Game Girls

Table of Contents

Title Page

Title Page

Dedication

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

GAME GIRLS

GAME

GIRLS

Judy Waite

For Elaine and Maidy

Special thanks to my agents Jenny and Penny Luithlen, for their support and encouragement, and for their overall faith in the idea.

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN 9781849398268

Version 1.0

First published in 2007 by Andersen Press Limited,

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

www.andersenpress.co.uk

www.judywaite.com

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Copyright © Judy Waite, 2007

The right of Judy Waite to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

ISBN: 9781849398268

Version 1.0

BEWARE. Be aware. Fern is always aware of danger.

Across the road the sea is ruffled by a sharp breeze, white foam chopping onto the shingle.

On the beach people stretch on towels, drawn by the unexpected heat wave. Two women wade uncertainly out into the water, stopping at thigh deep and bending to splash their arms and shoulders. Watching them through the pub window, Fern thinks that, in spite of the heat, it is October. The water won't be warm. She can almost feel the sea-bite of cold on their skin. Still, that won't put them off. Fern knows about the holiday crowd – the way they must always grab everything. Every last snatch of sand and sun and sea. Or in this case, stones and sun and sea.

They won't be thinking about the danger either. The council have the warning flags flying, exposing secret currents more deadly than sharks, but there are still some swimmers out there. Tourists never care.

Fern cares though. She knows the tides, and all their moods.

Turning away, she empties a sachet of sugar into her cappuccino. She's arrived too early. Stupidly. Alix would say it's not good to be early and blokes will take advantage if you look too keen.

It's shabby in here. Shabbier than Fern had expected. The Sea Horse Bar back in Long Cove is smart – fresh and clean – but here there are stub marks like small round scabs on the table where she's sitting, and an ashtray – unemptied – where soft grey flakes float in a puddle of beer.

She shuffles her chair forward, resting her elbows on the scabbed table. The place is busy. Mainly blokes. They sit in groups. Smoke. Read newspapers. Fern doesn't think any of them are Steve. He said he would be wearing a khaki-coloured jacket. She didn't click to see his photo – you had to join up to do that – but she's already got a picture of him in her head, just from the things he said in the chat room. He sounded gentle. Caring. She thinks he'll have curly hair and friendly blue eyes. He won't be any older than twenty.

Steve

Regular Guy.

Solvent. Own car. New to area. Into Clubs.

Music. Art.

WL2M 18+ for drinks and friendship.

Maybe more.

Fern is hoping she can pass for eighteen plus in Alix's hand-me-down high-heeled shoes. It was the art bit that drew her to him mostly – they'd at least have something in common. And the promise of friendship is like a hand beckoning.

'Hello – excuse me but – are you Honey? My name's Steve . . . '

She startles round, her cappuccino sloshing into the chipped china saucer. She'd forgotten she'd given him a false name.

'Hi.' She makes nervous dabs at the spilt coffee with her napkin and struggles to smile. He must be pushing forty. And he's almost bald.

'Can I get you another coffee? Or something stronger?'

She stares at him. 'Um – yes. I'll have . . . a Bacardi Breezer please.' She wouldn't normally drink in the day, but she tells herself she needs it, just to get through the next half hour.

'I'll be back in a jiff then, Honey. Don't go anywhere, will you?' He weaves his way between the tables.

She watches him as he reaches the bar, thinking this might be her chance to run. His back is slightly hunched, the khaki jacket baggy round his shoulders. She pictures him putting it on, checking what's left of his hair, making sure he hasn't forgotten his money. And she knows she can't do it. Can't leave him standing stupidly with her drink by an empty table. He dreamed of friendship through a Lonely Hearts website. Half an hour isn't going to hurt.

She counts the scabs on the table while she waits. Seventeen. A scab for every year she's been alive. She wonders about the people who crushed their cigarettes down onto the wood and thinks, without wanting to, about stub marks on homework. An exercise book filled with clumsy unreadable writing, burning in a bin in the park.

'So – what do you do?' He is back, putting her drink down and sliding into the chair opposite.

'At Art College,' she says, picking the Breezer up and sipping it straight away. She had battled to prepare this eighteen-plus fantasy person, and anyway, it's not too much of a lie. It's where she will be next year, provided she can scrape a pass in English. She's not much good at English, though. You need to be able to read properly to be good at English. And to write. She's always been in the 'specials' class for most subjects. 'I do things with clay mostly. It's what I'm best at.'

'I would've loved to have done art.' He smiles across at her. 'Graphics probably.'

She tries not to notice that his teeth are stained. 'Why didn't you then?'

He looks away for a moment, something lost in his eyes. He has a nice face – in between the wrinkles. 'My parents couldn't run to it. They needed me to get out and get earning.'

