1.1

‘Have another drink Scarlet?’
‘No, I’m alright thanks.’
‘Sure?’
I just nod, with a kind of half smile. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see his eyes, don’t want to see him looking at me. I’m bound to go bright red and that would just be the limit.
‘Come and dance.’
‘No, you’re alright.’ I start fiddling about with the hem of my shirt, smoothing it out, watching my hand move lightly across my leg. Without lifting my head too high, I look across the room and see Sarah laughing and smiling with two blokes I don’t know. Both look at least five years older than her. She’s caked in make up that she spent at least three hours playing about with before she was satisfied, and of course everyone thinks she looks great; she’s all sparkling and effervescent. I watch her lean forward; she puts her ear up close to one of their mouths to hear what he’s saying above the crappy disco music (I hate it with a passion). His hand’s on her shoulder and whatever he said was obviously hilarious because she’s lapping it up, laughing with her hand over her mouth, raising her dark eyebrows in incredulity. The dim light catches on her fresh young breasts as she ripples with good humour and alcohol. ‘Catch you later then,’ I heard a soft voice trail away. I pressed my shoulders back against the cold plaster wall and watched him cross the room.

My eyelids are heavy and shut out the lights completely and I begin to sway and rock gently, almost imperceptibly, to the music. “Thank fuck someone changed the record!” Sarah laughs in my ear. I smile at her and she hands me a clear plastic cup full of cold, cheap cider. It looks like my grandad’s piss and doesn’t taste much better, but it’s what you do isn’t it, what you’re there for. I let the liquid spread across the entire surface of my tongue before I swallow. It feels slowed down, everything does.

“Who were you talking to?”
“A couple of wankers!” she snorts through her diminishing sobriety.
“You looked like you were enjoying it.”
“You must be joking!” she’s grinning her head off now; one of those looks. The sort that tells you she hasn’t meant a word she’s said. She starts dancing in front of me, her shoulders and hips move, her head rocks from side to side, but her bare feet just shuffle about slowly in front of mine, porcelain flashes against the swirling brown patterns of the nylon carpet. She sings the odd phrase that she remembers pulls my sleeve and gives me pleading looks to come dance with her.

“No, I can’t!”
“Yes you can, come on!”
I shake my head vigorously, “I can’t. I can’t.” She dances backwards, away from me, her arms raised above her head now. “Come on,” she mouths at me. I want so much to go, to dance and feel lost in the music, to be uninhibited. Shyly I put my arm out to her, but she’s backed into one of the “wankers” and all of a sudden the moment’s become theirs. She’s effortlessly turned to face him and now I’m watching them mirroring each others movements, their eyes locked on like missiles. I lean back into the impression I’m beginning to make in the wall and wonder how much more of this stuff I’ll need to drink before I can let go.

It strikes me that anyone that’s as pretty as Sarah will never be shy. She won’t be allowed to be, won’t be given the option. Her parents have always dressed her up and paraded her about in front of friends and family to cooing praise: “oh look at her lovely curly hair” (she’s even been stopped by old women in the street, complete strangers, to be complimented on her hair); “she’s got such a lovely smile, so polite too.” Actually what she’s got is a way of knowing what pleases other people, and a propensity to give it to them. At the moment of course she seems mostly to want to give it to the opposite sex. She looks at them with her big cow eyes and she blinks slowly, deliberately. She has a long face framed by thick, dark brown hair that isn’t really curly, but is distinctly wavy. Probably when it was shorter it looked curlier than it does now. The most attractive thing about her face is her lips. They’re not especially full, but they don’t quite close in the centre and it looks like she’s permanently blowing kisses. I feel myself imitating this as I’m thinking about it. I probably look like a perch, but feel secure in the knowledge that absolutely no-one in the room will be looking at me. I down the rest of the cider and squeeze the cup in my hand, enjoying the clicking noise, until it splits. Sarah’s hair moves across her bare shoulders and parts occasionally as she swings her head; it’s like a peep show with its tantalizing glimpses of flesh. She knows this of course; she’s incredibly self-aware, knows exactly what she’s doing and what effect it will have.

I press my back harder against the wall, trying to meld myself into it completely. I’m becoming a watcher, an observer; it’s a resignation, not something I cherish at all. My eyes brim with tears that spill down my cheeks and longing wells up from my stomach that will be with me for the rest of my life. Sarah’s sitting on the floor now, like so many others in the room. The dancing wanker, the blonde-ish one who turns out to be called Leo (Leo for god’s sake!), is sitting opposite her. His legs are splayed apart in front of him and Sarah sits with each of her legs crooked over his. They’re kissing amateurishly, his hands resting gently on her hips, hers on the thin skin of his upper arms, both lost in each other, completely oblivious to anything going on around them. I knew it then. I could never be so free. I wipe my cheeks hard with my fingers and peel myself away from the wall. Looking across what seems like an ocean of undulating bodies I seek out the Rothkoesque strip of light along the bottom of the door and make my way towards it. On the other side, on my left, there’s the kitchen, with its door flung open and the bright strip light casting its sickly glow over an array of half empty bottles and glasses. I glance towards it, not really sure that I want to go in there on my own. I can see four or five people leaning against the counter tops laughing - no one that I know. So I decide to leave. More people line the unlit stairs and I have to negotiate them to go up and find my coat. At the top there’s a queue for the bathroom and I try surreptitiously to make my way past by avoiding anyone’s gaze, until I find the bedroom where my coat hangs on the back of the door. I pick it out and slip my arms inside, the acetate lining cold on my back. I pull the door closed, dragging its weight across the carpet and head back down the stairs, past the smoking snake of teenage couples, wannabe lovers dressed in their gaudy finery like birds of paradise. No one says a word to me: “where are you going Scarlet, why’ve you got your coat on?”, “don’t go, stay.” so I go through the half-glazed door, one of hundreds the same on this street, into the sodium gloom. It’s cold and wet and it’s only ten to eleven.

*

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