Church Group

by Michael Brightside

  * * *

  Al knocking on the door at eight o’clock the next morning bought my night-long dreams of 500ft jumps and tabletops to an end.

  “Remind Lu he has to mix two-stroke oil in with that,” my dad mumbled to Al through a mouthful of something, spying the petrol can in his hand.

  “Do I? How much?” I shouted down from the top of the stairs.

  “Does it not say somewhere on the bike?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “I’ve not seen anything.”

  “Just mix it 30:1, that’s what all my two-strokes used to take. I thought all the newer bikes had a separate oil tank on them but I didn’t see one on yours, they normally stand out because they’re clear so you can see how much it’s got in it. Don’t ever run it without oil in or it’ll seize up,” he said. “Bloody hell I’m late, right don’t be stupid on it, I’ll be back just after lunchtime, it’s only a half day. I’ll see you later.”

  He shoved the last bit of jam on toast he was eating in his mouth, jumped in the car and sped off down the road.

  Having brought round the petrol can it was only right that Al walk down the road to get it filled too. We had an old-fashioned petrol station in the village, not far from the church, it isn’t there anymore. They used to ask you how much you wanted, then put the petrol in for you. I remember my dad being surprised the first time they told him to stay in his car. One advantage of living in a village is that they will fill a petrol can up for a fifteen year old boy, they wouldn’t have done that in the town I had moved from, through fear of watching the news that evening and seeing the local secondary school had been burnt to the ground. They’d even put a few squirts of two-stroke oil in for free, when Al had asked them if they sold it. With him back and the tank full it was time to see if it would start, the carburettor having run completely out of fuel before. I got it going on the fourth kick, whereupon it burst into life and purred away as well as it ever had.

  Dean came running downstairs to see what the commotion was. I did what is customary for any fifteen year old lad to do, when their younger brother and best mate are watching them with their new motorbike, I revved it up and down until we were all deaf.

  It wasn’t long before Angie, who lived next door and was married to Shane the policeman, came to the end of the drive to greet us.

  “Do you mind?” she said. “I’ve got a three year old child in there who’s crying because of all this noise.”

  I turned the ignition off and was just about to apologise when Al jumped in with, “It can’t be that loud, it’s got an MOT, it’s all legal.” Nice one Al.

  “I don’t care if it’s legal or not,” she spat. “You’ve no good reason to be making all this noise on a Saturday morning. Why was the engine even running? You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, sorry I’ll try and keep it down from now on,” I said, thinking a simple empty promise would resolve the situation.

  “This is your driveway Lu you can do what you want here, you don’t need to stop doing something just because of her,” he stoked the fire further.

  “I think you’ll find I’m not the only one down this road who’s had enough of that noise,” she said as she walked away, before adding for no reason, “I don’t know how your mother puts up with you.”

  “So how does your mother put up with you Al?” I joked, Dean laughing in the background.

  We didn’t bother going as far as Island Lane this time, just riding around in the field at the top of my road. We let Dean have a go as well, it took five minutes of chasing him before he’d give it back. Then at lunchtime Al and I went home to wait for my dad to return from work.

  Instead a police car crept slowly up the road, slower than walking, before coming to a stop outside my house. In it were three coppers. A big ugly one driving, the next door neighbour Shane in the front passenger seat, who was also pretty big, and copper number three who was smaller, but still the size of Al and I put together, in the back. The three of them looked at us for what seemed like an age. Not staring, and not trying to look intimidating, but being intimidating in the way that having three policemen watching you intently from a car always is. After a short hour, or maybe ten seconds that felt like an hour, they drove the final few feet needed to take their colleague home.

  I noticed as the car came back down the road that the policeman in the back had moved into the front.

  “Ooh- I’ve called shotgun!” Al minced as he spotted what I had. It was the same as when my dad dropped me off anywhere in the car and my brothers were with me. Once I’d gotten out Dean would then get out and take my seat in the front, and if Dean wasn’t there then Jack would get the front seat. By the looks of it the police force had their own pecking order too.

  I craned my head forward and poked my arse out like some kind of gay duck. “Why do you always get shotgun Al darling?”

  “With lips like these darling,” Al pouted at me, “I deserve shotgun.”

  We Needed Alcohol, Even If We Didn’t Know Why

  March 1999.

