Chapter 12
Although SJ wasn’t planning to visit SAADD again, she thought quite a lot about what Kit had said over the next few days. And there was one question he’d asked that particularly played on her mind.
When had she first noticed she was drinking more than socially?
This, she decided, was worth thinking about.
She couldn’t remember getting drunk very much when she was younger, or even thinking too much about alcohol.
As a teenager, she’d been to the occasional college party where she’d had a few too many, but she didn’t remember it ever being a problem.
As she tried to recall the half-forgotten parties it struck her that in those days it had been Alison, her younger sister, who was more likely to get into trouble with drinking than she was.
Their parents had lived in the outskirts of Bournemouth back then which was where the girls had grown up.
When Alison was fifteen and SJ was eighteen, SJ had been persuaded to take her to a barbecue on Sandbanks Beach. According to the college friend who’d invited her, Sandbanks was the best beach on the whole of the south coast, if not the country.
‘Ali’s too young to go to a beach party,’ she’d told her mother. ‘Everyone will be drinking.’ And possibly smoking joints, but she’d thought it best not to mention that.
‘Well, surely you can keep an eye on her for a couple of hours?’
No, actually. SJ was far more interested in keeping an eye on Jed Tyler, who had darkly attractive bad boy looks and a reputation to match. And she’d heard on the grapevine that he’d been asking about her. A beach party was the perfect place to get to know him better.
‘Either you take your sister – or you don’t go!’
‘Mum. That’s totally unfair.’
‘I mean it, Sarah-Jane. It won’t hurt you, and your father and I are going out for dinner. I don’t want Ali on her own all evening.’
SJ wasn’t surprised to hear that. The last time Ali had been left on her own she’d raided Mum and Dad’s drinks cabinet – and she and a boy from youth club had got legless.
One of them had been sick on the stairs, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the stair carpet hadn’t been new and beige.
Now there was a conspicuous stain which no amount of scrubbing would remove.
‘I don’t really have a choice then, do I?’ SJ grumbled.
‘No, you don’t.’
* * *
The day of the barbecue was the hottest of the year. SJ had half hoped it would rain and be cancelled. But as they got on the Bournemouth train she cheered up a bit.
After all, keeping an eye on her sister didn’t mean they had to be joined at the hip. Maybe there’d even be other kids Ali could tag along with, although SJ wasn’t holding out too much hope of this.
‘So what’s his name – this guy you fancy?’ Ali asked as they left the train station and walked to catch the bus that would take them the rest of the way to the beach.
‘Who said I fancy anyone?’ SJ said, startled at her sister’s perception.
‘You spent twice as long as usual putting on your make-up.’ Alison heaved the rucksack she was carrying off her shoulders and rested it against the back of the bus shelter.
It clinked suspiciously and SJ wondered just how many bottles of wine were in there – and who had helped her buy them.
The off-licence on the corner of their road was owned by a friend of Dad’s so she couldn’t have got them there.
‘I hope you’re not planning to get paralytic, Ali, because I’m not carrying you home. Where did you get the money from anyway?’
‘I used Dad’s emergency taxi fund. Well – we’ll be getting the bus back, won’t we, so we don’t need it.’
SJ sighed. Luckily she had some money with her anyway. She’d got a holiday job as a chambermaid and she’d been saving for a dress she’d seen in Next. She’d nearly bought it today, but the girl had said it might be in the sale if she waited another week.
Alison smiled disarmingly and bent to tie up the laces on her Dr Martens. Neither of them was wearing the outfits they’d planned for the evening – they’d never have got past Dad if they had. Alison was dressed in her usual T-shirt and jeans and SJ had her old, baggy but very comfy, leggings on.
‘You did put my tights in, didn’t you?’ SJ said, suddenly remembering Alison had whisked away the rucksack before she’d finished putting her stuff in – so she could sneak in the bottles of wine without their parents seeing.
‘Course,’ Alison winked. ‘You’ve got quite nice legs; you should wear skirts more often.’
‘Thanks.’ SJ warmed beneath this unexpected compliment.
‘Do you want to see what I spent my birthday money on?’ Alison gestured to her stomach and SJ gasped as she cottoned on.
‘You haven’t got a belly button ring? Mum will absolutely kill you if she finds out.’
‘She won’t find out.’ Alison smiled artlessly.
The bus arrived and SJ picked up the rucksack which was, she judged, at least three-bottles-of-wine heavy. Once they were installed in seats at the back, Alison lifted up her T-shirt and showed SJ the gold ring. ‘It matches the ones in my ears.’
