by Tom Fletcher
‘I won’t ever actually sleep with Rihanna, Angelina Jolie, Avril Lavigne, Jessica Alba or even PJ Harvey.’ There was a silence, and he looked genuinely distraught. ‘I mean, never.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘It’s awful,’ Simon said, whose speech was slowed down due to the huge spliff he was smoking. He was dressed as Ziggy Stardust. He looked suitably emaciated. Chris was dressed as Willy Wonka, with a long purple coat, purple gloves and a top hat, and his cane was resting against the wall. Golden paper spilled from his pockets and he had chocolate smeared around his mouth.
‘Just think about that for a second, Jack,’ Graham continued. ‘It’s an awful truth to come to terms with if you think about it.’
I thought about it, but no; I couldn’t get past Jennifer.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m happy with Jennifer.’
‘Honestly?’ Simon asked.
‘Yeah. Honestly.’
He looked down at the rug. ‘I’ll have to meet her,’ he said.
‘She is gorgeous,’ Graham said. ‘She is incredibly hot.’
‘You might meet somebody tonight,’ I said. ‘Those celebrities probably aren’t all that pretty in the flesh.’
‘I might,’ he said. ‘I guess I’m just being morbid. Hey. I had a dream last night. It was fucked up. I dreamed that I rented out a video of a film with me in it. It was called Dances in Wolves. And I was watching it, and in it I was in a car, and I was driving, and my ex-girlfriend was in the passenger seat, and my ex-girlfriend’s mum and somebody in a wolf costume were in the back. And this – this wolf bites my ex-girlfriend’s mum’s arm off, and then her head, and then my ex-girlfriend’s head, and then he starts biting my shoulder, and then he bites my head off, and the car’s still going, straight – we were driving across somewhere, wide, open, flat, hot – and the wolf takes his head off, the, like’ – Graham mimed taking off a helmet or something – ‘costume head thing, and it’s me.’
There was a silence.
‘Shit, man,’ Chris said eventually, smiling, nodding. ‘A video? Not a DVD? That is fucked up.’
‘Dances in Wolves,’ I said, laughing, but really I was uneasy – the dream seemed somehow more unpleasant than it should have, and also strangely fitting, as if something inside me recognised certain elements.
‘So, you’re in your own dream, like – three times, but’ – Chris tried to work out how to phrase it – ‘at the same time?’
‘Yep,’ Graham said, nodding vigorously.
MTV2 was on the TV and showing a video in which two big spiders were fighting, and a woman with artfully smudged make-up was running, clambering, staggering through these dark, misty woods in some reference to Little Red Riding Hood, maybe, but she was not wearing red, so probably not.
The spiders reminded me of Taylor. He walked through doors like he was a spider, his long legs appearing first, and then the rest of him, and he would do it slowly and methodically, like he did everything. Erin never walked through a door without knocking on it. Then she’d stick her head round the corner and smile a radiant smile and as she entered, the room would light up.
I twisted my head around, and I saw them kissing in a doorway.
I left the upstairs bathroom after expelling an impressively vast volume of urine and looking, confused, into the mirror for a while. I saw Jennifer on the landing, standing in front of the American Beauty film poster – depicting a naked girl surrounded by roses – that had appeared at some point since the party started. She was talking to a boy called Aidan, at least I thought he was called Aidan, and whoever he was, he was dressed as the Tin Man. They were both looking intently at the screen of Aidan’s mobile phone, which he was holding up in front of him like it was a torch or something.
‘That’s amazing,’ she said. ‘I like the bit with the cat.’
‘I like the fuck-up with all the bottles around him,’ Aidan said.
‘Hi,’ I said, after deciding to approach. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Oh, hey, Jack,’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s a music video. A good one. Excuse me. I need the bathroom. Been waiting.’
She pushed past.
Aidan just stood there grinning, his mouth visible through a slit in the box. Every now and again he shifted his feet as if to maintain balance.
All around me, all throughout the house, strange people surged and merged and fell back, like waves.
I waited for her outside the bathroom.
When she came back out, I said, ‘Jennifer.’
