‘Can’t believe you still live with your parents,’ she mutters mockingly.
‘Can’t believe you live in such a fucking hellhole,’ I say back, darkly, and she blushes a little and turns away, pretending to write something in her notebook.
What Ash has pointed out has shit me up quite a bit though and suddenly a horrible image has come to mind of my dad rifling through my cupboards while I’m out. An image of him showing me a porn mag he’d found in my room and me going apeshit at him. He sometimes comes in and just looks at stuff. It’s his way of feeling connected – he can’t have a proper conversation with me, so he’ll flick through my things.
Jesus. The coke is at the back of my bottom desk drawer, with my letters from Rainbow and all my secret shameful shit, like the blood test results from that time I got so fucked I didn’t know what I’d taken, or that letter from when I’d almost had sex with Nikki, or all the other dirty little secrets. ‘Fuck. I’d better put a lock on my door.’ I rub my hair in frustration and groan. ‘I hate this shit. Fuck Fez.’
‘Ah, poor Flick,’ says Daisy, who has been drifting in and out of the conversation, looking at us, looking at Ringo, a lad she finds hot, on the other side of the class, painting pink stripes over her blue polished nails. ‘All this over some coke.’ She smiles at me kindly, without a trace of sarcasm or irony, and pats me on the arm. ‘No wonder you prefer Pepsi.’
Christ.
6
Rising Panic
I walk home a little faster than usual after school, take the package out of my drawer and stand in the centre of my room holding it, silently and motionlessly panicking.
‘William!’ My dad bellows up the stairs. ‘Will you be staying in for tea?’
‘Ermm …’ My eyes dart about the room, then out the window to the ocean. That little voice in my head comes back to me, and says scornfully, what? Are you going to throw it in the bloody water?
‘WILL? TEA?’
‘No, ta, I’m going out. I’ll see you later.’ I stuff the packet in my rucksack, pull on a hoodie and jump out my window onto the garage roof, then to the ground. I grab my bike and pedal hard round to Kyle’s. As I get nearer his house I try to look a little cooler, worried that the police are casing him. They could’ve easily tracked him through Fez. You don’t know what Gav told them to get himself off lighter. And if Fez knew anything about it, he wouldn’t say anything ’cause he wouldn’t give a shit if I was picked up by a patrol car. Selfish bastard.
I throw pebbles at Kyle’s second-storey window like Romeo to Juliet. Then the ground floor kitchen door opens and he leans out. ‘All right our Flick?’
‘Oh, hi.’ I skip over, a bit embarrassed. ‘Erm … I’m fucked, Kyle. I can’t wait on Fez forever. He’s supposed to be calling me and letting me know who to sell it on to. But I’m keeping it in my fucking room, which my nosy dad checks.’
His forehead creases for a moment, then he smiles. ‘Well, mate, don’t put it there.’
‘I don’t have anywhere else to put it, where else would I keep it, my bloody timeshare in Marbella?’ I say darkly.
‘What about your girlfriend’s place?’
I look at him incredulously. ‘Are you shitting me?’ I put my hand to my head. ‘Do you know what she’d do if she found out any of this was going on? Fucking … break up with me for a start …’ I cringe with panic at this thought. ‘Look, Kyle, I need to know what the fuck I’m doing with the stash, I thought he just wanted me to sell it on asap, I can’t keep it any longer …’
‘All right, man, calm down.’ Kyle puts his finger to his lips and winks at me. ‘We’ll sort it out together. All in good time, mate. We’re just having dinner now though, so d’you want to come join us?’
I sigh, exasperated but out of options. The problem with problems when they are trivialised is that then they’re not problems, they’re just things in your life and you stop trying to get rid of them and start living with them. Dealing for Kyle came second to dinner. That, for anyone, is trivial. Kyle, snub-nosed and rosy, like the Artful Dodger, gives me a cheeky grin that I gather is supposed to reassure me. I roll my eyes and nod him inside.
In the dining room Kyle, his mam and I eat in front of a bookcase of dainty glazed pottery figures of Beatrix Potter rabbits. Kyle speaks to me in thinly disguised code.
‘What did Fe-nton tell you?’
‘Fe-nton just said I was to get the, you know, thing, for him. He said to wait for his word to pass it on, and under no circumstances to call him. Do you think I should anyway?’
