LITMIR.BIZ

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Out of the window Adam saw a brown horse carrying three figures on its back. Two were small children, and behind them was an older girl of perhaps seventeen or so. Her head was almost level with Adam so that as she passed by only the glass and a few feet of space separated them. He registered wide, dark eyes, a full mouth, and thick, unruly, almost jet-black hair. She stared back at him without expression. She wore a simple shapeless plain cotton dress. After she had passed he looked back and glimpsed her bare legs and the full rounded shape of her breasts against the material of her dress. The horse had no saddle and only a rope for a bridle. As he watched the girl kicked her bare heels into the horse’s flanks, and then the bus turned a bend and they were lost from sight.

      The gypsies had stayed throughout the spring and into the summer. The old women called at houses selling lucky charms and muttering curses if they found a door slammed in their faces. The rate of break-ins and petty crime in the area rose, which people generally attributed to the gypsies. Johnson’s sawmill was broken into one night and a load of lumber stolen, but though the police went to the gypsy camp none of it was ever recovered. Kyle warned Adam to steer clear of them.

      When the bus reached the square in Castleton, Adam crossed the street towards the newsagent’s with his jacket slung over his shoulder. The bell above the door rang as he went inside. He paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the comparative gloom. The shop smelt of sherbet and liquorice, underlain with the whiff of tobacco. Angela smiled when she saw him.

      ‘Hello, Adam.’

      ‘Hi.’ He went to the fridge and took out a cold bottle of coke. ‘Hot out there.’

      ‘It’s lovely.’ Angela pulled a face. ‘Not that I would know. I’ve been stuck in here all day.’

      He handed her some money, and as she operated the register her smock tightened over the swell of her breasts. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second and then he fixed his eye on the magazine rack.

      ‘Here’s your change.’

      ‘Oh, thanks.’ He feigned distraction, hoping she wouldn’t notice the flush of colour creeping into his cheeks. Her eyes were blue, but unlike any blue he had ever seen. Pale, but shimmering with light. Her long pale yellow hair was bleached in highlights by the summer sun, her arms brushed with a light tan.

      ‘How’s your job going?’ she asked him.

      ‘Fine. I like it.’

      ‘Are you going to the disco?’ She gestured to the notice board on the back of the door where a bright orange flyer advertised a disco at the church hall at the weekend.

      ‘Are you?’ he asked impulsively. He realized his question could almost be construed as asking her out and he felt his cheeks burn. He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. If she noticed, however, she didn’t let on.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered.

      The door opened. ‘Well, I better go,’ Adam said, relieved and disappointed at the same time.

      ‘See you at the weekend then.’

      ‘Right. See you there.’ As he left he caught the eye of a woman coming in. She smiled at him.

      He walked down through the town to the bridge and then along the path across the water meadow. On the far side Johnson’s sawmill was hidden in a copse. The familiar tangy scent of cut pine and sawdust hung in the air. The gates were open and two trucks were parked in the yard outside the cutting shed. The saws were silent. On one side of the yard stood a two-storey wooden building with an outside staircase that led to the office door. Underneath was a room where the men had their tea. Every morning Adam left his bike around the back before he caught the bus to Carlisle.

      As he passed the open tearoom door he almost tripped over Nick who was sitting outside smoking a cigarette in the shade. He had left school by then and was working full time at the sawmill.

      ‘Sorry, didn’t see you there.’

      Nick squinted up at him, his expression managing to look like a sneer, though it might have been the sun. ‘Been working hard then? All that sharpening pencils and making the tea, you must be knackered.’

      Adam ignored the sarcasm and stepped over Nick’s legs.

      ‘Better watch you don’t get a blister on your little finger.’

      ‘I’ll try to remember that. Is David around?’

      Nick shrugged unhelpfully and picked a shred of tobacco off his lip. ‘Somewhere.’

      Just then David appeared at the top of the stairs. He was tanned and muscular from working outdoors in the sun, in contrast to Nick, whose face remained pale beneath his black hair and who still looked like a skinny kid.

      ‘Have you finished?’ Adam asked. He was thinking that they could go down to the river for a swim but David shook his head.

      ‘We’re working late today. There’s an order that needs doing.’ He aimed a kick at Nick’s foot. ‘Come on. We’ll see you tomorrow, Adam.’

      Adam watched as they headed towards the shed and Nick laughed at something David said. He knew that when Nick had applied for a full-time job a few months earlier David’s dad hadn’t been too keen on the idea. Adam had overheard David pleading Nick’s case, insisting that Nick couldn’t be blamed for the way his dad was, and though in the end Mr Johnson had conceded, Adam had the feeling he’d never really been happy about it. He wondered if Nick knew about that.

      It was getting dark by the time Adam and the others arrived at the disco at the weekend. A group of younger boys lurked in the darkness at the edge of the tiny car park furtively smoking cigarettes. In the entrance hall two women from the church social committee sat behind a scarred wooden table taking money and dispensing entrance tickets. One of them cast a disapproving eye over Nick’s leather jacket.

      ‘You can leave that in the cloakroom if you like,’ she said.

      He gave her his money without answering and held her eye until, flustered, she dropped her gaze. Inside they stood bunched near the door. The hall was about half full. The music was loud and clusters of local kids stood around the walls, boys on one side, girls on the other, except for three young girls dancing together near the stage at the front. The DJ seemed to be absorbed with his record collection. A bank of coloured lights in front of his sound system blinked on and off with the music and a single silver glitter ball suspended from the rafters cast a forlorn pattern on the dance floor. A woman and a balding man wearing a knitted tie with a brown check shirt were selling cups of orange juice and sandwiches, which nobody was buying. The woman wore a fixed smile and jigged determinedly in time to the music. Occasionally they both glanced uneasily towards a group of four teenagers standing in one corner of the hall.

      They were conspicuous both by their appearance and by the space around them that set them apart from everybody else. Their clothes looked like hand-me-downs and they shared a common dark hue to their skin and eyes. If anybody looked their way they stared back with silent hostility. Adam recognized one of the two girls as the one he’d seen from the bus back in the spring, though there was something different about her. He decided she looked smaller than he remembered, perhaps because last time he’d seen her she was on horseback. She also seemed young, which he put down to the fact that all the other girls in the hall wore clothes and make-up that made them look older than they really were. She looked over as if she sensed him watching her until one of the boys with her noticed and glared at her.

      ‘Fuckin’ gyppos,’ Nick muttered.

      Graham nudged him and nodded towards a couple of girls who had started dancing together. ‘There’s Christine Abbot and that friend of hers.’

      They wore high heels and short tight skirts, and when one of them noticed they were being eyed she said something to her friend and they both giggled. Nick and Graham went over to talk to them.

      Adam looked around for Angela but he couldn’t see her anywhere. He and David lingered by the door. A few boys plucked up the courage to approach a group of girls. They paired

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