Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (7 page)

Me: ‘What country’s Amsterdam in?’

Zaza: ‘Not sure, Belgium, I think. Or Holland.’

Me: ‘Hang on, I’ll ask Mum.’

I run back to the house and knock on the door.

Me: ‘What country’s Amsterdam in?’

Mum: ‘Holland.’

I run back to Zaza, shouting, ‘Holland!’ We turn onto the high street, with its boarded-up shops and piles of rubbish stacked around the lamp posts, in search of a bus, a train, anything that will take us to Holland.

The journey takes two days longer than it should because we keep getting on the wrong trains and buses and have to sleep on station benches, but here we are at last, on Koningsstraat, in the middle of Amsterdam, bleary-eyed, greasy-haired and not a clue what to do next. We have enough money to buy one sandwich a day each, for a week.

We sit on a wall and watch the people go by. A girl passes, she looks a couple of years older than us, has long wavy black hair and bright blue eyes. Zaza runs after her and asks if she knows somewhere we can stay. I cringe with embarrassment but Zaza has no fear, she can make friends with anyone. The black-haired girl looks suspicious at first but Zaza soon works her charm and I see the girl’s expression soften. She tells us her name’s Bridey, she’s Irish and she lives in a street of squats on Korte Koningsstraat: we can probably stay there.

Like two innocent children in a Grimms’ fairy tale, we follow Bridey down cobbled streets, across a little humpback bridge and along a canal, whilst thousands of bicycles fly past us – and stop in front of a row of tall thin brick houses with roofs shaped like funny old hats. It all looks so foreign, funny and sweet, like a story book, not like boring old London.

The front door of one of the houses is open and we wander in. The room is dark, there are blankets pinned over the windows: I wait for my eyes to adjust. Looking down at my feet I notice the floors are bare wood and I can just make out rough scribbles and writing on the walls.

Out of the gloom, a double mattress begins to materialise and lounging on it, languishing behind a veil of smoke from a joint, like the caterpillar in
Alice in Wonderland
, is an angelic boy with long golden ringlets curling down onto his shoulders. He looks us over and smiles. ‘This is Kieran,’ says Bridey. Another boy is leaning against the wall, he’s tall and delicate, with long dark brown hair falling into his eyes. He looks at us suspiciously through his long black lashes. His name is Maurice. Maurice wants to know who we are, and listens intently as Bridey explains that she found us on the street and we have nowhere to stay. Me and Zaza stand side by side, clasping our rucksacks to our chests, listening to Bridey’s lilting voice and looking from Kieran to Maurice. One makes me think of white Milky Bar chocolate and the other deep, dark Bournville. I can’t decide which I like best. Maurice isn’t very friendly and says there are no extra beds.

‘Maybe in one of the other houses?’ says Kieran. I ask to use the bog and Bridey shows me a cupboard just off the main room. There’s no door, the cracked bowl is shielded by an old blanket folded over a piece of string. I can’t possibly go, I’m much too self-conscious, everyone will be able to hear. When I emerge from the cupboard, after waiting a decent amount of time, Zaza is perched on the edge of the mattress chatting away to Kieran and Bridey. Bridey rummages in her handbag and pulls out a small clear plastic bag, which she hands to Kieran. She searches again and this time produces a syringe. Zaza and I watch Bridey bustle around the room organising needles, spoons and matches. We know nothing about junkies, but it all seems perfectly normal to us, maybe it’s her matter-of-fact manner. Kieran shoots up first followed by moody Maurice; they both put the needle into the crook of their arms, but Bridey does it in her foot. They don’t offer us any and we don’t want it. Zaza and I watch with fascination, whispering to each other that we’re so lucky, falling in with such a nice bunch of people.

It’s two in the morning and we’re very tired. Kieran and Maurice say we can share their beds if we want to. We’re not bothered, they seem harmless enough and we’re used to going to parties and snogging boys we don’t know. I’m not a virgin – I’m still with Mark, but he won’t find out what I’m up to – Zaza is, she’s waiting until she gets married, she’s Greek. Zaza stays with Kieran, I sleep with Maurice in a squat further up the street. Once we’re in bed, Maurice and I kiss and fumble around with each other; he apologises for not being able to get an erection because he’s taken heroin, says he’ll be better tomorrow when it’s worn off. I’m relieved, it’s been a long day. Just as I start to drift off I feel a thump on the bed, someone’s climbing in with us, one of the other guys from the squat. Maurice tells him to fuck off but he won’t go, says he wants a threesome. First he whines and pleads, then he switches to charm and jokes – if Maurice gives in, I’m in trouble. I climb out of the bed but where can I go in the middle of the night in Amsterdam? Zaza’s in a house up the road with Kieran – what if they can’t hear me knocking and don’t open the door? Thank god Maurice sticks to his guns and gets rid of the other bloke. I’m going to stay with him the whole time I’m here, as a survival mechanism, to keep the wolves at bay.

