Category Archives: Just Write

To the station…

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Fifteen minutes. That was if the traffic was good. Could be twenty. Leah looked at her phone again, checked the time, flicked open the Uber app. Still showing five minutes away which, based on the last ten minutes, was a lie. Say it was five minutes that meant a minimum of twenty until they could get to Aps. She thought about ringing the driver. April and Cora were over by the window, pulling back the curtain to keep an eye on the street. A black Tesla pulled up outside. The five minutes wasn’t a lie. The latest five minutes at least.

None of them really spoke in the car and the driver had taken this as his cue to turn his radio up, some rock station that April vaguely recognised as something she’d tried when 6 Music had been decommissioned. Some song none of them knew pushed them out onto the pavement outside the police station; a blast of pounding noise and someone singing about gambling. As the Uber door shut behind them and they were left with just the traffic noise on the street, a muffled don’t forget the joker shouted from the radio in the car behind them, Leah realised she had no idea what they were supposed to do.

In the moments after Aps had called it had all been clear. Our friend is in trouble: we go and help her. Nothing to contemplate, nothing to consider, no doubt. How do we get from here to her? The problem was as simple as that but now that problem had been solved, what now? None of them had dealt with this before. Leah was uncomfortably aware that the others were looking to her to guide them. What? Just because she called me? She wondered at that: why had she called me? But now wasn’t really the time. Leah led them inside, through a revolving door. If it wasn’t for the sign announcing The Bridewell Police Station it could have been any other office block, glass panelled walls demarcated into rectangles by red, steel strips. Beyond the initial door there was a decompression zone that was pretty common in large buildings, an expanse of space ended by a series of health screen machines that you had to proceed through to be allowed access further inside. Standard temperature check and cross reference to the national viral health register.

Leah cleared the health screens last. She should have expected it; her EU registered status always took longer to clear now in the UK, there were just more cross references back to the Italian database where her main health records sat. April and Cora were already at the enquiry window as she caught up.

“…we just want to make sure she’s okay,” Cora was saying to a dead pan police woman. She was ensconced behind a screen, mainly some sort of frosted glass that you couldn’t see through but with a clear window through which her head was visible. They were speaking through an intercom. She looked bored.

“What are they saying? Can we see her?” said Leah.

“No, you can’t see her,” replied the police woman, Inspector Martin from her name badge. “She’s still being processed under the terms of her arrest.”

“Can you at least tell us what she’s been arrested for?” said April. “It must be some kind of mistake.”

There was just a shake of a head in response and a gesture that they should all move to sit in the waiting area, a stretch of moulded plastic chairs bolted to the floor. There was a vending machine but most of the numbers displayed against its range of drinks had been scratched out. The three of them sat down. April got up again, walked up to the machine and looked at it.

“Anyone for a hot drink lottery?” she said. The others shook their heads. She swiped her contactless card and punched three numbers: two, two, three. Nothing. She tried again: one, one, two. This time the machine stirred, dropping a cup and filling it with a squirt of some unidentifiable black liquid topped off with hot water. It passed as black coffee and April cradled it back to join Cora and Leah.

“What do we do now?” said Cora.

“We wait, I guess,” said Leah.

“But we can’t do anything.”

“But we came. I think that’s all we could do,” said April. “We’ll be here when she gets released.”

“If she gets released,” said Cora.

“When,” said April. She blew across the top of her coffee and took a sip.

It was three hours before Aps was released, on a caution. In that time they discovered that 112 was definitely black coffee, 114 might have been a cappuccino, and 220 was the worst cup of tea that any of them had ever tasted. Talking about the drinks was the only thing that had distracted them from worrying about their friend. When she emerged, escorted by a woman dressed in blue scrubs, surgical mask hanging loose around her neck, she broke into a run and the four of us collided in the waiting area, Aps clinging to us in a desperate and grateful embrace.

“I lost my MedLet,” she said, repeatedly, as we held her. “I left it at James’s.”

None of them asked the questions they wanted to ask about that. They could all keep until later, for when it was safe to laugh about the whole thing, and start the enquiry about last night. They all bit their tongues about whether there had been any biting of tongues.

“What now?” said Cora. “Can we go?”

“Yes, it’s all sorted, I’m free to go.” Aps held up her wrist to show them a new MedLet, issued in the station, its warning light softly glowing green.

“Green equals clean,” said Leah.

“Green equals clean,” they all repeated.

Kiss and no tell

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I woke up and I could hear a shower running next door. I knew I was in his room, in his bed, kind of naked in his bed. None of that was a surprise. I hadn’t been so out of it that I didn’t remember, it just took me a bit of time to piece it back together. I tried to see if my clothes were in reach or if I was going to have to risk ducking out from under the duvet before he reappeared from the shower. I couldn’t see them.

So, last night. From the top. We’d met as planned at the Kandi Klub and as promised the girls had left us alone to talk. I had occasionally caught a glimpse of Leah pulling faces at me over his shoulder but nothing that he would see. He’d seemed a bit more sure of himself than usual which I’d hoped was him finally relaxing around me, the whole shy-nervous-sweet thing was starting to wear thin. I thought there was some chemistry but I didn’t usually like to really judge until I’d kissed someone. Someone said that was a bit shallow but I never thought so; I wasn’t judging him, I was judging us, together, whether or not we were going to be a thing. Okay, I was probably judging him a bit. I’m a spectacular kisser.

He’d had a couple of drinks already and I topped him up. He wasn’t drunk but he was definitely looser, it was the first time we’d danced together. Or, you know, sort of awkwardly facing each other in amongst our circle of friends who were also dancing. I don’t think you can dance together in an indie club anyway. It wasn’t even the sort of place that stuck a slow one on at the end. The DJ usually faded the lights up to Daydream Believer so the most you might manage is holding hands, lifting them in to the air, and swaying in a mass singalong. Anyway, we danced. After a while I beckoned him off the floor, gestured that we should get another drink.

