V for Violet (6 page)

I quickly glance over at Dad. He’s too busy refilling the hot cupboard with freshly cooked fish to notice who I’ve been serving. Which is just as well. He’d have a fit if he knew what I’d just agreed to do.

The last half-hour of the evening takes for ever to pass. But eventually, the final customer leaves and when I’ve finished wiping down and after I’ve locked and chained the shop door, I tell Dad I’m nipping round to Jackie’s. He won’t know any better, and Mum won’t care less. She’ll be too busy mooning over Donkey Jacket Man.

I run upstairs and change into some clean slacks and a jumper. Then, because I haven’t got anything better to wear, I grab my old anorak from the coat hook before slipping out of the kitchen door. I can’t believe I’m doing this. He won’t be there. He won’t have waited this long for me. He’ll have just been having a laugh with himself. I bet he does this all the time; teasing girls like me and then leaving them to wait like idiots for him.

It’s quiet out on the street, and cold. The air is fizzing with frost. It’s a clear night with a sixpence of a moon and the seven stars of the Plough twinkling like a newly scrubbed saucepan. I walk to the end of the road. My chest is tight with anxiety. It’s hard to breathe. I’ve never been this brave before and I don’t know if I can go through with it. But my feet carry on walking anyway and then I’m round the corner and there he is, waiting for me, leaning against his motorcycle, blowing smoke at the moon.

‘Didn’t think you’d come,’ he says. ‘But I guess you’re not as good a girl as you look.’ He pats the seat of his motorcycle. ‘Fancy getting out of here for a while?’

I nod dumbly. I want to pinch myself, just to check I’m not dreaming.

He climbs on to the motorcycle and indicates with his head for me to climb on behind him. ‘You’ll need to zip that up,’ he says, pointing to my anorak. I swear it’s going in the bin tomorrow and on Saturday I’ll go to the market and buy myself a proper jacket, just like the one he’s wearing.

I slip easily on to the seat and find a place to rest my feet, then as he revs up the motorcycle’s engine, I realise I’ve put my arms around his waist. And it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

There’s a roar, the smells of oil, leather, smoke and heat, and then the world as I know it disappears in a blur of colour and sound and light. It’s just as I imagined it would be, only a million times better. The rush of speed takes my breath away and the rush of wind tears the cloak of worries and cares from my shoulders. I feel lightheaded and free.

We head north, leaving the streaks of Battersea’s streetlights far behind. We sail over Chelsea Bridge and I see the moon quivering on the surface of the Thames. As we speed along the black roads, the cold air makes my eyes sting. I press my face against the back of his jacket and I hear his heart thrumming as loudly as the motorcycle’s engine. We pass the grand entrance to Victoria Station where some late travellers are humping suitcases into waiting taxis. We ride through Belgravia with the gardens of Buckingham Palace on our right and rows of posh five-storeyed houses on our left. Hyde Park Corner flashes past. We cross over Oxford Street and skirt around Regent’s Park. I’m holding on to him so tightly, I can’t feel my fingers any more. I close my eyes and it’s like riding the Big Dipper. I’m ten years old again and I want to scream with fear and excitement.

We speed through St John’s Wood and past Swiss Cottage, then, just as I think I’m about to lose my grip and be thrown back on to the road to break every bone in my body, the noise of the engine deepens and slows and the battering wind dies down to a breeze.

We’ve stopped, but it’s a minute before I can move. All my muscles have locked. I wriggle my fingers and straighten my back, then I manage to slide from my seat and put my feet back on solid ground. I’m freezing and my legs are all wobbly. I watch as he climbs from the motorcycle and props it up against the nearby wall. He shakes out his hair and his quiff bounces back into shape. I don’t want to even think about what
my
hair must look like. As he fiddles with his keys and a chain of some sort, I pick at my hair, trying to pull it back down around my face where the wind has frizzled it into stiff little tufts. I wipe my eyes and straighten my glasses. He turns around then and grins at me.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘What are you waiting for? Wanna see something really cool?’

‘Yeah … Yeah. All right,’ I say. As he walks off into the shrubby fields in front of us, I hear Mum’s voice in the back of my head.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Violet? You’re in the middle of nowhere with a complete stranger, you stupid girl! You haven’t got the sense you were born with!’

