Black Rabbit Summer (9 page)

I stared at the ground, dazed and confused, not knowing what to think or what to do. My head was spinning, my skull was tightening… I was nowhere. And I didn’t understand why. I just stared at the ground, not knowing anything, utterly incapable.

I didn’t raise my eyes again until I heard Nicole cursing and kicking an empty bottle out of her way as she moved towards the door. As I looked up, she paused for a moment, dug something out of her jeans’ pocket, and threw it over to me. It landed in the dirt at my feet – a packet of condoms.

‘Enjoy yourself,’ she said coldly.

I looked up at her.

She turned away and stooped down to the door.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ I asked her.

‘What do you care?’

‘I can walk with you along the lane, if you want…’

She laughed, a dismissive snort, and then she was gone. I
listened to her angry footsteps stomping down the bank, and I heard her stumble once or twice, and then after a while her footsteps faded away and there was nothing to hear but the stillness of the night and the sigh of my own stupid heart.

I didn’t want to go to the fair after that – I didn’t
want
to do anything – but I didn’t feel like going home either, and I knew if I stayed where I was, sitting alone in that soured silence, trying to think myself into a time and a place where nothing had happened and everything was still all right… well, I knew that was hopeless. Something
had
happened. Everything
wasn’t
all right. And if I carried on trying to think myself out of it, I’d probably just end up crying instead.

Crying for what, I didn’t know.

For being an idiot?

For getting things wrong?

For trying to make things right?

I had no idea.

All I knew was that I couldn’t just sit there feeling sorry for myself – I had to
do
something. And the only thing I could think of – the only thing that had any point to it – was going to the fair to find Raymond.

I took a final swig of tequila, shuddered and coughed, then got to my feet and got going.

It wasn’t as dark along the lane as I’d imagined. The night sky was starless and black, and the moon was nowhere in sight, but
there was just enough light drifting up from across the wasteground to let me see where I was going. It was a strange kind of light – a hazy mixture of distant street lights, headlights passing on the dockland roads, and a muted glow from the Greenwell Estate on the other side of the river – and as I walked along the narrow path, everything around me seemed to shiver with an unnaturally dull luminescence. The gas towers shone black. My trainers were bright white. The wall of a factory building at the top of the bank shimmered with a grey-green flatness, like the deadened shine of a blank TV screen.

I wondered if it was real, or if it was just me. Me and the drink. Me and the dope. Me and the stifling black heat. I didn’t really feel drunk or stoned any more, but I was definitely still feeling weird. Kind of buzzy, liquidy, all warm and tingly inside. My senses were heightened, and I was acutely aware of everything in and around me: the ground under my feet, the darkness, the light, the distant sound of the fairground, the sweat on my skin… I could even feel the blood in my veins. It was throbbing in time to a faint metallic roar that was rushing around in my head – w
hi-shoosh, whi-shoosh, whi-shoosh
– like the sound of an old washing machine in an empty basement.

I felt sick.

Numbly nauseous.

I was aching in places I didn’t know existed.

But, for some inexplicable reason, none of this seemed to bother me very much. In fact, in a weird kind of way, it somehow felt quite pleasant. And as I walked on through the dreamy grey darkness, I actually started to feel a bit better. I still didn’t feel great or anything, and my head was still twisted up with all kinds of stuff, but I was beginning to accept that whatever had
happened with Nicole, and whoever’s fault it had been, it wasn’t the end of the world.

It was just one of those things.

I mean, no one had
died
, had they?

No one had been hurt.

It was just one of those mixed-up, shitty little things…

That’s what I kept telling myself anyway –
it was just one of those things… there’s no point worrying about it, trying to understand it… it was nothing, just something that happened
– and by the time I’d reached the end of the lane, I’d pretty much convinced myself that I was right. There
wasn’t
any point in thinking about it any more. All that mattered now was getting to the fair, finding Raymond, and getting us both safely home.

Of course, if he’d had a mobile phone, I could have just called him instead. But he didn’t. His parents had never let him have one. And it’d been so long since I’d called Eric or Pauly that even if I’d had their numbers, they’d more than likely have changed them by now.

