Free The War Zone by Alexander Stuart Page B

at the woman with The Mouth as if to say, ‘Just disappear back into the stonework, why don’t you?’ I feel for him. I feel for both my parents. There are very few interesting people around, most of them just give up or never had it, never had the edge, the urge. When I think about it, maybe Mum and Dad are seriously fucked up—but at least they’re still conscious. ‘Has anyone got any chewing gum?’ No one hears me. Caz and the other girl are talking. Toe-rag is
    wiping the beer scum off his glass with a finger. John is nodding his head to the blows of some inner battle. My mouth is a toilet, a graveyard. I want to spit, but I swallow instead.
    ‘What are we going to do then?’ asks Colin, bulbous cheeks wobbling in the dim light from the pub. He’s more of an outsider than me, I think. He’s stuck there, practically doubled-over in the most cramped part of the alcove, the resident butt of jokes, the jester figure, any group has one. He’s the one who’d be a future captain of industry in the stories, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to happen to Colin.
    ‘I want some danger,’ Caz says. The other girl laughs.
    ‘Sit next to Colin then,’ John tells her. ‘He’s been farting all night.’
    ‘Piss off!’ Colin can risk this. Nobody takes him seriously. ‘Let’s just go,’ Jessie says. She is standing with one hand on Nick’s shoulder, totally in control, not threatening Nick’s position as leader but rather enhancing it, reinforcing it. ‘Let’s take a ride.’ Nick’s voice is softer than the others, a slightly different accent. He seems to know something they don’t—nothing tangible, maybe just something about himself. ‘Let’s go,’ he says. ‘Tonight’s too beautiful to miss.’ And they all get up. Caz turns and looks at me, standing behind her. She frowns. I think she half likes me, though I’m hardly a serious proposition for her. It’s only when all of them start working their way out of the alcove and through the tight-knit boozers in the garden that I fully realize just how much a part of the picture they are. Everyone knows their names! If they were a threat—some really ugly fuckers from out of town, say, some dyed-in-the-wool Hell’s Angels—the local constabulary would be down on them like a ton of bricks. And no polite questioning, either—they’d be stuffed in the back of a police van, driven around for a few hours over some remarkably bumpy country roads, then dumped across the county line where their bikes would be found in a tangled heap. But Jessie’s friends are just playing, and she’s just playing with them. She wants the real fire. ‘Is there a good beach we could go to now?’ she asks Nick as we head around the back to the bikes. ‘I’d love to swim in the dark.’
    ‘Fucking tourist!’ Toe-rag says. ‘I need a slash.’ And he disappears into the ladies’ toilet, singing out and banging on all the doors, but there’s no one in there. ‘OK,’ Nick says. ‘Yeah…’
    ‘OK, yeah,’ Jessie mimics, giving him a hard time. The bikes are in front of us, a mixed bunch, none of those monster machines that weigh more than a house and hit 60 mph before your bum’s even on the seat. Jessie stops by Nick’s aging Norton. She looks right for this, she looks more dangerous than the bike—I don’t know what it is about her, she’s only wearing jeans and some sort of half-amputated shirt. ‘Pauline’s party is tonight, isn’t it?’ Caz says, coming up behind me, accidentally kicking a can or something that rattles across the stones of the car park. ‘Boring.’ Caz’s friend tilts her head mockingly at John, who is checking something on the rear axle of his bike, an old but powerful Suzuki. ‘Been there, done that one, have you, John?’ ‘Fucking right.’
    ‘I heard she’s got AIDS,’ fat Colin says, toughing it out with the rest of the boys. ‘Got it off a Marine.’
    ‘Probably got it off me,’ John says, lighting a cigarette