Dangerous to Know (2 page)

Casual as you like, we stopped to let an old lady get off the train first (I even lifted her tartan shopping trolley down onto the platform), and there we were, along with a few pikey-looking types clearly also on their way to the festival. We’re on a branch line, not the London one, otherwise it probably would’ve been loads more crowded. I saw Jono and Sammy hanging around by the Coke machine near the waiting room. Jono was lighting a fag; Sammy was rolling one. Bloody idiots: they should have got out of the station quicker, before anyone asked to see a ticket.

“All right?” said Sammy. “No hassle from the guard?”

Bethany shook her head. “We just kept quiet.”

Sammy smiled and went a bit red. Jono said nothing. I think he had decided to pretend that Bethany wasn’t there. When I’d told them she was coming with us, Jono was like, “That freaky-looking posh bird from Mands’ crappy party? You asked her? Jack, she’ll whinge and moan the whole time. She’ll probably want to bring her servants with her or something. You’re such a dick.”

Sammy had laughed. You’re just jealous. She’s fit. He’s scored, all right? Get over it.”

We bundled out of the station and went into Spar to get some cider. Bethany paid for it: girls always seem to get away with that stuff more easily (we gave her the money, though). To be honest, before we left town I hadn’t thought about how we were going to get to the actual festival. When we got off the train, I reckoned maybe we’d follow some crusties from the station, but by the time we came out of the shop there was nobody around. It was a pretty small village: just the shop, an old man’s pub and some thatched cottages strung out along one road.

Sammy passed the cider to Bethany but she shook her head, digging around in her backpack instead.

“Come on,” Jono said, “we should get going. What time did your mum say we had to be at the gate for?”

“Ten at the latest.” Sammy was looking a bit worried: it was quarter to nine already. “They don’t let anyone in after that and Mum said it’s about five miles from here.”

“Ah, we’ve got ages,” Jono said. I don’t think he’d ever actually walked one mile before, let alone five.

I had, but I wasn’t worried. There was no way we were going to get on site by ten, but we were young and fit (well, kind of – if you didn’t count the lovely smoker’s cough). Anyway, we could climb a fence if we had to.

“Just let me have a look at this, or we won’t find it at all.” Bethany pulled an Ordnance Survey map out of her rucksack, unfolding it as Jono hooted with laughter. Across the street, a woman opened the front door of her cottage, put out a couple of milk bottles and glared at us. We were drawing too much attention to ourselves already.

Bethany ignored Jono, turning to Sammy. “Where did your mum say we should meet her?”

I was pretty impressed by the map. I smiled at her and started rolling a joint with the lovely sticky I’d got off Buggy the Dealer. This is actually a bit embarrassing, and no one knows, but last term I paid a Goth guy in the upper sixth a fiver to teach me how to skin up. Then I showed Jono and Sammy. Sammy could’ve asked his dad or his sister but didn’t want to. A man’s got to have some independence.

Sammy frowned, leaning over the map. “There it is on the main road, look. The staff gate is the first one you come to. We’ve got blue wristbands so it should be fine. But we should have been there, like, fifteen minutes ago. Mum told me to take a taxi from the station, gave me the number of one and everything.”

“Well, where’s the number? Let’s call it.” Jono stamped out his fag butt on the pavement and took a drag of cider, passing me the bottle.

Sammy grinned. “Lost it. Anyway, there’s no phone box, is there?”

“Waste of money,” I said. “Let’s walk.”

So we did.

By about eleven we’d found the festival site, thanks to Bethany and her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award, and we were utterly knackered. It was hilly round there. Even Sammy was moaning about his feet, and mine were killing me, too. Luckily, we were also quite drunk and slightly stoned, so no one was cold. The cider was bloody heavy: it made more sense to drink it, but we’d had to stop what seemed like a hundred times; five minutes after one of us had gone for a piss, someone else would need one and this was pretty funny, but maybe you had to be there. We’d been able to hear the music for about half an hour before we got within striking distance: a dull, low beat getting louder.

“There’s the blue gate,” Bethany said. We hung back near the hedge, not wanting to be spotted by the guys in fluorescent yellow coats.

“I could go and tell them we’re on the staff list,” Sammy said, sounding hopeful. “They might let us in even though the gate’s shut. Mum’s bound to have remembered to put us on. She got in a right stress about it.”

