The Stranger You Know (18 page)

He tilted his head back to give his tough-guy stare, his come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough look. It looked good, he decided. It wasn’t a shock that he was popular with the girls, when all was said and done. But he was still young. No hair on his chest to speak of. He ran his finger down the trail that went from his belly button to beneath the towel, imagining Angela stroking the hair with her small, perfect fingers. His cock sprang to life instantly and he held it, thinking about later. Thinking about what she’d said to him the previous week, her hand sliding up and down on it the way he’d shown her.

‘I want to suck it.’

He hadn’t allowed her to. She’d be disgusted with herself afterwards, he thought. And he didn’t want her doing that kind of thing, not at her age. Fifteen was too young to be giving blowjobs. But the
idea
of it – her tongue flickering around the tip, her pretty mouth stretched wide to accommodate him as he thrust, his hand on her head, pushing her down on it …

Fucking hell. He groaned, checking his watch. He had time, he thought, for a wank before he finished getting ready. It was a good idea to relieve some of the pressure.

And it wouldn’t take long.

He felt ten feet tall, walking along her street with his backpack slung over one shoulder. He’d got a bottle of wine from a mate who worked at an off-licence in town and the bag was heavy. She was outside her house already, sitting on the brick pillar beside the gate. Her father had grown a massive hedge in front of the house, for privacy, and it needed cutting back. All he could see of her at first were her feet, crossed at the ankle, neat in white Converse. He liked that about her – that she didn’t feel the need to mince around in stupid heels when they had walls to scale and grass to trudge through. She was brave, he thought, and steady. Not a squealer. She was like him.

He got right up close to her before she realised he was there. ‘All right, babe.’

‘Josh!’ She went to slide down off the pillar but he got there in time to stop her, sliding between her knees and reaching up for a long, greedy kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist, laughing a little as her denim miniskirt edged up towards her hips.

‘This is risky.’

‘Is he in?’

‘Yeah. Getting ready to go.’

‘He’ was her dad. He drove buses, and this week it was the night bus. He worshipped Angela. If he knew the truth about what they’d been doing together he’d castrate Josh with rusty scissors and smile while he did it. Then he’d never speak to her again.

Josh didn’t give a fuck at that precise moment. She was so warm, so real in his arms. He kissed her again, her tongue teasing his and he remembered what she’d said, and how he imagined her running that tongue over his bell end, and he was rock hard, which she could feel, which made her laugh, again. He turned his head to let her nuzzle his neck – she had a thing about it, especially when he’d just shaved – and his eyes wandered to the house next door, and up to the front bedroom, where a figure was standing in the window, watching them. Fat Stu. Fifteen, like Angela, but that was all they had in common. He was short and podgy with a feathered fringe, like Princess Diana, and buck teeth that would pay for an orthodontist’s five-star beach holiday if his parents weren’t too mean to get them fixed. He wore black at weekends and listened to the Smiths, very loud, which was enough for Josh to be sure he was gay. He looked like a beaver, Josh thought, and that was what he called him – beaver boy. Or Fat Stu. Or dickhead. Or gaylord. Or anything else that came to mind.

Josh held Fat Stu’s gaze while he took a good handful of Angela’s arse and squeezed it, his fingers sliding towards the cleft of her buttocks. He ran the other hand up her back, the middle finger extended.
Go fuck yourself, beaver boy
. Even at that distance he could see the colour rushing into Stu’s cheeks before he turned away and disappeared. What was he doing, anyway, standing there in his mother’s bedroom? Probably trying on her clothes. Josh had a vision of him wearing high heels and stockings with suspenders on his invisible bottom half, and had to turn his head to bury his face in Angela’s hair so she wouldn’t notice him grinning and ask why. He didn’t want to talk about Fat Stu.

The distraction had at least taken his mind off sex so his erection had subsided enough to allow him to walk down the street.

‘Are you ready?’

She nodded.

‘Sure about this?’

Another emphatic nod.

‘Let’s go.’

