Apples (20 page)

Abi came round one night looking like a tramp, all dolled up in a magenta miniskirt, but I couldn’t really complain. Only I’d been thinking all weekend about Eve and the stuff at Rachel’s, and as for other girls I wasn’t really noticing them that much. All I could think about was what could’ve been. Debbie said Eve liked me, but then again it was hard to take ‘fuck off’ as a come-on. I tried to put myself in Eve’s place, absolutely monged and waking up to a strange face – maybe she reacted like that because she didn’t want me to see her all dishevelled, or she didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t sure. Maybe she was on the blob; she seemed pretty angry. But I loved her even more – every evening I cranked up the radio (Dad was still in hospital) and imagined me and her hanging out, spending days in bed, snuggling, being dead caring towards one another. That night I had the Doors on, and the music whizzed around like a whirlybird. I had my eyes shut.

‘Oi oi,’ Abi said, though I wasn’t expecting her to actually burst in my room. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Abi. Alright?’ I said, opening them up and noticing her skirt.

‘I’m fine me,’ she smiled, and she sat on the edge of my bed as I switched off the CD. It was up to ‘Blue Sunday’, but in general I wasn’t really feeling blue any more. It was a Sunday, though.

‘Your mam let me up,’ she went on, crossing her legs.

‘So, what you up to? You wanting to go out or something?’ I watched her lay out on the greyish bed cover, and she sort of had slitty eyes when she said to me, ‘I dunno. I thought we could maybe stop in or something – I’m pretty skint. Just felt like seeing you.’

I did a little nod. She did look glammed up – I couldn’t work out why she’d done her hair all different, and I shifted around trying to be natural. I hummed for a second not knowing what to say, then I stretched and asked, ‘So what you been doing today?’

‘Not much,’ Abi said, sitting up. ‘Done all the History coursework, so at least that’s out the way. Just been crap weather, so no point going outside or anything and it’s dead boring at home.’

I couldn’t argue with that. You spend the whole of school wishing for the holidays, then when you get there you do fuck all with yourself. It was good to relax, but I just wanted to see Eve again. She’d been in my head all the time, like there was a little chair in there and she was sitting on it. I shut the Doors back in the CD case a couple of times then joined Abi on the duvet cover, making sort of sand dunes on the dull fabric. While she talked she kept touching my knee, and she asked if I wanted to put on more music – I didn’t though. It’s embarrassing getting asked that when you’ve got slightly weird taste in music. I wasn’t sure if she could handle Jim Morrison sexing everything up, or the Byrds getting eight miles high, or even the Beatles wanting to hold your hand. She was more of a cheesy pop tart.

‘You getting up to much over half-term?’ Abi asked, sitting up straight but every now and then leaning over at me. You could see the tops of her tits peeping out of her vest, but you tried not to look. We were like the corpse and the exotic dancer. I breathed out, flinching whenever she touched me, and I got red the more she flirted around. Was she taking the piss?

‘Not really,’ I answered eventually. I was so shit talking to her when I was sober, and in the silences it got more and more obvious. She lounged about like a pile of pornography, giggling and trying to rile me up. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at – I couldn’t see Eve being such a dickhead. Abi flicked her fringe out of her eyes, and I had no idea how to react when she brushed over my knob with her hand. She said oops and watched for my thing getting perky, but my brain was like a ball of string unravelling and I couldn’t move. I got in a tangle. I tried to keep her at arm’s length, but then she went and opened her legs and I completely lost it. She had on no knickers, and my heart went crash-bang-wallop and my eyes popped out. She hadn’t shaved, and her fanny looked like a tropical fish or a bit of old carpet.

‘So, you just gonna sit there?’ Abi asked, and I laughed nervously. I was hardening up, but it was all a bit of a shock really. All I’d planned that night was listening to a selection of records and maybe some homework. I tried to go down on her, thinking back to the
Razzle
and how the boys did it in that. But my heart wasn’t into it – her cunt smelt a bit like an armpit, and when I pulled the lips open I knew I’d have to shut them numerous times or else I’ll die of Aids or I’d fall into it. I sat up again, then huffed out air, pissed off at myself. Abi got the hump, and just to make it worse I said, ‘Soz, we should just be mates.’

