. It’s not a secret and he’s quite open about it but he should tell you, not me. He told me once he’d had so much bad luck early on that he’d used it all up. He calls himself Lucky Jack, spins that coin as though he thinks he actually controls it. I don’t know, but I just don’t think it’s right. So, look after him, will you? He can be a cocky bastard but we all love him.”
Jess thinks about this briefly, as they walk back to the others. Jack is talking to Tommy and Chris, near the door, waiting for the girls. But all Jess can really think about is the feeling when he looks at her. If he has a hidden vulnerability then that is absolutely fine with her. Makes him all the more likeable, if that was possible. And it’s not as though he’s screwed up or needy, either of which would be a definite dampener. Jess has enough of that at home. She wants a survivor, someone who will run with her headlong into the future.
Ten minutes later they are queuing to get into the club. Kelly and her friends are nowhere to be seen, not that Jess and Jack are thinking about them much. Tommy is not with them – he’s gone to meet some other friends. Jess is the only one who is not eighteen and she has the usual tension as she stares the bouncer in the eye and answers his questions about her ID. She knows it all off by heart now but you never know when they’ll spring a weird question on you.
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