1993
Tony opened the door of the cottage and peered at the small crowd of drunken people standing outside.
‘Dad,’ said Gray, ‘I’m going to Mark’s aunt’s house. For a party. Kind of thing.’
‘Not a party,’ Mark interjected, sounding remarkably sober for someone who’d been drinking tequila shots for the last hour. ‘Just a gathering. Some friends.’
Tony gave Gray a look of utter confusion. He looked from Mark to Gray and then behind himself at Gray’s mum, who had just appeared.
‘What’s going on?’ said Mum.
‘Gray wants to go to a party. With Mark.’
‘Not a party, Mrs Ross. Just a gathering. Just us. These are old friends of mine from home. And my aunt will be there.’
Tony stared at Gray incredulously. Gray stared back at him steadfastly, his jaw set hard. He was going to this party if it killed him.
Then Izzy cut in with, ‘Does your daughter want to come too? It would be so nice to have another girl.’
Kirsty popped up then behind Mum and Dad and threw Gray a questioning look.
‘Ah, there she is,’ said Mark. ‘We’re whisking your brother off to a small gathering. At the house. And Izzy wants you to come, too.’
‘Er . . .’ Kirsty gestured at her pyjamas. ‘I don’t think so.’
But Gray could see her looking over his shoulder at the two glamorous girls in their high-street evening dresses and Mark’s equally handsome mate in his half-unbuttoned shirt and his Spanish tan. They made an impressive-looking group.
‘Come on,’ said Izzy. ‘It’ll be fun.’
Kirsty bit the soft part of her lip. ‘But it’s late,’ she said.
‘It’s only ten. Not even. Come on.’
‘I don’t know.’
Tony and Pam exchanged a look.
‘Please!’ said Izzy. ‘We’ll wait for you to get dressed. It’ll be fun.’
Tony looked at Gray sternly. Gray shrugged. If Kirsty wanted to come that was entirely up to her. He wasn’t about to persuade her. But neither was he going to dissuade her. He just wanted to go now, get to the house, have another drink, carry on the conversation he and Izzy had been having in the pub just now, the conversation during which she’d barely lost eye contact with him, had allowed their shoulders and their knees to touch on several occasions without attempting to reposition herself and had told him he was both ‘adorable’ and ‘fascinating’.
‘OK, then,’ said Kirsty.
Tony and Pam shot her a panicked look.
‘What?’ she said. ‘It’ll be fine.’ Then she turned back to the group. ‘Give me two minutes. Actually, one minute.’
‘We’ll get her home early,’ said Izzy.
‘And safely,’ said Mark.
‘Gray,’ said Dad, ‘I want you both back here by midnight. Midnight,’ he repeated.
Gray tutted. If Kirsty wasn’t coming they’d be more lenient. ‘Fine,’ he said.
‘And if you’re not I’ll be up at that house to humiliate you. OK?’
‘God,’ he muttered, ‘yes. OK.’
Kirsty appeared in a pink T-shirt, a hooded jacket and jeans, her hair combed to a shine and her mouth pink with gloss. ‘OK?’
Gray saw her exchange an awkward look with Mark. Then Mark looked at him and smiled.
‘Come on,’ said Gray, ‘let’s go.’
The lilies in the hallway were dying. Their heavy white heads had drooped, leaving dustings of yellow pollen on the pale tiled floor and a deathly, stagnant odour. No dogs ran to greet them. The house was still and silent.
‘Where’s your aunt?’ said Gray.
‘What?’ Mark replied absent-mindedly.
‘Your aunt. Where is she?’
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘You said she was here.’
‘Well, maybe she is,’ he countered. ‘Maybe she’s asleep.’
They all followed Mark through to a room at the back of the house. It was a small, square room with an open fireplace, a sofa and two big armchairs and there, in the corner, a fully fitted mahogany bar. Mark leaned down, lifted a flap on the panelling, hit a switch and the whole thing lit up. There were bottles of spirits attached to the wall, shiny cocktail shakers, shelves of cut glasses, a tub of drinking straws and glass swizzle sticks, an ice tub with silver tongs, a small sink, a small fridge filled with beers and wine, and three bar stools with red leather seats.