I couldn’t wait to tell Burny and the Prick I’d blown off Abi Ellis, but at the same time I felt shit and the semi-on in my Y-fronts was going nowhere. Abi swung her legs off the bed, then kicked the carpet in her socks and asked, ‘You’re not even seeing anyone though, are you?’

‘Well no,’ I went. ‘Just feel like I’m getting somewhere with Eve.’

‘Fucking hell, she’s a bitch. She’s been with about twenty different lads since Christmas. She’s a total slag.’

I didn’t believe her, though – that night in Rachel’s bed, all soft and fragile and sleepy, Eve was an innocent kitten. If she was such a slapper she would’ve had a baby or a disease by now – she just wanted to have fun with her life. Something I knew nothing about. In the end I whacked myself off over Abi, recalling the tropical fish and imagining us riding each other, and I sort of wished I’d lost my virginity instead of being a knob. I chased her down the staircase and a little of the way down Deighton Road, but she wouldn’t turn back. So I beat myself off when I got home. And I beat myself up. And I didn’t have the balls to phone her.

We had our heads in the clouds. The plane to Majorca flew off at about six o’clock, and I felt so wasted I thought my brain was weighing us down. I stared as the world fizzled away below us, then tried to stretch my legs but there wasn’t enough room with my hand-luggage full of tops and bikinis down there. It was weird sitting next to Debbie and Rachel instead of my sisters, and we couldn’t have as much of a laugh with Mam there, but it was fun flicking through magazines while the air hostesses looked after us. We stashed a load of mini Smirnoffs and Gordons and all the other names for Jenni and Claire, and I hoped to god the bleeper wouldn’t go off when we walked through customs. I wasn’t even positive Claire had had a drink since having the baby, but she deserved it and I figured she’d need a night out when we got back home. Claire was an absolute star coping with a kid as well as that shite with Shane and Gary; I’d hate to be in her shoes. In fact I packed a pair of her stilettos for the holiday, but that was a different story. I pulled my ponytail through the gap in the back of my Yankees cap, then tried to see England out of the window but it was way too cloudy. I couldn’t wait for the sunny sunshine.

Giggling at the problem pages in Debbie’s copy of
Sugar
, I finished my dinky can of lemonade then pushed a bit of fringe under my cap when it flapped in my eye. I wasn’t in the mood to get pissed just yet after what happened that Thursday – I was sick of hearing how wrecked I was, and the whole mix-up with Adam was just annoying. The morning after I tried to go downstairs and apologise to a couple of people, but I was feeling like death warmed up and neither Adam or Fairhurst had slept over. I hoped it’d all be blown over by the time we got back. That afternoon Jenni and Gracie took the piss out of me at the chippy, even though I bought them each plastic forks. Cheeky bitches. Jenni got off with Ben again at the party, but I didn’t care because since the Empire I’d shagged him and she hadn’t. I still hadn’t found my keys, but Mam got more cut and she didn’t really probe me about where I ended up that night. She was pretty cool compared to other people’s mams – she said me and the girls could do whatever we liked in Palma, and she wasn’t bothered about us being rude on the plane. She was fast asleep. We had to go to the doctor’s earlier in the week to check she could go abroad, but apparently she was doing really well cancer-wise. It was a good start to the hols. I wiggled in my seat, then read one of the Agony Aunt things to Debbie – the one about the girl who thought her boyfriend’s dick was too big for her. It was a better laugh reading them aloud – because of the dyslexia Debbie reckoned she was dead slow at reading, but I think she was just backward.

Once the hostesses came round with the meals, Thursday was miles out of my head. I’d drink again. We still had hangovers like dull halos, but bad heads are alright in the sunshine and we wouldn’t be buying shit cider this time. It’d be all Daiquiris and Blow Jobs et cetera. Within hours we’d be dancing and romancing on the streets of Palma and Magaluf, while everyone else had to suffer another boring night down Easterside. Even though we wanted to go mad every night I made a promise not to spew my guts up every time – I didn’t want to wake up thinking I’d been bummed again. I liked all the attention though, even if it was mostly just people taking the mick – in Chipchase Chippy Gracie said I was a ‘porno zombie’ that night. I’m sure I was a sleeping beauty really.