‘No, no, you never do that, mate. Best to wait for him … it’s the etiquette of the thing, you see.’
‘Yes, I suppose it wouldn’t do to be impolite,’ I say with heavy sarcasm, rolling my eyes at Kyle as his mam bows her head to sip her tea. ‘Manners are a virtue in any situation.’
‘Have you thought about just not doing it? I’m sure Fez wouldn’t mind. He’s a reasonable guy.’
I look up at him. He’s joking. Twat.
‘Yeah, Kyle.’ I glare at him. ‘I’d been wondering whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And then you know what I thought?’ I stick a carrot in my mouth. ‘Oh whaddya know, I bloody can’t – sorry, Mrs Craig.’
‘Hm. I’m thinking what we could do.’ Kyle wipes his plate with a Yorkshire pud, crams it whole in his mouth then chews for what seems like an excruciatingly long time.
‘Yeah?’ I say, brow furrowed, waiting.
‘Hmmm … hmmmmmmmm …’
I look up from his gravy-stained lips. ‘Kyle, this isn’t funny.’
‘Right,’ he’s laughing. ‘Sorry. Listen, don’t worry, hand it to me and I’ll sell it on, and then I’ll take a cut. I don’t have a debt to clear like you have Gav’s debt so it’s policy that I get a bit of money. I’ll tell him myself that I am. Don’t look worried, the only reason he wants you to be the main man is ’cause he thinks the police are on to me too, but that’s bullshit.’ He looks at his mam, silently eating peas and flipping through a Reader’s Digest. ‘I’m a good boy.’ He smiles at me. ‘I’m just not as clumsy as Fez, right? I’ll get it to Fez … borough, cousin of Fenton, and he can clean up his own shit – sorry, Mam – mess.’
I toss Kyle the blow that night and I’m rid of it, then feeling free and unburdened I bike along the North Sea road, fresh but light rain on my face, speeding along to see my girl, well rid of fucking Fez … and utterly naive.
7
Crash Bandicoot and a Quiet Night In
It’s Thursday night about a week later and Rainbow and I are indulging in a little downtime. In the tense and trembling silence of my bedroom, she opens her mouth and lets my fingers slide fully inside, and sucks on them hard before drawing them oh-so-slowly out, pulling my face close, and murmuring with an especially erotic pout: ‘So what’s your deepest, darkest fantasy?’
A silence as we stare into each other’s eyes and feel this heat pass between us. My eyes flit between her red, open lips, her tongue wet and shiny behind porcelain teeth, and her beautiful orbs of dark blue, bare, where I’ve kissed off all her make-up, and suggestive.
‘FLICK!’ There’s a loud bang on my window. Fucking Jesus. ‘FLICK!’
I throw it open. ‘WHAT?’
Fez appears from under the garage awning, Troy in tow. ‘You need to do me a favour.’
It takes about four minutes for me to pull on jeans and a T-shirt and walk down the stairs and out the back door to where my friendly neighbourhood dealer is waiting, but with this short sharp staccato list of ordinary movements so many possibilities are strung out in my head that time itself is stretched, and my mind takes off of its own accord to dimensions we could have gone, should have gone, would have gone … Mindless and lost in lust and passion, intimacy beyond imagining, sweat glistening on pert teenage breasts, tits erect, legs spread and my own tongue, trailing around each pink nipple
with delicate but firm ease, then sliding over each virgin-white rib, down her soft tummy, pulled flat and taut with wanting, switching from a curve to a line, cave to smooth rock with deep fervent breaths. Back to my tongue, the tip floating over the hill and pressing hard into the decline, tracking fast into a canal of warmth and wet, pushing my face deeper ’til I’m covered in Rainbow, soaked, saturated. I sit up, wriggle my knees nearer, grip my dick in one hand and guide myself inside her, stroke my fingers up to her hips, then, taking her weight, pull her curves – her body beautiful, skin white and moist, reflecting the moonlight outside – pull her slowly towards me and, from above, watch us writhe in sweat and heat in the pool of light on my bed.
Outside, Troy, a glimmer of apology on his face, pushes down on my shoulders as soon as I’m out the door. My legs cave in and I fall to the concrete, eyes on their silhouettes in the dark. Fez cracks me in the face with his knee. Everything happens quietly, softly, dangerously.
