Just Another Angel (11 page)

We made the camp, and Melanie shot me a smile as she jumped out. Tricia backed her way out, never taking her eyes off me or letting her ball-bearings slip. Carol had more or less righted herself by the time I let her out of the side door.

Again Carol acted as if I wasn't there, swaying past me into the middle of the camp, where she put her hands on her hips and yelled: ‘Melissa! Bring the kiddies, we're going shopping!'

 

That whole shopping trip was something I'd rather draw a veil over, not because it was mildly larcenous (okay, illegal) but because my street cred would be severely dented if the saga got out. However, it got me well in with the sisters of the peace camp.

Melissa turned out to be a small, jolly woman, maybe a teacher or a social worker, and the only woman I saw in the camp who wore a wedding ring. The twins were pretty young – I never was much good with babies – and were called Anastasia and Lucifer – yes, Lucifer. Poor sod, just because it was a he. That proved to me what I had always thought, that there's a very thin line between feminism and apartheid.

Still, Melissa was pleasant enough and said ‘Hello' and asked if I minded driving them back to the village. Without waiting for an answer, she piled into the back – ‘Aren't there any seat-belts for the twins?' – and Carol, determined to believe I did not exist, joined her, after loading something that I didn't see in through the rear doors.

It turned out to be a double pushchair for the twins, who were either two of the best behaved children in the world or had been drugged. Melissa unfolded it and strapped the twins in when we reached the village, and I parked in the pub car park, as instructed by Carol.

The village shop was a white weather-boarded building that had been badly converted into a supermarket. Badly, that is, if you were the owner, for I could see from the outside that the arrangement of the shelves provided loads of blind spots for shoplifters well out of sight of the cash till.

Not, of course, that such things were of interest to me. All I had to do was turn the van around and wait. Carol and Melissa pushed the twins across the road and then lifted the pushchair over the shop doorstep. I could see what went on through the two front windows, despite the ‘4p off Whiskas' stickers, and I have to admit I was impressed.

Carol distracted the white-coated male assistant, exercising commendable control by not kneeing him in the nuts as she no doubt would have liked to. He was probably the poor mug who owned the shop, and his wife was probably out back somewhere reheating his fish fingers for dinner. While he was talking to her, Melissa took the twins out of the pushchair and began to carry them around the store, one balanced on each hip, until she found somewhere to sit down. As the average age of the village population was probably about 70, it would be the sort of shop that had chairs littered all over it.

The next bit of business was Carol's, as she again distracted the old man in the white coat. By the time the witless victim had thought to go back to his cash desk, Melissa had juggled the twins sufficiently to pull her jumper up over her head and was offering a late lunch to Anastasia and Lucifer.

The shopkeeper, reasonably enough, went spare, and while I could easily imagine what he was saying to Melissa, I would have loved to have heard her side of the argument. She kept her cool and dished out more than her fair share of barefaced cheek, in more senses than one. He waved his arms about a fair bit and then disappeared to the back of the shop to be joined by, I presume, his wife for moral support.

While all this was going on, of course, Carol was flitting about the opposite side of the shop helping herself from the shelves and tossing things into the pushchair, which with the canopy zipped up was acting as an oversize shopping trolley.

To give her her due, she didn't overdo it. She allowed herself about three minutes, and then joined in the argument over Melissa while working the pushchair towards the door. The poor shopkeeper was so bemused that he actually opened it for her, and the pushchair came out first. Carol followed carrying one of the twins, and then Melissa with the other. The shopkeeper slammed the door behind them and quickly pulled down a blind with the word ‘CLOSED' on it.

Carol was giggling insanely and Melissa was still trying to pull her jumper down over her unruly, but perfectly formed, breasts as they ran across the road to the van.

 

‘No, like this. Hand over the glass, twice round, then slam.'

