Pulp Fiction

PULP FICTION

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FICTION, INSPIRED BY PULP

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INTRODUCTION A couple of years ago, inspired by our love of music and words, we gathered together stories written by lots of talented people to curate the Stories from Songs project, a collection of short stories inspired by lyrics from songs, a zine of the stories, and an event where talented musicians performed covers of the songs and actors performed and read aloud. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of Pulp’s Different Class we are asking people to do the same with some of Jarvis Cocker’s finest songs. Jarvis Cocker’s lyrical genius, acerbic wit and perceptive eye are one of the elements that enabled Pulp to connect so well back in the nineties, and continue to transcend the vagaries of time to communicate with individuals so acutely.

Songs may be a story about a character. The lyrics could be shrewd and perceptive observations that make a comment on life. Or they may be an interesting blend of words and phrases that trigger an emotional response in you. You may see a tale within the tune. Or one which goes beyond its final chords. You might want to explore what happens to the character once the song ends. Or take the title and spin your own fantasy from it. Francesca Baker & Jamie Malcolm - pulpfictionzine.wordpress.com Design by Mark J Winter

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Contents ’’I Never Said I Was Deep’’ by Karina Frik..................................................6 “Cold Black Magic” by Willie McRae..........................................................7 “Feeling Called Love” by Rosie Kaloki.........................................................12 “Common People” by Daphne Kapsali........................................................16 “Death by Heartbreak” by Francesca Baker................................................24 “Common People” by Rosie Kaloki..............................................................28 ”Live Bed Show” by James Holden...............................................................30 “Heavy Weather” by Nataliia Gaidarenko...................................................36 “Bar Italia” by Jo Overfield ...........................................................................38 “Wickerman & Duck Diving” by Robin Giesing........................................40 A Glastonbury Secret by Francesca Baker..................................................41 Feeling Called Love by Jamie Malcolm.......................................................43 “The Identity Parade” by Aimi Hope...........................................................44 “I Spy” by Dan Coxon....................................................................................62 “This Is Hardcore” by Tom Leins..................................................................65 “Help The Aged” by Annie............................................................................69 ’’Leftovers’’ by Karina Frik.............................................................................72 “Bad Cover Version” by Paul Maps..............................................................73 “Something Changed” by Francesca Baker.................................................79

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’’I Never Said I Was Deep’’ by Karina Frik Wandering through the night Stumbling from alley to alley Golden liquid to my right

Helps me to flood death valley Endless trials to unlock A door without a key

In the end, smart enough

To change directions, away from me

Move along underneath your cloud of love While I stay

Unkind, blind, left behind

Deeply in my shallowness

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“Cold Black Magic” by Willie McRae I despised my office job, but could not bring myself to leave it. Like a carefully scripted reality TV show, there was enough drama to keep me coming back. Plus, I was addicted to being paid, needing large sums of money to live my selfish and irrelevant life – to pay the power bill for my Internet Fridge. My life was a puzzle, the picture was boring, and I couldn’t find an edge piece. I hated myself. Things had to change. And so, when I was handed a card at the top of the stairs in Covent Garden station, instead of throwing it in a bin, I stopped to read it; MR OLEK

A naturally gifted from God Spiritual Healer following a family history of over 10 generations in the Healing.

No matter how difficult your problem is there a solution to it. Problem concerning black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams & court cases. I can help you reunite with your loved ones, split unwanted relationships. For all your problems Mr Olek is the answer. No disappointment. Quick Results Guaranteed!

PLEASE DON’T REMAIN IN SILENCE WITH YOUR PROBLEM SEEK HELP FROM MR OLEK

Something about the bad spelling and amateurish typesetting spoke to me of authenticity. It was a refreshing change from the slick communications I endured at work. I can’t picture the person who gave it to me, having learned to block out the swarms of people I moved through every day.They were just shapes, blocks of ice in a vast sea, to be avoided in case of jagged edges under the surface. When I looked behind to check, there was nobody there. The next day I made up an excuse to skip work. Instead, I went looking for Mr Olek. What could I expect to learn from such a man? How would he treat me? As I pondered these questions, life felt fun, exciting and dangerous. Predictably, I had never been to the neighbourhood where Mr Olek lives and works. Close to central London and recognizable on all the maps, it is forgettable or at least highly ignorable. I felt like an outsider, under the scrutiny of local kids who rode their bikes in lazy circles around the streets. They laughed at me. Not knowing how to respond, I kept my eyes down and my mouth shut.

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The man himself greeted me at his door. Mr Olek was tall and thin. He wore a black t-shirt that said in large pink letters ‘Which Doctor?’

“You been looking for me? I been waiting for you!” he said, following with a loud laugh. He smelled strongly of marijuana. “Come inside and let’s get down to business.” I followed him along a dark hallway, which led into a dimly lit lounge room.

He continued, “Now, before we go any further, you have to take your shirt off, ok?” I found myself nodding numbly, following his request without thinking. “I just want to show my sister some skinny white boy muscles!” There was a shriek of laughter, and a large-set woman in a tight gold dress stepped out of the shadows, pinched me on the cheek, then sauntered out of the room, grinning. Mr Olek regarded me.

“Hmmm, you under some bad voodoo my friend. You’re the prisoner and the guard; you’re the lock and the key. This is no good. Come and sit with me, and let’s dig a little deeper.” He gestured to a couch at the edge of the room, which I slumped into, feeling confused, disorientated, and a little afraid. Mr Olek loomed over me, poking and prodding my face. He began humming a melody that seemed to never repeat, and then placed his hands on my temples. I started to cry. “Mmm that’s right, you in a bad way my son. You need something that I got. You need something old. You need something bold. You need something cold.” He hopped into the adjoining room, which I guessed must be the kitchen, and returned carrying a bottle, cradling it with oven mitts. “Now lean back and open your mouth for some Boom Juice,” he said, “and get ready, this is going to taste a bit funky.”

My lips stuck immediately to the freezing glass as he guided it into my mouth. My throat was filled with a cold and delicious liquid. I gulped it down, closing my eyes to savour the flavour, which was mostly sweet, but with a bitter and salty twist - the taste Mr Olek had warned me of no doubt.

The effect was immediate and I forgot my fears. The fact I was I with this man who was clearly not a doctor, and his loud but strangely alluring sister, didn’t bother me at all. I had taken a risk and the result was peace. I fell asleep, then and there, on the couch.

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I felt the jungle drums before I heard them - a pulsing rhythm in my chest, matching my heartbeat, steady and simple, deep and ancient. I squinted in the bright light, a sharp contrast to the dank dimness of Mr Olek’s flat. The sun was young in the sky, the air heavy and full of moisture. I breathed deeply and grabbed a fistful of white sand. There was a satisfying hiss as it fell through my fingers onto the beach. Before me was a pristine bay of blue-green water. Behind me, a thick, wet jungle – source of the throbbing beat.

I stepped boldly into the greenery, following the sound, unafraid and bristling with anticipation. I crossed over streams, and through clearings, listening intently to the drums. Birds shrieked and insects buzzed. As the forest grew denser and darker, the drums grew louder, and my footsteps faster. Bursting into a large clearing on the edge of a village, I beheld a group of dancers, moving to the beat – something between a Congolese soukous and Indian Bollywood feel. What could I do but join in as well?

After the dance, we ate breakfast from plates laden with avocado, cherry tomatoes and pineapple. Tabla players mysteriously appeared, and one young man presented me with my own drum. To my surprise, I discovered I could create quite a pleasing sound. The crowd stopped, and watched me in silent expectation. Strangely, I felt no fear. Instead, I closed my eyes and made up a rhythm, beating out syllables from forgotten conversations, turning stressed vocal inflections into unique and unheard patterns on the drum. I opened my eyes to see the whole tribe dancing in a crazy and experimental style. They had rejected choreography, and each was in a state of ecstatic invention, jerking and twisting in reaction to my improvised beat.

After a morning siesta, the leaders took me to the bank of a fast flowing river, where I was introduced to a small team of adventurers equipped with a raft. I waved goodbye to my newfound dancing friends and set off into the rapids. All around me was a spectacle of excitement. There was a smoking volcano with rivers of magma pouring from its mouth. Condors were flying overhead. I held my oar above my head and yelled in joy. “Fuuuuuuck yeeeeeahhhhh!”

My companions followed my lead, and so we arrived at the bottom of the rapids, a screaming, swearing, soaked gang of explorers. The jungle and mountains had given way to gentle hills and farmland, and we in turn calmed down, congratulating ourselves on an adventure well done.

I left my crew with a wave and followed a stone path towards a simple farmhouse. That’s when I saw her, moving gracefully through the garden that surrounded the

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home. She radiated an overwhelming sense of kindness, calmness and strength. Smiling, she beckoned me to join her.

We spent the afternoon together, walking through the meadows and fields. On our return to the house, I found an easel, and started to paint, as the girl of my dreams prepared our dinner. Looking out of the window for inspiration from our garden, I was the happiest I have ever been. While creating my masterpiece, I noticed a shadow moving quickly through the trees and flowerbeds. I tried to ignore it, but a few moments later; there it was again, something in corner of my vision, forcing itself to the front of my mind. I walked cautiously out into the garden, struck with a sense of dread about this strange figure, and something made me want to find it, before it found me.

Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind, and my hands were bound by thick rope. I turned to see my assailant - Mr Olek’s sister. “Time to go home,” she said, looking me up and down. “No!” I shouted and turned to run.

Her foot darted out and I sprawled onto the ground, tasting the fertile soil of my own fantasy farm. Mr Olek’s sister stood over me and turned me onto my back. Her strength seemed otherworldly.

“You can lie there quietly or you can shout and squirm, I don’t care, but your time is up.”

She laughed, and I couldn’t tell if it was a kind or cruel sound. She spun away from me, stepped backwards, placed her feet next to my hips, and began to descend. I will never forget the sight and sensation of her great round behind closing in on me, eclipsing the golden sunset of my perfect day. “You like that tasty Boom Juice?”

Mr Olek’s voice pulled me back into what was, I presumed now, reality. The black squeaky couch, the dim lounge room, the faint sound of soukous music from the kitchen. I tried to speak, but could only nod. “You know what was in it?” he continued. I shook my head.

“Just a few delicious and healthy things - pineapples, tomatoes, avocados,” he said while clearing away an assortment of candles, ornaments and Star Wars figurines. “Oh, and my sister’s sweat, of course.” He looked at me carefully. “That was the

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funk.”

I opened my mouth but could say nothing.

“Yeah man, she was in you, ha! That’s how it works, so you don’t stay too long.” Mr Olek had taken me somewhere, somehow. To a place where I was alive, confident, determined, loved. I had lived one perfect day. I found my words. “Take me back.”

“Oh no, that’s not how the magic works. Mr Olek can give you the Boom Juice, but too much juice and you get too loose!” I stood up and reluctantly made my way to the door.

“Don’t be sad my friend. One day is all that you get. But one day is all that you need.”

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“Feeling Called Love” by Rosie Kaloki “Does my arse look big in this?” I called out as I came into the kitchen, twirling so Dan could get a 360 degree view. With his head buried into a newspaper he barely looked up making some sortof grunting noise in compensation. “Dan”! I said loudly this time swatting his newspaper, “well does it?” “Does what?”He finally answered

“Oh for god’s sake” I said exasperatedly walking towards the kitchen counter “Does...my...bum...look...big...in...this?” “Erm... you look fine Ame’”

“Ok, erm and fine are not exactly setting my self esteem on fire here” I said whilst reaching for a bottle of Pinot from the fridge. I glanced at the clock, 7pm it read, too late to change anyway. I am meant to be meeting Oliver at 8pm for drinks, Oliver, just the thought of him sent a delicious shiver down my spine. As a grown 30 something woman , I wasn’t even ashamed to admit I had a crush of pretty epic proportions and finally...FINALLY he had asked me out, we have been seeing each other a few weeks now and so far so good but more importantly tonight was THE night. Bloody hell I had best put on matching underwear I thought, better safe than sorry. “Anyway why are you so bothered” came Dans irritated voice bursting my reverie.” he’ll probably take you to a down and out pub and buy you coke and pork scratchings if you’re lucky”

“Haha” I replied sarcastically “no need to be like that” I shot back! Seriously what was Dans problem he seemed to be in permanent grouch mode of late. “Anyway HE asked ME out didn’t he, so he’ll obvs be making the effort” I smiled dreamily feeling myself slipping back into a daydream as I poured and cradled half a glass of wine.

“Oh yeah he’ll make the effort all right” he scoffed ...”all the way into your pants.” “What the...” I started but Dan getting more into it just carried on...

“D’you know what just go for it, you go and have your date, with his cheap lines and cheap wine I’m sure he’ll have enough left over to give you some taxi fare tomorrow morning.”

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My jaw dropped and I felt I had been slapped in the face, yet for a few seconds all I could do was stare at him in shock before my anger began to set in. What the hell has gotten into you I demanded where did that come from I said taking a step toward him “Nothing”...look Dan sighed rubbing his temple “just forget it I am sorry”

“No I won’t forget it” I say getting a little angry” I want to know what you meant, do you think I slag around?” Heat was rising in my face and my voice with each word. “Ame’ I’m sorry,” Dan finally looked up “I didn’t mean...”

“No” I cut him off “then why say it?” I demanded “explain it to me I am all ears Dan” I say throwing my arms up into the air; when he doesn’t instantly answer I continue “Coming from you of all people the guy who has seen more womens knickers than the bloody gossard factory, how dare you judge me! I have listened to your conquest stories ten times over,” I feel the anger returning,

“Finally I have found someone who potentially ...POTENTIALLY could make me happy that I should add I haven’t slept with yet and you piss all over it practically likening me to bloody Katie Price or something.” Turning around I grip the kitchen counter to steady my furious shaking.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean that at all” Dan said coming up behind me touching me on my arm, I flinch and move of absent mindedly flicking the kettle on just to have something to do “I really am sorry his voice softens imploring me, I didn’t mean it at all, I know you don’t sleep around , c’mon I’m your best friend.” “So why say it?” I demand still upset turning to face him.

“Everytime I talk about Dan you get all weird on me what’s your problem, he has been nothing but nice to you why do you have to be such a dick toward him? What is it? Are you jealous of my happiness” I say feeling my anger returning “are all those no strings one night stands making you feel lonely at last, so you are trying to sabotage mine! “Yeah that’s it” I say warming to the idea, “you can’t stand anyone being happy if you aren’t can you” I spat at him. “Don’t be ridiculous” Dan retorted turning away

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“Oh yeah if it’s so ridiculous why for the past year and a half has every bloke I dated been the butt of your horrible jokes?” “I told you they were creeps not good enough for you Ame’ “

“Oh thats right” I say in sarcasm, “Nick the banker ; yeah he was a right tosspot wasn’t he , bought me flowers every week and always called when he said” “He worked far too much” was Dans reply

“And then there was Matt” I count my second finger

“Tight git” Dan retorted but with slightly less conviction

“For fucks sake en he was caring for his sick mother what kind of insensitive git are you? You know you really are pathetic sitting around judging me , when look at you, you have no one never have and by the way you are going never will, you will wind up lonely just like your dad did,” I knew I was goading him and had probably overstepped the mark but wanted to hurt him and so pushed the creeping guilt to the back of my mind as I spoke. Dans dad womanised his way around West London after his mother died seven years ago, his heartache refused to let him settle down and find happiness and he died a lonely man two years ago. “Shut up” he finally exploded grabbing my elbow” just shut it will you, you really want to know he shouted” his breath coming fast “Yes” i shouted in his face

“You’re right I am jealous” he shot back “I fucking knew it” I spat with as much venom as I could muster...

But he still continued“no you daft cow you don’t get it I’m jealous of these men being with you, touching you, it drives me crazy just the thought of it” losing steam he turned away his shoulders sagged “What!!?” my smug face disappeared in an instant and confusion set in.

“What!!?” I repeated with a bit more force when I regained my composure. “Forget it” he said quietly standing his fingertips forming a steeple.

