She had tried to explain her turmoil to David. But he had taken speed and it always makes him snappy.
‘Come on Ames, not now! You’re being neurotic and just a bit staid.’ He pushed her on the bed and slid his fingers into her knickers. Being ‘staid’ was the worse insult anyone could receive, at least in David’s eyes. ‘We’re having a party tonight and no one wants to talk about things like that at a party now do they.’
She wiggled out from under him. Perhaps he was right; who could be miserable on such a beautiful evening?
Amy watches David weave his way round groups of people they know and many they don’t, making jokes and poking fun. Offending people, perhaps, and she’ll feel beholden to make amends. I’ll do it later, she thinks, picking up a bottle of wine, or perhaps I won’t bother. I haven’t seen Seymour all evening. Where is he? She wanders over to a spot where the fire’s light fails to reach and decides to get quietly drunk.
‘Hallo Amy. Do join me. Do you want either of these?’ Gerald is sitting in the shadow propped against an upturned box. He offers a bottle of whisky in one hand and a cushion in the other.
‘Just the cushion, thanks. I’m drinking wine.’
She doesn’t want to sit with Gerald, not when she is sober anyway. She is never as tongue-tied with anyone else. Despite this she settles on the cushion and makes a fuss of his dog. ‘Jackson is so elegant and cool. Does he like parties?’
‘He does if his master can secure sufficient drink. I was born a few drinks behind most people,’ he says, swigging from the whisky bottle, ‘so I have to level the playing field.’
He’s told her this before.
Friends and guests flicker in the firelight like they’re on stuttering celluloid.
Gerald continues: ‘So how do you like living here in Seymour’s hippy hideaway? Being pranksters. Are you having a good time?’
‘We are, yes, it’s wonderful. I want to live here for, I don’t know, forever. In harmony with nature, close to the land, grow food, tend animals…’
‘You’ve become quite the country mouse. I couldn’t live anywhere else either. London’s fine for a day or two but…’
‘We’ve just got to find a way to make it work. To be fully self-sufficient. I mean, we can bake bread and brew beer but we’ll…’
‘Start a little business? You wince but you could always grow, I don’t know, cannabis. Seymour’s got outbuildings, hasn’t he? Rig up some special lighting and heat. Amy, the girlie dealer. Has a certain ring about it.’
‘Business – not me? A co-operative, maybe.’ She’s a little drunk now. She cackles. ‘I do have green fingers, though. What would Seymour think? Where is he, anyway?’
‘In the house, I think. You’re going to find him, are you? Just don’t reveal your drug-growing plans to him. Seymour prides himself on being a renegade but he’s as uptight as they come.’
A cheer goes up. She slips unnoticed past Julian and David who stagger under the weight of the pole of pigs they have lifted off the fire. They flop the charred bodies on to the table. Party guests gather round, fascinated by the spectacle of crackled skin being hacked off the roasted bodies, even those whose appetites are suppressed by chemicals. Others salivate, eager to cram the meat into their mouths.
Lynn is standing in the shadows. Spotting a space, she slips in beside David. He wields a large knife with exaggerated bravado, providing entertainment for anyone watching his carve.
‘Lynn, hallo,’ David grins. ‘Let me give you some of this.’ He pinions a piece of meat on the tip of the knife.
‘The music kept me awake so reckoned I might as well see what was happening. Mother can sleep through a storm. Thanks, I will have a bit.’ Lynn’s eyes flutter as David slides the pork between her lips. Painted red with lipstick, the pig grease makes them shine.
Last time she’d seen David, he’d come to the office to query a charge made on some building supplies. She’d had to find the paperwork. Rifling through the filing cabinet, she watched him talking with Aaron the Oaf, as she called her boss. David was confident and relaxed; he commanded the space as if to say: I know what I want and I’ll get it.
‘Delicious, eh?’ He offers her another piece. Taking the meat in her fingers, she pushes it in her mouth, looking at him as she chews. Slowly, she licks her fingers.
The party ratchets up a level; everyone is hard at it now. No one cares that the speakers buzz or that broken glass is being ground into the grass or that night is turning into morning. People are in the mood for intoxication. They drive for the place where rules are determinedly abandoned.
Impulses judged prudent are cast aside; it would be illogical to resist temptation. It’s summer, it’s a party, it’s beholden on people to be fun and have fun. Alcohol and stimulants make bodies ricochet and brains race. Someone dumps an armful of straw on the fading embers; the fire flares into life like the flames of passion. There’s a roar and a cheer. No one notices who’s doing what with whom. If one of the hosts disappears into the shadows who is there to ask what he is up to? Who cares?
20
‘You are the sexiest girl I’ve ever been about to ravage.’
Seymour’s muffled voice leaked from under Amy’s dress. He pooled his tongue in her belly button. She ignored the stones