I was probably a bit buzzy from the couple of beers I’d had and the dancing. As we walked toward the bar I’d grabbed his hand, met with no resistance, and guided him off to a table back under the stairs that led down from the entrance. I sat him down and he looked, momentarily, a bit startled, like he’d sobered up very quickly and remembered that he was Mr shy-nervous-sweet. I didn’t really want him to remember that, it was no good for my purposes, and so I leaned in and started to kiss him. He tasted faintly of beer but I assumed I did too so that was okay. I’d closed my eyes so I couldn’t see if we’d managed to banish the unsure guy between us but from the movement of his lips, the push back from his tongue, I was pretty sure we had.

I don’t remember that much about the taxi, other than it was unusual to get one. Most nights me and the girls would walk back home, grab something to eat on the way. He’d suggested it straight after I’d suggested that maybe I should go back to his. I thought I should spare him running the gauntlet with my housemates and, to be honest, I sort of preferred it this way round. It meant I could leave when I wanted to, either that night if our flickering chemistry didn’t catch light, or the next morning. Assuming I could find my clothes.

I remember how it started. I’d asked for the tour, before his housemates got back, and stopped him in his room. I kissed him again and asked if he minded if I stayed over. From that point on I kind of led him through it, unbuttoning his jeans, slipping my shirt off over my head, guiding his hands to my hips. After that it wasn’t so elegant, both of us fumbling at our remaining clothes, removing everything and doing that thing where you’re both sneaking a look but both racing for the security of the duvet at the same time. As I reached to kiss him again I must have caught him with the edge of my MedLet, enough for a short intake of breath, so I whispered an apology and took it off, put it on a table by the bed.

And that was it. Last night, from the top. I’ve missed a bit out obviously but, sad to report, it was quite a short bit in the end. Sweet but short. I don’t want to sound mean but the sex took less time than it took him to get the condom on. I wondered if we’d talk for a bit and he’d be one who might come back around for another go but he fell asleep almost instantly. I toyed with the idea of leaving then but I wasn’t sure if I could find everything in the dark without waking him and I didn’t want to have a conversation about wanting a main course but just getting a starter. I guess I do sound mean. I’ll dress up his performance for the girls though, I’m not that mean.

The shower stopped running and I listened to the sounds of him doing whatever it is that boy’s do in the bathroom. No toilet flushing, thankfully. He came back in, fully clothed, rubbing at his damp hair with a towel. He seemed to clock that I was a bit uncomfortable and picked up my clothes, which I now saw folded in a pile on a chair by the bathroom, and passed them to me. It was weird that all my bravado from last night was as easily undone by the thought of him picking up and folding my knickers away.

He left me to get dressed. I said I’d call him.

Lockdown: April

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April used the time on lockdown like she’d always done: she read and studied, listened to music, drank wine in the evenings. She sensed the slight edginess in the rest of the house but just shut it out, retreated behind her thoughts, and bunkered down with books, a bottle, and Bowie. That first one, six months in the ICU, had been the hardest but even then she felt like she’d coped okay… and that was before she’d added alcohol to her distractions. They frowned on that when you were fourteen. This one was only four days old, routine community contact trace, would probably be over tomorrow.

There were tests coming up at the end of term so she read back through her notes on the set texts. It was probably adding to the tension the others were feeling, particularly the scientists who rarely passed up an opportunity to point out the imbalance in workload between their courses and April’s. She was prepared to cede the point to Cora and Aps but not Leah. Surely Psychology didn’t count? Pseudo science at best. Leah had spent an hour after that comment trying to explore what had happened in her upbringing that might explain her suspicion of trying to understand the workings of the human mind. It hadn’t convinced April any more of the scientific basis of the discipline. She was content to tell her that spending six months in solitary in your formative teenage years was enough time inside of your own head to not need anyone else to try and explain it to you. She mostly believed it.

The tests didn’t bother her. They never did, she’d always excelled at them. All of them except the ones that had been carried out on her. Those ones she seemed to have consistently failed or how else to explain why they’d kept coming back to carry out more? She looked at the faded red lines across the inside of her arm, faint fractured traces of her time in containment. She knew they’d been looking for a vaccine. They never quite came out and said it but she heard enough snatches of conversation between consultants and doctors and nurses to piece it together. Her parents knew more than they were letting on, too. They just kept telling her that there was nothing to worry about, they just wanted more tests because they thought she was special, thought she might help them figure out more about the mutations. April had never asked them much about it after she was released – sorry, reintegrated – because she’d stopped believing they would tell her anything she hadn’t worked out for herself. She didn’t even blame them but when she was older she did wonder exactly what they had known.

They’d talked a lot about her scars in the few months after coming out. Once a week with a dermatologist and twice a week with a therapist. We need to heal your psychological scars as well as your physical ones. Maybe that’s why she was a bit dismissive of Leah’s academic calling. Too much time having her thoughts and feelings prodded and pulled by well meaning strangers. Why don’t you use these crayons to express how isolation felt to you? Have you tried writing a story to explore that? You can change how you’re feeling, April, tell me, what do you believe about yourself? She’d preferred the dermatology. Lie back and let them apply some balms directly to the surface of her skin. None of this scratching around under it.

There had been one therapist, when she was about seventeen, that had stuck at it longer than the others. She was never quite sure whether her parents moved her on to someone new or if, privately, they waved a little white counselling flag and gave up. She won’t talk about how she feels. You can’t administer talking therapy if someone won’t talk about how they feel. The persistent guy was called Dr Lau. Anthony. She liked him despite herself. He’d said to her early on that she was probably going to get fed up with him repeating the same questions, making the same points, regular as a metronome. She hadn’t known what that was and when he’d told her she’d said it sounded a bit like a drum machine; she’d just gotten into the Sisters and told him about the one they used, Doktor Avalanche. It’s settled then, I will be your drum machine and you may call me Doctor Avalanche. She couldn’t really take him seriously when he called himself that but when she thought about it now she wondered if that had been his point. He had gotten her to talk.

