Dating Down Read online

  I swallow. Inside, I want to run. My brain’s screaming to get as far away from them as I can, but my arms and legs won’t work, and so I just sit there and try not to look too terrified.

  “What’s your name, luv?” asks the first hoodie.

  His smile is all crooked, and he has these nasty, cold blue eyes. I want to scream. I know I should scream, but I can’t; and as he hooks one of his grubby fingers around my necklace, I push him away.

  “That ain’t very friendly, is it?” says the second hood.

  He’s bigger, much bigger, with his huge wobbly arms, but he doesn’t scare me anything like his skinny friend with the scabby face and the ugly-looking tattoo of a scorpion on his neck.

  “So, what you doing here all dressed up like Cinderella?” asks the big one.

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m frozen rigid as his sweaty hand strokes my neck.

  “Pretty earrings,” says the first one, moving so close that his stinking breath tickles my neck. “They real?”

  I find myself nodding, too scared to do anything else, as the thin one runs his hot, slobbering tongue up my cheek to taste my tears. That’s when I find my voice, when it hits me they are going to hurt or even kill me.

  Screaming, I tear myself free and run towards the path, back through the trees, but my heels sink into the mud, and I tumble forward. Fear making me fast, I scramble to my feet, but one of them grabs my ankle and pulls my legs from under me.

  I fall forward with a thud, clawing at the ground as they drag me kicking and screaming back into the trees. “HELP!”

  The skinny one grabs my hair, and even though I’m kicking and screaming, fighting them all the way, they just drag me deeper into the undergrowth.

  “Get the necklace!” the fat one hisses to his friend. “NOW!”

  A sudden weight pins my legs to the ground as the thin one straddles my body, his fat friend silencing my sobs by smothering my mouth with his hand.

  I buck, wriggle, and shout, trying to throw them off me, but they’re too strong. As I’m crying silent screams into the fat one’s hand, the skinny one’s face appears above mine. He’s so excited he’s drooling, and then I feel something hard twitch into my stomach.

  “Smithy, we ain’t got all day!”

  The skinny one stops leering down my dress. Ripping the necklace from my throat, he stuffs it into his jacket.

  “Smithy – hurry up!”

  As his hand inches towards my earring, this surge of power rushes through me, and I bite down on the fat one’s hand until I taste blood.

  He lets me go with a roar, and then I start screaming, and I don’t stop until this other guy comes out of nowhere. Kicking the fat one in the back of the head, he hurls himself at the skinny one.

  I’m not sure what happened. I think I must have fainted, because when I come round, I am lying in the grass, conscious of muffled shouting and grunts. Then there’s this rush of feet, a rustling of leaves. Fighting my way through the dull pain filling my head, I find myself looking into the face of the guy who saved me.

  “It’s all right,” he says, panting hard as he steps towards me with both hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I look at him. I look into his dark-brown eyes, and then I look at his scruffy black clothes, cheap bangles, and even cheaper tattoos and dyed black hair.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head. I can’t talk; everything inside me won’t stop shaking, and the way he keeps looking over his shoulder makes me even more scared.

  “That’s all right then,” he says, extending his hand towards me. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  I try to take his hand, but I still can’t move my arm. My fear won’t let me.

  “I’m Gary,” he says with a kind of half smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Tammy,” I hear myself sniff. I can’t stop crying. I’m shivering inside and out as I turn into a block of ice.

  “Tammy, pretty name.” His cockney accent’s strangely soothing, but the way he keeps looking all over the place isn’t. “Come with me. It’s not safe.”

  I look into his eyes again to see if I can trust him. He’s got nice eyes, but he’s dressed like those guys who attacked me. Grabbing a stick, I hold it out in front of me, ready to fight if I have to.

  “Okay,” he says, taking a step back and holding up both hands like he’s surrendering to me. “See, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Trying to keep my hands steady, I continue to point the stick at him so he’ll stay away. Then there’s a crash on the other side of the trees that makes us both jump, and I hear myself scream again.

  Crouching down, he looks deep into me, his breathing still fast and heavy. “Tammy, I know you’re scared, but we’ve got to get out of here.”

  I know what he’s saying is right, but I still can’t move.

  “If they come back, I won’t be able to fight them off again.”

  I nod. I understand, but I just want to be on my own.

  “We need to get out of here,” he says, speaking slow and soft. “Please, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I look at his eyes again. They’re the exact colour of melted chocolate. Hoping I’m not making another mistake, I let go of the stick and reach for his hand.

  He grabs it and pulls me to my feet. Upright, I’m surprised how tall he is, and hugging his arm, I try to stop shaking.

  “Can you walk?”

  I nod, but as I take my first step, my legs give way and I end up on my knees. I don’t know why, but I start crying again, even though I didn’t hurt myself.

  “It’s okay,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “I’ve got you.”

  One arm around my waist, the other holding my hand, he walks me back through the trees, leading me to a wooden bench beneath one of those old-fashioned lampposts.

  “Okay?”

  I nod and sit down before I fall down, still unable to stop shaking.

