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Authors: Kevin Brooks

Lucas (6 page)

BOOK: Lucas
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It
was a tight red strapless top, an unbelievably short two-tone skirt, and a pair of metallic grey ankle-strap shoes with three-inch platforms. With her streaky-blonde hair slicked with gel, crimson lipstick, and full-on eyes, she looked like an eighteen-year-old princess on a girls' night out.

‘Very nice,' I told her.

She slapped my thigh. ‘I see you made an effort – hey, Angel, didn't I tell you? Angel?'

The girl in the passenger seat turned to face us, snapping her gum and looking me up and down with a cold stare. She was sixteen, going on twenty-one. Curly peroxide hair, painted blue eyes, with lips like Madonna and an attitude to match. ‘Yeah,' she said, fingering the top of her sheer white sun dress. ‘Very sweet. They go for that.'

I lurched to one side as the car swung out to pass a stream of traffic on a narrow hill, then lurched back again as Robbie pulled over just in time to miss a double decker bus trundling down the hill on the other side. Tyres squealed. Horns hooted. Robbie grinned and stuck a finger out the window, shouting, ‘Up yours!'

Angel laughed, then leaned across and whispered something in his ear. Robbie grunted, and I saw him adjust his sunglasses and glance at me in the rear-view mirror. I looked at Bill for support. She was checking her lipstick, brushing cigarette ash from her skirt, rolling her head to the beat of the music. She winked at me.

I settled back and stared out of the window, consoling myself with the thought that the journey wouldn't last for ever.

As we approached the roundabout at the edge of town, the
traffic got heavier and the car slowed to a crawl. For the last few minutes Angel had been fiddling around with a packet of cigarettes and a jigsaw of cigarette papers, and now she'd lit the joint and was leaning back with one arm dangling from the open window, sucking the smoke down into her lungs. Why she'd waited until we reached town, and why she was making such a big deal out of it, I didn't know. I assumed it was meant to impress me. After a few more puffs, she twisted round in her seat, wiggling her bum all over the place, and passed me the joint.

‘No, thanks,' I said.

‘'S all right,' she sneered, ‘it's only a bit of blow.'

‘I know what it is – I don't smoke.'

‘It's
grass
, girl. It won't kill you.'

She was leaning over the back seat with her bum sticking up in the air. I looked her in the eye, trying to see beyond the pose, trying to imagine what she was like when she was alone … but I couldn't see it. That sort of girl is never alone, because without other people they have to be themselves, and they can't stand themselves.

‘Your brother smokes,' she said, passing the joint to Bill.

‘I expect he does,' I said.

She curled her lip. ‘And your old man.'

‘So?'

She seemed taken aback for a moment, as if she'd expected me to be shocked. Her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed, and then Robbie slapped her on the backside and said, ‘Which way, Ange?' and she took the opportunity to wriggle back into her seat and regain her bad-girl composure.

‘Multi-storey in Crown Street,' she hissed. ‘And if you slap my arse again I'll break your bleedin' neck.'

Bill, meanwhile, was coughing to death on the joint.

‘Having a good time?' I asked her.

‘Whoof,'
she said, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

With the car parked, and Angel and Robbie scuttling off into the spiral gloom of the multi-storey walkways, I finally had the chance to ask Bill what on earth she thought she was doing.

‘What do you mean?' she said, walking off with an innocent giggle. ‘It saved us a couple of quid bus fare, didn't it?'

‘Oh, come on Bill … Angel Dean, for God's sake—'

‘Angel's all right, she's a good laugh.'

‘No she's not.'

‘You have to get to know her, that's all.'

‘And you do, I suppose?'

She stumbled over a kerb and started giggling again, then skipped over and slung her arm around my shoulder. ‘Oh, Caity … matey … you're not jealous, are you? You know you'll
always
be the only one for me …'

‘Yeah, yeah … will you get off?'