“No I won’t forget it I say, now being the one to walk up to him and grab his arm “you can’t say something like that and expect it to be swept under the carpet.” When he didn’t respond I spun him around to face me “Tell me”

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He looked to the ceiling for a few seconds before bringing his head down and looking straight at me

“Like I said the thought of you...” he stopped and closed his eyes before continuing quietly “...with other guys it upsets me” “Why?” I half whisper stupid because I am sure I know the answer but can’t quite comprehend it. “Because it’s you Amy it’s always been you”

The air was still and the whistle of the kettle finally broke the silence

And as I’m standing across from him I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this one moment. And as he touched my shoulder tonight the room seemed to become the centre of the entire universe.

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“Common People” by Daphne Kapsali This is what happened: I took my language, word by word, and packed it tight in a bag small enough to count as hand luggage. Then I got on a plane and flew across a continent to a country of a different alphabet. My first thought when my feet touched the damp concrete of this country would have been “cold”. But I hadn’t yet been taught the use of that word and the thought passed me by, and attached itself onto someone more knowledgeable than me. Inside the airport building, queues of foreigners moved slowly forward, as we all struggled to grasp the concept of queuing. At the front, they were waiting for me. The New Language Representatives, with their blue neon signs held high over their heads. The signs? They said nothing. No words, just bright light; designed and proven to attract the foreigners, like flying insects to their death. With my bag strapped to my back, I followed them to the desk. They offered me a seat and a Yorkshire pudding, soaked in gravy. I accepted both, graciously, and the reps looked pleased. A successful recruit: they could tell. There were four of them, a thin wall of bodies of average height, in tweed jackets, pale jeans, and Reebok trainers. I wanted to ask a question but I didn’t yet own a question mark. I pointed instead at their shoes. They smiled, and pointed a finger each at a sign framed over the desk: REEBOK SPONSORS THE NEW LANGUAGE INDUCTION They looked at me expectantly; I nodded.

That was when the music started playing. It was “Yesterday” and, though it was a song I had known and loved in my foreign country, I failed to see the connection between this and the NLI I was about to undergo. Except maybe that the reps seemed to think they were the Beatles, swaying their thin bodies gently to the music and mouthing the words with great conviction. I was enjoying the show, when the music suddenly changed. Now it was “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols, and the reps produced safety pins out of nowhere, and started throwing them around. They jumped up and down on the spot and played air guitar, their fists tight, their shoulders hunched, their faces scrunched up like used tissues. The third song was “Auld Lang Syne”, and the reps straightened their backs and bowed their heads and stood around me solemnly, two on each side. The Head Rep appeared, and positioned himself right in front of me. I knew who he was because he was wearing a t-shirt embroidered with: NLI

HEAD

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REP

‘Old acquaintance be forgot’, he said, by way of greeting. He smiled at me encouragingly. The music stopped. The Head Rep placed his right hand on his chest, and said: ‘Gareth.’ ‘Ελένη’, I said.

Five heads shook simultaneously. ‘Gareth’, he repeated. ‘Ελένη.’

‘Helen?’ one of the reps on my left suggested. Gareth considered, then nodded in agreement. ‘Ελένη,’ I said again, thinking they hadn’t understood. ‘Eh-leh-nee.’ They smiled. ‘Helen,’ they chanted in unison. ‘Helen-Helen-Helen.’

The spell worked; I accepted. Gareth disappeared behind the desk, and emerged seconds later, with my Name Bar[1] and Alphabet Cubes[2].

[1] The Name Bar is a solid gold bar that looks like a Toblerone, with the letters of the New Name engraved onto it in artistic lettering. [2] The Alphabet cubes are tiny, and very similar to dice. They look and shine like silver, but they are, in fact, made out of the finest Cadbury’s chocolate. The chocolate is, unfortunately, past its sell-by date, so you never get to taste it. This is deliberate; it won’t do to have people eating their Alphabet Cubes. They must, however, be kept in the fridge, or they might melt. And the paperwork required in order to have your Alphabet Cubes re-issued is just unbelievable. It’s best to look after them. Gareth came closer and knelt by my feet.

‘Helen’, he said, and placed the Name Bar in my right hand. Into my left, he counted 26 Alphabet Cubes. He got up, and patted my head like a proud father. One of the reps held out a sheet of paper printed with hundreds of words that I would soon come to know. My hands were full; Gareth took it from him and slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans. We had come to the end of my induction. As I got up to leave, the reps offered me a pair of white Reebok Classics. I declined. Like I said, my hands were full.

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Five pairs of arms waved me out of the airport building and into the streets of the New Country. ***

Outside, my every breath turned into shards of glass and smashed by my feet. Two men fought over me. The first wore a tartan cap, in red and green, and his body was dressed in a cardboard model of Big Ben.

‘Tours for tourists!’ he proclaimed, and pointed at a double-decker coach with the same three words printed on its side. The second, I believe, was Reggie Kray. He was standing very still beside a black, battered Mercedes. The first man approached me with a stream of suggestions.

‘Alright, love? Fancy a tour? Big Ben, Westminster, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down... You’re not dressed for this weather, are you? Why don’t I give you one of those?’ He opened a door on the side of Big Ben and pulled out an “I love London” t-shirt. He waved it in my face.

‘What do you say, love? Only twenty quid, and isn’t that a bargain and a half? Tell you what, make it fifty and I’ll throw in a tour and a pair of gloves.’ Instinctively, I raised my right hand to the level of his face.

‘Name Bar, eh? You’re one of them, are you? New Arrival, eh? Well, sorry love, but that ain’t worth fifty. For that, you just get the gloves.’ Reggie interrupted.

‘Oi!’ he said, simply. ‘What?’

‘It’s worth a lot more an’ you know it. I’m sick of you tryin’ to rip my punters off.’ ‘Keep your hair on, Reggie. Jesus. I’m just offering a service.’

‘She don’t want no services from the likes of you. Now piss off, punk.’

‘Alright, mate, no problem. But I ain’t the punk. That’s Sid, and it’s his day off today, innit?’ ‘Oh, that’s right. Dirty weekend with Nancy, is it?’

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‘Yeah, something like that. He don’t give up easily, that one. Anyway, mate, I’ll be off now. See you later.’ Big Ben took his hat off and did a comedy bow. Then, hat back on, he skipped away, calling “Tours for tourists” as he went. Reggie shook his head.

‘Tosspot,’ he said to his feet. Then to me: ‘He’s from Clapham. South of the river. Never trust anyone from south of the river. Rule number one.’ I nodded to show I had understood, though I hadn’t. Satisfied, Reggie led me to the Mercedes.

I got in the back, where black leather seats were paired with grey bloodstained carpets. Reggie flung himself behind the wheel and started the engine. We drove in silence for a few moments, down windy roads and roundabouts, with airplanes criss-crossing constantly over our heads. ‘Smart car, eh? It’s from the old days,’ he said finally. ‘The good old days.’ I smiled.

‘You’re dying to know, aintcha? How I ended up here? Everyone does.’ I shrugged.

It was the Millennium Bug. One of the screws ‘ad it, in the Scrubs, and I caught it off ‘im. Had a bit a snog, as you do, an’ next fing I know, I’ve developed an ‘ell of a cough, and a social conscience. I wanted to ‘elp people, an’ all. They ‘ad to get me outta there fast, before I passed it on to the others. I mean, you can’t ‘ave the cons going all soft, can ya? Can ya?’ I shook my head.

‘That’s right, you can’t. So they got me a job with the I and R. Immigration and Rehabilitation. Driving the new arrivals, like yourself, to the HQ, givin’ ‘em a few tips, that sort of fing.’

Reggie adjusted his rear view mirror, coughed, rolled down his window and spat a yellow ball of phlegm onto the road. Then, shivering theatrically, he rolled the window back up. ‘Bloody freezin’, innit?’

He looked straight at me through the mirror.

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‘Second rule. Or tip, if you like: Talk about the weather, every chance you get. It’s the number one topic for conversation. Can’t go wrong with it. Terrible weather we’re ‘avin’. It’s pissin’ down. Bit chilly, innit? And so on and so forth. Now you try.’ ‘Well. It is quite unpleasant.’

Reggie winced. ‘Yeah, alright love, keep practisin’. Now, other good topics include public transport, the government, the Inland Revenue, the price of fags, and the length of queues. Don’t worry if it sounds like a lot. You’ll just pick it all up along the way. Alright?’ ‘Yes,’ I said tentatively. ‘Bloody terrible queues. Innit?’

Reggie slapped both hands on the wheel, causing the car to swerve a little. ‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘That’s it love, that’s bloody marvellous!’

After that he was quiet, apart from the occasional coughing fit. We drove around in circles, in and out of the city, past the same yellow off-license signs and flashing cab-office lights, and mouldy-grey estate buildings, until my driver slapped the wheel again, and swore. ‘Bloody’ ‘ell! I’ve done it again! Oh mate, am I gonna be in the bad books…’

He sighed loudly, and did a U-turn. My surprise was visible through his mirror.

‘Sorry love, I’m a minicab driver by day. Old habits, an’ all.’ Then, realising that meant nothing to a New Arrival, he added: ‘You gotta take the punter round a few times, you know, make a bit more cash off the flash bastards.’

It took us three more minutes to reach our destination and I began to understand what he meant.

The Immigration and Rehabilitation Headquarters was a slab of concrete dropped hastily onto an East End road. ‘One of the miracles of modern architecture,’ said Reggie, and he lead me inside.

The reception area was four bare walls, lit by a single night-light shaped like the Queen’s head. There was a steel door on the right hand side.

‘God save the Queen,’ Reggie pronounced as clearly as possible, and the door slid open.

I dragged my bag through corridors, past more steel doors, and up three flights of stairs, and then another door opened and we were there.

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Behind his wooden desk, Jarvis Cocker smoked a cigarette. ‘You’re late,’ he said to Reggie, and to me: ‘Alright?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘terrible weather.’

Reggie patted my cheek with something like affection.

‘Same old, same old,’ said Jarvis, and put his cigarette out on a pile of papers. ‘Where’s your Name Bar?’ I placed it on his desk. He leant closer and squinted. ‘Helen,’ he read.

I picked it up again.

‘That’s right, mate,’ said Reggie. ‘She came from Greece. She has a thirst for knowledge.’ ‘Old man loaded?’

‘Not that I know of, mate.’

For the first time, Jarvis smiled.

‘Common people,’ he announced, and made a note in his papers.

Reggie agreed. Jarvis pulled a laptop out from somewhere under his desk, and switched it on. He said some numbers out loud, typed a few words, and after a loud bleep from his computer, asked: ‘E1?’

Reggie shook his head.

‘Nah,’ he replied, and pointed at my feet.

Jarvis stood up, had a look and sat back down again. ‘No Reeboks. Right.’

More typing, more bleeps. Then a terrible screaming sound, like the last, gasping breaths of a wounded monster in one of the Alien films. I jumped.

‘S’alright, lass, calm down, it’s just me printer,’ laughed Jarvis, and, sure enough, the device, concealed beneath ash and paperwork, spat out a couple of A4 sheets.

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Jarvis slipped his glasses on and examined them thoroughly, emitting ‘Hmm’ and Uh huh’ sounds every so often. Finally, he lit another cigarette, circled me with a smoke ring, and announced: ‘Just as I thought.’

There was concern in Reggie’s voice. ‘What is it?’ ‘N4.’

‘Finsbury Park?’ ’Fraid so.’

‘Aw mate, that’s bollocks. Ain’t she got no other option?’

‘Nope. Sorry Reggie, the machine has spoken. There ain’t nowt I can do.’ Reggie dropped a hand onto my shoulder. Jarvis cleared his throat.

‘Right lass, this here is what we call your prescription.’ He dangled the sheet of paper over his desk and chuckled gently to himself. ‘Listen carefully and if there’s anything you don’t understand, don’t worry; it’ll all fall into place, sooner or later. Alright?’ ‘Yes.’

‘This is what it says:

1.Rent a flat above a shop 2.Cut your hair 3.Get a job

4.Smoke some fags 5.Play some pool

6. Pretend you never went to school Got it?’

‘Yes.’ I lied, of course.

‘Oh, and there will be cockroaches climbing the walls, and other such unpleasant

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things, but you’ll be alright in the end.’ He looked fleetingly at Reggie. ‘Honest.’

Jarvis flicked his cigarette on the floor and stamped on it twice. It still smoked. He took two elegant dance steps, stood between Reggie and me and threw his arms on either side. We took a sheet of paper each and thanked him.

‘Right. Off you go now. And remember: Everybody hates a tourist.’ He winked and, with a pirouette, turned himself around and went back to his desk. Stairs, steel doors and corridors, the Queen’s head and the street. As he opened the car door to let me in, Reggie sighed. ‘Northerners.’

Twenty minutes later, he stopped the car and glanced at the sheet Jarvis had given him. ‘This is it. Shelley Court. After the poet. You bubbles like fings like that, dontcha?’ * Bubble + Squeak = Greek

Just before he drove away, Reggie wound his window down and said: ‘Welcome to London Town.’ But I knew he was lying. I knew it was a city.

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“Death by Heartbreak” by Francesca Baker ‘Mate, will you just settle on a station.’ Said Rob in frustration, as Mark pressed the tune button again.

He’d been in work thirty seven minutes. It should have been fifty four, but alarm clocks and such binary measures of life had become insignificant since Anna left. He’d spent the whole time trying to find a song that didn’t remind him of her. He had had high hopes for the music, wishing each pulse would jolt away the pain, but it was just making him feel worse.

That was the trouble with a life lived alongside someone else. Every significant moment, and thus the soundtrack to them all, was bound up with them. The song that was playing when they met, the song they used to sing around the house, that tune they heard every bloody night in Spain. She was the only person who also knew all the words to Spandau’s Ballet’s Gold, and he loved the way she used to come in from a sweaty gig and switch the radio to Classic FM to fall asleep to. Now he might never be able to listen to music again.

‘Fuck it, I’ll put on a CD.’ He pressed play, hearing the familiar tone disc whirling in its spin of anticipation. ‘Leave him alone.’ Said Alex. Any other day Mark would have been shocked at this apparent gesture of warmth from the office wanker, but today his mind was so full of drizzle that it barely registered. Alex however immediately affirmed that he had not had a personality transplant.

‘It’s the only way he’ll get his knob twiddled.’ And he spluttered little specks of tea on his desk with a self satisfying guffaw, like a sneezing and proud elephant. Rob glared at him, which Alex read as a need for clarity on his hilarious joke. ‘I mean, now that Anna’s not there, twiddling his.’

Piles of paper flurried across the room, and a coffee cup shattered not far from Alex’s ear. It was a good shot, deflecting from the way the office chair flung across the floor and that Mark was now pacing towards Alex. He grabbed his collar and shoved him against a filing cabinet, tripping on the strap of a satchel in the process. His pulse seemed less like a rhythmic reflection of his blood pumping than a ricocheting shuttlecock coursing through his veins. Rob just sighed. ‘Go home, go on.’

Mark didn’t want to go home. There were still two coffee mugs on the table, her

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books on the floor, and the sheets still smelt of her hair. He’d been at home, and the empty flat, a humming fridge, a cool indoor chill, the inspiring drone of a snowy television and the taste of luke warm tea on his tongue wasn’t doing him any good.

She had got bored. They had been living together for so long that she wanted to live separately. She wanted a beginning again. A heady, breathy excitement where anything could be, and in that moment lives the potential. Mark had never been one for the frivolities and flirtations, but he loved her. He knew to make her morning tea when he heard the shower click off, so when she came out of the bathroom it would be the perfect temperature. When she sat on the sofa and hunched her legs up, he knew to sit on her feet to keep them warm. He always put her bookmark in when she fell asleep with limbs flailed and the pages flapping in her hand. That first night, when he saw her at the bar, her fingers wrapped around a glass of wine. She sat twiddling the curl at the nape of the neck, presumably aware that the action entranced him. But really she had danced him into loving her. Her hips shimmied with delicate sexuality, her eyes flickered through her dark hair, sending electricity like jelly fish clamping around his heart. Her arms waved sporadically as she lost herself in the music and Mark lost himself in her. He felt his heart had been wrenched from his chest and trampled on in front of him, forced back down his throat so he was forced to taste the loneliness and rejection. ‘I’m going to the pub.’ He picked up his parka and stormed out.

Bars in the day, especially a week day, always seemed a bit curious to Mark. There was a certain type of person who spent all day in the pub that still had a musty scent of stale cigarette smoke and squashed dreams being channelled out every time that someone passed through the doors. The room always felt somewhat jaded. This suited him just fine. Right now he just wanted to stare into his pint and drink the hurt away.

