Dangerous to Know (12 page)

“I don’t care,” Sammy said. “It was worth it just to see your brother’s girlfriend. She’s—”

“Five months pregnant,” I interrupted. Jono and I laughed. I patted Sammy on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” I reached into my pocket and produced a jiffy bag bulging with a tangled brown mess of stalks, unable to stop myself grinning. “Approximately one thousand magic mushrooms.”

“Oh, my God,” Sammy said, and Jono just laughed. I’d done it, or rather Owen had.

“Now all we’ve got to do,” I said, “is find some fancy dress.”

That took the smile right off Jono’s face.

Luckily, Mum didn’t notice the bottle of Strongbow half hidden by Jono’s bag when she came into my room that evening.

“OK, we’re going.” She sighed, leaning in the doorway. “I’d rather not, but anyway. If anyone rings, you will take a message, won’t you? Call me at the college if there’s a problem. Number’s in the book.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said.

Mum gave me a steely look. “I hope you’re going to prove that I can trust you again, Jack. I can, can’t I?”

“We’re just hanging out,” I replied, feeling properly guilty.

You see, if my parents were really strict, I wouldn’t mind lying to them. But even Mum and Louis wouldn’t have let me go to meet Bethany at a party I wasn’t invited to.

“Good.” Mum frowned. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about tonight, that’s all. Maybe—”

But then Louis called for her up the stairs. It was time to go.

“Have a great time, Caroline.” Jono treated Mum to one of his cheesiest smiles and to my disgust she smiled back. Jono’s full of himself as it is.

And that was it, job done. When the sound of our ancient Ford coughing into life in the street below had faded, it was time to deal with the fancy dress issue. I’d found a Sainsbury’s bag full of horrible old clothes in the bottom of Mum and Louis’ wardrobe, including several really rough silky shirts right out of the eighties, with baggy sleeves and frills everywhere. They were kind of piratical.

“Bloody hell,” Jono kept muttering as he buttoned his up, “I can’t believe I’ve got to wear this. It smells of B.O.”

“It doesn’t,” Sammy told him. “That’s just you, mate.”

We looked ridiculous. Sammy was wearing a wig with an attached pirate’s hat; Jono was sporting a pink Afro – I don’t know what that had to do with anything, but he seemed happy with it. I’d put my hair in a ponytail (rank) and tied a red scarf of Mum’s around my head. I looked like a massive loser, and it was only going to get worse later when I added the beaded mask Mum wore to a belly-dancing hen-night for one of her awful friends last year. The thought of Mum belly-dancing still makes me shudder.

All the same, better to wear a mask and look like even more of an idiot than be recognized by Bethany’s parents.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Jono said as I locked the back door behind us.

“Well, how else do you suggest we get there?” I went over to the lean-to and pulled out Louis’ bike, followed by my old one from when I was, like, twelve years old. “Walk?”

I looked at the shed, the window overgrown with ivy now. Herod wouldn’t be able to see out if he still worked in there.

“It’s only five miles,” Sammy said, breezily. “It’ll be fine, Jon. Come on. It’s going to be so worth it when we get there.”

“Fine.” Jono shouldered his rucksack and reached for Louis’ bike. “You two gay boys can share, then.”

“No way.” I handed him my old mountain bike. “I’ll give Sammy a backy, but we definitely get the biggest bike.”

It was quarter to ten by the time we finally arrived in Hamble St Margaret, absolutely knackered. I really don’t recommend giving anyone a backy for a five-mile bike ride. The three of us had to take it in turns in the end and walked the last mile.

It must have been loads worse for Sammy and Jono: all I had to do was think of Bethany, closer and closer to me with every second.

“I’m ruined,” Jono moaned, flopping down on a grass verge by a phone box, letting my old bike clatter to the ground. We collapsed beside him. “That’s just taken, like, ten years off my life.”

“We’ve run out of cider, too.” Sammy lay on his back, sweat pouring down his face. Not a pretty sight, but then I wasn’t looking my most attractive, either. Great. Just great.

“Still got the shrooms, though.” I stuck a hand into the pocket of my rucksack, making sure. “Let’s have some now and save the rest.”

