The Things I Know(38)
‘Potts.’
‘Mr Potts, what d’you think of that?’ Emery jerked his head towards Hitch. ‘Anyone listening would think she doesn’t like me!’
‘I don’t think she does like you.’ Grayson took a sip of his pint.
Emery laughed loudly. ‘Is that right?’ he said, running his tongue under his top lip and around his gums. ‘That’s the funny thing, because all I’ve done is help out – you’d think she’d be more grateful! Saving her dad’s sorry butt. He’d be on his knees by now, what with Jonathan golden-balls sodding gone off to play cowboys.’
Grayson looked from Hitch to Emery, and she wished he hadn’t been drawn into this, certain that he would now be glad to get back to his needy mum and tiny flat tomorrow. Tomorrow . . . It will be here soon enough and yet here we are, wasting time in the bloody pub . . .
Emery continued, ‘I don’t think she’s ever liked me.’
‘Because you’ve always been a dickhead,’ she spat.
Tard . . . Fuckwit . . . Rabbitmouth . . . Whassamatta, Hitch, going to cry?
Emery ignored her. ‘But I’ll tell you who she does like – she likes Tarran, don’t you, cuz?’ He pointed at the pool table, pausing and holding her gaze, while she silently implored him to shut his horrible mouth.
‘Come on, Grayson, we’re going.’ She drained her glass and thumped it hard on the table.
Grayson drank a couple of mouthfuls and stood.
‘Surely you’re not going without buying me a pint?’ Emery placed his hand on his chest, suggesting that this wounded him.
‘Oh!’
She watched as sweet Grayson Potts put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small, stiff, brown, horseshoe-shaped leather pouch. He tilted it and coins dropped into the leather lip with a satisfying plink. ‘How much is a pint here?’ he asked out loud.
His kindness and sweet nature again lit the flame of shame in her chest. She had brought him here and now she had to get him out.
‘You’ll get a little bit of change out of four quid,’ Shelley called out from behind the bar.
Grayson smiled at her and counted out four pound coins and placed them in a neat tower on the sticky tabletop. ‘There you go.’
Emery stared at the pile of money. ‘What the fuck is that thing in your hand?’ he said, pointing.
Grayson lifted the brown leather pouch. ‘Oh, it’s my change purse. It was my grandad’s.’
Emery could barely contain the laughter that escaped his pursed wet lips. ‘Change purse!’ he repeated with a titter, as he walked forward and gathered the coins into his hand before giving them back to Grayson. ‘You keep this, son. Is it from your paper round?’
‘No, I haven’t got a paper round.’ Grayson held the money in his palm, seemingly unsure of what to do with it.
‘Come on, Grayson!’ Hitch held the door open and walked briskly out into the cool evening air.
‘I’m not sure what that was all about.’ He peered over his shoulder, looking back at the pub with confusion.
‘What it’s all about is that my cousin is a shit and the people in that pub are shits and I don’t want to spend my last ever evening with you in their company. I’d rather go somewhere we can be alone and kiss some more without being disturbed. How about that?’ She threw the car keys into the air and caught them. Her relief at being out of the threatening environment of the pub was sweet and instant.
‘Okay.’ He smiled at her and climbed into the cab of the pickup. ‘What’s wrong with my change purse? Or the term “change purse”, for that matter?’ he mused.
‘Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s plenty wrong with them idiots.’ She revved the car and swung it across the uneven surface of the car park. The gear stick felt the full force of her frustrations.
‘Do you really think that?’
‘Think what?’ she kept her eyes on the road.
‘That this will be our last ever evening together?’ Disappointment dripped from his words and she understood, feeling it too.
‘I think yes, it probably is.’ She took a deep breath, feeling the cold creep of reality wrap itself around her. ‘I mean, you live in London and I live here and we have such different lives. I can’t see the point at which they cross over, can you?’
She glanced at him as he apparently considered this.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I guess I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t, not really.’
‘Me neither. If I was someone who caught your bus or you worked on a farm in the area, well, then I’d see you every day!’ she beamed, ‘and I would really, really like that, but I’m not on your bus and you’re not working on a farm and so that’s that.’
‘So that’s that,’ he repeated, his tone so melancholic that it made her want to weep.
‘So let’s just enjoy right now, okay?’ She found brightness and lavished it on her words.
‘Okay,’ he whispered without conviction. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Back to my place.’ She smiled at him with false conviction and put her foot down.
Hitch cut the engine and switched off the lights, letting the Subaru idle down the last of the hill before coming to rest on the verge at the foot of the driveway. She quietly ratcheted up the handbrake and silently climbed from the cab. Looking at Grayson, she held her finger over her lips, indicating to him to keep quiet. The last thing she wanted was her mum and dad coming out and disturbing their peace. He nodded, watching as she reached into the back of the pickup for the tartan rug they had placed on the flat rock earlier and the bottle of cider she had taken from the larder, just in case. Keeping close to the hedgerow, with her phone flashlight showing the way, and with the bottle under her arm, she walked soundlessly along the paddock boundary with Grayson following closely behind. He too shone his phone at the ground. She felt him stumble a couple of times in the dark behind her and they both giggled softly into the night air. She found his ineptitude when standing on anything other than a flat, grey paving slab quite endearing, and the irony wasn’t lost on her that it was he with his two good feet who couldn’t remain upright. With expert precision and showing off a little, she kicked her leg up to climb over a sturdy stile and waited for him to do likewise, smiling at his cumbersome execution of a task so familiar to her.