Another Life Altogether (30 page)

A smile tugged at the edge of my lips as I watched Stan brush at the spatters on his jacket and Greg frantically wipe the whiskey that had hit him in the eyes. For a second, I looked across at Malcolm. Our eyes met only briefly, but in that moment I felt as if he saw into me—my hatred of Stan and the agony I felt at witnessing this scene. He looked away toward Dizzy. She was moving slowly backward, toward the door.

“God, I’m sorry, Stan, I really am,” Tracey said, trying to help wipe his jacket.

Stan pushed her away. “Stupid fucking bitch,” he muttered.

Tracey stepped back, swinging the whiskey bottle in my direction. Without even thinking, I reached for it. “Here, Trace, I’ll take that for you,” I said. I grabbed the bottle with loose enthusiasm, swinging it widely so that, with the bottle’s mouth pointed outward, whiskey splashed in a wide, liquid arc around the room.

“Jesus! Fuck! Shit! Christ almighty!” A chorus of expletives sounded as everyone around me was doused with a generous spray of whiskey. And then a chaos of churning bodies and flailing limbs as boys wiped dripping liquid from their faces and pushed wet hair out of their eyes.

“Jesse, you idiot!” Tracey yelled, rubbing at the splotches darkening the fabric of her blouse.

“Yeah, she’s a fucking idiot, all right,” Stan barked. “There’s hardly any fucking drink left, and that fat bitch has got away.” In the anarchy prompted by the whiskey shower, Dizzy had fled the cloakroom.

“You think she’s going to tell the vicar, Stan?” Greg asked.

Stan rolled his eyes. “Where do you think she’s gone, you fucking bonehead? To powder her fucking nose? Of course she’s gone to tell the vicar.”

“Christ,” Greg said. “I hope he doesn’t chuck us out.”

“I’m not worried about that,” another boy added. “I just hope he doesn’t phone my dad.” At this, a disconcerted mumble traveled around the room.

“I’m sorry, Stan,” I said. “I didn’t mean to …” I let my words fade as Stan turned to look at Malcolm and Ken.

“You breathe a fucking word about someone trying to burn you, Kenny,” he snarled, “and I promise you that I will make you sorry you were ever fucking born. Besides, everybody here will say it was you that was causing trouble, right, lads?”

Everyone around me nodded.

“I won’t say anything, Stan, I promise,” Ken said. “Malcolm won’t say anything, either, will you, Malcolm?” When Malcolm remained stonily silent, Ken tugged on his arm. “Don’t say anything, Malcolm. Please. I don’t want any trouble. And Stan didn’t really hurt me. It was just an accident.”

“All right, Ken. For you, I won’t say anything.”

Relieved, Ken scurried toward the exit. But Malcolm paused before he made to leave, sweeping the room with a look of disgust. When his eyes finally met mine, I thought I detected a subtle shift in his expression—a hint of curiosity and, possibly, recognition—before he turned away and marched out the door.

THE ROOM IN WHICH
the disco was held had that oppressive, institutional feeling that comes with khaki-green walls and narrow windows that have been painted forever closed. It was stuffy and crowded and its innate dust and disinfectant odors blended with the smell of bodies and breath. In the front, on a stage backed by a banner that read
FRIDAY NIGHT IS BINGO NIGHT: JOIN US AT THE REATTON DERBY AND JOAN CLUB
, the dj stood behind a console of three colored lights that flashed in rhythm to the thumping music. Most of the dancers were girls assembled in little circles on the dance floor. The boys flanked the walls, their hands stuffed into their pockets, their heads bobbing with the music’s beat.

Tracey and I wandered out of the cloakroom and found the Debbies sitting on a row of chairs near the stage. Dressed in full Bay City
Rollers regalia (tartan-trimmed jackets and half-mast trousers, tartan socks and shiny platform boots), they were easy to spot. “Where the heck have you two been?” demanded Debbie Masters.

“Getting a bloody lecture from the vicar,” Tracey responded, plunking herself down in one of the empty chairs. I sat down beside her.

“Why? What happened?” All three of the Debbies looked eagerly toward us.

Tracey rolled her eyes. “This idiot,” she said, sticking her elbow in my side, “managed to spray whiskey round the entire room. So when the vicar comes in it smells like a bloody brewery. God, you should have heard him go on and on.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I protested. “And it wasn’t me who brought the whiskey here in the first place. Besides, the vicar was just as bothered about the smoking—”

“Oh, shut up, Jesse,” Tracey snapped.

