Letisha Simpson is nineteen and she has a baby and lives over on the far side of my estate. She’s got a flat in the block next to the one where me sister lives, actually. We’d got the bus back from town and by the time we got to the estate, it was properly dark, even though it wasn’t late or anything. About six o’clock I’d say.
As soon as we got off the bus, Josh got a packet of fags out of his pocket. He passed them around and asked if I wanted one. Well I don’t do blow and all that, but smoking fags is something that I sometimes do. I like it, but sometimes I think it’s a waste of money, like. It’s different if I can get some knocked-off ones for next to nothing. Sometimes you can, if kids have knocked off a corner shop or that, and they’ll sell you a pack for a quid. Other than that though, I’d rather spend me money on tools or computer games for me playstation and that. Mind you, after what the bastards did, I’d have been better off if I had blown everything on fags and booze I reckon. Cos what use are them tools to me now? I don’t even know where they are.
Anyway, it was starting to get foggy and we’re all sitting on this sort of concrete bench next to the grass square in the middle of all the tower blocks, and we’ve all got one of these fags that Josh has handed around. I held mine up to me nose. It smelled dead funny, but it was a proper fag, not a hand rolled spliff. Josh saw me sniffing at it and he laughed, but it was not like he was laughing at me or anything. At least it didn’t feel like that.
“Don’t stress, mate,” Josh said. “These are clove cigarettes. That’s where the scent comes from. This ain’t no wacky-baccy.”
I must have looked a bit stupid, and Lindsay says, “Don’t you smoke blow then?” and when I shook me head, she says, “What, never?”
Well, I told her about bastard number one and bastard number two and said that I never wanted to be like them. And Lindsay says, “So it’s like you’re rebelling by not doing smoke or anything.”
I hadn’t ever thought of it like that before, but I have to admit there might be something in that. I’d been doing exactly what they wouldn’t understand. And it made me laugh to think of it.
Dave started in then. “So if you started wearing a home made cardigan you’d really be sticking it to them, right?”
Carrie says, “And you could get some of them slippers, you know, like tartan bootees that zip up the middle.”
“And one of them beige anoraks,” Danny said, and he was already laughing.
And before you knew it, we was making up stupider and stupider things, and we were all laughing like it was the funniest thing any of us had ever heard. And thinking about it now, it’s like I’m watching us all from high up here, looking down at us sitting on that concrete bench, through the fog and the orange streetlights and with the headlights from the odd car that turned into the estate. And we’re all smoking these clove cigarettes, and I’m coughing me lungs up at first cos they’re dead dry and dead strong, and the others are laughing even more. And it’s like although I’m here, far away and up in the bedroom of our flat, and it happened two weeks ago, I can smell that strange sweet scent from them fags. And I can see the smoke, caught up in the air around us and it’s making patterns, like how clouds make patterns. And the smoke seems to take ages to drift away in the orange light, like it’s just hanging there in the mist. I’ve never been happier than I was in those moments, in all of me life.
Well, we smoked them fags and even if there was nothing wacky about that baccy, it’s a strange fact that we were all loose and giggling as we walked on over to Letisha’s tower block. I didn’t even feel cold anymore cos everything was dead funny. And when we got to the bottom of the tower block, we pushed the main door open and went in.
The hallway was covered in tags and stuff, the same tags that keep appearing and then getting scrubbed off and then reappearing all over the estate. It didn’t bother me though. A tag’s a tag. They’re everywhere. And anyone can get a spray can of paint.
Dave stood by the lifts pressing the buttons. None of the lights came on. But Dave kept on pressing anyway. The rest of us just hung about, not saying much of anything, waiting for the lift.
Two little kids came in and kicked open the door with a bang that startled us. They must have been about ten I reckon. I didn’t recognize them. They stood staring at us for a few seconds, grinning and looking at each other. One of them turned towards Carrie. “Are you Dracula’s sister?” this kid asked.
