Born in the 1980s Read online

  Sunday 22 July

  Saw her in the newsagents. She was buying bacon and marmite.

  I told her that my parents died in a car crash last year. She seemed genuinely upset. She touched my arm and her skin was cold. It felt good and I thought about her hands as I was falling asleep.

  Her legs look so tight in her trousers and I can imagine that her nipples are nice and pale, just like her skin.

  Monday 23 July

  Got her number from the system and called her at lunch from a payphone outside the office. She didn’t wait long before she hung up.

  Tuesday 24 July

  Spoke to Mum today. She asked if I had met anyone and I hesitated. She started up with all sorts of questions, so I just said that it was too early for her to get excited. I said it was just a couple of dates. I said her name was Leah and she had nice dark hair and she was quite tall.

  I did not mention the teeth.

  Wednesday 25 July

  Got up late and did not make it to work until ten. Jackie told me that Leah had been in earlier because she had left her coat or her bag or something. I must have gone red because Jackie made that bloody ooooh noise again.

  I was in trouble again with Caroline.

  This Leah bitch is really messing me about. She needs to get on with her own life, and leave me to get on with mine.

  Thursday 26 July

  Went to The Four Feathers and watched her flirt with that Dan. He looks brain-dead.

  She drinks like a fish. She could not control herself when they won the quiz.

  She kept making stupid woofing sounds when they got an answer right.

  Walked back home with her, but so she could not see me. I wanted to make sure she was safe. I stayed on the opposite side of the road. She looked over once but I was definitely in the shadows.

  Friday 27 July

  I phoned her mobile with the intention of seeing whether she wanted to go out for a drink tonight, but panicked when she answered. Realised I was breathing down the phone too heavily, so I hung up.

  She was out in the evening. Her housemate didn’t know when she would be back.

  Her window was shut.

  (Her housemate has straight red hair, green eyes, and bracelets that jangle when she moves.)

  Saturday 28 July

  Not in. Her housemate has a nice silhouette.

  Sunday 29 July

  Bottles in her garden first thing. Perhaps she had a party last night. Did not get an invite.

  I waited just down the road from her house. Sat on a bench and read a bit. She came out about midday. I saw her from a distance and walked towards her, pretending not to notice her, but she saw me and crossed the road to ask how I was. I told her I felt a bit down because it was the anniversary of my parents’ accident. She said she was sorry, but left soon after.

  She didn’t touch my arm this time.

  Monday 30 July

  Took a day off work today. My first in two years. I think they owe me that.

  Leah left for her do-gooder work at half-eight. Her housemate was gone by ten.

  Found out that she leaves her window open. It is an easy climb up the shed. I am pretty sure it was her room. Those ridiculous spats were under her desk.

  She shares her bed with a glove puppet.

  I found some tissues in her bin.

  Scratched her Jaws DVD with a pen.

  Brushed my teeth with every toothbrush I could find in the bathroom.

  Got that Dan’s number from a list on the wall. Phoned him from their house and called him a twat.

  Tuesday 31 July

  Used a tissue to wipe my nose that I stole from her bin. It smelled of flowers. Just like her hair.

  Wednesday 1 August

  She is not a loyal friend. I phoned her from the office and she did not seem happy to hear from me.

  I made a joke. Pinch, punch, first of the month. She didn’t react. Nothing.

  I told her that I felt trapped, that I needed some company. I asked her if she was free to meet up, but she said she had plans. I asked her about tomorrow and she just muttered something about that bloody quiz. How important is a quiz when one of your friends has lost his parents?

  I told her I had found a lump. She told me to see a doctor and then the phone went dead.

  I am not an idiot. She did it on purpose.

  She is a heartless cunt.

  Thursday 2 August

  She left for The Four Feathers with a couple of Burn Baby Burn or whatever the fuckers are called. That Dan was there. He linked her arm when they crossed the main road. She let him.

  She had a cigarette in the pub.

  She had the low-cut top on.

