Toxic

by Nicci Cloke

  ‘Eatin’s cheatin’, Novak.’

  I laugh. ‘Oh, come on. Just one teensy drumstick?’

  He laughs, pointing at a girl in front of us who’s examining the yellowish, stringy piece of chicken on her paper plate. There are a lot of veins in it. ‘Well, if you think a dose of food poisoning is exactly what your holiday’s missing, Hope-Dogg …’

  ‘Yeah.’ I look away from the gross chicken. ‘Maybe I’m all right after all.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ Zack passes me another shot and necks one too. ‘Hey, who are your mates?’

  I glance in the direction he’s looking. Ness and Emily are posing as Hayley takes a picture.

  ‘Oh, they’re nice,’ I say. ‘They’ve just finished A levels.’

  He’s still looking at them – at Emily in particular. ‘Introduce me?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dev says, draping an arm round me and leaning his head on my shoulder. ‘Introduce us to your lovely new friends, Hopey.’

  Ness looks up then, and waves. So I gesture for them to come over, and introduce everyone just as the siren sounds beside the keg.

  ‘Oh God, another game,’ Hayley says, handing me the bottle of melon stuff, which has a couple of inches left in it. ‘I’m already smashed.’

  I laugh. ‘At least you’re getting your money’s worth.’

  ‘Good point.’

  We head after the others, who are making their way further down the beach, where the Party Boat people are picking volunteers. Zack volunteers himself and Emily, who looks a bit unsure but goes along with it, laughing. Dev has his arm round Ness now, chatting away though it doesn’t look like he’s making a whole lot of sense.

  ‘Your mates seem nice,’ Hayley says.

  ‘Yeah, they’re cool,’ I say, suddenly registering that Logan and Nate aren’t with us – I haven’t seen either of them since we got here.

  ‘Right!’ one of the Party Boat girls yells, hands cupped round her mouth. ‘It’s time for the sex-positions game!’

  There’s a round of whooping and cheering. Hayley rolls her eyes. Zack waggles his eyebrows at Emily, who laughs.

  ‘You all know how it works,’ the girl continues. ‘The couple who can get in the most positions in sixty-nine seconds –’ there’s a fresh chorus of cheers at that – ‘will win a go on the keg of dreams. Couples, are you ready?’

  There are four other couples, apart from Zack and Emily, each with their own Party Boat rep to count their positions. They all give the thumbs-up, and the girl blows her whistle for the game to begin.

  It’s not very sexy – they all look ridiculous, moving from standing to lying to sitting on each other, legs thrown up and bent back and grabbed. I watch as Zack turns Emily onto her hands and knees and then drags her up to standing, picks her up. She’s sort of going along with it but you can tell from her face that she’d rather be literally anywhere else than right here at this particular moment in time. Even unflappable Zack seems suitably embarrassed, though he doesn’t exactly look like he’s not enjoying it. Beside me, Ness has her phone up in the air, filming the whole thing.

  Zack and Emily don’t win – there’s another couple who look like they’re actually on fast-forward, they flip through positions so fast. When the second whistle blows, and the reps announce the scores, those two are like ten ahead of everyone else. They high-five each other and Zack shrugs at Emily, like What can you do?

  The winning couple – a girl with a platinum-blonde bob and one of the stag-party guys from earlier – step forward to claim their prize. ‘Kind of glad Em didn’t win,’ Hayley says. ‘This looks like it’s going to get messy really fast.’

  I nod. The guy is being held in a handstand by two of the reps, while another holds a funnel in his mouth. The girl with the whistle is holding a hose, one end attached to the keg as she raises the other over the funnel. She gestures to the crowd and everyone around me obliges.

  ‘Drink … drink … drink …’

  Beer gushes into the funnel and we watch the rugby guy’s Adam’s apple bob madly up and down as he tries to swallow it upside down. He looks so ridiculous I can’t help laughing. Zack and Emily definitely got off lightly here. Blonde bob girl looks like she’s wishing they hadn’t been quite so good at the game after all.

  ‘Come on,’ Ness says, still half supporting a grinning Dev. ‘Let’s go get a drink. To drink standing the right way up.’

