London Belongs to Us

by Sarra Manning

  ‘You all know Vic and Jean-Luc, right?’ I say, because once they start with this, it won’t be long before they’re jostling again and the guy on the door is already looking in our direction.

  Everybody kinda knows everybody already but formal introductions are made and Vic kisses everyone on the cheek and Jean-Luc kisses everyone on both cheeks. When Vic gets to Emmeline his eyes gleam.

  ‘Sunny’s told me so much about you.’ His voice is as sweet and dark as the espresso we had earlier. ‘But she never told me how beautiful you are.’

  Jean-Luc and I both snigger. Charlie looks at her friends, as if she can’t quite believe that anyone could deliver such a triple-cheese line with a straight face, and Emmeline pins Vic with a look. I know that look. It’s the look she gives me whenever I’m being a fool. It’s usually accompanied by Emmeline saying, ‘Sunny, ain’t nobody got time for this.’

  Not tonight though. ‘I’m gay,’ is what she does say. ‘I’m very, very gay, so don’t even try it on because it’s never going to happen. Never.’

  Vic’s smile dims. He turns to Jean-Luc for some moral support but gets a shove instead. ‘Oh well.’ He shrugs. ‘Can’t blame a guy for trying. Any of you ladies not gay?’

  ‘We’re all total lezzers,’ Charlie says, though I know for a fact that Lucy standing behind her got off with Charlie’s brother’s best friend a couple of weeks ago, but even she shakes her head.

  ‘Yeah, total lezzer.’ Then she folds her arms and looks at Jean-Luc. ‘Though I could be persuaded otherwise by your better-looking brother.’

  ‘He’s not better looking than me!’

  ‘I’m not his brother!’

  ‘Don’t start,’ I beg. ‘They’ve been like this all evening,’ I add to Emmeline and I start to tell her about all the arguments that Vic and Jean-Luc have had while they insist that I’m exaggerating, until we reach the door … and the guy who’s on the door.

  He’s been really friendly; smiling, even laughing as he catches snatches of our conversation and he’s wearing a Duckie T-shirt, so he’s one of us, he’s cool. ‘In you go, then,’ he says and he starts to count us in. Charlie, Lucy, Preeta, Emmeline, Jean-Luc, Vic and … ‘Sorry, that’s it. We’re up to fifty now. Not allowed to let anyone else in. Any more and it’s a fire hazard.’

  I’m left standing there with a handful of people who’ve joined the queue since we arrived.

  ‘Oh, come on, we’re all together,’ Emmeline protests. ‘Let her in. It’s only one more person.’

  ‘Yeah, one more person isn’t going to make any difference if there is a fire,’ Preeta says. ‘Anyway, Sunny’s skinny and so are Vic and Jean-Luc so really if you put the three of them together then they only count as two people.’

  He holds his hands up. ‘No can do. If the police were to come by and did a headcount, we’d be closed down.’ He cringes. ‘I don’t make the rules. It’s a health and safety thing.’

  The people behind me aren’t too happy about it either. They mutter but move back like they know they don’t stand a chance and so it’s just me staring forlornly at my friends on the other side of the door. ‘Please. Come on, have a heart.’ It’s meant to be plaintive and ping on his heartstrings but it just comes out as a nasal whine.

  ‘I can’t. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Sunny, you go in and I’ll wait out here,’ Emmeline says, and I see the look Charlie gets like nothing, not even seeing Duckie play a secret gig, is any fun if Emmeline isn’t there.

  ‘Don’t do that. You like Duckie even more than I do,’ I tell Emmeline. ‘If you dare take another step through that door, I’ll never forgive you.’

  ‘C’est bon. I’ll give up my place,’ Jean-Luc says, and I’m not even sure that Jean-Luc has heard of Duckie before tonight but it’s not fair if he has to hang around outside when I’ve already derailed whatever Saturday-night plans he had.

  Now Lucy’s face falls at the prospect of missing her chance to convince Jean-Luc that she’s not a total lezzer. Though, really, I don’t think she’d be his type. I’m not sure what Jean-Luc’s type is, but anyone who would get off with Charlie’s brother’s best mate, who tweets really lame pictures of every meal he ever eats, even if it’s just a bag of Monster Munch, isn’t that choosy. And Jean-Luc deserves someone who is a bit choosy. ‘Sunny! Allez! Allez! How do you say in English? Get your arse over here.’

