Brass

by Helen Walsh

  Concentrate. It’s all about concentrating. If you don’t think sick you won’t be sick.

  I think about Dad.

  Dad reading the papers at the kitchen table.

  Dad snoozing in front of the television.

  Dad.

  The images are malformed like an overtreated negative. My head goes blank for a while awaking the gripe in my stomach, but then a new montage of thoughts stumble into my head.

  Mum. Brushing her hair.

  Dad and that girl, having sex. I’m powerless to resist the image. I try to shove it away but it thrashes back, lurid and stagnant. She has tiny pink nipples and a smattering of ugly brown moles on her belly. A faint strip of mousy down trickles from her navel to her cunt. She smells of Gucci.

  She smells of Mum.

  Dad is on top, humping madly, his face all twisted and red. The image pulls back so their bodies only occupy two-thirds of the frame and some of the background detail slips into view. They’re screwing on the floor. My bedroom floor. And on the bedside table behind them is a picture of Mum. Beautiful and smiling. And then the image blurs and fades like a cheaply edited movie and there’s another void which is suddenly being filled with a familiar voice and the shock of a human touch. Jamie’s hand is on my shoulder. He’s looking right into me.

  ‘Millie – you alright there babe?’

  I nod wanly.

  ‘You look like you’re going to be sick?’

  The word ‘sick’ triggers another bilious heave and this time it’s impossible to contain. A viscous hurl seeps through my fingers and trickles down my chin. I clamp my lips shut to prevent any more leakage and then swallow hard, shuddering violently as the caustic liquid strips layers from my throat. Tears stream my face. I can just see me now. Charcoal streaked cheeks and a pungent gob slick with vomit. I grab the nearest bottle which belongs to a bloke. I don’t see his face, just a hairy forearm that isn’t Jamie’s. I manage to down enough to swipe the evil taste from my mouth and quell the feeling of sickness before the bottle is snatched back. I stand there, suspended in a sickly vodka lethargy, my limbs heavy and limp, and I allow Jamie to guide me to a seat.

  I blink the room into focus and the slew of beats and sounds become vaguely recognisable. I must be sitting with my head hung low for a while cos when I raise it, the tune has moved on and Jamie is placing a bottle of Volvic in front of me. I feel drunk – heavy and thirsty. ‘Here y’are – drink this. I’ll be over in a minute.’

  His eyes are almost reproachful.

  ‘I’ll take you out for some fresh air. But you need to drink this first. Just take sips yeah? Little bit at a time.’

  He lifts the bottle to my mouth and I sip at it gingerly at first, and then I give in to my puke induced thirst and polish off the bottle in big greedy gulps.

  ‘Come ’ead then, let’s see you stand up.’

  I jump up and flash him a spunky smile. He raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Now, d’you need us to escort you back to the table or am I alright to go and get these drinks in and that?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I say, ‘I haven’t eaten all day and I think…’

  Jamie doesn’t even wait for me to finish. He’s already making his way back to the bar. Even in my muffled state I can see he looks wretched from the back – stooped and tired and sapped of everything. He looks old. The strobe light from above picks out a thinning crown. He’s thinking he’s made a mistake. He’s wishing he wasn’t here – with me. He’s wishing he was there – with her.

  When I return to the table Sean’s tongue, loosened by booze and beak is spieling Mally his well-worn anecdote about the Hollyoaks’ bird he used to see. Mally’s heard this story a thousand times before although he still manages to adopt the wide-eyed expression of a kid who’s being let in on some big secret.

  I think about hitting Sean with something sarcastic but abandon the idea when I remember the two parcels of beak lying neglected in his jacket pocket.

  Kev is on the dancefloor and has somehow insinuated himself into the shimmying hub of schoolies. He’s dancing like a muppet, punching the air madly, and snapping his pelvis to Kylie. The girls seem to love him though. Two of them are goading him into a sandwich, while the others form a circle around them, mimicking his moves, clamouring for his attention. The only one distancing herself from this whole shenanigans is a frail looking blonde with pipe-cleaner arms and an elfin face. She’s sulking at the edge of the dancefloor, sucking a finger and making eyes with the room. I indulge myself watching her for a while, then grow bored and irritable. I need cocaine.

