I sat down. Not a soul came close. It was thin on the ground, just patches of people and nobody dancing except some crazed guy with a downy goatee who thought he was top of the pops. His mates were jeering as he scissored and spun. He didn’t care. I kept at the drink, nodding to the beat. A hot hum was in my head. When I’d done, I decided I needed a onceover. I went down these steep steps with orange banisters. There were two doors – ladies and gents, I guessed, but there was nothing to say, only weird photos of fruit. One was a banana, the other an apple, halved.
Just then a girl came out of the apple door, so I went in. There was a long mirror with fancy lights, the kind Mam would have had in her dressing room at the club where she danced. They made me feel like a movie star. I brushed up and glossed down.
Then two girls barged in.
‘It’s him. He’s just walked past without saying nothing,’ one panted.
‘Yeah. So?’ drawled the other.
I froze.
‘He’s a bastard.’
It was the girl from Swish! I was in the mint-green and rose dress and she’d see it and know right off I was the robber.
She dumped her bag down and got out her makeup. ‘I’ll kill the sod,’ she hissed. She smacked on the lipstick and snarled.
I’d be safe upstairs in the dark and flashing lights. I whisked past her with my back turned and got out the door fast.
By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I’d calmed down. If the girl spotted the dress, I could always say I’d been given it by a friend. But she probably wouldn’t spot me. It was dark and it was hotting up. I’d be lost in the crowd.
I went over to check the lizard in. It cost a pound, but what else could I do? It was too heavy to dance with. The goatee guy on the dance floor had been joined by dozens of others. I stood at the edge and wiggled my hips. A zigzag light flickered, showing up the white in everyone – their clothes, their teeth, their underwear. Then a gang like a tidal wave carried me with them onto the dance floor. I knew the tune, so I turned and grooved and did my mini palm-dives which Grace said were cool and Trim said made me look like an Egyptian mummy that’s been on the Breezers. Halfway through I felt a hard nip on my behind. I spun round. Whoever had done it had gone.
Then they played this mad cover of Mam’s favourite song, ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, and the whole place took off. But after a while the beat stumbled and slowed and fell into a song about marimbas and mojitos, and you were supposed to shake out your hips like you were wearing a grass skirt. It was calypso time. The crazed dude with the goatee came up and danced with me. He’d planted a cocktail umbrella behind his ear. He reminded me of Trim so I danced back and another hit came on.
‘It’s a blast,’ he yelled.
I smiled and wagged a finger at him like he was a bad dog and he jumped in the air like a firecracker. He’d a grin the size of a rolling pin when he landed.
‘Wanna drink?’ he roared.
‘Yeah, ta,’ I shrieked.
He got me by the elbow and snaked me through the flying limbs. The place was heaving.
He got a shot and passed it over. It was purple and smelled like HP sauce.
‘What’s that?’ I yelled.
‘It’s a Deathwish,’ he went.
I took a sip and gagged. It tasted of liquorice, bitter-sweet. ‘ ’S not bad.’
‘You gotta knock it back.’
So I did. Then I took the cocktail umbrella out of his ear and twirled it. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ryan,’ he yelled.
‘Sounds Irish.’
‘ ’S not really. My mum lives in Basingstoke.’
‘Mine is in Ireland.’
Maybe he didn’t hear. He said, ‘Crowded, right?’
‘Yeah. Packed to the rafters.’ I looked up at the weird pipes on the ceiling. ‘Only there aren’t none.’
‘What?’
‘Rafters. There aren’t none.’
He looked at me like I was a head-case.
‘Name’s Solace,’ I said.
‘Alice?’
‘Nah. Solace. Like comfort.’
‘You wanna Southern Comfort?’
‘Yeah. Whatever.’ He bought it and I knocked it back. ‘D’you need a mobile phone?’ I screamed.
‘What?’
‘A mobile. D’you need one?’
‘You’re one crazy girl. I’ve got one already. Hey. Dance another?’
‘Sure thing.’
We had to get round this girl who’d fallen flat on the floor. We sashayed into the middle with me doing the mini palm-dives and the dark figures coming up close and going away, like in a swimming pool. It was swoosh-swoosh, Ryan and me, with the arms flying, and we were spinning and it was like bells ringing and confetti flying and sweet dreams were made of this. I was alive, floating, swooping the squares under my feet song after song like the night was for ever and I was happy, I was flying, I was Solace to the power of ten.
