So
there she goes, tracking one intact heel across cold damp pavement
like a stylus across a record at the wrong speed, a chirpy pop song
about nights of music and boys and fun turned into a lurching lullaby
figuring it can afford to lament on too many doubles and mixers, too
many ill-thought dance steps, floors too inconsistent in their
texture leading to that fateful snap, broken heel, vodka and diet
coke soaking through yesterday's dress bought in preparation for
tonight's Big Night.
Blonde
hair, stylish, with curls down past the jawline but matted in places by uneven hair spray application and eye makeup run
panda-like around blood red eye whites and green irises from too much
sweat, too many tears of laughter and maybe at one point rejection?
Limbs hummed four four basslines from hours of music that all danced
to a uniform beat. Friends left behind and still drinking the last
minutes of Saturday night away, blissfully unaware of the drudgery of
having to work shifts, scratch that, just unaware of work on every
other Sunday before any kind of stupor induced privilege reared its
incoherent head.Therefore,
it was a common night, as common as any other and so just as damp,
just as grey.
Snippets of conversations perforated her eardrum like
buckshot fired indiscriminately, catching the attention of the wrong
person each time and so bottles are thrown like Model 24s from
pavement to pavement, the road in between being already full of
potholes taking on the appearance of a no-man's land in the corner of
Kate's eye and now she's deciding whether to go prone and crawl until
the volley from the German trenches is over.
Tenuously
this line of thought leads her to believe that, maybe, amongst the
British casualties she'll find her very own Owen or Sassoon, a
soldier with the heart of a lover, a poet she can rescue from the
trenches and retire to the countryside with as God Save the Queen
peals out from village church bells over the hill to the east of
their beautiful cottage as various cats and dogs languidly salute the
cresting summer sun with a succession of stretches and yawns.
But
as soon as that appealing vision of mid century bliss has bubbled to
the surface like so many dreams coalescing together in the centre of
a head of foam on a pint of beer she neglected during an ill-fated
date last week, or the month before, or maybe even years ago, it's
burst and as she's stooped in imaginary trenches she's hit by a burst
of cold taut air as a double-decker hurtles past temporarily calling
a ceasefire via the sheer brute force of steel and plexiglass, an all
too corporeal forcefield being played upon by bursting bottles
resulting in showers of beer, cider, budget brand alcopops and what
she's sure is an uncommonly expensive bottle of a house red being
thrown by who exactly in the crowd that can afford such wasteful
aggression?A sprightly old man in vaudeville top hat and tails
disappearing behind hollering students and men with sweaty red faces,
hair gelled in spikes as sparse as trees in winter, salmon shirts and
boot-cut jeans? It's all a blur and Kate tries to level out, internal
spirit level currently hung with a “out to lunch” sign as she
slurs “what time izzit?” as previous ballistics are replaced with
an impromptu five a side match in the middle of no-man's land, bus
bottling hijinks finally dissolving tensions between axis and allies
at least long enough for interest in violence to wane as shares in
kicking a leaky bottle of discount cider around are reaching
unforecasted altitudes.
