There’s no point in mentioning names, but Jason Guille and Pete Mauger are important to this story – Jason is in the Sixth Form at the Grammar and has half a finger missing, Pete’s his best friend and is missing his whole brain. There’s also Marc Le Page and J-P, although they matter less. Pagey now works in a bank and wears leather ties, J-P is a stick insect with no obvious eyebrows. They don’t talk to me anymore and I can’t pretend to care. They probably still light their own farts and find it funny.
Nic and I would sit in the car park and watch them do wheel spins on their motorbikes or handbrake turns in their cars. It’s funny, she had no interest in engines or electrics but when it came to boys she was a brilliant mechanic. She knew just what knobs to twiddle.
She liked Pete Mauger the most at first. His dad worked in the off-licence on the Esplanade, which meant his car boot was often full of cigarettes and cut-price booze.24 Nic preferred Silk Cut Purple because she could also steal them from Therese. Therese only smoked three-a-day-on-the-patio, but Nic could smoke a whole packet in an hour. Pete said it was like kissing an ashtray but obviously didn’t mind. Nic would smile and pull herself close to him and blow smoke right into his mouth. She could be quite slutty like that. I’m sure that makes me sound spiteful and jealous, but I never tried to compete with Nic, I just sat in the corner and drank/talked a lot. Maybe it was because of the drinking that we first fell out. Or maybe it was because of tomatoes.
It was after five in the afternoon and as per usual we’d crammed into Jason’s car to listen to the charts. Nic was in the front on Pete’s lap and I was in the back by the only window that worked. I was trying to concentrate on the music but I wished it was just me with Nic, alone together. We used to sing along to all our favourite songs. I was also annoyed with Pagey, who kept moaning about how his dad made him work in his greenhouses25 after school. I know sons are meant to hate their fathers as per the Ancient Greeks, but I told Pagey to show some respect. I then explained to him (and everyone else) how the tomato didn’t arrive in Guernsey until 1834, and that it was initially grown as a decorative plant because people thought it was poisonous. How funny then, that it became our major export and a kind of national emblem. And how tragic when, on 28th June 1940, German bombers destroyed an entire crop that was being loaded onto the boats for Southampton. What made it worse was they’d done so by mistake, because the stupid British government had never told them that they’d demilitarised the islands, and the Germans had mistaken tomato trucks for boxes of ammunition.
I told Pagey we should therefore hate the British and not our parents, but he didn’t agree.
‘That’s the most bloody stupid story I’ve ever heard,’ he told me.
‘It’s not a story,’ I replied, ‘it’s History.’
I saw Nic roll her eyes in the mirror. ‘We aren’t here for a fucking lecture, Cat.’
I was a bit offended and opened the car door. ‘Anyone fancy a walk?’
Nic laughed. ‘It’s raining.’
(I hadn’t noticed.)
Pagey stuck out his Caveman-chin.
‘For fuck’s sake shut the door, you’re getting me wet.’
I stood there, feeling Stupid. I had wanted Nic to make a choice but in fact she already had. Even if I was her best friend, boys mattered more. Back then I didn’t especially like boys. They were far too rowdy/interested in their own bodies. Of course, it was Nic who made them rowdy/interested in their own bodies. I suppose that means I saw them as a threat, but I never wanted to grope Nic or stick my tongue in her ear. I just wanted her to myself.
Instead of getting back in the car I decided I’d rather be alone, so I grabbed my bag and a half-bottle of Unlabelled Sinister Import and walked off up the slope towards the watchtower. I don’t think I stormed off (like Nic later said) because it was a steep hill and I had to walk slowly.
Although the tower was dark and smelly, I liked the sound of the wind whistling through the narrow windows.