That was a long summer—you know the sort: a heatwave we thought would never end, days we thought would never end. After the brouhaha died down, I swore myself to silence. I was eleven years old. It was a few months after my grandmother had died, and later I would understand it as the year my mother finally left my dad, but at the time I didn’t know what was going on. I was scarcely indoors. School was a memory. We had water fights and played football in the street. Jumpers for goal posts—all that shit. On Flying Ant Day, we danced around stamping on flying ants like children quite a bit younger than we were, until we got bored of stamping on them. Afterwards, we studied their dead or dying bodies. In a way that was more interesting. But what I remember most of all was the boredom. Boredom can make you do terrible things.
Jake Pegler had spent two years trying to join our group, and through intense persistence he’d more or less succeeded. He was always just there: after a while I think we accepted him by default. He was a little kid, summer baby, strawberry blond, short-sighted, and clumsy. He was a natural target and, I’m not proud to say, we targeted him. Later, I’d often wonder about Jake Pegler: why did he put up with it? He’d joined our school in Year 4, from one of the other schools in town—from Whitehawk Primary, I think. Two years had passed but by that summer he still retained the taint of having been from some place else: he would always be the new arrival. And at least one nose had been put out of joint by his admission into our group. Danny Kershaw’s, for example. He hadn’t liked it at all. Danny had been on the edge of things for a spell himself and now he could see someone new muscling in on his spot.
By the edge of things, I guess I mean the edge of mine and Billy Roberts’s friendship. But ‘friendship’ doesn’t seems adequate. We were partners in crime, as my mother said, but that sounds trite; and my mother didn’t like Billy Roberts. The events of that summer would leave her feeling vindicated, for all that might have been worth.
Billy was a bully, but I didn’t care: he never bullied me. In a perverse kind of way I think he looked up to me. He was naturally naughty, and carried such an air of naughtiness that he seemed naughty even when he wasn’t doing anything actually naughty. He had the finest ‘Who, me?’ expression of anyone I knew. He was my best friend. He always had things like little knives on him, or bangers, which his stepdad would bring back from France, and he’d always be able to get films on video that we were years off being allowed to see, which we could watch at his house because his mum didn’t give a shit and even if she gave a shit most of the time she wasn’t in. And he didn’t bully everyone. In fact, by the time what happened happened, he hadn’t picked on anyone in a while. He’d lost the taste for it. He had lost the taste for a lot of things. By then he was more interested in starting fires. But this isn’t about the fires. It isn’t even really about my friendship with Billy Roberts.
One time, Billy got his stepdad to buy him a massive spider as a pet. I remember he sprung it on me one Saturday, only to be crushed by the indifference of my reaction. We were up in his bedroom. He dared me to look under the cloth draped over some new object in the corner. But I didn’t care about spiders.
Is it poisonous? I asked. Poisonous would have made it interesting.
All spiders are poisonous, he said.
That’s not true, I said.
To this Billy shrugged.
What is it? I asked.
What is it?
What type of spider? I said.
It’s a tarantula, he replied.
I still remember the point, that summer, when we started running out of things to do. If we weren’t playing football, or having water fights, or killing flying ants, we would hang out in one of the empty garages in the little road of garages off the top of Kimberley Road, or else in Saunders Park, off the Lewes Road, playing on the swings or resting in the shade, avoiding alcoholics and older kids. By we I mean the six of us: me, Billy, Danny Kershaw, Kelly Kershaw, who wasn’t related to Danny, Aaron Taylor, and Jake Pegler, who floated around the edge of things. Others came and went, but that was the core of our lot through primary school, the friendships forged by birthday parties in church halls and sports halls, sleepovers, lunchtime games of Tag and Bulldog, and something of a shared reputation as ne’er-do-wells. We were often in and out of the lighter sorts of trouble, and sometimes on the verge of wading into the deeper sorts, and teachers were always trying to split us up, but that only strengthened our bond, a sacred union of unpleasant little shits.
