The party seemed to be thinning out by the time I got finished talking with Sal. Auntie Sal. Heh. I went in search of a loo. It wasn’t urgent-urgent, but distractingly present, and increasingly an issue in a place I didn’t know, with a good way to walk home when the time arose, as I suspected it would fairly soon. As I said: there weren’t as many people about anymore, and the party atmosphere was definitely fading. Gently, but nonetheless.
I guess a place like that starts to feel empty a little too soon and people start wandering off quite quickly once it reaches some kind of nexus point. I found myself thinking, for the first time in a long while, idly, about how you would do it as a research project - controls, blinds, measurement factors, seen versus unseen experimenters, recording equipment, range of pool sizes and types, etc., and stopped myself out of long-established, reflex habit. “Got to look forward,” I muttered, then: “Hi, ’scuse me, d’you know where the toilets are?”
A passing wiry fella with blue dreads, shaved temples and a nose ring who I was sure I’d seen talking to Fig earlier smiled and put his thumb over his shoulder as he walked on in the opposite direction. He shifted the unlit rolly out of his mouth at my puzzled frown and continued to walk off at the same pace, only backwards, saying: “Down the way and round to the right.” He pointed to beyond my shoulder, muscles standing out like metal cords. “It’s kind of hidden at the end of the artspace kitchen. You’ll find it.” He grinned broadly, turned on his heel and replaced the rolly all in one motion, without losing a step.
“Damn,” I said to myself softly, then went on the way suggested. There were a few people still in this broad corridor at the bottom of the... I was by those massive iron stairs again - that corridor upstairs must have gone in a massive three sides of a square (but I tamped that thought down rapidly) - and the next bit would open out into the first downstairs gallery space that looked quite posh and non-industrial. I wasn’t sure how it worked or if I really liked it, but this place did and I could admire that. Bluey must have been heading towards the living space (the kitchen I’d been in earlier and the almost normal-looking living room). On a chair in the broad transition space from the stairs-and-industrial part, surrounded by a few chattering folk, sat that girl with the gold eyes, luckily with them cast down. She looked a bit pole-axed, but I didn’t have time to explore that sensation of sharing... commonality? - by asking if she was okay as I had to find the loo.
I grimaced as I rounded the corner into the big white... artspace he’d called it - of course, anyone with more of a brain left would have worked out what the “commonality” I wanted to explore was. “Goodness me, missy, you look a little lost - would you like a helping hand?” God, what a mess.
I found the kitchenette easily enough, and made for the door at the end which said “Toilet” to me. Not just mad party skillz - it actually had TOILET on a nice, homemade-looking white ceramic plate screwed to it. Or Factory-made, of course.
It was also occupied. Bugger. I decided to wait, now I’d found it. Just as I’d settled down and was picking at my nails in lieu of other entertainment, someone walked in. I looked up.
Bugger.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
I sighed internally. This was going to be a long wait.
In the meantime, a bloke’s talking to Sal on the sofa. He’s using the same technique approximately 0 previous blokes have used. It goes something like this:
Bloke: “So, who are you, then?” Sal: “Sal.” Bloke: “Cool. I’m Sam. But what I meant was: who are you?” Sal: “Er, what?” Bloke: “Well, see, here’s the thing - I want to say: I saw you earlier, much earlier, and you just caught me. You were talking with a bunch of friends and then you threw your head back and the light glinted off your hair and your earring” [he reaches a finger out softly and doesn’t quite touch it] “swung with your hair at exactly the same angle, and something about the vitality, the motion, the dance of it all made me want to hear your voice up close and look into your eyes and try to touch that warmth, that life that you were giving off in waves... but that’s really forward, and I’m actually incredibly shy, and that all probably comes off a bit intense and stalkery, so I was going to try small talk first, only I’m a bit rubbish at small talk.” Sal: “Oh.” Bloke: “So I was wondering, you see: who are you? I don’t mean - what job do you do? I don’t mean - who are you here with and what does the host mean to you, although that is really interesting and I do want to know that at some point, but - who are you? How do you define yourself? What is the you-ness that makes you you more than anyone else? Sal: “Um...” Bloke: “Or I could ask what your favourite colour is. Or try shutting up to let you get a word in edgeways, that probably works quite well. What do you think?” Sal: [smiling] “My favourite colour is blue.” |
The bloke’s shirt and eyes are both a smoky kind of mid-blue. He smiles.
Bloke: | “Really truly?” |
Sal: | [still smiling] “Really truly.” |
They both do that wiggling thing to slouch more comfortably into the sofa. We don’t hear the sofa complain much.
“So.” Karen slides slightly along the edge of the table. “Are you...?”
JJ raises an eyebrow. “I’m still clean.”
“Completely?”
“Yeah.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Stone cold bloody turkey, mate.”
“How long for?”
“Shit...” J rolls her eyes up to one side. “You know what, I’ve no idea, actually.”
“Surely...”
“I mean, it’s weeks, like, but... no... yeah, at least two, probably three, I can’t remember.”
“That’s really good.” Karen’s voice carries a few undertones below admiration.
“You?”
“Oh, I’ve cut way down.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, really strict. But, you know, I reckoned easing off... more stable way...” the undertones are still there.
