by Lisa Jewell
He was ready for it all.
Five minutes later Joy put her hand into his trunks and gently, tentatively passed the palm of her hand over his shaft.
Two seconds after that he came all over her hand.
Six
The following day Vince awoke resolved to redeem himself. It didn’t matter how much Joy had soothed him and reassured him that it didn’t matter, that it happened to everyone, that it was no big deal, he just couldn’t live with himself. It wasn’t even that he was embarrassed about it – he was just disappointed.
A beautiful girl had been about to administer him a handjob and he’d blown it, completely. He had to prove to himself that he was capable of receiving a handjob without shooting his load like fourteen-year-old boy.
Chris was doing the washing up in a pair of pink Marigolds and singing along to ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ by Lionel Richie when he surfaced from his bedroom.
‘Morning.’
‘Morning.’
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Gone to the butcher’s. We’re having a barbie tonight. Is that OK?’
‘Yeah,’ he murmured, ‘cool.’
‘You seeing the lovely Joy again today?’
Vince flopped on to the sofa and sighed. ‘Dunno,’ he shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Chris looked at him with concern. ‘You all right, mate?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
You sure?’
‘Yeah. Totally.’
‘Everything going all right with you and Joy? Yeah?’
‘Fine. Great.’ He picked up yesterday’s Daily Mirror and flicked through it mindlessly for a while, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was completely preoccupied with what had happened at the beach yesterday. He glanced across at Chris, who was now headbanging along to ‘Addicted to Love’ and playing air drums against the dishwater with a plastic brush.
Had it ever happened to him, he wondered, to macho Chris? He glanced at him again and licked his dry lips tentatively.
‘You know…’ he began tentatively. ‘You know…’
‘What’s that, mate?’
‘You know… you know… like, wanking?’
Chris laughed and pulled off his Marigolds. ‘I certainly do, young Vincent.’
‘Yeah, well, you know when a girl does it to you?’
‘Ooh, yeah.’
‘Well, you know how, like, when you’re not expecting something, you know, does it ever… have you ever…? God!’ He thumped his thighs in exasperation.
‘Here, Vince, take a deep breath.’ Chris sat down next to him, clutching a tea towel. ‘Now, take your time. Tell me what’s on your mind. OK?’
Vince breathed in deeply, and flashed Chris an apologetic smile.
‘Joy went for my dick yesterday.’
Chris’s eyebrows shot into his hairline and a smile spread across his face. ‘Oh, she did, did she?’
‘Yeah. At the beach. And I wasn’t expecting it. And… and…’
‘You spunked your pants?’
Vince breathed out. ‘Yeah. Like, two seconds later. And she said it was cool and everything, but now I’m just… I don’t know. She’s so experienced and everything, and I feel like such a loser.’
‘Oh, Vincent, Vincent, Vincent.’ Chris rubbed his back affectionately. ‘It happens to everyone.’
‘Does it?’
‘Yeah, course it does.’
‘Has it ever happened to you?’
‘Of course it’s fucking happened to me! Not for a while, I hasten to add. But when I was your age – yeah. Definitely. More than once. It’s just, like, your body is this tightly wound coil, right, you’re a man, your whole reason for being is to get your sauce up a woman’s crack and knock her up – yeah?’
Vince nodded.
‘And so when you get near a woman, the sun’s out, you’ve got the horn, you’re bound to get a bit… ahead of yourself. It’s only natural.’
‘But what can I do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?’
Chris shrugged. ‘There are no guarantees it won’t, especially with you being a bit… overripe as it were. Best thing you can do is learn to feel relaxed with her. You know. Hang out with her. Get to know her. Build up to it slowly.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right.’
‘And remember she’s just a girl, yeah? Go and see her now. Remind yourself. Just a girl. Just a human being. Sooner you see her, the more relaxed you’ll feel. Get back on that horse, eh?’ He nudged him gently in the ribs and got to his feet.
‘Yeah,’ said Vince, feeling fired with renewed confidence. ‘Yeah. Thanks, mate.’
‘No problem.’ He sauntered away towards the draining board, clutching his tea towel. ‘So,’ he said, picking up a wet mug and twirling it idly around his fist. ‘Just went for it, did she? Just, you know, in there, job in hand, no invitation?’
