Friction Read Free Page A

wearing shoes. Rebecca watches their pacing feet through aviator shades, the ice-cold sweat from Johnny’s T-shirt is troubling her naked arm. ‘The lads in my flat have stuck porn all over the kitchen wall,’ she says, disentangling her arm from Johnny’s and brushing it gently with her palm.
    Johnny is crap at replying. So he doesn’t. He simply allows his awkward, stooping posture to become more extreme. The mere mention of pornography causes theteeth of his brain to chatter. He can’t imagine porn. Has never seen it. Loosely linking arms with Rebecca is as close as Johnny has come to sex. And now our arms are no longer linked, he notices. Because of my sweat, he concludes, she disliked the cold, wet sensation of my sweat.
    â€˜It’s a real montage. Hardcore on almost every wall. It strikes me as rather odd. What were they thinking?’
    The path ahead of them ends and opens out into a large expanse of grass. Fellow students roll around with each other, some read in the shade of trees. Boys kick footballs to each other over long distances. Johnny takes his chance and sprints ahead of Rebecca.
    â€˜Where are you going?’
    Johnny’s crap at replying so he just runs off. Rebecca watches as he escapes towards a tree. He climbs it quickly and hangs from a branch. Rebecca is Johnny’s only friend. She knows this. That’s why she sets aside time to walk with him or cook him dinner. For Johnny has an ugly little face, friendly, but so unfortunate. His features positioned like darts thrown drunkenly at a board. His eyes like underwater organisms, forced to breathe the air. Hanging from a tree, the large discs of sweat under each of his arms are conspicuous. His frame is long and gangly; he’s what people call a lanky bastard. Certainly, he’s a lanky bastard. Limbs like lengths of inflexible rope.
    â€˜I am the Milky Bar Kid!’ shouts Johnny, swinging in the breeze, his voice retaining its adolescent croak. ‘The Milky Bar Kid is strong and tough. He is a figment of the male imagination!’ Johnny only ever speaks in joke.
    Rebecca passes the tree, smiling, embarrassed. She is short in stature, her body contains curves, her haircut is a sedate chestnut bob and her face is a face, a pretty one, soft,as if shielded by a light mist. She watches as Johnny drops from the branch and accidentally crumples into a small heap. He has the knees of a child; muddy and many-sided. He ambles after Rebecca with the unfortunate lurching movements of doomed youth.
    Johnny, of course, is in love with Rebecca. On the first day of term he tripped and fell at her feet. Her ankles, Jesus, thighs, the darkness up her skirt, in love, instantly. His little mind is full of her and his little heart is full of arrows. Her cleavage; it reminds him of not breathing. But he’s a lanky bastard. He has unfashionable genes. Fucked about by fate. A colourful acne flows from ear to ear.
    â€˜I don’t understand it. What am I meant to believe is in your mind, Johnny? I mean men, in general?’
    Johnny’s mind contains broken swings and a knackered roundabout around which tracksuited villains sip cider, throw stones and make him think and do stupid things. Especially around Rebecca.
    â€˜Men are rank, really, men are really rank,’ says Rebecca, finding a place on the grass and falling backwards into it. She’s thoughtful. Wonderful. A full middle-class figure that speaks of swimming lessons, trips to France, passing your driving test and being rewarded with a car. Beside her, Johnny is attempting to sit down. But he’s not even cool enough to sit, can’t find where to put his legs. He can be quite funny, I suppose, but beyond that his talents are eating, shitting, getting ill and breathing.
    One of the things that Johnny loves about Rebecca is her mild political commitment. This consists of her making one or both of the following points on a monthly basis, usually