Not that I really wanted to speak to either of them anyway.

And, besides, I was almost at the recreation ground now.

The sounds of the fairground were getting louder and louder – a swirling cacophony of music and machinery, screams and laughter, the booming crackle of amplified voices – and as I came out of the lane and headed down a little street, I could feel the excitement rippling through the air.

The recreation ground is usually locked up at night – not that that stops anyone getting in – but tonight the gates were wide open, and the usual dark emptiness of the night-time park was ablaze with the lights of the fair. The fairground itself only took
up a small part of the park – a ragged circle of rides and trailers at the far end of a pathway on the right-hand side – but the flashing lights and the whirling noise spread out all the way across the playing fields, and as I headed up the pathway towards the fair, everything seemed weirdly mixed up and out of place. The lights in the darkness, the noise in the emptiness, the sounds of excitement surrounded by dullness…

The night was still hot, and the air was getting thicker and heavier. It smelled thundery and electric. I could smell other things too – the meaty stink of overcooked burgers, the sweet scent of perfume and candyfloss, the heat of exhaust fumes and burning lights. It was all too much for me, and for a moment I thought I was going to throw up. But after I’d paused for a minute and taken a few deep breaths, the nausea quickly passed, and in its place I was suddenly filled with a burst of skin-tingling energy.

As I moved on along the path, I felt like I was walking on air.

Although I was already used to the lights and the noise of the fair, the sudden explosion of sound and movement as I entered the fairground literally took my breath away. It was staggering. The blaring music, the crashing drums, the strobing lights, the flashing lasers… people screaming, sirens wailing, everything spinning… whirling wheels, stars and spaceships, thousands of faces, a million booming voices swirling around in the air –
HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! EVERYONE’S A WINNER!… IT’S C-C-C-C-CRAZEEE!

I could feel the sound of it all thumping in my heart.

B-BOOM BOOM BOOM…

The lights burning my eyes.

C’MON C’MON! ANY PRIZE YOU LIKE!

The crash of the rides rolling and ripping all around me – TERMINATOR! METEOR! TWISTER! FUN HOUSE! – throwing out madness into the night.

It was hard to feel sane as I moved along the walkways between the stalls and the kiosks and the giant spinning rides. There were so many people – pushing and shoving, laughing and shouting – and so many different sounds blaring out from loudspeakers on poles… everything was all mixed up together – rock ‘n’ roll music, twanging guitars, Wham, Madonna, Duran Duran…

Jesus
Christ.

It was like listening to the favourite songs of a dozen middle-aged lunatics all at the same time –
WAKE ME UP BEFORE… MY NAME IS… YOU GO-GO… HER NAME IS RIO AND… WE WILL WE WILL… WHO LET THE… JUST LIKE A CHILD… DOGS OUT… ROCK YOU…

I couldn’t see where I was going through the bustle of the crowds, but it didn’t really matter, because I didn’t know where I was going anyway. I was just walking – just going with the flow, hoping to find Raymond. I was also hoping to find some toilets. My bladder was beginning to ache, my belly felt worryingly shitty, and I was starting to feel sick again too. I paused by a stall for a moment and let out a quiet burp. It tasted sour.

‘Try your luck, mate?’ I heard someone say.

I looked round at the stall and saw a ponytailed man offering me three cheap-looking darts. He nodded at a dartboard at the back of the stall.

‘Forty-five or more,’ he said, ‘any prize you like.’

I gazed around at the prizes – stuffed animals, Scooby-Doos,
Garfields and Tweety Pies. A row of teddy bears were fixed to the wall, hanging by their necks, like furry little dead men hanging on the gallows.

‘Pound a throw,’ the ponytailed man said. ‘Any prize you like.’

But I wasn’t listening to him any more. I’d heard something from somewhere over to my right, a subtle change in the sound of the crowd, and as I stepped away from the stall and leaned to one side to see what was happening, something inside me already knew what I was going to see. So I wasn’t too surprised when I spotted Raymond’s face up ahead, and just for a second I felt a warm glow of relief spreading right through me… but it didn’t last very long. When I saw who Raymond was with, and what he was doing, everything inside me suddenly went cold.