“Nah, listen, that doesn’t work for me. I mean, I’ve quit before, most people have, haven’t they? And it always works for a bit except then you start again, some stress kicks it off or you’re bored or whatever, and you think - well, it’s just one, isn’t it, and you can handle it, and you look back and laugh at the you who was addicted. Was. Yeah. And then, it builds the fuck back up again, a - because you still can’t believe it’s anything serious, and b - because you know you quit last time so you can do it again. Whenever you like. Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow...”
Karen nods. Her mouth opens but J’s ploughing on:
“So that’s it now for me. No more of the light crap, I’m done for good. And I’ve tried it all - cutting down gradually; only allowing yourself one a day but you can make it last as long as you like, cut into different sections, like, yeah, tried that; tried the one where some don’t count and it’s only three ‘real’ ones a day or whatever; and obviously substitution therapy. But you just get addicted to the substitutes and they’re just crap...
“No, I’m stopping stone cold and cutting all the substitutes. I’m being a fucking bastard about it.”
“And you’ve not slipped at all?”
“Not once. Been tempted though.”
“’Course.”
“There’s just some times when it would fit so well...”
“On the bus.”
“When you’ve just finished talking to a friend on the phone.”
“Yeah. Ooh, or you’re on the phone to someone really dull.”
“Eh? Oh, yes, yeah.”
“After a meal.”
“Eh, on the loo for me.” J grins lopsidedly.
“Yeah?” Karen looks mildly prurient. “Really?”
J looks slightly defensive. “I have a low boredom threshold, that’s how I got fucking hooked in the first place.”
“Right, yeah.” Karen’s nodding and nodding.
“Sometimes I realise I’ve just picked it up and I’m just looking at it and I think ‘what the hell are you going to do with that?’”
“Phone your mother?!” Karen is swept up in the sarcasm.
“Well...”
“Sorry, no, yeah.”
“Yeah.” JJ’s voice is lower. “Heh, yeah. Anyway...”
“Yeah,” says Karen. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Hmm,” says J, briefly opening her eyes wider as she pushes her lower lip up. It’s the facial equivalent of:
“So,” says Karen. “Er, when did you get here?”
“Oh, about,” J’s eyes roll again, “ten-ish, I think. Yeah.” Her eyes cast around on the shelf behind Karen, and she is no longer smiling.
“Oh, right.”
“You?”
“Er, about eight-thirty, nine.”
“Right. Blimey, you’ve been here a while then?”
“Yeah,” says Karen, fingers clutching rhythmically as her bum slides sideways again and back.
“Good evening?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” J’s eyes flicker and her fingers drum briefly behind her.
“Sssoooo...” says Karen.
There’s a shuffling noise from behind the door. Their heads snap round.
“What,” says J, “in the names of all hells is taking them so damn long?”
“Yes,” says Karen on a rushed breath of relief. “How long can it take to...?”
“Oi! You!” says JJ, thumping on the door. “You’ve been in there ten minutes. That’s long enough to shag, write several haiku, recover from sobbing miserably in hiding from the mocking friends of the person who rejected you earlier, go into labour or pass out! I’m giving you thirty seconds to pick a convincing excuse from the above or dysentery or something equally plausible or creative, and you’d better let us film the sex or at least read the haiku!”
A striking, red-haired girl sticks her head out and then a bloke pushes past her, tucking his shirt in swiftly. Her eyes follow him briefly, then return to JJ as the rest of her emerges.
“Sorry,” she says, and grins brilliantly, “but you’re too late to film. And limericks are more my thing.” They stare at each other for a long moment. Karen draws breath and JJ, without turning her head, waves her towards the toilet.
“Was he wearing a suit?” says JJ, stone-faced, as Karen bolts the door.
The other girl looks away lazily, in the direction in which he left, then looks back and says, in a friendly fashion: “He’s not long stopped work; came more-or-less straight here.” She tries another smile. “Hey, it’s Jenny, right?”
“JJ,” says JJ.
“Of course,” says the girl. Her tone is more ambiguous now.
JJ’s eyes narrow at this. 15-30. “And what’s his name? You know.”
The smile fades somewhat. “Steve. We’re old friends.”
“Of course,” says JJ.
“Well,” she says, “lovely to see you again.”
“Of course,” says JJ. “Goodbye.”
A tight smile. “See ya.”
“Yes,” says JJ. The girl leaves as Karen emerges to the sound of flushing.
“Well,” she says, “ what was that all about?”
“The gentleman forgot his camera.” JJ heads into the loo. She turns as she crosses the threshold. “Tara,” she says, “and don’t forget,” she points a gunfinger at Karen, “a phone is just for phonecalls, eh?”
The door closes.
I am a right bitch. I’m amazed I have friends at all. This needs to stop soon or I’ll turn into the girl jinn equivalent of one of those embittered queens who stalks around scoring points off people to shore up the friable crumbs of their self-esteem. It can’t be fucking healthy.
I washed my hands, staring at myself in the mirror and then noticing quite how rank with sex the space was. Feeling horny is the last thing you want when you’re angry. I flung myself out of there and went looking for company again. I headed for the living space at something perilously close to a stomp. Especially when I saw that Goldeneye had left.