I discover some amazing things in Amsterdam. Firstly, the sandwiches; they’re made from the strangest bread, like I’ve never seen or tasted before – it’s brown, but nothing like Hovis. The slices are as thick as carpet, heavy and moist, they’re a meal in themselves. Another wonderful thing is that the Dutch are mad about peanut butter, which is fantastic because I am too. They have peanut butter with everything. What a great city, where they think peanut-butter sandwiches are grown-up food and sell them everywhere. My favourite combinations are peanut butter with banana or with crispy iceberg lettuce.

I wander the streets in a daze, I can’t believe that such a place exists. Street performers, pavement artists, grown-up girls in pretty dresses sucking lollipops, older people in jeans with long hair, everyone’s on a bicycle. It’s like a playground. There’s even hash for sale in the cafes.

On our last night Maurice says he can get us into a club called the Milky Way. It reminds me of the Roundhouse in Camden Town; upstairs there’s a room with scarves draped over the lights, scruffy sofas and armchairs. The smell of incense, patchouli oil and hash is heady and seductive, and even though we don’t smoke the joints that are passed around, Zaza and I start to feel woozy. I hear music floating up through the floorboards, I go downstairs and sit on the floor in the main hall to watch the band. They’re called Bronco and the lead singer is Jess Roden. He has the most amazing voice I’ve ever heard, I’m captivated, I can’t believe I’ve had to come all this way to discover him – he’s from Kidderminster. When I get back to London I’m going to buy every record he’s ever made.

My obsession with Jess Roden lasted years, and it was through following him I discovered Island Records and began to listen to other artists on the label, like Bob Marley, Traffic, J. J. Cale, Jimmy Cliff, Mott the Hoople, Nick Drake and Kevin Ayers. The first album I bought when I got back from Amsterdam was an Island sampler,
Nice Enough to Eat.
I only had about four records because they were so expensive, but samplers were much cheaper than a normal LP, only fourteen shillings so lots of people bought them, they were important. I listened very hard to all the tracks, I never skipped songs that weren’t immediately appealing to me because I wanted to make the experience of having a new record last as long as possible. This is when I became aware of a label as a stable of artists. I trusted Island’s taste.

I saw
Nice Enough to Eat
in an Oxfam shop the other day, it made my heart skip a beat, like I’d unexpectedly come across a very old and dear friend that I hadn’t seen for thirty years. Someone I’d told all my secrets to. The blue cover with the jumbled-up sweets spelling the bands’ names was so familiar, it meant more to me than seeing a family photograph. I bought the record again of course. Couldn’t leave it sitting there.

On our way back to the squat to pack, Zaza drops a bombshell: she’s been keeping a secret from me, she’s not going home to London tomorrow, she’s going to Istanbul to smuggle some hash back into Amsterdam … for five hundred quid. Five hundred quid! My god that’s a fortune. She’ll be rich forever. She asks me if I want to do it too: Kieran needs another courier. It’s very simple, she explains, Kieran has bought us nice smart clothes, Zaza, Bridey and I will fly to Istanbul with false-bottomed suitcases full of clothes. When we get to Istanbul we dump some of the clothes (so the suitcase weighs the same), pick up the hash from a contact and bring it back to Amsterdam. They’ve done it loads of times, she says, it’s perfectly safe, girls never get stopped, it can’t go wrong. I don’t hesitate: No Way. I’m going back to school to do my exams. And I’m going back because I won’t risk hurting my mother by getting arrested and messing up my life. Zaza, though, has made up her mind. That night she tries on the navy suit with gold buttons and cream piping that Kieran’s bought her. Bridey sweeps Zaza’s hair up into a shiny black French pleat. I’ve never seen her look so sophisticated and grown-up.

As I doze on the train back to England, I dream of what I would spend five hundred pounds on, and wonder whether I should have gone to Istanbul after all.

I arrive back in Turnpike Lane exhausted: I’ve hardly slept for three weeks. Still, I’ve made it back in one piece. I’ve done some things that Mum and Mark must never know about, but no harm done, they won’t find out. I snuggle down under a pile of blankets on my blue wooden childhood bed, glad I’m not on my way to Turkey to smuggle drugs – even if I am going to miss out on the money – I’m warm and safe in the bedroom I share with my little sister. The familiar off-white walls close in on me comfortingly; the rattan peacock chair I bought from Biba stands guard at the window. All is well with the world. I conk out.

