The Tooth Fairy pressed her body to him. Her skin rippled with light, hot against his. ‘Who do you want me to be?’ he heard himself say. His voice sounded like a strange wind.
‘Just be you.’ Her nipples stood erect, like twin blades, and as she pressed herself to him, he felt them puncture the pumped-up skin of his own chest. There was a sudden release of pressure, and he panicked. He felt betrayed, and suddenly he was paralysed with fear. The blades of her nipples tore open his skin as she manoeuvred her breasts down the length of his torso. Late in realizing his terror, she stopped, looking gently into his eyes, her sweet face anxious to reassure him. The incisions stung, but only momentarily. Blood bubbled at the wounds, but only minimally. She continued to open up his skin from his breastbone, down the entire length of his trembling body, over his thighs, ending only at his toes.
When she’d finished, she proceeded to flay her own skin with her sharp fingernails. Then she stepped out of her skin, revealing a new but identical version of herself, softly luminescent, glowing dully and with virginal purity. Turning to him, she helped him out of his old skin as if it were a suit of clothes. In a state of shock, he complied. The epidermis underneath could hardly bear the whisper of a faint breeze, so sensitive was it. His new skin effervesced.
Then the Tooth Fairy kissed him a full-mouthed kiss; and with the deft steps of a ballerina, she climbed on him, slowly impaling herself on his stiff cock. Inside she burned. The honey-like fire of her was overwhelming, unbearable, like a searing, sweet energy rampant in his brain. She bucked on him, urging him to thrust deeper into her, and he found they were rising slowly from the floor of the woods. Sam laughed uncontrollably, hysterically, demented with pleasure. At last
he ejaculated inside her. Some thousand-year-old longing within him came away like a pulled tooth.
‘You gave,’ she whispered in his ear, shuddering and weeping with joy. ‘You gave.’
He lost consciousness.
When he came to he was lying naked on the carpet of his bedroom floor. He was weeping and his nose was sore from the crocodile clip of the Nightmare Interceptor. The alarm on the end of the wire was ringing. He had no recollection of attaching the thing to himself.
A couple of weeks before Clive and Sam were due to leave Redstone to take up their studies, Blythe announced that he’d arranged something special for a farewell night. Landlady Gladys was putting on sandwiches; staunch club supporters were exhorted to be there; even parents were invited to come along. ‘We’ll give you a good send off,’ promised Blythe.
Come the night, a huge banner decked the back room of the Gate. Daubed in red paint, it said FAREWELL MOODIES. The banner had been painted and hoisted by Alice and Linda. The club was already full when Sam arrived. The beer flowed quickly, sandwiches were passed around on huge ceramic plates and a couple of early floor singers paid tribute to ‘the young boys and girls who really ran the club while Ian Blythe sat on his arse and drank the profits’.
Not fair, said Blythe, pointing out in good part that he’d gone to a lot of trouble for once to get some decent musicians for the evening. And he had, in an Irish folk band called Deviltry, hugely respected on the circuit.
‘Couldn’t you get a blues band?’ Clive said ungratefully.
Blythe only laughed and patted Clive’s face before going to introduce the band.
Deviltry tore the place apart. With guitar, banjo, fiddle and a bodrhon they played spirited, fast-paced jigs and reels that
kept the beer tap vibrating in time. Foaming pints of ale floated in on trays for Clive and Sam, to be consumed almost as fast as they appeared. Deviltry stopped for a beer-break of their own.
‘You don’t have to drink it just because it’s there,’ Connie said in Sam’s ear.
‘Mum! Glad you made it! Is Dad here?’ Aunt Madge had been recruited into baby-sitting service to look after Sam’s little sister. ‘Have you met Ian Blythe?’
Sam left Blythe listening to his mother. ‘I was just saying, he doesn’t have to drink it just because it’s there,’ Sam heard her say as he moved off. He was looking for Alice. She’d been staying pretty close to Terry these days. He had things to say to her before he left.