  “Here.” He hands me his tatty black leather jacket.

  I put it on, glad of the warmth, but I’m still freezing.

  “I got your stuff back,” he says, handing me my bag.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking it from him.

  “It’s okay.” He walks about for a while before sitting down next to me, close but not too close. “You all right?”

  I nod as I try to hug myself warm. “Just cold.”

  “It’s shock,” he says, staring at me with his intense brown eyes. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “NO!” If he calls for help, I’m going to have to explain why I was in the park and not at the dance. “No ambulance!”

  “But?”

  “No ambulance – I’m fine!”

  “Okay,” he says, reaching for an ancient-looking mobile. “But we need to call the cops.”

  “NO!”

  “But –”

  “I don’t want you calling the police!” Even if I wasn’t scared of getting into trouble, I just want to forget it.

  “Okay, you want me to call someone? A friend –”

  “NO!” I say, cutting him off, the tears rising up out of me. “No one. I don’t want you to call anyone!”

  He shrugs. “Is it all right if I just sit here till you want to go home?”

  I don’t know what to say, and once again I search his face for the answers, because I can’t make him out. He doesn’t act how he sounds and looks. I mean, he’s a classic thug type with a hint of goth, but the face that looks back at me is kind.

  “Sure you’re all right?” he asks me again.

  I nod. And then, I’ve no idea why, I start to cry all over again.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a screwed-up tissue. “I haven’t used it.”

  I take it from him, but the tears won’t stop. “Thank you.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to call someone?” he asks after I’ve been crying for five minutes straight.

  I shake my head and stop when it starts throbbing again. “
Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Don’t have anywhere else to be.”

  I twist my head so I can look at him again. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d be alone on a Saturday night. And then I see the blood above his left eye. “You’re hurt!”

  He touches his forehead and winces.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ve had worse,” he mumbles, using the back of his hand to wipe the blood away. “That fat one smacked me when I told him I’d called the cops.”

  “You called the police?” I cry.

  “No, I just told them I did so they wouldn’t beat the crap out of me.”

  I can’t tell if he’s joking or not; something tells me he isn’t. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’ll live,” he says, his lips curling into a smile. “What about you?”

  I nod. I’m still shaking, but I don’t feel as scared with him sitting next to me.

  “So, where you supposed to be?”

  “My end-of-term summer ball.”

  “So why aren’t you there?” he asks, offering me a cigarette.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I reply, saying no to the cigarette because I hate smoking.

  “Must be pretty bad if you’d rather hang around this dump,” he says, leaning back and blowing a perfect smoke circle.

  “It is,” I tell him, the shivering becoming less intense.

  “You had a row with your bloke?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  This time he turns to check me out, his face serious. “So why you hiding here?”

  “Who says I’m hiding?”

  “’Cos you don’t seem to want anyone to know you’re here,” he replies. “Which means you’re in some kind of trouble.”

  I swallow, terrified at how he seems to know so much about me.

  “Don’t bother me what you’ve done,” he says, dropping his cigarette and using his right foot to stub it out. “I’m laying low myself.”

  He seems sad, but I don’t ask him what’s wrong because I don’t want to be rude.

  “Well, I don’t want to stay here all night,” he says, standing up. “There’s a pub down there. You want to come?”

  Saturday 7:30 p.m.

  Gary

  I need a drink. I’m holding it together, but I don’t know how. I can’t keep still; I know that much. There’s so much adrenaline in me I’m going to crash big time, and when that happens, I want to be a million miles away from them two with a drink in my hand.

  I look over my shoulder again, check they’re not about. It’s just her and me, they’re well gone, but I still can’t relax – not until I’ve had a skinfull. Shit. I hope they didn’t get a close look at me. What the hell was I thinking?

  “Sure you’re okay?” I don’t know how many times I’ve asked that, but it seems the right thing to say.

  She nods and looks up at me with these big blue watery eyes like I’m some kind of superhero, and this strange warmth spreads through me. She’s a pretty little thing even with mascara tears, and she makes me feel good again, which isn’t a good thing for me or her. Luckily, I don’t feel good for long, ’cos the second we step into the pub, twenty strangers start glaring at me, and once again I’m back to being the biggest bastard in the world.

  “It wasn’t me!” I say, keeping one arm around Tammy because she hasn’t stopped shaking since I got to her. “I was the one who saved her!”

  But of course they don’t believe me. They just see what they want to see.

  “It’s true. If he hadn’t come along when he did...” She starts crying again, and I do my best, but I really don’t know what to say to stop girls crying, so the redheaded barmaid comes over and takes Tammy into the loos, and me, I’m left standing there on my own – twenty blokes with beer guts all glaring at me. I need a drink.

  I take a seat at the bar and order a beer for me whilst I think what to get Tammy. Whiskey is what my gran used to drink when she was sick, but brandy is what she used to drink at Christmas, and I figure Tammy needs cheering up more.

  “Anything else?” asks the blond barmaid.

  I down it in one. “Another.”

  She hands me another pint and this time sticks her tits in my face. “Anything else?”

