Joe says what did I expect? He’s looking at me sideways while we admire the pictures in a piercings shop. I hate that he seems not to care about Banks at all, about where he is or what might happen to him.
‘If he could just have stayed—’ I start again for about the tenth time.
‘If nothing!’ Joe interrupts. He gives the catalogue back to the man behind the counter and marches out without waiting.
‘For God’s sake,’ he says when I catch him up. ‘Can’t you talk about anything else? You didn’t seriously think it was going to be any different? When will you get it through your head – he’s an alkie! He doesn’t want to move in and play Happy bloody Families – he wants a skinful of lighter fuel and a pot to piss in and that’s it.’
He glares at me, his face angry and grim looking. ‘I told the papers about him because I thought they might help,’ he goes on. ‘I thought they might get him in somewhere. Don’t blame me for that too – he wasn’t going to stay. He just wasn’t.’
I can see how desperate he is, and all the air goes out of me. ‘Do you care about me?’ I ask him, and he says yes, of course he does, but I know now it’s never going to be the kind I want. He smiles at me and squeezes my hand. It’s early evening, and although we’re out together it’s like we’re in different worlds. In my head, while we walk along in the early dark, glancing in the shops as they close up for the night, I’m actually walking with Banks. I’m asking him why he left without saying anything. I’m asking him why he’d rather go back to a smelly hovel and sit with a lunatic and an old man who coughs like his lungs are full of syrup. I want to know why he’d rather share a bottle, grimed with the spit from their gluey mouths, than be with me.
Joe, from the look on his face, is also elsewhere. His eyes are hooded, and his mouth is set in a grim line. We’re like two people in a queue for bread – seemingly united but really thinking about the separate dinners we’re going to make of it.
We share a kebab, standing in the road to spear the greasy meat with little wooden forks. We stuff it in our mouths as fast as possible, before setting off to meet Raven. I’ve put make-up on and done my hair, more to get past the age restrictions than anything else, and when we meet, Raven gives my arm a squeeze. ‘You look nice,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be a good night.’
After a bit, when we’ve had a couple of drinks and some other people have turned up, I begin to believe her. I forget about Banks altogether. We sit at a round table where someone is telling a ridiculous story that seems to have no end. When I turn to share a groan I see that Raven’s not even listening. Her eyes keep flicking sideways to where Joe stands talking to a tall boy whose jeans seem to have been painted on. I’ve put away too many drinks I think, because when I grab her arm, I yank it right off the edge of the table. It seems terribly important that she’s listening. ‘Do you understand what this is about?’ I ask her, and we both look at the lad telling the story – at his red face and his hands sketching the outline of whatever girl he’s talking about.
‘Mark?’ she says. ‘He never finishes his stories; he’s an idiot.’
‘I don’t know your real name,’ I tell her. ‘Isn’t that stupid? I just call you—’
‘It’s Jasmine,’ she shouts, raising her voice above the music and laughter.
‘But I don’t like that. I’m much more of a Raven.’
I look at her black hair and eyes and long, purple nails and agree it suits her better than Jasmine. Her eyes are still flicking from me to Joe, who’s still talking to the tall lad, his head cocked sideways like a man trying to pick out a voice at the end of a very bad telephone line. She looks really unhappy.
‘You like him, don’t you?’ I ask, and she stares at me a moment.
‘You don’t?’ she says. ‘I thought you and him…’
‘We’re friends,’ I say. ‘He’s my mate. He doesn’t fancy me; nothing I can do.’
I laugh, but I don’t mean it and she knows. She stares at Joe a moment longer, then shrugs and hooks her arm through mine.
‘I don’t think it’s your fault,’ she says. ‘I don’t think we’ve got what it takes.’
After a bit when I look round again, Joe’s gone, and after that the people at the table seem more and more moronic. Raven and I sit in silence while it all goes on around us, until she takes my arm and drags me from my seat. ‘Come,’ she mouths, and steers me through the people and out into the street. The cold air hits me in the face like a scouring pad the second we get out there, but we walk anyway, holding on to each other in case we fall down. We ramble through the streets, stumbling and shivering, then lean on a window outside a kebab shop.
‘I can’t wait to leave school,’ Raven says. ‘What are you going to do? After, I mean.’
It’s funny, when you’ve had too much to drink, questions don’t seem to matter. You think the entire world is right where you’re standing and everything feels just fine.
‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘I guess something will turn up.’
We walk again, past dark shop windows and restaurants full of people. When we leave one street for another, the wind hits us broadside, making talk impossible. Raven stops me after a while and we sit on a bench while she lights a cigarette. The traffic goes past and the stars wheel above our heads just as they always have. We’re insignificant. Tiny.
‘I’m glad we’ve got to know each other,’ Raven says.
So am I.
We sit there until it begins to get too cold. The buzz of alcohol is starting to fade now and I wish I was home. We debate getting a taxi but neither of us has any money. Raven gives me a hug and sets off back the way we came, while I head home. Neither of us gives it a minute’s thought.