  WE SIT NEAR the edge of the water, Dev and Ness sharing a cigarette, Zack and Hayley arguing about politics. Emily is telling me about her boyfriend back home while we work our way through another round of beers.

  ‘He wouldn’t care about the game,’ she says. ‘He’s not the jealous type. If anything, he’s a bit too laid back.’

  ‘Is that even a thing?’

  She laughs. ‘I guess not. I just worry that when we both go off to uni, we’ll drift apart. Like, he’s not the type to text every five minutes. When he’s on Football Manager, I think he actually forgets that anyone outside the game exists.’

  I laugh and offer her a shot from the tray that Ness has managed to steal from the bar. Well, it’s not actually stealing, is it? We paid for the tickets. And none of us have eaten any of the chicken or the dodgy-looking kebabs also on offer. We’re definitely owed a few extra drinks.

  ‘Hey, I need a wee,’ Emily says, glancing at the queue winding its way out of the little building. ‘Will you come with me and stand guard if I go behind a tree?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say, standing up. Wow, I’m drunker than I thought, my legs wobbly on the sand. I’ve no idea how long we’ve been sitting there because the sun is starting to dip back down towards the sea, the sky already turning pink.

  Feeling a bit disorientated, I follow Emily into the woods, hunting for a suitably private spot. That actually turns out to be harder than expected – even though we’re technically all supposed to be keeping the party strictly to the beach, there are loads of people back here. A group huddled round what definitely smells like a spliff, and then two girls crouched over by another tree, heads bowed together over something I can’t see. There’s a couple kissing – like, really kissing – up against a tree, and in the distance I can see another pair who aren’t as hidden as they think they are, her shorts being slid down.

  ‘Err … How about over here?’ Emily’s found a wilting, spiky bush which, once you’re on the right side of it, offers a quite nice view of the sea. ‘OK, all clear?’

  I look around, but it seems like we’re mostly out of sight and no one’s heading our way. ‘All clear.’

  ‘Great.’ She slides down her shorts and hitches her kaftan out of the way. ‘Because I am busting.’

  ‘So you guys are flying back on Monday?’ I ask, mostly to cover the sound of her wee hitting the dirt.

  ‘Yeah.’ Emily sighs. ‘And then the next thing to look forward to is results day, aka Shit Gets Real Day.’

  I put a hand out to steady myself on a tree. I really am quite drunk now. ‘What did you say you had planned for next year?’ I can’t remember if she’s told me already but hopefully she won’t either.

  ‘Psychology,’ she says, standing and sliding her shorts back up. ‘Well, that’s the plan anyway. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen with results. I need three As to get my first choice.’

  ‘Oh wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She picks her way back round the bush. ‘Anyway, let’s not think about that now. Do you need the loo?’

  Now she mentions it, I really do. A lot of beers and melon-flavoured green stuff have congregated in my bladder, and now I’m standing up, it’s pretty hard to ignore. So I shift round the bush, avoiding Emily’s puddle, and crouch down with my dress hitched up.

  ‘Incoming,’ she says, just as I finish, and I stand up and see Logan and Nate walking through the trees.

  ‘Oh, I know them,’ I say, waving to get their attention. Nate sees me and nudges Logan, diverting them in our direction, but I can’t help noticing that neit
her of them look like they’re having a very good time. Nate’s face is serious, and Logan’s still choosing to look anywhere but at me.

  ‘Guys, this is Emily,’ I say, when they get up close to us. ‘We’ve been hanging out with her and her friends on the beach.’ I look at them carefully again. Where have you been? I want to add.

  ‘Hey,’ Nate says, shaking Emily’s hand. ‘Nate – Logan.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Logan asks, and just like that, they’re normal again. I wonder if I imagined the atmosphere before.

  Emily smiles at him. ‘You guys having fun? You all look soberer than your friend Dev at least.’

  Nate groans. ‘Is he off his face?’

  ‘Yep.’ I lean against a tree. ‘He’s in love with the whole world.’

  ‘So what’s new?’ Logan jokes, and when I catch his eye, he smiles at me.

