The Bare Necessities (Non-Profane Edition) (2 page)

“Nah,” Baz cried.
“Want Premiership.”

Andre sniffed.
“That's … that's … well that’s probably not going to happen.”

“Why? That Jonesy
kid at the club's got a move out to QPR.”

“Yes, but he's
sixteen and … well … he's made an impression. And he's fit. You
smoke twenty a day, drink like a fish, you're 31, and you've got as
many red and yellow cards this season as you've got goals.” Baz
snorted and gestured wildly.

“Ya sayin' I'm no
good?” He shouted. “I got Young Player of the Season Award,” he
yelled.

“Yeah, in 2001,”
Andre muttered under his breath and coughed. “No, Baz, it's not
that. It's just the reality of things.”

“I think this
agency dain't want me,” he shouted. “Where's Greg?”

The door opened,
and Andre looked around to see the face of his Uncle standing the
doorway. “I'm here,” he said loudly and rubbed his face. “Sorry
Baz, been at the bank. Is there a problem?”

“Yeah. I wanna a
move to a big club, and your bloody monkey says I can't.”

“He wants to move
to Villa,” Andre added. “And …”

Greg raised his hand to stop his nephew from talking
and sat down at the table, listening to the wishful footballer. The
experienced agent smiled and promised that he would do all he could
to secure his dream move for him once the transfer window reopened.
“You just keep banging those goals in,” Greg told him as he shook
the footballer’s hand. “I’m sure we can get a top club to take a
look at you if you’re on fire. There's only a few games left 'til
the end of the season; try and get a hatful of goals.”

“Yeah, and I want
Premiership,” Baz demanded. “I want a crack at the big time, with
big money.”

Greg’s smile was
unmoved. “Score those goals and I’ll see what I can do.” He nodded
and waited until Baz was out of the door before turning to face his
employee, sitting behind his own little desk. “What you tell him
that for?” Greg barked.

“He wants to play
in the Champions League, I mean, come on Uncle.”

Greg snorted. “All
footballers want to play Champions League or the Premiership. No
footballer wants to be stuck at this level. I know he’s got no
chance, but we just humour them,” the agent replied. “He'll be
lucky to get Accrington-bloody-Stanley, but tell him what he wants
and leave the cold, hard truth for the negotiations in the
Summer.”

“Why do you keep
him? He can't contribute more than twenty quid a week.”

“Thirty-five,”
came the response. “But that's not the point. It's good to have a
few footballing stars on the books.”

“Stars!” Andre
cried in disbelief. “We got two League Two players and a handful of
Conference.” His uncle shrugged. “And that guy who was in
yesterday.”

“Terry Kaer, big
rocker in his time.”

“I looked him up
and he reached number ten in the singles chart in 1972. And that's
it. I bought an album of his last week just to see what his music
was like, and it's awful. And he's not even that popular as I tried
to download it off the Pirate Bay and no-one admitted to having
it.”

His uncle snorted.
“Yeah, well, I've represented him since 1971. That's a long
time.”

“I know, but, he's
so … minor.”

His uncle
shrugged. “You bought his album, you say?” Andre nodded. “That'll
double the royalties for the month then.” He cackled as he turned
to go into his office, but his young protégé followed him into the
small room.

“Why can't we get
some young bands or some young footballers? Some people with star
potential.” Greg sighed as he sat down and shrugged.

“Go get me some
young stars, and I'll represent them.”

“Cause the
financial future can't be that great if we are just representing
fifth tier footballers and Z List musicians? And I won't get
started on the actors.”

Greg scratched
behind his ear. “No. It's not,” he said quietly. “It's not at all.
Go on then, find me some people with star quality. If you can.”

1. Chapter
   II
   

The sausages
sizzled on the small disposable barbecue, and a small plume of
dense smoke rose from the hot charcoals where the fat dripped
through the wire mesh and onto the burning embers. Paige wiped her
eyes and moved her naked body out of the direction of the exhaust
as her sister moaned. “Ohh,” Hazel cried and coughed as the smoke
changed direction and drifted over to her. “All the smoke will get
in my sarong.” She scrambled to her feet, and wandered a few metres
away before sitting down, further away from the barbecue than
anyone else in the family.