Fern nods. At least she's with him on this. It's going to be a struggle for her mum and dad too. Dad's not earning. Mum does her best. She's holding them all together but the guesthouse needs masses of work because of last year's floods and storms, and they're so squeezed by council 'dos' and 'don'ts', they're shelling out more than they bring in just on ticking over.

He leans back in his seat and rolls out a conversation about life as a pharmaceutical salesman. It may not sound that exciting, he tells her, but he gets to have a go-faster car and a chance to travel and has she ever been to Japan?

'Japan?' Fern laughs suddenly. Him asking her if she's ever been to Japan is like him asking her if she's ever been to the moon. She's never been anywhere. Well – visits to Gran and Gramps in the cold of Scotland. Or out of season weeks away to resorts even grimmer than this one.

'There's a great sushi restaurant at the other end of the town. Morimotos. You sit on rolled bamboo mats to eat. We could go there?'

'Now?' Fern almost chokes on the Breezer. She pictures herself sitting on the floor. She'd have to take off her too-high hand-me-down heels.

'Not now. No. But maybe next weekend? Saturday?'

Fern blinks across at him. All this is going too fast. How can she get out of it? She's never been any good at saying 'no.' 'I'll . . . I . . . maybe,' she stutters.

He is watching her carefully. 'I'll get in some more drinks,' he says as he takes her empty bottle and heads for the bar again.

Across the road, on the beach, a couple are packing up. The girl – about Fern's age – leans into her boyfriend, who wraps a vanilla yellow towel round her shoulders and kisses the top of her head.

Fern looks away quickly. She forces a smile as Khaki Steve puts the new Breezer in front of her. Maybe she could go out with him. It might be all right if it's just a meal. It's Alix's birthday next Saturday but when Fern asked her about it she just went vague and said she thought her mum would fly home and they'd probably go out for 'posh nosh'. Fern wanted to believe this, but a nagging doubt scratched at her. Maybe she'd set something up with Courtney Benton-Gray? Alix has just got to know Courtney, and Courtney would be someone who didn't want Fern around.

It's one of the reasons Fern made herself go through with this whole internet date thing. She wants to do something secret – to impress Alix. Something to surprise her with later.

She takes a fierce swig of the Breezer.

Khaki Steve is smiling the stained-teeth smile. 'Tell me more about yourself. Where you live, for instance.'

Where she lives? This is fine. Safe. Safe-ish anyway, as long as she doesn't tell him too much. She wouldn't want him appearing on the doorstep. 'We're by a river – it feeds into the sea. It's all salt water, so it's got a beachy feel.'

'A tidal river?' He leans closer across the table. 'It sounds like an interesting place to live.'

'Partly, yes. But it's dangerous too. Sometimes.'

'Dangerous? Why?'

'There are really strong currents, with sort of boggy black holes beneath the riverbed. If you swam in the wrong bit you could get sucked down. There are signs up so nobody does, but I saw a dog get out there once and it didn't stand a chance.'

She fingers the rim of her bottle. This is another memory she doesn't want to have. The flailing, bulge-eyed dog, and the screams of a headscarfed woman. Fern had been hosing down the dinghy when the dog came hurtling past. It was chasing a wing-damaged gull that half flew, half ran, out onto the water. She tried to dive in front of the dog, but she was too slow. There had been a few frenzied splashes; a brief spluttering, and then nothing. Only the gull flying raggedly away.

'You OK?' Khaki Steve reaches across and touches her hand. She lets him take it and they sit, holding hands across the table. Her head suddenly feels all muzzed and muddled and she doesn't know if everything in life is very funny or very sad.

'Drink up,' he says. 'We'll go for a drive.'

She is aware that she sways slightly as she stands and she lets him steady her and leans into him, remembering briefly the girl in the vanilla yellow towel.

'Don't forget your bag,' he says.

'Ooops. Brain's gone.' She picks up the soft leather handbag, another of Alix's hand-me-downs, and he steers her to a Go-Faster car which is parked just round the corner. She knows she is supposed to be amazed by how red and sporty it is and she knows that she is supposed to not get in because she must always be aware of danger, but her head is fuddled and she's feeling strange and they've been holding hands across the table.

'I know somewhere,' he says. 'It's not far. We can sit and watch the water together.'

And he turns a CD on which plays 'Sinking' by the Blades and she lets the idea of him swim around her again, thinking maybe he isn't even that old if he goes for bands like this.

Maybe the Japanese sun has just dried him out a bit.

They slide into the traffic and nudge through the town which is as crowded as the beach.

Fern feels tired suddenly. She wonders if Khaki Steve would mind if she closed her eyes. She wonders if she looks stupid when she sleeps.

The engine changes tune and, struggling to sit up, she realises she'd dozed off. They are pulling into a car park. There is a low wall and a strip of beach all straggled with seaweed and rubbish. She thinks that the council should sort that rubbish out. It's all wrong, in a tourist town. People should complain.

