The Wave at Hanging Rock: A Psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller (30 page)

“I know.”

“And it says he’s a multi-millionaire.”

“Yeah, I know. “

“And it says he’s going out with the
Teenage Detective
girl.”

“Yeah.”

“I always really liked the
Teenage Detective
girl.”

I looked at Darren. “I know Darren, I know.”

But I didn’t resent John’s success, not at that stage. OK, maybe I didn’t exactly like how I was the one stuck in the campsite with Darren, looking at the pictures of John’s girlfriend in her underwear, and reading about the parties they both went to. And maybe you might think me pretty naive, but at that point I still believed what he told me that day when we walked in his garden. About how us splitting up was only temporary. I mean it had to be right. With what we’d shared together, with what we knew about him. So I didn’t resent his success, the higher he climbed the better it was going to be when he called for me. I saw from the papers that Sienna had some pretty gorgeous friends. Soon John would be introducing me to them. Soon I’d be going to those parties. I’d be in those photographs of laughing, smiling beautiful people in the VIP sections of nightclubs.
 

So I didn’t resent John, instead I started waiting for the call. Every time the phone rang I felt a rush of nervous anticipation, wondering if it was him. Every time a car pulled up in the campsite I’d wonder if it might be some flash sports car with him in, come to pick me up. But it never was.
 

Then, about seven years after what happened at Hanging Rock, I finally did see him. I was walking down the high street in Llanwindus, and he stepped out of a shop, nearly stepped right into me, a bottle of wine in his hand, wearing this smart suit with ironed creases. His hair was pulled back from his face and held in a pony tail behind him. He had no chance to avoid me, and just stood there staring for a moment, then finally said ‘Hi’. He gave me this smile with teeth that were too white.

“Jesse? Is that you? Man how you been?”

There was enthusiasm in his voice but I’d caught how his eyes had searched for a way to move past me before the charm had clicked in.
 

“OK, I guess.”
 

“What you doing with yourself? Here, help me with this.” He thrust the wine into my hands and patted his jacket pockets until he found a set of keys. A white Range Rover with blacked-out windows half blocking the pavement winked its orange lights at us.
 

“Climb in, let’s have a chat.”

He went round to the driver’s side and I opened the door to reveal a cream leather interior. I was wearing a set of overalls from the site, they had the name of the site embroidered on them, and they weren’t exactly clean so I tried to brush myself down before getting in.
 

“Shut the door,” he said, and I swung it closed, trapping me in luxury.
 

“You still working at the campsite then? Thought you’d have moved on or something,”

“Nah, not really,” I said, and it kind of died in the air between us, so I added “I’m thinking about college though,” even though this wasn’t true.
 

“Oh yeah?” He didn’t try to hide his lack of interest.

Despite everything, the way we’d met, how obvious it was that he hadn’t meant to see me, it still occurred to me that this was the moment I’d been waiting for. I didn’t know how it was going to work, just that I had to somehow keep the conversation going.

“So I saw you on TV a while back. The Oscars or something.”

His forehead furrowed in slight confusion. “I think you mean the BAFTAs. With Sienna right?” Then his face broke into a smile. “That was a fucking night that was.” I thought for a moment he was going to tell me about it, but he lapsed back into silence.

“She’s nice. Sienna I mean,” I said. “I mean she looks nice.” I got flustered since he knew I hadn’t met her, and I thought he might be thinking I meant she was good for jerking off over or something like that. My face began to burn red.

“Yeah. She’s OK.” he said and then seemed to think about it for a while. Eventually he went on.

“You got yourself a bird yet Jesse?”
 

“Nah. Not really.”
 

“No?” He looked over at me, one eyebrow raised.

“I mean yeah, loads of birds, just nothing serious. You know?” I took a risk and tried a hint. “I mean there’s nothing tying me down here, is what I mean.” After I said this he looked forwards again and didn’t speak for a while, and I wondered what life would be like working with John in London. I thought of myself with a girl like Sienna. There was one of her friends I saw her with in lots of pictures, a dark-haired girl. I liked the thought of her.
 