  Jean-Luc clicks his fingers at me, but I stay where I am. ‘No, it’s all right. I’m fine.’ I’m not fine but I try to put on a fine face. ‘Really, it’s OK. And I could get a text at any minute saying that Mark’s, like, back in Camden with that skank in her short shorts, so then I’d have to leave anyway.’

  The guy in the Duckie T-shirt looks a lot like he’s losing the will to live. Or, hopefully, the will to deny me access to Duckie. Emmeline taps him on the shoulder. ‘Did you hear that? She’s having a really bad night on account of her boyfriend sucking face with a skank in short shorts …’

  ‘Oh, Emmeline, don’t say skank,’ Charlie butts in earnestly. ‘It demeans all women.’

  ‘But she is a gigantic skank,’ Emmeline insists. ‘Show him the picture, Sun.’

  I never want to see the picture again, but I unlock my screen and Mr Health and Safety sighs but edges nearer so he can see when I hold my phone up. ‘That’s my boyfriend kissing a skank in short shorts four hours ago. My boyfriend. And a skank. And I’ve been halfway round London to try to find him and I can’t and now you won’t even let me see Duckie. I swore earlier tonight that no man would ever be the boss of me again, so why are you trying to be the boss of me? God, I hate the patriarchy and all it stands for!’

  ‘But I’m a feminist. I’m not part of the problem, I’m part of the solution.’ His shoulders slump. ‘This is so unfair. None of this is my fault so I’m going to turn my back and if you choose to sneak in when I’m not looking, even though I’ve told you not to, well, that’s between you and your God.’

  Then he turns his back on me and I dive through the door. I’m not entirely sure that I believe in God but if I do, he’s totally benevolent and would be completely down with me sneaking into a Duckie gig in direct contravention of health and safety rules.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’ I call over my shoulder as I hear the door shut behind me with a distinct and final clunk.

  The KitKat Club is the size of our lounge at home. There’s a bar that’s actually a table and a dustbin full of ice and bottles of lager at one end, and a raised platform, which is meant to be the stage, at the other end of the room. The club is heaving with sweaty people. If there was a fire, it would take hold in no time at all and we’d all be burned extra-crispy, health and safety regulations or not.

  But what a lovely way to burn. While the others are still taking it in turns to raise their eyes to the ceiling and wail, ‘I hate the patriarchy and all it stands for!’ because apparently my feminist call to arms is comedy gold, there’s a screech of feedback from the speakers and we see four figures run on stage.

  ‘Hello, pop kids!’ shouts Molly Montgomery, Duckie singer and the woman Emmeline and I would very much like to be when we grow up. ‘Shall we turn this all the way up to eleven?’

  All fifty-one of us scream our agreement at this plan. Then the drummer lifts her sticks and brings them crashing down on the snare drum in a four-four beat that matches the frantic thrum of my heart and Jane steps up to her mic and the lights hit the glittery aqua-green plate of her guitar and she makes a beautiful noise come out of it.

  ‘Oh! My! God!’ If Emmeline and I had a theme tune, then ‘Girls Together Only’ would be it and as soon as we hear those opening chords we grab each other’s hand and run full pelt towards the stage.

  Everyone else has the same idea and we don’t get to the front but find ourselves in the middle of a melee of Duckie girls all dancing and singing, and Emmeline and I are still holding hands, and I’m still holding my broom, and we spin round and round, laughing and screaming, until we hav
e to stop because I’m getting dizzy and Emmeline shouts that she’ll totally wet herself if she carries on.

  It’s a short set and seems to speed by in five minutes flat. All too soon Duckie are ending with their cover of ‘I Can Do Without You’ from My Fair Lady and every person joins in with the jubilant cry of ‘If they can do without you, Duckie, so can I!’

  Molly brushes her soaked hair back from her face. She doesn’t look sweaty, though. She’s glowing like she’s made entirely from moon rocks. ‘OK, that’s all. We haven’t got time for any more. We’re playing Reading in approximately sixteen hours and Jane really needs her beauty sleep,’ she says.

  Jane grabs the mic. ‘And Molly is such a nana that she needs at least eight hours’ sleep or she’s an utter beast the next day.’