Vince nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’
He nodded sagely and looked impressed. ‘What a girl,’ he said, and chuckled happily under his breath.
Vince did everything at double speed that morning in his rush to get over to Joy’s. He threw the soap over his body in the shower, barely giving it time to lather. He jumped into his boxers and trousers, feet first. He gulped down his tea so fast he choked on it, and he checked his reflection for a total of ten seconds, a twentieth of his usual time.
Alan answered the door when Vince rapped on it impa-tiendy ten minutes later.
‘Oh. Good morning, Vincent.’
‘Morning, Alan. Mr… er… Downer. Is Joy around? Please?’
‘Hmm, I’m not sure if she’s emerged yet. Joy,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘are you alive?’ Vince heard a muffled grunt coming from one of the bedroom doors. ‘Visitor for you. Come in. Come in,’ he gestured to Vince, unenthusiastically.
He left Vince standing in the kitchen and sauntered back to the dining table where he picked up the Telegraph and started rustling through it, ostentatiously. Two seconds later, the bathroom door opened and Barbara appeared looking terrifying in a pink quilted dressing gown and a see-through shower cap. She clutched at her gown with her hand when she saw Vince standing there. ‘Oh, Vincent. You gave me a fright.’
And then the bedroom door opened and Joy appeared. A smile spread across her face when she saw him.
‘Morning.’ She scratched at her bed hair.
‘Morning,’ he grinned. ‘Fancy a walk?’
She beamed at him. ‘Give me ten minutes. No – give me five.’ She reached up on to her tiptoes, kissed him gently on the lips and disappeared back into her girl-fragrant bedroom.
They walked towards the seafront, their arms looped round each other, and wandered around the tacky part of town for over an hour, never once loosening their grip on each other. Vince thought back to the hundreds, thousands of entwined couples he’d walked past in his life, clamped together at the hips. He thought back to those blokes he’d glanced at enviously, wondering what the hell it felt like for a girl to want to be seen out in public with you, conjoined that way. And now he was one of those guys and it didn’t feel strange at all. It didn’t even feel that exciting.
It just felt right.
They bought doughnuts that glittered in the sunshine, and wiped the sugar dust from each other’s cheeks.
They spun round creaking carousels of postcards and laughed at the tragic donkeys and municipal buildings photographed in lurid 1970s Technicolor. Joy bought a postcard of the seafront to send to her friend in San Diego, purely because of one poor man, unwittingly captured on film all those years ago, wearing orange tartan flares and stack-heeled shoes.
As the sun soared overhead the funfair came to life with the cloying scent of boiling sugar and axle grease. They meandered through its maze of coconut stalls and hooplas, past stacks of ugly nylon bears, oversized plastic dolls, see-through bags packed with pink sugar clouds and long ropes of pastel-coloured marshmallow, hanging like sugar cables. They smiled at small children riding on slow-moving carousels, their faces ri
gid with excitement.
At lunchtime they wandered back to the caravan site and ate salad in deck chairs with Kirsty and Chris. They lazed the afternoon away there in the sun, padding barefoot in and out of the caravan every now and then to get cold drinks from the fridge. Chris listened to the football on a crackling transistor and Kirsty painted her toenails electric blue, her toes separated by a pink foam knuckleduster.
At five o’clock the ice-cream van arrived and the silence was broken by the sound of thirty children screaming at their mothers for money and clambering all over each other to reach the vendor’s hatch. Vince got them all Screwballs and Chris brought out the Monopoly. The four of them sat cross-legged on a hair blanket and threw dice for pieces, while they ate their ice cream. Joy was the top hat, Vince was the iron, Chris was the car and Kirsty was the Scottie dog because she always was.
Nobody had won by six-thirty and nobody cared.
Barbara and Alan returned from wherever they’d been all day just before seven, clutching brown paper bags and both wearing hats. Alan threw a disapproving glance at Joy as he wandered towards them and saw her hand clasping Vince’s bare thigh.
There then followed a brief altercation, as Alan tried to persuade Joy to join them inside for a ‘discussion re our dining plans’.
