Dano said, We heard you’re off partying down London with them weirdos.
I was like, What would you know about it?
That Adam’s bent-as, he said.
So what if he is?
He’ll end up bumming you.
Fuck off.
Kim was like, And that music’s shite. It’s not real music.
So I said, What’s real music, eh? It feels realer than all your dreary guitar shite. In fact, I said, what’s real anything?
Macca span a finger in the air. He was like, this – meaning the blocks – this is real. Only you don’t see it because you’re too busy jumping about like a twat, off your face on drugs. It’s pathetic, mate. You think you’re onto something, but you’re not.
I told them they didn’t know what they were on about. Told them if they thought listening to The Smiths and scratching round for cider money was reality, then they were fucking welcome to it.
Didn’t see any of them after that.
But Dad was another one. Ever since Adam’s visit, he’d been worse than usual. Started coming back late from the Labour Club, or the dogs, grumbling and knocking stuff over in the dark. Mam said to pay him no mind, he just didn’t like being out of work, didn’t know what to do with himself. I remember thinking how depressing that statement was. Like, take away a person’s job and the person crumbles. I stopped out of his way, but the thing was, because I was master at avoiding him, I didn’t realise he was actually avoiding me. Say if it was just me and him in the room, he’d leave. Just me and him in the flat, he’d go out. It dawned on me gradually, but once it had, I started haunting him. I’d follow him round, like, How’s the job hunt going, Dad? Got any tips for the dogs, Dad? I hadn’t seen it coming, the anger I felt. It hit like a brick.
One night it was just me in – Mam must’ve been at a tenants’ meeting, Cor at her apprenticeship or something – and he came back stinking of drink. He stood in my bedroom doorway.
Pack your bags, he said. He had the family suitcases, the same ones we’d taken on holiday to Scarborough and Mablethorpe. He was like, Haway, James, I mean it. Pack your clothes, whatever else you need, and get out. His eyes all unfocused and red.
I asked him why. I mean, I knew already, I just wanted to hear him say it.
But he couldn’t even look at me.
I said, I’m staying put.
He said nowt. I said nowt.
Then he said, It’s him. And you. Together. Turns my stomach.
I don’t know what you’re on about.
He made himself look at me, something which I knew was hard for him to do.
What’s Mam say about this? I said.
Never mind your mother.
Because what you say goes, right?
Just get packed.
This anger blooming in my head. I said, Because Morris is the man of the house? What would your Labour Club mates say if they knew your son was a puff, eh?
He stumbled into the hall and I followed. I was like, What’s it say about you, if your boy loves cock?
He went into his room and shut the door. I pressed my ear to it, couldn’t hear anything. I was shaking. I spoke into the crack. I said, And seeing as we’re being honest with each other, Dad, I may as well tell that I’m also druggy scum. I don’t work at the post depot at weekends. I drive down to London and take ecstasy.
I braced myself for him to come out swinging, I wanted him to, but there was nowt but silence. I tried the handle but he’d slid the bolt, so I went into my room and threw some stuff into a case. He’d left me three, but everything fit easily into one. I only took one tape – the Universal Frankenstein – got the last of my dildo money from an old biscuit tin on top of the wardrobe. I put my ear to his door again before I went. I wanted to shout something. Fuck you or something. But I didn’t have the strength.
So that’s how I ended up at Adam and JJ’s. I just walked straight round, didn’t even have to ask. They welcomed me with open arms. I got the box room with the bare mattress on the floor, and that first night I curled up and cried myself to sleep. I was a month shy of eighteen.
Adam and JJ became my new family, and I did stuff with them I’d never done with my real family. And I don’t mean drugs – I mean little things, like sitting down to eat together. We took it in turns with the cooking, and I was awful, but JJ taught me. I can still make an amazing lasagne from scratch, no jars or nowt, even the white sauce.