Early the next morning, as I slowly come back to consciousness, I feel a little tickle at the top of my bum, right at the bottom of my spine. Something’s creeping out of my bum crack and crawling up my back. It’s barely perceptible but I’m quick and put my finger on it.
I’ll just put whatever it is on my bedside table and squash it.
Oooh that’s annoying, I have to wake up a bit more than I want to and lean on one elbow to crush it under my thumbnail, it’s quite tough, taking more effort than I thought. I’ll go back to sleep and look at it when I’m awake, probably imagined it, just a piece of fluff.

But something in me knows … knows to have a bloody good look at it when I wake up … knows I’m putting off something unpleasant. I sleep fretfully for another hour, but I can’t fight the unease any longer: I lean over and squint at it. Could it be an insect? Surely not. Not down there. How did it get under the covers? Hunched over my bedside table, dressed in a baggy white T-shirt and old knickers, I examine the little critter. That’s funny, it looks like a tiny little … crab. What’s a tiny little crab doing down there? Oh shit! I’ve got crabs!

I look into my knickers and see there is a little black dot at the base of a pubic hair. Then I realise with horror there’s a little black dot at the base of
every
pubic hair. I try and pick one off. It doesn’t come easily, the little bugger. I hold the speck in the palm of my hand. Phew, false alarm, it’s just a tiny pale brown scab. The squat was so dirty I must have got scabs from scratching myself all the time. But as I peer at it, the little scab grows legs and scuttles off sideways. I scream. Not an ‘Oh help I’ve seen a spider’ scream, but an ‘
I am the host of living creatures! Evil parasites are burrowing into my flesh and sucking my blood!
’ type of scream. A very serious and loud scream. A ‘
Kill me now, I can’t bear to be conscious for one more second
’ scream.

Crying hysterically, I throw myself down the stairs and into the kitchen. Mum rushes over to me. Poor innocent Mum. I have to tell her everything. The dirty squat, the boys, the sex. (I leave out the junkies, there’s only so much a mother can take.) She remains calm, quietens me down, and we come up with a plan: we spread newspapers all over the kitchen table, then we get two spoons and two pairs of tweezers. Using the tweezers, we pick every crab off, one by one, even the ones in very tender hidden places – ones that I have to bend over the table for Mum to access. My humiliation is overruled by terror. We put every crab we find onto the newspaper and crush it with the back of the spoon. We do this until there are no black dots left. It takes two hours. Then I go to the chemist and get sheep dip.

Me, Mum and my sister are sitting down to tea, must be about six o’clock, when there’s a ring at the door, Zaza’s parents are on the doorstep, they want to know where she is. Of course they do! It never occurred to me, or Zaza, that they’d notice she hasn’t come home.

‘She stayed on a few extra days,’ I say.

‘Is she all right?’

‘Yes, she’s fine.’

‘When will she be back?’

‘The weekend,’ I lie.

‘If she’s not back by the weekend, we’re calling the police.’

And they go away, thank god.

Bloody Zaza landing me in it.

The next day, Mum sends me to the clap clinic in Praed Street, Paddington. (‘It only takes a minute at the Praed Street clinic’, ‘Rabies (from the Dogs of Love)’, the 101ers.) A nice nurse gives me a blue cotton gown and shows me where to hang my clothes, then she tells me to lie on the bed, which has a piece of white paper stretched over it. I lie down and look at the polystyrene tiles on the ceiling, daydreaming. The nurse explains patiently that I must slide my bum down the bed and put my feet through the stirrups. I start to do it, but realise this means I’ll be lying on my back with my knees bent up to my chest and my legs wide open. I look at her for reassurance,
Is this really what I’m supposed to do?
She nods. I wriggle my feet through the stirrups and rest my ankles on the black nylon-webbing straps. The soles of my feet are filthy, luckily they face away from the nurse. My legs are held really wide open by the stirrups, my vagina is pointing to the door. I feel as if I’m strapped to a raft on a linoleum ocean, my ankles tied to the sides. ‘Here comes the doctor,’ says the nurse as the door opens. I feel so exposed, it’s unbearable, I’m horrified, ashamed. I’ve never had my legs so wide open before, not even during sex. I’ve never been looked at down there before, never shown anyone, never even looked at it myself. The doctor appears. A man. He’s young and handsome. Why is a young handsome man a gynaecologist? He must be a pervert. I want to die. This is the most humiliating and terrible thing that has ever happened to me (
ever happened to you so far
). I burst into tears.