  She’s a babe, but after everything I’ve been through, I’m not the slightest bit tempted. “Brandy, a single, no make it...” I dig inside my pocket to check the cash situation. Not good. “Single.”

  “Put your money away,” she says, touching my arm. “This is on the house.”

  I thank her with a wink and a half smile because girls love it when I do that, take my free drinks to a table in the corner, and with nothing but grotty pictures of Victorian London to look at, I get out my mobile and wait for Tammy.

  Still no news from Bill, which is good because it means Jack’s doing okay, even if Bill still wants to kill me. Bad news travels quicker than anything. I still remember that day when Grace got diagnosed with leukaemia...

  I shake Grace from my mind before I tumble back into that hole again. I’m done with all that. No one’s ever going to hurt me again, because I’m not going to let them!

  “Gary?”

  I look up on hearing a girl say my name, and when I see it’s her, my mind turns to mush. All the black tears and smudged pink lipstick have gone, and there’s just lots of copper curls and a patch of mud on her fancy dress, but it doesn’t matter – she still looks like a princess. I push the glass of brandy towards her as I feel myself tumbling into her sky-blue eyes. “I got you this.”

  “Thank you,” she says, sitting in the opposite chair with her hands resting on her knees like she’s having tea with the queen.

  I’d love to paint her. With her pale skin and flaming red hair, she looks like she belongs in one of Jack’s fairy tales. “Better now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she says, looking across at me. “Sorry, I’ve just realised I never really thanked you properly.”

  She really does talk nice, but she doesn’t sound stupid or stuck up like the snobs on the TV, she just speaks the words how they are supposed to be spoken. “Think nothing of it,” I say, suddenly hating the way I sound. “I do this kind of thing all the time.”

  She almost smiles as she sips her drink, and I feel as warm inside as if I’d drunk the brandy myself.

  “We need to call the cops,” I tell her again. “They could have really hurt you.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want Dave to get into trouble.”

  “Is Dave your bloke?” I don’t know why, but I feel really pissed off at hearing her mention another guy, especially when she said she wasn’t seeing anyone.

  “No, silly,” she tells me. “Dave’s our new driver.”

  Now I’ve never met anyone who has a driver, but I don’t want to look stupid, so I just nod, as if having a driver is as common as having a mobile.

  “I don’t want him to lose his job,” she explains, the brandy making her relax. “It was my fault, see, running off like that – but Mummy won’t...”

  I bite my cheek to stop myself smirking when I hear her call her old lady Mummy.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” I lie, ’cos it’s not her fault she’s posh. “So why’d you run off?”

  She looks up at me like Jack does when he’s done something he shouldn’t. “I just couldn’t face all the others.”

  I’m intrigued. “Why?”

  “You’ll laugh.”

  “I won’t.” I don’t know why I’m so curious, but I am. I suppose getting involved with her problems makes me forget my own. “Go on. I did take a kicking and a half saving you.”

  Her blue eyes double with fear. “I didn’t realise... are you hurt badly?”

  I suddenly feel bad for exaggerating when all I wanted to do was impress her. Thing is, I was lucky. If they hadn’t have fallen for the cops-being-on-their-way bluff, I’d have a lot worse than s
ore ribs and the start of another black eye. “Na, I’m Superman, remember.”

  She smiles again, wrapping one of those perfect copper curls around her finger.

  “Well?” I prompt. “Spill.”

  “I can’t – I feel stupid.”

  I’m hooked, and without realising it, I’m leaning forward to hear what she’s got to say. “Your evil stepsisters have stolen your tickets, and this Dave and your Rolls Royce have turned into a pumpkin and white mouse.”

  “Don’t be daft,” she replies with a giggle. “Dave’s waiting in the limo nearby, and there’s no fairy godmother – just me and my big mouth.”

  “Do I have to beg?” I finish my beer, and as if by magic, there’s another one. The man with the Labrador nods in my direction. I nod back and take a sip. I’m now officially happy and back in the danger zone.

  “I don’t have anyone to go with.”

  “So go on your own. You’re bound to get lucky.” But for some reason, that’s the wrong thing to say, and the smile falls from her lips and mine too.

  “I can’t,” she says, putting down the brandy. “I kind of told Carrie and all the others someone was taking me.”

  “And he didn’t show up?”

  “He doesn’t exist.”

  “No shit!”

  She stares at me like I’ve just punched her in the face. I guess people don’t say things like that where she comes from.

  “You made up someone?” I don’t believe what I’m hearing. Then this horrible fear runs through me, like cold water running down my back. “How old are you?”

  She lowers her voice, and for a split second I think she’s going to say thirteen or something, and I’ll find myself being labelled as a pervert as well as an all-round bastard.

  “Sixteen, nearly seventeen.”

  I laugh. Can’t help it, because after the day I’ve had, this is just too stupid. “Aren’t you a bit old for all this make-believe stuff?”

  To my relief she starts giggling. “I knew you’d laugh.”

  “Sorry, but it’s kind of, well – stupid.”

  “I suppose,” she agrees, smiling again.