Sweet (10 page)

‘Well, let’s start at the top, shall we?’ An idea suddenly occurred to me. ‘Let’s go and start where “the magic happens”. Like in
Cribs
!’

We ran up the stairs and I led them into the master bedroom, right where I’d found young Duane in the naughty naked nude that fateful day. ‘Here it is!’ I whipped out my trusty half-bottle of Vladivar and chucked it to Katie, who I calculated to be the weakest link; she caught it expertly and decanted a third of it down her neck in one gulp, then passed it on. Before I knew it I was staring at an empty, when an inspired thought struck me.

I pulled back the duvet to expose the spotless white sheet. ‘That sheet’s something called a Frette. Apparently it’s got a thread count of nine hundred and sodding eighty. Which means that it cost an effing fortune.’ I fished in my bag and threw an old flick-knife I’d nicked off Jesus on to the bed. ‘Which means you get extra points for slashing it to buggery.’ I looked on happily as they squabbled over the blade, then slipped downstairs looking for a refill.

They were still where I thought they’d be – a couple of the Bacardi Breezers Baggy and Aggy had always made sure they had in for me. At the time it had seemed really thoughtful, but now I saw it as it was – just another way to put me at my ease and get what they wanted out of me; inspiration for my humiliation. And of COURSE they had to get ‘special’ drinks in for me – of COURSE I couldn’t drink simple, sophisticated white wine like they did. Of course I needed something the colour of sweeties, loaded with sugar, for my rubbishy tastes . . . talk about a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down! Well, it was THEY who were going to be taking their medicine now – and as I fished the brace of Breezers out of the cooler, I noted with pleasure that they were both watermelon – the livid red one. Revenge was going to be sweet, OK, sweeter than Sugar – and so COLOURFUL in places as well!

Upstairs, Katie and Josh were rediscovering their dark side with a vengeance – the mattress looked like a giant dead sheepdog, there was so much stuff spilling out of it. I pulled the top off a Breezer with my teeth and poured it all over what was left of the bed – it looked like some girl had had the world’s worst period on it, which made me smile when I considered the snide way they talked about women. Then I drank the other one straight down.

‘Oi!’ squealed Katie. ‘Share and share alike!’

‘There’s a sea of wine in the kitchen. And stickies and stuff on the drinks trolley in the living room,’ I advised her. As she and Josh romped downstairs whooping, I had a further flash of inspiration and I called downstairs after them. ‘And bring me up a bottle of Scotch – see if you can see one called The Macallan! Or anything that looks pricey!’

I went over to the long seat that opened up like a box, and found the red leather albums with all B&A’s cuttings in, and I introduced my little friend blade-features to their glorious career – he seemed quite cut up about it! I was just finishing up when the Dracules bounced back into the room moaning about the expensive vodka they’d found in the kitchen. ‘Grey Goose! – what sort of stupid name is that! Still, we DID find this black stuff! – good, innit!’

‘Did you get the Scotch?’ I asked somewhat sternly. It’s weird – they were a good bit older than me, but they seemed so young and carefree. This was just a naughty romp to them, but to me it was deadly serious.

‘Yeah, this Macallan, like you said!’

I took it and smiled; it made me happy to see there was at least half left, because I knew for a fact that the full bottle had cost more than a thousand pounds. I’d only seen my ex-friends sipping tiny amounts a couple of times – Aggy had confessed to me he hated the smell, but found it ‘classier’ than vodka, which could be seen as a ‘girl’s drink’. And we all know how stupid he thought girls were . . .

Hate the smell, did he? Well, he was going to have to get used to it, in his precious boudoir at least!

‘You gonna drink it, Shugs? Never had you down as a Scotch girl –’

I unscrewed the cap as I walked towards the en suite. ‘No, I’m not going to drink it, and neither are they . . . and that’s going to get right – up – their – NOSES!’

They’d showed me how the steam cubicle worked, ages ago it seemed, when I was still a bright-eyed little girl oohing and ahhing over the Wonder Of Them and their palace of fun – me being the fun in question, as it turned out. So it was no problem knowing where the essential oils were meant to go. Lavender for tranquility, peppermint for get-up-and-go – and a really expensive Scotch, almost half a bottleful, for feeling sick as an effing dog for an extremely long time when you woke up in the morning to face another day of creativity and crushing people’s dreams . . .