The afternoon passed in a blur, and as he drank more he found himself speaking to anyone, splurging the thoughts he would rather remained hidden, but something was necessary to remove the edge. He looked outside, where the soft embers of the day were fading into evening. He used to like this time of day, a time of transition and change. Now he did not want anything to change. He just wanted Anna back. His legs took him back to the bar in which he first met her. He wanted to be there, to feel as though he was near her again. The fizzing neon sign looked cheap, and

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the lights flickered rather than throbbed down on the empty dance floor. A group of girls stood chatting, all dressed in black. He winked at the blonde one, and she looked away. ‘Double whisky and a shot of tequila please.’ He said to the barman, slapping his note on the sticky surface. This was an order repeated again and again.

Suddenly the lights came on, and Mark had flashbacks of being at a school disco. He couldn’t remember the last time he had stayed at a club until closing. He wasn’t sure he would remember this. Stumbling down the stairs to the door he was hit with a waft of cold air. Pin pricks of hurt were felt in his eyes, a tingling throat slowly morphing into sobs and large, round, wet tears rolled down his cheeks.

The sun’s fiery haze started to illuminate the morning streets. Coffee shop windows glowed with a dull orange light. Piled empty boxes with slightly sodden corners from the morning dampness stayed resolutely forlorn.The ever present police sirens called in the distance, a smooth melody over the pumping bass lines emanating from the dark windows of cars etching down the road. Everything seemed so sad. Isolated, he walked alone. He could feel his bladder swelling, the pints and shots filling up inside him. He teetered like a penguin as he ran down the stairs of the public toilets.

Mark’s head was spinning, and he rested his head against the cool stone. Briefly the thoughts of germs flashed in his mind, but he was too far gone to care. The toilets reeked of stale piss and fractured dreams, the weird lighting making him feel dizzy.

He read the tales of love, loss and lust scrawled on the walls to distract him from his own wasting life. Maybe he should call Claire – apparently she ‘gives it good.’ Or ask Jake and Laura what the secret is. They are going to be in love ‘4 eva.’ Apparently. He used to think that of himself and Anna, when things had not just started, because no one really falls in love straight away, but after time, when his joys become hers, and her woes his pains. Maybe that was it, no longer two separate people they had dissipated into one another, ebbing and flowing into one another until no clear lines existed. He had though that was falling in love; perhaps it was fracturing her soul.

He would let her get on with it then. Drinking until his mind was a fuzz, seek solace in lines of powder, and sit crying down here in a fucking public toilet whilst she lay in bed with the dark rich arsehole she had been shagging. He slid down the door, feet up against the trunk of the toilet and started to moan, tormented waves of anger shivering within him.

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Within him was a sudden surge of feeling, that it was his fault, and with that sense of culpability came a need for action. Jumping up he bounced from foot to foot, and swung open the cubicle door. The steely mirror shows him dilated pupils, a face raw from the wind, and magnified every crease, all the evidence of a worn out man. He needed to see Anna. He needed to get her back. He ran up the stairs to find air, Anna, and a sense of soul.

The door was locked. ‘Fuck, don’t they check these things?’ he shouted.

Life was now ruined. He was going to rot down here whilst she wrapped herself around some other guy, the first steps of that dissolution into one another. The rhythm of his soul started to feel taut and his head swam with distortion. His chest hurt, like the embedded dagger of rejection was still hanging from his ribcage and he felt and endlessly abrasive ache. He needed to do something. He needed to get out. Swinging his left arm back and against the metal door did nothing but bruise his arm. He kicked, yelling in angst. The door stood firm. Finally in desperation and anxiety he head butted the door. Blood spattered, and he stumbled to the floor. ‘Screw you Anna.’ he mumbled as he hit the ground. The hand dryer started, chugging out its warm air.

It was a cleaner who found him. He had been working all night at a fried chicken shop and was only doing this to make extra cash for the family. Cleaning up piss and shit was enough. Cleaning up blood and bodies something else. Rifling through his pockets he pulled out £34.67, a hip flask a quarter full of whisky and a pack of chewing gum. There would be questions, so he might as well get something from it. A few days later the summary of the coroner’s report was printed. ‘Death by heartache’ it read.

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“Common People” by Rosie Kaloki Peals of laughter pierced the air, carefree laughter, whimsical laughter, feminine and cute, not at all sounding like my seal-esque guffaws. My eyes were drawn to its source, not that I was quizzical as to who it belonged to I already knew but nevertheless I shifted position in my seat to get a better look. The canteen was nearly at full capacity after the morning’s last lecture, students jostled in the lunch line, manoeuvring trays and scraping back chairs. Nearly central to the throng I sat alone waiting, nursing a strong coffee and picking at a limp sandwich, the summer heat robbing me off my appetite. In amongst the bustle and din I spotted her, Katie Bellamy, she laughed again throwing her head back; her hair, a cascade of tumbling loose waves shook as yet another thing seemed to amuse her. I stared in somewhat fascination perhaps it really is possible to have it all I mused, I mean she seemed literally perfect so much so, I’m almost positive God had just gotten laid when he handed out her brains and beauty and in the throws of post coital bliss was overly generous!

A fine sprinkling of freckles covered a pixie nose, I self consciously patted my own hair, frizzy and so wild Siegfried and Roy would have a tough time taming it. Now engaged in new conversation I lazily studied her; toned and curvy, generous hips and small bust put her at a size 12-14 at least. You weren’t expecting that were you! but this is reality and not Beverly Hills 90210, not everyone is a size 6 blonde haired blue eyed waif, the stereotypical beauty TV has led us to believe in.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear light reflected off a single shiny stud, cubic zirconia this was not, it was a diamond, the real deal and there was only one word to sum it up...money...she came from money and not her dad’s a doctor kind of money but actual wealth; the daughter of a Greek shipping magnate she stood to inherit millions but you wouldn’t know it to look at her, she never showed off and understated chic was her bag, perhaps the odd designer but there were no Hermes Berkin bags one in every colour for each day of the week being toted around in the crook of her arm. For a student at central St Martins, where individuality is at times questionable, she was like a breath of fresh air, where others would have been ridiculed deemed not hipster/cool because of their refusal to indulge in retro or outlandish clothes, her non ironic plain clothes coupled with her simple beauty carried her through.

I can vouch for the fact that she felt just as comfortable in a Wetherspoons or at a sticky floored student’s union night, drinking cheap cider in the same way she felt on a yacht in the south of France. She did what all we ‘common’ people did, right down to her love life, public schoolboys didn’t really float her boat, in fact she had fallen head over heels for a strapped for cash fine art student.

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Rising to throw the remnants of my lunch in the bin I caught sight of myself in the vending machines reflective surface, slender... thin some may say I can’t even fill out a bra let alone a body con dress came the glum thought. To those who think ‘thin is the in thing and the answer to all the questions of the universe’ are obviously deluded or have never felt the despair of realising you look like a child when you desperately want to look like a woman. Snapping out of my reverie I could hear my name being called. “God you were miles away!” the voice said!

“So we’re still on for pizza and a movie later?”

Oops, “err I forgot” I sheepishly admitted “but of course.”

“Bloody hell” came the jokey retort she laughed the delicate peal echoing “If you weren’t my best friend I would go mad” she said swatting me lightly on the arm. And as we left the canteen I caught sight of Katie and I linking arms smiling and thought who says classes’ can’t mix.

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”Live Bed Show” by James Holden Story: Graeme looked at the floral wallpaper and the tasselled lampshades in his Mum’s room, before climbing into bed. The blue geometric design of the duvet cover and pillow cases Graeme had brought with him jarred with the rest of the room which hadn’t been redecorated for years. His Mum poked her head round the door. “Are you alright?” He nodded. “Come in, if you want.”

She sat on the corner of the bed, her pink fluffy dressing gown making her diminutive frame seem smaller still.

“I always liked Christine, for what it’s worth,” she said. “I still don’t understand what happened to you two.” “We just drifted apart. These things happen, Mum.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve said it before – you’ve always been too passive.” “I’m 37, not 13, Mother. And I’m sorry about this, it won’t be for long.” “Oh, it’s no bother, I suppose. You’ll be alright in here won’t you?” “Yes, but I can go in the spare room if you’d prefer.” “No, I’ve been sleeping in there for months.” “How come?”

She blushed. “I’ve had trouble sleeping. With the noise.” “There’s not that much traffic, surely?” “No. It’s the neighbours.” “What, arguing?”

“Something like that,” she said quickly. “Anyway, good night love.” She hesitated before leaning down and quickly kissing him on the forehead and closed the door behind her as she walked out.

Graeme checked the time - 10.30, and after reading for fifteen minutes he decided it was time to turn in. He put his book down, wriggled his way down into the bed proper, and turned off the light, shutting his eyes.

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And then it started. It was slow and quiet at first: a light tapping on the wall behind him.

He sat up, wondering if there was a mouse underneath the bed. But it was too rhythmical for that. As it got louder Graeme realised that it was the noise of next door’s headboard banging against the joining wall.

Graeme shrugged with a smile, sat up and turned his light on, and struggled to concentrate on his book until the noise stopped twenty minutes later. He slid back under the duvet, shut his eyes and fell asleep. But he was woken to the sound of the banging again. When he looked at his phone it was 11.45. Respect to the guy’s stamina and recovery time, thought Graeme. As he lay struggling to sleep, he found himself starting to wonder what the neighbours even looked like. By the time they finished it was 12.05. He groaned as he realised that his alarm was going to go off in less than seven hours. The following morning Graeme walked, bleary eyed into the kitchen.

“Did you sleep alright, love?” Despite being retired, she had gotten up to make Graeme’s breakfast, toast crumbs embedded in the dressing gown’s fluffy sleeves. “How long has that been going on for?”

“About a year. Loud, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“Mum, you can speak at a normal volume. Why haven’t you said anything?” She shrugged. “What for? There’s nothing anyone can do.” “I can go next door and have a word if you want me to.”

She put her mug down quickly, a little tea spilling over. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed,” she said, pulling her dressing gown around her. Graeme spent the next two nights listening to them with slowly mounting frustration. He wasn’t just feeling tired, but being on his own for the first time in ten years meant listening in was making him lonely. He decided he needed to do something about it.

The following morning, as he ate breakfast whilst his mother rambled on – by the time he’d left the house 30 minutes later, Graeme couldn’t have told you a thing she’d been talking about – he decided that he was going to have to say something. As he left the house, he thought of knocking on the door and saying something, but couldn’t quite sum up the courage. He spent the commute to work, the return journey, his lunch break - in fact most of the working day, trying to work out what

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his opening line of complaint should be. He’d decided that “hi, I live next door, and I have to say that I can hear you at night, do you mind keeping it down a bit, or maybe trying a different room?” would spare everyone’s blushes. He wondered whether adding “if you know what I mean,” would sound too, well, leering? On his journey home, he said it to himself again and again under his breath, sometimes practising and accompanying smile and handshake for his greeting.

Arriving at their semis, he stood at the top of the driveway trying to summon up the courage to go and ring the bell, when a woman walked past him. “Oh, er, hello?” said Graeme, and she span round.

“Hi,” she said, putting the designer carrier bag she was holding down on the herringbone paving. “Have you moved in next door?”

Graeme nodded, struggling to work out what to say. She looked to be if not his age then only a couple of years older – perhaps a couple of years past her fortieth. Her hair was dyed blonde but her eyes were a deep shade of blue, and it looked to Graeme that underneath her jacket that she was slim –tight fitting jeans showed off slender legs, at any rate. “Well, nice to meet you. I need to get the dinner on before John’s back – I can’t be a complete lady of leisure,” she said, and headed towards the house with a spring in her step.

He kept thinking about her over dinner as he listened to his mother, pleased to have some regular company, recounting each aspect of her day (washing, went into town, had to run back from the bus as the grey sky suggested it might rain on the washing out on the line), and made less comment than usual. When he went upstairs to bed, he took a glass tumbler with him, and lay on top of the duvet, waiting for the bed show to begin. He read his book but every now and again found his hand brushing against his cock through his shorts.

When the banging started, he got off the bed and gingerly placed the glass against the wall, putting his ear against the cool bottom, wondering what he would be able to hear. It was hard to discern anything over the noise of the headboard, but listening closely he thought he could make out soft female moans through the wall and the occasional manly grunt. He tried to imagine what position they were in, as his hand entered his shorts, and with stroking and tugging his night reached its own happy ending.

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Over the next couple of weeks, unbeknownst to the couple next door, the three of them fell into a pattern. Nearing 11pm, the banging would start up, and Graeme was at the wall with his glass, masturbating as his mind raced with all sorts of imaginings about what was going on beyond the joining wall. He had them in all sorts of positions, and made all sorts of adjustments to his appearance, adding and taking away tattoos and body hair, a six pack or a huge penis.

He would see her every three or four days – coming back from the shops, pegging out, tending to the flowers. But he had yet to see the husband. Each morning when Graeme got dressed, he stood behind the floral-patterned net curtains that hung in the bay window, keeping a keen lookout. He would vary his routine – getting dressed before breakfast, cleaning his teeth after he had put his shoes on, to increase the chances of spotting him. On the days when he had to take the rubbish bag from the kitchen to the wheelie bin, Graeme would peer over the garden fence into the house, searching each of the windows. One Saturday morning as he headed out for a paper, the pair of them were in the driveway, unloading shopping from their car. The man looked like none of the fantasy figures he had dreamt up, and was decidedly normal looking – nondescript, even. He was a couple of inches taller than she was, with light brown hair, a day’s stubble, possibly dressed head to toe in M&S Blue Harbour or Debenham’s own normcore range – a dark green rugby shirt with a white collar, blue jeans and grey trainers. Graeme though he didn’t really look like the kind of person that could sustain fourteen orgasms a week. “Nice morning, isn’t it? I thought winter had arrived, but it looks like we might have a warm October again,” Graeme said.

The man looked up, and smiled at him. “Not time to put the radiators on yet, is it?” “Oh, I think it’s hot enough at night,” Graeme said.

The neighbour looked up at the sky, as though trying to divine what that night’s weather would be. ““Mmm, I suppose so.”

“Don’t need all that banging. From the pipes,” he said, trying to be casual. She smiled and Graeme scrutinised her face, wondering if she suspected or knew that he could hear them, whether she suspected what their sleeping arrangements were. Maybe she enjoys it, gets off on it. Perhaps he does. “What were you talking about?” his Mum asked, coming into the hallway when he walked in through the front door. “You didn’t mention the, you know, did you?” she asked.

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“No I didn’t – we were talking about the weather.” She raised an eyebrow. “Really, it does happen sometimes.”

“Thank goodness for that. I wouldn’t know where to look if you’d discussed…” She trailed off. “I’ve been thinking, Mum. Maybe we should make the arrangement permanent about me staying – we seem to be getting on okay, don’t we? Maybe we should do some redecoration – I’ll take over the front bedroom and I can redecorate the spare room for you. What do you think?” “Oh, Graeme, that would be wonderful. It’s been so nice having some company. Would you mind?” “It would be my pleasure, Mum.”

Despite feeling a little tired in the morning and sleeping in longer at the weekend, Graeme got such a thrill each evening that he turned down the dates that friends set up for him, and he passed on a drink with Christine despite a clear intimation that he might end up back at their old flat for old time’s sake. He grudgingly agreed to go out on Saturday nights, but he would head home at 10 to make sure he was back for the start of the evening’s fun. One night Graeme was disappointed when rather than the ritual two goes, they only went at it the once. He had delayed his own gratification for the second cumming, and grew restless waiting for them to strike up again. After an hour, sat up with his head resting on the wall, he decided that had probably been it for the night. Maybe he’s feeling tired for once. He fell asleep, unfulfilled and turning it over in his mind. The following night Graeme anxiously listened in, and was delighted when they returned to their normal routine, achieving two orgasms of his own. But after that, their pace started to slowly slacken, until they were only doing it once a night, and then one night there was no performance at all. After waiting for about half an hour he went to the window to check whether they hadn’t gone out for the night, but both cars were still in the driveway. After a couple of days without any action he turned towards their house as he headed out to the train station, and saw her looking out of the bedroom window, a sad look on her face. He waved at her, but she didn’t see him, eventually retreating back into the bedroom. Four weeks passed without anything. Night after night Graeme would head upstairs, his dread increasing with each step as he got closer to his redecorated room that nothing would happen. He stood next to the wall for an hour or two each night, ear pressed against the wall, eagerly listening for the smallest hint

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that they were about to start up their conjugal rite.

