listen to naughty Hugo Lamb!” Jason, you have to kill “not today”.’
This was so appallingly true I could only try to smile.
Then Hugo said, ‘I was you myself, Jace, once. Just the same. Always afraid. But there’s another reason why you must smoke this cigarette. Not because it’s the first step to becoming someone your turkey-shagging schoolmates will respect instead of exploit. Not because a young blood with a mature cigarette is a better proposition to the ladies than a boy with a sherbert dip. It’s this. Come here. I’ll whisper it.’ Hugo leant so close his lips touched my ears and 10,000 volts sang all over my nervous system. (For a split second I had a vision of Hugo the Oarsman out on the water, cathedrals and river banks blurring by, biceps stiffening and loosening under his vest, with girlfriends lining the river. Girlfriends ready to lick him where he told them.) ‘If you don’t kill “not today”,’ Hugo did a horror-movie trailer voice, ‘One day you’ll wake up, look in the mirror and see Brian and Uncle Michael!’
‘Attaboy…breathe in…through your mouth, not your nose…’
The mouthful of gassy dirt left my mouth.
Hugo was stern. ‘You didn’t suck it into your lungs, did you, Jace?’
I shook my head, wanting to spit.
‘You have to inhale, Jace. Into your lungs. Otherwise it’s like sex without an orgasm.’
‘Okay.’ (I don’t actually know what an orgasm is, apart from what you call someone who’s done something stupid.) ‘Right.’
‘I’m just going to pinch your nose,’ said Hugo, ‘to stop you cheating.’ His fingers closed off my nostrils. ‘Deep breath – not too deep – and let the smoke go down with the air.’ Then his other hand sealed my mouth shut. The air was cold but his hands were warm. ‘One, two…three!’
In came the hot gassy dirt. My lungs flooded with it.
‘Hold it there,’ urged Hugo. ‘One, two, three, four, five, and—’ he released my lips, ‘—out.’
The smoke leaked out, a genie from its bottle.
The wind atomized the genie.
‘And that,’ said Hugo, ‘is all there is to it.’
Vile. ‘Nice.’
‘It’ll grow on you. Finish the cigarette.’ Hugo perched himself on the back of the bench and relit his own Lambert Butler. ‘As aquatic spectacles go, I am a trifle underwhelmed by your lake. Is this where the swans are?’
‘There aren’t any actual swans in Black Swan Green.’ My second drag was as revolting as my first. ‘It’s a sort of village joke. The lake was classic in January, mind. It froze over. We played British Bulldogs actually on the ice. Though I found out afterwards there’s about twenty kids who’ve drowned in this lake, down the years.’
‘Who could blame them?’ Hugo did a weary sigh. ‘Black Swan Green might not be the arsehole of the world, but it’s got a damn good view of it. You’ve gone a bit pale, Jace.’
‘I’m fine.’
The first torrent of vomit kicked a GUUURRRRRR noise out of me and poured on to the muddy grass. In the hot slurry were shreds of prawn and carrot. Some’d got on my splayed fingers. It was as warm as warm rice pudding. More was coming. Inside my eyelids was a Lambert Butler cigarette sticking out of its box, like in an advert. The second torrent was a mustardier yellow. I guppered for fresh oxygen like a man in an airlock. Prayed that was the last of it. Then came three short, boiling sub-slurries, slicker and sweeter. Must have been the Baked Alaska.
Oh, Jesus.
I washed my puke-stained hand in the lake, then wiped away the tears from my puke-teared eyes. I’m so ashamed. Hugo’s trying to teach me how to be a kid like him, but I can’t even smoke a single cigarette.
‘I’m really,’ I wipe my mouth, ‘really sorry.’
But Hugo’s not even looking at me.
Hugo’s squirmed out on the bench, facing the churned-up sky.
My cousin’s sobbing with laughter.
Bridlepath
My eye spidered over my poster of black angelfish turning into white swans, across my map of Middle Earth, around my door frame, into my curtains, lit fiery mauve by my spring sun, and fell down the well of dazzle.
Listening to houses breathe makes you weightless.
But a lie-in’s less satisfying if other people aren’t up and about, so I jumped out of bed. The landing curtains were still drawn ’cause Mum and Julia’d left for London when it was dark. Dad’s away on another weekend conference in Newcastle under Lyme or Newcastle on Tyne. Today, the house is all mine.