  I breathe a huge sigh of relief when I see Jamie wrestling his way over with four bottles of Becks.

  ‘I was gonna get youse a round of slammers but I thought better,’ he says plonking the bottles on the table, ‘Some girl throwing her ring up over there, in’t that right Millie?’

  I dart him an imploring face and it seems to work. No one is really listening to him anyway. Mally is still engrossed in Sean and Sean is still engrossed in himself. I slip him an appreciative wink and pull a chair out for him.

  ‘Grazie,’ I say.

  I remove the cigarette from his mouth, eye it closely and inhale with great suspicion. I screw my face up and thrust it back in his mouth, almost singing his lips. ‘Urrgh! Lambert & Butler?’

  ‘Embassy actually.’

  ‘Since when did you start smoking pov’s cigarettes?’

  ‘They’re Anne Marie’s,’ he says.

  I lean over and tap Sean on the shoulder. Resentfully, he plucks himself from Mally’s cloying embrace. I make smoking signs with two fingers. He fumbles about in his jacket, turns back to Mally and raises his voice slightly.

  ‘Anyway, can I fuck keep the bimbo at arm’s length, la! Was a bit embarrassing in all honesty. Her fella’s in there and she just can’t keep her hands off, know what I mean … That singer from the La’s is fucken grinning his head off at us. Aye-aye lad, he’s going, nice one and that…’

  He extracts a pack of Marlboros and slides them across the table without even looking at me. I take out two cigarettes, hesitate, take out a third then slide them right back.

  I flick my eyes from Sean to Jamie, Jamie to Sean. Things are so heartbreakingly different now. Even when we’re out and having fun and on bonnie night too, there’s this big dilating chasm between us. It was all so effortless back then – laughing, talking, absorbing and devouring every inch of each other’s worlds. That’s all we did. Drink and smoke and talk – long meandering conversations about anything and everything. I used to spend hours on the ’phone to Jamie – hours. And when either of us had done gear, we’d talk so long and hard that our mouths would blister with ulcers. Now, it’s like there’s nothing left to say. Everything’s been said. We’re here out of duty rather than want. Just treading time.

  Kev swans over with a couple of his coterie, beaming like a simpleton. One of them is tall with a beautiful, exotic face but bad genes have distributed her weight unevenly. She has skinny legs, fat hips and a set of narrow shoulders pushed down into her ribs. The only thing going for her is her age – fourteen max. Her mate, the thumb sucking waif from the dancefloor is stunning. She’s also very drunk. She collapses into Jamie’s lap and allows her head to flop back on his chest. Instinctively he clamps his arms around her to stop her sliding to the floor. His face flicks from discomfit to solicitude. I imagine him growing hard beneath her.

  Her legs hang within inches of my own. A subtle gesture from my left knee and we’d be touching.

  Kev introduces them as Suey and Becky and the tall girl, Becky, says something that makes everybody laugh. Sean throws something back and they laugh even harder. I smile without hearing a word. My thoughts are consumed only by this girl sitting besides me. Our legs have made contact – young, warm, infallible skin breathing life into my groin.

  Jamie loosens his grip around her and she tumbles down his lap. The sudden movement shocks her eyes wide open. He slips his arms underneath her sh
oulders and pulls her back up. Her skirt rides up unashamedly, exposing a flash of white panties. My clit pulses against my seat and I sit forward, shifting all the weight onto my cunt to intensify the pleasure. If I were a lad I’d be steel hard.

  ‘State of her!’ her mate shrieks, ‘Always like this! Out of it on three fucken Metz.’

  Sean grins a wide toothy grin.

  ‘Pretty little thing though in’t she?’

  ‘I think this one needs to go home,’ Jamie says, sharpening his glare and shifting it onto Kev.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he says gyrating his pelvis into Becky’s arse.

  ‘No – I think youse need to take her home. She’s gonna pass out, here.’

  Becky affects concern.

  ‘Mmmaybe, I should put her in cab you know.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Kev says, nudging her off in the direction of the dancefloor, ‘She’ll start sobering up in a minute. Just give her some water.’

  He propels this instruction at me. I raise my eyebrows.

  Becky twists her mouth to one side.