What else makes you happy? That was one of his sessions. It was shortly after she’d told him about the Sisters, with probably a more detailed account of Wayne Hussey’s exit than he’d necessarily wanted for clinical purposes, and this was his follow up. Even then she was savvy enough, guarded enough, to recognise what this was. He’d patiently taken notes as she’d enthused about the early singles, listened intently to her make the case for them as punk band, really, not a goth one. It was all in the spirit of the thing, that was her point. She could feel herself speaking, in the moment, and there was nothing self-conscious about it, no division between thought and word, no accompanying bone dry commentary from internal April. And she knew that was what he wanted because she knew he thought that would be the source of her truth. That would be the route to all the insecurities and anxieties and issues that they all thought must be there from the six months locked up on her own. For a moment she had felt out of control but only for a moment. She composed herself and reeled off a pre-prepared list of things that she always said made her happy: her parents, her friends, school, shopping. Avalanche just nodded and made some more notes.

It hadn’t all been a lie. Not in retrospect at least. If she was speaking to him now and if she was honest with him now then she would still say ‘friends’. She hadn’t expected to enjoy sharing a house as much as she had and she couldn’t imagine not seeing Cora, Aps, and Leah every day now. What else would she tell him? Holding a sip of purple-black Shiraz in the roof of your mouth, letting the cherry and tobacco flavours seep into your tongue and down your throat. Reading the description of blank, silent snow drifting into the warm office of William Stoner in John William’s novel. She knew all her therapists would have a field day with that one. So you enjoy the metaphorical encroachment of winter into a place of comfort and security? The ridiculously grandiose choral introduction to This Corrosion; so huge and confident. Wagner and Jim Steinman’s beautiful bastard offspring. Dancing. That made her happy. Particularly on her own. Imagining she could see herself suspended as a sequence of snapshots, frozen through a fog of dry ice by the pulses of a strobe. Listening to the others talk, sitting just on the periphery and observing their lightness, their ease, their grace. She was sure that’s not how they saw themselves necessarily but that was what she saw. Their joy. That made her happy.

All of that stuff’s external, isn’t it? Things you observe or consume or experience. Avalanche would have said something like that. What about you? Inside you. What makes you happy from in there? That was where he’d been going with that line of questioning, that line of attack as she would have seen it then, and that was why she’d put the shutters up again.

She wasn’t sure she knew the answer, even now. She wasn’t entirely sure there was one.

Heart of gold

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Blame it on Bobby Gillespie. Blame it on the Scream team and Andrew Weatherall. Blame it on the Stones and acid house if you want to go back to the source. It didn’t really matter where you placed it but, afterwards, April knew exactly when they all came around. The precise moment that this one off tourist visit to an old indie disco moved from an exercise in humouring their friend to an essential, no the essential, part of their week. They wanted to get loaded. They wanted to have a good time.

They’d been in the club for about an hour before the DJ cued it up. April knew it instantly, the sleazy drawl of ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’, Primal Scream flirting with Exile era Stones before the full blown affair they’d have later. She knew what would happen as well. She knew the DJ would mix into Loaded during the breakdown, line up the horns across the two tracks, fade out the rock and roll and… wait for it, the drop into those skittering, circular drums once Weatherall had chewed up the original track and spat it back out as a floor filling, killing masterpiece. There was a reason songs had hooks and she knew they were hooked from the grins, from the telepathic agreement to move to the dance floor, exerting its own inevitable gravitational pull now, and she knew from the way Leah leaned in and shouted in her ear: I thought you said it was miserable music you can dance to. She wanted to tell her that was true but there was joyous, mindless, switch-your-brain off, don’t think it, don’t fight it, feel it stuff too. She just nodded her head and raised both hands in the air, span in a circle.

It became their escape. Each week, once they were past the health screen on the door, they descended the steps down into the old boat, moored up, set fast in the harbour, and it felt like stepping out of real life for a while. April liked to disappear into the fog of dry ice close to the stage, dancing on her own to the early songs – the miserable stuff as the others called it – whilst her friends squeezed round a table drinking beers, shouting across at each other over the noise. April would float between their table, swigging at an offered bottle, and back to the floor depending on what songs were playing. Within a few weeks the others knew when it was best to leave her to dance: Freakscene, Add It Up, Velvet Roof, You Got It. Any of those they just sat back and watched her spin and hop, face submerged under her black, cascading hair. Later on when the happy stuff started they all joined her.

They’d never had any trouble before. There had been some pretty low key attention, a few yelled conversations while dancing from some boys they’d gotten used to seeing there every week. Everyone tried to respect the distances you were supposed to keep now; it was kind of accepted it was harder in a club but that was why they had the room limit and the checks on the door. There was one guy that the others were convinced was interested in Aps; they’d catch him looking over or nervously skirting around their space while they danced but all it took to send him scuttling away was for one of them to beckon him over or catch his eye. Leah had taken to winking at him, an over the top, entirely unserious piece of salaciousness. He would always run a mile. Cora wasn’t sure but she thought that maybe Aps wanted them to leave him alone so she could start a conversation more naturally. But it wasn’t going to happen. This was always going to be their night and no-one else was really invited.

There was just that one time that the bubble burst, that reality crashed in. Leah had clocked them when they came in, three guys that immediately hit the bar, loud enough to be heard over the PA. They looked like they’d be drinking for a while, all in suits, ties removed. She didn’t know what the door policy was but the club sold itself as a broad church; she figured it would have been odd to turn them away just for looking too straight, too regular.

It was Cora that had wanted another drink. She signalled to the woman behind the bar  and shouted for a beer when she leaned over to serve her. One of the guys, pin stripe, white shirt, top three buttons undone, moved up the bar and leant in to her shoulder. “Let me get that for you.”

Cora stepped away, holding her hands up to try to indicate both that she was okay and that she didn’t want him in her space. She smiled, warily, and said: “No. Thanks. I’m good.”

He moved up the bar, stopping just short of her, and tried again. “Come on, I’m just trying to be friendly. Let me buy you a drink.”

Cora was about to step away again when she became aware that his friends, the other two, had moved behind her during the exchange. She felt boxed in. One of them touched her back, leaning in to her ear to tell her that his friend was a good guy, give him a break. She felt small and exposed, started silently weighing the distance from the bar to the toilets. The guy offering her a drink took another step, smiled, and ran his hand across her shoulder, pulled her in next to him. “I’m Adam. Pleased to meet you.” Cora tensed and moved to duck away but felt his grip tighten, heard the three of them laughing.