When we ran out of things to do, we’d play Spin the Bottle. In one version of the game, the spinner of the bottle would come up with a dare and whoever the bottle landed on would have to do it. For some reason we called it ‘making a dare’. As far as we were concerned, we had invented the game, and we played it with a seriousness we seldom brought to other activities. Once I had to sneak into The Green Man’s house. The Green Man was an old guy on our road whose house had green guttering—we were very observant. He hated kids, hated it when our balls landed in his front garden, hated it when we loitered outside his house, a spot in which we liked to loiter because he hated it so much. Some people just hate kids. It’s an English pastime. But maybe we gave him reasons to hate us.
So one time, this was Danny Kershaw’s dare, one of us had to sneak into his house. That was the dare. The Green Man often had the front door open when his son was round because his son was always carrying bits and pieces either one way or the other through the house, a Black and Decker Workmate set up on the front path, scrap wood in a pile against the wall. His son was always doing things around the house. His son terrified us. If someone had found his son’s ex-wife under the patio, you’d have been surprised they’d only found the one body. Anyway, Danny came up with the dare, span the bottle, and it landed on me. Its decision was unambiguous and absolute: God had spoken. There was no squiriming out of it. I got up onto the second floor and to the front window and had waved through the net curtains at my friends as they fell about laughing on the other side of the road while the Green Man’s son yelled at them. He hadn’t understood. Neither he nor his snide green dad had seen me. I didn’t fancy trying to escape back through the front door, so I opened one window and climbed out, creeping along the edge of the sill to the drainpipe down which I shimmied before clattering to safety into the garden next door, whereupon I ran like all hell to get away. Did he see me? I don’t know. I certainly felt like he saw me. I was fast but I doubt I ever ran any faster than that until I was a teen and entered county sprinting races. But all my life I’ve felt as though someone has seen me.
Another time, Billy brought his tarantula up to the garages in its cage. By then he’d named it Tony. If there was a reason for this beyond the alliteration, he never told me. Tony’s cage had a handle, which was a convenient feature. It was Billy’s turn to make a dare. We were inside one of the garages. Abandoned shit littered the dirty concrete floor: the lid of a paint tin, a ratty old tennis ball, a dozen cigarette butts, which Aaron liked to relight with his magnifying glass. We weren’t looking at any of that. We were looking at the spider, who was looking back at us. The summer sun broke through beneath the lowered garage door. It was cool in the garage.
I’ll put Tony on your head, said Billy. You have to wear him like a hat. For a minute. Lewis will time it.
I looked at my watch. It was a Casio.
What if it’s you? asked Aaron.
Fair question, said Billy with an air of thoughtfulness. If it’s me I’ll put him on my own head—how’s that?
We murmured our assent.
I’m out, said Danny.
No one’s out, said Billy.
What? Why not?
If you’re out, you’re out for good, said Billy. If you’re out, you’re out for keeps.
For keeps was something Billy’s stepdad liked to say.
Oh man, said Danny.
Don’t be a pussy, said Billy.
Oh man, said Danny.
If anyone’s out, it should be me, said Kelly. We all looked at her.
Are you a pussy, Kelly? asked Billy.
No but you are, she replied.
Good, said Billy, smiling. Then he spun the bottle.
So that was one of the games we played. There were others, but Dare was the one I remember. Dare was the one that’s relevant to this.
After that day, we played Dare three more times, after which all our games would cease.
I guess by that point we were pretty bored. Only Kelly’s family had gone on holiday that summer and so the rest of us had just been hanging out almost all the time for weeks on end, getting sun stroke, getting burnt. Our parents never provided much entertainment. My folks were in the early stages of their divorce. Billy’s mother and stepdad were always out, which meant we often had a base down on Buller Road that wasn’t Saunder’s Park or the garages if we wanted it. We’d had a lot of fun, but I won’t go into that, because this isn’t about the good times. By this point the fun was wearing thin. That day, Billy appeared with a fat lip. He wouldn’t tell us how he’d got it. Anyway, he made the dare. We were all shocked by it because we all thought he loved Tony.
