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‘Like they had a choice? Like when they talk about someone’s brave fight with cancer. It’s bollocks, you have no control over what kills you.’
Heaveee. Yes, it is terrible to think of the beached whales. But I’m so wanting to stay on my high.
Jez reaches for the whisky and has a swig then hands me the bottle.
I take a gulp and swallow slowly, working the whisky round my gums, deep glow spreading through my insides. We don’t speak while I concentrate on rolling another spliff. Just the sound of the fire cracking, the faint hiss of the waves, warmth of the fire through my jeans.
‘You told me you were adopted, Jez.’ It pops up as a way of changing the subject. ‘How did that happen?’
She turns to frown at me, her face pale in the frame of her dark wisps of hair. Then she drags her stick through the embers. I chuck another log on and wait.
‘My adoptive mum fostered me as a baby. Then I came up for adoption, so she took me on.’ Her tone is guarded.
‘OK, so you were the only child, is it?’
‘No, she already had a daughter of her own and then she had another when I was about seven, plus piles of foster kids.’ She pokes more at the fire.
‘Wow! So, it was like,’ I try to picture this, ‘a mini children’s home?’
Sharp deep breath, impatient. ‘She’d like foster one at a time, two at most if they were siblings.’
‘Was she a single parent then?’
‘You don’t want to know much, do you?’ She glares at me.
‘Fucking hell, Jez, I’m just trying to get to know you?’ I hand her the spliff. ‘Take this, chill.’
She inhales deeply, holds it a moment before letting the smoke out, staring at the ground.
‘We can talk about something else – I was just curious, is all,’ I say.
‘You’re OK, it’s not a big deal to tell you really.’ She attempts a smile, making me want to hug her. ‘Our dad worked away a lot. It’s always been right hazy how he makes his money. Bit of this and that. Half of it dodgy. But he’d turn up and we’d get treats: cinema, bowling. Always the latest telly.’
‘Hard for your mum, though?’
‘I think it suits her. She loves kids and she’s a good homemaker. He contributes in fits and starts.’
‘Hmm, my mum used to say it was often better being a single parent, but then she only had me, which was piss easy, of course.’
She laughs. Hey, result!
‘He’s fun to have around, but yeah, she likes having the control. They met when he was escaping being forced into an arranged marriage in Liverpool, right?’
‘So, are they like, Asian?’ I ask, hoping I’m not making stupid assumptions.
‘My dad’s half Indian. His father was in the Indian navy, jumped ship and married a Liverpudlian. But then he wanted to arrange my dad a traditional Indian bride.’
She hands me the spliff, stirs the embers. Their glow intensifies, pulsating orange and purple.
‘So, did you, like, get close to the foster kids?’
‘I kinda learnt not to,’ she pauses, thinking. ‘There was this kid my age, Helen, we’d have been about nine, sharing a bedroom. We like competed for who was the hardest. One time we snuck out to this Victorian cemetery in the middle of the night. Right overgrown with ivy and shit, broken tombs…?’
‘Bloody hell, scary as fuck!’
‘Yeah.’ She grins. ‘We were daring each other to rob the graves, right? There was this tiny raised tomb for a two-week-old baby. We pushed at the stone, and it shifted a couple of centimetres. Imagined some monkey-sized skeleton, all curled up like a foetus in a jar. We were just about literally shitting ourselves. Hard-girl duo resigned on the spot. Ran fast as fuck out of there.’
‘I would so not have set foot in the place at night?’ I shiver at the thought of it.