‘What. The fuck. Were you thinking.’ It’s not a question. ‘There’s no choice in this. You get rid of it. You don’t leave it with the dealer who picked it up when I don’t leave word. The reason I didn’t get Kyle to keep it in the first place is a, ’cause the fuzz are all over him and b, ’cause he’s a little twat. I need every penny of this money to make up for what Gav cost me so no one is getting a cut of this deal, including Kyle. You are doing it because you are such a good friend to Gav you are clearing his debt for him and now you are also clearing yours, and lastly, you’re doing it ’cause no one’s gonna turn up at your fucking house and search your drawers. The situation has changed so listen. The fuzz are on me. All the fuck over me. So I don’t want this shit any more, I can’t be involved in it in any way, I’ll just wait for my fucking money, and I want it back with interest. You picked it up. It’s your problem. So you, Kyle and a few others of your kind, and I mean little twats, are going to deal with it for me. Let me know when you’re done, and give me my profit. And you are all checking up on each other. If you don’t move it on, I will get in touch with Kyle and ask why. And if I don’t get at least two hundred back on this you … are dead. So make sure no one else fucks it up either. Get talking to the others. Find a buyer.’
I’m bent over the pavement, catching drips of blood that ooze from in between my teeth, white shirt now spattered with dark droplets, jeans unbuckled, showing the hair at the top of my dick.
‘Or next time …’ Fez grips the back of my neck then changes his mind, straightens up, and I feel the heel of his boot land heavily on my head, bouncing my nose, which I never realised was so soft, my forehead and teeth off the ground.
‘Ah-ahhh-ahhh …’ my mouth stays open, trying to breathe through the sticky tar-like liquid that’s coming off my own body. My head hurts so much, tears involuntarily come out my eyes and mingle with the red/black mess on my lower face.
‘Next time … I’ll really fuck you up.’
Someone, it could be either of them ’cause my eyes are half shut and blurred, pushes me over onto my side with their foot. A package falls on my ribs – the coke. Footsteps as they stroll away, down the alley that acts as a shortcut through to the train station.
I taste the metallic bitterness of my own blood filling my mouth. Fuck that twat. Fuck that fucking wanker. I can’t think of anything more constructive as I stand up and stumble in the back door. Fuck that bastard. I have to wash my face quickly, before Rainbow sees, before she gets suspicious and comes downstairs. I switch on the light in the downstairs loo and squint at the mirror. Fuck. I look like shit. But on touching my nose, it doesn’t appear to be broken and as yet no bruises have appeared around my mouth, though I can see red patches that might be purple and blue when I wake up tomorrow. I hurriedly scrub myself down, sore as a bastard, and stretch out my jaw, then pull at my hair so it is, as much as possible, over my forehead. Too short to help much. I pull off my T-shirt and flannel my chest. New drops form where the old ones have been wiped away and I realise blood is pouring from my mouth. I rinse it out and it seems to stop. I pull on a T-shirt from the laundry pile, temporarily hide the coke in the cleaning cupboard and take three or four ibuprofen for the pain. By the time I’m back upstairs, Rainbow is peering out the window, wrapped in the dirty sheets, still unwashed from the last time she was here.
‘Hey baby,’ I kiss the back of her neck and stay in the dark.
‘Are you all right?’ She turns to me, big eyes even wider, searching my face, pupils dilated. I think she looks stoned, then realise it’s the combined lack of light and worry.
‘Yeah, fine.’ I place my hands gently on her hips. ‘They just wanted to talk.’
‘Flick!’ She hugs me tightly and softly kisses my face. ‘Tell me!’
‘No, it’s all crap.’ I bite the warm flesh below her ear. ‘Let’s get back to where we were, hey?’ My hand slips down to part her legs and she moans a little and hugs my chest. Suddenly and with a pissed-off sigh I realise this is not going to work. My chest is aching from falling to the floor. It hurts to kiss.
‘I … Rainbow, I’m sorry, they’ve pissed me off.’ I push her away gently. Even though her features are obscured by the shadows I can sense her face immediately hardening, building a wall to hide behind. She feels rejected. Her eyes search mine, but I’m hiding too.
‘Are you okay?’ she mouths gently.
