by David Belbin
I am higher than any plain. I walk on stars. Why should I be like you, earthbound? Look at the stars! Look at the moon!
What holds you down?
This, this is infinity, and I am in it. I look down on the world and all I see is bluey green water, occasionally scarred by a continent. Then the picture is blurred by clouds, lots and lots of clouds.
Now I am moving further and further away, travelling at enormous speed. They said, they said that space was quiet but no, no it has a music all of its own and I would listen to it for all eternity, for I am
‘Allison?’
‘Aidan?’
I see a smiling face in a turban and, for a moment think that it’s Aidan, but no, it’s Stuart again, and the person speaking is Finn.
‘Sorry, Allison, were you asleep? Stuart’s ready to start the Tarot readings.’
‘Tarot? I thought he had a crystal ball.’
‘We’ve got a big waiting list already,’ Stuart says. ‘But since
this is your room, I can start with you, if you want.’
‘I’ll pass, thanks.’ As far as I’m concerned, Tarot readings are only one step above ouija boards.
‘Probably a good thing,’ Finn says. ‘The natives are getting restless.’
He begins to organise. For a budding hippy, he’s surprisingly bossy. One person joins Stuart under the nets. A second waits in line beneath the lamp, by the speakers, getting in the mood I suppose you’d call it. A third person, a girl I vaguely recognise, lands herself on the other side of my bed.
‘Oh, cool,’ she says. ‘A jigsaw!’
‘Nice one, Allison,’ Finn tells me as I watch her open the box.
I stumble downstairs after Finn, who squeezes my arm.
‘I’m sorry Aidan didn’t make it,’ he says.
I hate it when people are sorry for me.
‘Hold on,’ he says, when we reach the first floor, and opens the door to Steve’s room. I’m trashed, or I wouldn’t follow him inside. I hope he isn’t going to kiss me. Steve was bad enough, but at least he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Finn has Tessa, who I quite like, though I’m not sure how much she likes me. Finn pulls a wrap out of his pocket, then a credit card and a cut off piece of drinking straw.
‘Have a bit of this,’ he says.
‘What is it?’
‘Sulphate. Good stuff, I promise. Pharmaceutical grade.’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, thinking of the last time I took sulphate, though that was supposed to be coke. ‘It goes brilliantly with the e. Trust me, I’m a doctor. Nearly.’
‘OK.’ I snort a two centimetre snail trail of white powder up my left nostril. It burns, but not in an unpleasant way.
When I follow Finn out of Steve’s room, we pass Mark on the stairs. He gives me a funny look. Acting oblivious, sniffing loudly, I tell him which door is the loo.
‘I’m heading for the chill out room,’ he says.
‘I don’t need to chill out,’ I tell him. ‘I feel like dancing.’
In the front room, I replace the techno with a full-on pop/rock mix CD Mark made two years ago and turn up the volume. This drives out the chatterers and smokers. For a couple of minutes, it’s only me and Vic dancing, giggling and throwing our arms around, hugging each other. Then a Clash song comes on and half a dozen more people charge into the room. By the end of the number, it’s heaving. Britney Spears follows, one of those great juxtapositions that Mark’s so good at, and nobody leaves. We’re throwing ourselves around even more. I’m dancing like I’m normally far too selfconscious to, sweating like we’re in the Tropics, giving it up for every number, even the ones I’d normally disdain, until it’s gone midnight and I’m thirsty as hell. I head into the kitchen to see if there’s any beer left. There’s plenty. Finn was right, most of this lot really aren’t big drinkers.
I need to cool down, so I open the bottle of Grolsch then step outside, into the dark yard, closing the door behind me. I smell strong weed, which always makes me think of... I hear a small, familiar cough.
‘Aidan?’ I step forward. He’s hiding round the corner.
‘Happy birthday.’ We hug.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘A while. I saw you dancing. You seemed to be having such a good time, I didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘You could have danced with me.’
‘Not my thing. You know that.’
I suppose I do. ‘Have you not brought a bag, a coat?’
‘I left them in the room with the other coats. I wasn’t sure which was your room.’
‘Top floor. That’s where the attic usually is, remember? But it’s pretty weird up there at the moment.’
