‘You are a fucking idiot,’ Laura mutters to herself. ‘Total. Fucking. Idiot.’
She leaves the pub and heads towards the High Street. She’s only texted him once – thank God – at 9.15, saying ‘Where are you? xx’
He didn’t reply. She told herself he was just running late, that he’d burst in any minute with some mad story about what had happened and where he’d been and why he was late. Then she flitted to panic. What if he’s been run over? What if he’s been mugged?
Eventually she got it . . . What if he’s not coming?
Bingo.
‘Stupid cow,’ she says. She stops next to a plastic bin at the end of the street and kicks it. Hard. Not a stupid girly kick. She steps back, raises her arms into fists in a proper defensive stance, swings a sharp roundhouse kick about three-quarters of the way up and knocks the bin head clean off the top. Chip wrappers and drinks cans scatter across the pavement.
Goody Goody Laura. Nice little swot Laura. She gets good grades, she does her homework. She goes to karate three times a week. She volunteers at the library on a Saturday morning and reads stories to little kids. Laura is nice, Laura is lovely, isn’t she? That’s what everyone says. And today – finally today – she decides to shake that off. She does something brave, and crazy and stupid. She does something that everyone else in her year has already done. And she thinks that, yes, now she’s just like everyone else.
Then she gets stood up.
What a fucking fool! Why did she think that Mark was different to every other boy in their school? And worst of all, why the hell had she told Hayley? She imagines that the news has already spread. She imagines that everyone already knows what she’s done.
She stares at the overturned bin. Her first instinct is to pick it up, shove the rubbish back inside, replace the lid. No one has seen her, have they? There might be a CCTV camera on the corner, but she doubts it can see where she is now. Besides, what are they going to do? It’s only a bin. It’s only some rubbish.
Screw it.
She storms past, kicking a plastic bag filled with something soft that is probably dog shit into the air, and heads down the High Street. There aren’t many people about – probably because they’re all either in the pub, at the scuzzy party that Marie was on her way to or, more likely, down at the shows. Where she is supposed to be right now. With Mark.
Fuck you, Mark.
She stops and sits down on the steps of one of the dilapidated tenements that line the street. She takes deep breaths, tries to push the rage away. Laura isn’t someone to fly into a rage. She’s a well-mannered, good-natured girl. So everyone keeps saying. School reports. Her nan. Her mum. What do they know? She’s changed today. She’s not the same person any more. She’s given a part of herself away to someone, someone she thought was special. And that person has chosen to humiliate her in return.
‘Well, I’m not having it,’ she says. She stands up. Down at the bottom of the street there is only one shop with its lights still on. She marches down there. Kicking at stones and any other pieces of debris that get in her way. Her face is burning. Her hands tight from balling them into fists.
She takes a deep breath before she walks in. Tries to keep calm. She places a bottle of sparkling wine on the counter, takes a fiver out of her purse. The guy serving is two years above her. He’s just left school. He tried to chat her up once, at a party at some random house out in the country. A thing in a barn where the hippy parents let the kids do what they like as long as they didn’t start any fights. She rebuffed him, but gently. He still smiled when he passed her in the street. She’s kicking herself now, because she can’t remember his name.
‘I need to ask you for ID,’ he says; he’s trying to look serious, but there’s a smile threatening to escape. He knows she’s not eighteen.
‘You can just say you’ve seen it,’ Laura says, trying to smile.
He nods and puts the wine in a bag. Rings it up in the till and gives her 50p change. ‘You OK, Laura? I, er . . . I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.’
‘I’m fine,’ she snaps. Takes a breath. Smiles again, although it feels like an effort to move her lips upwards even a fraction. ‘Thanks for this. Totally fine. I’m going to the shows. Might see you later.’ A bell above the door tinkles as she leaves. He might’ve said something else as she left, but she’s too preoccupied to hear it.
A hump-backed bridge crosses the river over to the common land where the fairground lies. There is a small dirt path that leads down to the river. Laura has never been there at night before, and she realises that there is no street lighting that covers the small patch of land down there. She tries not to think about what might be down there. Used needles, used condoms . . . cans and bottles. Broken glass. Hopefully that’s it for the riverside props. Hopefully there are no people down there, because that’s the only thing she really wants to avoid right now.
She walks carefully down the path, feeling the edge of the bridge with one hand to guide her down. The stone is cold and slimy. The path feels dry. The loose dirt makes it slippery. Don’t fall. Don’t fucking fall. At the bottom, she finds a space on the low wall that lines the river and sits down. She unscrews the bottle. She glances up towards the street above, wonders if anyone can see her. Fuck it. She takes a long, slow drink. The wine is cold, and the bubbles catch in her throat. She stops, coughs. Savours the unfamiliar flavour on her tongue. She’s had wine before. Just a little bit, now and then. Mostly when she’s with her parents, having one of those excruciatingly awkward Sunday lunches. This wine is slightly drier than she’s used to. Sour, like unripe berries. But it’s not that unpleasant. She’s already getting used to it. She has no idea how much she needs to drink to get drunk. But she can already feel it fizzing through her, hitting her stomach. The fluttering in her chest. Her head feels fuzzy. She takes another drink.
When the bottle is finished, she throws it under the bridge and hears it smash as it collides with a rock. She stands, and then realises that the alcohol has already made its way to her legs, helped along the way by the adrenalin from her rage. She feels herself stagger slightly, reaches a hand out to the wall of the bridge again. Slowly, she walks back up to the street.
She can hear the sounds of the shows now, not far. The lights are flashing red, blue, white. A laser searches across the thick, black sky. It’s late now. It’s dark. Navy-blue dark. She walks towards the lights.
He’s there, standing next to the Waltzer. Standing with that creep from the other day. She squints. Someone else is there too. A girl, hanging off the two of them. Cuddled up to Mark. Her Mark.
She recognises the dress. The long boots. Pink highlights flashing in her hair. It’s Hayley. Mark is with Hayley. This . . . this is not right. This was not supposed to happen. Why did she tell Hayley she wanted to sleep with Mark? Stupid. Stu. Pid.
Laura takes a couple more steps forward, then stops. Hayley is pointing at her. The fairground boy – Gaz? Was that his name? – nudges her and they tip back their heads and laugh. Mark catches her eye, looks away. He turns and vanishes into the crowd.
She opens her mouth, wants to shout out his name. But her mouth has gone dry. Her head is whirling. The music is vibrating across the field and into her body. The lights are flashing too bright, too fast. Epileptic. She staggers backwards. Turns away. Lurches back across the field, away from the sounds of humiliating laughter that drift through the air like an angry cloud.