And then April hit him.

Everyone had a slightly different version of it later. The way April told it she had heard the music change to Pulp’s ‘Babies’ and wondered where Cora was. It was the tune guaranteed to get her on the floor. The four of them would shout ‘my god’ in unison with Jarvis at the end of the song and then shuffle away in their own approximations of his louche moves. She’d spotted her trapped at the bar and decided to shoot first, ask questions later. She hadn’t hit him that hard but her fingers were covered in so many rings that she’d left a small imprint of a skull in his cheek. The way Leah told it she’d heard the yells after the first punch landed, saw April clawing Cora away, and had run across to join them. In the confusion she’d kneed one of the others in the balls. The way Aps told it she had just been about to start talking to her shy admirer when all hell had broken loose at the bar, he’d slunk away, and she’d arrived just in time to join in the stage where security was separating them all. The men were asked to leave.

Later, when it was calmer, it hit the point where the DJ played out the happier stuff. They all knew the Primal Scream mix up by now and they all stood up to dance.

It was the part of the night where all their accounts matched: the four of them, arms linked, in a circle, singing to each other: you’ve got a heart of gold, you can’t be bought or sold, you’ve got a heart of gold, baby.

 

Some Kandi talking

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“Who’s this again?” Cora was lying back on the sofa, watching the reflected sunlight from April’s Medlet dart across the ceiling. The music was a dark, droning dirge filling the room. It felt like sinking into the warm honeyed embrace of every one night stand she’d ever had; seductive, noisy, edgy, maybe not that healthy but the kind of mistake you knew you were going to make again anyway. After Rob she’d made a few mistakes.

“It’s The Jesus & Mary Chain,” said April. “Happy When It Rains.”

Cora turned her hands in front of her face, moving them in slow circles in a gentle nod to April’s default dance move. “Another one of those songs? And, happy when it rains, really? Is that, like, your theme song?”

April leant down over Cora, her face looming closer and closer until it blocked out the rest of the room. She stopped about an inch from Cora’s face. “Embrace the darkness, my friend, embrace the darkness.” They both smiled. “Is that my mascara by the way?”

“Well, you have so much I figured you wouldn’t notice…,” replied Cora.

When the others arrived home a couple of hours later they were still in the lounge, Cora now sitting up cross legged, April sat on the floor in front of her, head back in her lap. Cora had braided a few strands of her hair, interlacing them with purple ribbon. April’s eyes were closed and she was softly mouthing the words to a song none of the others knew. I’m not like them, I can pretend.

“Well look at you two,” said Leah.

“April’s been educating me on all the miserable music that we were lucky enough to miss in the late 80s. Now I know why our parents fucked us up so badly,” laughed Cora.

“It’s miserable music you can dance to,” protested April, opening her eyes. “Not this one so much but all the other stuff. And you’re more than capable of being a fuck up on your own without blaming your parents.” Cora poked her tongue out in response.

“Is this Nirvana?” said Aps. She’d come in behind Leah, laden with shopping bags. “That guy that shot himself. You know, the one on the tee-shirt.”

“I’m sure that’s just how he’d like to be remembered,” said April. “Yes, it’s Nirvana. Kurt Cobain is your man. Icon of alienation and isolation.” She flicked off the music streaming on her phone, thumbs flying as she searched for something. She held up a picture of him, blonde hair falling round his face framing blue eyes, a pensive frown.

“He sounds more like he’s your man to be honest,” said Cora. “I like ’em a little sunnier. He’s hot though, I’ll give you that.”

Aps snatched up the phone to look more closely at the picture before rummaging back through one of the bags she’d carried in. She fished out a flyer which she passed over to April as she handed back the phone. “I knew I’d seen him today. I picked this up for you, April, thought it looked like your sort of thing. They were giving them out in the Union.”

The flyer was postcard sized and filled with a picture montage of bands April recognised. Pixies, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Stone Roses, Sisters, Mudhoney, Violent Femmes, Cure, Cult, Pulp, Oasis, Blur, the Stones, the Beatles. Kurt’s face was lost in there somewhere, the same shot that had appeared first on her phone. She had seen him today. Emblazoned across the top it read: Kandi Klub presents Club George. Down the bottom were details of the venue: The Thekla, Saturday nights, room limit 100. She shook her hair loose from Cora’s fingers and stood up. “We have to go. Seriously, we have to go to this.”

Cora, curious, plucked the flyer from her and examined it. “You sure they stick to that room limit? Someone told me about The Thekla. It’s that club on a boat, down in the harbour.”

“They have to stick to it,” said Aps. “They’d be shut down within a week if they mess around with that. They’ll have checks going in as well.”

“Come on Cora, it’ll be fun,” said Leah. “I mean, we won’t know any of the music but you can just pretend we’re partying in April’s head for a few hours.”

“So there’ll be dry ice and a strobe?” said Cora looking at April.

“You better believe it,” she replied.

 

 

……

This one is part of the overall set of stories about April and crew but as they’re in Bristol, even in the near future, it seemed only right to send them to the Kandi Klub. I don’t think it exists any more but perhaps someone will pick it up again one day.

RIP DJ George and thanks for the memories.

Aps and Leah

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The night Leah arrived April and Cora still weren’t talking, they’d spent a couple of days avoiding each other either holed up in their rooms or ghosting out of the house early in the morning and slipping back in quietly after it got dark. I saw them both, separately, as they ocassionally surfaced for food or a drink and, with me, they were pleasant enough, if a little guarded. I didn’t push it. I hoped with some time that things would settle down and we could all start again. Otherwise it was going to be a very long term.

