You Only Live Once by Jess Vallance

Author:Jess Vallance
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848126596
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2018-07-04T09:20:13.446000+00:00

PART 5

During which I learn how to have FUN, for crying out loud

Gathering

I drank another can on the way to the beach and by the time we walked down the steps to the prom I felt a bit dizzy and very chatty.

A table was set up outside Bar Ten with two stacks of speakers on either side. A man wearing a red-and-white bandana and a black vest was fiddling with some dials on a set of decks on the table. He was holding a pair of headphones up to one side of his head and nodding along to the music. It was something thumpy and electronic that I didn’t recognise, but I knew it must be terribly cool so I started to nod my head along too, and tap my hand against my thigh in the manner of someone truly appreciative of the craft. I figured this must be Bobby because when he saw Vicky and Spider he raised one hand in a wave.

There were little camps of people in front of the decks – groups of three or four or five sitting around in circles on the stones, some of them with disposable barbecues in the middle, some of them on blankets.

Vicky and Spider spotted some people they knew. Spider called over and waved, and I followed him over to them.

There were four or five people in the group. Some male, some female. My memory’s a little hazy on the details. Vicky hugged each of them in turn, called them all ‘babe!’ (with an exclamation mark) and said things about it being so amazing to see them and how it had been way too long and weren’t they all looking beautiful and happy. I realised then that everyone was sitting down except for me. I stood over them, swaying slightly.

‘Sit down, girl!’ Vicky said, laughing and pulling me down by the sleeve. ‘Guys, this is Grace.’

The people all said hello and Vicky told me their names. I can’t remember what they were exactly but it seemed to me that it was unlikely they were using the names that appeared on their birth certificates. They were all Rainbow, Pongo, Mango, Cheese – words like that.

They all blurred into one, really, the people – tanned skin, hair bleached by the sun, ragged, faded clothing that looked like it’d been worn for a cross-channel swim then beaten against a rock to dry. I sat amongst them and gazed around at their faces in wonder.

I’d never been with people like that before. People just sitting on the beach listening to music, just living. These people weren’t checking the temperature on the washing machine to make sure Mum didn’t shrink their best pyjamas. These people weren’t trying to work out how many pages they could read about sedimentary rock formation before they had to move on to work through a list of 408 quadratic equations.

I listened to snippets of conversation without really joining in.

One woman seemed to be complaining about an ex-boyfriend she’d just dumped for spending too much time at work.

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