Out of Towners (4 page)

Further along, one or two chalets have got washing lines hung up. Giant bras and Y-fronts are swinging in the afternoon breeze. On one line there's a two-piece blue jogging suit with a trainer embroidered on the trouser leg. It's got to be the worst outfit I've ever seen.

Back at the caravan, Robbie and Dylan have hardly moved since we last saw them. They're sprawled across the seats staring at the TV. They've not even changed the channel. It's an old repeat of
Midsomer Murders
, but they seem happy enough.

I dump the bags on the table.

“Dinner is served,” I say.

Dylan pushes himself upright and peers into the bag nearest to him.

“Good work,” he says.

The booze and food came to virtually sixteen quid, so we all settle up with George. Four quid each. It's not made too much of a dent in the weekend's finances. I've been saving up for weeks and I've got nearly a hundred quid in my wallet.

Robbie goes across to the kitchen and fills up the kettle for the Pot Noodles, then gets four glasses out of a cupboard. He brings them across as I'm screwing the top off the first big blue bottle of cider. I pour us all some and we wait for the bubbles to die down.

“Okay then lads,” I say, raising a glass. “Cheers.”

The next couple of hours seem to fly by. One minute it's five o'clock, the next it's just after seven. The table's covered in empty Nik Nak packets, Pot Noodle tubs and Jaffa Cake crumbs. We've caned one bottle of White Thunderbolt between us and we're halfway down the second. The cider is starting to take effect. As I stand to go to the toilet for the second time in the last half hour, the caravan seems to take a little lurch to one side.

When I get back from the bog,
Emmerdale
is on.

I'm really beginning to appreciate the fact we've got Sky at home.

“Isn't there anything better than this?” I ask.

Robbie picks up the remote. He flicks through all five channels.

“Not looking good.”

George waves his cider glass at the VHS machine.

“Got any videos?”

“Nah,” Robbie says.

Dylan butts in.

“Tell you what we need. Some porn.” He burps. “If I'd have known there was a video player I could have nicked one of Liam's tapes. I know where he keeps them.”

I bite my tongue. Dylan's record in providing porn isn't good. He once brought a tape round to my house that he'd got at a car boot sale. He'd paid a fiver for it. XXX-rated stuff, or so he thought. It turned out to be
Antiques Roadshow
. We fast-forwarded all the way to the end, but it was pointless. No naked women. We did see some great furniture and porcelain though.

Robbie puts
Emmerdale
back on. A few minutes pass. I look out of the window. More and more people are heading towards the Family Entertain ment Centre. It started around six with dribs and drabs. Now there's a steady flow. I pour myself another drink.

“Suppose we'd better start getting ourselves sorted,” I say.

There's some grunting and nodding of heads.

Dylan gets up.

“I'll go first. Then George can be next. We're proper men. We won't take ages in the bathroom. Not like you pair of girls.” He points at me and Robbie. “I know how long you two need fiddling with your hair.”

He's right. But styling hair isn't an issue with Dylan and George. Dylan's hair is never more than half an inch long, and George has got hair that you can't do anything with. It sits there on his head like a dodgy wig.

“We're metrosexuals, mate,” I say.

“You're what?”

I decide not to bother explaining.

Dylan doesn't take long in the bathroom. Five minutes and he's back out again, top off, Letchford Town towel thrown over his shoulder.

“Who's is this?” he asks, holding up a bottle of aftershave.

“It's mine,” Robbie says. “Careful. It cost forty quid.”

I laugh.

“It didn't you know. His mum won it down the bingo.”

Dylan smirks and heads off to get his going-out clobber on.

George finishes another glass of cider then pushes himself up out of his seat. As he puts one foot in front of the other, he staggers slightly and almost overturns Robbie's mum's big vase of dried bulrushes.

“Whoa,” he says. “Who's done that to my legs?”

I shake my head. George is pissed.

He straightens up the vase then goes off to take his place at the sink.

