Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  She kept dancing over to her bloke and kissing him or rubbing up to him. You could tell he was as proud of her as if he’d poured out a glass of moonjuice. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was as if she was in a completely different room, at a completely different party from anyone else in the room. She was different from everyone.

  After a bit I noticed what she was wearing and…POW! I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I looked around and saw all the guys eyeing her up and I almost burst out laughing because it was so daring and at the same time…

  She had this black net string vest on. That was it. It took a while to sink in. At first glance you saw this vest, it was just clothes. And then suddenly your eyes went POP, right through it and there she was, bare as a baby. But some baby. I mean, you could see everything. It was quite long for a vest but even so when she bent over to put on a new cassette you could see her bare bum.

  Everyone was watching her but it wasn’t just because she was more or less naked. She had the power. People were talking about this and that but they were all just pretending. She was everything that was going on in that room. Some of ’em couldn’t bear to watch her like I was. They carried on talking and watched her in little sneaky glances out of the corners of their eyes. Some of them were staring at her gobsmacked, mouths hanging open like fridge doors. But they were all looking. And she was lapping it up, jiving around doing little jobs, making little remarks to people, laughing at jokes.

  Her bloke, all scruffy and stubbly with a tatty Mohican and at least two teeth missing, he was loving it as much as she was. She’d get a joint off someone and she’d take it over to him and give him a toke and then jive back. He behaved as if she was dressed in jeans or a tee-shirt, except that he touched her bum a couple of times. No one seemed to mind about her pinching their drinks and their smokes. If it had been anyone else they’d have been offended, but with her it was like it was a privilege. Or maybe they just didn’t dare complain.

  Did you ever see someone and think straight away, I want to be that person? I want to look like her and think like her and have the same effect as she does…you know? This girl—nothing mattered to her. All the rules, all the things you do do and don’t do, the manners, everything—she had none of that. If she didn’t like it she just didn’t do it. If she did it, it was good. She didn’t have to say please or thank you. She didn’t have to be offered anything; it was already hers. She was more herself than anyone else ever was and as soon as I clapped eyes on her I knew I wanted to be myself just as much as she was herself.

  I didn’t have the courage to talk to her but it made me feel so good just watching her, just knowing you could get like that, that someone else had done that.

  I stood at the door for a while. I was so excited. After a bit I wanted someone to talk to so I went to look for Tar, but he wasn’t there. I went and sat down in a hard chair near to this bloke; he was one of the people from the squat.

  I asked him, “Where’s Tar?”

  “Dunno.”

  I took a swig of my drink and I thought, Shit, he’s left me here, he’s left me here to go and do anarchy. I felt like giggling. I got up and had another drink and sat there glugging away at it, just because there was nothing else to do, no one else to be with, nowhere else to go.

  Then the girl was there, dancing about, moving her head to the music in front of me.

  “Hi, what’s your party like?” she said, as if she couldn’t imagine not having a good time.

  “Great,” I said, and I started to take another swig but I started giggling just as it got to my mouth and spluttered it all over me. I held my head and giggled and tried to calm down before I made a real idiot of myself.

  She said, “Yeah, great.” I smiled at her, trying to look as if I was having a really great time. She held out her hand.

  “Can I have some of that?”

  “Sure.” I was, you know…wow, she thinks my drink’s worth drinking. She took it and went jiving off. I felt a bit naked, sitting there without my drink. I thought, How pathetic, I mean, she didn’t feel naked even with no clothes on. I watched her nervously as she boogied about with my glass. She sniffed it but she didn’t drink any of it. She just put it down on the mantelpiece and started to pick cups off the floor and stick them together to make a long tube.

  “Power,” she said. She was swinging it round at a group of people sitting on the floor like it was zap ray or something, “Pow, pow…power…” She laughed, chucked the stick of cups into the bin and went dancing off, waving her body to the beat. The people on the floor smiled self-consciously. You couldn’t tell if she was teasing them because she thought they wanted power, or because she already had all of it.

