‘By Christ! Here comes the Loch Ness Monster!’
He stood coughing and retching for a minute. They were at the edge of the pool and began to help him out. They could see that something quite frightening had just happened.
‘Sorry, Sandy,’ said Colin, patting his back. ‘It was just a joke. Are you all right?’ Sandy nodded.
‘Fine,’ he said. Then, tipping his body slightly forward over the pool, he brought up a foamy concoction of lager and lemonade and algae and water. The others stood back a little.
‘Well,’ said Mark, ‘we’ll not be swimming in there for a while.’
They lay down again and were reflective for some time. Sandy stared at the grass and let himself dry in the hot sun.
He felt fine, but shaky.
‘Are you still seeing Shona McKechnie?’ Mark asked Colin. This brought an interested glint to every eye: sex.
‘Well, lads,’ said Colin, ‘that’s confidential. Hush-hush. I wouldn’t like to say, really.’
‘That means she’s chucked him in,’ said Clark, hoping it were true.
‘Just you keep thinking that, young Clark, if you want to.’
‘Well, tell us then, Colin.’
‘Okay, boys. Are you sitting comfortably?’ They shifted closer to Colin. ‘Once upon a time,’ he began, ‘there was a sexy young lad called Colin McLintock. Now, Colin happened to stumble across a ravishing princess one day...’
‘Stumbled is the right word! You were pissed as a fart.’
‘Okay, Mark,’ said Colin angrily, ‘you tell the story.’ But they poked Mark in the ribs and pleaded with Colin to continue. ‘No more interruptions then,’ he said. ‘Now, as I was saying, this handsome lad one day met a lady at a party, and the lady’s name was Shona McKechnie. They enjoyed one another’s company, and started necking on the couch. He walked her home. There was a passionate goodnight kiss on her doorstep, and that, thought Colin, was that. But no! It was not to be, my children. For, as it turned out, this Shona person had a fiery reputation with the older boys in town. After school, it turned out, she would go up into the Wilderness and cavort with the whole of the Cars gang. Word had got around that Shona had the hots for noble young Colin, and so the Cars, in their infinite stupidity, decided to scare him away from the princess, a bit like the Ugly Sisters in “Cinderella”...’
‘Christ, Colin, you better watch that they’re not hiding in the grass this very minute. If they could hear you...’
‘So,’ Colin’s voice became even louder, ‘the aforementioned Cars gang, being a cowardly bunch of shits, chased poor Colin for weeks and would be waiting for him outside school, forcing him to sneak home by devious routes, and they made his life hell to the extent that he gave up seeing Shona, though she still chased him in school. So you see, lads, he was in a tight spot. Chased by two fearsome elements.’ Colin was on his feet now, acting with gusto. ‘What could he do? He did what a man must do.’
‘Quite right,’ said Sandy.
‘He started seeing Shona again, but making certain that it was kept as secret as was humanly possible. He told only his most trusted friends. And, my most trusted friends, he is still seeing her. He is seeing her tonight, he thinks. And he is regularly getting his nuts from her.’
‘You jammy bastard,’ said Mark.
‘What’s she like then, Colin?’ asked Clark.
‘Princesses are not to be discussed in such terms,’ said Colin, sitting down again. There were groans of dissent.
Sandy knew these games. They were old, and their utility value, as the Economics exam would have had it, seemed to decrease with each rendition. They all knew what sex was. They had learned about it from boys with older brothers, from glossy magazines flicked through in public conveniences, from tentative dates at parties and school discos. But probably, despite all their bravado, Colin was the only one of them who had properly lost his virginity. The rest of them were left straining on the leash like bug-eyed dogs. Sex for them was the toilet at home or under the sheets with a handkerchief and the mild queasiness and guilt afterwards. The horror that your mother would find or had already found some telltale stain. Not all the boys at school were as innocent. The Cars, the town’s gang, were not innocent, but then they were mostly older boys who had already left school. Sandy picked a new blade of grass and chewed it, crushing the sap with his teeth. He thought of his own princess. Dark golden kisses, treasured like jewels. He had written some poetry for her, but would never let her see it. What if she couldn’t read? All the better: the poem was terrible.
He was embarrassed by it, but he would keep it in his secret drawer beside the others and the stories he had written and hope his mother did not find it. His friends would laugh at him if they found out. All they knew was that he was good at writing stories and poems when asked to in English by a teacher who was going out with his mother.
He had visited the mansion one day in every week for a while now. He was waiting for Rian to suggest some meeting in a secret place. She had not yet done so. He had to content himself with a stolen kiss when Robbie was not around, and then only if Rian were in the mood. If not, she would sit with her face as dark as a coal-box and her arms folded firmly across her chest. On those days he would talk more with Robbie, and be more friendly towards him, just to spite his cruel princess.
They were talking about videos now — about the ones they had seen lately and the ones they would see when their parents were out. Sandy thought that he would leave and go to the Soda Fountain. Mr Patterson had promised him a whole lot of chocolates when he had finished his exams. But Sandy did not eat many sweets these days. Their taste was debilitating. It slowed him down, making his insides all sugary and numb. He preferred fruit. He would visit the fruit shop. But then he was being asked a question.
‘What about you, Sandy? You never had a dad, did you? I mean, you never knew who your dad was?’ They were talking about someone whose father had died suddenly. Now they had directed the conversation towards him. He looked at the serious faces and the acne and the thin, pallid bodies.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never knew.’
‘Did you ever try to find out? Didn’t you ever ask your mum?’
‘No.’
How could he have done that? It had taken time to discover that children ought to have a father. By the time he found out, he had become sad for his mother. How could he have asked her such a personal and unnecessary question? Often, though, he had thought of asking her. He knew some of the rumours which had been currency when he was a child. It was his Uncle Tom, who had then quickly scarpered. It was the Devil himself, and his mother was a witch after all. It was one of his Uncle Tom’s friends. It was a fairy king. Would she tell him if he asked? Perhaps she would, now that he had grown up, but what did it matter? It was a moment’s curiosity every few months. It was nothing.