I felt stung. “No need to be like that. If Stan and Greg hadn’t started trouble in the first place, if they hadn’t been picking on Ken—”

“Don’t you say a word against Greg! Him and me were getting on great until you went and ruined everything.”

“But I didn’t mean to,” I said weakly.

Of course, Stan and Greg hadn’t been very happy with me, either. As soon as Malcolm and Ken left the cloakroom, Stan commanded me to put the top on the whiskey bottle and hide it, saying, “I don’t fucking care where you put it—up your bloody arse, for all I mind. But if I get the blame from the fucking vicar, you’ll be getting the blame from me.” Almost tripping over myself, I’d scrambled to find somewhere to stow the bottle. The only real place to hide anything in the otherwise bare cloakroom was among the coats hanging all around the wall, and I’d shoved it into my own coat pocket and then pulled the other coats over it to hide it from view in time for Reverend Mullins’s entry. Not that I needed to be afraid, since Reverend Mullins’s idea of discipline was to subject us to a cheery little pep talk about how turning to God would provide us with far more solace than could ever be found in alcohol
and how, though smoking might seem “cool” to us teenagers, it really wasn’t “cool with Jesus.” He delivered his lecture to a chorus of scornful snorts and barely suppressed giggles, and, upon suggesting that we might want to attend the Christmas Day service, by Stan’s bellowed, derisive laughter. At this, the vicar seemed finally to understand that he needed to take a firmer hand and concluded his chat by telling us, “If I hear so much as a whisper of trouble tonight, I’ll have the police down here as fast as you can say ‘Jack Robinson,’ and your parents on the phone within five minutes of that.”

Fortunately for me, the vicar had prattled on for so long that by the time he was finished, everyone seemed to have forgotten that it was my apparent clumsiness that had saddled us with this lecture. Spirits deflated by the prospect of having the local constabulary swoop down on them, Stan, Greg, and the rest of the boys drifted sulkily out of the cloakroom into the main hall.

“I’m sorry, Trace,” I said, pressing my hand against her arm. “But, really, don’t you think things went a bit too far with Ken? I mean, he really could’ve got hurt.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jesse, don’t be so bloody stupid. I mean, what kind of idiot cares about pudgy-faced little Ken? Never mind that ugly pervert Malcolm Clements. Me and Greg were getting on really good in there. Didn’t you see? And then you had to go and spoil it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again, terrified of the anger that showed in Tracey’s face. “I didn’t mean to.” I tugged against her sleeve and looked at her imploringly, but she simply pressed her eyes into burning slits and turned away.

For most of the evening, Tracey and the Debbies ignored me. When they got up to dance with all the other girls, I wasn’t invited. When Tracey went to buy pop and crisps, she asked the Debbies what they wanted but didn’t even look my way. While the four of them huddled together to chat, not only was I not included but, from the way the Debbies kept snickering in my direction, I got the distinct impression they were talking about me.

This was it, I realized. I had fallen from grace. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. If I’d only stood by and done nothing, Tracey wouldn’t be angry at me. She was right—why should I care about Kevin or Malcolm? They weren’t the people I wanted to be my friends. I could see them now, across the dance floor, in their pathetic little group. Dizzy and Malcolm dancing together, as mismatched and comical as Laurel and Hardy—Dizzy gyrating around in her big velvet sack while Malcolm, head thrown back and eyes half closed, pranced about like a pixie. From the sidelines, his eyes still swollen from crying, Kevin watched them enthralled. Everyone else thought they looked ridiculous. Being laughed at like that, being made the butt of everybody’s jokes, was awful; it was the worst thing I could imagine. Except, I thought as I watched Malcolm spinning round and round, what if you really didn’t care? What if you were somehow able to let the mocking slide off you? What if it made no difference to you at all? For a moment, I felt the possibility touch me, the idea of that solidity, that confidence—knowing you were different but embracing it, occupying it, and being utterly immune to the derision or hatred of anyone else. But then, when Malcolm toppled outward, fell against another boy, and the boy shoved him away so that he staggered back and hit Dizzy, I felt that possibility fall away. No matter how carefree you might be, there was always someone on the sidelines wanting to push you around.

