Free The War Zone by Alexander Stuart Page A

John?’ Nick dives in, convincing John that I’m not worth bothering about while sending Jessie all the right signals. ‘I’m going to have one more, then let’s go. Let’s do something.’ Nick gets up and I try to do the same, sensing an urgent need somewhere between my stomach and my mouth. ‘Here, Jessica,’ a weasel face—or is it a weasel voice?—says somewhere behind me, beneath me, whatever. ‘Your brother reckons he used to drink in London. Is that right?’ Caz smiles across at me. ‘He doesn’t look too brilliant.’ I manage to inch my way around the alcove toward her. ‘You look like you’ve swallowed a bucket of worms.’
    ‘I think I have.’ I steady myself on the shoulder of Colin, I think it is—a fat-faced wanker who’s the hanger-on of the group. ‘I’ll be back,’ I manage through a clogged mouth.
    The next few moments are a dreamlike journey, weaving through the tiny pub garden, banging into everything there is to bang into and doing about three unnecessary circuits as I try to keep out of range of Mum and Dad. I get a vivid, whirling picture of the whole village falling down three hills toward this focal point, where an uneven mass of increasingly noisy drunks straddles the road, lit sporadically by the sick white or slow red of cars’ reverse and brake lights scarring the growing darkness as they move in and out of the car park around the back.
    It’s here that I’m headed, too, stepping right in front of an oncoming Hummer in my struggle to reach the toilets in time. I almost don’t make it, feeling my mouth fill with something vile and fluid as I stagger up the step, into the welcoming stench and silence of the gents. My gut pushes upward, like a drum hit from the wrong side, my mouth falls open and I throw myself over the urinal as a torrent of vomit comes out, nearly choking me as I gasp for air.
    There is a quiet that follows throwing up, a sense of peace and achievement matched by an incredible lightness of the stomach. Only your mouth tastes like shit. The rest of you is elated, alive to the freshness of a world unsullied by waves of nausea. Every detail is pure, from the echoing drip of the cistern overhead to the graffiti by the condom machine, like a torch shone on someone else’s mind: ‘Helen—we want to screw you. MM. NH. TF. Clelia can swallow it whole.’
    I’m feeling great by the time I get back outside, ready for anything—even Jessie’s friends. The trouble is, I’m with them, they’re not really with me, and as I walk back around from the car park, I have a momentary doubt as to whether I should call it quits now and leave them to it. They’re still there, jammed into the stone alcove by the entrance to the pub, glasses on the table, stoned expressions all around.
    Jessie and Nick are at one end of the group, a little apart from the rest, deep in some intensely private conversation, their eyes locked in some middle zone where nothing else exists. For a moment, she looks like any other older sister. For a moment, I wish I could be where they are. Then, as I skirt around the serious drinkers, crunching over the crisps and shit their dogs are eating off the ground, I glimpse Dad, hard to spot at first in the dark but half lit by the curtained glow of a cottage across the street.
    He is talking to a woman who has The Mouth some of the locals have: like a chicken’s arse, drawn tight with string. I am close enough now to see him as he looks away, glancing at Mum—who is laughing at something someone else has just said—then looking quickly in Jessie’s direction, his head making minute adjustments as he fixes on her and Nick. I want to read something into it, but the thought of them together, her washing his dong and doing whatever else, seems far away, not possible at this moment, yet I know it’s there. What is it to me? Why should I care if it’s Dad’s prick or Nick’s prick she’s interested in?
    He looks away, drinking his pint and nodding