Playing with the Grown-ups Read online

  'Who? Marina's Kitty?'

  She nodded enthusiastically, and then remembered Candy couldn't see her.

  'Yes. Marina's Kitty,' she said.

  'Can you open the door with the master, Moira? I don't think I can move.'

  Moira the bird woman opened the door.

  In the dark, close room, incense smoke hung in the air like a memory.

  'Hello, babe.' A voice sounded from what Kitty thought was the corner of the room.

  The bedside light was turned on, and there was Candy, six feet of curves and angles sitting up in bed, wearing a pair of cream silk pyjamas that were exactly the same colour as her hair. She stretched out a long silky leg. Kitty stood in the middle of an ocean of mess, clothes and half-eaten bars of chocolate, magazines, lipsticks and twenty-pound notes.

  'Sorry about the state in here, I had another late one,' Candy said.

  'Did you want something for your mum?' She gave a lusty cough.

  'No. I bought you chicken soup because I thought you were ill.' Kitty held out the warm container and felt stupid.

  'Thank you, that's really sweet.'

  Candy lit a cigarette. Kitty tried to think of another reason she might be there, in this virtual stranger's bedroom.

  'I'm going to this club on Friday night and I don't know what to wear,' she said.

  'Which club?'

  'Hanover Grand, it's called. There's this boy . . .'

  'And you fancy him?' Candy said.

  'Yes, and I think he's forgotten I exist. I got off with him a few months ago and he told everyone at school I was frigid, and he hasn't spoken to me since.' Kitty looked apologetic.

  'Men,' Candy said. 'Well, we better find you something to wear, so he remembers that you very much do exist. How do you feel about satin?' She beamed at Kitty, and she didn't feel stupid any more.

  In Candy's satin trousers, she felt nearly sexy.

  Honor had two friends she'd known since nursery school who were models. They were called Lola and Miriam. Lola had honeyed skin with gooseberry-green secret eyes, and Miriam was pale and wan with the tautest stomach she'd ever seen. Of the two, Lola was the official beauty. She carried her sexiness like a queen wears a crown, as though it were her birthright to walk into a room and cause pandemonium. Kitty wondered how it felt to wake up and be Lola.

  She knew that Honor did as well, because when they went out on their own, and boys asked their names, Honor was automatically Lola and she Miriam. With new alter egos they were different creatures, the sort of girls who broke boys' hearts and never waited for a phone call. As Lola and Miriam their jeans didn't give them stretch marks, they hung confidently from protruding hipbones. Their large breasts were suddenly not cumbersome and matronly, they were pert and tiny, little question marks of sexuality.

  Honor's mum did not like Lola. She thought she was common.

  Marina loved her. They smoked cigarettes together, wearily, each puff easing the burden of being so beautiful, so wanted. Lola told them of her boyfriend Benny, who loved her so much he sat outside her house in his Golf convertible, just to be sure she wasn't out with anyone else.

  'Sometimes,' she said to Marina, 'sometimes when we do it, he cries.'

  Her mother roared with laughter.

  'God, how sweet,' she said.

  Kitty thought it was, but didn't say anything.

  'I think it's really gay.' Lola gave a hard laugh.

  Poor Benny, Kitty thought. If it were me, I would have cried back and asked him to marry me.

  Lola called Hanover Grand 'Hand-over-a-gram'. She and Kitty went on models' night. Entrance was free if you were a model. The bouncer tried to charge Kitty twenty pounds but Lola told him strictly that she was with Elite New Faces.

  He looked her over, sighed and said, 'Oh all right then.'

  Honor and Miriam were already there sitting by the bar in the VIP room.

  'Did they think you were a model?' Honor whispered.

  'Yeah,' Kitty said.

  'Me too. So is Nicky coming?'

  'I don't know - I heard him tell Dylan he was.'

  'He's a wanker. I can't believe he never rang you after you snogged him,' Honor said.

  A boy with long hair, who looked like a girl, walked over and said to them, 'I'm James. Nice to meet you.'