I liked Leah immediately. She’d arrived at about nine having spent the whole day in transit. Some of it was the actual travel but most of it was the usual series of checks through health security at both borders. Apparently everyone on her flight had been held for an extra set of precautionary tests for a couple of hours after someone showed a slightly irregular temperature. I made a mental note not to bother sharing this detail with Cora. It was tense enough in the house already. Leah seemed to have registered that the atmosphere was a little strained, I guess she picked up my awkwardness when she asked where the others were, but she didn’t press it when I said that they were keeping themselves to themselves at the moment. I think that was why I liked her. She seemed to pick up a lot that was unsaid and had the grace to wait to understand more without being pushy. I guess I envied that in her because it was so unlike me.

She had short, dark, almost black, hair. Audrey Hepburn short. She didn’t look like Hepburn but her hair was kind of similar. I commented that I thought it suited her and made the comparison but she looked confused and said she didn’t know much about old movies. I found a picture online and showed her on my phone; she found it hilarious and just said: I wish. I thought she was being modest, she had high, narrow cheeks and beautiful, laughing eyes that I would’ve killed for. She caught me looking at her but didn’t seem bothered by it. She smiled and it was me that broke eye contact.

We opened the bottle of wine that I’d originally bought for all of us and talked. She teased me a little when I told her about my year travelling, pretended to be upset that I hadn’t visited Italy. I didn’t want to admit that I’d avoided the hotspots in Europe, too many people I’d known had been caught out in lockdown and lost any time they might have been travelling. Like earlier she seemed to silently clock that this was what had happened and let it pass. She told me about her home. I told her about mine. It wasn’t really a fair contest: after she’d played her sun-kissed-banks-of-Lake-Como card I was always holding a losing hand. It definitely trumped a commuter belt town in the Home Counties where the most controversial thing that had happened in my lifetime was when they gave Aldi planning permission to open on the old leisure centre site. Most controversial outside of the Viral Health Act provisions, obviously, but I tried to ignore all that stuff that I couldn’t control.

After we’d seen off two thirds of the bottle some music started playing, audible through the ceiling above. April’s room. It was the first time I’d heard anything like that since the incident with Cora but she’d almost always had a pair of headphones round her neck when I’d seen her. Maybe her bluetooth had dropped out or something. Maybe she wanted to hear something vibrating in the air instead of right there inside her ear. I always preferred music through speakers, I liked to feel it through my body. It didn’t matter what it was, I wasn’t a massive bass-head or anything, I just liked the physical sensation of it. My parents had shown me some old video of when they used to go to festivals, before the restrictions, and it looked like heaven. Looking at them, arm in arm, swaying in a crowd to some 90s band everyone had forgotten left me feeling, I don’t know, left me sad. It seemed strange to grieve for something that you’ve never had but that was how I felt.

Leah looked at me, tilted head, questioning. No sorrow tonight. It’s my first one here. That was all she said before she stood up and, slowly at first, began to move to the music filtering down from above. She closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and danced. After a moment she opened one eye, almost comically, fixed it on me and commanded me to join her. I got up a little unsteadily, it was a while since I’d drunk this much, and the pair of us shuffled in an uneven circle in the middle of the room. The song changed, it was one that I recognised. April must have liked it as she turned it up. I was pretty sure it was The Cure. Close To Me? Was that it? I was spinning now. Maybe the room was spinning.

Leah snatched up the wine and took a swig, passing it across to me. One of the last things I remember was how intimate that had felt, drinking from the same bottle. Intimate and trusting. I drank, tried to take a step back in time with the music, stumbled and fell over, upending the rest of the bottle on my face. Both of us started laughing, neither of us could stop and when Cora and April appeared in the room to see what all the noise was they found us lying on the floor, shaking, faces contorted in manic smiles. I think they were so surprised that neither of them realised they were standing right next to each other. There was something infectious about the laughter. They both cracked and all four of us were left helpless, howling and cackling with uncontrollable glee.

We’re housemates now, okay? Like I said, Leah seemed to know what to leave unsaid but she seemed to know when to find the right words too. That was the start of things being good. They didn’t go bad until much later.

 

 

Riffs and variations on Abba, Dark Souls, charity shops, and bad analogies for grief

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“It is not about Agnetha’s sexual awakening.”

“I didn’t say it was Agnetha…”

“Okay, then,” said Jen. “It is not about either Agnetha or Anna-Frid’s sexual awakening, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.”

“We’re just going to have to disagree,” replied Pete. “The whole song is one extended metaphor for learning about sex. All that stuff about being under a spell, finding new horizons, riding on the breeze. Spreading my wings. Spreading. C’mon, it’s not subtle.”

“Really? Learning about sex? It’s not that at all. It’s just Abba doing a 70s stoner anthem. Benny and Bjorn – probably Benny, he always looked like he liked a smoke – stayed up one night wired to the gills and wrote a song about soaring with the eagles. Maaaan. They even made the girls emphasise the ‘high’ in the chorus. You’re right that it’s not subtle but it’s about drugs, it’s not about sex.”

“You’ve got to view it in the context of their broader work,” said Pete.

“How so?”

“Name Of The Game. All that ‘I’m a bashful child, waiting to grow’ stuff. Does Your Mother Know. Possibly underage girl propositioning older man. Gimme Gimme Gimme. Frustrated, repressed desire. When I Kissed The Teacher. Do you need me to go on? They had loads of songs about young women being shepherded into womanhood with the help of an older man…”

“I don’t agree on Eagle but you’ve got a point about some of the others,” said Jen. “To be fair I don’t think you could release Does Your Mother Know now.”

“It hasn’t aged well. I know it was the 70s but…”

“Which one was your favourite?” interrupted Jen. “Agnetha or Anna-Frid?”

“Agnetha, obviously. Mostly for her voice. I barely noticed her blue eyes, blonde hair, or her perfect behind in those purple jump suits.”

“Now we’re getting to the bottom of your sexual awakening…”

“Boom and indeed tish. Very good,” acknowledged Pete. “She can’t lay claim to that though. I was too young. Maybe something stirred in my sub-conscious but it was really Jenny Agutter in American Werewolf In London that made me a man.”

“It was Simon Le Bon for me. Maybe Nick Rhodes. Maybe the thought of both of them together. Possibly on a yacht.”

“Easy tiger.”

“I was never the same after that ‘Wild Boys’ video,” said Jen.