Carrie just rolled her eyes, saying “Fuck off!” to the ceiling.
The kids looked at each other and laughed. It was such a silly thing that you couldn’t take offence. They were just being kids.
Then the other kid points at Lindsay’s boots. “Did you nick them off Frankenstein?” he asks. Now both of them are almost doubled up in that doorway, laughing. I was grinning too. I couldn’t help it.
“You should be scared,” Danny says to the kids. “The sun has gone down and us vampires need to taste blood.” He’s stretching out his arms and pretending to appear threatening. It’s all good natured stuff. Obviously they get a lot of this from kids, dressing the way they do, and what Danny is doing is the best way of making sure that nothing gets out of hand. Like he told me later, you need a sense of humour to dress like that in the first place. Which I thought was strange, since they seem to go out of their way to appear miserable all the time. I was beginning to see that that was just an act though. They’d done a lot of laughing since I’d been with them.
The kids just stood and watched as Danny started to climb the stairs, Danny complaining that it was going to be a bloody long hike and swearing about the lifts not working. The stairs were concrete, just like in our block and the walls were bare concrete too, covered with the tags we’d seen in the hallway downstairs, and our footsteps echoed. Eight flights up it was, to the landing where Letisha’s flat was. And while we were joking about and laughing at the start, by the time we got there, we were all quiet and breathing hard. Carrie looked like she was going to be sick.
When we got to Letisha’s door, Josh knocked on it. He had to knock hard cos you could hear this music coming from inside the flat. When the door opened, this girl was standing there. I’d seen her around the estate a few times but I didn’t know her to speak to. Anyway, she was dressed in Goth gear as well, all moody black and with that black lipstick and nail polish like it was part of a uniform for them all. Obviously I stood out from the others but I didn’t feel awkward or anything. Anyway, they all hugged and Josh introduced me, and Letisha gave me a hug as well, which felt kind of strange but at the same time kind of nice, and we all bundled inside.
Letisha turned the music down and Carrie went into the kitchen while the others slumped down onto bean bags and onto an old sofa that was a bit worn out but had once been covered with this purple fabric. There was a lot of purple in Letisha’s flat. Even the walls were painted purple in the living room, and there were a few candles around the place and a joss stick burning so there was this thick sweet scent. I’d never been anywhere like it and while I thought it was dead weird, I thought it was dead cool as well. It was like it was warm and comfortable being dark like that.
Letisha sat cross legged on the floor and said, “Well, who’s gonna crash the hash?”
I thought she was on about weed or something, but Danny reached inside a pocket and took out a pack of those clove fags we’d been smoking earlier. The pack was passed round and when it was offered to me, I remember I just shook me head.
Letisha said “What’s up? Don’t you like these? I’ve got some Silk Cut if you want an ordinary fag.”
I told them that I hadn’t got any of me own, so I shouldn’t really be smoking theirs, but Danny just told me not to be stupid and that I should sit down and chill out and have a fag if I wanted one. So I took one from the pack and soon the smell of the clove fags was mixing with the smoke from the joss stick and in the candlelight it seemed like we were sitting in another world, not on our estate at all.
Carrie came back from the kitchen and she was
carrying this tray with these glasses on it. The glasses didn’t match or anything, but I could see that there was one for each of us, and she came round to all of us and we all took one. I couldn’t tell what was in it and I was looking at it like it was something we’d made up in the chemistry lab at school, cos it was purple, like the walls and the bean bags and the cushions.
Lindsay said, “Don’t worry, it isn’t blood,” and everybody laughed. Then she said, “Why don’t you sit down and get loose? You look all itchy standing there like that.” And so I sat down on the floor next to where she was lying across a big bean bag.
“What is this then?” I asked.
Josh raised his glass and said “Blood of the Prince!” and everyone raised their glasses as well, and said “Blood of the Prince” and skulled back their drinks in one. I was left holding mine and felt like a bit of a twat.
Lindsay nudged me, smiling, and said, “Go on, knock it back. It’s only vodka and black currant.”
