Needles & Pins #2
Squatting down, he tries to listen. Then the clouds move overhead, revealing an almost full moon, and the scene before him is written in pale light.
Manon is closest to him. He can see her clearly, her hair still tied up with that band to keep it out of the water.
She is submerged up to her armpits, but she appears to be naked.
Her bare shoulders glow white in the moonlight.
The other figure is further away, partly obscured by a tree branch that hangs low over the water.
He can’t see their face, but he’s certain it’s another woman; he recognizes the voice he heard earlier.
She is naked too. Despite the knot in his gut and the smell of puke from his shirt, Gregory feels a swelling in his boxers.
He couldn’t stand now if he wanted to. Careful not to overbalance, he moves one hand down and strokes himself through the tight cotton.
It’s almost unintentional, and when he realizes what he’s doing, he draws back for a second.
Then he begins it again in earnest. He can’t tell what Manon and the other woman are up to, but they appear in no hurry.
Manon ducks her head under the water, then re-emerges spluttering; the other woman laughs.
Gregory can feel his breath shuddering in his chest, his world shrinking to the tableau in front of him.
He bites his lip as the manipulations with his hand start to hurt, but he doesn’t stop.
Then Manon stands tall in the water and he sees her breasts, full and white under the moon.
With a sudden release he feels a damp patch spread across his boxers. He can’t contain a gasp.
The two women startle, hands rising automatically to cover themselves.
As if on cue, the clouds move across the moon again, and the light is extinguished as surely as a candle.
He stands and feels his way back between the trees, the red-orange glow of the remains of their fire acting as a beacon.
More than once he stubs his toe, but he doesn’t stop until he’s back at his tent.
Fearful of being discovered, he pauses and listens to the night; but there’s only silence now, no indication of pursuit, or even of what he just saw being real.
Inside the tent, he strips out of his stained clothes and wriggles back inside the sleeping bag. His fingers find the phone, the screen still wet with his spit. It’s not quite one a.m.
* * *
Julian fetches coffee for them in the morning.
It’s more bitter than he likes it, but Gregory is glad of the caffeine.
Tom fries bacon at the cook station, and they eat bacon sandwiches slumped in their chairs around the dead fire.
The salt and fat work wonders; by nine Gregory is feeling human again.
He can almost convince himself that last night never happened.
After washing up their cups and plates at the communal tap, he fills a pan with water and carries it to the half-dead oak next to his tent.
His vomit has congealed in a thick puddle among the roots, holes pecked in it where the crows have helped themselves.
He pours the pan carefully to direct the stream, then returns to the tap to fetch another.
Before he pours that one, he notices something.
Bending over, he pushes his fingers into the puddle, finding what he’s looking for and pulling it out.
A needle. About an inch and a half long, with an eye at one end; a sewing needle.
Setting the water down, he explores again with his fingertips.
Another, skewering a half-digested wad of frankfurter.
And another. He finds six needles in all, ranging in size from an inch to two inches.
Once he’s rinsed them off, he isn’t sure what to do with them, so he pushes them into the pocket of his hoodie.
Why anyone would put them there he can’t imagine.
Maybe someone is having a joke at his expense. Maybe Manon saw him last night.
The four of them decide to check out a nearby pub for lunch.
Gregory is slow to start, but once his initial nausea has passed, he matches the others drink for drink.
When it’s his round he downs a shot of whiskey before carrying their pints back to the table.
The beer is good at The Oak Crown, and the food doesn’t even compare with their meagre pickings at the campsite, so it’s late afternoon before they decide to return.
The route seemed simple on the way there, but following it in reverse proves more complex.
Vince takes a wrong turn coming out of a field, and they have to backtrack when they wind up facing a shoulder-high stone wall; Tom leads them to a shortcut that doubles back on itself and deposits them where they started, ten minutes later.
It’s Vince who mentions Becky. They’ve just started out on the path for the second time when Tom asks who’s on cooking duty.
