Rock a Bye Baby (5 page)

The girl frowned. Voiced as it was, the insult was wasted on her. Her face contorted this way and that. Marcie guessed she was wondering whether she should get angry or not. Just in case it was the former, Marcie tightened her hold of the bottle. If this did get nasty she was ready.

‘Jane. You’re in my way.’

Johnnie pushed past the girl who’d expressed a claim on him.

The girl’s frown vanished. The heavily made-up face became wreathed with smiles and her eyes were all for Johnnie.

Marcie studied the sallow complexion, the brown eyes so innocuously teamed with bottle-blonde hair. It was easy to see she was in love with Johnnie. It was also obvious that he wasn’t in love with her.

‘I was just explaining to the mod that you and me go back a long way.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Johnnie as he ripped open a packet of crisps. He pushed them towards Marcie. ‘Her dad and my dad are old pals. They used to knock around together apparently. But if you believe what she says, you’ll believe anything.’

Jane looked indignant. ‘Well, there’s a nice way to treat a girl!’

‘Sod off, Jane.’

It was barely possible for Jane’s sullen expression to turn more sullen, but she managed it.

‘She’s not one of us. She’s from around here and that makes her a peasant!’

What he said next made Marcie’s head spin.

‘This girl is no peasant, Jane. This is Marcie. She and me are going steady. Ain’t that right, Marcie?’

Fingers slick with salt and crisp crumbs covered Marcie’s hand. His palm was surprisingly soft. She
hadn’t expected that, not from a boy who messed about with motorbike engines.

She returned his smile. ‘Yes. That’s right.’

Jane’s face clouded. ‘Is that so? Well, at least I know where I stand. Never thought I’d see the day when Johnny Hawke was going out with a mod!’

She strutted off, eventually lolling all over a thin boy sporting a DA haircut and a jacket plastered with metal studs.

Marcie declined Johnnie’s offer of crisps. The evening that had started so well had suddenly turned sour, although it had improved since Jane’s exit.

Johnnie dipped his head in an effort to look up into her face. ‘You OK?’

She nodded. ‘Sort of. It’s this mod business. Just because I like modern clothes don’t mean to say I’m a mod or am only going to go out with blokes in suits and riding Lambrettas. It’s stupid. Who does she think I am? Cathy McGowan?’

His hair flopped over his eyes. ‘No. You’re better looking. Point taken though. I like modern clothes.’ He winked. ‘Especially when you’re inside them.’

His smile was so sincere that she couldn’t help blushing with pleasure. She looked at her watch. ‘Better not stay too much longer or I’ll miss the last bus.’

‘That don’t matter. I’ll give you a lift. Come on,’ he said, easing out from the bench. ‘We’ll go for a bit of a burn up first. Ever done a ton up?’

She shook her head.

‘It means going fast.’

‘I know what it means,’ she said, perhaps a tad too sharply.

‘I suppose you know what a burn up means too.’

‘Of course.’ She responded more calmly this time – at least that was how she hoped she sounded.

She swigged back what remained of her drink, this time straight from the bottle. The straw had sunk to the bottom.

His eyes sparkled. She wondered if it was the advent of scorched tyres along the road or the prospect of getting her alone.

Of course she shouldn’t go. But wanting to go overrode the rules she was supposed to adhere to. Besides, riding fast on the back of a boy’s motorbike – doing a ton as the boys called it – sounded exciting.

She’d heard local lads talking about blasting along the roads as fast they could go. Mind you, they didn’t have powerful bikes like Johnnie had. None that would do one hundred miles an hour – that was for sure.

He jerked his head sideways at the door. ‘What are we waiting for?’

What were they waiting for?

With a swivel of her slender hip she sidled between the counter and the tightly packed tables with their spindly metal legs, and the booths where
couples hugged and boys huddled and talked of bikes.

There weren’t exactly catcalls, but there were low whistles and a clicking of tongues.

‘Ride on,’ somebody said.

Someone else laughed.

Marcie kept her eyes on the night and the lights beyond the glass-panelled door. She had no wish to meet the leering looks of those presuming she was fast and loose. She wasn’t that, she told herself. She could handle this.