  They leave the stage arm in arm but pretending to hit each other, and Emmeline and I also still want to be friends like that when we’re all grown up, but for now I bend over and grab my knees because I’ve got a stitch from laughing so much and Emmeline rests her arms on my back and tries to catch her breath.

  ‘You all right?’ she asks at last when her breath’s been caught and she’s tugging me upright again. ‘Like, really, how are you doing?’

  ‘I’m kind of angry and sad, then angry at feeling sad every time I think about Mark, so I’ve mostly stopped thinking about Mark and as soon as I did that I started having fun,’ I tell her. It’s been at least forty-five minutes since I last checked my phone; I pull it out but there’s nada. No messages from Mark and his silence is screaming a thousand words at me so it’s impossible to actually make any sense of them. There are no new sightings of Mark either. Just a few late ‘U OK, hun?’ texts. ‘Yeah, now I’ve looked at my phone, I’m angry, sad, angry all over again, so let’s change the subject, shall we?’

  ‘Well, not to ignore your pain, but I really need a wee,’ says Emmeline.

  It seems like the forty-nine other people in the KitKat are waiting for the loo too. Emmeline says she’s in a thousand agonies and crosses her legs as we wait. The effort to control her bladder makes her eyes cross too and to take her mind off it I tell her about the hoodies and having to deal with Jeane on my own and dancing the Charleston and meeting Shirelle and finally nicking the hoodies’ bikes.

  ‘You did all that?’ Emmeline asks. She’s in the cubicle now and I can hear the effort in her voice as she tries to pull her denim cut-offs down her sweaty legs. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

  ‘I know, right!’ I tug at my hair, which is drooping slightly. ‘Who knew I had it in me, eh?’

  ‘I think that you should keep channelling whatever you’ve been channelling tonight.’ Emmeline unlocks the cubicle door and stands there, her cheeks red from all the effort involved in having a good wee. ‘Seriously, I was worried that you were at home crying and instead you’ve been having adventures.’

  ‘I kind of have, haven’t I?’

  ‘Also, we need to talk about you and the Frenchies. Normally, you’re not like that with boys.’ Emmeline catches my eye in the mirror as she washes her hands. ‘If you were as ballsy with Mark as you are with Vic and Jean-Luc then he wouldn’t treat you like dirt.’

  ‘He’s only treated me like dirt tonight,’ I protest.

  ‘He doesn’t treat you that marvellously the rest of the time.’ Emmeline rolls her eyes. ‘Dude! He went to a polo match on your birthday. Who goes to watch polo anyway, but on your girlfriend’s birthday?’

  ‘But that was because his grandfather’s some big cheese in the polo world,’ I explain, much as Mark had explained it to me.

  ‘It’s a family tradition, Sun,’ he’d said. ‘We always have a big picnic for the opening match of the season. It’d be like missing Christmas. I’d risk getting cut out of my grandparents’ will.’

  When he’d put it like that I’d had no choice but to let it go, to forgive him, but now I wonder if he was lying then – if he’d taken a posher, more suitable girl to the polo and snogged her there too.

  I’m getting cross again. It makes my palms itch. ‘Oh no. You need to cut him off,’ says a girl who’s been waiting for the loo, though I’m starting to come to that conclusion all by myself. ‘Never go out with a boy who a) goes to polo matches and b) bails on your birthday.’

  ‘Total dealbreaker,’ says another girl. ‘Is he, like, really posh or something?’

  ‘No,’ I say automatically despite the whole polo thing.

  ‘Yes,’ Emmeline says. She turns to our audience. ‘But he pretends not to be by talking in this rubbish mockney accent.’

  ‘He’s not that posh,’ I insist even though that’s not really true, but Mark’s failings are becoming more and more obvious and they don’t reflect that well on me. ‘His mum’s posh but his dad isn’t.’

  ‘He’s still a wanker, though,’ Emmeline says and I can’t really disagree about that, and then one of the girls says that she was going out with this boy who got off with another girl on her actual bed during her actual birthday party.

  Then the other girl says that her ex-boyfriend borrowed a hundred quid from her the day before he dumped her by text, then left the country.

  ‘Boys are more trouble than they’re worth,’ I say. ‘It would be much easier if they were more like girls.’

  The four of us take a moment to muse on the evilness that is boy but then the door opens and a crowd of girls push in. There’s only three but the loo is tiny so three feels like a crowd.

  ‘Which one of you is Sunny, then?’ demands a mardy-looking blond girl.