“Georgie hated Duran Duran,” said Pete. There was a pause as there often was at mention of her name.

“Yeah, I know,” replied Jen. “After we first met it came up, I can’t really remember how but I presume we were drunk. She said she hated them but I used to put on ‘Planet Earth’ sometimes when we came home from the pub when we lived together and she knew all the words. I think it was like me pretending to hate house when she got into that.”

“I’ve still got all of her records, back from when she was DJ’ing a bit, a load of limited edition, white label, 12 inches that I don’t recognise. They’re with all her stuff. I can’t bring myself to get rid of it.”

“I think I can understand that. I don’t think she’d have wanted them to stay unplayed though. She always loved it when she could fill the floor and she wasn’t too snobby about what she played to do it, Duran Duran notwithstanding. In fact, speaking of Abba, didn’t she used to occasionally slip Mamma Mia in? Said it used to tip the night into a mess – place would go insane or everyone would go to the bar but either way it ended up in a mess,” said Jen.

“Yeah, she did. Maybe you’re right, maybe I should get rid of her records at least. She’d want someone to be making a mess with them if they could. Where’d you get shot of stuff like that though?”

“Charity shop?”

“Not much chance round here anymore, they’re hardly ever open to taking things now,” said Pete. “I think people were just dumping stuff off on them all the time. It was like middle class fly tipping: great piles of Dan Brown books, Fifty Shades Of Grey, three quarter size guitars that little Harry didn’t take to after all, Friends boxsets on VHS, twice worn tuxedos that used to fit, and stacks and stacks of CDs long since replaced by Spotify playlists.”

“I guess you could trek over to Notting Hill, see if the Record & Tape Exchange would take them?” suggested Jen.

“That would involve leaving the house and visiting a place we used to go to together. It’s been three years and I still don’t know if I’m ready for that. Every time it feels like it’s getting a little easier I trip over something and I’m right back where I started.”

“Two steps forwards and one step back?” offered Jen.

“It feels more like one step forwards and two steps back most of the time,” said Pete.

“Sorry, I guess it was the wrong expression.”

“It’s okay. There’s no way to get it right in words,” said Pete. “I think I’m going to write a book called ‘Bad Analogies For Grief’. I’ve been collecting them. The ones people offer by way of condolence, the ones you pick up in counselling, the ones you come up with yourself. There’s no proper way to express how overwhelming it is so you come at it from an angle, think you can pin it down and force it to make sense if you can put it into some sort of words… Want to hear my latest one?”. Jen didn’t fill the pause and so Pete continued. “I was pulling a glass down from a cupboard last week and it slipped, fell, and broke on the floor. Pieces everywhere. And the first thing you do after it happens is that you don’t move, because if you move you’re probably going to get cut. You freeze. And then you notice the big pieces. So you pick those up first because you know they’re going to hurt like hell if you step on them. But broken glass is hard to handle and even when you see a piece that looks like it broke clean it’ll sometimes surprise you with a sharp point and the more you pick up the more you start to notice that there are fragments everywhere, small diamond slivers scattered across the kitchen floor. And then you remember it’s the kitchen floor you both used to walk barefoot across in the morning. And you remember something stupid like making coffee and toast and taking it back upstairs to read the papers under the duvet on a Sunday morning. And then, as you’re remembering, you stand on a piece of glass you hadn’t noticed and the shock of it, the pain, makes you step again without looking and before you know where you are you’ve stepped into more and more unseen pieces. Each one a tiny broken fragment of the perfect, whole thing that you remembered. Just the smallest splinter, the tiniest memory, is enough to start it. Enough to bring you back to a halt.” It had come in a rush, Pete’s words tumbling over themselves. Neither spoke until Pete finally concluded. “That’s my latest one. My new analogy. The breaking glass one.”

“God, Pete, you know I don’t know what to say,” offered Jen apologetically. “I guess I’m supposed to say that eventually you sweep up most of the pieces?”

“Yes, you are,” said Pete. “Only grief doesn’t work like that. It’s like there’s a new glass dropping on the floor every single day. Maybe you’re supposed to say that eventually you go a day when a glass doesn’t drop. All I know is that I haven’t had one of those yet.”

“But you will.”

“But I might. That’s my best guess. Right now I think I’m getting a little better at spotting the shards even if I can’t stop the glass falling,” said Pete. “I guess I need to git gud.”

“You need to what?”

“Oh, sorry.” Pete laughed. Some of the tension on the line dissolved, eased. “It’s from Dark Souls. Video game I’ve been playing a lot instead of having to interact in the real world. It’s a really hard RPG where you die over and over again and when you get stuck and look up advice online people tell you that there’s no short cut to it, just that you have to git gud…”

“Get good?”

“Yeah. But spelled g i t and then g u d.”

“Why don’t they say ‘get good’, then?” asked Jen. “What’s with the ‘git gud’ thing? Doesn’t sound very nice either way.”

“I don’t know where it came from,” said Pete. “Gamers with too much time on their hands. The funny thing is that it doesn’t sound very nice but there’s a weird kind of community in the game. If you get really stuck you can ask other people to come into your game and help you out – online obviously, you don’t literally invite them into your house or anything.”

“There you go. That’s a ready made metaphor or analogy if I ever heard one. You need to add a chapter to your book – maybe a post script – about ‘Bad Analogies for Help With Grief’.”

“People helping? I hadn’t really thought of it that way but I guess you’re right. There have been moments, stupid as it sounds, when some random character popping up in my game and getting me past some impossible boss fight has been the highlight of my day.”

“I like the sound of this game,” said Jen. “I thought all those online things were just people trying to shoot each other and shouting abuse about getting owned.”

“I feel bad for spoiling it for you and wrecking the metaphor but people can invade your game in Dark Souls and just randomly attack you too. It’s all a bit arbitrary and chaotic.”

“Like I said. It’s a ready made metaphor. Analogies aside, Pete, are you alright?”

There was the same pause he always left before answering and then the same exchange before the line went dead.

