The Teenagers (2/2)

A hundred yards behind them, Lauren and Natalie walked down Knight Lane carrying a plastic Londis bag. As they passed it back and forth and took swigs from it, the alcohol was already hitting them. Both their phones were constantly vibrating with texts and calls, but they paid no attention.

They carried on down Horse Road, and they were laughing now – because everything was funny, but also because they sensed that things might get morbid if they allowed silence to fall, and here was a momentum it would be better to keep up.

The lights of the hostel glowed in the dusk.

'Wankers!' shouted Lauren.

They overtook old Mr Wheeldon, who was out walking his dog. He was ninety-four years old, with a wife in the cemetery sixteen years – since 1990, the year most of the teenagers were born. He tipped his cap to them, a courtly gesture, and his head slowly turned as they passed.

'Take a picture, you perve,' said Lauren. 'It lasts longer!' Then Natalie pulled her left towards the woods, and Lauren screamed, ‘Let’s get fucking wasted!’

*

Jase and his friends turned right onto Station Road, the wind in their ears, and they heard the faint sound of a girl shouting. They slowed and looked at each other: where had it come from? They carried on, and here was a night when something might happen. It wouldn’t be too soon. They were a band; they called themselves The Eskimos. They had been together since Christmas, but most of their rehearsals degenerated into FIFA sessions, and the Skins-inspired future they had envisaged had so far failed to materialise.

As they approached the Alton bridge, two boys were coming the other way. The one on the left was Mike Wolff.

Jase Mould and Mike Wolff were enemies, although none of the others knew why. They went to different schools, and hadn’t even spoken to each other since Summer School when they were twelve.

‘It’s Mike Wolff,’ said Jase, sure enough. ‘Are you ready to fight?’

The others said nothing. The boys came closer.

‘Are you ready to fight?’ said Jase more urgently.

Finally they were almost level. Jase nodded to them and said, ‘Hey up.’

‘Hey up,’ they said back, and were gone.

‘Why do you hate Jase Mould again?’ said Finney, as he and Wolff came to the bottom of Horse Road.

'He’s a cunt, mate,’ said Wolff.

‘Yeah, but why?’

‘He’s just a cunt.’ It was their habit to run up Horse Road even when the rest of the run had been aborted, and as they approached it now it was almost pitch-black under the trees. ‘Start running at the post?’ said Wolff.

‘Yeah.’ Gingerly, they made their way to the post, and Horse Road was silent now. The sky was light-blue and pinkish in the low parts, and the only movement was old Mr Wheeldon, coming down with his dog.

Then, somewhere in Toothill woods, a girl screamed.

***

Wolff turned to Finney. ‘Let’s go up.’

‘Really?’

‘Fuck yeah.’ Before the woods was a fence; they climbed over it and walked across the grass until they reached a footpath. ‘Come on,’ said Wolff, his voice low now, and crouched and creeping, they followed the footpath into the woods. Soon they could make out two distinct voices: they were girls their age, and sounded like they were drunk. A moment later one of them stepped into view where the footpath met the trees.

She saw them; they looked at each other; and she stepped out of view again. Everything was silent, but a moment later they both came back. They were talking now, and didn’t look over.

Wolff turned around and gave Finney a thumbs-up. ‘They’ve shown themselves,’ he said. ‘It means they’re up for a shag.’

As they walked on, Finney’s heart was racing. They came out into the clearing and the girls turned around, as if they had only just noticed them approach.

*

There were two of them – the boys who had jogged past earlier. The one on the right was fit, though God-knew what he was wearing. The one on the left wasn't bad, either, but he looked like the shy type.

'Just on a walk,' said the fitter one, and the two of them carried on past, out of the clearing and out of sight.

Lauren and Natalie looked at each other. What the fuck was this about? Then they heard the boys turn back, and they poised themselves to meet them again. Lauren stepped forwards, and when they came into the clearing, she said, her arms folded, ‘Er, can I help you? You seem like you’re lost.’

'What are you doing here?' said the fitter one, ignoring her question.

She held up the Lambrini bottle. 'What does it look like?'

'This is James,' he said, gesturing to the shy one. 'And I'm Mike.'

She returned his stare coolly, though Natalie knew she was struggling to stand. 'Lauren,' she said. 'And that's Natalie.'

Mike nodded. 'Can I have a swig?'

She passed him the bottle, and when he had drank from it he passed it to James, and James drank as well.

'Whoa,' said James, his eyes watering, and they all laughed. He stepped forward and passed it back to Lauren. She was lighting Natalie’s cigarette.

'Why do you smoke?' said Mike.

'Er, ‘cos we're addicted,' she said, and she and Natalie laughed again.

'It stunts your growth.'

‘I’m not bothered, mate.'

'Give me a drag,' he said, and everyone laughed again. She lit a cigarette for him, and as he dragged from it he squinted, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Smoke?’ he said, holding it out to James, and then James smoked, too.

Natalie could see that Lauren’s attention was on Mike now. She had let her apparent hardness soften a little – all part of the plan – and she allowed herself a shy smile.

'J’mind if we join you?' said Mike.

Lauren shrugged. 'It’s a free country.’