But when there was nothing Graeme was left at a loss as to what to do. He would lie in bed thrashing about, restless. Sometimes he would watch amateur porn or “genuine couples” on his phone, but struggled to find something to fit what he was looking for and he would cum miserably, left feeling worse than before he’d bullied his cock into an erection. “Are you okay, Graeme?” his Mum asked one morning. “You look like you’ve had no sleep at all. Were they…?” she said, her question hanging over them. “No.”

“But you look so tired, are you okay?”

“Leave it, Mother,” he said, storming out the room and leaving the house without touching his tea or toast. His day was thoroughly miserable: at work he stumbled his way through a presentation, and snapped at his boss for questioning the status of a report he had been asked to send through the previous week.

When he got home he stubbornly refused to apologise to his Mum even though he knew he should, and the only conversation that was heard over dinner came from Radio 4 in the background. He washed the dishes in silence whilst she went to watch TV. He felt like his whole body was aching for a release that could only be triggered by one thing. He lay in bed, his hands restless, unable to concentrate on his book. He looked up at the clock every minute or so, waiting for the time when the headboard used to announce their passion. But 10.30 came and went, and went he saw the clock reach 11, Graeme got so frustrated that he got onto all fours, and started banging the headboard into the joining wall, hoping it would arouse them from their frigidity. But there was nothing. “Fuck! Why won’t you, FUCK?” he shouted.

“Graeme, what’s going on?” said his mother, stood at the bedroom doorway in her dressing gown. He collapsed into the pillows, beating the headboard with his fists and started to sob.

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“Heavy Weather” by Nataliia Gaidarenko “A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves” Marcel Proust

We can manage, manipulate and affect a lot of things in our life. We can choose the place to live, the work to do, the food to eat, the partner to spend the life with and many more, nevertheless there is one thing that we unlikely to influence though it has a huge influence on us – the weather. The thing that we often speak and complain about. But how insignificant we would consider the nature temper in our soul, it plays a huge part in our play named life. Our plans and mood, our mental and physical health, our hobby and sport, our outfit and lifestyle.

Imagine one day it spoiled your plans, you did not go the place you planned to go, all because of rain. However, maybe exactly this day you were supposed to meet that the most important person in your life? Or your biggest career opportunity? Alternatively, some weird things might happen if, notwithstanding the bad weather, you would go. Obviously, in this case bad weather safes and protects you. Thus, what is happening outside is still very important for us, isn’t it? Living in the UK means the weather is a big part of our life. Personally, when I moved to London, it was probably the most difficult thing I had to get used to. Terrible and endless wind, rain, humidity. All these made my body to frustrate and my mind to go nuts.

Consequently, we all meant to think that bad weather is associated with bad thoughts and events. Because when it is raining we need quickly change our plans. Stay at home when we had to meet with friends or take a car instead of public transport, and of course, to find an umbrella, that is hiding like a spy together with keys and gloves all the time when you are in rush. However, every time you are watching these rainy drops slide down the window, something is happening inside of you.Something touches the most hidden parts of your soul and memory, bring them up, wash and refresh them. It could be memories about friends, family or childhood, about last summer you spent on the sunny beach or mountain you claimed and the success you felt that moment. And by all means about love. Sitting in front of the window and looking into the waterfall coming from the sky, we whether or not want to hug someone, or at least know that this person is near and we can hug her or him anytime. However, if we cannot, if there is no way to have this person near? Bad weather makes us be nostalgic and romantic, it makes us think and miss, remember and cry. And as a result, after a long thinking, our assessment bring us to a conclusion that this person should remain in the past, with all those good

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memory screen shots. We put these shots about the person on the shelf in the deepest department of our memory with a label – “never touch again”. Then we undoubtedly switch to another unsolved “problem”.

Or the conclusion about the person says to us – You need to change the situation! Deal! Right now! Next raining time this person should be here next to you! Then, just after stormy weather have finished, we begin to deal. To do everything to make this happen.

Thus, bad weather is not something actually bad that makes us sit at home and ruins our plans. This is something that cleans our mind and prepare us to the new life adventures.

When good weather encourages us to “deal”, basically, bad weather encourages us to “think”. As for me, after a few years of continuous complains about the weather and claiming that rain and greyness are the reason of all my failures, I ended up with the summary that probably there are a lot of people that need their heads and thoughts to be cleaned and washed. So after all, we will have the recreated and happy nation as the rain washes off all our dark thoughts, doubts, unbelief and pessimism. And as one man said to me: “Wouldn’t here be so much rain, we wouldn’t be so happy and delighted on these sunny days.”

Therefore, how rain washes and cleans the earth from dust and mud, it cleans our mind and spirit. How it waters and fuels all trees and plants, it loads us with the new energy and right inspiration. Turns us to the bright side of every situation. Finally, every person finds something that perfectly suits him, something that he is looking for – for somebody it is fresh ideas, faith in love for others, the rest might come up with endless enthusiasm, sincerity for work, generosity for caring, inspiration,songs, poetry, philosophy or … dreams. “Oh, look out there she blows Now everybody knows

Stormy weather always makes me think of you”

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01/02/2016 21:01

“Bar Italia” by Jo Overfield A different breed of society walks the city earth before the sun is quite up. You get to know them, the rhythm of their hour. We walk with them. I can still feel amphetamines racing through me. So we keep walking. Feels good to walk, we don’t feel the cold.

Greengrocers putting up their stalls holler something at us in their cockney voices. I don’t hear it. But I do hear the combined ‘dirty’ laughter behind us as we walk away. We ignore it. Too many eyes watching for us to react this time. It starts to fade. We stride towards bright artificial lights and distorted sound:

Wardour Street. One by one we reach for the black Ray-Ban’s. Sweet aromatic smells of Chinatown, drunks spilling out of bars, hipsters skipping with quiffs of confidence, people with money clopping concrete in expensive high heels. He says he knows somewhere we can go, with the lights turned down low, we can calm the bloodstream, get some natural energy before dawn. We skulk into an all-night coffee shop on Old Compton, sliding into steel back chairs like dark shadows fading at the wall. Nightclubbing nature in the wilderness; hungover friends cradle coffee cups, weary eyes, giant yawns, whilst the narcotic species tell a different story. Clutching bottles of water, their eyes are wide, shoulders up, their feet still have the dance in them. I feel the sudden jolt of an arm against mine, a woman apologises and I can barely manage a smile. But then I look up and I really notice her. She has dark hair, olive skin, an intoxicating smell of fresh, clean, a soap or washing powder maybe. Not a smell I’ve known for a while, waking late and living through the night. The street rubs off on us and not smelling so good is an aftereffect. The bloodstains are often left behind on clothes, as much as we try not to leave any trace. We can afford to be shoddier with this generation. There is always a red mark fading, lurking, if you know just where to look. The woman finds my gaze, she looks down embarrassed but I don’t falter. She is stunning but she doesn’t know it, a killer combination, soul and beauty together being so hard to find. You must hold it close when you do, and we can’t. We don’t, generally. We have to keep moving, keep walking. But it’s the lust that’s a drug. Along with the drugs. Her eyes see right through the shades. My heart is thumping, my teeth start to throb and he begins to get nervous; “Drink your coffee” he says, more like an order, not with warmth. Two sugars, black, it’s nearly dawn so I need this, I really need this. It takes my mind off her for a second. But the chase of eyes gets me. I look up at her, she’s gone. I don’t feel sadness but I know its ghost well. Was she even there? I don’t know if my mind plays tricks on me. I’ve been here so long that my brain might have moved on.Just as good she left, I don’t know if I could have controlled it. The speed is still in my

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system and it’s a bad medicine for what we have. It ignites any feelings of danger already there. Time to go soon, we all know it, we sense the dawn. You become pretty good at timing light. All the other broken people in this place feel it too.

He stands abruptly, throws a crumpled fiver on the table and looks me dead in the Ray-Bans; “Let’s go”

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“Something Changed” by Momoko Abe

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Hey! If you’re free, let’s go shopping this afternoon!

1:3 5 He let’ y! If y s o u g aft ern o sh ’re fr So oo opp ee, rry n! ing wit , this h m hon. Se e y y bo I’ve ins p o y tea u ne frien lans d? xt w d. ee k

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Espresso Machiato Piccolo Fat White Late

Decaf Soy Tea Chai Latte hot chocolate

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why did i write this song on that one day? where would I be now if weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never met?

would I be singing this song to someone else instead?

i donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know but like you just said

something changed 45

illustrated by momoko abe 0098_Pulp_Fiction_Zine.indd 45

01/02/2016 21:01

“Wickerman & Duck Diving” by Robin Giesing David often thought back to the day he first met Julie at Forge Dam. Not just because it was a pivotal moment in their now former relationship, nor was it the nostalgia of formica top tables, or the taste of coffee whitener from a Klix machine in the far corner of the hut positioned near the reservoir’s edge. No, that was the day David rescued a man from drowning. The day had started off innocently enough, a long walk for miles and miles into the centre of Sheffield following the river, and all its conduits through the city. Here he parted ways with Julie, and David started his walk up to the railway viaduct just out of the other side of town.

As he got to the viaduct, he spotted a bunch of teenage lads egging on one of their mates to jump off the viaduct into the mucky waters below. He’d seen kids do this before, and heard the stories of post-pub dares. But this time there had recently been a storm brewing, so the water was extra turbulent, pushing lots of mud up to the banks of the river. The kid dived in, but clipped his ankle as he jumped, causing him to tumble head first into the sludgy mess on the bank instead of feet first into the water. His mates ran off, leaving just him and David in the vicinity. ‘I once said, when I lived down here, I’d never jump in this in a million years’ David muttered to himself while pulling off his shoes. ‘But this kid has his whole life in front of him’ he quantified to himself. David waded into the freezing waters just as the kid was sinking into the water. He could see he’d need to dive in to get him now, and his mind went back to a duck diving lesson he once had at school one summer.

Can I up-end in this mud? David thought. His legs went up in the air and he sank into the muddy waters. He felt around in the silt, and started to feel lost. Panic set in. It was like the pools all over again. ‘I’m going to drown saving you!’ he gasped to the unknown stranger in blind panic when coming up for air. The next 30 seconds went past in a blur. And before he knew it, he was on flopped on the soft river bank next to the lad he rescued, who was coughing up a lung and stuttering words of thanks, grateful for the help.

‘I don’t think I would have had the courage to dive in after him, had I not been for that rusty old tin I found that summer learning to Duck Dive.’ David later said a few weeks later on a local news TV broadcast. He received a bravery medal for his actions earlier that day. He popped that medal in the rusty old tin from so many years ago, along with a souvenir photo taken with cheeky grinned weatherman in the TV studio. That rusty tin, once empty, is still on the mantlepiece to this day

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A Glastonbury Secret by Francesca Baker ‘It’s beautiful isn’t it?’ Tara whispers to me.

She’s right, it is. Nothing has even happened, at least not down there, not officially, yet my heart is ready to burst at the wonder of it all. Hills covered in multi coloured tents, like someone has shook Skittles all over the fields, roll down to a valley of lights, speakers, stages and rigging all prepared for what can only be described as a massive epiphany. The toilets don’t smell yet, the ground is still firm, and our beer is still vaguely cold. The lull of anticipation feels so peaceful, but soon we’ll be bounding with naked hippies, dancing with ten foot tall animals, throwing ourselves into shapes with drugged up revellers, healed by bearded yogis, and suspending ourselves in the inexplicable and bewitching space opened up as the earth tilts on its axis and a million little drops of magic collide in a field somewhere in the shire of England. ‘Bloody amazing.’

‘It’s hard to imagine that only a few days ago there were cows mooing right here.’

The landscape spills out, neat hedges making tessellating squares, grid like on the countryside under the milky gauze of moonlight. The night has an oneiric quality, at once perfect and sad, perhaps as I know that deep down this moment doesn’t last. It feels sort of nice to not be talking right now, as we’ve been talking, like really talking, all night. There’s something about the night air that always makes me more verbose than usual, and on a June evening in Somerset, on the eve of something great, words spill from my lips like a rushing tap unquelled.

My blue jeans stretch at my thighs pulled up close to my chest as the air cools, and I wrap one arm around Tara to keep her warm, as I raise another to take a swig. It was empty, and I tossed it to the side before picking up another. The hiss of the can opening mingles into the hum on the hill whilst the breeze rustles in the trees trying to get comfortable.

A few thousand people are sat in twos, threes, tens, discussing music, love, and life in its all its vicissitudes. Flames flicker and make the cheeks glow even more. It’s funny how this is often my festival highlight, sitting on the hill and waiting for the sun. No music, no art, no entertainment – none of this has even begun. People are sat in jeans and jumpers, not neon, crazy hats or fancy dress. A bud before its crescendo, a blank canvas waiting for magic to begin. The sunset is a gorgeous blur of pinks, oranges, flaming reds swirling across the sky, evaporating into the night, and its rise promises to be just as stunning.

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Tara and I have both been here before, numerous times – well, four for me, but she can’t remember if it’s five or six for her – and this is our first time together. We’d sat at the computer for hours, bashing away, getting jitters in our stomachs as we waited in line for tickets. I was so happy when we did, partly because I love the festival, and partly because my left leg was going dead under Tara’s weight.

She looks up at me, her curls falling down her shoulders, and her eyes weary. It was her eyes that first caught me that night, at Sarah’s birthday party, then the disarming curve of her smile, before she finally danced me into loving her whilst the indie pop melodies faded into the background. The arms that waved sporadically and randomly, no conscious thought but just excited energy, a fission bursting forth her. She twirled like a child playing ballerinas, having never lost that sense of wonder, before shimmying her hips as the waistband of her jeans slipped to reveal black lace. A glazed look went over her eyes as she looked to the floor, lost in the moment. I was lost in her.

I couldn’t wait to see those moves again, accompanied by the shivering reverb of guitars and thrashing of drums, in a field of collective effervescence. An expansive flurry of emotion from the music heightened by booze and drugs could be a wondrous thing, especially in the company of Tara. An eyelash became loose and I brushed it from her nose.

The blackness of the sky starts to dissipate out, waiting for daytime to announce its arrival. Creeping in swathes of light, whirling like a disc of anticipation, before its announcement like a crashing cymbal. ‘Shall we go get some rest?’ I ask.

‘Or you could kiss me.’ She says, a pretend coyness about her.

I lean in and kiss her, just me and Tara in this moment. I can’t wait for the festival to properly begin, but I want to stay here, right now, forever. Tomorrow it will seem as though every song is about us, beams of discourse through the melodies, but now, in the near silence, it really is about us. As we get up and walk back towards the blue peak of our tent, in amongst hundreds of other blue peaks, I pull my phone out of my pocket and tap out an email to work. ‘Awful migraine and fever. Won’t be in for a few days. So sorry. Paul.’ Glastonbury will be our secret.

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Feeling Called Love by Jamie Malcolm Frantically fumbling through my pockets Everything but the item I wanted most

Earphones remained on the kitchen counter

Leaving me with my own destructive thoughts

Immeasurable anxiety bullied around my innards New Years Eve was an odd evening for a first date Getting closer to midnight now and no word yet

Chocolates and roses held tight by the wimpish man opposite At least I have my imagination Looking down at my phone

Looking up at the fireworks

Eventually we converge with little time to spare Doubts and apprehension soon fizzle away

London has become the centre of the entire universe Overwhelmed by that feeling and the fireworks

Vague memories of who I want to be flooding back Elation overflowing every emotion

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“The Identity Parade” by Aimi Hope Peter pulls his car into the parking lot of Electric Legoland slowly, looking up at the sign with some letters’ lights still blinking on and off at two in the afternoon. He sighs and the wind sighs back, howling cruelly outside.