‘But I’m not hungry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been eating all day’
‘Honestly,’ he muttered, clenching and unclenching his fists, ‘I thought this was supposed to be a family holiday. Barbara? Wasn’t this supposed to be a family holiday? Wasn’t that the whole bloody point?’
Joy tutted loudly and Alan’s face turned puce. ‘We’re only here for your sake, you know that, don’t you?’ he snapped.
‘Alan… ’ chided Barbara.
‘Well, really – I’m just telling it as it is…’
‘Yes, but Alan, we agreed –’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he sighed, angrily. Barbara smiled apologetically, and guided Alan gently back to their caravan by the elbow.
The four of them looked at each other. Chris gurned childishly at Joy and she smiled. ‘Sorry,’ she said, sheepishly.
‘Have you noticed,’ Vince said to Joy, ‘how much time we seem to spend apologizing for our parents.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Chris in mock indignation.
‘What the fuck have you got to apologize about me for? I’m totally fucking perfect, I am.’
‘Yeah. Right,’ harrumphed Vince, then Chris set about him in one of his affectionate but slightly overwhelming play fights, wrestling him on to his back and pummelling him around the ears.
Joy watched them in wry amusement. You know that sort of behaviour means you’re gay, don’t you?’ she said, nonchalantly running a strand of her hair back and forth across her top lip.
Kirsty let out a loud hoot of laughter and slapped her thighs in delight.
‘Eh?’ said Chris and Vince in unison.
‘Uh-huh. Latent homosexuality manifested in a strong desire for physical contact with a member of the same sex.’
Vince didn’t take offence; just felt a frisson of delight that he had a girlfriend who could a) use long words and b) take the piss out of Chris. Chris on the other hand looked appalled. ‘Fuck off,’ he scoffed.
‘Oh, no,’ Vince teased, ‘you’ve really done it now. Questioned the sexuality of a Northern male.’
‘Too right,’ said Chris, smoothing down his hair. ‘There in’t no poofs north of Watford, I’ll have you know. They only get bred down South.’
‘Oh, like John Inman and Larry Grayson, you mean? Oh, and Russell Harty, too, while we’re at it.’Joy shrugged her eyebrow at him, and Chris threw Vince a look of mock exasperation.
‘And I thought she was such a nice girl,’ he said. ‘Well, the competition’s off. You can keep her. She’s all yours.’
And then it was Vince’s turn to give Chris a good pummelling, while Kirsty and Joy burst into laughter so loud that a flock of wood pigeons took sudden flight from an overhanging tree, like a groundsheet being shaken free of crumbs.
Chris pointed the trigger at the coals and squeezed. A fine mist of violet droplets fell over the embers, igniting a wall of amber flame, and Chris prodded at an annihilated sausage, easing it gently on to its side.
‘Come on,’ he wheedled, ‘one last sausage. Who’s up for it?’
Everyone declined politely and rubbed their swollen bellies.
The lazy drunken afternoon had drifted seamlessly into a lazy drunken barbecue. Chris had managed to persuade a reluctant Alan and Barbara to join them in their barbecue, as well as another unsuspecting couple who’d happened to wander past as proceedings were kicking off. The floor was littered with greasy paper plates, greying bones and leathery potato skins, and Alan was opening yet another bottle of Beaujolais. He was turning slightly pink around the edges and his voice was getting louder with every glass of wine.
‘So,’ he said, swinging himself round to address Kirsty, who sat on a blanket with her legs folded beneath her, ‘Kirsty’ He said her name so loudly that she jumped slightly. ‘It hardly seems possible that a young slip of a thing like you could have mothered this hulking great lad –’ he gestured at Vince. ‘Do they start early where you come from?’
‘Alan,’ hissed Barbara.
‘What?’ he snapped. ‘Can’t a man give a woman a compliment any more? I suppose it’s sexist, is it?’
‘Oh, Alan…’
‘It’s OK,’ soothed Kirsty. ‘I’m not bothered. I was seventeen when I had Vince.’ She turned to Alan and smiled. ‘Not that young, really.’
‘Well,’ Alan boomed, a smile spreading across his face, ‘I must say that you’re very well preserved, my dear. You don’t look a day over thirty.’