Another thing I really don’t recommend is eating a load of magic mushrooms without anything to drink. I thought I was going to throw up: it was like chewing a mouthful of stringy soil.

Luckily, it wasn’t hard to find the party, once Jono and Sammy had stopped pissing themselves with laughter at my belly-dancing mask. Hamble St Margaret is basically just a few houses, even smaller than that tiny place we’d caught the train to the weekend before. The enormous white marquee in the garden pretty much gave it away, along with the strains of a band playing bad funk.

“Music sounds rubbish,” Jono said, frowning.

I was still half gagging on the soily taste of the mushrooms and was in no mood for whinging. “That’s not what we’re here for, is it? Think of the birds, Jonathan, think of the birds. All those lovely girls in there just waiting for a man like you.”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“Come on, you guys, shut up,” Sammy said. “We’ve got to look confident. As if we belong, not bickering like a pair of old women.”

Sammy’s not usually your man for confrontation or taking the lead; Jono and I were so surprised we just got up and followed him. We stashed the bikes in a hedge along with our bags and, calm as you like, strolled across the back lawn of an old place with pillars by the front door. You could see straight through the huge windows to the other side of the house; it must have had enormous rooms. We never made it inside, though. The action was all in the garden but so far all the party promised was a bunch of wrinklies dressed up as vampires and cowboys, and a couple of harassed-looking waitresses in black and white. The waitresses gave me the fear: what if someone from school was working here tonight? A couple of the girls do waitressing and they’re the idiot type who definitely can’t keep their mouths shut. They’d blow our cover, but there was no time to worry about that. It was time to get in there.

Bethany would be wondering where I was.

“Oh God,” muttered Sammy. “What are we going to do?”

The marquee was seething with people in fancy dress, and whichever old trout had thrown this party had clearly invited quite a few people our age, so we didn’t look that out of place. It was lucky we hadn’t arrived any earlier. Empty coffee cups and plates smeared in chocolate, cream and fag ash were still scattered across the tables: they’d only just finished dinner, and waitresses were moving the last of the tables away from the dance floor. The funk band was playing, but hardly anyone was dancing. A couple of pissed women older than Mum lurched around just in front of the stage. I would absolutely die if I saw my mum doing that. They were twirling each other about and laughing. Just at the side of the stage, a guy of about eighteen with a smooth, tanned face was chatting up a younger girl: she was super skinny with Bambi eyes and a silky dress that none of the girls in my year would have been able to afford in a million years.

We were way out of our depth. I scanned the marquee but couldn’t see Bethany anywhere. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and boozy breath. Empty bottles of champagne littered every available surface: the waitresses couldn’t get to them fast enough.

“Bloody hell,” Jono hissed into my ear. “There’s a line of coke on that table.” I glanced over my shoulder. He was right. What kind of party was this?

“Look,” Sammy whispered again. “She’s coming over.”

An older waitress with a black skirt pulled tight over a fat belly was making her way towards us, professional smile fixed on her face. She was holding a tray of glasses.

Was she going to ask us to leave? I looked around for Bethany again but instead I spotted her mother, whippet-thin, wrapped in a gold lamé dress. She was wearing a black, fringed wig and an enormous necklace: Cleopatra? I thought my heart was literally just going to stop. The sound of the party faded: the funk band, the loud babble of drunken chat, the clinking of glasses all drained away. Facing us now and smiling, Angela knelt down to talk to a couple of little girls dressed as witches. It was the first time I’d seen her smile properly, nothing fake, and it made her look like Bethany. I stared, terrified but unable to look away as the kids each grabbed one of Angela’s hands, dragging her right past us onto the dance floor. It was probably one of the most frightening moments of my entire life. Her eyes were ringed with heavy black make-up and they travelled over the three of us without a flicker of recognition. Then she was gone, dancing with the little witch kids right in front of the band.

At that moment, the waitress reached us. “Drink, sir?” she said to Jono.

I felt so weak with relief I wanted to sit on the floor.

“Why, thank you,” said Jono in a fake posh accent, and took a glass of champagne, followed by Sammy.

“Sir?” said the waitress to me, and I picked up the last drink on the tray, resisting the urge to hold the cold glass against my forehead. I took a swig: my second dose of champagne in a week. Wow, I was really moving up in the world. It made a change from Strongbow.

