Mum flicks her eyes to mine. “All I’m saying is, I spoke to Jane last night and I think Elliot might appreciate spending a little time with you.”
The cogs in my head turn. “Ohhhhhh. Is he a gay boy now?”
“Well,” Mum says, hesitating just enough that I know it’s true.
“Elliot’s come out?”
“You know, that’s not completely what Jane said, but reading between the lines…”
“What lines? What’s he done?”
“Taken up the ukulele and joined an LGBT youth group.”
“OK, only one of those things is indicative of him definitely being gay, Mum – he might have gone to the youth group simply to support a friend.”
“Anyway,” Mum says. “If you’re passing.”
“Sure.” I check the time on my phone. “OK, they’ll be here in a minute. I love you, I’ll be careful, I won’t drink, I won’t do drugs, I won’t have sex.”
Mum rolls her eyes and gets up to give me a hug. “Have fun.”
“OK.”
“Call me.”
“OK, but also we’re Instagramming the whole thing.”
Mum frowns. “Seriously, just text me occasionally to confirm you’re not dead – you don’t need to add me to some account you’d probably rather keep private.”
“No, this account is public. Very much so. That’s kinda the point. It’s not the secret one that I use to share deeply inappropriate content with strangers.” I grin at her. “@TheHeartbreakBoys, because, you know, overcoming hurt, angst and torment is what the people want. Living our best lives to get revenge on our exes.” I do a sad face.
New start, new account. My other public account has been shedding followers faster than Mr Fowler (geography teacher) sheds dandruff. Plus, my old account was full of pics of Dylan. I set up this new one last night after Nate finally agreed to everything, and it already has a good handful of followers, even though we haven’t posted anything yet.
When Dylan and Tariq discover it – which they will because as soon as we’ve got our first pic I’ll follow them both, so they’ll get a notification – they’ll start to get a taste of their own medicine. They started this thing, and while they might, possibly, have won round one, that’s where it’ll end. I’m not going to return to school in September as the loser. Nope. Dylan or no Dylan, I’ll be back happier, more fulfilled and more successful than ever. Even if I have to fake it. Gonna have a good summer, are they? Well, we’re gonna have a spectacular one.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NATE
Happy. Out there. Living life. If that’s what Tariq sees when he scrolls through our pics, maybe he’ll feel differently about us. Am I deluded? But Tariq was my boyfriend before he went off with Dylan, so why can’t I win him back? I want him back. Despite everything, that’s what I want. As soon as I agreed to the idea, my parents and Jack immediately swung into action, and before I knew it, everything was packed, everything was happening. And now here I am, rammed in the back of the camper van among all the bags, already way too hot because there’s no air-con and it’s nearly thirty degrees outside, with Rose asking a series of questions that are going to be awkward if she carries on after we’ve picked up Jack:
“Who is Jack, exactly?”
“He’s a … friend.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Just friend. You remember him.”
“No, I don’t.” Pause. “Do you love him?”
“Definitely not.”
“Will you marry him?”
“Why would I marry him?”
“Boys can marry boys.”
“Rose, I know they can, and that’s great, but just because we’re both boys doesn’t automatically mean we’re going to marry each other.”
And that was all before we’d even reversed out of our driveway.
But I have to do this thing. I want Tariq to see “happy, fun-loving Nate”. All smiles and… And whatever else happy people are when they’re busy living their lives. Sunshine and rainbows, I don’t know.
We pull up outside Jack’s, where he’s already waiting with a collection of Louis Vuitton suitcases of varying sizes, one of those bags you carry suits in, a smaller holdall thing (also Louis Vuitton), and sitting on top of it all, a pack of six cartons of chocolate milk.
“Jacky-boy!” my dad says, like they’re already best mates.
“Mr Nate!” Jack replies. Then he nods at my mum. “Morning, Mrs Nate.”
Jack always used to call my parents Mrs Nate and Mr Nate, because that’s what he did when he first met them, when he was five, and it stuck because everyone deemed it hilarious.
