Out of Towners (14 page)

Robbie cringes.

“Oh man, that was cold,” he says.

The bloke in the
Free Hot Dog
T-shirt orders himself another pint. Right on cue, a car on
They All Walked Away
crashes and burns.

By quarter past ten we've all finished our drinks. I put the empties on the bar.

“What are we doing now then?” I ask. “Staying for another in here, or hitting the town?”

“I reckon town,” Dylan says.

I turn to Robbie.

“Know any good pubs mate?”

Robbie shrugs.

“Nah. Pubs aren't my mum and dad's thing. We don't go into town at night.”

I nod. It's not a problem. We'll work it out for ourselves.

We leave the bar and head in the direction of the seafront. As we come past Funtastica, I glance through the door. The toy grabbers are calling to me.

“Wait a sec,” I say. “I want to try something. It won't take long.”

The arcade is as full as it was earlier, if not fuller. The lights are still blinking and flashing, faster than ever. Although it's getting late there are still lots of ferrety kids about, keeping an eye on the games players, waiting for money to drop into trays or under the machines. A big security guard in a red fleece with
Here To Help
on the back is monitoring the situation. The enormous girls are off the dancing game now. They've done their exercise for the night, and they're sitting over by the change booth digging into cones of chips and mayonnaise.

The grabber machines are lined up along the right-hand wall. There are lots of different toys to win. Teddies, The Simpsons, Looney Tunes. All kinds of stuff. I've got my eye on some South Park characters. I'm on a roll tonight.

While the others watch, I stick in a pound for four credits. Somewhere in the background, the chorus of
La Bamba
is repeating over and over. The green light comes on and I send the mechanical claw on its way. My first two efforts aren't up to much. With the third though, I manage to grab hold of Cartman and lift him straight up before he drops on top of Kenny. And with the fourth I hit the jackpot. Cartman comes tumbling down the chute.

I wheel round in triumph.

Steph squeals, throws her arms round my neck and gives me a kiss. Everyone starts clapping.

“Watch and learn,” I say. “Watch. And. Learn.”

I bend down and get Cartman out of the machine. I hand him to Steph.

“Merry Christmas,” I say.

As we return along the walkway, the moon is bathing the seafront in a silvery glow. It's a proper full moon tonight, bigger than I've ever seen it, a perfect disc hanging low in the pitch-black starry sky. It's lighting up the shabby old hotels so they look as white as fresh snow. It's like they've been mysteriously transported back in time, to the days when Whitbourne was on the up.

Soon we're at the entrance of the pier. It's not Spandau Ballet on the speakers any more. It's what they call easy-listening music. Something from another era.
Moon River
. It seems just right. Looking up, there's a sign across the archway.
Thank You For Visiting Whitbourne Pier. We Hope You Had A Good Time
. Yeah. I did, thanks.

I take Steph's hand and we lead the way across the road and up the street with the souvenir sellers and the rock shops. They're all closed up for the night. The shutters are down and the lights are off. The restaurants and cafes are still open though. The tables and chairs are still out on the pavements, but people are drinking now, not eating. We carry on past Poundtastic and come to a crossroads. I scan up and down the road, first right, then left. About fifty metres down there's a pub. The White Horse.

“What do you reckon?” I ask. “Shall we give it a go?”

Steph and Nikita are nodding.

“Worth a try,” Dylan says.

It's dark inside the White Horse. The place reeks of stale beer, sweat and onions. Elvis is on the jukebox. The wall to the left is lined with benches, mostly occupied by old blokes. A black Labrador is lying on the floor. On the other side there's a raised area, surrounded by a waist-high barrier. Most of the seats are filled with younger people in their teens and twenties. Some of the wooden bars of the barrier are missing. I'm wondering what they might have been used for. A few of the customers look a bit dodgy.

Robbie taps me on the shoulder.

“We've made a blunder here.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You might be on to something.”

There's some lads round a pool table over to the right. They're wearing hoodies and jeans. There's quite a bit of wet-look gel and cheap jewellery about. This is the style of boozer that Kirkie and his mates would hang around in.