It was nine by the time they got to the cemetery and the sun had set but only just, the sky still streaked with pink and purple clouds.
Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
. August was a funny month: hot, but the nights were getting longer, and the trees were starting to turn here and there. Summer wasn’t going to last much longer. Josh didn’t want to think about that, though. Didn’t want to think about A levels and university versus apprenticeships and homework and stress from his folks and not seeing Angela. They’d have to abandon their cemetery soon and he couldn’t think where else to go. Keeping the gloom to himself, Josh helped Angela climb the wall, her skirt riding high as she scrambled over. He swung himself up and over, landing on the grass beside her with a thud.

‘Usual place?’

‘Where else?’

The usual place was the far side of the graveyard, away from the houses, in an area that was mainly old gravestones. They were mossy, broken, the inscriptions faded away by years of polluted rain. Long ago, grieving families had planted trees around their loved ones’ graves, and they had grown tangled and unkempt, draped in ivy, climbing roses blossoming on briars that threaded through the branches. Sensibly, the council hadn’t attempted to fix it. The health and safety types had stuck a notice up warning about entry at your own risk and someone had donated a bench to go under the largest tree, and there was a patch of flat ground in front of it that was just right for the rug. It didn’t
feel
like they were in a graveyard, there.

The hardest part was getting across the graveyard in the gathering dusk. Josh had eyes like a cat and didn’t mind it, but Angela often stumbled. They had to go fast in case anyone saw them. He didn’t fancy explaining what they were doing to a nosy groundsman, or a neighbour, or even the police. This time, they made it without difficulty, though his heart was thudding in his chest like a heavy bass beat.

That would be excitement, a detached part of his brain observed. He looked at Angela, whose chest was rising and falling rapidly, and grinned at her.

‘So here we are.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Drink?’

‘Yeah.’ She smiled, sliding the bag off his shoulder and unzipping it, taking out the rug and unfolding it.

She was complicit in her own downfall.

She was happy.

Later, much later, and the sky had darkened to a brilliant blue that was as clear as glass. Angela’s knickers were on the ground beside them, her top pushed up, her skirt around her waist. She smiled up at him, her eyes hazy with lust and alcohol, and let her knees fall apart.

‘Do it.’

‘Ange.’ He was breathing hard.

‘Go on.’ She propped herself up on one elbow and ran a hand up his chest to stroke his face, then down again to his cock. ‘I want you in me.’

He’d never moved so fast. He leaned across to the bag and dug around for the condoms which he knew were in there, which had now disappeared. He’d taken them out of the box so he could get at them quickly. Nothing he touched felt like foil and it was too dark to see where they were.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t find the condoms.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her voice was soft, beseeching. She held on to him. ‘I don’t care. I want to feel
you
, not some rubber.’

He felt light-headed but there was still some reason in him, something detached from the maelstrom of desire that was making him shake like he had a fever. ‘You could get pregnant.’

‘It’s fine. It’s not the right time.’ She took his hand and put it between her legs. ‘Feel how much I want you.
Now
, Josh.’

He assumed she knew what she was talking about and it was all right. He was a virgin and so was she, so he didn’t have to worry about STDs. If he didn’t get inside her soon …

As he was thinking it she moved his hand away and lifted her hips, offering herself to him and he lost all his reason as he lowered himself onto her, into her, finding the right place by luck rather than skill. It was more difficult than he’d expected to get into her and he pushed, pressing against her until something gave. He stopped moving when she gave a gasp that was definitely pain, not pleasure, but she dug her nails into his arse.

‘Go on. Do it.’

So he kept pushing, and suddenly all of him was in her, and she was wet and warm and tight around him and he fucked her, his breath coming in gasps, thrusting hard as she pulled him towards her, scratching his back, moving to let him get even deeper though her face was twisted like it hurt, a lot. He didn’t care. He couldn’t. He was almost coming and then he was coming and he made a noise he’d never made before, a sound that was like choking and then he collapsed down to one side of her, bruising his cheek on the hard ground.

The euphoria lasted for about as long as it took him to get the power of speech back. Then the fear kicked in.

‘Oh Jesus. Angela. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?’

‘It’s fine.’ She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring up at the trees above them, with a strange little smile on her face.

