terms of hooliganism, with running battles around the streets of the town every other Saturday a regular occurrence. The four of them in the ADS never got involved in any of that – what was the point? It was all about the drinking for them, massive amounts of drinking on a very regular basis, something David had never really shaken off over the years. It was a stupid macho game, seeing who could get the most drunk the quickest, and it inevitably ended in puking disaster, but that never seemed to stop them. It was as if some unseen force was driving them on to drink larger and larger amounts.
But pretty soon they learned to handle it. They got used to each other drunk as hell and they looked out for each other. This was at the age of sixteen, when the four of them seemed to have plenty in common. Two years later, in their final year at school, the drinking was the only thing that kept them together. They knew the ADS wouldn’t last, but it was one last summer blowout, and it was a riot.
That July of 1988 was one long party. David and Neil had a joint birthday party, David’s eighteenth but Neil’s nineteenth since he’d been held back a year earlier in school. Neil was a year and a day older than David. Neil had been born on the very day that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and he had been named after Neil Armstrong (his middle name was Armstrong, much to everyone’s amusement except his). Their birthday party had followed the usual pattern – insane levels of drinking early on, unsuccessful attempts to get off with a few girls, drunken camaraderie around the streets in the early hours of the morning, then getting to bed long after dawn. It was just one of many piss-ups that summer, but a week later one of those piss-ups ended with Colin’s death, and they never went out together in Arbroath again.
It was the last Saturday of July and they’d done the usual, down the West Port to a few pubs, then Tropics to check out the talent. When Tropics shut they headed along the front to Bally’s (formerly Smokies, people were still getting used to the name change), which was the same schtick except open till three. At chucking-out time they headed to Victoria Park, then the cliffs, one of the few places they could hang out without hassle from patrolling police. Sometimes they would light a fire, more often they would have a carry-out and would continue drinking as wide boys sped up and down the promenade in Ford Escorts showing off to girls.
Throughout July they had started joking in a fake macho way about jumping off the cliffs. They weren’t the biggest cliffs in the world, between a hundred and two hundred feet depending where you were, but they were high enough to kill you if you fell from them. The red sandstone was crumbling all along the five-mile stretch of clifftop walk from Arbroath to the tiny fishing village of Auchmithie – not that the ADS ever went walkies, they usually hung about the Arbroath end, drinking from cans of lager and bottles of cider and throwing things over the edge into the sea. If the tide was in, spray would sometimes shoot up and soak them, and when the tide was out, small shingly beaches and ominously dark little caves were exposed at the bottom of the cliff face. That night the sky was already starting to lighten a little in the east, the black cloudless expanse invaded by outstretching lavender and lilac fingers. As they staggered around the cliffs, their teenage years and drunken bodies made them utterly oblivious to the danger of falling. They joked about cliff-jumping. They dared each other. The tide was in and the sea appeared in benign mood, gently sloshing against tufts of grass at the cliff base, pushing plastic oil drums and other bits of flotsam gently against the massive expanse of rock. But they were only joking. Not even if you were completely paralytic would you consider something as idiotic as that, and for all their puerile teenage humour and their often idiotic banter,
But pretty soon they learned to handle it. They got used to each other drunk as hell and they looked out for each other. This was at the age of sixteen, when the four of them seemed to have plenty in common. Two years later, in their final year at school, the drinking was the only thing that kept them together. They knew the ADS wouldn’t last, but it was one last summer blowout, and it was a riot.
That July of 1988 was one long party. David and Neil had a joint birthday party, David’s eighteenth but Neil’s nineteenth since he’d been held back a year earlier in school. Neil was a year and a day older than David. Neil had been born on the very day that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and he had been named after Neil Armstrong (his middle name was Armstrong, much to everyone’s amusement except his). Their birthday party had followed the usual pattern – insane levels of drinking early on, unsuccessful attempts to get off with a few girls, drunken camaraderie around the streets in the early hours of the morning, then getting to bed long after dawn. It was just one of many piss-ups that summer, but a week later one of those piss-ups ended with Colin’s death, and they never went out together in Arbroath again.
It was the last Saturday of July and they’d done the usual, down the West Port to a few pubs, then Tropics to check out the talent. When Tropics shut they headed along the front to Bally’s (formerly Smokies, people were still getting used to the name change), which was the same schtick except open till three. At chucking-out time they headed to Victoria Park, then the cliffs, one of the few places they could hang out without hassle from patrolling police. Sometimes they would light a fire, more often they would have a carry-out and would continue drinking as wide boys sped up and down the promenade in Ford Escorts showing off to girls.
Throughout July they had started joking in a fake macho way about jumping off the cliffs. They weren’t the biggest cliffs in the world, between a hundred and two hundred feet depending where you were, but they were high enough to kill you if you fell from them. The red sandstone was crumbling all along the five-mile stretch of clifftop walk from Arbroath to the tiny fishing village of Auchmithie – not that the ADS ever went walkies, they usually hung about the Arbroath end, drinking from cans of lager and bottles of cider and throwing things over the edge into the sea. If the tide was in, spray would sometimes shoot up and soak them, and when the tide was out, small shingly beaches and ominously dark little caves were exposed at the bottom of the cliff face. That night the sky was already starting to lighten a little in the east, the black cloudless expanse invaded by outstretching lavender and lilac fingers. As they staggered around the cliffs, their teenage years and drunken bodies made them utterly oblivious to the danger of falling. They joked about cliff-jumping. They dared each other. The tide was in and the sea appeared in benign mood, gently sloshing against tufts of grass at the cliff base, pushing plastic oil drums and other bits of flotsam gently against the massive expanse of rock. But they were only joking. Not even if you were completely paralytic would you consider something as idiotic as that, and for all their puerile teenage humour and their often idiotic banter,
Similar Books