“I think we should try somewhere else,” Robbie says.

Nobody's arguing.

We go back outside and walk up the street, turning left and heading towards the main shopping area. We come past another rough-looking pub called Molly O'Shea's and a tattoo parlour and cut through the market place, trying not to gag on the smell of fish and rotting fruit. Someone's decapitated one of the pink plastic hippo bins and there's litter everywhere.

We're in the town centre now. No cars are about. It's just taxis picking up and dropping off. Groups of blokes and groups of women are wandering around, looking for entertainment. Somewhere in the distance a seagull starts squawking in his sleep and about ten others join in.

“Anyone got any suggestions for which way we should go?” I ask.

There's blank looks all round. Roads and lanes are peeling off in every direction. Along an alley to the right, I think I can see a pub.

“Want to try down here?”

Everyone's in favour, so we set off.

The pub is called the Highcross Arms. Neatly trimmed trees are standing in buckets on either side of the entrance and in the doorway there's a gigantic bouncer in a white shirt and black tie. He's thirty stone at least. And it's muscle, not fat. If you turned him round, you could use his back as a cinema screen. He gives us a suspicious glance as we go past, but we don't look like we're going to cause any trouble.

I catch sight of our reflection in a mirrored wall. We were like a bunch of kids in Funtastica. We're not kids now. It might be the low lighting, but we look like we've all turned into adults in the last couple of hours. Scary. Life has started speeding up and we're getting carried along, ready or not.

I think about my mum and dad again. I wonder what they're doing while their sixteen year old son gets pissed at the seaside? Watching telly, I suppose. Or reading. I shouldn't be deceiving them like this. How many lies am I going to need to tell tomorrow evening? I feel a twinge of guilt. But then I remember something Steph said last night, talking about Nikita's parents. What they don't know isn't going to hurt them.

The Highcross Arms is the size of a barn. For some reason it smells like B&Q. My dad drags me round there on Sunday afternoons sometimes, when there's a crap match on Sky. As I take in the surroundings, the smell of paint and sawdust starts to make sense. The place looks like it only opened a couple of weeks ago. It's filled with shiny new furniture. The upholstery isn't covered in puke stains yet.

It seems to be a theme pub, but I'm not sure what the theme is. The walls are terracotta and there are Victorian-style lamps dotted about. On ledges, out of the reach of pissed idiots, there are aged-looking trinkets. Trombones and ships in bottles. To round it all off there's a fishing net suspended from the ceiling, filled with floats and shells and plastic puffer fish.

I squeeze Steph's hand.

“You lot get us somewhere to sit,” I say, leaning close so she can hear me over the music that's blasting out. “We'll get the drinks in.”

The girls set off and us lads head in the other direction.

It's crowded at the bar. While we're waiting, I try to suss the place out. Most of the people are quite young. Older than in the Waterfront, but not by much. Judging by the accents, it's a mix of locals, tourists and people down from London. The good thing is, everyone's dressed smartly. We're not going to bump into Kirkie in here.

A gap appears in front of me and I wriggle into it.

I'm up at the bar now, and the rest of the lads are behind me. I scan the beer pumps to see if they've got Fosters. They have. I put a twenty pound note between my fingers and try to attract someone's attention. Normally I'd let George take over but he's well away. I told him he'd regret knocking back that pint earlier. His eyes are in different orbits. It won't be long before he's wheeling out his everyone likes a drink patter.

A barman is heading my way. A flick of my twenty pound note and he makes eye contact.

“Four pints of Fosters please mate,” I say, quick as a flash. “And three bottles of WKD.”

When the barman has pulled the pints and opened the bottles, I hand over my twenty and get a couple of quid change. I pass two pints to Dylan and get the other two myself. Robbie grabs the WKD bottles. George has got nothing to carry but it's probably for the best. He's having trouble walking a straight line.

Easing out into the main part of the pub, we start looking for the girls. It doesn't take long. Steph's waving from the corner by the front windows. We cut across and plonk the drinks down. The girls have done a good job. They've got two tables, pulled together, with three stools on one side and an upholstered bench on the other.

