‘No,’ she said. ‘Just look at the radio!’

Suddenly the car interior lit up. A vehicle was rushing towards us; it slowed and stopped. A man came running through the rain. ‘Are you OK?’

Tom rolled down the window. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This guy’s bleeding and making weird noises.’

‘Only when I breathe,’ I said.

‘Oh God,’ said the man, staring at us. ‘Stay where you are. I’ll get help!’ He stumbled back to his car and drove off.

‘He’ll kill me,’ said Kath. ‘He’ll kill us all.’

‘I need some fresh air,’ I said, and got out of the car.

‘The steering wheel’s broken, too,’ I heard her wail.

It was pitch dark outside. It wasn’t raining so hard any more, and I imagined that the cool air was doing me good. The earth squelched under my feet. With every step I sank up to my ankles in mud. When I was sure they couldn’t see me any more, I fell to my knees and started to cry. It felt as if there was something stuck deep inside me, and there was. I reached inside my shirt and tried to touch the spot, but it was just a wet, pulsating hole. I leaned forward and spat a cascade of blood. I laid my face on the ground and screamed into the mud. I thought of Kath and her father. He’d kill her. Or she him. I wouldn’t put it past her. And then she’d run off with Tom and marry him and everything. Suddenly it all became clear. It was all just a game, and everyone was playing against me. They’d finished me off. Tom and Kath. The two of them. Him especially. He was scooping the lot. He was the victor.

He’d joined the class the year after me. When he stood at the front and quietly said his name, it was clear that our social hierarchy was about to change. You could see it in the girls’ eyes: they were crazy about him. About his black hair that made him look a bit like an Indian. His long eyelashes. His smooth skin. And that damned soft, soapy voice. They put him in the seat next to me, and inevitably we became friends. But in our friendship we were on different levels. Perhaps it sounds stupid, but I sometimes felt like a whimpering puppy when I was around him. It was just how he made you feel.

When the weather was nice we’d all hang out in the park, or in the field at night. We’d drink beer and try the pills we’d nicked from our parents’ medicine cabinets. We’d sort them by colour and shape and swallow them one after the other. Usually nothing happened, but sometimes they’d really knock you out. In my memory it’s always spring. It’s warm, there’s beer and pills and swarms of those feathery white things floating through the air. We were both after Kath. Wherever she was, we were there too. Maybe the reverse was also true. No idea who was first in love with whom. We were all in love with life. I didn’t think I was jealous, but one day I said to her she shouldn’t throw herself at him like a whore. She just closed her eyes and held her face up to the sun. I think she told him, later.