“This is just like Dark Souls, Jen. Repeating the same thing over and over again until you’re strong enough to move on. No. I’m not alright. Not today. I need to level up. But ask me again tomorrow. What about you ?”

“No. Me neither Pete. But ask me too.”

 

The needle and the damage done

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I can find my old scars easily enough, trace my way to the points where I used to break my skin, catch a vein. Places, mainly, that wouldn’t show. I was fussy about that, especially to start with when it was all just supposed to be a temporary diversion whilst my dealer sorted out his supply of coke again. I liked coke the way Stevie Nicks liked coke. It was precise and clean and cut through all the distraction in my head until there was just me, pin sharp in the room. I liked that it felt like I was the center of every party I went to, even as the invitations slowly ran dry. Fuck ‘em. Seattle wasn’t really a party town by then anyway. Anyone with six strings, bad complexion, and a story about their abusive childhood had hitched their wagon south and headed for LA to swim in the shallow end of fame with the remnants of a hair metal scene they claimed to despise, other wannabe plaid shirted grungers, and an endless stream of film makers pitching something, anything, to get noticed. Yeah, it’s like Pulp Fiction meets Romeo & Juliet. The Luhrmann version. Edgy. It’s for Generation X and alienated kids from the suburbs. It’s got something to say. Well, guess what Seattle? I had a whole lot to say back then if you’d all stuck around to listen. Coke’ll do that to you.

Between my toes now there’s spiders’ webs of scars, spun by the most seductive spider you ever saw. They made me write stuff like that in rehab. Acknowledge what it was about the drug that made you try it in the first place. It was kinda confusing with half the facility getting me to ’embrace the dark beauty’ and the other half calling it junk and showing me pictures of the night the paramedics pummeled my heart back to beating, Johnny nodded out on the sofa next to me, a film of crusting vomit leaking down my cheek into my hair. Apparently they were so sure I was dead that they took the pictures to preserve it as a crime scene; Johnny got seven years and I got kick-started back to life. Yeah, it was like Pulp Fiction meets Pulp Fiction. The Tarantino version. Edgy. I was nobody’s idea of Uma Thurman but Johnny was sure no one’s idea of Travolta either. Not even old Travolta when Quentin dusted him down and made him cool again. It’d be neat and tidy at this point to say that rehab dusted me down and made me cool again but life’s not that neat and tidy. And besides, I’m with Neil Young on this one: every junkie’s like a setting sun.

I spent a long time in rehab and I spent it in California so I know I can lapse into a particularly vacuous form of West Coast therapy-speak. The younger me – and, hey, we spent a lot of time together in therapy, me and younger me – would have hated it. But then the younger me would never have figured that she’d end up smacked out on her back chowing down on her own spew with a syringe jammed into her arm because she’d given up the vanity of shooting up between her toes for some easier access thrills. The only thing she’d have recognised would have been the tourniquet: a pale purple satin scarf that she used to wear tied loosely round a wrist. Stevie would never accessorise like that, I liked to imagine her saying to me. No, dearest, but Stevie could afford to stay on the coke and I couldn’t afford to leave Johnny: so when he ran out, I took whatever else he had.

The root of it was in leaving England. It’s funny because I was only there for maybe six months, seven months, but it was the most settled I felt in my life. I knew none of us was ever the same after mom died and I think in some ways I knew as well that dad kept moving us because he couldn’t keep still. That if he kept still then everything he was running from would catch him up, pin him down, and force him to face into all that loss and grief. I think I was ready to stand still when we moved. Maybe it was shifting country but it felt different to the other High School hops that marked my teenage years: your formative years were characterized by a permanent sense of displacement as my therapist put it, snappy as ever. I didn’t fit in but I didn’t fit in anywhere else either so that didn’t bother me. I even got close to someone towards the end. Sure, it was my weird kind of close where I’d sit for hours on end explaining why Heathers kicked Dead Poet Society’s ass and you’d nod uncertainly because you really related to Ethan Hawke’s character, the one who killed himself, but you didn’t want to say anything in case it set me off on another rant. That kind of close. Yeah, I guess it was like Heathers meets Dead Poet’s Society. The one where I was Veronica and you were that wan faced, floppy fringed sensitive Ethan Hawke dude. Edgy. You used to say I looked a bit like Wynona Ryder. I think that was the nicest thing anyone ever said to me. Shame about all that stuff with the shop lifting later in her life but I guess we all make bad choices sometimes.

You just used to listen, that was it, really. Johnny never listened unless it was an order for more drugs or an offer for more sex. Or both in what became our dirty little form of barter. I thought they all listened when I was holding court, saucer eyed on blow, laughing all the way to the emergency room. They weren’t laughing with me. But you used to and I don’t think I realized how important that was. Someone who’d listen and someone who’d laugh.

 

Cellar door

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Mark had run to catch up with the others, held back by Hobson over some minor imperfection in his trigonometry workings. He didn’t want to miss his bus and, more importantly, she might be at the stop. He definitely didn’t want to miss that. He slowed to the rest of the group’s walking pace as he came up behind them.

“That’s what she said, I’m not making it up.” It was Cooks – Jason Cooks but just Cooks to his friends – spreading his arms in sincerity.

“Seriously ? It’s that easy ?” said one of the others.

“What ? What are you talking about ?” asked Mark, still slightly out of breath.

“Cooksey’s sister. Apparently they’ve been doing something in English that’s got the ladies of St Benedict’s all excited.” This was Johnson – David to his Mum but Johnson in present company. St Benedict’s was the local girl’s school: a place that was equal parts magical, mysterious, and terrifying for Mark’s friends

“So ? I don’t get it ?”

“Exactly, you don’t and never have. But this just might mean that one day you do.” The others laughed. Mark continued to look confused.

“I mean that they get really – really – excited”. Johnson raised his eyebrows meaningfully. Mark shrugged. “Jesus, Marky boy, I mean more excited than when they had that supply teacher who’d done that modeling for Topman.”

“Ah, right…” a kind of comprehension dawned on Mark’s face. “So what’s got them all worked up then ?”

“Phono something” started Johnson. “Phono… what was it again Cooksey ?”

