The Bone Clocks

Stella spikes the strawberry from the ice-cream dish and pushes it up Vinny’s nostril. He grabs her wrist with his hand, his beautiful hand, and guides the fruit into his mouth, and they look at each other, and jealousy burns my gut like a glass of neat Domestos. What sicko anti-guardian angel brought them to Smoky Joe’s right here, right now? Look at the helmets. Vinny’s brought Stella here on his precious untouchable Norton. She hooks her little finger through his, and pulls, so his arm and body follow, until he’s leaning all the way over the table and kissing her. His eyes are shut and hers aren’t. Vinny only mouths the next three words, but he never said them to me. He says it again, eyes wide open, and she looks like a girl unwrapping an expensive present she knew she was getting.

I could erupt and hurl plates, call them every name under the sun, and get a ride back to Gravesend in gales of tears and a police car, but I blunder back to the heavy door, which I pull instead of push and push instead of pull ’cause my vision’s melting away, watched by the old moo, oh, Christ, yeah, ’cause I’m bags more interesting than the News of the Worldnow, and those button eyes of her don’t miss one single detail …

OUT IN THE open air my face dissolves into tears and snot, and a Morris Maxi slows down for the old fart at the wheel to get a good eyeful and I shout, “What are youbloody looking at?” and, God, it hurts it hurts it hurts, and I clamber over this gate into a wheatfield, where I’m hidden from the roundabout, and now I sob and sob and sob and sob and sob and sob and punch the ground and punch the ground and sob and sob and sob … And That’s it, I think, I’ve no more tears left now, and then Vinny murmurs, “I love you,” and reflected in his beautiful brown eyes is Stella Yearwood and here we go again. It’s like puking up an iffy Scotch egg—every time I think I’m done, there’s more. When I calm down enough for a cigarette, I realize I dropped them by the machine in Smoky Joe’s. Bloody great. I’d rather eat cat shit on toast than everset foot inside that place. Then, of course, I recognize the growl of Vinny’s Norton. I creep to the gate. There they are, sat on the back, smoking—I just fucking bet—my fags, the fags I just paid Ј1.40 for. Stella would’ve spotted the box at the foot of the machine, still in its cellophane, and picked it up. First she steals my boyfriend, now it’s my fags. Then she climbs onto the Norton, puts her arms round Vinny’s waist, and buries her face in his leather jacket. Away they go, down the road to the Kingsferry Bridge, into the streaky blue yonder, leaving me grimy and hidden like a tramp with crows in a tree going What a laaarf … What a laaarf …

The wind strokes and stirs the wheat.

The wheat ears go pitter patter pitter.

I’ll never get over Vinny. Never. I know it.

TWO HOURS AFTER the roundabout I get to an end-of-the-world village called Eastchurch. There’s a sign saying ROCHESTER 23. Twenty-three miles? Little wonder I’ve got blisters like Ayers Rock on my feet. Strange thing is, after the Texaco garage in Rochester it’s all a bit of a blur till the Kingsferry Bridge onto Sheppey. Actually, it’s a total blur. Like a section of a song that’s been taped over. Was I walking along in a trance? Eastchurch is in a trance. There’s one small Spar supermarket, but it’s shut ’cause it’s Sunday and the newsagent next to it’s shut, too, but the owner’s moving about inside so I knock till he opens up and get a packet of Digestive biscuits and a jar of peanut butter, plus another pack of Rothmans and a box of matches. He asks if I’m sixteen so I look him straight in the eye and say I turned seventeen in March, actually, which does the trick. Outside I light up as a mod and his modette drive by on a scooter, staring at me, but my mind’s on the shrinking pounds and pence I’ve got left. I’ll get more money tomorrow, as long as Mr. Harty doesn’t play funny buggers, but I don’t know how long this working holiday of mine’s likely to last. If Vinny and Stella were out when Mam or Dad went to find me at Vinny’s house, they won’t know I’m not with him, so they won’t know I’ve left Gravesend.

There’s a phone box by the bus stop. Mam’d go all sarky and Mammish if I phone her, but if I phone Brendan’s hopefully Ruth’ll answer, and I’ll say to get the message to Dad—not Mam, Dad—that I’m okay but I’ve left school and I’ll be away for a bit. Then Mam won’t be able to send me on a you-could’ve-been-abducted guilt trip the next time we meet. But when I open up the phone box I find the receiver’s been ripped off its cord, so that’s that.

Perhaps I’ll ask to phone from the farm. Perhaps.

·   ·   ·