Tag Archives: LCD Soundsystem

All My Friends: Jon

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I’d spent too much time stuck talking to Neil. He’d cornered me as I’d gone over to the laptop – Jo’s I think – that was acting as jukebox for the evening. The screen was cycling through a bunch of old photos, all of us back in the day; a ragbag assortment of early 90s band tee-shirts, ill advised fringes, over sized graduation gowns, that weekend we went camping in the Peak District and tried to find magic mushrooms, out of focus shots of the inside of pubs, young blurred faces refracted through half full pint glasses and bottles of Diamond White. It was strange seeing us like that, all digital. Pictures had never formed part of our moments back then, they were something you dug out and looked at weeks after the event. I was surprised she’d kept them and gone to the trouble of scanning them all in. I’d long since discarded all but a handful of mine and I think I preferred our youth when it was analogue and disposable.

Me and Neil had been pretty close for a while. I’d been a bit surprised that he’d been invited as I knew the others had been happy to lose touch after we’d all drifted off after college. He’d single handedly got me through the stats modules on our course and I was grateful for that. He was lousy at reading people for someone that had a degree in psychology though, and all of the reasons why our friendship had waned over the years came back to me as he picked apart every song choice I made trying to liven things up after dinner had been cleared away. The Wonderstuff. Like a watered down Waterboys, they sounded old back then, let alone now. Okay then, The Waterboys. Celtic music for people that have never been to Scotland or Ireland, roots music for people with no roots. Nirvana. Pixies with a poster boy but without Kim Deal. Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Two words. Slap. Bass. And on and on. Eventually I put on LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” and left him mid sentence (New Order moved to New York, hired a publicist and started self referring constantly…) to cajole the others into dancing.

We were all pretty drunk and the effects of the alcohol, as well as some kind of nostalgia muscle memory, pulled everyone into place in the room as if we were all back, 19, 20 years old, as if nothing had happened to any of us since. I slipped back into my patented head down indie-shuffle, only now without my hair dropping across my face. What was it Lizzie used to say to me? Something about eyes being the windows on the soul so why did I cover mine with a pair of curtains? She was up and dancing too, as unrestrained and enthusiastic as she always had been. She still sang along loudly, seemingly untroubled by actually knowing the words although, by the end, she’d picked up the “where are your friends tonight?” refrain which she embellished with an expansive sweep of her arms which seemed to signify that said friends were right here. It was a bit literal. Clare was dragging Richard on to our make-shift dance floor. We’d all seen this before and knew how it ended. I watched her flick her hair, tilt her head to one side, saw her beckon to him with an out-stretched finger. He took his time, all casual disinterest, eventually  acquiescing with a hands-up gesture of mock surrender and then they were circling each other, orbiting closer and closer until he leant in, whispered something in her ear and they both laughed. I remembered too many nights and too many mornings picking up the pieces and forced myself to look away. Clare was as beautiful, as out of reach, as stupid as I remembered. But I think I still loved her and so I guess I was just as stupid too.

Later, as everyone started to drift off to bed, I put on Van Morrison, a gentle serenade for sleep. It was the record playing that one time we made love. You teased me about it for the longest time afterwards – it was just a drunken shag, Jon – but I know what it really was. To me at least. Another night that had started dealing with the fall out from another of your run ins with Richard but had ended with your mouth on mine, nails dug into my back. The way young lovers do. Sweet thing. Slim slow slider. Van was singing those sensuous songs just for us, the melodies swirling like tendrils of smoke around us as we entwined.

Now he was just singing them for me and my memory of you. Through the ceiling, from somewhere upstairs, I heard laughter and then, steadily, the rhythmic knocking of a headboard. I turned the music up and poured another glass of wine.

 

All My Friends: Clare

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Remember that time when we danced in the kitchen to “All My Friends”? It was the end of the night, all of us back together, ten year anniversary meet up. Later on the two of us had drifted off to sleep listening to the sound of “Astral Weeks” floating up through the floorboards, rising like a soft, sweet spell through the house. The covers were still kicked off the bed, lost in the urgency of our prior entanglement. The last thing I heard before you started calling my name, over and over, breath rising faster, coming now in gasps, was Van singing love to love to love to love to love to love and then, for a good long while there was no sound except the beating of your heart, my head collapsed on your chest, your fingers in my hair. I guess I never learn.