I shrug it off. I can’t tell her. Can’t fuck her. My jaw sets firmly. I hate Fez, I hate this shitty town, I hate the world. So I have to give her the brush off. She’ll forget about it by tomorrow. I fucking won’t, but hopefully Rainbow will.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s play Crash.’
There’s a silence. Her eyes fall to our feet. ‘Okay. Sure.’ We survive two rounds before mutually begging tiredness and going to sleep or, in my case, and possibly Rainbow’s though her back is turned, to confused and angry thoughts, eyes open, awake and alone in the dark.
8
Too Bored to Continue Too Bored to Not
A guy dies outside Ritzies at the weekend and none of us feel like going out. I’ve arranged with Kyle for him to sort out a buyer so I have to wait for word from him which, suffice to say, isn’t reassuring enough to lift my mood, and to top it off there’s still a weird barrier between me and Rainbow from the other night that I know is completely my, or perhaps Fez’s, fault, so she takes a shift at work (she waits tables at a café on Ness pier) and I stay at Ash’s on Friday. I read in the paper that the dead guy was thirty-two. He was stabbed twice then hit by a car. So I go to Ash’s and chew gum and she talks about how she knew him, through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a fuck.
The usual suspects are there, at Ash’s, and we talk about the same shit we usually do. It didn’t used to be like this, surface talking and interrupting eye contact so nothing gets too serious. I used to be honest, I used to have intimate friendships, I used to tell Ash everything going on in my head, I used to give Mike real answers and real time together, before this year and smoking weed and giving up on things I used to care about, like school, and finishing all the levels on Tekken, and not doing drugs, and not swearing in front of my parents. When did all that stop? Was there an exact moment? Or did it all slowly become normality? It’s all getting blurry in my head, not helped too by being pretty drunk already by 8pm. Sat in Ashley’s, I think about when and why and how I’ve changed, and I realise there have been several occasions over the past few years that for some reason I remember more vividly than others, moments where reality just appeared to part and slip a little, falling away from itself to reveal a new shape of existence.
About two years ago, Ash and I started to flirt. You don’t flirt when you’re kids, but at thirteen she told me she’d blown her boyfriend and then I made a crack about her twat. We continued from there, and where we used to be like siblings, now we only ever banter about stuff; we don’t really talk.
I felt like shit one day in a Tech lesson when I had been up the night before ’cause Dad was screa
ming at Mum and I’m the only one that’ll scream back. There was a test in the lesson and we marked them straight after we did them. I didn’t get an A. I got a D. That might not seem like a big deal now, but I always got As before this year. The teacher told me in front of everyone that she was disappointed in me, and I exploded at her, livid. I said she should’ve fucking warned us about the test. I said she was a bitch. I threw my workbooks onto the floor and earned my first serious after-school detention. I gave up. I felt myself, in that lesson, giving up. I used to try so hard. And still nothing came of it; no one was on my side.
I am so tired of this shit, I told myself. Fuck school.
Last October, Mike knocked on my door to see if I wanted to come work my way through all the video games he’d got for his birthday. He stood there holding a few of them and looking like a little kid, while behind me, from inside my house, Danny, stinking like a skunk, approached and said hi. I told Mike I was going out with the lads. He knew what that meant. We were off to Langrick, to Danny’s place, to get stoned. I asked him to join us. He said no, blushed minutely and walked back across the estate to his house. Danny didn’t notice, but something between me and Mike changed just then, and he didn’t come round to my house alone any more. We used to spend hours at the weekend playing video games, or fucking about in the woods, or even doing our homework together. Now I generally just see him with the gang.
In fact, I tend to only hang out in a gang now. That way you don’t have any heart-to-hearts, you don’t get down to the truth of the matter. I don’t accidentally tell anyone I think I’ve fucked up somewhere, that I think I might be fucking up right now.
Ash interrupts my train of thought to ask me about Rainbow, hoping we’ve broken up so she could get fucked. I say she’s fine then, loudly in my head: I’m in love with her. I look around to make sure it stayed in my head. Ashley’s yawning and picking her nails; Daisy and Trix, let out for the night by her boring-as-shit older man, smoke cigarettes; Jamie, Mike and Limbo flip through the adults-only channels on the telly; Ella and Josh whisper angrily at each other outside the door. It did. And I am. I feel weirdly like crying and, less weirdly, like going to sleep, but do neither.
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