  She went to the toilet and when she came back she sat next to that Dan with his skinhead and his earring and his stupid big fucking face. She drank four drinks.

  I think they only came third in the quiz, but they did win a bottle of wine.

  That Dan gave her his phone and she came outside to make a call.

  She was surprised to see me. She tried to leave, but I asked her questions, told her I had missed her. She said thanks, but said she was so glad to have left my work. She couldn’t believe that I had managed to stick with it for so long.

  She made an excuse to leave and I started to follow her, but soon gave up.

  Friday 3 August

  It is the weekend again. Maybe I will see what she is up to.

  I really must speak to her.

  There are things she should know.

  The Fruit Fly

  Chris Killen

  Who runs away in a skirt, in October? Who runs away, full stop? Well, Carly Peach does; stood on the hard shoulder, feeling ridiculous, sticking her thumb in the air, only a burger and a few swigs of vodka inside her, and a pain in her heel. She stood on a pin. It went right in. She had to keep her mouth screwed closed, to not shout FUCK, or they’d’ve all woken up and found her.

  She doesn’t feel real. She feels like a story someone would tell you at school. Did you hear about Carly Peach? She’s the one who ran away. She tried to hitchhike to her nan’s in Scotland but the police caught her.

  She’s already a story at school, though. Did you hear about Carly Peach? She’s pregnant. No shit. Dave Stockton knocked her up. I caught her puking in the bogs from morning sickness.

  If only Angela Salmon knew the truth of it – that she’d been puking cuz she spent all night worrying and smoking fags and swigging Smirnoff. And that Dave Stockton came on her leg, before he could get it in.

  It’s weird, though. Secretly she likes the idea of being pregnant: she likes them thinking she’s done it, even if it’s made her life a misery, even if it’s why she’s freezing her arse off, stood here with her thumb in the air like an idiot, not going home ever again.

  I’ll wait all night, she thinks.

  She has twenty quid.

  She’s fucked if she’s catching the train.

  Darren should never have broken the radio. He could be listening to something now. But it was Carol’s fault really, for never shutting up. She’d been going on and on, playing with the dial, turning it, turning it, not shutting up, not settling on one station or another, so he’d taken her cup of Starbucks from the holder and dashed it over her hand.

  The fingers scalded red.

  She yelped.

  The radio fizzled and died.

  Finally she shut up.

  She’d cradled her hand in her arm, scowling, but he’d been able to hear it still, going on inside her head: I want a baby, I want a baby, Darren. I want a baby.

  Christ, Caroline.

  He rubs his neck, and thinks of the smooth, skirted arse of Sarah Hobson, sat in front of him, fifteen years ago. He’d wanked himself off during Maths, from the pocket of his school trousers. She’d never known.

  The lights are coming on.

  The sky’s greying.

  It’s Saturday.

  And then something wonderful happens. He sees a figure stood at the s
ide of the road – a girl with long black hair in a skirt, slim, pale, her thumb stuck in the air. He peers at her as he passes, already touching the brake. It is. He can’t believe it. It’s bloody Sarah Hobson (from Maths) running towards him in the rear-view mirror.

  He winds his window down; she leans in, hair hanging in her face, exactly the same. He wonders if she still recognises him.

  Carly’s had to be quick: she’s had to make up a false name. But when she says it he says, no it’s not. It’s Sarah.

  Fucking weirdo. He keeps looking at her, smiling, asking about school – whether they still have this teacher or that teacher – and she doesn’t know what he’s on about really, she just says yeah, or no, or whatever, thinking at least she’s in a car and it’s warm and she’s moving.

  If she had to guess, she’d say he’s thirty.

  He has this red rash that creeps from his collar. It curls behind his ear. He’s stopped talking, but he’s grinning still and biting a flake of skin from his bottom lip. You can see stubble on his cheeks. You can see it growing out from the rash.

  Carly listens to the wheels. She closes her eyes, feeling bits of burger bob on the sloshing vodka-orange-squash in her stomach. Music would make it better. She doesn’t want to think of Sam or Mum or Dad just yet.