‘Jack.’ She smiled, and put her arms around me. ‘It’s a good party, hey?’
‘It is. Thank you. It’s really good. Jennifer, I want to talk to you. Can we go to our room?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Sure we can. Everything OK?’
‘Let’s – let’s just go in here.’ I pushed open our bedroom door and there were two people wearing huge cardboard boxes standing in the corner. An unusually long hairy arm was coming out of a hole in one of the boxes and going into a hole in the other one, although I could not tell which it was coming out of and which it was going into, and it was moving vigorously, getting faster.
‘Excuse us,’ I said. ‘Please. Get out.’
The arm stopped moving and the boxes shuffled silently out. One of them got stuck in the door, but I gave it a little push and it popped through. I closed the door after it. The room felt quite empty after the crush of everywhere else, and because the window was a single blank eye looking at us, I felt exposed. We really should have bought some curtains, some basic things that make a house a home. There was a full-length mirror propped up against the wall, next to the door.
‘Jennifer,’ I said, ‘I want to know what we are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are we a couple? Are we together, properly? Or am I just here with you?’
She held my shoulders. ‘Jack, being a couple, being together – they don’t really mean anything important. Those are just things people do because it’s what they think they’re supposed to do. They’re constructs – very human constructs – and they, you know, they go against the grain. Of what is important, which is our natural instinct.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not true. I want to be with you and I want you to be with me, and basically, Jennifer, I don’t want you to be with anybody else. I mean, that’s my natural instinct. And I’m scared that you might end up with somebody else, like – like Francis.’
She took her hands off me and her face turned hard. ‘You mean you want me to be yours and in return you give me yourself.’
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Exactly that!’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Jack. I don’t want you to be mine. I don’t ever want to have anybody. And I am not yours and never will be, do you understand? I am mine and mine only and I will continue to be mine only forever and ever. The idea, the whole idea of couples and being together is based on this thing of mutual ownership, Jack, and it’s creepy.’
‘I thought there was some biology in it. Like, pheromones or something. Nesting. Mating, I mean, having children. That kind of thing. Isn’t that why people stay together?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘People stay together for two reasons. Because they’re too scared to break up and risk being alone, or because they are manipulative and possessive and like owning another soul. Having kids, having sex, having a laugh, love, you don’t need to be in a couple for that.’
‘I don’t know if I agree with you.’
‘So I have to subscribe to your way of thinking because I asked you if you want to live with me, to sleep with me? I’m sorry if I’ve given you the wrong idea, Jack. I thought you understood.’
‘But – but – what about if we try to be, I mean, just us? I really like you Jennifer, and I – I saw you flirting with Francis, and—’
‘Jack!’ she shouted, stepping back. ‘Please! You do not own me! This is what I’m trying to say! This is the conceit that people have, the trap they fall into. Whether or not I fl
irt with Francis is up to me! I haven’t ever committed myself to you, Jack, but because we live in a way that mirrors a conventional relationship you think that I’m yours?’
‘But—’
‘Stop trying to make me into something I’m not, Jack.’ She lowered her voice and looked down. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. But you’re trying to bend me into something I’m not, just to suit yourself. And I won’t have it.’
‘Jennifer,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry we had this fall-out on your birthday. I’m sorry. I really am.’
She left the room.
I went to the bathroom.
FRANCIS
The smoke in here is thick, despite the high ceiling. Cigarettes and weed and roll-ups rolled with cherry or vanilla tobacco. All knitting together in the air and floating upwards. Hanging there like something fibrous. I peer through it to try and work out who’s in here. I see this girl in the corner. Lying on the floor. She’s wearing black bin-bags cut like a cape. She looks like she had her skin painted green at the start of the night. Now it’s mostly worn off. Her witch’s hat lies beside her on the ground. She looks dead. I recognise her as a girl Graham used to go out with. Mary.
‘Hey.’ I put my hand on her arm. ‘You OK? Mary?’