We had finished dinner and were sitting around the campfire. Dinner had consisted of tinned salmon, rye crispbreads and creamed cheese, Greek yoghurt with brown sugar and tinned mandarin oranges, but we weren't singing campfire songs. I was teaching them the fine art of drinking Tequila Slammers, one of the fastest ways of getting spifflicated known to man. Or in this case, wimmin.

‘You're trying to get us tipsy,' Melissa observed. Clever girl.

‘Sole purpose of exercise,' said I.

Melanie had joined us, having put Antiope to bed somewhere among the tents, and so had her minder, Tricia, though she wasn't slamming with us, rather contenting herself with a small carton of yoghurt drink and a straw.

The Tequila Slammer, which you probably won't find in the cocktail recipe books, was almost certainly invented by some loony Hooray in a flash cocktail bar somewhere as a means of using up cheap tequila. That sounds very snooty, as tequila isn't cheap in this country, but there's such a snob value on Tequila Gold these days that ordinary mescal juice simply won't do.

Basically, you take a good slug of tequila (ice cold if poss) and add a splash of lime-juice, then top up a five-ounce glass with champagne – or Sainsbury's Asti Spumante, whichever comes first to hand. Then you put your left hand over the glass, swirl it round two or three times in mid-air, slam the glass down as hard as you can on a hard surface and drink the lot in one. The theory is that the bubbles are evenly spread throughout the drink by the slam, but after one, who the hell cares?

We were drinking out of glass tumblers with British Rail logos on and generally chewing the fat and putting the world to rights.

‘Thisisgood … juice,' slurred Carol, who was over halfway to Smashed City Arizona already. ‘Where did you say Dave was from?'

She was still talking about me rather than to me, so in a way I was glad I hadn't used any of my real names.

‘Germany, wasn't it?' Melanie was warming to me. Or maybe it was the tequila.

‘I've been out there for a year or so.' I set up another three Slammers, pouring the lime-juice and tequila together so that I could cut mine to about half the strength I was giving them. It's a good trick if you can do it.

‘When did you get back?' asked Melanie.

‘Yesterday. Came into Harwich on the ferry and called in the Uni on the off-chance.'

‘Off-chance of meeting Carol?' The very thought made her pause in mid-slam.

‘No, looking up an old friend called Jo.' I glanced at Carol, but she was staring vacantly at the fire. ‘And I ran into a guy called Alan who said Carol might know where she was.'

‘Alan sent you?' Carol perked up. Obviously there still some solidarity among the ‘84 Four. It seemed a useful line to follow.

‘Seems a straight type. He told me you'd be here. We did a little business.'

‘Business?' A flicker of interest there as she downed her Slammer and rocked back on her haunches, but only at about Mark 5 on the Richter Scale.

‘Just a little bit of trading.' I offered her more tequila, leaning across Melanie to do so. Either Melanie pushed some part of her anatomy against my leg or I was too close to the campfire.

‘You dealing stuff for Alan? Pardon.' Carol broke wind at the other end this time. Maybe I was putting too much Asti in the Slammers.

‘Just a little something from the groves of Lebanon, via downtown Dusseldorf, that is.'

‘Got any left?'

‘Some seed and grass. Wanna smoke?' What a question. Do fish swim?

I stretched up and strolled over to the Transit. Around me the camp was settling down for the night, bricks securing groundsheets, tent flaps tied tight, kerosene lamps hissing away their shadows. Ironically it looked more like a scene from after the nuclear holocaust instead of a plea to prevent one. I mean, can you imagine surviving with all these wimmin going round saying ‘Told you so'?

I retrieved my stash from where I'd taped it under the steering column, and my cigarettes and green Rizla papers from the dashboard. It always seemed a waste to use up a couple of Gold Flake this way, but I always forget to buy cheaper cigarettes, and anyway, the corner tabs on the cardboard packets make excellent roaches.

I locked the Transit – you can take peace, harmony and sisterly love just so far – and threaded my way back through the tents to the fire Melanie had lit near the clapped-out bus without wheels. Tricia and Melissa had disappeared, probably in disgust.