  So she asks, mind if I play the radio?

  Be my guest, he says.

  She clicks the dial, turns it between her fingers, but nothing happens.

  Carol will be checking the clock. She’ll have tea on. It doesn’t take four hours to buy some cans of paint from Do-It-All. He gets his mobile out of the glove compartment, checks it – nothing yet – and turns it off.

  He was just driving, anyway, before he picked her up.

  Sarah Hobson’s asleep, mouth open, head lolling. He knows it’s not her, but it might as well be. She has the same freckles, same hair, same teeth. She even has that same sullen, cut-short way of speaking.

  The smell of her is drifting across.

  He wonders whether she has a baby. He wonders what her arse would feel like if he pressed the two cheeks together and bit into them.

  She says she’s going all the way to Edinburgh and he’s promised to give her a lift to the next services. But then she’s fallen asleep, and he doesn’t want to let her go so he’s driven past one exit, another, and now he’s on the M6 following signs for Glasgow.

  When Carly wakes it’s night. She’d been having a dream about Sam – he was grown up, wearing one of her dresses, swinging it at the knees like a fashion model. His face was made up but he still had his short, six-year-old hair.

  What time is it, she asks. Where are we?

  Then she sees the clock on the dashboard: 20:09.

  Are you hungry? he says. You were asleep. I’ll buy you something, if you want.

  She doesn’t say no.

  So they stop for burgers at the services. He pulls in and parks. A silence. They listen to the sound of the engine whining and cooling.

  Don’t you need to be home or something, she says, feeling her voice go strange at the end.

  No, he says, leaving it at that.

  They get out the car. He’s shorter than she imagined. Stocky, thick-legged; she realises now what a fully-grown man he is. This isn’t Dave Stockton, without a hair on his chest. As she stretches the ache from her back she feels her shirt ride up and cold air on her belly. She catches him looking, across the silvery blue roof of the car. A part of her feels sick. A part of her doesn’t mind it.

  As they walk towards the entrance she puts a swing in her hips. Behind her his eyes are on her arse.

  Sarah Hobson (who claims her name’s Samantha Something) will just have fries and a Coke, thanks.

  Darren buys a Big Mac.

  They take a corner table by the window. She keeps the straw in her mouth, running it round with her tongue.

  Carol will be scraping dinner into the bin. She’ll be standing in the hall, the phone against her ear, listening to that answerphone message he recorded in Ibiza, pissed, wondering if he’s been in some sort of accident, and whether she should stick the news on or take a tablet and go to bed.

  There’s a family sat a few tables away, the only other people in here: a man, a woman, two sulky children. The man’s looking over. Darren starts to feel shifty.

  Where were you planning on sleeping? he asks her.

  She stops rolling the straw. It drops from her mouth. She looks up, narrows her eyes, and sharp lines appear at their edges. Black eyes, they are, with dark purple underneath.

  Dunno, she says.

  His hands have gone clammy. His neck’s started to prickle.

  Why?

  It’s dangerous isn’t it, a girl out by herself like this? Got any money?

  A bit.

  Does your family know where you are?

  Yeah.

  It isn’t going to work, she’s not gonna go for it, but fuck it, he decides to ask anyway: how about we stop off at a hotel? It’s late. I’ll pay. And then tomorrow I’ll drive you the rest of the way.

  She puts a couple more fries in her mouth. Chews. Swallows. Looks from him to the family and back again (the man’s gotten up for the toilet).

  Darren scratches behind his ear, not breathing.

  Alright, she says.

  Back goes the straw in her mouth.

  The hotel room is warm. Darren’s gone to the bathroom, having a piss; she can hear it through the door. Carly sits on the edge of the bed, her toes not quite touching the carpet. There is just the one bed in here – a double. He made her wait in the car while he booked it. The window’s open: a black stretch of night outside. Everything is so quiet. You can see the car park.