She doesn’t answer. She’s completely unconscious. The smoke can’t be doing her any good. I pick her up and carry her upstairs. I push open the door of the first bedroom that I come to. It’s the room Taylor and Jack are sharing. It looks like it’s also some sort of cloakroom for the party. There is a pile of bags and coats stacked so high against one wall that it’s like a lost-property department. Or a small model of the mountains that surround us up here. I lay Mary on the bed and she just flops down without so much as a flicker of her eyelids. I bite my lip. I wonder if there are any tests you can do to detect alcohol poisoning. I see that the bin-bags are tied quite tightly around her neck. I start untying them. As I loosen them I see that she’s not wearing anything underneath.
‘Oh aye?’ says a voice from behind me.
I turn around. Somebody dressed in tinfoil and kitchen things is standing in the doorway, leering. The Tin Man. Aidan. He has a box that is covering his head. On top of this, a colander. There is a hole through which I can see a wet mouth. And a slit masked with gauze that hides his eyes. ‘What’s this?’ he slurs. ‘Secret party?’
‘What?’ I say.
‘Secret party?’
‘No. Look. Mary’s passed out. It was the bin-bags round her neck. And they’re plastic. Hot.’
‘I know exactly what you were doing, Francisco,’ he says, advancing. ‘But don’t worry.’ He leans forward. Conspiratorially. ‘I won’t tell a soul. Not me.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I say. ‘I’m helping her. And don’t call me Francisco.’
‘Maybe we could have a secret party. You and – and – Mary and me.’
He lowers himself on to the end of the bed. The colander tips forward as he sits. ‘I’ve got my camera.’ He licks his lips.
‘Aidan,’ I say. ‘How are things? Haven’t seen you in what. I don’t know how long. Since uni.’
‘Time flies, eh? I’m good. I’m in sales. What about – what about you? What do you get up to when you’re not molesting pretty girls?’
‘I don’t – look, Aidan, I wasn’t touching her.’
‘Yeah, right. We’re all the same, Francis. You may as well admit it. All – all men. Nothing more than a load of big, fat cocks.’ He lifts the box off his head. His hair is matted across his forehead with sweat. His eyes are beady and bright.
‘Aidan. She’s not even conscious. I don’t care how sleazy, ill or sad you are; you’re not touching her. Come on. Get out.’
‘You want her all for yourself,’ he says.
‘Just – just fuck off.’
‘Hey,’ he says. Completely ignoring my anger. Drunkenly digging his mobile out of his pocket. ‘Francis. I got something for you.’
‘What?’
‘Just – just wait. I’m looking for it.’ He has his mobile phone out. Is gazing intently at the screen. I pick up the colander and absent-mindedly spin it around and around in my hands. ‘Here it is. Feast your eyes.’
He hands the phone over. The video is already playing. A man is pinned to the ground by somebody kneeling on his back. The person kneeling on the man’s back is holding the man’s head up by his hair. So that he’s looking straight into the camera. Blood is running down his nose and his eyes are swollen. Suddenly somebody out of shot kicks him in the face with heavy-looking boots. And again, and again. And again. Then they step back and the camera zooms in. I drop the phone.
‘Francisco,’ Aidan says, ‘you missed the best bit. His jaw’s come half off so that he can’t close it and then—’
‘Stop.’ I stamp on the phone and hear it crunch beneath my heel.
‘Jesus, Francis!’ he says. ‘That’s my phone, you wanker! I’ve only got one!’
‘What was that? Where do you get it from? Does it entertain you?’
‘It’s footage,’ he says. ‘You know, San Francisco. From the war.’
I slam the colander into his face. His head bounces off the wall behind and then back into the colander again. He’s bleeding already. I haul him up to his feet. I go to punch him in the stomach. But he digs his thumbs into my wrists. I have to pull away. He punches me in the stomach but I don’t really feel it. I hit him back. My fist makes a hole in the tinfoil over his belly. I punch him again, this time in the face. He falls to his knees. I feel cool hands grasp my waist from behind. I turn to find that I’m staring into a pair of deep green eyes.
‘Jennifer?’
‘Calm down,’ she says. ‘Calm down.’
‘Jennifer. I’m sorry.’
‘Shh. Don’t worry. He’s OK. Look.’
