As she drove away she saw Fraser johnson hanging around outside the amusements arcade.
He waved to her urgently, but she drove on. She owed Fraser a bit of cash, not a lot, but because of the deal she had just done she wasn't going to be able to settle up with him for a while. Anyway, she would probably see him that evening, and by then things would be different.
She drove towards home, thinking about Debra, the titless bitch, the bleeding bitch with the spotty fucking face, and that lad called Mark who'd turned up with her from somewhere and crashed at her place the night before. In fact, all of them had been at her place overnight, because Mark's mates came along too. They'd gone through her stuff, looking at her lists, asking her stupid bloody questions about what she wrote down.
Because of this she was ready for more aggravation from them, but halfway up the long hill of Hyde Avenue the engine coughed and she pulled over to the side. She left the car where it stopped, the driver's door open. lt was a pile of crap, anyway. It took her ten minutes to walk up to the house where she was staying, the one the Housing Benefit woman had found her a couple of weeks back. The lads had gone. She looked for food, but if there had been any they had stolen it. She did a line of the coke, then put away the rest for later.
She walked round the damaged interior of the house, angry with everything and everyone.
Someone had had a piss on her stuff. Why did people always do this to her? There was another broken window downstairs; it must have happened during the night, because the bits of broken glass were still lying around on the floorboards. There was one of the lads, a kid from Eastbourne called Darren, who'd really wound her up over that window. She couldn't remember
why, now. Probably something to do with Debra, because he was the one who'd run off with her that morning, wasn't it? She couldn't remember exactly. Her fingernails curled into the palms of her hands, and she wished she'd smacked him in the fucking face, like he deserved.
outside, she saw another mate of hers, Steve Ripon, driving down towards the front, and she grabbed a ride with him Steve dropped her outside the Bulver Arms, saying he might call in for a pint later. She didn't want to know. Steve usually got on her nerves. She saw a couple of the lads in the bar, playing pool, so she hung around with them for a while, hoping for a game. They pretended they hadn't seen her, and made jokes about her as if she wasn't there, the sort she'd heard before. Fuckers. One of them said he'd buy her a pi nt but in the end didn't, and made the others laugh at her again, and she had to buy her own. She was hungry, but didn't fancy any of the food. Couldn't afford it.
'Fin going home,' she said, but they didn't seem to hear.
She set off in the direction of Hastings, but it meant walking along the seafront and there was no shade from the sun. She was already feeling light in the head, and the sun only made it worse. She turned off the coast road at the first big Junction, and started walking up Battle Road.
Steve Ripon drove past again, and slowed down. She didn't want another lift from him, so she pretended not to notice.
Through the driver's window, Steve shouted, '01, Gerry! That Debra of yours told Darren all about you.'
,piss Off, Steve!' she yelled back.
'She reckons you can't get it up. That right?'
,Piss off,' she said again, but under her breath. She cut away down an alley, where Steve couldn't follow. After a hundred yards she came out in Fearley Road, which she knew well. A mate of hers had turned over the offlicence
there a couple of years ago, and got done with community service. She was getting fed up with all this walking about and feeling dizzy, so now she was keeping a sharp eye open for something she could drive away in.
On an impulse she went up to the car park built on the flat roof of the All Nights Market, and started trying the car doors. She wanted a car that was fairly new, not an old heap, but most of the really new cars were difficult to hotwire, unless you knew what you were doing. The last car she was going to try before giving up turned out to be the easiest one to take: a dark red Jreg Austin Montego. There was a wallet in the glove compartment (with forty quid and a Barclaycard), a stereo system and a full tank of petrol. Two minutes later she was driving up Battle Road with music playing, heading back to the house.
Debra came out of the house as she parked. Teresa leapt out of the Montego and broke into a run as soon as she saw her, but Debra dodged away. She was carrying an armful of her clothes, and a Sainsbury's plastic bag stuffed with something.
'Here, 1 want you!' Teresa shouted.
'You fucking leave me alone, you fucking weirdo!' Debra yelled back.
' Get in the fucking car!'
'I've had enough of all that! Fuck off, Gerry!'
She tore away down the hill, dropping garments and stumbling on the uneven ground.
'I'll fucking get you!'
Teresa broke off the chase, and ran into the house. Someone had been in and shat on the floor. She ran up the stairs, kicked open the door of the cupboard, and grabbed her guns and ammunition. lt took her two trips to get everything outside and into the Montego, but as soon as she was ready she drove down the hill in search of Debra. The rifle was hidden in the luggage compartment at the back, but she had put the handgun on the seat beside her.
She knew where Debra would be going: her mum had a
house lower down on the estate. Teresa stopped the car with two wheels up on the pavement and shoved the gun under her jacket. She ran to the door of the house, kicking and pummelling it with her fist.
'They saw you coming, they did!' said a woman, lean'
ing over the wall from next door. 'They've done a runner! Good thing too, you little dickhead!'
Teresa was tempted to blow a sodding great hole in her face, grinning at her over the wall, but instead she whipped out her cock and tried to piss all over the door, but she had dried up.
The woman yelled something, and disappeared. Teresa looked around: she knew Debra's mum's car, and like the neighbour had said it wasn't in sight.
She went back to the Montego, screeched it round in the narrow road and headed away.
She drove fast until she had crossed the Ridge and was going out into the countryside around Ninfield. The sun beat maddeningly down. A police car went past in the opposite direction, blue strobe lights flashing; Teresa instinctively hunched down in the seat a little, but they were obviously going after someone else, and neither of the two cops even glanced in her direction.
The righthand side of the road was thickly forested: Teresa had only a dim memory of having driven along here before, but after a while she saw a sign for a Forestry Commission picnic site next to a layby. She was driving too fast to stop, but she went down to the next farm entrance, did a turn, and went back.
She realized that neither of the guns was loaded; bleeding right! She'd gone after Debra like that!
She skidded into the parking area in a cloud of dust, and angrily picked up the handgun. She slammed in a magazine of bullets.
A path led off through the trees, and ahead of her she glimpsed the bright colours of summer clothes.
She came into a clearing in the trees, where three long wooden tables had been set up. Huge logs lying beside them were used as seats. A young woman was sitting at one of the tables, with plastic cups and plates, scraps of food, and several toys spread all about: a ball, a train, a scribble pad, dozens of coloured bricks. The woman was laughing, and her boy was running around on the grass, pretending to do some stupid thing or other.