She didn’t know what day it was. Avoiding her reflection she stumbled back to where six or seven people were on the floor. There was no sound, the air was foetid. She pulled away the black cloth from all the windows but even harsh daylight couldn’t wake them. Then someone rolled over snored.
Angry, she began to kick them.
‘Hey, man, wha’s happening?’
Other people woke. ‘Cool it, what’s the problem?’
‘Get up! Get up! Get up!’
‘Heavy games, lady.’
‘Cool it.’
‘It’s a raid,’ shrieked Tessa.
At these words there was instant panic. They scrambled for the door, falling over each other. ‘Beat it, it’s the Fuzz,’ and they crashed down the stairs and into the street.
Tessa watched from the window and laughed. They ran down the road like surprised rats, not even noticing a complete absence of policemen.
Now she was alone. Edgar was not there. She vaguely remembered he had gone at some point in the night, but she didn’t care. She locked the door, which was something that had never been done before.
Feeling sick again, she hauled herself to bed. ‘Oh shit … oh Christ … oh God … oh Jesus …’
Some days passed. There was a knocking at the door. Tessa thought it must be Edgar and stayed put under the grimy sheets. She blocked her ears. Edgar was six foot plus, he could kick down any door. She waited.
But it couldn’t have been Edgar; the noise was weak, almost scratching, like a wounded animal that had crawled home.
‘Tessy, Tessy, where are you, where are you? Let me in, Tessy, please let me in.’
Tessa sat up. It was Dee-Dee.
There was much hugging and tears. ‘I thought you’d gone away, Tessy, I really did.’
‘Here I am, sort of … did you go to India?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wow, and was it amazing?’
‘I don’t know … I suppose it was … it was weird …’
‘Where’s Jeremy?’
‘He’s in Goa playing the flute.’
Dee-Dee was very thin. Her eyes looked huge, like a lemur’s.
‘I had enough, I thought I’d come back …’ She began to cry. ‘Tessy, it was awful, it was worse than a bad trip, and we had no money, we had to beg, but there’s so many beggars … and I got sick, I don’t know, I ate dahl off a stall … I got sick in Afghanistan too, but that wasn’t too bad … Afghanistan’s great, the people are tribal and the women wear veils and you never see them … and the deserts … I mean I saw a real camel and a mirage. I did.’
She blew her nose on her skirt.
‘But India was so full and they’re all dying, even the babies.’ And she dissolved into sobs.
‘So you didn’t find a guru, then,’ said Tessa after a while.
‘Everyone in India’s a guru.’ Dee-Dee was hardly ever bitter. ‘We were supposed to be going to an ashram near Poona but I wanted to lie down all the time and then we went to Goa. I was pretty flipped out by Goa. It was like paradise, and we got sort of stuck … then I was in hospital, and when I came out I just couldn’t get into it any more … Jeremy kept phoning his mum to send him more money, but I didn’t want to do that, I’d rather beg … so I went to Delhi and met some Australians.’
‘Did you see the Taj Mahal?’
‘The Australians took me, they had a minibus, and the Taj was really magical and special, I wanted to stay. We waited for the moon to rise, and we saw a deserted palace called Fatehpur Sikri … Then the Australians took me to Kabul, they were called Rod and Mike, they were great …’ She sighed. ‘They wanted to see the inner land and the great statues but I wanted to get home. I met a lorry driver called Dick and he was going to Manchester so I took a lift.’
‘And here you are.’
‘I’ve just come back from Manchester. We were in a hotel. He wanted me to stay, but he was married, Tessy, he had kids, and, I mean, he was sweet and all that, but he was so straight …’
She lay on the bed. ‘I’m so tired, I want to stop moving.’
She gazed at Tessa’s painting on the ceiling, ‘The Awakening of Consciousness’, much obscured by smoke and dirt. ‘What about you?’
Tessa came and lay next to her. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed too; ‘I just kicked everybody out and locked the door. I’m sick of hash and acid and junk … and people dossing … and Edgar … he’s heavy, he’s on junk, anyway, I suspect he’s trying to score …’
‘What shall we do, Tessy?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know any more.
They might have slept for a whole day or it might have been two. When Tessa woke it was very early morning and the sun was beautiful and the birds were singing, and she felt clear and pure.
‘Wake up, Dee-Dee, wake up.’
‘Tessy, what is it?’
‘Listen, wake up you mug, I know what we must do, I’ve just realised … we must live here and make it beautiful, like when Don was here. I’ll paint it and we can get pretty things.’
‘Oh, Tessy!’
‘And flowers and everything. We’ll clean it and it’ll be ours and we won’t have dossers …’
‘Oh, Tessy.’ Dee-Dee had started to cry.
‘There won’t be any Edgars or Jeremys laying heavy trips on us, it’ll be our space, we’ll do what we like.’
‘I could do knitting …’
‘And I’ll paint, and we’ll cook real food, not rubbish, and get strong and powerful … We’ll do it now, come on Dee, we’ll get some food now.’
And they bought six croissants and took them to the park and ate them by the boating pond, shivering in the spring sunlight, and Dee-Dee puked hers up but it didn’t matter, and back at the flat they began to clean and clear it, and Tessa sold all her hash and they bought paint and bleach and washing powder, and they scrubbed and scrubbed and Dee-Dee cooked a big pot of stew, and after two weeks she wasn’t being sick any more, and Tessa made bread and Dee-Dee started to knit a stripy jumper.
After two months the flat was how they wanted and Dee was becoming pink again. In the evenings they listened to early Incredible String Band and wept buckets and Nick Drake and wept buckets, and Astral Weeks and A1 Stewart and Donovan and Bob Dylan and all the songs of the innocence and peace they loved and wanted to re-create.