  'Angela.' Honor flicked her hair.

  'Amber,' Kitty said.

  They smiled at each other guiltily.

  Lola had some ecstasy that weeping Benny had given her.

  'They're doves,' she said. 'Really pure.'

  Kitty's heart started to beat faster than the drum and bass that was playing. Swami-ji had told her she was really pure, that she should never be a follower, and that moral corruption was everywhere. But Swami-ji was not in Hanover Grand, she thought, and Swami-ji had grown up in a village in India, not in urban London. She was sure people didn't offer him grade A narcotics when he was a teenager. Kitty was tired of being GOOD all of the time.

  She shifted her Wonderbra, so her cleavage had more of a V.

  'I'll do it with you,' she said.

  Honor scowled at her.

  'You need to keep drinking water, yeah?' Lola said maternally.

  'OK.'

  Kitty put the pill in her mouth with a swig of Bacardi and Coke. She could never swallow pills dry. Down it went. She immediately had the urge to go and throw up. What if she died? Dying whilst pretending to be a model at Hanover Grand would be a truly sad end.

  In the bathroom she put her fingers far down her throat. She retched but nothing else happened. She did it again and again. She did it until her throat felt raw. 'Fine fucking bulimic you'd make,' she said out loud to herself.

  'Kitty?' She heard Lola outside. 'Kitty, can I come in?'

  'I'm coming,' she said.

  She noticed outlines of cocaine all over the cistern. Smeared like snail tracks, marching down the porcelain, the ghost of so many strangers' fun.

  'I wanted to be with you when you came up,' Lola said. 'Let's go and be by the music.'

  Kitty had never been able to dance properly to hardcore before. She felt awkward and chalk white. The electronic opening of Candi Staton's 'You Got the Love' pumped into the room and filled it like smoke. Tendrils of feeling went shooting up her arms and down her legs. Her veins coursed with her very aliveness, the crown of her head felt like it had been opened and was suddenly a direct conduit to everything that was divine and perfect in the world. She felt seamless and liquid and sexy.

  Kitty grinned at Lola like a maniac.

  'Your eyes are enormous. You look like a gorgeous alien!' Lola said, laughing.

  James the boy who looked like a girl whirled over and danced next to Kitty.

  'Are you all loved up, babe?' he shouted.

  'Yes,' she mouthed back at him. 'I think so.'

  She thought she saw Nicky among the crowd, but she didn't care. She didn't want to find him; she wanted to keep dancing this strange dance, just her arms weaving in the air, leaving trails of phosphorescence in their wake. She was inside the song inside herself and she never wanted to leave. Kitty wanted to ring her mother and tell her that religion didn't need to be so complicated. You could find it in a nightclub, in a seething snaking damp mass of strangers, people who for that moment loved each other with the ferocity of the world.

  'Are you out of your fucking mind?' her mother said. 'You could have died! I'm taking you to see Dr Cartwright. You've probably got brain damage.' She was shaking with anger, her already white skin blanched with rage.

  Kitty started to cry again.

  'Can you keep you voice down? I know you're angry but I've got such a headache.'

  'Yes!' her mother said. 'That's what's left of your brain melting!'

  'I'm just having a comedown,' Kitty said. 'It's textbook.'

  'Textbook?! Why can't you lot take coke? Why do you have to take mind-altering drugs that could kill you?'

  Kitty put her head on the table, which was cool and steady.

&nb
sp; 'How do you feel?' her mother said, wringing her hands. 'What are your symptoms?'

  'Mummy, I don't have an illness. I did something really stupid, which I really, really regret, and I'm tired and I just need to go to bed.'

  It was the evening. They had been having this discussion since her return home, where she had blissfully thrown up on the doorstep, and confessed everything. She had not yet slept.

  'Fine. Not fine. But -you will sleep in my bed, and we're calling Lola to see where she got these bloody pills.'

  'Please don't,' Kitty said weakly.