‘Weird is good,’ he says, and I begin to jump up and down with the excitement of him being here. Then I remember something.
‘Here,’ I tell Aidan. ‘I’ve been saving this for you.’
I hand him the e. He swallows the pill without asking what it is.
Aidan is surprisingly sociable while he’s coming up, answering Finn’s polite questions, praising Tessa’s kaftan.
‘He’s lovely,’ Vic tells me. ‘I like the shy ones too.’
Finn offers him some sulphate, but Aidan declines. ‘My sleep patterns are strange enough as it is,’ he explains politely.
Then he stares at the fish tank, transfixed.
‘One of them’s dead,’ he tells me, pointing to a goldfish that’s floating on the top, next to a half smoked cigarette.
‘Sorry to spoil the illusion,’ I tell him, lifting out the plastic fish, which has come loose from the stick it’s fastened to. At the other end of the stick is a sucker, attached to the bottom of the tank. I replace the fish and remove the butt.
‘Show me your room,’ Aidan says.
I take him up there. Beneath the mosquito net, Steve is getting a reading. A willowy girl with long, brown hair is doing the jigsaw.
‘Mark and Helen gave me that,’ I tell Aidan.
‘Mark and Helen are here?’ Aidan gives me a sideways, slightly alarmed glance. I remember what he said about why he wouldn’t return to university. Everybody knows. I don’t think Mark and Helen will say anything to anyone about him, but if I tell Aidan this it will sound like I think he ought to hide what happened. And I could be wrong. Also, I don’t want Steve to overhear us discussing this. I get the sense that Steve is like me: sharp, even when he’s off his face, even when he’s meant to be talking to someone else.
‘It’s all cool,’ I tell Aidan.
‘Let’s help with the jigsaw,’ my boyfriend suggests. As we sit down, someone else arrives, a friend of Vic’s called Tina. The four of us set to the jigsaw as a team, locked in negotiation, progressing quickly. Pieces are spread out on every available bit of carpet. We dredge our brains for fragments of geography. Where are Dakar, Fiji and Kilimanjaro in relation to other places? The girl with the long brown hair is called Persia.
When she gets up for her reading, Steve takes her place. Then Tina says to her: ‘Actually, I’m next. Finn’s got a list downstairs.’
‘But I’ve been waiting,’ Persia starts to say, then realises how uncool it is to whinge. I describe Finn to her.
‘Put me on the list too, would you,’ my boyfriend says. ‘Aidan.’
Persia goes off in search of Finn. I introduce Steve to Aidan. They shake hands like public schoolboys. Stuart gets out of my bed.
‘Need to pee,’ he announces and hurries out of the room. As soon as he’s gone, Steve starts giggling.
‘I can’t believe anyone takes that stuff seriously,’ he says.
‘Where does he get off doing it? It’s not like anybody’s paying him.’
‘I think he wants to get into TV,’ Tina tells us from her spot on my mattress.
‘It’s not about Stuart,’ Aidan says. ‘It’s about the cards that you’re dealt.’
Sensing his seriousness, Steve starts to ask Aidan about comics. That’s the one thing I’ve told Steve about Aidan, that he collec
ts American comics.
‘You must be into Sandman. Have you read Death: the high cost of living?’
Aidan has, but he has nothing to say about it. He passes Steve a spliff. My room will reek of smoke when we go to bed later. Persia returns and squeezes next to Aidan.
‘You’re after me,’ she tells him. ‘We’ve got the last two spots, after Tina.’
I open the skylight a crack so that some of the smoke escapes. Aidan and Persia set about the jigsaw. Steve’s lost interest. So have I. Stuart returns and deals the cards.
‘Ah,’ I hear him say. ‘Now this can mean...’
‘I’m going down to the chill-out room,’ Steve says.
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You’d better watch out,’ Steve tells me halfway down the stairs. ‘Persia’s seriously into your boyfriend.’
‘It’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘I got there first. Aidan wouldn’t encourage her.’
‘Come in here a minute,’ he says, as we pass his room. I follow him inside, thinking he’s going to offer me some more speed, then remember that he doesn’t use drugs, or so he says. He pushes the door to, then presses me against it, kisses me hard. Shocked, I let him. Only when I feel his hard-on rubbing against my groin do I push him away.
