08 . Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want

It was when I got inside I caught a yeasty smell and realised I’d been sweating. My back was soaked all the way down to the waistband of my cords and my arms felt like they’d bonded with the sleeves of my hooded top. I lowered the painting carefully onto the sofa and eased my trainers off. My feet thanked me for their freedom so I stripped my socks off too. My feet were blue from the dye off the trainers and the socks and the rigours of the night before, and under the dye the skin was damp and white, drained of blood, the toes moulded to each other with sweat and motion to make one mass. They felt stone cold. I went upstairs to the bathroom and turned on the hot tap, felt the stream with my hand as the water gradually warmed and covered the bottom of the bath and sat on the side, rolled my trouser cuffs up and swung my toes into the heat. I couldn’t feel it at first, could have been ice cold or hot but gradually the blood agreed to absorb some of the warmth from the water. I wiggled my toes in joy, rubbing at the stained skin with my fingertips so a thin layer detached itself in and broke up into soft threads.

I was surprised by the doorbell, flowed by a rattling at the letterbox but quickly remembered it would be Jane. The towels on the floor were still damp so I left a trail of wet footprints behind me when I ran down the stairs to open up. Jane had collected Em on the way and they smelled of sunshine and washing powder. My feet felt cold again, and my hands too. Jane ran past me up to the loo and Em followed me into the front room. The parcel was still there, leaning up against the back of the sofa but Em didn’t notice. She carried on into the kitchen while I stayed put. I heard her open and shut the fridge, rattle cups around, call out.

“Alright if I make a brew? There isn’t anything else in here.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

I knew she expected me to follow her into the kitchen, it’s what I would have normally done but the tiles on the kitchen floor would have been cold on my bare toes and I wanted the parcel on the sofa was real. I heard Jane thud down the stairs and hoped the nost neighbours were out. She burst in, full of energy.

“I told Em we’d got a surprise for her, I hope you haven’t spoilt it she’ll go mad when she sees it this is so cool. Em, where are you, you daft cow!”

She darted through to the kitchen and I could hear her continue, the occasional syllable from Em punctuating her monologue. I sat down and tried to rub some life into my toes, wriggling them like pasty maggots against the pile of the carpet. Mum had been away for a week and you could tell by the stack of dirty bowls on the coffee table, torn bits of Rizla and strands of tobacco working their way down the sides of the cushion on the armchair in the bay window, the one guests always sat in.
The other two came through with the tea, Em carrying a cup for me that she put down next to my foot.

“The milk’s off so I made it black, but I put some sugar in yours and made it weak so you could drink it.”

She slurped hers noisily once she’d sat cross-legged opposite me and smiled.

“Oh that good. So what’s this surprise you two’ve cooked up for me then?”

I kind of realised then she wouldn’t be that bothered and I didn’t want to show her. She’s a really down to earth sort of person, which makes her nice to be with, but she’s not into art and literature like Jane and I. She likes reading books that everyone else has read, and she prefers a magazine really. As Jane reverently unwrapped the dirty old curtain she looked puzzled and then just blank when Jane stepped aside to let us see what had been inside. It was her that broke the silence.
“Er, yeah .. did you find it in a charity shop? I didn’t know there was one round here,” she sipped her drink, playing for time. “It’s a bit knackered isn’t it? Not as good as those blue lady pictures,” she perked up, “maybe we can swop it in Café Pop for a blue lady picture?”

“God Em!” Jane’s face was scornful, “you haven’t got a bloody clue have you? We just got this from Platt Hall. It’s like, the most soulful thing I’ve ever seen and you want to swop it for a bit of 1960s tat! I don’t believe you sometimes.”

You could tell they’d been together for a long time by how much venom Jane allowed herself. I felt invisible. Em hunched backwards.

“Well I know I don’t do art like you two but there’s no need to get a cob on at me.” She looked hurt, “anyway you can look at your stupid picture all you like cos I’ve gotta be going home,” she stood up as she spoke and I remembered she was going to her gran’s early the next morning for a week, wouldn’t be back until my mum was home again.

“Aw stay for a bit Em,” I wheedled. “You don’t have to go yet.”

“I don’t know why you think I’d want to stay here with you two idiots anyway, whizzing your tits off talking shit to each other really fast like you’re so great and so cool.”

She flushed, except one cheek and half her nose was really sunburnt so one half was redder than the other. I giggled up at her, which was totally the wrong thing to do. She brought her leg back and aimed right at my knee.

“Ow you bitch!” she’d got me good, so I just managed to roll over onto my hands and knees before I heard the front door thud behind her. I started laughing for real then, a crazy deep laugh that came out of everything we’d done since the day before, a laugh that sounded almost like a cry.

“I can’t believe she did that,” I gasped. Jane started laughing too.

“She did look funny though, boring cow. She’s gonna get a right shock when she looks in a mirror.

I imagined Em’s face when she got home, how she’d have to explain to her gran why she looked like one of those Drama masks, with half her face one way and half the other. Maybe it would have gone down by then though. I sat back down and looked at our treasure. She looked different in the light coming through our net curtains, you could see more detail but the feel was the same.

“she’s called Edith.”

Jane sat on the carpet right next to the sofa, getting in close.

“What?”

I was distracted by the colours, being pulled in.

“She’s called Edith, It’s a painting by Wyndham Lewis. I remembered on the way here. Pete must have told us that but I’d forgotten. Funny name, came to me all together just like that.”

“Edith.”

I savoured the feel of the name in my mouth. It suited her, old fashioned and sedate, but not too much.

“He told me the surname too but I can’t remember. We can look it up in the library tomorrow.”

“Its Sunday tomorrow Jane, the library’s shut.”

“Well Monday then, who cares. Anyway it might come back to me before then. Are you hungry?”

“No,” my stomach felt like it was ziplocked shut at the top.

“Me neither, shall we have a spliff?”

We took Edith outside and propped her up against the back wall where we could see her while we made the most of the fading sun and the dwindling bag of grass. I’d put my ‘Little Old Man’ pyjamas on that I got from Stockport market, with the trousers rolled up to my knees and a pair of Mum’s hiking socks. Jane had swooped on a sexy nightie hung up behind the bedroom door while I was looking for the socks. It was probably the first time it had left the hanger in years.