I look back to see Aidan standing up, slowly. He staggers past, shooting me a murderous look. ‘Prick,’ he mutters.
‘He just wound me up,’ I say.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Come and sit down, somewhere out of the way.’
She takes me by the hand. Leads me to her room.
‘Lock the door,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I will.’ She kisses me. I kiss her back. Too tired now to resist. I could say no. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to make the decision at all. I want her to take me. Her mouth is hot, red and hungry. Her lip-rings roll over my mouth and tongue. They send delicate tremors radiating out across the whole surface of my body. I can hear music from downstairs. And the wind shrieking through the attic above us. But in here there are only the sounds that we make. She pushes me down so that I’m sitting on the bed. She smoothes my jacket from my shoulders. She kneels over me. Then she’s working busily at my tie. I run the straps of her dress down her arms. She leans forwards so that I can kiss her now-exposed breasts and they tremble, rising and falling with her quickening breath. I start unbuttoning my shirt, but struggle, the buttons being slippery with Aidan’s blood. So she finishes it. Her hands carry on down to my belt buckle while I dig my nails into the small of her back. I bite her shoulder. She pulls my trousers down but they snag on my shoes. She crouches down and unlaces them deftly with one hand. The other creeps up my thigh and under my boxer shorts. I kick my shoes off and shrug off my shirt. She lifts her dress up over her shoulders and her wings. She is wearing black knickers beneath. I lie back on the bed. She sits astride me. I look up at her. She’s smiling the beautiful smile from my fantasies. Her eyes are half closed as she leans back down again to kiss me. Her wings spread outwards. They obscure the light bulb that dangles nakedly on the end of its sad, cobwebbed wire.
I drop the used condom into a wooden waste-paper bin on my way out of the room. It lands greasily amongst the other rubbish. Carcinogens coating my penis. Nausea bubbles in my gut. Guilt, maybe. I look back at Jennifer. She’s sitting on the bed.
‘Go,’ she whispers. ‘I’ll be out in five.’
I look briefly in the full-length
mirror that’s propped up against the wall. I have dried blood smeared around my face and on my hands. My white shirt is splattered with it. There are several dark stains on my black jacket. I look back at Jennifer.
‘Go!’ she says.
I go.
The house is full of people that I don’t recognise. They are mostly young. They have an unhealthy air about them. They are thin and pale. Their hair is lank. In contrast to their stretched, manic mouths, their eyes convey a boredom so absolute that they might be dead. Girls and boys. They eat, drink and touch each other casually. Yet intimately. They drift through the party like stray dogs. Scattered amongst them are people that I do know. I am startled to see how similar they are to the strangers. Their apparent hunger. Their frantic, tired energy.
I head for the kitchen. Once there, I pour myself another large glass of Protocol vodka. The table has been pushed against the side. Lots of people are dancing. Erin is dancing with Taylor between surfaces laden with drink. And food. They wriggle and twist around. The floor beneath them is slick with spilled liquid. They slide effortlessly across it. The night is still going strong. There’s plenty of time to get drunk. Forget about everything for a few hours. Lose myself in the noise and the shifting planes of a good party. Mess around like a dickhead on the wet edge of abyssal nihilism. I’ve finished the vodka already. I pour myself another.
‘Annihilation!’ Graham roars, directly into my ear. I jump. The glass slips from my fingers. Shatters on the floor.
‘Jesus!’ I say. ‘Jesus, Graham. Jesus Christ. Look at this glass!’ I try to point at the glass I just dropped. But there is so much broken glass on the stone floor that I can’t tell which was mine. Graham shakes with laughter. ‘What do you want, anyway?’
‘You and me,’ he says, ‘are going to play the annihilation game. It’s where we both drink until we can barely move, and then we have to drink through it, to the other side of drunkenness.’
‘Is this a real game?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Of my own invention, too. Well, it’s a lot more than just a game. It’s a deeply spiritual experience. The idea is that we learn a lot about ourselves on the way, maybe have a few adventures. Fall in and out of love, test our friendship, solve age-old mysteries, push ourselves to the outer limits of our endurance.’