Down on the riverbank, a mile or so away from the party, Sadie pursed her lips, screwed up her eyes and very carefully, having slipped the wire cage off the cork, began to ease it out of the champagne bottle with her thumbs.
‘Steady, steady,’ she murmured to herself.
‘Oh bloody hell, just stop messing about, will you?’ said Tucker, breaking the tension. ‘How long does it take to open a bottle of booze? Just get the bloody cork out, will you? A man could die of thirst around here.’
‘We wish,’ said Sadie. ‘Don’t you know anything about anything, Tucker? You have to do it right or it’ll go all over everywhere. What’s the point of Hannah nicking us a bottle of champagne if it ends up all over the floor?’
‘But I thought that was what you did with champagne – you know, shake it up and spray it about like they do on the telly,’ Tucker said, miming with his thumbs pressed together.
‘Not if you want to get drunk on it, you don’t, dingbat,’ said Simon, without taking his eyes off Sadie or the bottle.
‘Who are you calling a dingbat, moron?’ Tucker snarled at him.
‘Shut up and cool it, you two. If you shake it up you lose half of it,’ said Sadie. ‘Nice and easy does it.’
They were hiding out inside a dense stand of rhododendrons down beyond the golf course that over the years had formed a natural den by killing off the grass and plants beneath it. Overhead the thick evergreen foliage formed a leafy canopy. It was cool under the contorted branches and the spread of dense, shiny, green leaves. Shaded from the late afternoon sun, their makeshift camp was softly dappled, the air heavy with the scents of summer, of loam and barbeques and newly mown grass. Beyond the shelter of the foliage, Hannah could pick out the early evening sound of insects buzzing away and the distant drone of a mower, but inside the air was still and heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke.
The ground beneath the branches was clear except for a few logs, a battered folding chair and an assortment of odds and ends that the four of them had brought there. In the centre of the den were the remains of a campfire that they had had the previous weekend, surrounded by stones that Simon and Tucker had carried up from the river. Beyond the bushes and below the den, the water idled past, glinting in the sunlight, cool, deep, dark and inviting.
Tucker had the patience of a toddler. ‘Daft bloody stuff. What’s the point of having something when you lose half of it when you open it? That’s stupid – why don’t we just crack open the vodka instead? I’ve got half a bottle of Coke in my rucksack, we could just mix the whole thing up. Get on down and parteeeeeeee.’ He stood up and waggled his hips, hands above his head.
‘And you drank out of the bottle?’ asked Sadie, eyes still on the end of the champagne bottle.
Tucker nodded, looking confused. ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I? Like I carry a silver goblet around to drink out of—’
‘Like we want to drink your spit,’ said Sadie, as the cork finally slid from the end of the bottle with an explosive, satisfying thunk. It soared out through the rhododendrons, vani shing in the long tussocky grass further down the riverbank.
As the bubbles erupted, Sadie quickly pressed the bottle to her lips and drank greedily, belching back the gas as she pulled away and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The bottle was cloudy with condensation, little rivulets of moisture trickling down the outside of the heavy green glass.
‘Oh wow, that is so cold,’ she said with a shiver, handing the champagne over to Hannah. ‘Ladies first,’ she growled, as Tucker tried to make a grab for it in passing.
‘Oh come on,’ said Tucker. ‘Hannah’s a total lightweight. She doesn’t really want any booze, do you, Hannah? Come on. Gimme a go.’
‘She will when she’s done,’ said Sadie.
Aware that they were all watching her, Hannah held the bottle in both hands and tipped it up, expecting the contents to be sweet and fizzy like lemonade; certainly not sour and tasting vaguely like sick, which was what it did taste like. She spluttered as the taste filled her mouth, and then gasped and choked all in the same instant as the champagne flooded down her throat. She couldn’t help but pull a face, grimacing and struggling to stop herself from retching as she pulled the bottle away.
‘See. Yeah, you’re a real hard drinker, aren’t you?’ laughed Tucker triumphantly, trying to snatch the bottle away from her. ‘Gimme that here. Let me show you how it’s done.’