When it started getting chilly out there we raided the freezer and heated up ready meals that we picked at and left to go cold while we drank the bottle of Lambrusco that someone had brought round once. It wasn’t that bad, quite watery and sweet, and it made my speeding heart beat a little slower. I can’t remember what was on TV but we had it on quiet while we talked with the lights off and the light from it flickered on Jane’s lean face and on Edith’s too, as if we were back in that room with her. From where I was sitting I could see the odd person on the way out for a Saturday night pass in the street, and that felt far away, and it was cosy inside, like in here it was really Sunday evening in spite of the girls in Lycra dresses and boys in Ralph Lauren walking down our street.

“I’m going to go to art school,” Jane announced, “in London, or Brighton, or anywhere far away really. And I’m never gonna come back, and I’ll end up living in New York and being a famous artist and going to lots of parties.” She tipped her head back to catch the last drops of wine from her glass, stretched her legs out straight in front of her. “I feel fantastic,” she smiled at me. “What are you going to be?”

She made me feel I could be whatever I wanted to be.

“I’m going to be a writer and live in a big house in the country and have a study just like her,” I pointed at Edith, “ and you can come visit, when you’re in the country of course.” I laughed and raised my glass in a toast to our futures as Jane crawled over on all fours and kissed me hard on the mouth. She tasted sweet, of wine and tobacco and her lips weren’t as soft as Em’s but nicer somehow, more exciting. I kissed her back. It felt right, and she brought her body up to mine and sat next to me and kissed me harder and that felt right too.

07 . Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

I’d been into Platt Hall before. We went on school trips there because it was close to school so you didn’t have to pay for a minibus to get there, could just get on a bus, and it was free to get in too I think which was good for some people. Once you got there of course there wasn’t that much to look at, a few glass cases with shop dummies dressed in what looked like jumble sale clothes, with labels saying things like ‘Psychedelic trouser suit by Zandra Rhodes. Nylon. London, 1978’, or ‘Horrible shoes by Ossie Clarke. Plastic. London, 1967.’ We didn’t have a clue who they were but we had to listen to a woman from the Hall drone on about what people used to wear and how great it was in the 1960s and then we’d get to go outside and eat our packed lunch in the sun.

The exhibitions that they don’t change are the best bit. You go into a dark room (I think it’s to preserve the fabric) with proper old wooden cabinets and inside each one is lit up so you can see all the detail on the old clothes in there. They have all these beautiful old party dresses that make you wish you lived back then so you could have worn them. I said that to my mum when she took me ages ago and she said the reason they’re still good enough to display is that they were hardly worn and that the clothes that people like us would have worn haven’t survived because we would only have one set of clothes that we dabbed with vinegar and would have been bought second hand in the first place. I prefer to think of myself as the sort of person who would have worn those silk bodices though and I decided then that I’d wear one some day.

My favourite section was the underwear, and I think it was mum’s too. We spent ages staring at the hundreds of hooks and buttons and imagining how long it would take to get dressed in the morning, how long to sew them all on by hand even. They had some of the boxes they came in and with the low lights and no one else around and imagining the ladies taking hours being dressed and going to balls and fanning themselves it was fun. I think that must have been before Mum went funny, when we used to do things together.

There was a guard sat outside on one of those plastic stacking chairs as we walked up to the doors. He looked like a cat in the sun. He’d taken his jacket off and his white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. He still looked too hot. His face, turned up to the sky, was pink and blotchy and sweat stains were creeping outwards from his armpits. We walked past without him noticing we were even there.

It was chilly as soon as we passed the patch of light that wedged open the heavy front doors. You could feel it come off the tiled floor and from the long corridors that stretched in front of us, in spite of the bright light streaming in the windows. The sounds of the summer day behind us seemed a lot further away, as if the still quiet in there could somehow cancel it out. We stopped and looked up at the curve of the staircase angling round to the upstairs gallery, the plain walls where once there must have been decoration and laughter and dancing and ladies in dresses that swished along but were now trapped like butterflies in heavy oak cases. As we started up the stone stairs that municipal smell hit our noses, a scent of damp and disinfectant, cheap paint layered on mouldings in an attempt to keep it all looking smart. It made me relaxed though; being with Jane made me relaxed. Far more than being with Em, who made me feel a lot of the time like I was her mum, or her big sister, sitting around like a lummox waiting for life to happen to her.

We moved further up, the hollow building amplifying even out cushioned soles so they swished and echoed loudly up to the ceiling far above. It got to the point where I could even hear the cloth of my trousers hiss as my thighs met and passed each other with each step. We were silenced ourselves by the stillness and the history in the place, our minds whizzing with what ifs and I wonder what happened here, once upon a times that it’s easy to assume were happy but I guess my mum wo
uld say weren’t necessarily so.

We passed through huge double doors and alongside towering windows through which we viewed summer scenes laid out like an Impressionist painting. They seemed so far away, silent, as if they had been placed on a screen for us to look at, but never be part of. Everything seemed hyper-coloured, a splash of vivid life against the stillness we inhabited in there. It would surprise me each time we approached a window and it burst into view again, families with picnics and footballs, dogs shitting and chasing each other, and us in an air lock, faint sounds leaking through to remind us it was really there.

Eventually we got to the end of the series of rooms and hit a small door with a ‘Private’ sign on it. Jane walked straight up to it and looked round at me.

“This is it,” she twinkled, and looked past me to check there really was no one around.

There’s something about ‘Private’ written anywhere that makes you want to go in. I was curious but nervous too.

“What if it’s alarmed?” I murmured, keeping my voice low even though there was quite obviously no one around. Jane shook her head.

“Then we run like fuck. Anyway I’ve been here before and it wasn’t alarmed then.”

She didn’t look very reassured by her own words though, turned the handle carefully and pushed the door a crack. No alarm sounded. Jane moved her body in line with the doorframe and slowly eased the door open, sliding her head to one side to look if there was anyone on the other side. Once she’d had a quick scan she swung it further and motioned for me to come through.

“Shut it behind you,” she instructed me, and I obeyed mutely.