“I was just back to see Dad.” he said at last, still staring forwards out of the windscreen. He put his hands on the padded steering wheel like he wanted to get moving. The arm of his suit jacket slipped back to reveal this really expensive watch. I was reading the situation so wrong I was still thinking how in just a few months maybe I’d have a watch like that.
 

“Yeah, I’m sort of hanging out, waiting to see what comes up.” I tried again.
 

 
Then his phone rang and he looked at the screen. He made this clicking sound as an apology, then he answered it and had some pointless conversation with someone called Brad.
 

“Sorry mate, that was just Brad,” he said when they’d arranged to do lunch when he was next in town.
 

“No worries.”

“So, you’re doing well then? That’s good. That’s good to hear.”

“Yeah. Real good.” Suddenly it occurred to me I had to reassure him - remind him - just how trustworthy I was, how I could be relied upon in a crisis.

“I’m just, you know, keeping an eye on things. Making sure no one does anything stupid. You know, Darren or whatever.”

His eyes narrowed. “Keeping an eye on what?”

“Making sure Darren doesn’t, you know, doesn’t mention anything to anyone.”
 

He didn’t say anything but then he raised one of his fingers to his lips and shushed me and really gently shook his head.
 

I gave him a grin. “Hell yeah sorry. There’s nothing to mention is there?”
 

We both fell quiet and he put both hands back on the wheel. Then he sniffed loudly like there was something stuck in his throat.

“And Darren? You still see much of him?”

Before I could answer his phone rang again.
 

“Shit,” he said this time, then: “Jesse mate this one’s a business call. I gotta take… Would you mind?”

“No, I got it. I understand.” I opened the door and stepped outside, and John didn’t start speaking until I’d shut the door again. There was a little wall by the car so I sat down on it, thinking he’d invite me back in when the call was done. As I sat there I even wondered if he maybe wanted me out cos he was going to ask whoever it was on the business call where I could be given a job. I mean clearly we hadn’t finished speaking, and that’s how fucking deluded I was at that point. But then about five minutes later the engine started and he revved it up hard and then he just drove away. He just left me there, sitting on the wall and fucked off again. I couldn’t see him because the glass was all blacked out. But I’d been inside. I knew he could see me sitting there.

thirty-eight

 
I KNEW THEN that John was never going to call for me. I had to give up the little fantasy that had grown in my head, that someone was going to save me and take me away from my life. And the ironic thing was, once I’d stopping thinking that was going to happen, it did.
 

It was maybe seven years since we brought the Hanging Rock down, and I couldn’t believe all that time had gone. All I’d really done was hang around the campsite. Even Darren was getting ahead of me, he’d done some exams through the garage, he was qualified now. And Mum had been nagging me for years to get out and do one of those adult education courses, or do anything really. Just to get on with my life. So after that time I met John, something made me sign up.
 

There’s a bigger town a few miles inland, and the courses were there, in the draughty basement of the council offices. Most of the students were old, you know, in their thirties or forties, a right bunch of fuck ups really. The teacher told us to call him Paul. I think this was to make it seem different to a school, but whether that was for our benefit or his I’m not sure, since Paul wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in a real school. He was really skinny and he spoke with a girl’s voice. He had a beard, maybe to make him look more manly, it hadn’t worked. Paul was such an obvious wuss I’d have walked out if I hadn’t sat myself so far from the door. But then I’d have missed her walking in.
 

She had long red hair. Bright red, not ginger, the sort that’s dyed rather than natural. She was wearing this horrible long skirt with embroidered flowers and leaves on it, and big lace-up Dr Martin boots. She sat down near the front of the classroom and at first she ignored me, but after Paul made everyone introduce themselves to the class she kept turning around and glancing back at me. She was pretty too. I mean not really pretty, John wouldn’t have looked twice at her, but she had nice eyes, and she could smile a nice sarcastic smile. I would have walked out that class if she hadn’t walked in, but with her sitting there, something made me stay.
 