SHAKEN BY THE SCENE
that had played out in the cloakroom and cold-shouldered by Tracey, I felt my longing for Amanda’s presence intensify. I watched the entrance of the dance hall, willing her to arrive. When she finally entered the room, she looked stunning, wearing a calf-length emerald-green dress made of a thin, silky material that draped itself in shiny folds over her frame and infallibly outlined her impressive curves. Her hair, styled so that it rippled back from her face in shiny waves, was crowned by a tiara she’d fashioned out of silver
Christmas tree tinsel. Even in the dimly lit hall, her features were bright and flushed, as if she had only just come in from the cold. My stomach turned somersaults at the sight of her. The air seemed to crackle around her, as if charged. As she moved, all the eyes in the room followed her.

“God, look at the bloody state of her,” Tracey said. “She looks like a bloody Christmas tree gone wrong. Should stick some bloody ornaments on her fat backside—that’d complete the picture perfectly.”

“I think she looks fantastic,” I said.

“Fantastic? Maybe to an idiot without any fashion sense,” Tracey huffed.

I felt myself shrink, but then my heart began to race as Amanda veered away from her friends and toward us.

“Don’t bother us, Amanda,” Tracey said. “We’ve got better things to do than talk to you.”

“Didn’t come to talk to you, did I?” Amanda said. Her words slid together, and she had a glazed, loose look on her face. “Came to see Jesse.” She turned to look at me, and as she did, her dress swished around her, a glossy emerald wave. “Having a good time?” she asked, giving me a broad but slightly slack smile.

“Yes, it’s all right,” I said, barely able to get the words out.

“Good, that’s good.” She wrinkled up her nose and moved her head up and down in a jerky nod.

“Yes,” I agreed, searching desperately for something interesting or amusing to say.

“You had a dance yet, then?”

I shook my head. “I can’t really dance.”

“Can’t dance?” She furrowed her brow. “Don’t be daft!” She batted at the air with her hand, stumbling forward slightly.

“You’re drunk!” Tracey declared, flashing Amanda a contemptuous look.

“No, I’m not. And it wouldn’t be any business of yours if I was. Anyway,
Stan already told me you had a go at his whiskey earlier, so don’t be such a bloody hypocrite.”

“At least I didn’t spray most of the bottle around the room.”

Amanda laughed. “Yeah, I heard about that, Jesse. Managed to piss Stan off, you did. Don’t worry, though. I told him not to get his knickers in a twist. He’s got a couple of dozen more where that bottle came from. Got them dead cheap, from a mate of his. He brought three bottles with him tonight. Stashed the rest outside near his motorbike. We’ve been having a bit of a booze-up outside. Had to come in, though. It’s bloody freezing now out there.”

I wondered if Stan had told Amanda about the rest of the happenings in the cloakroom, about his efforts to burn Ken with his cigarette or his threats to Malcolm and Dizzy. I wondered what Amanda would think if she knew. She’d been quick to jump to my defense when Tracey and the other kids at the bus stop had been tormenting me; maybe she would be angry at Stan for being a bully, too. For a moment, I considered telling her. But while I wanted nothing more than to convince her of Stan’s unworthiness, the experience in the cloakroom had left me fearful of him. He was capable of really hurting someone, and capable of enjoying it. I didn’t want to give him a reason to want to burn me with his cigarette.

Abruptly, the music changed. Apparently, the dj, whose last several records had been a series of chirpy melodies, had decided on a change of mood, and the booming bass of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” sounded out across the room.

“Oh, come on, Jesse, you’ve got to dance to this.” Amanda gestured toward me.

“Me? Dance?”

“Yeah. Come on,” she said, reaching over to grab my arm. “Don’t be shy.”

“But I can’t, I …” I wanted to explain that, after my parents, I was one of the most inept dancers in the world, that I’d only embarrass myself
beyond hope if I were to try to get up and follow her. At the same time, though, I longed to glide onto the dance floor with Amanda. Hadn’t I written about it in my letter to her? Surely I wasn’t going to let this chance go by?

“Oh, come on, don’t be daft.” She pulled on my arm, moved backward unsteadily, and I let her drag me after her, into the crowd.

She pulled me into the center of the floor and, letting go of my hand, closed her eyes, tossed back her head, and started to dance. While the music pulsed and swam, I stood there watching her. She moved within a shimmering sheen of green, clapping her hands, swaying her hips, moving her feet in time to the music’s rhythm, her face—eyes still closed—rapt. She was utterly mesmerizing.

“Come on, Jesse,” she said, opening her eyes, looking indignant. “You can’t just stand there, you’ve got to dance.” She moved closer.