‘Just because somebody got there first doesn’t mean you have to stay with them,’ he tells me. ‘I’m really into you.’
In the silence that follows, we both become aware of movement beneath the coats.
‘Hey!’ Steve says. ‘That’s my bed you’re using! Get a room, why don’t you?’
While he’s distracted, I leave.
Mark’s in the chill-out room, sat next to Helen. Somebody’s asleep on Vic’s bed. Trance music is playing and there is a computer screen mounted in each corner of the room, on chairs or shelves. Steve comes in and moves a laptop so that he can sit down. Its screen is showing a glass of fizzy mineral water, lit from behind. Each bubble is a brilliant balloon. The screen opposite us shows an open fire, burning. I wonder where Vic found a real fire. Mark sees me looking at it.
‘Kind of warms the room up, doesn’t it?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Enjoying yourself?’
‘Yeah. Especially now that Aidan’s here.’
‘Aidan’s here?’
‘Upstairs. Doing the jigsaw you gave me. It’s a big hit.’
‘It was meant to be just for you.’
I give him a smile. Helen lifts her head. ‘We’re heading off soon,’ she says. ‘Feeling a bit trashed.’
I look at my watch. Ten past two. The last couple of hours have flown by. On the video screen next to Steve, the glass of water is nearly flat. Then it vanishes. A moment later, another glass of effervescing water appears. Or maybe it’s the same one, on a loop. I get up and hug Mark goodnight, thank Helen for coming, say I’m sorry we didn’t get much time to talk. I mean it as I’m saying it. Helen says we must get together, just the two of us. What for? To discuss the magic that is Mark? She gives me her mobile number.
Downstairs, the dancing has fizzled out and the beer is all gone. I make myself a vodka and coke and pour another coke for Aidan. Upstairs, Aidan is under the mosquito net. Persia is still doing the jigsaw, aided by Vic and Tina. I can’t hear what Stuart’s saying to Aidan. They sound serious but fuck it, this is my bed. I even bought those net curtains. I reach into the confessional.
‘I thought you might like a drink.’
‘Bless you,’ Stuart says. ‘I’m gagging.’ He takes the coke before I can explain that I meant Aidan. I step back out, look at the map of the world for a moment. They’re nearly done. I can tell at a glance that there are two pieces missing, but the others haven’t noticed yet. I’m not going to tell them. I’ll need to start coming down soon. There’s all this energy surging through me and I need to channel it, into dancing or, better, sex. Maybe a joint will help. I go back to the chill-out room.
‘Where’s Aidan?’ Steve asks.
‘Still having his reading.’
Steve gives me an inscrutable look. I want to challenge him, to ask what right he has to be so pleased with himself, but this is the chill-out room. Conversation, except of the most desultory kind, is frowned on. So is making out, although a couple of Vic’s friends are clearly unaware of this. Or maybe it’s me who’s unaware. Three of the four screens are now showing porn — straight, woman on woman and man on man. They’re kind of fascinating. I’ve never watched real porn before, apart from fragments on the internet. I’d better get away before Steve gets the wrong idea. On my way out I lean over and tell Steve something that he may find useful.
Going up the stairs, I pass Stuart coming down.
‘That boyfriend of yours, he’s seriously fucked up. You do know that?’
‘You mean his cards are fucked up?’
Stuart rolls his eyes. ‘The cards are just a bit of fun. If I were you, I’d whisk him away from that femme fatale who’s been eyeing him all evening.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m working on that.’
Steve joins me on the stairs. We agree to operate a pincer movement. In my room, everyone is searching for the missing pieces. I point out that they are almost certainly under the almost completed jigsaw.
‘But we’d have to wreck it to find out,’ Tina says.
‘Let me know if you find them,’ I tell her. ‘I hate to do an incomplete jigsaw.’ I reach out my hand to Aidan, who gets to his feet. ‘I’d like my room back in a few minutes,’ I say, in what is meant to sound like a grown up voice. ‘Aidan and I have got some catching up to do.’
Persia stands, a blurred look of resentment crossing her face. She feels like she’s been with Aidan for a couple of hundred years and had already assumed a kind of ownership.
