Bastille
WE STEPPED OUT OF THE club hours later into a blue-grey dawn, the sky the colour of ice.
‘What do we do now?’ I said, stunned by the cold and the sharpening light.
Lisa pointed towards the canal and I carried her coat, its fur hood prickling my arm. My eczema had revived, and my body crawled with itches.
I offered it to her, but she waved it away. Her hair was drenched with sweat. Make-up smudged her face, and one of her eyes was red and veiny.
‘I just need some air,’ she said, lighting a cigarette, our footsteps echoing on the rough paving stones at the edge of the canal. Grey light stretched and rippled on the water, and drifts of leaves swelled between the boats moored along the towpath.
We went up some iron stairs to a square where there was an early fish market. Men in white overalls and black rubber boots scattered ice over metal trays, crunching it down, while others laid out the fish, pressing their stiff, silvery bodies into neat rows. Juice dribbled out of the fishes’ mouths, staining the ice pink. Behind the stalls the men worked fast – their large, blubbery arms gutting and slicing, then tossing the bones high in the air towards the bins.
A fish skeleton landed in front of us and Lisa squealed, slipping on the pavement. One of the men laughed as I helped her up, her dress wet and smeared with scales. He sucked on his cigarette, his swollen lips leering like a cartoon as he watched us weave around the puddles and crates.
We sat on a wooden bench at the edge of the square, the street lamps casting yellow light over the morning. Lisa kicked off her shoes, draping her legs across my lap, her dress riding up past her knees. Her pupils were enormous, and she looked beautiful and strange with her ragged hair and filthy feet. I traced the line of her legs, drawn to the memory of what I’d seen on her thighs. Her skin was blue with cold, and the scars on her knees looked surreal in the acid light.
We talked for a while about the night laughing and teasing each other. After a while, she rummaged in her purse and brought out several bags coated in powdery residue. She waved them at me. ‘Do you have any more?’
I shook my head. ‘Where did you get those other bags?’
‘Tomas,’ she said, smiling.
I shifted on the bench, overcome by a sudden wave of despair. ‘Is he really your boyfriend?’
She shrugged and then pouted, nodding slightly, as though none of it mattered. ‘Why? Are you jealous?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But why are you with him? You know he beat me up for no reason. The guy is a psychopath.’
‘He is a bit,’ she said and went digging in her bag. ‘We’re not really together anymore. His mother didn’t like me coming round.’
‘Céline?’
She looked up. ‘You know her?’
‘His parents are friends of my father’s.’
‘She said I was a bad influence.’
‘You led her boy astray.’
She moved in closer. ‘I bet your mother wouldn’t be like that. She’d be one of those cool mums who hands out condoms, and changes the sheets afterwards.’
I felt the heat prickle across my chest as she took my hand.
‘She’d go along with it just so she could tell her friends, We let them sleep together, so they don’t do it in parks. I’ve heard them say that, can you believe it? They think we’re dogs!’
‘Tomas isn’t far off,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Tomas’s mum is way too uptight. She complained to the school, said I was a “little tramp”. Those were her words!’
‘That’s ironic.’
‘Even if I was, what business is it of theirs what I do out of school?’ Lisa scratched her leg then looked up. ‘Why ironic?’
‘Well Céline seems—’ I said, immediately regretting it.
‘Seems what?’
‘Nothing.’
She jabbed me in the ribs. ‘Come on, tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
She put her hand on my crotch. ‘Tell me, or I’ll have to force it out of you.’
She moved towards me. Her touch and the way she looked at me was completely overwhelming and I felt my self-restraint drain away.
‘My father’s sleeping with her,’ I said.
Her eyes grew wide. ‘Nooooo way. How do you know?’
‘Promise not to tell?’
She smiled, chewing on a strand of hair. ‘Of course I won’t.’
‘I’ve seen them together.’
She put her hand over her mouth. ‘You saw them having sex?’
‘I practically walked in on them at her place. The country place.’
‘Oh, God, that’s gross. They’re so old,’ she said, putting her arms around my neck.
*
Hours later, I woke fully clothed, lying sideways across my bed. My nostrils were raw and swollen, and I breathed through my mouth in short, dry breaths. I rolled over and a dull thud radiated from the back of my head to the blurred edges of vision. The room shuddered, and a jagged spear of light pierced the curtains. As the sun moved, the spear lengthened along the carpet and I watched it, imagining it was my future creeping towards me.
My phone was full of messages from Lisa suggesting we meet up. I thought of our walk home that morning along the river as the sun rose and turned the sky pink. I hadn’t expected to hear from her so soon. Her texts reignited the excitement from the night before, and I felt high again, my brain full of scrambled images of the club, the lights and her. I got out of bed and threw the curtains wide.
By the time I got outside, the promise of the morning had wilted into a damp afternoon. The sun was a glazed disc struggling behind heavy cloud, and shoppers packed the streets. Men in brogues and pastel sweaters sipped espresso at the cafés, their eyes sliding from newspapers to the women in heels who walked past, laden with bags.
I scanned the terrace at the café and went inside. Lisa was in the back room on a studded leather banquette next to a fake gas fire. Large ceiling lights tinged the place green and vintage jazz piped through the speakers.
She sat alone, twirling the straw of her oversized drink, looking small and tragic, and the excitement I’d felt at seeing her again evaporated.
Her skin was blotchy and there were dark circles under her eyes, one of which was badly swollen. Her hair, now more ashy than blonde, was pulled back into a greasy bun, making her face look sharp and pointy.