He decided he would stay for a little while, even if nobody turned up. Watch the bright helium balloons from the night before falling awkwardly from decorated streetlamps. He would rather wait around here than go back home to Gloria, the kids, the mundane drama of his existing life. The in-laws were over for lunch and although she whinged to him that nobody would be here today, it just felt right. Plus, he needed a break from the intensity of Christmas. It felt quite nostalgic for him to be back in Wimbledon. He was hoping to see Deborah, but it was unlikely she’d attend. The intellectual, beautiful girl, a feline of a woman whom he adored, their friendship faded with graduation. Well, her graduation. He hadn’t amounted to much, but Deborah, her spirit had a desire to leave this place, make something of her talents, and too right.

He didn’t blame her, and didn’t expect her to come back, even if it was just for a reunion. He unlocks the door of his car and scans the parking lot as he gets out. It looks as though he is the only one here, and he isn’t surprised. He lights a cigarette and inhales sharply, leaning up against his car as he hears the sound of a bus engine accelerate up a steep hill. Deborah looks hopelessly around the empty bus—one she hasn’t taken a ride on since she was sixteen, same route, same driver, different sights. A wave of nausea washes over her and she isn’t sure if it’s the nerves or the hangover. As if the memories weren’t enough to keep her away! She remembers running for this bus to get to school an hour earlier just so she could see him before class started, but fooled everyone else into thinking it was just to get into the library for some extra studying.

The driver trundles at his own patient pace down ugly, fag-packet and rotten condom littered streets, reeking of drugs and vomit from the night before. A celebration of a new year, a new century, and she was alone, again, with nobody to share the cheer, still stuck in this dead end town. What was she trying to prove? The bus swirls harshly around the corner where she wasted so much of her youth and Deborah clutches her stomach, the sudden movement causing the moths fluttering inside to intensify. At least she used to think she was in a different league – more ambitious and driven – but not only did it matter anymore, she started to believe maybe she

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wasn’t so important in comparison after all. Whatever it was internally dragging her kicking and screaming back here for this stupid, insanely unrealistic bet, she had no idea. As the bus pulled closer, Deborah could see the empty parking lot and started to wonder if anybody else remembered or even cared.

Peter hears the sound of a bus back doors opening and footsteps walking off onto the damp streets, and turns around. His heart skips a beat. He watches Deborah strutting toward Electric Legoland, but she hasn’t noticed him yet. She steps forward into what he thinks is her eye line, and she gives him a double-take before he bashfully puts his hand out to shake. When she steps back, taking in his appearance, he decides to make the first move. “Deborah?” he says, as if he doesn’t quite recognise if it’s her. “My…Deborah. You look so…”

“Oh Peter, you haven’t changed at all!” she squeals with feigned excitement which comes across as genuine relief. “Look at you! I can’t believe you’re here. I just really…can’t. I thought you moved away? Down to…” “To Worthing!” Peter interrupts. “I did!”

“With Gloria?” Deborah says, trying to internalise the poison in that name. “To Worthing. With Gloria?”

“Yes,” Peter says shortly. “Er…she couldn’t make it today. I guess she was a few years below us anyway…not the same crowd”. He gestures to the doorway. “Shall we?” They start walking toward the building, unsure if it’s still open.

“Do you know if anyone else is coming?” Deborah says awkwardly. She might’ve liked his company back then, but would dread spending the whole afternoon alone with him. “Do you think we should wait outside?”

“Who knows? I don’t really talk to anyone anymore,” Peter says through chattering teeth, pulling his coat tighter around him. They’ll know where we’d be anyway. We agreed two o’clock, right?” “At the usual booth, huh?” “By the pinball machine”.

“You only liked that booth ‘cause it was closest to the bar!” Deborah laughs.

“Well, it was my duty to keep the place in business!” Peter retaliated, his tone cheeky. “It was deserted even then! They needed me”.

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“I didn’t see the motorbike in the lot. You still scooting around like a looney in your mid-life crisis or have you packed it in yet?” Deborah laughed. “Oh yeah, she’s in the garage back home. Here actually. At me mum’s”.

“As long as you still get around on her from time to time, even if it’s just in the backyard!”

“As much as I can. I learnt to drive, believe it or not. I’ve got a car now—a Saab. You know, for the dog and that”. “Now did you actually learn to drive or are you still faking it?”

“Oi!” Peter says playfully. “I passed this time. Well, fourth time”. Deborah laughs. “Saab, nice. Roomy”.

A creaky door swings open with some force. Deborah mouths her thanks to Peter as she slips under his arm whilst he holds it open for her. She points to the booth by the pinball machine and any fear of modernist renovation dissipates. “Ah, it’s our usual, look!”

“And usually available…” Peter mutters. “Should we just wait here before they arrive? Not that we need to guard the booth—I just don’t feel right getting drinks in without them”. “I’m gonna get a drink. It is the new millennium after all,” Deborah shrugs. They hover around the booth. “Will you be having a So Co or have you matured your palette yet?” Peters scoffs mockingly. “I wasn’t gonna to let you pay for that round, but after that I think I’ll hang back. A So Co it is. Just to watch you squirm”. “I honestly don’t know how you managed to keep it down!”

“And are you still a whisky drinking woman, Debbie? Mr Jameson for you, is it?” “Yes, yes—as much as you cower at the stench!” Deborah taunts, and realises she’s flirting again. Peter blushes. “You know I…love it really”.

“You just can’t handle the stuff, too steely for your puny guts even now, eh?” She puts a hand on her hip. “Watch it, you!” Peter jibes.

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They hear a jangle of jewellery as a young waitress approaches them from behind and taps Deborah on the shoulder. Her make-up is smudged around her eyes, with hair which looks as though it’s never felt a brushes’ strokes in its life, stinking of stale alcohol and fried sausages. Her voice is droning and monotonous. “Welcome to Electric Legoland. Happy New Year. No, we’re not out of alcohol yet. Can I take your order?” “Er well, hello. Thanks. We’ll take one double Southern Comfort and ginger ale and one triple Jamesons and Diet Cola. Can we sit here?” Deborah points to the booth.

The waitress raises an eyebrown and replies sarcastically. “No reservations today, ma’am. You’re in Electric Legoland. Sit wherever you want”. “Er, right. Okay then…” Deborah turns to Peter and motions in. “Shall we?”

The waitress walks away and Peter and Deborah slide into the empty booth opposite each other. She takes off her coat.

“She’s a barrel of laughs, isn’t she?! Pleasant girl,” Deborah says. “We’re like, the only people in here”.

“Well, we always were the only people here,” Peter smirks, his response quick and sharp. “True. So how have you been? I mean, it’s been fifteen, twenty years, right? I wanna know…what you’ve been up to and—“ “I guess we’d better start with you. Debbie”.

“Well, you know. It’s been so long. I’ve been places, I’ve done things…there’s a lot of time to fill out, but definitely no gaps. No time to rest!” she smiles. “How was your Christmas?”

“Oh it was a blast! In the city—worth the expense, it was so grand! Spent a couple of nights out in Soho, then up that West End way. By New Years’ Eve, no one wanted to go out again. We were all knackered! I was on the Thames last night though, saw the fireworks. Had to have gone, really. It’s the new millennium, right? A new dawn!”

“Yea, yea,” Peter nods genuinely. “Sounds really eventful. Who know you’d become such a little socialite? Never were a people person at school”. “Oh please, it’s only with colleagues”. She rolls her eyes. “Getting shit-faced is the

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only way you can forget the reality that they’re your only friends. So it has already been an abusive week. My liver isn’t liking it. How about you?” “A few local dinner parties. Nothing too mad. I’m not really into all that,” Peter says miserably.

“Lots of suburban Christmas duties for you it seems!” Deborah taunts him. “I bet they all adore all your tattoos and piercing scars, that scoundrel charm”.

“Mhm, you can imagine how difficult it is to conform to that when you don’t really care about Sandra’s magnolia flowerbed or this week’s school parent meeting”. “Christ on Earth! Nobody should have to endure that…that sounds horrendous”.

The waitress sets a tray down on the table, moves the clinking glasses on the table and opens a couple of cans of Coke. Common People by Pulp plays over the intercom as the waitress walks away.

Peter sighs. “Christmas was actually good. The kids bought me presents this year now they know Santa doesn’t exist”.

“Kids?” Deborah’s head twitches—she smiles. “As in plural? I bet they’re beautiful! How old much they be now?” “Well, David is twelve, just started high school, and Mary is only nine. A right handful. Amelia will be two next month, I think. Needless to say, they’re growing up fast!” Peter concludes. “They really love the beach. They’re there every weekend and after school with their friends”.

“That’s so sweet,” Deborah says dreamily. “God, I haven’t seen the coastline since, well, Amalfi”. “Amalfi?” Peter repeats, clueless.

“Yeah, it’s like, in Italy,” Deborah snaps, patronisingly, but then recovers. “On the coastline—stunning. I went there with work a few months back and it’s just divine. I didn’t see much of the town but the sea was glorious!” “Views from glamourous limosine windows I expect?” Peter says spitefully, and doesn’t wait for the answer. “So who do you work for now?”

“Well, I’m writing for the Evening Standard now, have been for almost four years,” Deborah says nonchalantly, trying to not sound proud, spinning the ice around in her drink with her straw. “There were a few catwalks in Italy, you see, and I had some fashion reviews to write there. Chauffeur driven only ‘cause I still can’t drive! I would’ve loved to have zipped about on a Vespa or something. Caught

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some of the atmosphere, but honestly, I really can’t be happier. I mean, the plan’s all come together for me but it was tough getting there”. She takes a quick breath, composes herself. “I’m working on getting into Vogue next. That’s my next level”. “Vogue’s a long way from the awkward gothic chick I used to hang out with. Do the office approve of your style?” Peter raises an eyebrow to her. “Black’s never out of fashion,” Deborah smirks. “I had to ditch some New Romantic outfits through. Too obscure”.

“Too obscure for high fashion? Your clothes were too obscure for Wimbledon, so I’m not surprised!”

“Better than a cheap pair of Lonsdale trackies! Or the double denim you so loved to wear...” Deborah teases comically and then refines her voice to a formal tone. “Besides, I’ve a matured approach to fashion now”.

Peter relaxes back into his chair, loving every minute of her fiery attitude. He gets only a second to admire her panting and flushed cheeks before she curiously inquires again. “What about you? What are you doing now? I haven’t heard of ‘God Wears Plaid’ in the charts”.

“We wouldn’t want to be in the charts if we were big, anyway!” Peter laughs. “Na, the band never really took off outside of local haunts sadly…the name didn’t help. We were growing up in Surrey, and punk died before we had the chance. “Or did you think it was maybe because Julian couldn’t sing? C’mon Pete, you were terrible!” Deborah laughs, forcing down the last few drops of her strong drink. “You guys could barely string notes together in rehearsal, let alone playing live!” Eager for the fight, Peter leans forward, his palms on the table between them. “Hey! We weren’t that bad…we had a few good leads for venues…packed out the village hall once! The Pavilion was a popular one too. Don’t act like we were badyou wrote good reviews for us in the Fly!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding…you weren’t that bad!” Deborah retaliated. “But my reviews definitely increased your fan base. I guess the popularity never ascended past Lloyd Park. Sadly the world will never know of ‘God Wears Plaid’”. Deborah waits for Peter to finish his drink. “How is Julian, anyway?”

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“Who knows?” Peter shrugs, slamming his glass on the table. “I haven’t seen Servante in a while. I think we kinda all stopped talking, right?”

“Well, I figured as you guys were so close—spent nearly every day together, inseparable! Like Morecambe and Wise! Holmes and Watson! Jekyll and Hyde!” Deborah exaggerated. “But such a riot. Do you remember the parties? God, we got so wasted. That kid Julian…Servante, whatever pet name you wanted to call him...I’m sure he had safety pins holding his entire head together, he did! Skinny little rake, he was! Christ! Do you remember that time when he stole his mum’s Volvo? Got halfway down the road, stoned as anything. I’m surprised he even made it out of the driveway!” She smiles, watching Peter laughing, slurping from an empty glass. “As for the rest, I haven’t really stopped talking to Kathy. I’ve been meaning to catch up, ya know? Just never really had the time”.

“Ah, that girl was so smart!” Peter’s eyes brighten. “She went to Cambridge, right? For the love of Christ, tell me she’s doing well! She deserved that…” “Of course she deserved it. She worked so hard—well, that’s just it. We kinda faded apart after that. She studied so far away I never got to see her, with all the stress she had to deal with,” Deborah looks forlornly into her lap. “She didn’t come home often”. A moment of silence slips past them as they remember. “I heard that Julian went to rehab,” Peter piped.

“You’re joking?” Deborah’s mouth hangs open. “No way…”

“Don’t tell me it sounds impossible, Debbie. He did get Harry expelled from Stoneleigh Road after all. They actually gave Professor Kirkman a heart attack with that prank. Poor innocent bastard, god rest his dull soul,” Peter breathed. “Harry got sent to a borstal after that up in Sheffield, didn’t he? His mum hit the roof! And Julian must’ve been rotting in that detention room for at least an entire term. Then he got grounded too. That guy was a headcase. A nut. A fucking criminal at the end of it.” “Ah, but ya loved him. He was a devil, but a damn fun one! And he always stayed true”. “Ain’t got much to show for it now, mind. Rehab and all. Can’t be too much fun in here. Mind you, nobody from here was gonna be a rockstar anyway, let’s be honest”.

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“Well, at least it isn’t prison he’s worrying about!” Deborah rolls her eyes and looks around. “Do you think we’re the only ones who remembered to come? I can’t remember who organised this but it wasn’t me! Where have they all wound up?” “Either they have forgotten or they’re just avoiding this shithole. With a right mind too! Maybe Harry will show, knockin’ around town still no doubt. But probably not Cathy. And not Steph”. Peter struck names off a list, striking nerves with Deborah. Deborah wretches. “God no! She wouldn’t dare show herself! Turn her bloody nose up at the idea. She’s probably halfway around the world shagging some millionaire director, because it’s ‘soooo bohemian’”!

“Or rotting away with a drinking habit and too much slap on her face? Working full time at the local Wilkinson’s checkout?” Peter says, choosing the less glamourous and probably more accurate reality. “Either’s plausible,” Deborah spits, nodding at Peter. “Destined to fail. That fucking manipulative bitch”.

The waitress returns to the table and flips open a notebook, looking down and observing the couple. Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now by The Smiths plays over the intercom. Peter flicks a match and lights hi cigarette, inhaling deeply. “You guys look as though you could use some drinks... same again?” she says. “Same again, I think,” Deborah says timidly.

“Coming right up,” the waitress says awkwardly, and walks away.

“You wanted another So Co, right?” Deborah checks, once she thinks the topic can be changed. “You haven’t spoken to her since, have you?” Deborah coughs nervously. “Since what?”

“Since Bert’s funeral,” Peter whispers. “The one you didn’t come to”.

“I’ll have you know I haven’t spoken to that arrogant cow in fourteen years, thank God. For a very good reason too. She ruined my life, Pete. I was gonna kill myself”. Pained, she exhales, and tries to speak slower. “I had no choice but to get away. I had a future. I was gonna earn it, God damn it”. “Bert had a future too,” Peter whispers, air shooting through his teeth. “Why

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didn’t you come, just out of respect? We were all hurting that day. I can’t believe—“ The waitress sets the drinks down on the table.

“That’s £8.70 cash,” she blurts, oblivious to the tension between them. “Unless you want to run up a tab? I’ll need to hold on of your cards behind the bar”.

“They have card machines here now? Holy fuck!” Peter says, eyes wide and letting her have the moment. “Well, yea…I don’t know the last time you were in here, but it’s like, the year 2000 now”. The waitress glances at her watch, as if she missed the midnight magic of the night before and somehow the watch will tell her what year it is before getting back to the point. “So that’s £8.70”.

Peter turns to the waitress, looking up at her. “£8.70 for two drinks?! Are you sure you sure you haven’t got the bills crossed?” The waitress gives him the benefit of the doubt by looking around at the empty bar; not another soul inside, before replying. “£8.70 is cheap for five shots of alcohol between you!” Peter signs. “’l’ll pay cash, thanks. And drop the attitude, okay?”