Once I’d shut the door it took a while to be able to make anything out. The room we were in was dark with panelling, narrow and long, with the only light coming from a small window at the end. Even though it was grimy and smeared you could tell it was a nice day outside from the quality of the light seeping through. It didn’t get as far as where we were standing. Jane was swearing quietly and searching around by the door, I guessed for the light switch. She found it eventually and a single light bulb offered about half as much light as before. I stared round at piled up chairs and broken tables as she came over to where I stood.

“What’s this then?” I asked Jane, “And how do you know about it?”

“Can you see it?”

I was none the wiser, thought maybe she was going slightly mad.

“See what exactly? I can see loads of dust and some old furniture and a dirty light bulb?”

“Very funny.”

She stepped over to the wall, where a small dark frame enclosed an old painting that I hadn’t noticed amongst all the other clutter.

The colours were muddy, which was why I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a picture of a woman sitting reading a book, or so I thought it could be because her arms sort of disappeared into shards of broken colour in her lap that could be the edges of a book but might have been something else. Whatever it was she was looking down at it, and in the hoods of her eyes and set of her mouth she looked transfixed and calm and totally lost in whatever it was she saw there. You could see the room she was in was full of stuff, a bookshelf and a globe and the edge of another chair facing hers, that was empty, but made you think she might have enjoyed talking with whoever sat on it, knee to knee, comparing notes on whatever it was that consumed her at the time.

She was wearing a long skirt, but as I looked harder it didn’t look rich or ornate like a party dress, more like the bottom of a plain cotton nightdress with a sort of dressing gown jacket on top. I wondered whether her feet were bare but you couldn’t see them. Even though the picture was dark as a whole, the front of the skirt and her face, and the folds of her sleeves were illuminated by something like firelight.

“Isn’t she wonderful?”

I realised Jane had been watching me while I examined the painting. I nodded.

“How did you know she was here?”

“My mum had a boyfriend who did security here. Jacked it in cos the pay’s crap but he tried to impress my mum by giving us an ‘access all areas’ tour. Not that you need a key, it’s all bloody unlocked. Surprised there’s anything left.” She sniffed in disgust. “Mind you it’s all crap apart from that painting. Pete told us when we came about how that it’s a copy of a famous one that’s in a gallery in Chicago, except they don’t really know which one’s the copy and which one’s the real one, so they have to look after it in case it’s the good one, but there can’t show it to anyone cos the Americans would have a cow.”

“So it lives in here,” I breathed, “but what if it’s the real one?”

“Then it’s worth loads, but if it’s not it’s worth nothing,” she shrugged, “Pete said they’d prefer it to be fake cos they wouldn’t be able to afford to insure it if it was real and they’d have to sell it. Maybe someone should do them a favour and rob it. Then they wouldn’t have to have it stuck here in limbo any more.” She walked up and examined the paint close up. “It makes you feel like you’re sat there with her, don’t you think? And she’s really comfortable with you, and you’re both just doing your thing.”

I nodded as she carried on, as if there were a million things she had stored up to say and they were all tumbling out now.

“I’ve come back a few times to check she’s still here. And I sit in here and think about it all, how long she’ll be here for, whether she’ll still be here when we’re grown up and we’ve moved away, and when we die. It’s not fair!” She turned towards me, angry suddenly, and tearful. “You can’t have someone put all that effort into making something like that and then shut it away!”

She was right. What good was that picture doing there? It could have been a blank piece of canvas staring into the dingy room with no one to see it or appreciate its angles and the still, quiet face of its subject sat there looking intently into her lap day after day with dust quietly drifting down and settling on the top edge of her frame, with only Jane in to visit occasionally, like a trip to a nursing home to watch a relative wither and eventually die. I walked down to the window, lifted the yellowed curtain and put my face to the glass. Blurred shapes moved jerkily on a green background and the blue of the sky filled the rest of the frame.

“We should take her with us now.”

I spoke deliberately and calmly as I turned back. I saw her jerk like a puppet brought to life by my words.

“What?!”

I repeated the statement.

“We should take it home. What good’s it doing here?”

I looked again at the seated figure in the painting and wanted so badly to have her near me, to be able to look over at her whenever I felt like it, to try and decipher each brush stroke, work out how the marks someone had made there with brush and paint could make me feel this way.

“Really?” Jane looked amused and excited, but doubtful, “I didn’t think you were the sort of person who’d do something like that.”

“Why not?” my voice was fierce, “this matters doesn’t it? We can’t leave her here to rot. Besides which, if we don’t do it someone else will, or someone’ll torch the place like they did that place in Ordsall, and then there’ll be nothing left for anyone.”

My logic was unquestionable. I could tell Jane looked impressed.

“A woman of action. So, how do we do it?”

My mind raced through all the options. We couldn’t climb out the window: too high up, plus it was probably painted shut.

“Walk out with it wrapped up in that curtain,” I nodded towards the window.

“What?” Jane started laughing, “now I know you’re not serious. And there I was thinking you were hardcore.”

I sighed.

“I mean it. There’s no other way we can get her out of here without damaging either her or ourselves. And anyway,” I pointed out, “look how easy it was to get in here, its not like that security guard’s pacing up and down with an Uzi at the ready is it?”

I could see her eyes go all faraway as she thought it over and wasn’t so sure of my plan as I’d sounded to her. I looked from Jane to the painting, so perfect, hung there like a treasure just for us, and it made me want it more. It could belong to Jane and I, we could take turns to admire it, watch the lady, so peaceful, together, without ever getting bored or wanting her to do anything but quietly contemplate her reading, the firelight warm on her legs, maybe a clock ticking a beat, but its hands never moving, a perfect moment frozen in time.

“Okay then,” I heard steel in Jane’s voice, a little quaver too, “but first let’s have a little dab.”

I laughed, and nodded, rubbed a little of the white grit she offered me on my gums and opened my eyes wide.

“Come on then!”

As Jane carefully lifted the frame down I stood on tiptoe to fiddle with the curtain hangings, then, as the speed kicked in I grabbed the bottom and yanked the whole thing down around me. Dust went everywhere. The curtain rail popped off a couple of rusty screws at one end and hung there drunkenly.

Jane jumped like a gazelle and whirled round.

“What are you making all that noise for you dick!” she hissed.

