Before leaving, I wrap up the condom — if she found it she’d kill me stone dead. But at the bin on Leighton Road that little bit of him with Andrex wrapped round. Put it back in my pocket. Does he wish he had something of me? Even his sheets smell of someone else. No. Remember us there in the dark. I hang onto it so, until the bin at the top of Anglers Lane.
She stands smoking by the gate. Happy New Year! Her eyes are red. What’s wrong? He stayed over. He was collecting his stuff and you know how it is. I ended up begging him not to do it but she’s going to pay off his fees. And inside her distress, I see a little of mine. They won’t be ‘married married’ though, couldn’t you still go out? How could I trust him? He kept it secret all this time I mean it’s happening Friday afternoon. Sorry, I say — pushing my own glee down — Why don’t we go out that night? You’re on, she says And fuck him anyway.
Congregate in the Church first for Acting. Welcome back. I hope you had a good break. This term we’ll work on the Private Moment exercise. So choose something you really only do in private, something you’d never do around anyone else and No — before you ask — no kind of masturbation. There’s enough of that going on around here as it is.
Go.
Plays read. Cigarettes on the step. Ballet gear re-squeezed into cursing Quality Street. A laugh at lunch with some of the lads. Meet our new director. Sleep heavy every night and every day wait for his call. It comes How about Saturday, I’ll get us tickets for something? Yes! Great, meet for a drink first at the Prince Albert at six? Poor her though. Her week drags. Thinner and thinner. Him avoiding her now. By Friday afternoon, I’m pleading Please eat something or. That fucker’s already been married an hour, time for a drink, she says.
We are installed. We are impinted. Somewhere in the West End. She has a brief whimper, then the real drinking begins.
Come on, she hisses, hours later — hammered completely and fuckeringly now. Staggering brothelly-haired outside. In the mucklight, the starlight, we are on the town. Fuck him the fucker I knew he fucked around have you? No. Why NO? Just no. Ah you probably swill. Nah! I laugh. But he’s good, your one? she offers the bottle. It hits my throat, rascally sweet — we are in the tooth-rinse stage, fine, but gone to the dogs. Do you know what he know what he did? I cough. What did he? Shagged some other one the night I came back. In the room. In the very bed. Bastard! she Wankers all. Cat-headed and slurry-mouthed mewlers on the tiles. Eating a kebab she scorns Dick on a stick. Disgusting. But we have it, slocked on a bench, eyed by some fella who’s surely pissed his pants. There’s no one suffered like the poor of east London, he says Do you hear me? Do you know that? Sure I’m not English. She is. What? Come on girls give us some change. Fuck right off, she says. Jesus chilli sauce my friend. Queens and cockroaches. But you got your oats? Certainly cerealisation, I agree. Men are bastards, she shouts scattering the paper around. On we go — langered for heaven, or under it tonight. And apparently, girls are Here Here Here. Men making kissy suck sounds as we gawk in the door. Are you lookin’ at me? — when they gawk back — Tell your sister get her knickers off you scum bumming pig. Me sliding on the Soho muck of shed human skin, jizz, piss chips spilt lager rain onion rings. Out to the cobbles, licking sauce from her hair. What for money though? What for geld? Nun on me Not twenty of the pence. Pounds, she finds. We’ve started so we’ll finish. Bitch of a baby still this night. Come on. What are you staring for? I never saw men hold hands. They’ll think you hate them and you’ll be a homophobic then. I don’t. I’m not. But she’s fallen off the path. Hobblety when I haul her up. One blue high heel snapped and now I am not looking. Where to? Leicester Square. I’ve never seen it after dark so many nevers. No Toto, woof, you’re not in Ireland any more. On Shaftesbury Avenue laughing ’Tis Pity she’s a Fiona Pshaw! You wish you were! And swaying around lamp posts. Singing in the rain. Heave through the heave. There. Arse on the bit of stone. Flicking chips at the tourists gets her laughing a lot, while drink makes me tired and foolish work. What do you think he’s doing now with Frankenbitch? Taking her roughly from behind. Cake mashed in her dress. Talking Czechoslovakian. Let’s toast him. Them both! To his clap and her burning pants. A pox on his penis. Minimus! Egg! Dwarf! Can I have a chip? some man asks. No, I say. She says Yes. Are you Irish? Oh for fuck’s fucking sake! but make that chat Irish people must. Do. Where are you from? Do you know my cousin? Yah. Nah. Yah. Nah. Sure I’ll buy ye a drink. No, I say. She says Yes. So up on our trotters we go off again. Slithering through Chinatown. Glitter ducks and squids and all. There were I with. Lonely for him now. Up yet another street. In there. A bar. A new kind of glamorous for — under wigs I long to pull — are men in white dresses with blue satin sashes, and him saying I’ll get the cockstails in. What’s his name? Who cares? What’s the harm? It’s only pink drinks from a Connemara man. Get that down you, he says. I drink and try not to burp. He talks. Strokes my hair but the room starts to twirl as he’s finger flicking Another round, more. She sliding down the pvc telling fuck all men. So this is how we drink, dribble kiss and go to bed? No. No. Not with him even if I let a kiss with the tongue. Whoo! she says Look at you, and I am I am Got to go to the loo. But the toilet’s a maze, now I’m drink undone. Far drunker than I know how to be. Wee. Wash my hands. Stare. Is she really me? The sad of her. Her sad eyes ponder. Ow! Smack on the cheek. Ow! Sorry, I didn’t expect someone there that’ll bruise sorry. Don’t worry I’m perfect, and stagger out into crashed light. There’s him, but where’s her? Ah her, slumped. Hey! I say. He doesn’t look. Reaches over for my hand. His other up her top and Hey! Stop that! Let go! Hey! Wake up! She, head swings. Sees. Hits him a thump. Fucking slut. I pull her Please be able to get up. Sit down, he orders I bought you drinks. Fuck you, you fucking pervert! then slipping between tables of men going Who are you calling pervert, love? No, not you not you HIM!
Wake up, wake up I think I’m going to puke. I call Stop, on the bus, and she stumbles off. Does. Me holding her hair back, trying not to myself. Oh Jack’s Sore Asshole how’d we get to the Heath? I don’t know I don’t know where we are, and as the two-ten disappears What are we going to do? She points to the park Kentish Town’s the other side. No way! Are you mad? There could be rapists or anything. More like men having it off. And, in all our drinks, that’s enough. So down we go. In. Sobering under tree creak. Terrified to holding hands. At least the wind doesn’t whip as we trudge, smoking, regretting our livers’ work. Do you know where we are? No I’ve not been here in the dark. Some rustle sets us running out to the open and up. Look! Look at that. Night London. God it’s ugly, she says. But no no no I take its side. Somewhere below he is sleeping I hope on his own. And her beloved lies married down there while we, above, wait, enumerating our grass stains and watching til dawn lifts through the morning sky. Froze to the bones and organs tired, making our ways down. Well, that’s all folks! See you Monday, she says at the gate and knight us it Skank Night for immemorial ahead.
*
Six thirty-five and him pulling me out to Royal College Street.
Jesus, fucking Hellcat, what’s wrong with you? You heard him. I heard him but that’s no excuse, he could’ve fucking killed you, he could’ve killed me — he was easily taller and four times the width! I barely touched him. That’s not the fucking point. I bet you’re glad you bombed Warrington, you heard what he said. I know and it was out of order and I told him that but you shouldn’t have hit him. Yes I should anyway you got him to stay back. That was only luck and him being far too drunk to realise he could’ve snapped me like a twig. Well fuck him. Yeah fuck him but I have to tell you something I’m not much good in a fight any more so let’s not do that again.