  'No. I will. I think she's clearly a VERY BAD INFLUENCE. You should spend more time with Honor. I never liked Lola . . .'

  Kitty banged her throbbing head against the table.

  'Are you having a flashback?' Marina asked anxiously.

  'Mum, please!'

  'Day off school tomorrow. You can help me do my book-keeping - we're besieged by bills. And - you're grounded for six months.'

  'OK.' She was in no mood to argue. She never wanted to go out again. Her mother woke her in the middle of the night.

  'Kitty?' she said.

  'Yes, Mummy?' Kitty sat up. She heard the familiar old inhale of a cigarette.

  'Nothing, I just wanted to be sure of you.'

  'I'm fine, Piglet,' Kitty answered as when she was little. They had always played this game from Winnie the Pooh.

  After her cigarette was extinguished, and she was sure, her mother fell asleep in the crook of her arm like a child.

  In her dream there was an alarm, a fire alarm, and she had to get everyone out of a rickety tenement building, but she couldn't see because there were wooden chairs blocking the way, which she had to throw over her shoulders like a lumberjack. When the alarm was at its most persistent, Kitty woke and realised it was the phone, ringing next to her bed. The clock told her it was four o'clock in the morning.

  'Hello?'

  There was a crackling silence. Then a voice, a husky old sad voice.

  'Kit-kat?'

  Her heart speeded up.

  'Jenkins, is that you?'

  'Yes. I'm in Hawaii. You'd like it here.'

  She didn't tell him what time it was because she didn't want him to hang up.

  'How are you?' Kitty whispered.

  'Not good. Very bad in fact. I miss you all, I miss your mummy.'

  'We miss you too.'

  'How's school? Does Nora still hate me?'

  'She doesn't hate you. School's fine, boring.'

  'I miss you all,' he said again.

  'Jenkins, why don't you ring Mummy? It would make her so happy.'

  'You have to come to Hawaii with me one day, you'll love it. Sam and Violet could learn to surf. Your mummy could drink from a coconut and sit under a big umbrella so she doesn't burn her lovely skin. We'll go, I promise . . .'

  'I'd like that. Jenkins, please call Mummy, she's so sad now. She cries a lot.' Kitty felt disloyal as she said this.

  'I can't, you won't understand but I can't, but I do love her more than anything in the world, I need you to know that. I need you to believe me.'

  'I believe you.'

  She heard a woman's voice, playful in the background: 'Who are you talking to, baby?'

  'I have to go. Don't tell your mother I called.'

  'Jenkins? Jenkins?'

  Then there was nothing but a smug-sounding voice telling her to please replace the handset and try again.

  Her mother's migraines worsened, and she didn't seem to notice that Kitty was leaving for school late and coming home early.

  Nora did.

  'Are you skiving school?' she said to her. 'You seem to spend very little time there.'

  'No. It's GCSEs - they let us do our coursework at home, they trust us, they know we're mature.' Kitty smiled at her, and buttered her toast.

  'More fool them,' Nora said.

  She liked to go to the Portobello Road and delve into the antique clothes shops, buying dresses, black lace sheaths and little Edwardian jackets. She bought records from Gaz, compilations of ska and roots, that sang of nights interrupted, jelly rolls and cocaine running around the brain.

  'You look lovely, babe. I wish I had the guts to wear stuff like that.'

  Candy lay on her pink sheets, wearing a man's shirt and marabou slippers. Kitty wondered whether the other residents of the Admiral Crichton knew of the splendour in which she lived.

  'I'm so pleased you're here,' Candy said. 'I'm exhausted. I just had to kick this guy out. I came back with him after my friend Luca's party and he stayed for FOUR days. He seemed great for the first two; I even thought it could be love. After day three I couldn't get rid of him, I found him in the bathroom putting on my make-up, and that was it . . . I told him to piss off. I'm not THAT modem. He was very attractive for a homeless man though.'

  'How do you know he was homeless?' Kitty took a long drag on one of Candy's Cartiers.

