Out of Towners (3 page)

Robbie pulls a set of keys from his pocket. He goes up the steps, unlocks the door and heads inside. The rest of us follow him in.

It's cool in the caravan. The carpet is cream and the upholstery is oatmeal and brown tartan. The kitchen units and the storage cabinets are mock pine. The whole place smells of citrus air freshener. We go up to the far end and dump our bags, flopping onto the seats under a big window looking out across Green Zone. Robbie fumbles about under the sink in the kitchen area, making sure the gas and electricity are ready to go, and that the hot water's on. When he's finished, he comes and sits next to me.

George opens up his suitcase. He pulls out four cans of Fosters and plonks them down on the low table in front of us.

“Help yourselves,” he says.

Nobody needs to be asked twice. We all crack open a can and bash them together.

“We're here lads,” Robbie says.

I nod. We're here. It's properly starting to sink in now. I have a gulp of Fosters. It tastes good. I put the can back on the table.

“We almost didn't make it though,” I say. “Running into those dickheads in the cars.”

Robbie smiles.

“We don't like out of towners,” he says, voice gruff like Kirkie's mate.

We all laugh.

Dylan shakes his head.

“They were a bunch of pussies. If the coppers hadn't turned up, we could have taken ‘em.”

George sighs. Me and Robbie laugh. In his mind Dylan's one of the toughest men alive. But the fact is, he weighs about nine stone. He does a lot of exercise. Cycling, stuff like that. He's got the wiry build of one of those scrawny little riders who shoot up the mountain stages in the Tour De France. It's a good build for endurance. Not so good for fighting, I wouldn't have thought.

Dylan shrugs.

“You could see. They were all wasters. A couple of punches and that would be the end of that. Off down A&E.” He stands up, rolling his shoulders, bobbing and weaving, shooting out the occasional right jab, snorting through his nose for an extra bit of impact.

I can't help cracking up.

“Do you reckon lads like that fight fair?” I ask.

“It doesn't matter if they fight fair or not. However they want to do it, they're going down.” He fires out a few more jabs, leaning to one side then the other, before swinging a big right.

George tuts.

“All your ducking and diving isn't going to help you when you're drinking your dinner through a straw,” he says.

There's no answer to that. Dylan sits back down.

I take another swig of beer and look at my watch. Half past three. It's amazing to think that this time last week we were finishing our final GCSE. Dylan's brothers Liam and Aaron came to pick us up from Parkway College in their knackered old Ford Escort and drove us into Letchford for a celebratory pint. Me, Robbie and Dylan squashed across the back seat, George curled round in a ball in the boot. Seven days. It seems like years ago.

Robbie reaches over and puts the TV on. It's a Toshiba portable resting on top of an old silver VHS player.

Dylan's given up on the Vin Diesel act now.

“You got satellite?” he asks.

“Nah,” Robbie says.

Dylan puffs out his cheeks.

“That's no good.”

Robbie flicks through the channels. We end up watching
Changing Faces
on ITV. It's the best that's on offer. A housewife from Grimsby has been done up to look like Nicole Kidman. A style expert who's overdone the Botox is giving hints for maintaining the new image, recommending some cover-up foundation for the tattoos on the woman's hands.

It takes us about fifteen minutes to finish our beers. When we're all done, Robbie produces a roll of black bin liners from his bag. He's come prepared.

“Remember,” he says, ripping a bin liner off the roll and putting the empty cans in. “There's got to be absolutely no sign we've been here.”

We all nod.

A couple more minutes pass, taking it easy. I'm looking through the photos on my phone. Dylan's looking at his mobile too. He's got an iphone and it's awesome. It could probably make you a cup of tea if you asked it to. His dad owns a building firm. Cawsey Contractors. His family are rolling in cash. My mum and dad both work for the NHS. It doesn't pay quite so well. Dylan's starting work for his old man in the autumn. He's going to be loaded while the rest of us are grafting at Sixth Form.

Eventually Robbie stands up.

“Okay,” he says, muting the telly. “I suppose I'd better tell you where things are in here.”