‘Thank you,’ smiled Kirsty, handling the compliment like a true professional. ‘It’s having a toy boy.’ She winked at Chris. ‘Keeps me young.’
Alan chortled. ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes. I can see that it would. All that blood pumping through your system, eh?’ He winked. ‘Nothing better for the skin than a healthy sex Ufe.’
‘ALAN!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, what?! I’m just stating fact. It’s well known that an active sex life keeps you young. Isn’t that right, Kirsty?’
‘Absolutely right, Alan,’ Kirsty agreed gamely.
‘And it’s an excellent form of aerobic exercise, too. Or so it would appear.’ He cast an appreciative eye up and down Kirsty’s trim, toned legs. ‘Not an extra ounce on you. Like a young girl’
Kirsty laughed politely, but an uncomfortable silence was descending elsewhere.
‘Nice to see’ he continued, obliviously, ‘a woman on the cusp of middle age, taking such good care of herself. Very nice to see.’ He smiled at her, revealing burgundy-tinged teeth.
‘Right,’ announced Joy, grabbing Vince’s hand and hoisting him to his feet, ‘we’re going for a walk.’
The adults turned and looked at them in surprise.
‘Yup,’ said Vince, getting obediently to his feet, ‘off for a walk.’
Before anyone had a chance to protest, they strode into the caravan, picked up Joy’s bag and a couple of beers, bade a forceful good night to everyone and walked as fast as they could away from the tragic sound of drunken middle-aged revelry.
Seven
‘My father is the most heinous creature known to mankind.’Joy took an angry gulp from a can of Heineken. ‘God. Your poor mother. How totally embarrassing.’
‘Oh, Mum can handle herself,’ he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. ‘She’s had plenty of practice at that kind of thing.’
‘That’s not the point. It’s just, you know, in front of Mum, in front of me, in front of Chris – it’s… it’s psychotic,’ she shuddered. ‘You know, as if your mum would be interested in him. When she’s so pretty and she’s got Chris and everything. But he’s so fucking vain that he really thinks he’s in with a chance. You know. As if if he really switches on the charm, she’s just going to fall
swooning into his arms… Aargh!’ she cried out in frustration, letting herself flop backward against the grass.
They’d wandered away from town, out towards the country lanes and found themselves in a small moonlight-dappled field. Vince glanced down at the prostrate and angry Joy, and smiled.
‘Do you know what I like best about you?’ he said.
‘No,’ she said grumpily. ‘What?’
‘Everything.’
She let out a loud snort of laughter.
‘Do you know what I like best about you?’ she said.
‘No. Tell me.’
‘This,’ she said. And she grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him down on top of her and stuck her tongue in his mouth.
Vince’s head began to swim.
Their kisses were becoming more and more passionate, and Joy’s hands had started roaming wildly around his body, pulling at the fabric of his T-shirt. It dawned on him eventually that she was actually trying to pull his T-shirt off, so he adjusted his pose while she yanked it roughly over his shoulder blades and flung it to one side.
Joy’s sudden and unprompted passion was so overwhelming that it left Vince in the strange position of feeling pleasantly disengaged from the proceedings, as if he were sitting in the branches of a tree overhead, watching, munching on an apple, maybe.
Objectives, he thought, as her thigh passed over his shaft, I need objectives here. He concentrated on the rhythm of his tongue in her mouth for a while, trying to build up a twirly, swirly massaging motion. And then he decided. Breasts. Breasts would be his next objective. He tugged at the buttons on her shirt, feeling the little pearly discs slipping around underneath his fingertips. Fuck the buttons, he thought, fuck them. He concentrated on getting the loose-fitting shirt off over her head. He’d worry about the bra once that had been accomplished. But he didn’t need to worry about the bra because, the moment the shirt was off, Joy’s hand crept round her back and unclasped it, and now it was slithering around between them, untethered, like something alien and nonsensical. He pulled at it and it fell to one side, and now here they were, a man and a woman, topless. Together. They embraced again, and Vince felt his bare flesh against her bare breasts, and at that point he lost all objectivity and went completely fucking mental as all the blood that wasn’t supporting his astonishing hard-on rushed to his head.