I watched her as she bent down and checked her makeup in the wing-mirror of a parked car, and I watched the way a passing group of thirty-year-old men in football shirts nudged each other, eyeing her up. God … I was really getting sick of the whole thing, the whole weekend, everything. I felt as if I'd been plucked out of nowhere and dropped smack in the middle of some tacky Australian soap, where everyone and everything revolved around tits and bums and sex. I was tired of it. If I'd known what was coming I would have turned around and gone home right then. But I didn't know what was coming. And Bill was my best friend. And I didn't want to appear un
friendly
, did I?
So I just followed her out of the car park and onto the bridge that spans the dual-carriageway, shaking my head as she hitched herself over the railings and gobbed at the passing traffic.

‘Where are we going?' I asked wearily. ‘Town's the other way.'

‘Ah …' she said, wiggling her eyebrows. ‘Come this way, my pretty. A surprise awaits thee …'

The surprise was having to spend the rest of the afternoon in a pub called The Cavern at the other end of the bridge with two of the lamest young men I've ever come across. They were waiting for us in a balcony garden at the rear of the pub, sitting at a plastic table in the shade of a plastic umbrella. Traffic groaned up and down the dualcarriageway below, almost drowning out the sound of the jukebox, and a stale odour of beer and cigarette smoke drifted out from the dim interior of the bar. Bill introduced the boys as Trevor and Malc.

‘They're starting at the sixth-form college next year,' she explained proudly, crossing her legs and pouting as she sat down next to the one called Trevor. He was thin, with tinted glasses and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. The other one was even thinner, in white shorts and a beige-and-white-striped polo shirt. He had a face like a lizard.

‘Hi, Kay,' he said. ‘What are you drinking?'

I can hardly bear to describe the rest of the afternoon. In short, it was awful. A daze of giggling, drinking, grinning, smoking, bragging about cars, crappy jokes and beer-mat tricks, crisps, traffic fumes, flies, spiked drinks, sly looks and suggestions, and then, as the drinks took hold, red-faced slurs and scratches and winks, burps and
farts, dirty stares, shuffling chairs and loose hands, with Bill flashing her knickers around like a drunk old granny at Christmas, and Trevor pawing her under the table, and Malc just sitting there like a sick little boy after I'd kicked him in the knee for trying to stick his damn tongue in my ear.

When Bill and Trevor sloped off to a corner of the balcony to get some more groping in, I just couldn't stand it any more. I took myself off to the Ladies, locked myself in a cubicle, and just sat there, praying for the day to end.

I didn't have
that
much to drink, but it wasn't possible to sit there all afternoon without drinking
something
, if only to dull the pain. And I'm sure Talcy Malcy slipped a few vodkas into my cider at the bar. And I hadn't eaten much. And I was tired. And we'd been sitting out in the sun all afternoon … So, all in all, by the time we left the pub I have to admit I was pretty drunk. I don't quite remember walking back to the car park, but somewhere along the way we lost Trevor and Malcolm and were re-united with Angel and Robbie. They were with a man I'd seen around the island called Lee Brendell. I didn't know where they'd been, or what he was doing with them, and I didn't really care. I was just glad to get in the back of the car and sit back as Robbie drove out of the car park, swung across the roundabout and headed out of town.

After fiddling around with a pile of shopping bags and re-doing her lipstick, Angel swivelled around in her seat and lit a cigarette. She couldn't stop grinning at Bill, who was slopped in the corner with her eyes half-closed and an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Lee Brendell had squeezed in the back and was sitting sullenly between me and Bill with his legs splayed wide and his eyes blank.
Robbie, meanwhile, had obviously taken something. His bug eyes were shining like black saucers and he couldn't stop talking and waving his hands about. He was driving even crazier than before. Cutting up cars, swerving all over the place, racing the engine … it was scary.

I opened the window to let some air in.

‘Want some sounds, Bren?' Robbie shouted, jerking his head around. ‘Eh? What d'you want? Bit o' boom? You want some boo-oom!'

Brendell just looked at him. He was a big man, in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a faded grey T-shirt and dusty jeans, with a raw-looking face and large, weathered hands which he held flat on his knees. All I really knew about him was that he lived on a houseboat on the west of the island and that he wasn't a man to be messed with. He smelled of chemicals and sweat.

Robbie turned and grinned at him again. ‘Say what? Wanna smoke? Whooo! Smokeen Joanna! You want some boom-boom? Ange'll get—'

‘Just drive the car,' Brendell said quietly.