  The winter of ‘98 turned into the spring of ‘99. With the temperature rising, people at school began throwing final year parties. Several passed by without invitation and I had resigned myself to the fact that having started so late at the school, parties were something I was going to miss out on. Then Al and I were invited to Sally’s birthday at a scout hut in Frampton not far from the school, along with most of my year.

  I was honest with my mum, I was only fifteen but she was happy for me to go once I’d assured her that Sally’s parents were going to be there. Her next biggest worry was how we were going to get home. I had to make sure neither she nor my dad collected us, telling her we’d walk home by the street lit roads and not through the black fields. She insisted on picking us up until I reminded her that it wasn’t cool to be picked up from a party by your parents, she was disappointed but that didn’t matter.

  Neither of us knew what to do at a party, and deep down I don’t think either of us really wanted to go. It was more a case of turning up to show people at school that we’d been invited. I’d rather have gone and spent the evening bored, than not bothered and been the only person in class on Monday who hadn’t been. The one thing Al and I agreed on was that we needed alcohol, even if we didn’t know why.

  Out of school I normally lived in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. I had skinny legs so unless it was particularly hot out I hid them away, this made things worse because it meant they were the colour of skimmed milk. If we’d been out canoeing a couple of days in succession they might turn a more gold top shade of white but that was about the best it ever got. For tonight we were going to need smart enough clothes to pass for eighteen at the off-license, and also to fit in at the party. We arrived at the Circle Shopping Centre in jeans, checked short sleeved shirts, and school shoes. Making too much of an effort might have given the game away.

  We walked past the shop window slowly to begin with, so I had a chance to pick out my drink. Al went in to actually buy it as he was taller than me, while I sat and watched from the bus shelter at the top of the parade. The door to the off-license sounded a buzzer when Al opened it, and a middle aged woman appeared from out the back of the shop, taking her place behind the till.

  Al wandered around pretending to decide what to buy, mulling over a red and a white bottle of wine to make it look like he’d done this before, eventually settling on the eight cans of Stella I’d asked him to get me, and the same for himself. He confidently placed them on the counter, while wearing an unsmiling grown-up face. The moment of truth! Now I just had to wait to see if he handed over any money, or turned and walked out of the shop empty handed.

  She scanned the first multi-pack, putting it into a plastic carrier bag. Surely if she was going to ask him for identification she would have done it by now, we were on for the party! Nice one Al! But then instead of scanning the other eight beers like she should have done, she looked up and started talking.

  I wa
tched as her lips moved relentlessly, up and down, up and down, without so much as a second’s pause. I could only see the back of Al’s head but I knew he wasn’t talking, there wasn’t time. She must have been telling him something, and if she wasn’t telling him something it was because she was telling him everything. It wasn’t a conversation, it had gone on too long for that, no, this was a lecture. I tried to gauge what she was thinking from her eyes. Maybe she’d pressed a secret button under the till that summons security and she was trying to stall him until they got there. She looked happy enough, not like she was complaining about anything.

  I started to think about not going to the party, or worse still turning up without booze and spending the night standing at the edge of the dance floor drinking cherryade while everyone else got drunk. Bollocks. If she turned us away there was nowhere else we could go to, the next nearest off-license was in totally the wrong direction. By now all the supermarkets had shut. We had to be at the party soon, it was beginning to get dark. Then, out of nowhere, she finally closed her mouth and smiled, then finished selling Al the drink before sending him on his way.

  I stood up and walked round to the side of the bus-shelter, where I couldn’t be seen from the shop.

  “That was close wasn’t it? What was she hassling you about? I didn’t think she was ever going to let you go.”

  Al laughed, “Nah she was just chatting to me. She works in there on her own all night, she just sits and watches the TV in the back room, waiting for the door to buzz.”

  “She seemed to be going on for ages.”

  “Yeah she does like to talk,” he replied. “Anyway check this out!” He opened the bag to reveal our sixteen cans of beer. “That’s gotta be enough hasn’t it?”

  “Enough for me mate,” I said. “Give us a beer then.”

  We headed straight for the scout hut, opening the first can each as we walked. The beer tasted like shit, it wasn’t even cold.

  “Nice one Al, did you get these from off the radiator?”

  “At least I got some. Next time you can get them if you want.”

  “You’re alright mate, I wouldn’t want to get between you and your bird.”

  “Fuck off Lu.”

  We walked fast and we drank faster. The only way to get over how disgusting the beer tasted was to drink it as quickly as possible, the warm bubbles tasting so wrong as they went down my throat. By the time the scout hut came into view twenty minutes later we’d drunk three each, and the stars had come out to join in the fun.