So I raised me glass like they’d all done and said “Blood of the Prince” and knocked it back in one, and they all cheered.
“So you’re not a Goth?” Letisha asked me. I just shook me head. “So what are you doing with this lot then?” she went on.
I told her that I just knew them from school and we’d met up in town and had been hanging out for a bit.
She looked at me for a second and then said, “Don’t you normally hang out with them petrol heads off the estate?”
I said that I liked to help them work on their cars and that I was interested in cars and that, but that I didn’t really hang out with them.
“Until your olds cashed in all your tools,” Carrie said. “That was a shit trick.”
Letisha looked puzzled, so I had to explain about how I had a crack whore for a mother and a bone idle bastard of a father. I wasn’t embarrassed saying it. Letisha just nodded like it was pretty common, and we sat around quietly for a minute smoking the clove fags and just chillin’ to the music that was still playing. I knew the song even though I didn’t know what it was called or who sang it. It had been at the beginning of a film I’d watched on the telly one time, called Donnie Darko. It was a dead weird film and I didn’t really get what was happening in it, but it was pretty good at the same time and I liked it.
Danny said to Letisha, “Where’s Bram?” and I must have looked puzzled cos Lindsay said, “Bram’s Letisha’s baby.”
Letisha said that the baby was with her mother for the night and that she was picking him up in the morning. At least I knew it was a boy then, cos I’d never heard that name before. I asked, “What’s Bram short for? I’ve never heard of that name.”
Letisha said, “It’s not short for anything. It’s the name of a writer. Bram Stoker.”
I had to say that I’d never heard of him. I don’t read books much – except for car repair manuals and that. Books are dead boring. But I didn’t tell them that.
“You’ve heard of Dracula, haven’t you?” Carrie said. “Well he’s the bloke who wrote it.”
“You should read it some time,” Letisha said. “Then you’d know what being a Goth is all about.”
When she said that, it suddenly struck me that she was assuming that I wanted to become a Goth; but that was something I hadn’t even thought about. Still, it did make me think about it for a minute right then. Cos it was dead cool just sitting there in Letisha’s flat drinking vodka and black and smoking clove fags and listening to these songs that seemed to fit the candles and the dark and the way the others looked and dressed and that. And we was just having the mintest time. Yeah, I could dig it.
CHAPTER 5
And that was how it was for a couple of hours or so. We just sat around in the candlelight, listening to music and smoking and drinking vodka and black and laughing and fooling around. And I just loved it. Of course we were all getting drunk. And I noticed that Danny was getting closer and closer to Letisha until somehow they were on that sofa and they were “getting into romantic territory” as me sister puts it, and not minding the rest of us in the slightest. And we didn’t mind them. At the time, it didn’t even strike me as strange that Letisha was nineteen and that Danny was only sixteen. Thinking about it later I suppose it was a big difference. But we were all happy and having fun.
Then Lindsay said, “You know, you’re dead pale and dead thin. You really would look good as a Goth.”
I had to admit that I am dead pale, cos I don’t much like being out in the sun, and I am pretty thin. But we was just messing about. And right then, Danny and Letisha got up off the sofa and headed off to Letisha’s bedroom. Nobody said anything and the rest of us drank more vodka and Josh rolled a spliff. The others shared it with him, but I didn’t have any, for all the reasons I’ve said before.
Anyway, we were all pretty drunk and Josh and Carrie and Lindsay and Dave were pretty stoned as well, and the talk got back to me being a Goth and that. I told them that I didn’t think I could look like that and have everybody staring at me and everything, and anyway, I didn’t think I’d like wearing all that black lace and stuff.
Lindsay said, “Honest, with your face and all that, you’d really look lush. You already look pretty wasted.”
That was when Danny and Letisha came back. And they joined in saying I should try it.
Lindsay said, “Come on. Let me put some make up on you, see how you’d look.”
