Chapter 4 #3
Pea: Zak explained that they were going to be showering in the house for a couple of days.
In our house. Alex gave me a look and I could read his mind exactly.
He was saying, Actual AJ Silver in your actual house!
Naked! But I wasn’t thinking about AJ. I was thinking about Zak.
About crossing on the landing wearing nothing more than a towel, about hair dripping onto shoulders, about sneaking into my room and him pressing me up against the door.
Zak: AJ was having a hissy fit about the whole thing but what could anyone do?
Pea: All day, I’d been willing time to move faster, and now I was standing here with the boy I’d been looking forward to seeing for months and I was still doing it, because it wasn’t enough to stand this close to him, to feel the heat from his body.
I needed to be alone with him, for our skin to touch.
Zak: I asked Pea if she wanted to go for a walk, and she smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear and said yes.
I meant just her, but it was clear that AJ and Alex were going to come with us.
I thought about all the times I’d left AJ alone with girls he liked, all the many, many girls there had been since the start of this journey, and then I thought about this one time that he wouldn’t do the same for me.
Alex: Zak sort of steered Pea so they were in front, which left me walking beside AJ.
I looked over and flashed him a quick smile, but he didn’t return it.
He was still going on about the shower thing, though Zak was largely ignoring him.
I asked whether they’d thought about booking a room in a hotel in town, trying to be helpful.
AJ looked at me then, and it was like he was noticing me for the first time.
He said it was hard to be out in public, that they wanted to lie as low as possible, and I said of course, as if I knew what that was like.
Pea: It was so frustrating, that walk. At some point, Zak grabbed my hand and it calmed me. I knew, then, that the things he’d said in his letters were true and that when we got some time on our own, if we ever did, we’d be together.
Alex: I stayed as long as I reasonably could and then went home. It was a Friday so I said to Pea that I’d see her tomorrow. She didn’t look thrilled.
Zak: Shortly after Alex left, Pea went home to eat dinner. I said I’d be over in an hour or so to wash the plane off me, and she smiled like she was kind of embarrassed, and I knew she was thinking about me showering. I liked that she was thinking about it.
Cathy: Over dinner, John and I told Pea what our rules were. No sneaking around, no visiting the tour buses after dinner, bedroom door to be kept open if Zak visited the house.
Pea: Oh my God, the rules. They were draconian. I couldn’t believe it even as they were saying them. I was sixteen by then. I wanted to say that it was legal for me to do whatever I wanted with my boyfriend, but I didn’t, because we’d never exactly been open about sex and I wasn’t about to start.
Zak: Yeah, Pea told me about her parents’ rules. Ironically, she told me that night after sneaking out to see me on the bus.
Pea: I hadn’t thought much about the fact that there would be absolutely no privacy.
I didn’t want to take him to the house because I knew Mum would be watching us like a hawk and he was sharing the bus he was sleeping on with AJ.
That first night, there was a lot of back and forth with everyone coming over to shower, and I stayed in my room for all of it, trying to work out the best way to see him.
I waited until ten, when I heard Mum and Dad go to bed, and then I crept out.
I’d never done anything like that before. Hadn’t had a reason to, I suppose.
Zak: I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her that evening when she knocked on the door of the bus a little after ten.
I saw AJ rolling his eyes as I scrambled to let her in.
We were both listening to music on our Discmans, lying on our beds, not talking.
I pulled Pea inside and she gave me the lowdown, about the rules and her parents’ obvious distrust of me, or her, or maybe both of us.
She sat down on my fold-out bed and I lay down next to her, then pulled her down next to me.
She looked at me funny, I guess because we weren’t alone, but I kissed her anyway. I felt like I would die if I didn’t.
Pea: That first kiss after they arrived was something I’d thought about for so long and it didn’t measure up.
It wasn’t the kiss itself, more the fact that I couldn’t relax into it, with his brother in the same small space as us.
His brother, who was AJ Silver. I kept pulling away, and Zak told me we would work it out, that we’d find a way. I hoped he was right.
Zak: So that was the first day. Plans going awry, rules being broken. I remember thinking it could only get better. Yeah. Funny, huh?