‘Isn’t it sore?’
‘Not really. Anyway, looking good’s worth a bit of discomfort, don’t you think?’
SJ wriggled her toes in her favourite pumps, which were on the tight side but had been in an end-of-season sale, and frowned. ‘Sometimes, maybe.’
* * *
They changed in the public loos in the car park just before they got to the beach.
Alison produced a miniscule T-shirt from the rucksack and swapped it for the oversized one she was wearing.
Then she tugged off her jeans, pulled on a miniskirt, even shorter than SJ’s black leather one, and slipped on a pair of very pretty sandals.
‘Hey, that’s my ankle chain,’ SJ said, annoyed.
‘Is it? I thought it was mine.’
‘Course you did.’ SJ tutted in irritation. ‘Well, just be careful you don’t break it.’
Alison grinned and flicked gel through her blonde hair. She looked stunning – and much older than fifteen.
‘Well, there’s no point in having a belly button ring if you don’t show it off, is there?’
‘No,’ SJ agreed, picking up a tiny black T-shirt that was rolled up in the bottom of the rucksack and frowning. ‘I can’t see my tights.’
‘They’re definitely there.’ Alison leaned across her and SJ caught a waft of alcohol on her breath. She must have sneaked a drink earlier. Oh dear, that wasn’t a good start.
‘Oh,’ Alison said, as the T-shirt unravelled to reveal the words Rock Star in gold leaf on the front. ‘Sorry – I must have picked that up by mistake. You did say your black tights, didn’t you?’
‘I said the ones on the bed – the sheer ones!’ SJ could have screamed with frustration. No way did she have the nerve to go bare – she hated her legs at the best of times and she didn’t even have a tan.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’
SJ didn’t believe that any more than she believed Alison had meant to put on her own ankle chain, that’s if she even had one of her own, but if they had a row about it now the evening would be spoilt before it had begun.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter that much, does it?’ A cajoling note had crept into Alison’s voice – she obviously knew she’d overstepped the mark. ‘You look fine. You’d be too hot with tights anyway.’
This was very probably true, but SJ didn’t feel any better. She’d just have to make the best of it.
‘Perhaps I could keep these leggings on. What do you think?’ She peered at the reflective sheet of tin that served as a mirror in the public loos, trying to decide whether the leggings were as wrinkly as they looked.
Alison snorted. ‘It’s up to you, but I don’t think you’re going to pull in those!’
SJ peeled them off miserably. ‘I haven’t even shaved my legs.’
‘No one will notice,’ Alison said, but SJ’s confidence, which hadn’t been high to start with, plummeted another few feet.
* * *
She cheered up slightly when they emerged from the loos and she saw her friend, Joanne, walking by, swinging four cans of lager by their thin plastic carrier.
Joanne was bare-legged in a turquoise minidress. She was bigger than SJ – a size fourteen at least – but she always looked brilliant whatever she was wearing.
‘It’s confidence, babe,’ she’d said when SJ had once asked her how she did it. ‘I just tell myself I look good, and so I do. Self-fulfilling prophecy.’
This hadn’t helped much when SJ had tried it. She’d come to the conclusion there needed to be at least a grain of truth in the prophecy before it could become self-fulfilling, and that you really needed a smidgen of fashion sense as well. Alison had more fashion sense than she did.
‘SJ,’ Joanne shouted, spotting them and strolling across the car park.
A turquoise scrunchy held back her brown hair, and some strappy gold sandals set off the dress.
Her toenails were fluorescent purple. SJ’s yellow Sam and Libby flats felt suddenly out of date.
She felt more self-conscious than ever as the three of them crossed the tarmac stretch of promenade to the beach.
Then, as her feet sank into soft golden sand, SJ decided her friend had been right about this being the best beach in the country. The tide was out, and on their left a wide expanse of sand the colour of Colman’s mustard stretched towards the sea, which glittered like diamonds in the evening sun.
On their right were some of the most beautiful houses she had ever seen, some with great glass frontages to give a panoramic view of the bay and many with their own private jetties.
‘Oh, to be rich,’ Joanne said.
‘I’m going to marry a millionaire,’ Alison giggled, ‘who can keep me in the style to which I’d like to become accustomed.’
‘You wish,’ said SJ and Joanne simultaneously.
It didn’t take long to find the barbecue.
They just followed the music, Janet Jackson, and the smell of sizzling burgers.
Clusters of people lounged about and a group of lads were playing with a beach ball on the hard sand.
Lots of the girls wore bikinis or minidresses, and the lads were bare-chested or in T-shirts and shorts.