Her eyes were fierce and she looked round nervously at the door. I stood there foolishly, the fabric greasy with dust in my hands, expecting any minute to see a patch of light appear at the door, a uniformed figure. I wanted to sneeze. We stood, like musical statues, for seconds that seemed like hours, not even daring to breathe, listening for footfalls outside. Nothing but the faint sounds of kids shouting from outside, the faraway ping of an ice cream van from the road. I silently cursed myself for being so stupid and spoiling everything.

When we finally realised no one had heard us we started to move slowly, as if we were swimming, I felt so light and yet my limbs felt tense, as if I was pushing them through water. We clumsily wrapped the picture in the curtain, but it was loose and ungainly, unwrapped it and tried again. I lai the fabric out as best I could and we made it into a parcel, rolling it over and over in the cloth, tucking the edges in neatly until we had a compact bundle.

I lifted it gingerly and tucked it under my arm. It sort of fit if I curled the ends of my fingers round the bottom and braced them hard. I was surprised by how light it was. I don’t know why I expected it would be heavy and awkward, but it was easy to carry like that. I liked the feel of it next to my body, hugging it tight to stop the edges of the curtain unfurling. I wondered what it would be like to sleep with it next to me, to turn over and check it was still there.

Jane switched the light off and silently cracked the door open a fraction, pushing her face right up to the gap to check the other side. She swung from side to side to try and survey the whole scene as I stood behind her, poised like a marathon runner, with my charge under my arm. Eventually she straightened up and pulled the door gently open, moved through quietly and held it for me as I passed through.

I’d forgotten how bright the rest of the Hall was. As we passed each window we saw again that they were illuminated with midsummer scenes, only now people were picking up their balls and shouting for their dogs to come to heel. It was time for them to go eat salad on the patio, watch Barrymore with the curtains drawn.

We stepped through each room as poised as dancers, our necks craned to see and hear he slightest signal that anyone else was around to see us. I swear I could have smelled a human scent in those few minutes, or even felt the breeze as someone moved down below. I thanked my guardian angel for the spongy soles of our trainers that we placed toe hell deliberately on each step, Jane going ahead each time to check the way, me following, keeping my cargo safe and steady.

The stairs were easy: you could check the whole hallway from the top, although if we’d got caught halfway down we would have been in trouble. When we got to the bottom Jane walked silently to the door while I stood in the shadow cast by the heavy double doors.

“He’s still out there,” she murmured when she got back to me. “I thought he might have gone to do a check round but the lazy bastard’s still sat there with his feet up.”

“Shite.”

My mind raced through the options: leave it here, go put it back.

“Is there a back door?” I asked hopefully.

“I think it’s alarmed. At least they got that bit right.”

Jane looked apologetic.

I thought again. It was simple really.

“Go talk to him and make him look away from the doors, and I’ll meet you back at mine.”

The idea was formed after it left my mouth.

“Really?”

She looked impressed now, stepped back and questioned with her eyes until I nodded, sure now.

“Go on then.”

I positioned myself inside the doors so I could just see her swagger out towards where the guard’s foot stuck into my field of view. I saw her stop and stick her hip out a bit. She started to twirl her hair and moved round slowly as she talked. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but cold imagine the guy gradually swivelling round on his chair to follow her. I shuffled forwards, the bundle awkward now, and leaned my head out a little. He was offering her a cig and she looked quickly over his head as he bent to pick up his lighter and signalled for me to go. It was weird, I knew it was wrong somewhere in my head but I didn’t really care, and it was exciting too, like being in a TV drama only it felt more real than normal everyday life. I knew exactly what to do, slipped out and walked quickly down the side of the building and round the back, not stopping or looking at anyone until I got up the path to the road. Even then I didn’t stop, strode stiff jagged steps all the way home, only putting my treasure down to fish out my door key.

06 . Sproston Green

I like looking at Platt Fields Park from the road. It’s so dirty and busy where you are, with buses zooming past that should have been retired years ago, you can practically chew the bits of carbon between your teeth and all the houses are dark and hidden behind out-of-control shrubbery, and then you come up to the park, just after the takeaway mess of Fallowfield and on one side it’s still the same, but on the other there’s suddenly this escape valve stretching out (on the left side if you’re headed into town) and inviting you to lift your head up and run and jump and spin round with your arms outstretched, and fall over and not care. As I looked across the clipped grass, with its formal promenades and mounds of geraniums basking in the sun I felt really clean. I knew it was the right place to come right then. We jumped over the low wall and down onto the soft grass. It was dry, but till green, with that lush English feeling that they reckon you only get in Oxford or Cambridge. The horse chestnut trees round the edges were huge and dense and still, gently guarding the people skipping about, or lolling underneath them, of the whole perfect August scene.

Jane walked ahead as usual, selected a place and flopped down, stretching her legs out and leaning back on her hands, looking up at us.

“This do you?”

I nodded, and joined her. She lay back, slid her hand down into her front jeans pocket and fished out a small bag of grass.

“Bought that last night. Didn’t need to open it.”

She chucked it over to Em to start building up while we chugged the rest of the pop, which was warm and too sweet by now, but at least it was liquid. I felt it hit the top of my stomach and make it lurch, like there was no more room, and I stopped then and passed it on.

The weed was light and mellow after the black stuff we’d been smoking the night before. It tasted of warm evenings and camp fires and pine woods. It spread a gentle hand rght to the tips of my toes and my fingers and I uncrossed my legs and stretched them out to feel it better; arched my back and then lowered onto the ground, slowly, placing each vertebra down in turn, feeling my muscles relax and thank me until I was down.

We lay on the grass looking up at the sky with the sounds of kids and Saturday football drifting over our heads. I could feel the whole world at my fingertips, seeping up my arms into my head and heart. I remembered coming here with my mum when I was little and thinking the other kids were so big, so grown up and I would never be like them. She used to put me on the baby swing and sing to me but Dad would let me go on the big swings and push me so high I thought I would take off and I’d scream for him to stop.

I felt something touch my arm and turned my head to look. It was Jane, who’d wriggled over to my side. She had the whizz in her hand and she passed it over for me to dab into.

“Do you want to see something cool?” she asked in a whisper.

I nodded and sat up, she shushed me and pointed to Em, asleep on the grass, already a faint blush of sunburn on the cheek she’d turned to the sun. She had her thumb in her mouth. I looked around for something to cover her face with but there wasn’t anything.

