Chapter 5
‘Every savage can dance.’
The barn was lit with fairy lights, strung haphazardly across the rafters like someone had started decorating for Christmas and then got distracted halfway through.
Hay bales had been stacked into a kind of amphitheatre, sloping down from the corrugated black roof to the bare concrete dance floor in the centre.
Out in the farmyard, Toby’s dad was presiding over a Viking-sized barbecue. Flames licked out from beneath a repurposed metal grill – some bit of rusting agricultural machinery reborn as a cooking surface. The smell of sizzling sausages and wood smoke wafted through the air.
To one side, Audrey had set up a drinks and food table. She’d changed out of her apron and into a bold striped summer dress that billowed around her like a mainsail catching wind. She’d even put on a slick of tangerine lipstick, though the wellies remained.
‘Can’t let the side down with all Toby’s sophisticated friends here, can we?’ she’d said earlier, catching me on the landing after my power shower in the family bathroom.
A crowd was gathering – easily over a hundred people. Toby’s friends had come out in force. He was that rare teenage boy: popular without being awful, kind without being dull.
The whole gathering had a mini-festival vibe.
I could feel an air of anticipation of what was to come, or maybe it was just my teenage angst playing out.
Dom saw me coming out of the house. He walked over, pint of beer in hand, leaned in to whisper, ‘Only find me in an emergency,’ and ditched me with a cheerful pat on the back, disappearing into the crowd, towards the barbecue and a knot of loud, laughing boys.
I barely knew anyone. Too shy, unsure of what to do with myself, I headed to the barn, climbed the straw bales to a quiet perch and watched from above.
Jamie was easy to spot.
He was below, surrounded by girls. They hovered and fluttered around him like moths to a flame. Hair tossing, eyes wide, laughter bursting like bubbles, they jostled for his attention. And he was charming with them, magnetic without trying.
Across the barn, his sister Lily was deep in conversation with the tall boy from the Jeep.
They were sharing a cigarette, passing it between them like it was a secret.
She’d shed the Afghan coat and now wore a black slip dress that skimmed her frame, the thin straps cutting across her shoulders, a velvet choker at her throat.
On her feet were chunky Prada combat boots that looked fresh out of the box.
I looked down at myself. My Topshop version of the look; a cheap blue satin slip layered over with a cropped T-shirt that hung limp and creased. And my hair, that I’d tried to coax into the loose centre parting that everyone else seemed to be able to carry off, was frizzing up into a haystack.
I stayed at my lookout post, exchanging occasional ‘Oh, I’m Dom’s sister’ intros with anyone who clambered up beside me.
Someone handed me a glass of warm, sweet white wine.
I sipped it slowly, trying to get over the acidic taste.
Apart from a few odd glasses of cider, it was the most alcohol I’d ever drunk.
Eventually, emboldened by its effect, the music and the sheer impossibility of sitting there all night like an observer in my own life, I climbed back down.
‘Ah, Florence, there you are!’ Audrey emerged from the crowd, still regal in her striped dress. ‘I’m on dairy duty at first light, so I’m off to bed. I promised your mother you’d be in by midnight. Now don’t let me down, will you?’
I nodded, not entirely sure what time it was.
‘Good girl,’ she said, satisfied, before gliding off towards the house.
Toby’s dad assumed chaperone duties, and sat, beer in hand, beside the dying embers of the barbecue with a couple of drunken boys.
Inside the barn, the dancing had taken on a momentum of its own. Deee-Lite’s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ pounded through the speakers, and the floor was packed. I wandered into the crowd, allowing them to close in around me.
‘Hey, fancy a dance?’ shouted a boy, whose face looked like it had lost a battle with a volcano. His thick-rimmed glasses sat precariously on the bridge of his nose and his green wool jumper was wilting in the heat.
Before I could respond he started pogoing up and down in front of me. With no other game plan I joined in.
‘I’m Gus,’ he shouted, as we moved in awkward unison, a pair of misplaced party guests buoyed by the music and the fact that no one was really watching.
‘Florence!’ I shouted, gaining more height with every jump.
Then, suddenly, a hand slipped into mine.
I turned.
Jamie.
He was grinning, joining my wine-powered pace of exuberant dance. On his other side was Lily’s friend, completing a human daisy chain.
I jumped higher. My heart tried to lift off. I danced like it mattered. Because this was everything.
The song ended, and with it Jamie’s hand slipped from mine.
Brian Adams’ ‘Everything I do’ filled the barn.
Gus seized his chance. He lunged, his arms clamping around my waist in a grip more desperate than romantic. I placed my hands stiffly on his shoulders. His wool jumper felt spongy with damp and sweat.
I looked over his shoulder.
Jamie and Lily’s friend were slow dancing. Her arms were looped around his neck, his hands held her waist. Their bodies pressed together like puzzle pieces. Then came the kiss. Long and confident.
I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen it.
Gus pulled me closer. My arms remained rigid, forming a barrier. But even that didn’t stop the slow awareness creeping in, that something was pressing against my thigh.
No.
The wine churned. My stomach lurched.
I froze. Gus moved in. His lips opened. I caught the glisten of saliva between parted teeth. His face was a moonscape of yellow-tipped acne, glistening under the lights.
And then it happened.
A volcanic, unstoppable flood.
I threw up. Violently. Right down the front of Gus’s jumper.
He staggered back, yelping, arms outstretched in horror. I doubled over, still retching, hot tears now pouring down my face. All around me, dancers parted like the Red Sea.
I barely registered the hands that found my shoulders, gently guiding me out into the cool night. I was lowered onto a grassy bank behind the barn. A pint of water was pressed into my hands. I bent over, heaving, the world spinning. Someone gently rubbed my neck.
‘Thanks, Jamie, I’ll look after her now. You head back in.’
It was Dom’s voice. The hand lifted, and I felt a soft stroke on my short, sweaty hair.
‘Poor love,’ said Jamie. ‘She probably needs to go to bed.’
‘Yeah, I’ll take her up in a minute.’
Through blurred, stinging eyes I saw his boots move off, back towards the glow of the barn.
Dom dropped down beside me, slinging an arm around my shoulder. ‘That was quite some display, sis,’ he said, the beer thick on his breath.
Toby flopped onto the grass on my other side, letting out a great, satisfied belch. ‘Hey, Dom. Flo okay?’
‘She’ll live.’
Toby snorted. ‘Fuck, that was funny. Gus is raging about the puke on his jumper. Serves him right for trying to snog Flo.’