wasn’t: and then I understood. She still needed me. Despite the hitching of skirts and posing with fags she still wasn’t properly in with the Vicky Shaw lot. This was her peace offering. ‘Saturday night, ok? You can stay over at mine.’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I probably have to babysit.’ ‘God, you always have to babysit. Your mum and dad are real dicks, aren’t they?’ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘they really are,’ and I took the linked arm she was offering and hoped I’d escaped. But the very next night, my dad sat me down and asked: ‘What do your friends do at the weekend?’ I froze, stared at a swirl in the carpet, tried to trace where it began and ended. ‘Cinema?’ I tried. ‘Or just, you know.’ ‘Is there a youth club you’d like to join?’ I shook my head. ‘Mum and I appreciate the way you’re so good with the wee ones, but we want you to go out and enjoy yourself too, you know. Why don’t you ask a friend to stay over?’ There was no way to explain that there wasn’t a single friend I could ask. ‘Actually,’ I blurted out, ‘Jacqueline Dunne said did I want to stay over at hers this Saturday.’ ‘Great!’ Dad said. ‘Your mum and I were worried that you were lonely.’ I walked over to Jacqueline’s in the afternoon. I was wearing a ribbed t-shirt and a lumberjack shirt with my new Levi’s and boots, and Jacqueline said I should have worn a skirt instead. ‘You can have a lend of one of mine,’ she said. I tried on the short black ra-ra skirt she gave me, but it was too baggy at the waist and wouldn’t stay up. Jacqueline looked at me with slitty eyes: ‘Paul Forrester says you look like a beanpole, you know.’ She found me a denim miniskirt and a belt to hold it on. ‘Maybe I should just wear my jeans,’ I said. ‘Don’t be so rare,’ she said. ‘You won’t have it off with a wee lad if you’re wearing a shirt like that and jeans.’
We left the house at about six o’clock, just as it was getting dark. ‘We’re away out,’ Jacqueline called to her mum, who was watching TV in the kitchen, and her mum didn’t ask where we were going, when we’d be back, anything. We walked up the high street and hung about the back of the off licence until an older fella Jacqueline knew agreed to buy us a quarter bottle of vodka. She shoved it in the inside of her jacket and we went down to the old public toilets to drink it. We bolted ourselves in the only cubicle with a lock and perched on the edge of the toilet to mix the vodka with Fanta. Jacqueline had the first go, and she took a big gulp and said she could feel herself getting pissed already. It was the first time I’d drunk vodka: the nail-polish-remover taste made me gag, and Jacqueline cracked up. At first I wished she’d keep her voice down in case someone would hear us, but then my stomach started to feel warm, and the glow spread through me until even my cheeks were pink, and I started to giggle too. When we’d finished downing the vodka, we made our way out towards the park, walking arm-in-arm. It was dark by then, and little clusters of teenagers had gathered at the fence. We hung about for a bit, chatting to a couple of girls Jacqueline sort-of knew. Some fellas arrived and they passed around tins. I could feel the vodka wearing off, and I was beginning to feel a bit sick. It started to drizzle. ‘Maybe we should go,’ I said to Jacqueline. ‘If it gets any heavier, I mean.’ ‘Wise up,’ she said. ‘You’d hardly notice the rain.’ Then she looked at me. ‘You are going to see someone, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Because it’s a waste of the vodka if you don’t.’ I gulped at my tin, which was warm and flat, while Jacqueline talked to three fellas. One of them had black hair in curtains and was wearing a denim jacket with the collar up; his friend was spotty with gingery-brown hair and the third had short brown hair shaved at the sides and a Le Coq Sportif jacket. This last one didn’t say much and I wondered if he was their equivalent of me. Jacqueline was sharing the fella-with-
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