“Travelling light, I see,” Mum says.
Jack nods gravely. “I know. I think I’ll be able to get by, but I have had to make a lot of sacrifices.”
Mum gives him a tight-lipped smile.
Dad starts loading Jack’s stuff into the camper van, while I remain in my seat, staring into the middle distance, wondering what Tariq and Dylan are up to right now, until Jack starts tapping at the window to my right. I turn to him. “What?” I mouth through the glass.
“Get out!” he tells me. “We should Instagram this!”
“Instagram what, exactly?”
“The start of the trip! Get out!”
I shake my head in disbelief. I’m on board with giving this a go, faking an amazing summer or whatever, but I’m not sure a picture of me and Jack outside his house (expensive and nice as it is, thanks to having a lawyer mum) is going to achieve that.
“Nate!” Jack shouts. “Come on!”
I sigh and scramble out of the camper van and round to the front, where Jack is brandishing his phone, experimenting with potential angles for our first photo. “So, what? Just a selfie or something next to the bush?”
Jack squints at me. “A selfie next to the bush?”
“Seems like a … nice bush? Nice flowers on it.”
“Next to the bush?”
I sigh. I’m so crap at social media – that’s why I usually don’t bother with it. And I realize now that fact puts me entirely at the mercy of Jack and his whims, but this scheme is happening, I agreed to it, so I guess I have no choice but to go along with whatever he suggests. “OK, so what, then?”
Jack looks around, pulling his mouth in various directions as he contemplates options. “On top of the camper van,” he finally says.
“Really?” That seems like a lot of effort.
“First pic, Nate! It’s gotta be a good one! Both of us, sitting atop this fine, majestic beast!” He gives the camper van a firm slap, and a large piece of rust falls off. “The sun’s in the sky and the boys are on the road! Actually, that’s a great caption for it, remember that; god, I’m good at words.”
I shake my head. “Fine—”
“Up you get!” Jack says. He laces his hands together in front of him. “Here, I’ll give you a step up.”
I place my left foot on his hands.
“One, two, THREE!”
And he thrusts upwards so I smash, splat, into the side of the camper van, nowhere near the roof.
“Pull yourself up! Swing your leg!” Jack tells me.
I laugh to myself at the very idea. Pull myself up? With these arms?
“Nate, what are you doing?” I hear Mum ask.
“He wants to get a photo,” Jack tells her, which is really irritating, because obviously this was all his idea. “He wants to sit on top of the van!”
“Ooh, good idea!” I hear Mum say. “I can send it to Auntie Karen – she’s always bombarding us with photos of her kids being happy and successful!”
I can feel myself slipping off. Physically and mentally.
“Do you want us to push your arse?” Jack asks. “Give you an arse boost?”
“No!”
But they do anyway, and then I’ve got Jack, Mum and then Dad all “arse-boosting” me up, as I scramble and pull myself on to the roof. “Jesus,” I gasp.
Jack’s looking up at
me. “I forgot, there’s a set of steps in the garage, I’ll just get them.”
I glare at him as he nips off to get the ladder, returns, ascends the steps and hops on to the roof next to me. “That would be an easier method,” he tells me.
“No shit.”
“OK, Mrs Nate?” Jack calls down. “Are you good with a camera?”
“I won a photography competition in secondary school,” Mum replies. You would think this was the proudest moment of her life, the amount she goes on about it. I think a big part is that her sister Karen came second, and this is Mum’s one major achievement over her. She gets her phone out and starts tapping at the screen, trying to find the camera function – a process that could potentially take five hours.
Jack turns to me. “What is that artefact in your mother’s hands?”
“It’s a Nokia.”
Jack’s eyes widen.
“Mrs Nate!” Jack hands his iPhone to my mum. “Use mine. It’ll be easier for me to upload after. It’s ready to go, you just have to press the button.” Jack turns back to me. “Happy, big smiles, Nate! And we’ll stretch our arms out wide, like, ‘Hello, world, here we come!’ type of thing.”