We stood up and started to walk away. Just then I remembered the letter and ran back, taking it out of my pocket as I reached Em. Her skin was so soft, a blonde down covering her cheeks, which usually looked so milky pale against those rosy lips. I bent down quickly and kissed her gently, then carefully balanced the envelope across her face to make a little shade and ran back to where Jane was waiting.

05 . Morning Night and Day

I had forgotten it was August. Bright sunlight bombed through spaces in between the sycamore leaves and hit the cracked road surface like napalm. At first we ran away from the house but then gradually, as we realised no one could be bothered to chase us, we slowed down and finally stopped, panting and smiling at each other. I felt suddenly grimy in my sweat-dried clothes, wrong in the middle of a day where people would be shopping and going to the park to play on the swings. Jane was looking back down the street.

“Come on,” she panted, holding her side, “We should get away from here.”

Em moaned softly,

“God I could do with a Coke.”

“Well come on and I’ll get you a bloody Coke you daft mare.”

Jane almost skipped away. We followed obediently, but I was suspicious.

“Why are you so nervous Jane? You on the speed or summat?”

She was walking faster than she ought to be, a girl on a mission, only I couldn’t figure what that mission could be. She wheeled round, already five steps ahead of us, looked round like a cartoon villain to check if the coast was clear and swung her bag round on its strap. It was bulging with vinyl as she ripped the flap away from its Velcro and angled the opening towards us. Em yelped,

“No way!” as I hurried forward to confirm what I thought I saw in there.

A round hardwood box, inlaid with slivers of brass outlining the yin yang sign picked out in contrasting woods. I hadn’t noticed her picking that up back at the student house.

“How did you get that?”

Jane grinned.

“It was right next to my bag when I got off the bed so I kind of scooped it up without thinking, to see if it’d work.”

She looked sheepish and mischievous in turns. It made me nervous. I looked back to check they weren’t after us.

“Open it then .. “ Em was excited as hell, jigging about, not daring to touch but I could tell she was dying to. Jane dumped the bag down on the pavement and picked the box out. It was only the size of her palm, but about as deep as it was wide. She clamped her other hand over it, twisted and pulled the lid off. It gave a satisfying thunk.

There wasn’t much left for their purposes, but enough for us three: a crumpled powdery bag with a solitary pill stuck in the corner, and a pristine paper wrap. Jane tutted, fished it out and examined it.

“That’s one of Billy Whizz’s wraps you know,” she announced after a few seconds. “I could tell that anywhere. He always uses pages out of The Face,” she explained. She sniffed the packet,

“Smells sweet: it’s either cut to fuck with Tate & Lyle or it’s the good stuff.”

She shoved it under my nose and the smell caught at the back of my throat with the memory of what we’d taken the night before. I stepped back and Em grabbed at the packet to have a go herself. Jane picked the pill out and chucked both pieces of the box into the privet next to us.

“You could have given that to the Oxfam you know,” I remarked mildly, surprised at the waste.

“Yeah, and get ecognised by someone’s mate. Clever girl ..” she made a dumbo face at me and I realized she was right. She picked up her bag again and we started walking.

It was warm, well past lunchtime by the time we wandered into Chorlton, which was buzzing with mums and pushchairs and blokes coming out the pub with sweet breath and freaks shuffling out in their slippers clutching enough change for a packet of fags and a bottle of White Lightning. I was past being tired. Everything seemed much brighter than normal and a bit further away. I felt like if I put my hand out to touch anyone it would go right through them. Only me and Em and Jane were real.

Jane bought us a two-litre bottle of Lilt and some crisps and we decided to go to the park. We sat upstairs on the bus and it seemed like it took days to get there. It was packed with people and everyone was noisy and happy from having a bit of sun on their skin and they smelled of fresh sweat and perfume and sun cream. Some of the sweat wasn’t so fresh though. I looked across the aisle at Em, who’d gone quiet, and a bit green. Every time the bus set off we wobbled from side to side and when we stopped we slammed back against the velour seat backs so hard I caught my breath and the fibres pricked through my top and into my back.

When the sheer numbers of students started to slow the bus down even more, and we were totally surrounded by yakking Home Counties accents it was time to make a break for it. I nudged Em as I got up and she woke with a jerk. The person whose shoulder she’d been asleep on for the last ten minutes looked relieved, but a bit annoyed as she mumbled her apologies and half fell down the stairs behind us.

“Oy!” I laughed, and grabbed her arm to steady her, “watch it cowgirl!”

She didn’t look happy, so I thought maybe going to sleep was a bad idea, at least if it made you look that tired.

04 . She’s Lost Control

When I try and remember exactly what happened, minute by minute and in the right order it’s very difficult. I know we kind of wandered around and sometimes I was with Em and sometimes I was by myself and then at one point I was having a real heart to heart with Trev, except I wasn’t speaking really, just nodding while he told me that Neil and Nicky seemed to be getting on really well and he was really pleased about that and he’d bumped into someone he’d dated a couple of times and they were all going to go to this other club back in town that opened at nine. I knew it’d only be blokes in white vests who were desperate to cop off, that and people who’d taken too many drugs earlier on, trying to wring the last drops out of their party night, so I said no thanks, we’d get a ride with some people we’d met from Didsbury. He looked relieved, and I could understand. He’s really nice but sometimes you don’t want two sixteen-year-old girls cramping your big gay style. Em looked pissed off though. She doesn’t pick up on things like that.

We kissed our goodbyes, hugging Nicky like a long lost brother and promising to go out again together soon as possible, this had been so great blah blah. We meant it all at the time. But the music was still full on and had changed now, a psychedelic buzzing that we ran back to try and surf, to grasp after our perfect high of before, catching and then losing the edge of it, getting progressively harder to climb onto and finally looking at each other and shrugging, giving up but still wide awake and knowing it was pointless to re-enter the straight world for a while yet, we’d have to go on to take ourselves down slowly, and forget sleeping until that night.

When we walked over Blackwood still had his top off. He’d folded his t-shirt lengthways and tucked the bottom into the waistband of his jeans, the rest dangling down the back of his leg like a sodden tail. I remembered that black and white picture of Morrissey with the flowers in his back pocket and it made me smile, but I didn’t mention it because he might have got offended. I could see sweat shining in the low light on his shallow chest, his body pale like milk, except with a red top instead of blue and silver. He turned and saw us coming.