‘Your mother says to tell you,’ said Alice, ‘that you don’t have to—’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Look at Linda!’ Linda had joined Ian Blythe at the bar. Together they were giving a good listening to Connie’s recommendations. Linda, flushed with drink, was leaning in on Blythe. ‘Do you think those two are going to get together?’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Sam. ‘Have you noticed how he’s cut down his drinking? He’s trying to make a decent impression.’
‘I need to talk to you,’ said Alice.
‘Sure.’
‘Outside.’
Long before they reached the beer garden Sam had a flat feeling it was not going to be what he wanted to hear.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said. ‘Terry and me. We’re planning to go away together. To travel. To Greece or India, or somewhere like that.’
Sam looked down. Already a dew had formed on the grass. ‘You chose Terry. Somehow I always thought you might.’
‘You’re not upset, are you? He’s worried you might be upset.’
‘Part of me is upset, disappointed. Part of me is pleased for you and Terry.’
‘I still care for you. We both do.’
‘Can we go back inside now?’
‘You
are
upset.’
‘Don’t torture me with it, Alice!’
The band started up again inside, and Alice kissed him passionately on the mouth. Then she led him back inside by the hand. Sam avoided Terry and made for the beer. Clive meanwhile seemed to be drinking himself into a stupor.
Sam downed another pint and wiped a moustache of foam from his lip. The fiddler fiddled a high-pitched reel; the pace of the war-drum hotted. The music tricked his heart into missing a beat. Then the fiddle hit a high, skirling note that had him wincing with pleasure. The combination of infused ale and the reeling, squealing fiddle stung his blood and set up a tickling in the back of his brain.
Someone near the band started jigging in the small space between the band and the forward row of tables. In moments half of the audience was up on its feet, swinging back and forth in an ecstatic jig. A braceleted arm reached out and grabbed him; his beer slopped as he was dragged into the dancers. It was Linda. He managed to aim his glass into a passing hand as she swung him round, both locked at the crook of elbow. When she released him he catapulted across the floor, only to be borne up by Ian Blythe, clenched again by the crook of his elbow.
Gladys Noon was exhorting all the dancers to stop. ‘I haven’t got a licence for dancing!’ she protested, a remark which for some reason everyone found hilarious. Ian Blythe released Sam and swung up with the landlady, who stopped complaining and joined in, throwing her free hand into the air. Sam was dizzy. He gazed across the seething heads of the
dancers. Either he was hallucinating or a heat haze was rising from the throng. Alice jigged with Terry, and Linda reeled with Clive. His mother danced with Betty Rogers and Nev was kicking up his heels with Terry’s Aunt Dot. Shaking his head, Sam battled to the bar and ordered another pint. The fiddle squealed and dipped, and the sweet sting of music braced his blood. He took a mighty gulp of beer and rejoined the fray.
He was flung from one jigging partner to another, ale swimming in his head. Alice linked arms with him, eyes sparkling, hair sticking to the side of her face. She released him, and he sailed free to find his arm picked up by his mother. Nev’s face ballooned by; and Clive’s sweating, drunken features; then he was swung by Terry’s good arm; and by Linda; and then out of the crowd loomed the Tooth Fairy, jigging, grinning, locking him at the elbow. ‘See you later,’ she whispered in his ear.
He stopped, releasing himself, stepping out of the unruly crowd of dancers. The Tooth Fairy had gone again.
Faces swung back and forth, swollen-lipped, bulbous faces, puce, perspiring and distorted in the amber light of the pub. He remembered stumbling into a table full of glasses, hearing them crash, before all sound became a dull roar in his ears.
When he came to, he was sitting in the beer garden outside. Alice was loosening his collar. Terry and Clive were propping him upright.
‘Deep Mood,’ said Sam.
‘Come on,’ said Terry, hoisting Sam to his feet. ‘Let’s walk it off. You two go back inside.’
‘You sure?’ said Alice.
‘Yeah. Let me and Sam walk it off.’
So with Terry supporting him, Sam lurched away from the pub. Terry led him on a circuit down the lane and behind the houses. Sam stopped to piss in the bushes.
He looked up at the night sky. ‘Stars are brilliant,’ he
shouted. Terry said nothing. ‘Hey! You don’t mind leaving Clive and Alice together?’
