Jon McGregor - This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You

That’s what I’m talking about, Ray says.

Just the drinks, I say. Nothing else.

Rinse them dishes any day, he says. I thought he was going to make me stop right there, but he didn’t say anything else so I carried on and turned in at the entrance to the Stewart place. We passed some older guests getting into their cars and holding on to each other. We drove down a grassed track which led around the back of the house, past some open barns with more cars parked inside. At the far end of the track, just past the turning into the field with the marquee, we saw a girl being sick into a bed of nettles. Her dress was a bit on the short side for her to be bending over like she was. A lad in a pink shirt with a pinstriped waistcoat was stood next to her, holding her hair away from her face and rubbing her back. They both looked over their shoulders at us, squinting into the headlights. The girl had a string of something hanging from her mouth. We could see her knickers. They were black as sin.

That’s what I’m fucking talking about, Ray says.

Just the drinks, I say.

*

We knew Mark from school, and for a bit after that. Years back. Spent a bit of time with him. He was all right, he didn’t mind getting up to things. Not that there was all that much to get up to. Mostly it was getting hold of some drinks and finding somewhere to go. One time we walked the five miles out to the Sands with a bottle of cider just so we could drink it while we sat and watched the seals. This was the last year of school. Meaning we were fifteen or sixteen. Ray tried chasing one of the seals and ended up turning round and doing most of the running. It’s surprising how fast a seal can move, if you start messing around with it in breeding season. That was the day we took a car the first time, when none of us wanted to walk all the way home again. I didn’t know Ray knew how to do the thing with the wires, but he said one of his uncles had shown him. We could all drive, just about, but Mark wouldn’t take his turn so we kicked him out and made him walk the rest of the way. He never told anyone about it, which was a good start. That was how come we took him on a job soon after, but it turned out he wasn’t really up for it. He didn’t know what we were doing until we got in through the back door, and then he wouldn’t come in any further than the doormat. He kept saying he could hear someone coming, he could hear a car pulling into the yard, he could maybe hear a siren? He was near enough crying by the time we’d finished so we didn’t take him on a job again. Ray made sure he knew not to tell anyone.

Could see why Mark signed up, thinking about it. The way he liked things to be done right. He probably liked the discipline of it and everything. Sit tight and wait for orders. It was still a surprise though, him being the fattest kid in the year and everything. No one really saw him after he’d signed up. Besides the other boys in our year who signed up with him. He was off on training exercises and getting rid of all that weight and all that, and then when he was home he probably wasn’t meant to associate with us anyway. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time, signing up. He must have thought the worst he’d have to face would be ducking petrol bombs in Belfast or maybe getting rained on for six months in the Falklands. Instead of getting stuck in a broken-down tank in the desert and dying of heatstroke.

Jackie got an earful of all that our-brave-boys stuff after that, all heroic sacrifices and dying-for-all-our-freedom, which if it was me I’d have wanted someone to talk me through how that was supposed to work exactly. Mark sitting tight in that broken-down tank waiting for his orders. Waiting for help to arrive without it ever passing through his big pink head that it was never coming. They gave him a posthumous medal and everything. No wonder Jackie moved out of town. Must have wanted to get away from all that sympathy. Don’t know what happened to Mark’s dad. He’d been in all the pictures in the paper, I could remember that, the two of them sat in their lounge with their arms round each other, holding up Mark’s school photo like some kind of consolation prize. The sofa was hardly big enough for the two of them and all their crying. He must have just gone and done the off.

Fucking heatstroke though. It weren’t exactly Andy McNab.

That was all about the time someone did a job on Hilltop Farm, which old man Stewart didn’t exactly own but it turned out he had some interest in, and word went round that it was us who’d done it. There wasn’t any proof and it got dropped in the end but that didn’t stop word going around anyway. That was when most of the trouble started. It was the interest in that job that meant we got caught out, in the end.

Whoever called it Hilltop Farm must have had some sense of humour, round here.

Jackie came over again before she went to the church and told us that if she did get to go to the reception she’d make sure she brought us back some cake. We told her thanks Jackie, that’s good of you, we’ll look forward to it. Another load of Tornadoes went over, three of them in close formation going extra-low over the Sands without dropping anything. Jackie said that was how they knew last time round that the war was definitely going to start, when they’d started going at the Sands all hours like this. We didn’t know what to say so we told her to enjoy the wedding.

By the time we heard the church bells ringing and the guests were all sweeping out of the church and throwing confetti at the happy couple it had been quiet over by the Sands for a couple of hours. Wouldn’t put it past old man Stewart to have gone and had words at the base. National emergency crisis or whatever, this was his daughter getting married. We stood up at the top of the rise by the hay meadow and watched them all coming out of the church. Getting into the line-ups for the pictures. Moving apart and coming together and moving apart again and the young lady in the white dress always at the centre. The women all in hats and dresses like at the races. Ray started talking about how women like dressing up for a wedding. Can’t argue with that, he was saying. Strappy shoes. High-heeled shoes. Dresses in bold colours and prints. Purple dresses. Red and white floral dresses. Very tight. Above the knee. Figure-hugging, you get me. Dresses they keep tugging at the hemline like they never noticed how short it was when they put it on, you get me. All that hair-dressing. Hats. Summer hats. Summer dresses and summer hats and straps that keep slipping off shoulders. Bare shoulders. Bare legs. You get me. It was hard to stop him when he got going on something like that. Fucking, monologue is what you’d call it. I asked him could he see Jackie anywhere and he showed me where she was standing off to one side, sort of behind a stone wall. There were a couple of other women from the village with her but she was the only one wearing a hat.

The church bells kept ringing until the married couple got into a car and drove off. That was a lot of bell-ringing. The seals down at the Sands must have thought the end of the world was coming. We watched the whole procession of cars follow the trail of balloons from the church to the Stewart place and then I got another drink and sat by the lake and Ray went and broke up another pallet. It seemed a bit early to be lighting a fire. It was a pretty hot day still.

When he was done he came and sat down and asked if he’d ever told me about the porno he’d written once. I told him I didn’t think he had. I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. He told me it had been a while ago and to be fair it had just been the once. He picked up some stones and threw them in the lake. He went and got an empty can and set it up on a flat rock by the edge of the lake and came and sat down and said the story had been for his wife. He looked at me. I threw a stone at the can and missed and didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to know. He told me it wasn’t like he’d been in the habit of writing porn but this had been a long train journey and it was just something that had occurred to him to do. He’d thought she might appreciate it. He’d thought it was something he could do for her, while he was away. To surprise her. I said I didn’t know he’d been married. He said there were a lot of things I didn’t know about him and anyway this was all a while ago now. He told me don’t get him started on marriage.