Nineteen
The One-eyed Horror Story
The beat, the heat. Limbs and hair. ‘ ’S more like it,’ someone said up close. A breathy voice. An arm on my shoulder. It went down my back and when I opened my eyes it wasn’t Ryan but some other bloke I hadn’t realized I’d been dancing with. Where was I? I felt like I’d been dancing for ever and couldn’t remember what had happened to Ryan. This one was eyeball to eyeball with me, only one of his eyes was covered over with a patch, just like a pirate. He had sweat in the pores on his nose and his hand was on my bum like he owned it. I jumped back.
‘Gotta go,’ I said, running off the dance floor to the ladies. The place lurched and picked up speed. I got to the banisters and I went down, clomp-clomp, and when I got to the toilets I nearly went in the banana door but remembered just in time. I shut myself in a cubicle and put my head on my lap and it felt bad. The world flipped. My ears fizzed and a plane in my stomach nose-dived. I turned and threw up into the toilet bowl.
That felt better.
Grace is always throwing up her food and says you feel great after. I’d never believed her but now I did. I could breathe again.
I came out and washed my face at the sink. My cheeks cooled off. Down the line, some girls were doing their mascara and chatting so I asked them the time. I couldn’t believe it when they said two. Where had the hours gone?
I drifted back upstairs. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go on my own into the dark night outside.
‘D’you wanna dance or what?’ I turned round to find that same guy again. I looked to see if Ryan was around but couldn’t spot him. Then I remembered Kim from the sandwich shop but she hadn’t shown all night. So much for my plan that she and I’d drive up a storm. The place was thinning out. This guy had on a red T-shirt that said MADE IN ENGLAND. He had a stubbly chin and black hair scooped back and shiny. He was tall and what Grace would call raunchy. And his eye-patch nearly killed me.
‘Need a drink first.’
‘OK. Let’s get one.’
He got me a Bacardi Breezer without asking. When I’d glugged it back we hit the dance floor, only this time I kept hopping back when he got too close.
‘ ’S late,’ he bellowed.
‘Yeah.’
‘Very.’
‘Yeah.’
‘D’you wanna come back to my place or not?’
‘Huh?’ I pretended not to hear although his mouth was nearly down my ear.
‘My place. It’s not far.’
‘Where not far?’
‘It’s west Oxford, Dean Court.’
‘ West Oxford?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is that near the A40?’
‘Kind of. The A40’s a mile or two down the road. Why?’
‘Just curious.’
‘D’you wanna come or not, Miss Curious?’
‘Have you got wheels?’ I said.
‘Nah. We’ll get a cab.’
Well, what would you have done? I was wrecked. My feet were killing me. My stom
ach hurt. What was the choice? Park down on a bench for the night and get caught by the police or cruise off westwards in a cab?
‘OK,’ I said.
Grace came into my head. Men. Use ’em and lose ’em.
‘What d’you say your name was?’ the man asked.
‘Solace.’
‘Mine’s Tony.’
‘Hello, Tony.’
He grabbed my arm and swept me out the door. He was in such a hurry I nearly forgot the lizard. But I wasn’t a dimwit, not like Jane Eyre. She left her trunk on the carriage when she ran off. She was one Jane Airhead. I remembered just in time. The cloakroom ticket was where I’d stashed it. Down my bra.
Twenty
Tony’s Place
Outside it was dark and warm and the streets were silent. Tony kept walking on down an endless road, steering me by the elbow, then I stumbled and moaned about my feet and a cab appeared and we got in. I think my brain switched off. I don’t remember him or me saying a word on that back seat, only my feet and head being mashed and the night going by and me wishing we could stay driving in that cab for ever, driving west, with the morning catching us up and Oxford being left behind and Ireland getting closer every mile. I liked the lampposts swooshing past and the smell of the leather seats and the quiet.
But the drive ended. Tony told the driver to pull up and paid and led me through a front door. We went into a hallway that smelled of someone’s bad old stew. He went ‘Shush!’ and took me to a room upstairs. He shut the door softly after us and switched on the light.
There were beer-cans on the floor and a lumpy sofa and a huge TV and a bed in the corner.
I flopped on the sofa.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he said.
I felt like passing out.
‘D’you want a drink?’
‘Sure.’
He rooted in a cupboard. ‘There’s only one left.’ He held up a beer.