  ‘What about Zack?’ Nate asks.

  Emily shrugs. ‘He seems fine. If a bit … grabby. And kind of … big on opinion-having.’

  Nate and Logan both laugh. ‘Yeah, sounds about right,’ Nate says, his eyes lingering on Emily.

  ‘Shall we head back?’ I ask. The sun’s sinking lower and the shadows in the woods are stretching out. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

  We start to walk back towards the beach and the others, and I wonder again where Nate and Logan have been all this time. Logan stumbles as we walk, and although Emily’s right – they definitely are soberer than Dev (not exactly difficult) – I know them both well enough to tell that they’re definitely still feeling the effects of the ouzo.

  ‘I think they’re going to play another game in a bit,’ Emily says. ‘Not that anyone’s really up for it after the last one – whoa!’ Her sandal catches on the edge of a tree root and she trips, but Nate’s reflexes are clearly working fine despite the booze because he catches her arm.

  ‘Easy.’

  She blushes and smiles at him. ‘Thanks. God, I’m really drunk.’

  ‘No problem.’ He stays walking next to her, leaving me and Logan a couple of steps behind. I glance up at him.

  ‘Are you having a good day?’

  He nods. ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great –’

  ‘Wa-heeeeey!’ Some guy comes crashing out of the bushes to our left, grinning at us. ‘What a fucking day, am I right?’

  He pulls his sunglasses off to grin at us, and he looks completely out of it. His eyes are sort of glazed and his jaw grinds but he just carries on grinning, his head bobbing to the beat from the beach. He’s wearing a baggy vest top, the straps stretched and thin, so that when he moves his nipple pokes out of one side, and shorts that are just a bit too tight, giving us all a reasonable idea of his … well, you know.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great, mate,’ Nate says, moving to step round him. ‘Let’s get back on it, shall we?’

  But the guy stares at him, his teeth clenching and unclenching. ‘Just tryna be friendly.’ His eyes bob from Nate to Logan and then focus on me. ‘Hey, honey.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bitch,’ the guy says, but he’s already bored, already moving on to Emily. ‘You’re not a bitch, are you? You’re too pretty to be a bitch.’

  Emily pushes past him. ‘I prefer guys in control of their faces, generally,’ she says, and the guy laughs hysterically, like she’s made the best joke he’s ever heard, and starts stumbling off the way we’ve just come.

  But as he passes me and Logan, he stops. He looks Logan in the eye and shakes his head, really slow. ‘What’s a fit girl like her doing with you?’ he asks. And as he trips his way off, I swear I hear him mutter a word under his breath.

  I stop and spin on my heel immediately, my drunkenness evaporating. ‘What the f—’

  ‘Hope.’ Logan grabs my arm. ‘Don’t bother. He’s a mess, it’s not worth it.’

  ‘He just called you a –’

  He shrugs. His hand is still round my arm and we both look at it until he lets go. ‘Come on,’ he says. Nate and Emily have stopped up ahead and are looking back at us, confused. ‘We’re having a good time,’ Logan says. ‘Forget it.’

  And so I follow him and the others out of the woods. But the whole time I can hear that stupid guy laughing.

  THE AIR STARTS to get cooler, the sky turning inky. If you thought things might be getting mellower, you’d be wrong.

  The Party Boat reps have lit torches around the edge of the beach and turned on UV lights above the DJ. Their super-soakers are filled with glow paint now, and we all press closer to the stage, desperate to get into their line of fire. We’re all sweaty and splashed with neon, dancing to some track we’ve never heard. I’m bouncing against Nate, JB, Logan, all of them with their T-shirts off, the paint on their chests coming off on my face and dress. We’re all out of breath with singing and laughing, and everything is amazing.

  By the time I step away, my feet aching, the sky is properly dark. In the circle of light – at least one person has already stumbled into a torch, burning their arm – we feel like a warm little bubble, like there’s nothing else around us. But I can make out people outside the flickering light, people sitting and standing in the shadows, chilling out on the dark bit of the beach. I find a bucket full of ice and bottled water and grab one, drinking half of it down.

