Simon tries to blot out the scene at home. Nina calls him obsessive, but it’s her who goes on and on about everything. She doesn’t understand anything. It doesn’t mean he’s evil, wanting an air rifle. It’s nothing to do with the kind of films he watches. Computer games. ‘Macho telly programmes’, or whatever she said. What’s she going on about? His dad would’ve understood. That’s what he should have said. That would have shut her up.
So what will she be like if she finds the actual gun? She’ll go completely nuts. It will be arriving tomorrow, probably. He’ll have to ask Leah if he can hide it at her house, just till Johnny’s back. She’s coming down the lane now. She looks amazing.
‘Hi, Simon. So, where are we going?’ Leah asks brightly.
He shrugs. ‘Anywhere. Where da you want to go?’
‘Our beach? I brought a towel. And this!’ She giggles, shows him the bottle.
Simon blushes at the way she says our. ‘The tide will be too high.’
‘Well, I’m not in a hurry! We can wait! Let’s go there anyway and see.’
‘There’s another cove, much further along,’ Simon says. ‘If you don’t mind walking a long way. What time have you got to be back?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Leah says. ‘You?’
‘I’m already in trouble. It won’t make any difference.’
They climb over the stile into the tunnel of trees.
‘What were you arguing about?’
‘Air rifles.’
Leah unscrews the bottle and they both take a swig. It burns his throat. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t tell her he’s never tasted gin before.
‘Still,’ Leah says, ‘at least your mum cares about you. She’s nice, Nina. It was good of her to get me that job. She still going out with Matt?’
He shrugs. ‘I suppose.’ Don’t think. Blank it out.
She talks on whether or not he answers. It becomes easy after a while, just to let her go on. The air is fresher in the fields, but it’s still warm. There’s hardly any wind. After a while, Leah takes his arm and hangs on, and he doesn’t stop her. She stops every few minutes for a swig from the bottle. They’ll never get there at this rate.
‘There’s a mist coming in,’ Simon says. ‘Look.’
It curls in over the cliff and rolls over the fields. It’s surprising how quickly it comes, and how utterly it changes the look of things. He can hear the lighthouse foghorn all the way across from the bay. But it’s still warm, even in the mist. They keep walking along the grass track, across the fields and over the stone stiles.
There’s a dark shape ahead of them, towards where the cliff must be, although he can’t see it. He can’t hear the sea either.
‘We must have got to the burial chamber already,’ Simon says.
‘Let’s go in again!’ Leah says.
Does she remember what happened in there? Does she think about it at all? He can’t even look at her now. She sounds so chirpy and oblivious, as if going inside doesn’t mean anything to her.
She sits herself down just outside and gets the bottle out again. ‘Drink?’ She holds it out for him.
He takes the smallest gulp he can get away with. It tastes disgusting.
‘This is what my lovely mother does all day,’ Leah says. ‘She’s an alcoholic’ Her voice sounds suddenly bleak.
‘Sorry,’ Simon mumbles. What else can he say?
‘Well, don’t be,’ Leah snaps. She stands up and lurches forwards, into the mouth of the burial chamber.
Simon doesn’t know what to do. He’s not seen Leah like this before. He waits for ages, then he edges forward. He can just make her out, a dark shape within darkness, crouched over, shaking as if she’s crying. Is it his fault? He goes hot.
He can’t face her, not in there. He waits a bit longer, then he calls out, ‘Leah? Come on. Let’s go to the beach.’
Silence.
He peers inside again. She seems to be standing up now in the middle of the main chamber. What’s she doing? He goes in just a little way.
There’s that weird sensation again, everything being sucked out of you. He can hardly breathe.
‘Leah?’
She takes no notice. He stumbles forward and grabs her arm and she swings round, suddenly close up and real.
It’s like the time before. The muffled sound, the electric charge. A tingling sensation.
He feels Leah’s arms round him, squeezing him tight. He can feel her trembling. She buries her head in his chest. What should he do? But she knows, she’s in charge. He feels her hand reach up and pull his head down, and then her lips, soft on his. Kissing him. He tastes her mouth, scented and sharp from the gin. He puts one hand on her back and finds bare flesh, cool naked skin. She picks up his other hand and places it right on her breast under her T-shirt. He daren’t move. Can’t breathe. She feels so soft and warm. Stop thinking. He lets his mind float off and his body take over.