‘You have it,’ I said. I tried my royal wrist wave but the motion made my stomach somersault.
He opened it and it fizzed onto the back of his hairy hand. ‘D’you wanna watch TV?’
‘TV?’
‘Or a film. I have a few.’ I had this image of him putting on loads of porn. ‘I’ve got all the Terminators,’ he said.
‘ Terminators?’
His Adam’s apple bulged as he knocked back the beer. ‘Not your thing?’
The room spun.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I said. ‘Let’s watch one.’
He put a DVD on and sat down next to me on the sofa. He switched it on with the remote. I kept drifting off but every so often sudden clanking sounds would wake me up and make my head pound.
After this bit where a man got a big metal stake driven through him, Tony laughed and switched it off. ‘That’s the funny part over. The rest’s boring.’
‘Oh. Sure.’
‘Maybe you just wanna lie down?’
We were coming right down to it. Use ’em and lose ’em, Grace crooned in my head.
‘Lie down?’ I croaked. Fact is, I’d not done sex yet. Grace had, millions of times, and Trim. So he said. But not me. Grace said how it’s no great shakes, you just shut your eyes and dream of ice cream, and if you play your cards right, they pay you something. But I wasn’t sure about this guy.
He lit a fag without offering me one. ‘Bed,’ he said. He nodded over to the stripy duvet cover that made my head whirl just looking at it.
‘You mean, like, sleeping ’n’ all?’
He looked at me sprawled on the sofa and blew out a smoke ring. ‘Hell with sleeping.’
Jeez. How do I get out of this one?
‘About your eye,’ I said, trying to change tack. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
He fingered the patch and laughed. ‘Got into a fight,’ he said.
‘Who with?’
‘My girlfriend.’
‘Your girlfriend?’ I looked around like maybe she was hiding in a cupboard.
‘Ex-girlfriend.’ He gulped the last of the beer and leaned towards me. ‘Definitely ex.’ I froze. He tickled my kneecap. ‘Ex,’ he murmured.
Don’t just sit there. Do something.
He had a hand round the back of my neck. The other went ferreting over my dress, the fag hanging out limp between his fingers.
‘Youch! Watch your fag,’ I said.
‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry.’ He flicked it to the floor and ground it out with his heel. Then he burped. Then he went ferreting again over the dress.
‘Hey, I just remembered—’ I started.
He yanked me towards him. I lurched back and the wig came off.
It toppled onto the floor by the arm of the chair, pale and floppy.
‘Hell,’ he swore. He shoved me away. ‘What’s that?’ His voice squeaked like a choirboy’s.
I gathered up my knees to my chin and said nothing.
He picked up the wig. He looked at it, then me. ‘Your hair’s brown.’
I couldn’t even blink.
‘I don’t go for brown.’
I bit down on my lip.
‘I only do blonde.’
His bleary eye was staring at me like I was an alien.
‘You’re just a kid, aren’t you?’
I stayed curled up tight, cornered.
‘Aren’t you?’ His hand moved as if he was about to hit me. ‘Aren’t you?’
I put my hands in front of my face. ‘Sorry, Tony. Sorry.’
He swore under his breath. Then his hand fell to his side. He lit up another fag and dragged on it. ‘Jeezus. I don’t fancy kids. I’m not a bloody perv. How old are you?’
That’s when it hit me. It was three in the morning and my birthday. Some birthday present. A one-eyed horror story.
‘Fifteen,’ I said.
He swore again. ‘Fifteen? Christ. Get out’
‘Out?’
‘Yeah. If my landlord catches you I’ll be finished.’
I got up off the chair.
‘Clear off,’ he said. ‘Go home to Mummy.’
My lip wobbled. ‘I don’t have no home.’
‘Go find a homeless shelter then. Whatever.’
He tugged me off the chair, picked up the wig and threw it at me like it was heaving with maggots. He jerked me towards the door. ‘Beat it.’
‘Please, Tony,’ I said. ‘It’s dark out there. Let me stay. I’ll take my clothes off. If you want. Or I’ll give you my mobile phone. For rent, like. Just let me stay on the sofa till morning. Please—’
He pushed me out and threw my lizard-skin bag after me. ‘Out,’ he hissed.
‘Please—’
‘Shush.’ He shut me out on the landing.
I heard a key fumbling, then turning in a lock. ‘ Tony …’
I stood with my nose and palms pressed to the door but it didn’t open.