  She begins writing a letter to her brother in her head, from ten years in the future:

  Dear Sam,

  Hope you’re okay. I’m doing well. The weather here is great and you’ll have to come and visit sometime. Sorry I ran out on you, but I’m glad we can finally talk about it now, and that you’re not pissed off at me…

  Then the toilet flushes and Darren comes out, the ends of his hair wet. He walks round the room, not looking, like he’s thinking or wanting to say something. He has his shirt undone. She can see curls of hair on his chest. He sits down, still not looking at her, and starts to put on his shoes.

  What is it? she wants to ask.

  She says nothing.

  I’m going to the bar.

  Standing, he buttons his shirt.

  Be back in an hour or so.

  The room is silent. Perching on the edge of the bed, wondering what she’s doing, is Carly Peach. She’s not going home. A man who smells of sweat and aftershave has gone to the bar. He’s coming back in an hour. He says his name’s Darren and he drives a blue Vauxhall something-or-other and she should have remembered the number plate. There’s only one bed in the room.

  Two couples sit in the bar lounge: one laughing and drunk, the other not making eye-contact.

  Darren’s in a corner swigging Stella.

  He imagines Samantha What’s-Her-Face still on the edge of the bed, swinging her feet, not turning on the telly. She gets up, and floats around the room brushing her fingers over the laminated menu and the tea-making things, and in the bathroom the free soaps, shampoos, hand towels. She walks to the door, opens it, sticks her head into the hushed red corridor – and it is as simple as that. The door’s open. She’s free to put on her trainers and click it closed behind her whenever she wants; there’s nothing he can do about it.

  He puts his hand in his pocket. A bit of loose change, his car keys, some toilet roll.

  If I go back and she’s still there, he decides, then she wants it.

  It won’t be illegal.

  He thinks of Carol (who’ll definitely be worried by now). He should’ve made up a lie. I bumped into an old friend out of the blue, or, there was this accident and I had to stick around after to tell the police.

  An accident, he’ll say. It was all an accident.

&nb
sp; Right. Finish his pint. Go to the car. Give Carol a call. Then, if she’s still there…

  Does a candle count? Carly Peach doesn’t think it does. A human being, she clarifies. She’s never done it with a human being before.

  She gets up, and floats around the room brushing her fingers over the laminated menu and the tea-making things, and in the bathroom the free soaps, shampoos and hand towels. She turns on the shower and tries the water. Just right. So she locks the door, undresses, gets in.

  Running shampoo from her hair she remembers how Sam used to stand in the bath to let her wash him. His little dick, more skin than anything else. He’ll be gay when he grows up. Sam Peach with a missing sister. Once she’s settled she’ll come and rescue him.

  Carly dries herself. Idiot. She didn’t even bring a spare change of clothes. She was never any good at planning ahead.

  So she just puts on her knickers and vest (not her bra) and gets into the bed, deep under the covers. She closes her eyes. She waits a long time. She turns off her bedside light. He should be back any second. In the dark, the smell of the hotel shampoo and the hotel soaps are like they’re coming from someone else.

  It is this someone else, not Carly Peach, who suddenly begins to speak to her:

  I wait a long time with my eyes closed, they say. Even when I hear the door go, I don’t open them. He brings a cloud of fags and lager in with him. The noises he makes are too loud: creaking shoes, rough breathing, a jangling belt. He’s taking off his trousers. Now he’s unbuttoning his shirt. I can hear each button slip softly through its buttonhole. I can hear the tick of his watch against the wooden night table. I can see his bare shoulders, the occasional pimples on them, even with my eyes closed. He pauses and looks at me. He doesn’t say anything. The bed creaks. He pulls off the covers. I lay still, keeping my eyes shut.

  Don’t move, I say to myself. His hands are hot. They pull down my knickers. Don’t move and don’t look, I say to myself, but I spread my legs a little bit for him. His hands move to my knees, to push them further apart. He sticks in a finger. God. It feels as if one finger is all you could ever fit in there. He moves it in and out, in and out.