The waitress scowls, drops her hip on one side and chews on gum with an open mouth. Peter crumples a cash note in his hand and exchanges it for the cold glasses, ice clinking. “They’ve demolished the leisure centre building now too—the only place you could get Pombears in a vending machine,” Peter remarks when the waitress leaves to get his change. “Saw it when I was driving back into town! Completely burned to the ground – not a brick standing….”. The waitress returns with the change and he looks across at Deborah’s glum expression and knows he’s alone in this nostalgia.

“Another round of these if you’re not too busy,” he says to the waitress. He hasn’t even opened his can of Coke yet for this set but knows they’ll need a whole lot more if he can’t avoid the route this conversation is taking. She signs and Peter reaches to open his can. Deborah doesn’t.

“Why should I have gone? I didn’t know the kid that well. I only met him through Diane. One time before that. Besides, I had left by the time—“, Deborah says intensely.

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“You were there that night,” Peter cuts her off. “You saw how much he was taking. It was dangerous—you had the opportunity, the power, to stop that happening, Deborah. We all should’ve gone. I mean, he was barely sixteen. Just a kid. Bert was our friend. We were responsible”. “He wasted it. The kid OD’d. You can’t stop someone doing that. If he’s gonna be foolish—never knew how much he took, so we never knew how he’d react, ya know?” Deborah says spitefully.

“Steph was wasted at the funeral. High or drunk, or both probably. And she dried herself with a leaf after pissing up a gravestone. But she was there. She’d never even met him before, but she was there”. Peter downs the rest of his barely-mixed drink harshly. Animal Nitrate by Suede plays on the intercom. “I know she was. She was…having problems. At least she went along. She wasn’t even there that night. Only you and I were sober enough to know how rough Bert was getting, but it doesn’t mean we should’ve taken responsibility or control of him”. “Oh Stephie had demons for sure, but it doesn’t give you the right to destroy you the way she did. Destroyed us, sweetie”. Peter reaches across the table for her hand but she pulls away. “Don’t call me that, Pete. Not now”. She tries to keep her voice steady, but it sounds coy.

“You didn’t even phone me once after Bert died. I used to come over to yours at night, sit under your windowsill for hours, weeks, months…” Peter says mournfully.

“Yeah, right,” Deborah says, pseudo-shocked. “Yeah right. Well, that was stupid then, wasn’t it? I was sick, Pete. I wasn’t living at home then. You knew that. Mum sent me to that clinic, remember? A hospital out in the sticks. After the funeral and school had ended, I just couldn’t handle myself anymore. Alone I was dangerous, but I didn’t trust anyone”.

“That’s bullshit. You could’ve trusted me!” Peter shouts. “I was around. I was here for you. I knew the deal. We all had to keep it secret. I was going through it too— did you consider how I might’ve felt too?” “I couldn’t do it, Pete. If I hadn’t have gone away it would’ve been a secret much longer,” Deborah breaths, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I really am sorry. The pressure was killing me, and…” She doesn’t get to finish her sentence. She looks toward the door fearfully.

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“What?” Peter says, swivelling around in his seat. Deborah is quivering. “Nothing. It’s nothing”.

“No really, what’s up?” Peter looks back for just long enough to recognise she avoids his gaze, and back toward the door, where the waitress has set their drinks down and is becoming more flustered by a new arrival, her voice inaudible to being with. Peter’s voice becomes loud and slurry, raising a fist in the air. “Hey, we paid for those drinks!” and then to Deborah—“She’s leaving! Did we get them yet? We didn’t get those drinks yet, did we?”

Deborah shoots him a deadpan gaze framed with terror. She is very still. “That’s her, Pete”.

The waitress’ voice becomes louder, the pleading tone growing with whomever she’s pleading with. “Mum, I told you not to come and get me. I haven’t finished my shift yet! Oh God, please just go home! You can barely stand. I’ll be back later. I’ll be there, just…oh please, I’m working, Mum”.

She’s holding her back and holding her up at the same time, trying to quarrel with her mother, who is so drunk she can barely speak. She’s making terribly high pitched squawking sounds, and Deborah lowers her head so it’s hovering just above the table. “Who’s here?” Peter says, confused. “Our waitress? She’s been serving us since we got here…of course it’s her!” “I’m talking about her mother,” Deborah says dryly, trying to iron out the worried inflection in her voice by keeping it short. “It’s Steph, for Christ’s sake, Pete. Just slink down…she won’t notice us”. “No it’s not,” Peter says with nervous denial, trying to calm Deborah. “It’s not Steph”.

“It’s definitely her,” Deborah says urgently, adamant. “Please, just don’t let her see you. I can’t deal with it”. Peter swivels in his seat again, takes a closer look and inhales the smoke which has just escapes the end of his cigarette. “Don’t be so paranoid. It can’t be her”.

In the distance by the door, the drunken woman disgracefully clatters to the floor in a heap, manically snorting through laughter. The waitress lets out a moan and cringes as the embarrassment sets in, torn between trying to help her up and walking away.

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“It’s her. It’s Steph—she must’ve…”

“Quit hiding from her!” Peter interrupts. “She’s got nothing on you! Maybe she’s come for the reunion!” He begins to shout drunkenly out to her. “Hey—hey, Ste-!” Deborah slaps Pete on the side of the head. “Shut up, or I’m leaving you, right now. I don’t care if I have to walk past her, Pete”. “You already left me anyway. Twenty years ago,” Peter says cruelly.

“Stop doing that,” Deborah says, squeezing her eyes shut. “Stop it! Don’t make me feel like that. This isn’t the kid I used to know. You wouldn’t show me up like this!” “And I never thought you’d leave me. You don’t care, do you? You didn’t care about leaving me?” Peter chokes. Deborah sighs, and opens her mouth to intervene and defend, but Peter stops her dead.

“No, listen. You were my whole world, Debbie. I would’ve done anything to have you and I still would. I used to walk you home every night…you never noticed me. Pitiable as that sounds I never really got over losing you the way I did. But I was abandoned. When somebody makes you so happy you don’t get over that”. “Pete, please. Try to understand”. In truth, she had prepared for this. “I can’t understand. We were in love,” he tries, desperately.

“You were in love with me. I grew up and out of love with you. It just happened. Became a new person –for the best”.

“Too right you did, but not for the best. Steph screwed you over and made you a monster. You’ll never admit it but deep inside you know it’s the truth. That’s what you’re running from—what you’re scared of. You still are. And I’m the only one who really knows that…” The silence a battlefield on mute between them—no guns raised, but surrender and defeat.

“It’s not my fault,” Deborah says in a teary voice. “Why did you let that happen to me? Did you not care enough? I was so sick and alone…” “It’s not about not caring enough,” Peter says gently. “I couldn’t get involved. You wouldn’t let me know, Debbie. Put this barrier up and then left me. What could I do? It was selfish to have you for my own, and you wouldn’t have listened”. “You could’ve been responsible to look after me…”

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“I can make it up to you now,” Peter says dominantly.

The waitress comes to the table and everyone tenses. She places the drinks on the table as tentatively as if they were grenades on a minefield. “Sorry about the wait,” she smiles bashfully, smoothing her apron. “Er, I’m just gonna give these to you on the house, okay?”

Her jewellery jangles as she walks away. There She Goes by The Las plays over the intercom. Peter stubs out his cigarette. “Oh God…that was-“

“Of course it was. I told you. I’ll never forget what she looks like. Unfortunately”.

“She looks so different to before. Actually ugly,” Pete sniffs. “It’s more the way she sounds and acts that I recognised first…” “Don’t, Pete,” Deborah shifts uncomfortably in her seat, a streak of regret cast across her face. “You know she couldn’t help it. The addiction took over…” “Don’t you dare defend her,” Pete starts.

“I never thought I’d see her again. Ever. I never even moved out of town and I haven’t seen her until today.” “Coincidence. Purely—“

“Fate,” Deborah says suddenly.

Peter reaches out to hold her hands. She inhales tears harshly. Stand By Me by Oasis plays over the intercom. “Don’t let her make you cry, sweetie. Not today”.

“I’m not. I’m okay—just a shock, you know? After all these years, I never thought I’d see her”. “Then why are you really here? She might’ve come along and you would’ve seen her then”.

“I…I just…” Deborah coughs incomprehensibly. “I’m really glad that you came here today, Pete”. “Do you ever think of me the way you used to? Like when it was June in ’84? That summer we—“

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“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Deborah blushes. “How much have you had to drink? Jesus Christ, Pete…come on!”

“No, no. I haven’t drunk…too much since we’ve been here,” Pete hiccups. “I mean it. I’m sorry, but you need to know I always have it on my mind”. “Me on your mind or that I might feel the same on your mind?”

“Both. I mean, do you feel the same? I’m not trying to…I just wanted to tell you—“ “Trying to what?” Deborah interrupts. “What can you do about it anyway? What about Gloria? You got engaged to her so young! You’re married now, and happy! With kids and all. A Saab, a dog, the beach!”

“We separated almost two months ago, alright?” Peter says instantly, explosively. “Right before Christmas time. I mean, I didn’t want to talk about it today but…I’d been stuck to her for almost twenty years, Debbie. After a while, it started to feel really wrong being comfortable. She did nothing for me anymore. Anyway, I guess I realised what I really loved after I lost her, and all my life, it wasn’t her. It wasn’t that one person I’d committed my entire life to”. “Why didn’t you tell me that? You’ve had all day to say that you split!” Deborah shouts. “You still got engaged to her, the commitment of marriage. If that’s not a marginal step in a relationship then I don’t know what is! And you really adored her when I saw you together. You’re so…random to even suggest that I might feel the same”. It was the only word she could think of which wouldn’t insult him. “But that’s not the point!” Peter says, trying to clutch randomly onto the parts of the rant which he thought were out of line and he wanted to explain. “We had to get married. That’s what our parents wanted for us. It felt so much better after we separated. I felt like Pete again. I felt like I used to do. That’s why I wanted to come home. Come today”.

“I don’t understand,” Deborah contemplates, struggling to figure out what was missing from his life when hers was so patchy. He had everything he ever wanted. “I thought you wanted to whole fancy-free nine-to-five life, with a flymo, and a wife who bakes Key Lime pie for social functions!” Humiliated by both her accuracy of what his life is like and her laughter, he interrupts. “I loved the way she made me feel, but I didn’t love…her. It was momentary, and she grew up. Lived out of our past. It just wasn’t the same for a long time. It’s complicated. I want that youth back—the way we used to be”.

“No, you truly love her,” Deborah says as if there’s no other truth in the world and she feels it as much as he should. “That feeling is so serious that I know you’d take

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your time deciding if it’s wrong to split with her. A few midnight squeals doesn’t make you irrational. Neither does your parent’s advice. You’re different, Pete. Sensitive but sensible, in your own way. Special”.

“What if you’re right? What do I do now? I mean, she doesn’t really want anything to do with me now. We live at home together, haven’t told the kids. But situations are…rocky. It won’t be long before they start to suspect something’s going on…” “Do you want her back? Truly?” Deborah breathes heavily.

“I think about her daily. Morning and night, she plagues me. It’s so…hard to let go, especially when I’m still around her—have built so much with her. My entire life…I mean…I thought she was everything I knew”. “See? You do love her,” Deborah says, her voice tainted with dishearten. “She preoccupies your entire life; you miss her because you want her to be yours. Is she worth everything you have? I mean, would you risk it all to hold her again? Risk finding yourself again, reinventing yourself and knowing that things will never be how they used to be with her? Of course, you’ve grown up, that’s what grown-ups do, Pete. It won’t be the same”.

“She is all I have. And isn’t that sad?” Pete chuckles at the theatricality of their conversation and how love can so quickly transpire a conversation to this heightened abstract hyperbole. “But what if she doesn’t want me? We spoke about how I feel and I think I really hurt her…she can’t even look at me the same. And now she’s so ignorant, passive to it. I don’t know what to do…”

“Never fear her rejection. Never regret rejection. As long as you truly feel this way, talk to her. Be honest with yourself. I may not have seen you in years but I do know how truly emotional you can be. Any woman would be…” “We both know I’m afraid,” Peter interrupts, confessing.

“You’re stronger than last time, than twenty years ago. You don’t need a hand to hold in the dark anymore. You don’t need that. All you have to give is your careful honestly and that is the most precious and adorable thing you can sacrifice”. Deborah’s voice is vulnerable and gushing and she knows it, but he always had a way of getting the best of her, so she’s not surprised. “But I don’t want to feel trapped with her anymore. I just hope my saying will bring change,” Pete says worryingly, confliction in his stare.

“You’ve already too much, sweetie,” Deborah smiles weakly, and goes to stand, muffling tears. “I have to go now. It’s kinda late…”

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“Bullshit,” Peter says desperately. “Where have you got to go?”

“Oh, I said I’d help mum do some clearing up. You know, with the house party and everything,” Deborah mumbles, avoiding his burning gaze. “You don’t have anything to leave for really. Anyone to live for, do you? You’re lonely”. “No Pete, now don’t say that,” Deborah sniffles. “I have my job, my health…”

“Don’t fish for answers. I can tell you’re lonely. Debbie, all I have thought about since you left is you.”

“You left!” Deborah fumes, fists on the table, leaning over him. “Fucked off to Worthing with your trophy wife. I’ve been here all along. You just haven’t looked hard enough to find me”. Deborah has no shame reserved to hold back the tears now. She just cries and starts to walk away, her necessary venting over. For years she has wanted to say that, with nobody to receive it who will understand. “Come with me.”

Deborah stops dead and turns around. “What?”

“Just come with me.”

“Are you crazy? You’ve actually got a life to wreck. I’m not doing that to you. I’m not doing that to Gloria. What the fuck are you talking about?” “You’ll correct whatever I have to fix. Set my heart right, Debbie. You know we belong together. It’s always been you. Come away with me”.

“Don’t be absurd, Pete,” Deborah shakes the thought from her head. “I’m not running away with you! This is just one day. I’ll go back to my life, and you stay put in yours. That’s how it works”.

“You and I, Debbie. We’ll get up and go. Like Danny and Sandy, young. Just start new, fresh, like we used to!”

Deborah laughs nervously. “You’re mad. That’ll never work. Where would we go? The rotting Pavilion around the back of the chippie?” “Don’t mock me,” Peter masks his pain with laughter. “I’m trying—we will work. We work together. What if it does work out, eh? You’ll never know. Come with

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me”.

“You want me to run away? Just escape?” Deborah says, amused.

“Yes!” Peter sighs. “Why is that so hard to comprehend? Stay with me. We can start by visiting the place where Bert’s buried…”

“It’s hard to comprehend, Pete, because it’s impossible. We’re not the same as we were when we were young. I don’t know anything about you now. It’s changed”. “Oh, you do,” Peter says boldly. “You know me better than anyone does. I trust myself with that. Now trust me. We never got a chance to live like that—it might be different now. Come with me, and we’ll grow old together.” “What, in Neverland, Peter Pan?” Deborah says mockingly.

“Follow the yellow brick road, Dorothy. Come back to Kansas”.

He knows she hates it when he plays up to his ridiculousness, but she knows just how to lead him on as well. “But I’d rather stay in Oz”.

“I know you don’t mean that…now click those heels,” Peter says, gives her a wink. “Shut up, Pete. There’s no way,” Deborah laughs.

“I can see it. There. In your eyes. You wanna go with me. You wanna see if we can do this. Please, just come with me”.

He approaches her and they kiss. Deborah muffles a disappointed sound as she pulls her face away from his caressing hand. There is Light that Never Goes Out by The Smiths plays over the intercom gradually. “One chance,” Pete says passionately, bringing her in closer to his body. “That’s all I ask. Believe in us. In the impulsive spur-of-the-moment girl I used to know. Come away with me”. “You’re out of your mind,” Deborah smiles, more receptive to his attempt at convincing her, the contact of a familiar body sending shivers down her spine.

“I’m not”, he kisses her fingertips. “I’m back in my mind—the one I left behind. I don’t want any trouble. I just want the right to make things different now. That’s all”.

She bites her lip and laces her fingers with his. Selfishly, she has nothing to lose. Her eyes flutter up to look into his and she is sixteen again. Everything which has

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happened between now and then ceases to exist in her memory and anything to come in the future is equally as excitingly unknown. For Peter, this is his dream finally coming true, fifteen years too late. He’s everything planned in his mind for how this’ll go, and he won’t let her down.