  I got up and made for the kitchen for another drink. I was pouring it out when there she was again, behind me.

  “You don’t need that stuff, what do you think you need that stuff for?” she said crossly. She wasn’t smiling. I looked at her in surprise.

  She reached out and took my drink off me. “Why do you think I took the last one off you?”

  I clutched my head. “I know, I know, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I wailed.

  “You’re doing okay, you know that?” she said.

  She seemed to know everything about me already. I just stood there like an idiot clutching my head and going, “I know, I know, I know…” And of course I didn’t know anything.

  Suddenly she put her arms around me and hugged me. She held me close. I just hugged her straight back and I felt the tears coming. I’d been thinking I was having a good time but she only had to touch me and I was crying.

  A couple of people came into the kitchen and saw us like that and then went out again. She didn’t say anything. After a bit she began to move to the music again still hugging me tight and I realised she’d stopped moving to hold me. I was the only thing that made her stand still. I began to move and we stood there a little longer, just swaying to the music.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Isn’t that great? Isn’t that great? The music’s the only drug…yeah…” I put my head on her shoulder and tried not to think.

  I don’t know what it was she had. She was sharing her magic with me and I could feel that tight bubble in my stomach get softer and softer and softer.

  “Come on, let’s see what’s going on.” She broke away and moved to the door, still dancing in that way she had.

  I followed her through.

  I sat on the sofa. The girl, the magic girl, was still dancing around the room, dancing as she went and kissed her boyfriend on the ear, dancing as she put someone’s drink on top of her long sausage of cups, dancing as she pushed another on top of that so that…whoops! The drink spurted all over the floor and all over her. Everyone laughed—even the girl whose drink it was laughed. The magic girl licked the wet off her arms and looked over to me as if to say, See? You don’t have to behave like them, you don’t have to behave like anyone. Then she reached over and plucked a joint out of someone’s fingers and came over to sit next to me.

  We talked—I don’t know, all sorts of stuff. I took a couple of puffs but then she had a look at me and took it off me.

  “You don’t need that either.” She laughed. Even sitting down, she was still dancing. She didn’t ask anything about me or where I came from. She talked about music and bands and she talked about herself and her boyfriend, what he was like, how amazing he was.

  “Yeah, he’s on the right side, you know,” she said, nodding her head and puffing down the smoke.

  “I don’t even know what the right side is,” I told her, beginning to giggle again.

  “The right side. Your side. My side. You know.” I didn’t know if she was talking about the world or this room or just us. I asked her if she knew the people in the squat well.

  “Nah.” It seemed Richard had helped them open up their squat about six months ago. “He’s okay, he’s out of his head. But the rest of them…they’re playing the wrong game,” she said. “They’re playi
ng the same game as the banks and big business…”

  I said, no…they were all out the next day squirting superglue into the locks. I was proud because I thought she couldn’t know that but she just laughed.

  “Big deal, so what? The banks don’t care, why should they? Nah…” She laughed and shook her head. “They’ll get in the back, send for a locksmith and put the charges on to their customers. No trouble. Listen…I’m a businessman myself.” She laughed at the thought. “Listen, they live in a squat and they like to think they’ve got it all worked out, but they don’t even know what they’re thinking about. They’ll be out with their mighty tubes of superglue on Monday, and on Tuesday they’ll be back in college to make sure they get nice fat exams so the bank’ll give them nice fat jobs in a couple years’ time. Five years from now they’ll be working for the same bank and moaning their faces off because their salaries aren’t fat enough. Maybe they’ll break out the superglue again. Yeah…superglue for bigger bucks!” she laughed and jived about on the sofa. “That’s the big business game. I do my own business, thanks.”

  Then the music stopped and she scowled. “Are they crazy or what?” And she got up and went across to put on some more.