That’s when Steve makes his move.
‘Persia, I wonder if you could help me.’
I lead Aidan downstairs for another drink, another spliff. He might come over all vague, but he always has a big stash of ready rolled spliffs on him. We go outside.
‘It’s a nice night,’ he says. ‘Look at the moon. Look at the stars. Do you miss the sound of the sea here?’
‘We can’t hear the sea from my house in West Kirby.’
‘Oh. Right.’
He’s gorgeous, I think, but so impractical, so fucked up. What did he and Stuart talk about tonight? Do I really want to take him on? Do I want to be taken on? He kisses me.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask him.
‘Stuart says the cards aren’t definitive. The future’s in my hands.’
‘I should hope so.’
He holds my hand and I fall in love with him again. That is, I feel something like love, though this is hardly surprising given all the stuff pounding around my brain. In a few minutes, my room will be free. I can take Aidan up there, lock the door and make love to him beneath the moon and stars. Aidan chooses this moment to give me my present, an emerald eternity ring. He puts it on my middle finger for me.
‘It’s lovely,’ I say. ‘You’re lovely.’
‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,’ he says.
When we go to collect Aidan’s bag and coat from Steve’s room, the door is locked. The coat is on the landing and the bag has already been taken upstairs to my room. From the landing, we can hear Steve doing with Persia what Steve does best. Aidan giggles, something I’ve not seen him do before. We undress in silence and sink beneath white, translucent nets.
Limerance
Tessa leaves post-it notes on the fridge. Soya milk for my use only — please respect my allergies. Does anyone but me unload the dishwasher? Gas bill due. Finn frowns when he sees Vic, who is the worst offender in the housekeeping stakes. I make a point of picking up a J-cloth whenever I’m in the kitchen at the same time as Finn or Tessa. So far, I seem to have them fooled.
As a household, we haven’t exactly bonded. Things have been in decline since the party. Next day, Finn and Tessa did most of the clearing up before the rest of us g
ot out of bed. Being medics, they work long hours so they resent having to do more. In addition, they’re a couple, and two years older than us, so it’s hardly surprising they don’t want to hang out with me, Steve and Vic all the time. Or at all. Our shared Sunday meals dribbled away by November. Now it’s February and they never join us down the pub.
Steve, since he kissed me at the party, hasn’t made any moves. Tonight, he tells us that he has a job.
‘I’m working the phones at a ticket agency in town. It’s a prime deal. Once you’ve been there a month, you get free tickets for shows as a bonus. And you get to reserve paid tickets before they go on sale. So if you ever want to see anything at the Arena, Rock City, Rescue Rooms, the Concert Hall even, I’m your man.’
The free tickets are a temptation, but I expect other girls will get first dibs. These days, I see more of Mark than I do of Steve. I usually have Vic in tow, so nobody can accuse us of having a thing. Mark moans about Helen, who has a separate life she doesn’t invite him into. I moan about Aidan.
‘It’s like having a virtual boyfriend,’ I tell him in the Peacock.
‘Did I tell you about my virtual girlfriend?’ Vic asks and starts telling me about how she had her first encounter with another woman when she was thirteen. She used to spend all her free time on this website called Second Life, which sounds like a multiplayer version of The Sims.
‘I have no way of knowing if she was really a girl,’ Vic admits. ‘Or a teenager, like her avatar. But the way I see it, who cares? You never really know what other people are like. You can’t get that close.’
‘Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen when you fall in love?’
Vic gives me such a disgusted look that I feel embarrassed to my core for using the word ‘love’. Then she gives me a lecture.
‘What people call falling in love or romantic love is better defined as limerance. It’s an obsessive state that some people fall into. If one person gets it, they’re seen as a stalker or a psycho, but if two people feel it equally for each other, that’s what we call ‘mutual limerance’ or ‘falling in love’. For most people, it never lasts more than a few weeks or months. It’s a drag when one lover loses it long before the other, but it’s also inevitable. Some people get limerance far more strongly than others and some get it much more often — young lesbians especially, which is why I know a lot about it. Other people never feel it at all. Maybe they’re the lucky ones.’