When the plane came in to land, I could feel my ears crunching so I chewed Orbit while the Mediterranean Sea revolved underneath us, with tiny speedboats leaving white slug-trails in the glitter water. I fidgeted around, looking forward to that blast of oven air you get jumping off a plane – I couldn’t believe we were frost-bitten in Teesside only hours earlier. Daydreaming, I watched a bunch of wonky windmills scoot past the windows as the plane touched down on the runway, and I nearly had a heart attack when we boinked off the seats. Everything looked yellow and brown like a 1970s film. I was still a bit shook-up when I picked the clothes bag from between my legs, but it felt brilliant to see the sun out and all the Spanish lads working in the airport. Tiptoeing down the aisle in the pink summery heels, it was good to be a million miles from all the shite I’d left behind.

We had to queue up the steps of Pacha for about fifteen minutes, but it was nothing like freezing your boobies off in Middlesbrough. It was still fairly bakey in the pitch-black, and we jigged around to the muffled beats instead of standing about with our arms crossed. Scratching the sunburn under my black disco dress, I followed Debbie’s eyes out across the harbour and all the dotted hotel lights flicking in front of the palm trees. What beauty. She yawned loudly, swaying her hips – I doubted she was still jet-lagged; it was only an hour time difference or something. Next to me Rachel already looked a bit tanned – we’d been out on the beach a couple of afternoons, but I was only on the Factor 6 so far. I felt pissed, and I couldn’t help tripping in my silver high-heels as we made our way to the top of the brown stairs. I lent the shiny metal belt off Rachel, so don’t worry I was colour-coordinated. Before Pacha we’d been for some vodkas in a cheapo bar on the seafront, and the measures were like four times what we were expecting and it was taking its toll.

As cars and motorbikes stormed along the Gabriel Roca, I smiled up at the young American bloke doing the tickets, then took a few bright notes out of my purse and handed them over. He winked and passed me back some change, but I supposed it was his job to be flirty so I just said, Gracias.

I pronounced it with a cee; I wasn’t into all that lispy nonsense. Half of the club was open-air and it looked gorgeous as we went under the big massive archway, the canopy all pink and orange in the blue night. There were too many oldish foreigners knocking about for my liking, but deep deep on the dancefloor you could see a bunch of sexy Spaniard heartthrobs. There was a hint of feeling you’re in a porno though. Flicking the lacy straps along my shoulders, I started beaming as Debbie and Rachel joined me on the paving, but all Deb wanted to do was pick her nails while we waited at the bar. She was still yet to sign her tag in Majorca, but I bet there was a Magic Marker in her bag somewhere. I went for a Bacardi and Coke then handed over a bit more Monopoly money, bopping around getting excited.

Stop messing with your manicure! I smiled at Debbie, though she did have quite an extravagant one. After we’d been sunbathing at Cala Major, Mam paid for us to get our nails done up Jaume II since she knew we were heading off to Pacha and that. For the first few nights she came drinking with us but she said the smoky clubs were too much for her, and I felt bad about leaving her up in the hotel. She wasn’t looking too well, but I figured it was nothing the sun couldn’t fix. We agreed to keep her company in the daytimes, then get out of our minds when she’s not around. I looked at Debbie and Rach and hugged their necks and grinned.

Howay, do you want a dance? Rachel asked, pulling us inside. We pushed the thick double-doors open then shimmied carefully onto the dancefloor; the kick-drum was a heartbeat and I wondered if there was an ecstasy dealer about. However I wasn’t keen on the idea of overheating. I held my sequinned bag in two hands while I squeezed past flesh and sliding high-heels, checking out the blokes, and I tried to keep my white nails in the lasers. There were a few fine specimens eyeing us up on the beach that morning, but I doubted they’d happen to be in the club as well. In fact nowadays I was very wary about freaky stalker types, after Adam and whatnot even if he was harmless. The dancefloor was small compared to somewhere like Millennium, and you could really tell we were in a foreign country – it was an eighties time-warp, lads still body-popping with daft curly hairdos. The music was class though, and everyone looked like a Calvin Klein model. Debbie had her hair braided again, and her face lit then ducked as the bubblegummy lights moved. I saw her boobs almost jig out as we squashed through a circle of lads, all crowding around and trying to sleaze us but we weren’t interested. I spent the whole of the next song with a sweaty boy’s hand on my arse, but I half boogied with it and half tried to get away. Me, Debbie and Rachel stuck together like ballerinas, and I opened and closed my eyelids as all the lights shone down like stardust and snowfall. I really hoped it wasn’t freezing for all our friends in Beechwood.