‘Not all,’ says Debbie.
‘Yeah,’ he says, and throws her sister a look of disgust. He’s finished with trying to impress Debs by getting the kid rides on the swings and tuppenny chews; she’s served her purpose and now she’s nothing more than an annoyance. ‘We can go up Chapman’s barn, if you like,’ he offers.
Debbie sneaks a look around her to hide her excitement. Chapman’s barn is one of the village teens’ most fabled places, somewhere the grown-ups rarely go. She knows that Chapman’s barn has been the venue of many of Darren Walker’s conquests; that girls older and more experienced than she is have been pinioned by him on its dusty straw bales. And because she knows it, the very mention of the place is enough to produce a musky, salty taste in her mouth. She knows this will be a brief and feral coupling; that it will be accompanied by no protestations of affection or even much effort to ensure any satisfaction for herself, but the thought of Darren Walker’s thick, stubby cock inside her, of the scratch of straw on her buttocks and the breathlessness as he crushes her carelessly beneath him makes her weak with lust, impatient of anything that will get between her and its satisfaction. She’s sixteen years old, been on the pill for a year, and it’s about time she started living.
As if reading her mind, he bucks sharply against her pelvis, making her yelp.
‘What are you doing?’
Now they both speak together. ‘Shut up!’
‘That boy’s called Darren Walker,’ announces Chloe. ‘Mum said you wasn’t to go near him.’
They break apart, sit angrily side by side on the bench and glare at her.
‘You don’t know nothing about it, Chloe Francis,’ says Debbie. ‘You best keep your mouth shut or you’ll be sorry.’
‘Take me home,’ says Chloe. ‘I’m hungry.’
Darren groans. ‘Fuck sake,’ he says. ‘Can’t you get rid of her?’
‘You know I can’t.’
‘How old is she anyway?’
‘I’m four,’ says Chloe. ‘Well, fuck sake,’ he says again. ‘I’m thirsty,’ says Chloe. ‘I want my dinner.’
Darren reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and produces a single cigarette. He lights it with an Army Surplus Zippo and sits there looking up at the sun, flipping the lid open and closed. ‘Don’t give me one then,’ says Debbie.
‘You’re not old enough to smoke,’ he replies.
‘Am too,’ says Debbie. ‘Have been since April.’
Darren takes a long, long drag, holds it deep in his lungs, joint-style, and exhales a thick stream of smoke into the air. ‘Sixteen, huh? Not jailbait no more then.’
Debbie doesn’t know whether to laugh or snarl, so she settles for something in between. Chloe glares at them from her perch on the verge, digging the heels of her sandals over and over into the turf to expose a pair of brown earth runnels. She’s a pretty child – fair in a pink, formless fashion, dimples in her cheeks – but she looks like a grubby hobgoblin right now, glowering under the hedge. ‘I’m telling Mum on you,’ she says.
‘Telling her what?’ says Debbie. ‘Who d’you think she’ll believe, anyway?’
Christ, she thinks. I’m sixteen. I’m starting work in two months. This should be the best summer ever, and instead I’m stuck being a babysitter because Mum couldn’t be bothered to take her on the bus to Chipping Norton. Shouldn’t have had another kid if she couldn’t be bothered to look after it.
Darren takes a small curl from behind her ear and twists it round his finger. She feels that small rush of liquid lust once more.
‘I want a drink,’ says Chloe. ‘Take me home.’
‘Why don’t you just go home?’ asks Darren nastily. ‘Go on. Shoo.’
Chloe looks stubborn.
‘Bloody hell,’ says Debbie. ‘I’ll give you ten p.’
‘You haven’t got ten p,’ says Chloe doubtfully.
‘Yeah, but I do,’ says Darren grandly. His erection is painful in his drainpipes and he’s afraid they might cut off his circulation altogether. ‘Here. You can buy a Mars Bar.’
‘Don’t like Mars Bars.’
‘I don’t care,’ he says, and throws the coin at her. ‘Just bugger off, will you?’
Chloe is torn between crying and collecting the money, so she does both. ‘I’m telling Mum,’ she assures her sister again. ‘You said bugger.’
‘Didn’t,’ says Debbie. ‘He did. Now, you go straight home after the shop, yeah?’
Chloe unbundles her anorak from under the hedge and starts to slowly put it on. ‘Come on,’ says Debbie. ‘Seriously. I’m going to have to start throwing stones in a minute.’ Darren’s hand has slipped under her skirt and a single finger is working its way inside her knicker elastic.
Chloe starts to plod up the road. Gets about twenty yards, then stops uncertainly. ‘I don’t know the way,’ she says.
‘Gaaaah!’ Debbie’s eyes roll back into her head with frustration. ‘Chloe! We come up this way every day! Just go, will ya?’
Chloe’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I don’t want to! Mum said you was to look after me!’
‘Oh Christ,’ says Debbie, defeated. ‘Well, you can’t keep the ten p.’
‘Chrissake,’ says Darren, and slings himself across the bench temperamentally to change the pressure on his ’nads. ‘We’ve got to get rid of her,’ he says. ‘I’m not taking her with us.’
‘Yes, but, Darren,’ says Debbie, torn. ‘Mum’ll rip me to shreds if anything happens to her.’
‘Oh yeah - Mummy,’ says Darren, and turns his back on her.
Silence. They can hear how summer-sleepy the village is; can hear the cattle lowing all the way down at the home farm.
‘You’re just a kid anyway,’ he says sulkily. ‘Don’t know what I was thinking.’
Debbie heaves a sigh. She hates her sister, hates her mother. This is meant to be my summer. They’re all so selfish.
She gazes up the road despairingly, feeling the moment slip away. He’s the sexiest boy I’ll ever go with, she thinks. And bloody Chloe…
Two small figures round the corner from the war memorial. One sturdy, brown-haired and wearing red, the other willowy in comparison, and blond.
‘Oi, Darren,’ she says. ‘Isn’t that your sister?’
Chapter Thirty-three
She’s crying before she sits down. Humiliating, gopping, overwhelming tears that stream from her eyes and her nose and the corners of her wide-open mouth and fill her with shame. She searches in her pockets – they’ve taken her bag off her at the front desk – for a snot-rag, but finds nothing. Turns in appeal to the constable-chaperon who stands impassively by the door and realises that she’ll get no help there.