  We talked and talked…I don’t know how long we talked. I felt better and better. Her bloke Rob came to sit with us and he was just like she said—really soft and slow but right there. I mean, he looked like he’d slit your throat for a penny but he was so warm. He was great but…it was her, Lily…she was the one. She’d done what I’d done—run away from home. She’d done it when she was twelve! Can you imagine? I thought, Wow, imagine being so sure about what you want, you can run away at twelve! And I thought I was something for doing it at fourteen. She was more real than anyone I’d ever met.

  I’d started to think I was wrong about myself…you know, that I was just a stupid kid with big ideas after all, just like my mum and dad and Vonny and Richard and Tar made out. But here was this amazing person talking to me and I felt, wow, this is me, Gemma Brogan, and I’m getting somewhere…

  Some time later, Tar turned up. I should have known he wouldn’t just dump me.

  “Oh, right, here you are,” he said. He was smiling that big smile, but I was on another planet by then. “We went out to have a look at the new squat but you were asleep. Are you all right?” he added, his face going all serious for a second. Then I saw his eyes catch Lily sitting by me, string vest half off her shoulder, nipples sticking through. His face went sort of still and he had to concentrate on looking at me.

  “This is Lily,” I said.

  Tar did his nod. “Yeah, hi, hello,” he croaked. I could see him looking nervously at Rob. Rob is always so polite, more polite than anyone else, all smiles and please and thank you. But you could tell he’d been in a few really nasty fights. I guess poor old Tar was dying to get a good look at Lily’s boobs but he didn’t want to upset Rob. Actually, Rob would have lifted the string vest up for him if he’d asked.

  Rob gave him a big smile and stood up to shake his hand and that made poor Tar more nervous than ever.

  “Yeah, really nice to meet you,” said Tar.

  “Those are a really nice pair of boots,” said Lily, nodding down at his feet.

  Tar looked doubtfully down at his boots. They were nothing special. He had a good shine on them. He spent ages polishing his boots, I’d noticed it before. “Are they?” he said, trying to work out if she was teasing him or not.

  “Yeah, I love ’em,” said Lily.

  “Thanks.”

  He stood there looking awkward and unhappy while Lily closed her eyes and danced with her head. Poor old Tar, I felt sorry for him. They were only winding him up. I stood up and took his arm.

  “He’s the one I ran away with,” I told them.

  “Oh, right…” Lily beamed. “Yeah, that’s really great, everyone should run away, you did the right thing. You did the right thing for Gemma too.”

  Tar smiled uncertainly. He’d been told so often that I ought to be at home with Mumsy. Now this amazing naked girl was telling him he was doing everything right.

  I said, “Yeah, if it wasn’t for Tar, I’d still be at home going mad.”

  Lily was sitting there watching Tar and I was worried because I thought she might decide to go against him. I hadn’t got any idea at all which side he was on, but I wanted him to be on the right side, too.

  “Tar had a really bad time at home, he got knocked about by his dad.”

  “Yeah, right…leave the bastard,” said Rob.

  I watched Lily look at him. Then she winked at me and said, “I’m gonna get him.”

  She jumped up and grabbed him round the neck and pressed herself into him. “Well done, man, you broke the door down…brilliant, brilliant, yeah!”

  Tar stood there, his hands fluttering nervously around her bare bum. He glanced anxiously at Rob, who stood up and started to pat him on the neck and back.

  “Brilliant. I love you, man, I love you,” he said.

  I said, “It’s all right, Tar, it’s all right…” because he looked so worried about it.

  Lily let go and looked around the room. Everyone was staring at us. She scowled. “Sod this. Let’s go. Come on…This place is dead!” She said that in a loud voice so they’d all know what she thought about them.

  “But…all our things are here,” said Tar.