The dare was this: if the bottle lands on you, you’ve got to cut a leg off Tony.
Then we’d spin the bottle again, and whoever it indicated would cut off another of Tony’s legs.
We would spin it six more times.
I want to see, Billy explained, as if his desire to see was sufficient explanation.
He showed us the knife. It was one of the tobacco knives his stepdad had brought back from a Tabac in France. His stepdad had a mate who owned a place out there. Now and then he’d go over and do bits of work for him, and when he did he would always come back with little gifts. Billy liked the knives and he liked the bangers. We’d all seen those little folding knives before, but this one wasn’t little.
Did your dad give you that? said Jake, eyes wide with incredulity.
He’s not my dad, said Billy. And no. I nicked it.
Shit, said Jake.
Are you a pussy? said Billy.
No, said Jake.
Good, said Billy.
Are you sure? I asked.
A dare was a sacred pact. Billy looked at me like I was thick, like I’d farted in church.
Okay, I said. What did I care? I didn’t care about spiders.
Billy spun the bottle.
Jake Pegler went first.
We played the penultimate game on the second hottest day of the year. I remember feeling dizzy with the heat. I remember the world—Kimberley Road, the terraced houses behind the little front gardens trembling in the sun; the tarmac of the playpark in Saunders Park baking softly; the corrugated roofs of the garages become too hot to touch—had begun to feel a little less than real. Sometimes the surface of things grows porous. Is that just an excuse? I don’t know. It’s how I remember it.
By that point, Billy made all the dares. In the last few weeks something had come over him. We didn’t know what, and no one had any desire to ask.
Billy opened the knife. He made the dare. Whoever the bottle landed on was getting stabbed.
Well, not stabbed, said Billy. Nicked. On the arm. But something more than a nick.
Then he reached into his backpack. He pulled out a little First Aid kit from Boots. I remember it had the blue Boots logo on its white plastic case. Or was it a white Boots logo on its blue plastic case? I don’t know.
I’ve got plasters, he said. Bandages.
He looked at us.
Who’s a pussy? he asked.
Then he spun the bottle.
The third game went further—it had to. Somehow we knew we had commited to this thing. It was beyond us now. The pact was sacred.
For the second time that summer, Billy got the First Aid kit out of his bag. It was down a bandage and a few alcohol wipes by then. I had the scars to prove it. I still do; from time to time I’ll find myself stroking them. I’d not let my parents see the cuts, but then that summer they probably wouldn’t have seen them if I’d have held my arm up in front of their faces and waved it about.
Billy opened the knife. He placed it on the floor beside the bottle.
Three stabs this time, he said. To the body.
He looked at us.
We’ve got bandages.
We looked at each other. Kelly was pale. Aaron looked like he was going to be sick. Jake Pegler was rocking on his heels, saying not me, not me, not me, over and over. He was breathing deeply, rhythmically. We didn’t have mindfulness in those days.
Do you want to spin it? said Billy, looking up at me.
I nodded.
Two spins, he said. The second gets to hold the knife. And he grinned. It was a terrible sight.
Billy closed his eyes. A kind of elation seemed to emanate from him. A calmness had settled over him—he looked calmer then than I had seen him in weeks. Later on I would think he had known what was going to happen. As if he had weighted the bottle somehow. As if he could have done such a thing. I glanced at Jake.
I span the bottle fast. I had the knack. It stayed in its spot, as if pinned there, spinning quickly. We watched it, rapt.
Finally it settled on Billy.
Eyes closed—I swear his eyes were close—Billy smiled.
Okay, a second time, he said, and stared at me.
I span it fast.
With a deep exhalation of relief, Jake Pegler picked up the knife. He held the knife in his hand, taking the measure of its weight. The crack of light beneath the garage door dimmed a little. It was cold in the garage. Somewhere outside a dog was barking, but we weren’t listening to that.
Jake sniffed. He blinked a few times, gathering himself. Then he set to work.