Another five minutes and it's my turn. As I'm washing I check myself out in the mirror. Still looking good. Me and Robbie are definitely the heartthrobs around here, as my Nan would say. The only difference is, he's gone all the way with a couple of girls and I haven't. I've had two quite steady relationships. Abbie. Eleanor. Things have never developed though. Don't know why. Just hasn't happened. And now I'm young, free and single. We all are.

I dry my face, put some anti-spot cream across my nose and chin, then rub in a bit of moisturiser. I brush my teeth and spray on some deodorant. I get my own bottle of aftershave and dab a bit on. Issey Miyake. I nicked it off my dad.

I brush my hair through once or twice, then I go into my full routine. Five minutes of poking and tweaking and it's looking spot-on. Waxed and smooth on the back and sides, spiked on top. At home, my sister Beth takes the piss out of the amount of time I spend on my appearance. She reckons it's a sign of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. But that's what A-Level Psychology does to you. In our house you can't do anything without Beth psychoanalysing you. And she's missing the point anyway. To look this good takes effort. I have a last peek in the mirror, blow myself a kiss and push the door open.

“Bathroom's all yours,” I tell Robbie.

In the bedroom I strip down to my boxers and socks and get a mauve polo shirt and another pair of jeans out of my bag. I'm not sure what the dress code is for Friday nights at Wonderland. Judging by the people I saw heading down to the Family Entertainment Centre, it's Hawaiian shirts and sandals. I'm not up for that, but I reckon this outfit should be okay.

I stick my Etnies back on, get my phone, my change and my wallet and duck into Dylan and George's bedroom to see how I'm looking in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe doors. Not bad. Not bad at all. As a final touch I go back to my bag and get a couple of bangles from the end pocket. One brown leather, one black and white beads.

Out in the living area, Dylan and George are watching telly. They've flicked over to
Five
and they're watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary about swearing kids and scummy parents. George is in a white open-necked shirt tucked into black trousers. Typical George. He's about to go out on the lash and he's dressed like an insurance salesman. Dylan's in a pair of baggy combats and his Letchford Town shirt. Bright orange with Leroy Lewton's number 16 on the back. He's not going to be winning any fashion awards either. I sit down, pour myself another glass of cider and we all wait for Robbie.

It's nearly eight-fifteen by the time he emerges. Five more minutes in the bedroom and he's finally ready. He's in a tight white T-shirt and jeans. He looks good, and he knows it.

He's got male-model looks, Robbie. His mum's black and his dad's white, and he seems to have got the best bits of both of them. His skin's a kind of coffee-colour and his hair is cool. It's long and curly, halfway between an Afro and dreads. He's pretty fashion-conscious and he's always wearing good gear. Last year, in the girls' bogs at school, someone wrote
Robbie Swann Is Well Fit
. Robbie was chuffed about that. He went on about it for months. I reckon he sneaked in there and wrote it himself. He takes a seat and fills up his tumbler. The cider has almost gone now.

“We going to get some action tonight then?” Dylan asks.

“With a bit of luck,” I say.

Robbie swings his foot against mine.

“Yeah Chris. It's about time you broke your duck.”

Dylan bursts out laughing, choking on his cider.

“I can't get over you still not popping your cherry,” he says, between splutters.

I twist my face into a half-smile. I don't give a monkey's, but I don't see why he's having a go at me. It's not as if I'm the only one who hasn't scored yet. George hasn't. And, come to think of it, neither has Dylan as far as I know.

Dylan's still gurgling away like a blocked drain.

“Give it a rest Dylan mate,” I say. “You're as much of a virgin as I am.”

The laughing stops. Dylan's mega-serious.

“Shut it Chris.”

I put down my glass. George and Robbie are looking at us both.

“So what are you saying then Dylan? You've done the business have you?”

Dylan's chest is swelling up. He's more aggressive than usual now he's got some alcohol inside him.

“Yeah,” he says. “You know I have. The bird I met on holiday last summer. She lives up in Manchester, but I've seen her a couple of times since.”

I give George and Robbie a wink. Dylan's Legendary ‘Bird From Manchester'.

Dylan keeps going. He's sounding defensive now.

