Alexander Stuart - The War Zone - 20th Anniversary Edition

‘Pauline’s party is tonight, isn’t it?’ Caz says, coming up behind me, accidentally kicking a can or something that rattles across the stones of the car park.

‘Boring.’

Caz’s friend tilts her head mockingly at John, who is checking something on the rear axle of his bike, an old but powerful Suzuki. ‘Been there, done that one, have you, John?’

‘Fucking right.’

‘I heard she’s got AIDS,’ fat Colin says, toughing it out with the rest of the boys. ‘Got it off a Marine.’

‘Probably got it off me,’ John says, lighting a cigarette and sitting on his bike.

‘Shut up,’ Caz’s friend tells him.

Toe-rag comes out of the ladies, startling a middle-aged matron on her way in, and saunters across the car park like a bovver boy looking for trouble. It’s all an act. I’m not saying he couldn’t handle himself, but he’s not really a bastard. I’ve known a few.

‘Well, then…?’ Jessie says to Nick, perching on his bike with her feet up on the seat in front of her, blocking his place.

Nick takes his bike off its stand, throwing her off balance, but Jessie’s hands grab the seat under her and she stays where she is, feet still in front.

‘Anyone got any money?’ Nick asks, sitting on her feet so that Jessie has to struggle to slide them out from under him. ‘We can pick up some beer in Sidmouth.’

He starts the bike, a loud, farting rumble that stirs up the heavy air of the car park. Caz climbs on behind John and he starts his, Toe-rag following next, with Caz’s friend on the back, so that now there’s a rich, belting roar filling the night, compromised only by the stuttering ph-ph-phut of Colin’s machine, half motorbike, half wimp.

‘What about Tom?’ Jessie asks Nick, and I think: all right! She proves herself, Jessie does, at moments like this.

‘Oh, he’s coming,’ John states firmly above the noise of the bikes. I’m not sure for a moment what he means by this, but he edges Caz off the back of his bike, staring at me steadily with what could be menace left over from earlier in the evening.

‘I’ll take him,’ Nick offers quickly. He’s bright, Nick, he sees the moves. ‘Jess, John’ll give you a ride, won’t you, John?’

So everyone moves around, Colin being the real winner, since he gets to take Caz whereas before he had no passenger.

‘You’ve got to ask Mum,’ Jessie tells me as she shifts from Nick’s bike to John’s, more than slightly pissed off at this upheaval.

‘Fuck that!’

‘You’ve got to.’ She looks at me seriously. ‘You disappear with us and they’ll have the police out. Go on.’

So, feeling like a twerp, with the bikes razzing me noisily as I jog across the car park, I hurry to find Mum and Dad, but they’re not where they were and I’m worried that the others might leave without me. The pub garden is thinning out now, only the committed bores and soaks left. The lights are going out in the village – this town does not live after dark. Maybe Mum and Dad have gone home, but I doubt it; they would have checked on us first. I push open the old door of the pub, the one that leads to the hotel reception desk as well, and turn into the bar, which stinks even before you enter it of cigarette smoke, stale breath and dog smells, not necessarily in that order.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Dad tells me, approaching from the other door, ducking to miss a low beam. The pub is a haze of last-order drinkers, ears pricked to anything prejudicial we might say, but mouths still moving, the conversation slowly winding down.

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘She went home. She was worried about Jack – we told Lucy we’d be back half an hour ago.’

A flash of Lucy. A tightening of my balls. Perhaps I should go back home with Dad and see her? But she might already have gone. Dad moves past me, toward the door. I hold back, not wanting Jessie’s crew to see me asking for permission.

‘Jessie’s boyfriend has offered me a ride on his motorcycle. Can I go? It’s such a beautiful night.’

Dad turns, looks at me, interested. Is any of this real? I don’t know what’s going on. Fuck it, it’s a simple question. I don’t want to think about this all the time.

‘Which one is he?’ Dad smiles. He looks like a dad at this moment, a good one, the kind you’d want, the kind who hasn’t screwed down his attitudes any more than you have. ‘I thought you hated hippies,’ he taunts. ‘They all look as if they’ve come through a time warp.’

‘I know.’

‘Is Jessie all right?’ The revving of motorcycles outside.

‘Sure. Can I go?’

‘It’s late.’

‘It’s the holidays.’ They’re going to go without me. I know it.

‘These roads aren’t safe. I don’t know.’

I stare at him, man to man, son to father, urgently. ‘Have you heard that thing? No one’s not going to know it’s coming. Anyway, the world’s asleep down here.’

He frowns. I’ve won – if they’re still there. ‘Do you have your phone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Does he have a helmet for you?’

I nod.

‘How long are you going to be?’

‘It’s just a ride,’ I lie. ‘Just up the hill for a while, it’s such a beautiful night.’ We move to the door, me eager to finish this before we get outside – establish my independence and go.

‘Don’t go mad,’ he says. ‘And tell Jessica she’s got to come home too.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

We step outside. Nick’s out there, but John and Jessie have gone. And Toe-rag. But Colin’s there, with Caz stuck behind him.

‘Tom…’ Dad asks, looking at me differently as I turn to go. ‘Are you all right? You look a little the worse for wear.’

‘It’s my stomach.’ I hold it, or hold where it used to be. ‘I think it’s some crisps I ate.’

‘I wish—’ He breaks off, looks from me to the bikes and back. I want to say something to him, I want to touch him, it’s one of those weird pauses that feel like last-chance situations, except I don’t believe in last chances. He grins. Standing there, my dad looks like trouble – even in his white yachting trousers and summer shirt he looks like trouble, but the best kind of trouble, not some sick bastard who’s fucking my sister.

Caz calls to me. The bikes rev. Dad nods his head to indicate that I should go. ‘I wish you weren’t bound to repeat my mistakes,’ he says. I don’t know specifically what he means by this, but it’s depressing advice. It’s like one of those double-think mind-benders: once said, you can’t escape it.

‘See you,’ I say and run and jump on Nick’s bike. Then, for a beautiful while, I stop thinking.

On the beach I take Jessie aside and say something very strange to her.

‘It happened, didn’t it?’ I ask, because my mind isn’t working right any more, I don’t trust it, I can’t. ‘What I saw – in the bathroom. You and Dad. Just tell me, just let me know I’m not going crazy, because I don’t want to be imagining this.’ I should be asking her to deny it, I know, but I want her admission of guilt. I know what I saw, but I want to hear it from her mouth, then maybe I can shut it out of my mind. ‘And then—’

She looks at me impatiently, water breaking at our feet, a rushing sound, a dragging back. This is the last thing she wants now. ‘And then?’

‘Then please make me believe it was only once, it was a mistake, it’s never going to happen again.’ I feel feeble asking this – I should be able to handle it – but I can’t. Can I trust her? Her eyes seem disappointed with me, glazed suddenly, distant. ‘Please!’

But before that there’s the bike ride, fast, cooling in the heat, the speed wrenching away thoughts before they can form, like being part of your own dream, watching yourself move but with no way of getting off or out.