Warm. Soft. Close.
Her mouth will swallow him up. Her tongue like a fish, like a slippery eel. He’ll suffocate.
He surfaces for air. She tastes of gin, but her hair smells of apple. He strokes it. So soft. He’s spinning, dizzy with sensation.
Leah tugs at his T-shirt, his belt. ‘Take them off,’ she whispers. She pulls away from him just long enough to drag her own top over her head. He hears the purr of the zip on her skirt, feels it slide over her hips. It’s so dark he can see nothing, but he can feel her, naked and so warm, pressing herself against him, pulling his jeans, her hands smoothing his naked sweaty skin. He shivers with pleasure, with fear.
He half wants to stop her, to check her out. Is this what you really mean? Is this OK? Shouldn’t we think what we’re doing? He half wants to stop and work it out for himself. Is this what I want? Like a deep memory, an echo, the thought comes that this matters, that it shouldn’t be like this, not so silent and frantic and fumbling, but suddenly it’s too late to stop, he can’t, she’s pushing him down with her on to the soft heap of their clothes on the earthy floor — and then it’s all over. Too quick. He’s trembling with shock.
Leah is making the strangest sound, half crying, half laughing, a sort of moaning, crooning sound. He slides over to lie next to her and shuts his eyes. He feels as if he is spinning off into the darkness, that he might disappear completely and forever.
By the time they stumble out into the field it’s completely dark, and the mist has lifted. He can’t see her expression. He’s vaguely aware of her pulling her skirt straight, and brushing soil off, and then she slumps against the entrance stones and swigs from the gin bottle again. She’s had way too much. How’s he going to get her home now? Her speech sounds slurred. She keeps thanking him for something. He doesn’t understand what. He keeps expecting her to shout at him, or swear, or run off or something.
But she doesn’t. None of it makes any sense to him. It’s not like he’d thought it would be. Not that he’s really thought about it, not actually, in detail, not happening for real. Not yet. He’s not ready for any of this. It’s too soon. It’s all spiralled out of his control.
‘You know what?’ Leah keeps saying. ‘You’re lovely, Simon.’
He’s way out of his depth. His head’s aching. He longs to be by himself. Or with someone like Johnny, someone straightforward and undemanding, shooting crows or something simple like that.
It’s not simple though, is it? What happened in there, what they did together, it was the first time, and there’s only ever one first time, and it matters. It connects him with this girl, Leah, however fumbled and awkward and unintended it was.
And there was a moment in there when he felt her: warm and alive, and real, and close to him.
He hasn’t felt like that before, ever.
He wishes Leah hadn’t drunk so much. It spoils it. It’s possible she won’t even remember tomorrow. That it was all a silly drunken mistake.
‘How far’s it to your beach?’ Leah slurs the words, giggles. ‘I need a swim.’
‘It’s too far now,’ Simon says. ‘We’d best go back.’
‘Pull me up!’ she says.
He helps her to her feet. She nearly topples over again. He has to support her with his arm round her and she leans into him. He feels her hair against his face. They make their way slowly back along the path. Leah has a faint smile on her face all the way. She stops at one of the stiles and fumbles at her wrist. ‘My bracelet,’ she says. ‘It’s not here. Got to find it…’
‘Not now,’ he says. ‘You’ll never find it now in the dark. It could be anywhere. We’ll come back and look another time.’
Now that the mist has lifted, the sky is completely clear, studded with millions of stars. There’s Orion, hunter, the three bright stars at his belt. And the Plough, and Sirius. And a bright planet: Mars, perhaps.
Night navigation. Finding your way at night. He knows the pages of the survival guide almost off by heart. But there’s no page for where he is now, no guide from this point.
At Leah’s gate, she turns and hugs him tight. Her house is all in darkness. In his, there’s one light on upstairs: his mother’s room. She’s waiting to see that he’s safely back.
He watches Leah stagger inside.
Such a night.
He creeps upstairs in his own house and shuts his bedroom door. On no account must his mother see him.
He lies on the bed, exhausted.
So many stars.
Galaxies of them.
Three thousand years ago, when the huge stones for the burial chamber were being hewn and hefted, they would have been just the same stars.