  “They’ll be here tomorrow. Or we can get you some new things…”

  “That’s right, you put your order in,” laughed Rob. We all headed for the door. Somewhere out of the corner of my eye I saw Vonny glaring at me. I thought, YEAH! Because I fucking done it! I’d got away…She stood staring like a waxwork while we all trooped off out of the door in a line like a circus.

  Tar

  It was all going so fast. I was scrabbling and snatching but I wasn’t catching a thing.

  Gemma was so excited. Her and Lily, grabbing hold of each other and talking and hugging. None of the things I had mattered to her—the squat, my new friends. She was leaving me behind. They were all on a different wavelength from me. Gemma looked so happy, happier than she ever was with me. But she was a bit hysterical at the same time and that made me think that maybe in the morning she’d want to come back.

  It was weird, walking like that through the streets of Bristol. Lily was wearing nothing but this string vest dyed black. I was having kittens, I was sure we were bound to get into a scene or an argument or something. In fact a couple of blokes who’d been drinking started shouting at us but we just walked past them and it was all okay. I began to feel I was just being paranoid. I was the only one worried about it.

  Gemma hardly noticed me at all, she was so excited, but Lily kept looking back at me and I thought she was wondering, What’s wrong with him? Then they started talking about me. I knew that because they kept shooting little glances at me. That went on for a bit. Then Lily came back and took my arm.

  “Tell me about your mum,” she said.

  I just looked at Gemma. I was appalled. That’s all so private! But Gemma said, “Go on, tell her, it’s all right, tell her, tell her…”

  So I tried.

  It was hard. I didn’t know them. Gemma kept jumping in. She wanted to share everything with Lily, whether it was hers to share or not. She was talking about my parents like they were a pair of monsters and I didn’t like that. My mum—she just can’t help it, it’s not like she does it because she wants to. Even my dad. They just can’t cope. They got stuck and they can’t cope. Probably they should never have had children, that’s all.

  Lily kept shushing Gemma. She didn’t say much, she just listened. I didn’t know what she made of it.

  Their place was a big old house on City Road, on a corner. Richard had opened it up for them; he must have opened up half the squats in Bristol. They had a flat on the ground floor and this big garden. Inside it was messy, packed with stuff, all sorts, books, clothes, tools. There was an engine half taken to pieces on the floor. That was Rob. H
e was always building engines or taking them to bits.

  Lily put the kettle on and some music. I started talking to Rob. That was okay. That was nice. He had two teeth out in the front so he looked like a real bruiser, but he was very gentle and polite really. Only that gap in his mouth made you think he could be nasty if he wanted to.

  Gemma and Lily started lighting candles. It looked like a nice thing to do at first, but then I got confused because they kept bringing out more and more. There were these endless candles. Lily kept producing them out of the cupboard. It got funnier and funnier. Even Rob was amazed; he had no idea where she got them all from and he lived with her. We were laughing our heads off every time they got out another box.

  “Big special occasion,” said Rob. He started telling me about the engine on the floor which he’d fished out of a skip. It was a motorbike engine and he reckoned he could get it going and sell it. He’d learned about engines when he was really young. He’d had this strange childhood. His mum lived in caravans and they parked up in the winter and travelled around to the festivals all over the country in the summer. That sort of thing. So of course he’d known how to fix engines when he was about eight, because everyone was always taking the vehicles to bits and doing their own mechanics.

  “Yeah,” said Lily. “Big Honda 1000cc, brm, brm, Big Chief Go Places.” She was teasing him, but he just laughed, he didn’t mind at all.

  The room was filling up with candlelight. I was getting worried about something catching fire. There were candles on the table between the pans and the dishes of their last meal, maybe twenty or thirty of them, blazing away. There were candles on the mantelpiece, candles on the floor, stuck on books, shelves, tables—even on top of the doors. It was getting hot in there!

  “She collects candles,” said Rob.

  “Candles are magic, I collect magic,” said Lily.

  Then when they were all lit…I don’t know how to tell you this. She came up and pulled me to my feet. Gemma was there, grinning at me.