“Phonoaesthetics” declared Cooks, looking pleased that he’d remembered it. “They do it for A level but the 5th formers won’t know about it yet”. On this point he looked particularly pleased.

“Yeah but what is it ?”

“From what she told me it’s something to do with the sound of words” said Cooks. “But the important bit is that some words, apparently, sound so beautiful that they’re almost hypnotic. Especially when you’re, you know…”

“You know what ?” said Mark.

“When you’re chatting to girls” said Cooks. “I’m telling you, like I told the others, it’s what she said. She reckons some of the girls were practically in a trance when they heard them”.

“What words then ?” asked Mark. “The only sound I can hear right now is the sound of bullshit”.

“What do you mean ?” said Cooks defensively.

“What words give you these Jedi powers over girls ?”

“Well not Jedi for a start mate. Don’t start talking about Star Wars. No wonder you never get anywhere.”

“No, no, I know that.” Mark looked away, less sure again. “But come on then, let me in on it. What words ?”

Cooks smirked, his authority restored. “She gave me one phrase that I think sounds pretty good.” He paused until he was sure he had everyone’s full attention. “Cellar door…”. It hung there whilst everyone contemplated it.

“Selador ? What does that even mean ?” asked Johnson.

“Cellar door.” corrected Cooks. “You know, the door to a cellar.”

Everyone stopped and looked at Cooks. His great reveal was met with a mixture of derision and disbelief. “I know, I know” he said, trying to pacify them. “It sounds ridiculous but it’s true. This phonoaesthetics isn’t about what the words mean, just what they sound like.”

“Phono arse pathetic more like” said Johnson.

“Don’t believe it if you don’t want to” protested Cooks. “It works though. I’m definitely going to try it.” He suddenly looked conspiratorially at Mark. “Maybe I’ll use it at my sister’s party at the weekend. She knows that Caroline Jenkins. I bet she’s coming. She’s in the 5th year so she won’t know about it yet.”

“Don’t do that Cooksey” said Mark. “You know I like her.”

“Well do something about it then. I can’t have this secret weapon and not use it now, can I ?”

“I will, I will” said Mark.

“Ask her now or I’m using cellar door on her” said Cooks abruptly. The others were interested now, waiting to see what Mark would do. “I’m giving you first go Mark – you can even use the killer phrase if you want.”

Mark took a deep breath in and rubbed nervously at the back of his head. “Alright” he declared. “Alright. I’ll do it. I’m going now.”

They’d all started walking again and as they approached the bus stop a group of girls, uniforms emblazoned with the crest of St Benedict’s, noticed them and began whispering to each other. One of them turned from her friends and acknowledged the boys.

“Alright little brother.”

Cooks grinned cockily. “Less of the little. Just been telling the boys about that thing you did in English.”

“Oh really ?” his sister smiled back before briefly turning back to her friends who were all struggling to suppress giggles.

“Yeah” said Cooks, slightly less certainly. “In fact Mark’s gone to try it out right now on Caroline Jenkins.” He nodded his head towards a figure that was now marching with grim determination towards a pretty girl stood with her friends at the next bus stop along. “He’s been wanting to ask her out for ages.”

The older girls couldn’t contain it anymore and burst into hysterical peals of laughter. “He’s not going to use cellar door is he ?” asked Cooks’ sister.

“Yeah. Like you said. The most beautiful phrase in the English language. So beautiful it made you all…”

“Made us all quite giddy with excitement” she finished for him. “Practically unable to control ourselves. Ready to do whatever anyone asked”. She span around in delight. “That was it little brother, wasn’t it ?”

“Something like that” muttered Cooks. “What’s so funny ?”. He looked anxiously over at his friend who had now reached the object of his affections and had begun talking. Caroline Jenkins didn’t look like she was in a trance. She looked slightly scared. Cooks didn’t have much experience in this sort of thing but he was pretty sure scared wasn’t a good sign.

“Turns out I had it wrong” said his sister. “Turns out the most beautiful word in the English language is something different.” With a flourish she turned back to her friends. “What was it again girls ?”

“Gullible” they chorused together.

 

……

This is the fourth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. Please share if you liked it. If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page: https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

My 10 rules for writing

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It was the last class of my local writing group on Monday, a long break for the summer until we reconvene in September. I’ll mop up a couple of loose ends later in the week but, for now, here’s my homework from the previous week. The brief was “10 excuses for not doing your homework” which I altered a bit, inspired by the memory of a corporate, motivational, change-your-life style speaker I saw last year at a work event (guy called Jim Lawless who has a book out called “10 rules for Taming Tigers”). That day is a story for another time…

So here, not entirely seriously, are 10 rules for doing your writing homework. The only other things you might need to know are that Sally is the name of the person that keeps our motley crew in good order and leggy blondes are a standing, group in-joke.

  1. Write it. Just write it. Scribbled on a napkin, scrawled in a book, typed neatly on a page – it doesn’t matter. Just put words down on some kind of page in some kind of order. Grammar is optional. Spelling is for spell checkers. Write.
  2. Ignore the instructions. Sally won’t mind. If no inspiration comes based on the instructions then ignore them in deference to rule 1.
  3. Don’t count words. Make words count.
  4. Take inspiration from wherever you can. Sometimes this may involve stealing stuff and making it your own. I must have stolen number 3.
  5. Don’t measure the worth of your work against other people’s. You’re probably not going to write “Hamlet” but then Shakespeare might not have done either. Marlowe always seemed quite plausible to me.
  6. If you get stuck just write something else. Edit later. Research later (or possibly earlier). They’re different things.
  7. A leggy blonde will always help any story. And so will the marvelous people at your local writing group.
  8. No one can really tell you exactly how to do it. Whilst this may seem disheartening it also means no one can really tell you that you’re doing it wrong.
  9. You’ll probably be your own harshest critic. Let someone else read what you write and you might be pleasantly surprised. If you’re not pleasantly surprised then defer to rule 8 and ignore them.
  10. Ten rules seems overly complicated for what is essentially a process of making stuff up and writing it down. So ignore all of this. Except the first one. Write.