“Alright you two, coming with us then?”

It was a statement rather than a question as he fished out a damp pack of Marlboro Lights from his back pocket, extracted his Bic and three flattened cigs and passed a couple over. Our tobacco was log gone and we pulled hungrily on them, the smoke hitting our lungs deep and connecting us to our bodies again.

* * *

By the time we’d stumbled out into the chill of the morning a slick layer of dew shining the cars that had seemed so warm and cosy the night before, filled them with the malted smell of bud and bodies taught with speed and grimy from a night’s dancing the world might have bee thinking of waking up. As we sped through brick red terraced streets we spotted the odd reveler, like us probably off to a party, or home to regret the night before, or just to get ready for work. I thanked the go of sloth I’d jacked in my Saturday job even though it meant we were skint.

It was one of those massive Victorian semis near the Whalley. The ones that you try to imagine a whole family living in, before they were turned into flats for dolies and students, and old people’s homes, but you can’t, not with the potholes outside, dirty nappies in the gutter and the paved over gardens with dandelions poking through. The traffic had got busier as we smoked through town but now it was suddenly quiet again.

We parked under a massive sycamore tree, its roots heaving a patchwork of pavement slabs and tarmac up in rough peaks, threatening to do the same to the road next to it. My legs had gone stiff in the car and I felt about a hundred years old as I stretched them to get some circulation going. My hands and feet were icy and my t-shirt was still damp from before, clinging to my back and sucking the morning air through my hoodie and onto my skin. I shivered as we followed Blackwood and his mates to the door, waited while a student looking guy with blonde dreds and a spliff in his hand opened the door and greeted each of the others with a complicated handshake. When it came to my turn I held my hand out and he took it, but when he started doing all that funny stuff I pulled away, mumbled,

“Pleased to meet you.” Em stuck her hands in her pockets and shuffled past him, nodding:

“Alright mate.”

We made our way past the pushchair and old fridges guarding the downstairs hallway, up carpet worn to the backing and dull with dirt and age. Dred boy had left the flat’s door open on his way down and the heavy smell of weed guided us in from half way up. Lee Perry was pumping out of some heavy duty speakers, bass thumping our chests as we sidled past a pair of expensive bikes propped up against the wall, and turned to look into the lounge. Bodies filled every space, sardined on the low sofa, nodding and rocking to the sounds of The Upsetter, leaning against the front of armchairs, cross legged on the Oxfam rugs, someone flaked out by the TV, asleep or passed out. Smoke filled the room like soup, illuminated in strips where a tie-dyed throw didn’t quite cover the whole window. It was warm in there but I still had a shiver in my bones, and I badly needed to pee.

I stepped back to let our host back to his place in the lounge, where most of our lot were making themselves some space, getting their papers out while everyone else perked up a bit at the new arrivals.

“Where’s the toilet?” My voice sounded thin and polite, even though I’d halted the ‘please’ before it left my mouth. I felt suddenly like a kid at a birthday party, queuing up in a girly frock with my present clutched in my hands.

“Down there man.” Dred boy waved a lazy hand, further down the hallway, his eyes hooded.

I carried on down the hall, mouth slack with the effort of it all, mind racing, thinking I’d quite like to curl up inside a nice warm duvet and shut down for a while, just switch myself off, maybe wake up in my own bed with the smell of bacon and eggs coming up the stairs and Mum making coffee, and Dad sat at the kitchen table, the papers spread out in front of him. Em followed me. It smelt of damp in the flat, and you could tell when you were getting near the kitchen by the touch of penicillin that mixed in with it. There seemed to be another party going on in there, I could hear different music, and laughing, but it all looked a bit too bright to go in. I spotted the edge of a bath through a half open door and slipped through. You could tell the party had started early the night before. Hundreds of people had probably been through that flat since then as the vibe changed from booze to dance to spliff. Someone had poured beer onto a pile of dirty washing by the bath. I skirted it on my way to the toilet and looked round for some paper to wipe traces of sick off the seat. Em was fiddling with the door.

“It doesn’t lock.”

“Well guard it then and I’ll do the same for you.”

I was bursting now, grabbed a towel out of the bath and used it that to mop up as best I could. Chucked it across the room to land on top of the lagered washpile. Em leaned her back against the door, slid down deliberately to squat on the heels of her adidas and reached over to check one of the cans still upright on the floor. She shook it. Empty. The ring pull pinged around inside like a charity box. The next one was silent and I could see by the weight of it we might be in luck. She held the opening up to her eye and peered into it curiously,

“What do you reckon?”

“Give it a try. Is there ash round the top?” I was finished now, and the thought of something that would dull this too bright morning was welcome. I was happy that Em was willing to risk a mouth full of fag butts rather than me.

“It’s bitter in’it’ she looked up, made a face. “D’you want some?”

I pulled my Farrahs up (charity find) and deliberatelt checked the bottoms for sick. They were pretty knackered from the floor at the caves but I didn’t want to be dragging puke round on my clothes. Em was still holding the can of Stones out so I took it as she scrambled up to swap places. I tipped a thin stream out into the bath. It ran clear so I tentatively risked a sip.

“That’s fine that is.”

Suddenly the door shifted behind me and I realised I wasn’t holding it shut. Em, already hovering over the toilet, squealed,

“Oy!” as I slammed it back into its frame.

“Wait a minute!” I warned, leaning against it as if I was trying to stop an army attacking us. I looked round at Em with her bum stuck out over the bowl.

“No worries, sorry man.” The apology came muffled through the door. I crossed my eyes at Em and stuck two fingers at her in a hippy sign. She snorted with the giggles, which set me off.

“Shut up!” I didn’t really mean it. It just seemed the right thing to say, not be rude to our hosts and all that. I could hear footsteps shuffling away.

“Heyy man ..” Em rolled her eyes and I collapsed, stomach tight and shaking, tears seeping past my lashes. I took a swig from the can to calm myself down, handed it to Em as she wandered over.

“Hey, look at this!” she swooped down under another cluster of tins and brought out a half open packet of Marlboro Lights.
“There’s fags in here,” she eased up the top and took two out, “One for you and one for me”, grinned and dug for her lighter, “we better smoke these in here or someone’ll tap us for the rest.” I nodded.

