Solace of the Road (10 page)

‘Fab!’ I shouted.

The barman twizzled round and pushed the drink across the bar and waved me on. Know what? I still had the card for the free drink. I walked away and cackled through the R & B beat. Then I nearly dropped the drink when a searchlight landed on me. I froze like an escaped prisoner. And that’s what I was, a prisoner on the run. I scurried to a corner table out of the searchlight’s path. The sandals were like animal traps cutting into my feet, so I sat down. I checked out the wig tabs. I meant to make the drink last but instead I kept sipping so as not to seem a spare wheel. The liquid went down, black, thick, cool, frothing up on my top lip. I licked it off.

Your name’s made out of cloud, Holly
.

I looked around. Nothing. It was Ray’s voice, echoing in my head, not the club. I put my hands to my ears to drown it out.

The voice didn’t come again, but through the thumpety-thud of the beat I swore I heard my mobile doing its Arabian Nights tune from the bottom of my bag. Ray or Fiona. Bound to be.

I got the thing out and, sure enough, Fiona’s name was on the display. This time I turned the phone off, opened it up and took the SIM card out, then put it all in the lizard and downed the last of my drink in one.

And I thought how maybe I’d flog the phone first chance and get some money together and hit the road again.

Then I went up and got another Baby Guinness from a different barman. I fluttered my eyelashes at him as hard as I could, but this time he made me hand the card over.

I sat down. Not a soul came close. It was thin on the ground, just patches of people and nobody dancing except some crazed guy with a downy goatee who thought he was top of the pops. His mates were jeering as he scissored and spun. He didn’t care. I kept at the drink, nodding to the beat. A hot hum was in my head. When I’d done, I decided I needed a onceover. I went down these steep steps with orange banisters. There were two doors – ladies and gents, I guessed, but there was nothing to say, only weird photos of fruit. One was a banana, the other an apple, halved.

Just then a girl came out of the apple door, so I went in. There was a long mirror with fancy lights, the kind Mam would have had in her dressing room at the club where she danced. They made me feel like a movie star. I brushed up and glossed down.

Then two girls barged in.

‘It’s him. He’s just walked past without saying
nothing
,’ one panted.

‘Yeah. So?’ drawled the other.

I froze.

‘He’s a bastard.’

It was the girl from Swish! I was in the mint-green
and rose dress and she’d see it and know right off I was the robber.

She dumped her bag down and got out her makeup. ‘I’ll kill the sod,’ she hissed. She smacked on the lipstick and snarled.

I’d be safe upstairs in the dark and flashing lights. I whisked past her with my back turned and got out the door fast.

By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I’d calmed down. If the girl spotted the dress, I could always say I’d been given it by a friend. But she probably wouldn’t spot me. It was dark and it was hotting up. I’d be lost in the crowd.

I went over to check the lizard in. It cost a pound, but what else could I do? It was too heavy to dance with. The goatee guy on the dance floor had been joined by dozens of others. I stood at the edge and wiggled my hips. A zigzag light flickered, showing up the white in everyone – their clothes, their teeth, their underwear. Then a gang like a tidal wave carried me with them onto the dance floor. I knew the tune, so I turned and grooved and did my mini palm-dives which Grace said were cool and Trim said made me look like an Egyptian mummy that’s been on the Breezers. Halfway through I felt a hard nip on my behind. I spun round. Whoever had done it had gone.

Then they played this mad cover of Mam’s favourite song, ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, and the whole place took off. But after a while the beat stumbled and slowed and fell into a song about marimbas and mojitos, and you were supposed to
shake out your hips like you were wearing a grass skirt. It was calypso time. The crazed dude with the goatee came up and danced with me. He’d planted a cocktail umbrella behind his ear. He reminded me of Trim so I danced back and another hit came on.

‘It’s a
blast,’
he yelled.

I smiled and wagged a finger at him like he was a bad dog and he jumped in the air like a firecracker. He’d a grin the size of a rolling pin when he landed.

‘Wanna drink?’ he roared.

‘Yeah, ta,’ I shrieked.

He got me by the elbow and snaked me through the flying limbs. The place was heaving.

He got a shot and passed it over. It was purple and smelled like HP sauce.

‘What’s that?’ I yelled.

‘It’s a Deathwish,’ he went.