We went out most nights. Not always to London – that was pricey – or even the places springing up locally, like Club Havana in town, or Philmores in Saltburn. Mostly we went over to Peel House. The blocks had been dropping to bits for ages and those who could were getting out, which meant there were loads of empty flats for people to move into for dead cheap or just, like, squat there. It all centred round Peel House for whatever reason, and they started calling themselves The Residual Collective. This bloke called Mickey was the leader, and they turned it into this amazing space, covered the stairs in murals and even knocked through walls to make art spaces and dance floors and shite. Always a party happening, everyone was sound-as, and it didn’t matter who you were. See, I’d grown up in this sackless world where, for reasons nobody remembered, Asquith House was supposed to hate Attlee House, right? People from one side of Stanhope Street were supposed to be against them from the other. And woe betide if you were from Peelaw Bank and got caught on the Crescent after the sun went down. Now, think about that for second. Here were people what should’ve been sticking together, hard-grind people whose fingers were being systematically prised off the ledge by unemployment and shite housing and a government what couldn’t give two fucks about them, but still, still, they’d kick each other’s heads in because they lived on different sides of the same estate. I mean, what is that? Human nature? Class politics? Whatever it was, it wasn’t us. We were different. Like, I could be anywhere, man – I could be in Peel House, just over the green from the flat I grew up in, or three hundred miles down the motorway, under some grimy East End railway arches – and know if a certain kind of music was playing, I was loved. Seven-foot Rastas, posh lasses from Buckinghamshire – it didn’t matter. Even the lairy footy scunners in their tracky tops – blokes who a year earlier would’ve bounced your head off the kerb, here they were hugging each other and saying I love you. I started thinking Adam was right, that deep down we were all part of a whole, single energy, and that all we had to do was be ready to sink down together.
And the irony was, because we’d be out three, four times a week, it meant I did actually have to get a job. Adam and JJ both worked crap shop jobs at the Rumbelows in town, and I got shifts in a factory that powdered glass. Like, you know when you see kitchen tiles or, like, jelly sandals – come to think of it, some of them dildos were the same – and they’re all glittery? Well that’s because powdered glass has been mixed in. It got ground up in this machine and it was my job to shovel it into sacks. I had to wear goggles and a resp. mask because you didn’t want that shite on your lungs. It was fine like dust, and it got on your skin, so when the light hit me I was transformed. Sparkling like I was made of diamond. Adam and JJ would bow down, waving their arms in worship like, Oh, Mighty Sun God of Ironopolis! Take pity on we feeble mortals and put the kettle on, two sugars, forever and ever, amen. But I didn’t care. The bottom line was I could pay my way and do what I really loved, which was being with them.
Adam would come in my room at night and we’d have sex. He was patient with me because I didn’t have experience with another guy. I didn’t have much experience with anyone, really, and I know it’s a total cliché, but he was as much of a drug to me as the drugs. I could’ve fucked him forever, and I think I gave it a good go. Afterwards, we’d lie tangled together and plan huge, amazing raves with smoke machines and lasers and Nitrous Oxide canisters in the chill-out zones. The best soundsystem and DJs, the bangingest set lists. Venue
was key, and we came to the conclusion that the old waterworks near the estate would be perfect. And we’d do it, too, we said. One day. Swear down. We spent hours like that, whispering and giggling in the dark. It was…the best.
Then one night, I came back late from the glass factory and crashed straight out. I was just dropping off when I heard my door creak and Adam slip inside. I kept my eyes shut, rolled onto my back, ready. He lifted the duvet and crawled inside, up between my legs, running his tongue up my erection as he did. His head came out inches above mine. I felt hair tickling my face and when I opened my eyes it was JJ, arching her split eyebrow at me. She was like, Bet you weren’t expecting this? She guided my hand between her legs and she had nowt on.
I mean, I loved Adam, I really did…but you’ve got to understand, this was before the world crushed me. Here’s another bullshit saying: youth is wasted on the young. Aye? Well it was never wasted on me, and it’s weird, but I felt like because of my appreciation of it, life was prepared to cut me some slack. It made me special. Or maybe it just made me eighteen and horny. Either way, she tasted of fake strawberries when I kissed her back.