‘Okey dokey, Bren,' Robbie replied happily. ‘Okey bloody dokey.'

The outskirts of town blurred past and before I knew it we were heading out along the country lanes back to the island. Although I was still feeling a bit whoozy, the air rushing in through the open window was beginning to clear my head and I was starting to feel a little better.

Bill, though – well, Bill was suffering. Slumped against the window, with her head in her hands and her skirt all rucked up and mascara smudged around her eyes, she looked a complete mess. I didn't feel much sympathy for her. In fact, I didn't feel any. At that moment, I hated her guts.

But still … she was my best friend. I couldn't just leave her, could I?

I leaned across Brendell and took hold of her hand. ‘Bill? Bill, are you all right?'

‘Nn nuh,' she said, slapping at my hand. ‘Fug ‘em, bassa …'

‘Come on, Bill, it's me, Cait.'

‘Lemme ‘lone, gwan …'

Brendell turned his head and looked at me, his face utterly devoid of expression. He didn't say anything, didn't move a muscle, just stared at me like I was something in a cage, then slowly looked away. I pulled Bill's skirt down as far it would go, which wasn't far, then shuffled back to my side of the car.

Angel had resumed her bum-in-the-air position and was watching me with a mocking gleam in her eyes. With Brendell seemingly non-existent, Bill semi-conscious, and Robbie lost in a daze of speeding cars, Angel and I were as good as alone. We both knew it. She bent a stick of gum into her mouth and winked at me.

‘Welcome to the world, darling,' she said. When I didn't answer she gave me a long hard stare, making a big deal of chewing her gum, and then she snapped the gum and sneered, ‘You like to think you're something special, don't you? Something
special
. Clean and white, Caity McCann … beach baby … little Caity McCann … isn't that what he calls you?'

‘Who?'

‘
Who
, she says … shit – how many
are
there?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Course you don't – you don't know squat, do you? You just walk on the beach with your dog, looking at the sky …' She leaned towards me and her voice took on a
vicious tone. ‘Listen, girl,' she hissed, ‘just keep your hands off my boy.'

‘What?'

‘Don't touch what you can't handle, all right?'

I shook my head. She was crazy. What boy? Who the hell was she talking about? Malcolm? Talcy Malcy? Simon? Did she mean Simon …? No, she wouldn't look twice at Simon. Then it struck me –
little Caity McCann
. That's what Jamie Tait had called me on the beach.
Well, if it isn't little Caity McCann
… Was that who she meant? Jamie Tait? But that was ridiculous. Angel had nothing to do with him. She wasn't his girlfriend. Sara Toms was his girlfriend – his fiancée, in fact. But then, I thought, it's not as if Jamie's likely to be the most faithful partner in the world is it? But even so – Angel Dean? With Jamie? Surely not … And anyway, even if she
is
talking about Jamie, how does she know what happened? He must have told her, he must have lied to her …

A terrible groan interrupted my thoughts. I looked over and saw Bill clutching a hand to her mouth, her face as pale as a sheet.

‘Pull over, Robbie,' Angel said. ‘The little bitch is gonna throw up.'

Robbie swore and slid the car to a stop. ‘Get her out! Quick, get her out! I only had it cleaned this morning.'

Bill started gagging, big lurching humps that started in her belly and snaked up into her throat. Angel just sat there, laughing. She wasn't going to lift a finger. And Brendell couldn't give a damn. So while Robbie was having a mental breakdown, swearing and spluttering and tugging at his door, trying to unlock it, I opened my door and hurried round to the other side. I got Bill out and helped her onto the verge. After a couple of steps her legs
gave way and she sank to her knees and threw up in the grass. From the car I could hear Angel cheering and clapping, ‘Yeah! Go on, girl, let it all out! Ha ha!'

This is it, I thought, this is
it
. It can't get any worse. I looked at Bill, coughing and retching in the grass, and Robbie, who'd finally got his door open and was now walking up and down sucking hard on a cigarette, mumbling to himself and manically clicking his fingers, and I looked at Angel, leering out of the car window, a crazy girl who just minutes ago had warned me to keep my hands off a man who less than twenty-four hours ago had virtually assaulted me …

I couldn't believe what was happening.

BOOK: Lucas
7.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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