Steph shifts along the bench and I sit next to her. She slides her hand onto my knee and we kiss. I can't actually understand what my problem was earlier on. Why it took me so long to go for it. Whatever. I got there in the end. I look at Cartman sitting on the table, his little blue and yellow bobble hat, his red jacket and his scowling face, and I can't help smiling.

I spend the best part of the next hour nursing my pint. George stumbles up to the bar to get himself another, but I tell him not to bother with one for me. It's like a role-reversal. Now I'm the one trying to be sensible, drinking slowly, pacing myself. I want to remember everything that happens tonight.

Me and Steph aren't saying much, but it doesn't matter. We're communicating in other ways. A touch. A glance. It all feels right. Natural. I'm happy just looking at her. Her mouth. The slight curve to her nose. The smoothness of her skin. The way she moves. There's no doubt about it. She's a babe.

Around half past eleven I head into the toilets. They're pretty impressive. Spotless and smelling of pine needles. The pub owners have had a bright idea to stop people vandalising the place. On the wall behind the urinals there's a board, with chalk laid on. As I take a piss, I look at the messages. Most of them seem to have been written by
JAY
. He's so pleased and excited by his name, he's scrawled it about twenty times. When I've done up my flies, I pick up a stick of chalk and put
IS A WANKER
under the biggest
JAY
.

As I'm leaving, my eyes are drawn to the condom machine over by the mirrors. Automatically, my hand goes to my pocket, checking for change. I don't mean to do it. It just happens. I'm as bad as Dylan. But like Dylan, I shake my head and keep going. The thing is, however much I'd like to break my duck, if I ended up in bed with Steph tonight, it wouldn't be right. She deserves better than that. It'll happen, but it might be months away. I know we live miles apart, but we're going to keep on seeing each other. I just know it.

Back in the pub things are starting to get confusing. I've been doing my best to fend it off, but pissedness is creeping up on me. My face is warm and I'm starting to feel slightly disconnected from reality. I'm still stringing sentences together, but it's taking a lot of concentration.

Midnight is on the way and I keep losing track of people. I think the girls are in the toilets. Robbie's off talking to a fit-looking blonde bird who's been giving him the eye. I don't know where George is. Me and Dylan are the only ones left here at the table.

Sometimes Dylan's a bit difficult to talk to. Certainly harder than Robbie, who I've always had loads in common with. But it shouldn't be hard to find common ground with Dylan tonight. We've both had a result. I swill the dregs of my pint round the glass then knock them back.

“Hey, Dylan,” I say, putting the glass down. “We've scored. We've genuinely scored. Steph's amazing and Nikita's well nice, you jammy bastard.”

“Yeah,” Dylan says.

I'd thought he'd be as chuffed as I am. But even in my numb state I can see he isn't. He drums his fingers on the table and sighs.

“What's up?” I ask, puzzled.

Dylan frowns.

“I was thinking about after the summer.”

“What about it?”

Dylan's struggling to say what he wants to say. He has another go.

“Well, you and Robbie and George are going back to college and I'm going to be working for Cawsey Contractors.”

I nod. I don't know where he's going with this.

“Well,” he says again, “you lot are still going to be together. Maybe, you know, you won't be wanting to hang around with me any more.”

I get it now. I can't think of anything to say. I'm amazed. I'd never have guessed he might be thinking like that. This is Dylan. Mr Macho. The hardest man on Earth. But he's changed a lot this weekend. We all have. Well, me, Dylan and George for definite. Maybe not Robbie so much. But perhaps he doesn't need to change. As I look over, I see he and the blonde girl are taking pictures of each other with their mobiles. The boy leads a charmed life.

Dylan wipes his hand across his face. He swallows. “It just guts me to think I might lose contact with you all.”

I'm getting over the shock now. I reach out and put my hand on Dylan's arm. He's not the touchyfeely type, but he doesn't flinch.

“Don't be stupid mate,” I say. “We'll never lose contact.”