‘Are you sure? Ange, if I hurt you …’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ She wrapped an arm around his neck and patted his shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’

He was used to being the one in charge, but suddenly he felt as if she was older than him. Decades older. Centuries.

‘Was it not—’
Good
, he was going to say, but she stopped him with a kiss.

‘It was lovely.’

‘Are you sore?’

‘I’ll survive.’ That smile again. Then, ‘Did you bring any tissues?’

He hadn’t. It hadn’t occurred to him. He’d thought all the mess would be in a condom, tied up neatly and thrown away. He gave her his socks, in the end, and she did her best to tidy herself up while he turned away, pretending he needed to do something important with the bag, with what was in the bag, until she’d finished and put her knickers back on.

She stood up and again he had the feeling that things had changed between them. She was in charge now, even though he’d had her. He couldn’t understand it. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘Sure. Of course. I’ll walk you home.’

‘Thanks.’

They walked to the place where they’d climbed in. Usually they stopped to snog before they went over the wall again, back to reality. This time, Angela shinned up the brickwork without even waiting for him to help her, let alone a kiss. He followed in silence, his trainers loose on his bare feet. He was on the point of asking what was wrong but he couldn’t, afraid to hear the answer. It hadn’t been good.
He
hadn’t been good. The buzz from the wine was gone. He felt sober, and tired, and he really wanted to be back at home, in bed, asleep, instead of walking along a pavement on the other side of town beside the girl he adored but somehow didn’t know any more.

They came to the point where Josh would have turned off if he was going straight home, and Angela stopped.

‘You might as well go. There’s no need to walk me all the way.’

‘I will, though.’

‘Come on. It’s ten minutes.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But that’s twenty minutes for you, there and back.’ She was looking away from him, down the street. She hadn’t looked at him since, he realised.

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘
I
don’t care.’ The way she said it made it sound as if he’d asked something so unreasonable, so outrageous, that the only possible response was mockery.

‘Ange …’

‘What?’ She looked at him then, with that pitying half-smile. ‘What is it, Josh?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I told you, I’m fine.’

‘You’re acting like you’re pissed off.’

She looked away again and sighed. ‘I’m not.’

‘I thought it was what you wanted.’

‘It was.’ She slid a hand around him, leaning against him, her head under his chin. ‘I’m tired.’

‘If that’s all.’

‘Of course.’

‘When will I see you again?’

‘I don’t know.’ She did sound tired, he thought. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe. Are you working?’

‘Breakfast and lunch.’ He had to be up at half past five to do the morning rush, the builders and scaffolders and taxi-drivers. They put away vast quantities of food in short order. Clearing away plates, up to his elbows in hot water, the muscles in his arms complaining as he hefted trays of mugs around. ‘I’ll be finished at two.’

‘I’ll come and find you.’

‘Don’t come to the café. I’ll go home and change.’ He was sensitive about the smell of the place, the grease that made his skin and hair reek. He didn’t want her associating it with him.

‘Three o’clock at your house, then.’

‘Yeah.’ He turned her face up to his and kissed her, but it was a chaste kiss, no tongues. Her lips were pursed against his. ‘Look, let me walk you home.’

She shook her head. ‘We’ve already said goodbye.’

‘Angela.’

‘Tomorrow, Josh.’ She slipped out of his grasp and walked away from him, down the street, moving carefully as if something hurt. But she’d said she was fine, he thought. His own legs were quivering as if he’d just done a fast four miles. Maybe that was the problem.

He waited until she’d gone out of sight before he turned to lope away. He would never forget that. He would never get over the guilt about the main thing he felt, watching her walk away from him.

Relief.

Chapter 14

It was one in the morning when Derwent ran out of words, around the same time Angela had run out of luck in his story. His voice was raw from talking, his eyes red from fatigue. I wouldn’t have dared suggest it was emotion. At some point he had switched from beer to whisky, pouring a glass for me. Scotch was not my usual drink but I drank it slowly, feeling the warmth spreading down to my toes with every sip. He knocked it back in gulps, not noticeably affected by it. Practice, I presumed, and added that to my list of things to worry about. An alcohol-dependent Derwent was not going to be an easier colleague.