“Greg gets my vote,” Vince says, knocking weeds out of their way with a stick. “Needs the practice now he’s on his own. Or is it going to be takeaway for the foreseeable? Can’t say I’d blame you.”
There’s a pause. Then Gregory says, “I take it Abby told you?”
“You know how they talk, mate,” Julian pitches in, ever the diplomat. “We were bound to hear sooner or later. Doesn’t change anything between us, as far as I’m concerned.”
“She told you what happened, though? At the Palazzo?”
They don’t say anything, but he can see on their faces that they know.
Becky had arrived late for dinner with their friends.
He’d tried to take it outside, but she was having none of it.
Her face drawn and tight, mascara streaked down her cheeks.
He’d betrayed her, she said. When he’d tried to laugh it off, she’d slapped his hands away.
They had the table’s attention now; the entire restaurant.
Again, he’d suggested that they could talk somewhere else, but she’d wanted to ruin him.
She was jealous of her sister, always had been, and that one little kiss—a mistake on both their parts, they soon agreed—was all it took to light her powder.
Calling him names, spitting at him. Humiliating him.
He hadn’t meant to hit her. He’d told himself that again and again, until he almost believed it.
It was just instinctual, lashing out when someone attacks you. It wasn’t who he was.
They walk most of the way in silence. As soon as they’re back at the camp, Gregory hides behind the pans and the camping stove, warming the contents of two tins. The others build the fire, talking among themselves. As soon as he can lay his hands on a bottle, he starts drinking.
* * *
The air clears after a few beers. That’s all that matters, he tells himself.
They pretend to be offended for their girlfriends, but they know how it is.
Every man does. After a while he needs a piss, so he takes his phone to light the way and finds a spot between the trees.
It’s not far from the path but the campground is dark and quiet, most groups tired of socializing after a night under canvas.
Still, he turns the phone off while he directs his stream at the base of a tree; no point in lighting it up like Buckingham Palace.
He can feel the steam rising as he hits his target.
It’s so dark that he isn’t aware of her presence until she speaks.
“Will you be needing any more firewood tonight? Or have you got it all sorted?”
Gregory cuts off mid-stream, some of it splashing onto his hands and trousers as he fumbles to zip himself away.
Then he finds his phone again and thumbs it on.
Manon is stood behind him, her hands thrust into the pockets of her fleece.
She isn’t quite smiling, but she doesn’t look shy, either.
She must know what he was doing. The light from the phone strikes her face from below, hollowing her eyes, those cheekbones skeletal in black and white.
“Um, we’re good?” he stumbles. “Won’t be going much longer, anyway. Early night and all that.”
“Good.” Now he sees her smile, her teeth like little white pills. “Take care, won’t you. Some tricky parts round here. Better to stick to the paths. Wouldn’t want you falling in the water, especially not tonight.”
Then she’s gone, smothered by the darkness, leaving Gregory standing in a pool of light and piss.
* * *
The tent has that day-old smell, damp fabric and unwashed clothes; a sharp undertone of vomit. He’s fairly certain he smells the same way.
He doesn’t fall asleep at first. The ground is too lumpy beneath him; his thoughts are whirling too fast. He’d known they would find out about Becky and her sister, but he’d hoped it would come later, that this weekend would be a short holiday from the guilt and shame.
That’s all he needs, really: a break from it all, to shore himself up and take a breath.
Instead, he feels like he’s suffocating in their company.
He can’t fathom what that other stupid bitch, Manon, is playing at either.
He knows girls like to tease. But still, creeping up on him like that in the darkness.
The girl is odd, but he can’t deny that he’s drawn to her.
He remembers the sight of her half-naked in the moonlight and feels himself swell again inside the sleeping bag.
It’s then that the pain stabs at his chest.
He’s having a heart attack, he thinks. His breath is coming up short, and the sensation is excruciating, like someone’s sitting on his chest and stabbing him repeatedly with knitting needles.
He panics and tries to sit up. It’s not his heart, though; the pain is moving upwards, and he feels it in the back of his throat like a swelling inside him, something he’s eaten forcing its way back out.