  ‘O-kaay then, but if she starts voming or somet just come and get us will you?’

  Again this instruction is directed at me. My eyebrows collapse with a snort. If Billy was here, he’d see the irony of it all. Thinking of Billy, where is he? I could really use his company tonight – fun loving and uncomplicated. Just how Jamie was, once upon a time.

  Kev drags his shag off to the dancefloor before she has time to change her mind but two minutes later she’s back again with a disposable camera.

  ‘I’ve got to show this to the girls at school,’ she says, snapping away clumsily, ‘They’ll piss themselves. Proper little goodie goodie, Suey here is. No one would belieeeeve she’d get in this state.’

  ‘Here,’ I say taking the camera from her, ‘Let me.’

  She hands over the camera willingly and I kneel down in front of Jamie, so I’ve got a bird’s eye view of Suey’s panties.

  ‘Smile!’

  Click. The flash goes off and my subjects spring to life. Jamie lifts his arms to shield his face and without his support, she plummets down his lap and her legs flop wide open. Click. Jamie grabs her at the ribs and lugs her back up again, dragging up her top to expose a hard white tummy. Click. Jamie’s hands are all over her, pulling down her top and her skirt, trying to salvage what’s left of her dignity. Click. Click. Click.

  Sean and Mally are hunched over, great billows of lung-stripping laughter heaving from their chests. Even her ostensibly protective mate is finding it difficult to stifle her amusement. Jamie is livid.

  Dizzy from the commotion, Becky neglects to reclaim her camera and rushes off to the dancefloor to relay the incident to her mates. I stash it in my handbag. Potential wanking fodder.

  ‘ ’kinell Millie, I knew you had a bit of a rep for getting girls to fucken thingio but that about tops it all!’ Sean shakes his head devilishly. ‘How the fuck’s she got like that though, la? She’s a fucken kid, look at the kite? No older than fourteen, that one.’

  ‘We’re gonna have to do something you know,’ Jamie snaps, ‘Can’t just leave her here like this. I mean you can all see where this is heading can’t you? Her mates are in no fit state to look after her? You heard about that girl that got pulled into a car last week outside The Allerton Towers?’

  ‘Well, she’s hardly ideal rape material is she?’ I say.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a criteria for rape victims,’ he retorts sarcastically.

  ‘Well isn’t it about the thrill of forced sex? I mean, she’s hardly in a position to put up a fight? It’d be like raping a blow-up doll. Where’s the fun in that?’

  ‘Ah grow up Millie. That’s fucken last that. I hope if you ever get in this state, you don’t end up with someone as selfish as you.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t though would I? Get in that state? I mean that’s the difference between me and girls like that. They get stupidly drunk and just expect their mates or some Mr fucking Samaritan like you to look out for them. They’re fucking selfish – not me. Girls like that need to be taught a lesson.’

  ‘That’s rich coming from someone who was throwing her ring up less than ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, snatching a quick glance to see if Sean has heard this. He hasn’t. ‘But I wasn’t staggering around was I? I wasn’t falling into strangers’ laps was I? Tell me, have you ever seen me like that?’

  The question hangs in the air for a while, and then Jamie lowers his head to her cheek.

  ‘How you feeling little’un?’

  ‘Ugh?’

  Her eyes do an interrupted sleeper’s stare.

  ‘D’you want some more water?’

  She mumbles affirmatively and then a glib of panic shoots across her face.

  ‘Where ith everyone?’ She’s got a gorgeous little lisp. ‘Have they got off without uth?’

  She jolts upright.

  ‘It’s OK, babes,’ Jamie soothes, helping her to her feet, ‘Your mates are still here.’

  She stands for a moment, then stumbles back into his lap again.

  ‘I need to get home.’

  ‘Well don’t worry babes, we’re not gonna let your mates go without you, are we Millie?’

  I roll my eyes at Sean.

  ‘You don’t underthand. I need to get back. My Dad’ll batter uth.’

  ‘I’ll take you home?’ I offer.

  ‘She’d be safer walking.’

  ‘Pleathe!’ She lets out a throaty hiccup. ‘He’ll batter uth. Me and my Ma for letting uth out.’

  ‘Where d’you live?’ I ask, reaching over and touching her thigh.