We finished the can together, sat companionably there on the floor against the door of the bathroom. Once the nicotine and alcohol had warmed us up a bit we thought we’d go see what was going on in the rest of the flat.

It felt like we’d been in there ages but nothing much had changed outside. We stuck our heads round the door of the kitchen but there were too many student types dancing around to crap music and ignoring us so after checking there was no drink in there we retreated. We didn’t know what to do then so we tried a few doors. The first one was locked. Then the second one opened okay but stopped halfway. I stuck my head through the gap and saw someone lying in the way. There were a few more bodies wrapped in sleeping bags on the floor and probably three making the big mound under a duvet on the bed. The guy stopping the door was still in his clothes, no cover. Probably collapsed there sometime in the night when he realised there was no better option. Last man standing. The room stank of old beer and new sweat. A head reared up from behind the bed.

“Fuck off!”
I managed to shut the door quickly so whatever they chucked hit the wall with a thud. I don’t think that even woke that guy up. I could hear Em giggling again like a naughty schoolgirl. I liked it when she laughed.

“Some people..” I shrugged at her to make her carry on.

“What about this one?”

She pointed at the door across the hallway, which was pushed almost shut. I thought of chucking a can in if the room was full like the last, picked one up from the floor. This one had been used as an ashtray and I swilled the last of the beer mixed with tab ends round in the bottom, working out how bet to chuck it so the contents would spray out over most of the space. I nudged the door open a fraction. A stereo was on, some kind of chill out mix with the sound of crashing waves and fluffy clouds and I could tell they had a fire on or something as waves of warmth flooded towards me. Em nudged me forwards so I stumbled into the door, pushing it open. It was another bedroom but this one had a bedside light on and a warm orange glow made it inviting. The people lounging out on the bed looked over as we entered.

“Hey Clare!” Jane sat up, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Just got here. Been to the caves.” I was surprised to see her there at such a lame party, but tried to be cool, “Em’s here too.”

I walked in and looked round for somewhere to sit. The party seemed to be happening on the bed but I didn’t want to intrude. Em walked in behind me and sat on the edge while I started to lower myself to the floor.

“Oy, don’t be daft Clare. Move up everyone, these are my mates,” Jane seemed in control of the situation as usual.

A couple of guys shifted up and made room. Blackwood was one of them but I didn’t recognise any of the other people on the bed.

“We’ve been doing quarters all night,” Jane was breathless with it, her eyes were dark and looked past us at something wonderful. She snuggled up against Em and leaned over to put an affectionate hand on my leg, “These are my two best mates” she announced decisively to the others.

“I thought we were your best mates,” someone said, and they all laughed conspiratorially. They looked like they’d been having a good night.

Blackwood softly brushed my arm to get my attention and passed over a full bottle of brandy. I was surprised by the generosity: he’d been taciturn on the way over and I’d thought he’d begrudged us the journey into town. I took a swig that stung my dry lips but dripped down the back of my throat like hot syrup. I passed it on. Jane was smiling like a crazy thing. She turned to the girl that had been lying next to her.

“This is Ann-Marie,” she gushed, “She goes out with Tom. This is Tom,” she indicated the guy behind me, who stuck out his hand to shake, “This is Rob and this is Rich.”

Rob was the guy we’d known as Blackwood, I wondered how Jane knew him. We were all crammed together on the bed and I could feel my tense limbs unraveling. Em shivered and pushed her hands down between her thighs to warm them.

“You cold? Here have some more brandy.”

Jane passed the bottle and this time it went down more easily. It felt like five o’clock on a cosy winter day, one where you don’t have to go out and you shut the curtains and put the lights on and it’s nearly Christmas. Blackwood took my hand as I passed the bottle on and rubbed it between his to warm it, and Rich did the same for Em. It was great. I kicked my trainers off and tucked my cold feet under my body, folded the duvet round them. Jane and Ann-Marie were comparing hands and then we all compared hands and put our palms together each in turn to see who had the longest, the widest, the softest.

By the time we nearly finished the bottle mostly everyone had fallen asleep. A tiny puddle of spit was collecting on the duvet cover by Em’s mouth and we were a tangle of bodies and legs to make room. I was curled up with Tom behind me, the others in front. He was making my head crawl by pressing his outspread fingers on my scalp. It worked a bit, made me shiver. He started to rub my shoulders, which felt fantastic; I guess it had been a long night. I pushed my back against his hands.
“Oh that’s nice.”

His fingertips were strong, pushing in between my shoulder blades and stretching the muscles there, loosening my neck. He slid his palms up to either side of my chin, rubbing and warming on the way, I could feel his chest up against my back and something digging into the small of my back, his lips brushing my hair, the stubble round his mouth gristling my skin as he got surer of himself.

I stiffened, flicknifed my whole body back and my head hit him right on the bridge of his nose so he yelped in pain and let go of me to wrap his hands around his face.

“You bitch!”

As I jumped onto the floor to find my shoes I could see the sleepers jolted into consciousness by the sudden movement and commotion. Em was still pulling her thumb out of her mouth, slick with spit, while Jane bounded across the bed to join me, her record bag banging people’s heads, not caring who she trampled on the way.

“You pervs!” she spat back at them, “and with your girlfriend in the same room as well!”

Ann-Marie was rolling her eyes.

“You’re such a loser Tom. We were having such a nice time,” her eyelids flickered lazily, “Hey girls, he’s sorry, why don’t we have another quarter and be friends again eh?”

She rolled over to look for the brass box with the yin yang that I’d noticed they kept their drugs in, a holy tabernacle in the inner sanctum of the flat. I was shaking, and having trouble putting shoes back on. Jane put a protective hand on my back and I was flattered at the venom in her voice as she attacked.

“You’re disgusting! He was trying to touch me up before,” she pointed at Rich “and you never said nothing. We’re not staying here with you parasites. Em, come on, we’re out of here!”

