‘So, you live around here, Grace?’ Vicky said, leaning her hoop up against a tree and sitting down next to Spider.
‘Up there,’ I said, pointing vaguely towards the hill behind the park. ‘You?’
Vicky laughed. ‘We live everywhere!’
‘Oh, OK,’ I said, frowning slightly. This seemed an unusual answer to a straightforward question.
‘We move around a lot,’ Spider explained. ‘We follow the sunshine. And the work. The seaside is best for both in the summer. Loads of tourists. So yeah, we live here, for now.’
‘What work do you do?’ I asked, then immediately cursed myself. ‘What do you do for a living?’ was such a boring, judgmental question.
They didn’t seem worried though.
‘Anything,’ Spider said with a shrug and a smile. ‘Bar work. Busking. He nodded towards a battered old acoustic guitar covered with black and white stickers. ‘We just wake up and … take the day from there. If you know what I mean.’
‘Wow,’ I said, and I meant it. When I’d spotted these two here in the park on my way home from the hospital, and randomly taken them as my inspiration, as my sign that I needed to stop waiting and start living, little did I realise how completely their lifestyle would encapsulate my ambitions. To just wake up and take the day from there! That was what I was talking about.
‘What do you do with your time?’ he asked.
I shrugged. It was a good question. I was only just working that out myself. ‘I just finished my exams so I was doing that …’
‘And now?’
I laughed and lay back on the grass. ‘Whatever I feel like!’ I hoped I was able to make this sound enigmatic enough to disguise the fact I couldn’t think of anything substantial to say about my interests or passions or, in fact, personality.
‘Cool,’ Spider said. And he didn’t press me any further.
Vicky reached into a rucksack and pulled out a four-pack of beer. ‘You want one?’ she said, holding one out to me.
‘Sure.’ I took it from her.
Why not?
Vicky snapped open her own can, took a long sip, then lay down on the grass, her head resting in Spider’s lap. He stroked her hair, then he bent down and kissed her on the forehead once.
‘You guys are together then?’ I said casually, although inside I was wondering if the kiss was their way of letting me know I was a gooseberry, that I was crashing their date.
Neither of them said anything. Spider just grinned and took a slug of his beer.
I supposed that was a yes? Maybe they thought the question was rhetorical. Or just plain stupid. Clearly they were together.
I wasn’t an accustomed drinker by any means. I’d had a can or two of Guinness with Til but that was it. I wasn’t sure what this beer was – it tasted like what I assumed rust would taste like – but I liked the effect it was having on me. I was experiencing a sensation like being enveloped in a warm, peaceful fog.
‘What’s on your jacket?’ Spider said, nodding towards it.
I looked down at the breast pocket on my denim jacket and saw a dark wet circle that was slowly growing. ‘I don’t know …’ I reached inside. ‘Ugh!’ I said, as my fingers touched something soft and moist. I hitched it out. ‘Oh, Paddy …’ I muttered.
After I’d asked Paddy to remove his chewed apple offering from my bed, he’d obviously decided to tuck it into my pocket, perhaps in case I fancied a snack during the course of the day and lacked the energy to chew my own fruit.
‘It’s apple,’ I explained. ‘My little brother likes to give me weird presents.’
‘Oh, right,’ Spider said, looking a bit bemused but laughing.
And then I started laughing too. And then I found that I couldn’t stop. I knew it wasn’t that funny really but I was just overcome with it. I don’t know if it was the beer or what, but it felt good. I wondered how long it was since I’d really, properly laughed.
Vicky lifted her head up and looked at me. ‘Oh god,’ she said, smiling. ‘We’ve got a lightweight here.’
It was kindly, I felt, the way she spoke to me. She was smiling at me kindly. These people were kind. I’d come over, they’d welcomed me, given me delicious crisps and this wonderful magical can of alcohol and here I was laughing and laughing with them as if I’d known them all my life.
Wasn’t summer amazing? Wasn’t life amazing?
Time seemed to jump forward several hours in one go. The sun was slipping behind the trees and our patch of park became shady.
Suddenly Spider sat up and said, ‘Let’s go to the beach.’
Vicky said, ‘Is Bobby there tonight?’ without opening her eyes.
‘Should be,’ Spider said. Then he turned to me. ‘Want to come to a party, Grace?’
‘A party?’ I said. My (limited) experience of parties hadn’t been generally good. They normally involved being squashed into someone’s parents’ lounge with a random selection of people from school who I didn’t want to talk to, looking at my watch and thinking of an excuse I could give as to why as I had to get away early.
‘Our mate Bobby DJs outside Bar Ten. It’s pretty chilled. Just drinks and fires and stuff. Not really a party. Just a gathering.’
Gathering. That was a code word I knew. Til had told me that that’s just what people say when they’re having a party and either a) they don’t want their parents to be alarmed or b) they’re trying to downplay it so if no one turns up they don’t look stupid. It seemed unlikely that either of these scenarios applied here though. Maybe it was just a gathering. Some free-spirited people gathering on the beach to listen to music and sit by fires and be free spirits together.
I looked at my watch.
‘You got something to get back for?’ Vicky said. ‘Parents?’
That settled it. I certainly wasn’t going to drift away early, to make my excuses, just for an evening at home with my parents. I didn’t want to be seen as that kind of person. I wasn’t that kind of person! Not any more.
I was going to a party.