Paige put her
hands around her mouth to yell across to her. “Then don't wear it,”
Paige shouted, emphasising that her sister had moved further away
than necessary from them.

“Paige, Darling,”
her naked mother called. “Hazel wants to wear it, and it's her
choice.”

“It's silly,” she
replied forcefully and brushed her long, wavy, red hair out of her
face. “It's a naturist camp site. We've been naturists for years.
She is the only person wearing one and … I'm fed up with her
sulking and attention-seeking.”

Hazel's eyes rose
from her dystopian thriller and squinted at her indignant sister.
“You're always getting at me,” she moaned.

“Yeah, and I know
why you want to wear it,” Paige spat. “To hide all the …”

“That's enough,”
her mother interrupted sharply and turned the sausages on the
barbecue. Paige scowled and watched as the youngest member of the
family, the dumpy Jeremy, buttered finger rolls and put a small
portion of crisps on each plate.

Paige shook her
head as Hazel readjusted her sarong, and the elder sister got up
from her patch of grass. She strode purposely around the smoky
barbecue to her younger sister and snatched the brightly coloured
garment from her grasp. Hazel shrieked. “Give it back,” the
teenager yelled and Paige backed away from her, holding the red
sarong in her hands.

“It'll do you
good,” she teased. “Teach you that your scars are …”

“Paige, give it
back to me.” Hazel shouted as she frantically covered herself with
her hands and advanced on her sister. “Everyone's looking at
me.”

“Yes, 'cause you
are acting like a baby,” Paige taunted. The voice of her mother
ordering Paige to return the silky garment to her sister went
unheeded, and the tormentor skipped away as Hazel chased her
sibling through the pitched tents, who was jumping over guy ropes
with gleeful cackling.

Paige wound her
way through the canvas shelters and the site; she was nimbler than
her younger and taller sister and her red hair streaked out behind
her as she ran. Paige mocked her emotional sibling as she jumped
over a sunbathing boy and held the sarong out in front of her.
“Scared of being seen, are we?”

“Paige, I bloody
hate you,” Hazel screamed as she caught up with her sister and her
hand pushed the coltish tease in the face so that she fell to the
ground. Hazel snatched the sarong from her sister's grasp as the
red-haired soubrette landed with a bump and snarled viciously.

Paige cried out in
pain as she landed, and swept her feet across the backs of Hazel's
legs so that she fell on the soft grass alongside her. “Don't push
me like that.”

“Well don't take
my sarong then,” Hazel moaned, and their spat was interrupted by
their big-breasted mother striding across the camp site, to scold
her errant offspring.

“This is the last
time we will be on holiday together,” she moaned. “You two are
getting too big to go away on holiday with us so don't spoil it for
us.”

“But …”

“But you're as bad
as one another,” she spat and dragged Hazel up by the arm. Paige
scrambled to her feet and walked back in silence, allowing her
sister and mother to walk in front of her.

“What's up with
your friend?” The sunbathing teenage boy asked as Paige drew
level.

“She's my sister,
and she's a prude,” Paige muttered and shrugged. “She doesn't want
people to see her body.”

“Oh,” came the
response.

“Yeah, I know.
Naturist place and the like. She's just weird.”

“My sister's the same,” he told her. “Maybe it's
just younger sisters.” Paige nodded, and with the lingering eyes
and ears of her mother only a few feet away, decided that it was
unwise to comment too much more.

“Maybe,” she
muttered.

* *
* * *

“Oh hiya,” Claire
called as the full-figured teenager walked past the two tents that
made up Paige's family's residence for the week. “I'm off to the
pool, my parents are sunbathing and my brother's in the woods, so
I'm alone. Fancy joining me?”

Paige put the last
of the hot dog in her mouth and nodded, grunting with her mouth
full. “Yeah,” she said through her half-chewed sausage, and grabbed
the towel from underneath her, swinging it away from her
sister.

“Don't go swimming
on a full stomach,” she was ordered but Paige grunted. “You'll get
a tummy ache.”

“Mum,” Paige cried
in annoyance at the mothering. “I do know. I'm fine. I am
eighteen.” Paige waited until she was out of earshot of her mother
to complain to her holiday friend. “She fusses.”