We chatted for a while, and she blew her nose until it grew all red, standing out like a ball of chewed meat against her pale face.
Finally, she asked about the pills – where did I get them and could I get more?
So again, this was what she wanted, I thought, my mood properly crashing as though I’d been hurled from a speeding car. Perhaps this was all she ever wanted.
Her questions annoyed me, and she looked worse the more inquisitorial she became, until all I saw was her pointy chin wagging at me, firing questions as she rubbed her eye with a tissue. I’d always worried that one day, my eczema would spread to my face, and right now, with her eye a glistening sliver beneath swollen folds, she was the living embodiment of those fears.
I shuffled back in case she was contagious. ‘I’m not your delivery boy, Lisa.’
‘No wait, don’t go,’ she said, as a hand slapped me hard on the shoulder. It was Tomas, his white teeth dazzling in the gloom.
He sat beside me, his legs sprawling out. He looked frightening, grinning with a deranged leer, his face glowing like he’d just come from an ice hockey game.
‘I heard you guys had a great night,’ he said, in a deep voice, running his hand through his hair, his breath a blast of mint.
‘Did you arrange this?’ I said to Lisa.
She grabbed my arm, her face pleading. ‘Alex said he can get more,’ she said to Tomas.
‘No, I fucking didn’t.’
‘Hey, hey. Stay cool,’ said Tomas, moving in close. A bitter edge crept into his smile – a reminder of the psychopath in the toilet block.
I laughed weakly. ‘Come on, guys, what is this? Some kind of joke?’
They exchanged a glance, and Tomas leaned in further. ‘I’m having a party in a couple of weeks. It’d be great to have some of those pills you had last night.’
‘What do you think I am – your dealer?’
‘No, seriously. I can make it worth your while. I mean it.’ He was so close I could see the pores on his nose, smell his sour, piney deodorant.
Lisa chewed her straw. ‘Just introduce us to your guy.’ She looked at Tomas and I sensed the strong ties between them, ties that excluded me.
‘We’ll come with you. That way you’re not doing the deal. You can just introduce us,’ she added, smiling indulgently as if I was a child.
Tomas held a fifty-euro note casually between his fingers like a tip. ‘Just call the guy. Arrange for him to meet you somewhere with the stuff, and we’ll come and get it.’
I stared at the money. ‘You want me to call him and make an arrangement?’
‘Yeah. Just call him, just this once, and make the arrangement. We’ll do the rest,’ said Tomas.
‘And what exactly is the arrangement? You want fifty euros’ worth of pills?’
Tomas laughed and waggled the note at me. ‘No, my friend, that’s for you. A little incentive to get you started. As for the pills, I’ll have as many as you can get your hands on.’ He stuffed the note into my shirt pocket, and then slapped his thigh like he was some kind of bank exec who’d just closed a deal.
When Tomas went to the bar, I stood up and threw the money onto the table. I needed to get away from him, his money and his sickening smile. I looked at Lisa, expecting to connect. But there was nothing, just a vacuous, hungry look.
‘What’s the matter?’ Lisa said. ‘I wanted you guys to meet out of school so you’d see he wasn’t so bad after all.’
‘Not so bad? You saw the way he behaved. He’s a total prick. A fucking nutcase. And he’s only speaking to me now because he wants something from me. Like you.’
She walked around next to me. ‘What’s so bad about that? It’s the way of the world. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.’ Her face was sharp and humourless as she stuffed the fifty euros back into my pocket.
‘What if I don’t want my back scratched?’ I said, the eczema prickling across my shoulders.
It was actually the last thing I wanted.
‘Everyone wants their back scratched,’ she said, running her nails along my spine.
*
I walked to the river, furious at the way she’d spring-loaded a trap then led me straight to it. She must have thought I was an idiot, tempting me to the café and then ambushing me like that. What made her think she could push me around and do her bidding – score drugs for Tomas, help her with her habit? It was insulting.
Tomas was worse. The way he’d edged in so casually – I can make it worth your while, so confident he could buy me with the shitty cash between his fingers like I was a member of staff. No, my friend, that’s for you. So we were friends now, were we? Just because I was part of a transaction he wanted to pull off.
Someone needed to teach him a lesson, I thought, trying to imagine how. I thought of his parents, so satisfied with themselves, their houses and all their money. People like Tomas were so insulated in their world of weaponised cash that it was impossible to get anywhere near them.
As I walked along the riverbank, I said the words aloud, I can make it worth your while, trying to imagine the kind of person who’d say that. I pretended I was Tomas, and felt his arrogance swirl around me. I repeated the words, lost in his world until I sensed the edge of something else – something desperate and naïve in his belief that everyone had a price, and a twinge of fear in case they didn’t.
As I crossed the road and headed home, some of my annoyance subsided, and I grew aware that I now had access to something he wanted. The more I considered the opportunity that had just arisen, the more it became loaded with promise – not of cash, but power at the thought that now he needed something from me. Suddenly, the isolation I felt at school receded, and in its place a kind of hopefulness took shape and the threat of him felt contained, neutralised.
I had access to these drugs and he didn’t. I’d get them, but I’d do it my way. I’d turn the tables on him, make him grovel and beg for them, and he’d realise just how little power he actually had.
I felt instantly taller, as if gravity had become weaker, the ground a bit further away. The world had sharpened up and come into focus, and I felt good like I was in control and about to start winning for a change.