I put my phone down. Dylan does the same. George has been staring out of the windows, watching the world go by, but he turns his focus back to what's happening inside the caravan.

“This is the main living and dining area.” Robbie jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Over there you've got the kitchen – gas cooker, microwave, fridge-freezer. On the left there's two bedrooms, one with a double bed, one with two singles. Then at the far end is the bathroom. In there you've got a shower, bog and sink. Like I said. Luxury.”

George looks at him.

“You'd make a good caravan salesman.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Or an air stewardess.”

Robbie looks a bit sheepish. He turns the volume back up on the TV and sits down.

Dylan scratches his earlobe.

“So who's sleeping where?” he asks.

“I thought me and Chris would go in the single beds,” Robbie says. “You and George can take the double.”

Dylan looks mortified.

“Why have we got to go in the double?”

“Thought you'd like it, Dylan. I know how you and George feel about each other.” Robbie glances over at me. He winks.

Dylan looks like he's about to go off on one.

George reaches out and puts his hand on Dylan's knee.

“Don't worry,” he says. “I'll be gentle with you.”

We spend the next few minutes getting the bedrooms organised. The one I'm sharing with Robbie is a pretty tight squeeze. The whole room is only about five foot by eight. Each of the beds is two foot across, a bare mattress with a pattern of brown leaves on a wooden base. Between the beds is a gangway just wide enough to stand in. At the far end there's a little bedside cabinet and two white headboards screwed to the wall.

I throw my stuff onto the bed furthest from the door, under the window. I get my sleeping bag out, unroll it on the mattress and toss my pillow under the headboard. There's a nametag sewn into the pillowcase.
Christopher Norton
. My mum put it there when I went on a trip to Ironbridge at Primary school. I unzip the sleeping bag and turn the top down.

“Getting prepared, I see,” Robbie says.

“Yeah mate. Got a feeling I might be slightly out of it by bedtime.”

Robbie chucks his own sleeping bag down.

“Too right.”

I stick my wash bag and towel in the bathroom, then go into the other bedroom to see what Dylan and George are up to. Dylan's already unloaded his gear and lobbed it in a pile in the corner. I realise now why he was struggling with his rucksack. The daft twat has brought a set of weights. He's standing next to the bed doing bicep curls.

I frown.

“Shit, man. You're on your holidays.”

Dylan keeps on flexing.

George is unloading his case, spreading things out over the bed. I quickly bunged a few bits in my bag before I left the house this morning. It looks like George was up all night packing. He's got four spare pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, a jumper, some T-shirts, a couple of extra pairs of trousers. He's even got some blue pyjamas. I've got one
Christopher Norton
on my pillowcase. George has got
George McKenna
plastered all over the place. Everything's neatly folded.

“My mum laid it all out for me,” George says.

I pull a face.

“But she thinks you're spending the weekend at my gaff mate. Not trekking across the Andes.”

George lifts an eyebrow.

“You know what my mum's like.”

I leave him to it and go back out into the living area. On TV,
Changing Faces
has finished. It's a local news bulletin now. There's been a big protest about the location of a phone mast on an estate in Whitbourne. The organiser is being interviewed. In the background all the protesters are gassing into their mobiles, waving at the camera and mouthing messages.

It's nearly half past four. Everyone's back sitting around the table.

Robbie looks at us all.

“Right then,” he says. “This is the million pound question. What do you want to do tonight?”

“Dunno,” I say. “We could wander into town, I suppose, or we could get ourselves up to the Family Entertainment Centre. See what's going on. From the look of that poster we saw on the way in, they're having a bit of a do.”

Dylan's eyes light up.

“I reckon we should stick around here. There's bound to be some talent going spare on a site this size.”

I look at George.

“What do you think?”

George spreads his arms wide.

“I'm up for that if everyone else is.”

Robbie's the Wonderland expert. He holds his hands out, palms upwards.

“Well,” he says. “It's a bit crap in there sometimes, but we'll give it a go. What we need to do is get some supplies in to see us through to the evening. Who's going down the Supermarket?”

“I'll go,” Dylan says.

Robbie's not convinced.

