The Things I Know(12)
‘Hiya, Hitch, what can I get you?’ Shelley asked from behind the bar.
‘Half of cider, please.’
‘How’s your brother doing?’
‘Good.’
‘You must miss him. I know I do. He was the only decent chap to look at around here! And so polite – reckon that’s what a fancy college does for you!’
Hitch nodded and thought that, had Jonathan stayed, Shelley might have been a nice girlfriend for him after all. She climbed on to a high stool and rested her elbows on the bar. A glance in the direction of the pool table told her that Tarran Buttermore and his gang were in. She made out that she hadn’t seen their nudges, smirks and comments whispered behind cupped palms. He looked up and smiled at her; she looked away instantly, sending her long hair shivering down her back, but not without letting him see the beginning of her own smile.
The evening, as ever, passed in a haze of chit-chat with Shelley about acquaintances they had in common, swapping small talk and gossip about men and women from school or in the community whose names were vaguely familiar. A long list of people who, according to Shelley, had had babies, got divorced, lost a parent, moved to Australia or, as in the case of Katrina Hopkirk, who was two years above them in school, had got into a fight and been arrested in Magaluf. They were the usual tales and titbits of life exchanged over every bar in every country all over the world and yet, when spoken in her postcode, using names that had been read out either side of hers in the class register, the news felt personal and unique.
It was a little before eleven when the bell rang out behind the bar.
‘Time, please, ladies and gentlemen!’ Shelley called. ‘Not that I can see many gentlemen here, only you lot!’
‘Not many ladies either, isn’t that right, Hitch?’ Tarran stood behind her now. His hot breath sent goose bumps over her skin and the scent of his sweat stirred something deep in her gut.
She looked up at him coyly and swung her legs from the stool before making her way out to the car park. Tarran walked close behind and she heard Digger yell something about a rematch and the boys laughed. Truth be told, she didn’t like him or his friends that much, cocky and loud, but she did like the way he looked in his tight jeans and white T-shirt beneath his red-and-black plaid shirt. Jonathan had said once before he left that, when there was little choice, it was easy to gravitate towards any opportunity, and Hitch thought now how true that was – Tarran was the only man who had ever shown any romantic interest in her. Her heart boomed in her chest and her palms began to sweat at the thought that tonight he might just like the way she looked too. Standing on the tarmac, she slowly ferreted in her bag for the keys to the truck. Glancing back at Tarran, she waited, giving him time to make a move.
Her thoughts flitted to that night three years ago when the two had climbed drunkenly up into the cab of the truck and fallen on to the wide front seats, fumbling for zippers, buttons and anything else that at that moment hindered their urgent need for contact. A night that had started with such promise but had ended in shame when, in a moment of distraction, she had tried to kiss him. Tarran had pulled his head back and pushed her chin upwards with the heel of his hand, where it stayed, her head snapped back against the window until he was done. Remembering the way she had felt, like a thing discarded, had robbed her of any confidence.
If he liked you, Hitch, he would have made a move within the last three years, you dummy! Things would have happened, developed, but they didn’t. What are you thinking? You don’t even like him, not really, you only like the idea of him, of being wanted . . .
No matter how much it upset her, she understood his reluctance, his aloofness. Who would want to kiss someone like her?
Her boldness evaporated and she quickened her pace towards the truck, wanting nothing more than to get home, mortified that she had considered anything else. Sitting in the driver’s seat with the hot flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, she looked up at the moon through the side window. It was big and beautiful and she felt herself slip away to a time and place where she was someone else. Someone a man wanted to kiss on the mouth and not simply climb on top of once in the dark, across the front seats of the stinky pickup, where muck and straw lined the footwells, in the dimly lit corner of a pub car park in the middle of bloody nowhere.
In her imagination, that evening years ago had ended differently and Tarran was a different person, a kind one. They had talked, whispered, exchanged affectionate words full of promise, and he had stared at her as if leaving was painful . . .
Looking across the car park now, she watched him climb into the passenger seat of Digger Whelks’s car. The two laughed like idiots, doubled over, and Digger punched his friend on the arm before they high-fived. She had no doubt that she was the topic under discussion. Digger beeped the horn three times in farewell and she heard the crunch of gravel under the tyres as he made a speedy exit.
Of course you’re keen to get away from someone like me . . . Of course you are . . .
With shaking fingers, Hitch turned the key and started the engine. This time she switched the radio off and drove slowly and quietly with caution along the deserted lanes to Waycott Farm. With only a mile or so to go, she swerved left and pulled the pickup into a layby.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly with white-knuckled hands, she let her head hang down until her forehead touched the leather-bound circle. She sat like that for a second or two, maybe more, before her tears fell like hot rain, cascading down her cheeks, smudging the remnants of her make-up and making breathing difficult as she gulped for air.