‘Right,’ said Mark, standing behind the bar, his hands clasped together. ‘Who’s for what?’
The girls asked for gin and tonics; Alex asked for a whisky sour; Gray asked for a beer.
‘What about you, Kirsty?’
‘Do you have any Coke?’
Mark laughed. ‘Whoa, little one, bit early in the night for that!’
‘I meant, like – no, I meant Coca-Cola.’
‘I know what you meant,’ he said, smiling at her indulgently. He slid a CD into a player beneath the bar and hit another switch. Immediately the room was filled with the sound of A Tribe Called Quest. Gray looked around and saw four speakers, one in each corner of the ceiling. Mark turned up the bass and the beat thrummed though the floorboards, through his feet. He popped the cap off a beer for Gray using a bottle opener screwed to the side of the bar and passed it to him. Gray drank it fast. Izzy and Harrie were sitting at the bar on the stools, whispering and giggling conspiratorially into each other’s ears while Mark made their cocktails. Kirsty stood at Gray’s side, sipping her Coke through a straw, bobbing up and down slightly to the beat of the music.
‘Why did you come?’ he whispered in her ear, loudly to be heard over the deafening music.
‘Because I felt like it,’ she whispered back into his.
‘Yeah, but why?’
‘I dunno. I suppose I didn’t want you to sit there tomorrow morning telling me what an amazing time you’d had. Didn’t want to be the loser at home in her pyjamas.’ She fixed him with a penetrating look. ‘Why did you come?’
He glanced at Izzy, just as Izzy looked away from Harrie and glanced at him.
Kirsty nodded knowingly. ‘She’s way out of your league.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he said.
‘Seriously. Look at her. And she’s older than you.’
‘Only just. A few months.’
She looked at him sceptically.
‘A year,’ he said. ‘That’s nothing.’
‘And where does she live?’
‘Harrogate,’ he said. ‘Like Mark. They all know each other from posh world. Polo and stuff.’
Kirsty rolled her eyes. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘good luck with that.’
‘I think she thinks I’m different.’
‘Well, that’s for sure.’
‘Look, it’s not as if we’re fucking urchins, you know. We’re not that different.’
Kirsty gestured at the high-ceilinged room, the lit-up bar, the chesterfield sofa, the leather-topped fenders and the brass chandelier overhead.
‘I mean, intrinsically,’ said Gray. ‘Inside. We live in a nice house, we go to perfectly OK schools, we have holidays and a decent car. Mum and Dad drink wine.’
‘Yes, but there’s a big difference between that and this.’
‘Whatever,’ he said, ‘I just don’t think it matters. Not when two people have a . . . connection.’
Kirsty rolled her eyes.
‘Cheers,’ said everyone as Mark passed out the cocktails. Gray turned and brushed his beer against Izzy’s cocktail. She held his gaze for a split second and smiled. Then she looked away again and he followed her gaze to Mark, who was laying out a row of small white pills on the surface of the bar.
Izzy rubbed her hands together and said, ‘Oooh! Goody!’
Gray stifled a groan. He should have guessed. Posh kids and drugs.
‘No, thank you,’ he said when Mark pushed one towards him with a fingertip.
Mark looked at him disapprovingly. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said.
‘No, honestly. I’m fine with the beer.’
Izzy nudged him. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s only E. You can share one with me if you want.’
‘Seriously, it’s not my thing.’
‘Oh, Gray. You’re so adorable.’
This time the ‘adorable’ didn’t strike him as a compliment.
‘I’ll share one with you,’ said Kirsty, gently touching his arm.
‘What! No way! You’re fifteen! I can’t take you back to Mum and Dad off your tits on E.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Mark, leaning across the bar on his elbows, ‘why don’t you two share half. A quarter each. You’ll barely notice anything. And you’ll be back to normal by the time you get home.’