And everyone was saying yeah, go on, you should do it, and I was feeling pretty loose and chilled and everything, so I said yeah and okay. I don’t know why but it seemed like a bit of a laugh and that.
So Letisha says to use her bedroom cos there’s a dressing table and a mirror so I can see what Lindsay is doing to me. But I felt like I could trust Lindsay anyway. So we went into Letisha’s bedroom.
We just had the bedside lamp on and Lindsay lit three candles on the dressing table. I just sat pretty still while Lindsay did the business on me. She was really careful, and the tip of her tongue stuck out between her lips when she was concentrating. Funny that I can remember a little detail like that but it was really cute.
She put some white powder on me face and then black eyeliner and mascara and I even sat still while she put that black lipstick on me. That was the strangest part, really. I’d obviously never had lipstick on before and it felt really waxy and weird, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.
I sat staring at meself in the mirror while she put black nail varnish on me fingers. We could hear the music and the odd laugh coming from the living room, but they never came in to see what we were doing. It was like they’d forgotten all about us.
We had to wait for the nail varnish to dry, so we just sat in the bedroom, talking and stuff. I was still pretty wasted with the vodka, and I kept staring at the way the candlelight sparkled on the silver bar that was pierced through Lindsay’s eyebrow and wondering how much it had hurt having that done.
Then, when me nails were just about dry, Lindsay said, “Well, what do you think?”
I looked at meself in the mirror with all that black and white make up on me face and I realised that I just looked stupid.
Lindsay seemed to sense that and she said that I only looked strange because of what I was wearing, and how that just wouldn’t go with the make up. She said it would be different if I was wearing clothes that went with the look.
I told her, “I can’t stand the thought of having all that frilly lace next to me.”
And right then, at that moment, something changed. It was like the whole world outside the room had been put on pause and me and Lindsay were the only things that were real.
She said, “Have you ever worn any lace?”
I said, “No.”
And she said, “Then how can you know you won’t like it.”
I think I just shrugged or something. Lindsay took her jacket off, and she was wearing this black lace thing, like a vest that buttoned all the way up the front. It came down really low so I couldn’t help noticing her
tits and how she wasn’t wearing a bra, but Lindsay didn’t seem to notice me looking or mind if she did. She told me to take me shirt off, and I just laughed but I pulled off the red tee shirt with the Ferrari emblem on it while she unbuttoned that lace vest. Obviously I was staring at her tits, but she didn’t care. She just handed me that black lace vest and told me to put it on. While I was buttoning it up, she put me tee shirt on, and it looked good on her, I have to say. On her, it didn’t seem to matter that it didn’t go with the make up, somehow.
The vest fitted me, which was a bit of a surprise, but then, like I’ve said, I am pretty thin. It just sagged a bit at the top of the front where usually Lindsay’s tits would fill it out. And the funny thing is, I kind of liked the feel of it.
Lindsay could tell, because she said, “See, I knew you’d like it.”
I looked at meself in the mirror and I liked the way the black lace went with the make up.
Lindsay said, “With that make up and the way your hair flops over your forehead, it’s hard to say whether you’re a boy or a girl.”
I turned to tell her to fuck off, but she was laughing and I started laughing as well. It was pretty funny. And then before I knew what was happening, she was kissing me. And pulling me onto the bed. And no, we didn’t get off or anything. We just lay there kissing for a few minutes. Then she said, “So you like the feel of that lace then?”
I had to say that I did, and she kissed me again.
“I’m wearing something else that’s lacy. You should try it on. I’ll bet you’ll like it.”
I asked her what it was, but she just kept smiling at me while she reached down and lifted up her skirt. And she started pulling her knickers down. And yeah, they were dead skimpy and they were made of black lace.
I said, “Oh no, I’m not doing that.” But it was dead sexy watching her pull them off like that and she didn’t stop.
She was hanging them on the end of her finger right in front of me face. “Go on. Put them on. See how it feels.”
Hanging in the Mist Page 3