Claire shrugged.
“My mum does it too.”

“Bloody annoyin',”
the angry girl muttered and swung her towel over her shoulder.

“Is your sister
OK?” Claire asked. “I saw her getting quite distressed
earlier.”

“That's one word
for it,” Paige replied with a guilty smile, and she looked at her
naked friend. “She's gone textile.” Claire didn't respond, and
Paige licked her lips as she considered how best to continue. “She
doesn't want people seeing her. Been like that for a couple o'
years now. It winds me up.”

“Why?” Claire
asked in a concerned voice.

“'Cause, it's
naturist here. And I don't feel comfortable if some people are
dressed. It's wrong. It shouldn't be allowed.”

“But loads of
teenagers and … err well adults … have times when they want to be
covered up. It's just … puberty? Didn't you have that?”

“Hell no!” Paige
cried. “It's just … growing up. Did you?”

Claire nodded and
opened the gate to the pool. “A bit,” Claire admitted. “I got
bullied at school about my weight so it … well it affects you.”

“Wouldn't affect
me,” Paige muttered. “Only matters if you care what people think. I
get called flat-chested all the time.”

“But, you're not,”
Claire replied and the two teenagers threw their towels onto empty
deckchairs.

“I know I'm not.
But 'B' cups are small now,” Paige giggled. “Not like your massive
pair!”

Claire snorted,
but her companion didn't wait for a response and dived into the
unheated pool. Paige emerged from the water, her red hair plastered
to her face and shivered, but smiled as she pushed her shoulders
under the water and panted. “It's quite warm,” she lied. “Once you
get used to it.”

Claire sat on the
edge of the pool and put her shins in the cool water. She squealed
and watched as Paige swam across the pool on her front and then her
back. “Come in then.”

“I'm just getting
used to it.”

“You did this
earlier,” Paige moaned and flicked water at her friend. Claire
shrieked and kicked the cold water back, but Paige was unmoved as
the water landed on her. “Just jump in, it's easier when you just
take the plunge.”

“She's right,” the
lifeguard added as he overheard the two girls talking and the
shapely, black-haired eighteen year-old, pushed her body upright
and tried to slide gingerly into the water.

She shrieked when
it got to her waist and pushed herself back out of the water. “It's
freezing!” Paige shook her head and swam back across the pool. It
took Claire a few minutes to get used to the water temperature
enough to join Paige, but by this time, the energetic girl had
completed a handful of laps of the pool.

Paige and Claire
raced each other several times from one side of the pool to the
other, but Claire was the stronger swimmer and won almost every
race. By the time they had spent almost an hour in the pool, Claire
was ready to leave. “I'm getting out,” she announced, and Paige,
keen not to be left alone, hauled herself out of the water and into
the sunshine. “Do you want a drink?”

Claire pointed to
a vending machine on the verandah. “No change,” Paige replied and
Claire reached for her money bag clipped to her towel and lent her
friend the 60p she needed. They sat down on the lawn in the direct
sunshine and opened their drinks. “How long you staying for?”
Claire asked and made small talk with her new friend. Paige enjoyed
talking to the softly spoken teenager and during their
conversation, found that they had much in common. They chatted
about boyfriends (they had both recently been dumped), hobbies
(they both liked singing and music) and naturism (their families
were both members of local naturist clubs).

“So, why are you
so angry with your sister?” Claire asked as their conversation
petered out and Paige shrugged.

“I don't know. I
guess, she gets to do her own thing, and I was always told just to
get on with it,” Paige admitted and rubbed her eyes. “I mean, I
don't understand why she is here if she doesn't join in. I think
she should go home if she doesn't want to be here, but I know that
she can't. But she's here and should just be normal while she's
here.”

“I spent a few
months when I hated going,” Claire admitted as she got up from the
floor. “I … I didn't like my weight. When I was fourteen.” Paige
screwed up her face, and Claire shrugged. “I know I am about
half-a-stone overweight.”

“No, you're
not.”

“I am,” Claire
argued with her as they threw the cans into the bin. “I know that,
but when I was fourteen I was pretty skinny, like you are now.”
Paige tensed and opened her mouth to interrupt, but Claire
continued before she could say anything. “But I thought I was very
fat and, I stopped eating.”