The fairground was in town last night. I know, I know: "Oh! The excitement!". But, yeah, ok, excitement, because this is Kettle and there's bugger all to do here when you're too young for the pubs and you can't drive to get out of the place. We'd probably be hanging around the park anyway - there's a patch of trees near the duck ponds - I'm sorry, nature sanctuary and lakes. Anyway, there's a patch of trees where we can sit and chat and not be hassled too much. Sometimes some of the lads decide that taking over the kiddies playground'd be fun, but much as I like sitting on the swings watching the sky sliding past, is it really worth terrorizing a group of ten year olds and then dealing with their parents?
So yes, the fair. In town. Three nights only. Last night being the Grand Opening. I've got a bit of money in my pocket, between the bookshop and my dad being a soft touch, so I went on over. I was hoping to find the others there. Christ that makes me sound like I've got a regular gang doesn't it? Kettle doesn't really go in for gangs, and I wouldn't be popular enough to be in one if it did. I just meant there's seven or eight of us oddballs who seem to end up drifting together and I was pretty much expecting to find them there. Of course finding them would have been a problem even if they had been there.
You wouldn't recognize our windswept park for the lights and the rides and the press of people. It was more like you'd think a club would be than a fairground; music pumping, lights going, girls screaming, everyone laughing and calling out to each other and the stalls yelling out their games and their sweets. So I paid my pound to get in and let myself get pushed and pulled along with the crowd, just casting around, looking to see who I might run into. Only I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going.
So, bang, I only go and walk straight into Zeek Turner. I do mean literally 'walk into' as in 'practically fall over'. In the middle of that crowd, with the Waltzer pumping out 'hot stuff baby tonight' and the ground sticky with candy floss and ice cream cones, Zeek was lounging on the steps of the Haunted House. Only he would think that that was something you could get away with. Quite possibly he's the only person in Kettle who could get away with it. I mean, can you imagine me all in cream linen, lounging in the middle of a fairground like I was on the banks of the Cam at Midsummer? Exactly. Yet he managed to make it look like the most natural thing in the world to be lounging there, tapping his foot to the thumping music and letting the spinning lights color his curls.
Obviously I was embarrassed. I practically trod on him and there's something about his cool composure that always manages to make me feel scruffy and flustered anyway, so I was apologizing and half yelling to be heard over the crowd. Shocked me no end when he took - not grabbed, mind, took - took my hand, let me help him to his feet, and swept me into an enormously flamboyant hug. I just stood there. I mean, we know each other. I joined the theatre club precisely so we could know each other, but he's the leading light, whereas I do the lights. I'd never have dared to go so far as to say that he was a friend of mine, let alone expect to be hugged and air kissed like his long lost brother. Weirder and weirder. Linking his arm through mine he started walking and my feet sort of followed on autopilot. I have no idea what I was thinking. OK, that's a lie. I was panicking and hoping and wondering if maybe, finally, something was going to happen, and scared stiff in case something did, and in case it didn't, and just generally being a nervous wreck.
We took a few steps, and then he leaned into me, to speak without having to yell like I'd been doing. Leaned in right close, so I could feel his hair on my forehead and his breath on my cheek, and asked me if I fancied taking a ride with him. Did I, Colin Anderson, fancy taking a ride with Zeek Turner? The witty, smooth reply would have been something like 'So, do you see anything you fancy?', but I was just thanking my lucky stars that I managed not to sound like Beavis and Butthead at that point. I think I said something really earth shattering like 'OK'.
We walked on a bit and he was saying something about how crude and crass so many of the modern rides were. I was just locked inside my head wibbling, to be quite honest, while he managed to positively parade himself on my arm through the crush. He leaned in close again and I think he'd been chewing aniseed balls, which is exactly the sort of antique, pretentious sweet Zeek would eat. He leaned in so close that I could tell what sort of sweets he'd been eating and gave me my options.
"So, Mr. Anderson, what will it be? Ferris wheel, carousel or ghost train?"
Now, I hate heights and carrousels are decidedly girly, so that was an easy choice, thank goodness.
"Ghost train?" I ventured.
"Your wish, sir, is my command" he replied - and he really does speak like that, even in school. I just concentrated on not making a total idiot of myself as he took my arm again, and led me back to the ghost train.
OK - so we paid our money, got bolted in to one of those rickety little bucket seats and spun off into the darkness with appropriate clanks and lurches. The ghost train was really lame. I do mean really lame - some half-hearted tableaus, spider webs getting in your face, a ghost on a spring, the usual sort of tack. But just as we're going in through the curtains into the pitch black, Zeek caught my hand and gave it a squeeze and looked at me with this grin on his face. I thought... bollocks, you can guess what I thought. I thought he was flirting with me, right? All this hugging and touching and 'would I like to take a ride'. I thought he was, you know, coming on to me.
Sweet sixteen and never been kissed is bad enough, but I'm going to be seventeen next month and that's just sad, so I took my chance. In the dark, with this little cart lurching and rumbling along, pressing us together all down my right side and his hand hot in mine, I thought he wanted me to kiss him. So I kissed him. I leaned over and puckered up and kissed him, right on the corner of his mouth. Jesus but he reacted like he'd been stung or something - jumped a mile and started swearing and shoving me and wiping the sleeve of that cream shirt across his face like he'd just licked dog shit.
"Shit Colin! What the fuck...? You prick! You actually thought? Shit, you actually thought I was.... Fuck! Colin! You are fucked up!"
I'm pretty sure the people in the cars in front and behind us could hear him, which didn't help the shell-shocked feeling or the growing panic I was dealing with. I really did think that he'd been flirting with me and I think I probably managed to say something really convincing like 'but ... but ... before, with the ... I thought...'. We were talking over each other and we're both panicking and, you know, that's the only time in my whole life I've ever been actually scared on a ghost train?
"Shit, you idiot! I just didn't want that cow Margaret to think she could come and try to set me up with her sister, you moron. You know? Putting on a show? Fuck!"
He sank back into the far corner of the seat, staring at the last few, feeble skeletons as we rumbled back into the glowing lights. He stepped out of the cart, giving the attendant a slight bow and a thank you. He just put his role back on as though nothing had happened and strolled away. I scrambled out after him; tripping over my feet and generally making myself look like a real git.
By this point I was starting to panic properly - I mean half the town must have seen us walking around arm in arm, and if anyone said anything at school ... and going in to school this morning was a nightmare. I did think about pulling a sicky, letting dad think that I'd got food poisoning or something, but in the end cowardice won out. I just wanted to find out what was being said, you know?
So school today was surreal. I've been in this sort of state of high alert all day, eyes peeled for people gossiping and what have you, and there's been nothing. Fridays are rehearsal days as well, so I had that to look forward to. And nothing's happened. I mean Zeek was there; waved royally at the whole group of us lesser mortals who do backstage work as he swanned into the room ten minutes late like he always does. But he didn't say a word to me and neither did anyone else and it's like - I'm starting to wonder did it even happened, you know? Just seems so unreal that 24 hours ago I was feeling his fingers wrapped around mine and thinking that maybe I was going to get lucky. We did this in English last year - the pathetic fallacy? It's like when there's a huge, dramatic storm because the hero is in emotional torment? I mean - it's a good thing that nothing's changed. I really don't think I'm ready for all the pointing fingers and the total humiliation. But at the same time - I don't know - feels like things ought to be different, somehow. I kissed a boy. OK, so it was a total and utter fucking disaster, but I did it.