I shake my head. “Is that a thing?”
“Ready, Mrs Nate?”
“I think your phone’s gone off…”
“Passcode is 6969,” Jack tells her.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“What?”
“6969?” I say. I have no problem with Jack’s lewd and attention-seeking passcode, I might normally even crack a smile, if he wasn’t chatting to my mum! But embarrassing me in front of my folks is something Jack always used to love doing (example: the time, aged twelve, he “innocently” asked my mother what “boner” meant), and one of the many reasons why him coming on this trip still fills me with dread.
Jack squints at me. “My mum’s birthday? Sixth September, 1969?”
“Oh.”
“OK, ready!” Mum says, aiming the phone like it’s a piece of alien technology.
“Plus, mutual oral sex!” Jack grins, flinging his arms out, his left one smack into my chest, knocking me off balance.
“Argh!” I squeal as I fall back, then slide off the roof, topple over the edge, crash down, but snag the leg of my shorts on the wing mirror, so I’m sort of hanging off the van, upside down, head on the ground, legs in the air, my balls all caught up somewhere in this complicated wing mirror in my shorts nightmare.
“Oh, that’s a brilliant shot!” Mum says, looking at the screen. “I got the exact moment you hit Nate with your arm, and there’s this look of surprise on his face, and one of joy on yours, and he’s falling back, so there’s this real energy about it—”
“Mum? Dad? Anyone?” I mutter.
“So vibrant!” Mum continues. “And so funny!”
Jack has hopped off the roof and is looking too. “Oh, yeah, that’s the one. That’s the shot! I can see why you won that contest, Mrs Nate!”
“Still got it!” Mum says.
“Still here!” I shout out.
Mum, Dad, Jack and Rose gather around me.
“I’ll help you down,” Jack says.
“Are you Nate’s BOYFRIEND?” Rose asks.
“Ha!” Jack laughs. “Just friend.”
“Do you love him?”
I close my eyes because, really?
“Rose, I adore him. What’s not to love about a boy so awkward he’s literally hanging off a camper van by his PE shorts.”
“They’re not PE shorts,” I mutter. “What do you think I am?”
“Whatever you are, we can remedy it,” Jack replies.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was meant to dress up for a five-hour drive on the motorways of England.”
“Dress to impress!” Rose announces.
“A girl after my own heart,” Jack says.
Rose smiles, a demonic twinkle in her eyes. “I think you should marry my brother.”
“WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME DOWN, FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET JESUS?!”
“He’s very grumpy,” Rose says to Jack in the voice that six-year-olds think is a whisper but is actually like a foghorn.
“Well, that’s puberty for you,” Mum says.
I groan.
Jack laughs. “Come on, you grumpy pubescent mess, let’s get you down from there.” He grabs me around the waist, lifts me up to detangle the legs of my shorts and helps me to my feet. I brush myself down, stomp back round to the other side of the camper van and plonk myself back in the seat.
“And uploaded!” Jack trills from outside, looking up from his phone. “The games have commenced!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JACK
I offer this information entirely without comment, but we pull up at what I can only describe as a “checkpoint” at the entrance to the campsite (complete with barrier and guard booth) at the exact moment a stricken figure is being loaded into an ambulance and a rabid woman is being carted off by two police officers into a van screaming, “That’s what yer get for bein’ a cheatin’ bastard! Wendy said I should never ’ave married yer!”
Actually, I will comment: this place is very clearly hell on earth. I’m pretty sure Mr Nate described our first stop as “wild camping” – getting back to nature, spending the night under the stars – it sounded very enriching, and incredibly Instagrammable. And this is not.
The guard hands Mr Nate some paperwork. “Sector D5,” the guard says, like this is some sort of dystopian thriller. “Right next to the toilet block.”
I turn to Nate. “Bliss!”