  ‘Hope!’ I glance round and see Ness and Hayley waving at me. They’ve found a big chunk of driftwood to sit on, just close enough to one of the torches to make it feel a bit like a campfire. I go over, taking my flip-flops off and sticking them under my arm. The sand feels cool and wet under my feet.

  ‘I can’t dance any more,’ Hayley says. ‘I’ll spew.’

  I offer her my water and we watch everyone else dancing for a while. There’s a couple a little further down the beach from us, lying on the sand. They’re kissing, her leg over his, and Ness rolls her eyes. ‘Get a room.’

  ‘Where’s Emily?’ I ask, and Hayley looks around.

  ‘She went to get a drink,’ she says. ‘Hmm … Oh, wait, there she is!’ She frowns into the dark. ‘Hang on, isn’t that your mate?’

  I follow her gaze and see Emily heading towards us, Zack beside her. She’s saying something, her hands flying wildly about as she tells a story, and Zack’s laughing, his head bent towards hers. They step round two girls sprawled, laughing, on the sand and Zack puts his hand on Emily’s back, pulling her closer to him.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I don’t think he knows she’s got a boyfriend.’

  ‘Hope!’ I turn at the sound of my name again, and see Nate heading over, pulling his T-shirt back on. ‘This has got to be the sickest party I’ve ever been to,’ he says, sinking down next to me and taking the water Hayley offers him.

  I smile at him. I feel drunk but in the nicest, comfiest way. I feel warm inside and like I just want to sit here, with these people, forever.

  ‘Hey, guys.’ Emily and Zack have reached us, and I notice she’s moved away from him.

  ‘Novak, you look wasted,’ Zack says, laughing. ‘You too, Nate-Dogg.’

  ‘I’m not!’ I say, but I wobble in my seat, and that makes me laugh. ‘Yeah, OK, maybe a bit.’

  ‘I totally forgot to get a drink,’ Emily says, laughing too. ‘I think it’s me who’s wasted.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ Zack says, winking at her. ‘Won’t we, Nate?’

  Nate shrugs. ‘I could go for another beer.’

  He doesn’t really look like he needs it, but hey, it’s a party. Zack looks at the rest of us. ‘Girls? Drink?’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon I can handle another cocktail,’ Hayley says, already perked up.

  ‘Yup, me too,’ Ness leans back, looking up at the sky. ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ I say, because I can’t see Nate making it back across the beach without spilling most of the drinks. Although, standing up, I can’t really see myself helping all that much, either.

  ‘Team player, Novak,’ Zack says, slinging an
arm round my shoulders. I can smell the booze coming off him in waves. ‘I’ve always said it.’

  The bar is looking pretty low on stock, with all of the premade cocktails gone and just bottles of beer swishing round in melted ice left. But Zack leans across and says something to the girl in the Party Boat T-shirt – at first she shakes her head at him, but he keeps talking, that Zack Conway grin on his face, and slowly but surely she starts to smile too. Before we know it, she’s pulling a bottle of something out from under the makeshift bar, pouring three huge shots for us.

  I think that’s where it all starts to go really wrong.

  The warm feeling spreads through me and I go back to dance with Logan and Dev, leaving Nate and Zack with the girls. Everyone’s faces blur together in the firelight, and the music thuds through me and at first I don’t recognise the girls I see with Logan and Dev.

  Dev comes close to me, his eyes still big and rolling. He’s shouting something but I can’t make it out. Someone brushes against me, their skin warm and wet.

  ‘From the hotel,’ Dev is saying. ‘Rachel. Lucy.’

  When I realise it’s the girls from the coach, from the first day, I throw my arms around them like they’re my best friends.

  We dance and dance and the moon comes up in the sky, big and yellow.

  ‘It looks like cheese,’ I say to Logan, and when I hear it out loud I realise how funny that is.

  ‘Cheese!’ I say to Dev, to Lucy. I point. ‘It looks like cheese.’

  We all laugh. We keep dancing.

  The music cuts out and everyone is sad. The chant starts somewhere near the front and swells back like a wave we all catch.

  ‘One. More. Song. One. More. Song.’

  The DJ shakes his head at us. He is not with the wave.