Junk - Melvin Burgess [25]
Richard got really beside himself about this. He kept putting his beer down and grinning wildly at the ceiling with the sheer delight of ruining the banks’ trade for a day. I said, ‘Don’t banks have back doors, then?’
‘Oh, we’ll glue those up, too. And the night safes.’ And he beamed all round the pub like a man who had been given a million pounds.
It was all arranged. Me and Tar were going along with them. I got quite excited about it. I thought, This is different. I always looked down at the vandals at home – you know, having a good time by smashing up the kiddies’ playground. Great fun, eh? But this had a purpose and anyway, I’d have given anything to see the bank manager’s face when his lock wouldn’t open. We all had a good laugh about that.
I told them about my mum and dad and they seemed very sympathetic. Richard was quite distressed about it. ‘My parents used to let me misbehave all I wanted,’ he said, and he grinned in that mad way he had at the ceiling. ‘I made plenty of use of the opportunity,’ he added happily.
I was getting to like Richard.
We started swapping stories about mums and dads and how terrible they were. Tar was a bit quiet. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? But I was beginning to get the giggles. I’d had a vodka and orange on top of the lager and I was thinking how just at that very time my parents would be beginning to get utterly furious. It was ten thirty and I was just one hour late. They’d be sitting there grinding their teeth and planning new restrictions, which frankly would be taxing even their imaginations because there wasn’t much left to restrict. They’d be wondering who I was sleeping with, what I was taking, etc. etc. It really cracked me up, thinking about them raging around at home and ringing round all my friends and promising themselves they’d be tougher tomorrow. And all the time I was a hundred miles away…
They’d find out on Monday morning when my letter came through.
And then, Vonny turned to me cool as a cucumber and she said, ‘Don’t you think you ought to ring your folks up and tell them you’re all right?’
I just gaped at her. The hypocrisy of it! There we’d been swapping stories about parental horror and now she wanted me to start being nice to them!
‘What for?’ I asked.
‘But they must be feeling awful. At least you could let them know you’re all right.’
‘And tell them when to expect me back?’ I asked. ‘And to send on the woolly vests.’
‘No, like I said – just let them know you’re okay.’
‘I think that would be a good idea,’ said Richard to the ceiling.
Well, I was cornered, wasn’t I? I went on about the letter coming on the Monday morning but it wasn’t good enough. Mum and Dad were worried now. I tried to point out that at this stage in the proceedings, incandescent fury would be a more typical reaction, but no. Even Tar rounded on me. Then of course he wanted to ring up his mum and we had to argue him out of that. I hoped that’d put them off the scent but as soon as he backed down they started on me again.
They even had a whip round so I wouldn’t get cut off in the middle of something important. And before I knew it I was standing there in front of the pay phone stuffing in pound coins and thinking, Pig, pig, pig. How did this happen?
‘Gemma… where have you been? Where are you now?’
‘I’m all right, I’m just –’
‘We’ve been worried sick –’
‘It’s only half past ten –’
‘It’s eleven o’clock and you should have been in an hour and a half ago. I thought we were past this, I thought things were getting better. Your mother…’
‘Look, I’m ringing up to let you know I won’t be back tonight…’
‘You… you’d better be back. Picked up with some of those seafront friends again, have you?… It isn’t good enough, Gemma… blah blah rant…’
And he was off. That’s all it took. I held the phone away from my ear and I whispered, ‘Please, please don’t do this to me…’ I was in the corner of the pub but I was aware of all of them