Burial

'Five minutes.'

He consulted his watch. Not yet midnight.

The girl scurried off, lost in the big black overcoat.

He waited on the bench, watching the sky. It was so clear. He saw a satellite, a quick-winking light passing too high and too fast to be an aircraft.

Then he retraced his steps to the house. By now he was beginning to wonder if the girl had been real. He paused on the stoop and remembered how the darkness of the leafy copse had swallowed her up like ink spreading on a drawing. He remembered the cold touch of her hand on his brow.

He walked back inside and was received by a burst of warmth, party chatter, and 'La Isla Bonita'. He re-checked his coat, then cautiously popped his head into the ballroom. Sara was in the corner, talking to somebody, a woman.

He hurried up the stairs and ducked down the twilit hallway. He went to the third door on the right, paused for a moment, and tried the handle.

The door was open and the light was on and the girl was in there.

She'd thrown her overcoat down on the bed. She wore a short skirt and a tight T-shirt with some kind of ironic legend on it. Adidas trainers. In her hand she held several scraps of paper. He saw the word YES. She said, 'What's all this about?'

'You don't want to know.'

'Were you doing a Ouija board in here? Jesus, what are you, twelve?'

Once again, he took the mirror from the wall (in the lamplight, he could see the looped, dried snail-trails of his and Bob's wetted fingers) and laid it on the bed.

He passed her the little pewter tube. He hadn't been able to share it with Bob - to see Bob shove it up his hairy ectoplasmic nostrils. But the girl's nostrils were of an altogether different order. The girl had pretty nostrils, and up them she snorted two of the lines he'd laid out for them.

She sat on the bed and let it begin to work.

She glanced at him. Then she glanced away. Then -- very carefully and very precisely -- she patted the mattress next to her.

'Come and sit next to me.'

He went and sat next to her.

They sat there like that. Their knees were touching. They talked for a bit.

He put his arm round her. She felt tiny. She turned to face him. He moved to meet her. Their lips touched. Her tongue darted between his lips. She tasted of cocaine and cigarettes and wine. He slid a hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt. Her flesh was warm and soft and firm. He pushed her back. Her hands were laced at the nape of his neck. He could feel her ribs. He cupped her breast and squeezed; he felt her nipple harden in the palm of his hand. She arched her back.

The door opened and Bob walked in.

Nathan sat up and said, 'Jesus fucking Christ, Bob.'

He saw that Bob wore an earnest, worried expression. It infuriated him: it made him want to rip Bob's ears off. He said, 'Fuck off Bob.

Please, just fuck off.'

But Bob didn't fuck off. Instead, he said, 'Sara's looking for you.

She's on the warpath, mate.'

Nathan groaned.

'I was introduced to her downstairs,' Bob said. 'She's wondering where the hell you've got to.'

Nathan was bored and angered by the thought of Sara's disapproval; he imagined her tapping her foot and crossing her arms, pouting, flicking back that precisely calibrated fringe.

While he pictured it, Bob turned to the girl and said, 'I'm Bob, by the way. Friend of Nathan's.'

The girl was smoothing down her T-shirt, saying, 'Elise.'

Nathan peeped at her sideways, as if properly to say hello. She peeped back. Nathan's triumphant erection was wilting away. He moaned, 'Sara's the last person I need to see.'

'So let's keep hiding,' said Bob.

'She'll find us.'

At which, Elise nervously checked the door and straightened the hem of her T-shirt again.

Bob wasn't in the mood to give up. He said, 'So let's run away.'

Nathan thought about it for a moment - not too long, because he wanted to look decisive in Elise's eyes.

He said, 'That may be a good idea.'

He unlatched the bedroom window and wrenched it open - then stuck out his head, to see how far it was to the ground.

Nathan told Elise to wait for him while he shinned down the drainpipe, in case he should slip and tumble to his destruction. But once he'd wormed his way out of the window, the descent proved straightforward; he dropped the last two metres with some elan, pleased Elise was there to witness it.

Then she followed him, clambering down with the dexterity of a spider monkey.

Nathan was embarrassed.

They ran for the bushes, the distant thud of disco behind them.

They stayed in the shadows, following the gravel drive towards the main gate. Here, they squatted in a slough of darkness so black and cold it clung to them like viscous liquid.

After a few minutes, Bob pulled up. He was at the wheel of an old white Volvo estate.

Nathan and Elise clambered on to the back seat, keeping low, and Bob pulled away with too much wheelspin. They passed through the gates, all three laughing.

'Now,' said Bob, at the wheel. 'We need somewhere dark'

Elise said, 'I know the place,' and put her hand on Nathan's thigh.

He kissed her.

Out of nowhere, he felt like he was having the best night of his life.

Elise directed Bob through the small town of Socombe, past some farmland, through a village called Sutton Down, then along a road that ran parallel with a managed forest - an oak woodland. She tapped Bob's shoulder.

'Turn left back there.'

'Back where?'

All he could see was trees. But he reversed until Elise told him to stop. Before them, the headlights showed a place where the entrance to a narrow lane had been occulted by the overgrowth. Bob executed a five-point turn to get the car down there - a tunnel of darkness with a hummocked asphalt surface, just wide enough for a single vehicle.

Soon they were swallowed by it, following the headlamps.

Nathan said, 'How do you know this place?'

'All the local kids know it. You know about it way before you get to come down here. It's like lovers' lane or something. In the summer, anyway.'

'Cool,' said Bob. 'So, you've been here before?'

'Once or twice.' She glanced at Nathan. 'Except the big kids, they tell the younger ones that, you know, it's haunted. By a lady in white.'

Bob grinned in the rear-view mirror. 'Is there a river close by?'

'There's kind of a stream. A brook or something.'

'There's always running water. Near haunted lanes. Supposedly haunted.'

'Why's that?'

'Who knows? Geothermic forces or whatever.'

Nathan said, 'Don't get him started.'

Bob pulled the car to the side of the road. Its nearside tyres were caked in leaf mould and humus. He turned on the CD player. Charlie Parker.

Nathan fished out the remaining cocaine. Bob turned on the interior light. They were bathed in its sickly, intimate glow. Nathan cut out some squat, fat lines on the CD case. He snorted first and passed the CD case to Elise. As she brought it to her nose, Bob and Nathan looked at her, then at each other. She passed the CD case to Bob, who propped it on the steering wheel.

Elise wiped at her nose. The action caused her T-shirt to lift above her navel. She'd left the overcoat back at the party.

Bob pressed himself deep into the driver's seat.

'Christ.'

He turned off the interior light. For a few seconds the darkness was absolute. A voice in the blackness, Elise said, 'I like nights like this. When you don't plan anything, but it all seems to happen.'

Bob swivelled in the driving seat, to face them. He said, 'Look. You two. I feel bad. I feel like I'm ruining the night for you - walking in on you. Y'know. The way I did.'

Elise made a slapping motion at him and said, 'No, your timing wasn't great.' Then she drawled his name in a bad American accent: Bahb.