"Hi, Steve. How's it going?"
Steve was channel hopping on the new digital, surround sound
telly, when Rich staggered into the room, laden down with textbooks and folders. He was going to be in deep shit, if
he didn't do his Maths homework for yet another week.
"Hey, Rich! Yeah, not so bad, actually. By the
way, what are we doing for 'the birthdays' this year, mate? You still on for a piss up? I reckon you should get
into most of the clubs in town. You could pass for sixteen - just about. That should be good enough, except for
the 'over twenty-one' places; that's pushing it a bit."
"Yeah, I could pass for sixteen, but isn't the age limit,
like, eighteen?"
"Sure, but 'eighteen' means 'sixteen', and 'sixteen', 'fourteen'.
It's an unwritten law, bruv. What's that your doing - homework?"
"Yeah - bloody algebra. I don't suppose...?"
The chances that Steve had ever got to grips with algebra himself were anorexic rather than slim, but Rich was desperate.
Or, at any rate, as close to "desperate" as Richard Anderson
was ever likely to get about some crappy piece of school work.
"I'd love to, mate, but I can't let the gorgeous Samantha
down, now can I?"
Another one now, was it?
"Steve, listen - what's going on with you and Julie?
It feels like I hardly ever see you nowadays. Me and John were at Bryony's the other day, and - well, their mum said
something."
"About me and Julie?"
"Yeah."
"Listen, mate, Jules is a nice girl and everything, but
- well, she gets a bit heavy at times."
"So you've broken up with her then?"
"No way. She's a fit bird."
"But you just said - you just mentioned a girl called Samantha."
"Sam Linton," confirmed Steve. "Yeah, now, Sam - that
is one really hot chick."
"Hot chicks" and "fit birds". Steve had no respect
whatsoever for the women whom he so happily shagged. He'd always been the same, so maybe Rich should have realised.
But it was impossible for Richard to view Julie as just
another of Steve's "conquests". And, naively, he had thought that Steve would have worked it out, too. That Julie
was different.
Julie was something else.
Samantha bloody Linton. Yeah, Richard knew who Sam
was, all right: only Julie's best mate, this time.
Some "mate". Seemed that even she was a back-stabber,
who didn't really give a damn about Jules.
Sam was sexy, sure. In a very "obvious" way that was
a little too "obvious", for Richard's taste. It was like walking into a burger bar, and ordering a cheeseburger
and fries. You knew what you were getting and, yes, it was good, but also boring - too predictable and easily attained.
Knowing that members of staff had gobbed into the said burger and fries didn't exactly add to its "sex appeal".
"You still didn't answer my question, Rich. About
the birthdays."
As Rich and Steve's birthdays fell on the sixteenth and
the seventeenth of April respectively, they had always had a "joint" celebration - a tradition that had originally come into
being principally to save time and effort on the part of their mother.
In the days when she had actually involved herself in their
lives, and had only worked part-time, to supplement the money earned by their dad.
"Oh, y-yeah, we can go clubbing. No worries."
Richard sure as Hell didn't want his brother knowing how he felt about Julie. Steve would only take the piss.
"Good one, mate. Friday night - yeah? We'll
meet up at the Red Lion at, say, seven-thirty?"
The public bar of the Lion was not yet packed, but getting
that way, when Rich and John arrived, almost unbelievably early, at precisely ten-to-eight.
"Hey, Rich - John! How's it going?" Steve's
speech was already slurred; he and his mates had obviously come out straight after work. "You know Jeff, don't you?
And this is Helena, Jeff's bird. And Keith, and Simon, and Simon's bird, Natalie. You guys, this is my brother,
Richard, and his mate, John Hill."
"Hey, great to meet you guys. What are you drinking?"
enquired Keith, in an American accent, with a hint of Brommie. Interesting mix, that, thought Richard.
"Pint of Stella please, mate," Richard announced, in a tone
that hopefully implied that it was nothing unusual for him to pop into his "local" for a pint of Stella of an evening.
"Just a Coke for me," said John, who had recently sworn
never to touch alcohol again, after a particularly unpleasant incident involving some "neat" gin. "Actually, make that
three. I've just spotted my girlfriend and her mate. Emma - Charlotte - over here!"
"Who asked Fisher to come here tonight?" muttered Richard.
"Emma, probably. Charlotte is her best friend."
"And don't we know it! Yeah, well, she'd better not
keep staring at me all night, that's all."
"Women, eh?" remarked Steve. "It's the old Anderson
charm, mate. They can't help themselves. I had to put Julie off again, because I'd made a date for tonight with
Sammy - who should be here any minute now. Sam's been getting really possessive lately - keeps wanting to tell Julie
about 'us' and 'come out into the open'. Why do birds always end up getting like that?"
Helena and Natalie were both looking daggers at Richard's
brother - as were Emma and Charlotte, who had reached their table by this point. Female solidarity always had
got on Steve's wick, big time. Feminism was just so damn inconvenient, for a guy like Steve.
"Your attitude stinks, bruv," Richard felt like saying,
but he didn't.
What was the point? Steve was Steve, and that was
all there was to it.
Charlotte had, of course, strategically placed herself directly
opposite to Richard. It was going to be a long night.
Enter Sam the Slapper. Steve must be off his head,
to want that, when he could have...
Yes, well. Richard concentrated his attention upon
the all-important task in hand: that of knocking back the contents of the pint glass, which Keith had just placed in front
of him.
"When are we going to hit the clubs, Steve? This is
so boring," whined Samantha, when the ten of them were still firmly rooted in the Red Lion public house over two
hours later.
Everyone was drinking by this point, in spite of a slower
start for some.
Steve was having to exert every ounce of his energy to even
feign enjoyment. Sam had to be the horniest woman in the Universe. But, in spite of what his brother obviously
thought of him, Steve couldn't just switch off from Jules.
Yeah, well, Rich didn't know the half of it. It was
pathetically obvious that Richard had a crush on Julie. That was all very well, but Steve wondered if his kid brother
would be quite so keen if he knew what she was like after a few bottles of gin and a "smoke".
"Why don't we go back to our place instead?" suggested Steve.
"What about your mum?" asked Sam.
"She's right, Steve. It isn't 'our place'," his brother
pointed out.
"No, it isn't, but you know as well as I do that Mum won't
be there. She always stays with that nutter, Todd, on Friday nights. She won't be back until at least noon, if
we see her at all before Sunday."
"That isn't fair, Steve."
"Why not? It's the truth."
"She doesn't always stay over, and it isn't always with
Todd; it's mostly with Shirley and Ralph."
"Whatever."
"Listen, you two, can you both shut up, please?"
suggested Sam. "We can always go to my place, although I thought the idea was to go clubbing, but never mind."
"Okay, what does everyone want to do next?" Steve shouted,
having to compete with the music on the dukebox, and the steady buzz of various separate conversations that were going on,
by this time, at their table.
