The Stop

The Stop

It was a fine evening in early May. The sun had gone down behind the
hills, but there was a big fluffy cloud over the village, and its
underside was burning red, so there was this warm glow off of
everything, the road and the houses across the road from the bus stop
shelter where me and Jeanette were sitting. Since it was the first
really warm evening this year, we'd decided that instead of sitting in
either her room or my room, like we'd had to do all winter, we'd go out
and sit at the bus stop on the main road just along from where the
shops were.

It was one of the metal frame shelters, with a corrugated iron roof,
and big plates of glass set in between the metal supports on three
sides, with the fourth side being open on the side facing the road.
Some of the plates of glass had been knocked out, but they'd been
knocked out from the inside outwards, so there was no broken glass on
the pavement inside the shelter. Attached along the inside of the back
of the shelter there was a narrow hard plastic strip that was a bench.
On the plates of glass that were left in the shelter there was some
graffiti, but most of it was old, faded stuff I'd seen before. As soon
as we'd perched ourselves on the plastic strip, Jeanette pointed at
some fresh magic marker words on the glass next to her. It said:

A.C.
L's
J.T.

Underneath, somebody else had written:

SO SHAG ME THEN - J.T.

I ken who that A.C. is, said Jeanette. And you ken her tae. It's Alison
Connachy.

This was the name of a girl in the same class as us at school.

How dae ye ken it's her? I said.

Cos I sit next to her in Maths, and I've seen her handwriting often
enough, and that's it. And she's goin with a J.T. Johnny Traynor. You
ken him, he's in the same class as us an aw. Ken? She's been goin out
with him for ages. So it wouldnae be him, I mean it wouldnae be Johnny
Traynor who wrote that underneath. Somebody's just wrote that for a
laugh, maybe somebody with the same initials, but it wasnae him, cos
she's goin with him.

I looked at Jeanette. I suppose she was my best pal, and had been for
most of the last year. Before that, my best pal had been Angela. That
was up till Angela started going with this guy a year or so older than
her, and then she didn't have any time for anybody but him. Even if I
could have started going with somebody myself, and we could have palled
together as couples, it wouldn't have been the same. And then Angela
had gone and fell pregnant, and had left school, and the guy had
ditched her. I still saw her sometimes around the village, with a
pushchair with this beautiful blond wee girl in it. She said she wasn't
that much bothered that the guy ditched her, that if he hadn't done it
to her she would have done it to him, it was just that he got in first.
She said the only thing she was bothered about now was her wee lassie.
Angela was still living with her Mum and Dad, but she'd put in an
application for a Council flat, and she was sure she must be right near
the top of the list now, because she had a family of her own. I'd said
to Jeanette that Angela had ruined her life, had wrecked any chance of
getting a good job and having money and nice things. Jeanette had said,
Still, she'll probably get a place of her own, now that she's got her
kiddie an aw. I'd looked hard at Jeanette then, as well.

Still I sort of knew what Jeanette meant. We were both sick of living
with our folks. Just before Christmas Jeanette's Mum and Dad had
decided to go and spend a couple of nights in a swanky hotel, to pamper
themselves. Actually it had been Jeanette who had planted the idea in
their heads, and she told me that after humming and hawing about it for
a bit they'd managed to persuade themselves that they really deserved a
wee break. It would be alright, they'd said, because Jeanette was
really a sensible lassie, and I'd be staying over, and I was really a
sensible lassie as well. So the first night we decided to go to this
dance in the Students' Union at the Campus University near the town,
and we waited outside until we managed to get these two first year
student guys to sign us in. They kept on hanging around us for a while,
like we were supposed to be grateful to them or something for signing
us in, but eventually we managed to ditch them. So we really got into
the dancing, and I was half-hoping that somebody would come up to us
and offer to sell us some Es, but it didn't happen. But I wasn't
bothered that much, I was getting enough of a buzz off the dancing.
When the dance ended, we went outside and were just going to get into
the taxi we'd ordered, when the two guys who'd signed us in came up,
wanting to come back with us. I was about to tell them to fuck off for
good, but then they were telling us they had some blow. So we decided
to let them come. Anyway, when we all arrived back at Jeanette's place,
it was alright, we were all yapping, and laughing, and drinking the
voddy me and Jeanette had bought in earlier in the day, and smoking,
and dancing, and then snogging. Then Jeanette and one of the boys went
into one of the bedrooms, and I was left with the other one, so we went
into another bedroom, the one that had been Jeanette's brother's before
he went in the Army, the one he still used whenever he came home on
leave. So we got on the bed, and we were snogging, and I let him
unbutton my blouse, and put his hand in my bra, and then up my skirt
and in between my legs. Then he wanted to go further than just
snogging, and to tell the truth I wanted to as well, but I wouldn't let
him at first, but then he got out a packet of johnnies, so I let him.
And it was fucking useless, I mean I'd started to get excited snogging,
but when we got to the shagging, he just wanted his hole, he didn't
give a fuck for anything I might have got out of it. Anyway, soon after
he wanted to do it again, but once was enough for me, he wasn't
pleased, but I managed to get him out into the hall and out the front
door. When I got back to the living room, Jeanette was there, and the
other student had gone. Jeanette looked at me, so I said no, I hadn't
had sex, just done some heavy petting. Jeanette said she had done the
same as me. So we sat up talking for a bit longer, and then we went to
our beds. We were sensible lassies the next day, right enough, sensible
about cleaning up the mess from the night before, and that night, we
just sat and watched videos, enjoying the free run of the living
room.