  First rule of life. When someone mardy-looking is asking after you, you keep your mouth shut. I look at Emmeline and she got the same memo, because she mimes zipping her lips. ‘We don’t know no Sunny,’ she says.

  ‘It’s her,’ says one of mardy-looking blond girl’s mates and she points at me and then the mardy-looking blond girl throws her drink over me.

  It happens in slow-motion. I see this arc of lager coming towards me and I stand there and because it’s not really happening in slow motion, but at normal speed, it hits me full in the face. Right in the eyes. In my hair. I can taste it in my mouth when I cough and splutter and my black-and-white stripy T-shirt is covered in brown sticky splodges.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  Emmeline and the two girls we’ve been talking to are instantly furious and indignant, but I just stand there spluttering and trying not to cry and wondering what on earth I could have done to make someone I don’t even know throw their drink over me.

  ‘If anyone’s a skank in shorts, it’s her,’ mardy-looking blond girl says and Emmeline’s in her mardy face in a second.

  ‘She’s not a skank and you’re going to be so dead in about a minute.’ The girl visibly gulps and takes a step back. Sometimes I forget how big and fierce and terrifying Emmeline is to people who haven’t known her since she was seven. ‘What the hell is your problem, bitch?’

  Our two new friends have fled and it’s just me and Emmeline and these three other girls. The other two girls are flanking their mardy-looking friend and eyeing up Emmeline like they’re wondering if they could take her down. They couldn’t. Emmeline would destroy them.

  ‘I don’t even know who you are.’ I find my voice. It’s very squeaky. ‘What gives you the right to …’

  Mardy-face manages to step away from Emmeline so she can hide behind her friends, who stand there, arms folded, gamefaces on. ‘Tabitha is my best friend so that gives me the right to deal with some slutty skank who has the nerve to tell everyone that Tab’s a skank just ’cause she wears shorts. Like, hello! It’s the middle of summer! Especially when that same slutty skank is trying to get with Tab’s boyfriend.’

  ‘I don’t even know a Tabitha.’ I pull at my damp T-shirt. ‘Maybe next time you should ask for some ID before you throw lager over someone.’

  ‘You’re Sunny. I know exactly who you are because when we went to Cam
den to find Mark earlier, this girl called Martha tried to imply that you were hooking up with Mark.’ Mardy rolls her eyes like it’s the most ludicrous thing she’s ever heard. ‘She even showed us a picture of you and Mark at a barbecue on her phone while Tab was in the Ladies. Like, because you and he were in the same place at the same time doesn’t prove anything.’ She paused to suck in a breath. ‘And then some of my other friends were waiting outside but they couldn’t get in and they heard you calling Tab a skank. Repeatedly. Though you’re the skank who tries to get with other people’s boyfriends. So that gives me the right to throw beer over you, bitch.’

  I’m angry again. Sad isn’t figuring too highly. I advance on her; I’m pretty sure that murder is written all over my damp face. ‘Is that a fact, bitch? Because if you want to start something then I’ll finish it.’ I hold out my arms and beckon her with my fingers, in time-honoured ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ fashion. ‘Go on, I dare you! Give me your best shot, bitch.’

  Her gaze skitters to the door, but she’ll have to go through me first to get to it She licks her lips. She’s scared and I’m not surprised ’cause I’m scaring myself. All this rage. I don’t know where it’s come from. Maybe it’s always been there, humming along, bubbling through my veins, and I’ve tamped it down because I didn’t want to be the angry black girl.

  ‘I will totally end you,’ she says but she’s too posh to carry it off and I decide that I could smack her. Just once. Because she totally deserves it and I am done with being treated like dirt by people who think that I’m lacking balls and a backbone. I raise my hand, I really do …

  ‘Right. OK. No one’s ending or finishing anybody else.’ Emmeline pushes in between me and Mardy Blond Utter Bitchface. ‘No more skanks and bitches. Time out, ladies. Time bloody out. What’s your name, anyway?’

  The girl sulkily says her name’s Flick, because posh girls always have stupid names and I snort much like Jean-Luc and Emmeline tells me to wash my face.

  I have to scrub my face with damp loo roll so it isn’t sticky any more and what’s left of my make-up comes off with it so my skin is raw and tight. Like I’ve been crying for ages, which I haven’t, it just feels like I have.