But afterwards, man. The guilt. I started dodging them both, Adam especially. I stayed longer at work, went to bed early, feigned belly aches to get out of Peel House raves. It was torture. Then, after a couple of weeks of that, Adam came into my room as I pretended to sleep. He was like, You’re fooling no one. So I took a deep breath and told him everything. When I was done, he hugged me.
Ah Jim Jams, he said. What are we going to do with you?
You’re not angry?
Why would I be angry?
The first thing I felt was relief, but then I was like, Why wasn’t he angry?
And maybe you can guess what happened next. We came back from Peel House one morning and were just getting ready to crash. I was brushing my teeth when I heard Adam ask JJ if he could come in her bed with her, and she was like, You don’t even have to ask. Then she stuck her head round the door and said to me, What about you? Now, on one hand, I didn’t know if I was ready for something like that – I was still trying to figure out the dynamic between the three of us – but on the other, like a bairn, I didn’t want to be left out…
…Are you feeling anything? Man, it’s been so long since I’ve done this…
Right, anyway. Get to the point, Jim. Shanks. We first met Armitage Shanks at some London club night later that summer. He’d got talking to JJ and she’d brought him over. He said he was a promoter that did warehouses and outdoor raves. Said he’d done the one on the South Downs that we’d gone to a few weeks before. Peg, you should’ve seen this guy. So tanned it was like he’d rubbed himself with gravy powder, slicked-back waiter hair, and his teeth were amazing – totally straight, no stains or chips or dead ones, and when he laughed they glowed green in the UV lights. He said we were all welcome back to his place after, and I was like, Aye, nice one, thinking in a minute he’d do one, but come the end of the night he was still hanging around. Sweet on JJ, obviously.
Oh, and this little detail should tell you all you need to know about the man. As we were heading towards the exit, there was this bloke slumped on his tod with drool hanging off his face and eyes like this, fluttering.
Poor dear’s cabbaged, Shanks said. Then he told us about these pills coming in from Eastern Europe that were full of all kinds of evil shite. Said he’d heard about someone who’d dropped one and spent the next ten hours carving his own face off with a broken plate.
I was like, Shouldn’t we help him? But Shanks was like, Sweetie – I can’t do his accent, sorry – he was like, Sweetie, I don’t think he’ll fit in the cab.
He took us to the West End, to this house off a wide street lined with palm trees. The place was a palace, seriously. High ceilings and French windows that opened onto a private square. Expensive looking oil-paintings in expensive looking frames, white walls, no wallpaper or dado rails. Red leather settees with bronze lion feet. And he had coke, too. Lots of it on a black glass coffee table.
I did a line and an electric ball burst behind my eyes.
JJ was sitting on the floor next to him. Nice place, she said. Promoting must pay well.
Shanks laughed. Not this well, sweetie. This is one of Daddy’s pads. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Stephan Santerre? He’s in the arts. Let’s just say he has more than two shekels to rub together. He mostly uses this place to keep his treasures. I don’t think he even knows I have a key.
What does he reckon about what you do? JJ said.
He sneered. Daddy? Oh, he’s far too busy and important to care about the likes of me.
Adam asked Shanks how he’d came to promoting.
Shanks chopped out three more lines and said, All my circle, they’re in the city – hedge funds, futures and the like. They’re making a mint but it’s so dull, sweetie. I’m a people person, I like being out and about.
Yeah, Adam said, fuck money.
Oh, sweetie, Shanks said, never say that.
JJ asked, How much? To do a big outdoor thing?
Shanks did that tippy-hand gesture. Mucho moolah – ten, fifteen grand or more. The sound rigs aren’t cheap, then you’ve got to power the place, refreshments and decorations. Then there’s all the behind the scenes factors people never consider – printing costs, security. It adds up. Still, if all goes to plan, an enterprising anarchocapitalist can expect a healthy return.
Put that towards the next one? Adam said.
Shanks winked. You catch on quick. But then he was like, It’s changing though. Gangsters are muscling in now, real villains. They want their security on the gates, want their cut of the doors. And if they turned round and demand half – demand it all – what can you do? Go to the police?