“I don't reckon that's a good idea. That copper in Whitbourne thought you were about twelve. If they won't sell you alcohol we're not going to have much of a night.”

Dylan scowls.

I raise my hand.

“I'll go.”

George yawns and stretches.

“And I'll go with him,” he says.

We stand up.

“What are we getting then?” I ask.

“Cheapest booze they've got,” Robbie says. “And lots of it.”

Two other people are in the Wonderland Supermarket. One bloke, one woman. The bloke's about forty with custard-coloured hair. A bleach-job gone wrong. He's in a pair of chino shorts and a double-thickness red T-shirt with
SIGNATURE
embroidered on the front. The woman's probably early thirties. She looks like she's recently got out of bed. She's wearing a white towelling dressing gown and a pair of sky-blue fluffy slippers. They're both shuffling around aimlessly, browsing the shelves.

Me and George make straight for the back of the shop, through an aisle with bread and cakes on one side and tinned goods on the other. We know what we're after. The off-licence section. It's an impressive sight. Bitters. Lagers. Wines. Spirits. Good stuff. Cheap stuff. None of it is what we're looking for. We're looking for mega-cheap stuff. The most alcohol for the least layout. And I think I've found the answer.

“Jackpot,” I say.

George looks confused.

I point to the bottom shelf.

“White Thunderbolt Cider. Three litres for two pounds sixty-nine. Five percent volume.”

George is smiling.

“Now you're talking,” he says.

We grab a bottle each. Job done.

“What about some food?” George asks.

He's got a point. My stomach is rumbling. None of us has eaten anything since we had some rough hot dogs from a kiosk outside Victoria Coach Station. And that was about twelve o'clock.

I shrug. Finding something to drink was easy. Finding something to eat is another thing entirely. Two minutes of wandering up and down later, and we've got four bags of Scampi Nik Naks, Four Spicy Curry King Pot Noodles and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. We look at one another and nod, satisfied. Then we head across to pay.

There are three checkouts, but only one of them is open. The woman at the till is thin with grey hair and a faded
Wrestlemania
T-shirt. She's got gold rings on every finger. Sovereigns, things that look like curtain hooks, one that says
MAM
, a green heart held between two hands.

We're third in the queue, behind the bloke in the
SIGNATURE
T-shirt. The woman in the dressing gown is up at the front. She puts a box of Pop Tarts and a pack of part-baked croissants onto the counter and asks for twenty Bensons. She's not exactly getting the week's shopping but she's paying for it with Switch and she can't get the card out of her purse. Her false nails are so long, there's no way of getting a proper grip on the edge of the plastic. By the time she's managed to get the card out and tapped her PIN number into the machine,
SIGNATURE
Man has given up. He's left his basket on the counter and set off round the shop again.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

“We could be here some time,” I say.

I get George to BlueTooth me the picture from the Bus Depot. When that's done, I look at the tat on the shelves beside the tills. Union Jack air fresheners. A torch in the shape of a giant match with a red tip. Battery-operated hand-held fans.

SIGNATURE
Man is back now. He's got himself a baguette in a long paper bag and he's trying to balance it on top of the rest of his shopping. Every time he lets go of the baguette, it slides down to one side or the other. It doesn't stop him trying.

Dressing Gown Woman has finally got her act together. She shoves her Pop Tarts into a carrier bag while the checkout operator runs the barcode reader over
SIGNATURE
Man's groceries. While he pays up, we put our bits and pieces down on the conveyor belt.

The woman at the till has clocked our six litres of cider. She looks up with suspicion in her eyes. There's an awkward couple of seconds, then she starts scanning.

“Fifteen ninety-eight,” she says.

I put the shopping into two bags while George hands over a twenty and then we start the journey back.

I look at the chalets as we go through Blue Zone. They've all got white walls and peaked slate roofs. Some of them, the privately-owned ones I suppose, are like proper homes. They've got plant pots and hanging baskets and little plastic fences and a patch of lawn the size of a postage stamp. An old geezer with a terracotta tan and a load of white chest hair is pushing a mower up and down outside a chalet on the right. He's wheezing and pouring with sweat. He looks like he's going to collapse at any moment.