I took a sip and gagged. It tasted of liquorice, bitter-sweet. ‘ ’S not bad.’

‘You gotta knock it back.’

So I did. Then I took the cocktail umbrella out of his ear and twirled it. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ryan,’ he yelled.

‘Sounds Irish.’

‘ ’S not really. My mum lives in Basingstoke.’

‘Mine
is
in Ireland.’

Maybe he didn’t hear. He said, ‘Crowded, right?’

‘Yeah. Packed to the rafters.’ I looked up at the weird pipes on the ceiling. ‘Only there aren’t none.’

‘What?’

‘Rafters. There aren’t none.’

He looked at me like I was a head-case.

‘Name’s Solace,’ I said.

‘Alice?’

‘Nah.
Solace
. Like
comfort.’

‘You wanna Southern Comfort?’

‘Yeah. Whatever.’ He bought it and I knocked it back. ‘D’you need a mobile phone?’ I screamed.

‘What?’

‘A mobile. D’you need one?’

‘You’re one crazy girl. I’ve got one already. Hey. Dance another?’

‘Sure thing.’

We had to get round this girl who’d fallen flat on the floor. We sashayed into the middle with me doing the mini palm-dives and the dark figures coming up close and going away, like in a swimming pool. It was
swoosh-swoosh
, Ryan and me, with the arms flying, and we were spinning and it was like bells ringing and confetti flying and sweet dreams were made of this. I was alive, floating, swooping the squares under my feet song after song like the night was for ever and I was happy, I was flying, I was Solace to the power of ten.

Nineteen
The One-eyed Horror Story

The beat, the heat. Limbs and hair. ‘ ’S more like it,’ someone said up close. A breathy voice. An arm on my shoulder. It went down my back and when I opened my eyes it wasn’t Ryan but some other bloke I hadn’t realized I’d been dancing with. Where was I? I felt like I’d been dancing for ever and couldn’t remember what had happened to Ryan. This one was eyeball to eyeball with me, only one of his eyes was covered over with a patch, just like a pirate. He had sweat in the pores on his nose and his hand was on my bum like he owned it. I jumped back.

‘Gotta go,’ I said, running off the dance floor to the ladies. The place lurched and picked up speed. I got to the banisters and I went down,
clomp-clomp
, and when I got to the toilets I nearly went in the banana door but remembered just in time. I shut myself in a cubicle and put my head on my lap and it felt bad. The world flipped. My ears fizzed and a plane in my stomach
nose-dived. I turned and threw up into the toilet bowl.

That felt better.

Grace is always throwing up her food and says you feel great after. I’d never believed her but now I did. I could breathe again.

I came out and washed my face at the sink. My cheeks cooled off. Down the line, some girls were doing their mascara and chatting so I asked them the time. I couldn’t believe it when they said two. Where had the hours gone?

I drifted back upstairs. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go on my own into the dark night outside.

‘D’you wanna dance or what?’ I turned round to find that same guy again. I looked to see if Ryan was around but couldn’t spot him. Then I remembered Kim from the sandwich shop but she hadn’t shown all night. So much for my plan that she and I’d drive up a storm. The place was thinning out. This guy had on a red T-shirt that said
MADE IN ENGLAND.
He had a stubbly chin and black hair scooped back and shiny. He was tall and what Grace would call raunchy. And his eye-patch nearly killed me.

‘Need a drink first.’

‘OK. Let’s get one.’

He got me a Bacardi Breezer without asking. When I’d glugged it back we hit the dance floor, only this time I kept hopping back when he got too close.

‘ ’S late,’ he bellowed.

‘Yeah.’

‘Very.’

‘Yeah.’

‘D’you wanna come back to my place or not?’

‘Huh?’ I pretended not to hear although his mouth was nearly down my ear.

‘My place. It’s not far.’

‘Where not far?’

‘It’s west Oxford, Dean Court.’

‘
West
Oxford?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is that near the A40?’

‘Kind of. The A40’s a mile or two down the road. Why?’

‘Just curious.’

‘D’you wanna come or not, Miss Curious?’

‘Have you got wheels?’ I said.

‘Nah. We’ll get a cab.’

Well, what would
you
have done? I was wrecked. My feet were killing me. My stomach hurt. What was the choice? Park down on a bench for the night and get caught by the police or cruise off westwards in a cab?