  ‘Kirkdale.’

  ‘Other end of town from me,’ I sigh. ‘If I get you home okay, will you put me up for the night?’

  My hand is now sliding up towards her cunt.

  ‘Yeth!’ she says, clapping eyes on me for the first time, ‘Are you one of Becky’th mateth?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘I need to go now though. Before he geth home. Will you take uth?’

  ‘Yep, grab your coat, you’ve pulled!’

  Jamie flings my hand away.

  ‘Fucks sake Millie – go and find her mates will you and stop acting a cunt.’

  ‘She’s not my type anyway,’ I say, getting up and lobbing him a wry face, ‘Too pale, too hairy and those Tuesday knickers? Nah, doesn’t really do it for us you know.’

  Our eyes lock over her head, pushing my heart into my guts. Something in his eyes is telling me this is it. Me and him are almost over.

  I drain my beer and swan over to the dancefloor. Kev is dancing orgiastically doing this big daft sweeping movement with his arms like Mr fucking Motivator. His groupies have all opted for that risk free self-conscious type of dancing that belongs to the genres of upper-class girls and pre-chemicalites – arms in the air, hands draped loosely over heads, eyes clamped shut and head nodding from side to side in time with the music. Safe. Easy.

  I manipulate my way into the centre of the floor taking full advantage of the melee by groping arses and then shifting the blame onto the nearest bloke. Becky spots me and dances over flicking her wrist to the beat. She looks absolutely ridiculous, like she’s fending of a bad case of cramp.

  ‘How’s Su-ey?… She O-K?’

  Her voice assumes the tempo of the music. I peer closely into her face. Her eyes are solid black and the whole of her lower face is twitching, but it’s only when I see Kev’s puckish face grinning dementedly in the background does the penny drop.

  ‘Your mate’s making a cunt of herself,’ I say. ‘She needs something to sober her up and quick.’

  I extend the flat of a palm. She pulls her chin in and feigns ignorance.

  ‘Now, Kev said, to hand it right over to me. A couple of doormen clocked you going into the toilets before and he thinks you’re gonna get searched. If they find out how old you are, they’ll definitely call the police.’

  Her eyes lurch with te
rror.

  ‘Don’t start panicking, you’ll draw attention to us, just hand the…’

  She practically throws it at me. I totter off, reeling with nervy excitement and good feeling for the night ahead. I’m done with this bar and I’m done with him.

  I find her in the disabled toilet, wretching and slumped over the basin. Sheer fate.

  When I’m out I always use the mens. Partly because there is rarely a queue but mainly because the toilets are cleaner. Girls are fucking monsters. This time though, I had an instinct that Kev might try and reclaim his goods, so I slipped into the disabled. And that’s where I found her. Frail little Suey – spitting her guts out. Just asking to be fucked. She’s left the door ajar so I lock us both in and kneel down beside her.

  I rescue her hair from her vomit-drenched face and, twisting it into a low pony of sorts, fold it into her top. She looks round at me, foggy-eyed and helpless. The room spins in her face. She coughs up a long skinny stream of transparent bile and then makes all the ugly faces that precede vomiting. She stoops further into the basin so that a few stray hairs fall into the mire but all that comes out is putrid saliva. This seems to upset her greatly cos she starts crying and spitting and wailing. I move round behind her, and rub her back with the tips of my fingers in slow circular movements, a gentle, coaxing method Mum picked up in India, but rather than trigger a productive emission, the action has the opposite effect of placating her. The coughing and weeping subside and her shoulders loosen into a slump. And then she turns round and looks right at me. So I do what her eyes are telling me to do – I slide her top up.

  The sight of her naked back shocks me stone cold sober. My head empties for a few seconds and everything tilts out of focus. Her entire back is blotched with livid bruises, dozens of them, so if you let your eyes fall lazy, her back is just one big bruise. Black and grey and green and red but mostly black. I wrench the top right down.

  With my heart barrelling madly, I remove the package from my purse, and with my longest nail, scoop out a generous bump. Now think, Millie, think. I should go and get Jamie. Her mate, Becky. No Jamie – he’ll know what to do. Maybe he’s already seen it. Maybe that’s why he was so adamant about making sure she got home safely. And on time. Before her Dad…