As Em pinged off the bed towards us I watched Jane aim a big glob of spit right into the centre of the lot of them. It seemed to take forever to sail over as they all stared, horrified, and as it disappeared into the muddle of bedclothes I knew we better get out of there quick. I made a break for the door and yanked it open, breathlessly rushing, stumbling, past the now empty kitchen, glimpsing a mess of bodies as we rushed past the now silent lounge. The door slammed behind us as we tumbled like puppies down the stairs, saluting the pale, thin girl struggling with toddler and pushchair at the bottom and shooting out of the open door into the sunlight.

03 . 24 Hour Party People

By the time our tatty convoy had nosed round the rural lanes of Cheshire me and Em were flying. I had this big smile on my face that I couldn’t get rid of, and leaning so close against Nick didn’t seem so awkward any more. We were all friends after all, going on a big adventure, our little family in our old Fiesta, on our way to a totally new kind of holiday camp. Neil had the stereo on loud and was jigging about in the front seat, peering out the windscreen into the dark, directing Trev towards our destination, past the odd cottage with a light still on, maybe for a kid’s security in the dark, or a couple still up, arguing. They all floated by and we were in a spaceship; four to the floor beats thumping in our chests and tunes buzzing in our ears and boring deep into our brains. I smiled on, felt for Em’s hand against the seat and held on tight.

Eventually Neil turned the volume down and the crunch of our wheels on gravel told us we’d be getting out soon. Em let go of my hand so she could turn to peer out of the back window. I wiped my palm on my jeans, and grinned round at Nick.

“Bloody hell there’s, like, a million cars here!” Em announced. “And about a thousand more following us in. That’s so cool.”

I twisted round to see the line of headlights stretched out of the entrance to the car park and glittering down the road. She was right.

We bounced up a grass bank and stopped, piled out of the car and looked around. The air was still warm and I could smell cut grass and cowshit. Em automatically started snuffling with her hayfever beside me. Trev was pulling his drugs out of his pocket now he was off duty. I knew that meant we weren’t going to be driving anywhere for at least six hours; he was responsible like that. He quickly poked a pill out of the bag with his finger and washing it down with a swig of water. He made a face and spoke to no one in particular.

“Eurgh, you can tell they’re proper good when they taste that bad.”

He sat back down in the driving seat with his legs out the door, pulled one shoe off and started poking his stash down into a pristine white sports sock. He stopped and looked up at me watching him.

“Have you done this with yours Clare? Just in case. Or I’ve heard that some girls put it in their bra. But I wouldn’t know about that.”

I laughed, and I didn’t really want to be like ‘some girls’ so I quickly followed suit, easing a Converse One Star off my right foot without undoing the laces, and slipping the whizz we had left towards my sole. When I put the trainer back on I could feel the sharp plastic corners of the bag stick snug into my instep. I hopped about to the powerful bass I could feel coming from somewhere hidden, reassuring myself that it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Don’t know if you’ll want any of that Em, after she’s been dancing for a couple of hours,” Neil called over from where he was standing, and Nick, next to him, smiled at the joke. I did too but I was a bit embarrassed, and wished I had put it in my bra after all.

* * *

We went in then and I don’t think I can tell you exactly what it was like, but it was brilliant so I’m going to try so you can get a bit of an idea.

It was dark immediately we got inside, and the music was still loud but muffled under a duvet of rock between us. I felt my way past candles stuck on the flat bits and the ground next to the walls of the cave, trying to miss the flickering hot with my feet, using my palm on the flat rock to guide me remind me which way was upright, my pupils not knowing which depth to focus, trying not to stare with droplets of flame below and to the side mouth open with the concentration of it all, amused, giggling to myself and then stopping, taking stock and straightening out, concentrated on getting further finding something anything to get away from the hecticness in there, smell of weed and stumbling down a step into a space where someone had run wires to lightbulbs in wire cages on the walls, mattresses on the floor and an old bus seat, guy with his top off and tucked into his waistband, skinhead wiry, tattoos, talking about how his mate found Buddhism and it sorted him out, smacking his lips and touching someone’s arm, sighing, slip with difficulty down to sit on a mattress staring at the glittering walls. Someone turns round and says hello, you gaze at them, unused to talking, open yr mouth, close it again, nod and surprise yourself with hearing the first word “Hiya,” coming out of you. They all shift together in a wave and let you in, someone says “you having a good time” and it’s not a question but a statement, with a little laugh, and you smile yes, grateful gasp “Yeah” your eyes are wider than you thought they’d go, someone moves up and wants you to sit up close to them you do it so they feel good and are surprised how good it feels for you too, lick yr lips, staring round to see what they do, you’re leaning up against the guy next to you and it feels great, you lean a little firmer to get more of you in contact with him, think about looking for yr lipsalve, forget, stroke yr pockets and think you’ve lost everything, feel again, hear yr zip so loud you think yr annoying everyone, shuffle around to feel each pocket, give up, listen to the conversation. This butch girl opposite you has got bleached white hair, she’s talking loudly and fast about the nuns in her primary school making her scrub floors “Bitches” she says “ always thinking about punishing you, and cleaning floors”. She’s wearing combat pants with braces over her bare nipples and she’s skinning up, you stare at her skin, brown and taut, her muscles and the beautiful tattoos on her arms and on her chest, she’s one of those people you see around and you know her vaguely but she’s so super cool you never thought you’d get to speak to her, but you’re speechless, you’re in awe, suddenly you imagine yourself here in this place and what your Mum would think, you giggle a little and snuffle, the guy next to you he moves round and behind you rubs your shoulders says “How’s that eh?” It’s good, you rub back like a feline, demanding more he moves his fingers up your neck and into your hair gently gathers his hand together and every follicle responds, delicious shivers rush across your skull, you’re amazed you feel this good, turn to him nod, yes, he signals that you should do the same to him, so you do then maybe you get bored suddenly you stumble up and go to find your mates, they’re in different rooms doing much the same thing, at some point you find yourself in a group dancing your little heart out, looking across at each other, tripping off your friendship and how close you feel this little posse all yours is right now .. this is life, this is how it should be and Em touches your arm and she signals you should have some more speed you stop moving your feet stand there with your head and your shoulders still swinging right then left then right it’s so right, take the wrap out of your sock remembering the joke Neil made earlier but you don’t care now and you take turns to wet a finger tip and rub the bitter stuff into your gums then lick the last dust off the paper and throw it on the floor, light up a cigarette with tingling delirious hands, drag deep and start dancing again ..