‘Don’t let him get carried away,’ one of the girls called out.

Johnnie gave no indication that he heard what was said or saw the lascivious looks. He opened the door. She followed.

Once away from the milky warmth of the coffee bar, her tension grew.

You don’t have to go, she reminded herself. You know he’ll try it on, she thought as she buttoned her coat and tied a scarf over her head.

A nice girl who was saving herself for marriage would see the danger and say no, thank you very much. But she liked him. She liked him a lot! And besides, it was 1965, not 1865.

She put her head through the strap of her shoulder bag so it sat on her left shoulder.

‘I promised Rita I’d go home on the bus with her.’ What a lame excuse!

‘Look, if you don’t want to come for a ride, just say so.’

‘I want to come,’ she blurted out.

The mixed emotions were still doing battle.

‘Suit yourself.’

Johnnie carried on pulling on his leather gloves, and then winding a white silk scarf around his lower face before putting on his crash helmet. The gleam of the café lights caught the red flames painted on the front of it. He pulled the white scarf up a bit higher. There was a zinging of metal as he zipped up his leather jacket.

He spoke through the scarf, his voice a trifle muffled. ‘Don’t worry about your mate. Pete will take care of her and take her home when she’s ready.’

Marcie opened her mouth and started to ask how he could be so sure, and what did he mean by Pete ‘taking care’ of Rita. There was more than one way of interpreting that. She wasn’t that daft.

Her voice was drowned out by the throaty roar of the 650 Triumph. She was about to go off with Johnnie and it was likely she might share the same fate as Rita.

Stop now!

But she couldn’t stop because she was young and she liked him, and forces as old as time pumped through her body. She
had
to go with him.

The acrid aroma of burnt fuel filled the air. The
engine throbbed and escalated into a sound resembling rumbling thunder. It was like a challenge, meant to draw her forward, to throw caution to the wind and take a ride with a boy she was fast falling for.

She took a deep breath and made up her mind. Johnnie was waiting for her.

Before her conscience persuaded her otherwise, she swung her leg over the pillion. The passenger foot pedals were mounted quite far back, so to keep her balance she had no choice but to wind her arms around him, her breasts flattened against his back.

Turning away from the sea front, he headed for the main road that eventually led to Sheerness. The warm night air was a heady mix of sea and salt marsh, leather and oil. The whole was like a great stew, the stew of life, and she wanted to hold it tight, just as tightly as she was holding him.

They took a turning off the main road to a place where the wind whipped straight from the sea and across the marshes, unfettered by trees or dwellings.

The place would have been pitch black but the moon was bright and the lights of Southend blinked like fallen stars from across the water.

After turning off the engine, Johnnie pulled the bike up onto its stand. Marcie watched him strip off his gloves, his helmet and the white silk scarf. There was something about the silk scarf that was strangely
alluring, like a slinky snake as he furled it into his empty helmet with his gloves.

He took out a cigarette and offered her one. She declined. It was something she had tried once and not enjoyed. There was no point in persisting.

He tilted his head back as he exhaled. The smoke curled upwards in front of the moon.

She felt she should be saying something. This was one of those initially awkward moments when both knew something would happen. It was just a case of what form it would take.

Neither said a word. They both knew what came next. It was for him to make the first move. She couldn’t possibly do that – shouldn’t do that – but she wanted to. She truly wanted to.

Just as she was about to suggest something, he invited her to sit down.

She looked down at the ground. There was grass mostly but also bare patches where footsteps had worn the grass away.

‘I don’t think so.’

As she brought her head back up and faced him he kissed her.

She closed her eyes. His chin was slightly rough against hers. Boys felt so different, she thought. And they smelled so different. And felt so different. It was all so wonderful.

After he’d unzipped his jacket, he hugged her. She
responded, running her arms inside and around his warm body. Her hands ran over the tautness of his chest, the straight back, the slim hips.

‘You’ve got a great figure,’ he murmured against her ear.

Flattery will get you nowhere, she’d heard say. At one time she might have believed it, but not now. She wanted him to want her. She wanted him to say how the thought, the feel and the sight of her inflamed his desire. It was wonderful to be desired. She pitied the girls that were not and she felt special. Very special.

