’til I gave ’em two fingers. Then t’ bloke blabbed to t’ bus driver who chucked me off t’ bus, so I’d had to walk the final mile or so.
I joined the ragged queue that shuffled forward noisily ’til there wor just two girls in front of me. The one wor a thin waif of a girl and the other wor a bigger girl wi’ long hair and big breasts. The waif girl had on shiny black leggings, a loose white shirt and a thin black leather tie. Her black hair wor cropped. T’other girl wor wearing a tight red miniskirt over fishnet stockings. Flesh gaped through t’ large tears. Their dark lipstick made ’em look as if they’d been gorging on berries.
The doorman let the three us in together, and the waif girl darted a smile at me between her small, gapped teeth. Her friend nudged her and she turned away.
I tagged behind ’em along a corridor of garish striplights toward a barrage of careening guitars and battering drums. I could hear a voice barking tunelessly into a microphone. We pushed through t’ swing doors and into a wall of heat and noise in a room sardined wi’ sweating bodies, all leaping and pogoing furiously.
I edged my way in. Two lads in front of me had stripped to t’ waist already, and their bodies glistened under t’ blue and red strobes. Sweat droplets sprayed off their hair as they each propelled themsens upwards on t’ shoulders of t’other. Beside them, a girl wi’ her eyes shut and her fists clenched wor pummelling the floor wi’ her boots as if she wor a road-stamping machine.
The two girls wor pushing their way toward t’ stage, so I followed them.
The singer on t’ stage – some band called New Trix – barked and screamed and threw t’ mic stand about. He introduced each number wi’ ‘And this one’s called …’ in a thick Liverpudlian accent. Some kid gobbed at him as he dropped to his knees, the mic head half in his mouth. The gob landed on him and trickled slowly down his torso.
I became aware of t’ waif girl alongside me, eyeing me severely. I nodded at her, cos she wor making me uneasy. She said summat, her mouth forming mute, indecipherable words.
‘WHAT!?’
She cupped her mouth to my ear and yelled. I still couldn’t hear owt. She took me by t’ elbow and launched hersen into a dance, flaying around like a rag doll being tossed by an invisible hand. I shuffled about for a short while, then slipped away to watch from t’ margins.
The band’s brief set ground to a halt wi’ t’ drummer kicking over his kit. Some barmpot at the front shook up a beer can and sprayed it over t’ singer, who grabbed the can, took a swig, sprayed it back at the crowd and poured the rest over his own bonce.
‘Fuck you all! Fuck you!’
The waif girl pushed her way through to where I wor propped against t’ wall.
‘Didn’t you like it, then?’
‘Worn’t too bad.’
‘I think they’re ace. The singer’s a bit of all right, don’t you think?’
She wor screwing her hair round one finger. Her posh voice had a mocking edge to it that made me wary. But then, she looked like she belonged at the centre of summat. I glanced over her shoulder at a lad passing behind her.
‘I’m Gina.’
‘Yeah, right. Oh, I’m Ricky.’
‘Ricky? Don’t you mean Rick? Ricky’s a little boy’s name. I’m sure you’re not little.’
I’d meant to say Rick. Fuck knows why I said Ricky. Only Gran called me that. My ears wor popping. I said, ‘I’m taller than you.’
‘Everyone’s taller than me, Rick. Or is it Richard?’
‘I don’t like Richard. Even my mother don’t call me Richard.’
‘You’re not still living at home?’
‘Moving out shortly. Soon as I get my own place. What about yersen?’
She cackled. ‘I don’t live with my mother, if that’s what you mean. God, no.’ She shook her head, laughing. ‘God, no,’ she repeated. Her laughter raged about and then fled.
‘Are you working then, Richard?’ She spoke rapidly and quietly, as if she wor afraid someone might overhear.
‘Nothing great. What about you?’
‘Signing on. I was training to be a nurse but I got fired. Buy me a drink?’
I bought us both cider. She drank hers down in rapid gulps. We had a couple more. Being wi’ her wor like trespassing. She had this way of nibbling her bottom lip and staring into you as if you’d been caught out. She said it wor only her third time at the FK Club, and she didn’t think much of it. Her offhandedness deflated me like a knife in a tyre. So I faked being world-weary and unimpressed. Suddenly she grabbed me by t’ arm. ‘Stay here, don’t move, only I’ve just seen someone I have to talk to.’
She darted off. The DJ played ‘Gloria’ by Patti Smith, then some Burning Spear, then ‘White Riot’ by The Clash. I bought mesen another pint of cider. And another. It wor all finishing up, an t’ place wor emptying rapidly. A long-haired roadie in an Allman Brothers T-shirt wor carting out band equipment. An old woman wor pushing a wide broom across t’ floor, the bristles skidmarking through t’ beer slops.
Then I saw her lolling by a radiator. I wondered if she’d been watching me on t’ sly. I strolled over, all loose-limbed and more than a little khalied.
‘I didn’t think you’d wait,’ she said.
I fired off a so-what smile. ‘I wor just about to head off. Did you find that girl?’
‘Sort of.’
‘That one you arrived wi’?’
‘Her? No, God, no. That was just fat Judy.’
‘She ain’t that fat.’
‘The girl I was looking for was the one I was snogging in the toilets last week.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Only tonight she pissed off without saying a word.’
‘Right.’
‘Are you shocked?’
‘Do you want me to be?’
She shrugged.
Outside, a few folk wor still hanging about. Someone wor touting tickets for a Banshees gig in Doncaster. We pushed through, heading on up the dully lit street ’til we came to a junction. I stopped, one hand on my belly.
‘I think I’m gonna spew up.’
I bent double, and a volley of vomit splattered the pavement.
‘Oh, bloody Nora! Hey, wait!’
I staggered after her, spitting out vomit bits, ’til I caught up. She wor singing some rubbish song in a high-pitched, baby-doll