  The buzz came on as a light-headedness to begin with, a dizzy kind of feeling, combined with an energy that I hadn’t had before. The most surprising thing though was that I was beginning to look forward to tonight, it was only now that I realised how apprehensive I’d been about it before. I didn’t know all the people who were going to be there the way Al did, having not grown up with them. Strangely that no longer mattered.

  “You getting anything Al?”

  “Yeah it’s making me feel diz-”

  “Yeah dizzy mate I feel the same, light-headed and that,” I interrupted him. I was now less interested in what Al had to say but far more interested in the words that came out of my own mouth. “Better leave the beers in this bush Al,” I said, “just in case someone tries to take them off us when we get in.”

  Having hidden the beers, we reached the gravel car park that led to the scout hut. From a distance we’d been able to see people hanging around outside but it was only now that I could make out their faces. I recognised some of them, they looked strange without their school uniforms, the girls especially in their brightly coloured summer dresses.

  Dave Pritchard, who I knew mainly from watching being thrown out of maths lessons, was the first to greet us, “Al and Lu are here!”

  “Dave you twat!” Al replied.

  Sally came running over in a red flowery dress that hung below her knees, far lower than the mid thigh length dresses the rest of the girls had on and probably something to do with the fact that her parents were here somewhere.

  “Alright Sally!” Al said. “Happy fucking Birthday!” He swung his arms around her and kissed her, pushing her mousey brown hair to one side and burying his face in her neck, leaning on her making her rock on her heels.

  “Have you been drinking?” she inquired in a parental kind of way.

  “Of course I have, it’s your fucking birthday!” he replied. She gave him a funny look.

  “Happy Birthday Sally!” I said. My words came out strangely, it was harder to articulate them than normal.

  “You pissed as well then are you? I don’t want you two coming in and ruining it for me.”

  “We’ll be alright,” I laughed, “only had a couple.”

  “Just try not to be idiots will you.”

  We entered the packed wooden scout hut. It was dark inside, lit only by a handful of multi-coloured disco lights on a stand in the corner. Even under our cover of darkness everyone turned to look at us. I knew some of them from school, but not well enough to interrupt them as they stood in their little groups. On a normal day I’d have wanted to get back outside as quickly as possible, but the alcohol helped me to ignore their glares. In front of the lights, on what looked like a school desk, was a portable CD player, and next to that were several stacks of CDs. On the opposite side of the room a couple of tables pushed together against the wall served as a makeshift buffet station, holding paper plates covered in food. Al grabbed a handful of vol-au-vents, each with solitary prawns on top. I went straight for the sausage rolls, taking nearly the whole plateful, I was absolutely starving. On the end of the table with the food were a collection of bottles of soft drinks; cola, lemonade and some fruit flavoured fizzy drinks that were bright blues and reds. The consolation drinks we might have ended up with.

  It in no way felt like a party, as I stood next to Al and the food, watching people half dancing to whatever was coming out of the stereo. Unless this was what parties were like? A group of people that kind of knew each other dancing awkwardly while being watched by two lads bopping their heads and wondering why they were even there. Then “Pretty fly for a White Guy” came on the stereo, leaving us with no choice but to run outside and retrieve the beers we’d hidden earlier on.

  “I need a piss,” I said as I cracked open another can, sneaking round the back of the scout hut.

  “You’re not going for a piss here mate,” a stranger’s voice sounded out, making me jump.

  In the dark I could just make out a circle of people. I counted four of them from the rings of light reflecting off the tops of their beer cans, and the hot red cherries on the ends of their cigarettes.

  “What are you doing round the back?” I asked.

  “We’re having a drink. There’s a toilet inside, you’ll have to take a piss in there.”

  “I’m not going back in there, it’s crap,” I said. Al came round to see what all the commotion was.

  “Have some respect, this is Sally’s older brother,” one of the lads said, gesturing towards another. I couldn’t see the motion of his hand, only the movement of a red dot.

  “Sorry mate, I weren’t being rude,” I said, gulping down my drink, “it’s probably gonna get better later on.”

  Sally’s brother laughed, “Nah you’re right, it is crap. Why do you think we’re out here?”

  We all introduced ourselves. I forgot almost all of their names immediately, the exception being Sally’s brother whose was easy to remember. His name was Al, the same as Al’s.