He just looks at me and doesn’t respond. I think he might have become brain-dead during the five-hour journey here.
“The canteen does food between five fifteen p.m. and six…”
“An oddly specific and narrow window,” I mutter.
“Here’s a voucher for a free plastic beaker of wine, beer or soft drink at the bar. Children must be supervised at all times…”
I glance across as two feral twelve-year-old boys, who look like bulldogs in vest tops, kick the shit out of each other on the yellowing grass.
“…and please take your own loo roll if you use the toilets – it’s not provided. Have a nice stay.”
“Thanks, mate!” Nate’s dad says. He seems happy. I don’t understand.
We chug around the site, eventually locating Sector D5 next to the picturesque toilet block, which boasts a sign that reads: Warning! Asbestos!
Our small patch of heaven is littered with cigarette butts, a manky chicken shop box, complete with gnawed thigh bones, and, more alarmingly, a discarded pair of women’s knickers.
“This is what it’s all about!” Mr Nate says, hopping out of the van, stretching his arms in the air, and taking a deep breath.
I turn to Nate again. “Is your dad OK?”
“He’s had a pretty rough year,” Nate mutters. “Happiness is relative, I guess?”
“It’s only a couple of nights, right? Then we move on,” I reply, as brightly as I can. I mean, I’m aware this is terrible, but we have to somehow make it work. “How bad can it be?”
Barely thirty minutes later, and I see just how bad it can be.
So, I’ve quickly established that we absolutely can’t take any wide shots – there are just too many appalling things that we’d get in the background. What we can do is some nice close-ups, and I convince Nate that we’ll get one of me and him, just sitting around a simple gas burner with a camp kettle on top of it, and we can do one of those stripped-back, enjoying-the-simple-life type of posts which is all about freeing yourself of the unnecessary clutter of modern life (e.g. bad boyfriends) and getting back to the basic things while holding a blue-and-white tin mug. Me and Nate will be in our hoodies, and I’ve told him we need to aim for a look of “natural chill” on our faces – so, nothing that looks posed, just something that captures a moment.
The first issue is that expression is really hard for Nate to pull off, and in every phot
o he looks bored.
“That’s just my face,” Nate says.
“Well, can you try to do something else with it?”
“You said natural!”
“Looks natural, I said.”
Nate tuts. “Do you have to sit so close to me?”
“It’s a selfie! How am I supposed to get us both in and the camping stove?” I wait for some sort of response, but get none. “Also, we’re sharing a tent, Nate, so you might as well get used to me being in close proximity to you. Wow.”
“I like my own space. It’s nothing personal.”
“Well, it sounded pretty personal.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
“OK, well, it sounded it.”
“So I sound personal, but I don’t look natural? Fuck this,” Nate says, heaving himself up.
“Stop! Where are you going? We haven’t got the photo yet!” I get up and grab him by the sleeve of his hoodie.
He takes a deep breath, but doesn’t turn to look at me. “Fine, then get someone else to take the photo, and then we can go and get some food.”
OK, he’s hungry, that’s probably why he’s grumpy. I glance around to see if there’s anyone nearby who looks like they won’t nick my phone if I ask them to take a pic. The options are:
•Bald middle-aged white man, beer belly, St George’s flag tattoo, who has just called his dog a “bender” for trying to sniff another dog’s bottom.
•The two twelve-year-old boys who look like bulldogs in vests.
On balance, I feel my chances are higher with the boys. “Lads?” I call over to them. I obviously hate using the word “lads” but I want this over as soon as possible, and with no incident.
The boys look over to me, seemingly sniff the air like feral wolves, glance at one another, then start to approach.
“All right, lads, yeah,” I continue, adopting the tone of the common man, “can you take a quick photo of me and my mate?”
“Gis your phone, then,” one of them says, holding a grubby hand out.
“OK, so…”
He snatches my phone from me. “Nice phone. You rich?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?”
They stare at me.
“I saved for it.”
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