All girls promised to be good until they married. Gran expected her to be. Marcie had vowed that she would, but nothing had prepared her for such intense desire.

Hot masculine breath sighed against her ear. ‘Oh, Marcie.’

She bit her lip to stop from crying out when his hand covered her breast. No one had ever told her it would feel as stupendous as this. She closed her eyes and vowed to remember this feeling for the rest of her life. Not the feeling of being with him, but the intensity of her own desire. How was a girl to resist such delicious feelings? Overcome with the urges of her body, she dropped her hand tentatively down his front, though only as far as the waistband of his Lee Cooper jeans. The desire to go further was hard to resist.

Hesitantly she thrust her hips that bit closer to
him. His hardness pressed against hers, and she was surprised enough to gasp out loud.

His fingers were tweaking her nipples. Her nipples responded. Like two hard rosehips they thrust against the bodice of her dress.

She gasped as what felt like a sharp electric current radiated outwards. It was funny, but it seemed her nipples were like super-sensitive buttons; press button to go and wham! Like a lunar module, she was up there in orbit.

A warning voice told her to come down to earth, But she was loath to do that. She didn’t want him to stop, and yet …

She remembered Nancy with her bruised face and arm, pushing her baby along and looking so alone, so downtrodden. Did she want to end up like that? No! No, she did not.

His hand moved from her breast and was now sliding down her thigh, bunching up her dress as it went.

She clapped her hand over it. ‘No!’

He moaned against her ear. ‘Please …’

‘No.’

‘Aw come on, baby. Don’t you love me enough?’

For a second she did nothing. That was before Jane the gum-chewing girl came to mind. Had he said the same thing to her? Had she given in? Had he dumped her afterwards?

Again his warm palm slid down her thigh. The
temptation to give in was incredibly powerful, but Gran’s warning frown was in her mind. So was Jane.

This time she slapped his hand away.

‘Ouch! That hurt.’

‘It was meant to. No! I said, no! I’m not that sort of a girl.’

She pushed him away.

He threw up both hands in surrender, palms towards her. ‘OK. OK.’

The dress she’d loved now seemed indecent. She vowed to let the hem down – if there was enough material to do so. She heard herself breathing heavily and felt ashamed. It wasn’t with the effort of knocking him away. On the contrary, it was with the effort of regaining her self-control – that and the blood racing through her veins.

Resting back on his bike, Johnnie cupped his hand around a lighted match and lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer her one this time. Not that she would have taken it. His chain-smoking reminded her of Babs and her yellow fingers. Her stepmother had put her off smoking. She didn’t want to end up like Babs in any way, shape or form. She’d made a career out of disliking her and wasn’t about to stop now. Babs might have physically replaced her real mother, but not emotionally. In her mind she wanted to believe that Babs was responsible for her mother going away, but she had no proof of that. No proof at all.

Smoke rings rose in bluish whirls then fused with the darkness. Johnnie’s gaze was fixed on the sea. A silver path led out across the water to the moon.

It was a beautiful night. The situation was dangerous. She wanted this boy. Although a small voice said it was wrong, she wanted him to want her.

‘I need to get home,’ she said and knew she sounded in a panic. She
was
in a panic.

He turned and looked at her.

Instead of meeting the disappointment in his look, she glanced over her shoulder. If she remembered rightly there was a bus stop back there, a lonely spot but the bus shouldn’t be too long.

Johnnie said nothing, but just kept on smoking, his gaze fixed on the distant glow in the sky above the Isle of Grain.

She looked at the bus stop, then at him, then back to the bus stop again. She didn’t want to wait there too long. She didn’t want to be left alone out here. He’d stay as long as she had something to say.

‘Was Jane your girlfriend?’ she blurted.

He shrugged his square, leather-clad shoulders. ‘She thought so.’

‘I see.’

That meant he hadn’t considered them that way. Jane had thought more of him than he’d thought of her.

She tried to see the time on her watch. It was a
neat watch which meant it had a very small face and tiny hands. Her dad had sent it to her last Christmas. She often forgot to rewind it – like now. What was the time?