‘Then what’s the point?
‘It’ll just take the edge off. You know. Make the world seem a little nicer for a little while.’
‘Oh, please, Gray.’ Izzy held his arm. Then she pulled him to her and put her face right next to his: the smell of her hair, the softness of her skin, her bare arm around his waist. ‘Please.’
‘Seriously,’ said Mark, ‘it’ll just be like an extra-nice hour of your life and then you’ll be home safe in bed.’
Gray shrugged, knowing he was losing the battle and feeling a small unfamiliar part of him telling him that, actually, it might be fun and that maybe the chemical boost might be what it took finally to get him across the line between being ‘adorable’ and being a guy that Izzy might want to kiss.
He nodded and Mark smiled and cracked a pill into halves, gave one half to Izzy, halved the other and gave a tiny chunk each to Kirsty and Gray.
‘Are you sure?’ Gray mouthed at Kirsty. She nodded back at him and they swallowed the pill fragments down.
Mark passed Gray another beer and Kirsty another Coke and turned the music up even louder and the lights off, so that the room was lit only by the bar lights and a church candle burning on the coffee table behind them.
Gray and Kirsty watched the others for a while, the almost theatrical performance of their conversation, the hooting back and forth, the in-jokes and the banter. Gray was beginning to think he’d imagined the mutual attraction between Izzy and himself when suddenly Izzy’s cousin turned to him and said, ‘So, Gray, do you have a girlfriend? Down in Croydon?’
Izzy nudged Harrie in the ribs and threw her a mock-horrified look. ‘Harrie!’
‘What?’ said Harrie. ‘I was just asking.’
‘No,’ Kirsty interjected, ‘he doesn’t have a girlfriend. In fact, he’s never had a girlfriend—’
Gray clamped his hand over his sister’s mouth and wrestled her halfway to the floor. She fought back and resurfaced, pinning Gray’s arms down to say, ‘He’s never even kissed anyone, apart from our mum.’
He pushed her back down to the floor and said, ‘That’s not true. Seriously. She’s just saying that because she hates me.’
‘You know what? I don’t think I kissed a girl till I was seventeen,’ said the taciturn, slightly cross-eyed boy called Alex. ‘Or was it sixteen? Actually, might have been thirteen. I don’t know. I do remember thinking it was a long time to wait, anyway.’
‘I’ll kiss you,’ said Izzy, turning to Gray.
Gray let go of Kirsty and blinked. ‘What? Look, it’s not true that I haven’t, so you don’t need to kiss me just to be kind.’
‘Oh, Gray, I promise you, kindness has nothing to do with it.’
And then, before he could protest or even decide if he wanted to protest, she was kissing him, in front of everyone: her arms tight around his neck, her tongue in his mouth, her small breasts hard against his chest.
He struggled briefly against her embrace, but soon the animalistic thud of the music, the golden darkness, the raw atmosphere, the tequilas, the beers, the E and this girl, here, in his arms, the taste of her mouth, the genuine desire coming from her and into him, all combined to bring him to a state of oblivion where the two of them were all that existed. His head swam with kaleidoscopic images, changing, moving, diverging and converging and then pulsating in time to the music into what he suddenly realised was the unfurled fan of a peacock’s tail. It shimmered in his mind’s eye, the great span of it, the iridescent layers of green and indigo and purple, dancing and swaying. He lost himself for a moment in the beauty of the thing, losing consciousness for a while of the fact that he was kissing Izzy, that her hands were in his hair, that the others were watching and cheering and whooping and clapping, that this was crazy, what was happening, just crazy. When they finally drew apart he looked into her eyes and he saw the peacock markings there, in her irises, and he leaned into her ear and said, ‘You are beautiful.’ And she leaned into his ear and said, ‘You are beautiful too.’
On the other side of the bar Mark pulled a small bag from his pocket, lined up another set of pills on the counter. Again he broke one in half. He pushed one half towards Gray, the other towards Izzy.
This time Gray didn’t need to be persuaded.