She unleashed his hand and runs to the doors, out into the strong January breeze which have now become gales. She raises her arms until she hears the doors open and Pete call out to her. She runs across to the Saab, stands by the passenger side and gives him a wave. “Well, what are you waiting for? Another century to pass?”

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“I Spy” by Dan Coxon June and me, we’ve known each other since school. I used to sit behind her in Mrs. Bairstow’s class, watching the backs of her ears twitch while she chatted with Donna Mackenzie. Didn’t speak to her much, but I watched. Sometimes I’d follow her as she walked home from the bus, pretending I was Ilya Kuryakin from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I was always Ilya Kuryakin, never Napoleon Solo. He had the looks, but Ilya had the brains. In my imagination June was a T.H.R.U.S.H. agent, two reels of top secret microfilm hidden in her knickers. It was my job to snatch them, or the government would fall and anarchy would rein in England. I failed in my mission.

You see, June got out. She married Gary Strickland, some slicker from Loughborough, a property developer with a tan and a Porsche. Soft top, too. I saw him when he picked her up the day before their wedding, all whitened teeth and shiny shoes. He was a good looking lad. I’ll grant him that. Everyone said they made a fine couple, June with her long blonde curls, Gary with those sparkling blues. Couldn’t see it myself.

They didn’t invite me to the wedding. That would have been awkward, with the history between me and June. Donna showed me her photos, though. June looked smashing. It was easy enough to swipe them from her handbag, colour copy them down the local Prontaprint. To crop Gary out. Just June, holding a bouquet, her dress cut low and tight, waiting for Ilya to save her. I startled when I saw him walk into our Thompson’s. Gary, that is. It was lunchtime, so Cheryl was noshing a Boots tuna mayo out the back while I held the fort alone. Folk didn’t normally want much at that time of day. A leaflet on Lanzarote, a quote for seven days in the Seychelles. Caravanning in Provence. It was simply my job to be there, a presence to deter shoplifters and the kids from the estate. Sixty minutes of staring out the window and mentally masturbating over the beach catalogues.

I’d like to say that married life had been hard on him, but it hadn’t. He still looked as slick as the day he stole our June away. Tight white shirt over a gym-honed physique, aviator glasses tucked into his top pocket. Real suave, he was. Just like Solo. ‘You do cruises here, right? I’m looking for the Caribbean.’

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Now, that was my chance to confess, right there. If honesty was my game I could have told him that I knew who he was, that June and me had a history. I could have told him what I wanted to do to his wife. What I’d always wanted to do, since we were in fourth year together. But if you’ve been paying attention you’ll already know me better than that. ‘Of course we can, sir,’ I said, laying it on thick. ‘What did you have in mind? Two weeks, three? With or without a pool?’ I remember the way he grinned then, like he’d just won something. Big pearly whites, eyes aglitter. ‘Why don’t you show me what you’ve got. Money’s not a problem.’

It was easy enough selling him the cruise. Even Cheryl could have done that, with her fishy breath and lipstick-stained teeth. For someone like me it was nothing. What was harder was getting his number. I told him it was for the booking, that we might need to contact him in a few days to take down some particulars. I didn’t mention June, or my plan to sneak back into her affections. See, Napoleon. Ilya can be a charmer too. I called him three days later, telling him I had to confirm their departure date. ‘If you want me to come pack for you, I can,’ I joked. ‘I’ll even be your missus too, if you need me to. Wouldn’t mind a Caribbean cruise, me.’ ‘Ah, but could you fulfil all your wifely duties,’ he said, playing along. ‘You’d have to earn your keep, you know.’

That’s more or less when I knew I had him. I can be a sneaky bugger sometimes, when I have to be. I reminded myself of June, perfect June, and the reason I was doing all this. Made a point of focusing on the endgame.

It didn’t take much to get him to arrange a date for a drink. We already had the banter going. Just two lads meeting up for a pint. I wore my best shirt that night, half a bottle of Brut splashed on my chest. Didn’t want to be too subtle. Nothing happened, but we laughed the night away, sinking round after round. When I stumbled on the kerb outside The Laughing Duck I felt his arm around my chest, propping me up. Felt it stay there a little longer than it had to.

We first fucked in the back of his car. Me staring up at the soft top up, Chris de Burgh on the stereo. I made it pretty clear that I wasn’t the back seat sort, though. Next time we did it in his house. Their house. I stared at a photo of June on the mantelpiece while he went down on me, let my imagination do the rest. I could even smell her on the upholstery sometimes, lingering there like she was watching us. Once, when he went to the loo for a piss, I stole a pair of her knickers

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from the bedside drawer.

It had to stop for a fortnight, of course, when they vanished off on their cruise. But Gary came back hungrier than ever. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing it every other day now. I keep pushing him later and later, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only a matter of time. One day June will come home and find us at it on the living room floor, my pants around my ankles, her husband caught in the act, sweating into the faux sheepskin rug. And, finally, Ilya Kuryakin will have his revenge.

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“This Is Hardcore” by Tom Leins Cherry takes off her pale pink blouse and throws it on the water bed. She has rope marks on her wrists and ankles from last night’s video shoot.

Until last year she worked at Ruby Wu’s brothel on Winner Street. Ruby used to teach her girls to strengthen the muscles of their vaginas through a series of exercises she learned as a girl in the Guangdong Province. The habit stuck, and Cherry still likes to go through the motions each morning.

She now works for a local pornographer named Caruso. His material is surprisingly varied, but his oeuvre is strictly hardcore. He has passed on word, via Cherry, that he wants me to look into some missing Polaroids on behalf of one of his former employees. “Will you meet him?”

“You know smut-fiends make me twitchy.”

She is frowning, but her mouth holds the continued promise of a smile. “Will you?” I nod.

“You name the drama and I’ll play the part.”

She blows me a kiss and resumes her exercises. “The address is on the sideboard.”

It has been scrawled across the cover of a back issue of Tailgunner. The writing is barely legible, but I know the address all too well. Everyone in this town has at least one Merritt Flats story. Maybe this will be mine?

The late morning sun is a deep, sick shade of yellow. Today is not going to be a good day. The air feels hot and thick as I walk up Totnes Road. Merritt Flats looks as ghoulish as ever under the fierce glare.

The man’s name is Cocker. He is rail-thin and I can see his ribcage through his t-shirt. Cherry said he used to be one of Caruso’s favourite leading men – until he got infected, that is. She assured me that she had never worked with him, but I

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saw the twinkle in her eye, and I have my doubts.

Since Caruso let him go, Cocker has held down a part-time job caring for the feeble-minded. It clearly doesn’t pay well, as the wallpaper is scattered with uneven faded shapes where the sold-off furniture used to go.

Cocker shakes hands with his left hand, as his right arm is in a plaster-cast. He says that his landlord, Mackey, snapped his wrist when he forced him to give up the collection of photos. 97 Polaroids. One for each one of Cocker’s leading ladies. “How’s the wrist?”

“It hurts like buggery, young man, but it isn’t half as much fun.”

He chuckles, briefly, nostalgically, and then the laugh dies on his cracked lips.

The flat smells of stale cigarette smoke, lavender air freshener and dried semen. I walk over to his bookshelf. There are no books on it, only videos. I run my finger over the dust-streaked plastic spines. ‘Blue Girls’. ‘Inside Susan’. ‘Acrylic Afternoons’. ‘Live Bed Show’. Cocker stands behind me. I feel his hot, foul breath on my neck. “Like what you see?” I grunt.

“It’s what men in stained raincoats pay for.” “Well, they sound fucking depressing.”

As I drift towards the door, Cocker’s eyes drift back to the black and white TV balanced on a VCR in the corner.

Onscreen, young lips get licked with tentative tongues. Greased-up men strip off their dungarees in expectation. I don’t look back.

Baymount Road. A fat woman in a tight lavender sweat-suit opens the door. I don’t waste my breath asking if Mackey is in – Caruso told me that he is practically housebound. His visit to Cocker was apparently a birthday treat to himself. He is one of Paignton’s most notorious slumlords, and owns more than a hundred properties spread across some of this town’s least desirable streets. He is slumped across a greasy-looking easy-chair, rolling his own cigarettes. He’s a big man, but he is soft with sin. A bunch of Polaroids are scattered across the

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coffee table in front of him. He looks up at me, through piss-coloured eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”

His skin looks worn-out like a cracked piece of linoleum. His breath smells of smoker’s toothpaste and blood. “I’m nobody.”

He spits phlegm on the deep, beige carpet. “I don’t believe you.”

I glance down at the Polaroids. The first girl has lank, dust-coloured hair, but her pubic hair is darker and thicker than you might expect. I scoop up the snapshots.

I flick through to the next photo. I recognise this one. Her nickname is Cobwebs. I haven’t seen her around for a while. I shuffle the deck of dirty pictures again. Cherry. “Motherfucker…”

“Boy, you’ve really got a fucking mouth on you. I would appreciate it if you didn’t swear in my fucking house.” He struggles to his feet.

Men like Mackey bury their secrets with hammers and plastic bags. That much I know. I make sure I get my retaliation in first and chop him across the windpipe with the edge of my hand. He grunts and grabs my collar, before smashing my head into the coffee table. Then he starts stomping me with his thick-soled shoes.

This is the end of the line. I’ve seen the storyline played out so many times before. My mouth has been busted shut, so Mackey smiles for both of us. His grin is a sickly yellow colour, which matches his eyes.

He is holding a length of lead pipe in his fat hands. His grin grows even wider, if that is possible. His eyes gleam with hostility. “It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

I reach into my boot for my trusty pig-knife.

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Sure it is.

I agreed to meet Caruso outside Coverdale Mansions. It sounds grand, but it looks like a fucking crack-den – from the outside, at least. I’ve never had any cause to be invited inside. He doesn’t shake hands. I don’t blame him. My arms are still sticky with drying blood.

I had to ransack Mackey’s bedroom for the rest of the photos. Predictably enough, they were hidden in his underwear drawer. I hand Caruso all of the Polaroids except for the one of Cherry.

When he smiles his face looks like a crumpled cigarette packet. He looks at me and starts to laugh.

“What exactly do you do for an encore?”

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“Help The Aged” by Annie The aluminium ladder wobbles and creaks. Malcolm is swearing hard because he has just flicked gloss paint into his left eye. It stings and he notices that his lower back is beginning to hurt again too. Painting a ceiling is becoming harder work than it ever used to be; worse now that he has to do it on his own. Gingerly he steps down to the ground. Malcolm is a familiar type of older man: chubby and a bit plain. He lives an ordered life. He likes his football and his beer. He used to love his job. He thought that he got on well with his wife most of the time – loved her deeply in his own way – but he found it too hard to read what she wanted from him. Wendy is quietly glad that they divorced. He does not take up any mental energy any more that she would much rather spend on her growing addictions to quilting and online bingo. Malcolm still misses her cooking, and her smile.

He works as a handyman for a little known charity based in a mouldering Victorian building. Fortunately for him, the charity lacks the funds to move somewhere more suitable and hires out its worn premises for conferences so his days are still spent patching up the warren of aging staircases and high-ceilinged rooms. He used to work for a while with Mike and Chris. Both of them were a lot younger and far more qualified with college certificates to prove that they could get other work easily if they wanted. Soon enough they did. It is very quiet now without them.

Unsurprisingly, Mike was the first to leave. He got his kicks from adrenaline – swapping the Sunday knockabouts in the park for the reliable thrill of triathlons. He left his sedentary girlfriend for a female competitor with biceps as well developed as his own and buttocks that resembled grapefruits. Chris took a little longer to move on. He was always torn between wanting an untaxing day at work and his need for more money. His dilemma was exacerbated by a couple of babies he had incautiously fathered during his Iager-lashed party nights. ‘We are not paid badly,’ Malcolm had told them once. ‘Not if you count up how many hours we are actually on the job - same as some lawyers probably – pro rata and all that’. Mike and Chris had just laughed. Malcolm does know a bit about lawyers. His younger brother Paul is one. He’s a successful solicitor with his own small practice specialising in conveyancing. ‘Now that’s boring, ‘thinks Malcolm. He remembers a tedious Saturday afternoon in his brother’s neat back garden. They had been tending a novelty barbecue together with Malcolm pretending to be interested in his brother’s legal work. ‘Wendy had enjoyed herself. ’ He recalls her beaming smile as the two brothers’ faces got redder and sweatier over the heat of the grill. ‘That was the last time

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we socialised together before the divorce,’ he realises. She had also upset Pam, Paul’s wife, by not making enough effort with the salad she had been asked to bring along. Pam had expected one of Wendy’s usual marvels, copied from a supermarket’s food magazine. A rainbow dish of colours and tastes. Instead, Wendy had just torn up a few lettuce leaves – an Iceberg at that!- chopped a withered cucumber into chunks and guiltily remembered to toss in some squishy cherry tomatoes at the last minute. ‘Why didn’t I make more of a fuss?’ He wonders. ‘I really let things slide’. Still, the divorce was a shock to him. He glances down at his faded work t-shirt. It is baggy and freshly speckled with gloss paint. He scratches at a white globule and notices the pink scaly skin on his knuckles, the mottled freckling and the fine white hairs that now match the greying thatch on his head. He sighs. ‘When did I get an old man’s hands?’

He swallows – his throat seems suddenly tight and his eyes prickle. He must need a cup of tea. This reminds him of Mags. Feeling immediately cheered, he picks up his battered red toolbox and heads down to the basement cafe. He likes Mags a lot. She is 24 and newly down from Leeds. She fizzes with good humour, chattiness and energy. ‘A bit young to be running the café alone’, he thinks, ‘but she’s making a good job of it.’ His mouth fills with saliva. He loves her sausage rolls.

The café in the basement looks empty. ‘Hello Mags!’ he calls across the counter. A brown haired girl walks out from the kitchen, a fresh scowl on her face. He finds his heart lifting. ‘Anything wrong?’ ‘The delegates will be down here any minute and the bloody coffee machine has decided to break down!’ She looks tearfully furious and wrings a dishcloth in her hands. ‘25 of them all demanding coffee’. Without thinking, he asks ‘can I help at all? She looks at him in surprise. Malcolm thinks he sees a smirk cross her face. He flushes deeply. She is discomforted by his sudden reddening and so blurts: ‘It’s ok Malcolm - I‘ll just have to find a kettle. They can have instant and lump it. Or even tea’. She darts back in to the kitchen and Malcom hears cupboard doors opening and closing in her search.

He stays where he is, unware that he is clenching and unclenching his fists which he holds by his sides. He wants to cry. A strange sensation that he hasn’t had since he was 15 when he got told to stand back after uselessly trying to help a young girl who had been knocked off her bicycle by a speeding car. He had not cried when his divorce papers came through. ’What is the matter with me today?’ He wonders. As Mags turns the tap to fill up the kettle she experiences an unsettling feeling of guilt. ‘Perhaps,’ she admits to herself,’ she was a bit rude in brushing him off so quickly.’ ‘But he went bright red suddenly and confused me’, she thinks. ‘Is he angry with me? ‘She now worries. Her mind makes a leap. ‘God, does he fancy

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me?’ She shudders. ‘Is that why he comes to see me every day for a chat?’ Angrily, she begins to set out the cups ready for the delegates. The tea spoons clatter as she roughly arranges the rows of crockery on two trays. But Mags is old enough to know she must not let Malcolm disappear today before she has smoothed over this awkwardness if she wants their gentle friendship to continue. Leeds and her family are a long way away, and the younger charity staff rarely make it down to the café preferring the coffee chain over the road. ‘I’m lonely’, she admits to herself. Her mind makes another leap. ‘Malcolm is probably lonely too,’ she realises.

‘Malcolm!’ she calls out, ‘did you want something?’ She comes out of the kitchen expecting to see him there but he has gone, leaving his chunky red metal tool box behind. ‘Right in the middle of the floor’ she grumbles. ‘I’ll have to move it’. She tries to pick it up by the handle and stumbles in surprise when the tool box barely moves. She tries again, this time with both hands, but it is just too heavy for her to lift. Mags knows she is strong from being able to carry the boxes of café supplies up and down the worn staircase even when she’s dog tired. Her Leeds flatmates were always asking her to open jars or push up the flat’s juddering sash windows. She laughs. Her mood lifts - it is so unexpected to be beaten by Malcolm’s tool box. Just like a sketch from a silent film’, she thinks. ‘I must look ridiculous.’ Malcolm appears from a side door wiping his hands on a paper towel. They look at each other. ‘I’ll move it shall I?’ He asks. His colouring is back to normal. He walks slowly towards her and picks up the toolbox by the handle without any sign of strain. Mags’s jaw drops open. He catches her amazed gaze and wonders at it. He is unnerved by what looks like respect in her eyes. He does not know what to make of it. The double doors from the stairwell suddenly swing open behind them and a barrage of chattering people enter the café. ‘The delegates!’ yelps Mags, ‘Give me a hand, Malcolm won’t you?’