*

They sat on the fallen trunk, arranging themselves into the couples it was obvious they were going to make. Wolff sat at one end, next to Lauren, and Finney sat at the other, next to Natalie. He felt self-conscious in his running clothes, and wished they had met the girls at a different time. He was fighting not to cough from the cigarette.

It was clear the girls had been drinking for a while. They talked too loudly, and laughed at strange times, and once, Lauren stood and fell so that Wolff had to catch her, although she stayed sitting on his lap and Finney thought the fall had been deliberate.

The drink was passed around, and soon he began to feel light-headed and restless. After a while Natalie turned to him and smiled. ‘What’s your name again?’

‘James. And you’re – Natalie, right?’

‘Oh my God, you’re dead posh, aren’t you? Lauren, doesn’t he sound like proper posh? Say it again.’

Finney turned to Lauren, and saw that Wolff had his arm around her now. They looked round together, smiling.

‘James,’ he repeated. ‘And you’re – Natalie, right?’ As the girls laughed, Wolff winked at him. Finney smiled back, as widely as he could.

*

The night was warm, and the moonlight glinted in the Lambrini bottle and in the teenagers’ eyes. Everything had taken on an immediate, lurid quality. A thing would happen, and then, seemingly without transition, another thing would be happening in its place. They had the heady feeling of having stumbled, here in the woods, on a state where everything was fantastic and nothing could go wrong.

‘So where are you from?’ said Finney, as Natalie smiled at him. She liked his blue eyes and his clear skin. She liked his lips and the faces he pulled.

‘Burslem,’ she said. ‘It’s a proper shit-hole. I’m so jealous you get to live round here.’

‘Yeah, it is beautiful. Sometimes I like to just, you know, go walking and look at the trees and stuff.’

‘You should write a poem about it,’ she said, ‘“I am inspired by this tree,”’ and they both laughed at such a ridiculous idea. Then there were voices, and everyone turned around.

*

The visitors stood in the entrance to the clearing. They were the other children of the village, and they were here for the party. Six-packs had been bought from Londis, and sleeping bags were being carried. Someone’s phone was playing the Klaxons.

They moved into the clearing, and in that moment years-long grudges were put away for good. ‘The night is still young,’ someone said, and soon it was the catchphrase and everyone was saying it. ‘The night is still young!’

‘The night is still young!’

Two tents were erected, and some of the boys set about making a bonfire. Cans were finished and thrown into the bracken. And in the middle of it all, on the fallen trunk, sat Finney and Wolff, Lauren and Natalie.

‘Seriously, though, if you're right-wing, aren’t you basically just saying, “I’m a bastard”?’

‘I don't even have to try at school. I’m not even boasting. It's so easy!’

'He’s always said if I get into RADA, he’ll pay for everything. He’ll sell one of the cars. Whatever it takes.’

‘Sometimes I think of the holiday houses I went to when I was a kid, right, and I wonder, right, like if the shower’s still there, or the sofas, or the videos on the bookshelf. Is that weird?’

'Don’t even get me started on the whole lad culture thing. It's like, mate, you're clearly just terrified of feminism. It’s embarrassing.’

‘I mean, look at the French Football Federation – what number does FFF correspond to? 666. It's like Zidane's the antichrist and the headbutt was a fucking… warning or something.’

‘I’m dyslexic, yeah. Not badly – it just means I’m more creative, basically.’

‘My dad's a cunt. No, he’s a cunt. I don’t even know how he does it – it's psychological or something.’

‘You should never call a girl a slag. You don't even know how much damage it does to her. It’s not even funny.’

‘The thing about Finney is, he can never marry a woman called Ginny.’

‘Kissing competition!’

‘And what am I going to do when my granny dies? I love my granny so much. What am I supposed to do then?’

*

More laughter, and everyone was watching the smashed girl go into the woods and pull her jeans down. They heard the trickle of it, and she was telling them to ‘Fuck off!’ as they screamed with hilarity, but then it had passed and she was back on the trunk with Wolff, and Finney was talking to Natalie again.

‘You have really nice eyes,’ he said. He was vaguely aware that Lauren and Wolff were kissing now, their heads tilted, their mouths together, and as if there was nothing to it he moved in towards her.

Their lips touched, their tongues collided, and Finney could taste the Lambrini and tobacco on her. He held the girl in his arms, and though he had never kissed a girl in his life, or even held one, everything he did was just right, and every move was the perfect move.

‘I'm so glad I found you,’ he said. ‘You’re such a special person.’

‘Oh my God, you're going to make me cry. I’ve never met anyone like you.’

*

Up in the village, Mr Wheeldon was turning out the light and the man in the suit was watching the news, but down here the teenagers had found paradise. There was jumping and dancing, and there was howling at the moon. There were declarations of undying friendship, and there was endless pissing. They linked arms, singing and twirling, and now Finney was twirling with Sam Barcham, and Natalie with Gemma Nash. Everyone was laughing, but even as the night peaked it had begun to fade. A girl started crying, and the first people vomited. A rumour went round that someone was shooting an air rifle up in the woods, and clouds had started to gather overhead. At first the rain only heightened their ecstasy, but then it continued, and there was no sign that it would stop.