Disconnected

“Oh,” said Toni.

“Oh,” said Fliss.

“What’s that in your hair?” Brad asked Fliss, fingering her extension.

“Leave it out!” Fliss giggled.

“He’s terrible,” Toni said.

“Have you got one?” Brad asked, messing Toni’s hair. He was having a good time, and it made me smile. I could sense Lucy restless by my side, feeling ignored.

“Shall we go and get a drink?” she said.

Melissa arrived while I was sipping at a Coke and Lucy was knocking back a Bacardi Breezer. She had a tall, blond boy in tow, with cold blue eyes. She gave the impression she was just dropping in, and looked around, giving everyone time to get an eyeful of her. She wore black hipsters that accentuated her flat stomach and a tiny kid’s top with a cartoon character on it. It hugged her bust possessively. I watched people drift over to her as if they couldn’t help it. Even I felt her pull. Simply not going over to say hi to Melissa was a statement. In the end I had no choice. Lucy dragged me over.

“Oh, hi Catherine, hi Lucy. You look nice.”

Patronising bitch, I thought. But I just smiled.

“You look gorgeous,” Lucy said. “I love your top! Where did you get it?”

But Melissa didn’t hear her. Some guys had come over and she was flirting, properly flirting, you know, with her hands, touching people’s arms, nuzzling up to them. It was clever, in a way, what she was doing. The boys were hooked. No one was actually listening to what she was saying; they were just waiting for the moment when she might make them feel special. It was like Lucy and I didn’t exist. Which was OK by me, but I could feel Lucy sagging.

Brad appeared then, having abandoned Fliss and Toni.

“Have you got a ciggie?” Melissa asked him, stroking his arm.

Brad shook his head. “It’s a bugger. The old man doesn’t like smoking in the house. I’ll open the garden door if you like and you can smoke outside, if you can find a fag.”

“Don’t bother,” Melissa said.

Brad looked crestfallen. I saw him shoot a glance back to Fliss and Toni who were now being chatted up by two short boys I’d seen around school.

“Is that painting of you?” Lucy asked him.

His face lit up again. “Yeah, it’s crap, isn’t it?” he said, grinning again from ear to ear.

“No,” she said. “I think it’s lovely.”

Time, I realised, to separate myself. I wandered off to the settee by the bay window, which was empty, and sat down to watch everyone.

I could see the party was beginning to take shape. Some of the girls were moving to the music and Melissa, as foul as she was, made the party seem important, somehow. Some guys were laughing and getting more plastered. It was noisier and noisier by the minute. I liked just being there. It was restful not to be me but just an onlooker, outside life.

Even the scenes earlier in the day seemed apart from me, as if they’d happened to somebody else. Mum’s grand inquisition, why haven’t I seen you working? Is theresomething wrong, Catherine? Peter! Help me here – she’s being so uncommunicative! And locking myself in my room again and looking at my books and my bulging schoolbag like a malignant growth sprouting blackly in the corner. I recalled burrowing under my duvet, and sleeping. Then I went downstairs rubbing my eyes, and lied that maybe I was fighting a virus and it would help me to go out tonight. Mum said, you silly girl! but spoke the words affectionately. I returned upstairs, and soaked in the bath, considering my pale body that seemed to belong to someone else. Then there were pangs of guilt about my oboe practice – little lappings of panic – and I began to wonder why it was I hadn’t done a stroke of work for days. It wasn’t as if I’d made a decision not to work. Something outside me had made that decision, and then I found the reasons to back it up. Or maybe not. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I relaxed, regretting the fact the water was cooling. Then I was back on automatic pilot, drying, dressing, applying some make-up, on my way to Brad’s party. And here I was in his front room, disassociated, watching people.

You could tell people had had quite a bit to drink already. They were loud, fooling around. Some boys were dancing maniacally over by the sideboard and I could see Brad – who was still talking to Lucy – cast them anxious glances. Some girls I knew were screeching and eyeing the boys up, ready for an assault. Fliss and Toni were slow-dancing with those short lads, and their hands were everywhere. I could see the boys watching each other, comparing moves. Synchronised snogging. Melissa dancing suggestively with her escort.

Then someone put on an album of Beatles hits – and there was that old anthem, All You Need Is Love. The boys sang it aloud, putting their arms round each other’s shoulders, as if they were at a football match, shouting out the words. Soon nearly everyone had joined them. You could see written on everyone’s faces that they knew they were having a brilliant time. They were happy and drunk and proud and hot and sweaty. All you need is love. Brad had his arm round Lucy’s waist. Lucy gesticulated to me to join them. I couldn’t. I had to stay where I was. Had to.

Not that anyone cared. The song ended, the group broke up, Brad kissed Lucy, and Melissa plus escort moved past me towards the door.

“Sad, aren’t they?” Melissa said.

Her escort just smiled.

“We’ll move on,” she said. The escort offered her a cigarette, which she accepted. She stood in the doorway as she took a few drags. Brad was now on an armchair with Lucy on his lap. I didn’t want to look at what they were doing. Instead I watched Melissa. She looked disdainfully at her cigarette, then swiftly threw it on the carpet, and stubbed it out with the toe of her stiletto.