It wasn’t till after the lesson that she spoke to me. I was waiting for the bus back to Llanwindus, and I was thinking adult education probably wasn’t for me when she came walking past pushing this old bicycle.
 

“Hey you,” she said. It was only me there, so I guessed she meant me. I nodded back.
 

“You’re that moody guy who was sitting at the back and didn’t talk to no one.” She pushed her hair out of her face. She had brown eyes, up close they still looked pretty.
 

“Yeah maybe.”

“Hi moody guy.” She raised a hand from the bike and waggled her fingers.

“Hi,” I said back.

She watched me for a bit.

“Angel.”

“What?”

“That’s my name. I’m Angel.”

“Oh. Hi Angel.”

She stood again just watching me, until I realised.
 

“I’m Jesse,” I said.

“I know. You said so in class, remember? When our
class leader
got us to introduce ourselves.” That was what he’d called himself, instead of a teacher. She smiled the same sarcastic smile I’d seen earlier.
 

“Doesn’t sound like you were paying much attention.”

“Well it was a bit boring.”

“Paul’s a twat isn’t he?”

“He looks like a twat.”

“Everyone there’s a twat.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and I thought she was going to walk on, but she didn’t.
 

“Do they make you come here too?”

“Who?”

“Dole Office. I have to attend the whole course or they stop my benefits.”

“Really? That’s shit,” I said.

“Very shit. So do they send you too?”

“No,” I said. I thought about saying my mum sent me, but that didn’t sound very cool, and then I was saved by the bus coming.
 

It wheezed to a stop a few steps in front of us but I didn’t move.
 

“That your bus then?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna get on it?”

“Yeah probably.” I was struggling for something to say, something memorable. But nothing was coming. Fortunately Angel was a bit more straightforward than me.

“Or you could come to mine and get wasted? It’s just down the road.”

I had to struggle to keep the shock off my face. “Yeah OK,” I said with a locked jaw.

The bus stayed empty and the driver gave me a dirty look as we walked away, her rusty bicycle clanking away between us.

We went back to her place. As we were walking along I was pretty sure ‘come and get wasted’ meant the same as what people in films meant when they say ‘come in for coffee’, so when we got into her crowded little hallway, I wondered if I should just jump on her there. But she’d brought her bike in with her, and that would have made it pretty awkward. Then she showed me into the little lounge and I saw she really did mean ‘come and get wasted’.”

We sat on her little sofa and she pulled out this plastic bag with cloudy yellow crystals in it and she chose a couple to put into her pipe. Then she put the lighter to the bowl and lit it, while pulling the smoke hard into her mouth. It was almost all gone when she passed it to me and the smoke was sitting at the top of the room like a cloud. I wasn’t even sure what it was, but I figured I had to do some too if I still wanted to be staying there that night, so I took the lighter and copied what she’d done. Within seconds the room, the whole fucking world melted away as if my eyes were gas-torches and everything I looked at burnt in front of me. I don’t know if it was seconds or minutes later I managed to speak.

“What the fuck?” I coughed.

“Isn’t it
amazing
?” She leaned in towards me. “It makes you go for ages.”
 

I just sat there panting with the room coming and going whenever it wanted. Then she leaned over and put her hand on my cock. I tried to put my hands onto her, to feel for her breasts but my arms were moving real slowly, like I was swimming though honey. Then there was a noise in the hallway and this head appeared round the door while I still held my arms out, like I was pretending to be some sort of zombie.

“Hi Angel - Oh hi.”

“Hi Meg. Jesse, this is Megan, my housemate,” Angel said. She’d slipped back across to her side of the sofa and her voice still sounded normal. I wasn’t even sure if Megan was real or a hallucination. But I nodded hello to it and managed to get my arms back down.
 

“I’m going to cook some pasta, do you want some?” Her eyes took in the meth pipe which had found its way onto the coffee table, and I thought I saw a slight frown pass her face.