‘Nope. I wanted her to have a word with Clive. Like she’s had a word with you.’ Terry was poker-faced, his clear eyes piercing.
‘Fuck you. I love that Alice.’
‘We all do. Funny, isn’t it? So now you hate me, do you?’
‘Yes. No. Oh, I dunno.’ Sam squatted in the lip of the ditch at the side of the road and fumbled for a cigarette. Terry kneeled beside him, offering a light. ‘Terry, don’t you feel like we’re on a long, strange journey?’
‘Getting stranger all the time.’
Sam let out a plume of smoke. ‘No, I can’t hate you, even though I’ve tried. I’m just so jealous, I could cry. Nothing goes right for me.’
‘For
you?
Nothing goes right for
you?’
Terry’s eyelashes started fluttering, the way they always did when a certain thought crossed his mind. Then the fluttering stopped, and Terry was wide-eyed and angry. He was on his feet, and he was raging. ‘A pike bit off half my foot. Then my father blew my mother’s head off. Then the twins’. Then he blew his own head off. Then I blew my hand off. And
you
say nothing goes right! Sam, I’ve lost things all my life, and now my number’s come up for once. Don’t begrudge me Alice!’
Sam stared in astonishment at his friend. It was the first time Terry had made open reference to any of these incidents. It left Sam speechless.
Terry was still quivering with rage. ‘And now I’m losing you and Clive!’ he said bitterly.
‘You’re not losing us.’
‘Yes, I am. Have you noticed something about this place? They took away the brightest and the best and the most beautiful. They took Linda away, didn’t they? And now they—’
‘Don’t—’
Terry cut him short. ‘Hear me out. This is our last night together, and I want to say this, whatever you think. You and Clive are going away to college. I’ll see you from time to time, and after a year or two you’ll start coming back with some big words and some new ideas, and if I’m lucky, no, if I’m very lucky, you two won’t look down your noses at me and—’
‘Terry!’
‘—you might not look down your noses at me and we might talk about the old days, but things will be different between us for ever. I know this. All my life I’ve had to get used to things falling away from me. Life is not something you can keep in your hand. You have to get used to losing things. It’s the one thing I know everything about. And now I’m losing you, and all I ask is you remember this conversation.’
Now Sam couldn’t look Terry in the eye. He pretended to look up at the stars. ‘Oh, shit, Terry.’
‘Don’t cry, man. It’s only the booze. I’m just trying to keep a bit of you, that’s all. Oh, bollocks.’ He got up and yanked Sam to his feet. ‘Let’s get back before they finish. There’s a lot of people want to say goodbye to you.’
They trooped back to the pub in silence. Deviltry were still whipping up a storm in the back room, and the dancing showed no signs of exhausting itself. ‘Don’t start drinking again,’ was Terry’s parting shot as he left in search of Alice. Instantly someone clapped Sam on the back and pressed a glass of whisky into his hands.
‘Down the hatch,’ said Sam, to no one in particular. Then the landlady jigged by. She thrust her hand in the air and waggled her head inconsequentially.
A lattice of cool fingers spread themselves across his cheek. ‘Are we going to see each other in London when you go to college?’ It was Linda.
‘Of course. I mean, you’re going back there?’
‘Sure. I can start again. I’ll do it differently this time. God, Sam, to think I used to take you three to school.’
The lights flashed on and off. ‘Last orders. Let me get you one, Linda.’
The band played an encore. There was raucous applause. Finally Gladys Noon got people to leave. Sam’s mother wanted to walk him home, but he declined. Too drunk to be useful, he hung around while the band were paid and their equipment was carried outside. He watched them roar away in their van. Alice and Terry, Linda and Ian Blythe all offered to walk him home but he resisted. He didn’t want to go home. His mind was spinning; he wasn’t ready for his bed. The others left together, and he walked back from the pub with an equally inebriated Clive, the pair almost leaning together to remain upright. A light shower of rain was falling. Clive stopped to rummage in his pocket. He produced a squashed, fish-tailed ready-rolled cigarette.
‘One for the road?’
A gust of wind blew the rain in their faces. Sam had an idea where they could go. ‘Come on.’