‘Shut up,’ said Hannah, slapping his hand away. ‘It just went up my nose, that’s all. I’ve had loads of champagne at weddings and parties and stuff, it just went down the wrong way. Okay?’
Determined to show him she could do it, Hannah took a great big slurping slug from the bottle before handing it on, trying hard not to gag as she did so.
‘Yeah, like you’re so hard,’ said Tucker as he took a mouthful. Screwing up his nose, he pulled the bottle away to stare at it. ‘Yeuk, bloody hell – no wonder you choked, that’s horrible, this can’t be the stuff all them footballers and that drink. It’s foul. I like the blue fizzies. My brother gets them for me, they taste like bubble gum.’
Simon took the bottle from Tucker and drank without comment. Hannah couldn’t help but be impressed.
Meanwhile Sadie had got her hands on the vodka. ‘You pair should have got some Coke or lemonade or something as well,’ she said to Hannah and Simon, cracking the seal on the bottle.
‘We would if you’d have said something,’ said Simon.
‘Well, I didn’t think I’d have to,’ said Sadie, all sarcasm.
‘I’ve got—’ Tucker began.
‘Yeah, yeah, we all know what you’ve got,’ said Sadie waving the words away. ‘You already said and if I need it I’ll tell you, okay?’
Simon stretched and stood up. ‘I could go up to the shop and get a couple of cans if you like. What do you reckon?’
Hannah wondered if she dared offer to go with him. As she was thinking it, Simon said, ‘You fancy coming with me, Hannah?’
Sadie caught her eye and grinned. ‘Worried you might get lost, are you, Simon?’ she said.
Hannah felt her colour rising.
‘Yeah right,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking she could help me carry stuff.’
‘Really?’ said Sadie.
‘I was just thinking we could do with some paper cups or something.’
Sadie laughed. ‘You pair will be wanting bloody doilies next.’ And then turning to Tucker, she leant over and waggled her fingers at him. ‘C’mon on then, hand it over.’
‘What?’ he said looking bemused.
‘The Coke, you moron, give me it here, will you?’ she said. ‘The alcohol will kill the germs and, let’s face it, beggars can’t be choosers. We can pick up some cans on the way back to my house.’
Simon was about to say something but Sadie was ahead of him. ‘Sit down and relax, Si – it was a lovely offer, sweetie, but let’s be honest, we can’t wait that long.’
Tucker meanwhile did as he was told and handed the bottle over and, while they all watched, Sadie very carefully decanted a hefty measure of vodka into the half empty bottle. She swirled the contents round a little and then, after wiping the top, took a long, slow, gulping drink. She offered it to Tucker who, grinning like a loon, took a swig.
‘Oh yeah. That’s better,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘Oh yesssss, very nice, very nice indeed. Loads better than that poxy bloody champagne.’ He handed it on to Hannah.
Hannah looked at the contents of the bottle warily, turning it around a few times. There was something that looked suspiciously like a piece of crisp floating around on top of the liquid. Aware that Sadie and Tucker were watching, she took a little sip and then another one. She’d never had vodka before. It didn’t taste too bad; in fact it didn’t taste that different to Coke, just sort of thicker and with a bit of a warm tang to it, so she had a little more, and then a little more. Tucker was right, it was a lot nicer than the champagne. She took a long slurp and sighed. Drinking wasn’t so bad. She took another pull on the bottle.
‘Lot better, isn’t it?’ said Tucker as she came up for air.
Hannah nodded and took another mouthful. On the other side of the clearing, Sadie settled down with her hands behind her head, resting against a log as she lit up a cigarette. ‘Don’t hog it all, honey, hand it around, let your boyfriend have a blast,’ she said, waving the bottle on.
Hannah made an effort not to react to the boyfriend comment and instead tried to stay cool. She knew Sadie was just trying to wind her up and she planned to say nothing, so why could she feel herself going red and hot and giggling instead? Hannah bit her lip but instead of making it stop, it just seemed to make it worse.
Tucker rolled his eyes. ‘Told you she was a lightweight,’ he said with a sniff.