I poured it all in and turned it up full.

The Dracules rocked up behind me. ‘Whoa! – DRY ICE!’ Then, ‘IT STINKS!’

‘Not half as bad as it’s going to.’ I turned to look at them. ‘Right – you’ve drunk enough of that black vodka – the rest goes over the bedroom carpet.’ Thick and white as snow on Aspen, natch! ‘Thassit! Now go and open that Grey Goose – you deserve it.’

I wanted to be alone to create my masterpiece, didn’t I? I looked around the lovely bathroom, where once I could happily have lived. Gagging from the smell of Scotch, I smashed the little telly on the stalk and stuck the business end of an ornamental cut-throat razor through the stereo speakers. Garish lotions and potions galore made a lovely swirly sight on the snow-leopard-print carpet, and to my surprise I was so into my task that I pulled off the leopard-print toilet seat with my bare hands.

Katie put her head round the door as I was doing it. ‘Gosh, Maria! – I mean, FUCK! You must really hate these people –’

I felt embarrassed being caught in the act – it seemed like it should be private to hate someone that much. I spoke to her without turning round.

‘Get Josh and go and smash up the guest rooms – there’s three of them. Then meet me downstairs by the drinks trolley and we’ll finish off.’

It was mostly done anyway, but it’s those finishing touches that make all the difference, I find. So I carefully shredded the shower curtain with its lovely print of technicolour dolphins – and doing so I recalled how much I’d admired it once, only to be amazed when B&A fell about screeching with laughter: ‘Oh bless her! Shugs, it’s not MEANT to be “lovely”! – it’s meant to be KITSCH!’ I hadn’t really understood what kitsch was at the time, and I didn’t want to ask and look DUMB in front of my FRIENDS, so I’d just smiled sweetly with them. But as my little friend dutifully did his job, I knew all at once TOTALLY what kitsch was – it was just yet another way to feel superior to other people because they had less money than you. Boy, talk about the scenic route!

Well, it didn’t look lovely OR kitsch now, I reflected as I stepped away. Task complete, I started going through their vast wicker baskets of smellies, making sure I rescued enough Bvlgari soaps to sort me out for the next three Christmases, when I came across, at the bottom of one, just about the BIGGEST bottle of L’Heure Bleue you ever did see; not a spray either, just a great big bottle with a stopper, like some showpiece from a posh chemist. I laughed, grabbed it and ran down the stairs two at a time.

The Dracules were feeling no pain by now, having bravely overcome their aversion to quality vodka and consumed the best part of a bottle of Grey Goose. I scowled at them – this was a serious mission we were on here and they were acting like it was Living-Dead Night at Hector’s House, cocktails 2–4–1! ‘Did you do the other bedrooms, like I said?’

Josh nodded, then hiccuped. ‘Sweet, Sugar!’

‘Then get cooking.’ I flung open the vast American fridge, where once I used to stand for minutes at a time watching in childlike fascination as the ice-making machine did its mysterious, magical thing. What a fucking innocent IDIOT I’d been!

‘Milk on the carpets, prawns down the back of all the sofas and soft chairs. We’ll do a right Jamie Oliver!’ I opened their retro-trash cupboard and took out an armful of the pristine, unopened boxes of American cookies they’d practically wet themselves cooing over. ‘And then you can take a break. Only one biscuit from each box, mind you. And then chuck the rest on to the milk and stomp ’em well in. No slacking!’

I opened a few more drawers – ah, their Cybercandy stash! Cybercandy is like this amazing little sweet shop down in the North Laines where you can buy all sorts of softies and sweets and chocolate from all around the world, especially Japan and America. The only drawback is the prices – £4.80 for a Vodka Lix lollipop! I’d have to work close-on an hour just to earn the price of one of them – still, I reflected, as I poked around among the Skittles Littles, Mike and Ikes and Tart ’n’ Tinys, that was nothing that a five-fingered discount couldn’t take care of.

I called to the Dracules, who were stamping biscuits into the milky carpets with lip-biting concentration. ‘Get over here when you’ve finished and fill your boots. Look! – Snake Venom lollies, these could have been made for you two weirdies! Then you can bail – I’ve got private stuff to do. Personal. Cheers!’