Anyway, Jeanette had brought the latest copy of Cosmo to the bus
shelter. We sat, turning over the pages, talking about the fashions,
and the makeup, and the articles and answering the questionnaires about
sex. I loved the way the articles were written, they were obviously
written by smart, sassy, professional women who knew celebrities and
all the latest trends. I'd tried to write the way these women
journalists wrote, and I found that I could do it, though I'd had to
make up the details myself. It was easy, just like playing a game. I
thought that it must be great to be there, down south, right at the
centre of things, with a powerful job like that. It was just a question
of getting there.

A car drew up in front of the shelter in the layby where the buses
stopped. There were two young guys in the front seats, and before the
guy in the passenger seat rolled down his window I could hear the club
music going inside the car. The car was a hatchback, and it had seen
better days, there were rust spots on the doors and one of the front
wings of the car had been replaced, because it was a different colour
from the rest of the car. Anyway, this guy starts asking us and
gesturing to go over to the car and speak to him, but I just ignore
him, but Jeanette actually gets up and goes over to the passenger side.
Then I couldn't hear what they were saying, just some muffled talking
and laughing. Then the guy says, loud, so that I could hear: And what
about your pal? I still wasn't letting on I'd heard, I was just
casually turning the pages of Cosmo and looking at the pictures, but I
could see out the corner of my eye Jeanette looking round at me, then
she walks over and says:

They're wantin us to go with them. For a run roond in their car.

Aye, what, I says.

Naw, she says, it'd mebbe be a laugh. They've got some cans.

I says nothing. I'm turning the pages, looking at the pictures. She
just stands there.

Well, I'm goin anyway, she says.

She still stands there.

You no comin? she says.

I looked up at her then, full in the face. I says:

Are you totally and completely off your fucking head?

Aye, you fuck off an aw, she says, then turns round and walks to the
back passenger door of the car. Now I take a straight look at the guy
in the passenger seat of the car, and it's what I thought, I don't know
him at all. The other guy, the driver, I can't see right, his face is
hidden by the passenger's face, but just then he leans forward and over
towards the passenger side to get a good look at me, and I recognise
him, and I can see he recognises me as well, cause his eyes go wide.
It's this guy Andy, Andy Campbell, the one who got my ex-best pal
Angela up the duff.

Eh Andy, I shout, that your car then? Got yoursel a job at last? Making
some good money now? Enough money to buy and run a car? Diz Angela ken
aboot that? Diz the CSA ken aboot it?

He draws his head back, and I can't see right again, but I think his
face has gone red. Jeanette's already in the back seat, she must have
heard me saying that, she's looking at the driver and then out the car
window at me, and maybe she's not so sure about this now, maybe another
couple seconds and she'll open the door and get out, but Andy puts the
car into gear and it's drawing out of the layby, Jeanette's still
looking at me and I mouth at her, stupid cow, but then she just smirks
and gives me the v-sign.

Next day at school Jeanette came up to me and tried to make it up. She
said that even before they'd reached the end of the village, she'd
shouted at them to let her out, they hadn't been best pleased but
they'd done it, but that when she'd got back to the bus shelter, I'd
already gone. But I told her I wasn't interested, and after that I just
cut Jeanette dead. I'd had enough of best pals, anyway, for a
while.