“Let’s go,” she said.

The little bubble of hatred I felt for her was the first real emotion I’d experienced in days. I wondered whether I ought to tell tales to Brad, or confront Melissa. Then the complexity of the situation, the knowledge that Melissa would deny everything, that the whole affair would mushroom out of control made me tired again. Weary Not so that I wanted to go home, but that I just wanted to stay on the settee in limbo like this, indefinitely I didn’t want my life to move on. I was happy to be a shadow. Or maybe it was everyone else who were the shadows, and I was the only living person. Or maybe I was going mad. I was faintly disgusted, slightly jealous of all the bodies intertwined, glad to be different, but very lonely. I wanted to be like everybody else. I was getting a little sorry for myself. Worse still was the fact a boy was eyeing me up, a chubby, spotty little boy who obviously thought he was in luck. Each time I looked at him I could see him trying to smile.

And then there was a commotion at the front door. It pulled me out of myself.

“I don’t know who you are. Hold on a minute. Brad!”

Brad didn’t hear, for reasons that I told you.

“Sod off. This is a private party! Brad!”

Chris pushed through and disturbed Brad. “Some blokes, say they know you. Won’t go away.”

Then you appeared. You didn’t look like a drunken, brawling gatecrasher at all, but you did look as if you were at the wrong party. For a start – you don’t mind me saying this – you were the wrong colour. All of the crowd I knew was white. It wasn’t that we excluded people who weren’t, but the Asians we knew at school formed their own little clique, and they didn’t socialise with us out of hours. So I noticed you for that reason. And the way you knotted your hair. And the dirty leather trousers. But most of all for the look on your face. Slightly defiant, a little ill at ease but totally self-contained. Your chin was lifted, you held yourself still, Taz, and you neither smiled nor frowned. The blokes who came with you did the talking.

“We’re mates of Brad’s brother Rick. From The Pit. I DJ with him.”

I saw Brad hesitate. He explained to Chris that it was true; Rick did DJ at The Pit, and he might have seen one or two of these blokes before.

“Is Rick coming later?”

“Yeah. When he’s finished work. We’ve brought some stuff.”

Another of your crowd had a Threshers’ bag with cans of Special Brew. That decided Brad. He moved aside and you all came in. Still, he kept an eye on you all, and was relieved when your mates sat on the floor and just drank quietly.

You didn’t drink. You didn’t sit down either, but were chewing, standing by the door that led to the kitchen. Then Fliss and the boy she was with sat down beside me and carried on touching each other up. It made me feel sick. I stood up to give them more room and that was when our eyes met. You smiled at me, not flirting, but a smile of understanding. I smiled back. But something happened then – you know it did. We made a connection.

I forget how long it was before you came over to me. I knew you would. Together in silence we watched the party like it was on a screen. It was so noisy we couldn’t talk much. You asked me what I was called, and I said, Catherine. Cat, you said. I liked that. Cat. A shadow in the night. Yeah, Cat. Who are you? I asked. Taz. I questioned that. I didn’t say so, but I thought it sounded like one of those kids’ chocolate bars. You said it was short for Tariq. Cat and Taz. It sounded good. I liked the way that being called Cat made me feel like someone new.

Then you cut through all the bullshit about school and college and exams and said, was I having a good time? Not particularly, I said. And you laughed, but more to yourself. You said you thought I looked fed up. You said, any reason? None at all, I said, but I am fed up. Totally.

Me too, you said.

We didn’t have to say anything for ages after that. Then you asked me if I wanted a drink, and I said I didn’t drink. You looked a bit surprised, but I saw you weren’t drinking either. I smelt cigarette smoke on you, but that could have been because you’d come from a bar. Standing close to you I noticed the gold stud in your nose and I could see you were cracking the joints in your fingers.

I know what you’re thinking. Did I fancy you then? The truth: I don’t know because you were so different. I coveted your difference. I wanted to be you, with knotted hair and a pissed-off look and leather and piercings. I realised I’d had enough of being me and that was the trouble. I was worn out. Like a train out of fuel in the middle of a tunnel. Imagining being you was such a relief.

You asked me what music I was into. I blustered, talked about The Smiths, Tupac, Green Day. You mentioned some bands I’d never heard of and I felt small. One of them was Transponder. I remembered that afterwards. I asked if you hung around at The Pit, and you said, sometimes, if you had the dosh.

In between our snatched questions, I could see people stealing glances at you. Some were curious, some a little suspicious. When Lucy came up for air and saw me with you she grinned, thinking I was in luck too. I liked her then because I could tell she hadn’t judged you. You were a bloke and that was good enough for her. But if I was you – and I wanted to be you, remember – I would have hated the way sneaky eyes labelled me as different and dangerous and somewhat disgusting. My crowd, you see, for all that they acted so cool, were just like their mums and dads: middle-class, conventional, into exam grades and good jobs and settling down one day. It was OK to be wild on Saturday night because that’s what Saturday nights were for. But you had to be steady for the rest of the time.