‘Ah, but once you’re on board the Coventry,’ Debby Crombie pouted, or pretended to, ‘you’ll forget all about your pining sweetheart back in boring old Worcestershire. You’ll go out on the razz in Athens and pick up VD from some floozy Greek temptress called…’
‘Called what?’
‘…Iannos.’
‘“Iannos” is a boy’s name. It’s Greek for “John”.’
‘Yeah, but you’d only find that out after he’d filled you full of ouzo and strapped you to his bed frame.’
Tom Yew lay back grinning and looked up straight at me.
Thank God he wasn’t looking at what he was looking at. Cobras can spot prey move from half a mile away. But if you don’t move a muscle, they can’t see you, even from five feet. It was that that saved me this afternoon.
‘Used to climb this very tree, y’know, when Nick was a wee nipper. One summer, we built a tree house. Wonder if it’s still up there…’
Debby Crombie was already stroking his groin. ‘Nothing wee about this nipper, Thomas William Yew.’ Debby Crombie unpeeled Tom Yew’s Harley Davidson T-shirt and flung it away. His back’s glazed and muscly like Action Man’s. He’s got a blue swordfish tattooed on one shoulder.
She squirmed out of her unbuttoned lavender dress.
If Dawn Madden’s breasts were a pair of Danishes, Debby Crombie’s got two Space Hoppers. Each armed with a gribbly nipple. Tom Yew kissed them in turn and his saliva glistened in the April sun. I know watching was wrong but I couldn’t not. Tom Yew slipped off her red panties and stroked the cressy hair there.
‘If you want me to stop, Madam Crombie, you have to say now.’
‘Oooh, Master Yew,’ she croodled, ‘don’t you dare.’
Tom Yew got on her and sort of jiggled there and she gasped like he was giving her a Chinese burn and wrapped her legs round him, froggily. Now he moved up and down, Man-from-Atlantisly. His silver chain jiggled on his neck.
Now her grubby soles met like they were praying.
Now his skin was glazed in roast pork sweat.
Now she made a noise like a tortured Moomintroll.
Now Tom Yew’s body jerkjerked judderily jackknifed and a noise like a ripping cable tore out of him. Once more, like he’d been booted in the balls.
Her fingernails’d sunk salmony welts into his arse.
Debby Crombie’s mouth made a perfect O.
A chime from St Gabriel’s for one o’clock, or maybe two, eddied this far. Moran the Deserter’d be miles up the bridlepath by now. My only hope was if he got his leg caught in a rusty badger trap. He’d beg me to go and get help. I’d say, ‘Well, Moran, why don’t I think about it?’
Debby Crombie and Tom Yew still hadn’t unglued themselves. She was just drowsing, but Tom Yew was snoring. A Red Admiral fluttered on to the small of his back to drink from the puddle of sweat there.
I felt hungry and nervy and sick and jealous and sluggy and shamed and many things. Not proud and not pleased and not like I ever wanted to do that. The noises they’d made weren’t quite human. The breeze lullabied the conker tree and the conker tree lullabied me.
‘GaaaAAA!’ Tom Yew shouted. ‘FAAAAAAAAA!’
Debby Crombie shrieked too. Her eyes were open and white.
He’d jumped off her and’d fallen on to his side.
‘Tom! Tom! It’s okay it’s okay it’s OKAY!’
‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.’
‘Darling! It’s Debs! It’s okay! It’s a nightmare! Only a nightmare!’
Nuddy sunbaked Tom Yew shut his scared eyes, nodded that he understood, crouched against a tentacle-root and gripped his throat. That shout must’ve torn his vocal cords.
‘It’s all right.’ Debby Crombie shuffled her lavender dress on and hugged Tom Yew like a mother. ‘Darling, you’re trembling! Put some clothes on. It’s all right now.’
‘Debs, I’m sorry.’ His voice was crumpled. ‘Must’ve scared you.’
She spread his shirt over his shoulders. ‘What was it, Tom?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, like hell it was nothing. Tell me!’
‘I was on the Coventry. There was enemy fire…’
‘Go on. Go on.’
Tom Yew clenched his eyes shut and shook his head.
‘Go on, Tom!’
‘No more, Debs. It was too…too fucking real.’
‘But Tom. I love you. I want to know.’
‘Yeah, and I love you too much to tell you and that’s that. C’mon on. Let’s get back to the village. Before some kid sees us.’
Cauliflowers grew in neat rows between pointy ridges. I was halfway across when the planes came roaring, demolishing the sky over the Severn Valley. Tornados fly over our school several times a day, so I was ready to cover my ears with my hands.