Cunts, JJ said, sniffing.
Pills, Shanks said. That’s what it’s about. He who controls the pills, rakes it in. Say you’ve come to an arrangement with someone to supply an event – your own man, so to speak – but then along comes some diamond geezer who says, Nah, that’s not happening. You’re selling our pills, right? And if we see any others in there, well, we know where you live.
What would they do to you? Adam asked.
Shanks was like, What would they do? Sweetie, they’d kibosh you.
Things were getting hardcore, he said. People were getting out of the game, and that was all assuming the police didn’t raid you. Think about it – you sink twenty grand into a major event, then plod rolls up an hour before and shuts you down. All that cash down the commode.
They’re putting their thinking caps on, too, the boys in blue, Shanks said. There was this special division – the Rave-Squad or whatever – that used dirty tactics. Spreading phoney rave rumours over pirate radio, flooding clubs with undercovers. Roadblocks on the B-roads. That kind of thing. Hardly fair, really.
Shanks passed the rolled up twenty to me over the thick lines of cocaine. Sweetie, he said, it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
That’s when Adam told him about the old waterworks, the fantasy rave the two of us had dreamed up in the dark. He was like, It’s the perfect place – out of the way enough so as not to draw too much attention, but not so far that it’d be a ballache to supply.
Go on, Shanks said, I’m listening.
So he did. He was like, Where we live, nobody’s done owt like it. It’d take everybody by surprise, which’d be good for you because there’ll be nobody to extort you. The cops wouldn’t have any idea how to handle it either. By the time they’ve got their heads round it, it’ll be too late.
Most people round there hate the police anyway, JJ said. They’d rather put up with the noise than call them fuckers.
And best of all, Adam said, there are thousands of us. We’re starving. Put this on, everyone will come. Guaranteed.
We’d help you, JJ said, putting her hand on his leg.
The coke had got to Shanks, you could see the cogs turning in his head. He banged the table. He was like, Fuck, my lovelies! Fuck!
I said I needed a slash. Shanks gave me directions, but I just wandered around, looking into random rooms and trying to sort my head out. What had just happened? I was still too battered to know for sure, but I felt like I’d just lost something important.
Shanks’ place was massive. Literally about thirty times bigger than Mam and Dads entire flat in Asquith, and he said his dad never used it! Rich people, man. Most of the rooms gave off dead vibes with sheets over the furniture, but one was different. It was full of paintings of, well, at the time I didn’t know what. These grey, watery worlds. But now, standing here in this mist, I think I get it. And you were there, Peg. A painting of you.
By the way, for years I didn’t even know your name was Peg Powler. I didn’t know your history either, until the internet came along. People have been afraid of you round here for a long, long time. There’s old drawings of you, sketches and that, though none of them did you justice – they made you out to be a ghoul, a bogey. There’s only one that comes close to the truth of you, and it’s the painting I saw that morning in that room. The Green Girl. It’s in some famous gallery in London now, someone called Una Cruickshank did it. I’ve researched her too. She used to live round here. Who is she to you? Is she still around?
Anyway, from that point on, Shanks was all over us. He came up the next week and stuck out like a sore thumb, strutting about the estate in a white suit like the man from Del Monte, a clear foot taller than everybody. Diet, I reckon. No chips or boil-in-the-bags. Once, this boy racer went past and chucked a can of Lilt at him and Shanks just giggled. He didn’t think the place was real. Thought he was just doing us all a favour by using the light he was born with to illuminate our urchin existence. He didn’t think any harm could come to him.
He flipped his wig when he saw the waterworks. Adam was right, he said, it was perfect, and with our help he could make it work. From then on, our days were spent plotting and organising and making phone calls. I tried to enjoy it, but something was clenched up inside me. Now the focus was on Shanks, I was jealous. When he was up – which was a lot – Adam always insisted that he take his bed, because Shanks didn’t look like someone who’d crashed on a settee in his life. Somehow, that broke the spell between the three of us. Adam would be on the settee, JJ stayed in her room, and neither of them came into mine.
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