I woke up around five a.m., skin raised in bumps against the early morning chill. You must have rolled across the bed at some point in the night taking the duvet with you. Part of me saw the funny side; everything between us in bed had been the same as it always was and you stealing the covers was no different. You were always selfish in bed. To be honest I’d been drunk enough this time that I couldn’t even remember if I’d come last night or even if I particularly cared.  I sat for a while on the edge of the bed, arms criss-crossed, knees pulled up to my chest, hands rubbing some warmth back into my body. The room was stale with the smell of last night’s booze and last night’s sex. The sun would be rising soon and it felt like watching it might be my only consolation from a predictable and miserable weekend. I pulled on some clothes and left the room as quietly as I could. Not out of concern. I couldn’t face another one of our morning-after conversations.

The night’s black was softening to a dark blue as I left the house. Someone was asleep on the sofa in the lounge, TV fizzing with static lines opposite them. The kitchen looked like a Tracey Emin installation, there was a skyline of discarded, empty bottles arranged in a line on the table we’d all sat round for dinner a few hours ago, and the floor was strewn with a set of clues about how the evening had gone. Several corks. Smudged cigarette ash. Somebody’s iPhone. A bra. Not mine. Too big. I guessed maybe it was Lizzie’s. A pair of Levi’s. Also not mine. I couldn’t place them but I knew they weren’t yours. I remembered enough to know we’d made it upstairs still dressed. I knew because the anticipation of you was always what tripped me up, seemingly even after all this time. Van was still singing quietly from the speaker in the kitchen. Stuck on repeat through the night.

It was chilly outside but the air cleared the fog in my head; the cold felt like clarity, cutting through last night’s heat. It had been a surprise to see you and maybe that’s why all my good intentions turned bad. What’s that saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It wasn’t hell. At best it was two old friends rekindling something they once sort of had. At worst it was a drunken reunion fuck that didn’t last long enough to remember why we’d ever slept together in the first place. You seemed to enjoy it so I guess I could console myself with the fact that I’ve still got it. The worst of it really is that it happened, that I let it happen, made it happen even. It had been a good night, catching up with old faces and kicking around the times we’d all been together before, living on top of each other in student rentals and cooking up another variation on pasta and tuna, or toast, endless rounds of toast, and drinking cheap sherry straight from the bottle before we’d head out to some retro 70s night at the Union. It was only ten years on and now it was all Prosecco and tagines – one meat, one vegetarian – and swapping stories about first homes, second homes, mortgages, trips to Ikea and how many weddings there had been this year. Underneath I guess it was still the same. The dynamics in the group settled into the same rhythms. Me and you settled into the same rhythm.

How could I have been so fucking stupid? You hadn’t changed. The same cock-sure smile, the same easy conversation, the same self-assuredness. When you’d told me you were “in the City” now I nearly spat out my wine. It was too obvious and too perfect. Of course you were “in the City” and, no doubt, perfectly at home there. You didn’t look surprised when I said I was teaching. God, I think you even said something, it could have been “good for you” like the patronising twat you are and, instead of turning away and joining back in the conversation about that night we all moved our mattresses out of our rooms and slept outside in the Quad when we were all in Halls, I smiled and thanked you. I was like a needle being dropped on vinyl. I just settled back into a groove that had been well worn in years ago and let the same old song spin. We both knew the tune and the words. It’s a song I thought I’d given up singing.

The sun lit the horizon and a honey-glow spread across the gardens around the house. Birds began to chatter and trill, breaking the stillness of the dawn. My head was starting to ache and so I headed back into the wreckage of the kitchen to see if somewhere amid the carnage there was a packet of paracetamol. Even just a glass of water. Something to shake the pain. I guess, misguided as I was, that’s all you were the night before. Something to shake the pain.