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’’Leftovers’’ by Karina Frik A tunnel, a light

Almost blinding, so bright Uncontrollable desire To be close

Bath, in the warmth of the rays As I reach the light I want to hide

Back to the shadows

Framework built of rattly bones Eaten up by former lovers

Feed me with your nourishing aura Wrap around your harmony

Like a blanket, I’ll use it as my cover

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“Bad Cover Version” by Paul Maps March 15th 1997, Granada Studios, Manchester: where it all began.”Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be Jarvis Cocker of Pulp.”

Of course I was, how could I have been anyone else? He was my idol. He had everything I wanted: brains, talent, fame, this amazing... presence. He was one of us, he was our leader, he was everywhere, riding the wave of the Britpop phenomenon without once compromising his integrity. When he mooned Michael Jackson at the Brits it was one of the most incredible statements I’d ever witnessed. He’d even made awkward, nerdy looking blokes with thick glasses sexy, not that it’d given me any luck mind.

It was a crazy time; my rendition of ‘Common People’ saw me through to the live final and made the light item at the end of The Ten O’Clock News; you know, the bit where Sir Trevor McDonald goes from uber-serious, gravitas-laden chronicler of major world events to a sort of kindly uncle just by slightly inclining his head. I even got a mention in the NME!

For a few weeks I got a taste of what it must be like to actually be Jarvis Cocker - I was getting all these requests to appear at nightclubs, not even to perform, just to be there, dressed as Jarvis of course. They’d give me free drinks and everyone wanted to talk to me, dance with me, some even asked for my autograph (I never knew whether to sign my own name or Jarvis’) - people were actually coming to these places because I was going to be there. It was mad! I was having the time of my life.

And then it was over. I knew that the novelty of performing as a current, credible star and dancing like a tit wouldn’t be enough to counter the blue-rinse army of prime-time viewers that would be voting for the winner. First place went to Olivia Newton-John doing ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’ from Grease. I just about scraped past Susana Hoofs of The Bangles to avoid finishing last. So it was back to student life, supermarket brand cornflakes for lunch and paying for my own drinks like a nobody. Jon Bon Jovi, who’d just missed out on third place, suggested signing up with a look-a-like agency but it turned out that there wasn’t much call for a fake Britpop icon now that the scene was on the wane. To tell the truth I didn’t much enjoy it when I did get a gig, without the glitz and buzz of the TV days it felt almost dirty; like I was only one step away from working as a male stripper. Jarvis seemed to be feeling the same - in the run up to the release of their follow up to Different Class he kept giving interviews about how he was disillusioned

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with fame and the music industry, how empty and false it was, saying that the new album would be darker and grittier, that he didn’t want to be in a celebrity any more.

When I first heard This Is Hardcore I felt utterly betrayed. It wasn’t the lack of big, catchy pop anthems so much, but the way it made me feel about myself. Different Class had made everything seem alright - we were together all of us misfits, the common people. We were doing things our way and we could laugh back at those who laughed at us. It made me feel better - Jarvis understood me, he valued me, and if no-one else round here did then that was their fault; we’d show them. But this new album... it delved into all the dark corners, the ones I always tried to steer clear of, that made me feel ashamed and lonely and worthless. It magnified them, illuminated them, forced me to stare at all the ugly, petty, nasty things. I listened to it on repeat, curled up under unwashed bedsheets, wondering why Jarvis was doing this to me. I was at a pretty low ebb by the time the phone rang. The first time I just left it, turned over and jammed a pillow across my ears, but by the third call I dragged myself up and fished amongst the junk on the side table to pick up the receiver. “Yeah?” It was Pulp’s tour manager.

It took a moment for it to sink in. My head was still fuzzy from the hours spent in bed, which in hindsight was probably a good thing - had I been thinking straight I’d have probably thought someone was taking the piss. And that’s how I came, just a few days later, to be psyching myself up backstage at Hereford Leisure Centre dressed in one of Jarvis Cocker’s own velvet suits and sweating like a particularly anxious pig. I wasn’t sure what I was more scared of to be honest, stepping out on stage in front of thousands of Pulp fans or ruining Jarvis’ trousers. It was all his idea apparently, this great ruse. Jarvis didn’t want to do the whole pop-star posey-dancey thing anymore, but knew that the fans would be upset if they didn’t get it. That’s where I came in.We’d gone over it dozens of times in rehearsal: the band kicks off with ‘The Fear’ (not the song I would have chosen to open with, but there you go). I wait in the dark at the back of the stage, facing away from the audience. The spotlight hits me. I bust out my best moves. The crowd goes wild. Jarvis then sneaks on and starts singing. Everybody laughs at the hilarious prank. Or bays for my blood. Either way, I was going to be on stage with actual Pulp!

Of course it was the sort of opportunity that you’d be crazy to turn down, but for

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me it was more than that. It was a way of giving something back to the man who’d given me so much.If Jarvis needed me, I would be there for him. He seemed so miserable these days, all of his interviews seemed to be about how he hated the realities of fame and the scurrilous vultures in the media. Perhaps I could help him back onto the right path, remind him of what made him so great in the first place, get him writing some proper tunes again.

And fuck me, it was without doubt the most exhilarating experience of my life! The roar from the crowd was deafening when I first made my appearance and if anything got louder when Jarvis appeared and they realised what was going on. I was floating on their adulation, pulling out moves that I’d only ever done in front of the mirror at home and they were lapping it up. Security virtually had to drag me off when the song finished; I could have gone on all night, and it just got better and better from there. We played Wembley Arena - Wembley fucking Arena! The Apollo in Manchester, Birmingham NEC, every one of them packed to the rafters and every night I, we, absolutely smashed it. Jarvis was great too of course, even with his new toned-down persona, all weird art and beige cardigans, he had the audience eating out of his hand and seeing the way they responded to these new songs made me see them in a new light, not a patch on ‘Disco 2000’ of course, but great in their own way. The reviews were all foaming with praise too, they loved our entrance and the tour was being seen as a great success. But none of it seemed to help Jarvis - he’d been friendly enough when I first met him, star-struck of course (me, not him), which I think made him feel a bit awkward, but he thanked me for helping out and gave me a bit of encouragement. He tried to calm my nerves on the first night and even stopped for a drink with me afterwards, but as the tour went on he became... distant. Sad. It seemed like the more successful we were, the worse it made him feel. I thought I’d try having a chat with him, see if I could cheer him up a bit, remind him of who he was and what he meant to all the people out there, tell him I understood and could help; I mean, who could know him better than some who spends their time being him? But every time I tried the tour manager told me that he wasn’t receiving visitors. The tour came to an end in Bournemouth after three weeks on the road. Despite my concerns about Jarvis I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had an amazing time. I asked the tour manager when the next show would be. He said he’d call me.

I waited. Months passed without the phone ringing. Jarvis had pretty much disappeared from the press and there were rumours going around that the band might split. They eventually surfaced for a couple of festival dates in the summer, without me, and disappeared again. Jarvis did some weird TV thing about artists I’d never heard of. I finished uni and wondered what the fuck I was going to do

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with my life.

It was another couple of years before I heard from them again. They finally had a new album on the way, though the interviews about a more ‘organic’ feel sent shivers down my spine, and they had another idea that they wanted me to get involved in. One of the singles was to be called ‘Bad Cover Version’ and the video would be a parody of the famous Band Aid videos, except with all the stars replaced with look-a-likes. It was genius and I couldn’t wait to see the band again. Even better, for the video itself we would be singing our own lines!I practised with the lines written on the back of my old revision cue cards until I knew every word and my throat was red raw. The scene at the recording studio that was to serve as the set for the shoot was amazing: Kylie, Oasis, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, The Stones, they were all there and looking great.We spent all day singing the parts, individually at first, then in different groups. It was hard work, but great fun - I felt like I fitted in, you know - these were my people. Every one of us dedicated to our own idols and trying to live up to their example. Even Jarvis had a go, donning a big curly wig to be Brian May out of Queen for the video’s finale.

I couldn’t wait to see the finished version. There was all sorts of editing and postproduction to be done apparently, so it was over a month later that a DVD shaped parcel plopped onto my doormat. I ripped it open, stuck the disc into the machine and pressed play. I could tell immediately that it was going to be brilliant.

There was Elton John being snapped by the paparazzi as he got out of the taxi, there was Robbie Williams doing that thing of holding one earphone to his head like the pros do in their videos, and the Oasis lads doing their swaggering Manc bit, Kylie, who I’d unsuccessfully tried to chat up by the buffet table, looking gorgeous and Bowie, the jammy git, duetting with her.No sign of me yet, but I was sure they were just building up to it. George Michael (also doing the one ear thing), Bono, McCartney and Craig David (who looked like he’d drawn his goatee on with a biro) all had their moment in the spotlight, and there was yet more Bowie - I thought he’d looked pally with the director. Still, it would be my moment soon, keeping the best ‘til last and all that. Tom Jones and Meatloaf bellowed out their lines, Kurt Cobain played his for laughs and there was yet more fucking Bowie. They did a funny bit with Cher copying that awful vocoder song that she did but still no sign of me and the song was well past half way. Phil Collins jigged awkwardly while playing the bongos and the camera panned across. There I was! Me, Jay Kay out of Jamiroquai and Mick Jagger. This was it! Jay did his line, I leant into the mic, opened my mouth and... That was not my voice.That was not my fucking voice! The bastards had overdubbed me! All that time practising, telling everyone I knew that I was going to sing on a Pulp video, everything I’d done for

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them and this is how they repaid me? And the line they chose for me to mouth? “All those sad imitations” it was obvious. They were mocking me. I’d given them everything, dedicated my life to them.To him. And he just saw me as a joke, a failure, a nobody. He’d ruined everything. Sucked me in, built up my hopes, used me and spat me out. He had everything I wanted, but was he grateful? Was he fuck. He whined and moaned about how hard it was to be star, how embarrassing it was when people asked for a photo or an autograph. He didn’t deserve any of it. I went off the rails for while after that, I’m ashamed to admit. Nothing seemed to matter any more -I’d lost all sense of direction in my life. I drifted from part-time job to part time job until my Mum got sick. That really dragged me back to reality, made me realise what was important. I moved in to her place to take care of her, made up a little room in the basement, but they’d caught it late and well... I was glad I could be there for her at least. She left the house to me in the will and I eventually worked up the courage to clear her stuff out and move out of the basement and into the bedroom upstairs. You have to take these steps to move on in your life, I realise that now. Can’t let your past hold you back.

As for Pulp and Jarvis, they went ‘on hiatus’ not long after the video came out. Jarvis did a solo record and played a few live shows, the last one was around here actually, I went along for old time’s sake, I doubt he would have recognised me if he saw me, I don’t think he’d ever seen me in my normal clothes. He stopped giving interviews after that and there was no news of any new music or, well, anything.

A few weeks later I received another call from the manager. He had an ‘unusual proposal’ for me that required ‘absolute discretion’ and gave me an address to meet him at the following day. When he told me, I was speechless. Jarvis had disappeared. Nobody had heard from him since the end of the tour. He hadn’t responded to any calls or emails, there was no sign of him at his house, he hadn’t even contacted his kid. Everyone was very worried. And not only that, but before he’d disappeared they’d been talking about a reunion. Some major shows had been booked and the label had put down a very substantial advance. If they couldn’t find him they would be, as he put it, in serious shit. So while plan A was still very much to locate Jarvis and help him through whatever it was that had caused him to take off like this, the management and the label had reluctantly come up with a plan B. And that was where I came in once more. It took months of cosmetic surgery, a punishing diet and hour upon hour of voice coaching and acting lessons, but with Jarvis still showing no signs of resurfacing, plan B was ready for launch. We started with a few low-key shows

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with invited audiences and they went pretty well. You could tell the band felt like something was a bit off, but the management just kept telling them that Jarvis had been through a lot and that they had to give him time and space. I was strictly forbidden from spending any time with them outside of rehearsals and shows I’d studied his life history as far as the documents they provided me with would allow, but there are some things that don’t get written down, and the band would find me out in an instant if I let my guard down.

Having been given the green light by the focus groups, we were ready. And my god we were glorious - everywhere we went the crowds went wild. Every show was a sell out and the reviews were great (my particular favourite was when one of the tabloids said we were ‘back to our mid-90s best’). I could have carried on forever, but the management didn’t want to push their luck, and once the tour finished and they’d more than recovered their losses, I was given a substantial fee and warned never to speak a word of it to anyone.

So since then I’ve been volunteering here, keeping folk like you company in their final days just like I did for my mum. ‘Help The Aged’, that’s what Jarvis said wasn’t it? You guys are the only people I’ve ever told all this too, not like you’re going to tell on me is it? And if you did no one would believe you.

Anyway, I’d best get back home. It must be getting close to his dinner time and we don’t want him going hungry now, do we?

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“Something Changed” by Francesca Baker His jeans flapped against the ankle rim of his scuffed suede trainers, as he tapped his left foot gently on the dirty beige carpet whilst strumming his right hand against the strings. Through his gnarled curtains he blue-gold of the day was starting to merge into the inky black of the night. The day’s errands and jobs were complete, hours of ceaseless drudgery in which some small satisfaction could be felt had passed, but the evening had not yet really begun. The hours before he could legitimately go to bed stretched out ahead of him, empty, to be punctuated by cigarettes and multipack crisps. He was alone, but not lonely. Not exactly. He wanted something different. What that was he could not form. The chords went round and round in repetition. A, G, D. And again. He moved his fingers. C. D. A vibration formed between his lips and a melody escaped from his lips, lyrics forming. He sang of a girl. A romance. Love. Her image in his head was hazy. She had choppy dark hair, she danced him into her loving her, sashaying her hips clad in jeans; at other moments it was the swirl of her skirt that tempted him. Her eyes were big. Direct. She sang sweetly, beguiling, confident.

But she wasn’t really there. He was writing about something that he did not know yet. His shoulders felt weighed down on, his mood like slow moving grey sludge. He needed to get out. Scanning the cinema listings for something easy enough to watch, that wasn’t fluffy, wouldn’t be filled with loud teenagers chucking popcorn, and was of an appropriate length that he could sit without his arse numbing did not lead to anything positive. He looked at his bed again. The world was going on outside, the night gaping open wide. The broken handle on the chest of drawers, the open door on the cupboard, the fizzing of the fridge, all seemed to be him to leave. Pulling on his jacket he stepped out, the cracking door quivering as it hit the painted door frame.

The gardens had started to grey in the moonlight. Night had descended quickly. He looked up at the sky. Feeling overwhelmed by futility, he wished that there was someone up above. With a timetable, directing the trajectory of life into a positive direction. To send him the girl of the song.

In a few hours his life changed. He did not know it then. Or even just after. She was standing at the bar. Sipping at the glass.

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He spoke to her. They shared the saltiness of the peanuts, and the sweetness of their beers. Words looped around one another, conversation flickering in a kaleidoscopic crash. The hollow night started to fill. Pent up frustration simmered slowly out, every time he exhaled. But still he did not know.

Not even later, when she dropped her skirt, when they ended up tangled in sheets and wrapped in lust. Cigarettes out the window. Sweaty sheets. Mascara on the pillows, smeared lipstick on his cheek. But then. She left her trace upon him, in the scent of the sheets, and the linger of her embrace.

Years later he wondered how it had happened. Sitting at the table, he would stop chewing, put down his fork, and ask her if she ever wondered how it would be. If they had never met. He would pause the television, turn to her, and ponder the difference. Under her big eyelashes she looked up, touched his hand and softly told him to stop asking questions that did not matter anyway. Leaning to him she would give him a kiss, just to celebrate that something had changed.

He would never know if she was the one. Or the one he found. The melody was of her. He could have written his song about someone else. But he hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

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