I left them exclaiming over the Cybercandy drawer and broke open a very decent bottle of Bolly from the fridge. I needed to be alone for the next bit – and I needed it to be a celebration, hence the bubbly. A solitary celebration. I went into the workroom and closed the door behind me. I locked it. Then I poured Bolly all over the blade. To make it pure for the task that lay ahead.

Which was the not inconsiderable one of taking back my honour – an honour which I had, let’s be fair, spent the best part of seventeen years pissing away. But choosing to fritter a thing away is a far different thing to having it snatched from you – it’s the difference between having power and being powerless, which is just about the biggest difference in the world so far as I can tell.

And there, in front of me, was the skilfully-honed proof of the biggest and most professional shafting I’d ever had the pleasure of, worn by a docile row of dummies with their blank faces neatly labelled.

And the names of my dishonour were (as already established by the meeting with young Trulocke in Macky D’s):

WHITE-TRASH TINKERBELL

PRAM-FACED PRICKTEASE

LATE AGAIN!

PIKEY PRINCESS

CHIPSHOP CHIC

and not forgetting

MUM’S ABORTION

And as I stood there facing them, it was like looking at every dummy who’d ever disrespected me, all of them. I don’t know exactly what happened next – it was a bit of a blur.

And when I came round and was conscious again, the dummies were dressed in rags, just ribbons of cloth hanging off them. And the silver velvet chaise longue from Rume was slashed to ribbons too. And the big bottle of L’Heure Bleue was smashed all over it and the sour, sad smell beneath the first shimmer of the scent seemed to sum up my whole experience in that house.

I went into the downstairs toilet and I took out my special Stila ‘Sugar’ lipstick that Aggy had given me and I couldn’t help it, I wrote 1 OF YR YOUNG FRENDZ WUZ ERE! on the mirror. It was cheeky but not daft, I thought – it told them it was me, but also that I knew about Duane and that it wouldn’t be clever to go to the police. In fact I was congratulating myself so wholeheartedly on the way out that it wasn’t till I was halfway down Clifton Hill that I realized that not only had I wanted them to KNOW I was there – but even weirder, that I hadn’t even robbed anything! (Just soaps, like you would in a hotel, so it don’t count.)

What did the two things mean together, I wondered? By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, I thought I might have worked it out –

It must have been love!

12

Talking of which, what was it with Asif? Was it love, was it lust, was it killing time till something came along which I wouldn’t feel the need to ask myself questions about? Whatever, it felt nice – it had the relaxed quality of an old relationship and the excitement of a new one. In fact, all it lacked was plain, simple MAGIC.

Asif was beautiful – more beautiful than Kim. He was also, if you want to get smutty about it, better equipped sex-wise – I mean, she had those tiny little hands, like a kiddy’s! But I don’t know – I didn’t get that kick-in-the-stomach thing from him. Don’t get me wrong; if anyone’s going to be kicking someone in the stomach, or anywhere for that matter, it’s generally going to be yours truly. But in my experience, it IS a tremendous thrill, in a weird kind of way, when finally you’re NOT in control, when you’re used to being the one on top.

For instance, I knew that Kimmy was nowhere near as tough as me – the way she used to look UP to me was actually quite sad – but there was something about her that made me so horny I actually felt helpless. Even watching the uptight little cow test the smoke alarms at Sweet Towers, holding the chair steady and looking up her skirt – the nearest I’D ever get, or the only reason I’d ever WANT to put anyone on a pedestal, ha ha! – made me feel weak with longing sometimes. It was like the physical pain you get from laughing hard at school, that agonizing ecstasy that just goes when you grow up. This is going to sound well mental, but perhaps the reason we’re all so desperate to fall in love is BECAUSE, not in spite of, the fact that it makes us feel helpless again, like being a little kid – and if you’re having to be tough all the time, well, that’s some sort of freedom.

I’d felt like a kid a lot of the time when I was with Kim – you could say, ‘Yeah, Shugs, but you WERE only fifteen!’ – but believe me, if you knew me better then you’d know that I hadn’t been a child since I was twelve. Yet somehow with her I got it back – even though we were meant to have ‘corrupted’ each other or something, which was why her parents whisked her away like that. It was like sex with her wiped out all the too-much-too-young stuff.