Outside was the night, waiting to swallow me whole.
What the hell was I supposed to do now?
Twenty-one
The Dream on the Stairs
I stood still in the strange dark house. I saw the strip of light under Tony’s door and nothing else. I smelled burned stew and damp and my own fear.
I stood with the wig pressed up to my face.
In a moment my eyes adjusted. I turned round and made out the stairs, the banister, a hall table at the bottom. I crept forward and sat on the top step.
I went halfway down the stairs on my backside and stopped. I listened. There must have been a clock somewhere because I heard it over the thumping of my heart. Tick-tock-stick-stuck. I remembered the clock in Mercutia Road but this one wasn’t the same. This one was heavy and slow.
Everything else in the house was silent.
The strip of light under Tony’s door went out. And was I ever glad his girlfriend had given him a shiner. I wished I’d made the other eye shine too. Like having brown hair was a sin? I touched my own hair. After the wig I felt bald almost, and I remembered how Grace was always saying to get a perm or do something to mak
e it thicker. And I cried; the tears wouldn’t stop.
There wasn’t a sound from Tony’s room. He must have gone to bed, thinking I’d left the house.
My eyes adjusted again. I took the sandals off and rubbed my feet. Then, quietly, I changed into my trainers and put my skater top back on over the dress. I stroked Solace, pale and limp on my lap. The ash-blonde colours glowed in the dark.
The place smelled bad but I’d be safe here for an hour or two if I kept still. ‘Solace,’ I whispered, like the wig was an old friend. ‘Sister Solace.’ Tick-tock-stick-stuck. Time stopped. My brain slowed and I was floating. I shut my eyes and maybe I was awake or maybe I was asleep but soon the stairs vanished and I was back in the sky house, like I’d got there on a dream cloud …
I’m shooting a movie underwater, looking through a wavering lens.
Mam’s there. Denny too. Their voices echo and it’s spring. Bright light pours in from the balcony and Denny’s tapping the newspaper. He’s off to the races for the day. Mam’s at him to back her a horse. I remember now. It’s the day of the Sister Solace race.
‘I’ve never so much as blown in a nag’s nose,’ Denny’s going, ‘but I know my horses.’ Mam pinches his cheek and flashes a fiver.
‘Shall I put it on for you, Bridge?’ he coaxes, trying to catch it. ‘A fine strapping mare?’
‘Can I choose? Can I?’ That’s me talking. I’m right in there, pulling at Denny’s tartan cuff on account of I only come up to his elbow.
‘OK, troll. Which one?’ He shows me the racing page.
I put my finger on Sister Solace. ‘That one.’
‘Sister Solace? She’s a long shot.’ He plucks Mam’s fiver from her and she hands him another.
‘Put them both on her,’ Mam says. ‘I like the sound of her name.’
‘It’s form you go for, you daft woman. Not the bloody name.’
Mam’s laughing, ruffling his hair. ‘Do as I say, Denny. Sister Solace.’
‘All right, Bridge. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Then he’s kissing her goodbye and he’s gone and it’s ‘Cut to the Race’.
Mam and I are watching it on TV. The horses pound from the stalls, going for broke, the ground thundering under their hooves. Their necks stretch out and their behinds bulge with brown muscle and you can see the pale gold one, Sister Solace, straggling. Mam’s cursing. Then, from nowhere, she’s there, up at the front. The voice of the man who’s talking over them goes up an octave – ‘And it’s Sister Solace on the outside, it’s Sister Solace.…’ – and Mam’s standing, her fist pumping the air, and she’s shouting, ‘Go, girl!’ So I stand and shout too and Sister Solace goes flying, pale and smooth, ahead of the rest, and it’s a miracle the way she’s nearing the finish, will she topple or burst, no, she’s there, first past the post. Mam’s jumping, saying it’s champagne tonight, praise be, I’m her own best girl. And she’s putting on ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, her favourite song, and pouring her drink with the clicking ice cubes. ‘To Sister Solace,’ she croons. She jiggles around the sky house and opens the balcony door to let in the breeze. Travel the world and the seven seas. It’s so clear you can see the white dome of St Paul’s and I’m wriggling and jiggling alongside Mam, copying her mini palm-dives. She jives and spins and claps and so do I. I don’t know when my heart felt more like a firework, bursting into a thousand golden coins.