‘OK,’ I said.

Grace came into my head.
Men. Use ’em and lose ’em
.

‘What d’you say your name was?’ the man asked.

‘Solace.’

‘Mine’s Tony.’

‘Hello, Tony.’

He grabbed my arm and swept me out the door.
He was in such a hurry I nearly forgot the lizard. But I wasn’t a dimwit, not like Jane Eyre.
She
left her trunk on the carriage when she ran off. She was one Jane Airhead.
I
remembered just in time. The cloakroom ticket was where I’d stashed it. Down my bra.

Twenty
Tony’s Place

Outside it was dark and warm and the streets were silent. Tony kept walking on down an endless road, steering me by the elbow, then I stumbled and moaned about my feet and a cab appeared and we got in. I think my brain switched off. I don’t remember him or me saying a word on that back seat, only my feet and head being mashed and the night going by and me wishing we could stay driving in that cab for ever, driving west, with the morning catching us up and Oxford being left behind and Ireland getting closer every mile. I liked the lampposts swooshing past and the smell of the leather seats and the quiet.

But the drive ended. Tony told the driver to pull up and paid and led me through a front door. We went into a hallway that smelled of someone’s bad old stew. He went
‘Shush!’
and took me to a room upstairs. He shut the door softly after us and switched on the light.

There were beer-cans on the floor and a lumpy sofa and a huge TV and a bed in the corner.

I flopped on the sofa.

‘Make yourself at home,’ he said.

I felt like passing out.

‘D’you want a drink?’

‘Sure.’

He rooted in a cupboard. ‘There’s only one left.’ He held up a beer.

‘You have it,’ I said. I tried my royal wrist wave but the motion made my stomach somersault.

He opened it and it fizzed onto the back of his hairy hand. ‘D’you wanna watch TV?’

‘TV?’

‘Or a film. I have a few.’ I had this image of him putting on loads of porn. ‘I’ve got all the
Terminators
,’ he said.

‘
Terminators?
’

His Adam’s apple bulged as he knocked back the beer. ‘Not your thing?’

The room spun.

‘Yeah, sure,’ I said. ‘Let’s watch one.’

He put a DVD on and sat down next to me on the sofa. He switched it on with the remote. I kept drifting off but every so often sudden clanking sounds would wake me up and make my head pound.

After this bit where a man got a big metal stake driven through him, Tony laughed and switched it off. ‘That’s the funny part over. The rest’s boring.’

‘Oh. Sure.’

‘Maybe you just wanna lie down?’

We were coming right down to it.
Use ’em and lose ’em
, Grace crooned in my head.

‘Lie down?’ I croaked. Fact is, I’d not done sex yet.
Grace had, millions of times, and Trim. So he said. But not me. Grace said how it’s no great shakes, you just shut your eyes and dream of ice cream, and if you play your cards right, they pay you something. But I wasn’t sure about this guy.

He lit a fag without offering me one. ‘Bed,’ he said. He nodded over to the stripy duvet cover that made my head whirl just looking at it.

‘You mean, like, sleeping ’n’ all?’

He looked at me sprawled on the sofa and blew out a smoke ring. ‘Hell with sleeping.’

Jeez. How do I get out of this one?

‘About your eye,’ I said, trying to change tack. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

He fingered the patch and laughed. ‘Got into a fight,’ he said.

‘Who with?’

‘My girlfriend.’

‘Your
girlfriend?’
I looked around like maybe she was hiding in a cupboard.

‘
Ex
-girlfriend.’ He gulped the last of the beer and leaned towards me. ‘Definitely ex.’ I froze. He tickled my kneecap. ‘Ex,’ he murmured.

Don’t just sit there. Do something
.

He had a hand round the back of my neck. The other went ferreting over my dress, the fag hanging out limp between his fingers.

‘Youch! Watch your fag,’ I said.

‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry.’ He flicked it to the floor and ground it out with his heel. Then he burped. Then he went ferreting again over the dress.

‘Hey, I just remembered—’ I started.

He yanked me towards him. I lurched back and the wig came off.

It toppled onto the floor by the arm of the chair, pale and floppy.

‘Hell,’ he swore. He shoved me away. ‘What’s
that
?’ His voice squeaked like a choirboy’s.