Four bodies. Vague shapes.
A stale, sticky smell. Spilled beer and vomit. Cigarette smoke. Weed. A sudden flash from the night before: a couple behind the sofa, bangs and thrusts. An audience looking on. The girl riding and bucking. Big grin on her face, eyes closed. Oblivious.
She walks slowly towards the sofa, crouches down. Peers around the back. They’re still there, arms wrapped around each other. Totally out of it. A mist of sex lingers. Something else. Something stronger.
That makes six.
Her head spins as she stands up. Her eyes sting. She has a vague memory of waking up in darkness, peeling contact lenses off her parched eyes, tugging at dry eyeballs. She can barely see without them, everything fuzzy-edged and hard to decipher. She squints, stumbles against the sofa. A head lolls against her.
‘Shh, sorry,’ she says, low, under her breath. No response.
A girl is draped at an awkward angle, long dark hair trailing on the floor. A man sits, head leaning off one side of the sofa; his soft hair tickles her hand. She nudges him gently and his head rolls back onto his chest as she moves carefully away.
Try not to wake them.
On the other side of the room, a skinny figure lies splayed across an armchair, head hanging off one side, legs off the other. Under the window, a girl is curled up and facing the wall. Her fair hair is matted and spread out around her like the head of an old mop.
The room shifts. Tilts.
She feels sick. Brings up bile and swallows it back. The syrupy taste of Red Bull burns the back of her throat. Memories of vodka and cheap fizzy wine whirl around her head and her stomach like an aspirin fizzing in water.
All around, there are shadows. Dark patches and pools. Spilled things. Dirty things. She squints, trying to work out who is who, what is what. But her eyes hurt too much. Her head thrums, and the smell is getting worse. Body odour. Piss. Carnage and decay. Bottles and cans everywhere. Discarded bits of clothing. Upended ashtrays. Her stomach lurches again. She has to get out. Now.
It’s too quiet. Too claustrophobic.
She lifts the latch. The door opens with a squeak, and she flinches. Hears a soft thud from somewhere behind her. She turns back. Sees that the girl from the sofa’s hand has slid off from where it had been resting on her stomach, and it now flops uselessly on the laminate flooring. But she hasn’t woken up.
There’s a faint banging sound. Tap. Tap. Tap. A draught. Someone has left the back door open. Maybe someone is out there now, having a fag, or a morning sup from one of the cans of warm beer she imagines to be littering the kitchen worktops. She hesitates. Should she go through? Offer to help clear up? Sort out the drunken mess of bodies scattered across the lounge like a pile of coats?
She squeezes her eyes shut and sparks flip and leap across her vision. No. She has to get out. She needs air, water and sleep. She needs a wash too. A long hot bath, to get rid of the stink that seems to be seeping into her pores from the toxic air. She needs to shake off the memories of the night before, threatening and bothering at her like tiny pinpricks jabbing at her skull.
Something happened. Something went wrong.
She walks out into the early morning sun, shielding her eyes. She takes a gulp of fresh air and feels the nausea subside – for now, at least. A chorus of blackbirds twitters in the trees. Will she manage to walk home without bumping into someone, or something . . . or getting knocked down by a car as she stumbles, half-blind, down the road?
She bangs the door shut. Hard. Starts walking. Fast.
Something pings at her. Get away from here. You need to get away.
Behind her in the house, no one flinches. No one stirs.
No one breathes.