I ignore her and hurry after him anyway. He’s striding ahead easily and his denim jeans are so tight around his legs that I can see the muscles flexing in the back of his thighs. If I look any further up, I swear my eyes will literally pop out of my head.
God, Violet,
I think.
Get a grip
. I swallow hard.

‘Where are we?’ I yell at him. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Hampstead Heath!’ he shouts back. ‘Parliament Hill. You ever been here before?’

‘No!’ I yell. ‘What’s so special about it?’

‘You’ll see. Come on. Keep up!’

I traipse after him. But it’s harder to go faster than a determined walk because it’s almost completely dark, the ground is lumpy and muddy and there’s a tiny part of me that’s actually a little bit worried. He could be an axe murderer after all. But it’s too late now. I have to stick with him, because I have no idea how the hell to get home, and I don’t want to get lost on my own all the way out here.

The ground’s getting steeper, and I’m hot now, even though my breath is coming out in little puffs of toy train steam. I unzip my anorak. ‘Is it much further?’ I sound like a whining little girl.

He stops for a moment and when I catch up with him, he takes my hand. ‘Need a little help, I reckon,’ he says. And just like that, there’s me, Violet White, hand in hand with a gorgeous fella. I wish there was someone here to see it. He pulls me up the hill, higher and higher and higher. His hand is all warm and soft. After what seems like an age, the ground starts to flatten out. We walk out into a huge open space and suddenly it’s much lighter. The sky is like an enormous, glittering blanket wrapped around us.

‘Close your eyes,’ he says.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles. If he is an axe murderer, it’s too late now, so I might as well do as he asks. I flinch as he puts a hand on my shoulder and then I do as he says and close my eyes. But there’s no whoosh as the axe slices through the air towards me and there’s no agonising pain as the sharp blade thuds into my neck. Instead, he just spins me around and around and around.

‘There,’ he says eventually. ‘Now, open your eyes.’

I slowly inch my eyelids open. ‘Wow!’ I breathe, and I steady myself against his arm.

‘Told you it was cool,’ he says.

He’s right. It is cool. Really cool.

It’s like we’re floating high above the city. It’s all spread out below us. Dark shapes of buildings; office blocks, tower blocks and churches. There’s so many lights; red, white, orange and yellow. They’re flashing, twinkling and blinking at me.

‘Look,’ he says, pointing. ‘There’s St Paul’s. And over there, the Houses of Parliament. Can you see?’

I nod. It’s all so beautiful I don’t want to speak. I think of all the people down there, scurrying around, heading for home. And the late-night office workers still sitting at their desks and policemen walking their beats and all the young girls dancing with their fellas. And all of them with their own cares and worries and dreams and their own pasts and futures.

‘Best view in the whole of London, that is,’ he says.

I think he might be right. I’ve never seen the city like this before. I never knew it was all so vast and fast and throbbing with life. It makes me feel tiny and insignificant. Like I really don’t matter at all. Like I’m just a speck floating in the universe.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘You want some?’ He’s pulled a bottle of beer from inside his jacket. He prises off the cap with his keys and then sucks quickly at the hissing foam. He hands me the bottle.

‘Thanks,’ I say. I take a mouthful of the beer. It tastes like warm metal. He takes off his jacket and lays it on the ground and we both sit down and pass the bottle between us.

This is his favourite place, Beau tells me. He comes here a lot. Just so he can get away from the crowds. Crowds bug him. He loves his motorcycle. It gives him a sense of freedom. Means he can escape from the world from time to time. He’d die without his bike. He likes to smoke too. He smokes properly, taking two drags at once and blowing the smoke through his nose. He offers me a cigarette from a battered packet. I’ve never had a smoke before, but I take one anyway. He cups his hand around a lighter and holds it to the end of my cigarette. I suck, like I’ve seen Dad doing, and my throat is filled with stinging smoke. I cough until my eyes water and Beau laughs at me.

‘Virgin,’ he teases.

V for Violet, I think. V for Virgin.

I tell him I wish I had a motorcycle too. That I’d like to escape from the world sometimes. I tell him how much I hate working at the chippie. I tell about some of the customers. About mean old Mr Carver and how I always try to give him the smallest piece of fish and about Mrs Pearl and her gums and about poor old Mrs Robinson who eats her extra fish supper in secret. Beau laughs at my stories. ‘You’re funny,’ he says. And I feel all warm inside, even though I never meant to be funny at all.