Pea: I woke up at five in Zak’s arms. I’d intended to go back home after an hour or so but we must have fallen asleep.
I can laugh about it now, all these years later, but it was a definite ‘oh fuck’ moment.
I knew that if Mum or Dad found out, they’d be locking me in my room to keep us apart.
I sat up slowly, not wanting to wake Zak, and then I looked over at where AJ was sleeping.
His mouth was open, his covers pushed off.
He looked younger. It was astonishing, really, that all these people operated on the whims of this young boy.
That he had our family’s fate in his hands.
I looked back at Zak, who looked impossibly peaceful, then I crept out and back to my house.
I held my breath going up the stairs. Sometimes Mum prowled about in the early hours when she couldn’t sleep, but I seemed to have got lucky.
I peeled off my clothes and got into bed.
But I didn’t go back to sleep. My mind was racing.
Zak: Pea stayed over that first night. I don’t think either of us were intending for her to. We just fell asleep. It was really innocent, actually, but I don’t think her parents would have seen it that way.
Pea: Mum came into my room at seven and said I had to get up and have a shower if I wanted one, because ‘AJ and co’, that’s actually what she called them, would be coming in from eight onwards.
I asked if she knew it was Saturday, and she told me not to be rude, that she’d had to agree on a time schedule and she’d booked us in for seven until eight each morning.
So I got up, bleary-eyed, only to find the bathroom door locked. Dad was in there.
John: That whole showering thing was ridiculous. I mean, I’m up early anyway, but I don’t like to be told when I can and can’t use my own bathroom.
Pea: I got back into bed for a bit, then got up when I heard the bathroom door lock click.
But Sebastian beat me to it. I banged on the door, telling him I was next in the queue, but it stayed defiantly shut.
I looked at Dad, who shrugged and said, ‘You snooze, you lose.’ I eventually got in the bathroom at ten to eight.
When I came out, my towel just about covering my arse, Maggie was standing there with silk pyjamas on and a washbag in her hand.
She said good morning, but I don’t think I replied.
Alex: I usually turned up at about ten at the weekends, but that day I was there at nine. Pea was finishing off a bowl of cereal. She went over to the cupboard, held up a box of chocolate Pop Tarts and raised her eyebrows.
Zak: When I went over there to shower, Pea and Alex were eating Pop Tarts.
I was starving. There was no food on the bus because no one had been out to get any yet.
I asked if there was one for me and Pea stood up to put another one in the toaster.
When she’d done it, I caught hold of her hands and pulled her towards me for a kiss. And that’s when her mum walked in.
Alex: Oh God, Zak was standing there in a towel kissing Pea, and Cathy looked like she was ready to kill someone.
Cathy: I think I just said her name and they broke apart. Zak looked sheepish and disappeared upstairs to the bathroom, and I told Pea we needed to have a talk later.
Pea: The threat of that talk was hanging over me the whole day.
Alex: When Cathy left the kitchen, I burst out laughing. I thought Pea would do the same thing but she looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was and then we just carried on eating our Pop Tarts in silence.
Zak: I showered in five minutes, and all the time I was cursing myself for letting that happen. I needed to get Cathy and John onside or I knew I could kiss my chances of spending time with Pea goodbye.
Alex: Every Saturday, without fail, we’d eat something and then head out into the park. So we did that, but when we went past the tour buses, Pea slowed down and asked if we should invite them to come along. I said, ‘Who? Zak and AJ?’ She nodded. I said I guessed we could.
Pea: It only struck me as I was knocking on the bus door that these guys had hired the entire park, and it should maybe be them asking us if we wanted to join them rather than the other way around.
It was an odd realisation, because I’d tied my whole identity up with that place.
Would they mind us still using it? I couldn’t see why they would, and Mum and Dad hadn’t said anything, but I wasn’t sure.
Zak: I stuck my head out and said I’d be with them in five minutes. AJ was still asleep. There was a weird atmosphere between Pea and Alex, and I wished I could get rid of him somehow. Maybe when AJ woke up, he’d join us and then Pea and I could sneak off for a bit.