The sea sloshes in. Lazy. Indifferent.

Khaki Steve stops the engine. The Blades are still playing. Break-your-heart words bleeding out through the speakers. 'The Way it Began'. She can't have been asleep for long.

He undoes his seat belt.

He undoes hers.

'I like you, Honey,' he says, nuzzling into her neck.

In front of them, along the strip of beach, three boys run and dive into the indifferent sea. Their voices carry back to the Go-Faster car, high and happy and playful as seals. The sun streams down round them, glittering the tips of the waves.

Fern feels Khaki Steve take her hand and move it to the bulge at the front of his trousers. 'Please, Honey. I like you. Please.'

He has undone his zip and he pushes her hand inside and moves his own hand on top of hers, making her rub.

She wonders what Alix would do.

She wonders if this is normal.

She's never been any good at saying 'no'.

The windows of the Go-Faster car are steaming up but she keeps looking out ahead and he still keeps making her rub him and rub him; his breathing is strange and he is groaning. The happy-as-seals boys have found a stick or a shoe or something. They are throwing it and leaping after it and throwing it again.

It is over very quickly.

Fern takes her hand away.

Khaki Steve slumps for a moment, his eyes shut, and she knows this is her moment to get out of the car and run.

'That was good.' His voice is flat now. 'Shall I see you again?'

'I . . . ' She needs a reason to get away and the truth is the best she can dredge up. Will he try to stop her if she reaches for the door handle? Maybe he's locked the door from the inside. '. . . I'm not as old as you think I am.'

'Shit. How old?'

'Seventeen. Just.'

'Shit.'

This is all her fault. She lied to him. She put herself here. 'It's fine.' She edges sideways slightly, leaning away from him. 'But I want to go now.'

He grabs hold of her arm and his grip is tight and she winces. Now she's scared.

His other hand is digging in the pocket of the khaki jacket. 'Look – take this. Forget it all happened.' He is holding the wallet and pulling out a wad of notes which he pushes into her bag. 'Can I drop you anywhere?'

'No. Everything's fine. How does this handle work?'

He doesn't answer but she gets the door open anyway and stumbles out, not shutting it behind her. Not looking back. For a moment she can't think where to go, but then runs down onto the strip of beach; her too-high hand-me-down heels slide into the crunch of sand and shingle and she is like a person in a dream – in a nightmare – running and running but going nowhere. Wrenching off the shoes, she drops them down amongst the seaweed and the rubbish that people should complain about, then races like a maddened thing, heading back towards the town. The shingle bruises up into her soles and tears her tights, and a new wind spins against her and the sea has lost its glittered shine.

But at least her head is clear now.

And she's not going to keep the money. It's dirty. It's wrong. When she gets home she's going to put it in a bag with a brick, and chuck it out on the bog-soft riverbed at low tide.

Mucky money. Mucky ending.

That's the best place for it.

* * *

'Fifty quid?' Alix hits the hold button, looks up from the fruit machine, and widens her eyes at Fern.

'I just . . . it just happened.'

'When?'

'Yesterday. In the afternoon.'

Alix lets her last coin rattle into the slot. The machine dings and flashes. The arcade is manic, bells and buzzers exploding all round her. She wonders if she's hearing Fern right. 'You mean – you went with some older guy in his car and . . . '

'I think I'd had too much to drink.'

Alix can accept this. Too much to drink can mean half a cider for Fern.

The machine judders round its row of symbols. Three cherries. There is the tinny rattle of money being dropped. She scoops it up with one hand and feeds another coin in, narrowing her eyes at the machine. There must be a way to calculate your chances of winning. The symbols can't really just be random – there must be some sort of pattern that she could learn. If she cracked that, she could make a killing. Easy money.

Fern stands slightly to one side, watching Alix hook out a fresh tumble of winnings. 'I know I've been stupid. I wasn't even going to tell you. I got him from the internet. DateMate.com. You know – one of those lonely hearts ones.'

'Don't worry about it. You've survived.' Alix shrugs. 'Be grateful he was just a lonely old git and nothing worse.' She steps back from the machine, dropping the coins into her bag. 'I'm bored with this one. Let's go and look for Courtney. She was only going to the loo to sort out her hair. She must be done by now.'

'Promise you won't tell anyone?' Fern touches Alix's arm and holds her hand there. Her big Bambi eyes are anxious. Begging.

'I promise.' Alix resists the urge to shake her away. She hates being hung on to. Clung on to.

'But d'you think I'm a . . . you know. . . a slag?'

Alix smiles and shakes her head. 'No. Just . . . ' She hesitates, rolls the word 'stupid' round her head, then changes her mind. '. . .