But just then a knackered old Ford Transit pulled up right by the gate, blinding us with its headlights on full beam. “Hi, mate,” I heard the driver say in this really posh voice. “We’re staff. Shantih Café. I’ve got a van full of chocolate brownies that need to get into the fridge within the hour.”

“Sorry, mate, I can’t let you in here. Cut-off was ten p.m.”

“It’s not even eleven yet. We got stuck in traffic outside Bristol. Listen, can’t you get hold of Damian? Damian Rhys-Edwards? He’s site manager.”

“Gate opens again at eight-thirty tomorrow, mate.”

“I’m sorry, but can you just radio Damian? Or Rebecca? We really need to get in tonight. I can’t lose this stock. I’ve got a thousand chocolate brownies back there.”

“Sorry, mate.”

“Shit,” whispered Jono, “They’re being really strict. What are we going to do?” His voice sounded kind of ragged and strung out. I hoped he wasn’t going to lose the plot.

“It’s cool,” I said, very quietly. “Don’t worry.” About a hundred yards past the gate, I could see white give-way markings painted on the road and a shadowy gap in the hedge: a lane running parallel to the site.

I beckoned to the others and walked right past the gate while the chocolate brownie guy was still arguing with security. I didn’t look behind me, but I sensed Bethany, Jono and Sammy following. We scarpered down the lane, filled with sudden terror that the fluorescent blokes might have spotted us after all and become suspicious.

It was time to stage a break-in.

All this began with a sofa Mum got from the small ads in the back of the paper. She needed a hand to lift it and Louis had a faculty meeting that night, so I met her at the hospital after school. She was running late, as usual. I sprawled in a canteen chair with a cup of black coffee – the least toxic thing I could find on the menu – trying not to breathe the scent of burnt cheese and disinfectant. It’s no smoking in there so I was gasping for a fag, but not desperate enough to stand out in the rain like the old dudes leaning on Zimmer frames by the fire escape, cheerfully gasping their last.

I was the only customer except a couple of women. One was that sour-faced heifer Nadine who works on the reception desk. Every time I went in, she looked at me like I was going to nick her handbag. The other I’d never seen before. She was a proper Kronenbourg – a real 1664. You know, sixteen and hot as hell from the back, ancient from the front. Never fails to make me feel a bit sick. Nadine talked and talked, not noticing or not caring that 1664 was clearly thinking about something else, tearing a leaflet into long, thin strips. I could people-watch for hours.

I looked up at the sound of a door opening on tired hinges and saw Mum dashing out of her office at the far end of the corridor. She ran into the canteen, belted over to the water cooler and filled a plastic cup, smiling at me over her shoulder, mouthing,
Sorry
, and holding up one hand, fingers spread.
I’ll be five minutes
.

I didn’t even have time to answer before Mum sped off back to her office, silver bracelets clinking as she half ran, half walked, splashing the water as she went. Sighing, I reached in my bag for my pad and started sketching the old horror in charge of the canteen till. She looked like a rotting potato in a hairnet so her face was pretty interesting to draw – full of weird lines and shadows – and I was getting really into it.

That was why it took me a while to realize that 1664 and Nadine were talking about me. Well, not me exactly, but my family. Nadine had her back to me; she didn’t know I was there. They both stared down the corridor after Mum, even though she’d shut the office door again. 1664 had left the leaflet half-shredded on the table, listening now.

“It just goes to show money can’t buy you everything,” Nadine said. “The ex-husband’s got it coming out of his ears, apparently, but what could he do?”

1664 turned slightly, eyes skimming over me as she stared after my mother, lips slightly pursed. Mum’s got all this curly hair and a massive friendly smile (when she’s not in one of her moods) and wears a lot of glittery Indian scarves. Even in her work clothes she doesn’t look smart.
I’m naturally scruffy
, she’ll always say.
That’s my problem
. She’d ironed her blue shirt that morning, but it was wrinkled now. Her bright green leather shoes, always scuffed, were made by Guatemalan women in a co-operative. Everything about 1664 was expensive, neat.

“And all the time the mother was working here as a counsellor?” 1664 said. “Never mind the father, you’d have thought she would have put a stop to it. I just don’t understand how you could let something like that happen. Mind you, I’m so lucky with Bethany. She’s very sensible, for a teenager.”