When the bottle of beer is empty, we walk down the hill and climb back on to Beau’s motorcycle. It’s easier this time, I know what to expect. I relax against his back and let the bike move my body where it needs to go. Beau pulls over on Chelsea Bridge and buys me a coffee from the late-night stall. There are other fellas gathered there, all dressed like Beau with slicked-back hair and shiny motorcycles.

And there’s a couple of girls too. They’ve got the same black leather jackets on and boots that are covered in chains and studs. Their hair is amazing. They’ve pinned it back behind their ears and teased the rest of it into exaggerated quiffs. They’re laughing along with the fellas like they really belong. I stand next to Beau while he and the others rev up their bikes and talk about ton-ups and getting their kicks and pleasing themselves. With all the bikes growling so loudly around me, I feel like a lone deer surrounded by a pride of lions. But nobody attacks me. Nobody looks at me the wrong way or makes me feel like an idiot. One of the girls sidles up to me. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘What’s your name, then?’

‘Violet,’ I reply.

‘Nice name,’ she says. ‘So what do you do then, Violet? You got a job?’

I nod. ‘I work in my Dad’s chippie.’

‘Nice one!’ she grins. ‘I love chips, me. So … you with Beau, then?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Well … not
with
him. He’s not my boyfriend or anything.’

She shrugs. ‘Whatever. It’s cool.’ She smiles at me, a proper smile that reaches her eyes. ‘You’re not like the others he’s brought here,’ she says. ‘You seem like a nice girl.’ She laughs, then saunters off and drapes herself against the arm of one of the other fellas.

I sneak a look at Beau and watch him blow long curls of cigarette smoke from his nostrils. I wonder how many other girls he’s brought here. The thought makes me feel weird and uncertain. I bet they were Rocker girls, all cool and pretty. I shiver as I wonder what he sees in me. I warm my hands on the paper cup of coffee. I take a sip. It’s strong and sweet and exotic. It tastes of things I don’t even know about yet.

The bikes are roaring loudly. The fellas are all sitting astride their machines with their denim thighs squeezing the flanks as though they’re trying to control a herd of powerful horses. ‘Hey, Violet!’ Beau shouts in my ear. ‘Time to go!’

We follow the other bikes along the bridge. Faster, faster and faster. My heart’s in my throat. The wind’s in my face and all thoughts of anything other than this moment fly from my head and sail over Chelsea Bridge and into the Thames. ‘Yee ha!’ I scream into the night. ‘Yee ha!’

I’m having the ride of my life and I never want it to end.

I have no idea how late it is when Beau pulls up outside the chip shop. He keeps his engine purring as I quickly clamber off the bike. There’s an awkward moment as I wonder if he’s going to kiss me or not. He leans towards me and I breathe in sharply. But then his hand reaches out and he touches me gently under the chin. ‘See you later, Violet,’ he says.

‘Yeah. See you,’ I say. Of course he was never going to kiss me. Why would he want to? But then he winks at me and it’s enough to give me goosebumps. He revs up his engine and disappears down the road in a burst of choking smoke. I stare after him. Did all that really just happen? Did such a good-looking fella actually notice me and speak to me and whisk me away on the back of his motorcycle? I pinch myself on the arm. It hurts, so I can’t be dreaming.

I expect the house to be in darkness. Mum and Dad should have gone to bed hours ago. But as I walk round the side to the kitchen door I see a square of light shining on to the path. Hoping they’ve just left a light on for me to come home to, I open the door. I’m in a hurry to get to bed and think about the extraordinary evening I’ve just had. I want to think about the rush of the wind and the blood pumping through my veins as Beau flew us over Chelsea Bridge. I want to think again about the quiet of Parliament Hill and being alone with Beau at the top of the world. I want to remember the smell of the cold grass and the night air and the taste of beer and coffee. I want to remember Beau’s voice and the feel of leather against my face and how his muscles tensed as he guided his bike around sharp bends and along dark roads.

But as I walk into the kitchen, Mum and Dad are both sitting there at the table. Mum’s eyes are small and furious and Dad’s face is grey with cigarette smoke. Mum jumps up from her chair. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she screeches. ‘We’ve been worried sick! And don’t you dare say you were at Jackie’s. I went round there hours ago and they said they haven’t seen you for days.’