He was with Stella Ross.

I couldn’t believe it.

Raymond and Stella…?

What the hell was he doing with her? And, more to the point, what the hell was she doing with him? She was Stella Ross, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t hang around with people like Raymond. Even when she was at school, before she got famous, she wouldn’t be seen
dead
with people like Raymond. But there she was now, strolling along through the fairground with him… her arm round his shoulder, hugging him, talking to him, smiling her bright white smile at him.

As I moved closer, pushing my way through the crowd, I realized that they weren’t alone. Stella had her
people
with her – a couple of big security guys, a bunch of well-dressed hangers-on, a guy with a film camera on his shoulder, another one with a big
furry microphone on a pole. They were all trailing along behind her, and the guy with the camera was filming her, and everyone around them – all the
ordinary
people – were getting out of their way, then lining up as they passed to get a better look at Stella Ross in the flesh. And there was a lot of flesh to look at. She was all dressed up in some kind of trailer-trash chic – tight denim shorts, thigh-length boots, a cut-off cowboy shirt with most of the buttons undone.

She was kissing Raymond now, holding him close and planting her bright red lips on his cheek… but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were grinning at the camera. And as she kissed him again, smearing lipstick all over his face, I could see all the people around her smirking at each other, having a good laugh, watching the beauty playing with the beast.

I didn’t know why, but that’s what she was doing. She was playing with him, toying with him. Pretending that he was her
boyfriend
or something. It was just a big joke to her – the beautiful celebrity flirting with the weird-looking loser – and it made me feel sick. It was like watching someone teasing a dog. And, just like a dog, Raymond didn’t seem to care. He was just playing along with it – smiling at Stella, wide-eyed and excited, grinning while everyone laughed at him…

I didn’t get it.

Raymond wasn’t stupid.

He must have
known
what was going on.

But he didn’t seem bothered at all.

At least, he didn’t
look
as if he was bothered about anything. It was hard to tell with Raymond. But I was pretty sure that he wasn’t doing anything he didn’t want to do. And that was the only thing that made me hesitate for a moment as I moved through the crowds towards Stella.
He’s happy enough
, a voice in my
head said.
Why not just leave him alone?
But it didn’t strike me as much of an argument, and it didn’t do anything to slow me down.

I’d nearly reached Stella and Raymond now. The crowds had thinned out in front of them, and as I closed in on the slow-moving entourage, I could see that the camera was pointing at me, and the two big security guys were moving out in front of Stella to cut me off.

‘Raymond!’ I called out. ‘Hey, Raymond!’

He looked round suddenly, his eyes wide open, and when he saw it was me, he grinned like a madman and raised his thumb. As Stella glanced over to see who he was looking at, the two security guys stepped in front of me and blocked my way.

‘It’s all right,’ I started to say, ‘I’m a friend –’

‘Get back,’ one of them said.

‘I just want to –’

‘Get
back.
’

When I didn’t move, the one who’d spoken to me put his hand on my shoulder and started to force me back. It was like being pushed by a bulldozer. After he’d shoved me back a couple of paces, though, I heard Stella’s voice calling out to him.

‘It’s all right, Tony!’ she yelled. ‘He’s a friend. You can let him through.’

Big Tony took his hand away and stepped to one side.

‘Hey, Pete!’ Stella called out. ‘It
is
Pete, isn’t it? Pete Boland?’

I walked up to where she was standing with Raymond. She still had her arm draped round his shoulder, and they were both just standing there smiling at me. The guy with the camera was still pointing it at me.

‘Sorry about that, Pete,’ Stella said, nodding at the security guy. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’ She flicked back her perfect blonde
hair and smiled at me again. ‘How are you, anyway? You look
great
… God, I haven’t seen you for –’

‘Raymond?’ I said, looking into his eyes. ‘Are you OK?’

He nodded.

‘Come on,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Hold on,’ Stella said to me, ‘what do you think you’re doing?’

I just looked at her.