Nadine smiled. “Yes, it was a bit ironic about Caroline’s job. One of the twins was sectioned in the end. And all because of, you know – the drugs. And it was his brother who got him into it. I wouldn’t let my Tom go near either of them. They were ringleaders, a really terrible influence.”

“What was he taking, then?” 1664 asked. “I mean, how on earth could you just not notice? Your own child.”

“Marijuana, LSD, crack cocaine – everything,” Nadine went on. “The mad one attacked someone in the family, too. Of course, he was a danger to himself as well.”

I fought the urge to dump my lukewarm coffee over Nadine’s stupid head.

Ninety per cent of what she’d said was wrong. Herod had never been as much of a chemist as Owen, for example. All Herod did was smoke too much weed: he very rarely even took pills, or that’s what Owen told me, anyway. And Herod never attacked anyone. I had no idea where that story came from, but I’d heard it before. People talk a load of shit.

Herod did get sick, though. Really sick.

1664 looked down at the table, her mouth pursed with disapproval. She began tearing the leaflet into strips again. “Oh. Well, that’s dreadful but some families bring these things on themselves really, don’t they? Sitting back and letting your child live that kind of lifestyle. The mother and father must both be as bad as each other. I’m just glad Bethany’s always been so responsible.” She sighed. “Especially now.”

“Of course,” Nadine said.

Silence.

I thought about my father. It was more then two years since I’d seen him. He wouldn’t exactly win prizes for being the most amazing dad in the world, but that was no one else’s business. I was getting angrier and angrier, listening to that silly cow judging my family.

“Anyway,” 1664 said at last, making no sense but filling the quiet. “Anyway.”

“Mum?” I heard someone ask. “Can we go in yet? I really want to see Dad.”

I looked up and a girl came walking into the canteen wearing the contraceptive St Agnes’s uniform – burgundy skirt and blazer, nasty grey socks – but I hardly noticed that. Her black hair was loose around her shoulders, pinned back behind one ear with a blue silk rose. A string of amber beads hung around her neck, just visible behind the unbuttoned collar of her shirt. She was tall for a girl, too. I’d never seen her around. She had to be new in town. Her face was milky white against the black of her hair; she had light brown freckles on her nose and wore no make-up as far as I could tell – but some girls are clever about that, aren’t they? I remember Sammy asking his sister why she never wore any and Leila rolling her eyes, saying, “Listen, Sam, the aim’s to look as if you’re
not
wearing it.”

As I sat there, I thought of the other girls I knew: Georgie Hicks with that tidemark of orange make-up halfway down her neck; Gemma Lord’s bleached blonde hair and drawn-in eyebrows; Amanda, who was cool but just, well, nothing special. Mousy.

She left them all standing, this tall, pale girl.

I won’t have to crick my neck bending to kiss you.
The next second,
You’ve only just seen her. Christ, get a grip.

But she was looking at me, too.

I don’t know how to say it – I felt I’d known her before, that this girl I’d never met in my life was someone I recognised.

It was like looking at my own shadow: she was part of me.

Suddenly, I felt too hot. Then too cold. I looked down at my hands and they were shaking. Actually shaking.

1664 turned and left with her and it physically hurt, watching her go, as if I’d been kicked in the stomach. 1664 said something to Nadine about a tennis club on the way out but I didn’t really hear. I was just looking at the girl as they walked off down the corridor towards the oncology ward. Cancer.

I loved the way she walked, quick and graceful like a dancer.

Shit
, I thought.
Shit. I’ve got to see her again. I’ve got to find a way of seeing her again
.

I knew, even then. I just knew.

“I’m getting the fear,” Jono said as we climbed over the first fence into a wide, dark field studded with trees. “This is well creepy.”

Bethany rolled her eyes at me. Seemed like she felt the same way about Jono as he did about her.

Jono sat down in the grass, clutching fistfuls of it.

Sammy crouched down beside him. “It’s OK, Jon. Come on, we’ve got to get on site.”

“They’re coming for us,” Jono whispered.

I watched as Bethany knelt at Jono’s other side. “It’s all right,” she said in a soothing voice. “We’ll be OK. Let’s just get in there and have some beers and a nice sit down.”