“Don't pretend you don't know what I mean. I told you about it.”

“How come this bird never comes to Letchford then?” Robbie asks. “How come we never see her?”

“Yeah,” I say. “We don't know what she looks like. We don't even know her name.”

A grin is spreading across Robbie's face.

“I do,” he says. “It's Pam. Pam of his hand.”

Dylan bangs his cider down on the table.

“Tossers,” he says.

George doesn't like the way things are heading.

“Let's stop messing,” he says.

It all goes quiet. George to the rescue again. He's like a single parent with three out-of-control kids. Me and Robbie are the slightly more mature older brothers and Dylan's the little jug-eared one running wild on E numbers and Ritalin.

On the telly, some social-worker-type in ginger brogues is diagnosing the scruffy family's problems. They need to work on their communication skills. Behind where he's standing, the husband and wife are screaming abuse at each other while their pet Staffy goes round in a figure of eight trying to chew its tail off.

I open and close my phone. No texts. No missed calls. Good. I was worried my mum might be trying to check up on me. I pick up the cider bottle one more time and splash the last drops evenly between the four tumblers on the table. We all drink up and get to our feet. It's half past eight. Time to go.

The sun is just beginning to go down as Robbie locks up and we start on our way to the Family Entertainment Centre. The sky over to the right, out across the sea, is turning pink. We wander to the end of our row and turn left along the path through Green Zone.

As we walk I catch sight of us reflected in caravan windows. For the second time today, I think what a funny-looking gang we are. Different heights, different clothes. At Parkway College, lots of kids are into dressing like they're in a tribe. Townies. Chavs. Moshers. Football Lads. We're not like that. Me and Robbie look a bit Skater Boy, but not too much. Maybe our trademark is that we haven't got a trademark.

The four kids we saw earlier are still out and about. They see us and run across, walking alongside.

The oldest girl, who looks about eight, wrinkles her nose.

“You boys smell of perfume,” she says.

I laugh.

“It's not perfume. It's aftershave.”

The girl nods. She's in Harry Potter pyjamas and a pair of pink cowboy boots.

The youngest lad picks his nose, rolls the bogey between his fingers and drops it on the grass.

“Are you going to try to pull tonight?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” Dylan says.

We keep walking. The kids have stopped following now.

“Bet you don't pull,” one of them shouts.

“Cheeky bastards,” Robbie mumbles.

Behind us there's the sound of sniggering.

We leave Green Zone and cut through the Blue Zone field. Two little lads are still in the adventure playground, swinging on the monkey bars, but the swimming pool is deserted. Quite a few people are outside the Family Entertainment Centre. There's fifteen or twenty smokers huddled over to the left, three youths tooling about on bikes, and a man and woman in unofficial-looking England clobber working their way through a pile of scratch cards.

The doors of the Entertainment Centre are open so we go straight in. My eyes take a while to adjust to the gloom. When they do, I start to pick out a few details. It's a huge place, extending down to the left and ending with a raised stage that's closed off by a pair of maroon curtains. In the far corner is a DJ booth, empty at the moment. There's a bar all along the right-hand wall and hatches serving food dotted along the wall facing us. The middle of the room is filled with holidaymakers grouped around tables. Up near the front is a space for dancing. There's a low murmur of talking, mixed in with the odd shout, and the chink of glasses and cutlery.

We head down towards the stage, looking for somewhere to sit. Soon we've got ourselves a table and four chairs. I look around to see who we're sitting near. I'm hoping there might be some girls about. It's not too promising. On one side of us is a big lumpy family in head-to-toe towelling gear. The mother's got a bandaged leg propped up on a chair and the kids are trying to make a shagged-out Alsatian drink beer from their dad's pint glass. On the other side, a fat woman in yellow-rimmed glasses is holding the hand of a terrified-looking lad with a backwards cap and wispy facial hair. He looks younger than us. It's the world's crappest toyboy.

“Right then,” Robbie says. “Who's getting the beers in?”

Everyone looks at George.

“Go on then,” he says. “I'll get them, but I'll need someone to give me a hand.”