Melanie had found some more wood, mostly bits of USAF fencing by the look of it. Carol hadn't moved, though the level of the tequila had.

‘Who did you say you were looking for?' she asked suspiciously as I pulled up a weather-beaten bus seat.

‘Jo. I heard she was a friend of yours.'

‘Jo who?' She was clocking me from the corner of one bleary eye. I concentrated on rolling a very juicy joint.

‘I don't think I ever knew her last name. She was at the Uni down the road, so I called in. Alan said you might know where she is.'

‘Can't place her,' said Carol, but the piggy eyes never left the joint.

‘Single strands?' I suggested, and Carol snapped yes so quickly I almost dropped the thing into the fire. Melanie said no, she'd toke on mine. In some countries that's virtually the same as going through a wedding service. In most countries it's preferable. I licked and rolled, then lit the joint and handed it to Carol. It was a humdinger. I rolled a much leaner version for Melanie and me to share.

‘You do know a Jo, Carol,' said Melanie. ‘You brought her up here once, or rather you got her to drive you here in that big flash Jaguar. Remember?' Melanie edged nearer and lowered her voice. ‘Skinny, mousey blonde. Docile. Easy meat for the old bag.'

‘Vaguely …' Carol drawled, then took a long draw, a good lung-and-a-half-full. ‘Got any of these to spare?' she squeaked, trying to hold the smoke in.

‘You're smoking my next six weeks' dole money,' I said, handing the second joint to Melanie.

‘I'll buy some off you,' Carol exhaled, and her head disappeared in the cloud.

‘With what, smart arse?' sneered Melanie. ‘You were supposed to get us into town today to get our benefits, but you blew it.'

They argued some more while I poured out more Slammers, or rather Melanie argued and Carol grunted occasionally. She took the drink I offered without a word and downed it straight away, no longer even bothering to slam. After her fifth or sixth toke, she was down to the end of the joint, and a couple of the dried seeds exploded like miniature fireworks, making her jump and then starting her off giggling.

I placed the plastic bag of dope on top of the cigarette
packet, in clear view, but made no move to roll her another joint. She was reluctant to let go of the roach at first, but then she hurled it into the fire and got unsteadily to her feet, saying, ‘I know what.'

Her pink flying suit had two dirty orbs where her backside had imprinted itself on the ground, and I noticed for the first time that her trainers were at least size 9 (men's.) She seemed to be having trouble putting one in front of the other, but she did eventually make it to the steps of the disabled bus and fell inside. She was in there for a good five minutes, crashing around and swearing occasionally.

I made a facial question-mark at Melanie but she just shrugged and edged closer. Her rats-tail hair didn't seem so bad suddenly, and in the firelight she was quite pretty. I was going to have to ease up on the Slammers.

‘Are you heading for London?' she asked, handing me the dog-end of our joint.

‘Yeah, but maybe not tonight.' I thought I'd better add a rider to that; it was easy to be male and misunderstood around here. ‘I'll crash in the back of the van for a couple of hours before hitting the road; I'm too easy a target for the cops in that thing, and I'm over the limit.'

‘Is it big enough for two?' she said, straight-faced.

‘What about the sisterhood?' I said, indicating the surrounding tents.

‘It's not that big, is it?' she giggled. Melanie had a nice giggle. I was going to have to ease up on the grass as well.

‘I didn't mean that. I just got the impression that sex with a member of the opposite sex was frowned on round here.'

‘Nah,' she drawled. ‘We haven't castrated a man here for weeks – and anyway, Tricia's gone to bed.' She gave me that up-from-under look that only women can do without appearing cretinous. ‘And it gets very cold around here at night.'

There was an extra loud crash from inside the bus, followed by a stream of invective calling into question the parentage of the Pope and his fondness for animals. Then Carol reappeared with what I first thought was cocaine down most of her right side.