A second later, the waitress was gone, and I turned to the others. “You’re on your own. I’ve got to find Bethany.”

Jono rolled his eyes and Sammy started rolling a fag. He was scared, not wanting to show it. “Don’t know what’s going to happen when we start coming up on the shrooms,” he muttered, draining his glass. “This is weird enough as it is.”

Jono and I started giggling like a pair of girls. I mean, it was pretty ridiculous. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Jono told me. “You must be well badly desperate, Jack, getting us into this.”

I saluted them and launched myself into the party. I finished my champagne and casually grabbed another glass from the tray of a passing waitress: now she did look familiar. Wasn’t she in the sixth form? I didn’t care.

I was there for one reason only.

I walked through the marquee, trying to look as if I belonged there – confident and slightly bored, fast getting extremely drunk. Bethany wasn’t with any of the girls I passed. They were glossy-haired, in costumes obviously geared up to making them look hot: a belly dancer (pass), a slightly overweight fairy (fail). There was a lot of feathery, floaty stuff going on that I couldn’t make any sense of at all, and one girl dressed as a nurse.

When I found Bethany, she was sitting around a table towards the back of the marquee with a vampire and an old bag dressed as a judge. Bethany wore a white lab coat. A pair of goggles rested on her head. The lab coat was open. Underneath it she was wearing a cotton dress and a silvery cardigan. She wasn’t taking any of this seriously. She was streets ahead of every other girl in that tent.

The old bag had style: I mean, she was necking back the bubbly stuff and must have been ninety, at least. Her judge’s wig was slightly drooping forwards over one eye. Bethany laughed at something the old dear said: a real laugh, tipping back her head, right from the belly. The middle-aged vampire did a kind of sneer and lit a cigarette, making a big deal out of topping up everyone’s glasses.

Bethany took her refilled glass and, over the rim, she looked straight at me.

I looked at her.

Everyone else in the tent seemed to disappear. It was just us.

I walked towards her, and it sounds nuts, but I felt as if I was flying, my feet not touching the ground.

I stood by the table, heart pounding. “Hi.”

“You seem to have an admirer, Bethany,” said the vampire, sarcastically.

“Good thing, too,” the old lady said. “Top me up properly, Robert, if you can bear it. There’s no need to be stingy.”

Bethany ignored them both, getting to her feet. She smiled at me and laughed again. She wasn’t wearing much make-up – a bit of silver glitter on her face. She made every single other female at the party look like a gargoyle in lipstick. We stood facing each other, holding hands, her fingers warm. It was so hard not to kiss her there and then.

“We can’t walk out of here together,” Bethany said, quietly. “It’s too dangerous. See you outside.”

I smiled at her, turned and walked out of the tent, into the garden, where shadows were gathering and the day’s warmth was just starting to ease off.

I walked right down the lawn and waited for her by an apple tree.

I watched her following me; I loved to watch the way she walked. Slow and relaxed, like she had all the time in the world.

When Bethany reached me, we held on tight, hands in each other’s hair.
At last, at last,
I thought, feeling relieved. When I kissed her, I tasted cigarettes and champagne. The same warm, lemony smell rose from her skin.

“You did it,” she whispered, smiling up at me. “You did it.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t come? You’d have been talking to a judge all night.”

“I knew you would.” She laughed. “I hope I’m as mad and drunk as that when I’m old. Let’s get out of here. There’s woods backing on to the garden.”

“No way,” I said. “You’re not getting away that easily.” I bowed at her. “Shall we dance?” The branches on the apple tree were swaying, but there was no wind. Owen’s little present was starting to kick in.

“It’s stupid because this was my idea, but I’m really scared of being seen.” Bethany smiled again, looking nervous.

“Why do you think I brought a mask? It’s so rammed on the dance floor no one’s going to notice. It’s like some kind of mosh pit full of old people.”

Bethany laughed. “All right, then. I can’t resist a pirate. That
is
what you’re meant to be, isn’t it? I’m a mad professor.”

“Wait.” I reached into my pocket. I wanted to take her with me. “Give me your hand. Would you care for a mushroom?”

“A what?” Then Bethany laughed, and swallowed a handful, washed down with the last of her champagne. That’s the way to do it.