  'He must have been to want to stay in this shit-hole for four days, darling; and he was carrying a large plastic bag. A bin bag actually. Never mind; soon I'll buy a big house. It works for now, and they take my messages.'

  'Maybe he really liked you,' Kitty said. 'Maybe he was incognito rich.'

  'Nah,' Candy said, but she smiled. She handed Kitty an envelope. 'Can you give this to your mum?' she asked.

  'What is it? Is it drugs?' Kitty stared into Candy's spiky brown eyes. She was shocked by her question; she didn't know where it had come from.

  Candy looked injured.

  'No, it's a card. God, what do you think I am? A dealer? Why would you even say that? I thought you were my friend.'

  'Sorry,' Kitty said, feeling ashamed. 'I was joking.'

  She heard someone in the hall calling, 'Candy . . .' There was a faint shuffling of fingers rubbing against the wood. It sounded like a secret knock.

  'That's Johnny,' Candy said.

  'Can you give him this through the door? I can't be bothered to see him, and I'm not wearing any make-up.'

  Kitty opened the door, and saw someone she'd seen on Top of the Pops the night before. He was wearing the same leather trousers.

  'Hello, darling,' he said.

  Kitty handed over the envelope and jumped when his fingers brushed against hers.

  This time Kitty was allowed to watch the doctor. He pulled a glass ampoule from his bag, and tapped it with his fingers. He took her mother's thin white arm in his hand and she moaned.

  'There, there,' he said, as if he was talking to a child.

  'It hurts so much,' her mother said.

  'I know. This will make it all go away, and you're going to have a sleep.'

  As he stuck the needle in, Kitty wondered if he was poisoning her. Her mother gasped, and Kitty thought it was with pain, so she held her breath, but then she looked at her mother's face, which had dissolved, and was calm and peaceful.

  'She'll sleep for a long time,' he warned, whispering.

  'All right,' Kitty said.

  When he left Kitty climbed into bed next to her, but not under the covers, because her mother didn't like clothes that had been in the street touching her sheets. The darkened room flickered with candles like a church. Her mother was still and waxy like a novelty Madonna. Kitty rested her head on her mother's breast to hear her heart, but somehow it felt wrong, this position, she felt big and awkward, like she might crush her, so she slid up, and cradled her mother's head in her hands, stroking her hair rhythmically until it was almost like a prayer, soothing in its repetition.

  Dylan O'Sullivan invited Honor and Kitty to stay at his mother's cottage in Wales for half-term. He was bringing his friend Shone from school. Everyone said his father was an arms dealer.

  When they asked Shone what his father did, he shrugged and said, 'Business, I think.'

  On the train they ordered gin and tonics and watched England rush by. Dylan's mum was meeting them at the station. She had been in Wales for a week already with her boyfriend, Lester. Dylan told them that Lester was tw
enty-five to his mum's forty-five, and he was a DJ.

  'They're massive puffheads,' he said. 'They keep it in a box in their bedroom.'

  Honor looked scared.

  'This is the problem of going to a progressive school,' she whispered to Kitty. 'It's always the parents you have to worry about.'

  'It'll be fine,' Kitty said. 'Don't worry.'

  She was excited. She had never met true hippy parents before.

  On the platform she searched for someone in a woolly cardigan with rainbow stripes, and she was stunned when a tiny immaculate woman came rushing forward, dressed head to toe in Issey Miyake.

  'Is that my little boy?' she cried in a throaty rich voice.

  Dylan looked pained.

  'All right, Mum?' he said.

  'Oh cut the crap, you little state-school wannabe, and give your mother a kiss.'

  The cottage was whitewashed with flagstone floors, lit by a fire that emitted great lurching flames. Everything fabric was cashmere or velvet. At a long wooden table a banquet was set, with deep silver goblets for wine.

  'I love your house, Mrs O'Sullivan,' Kitty said as they sat down.

  'Call me Lulu, and if you marry Dylan you can have it.'

  'Just shut up, Lulu, all right!' Dylan shouted, apoplectic, but his voice had lost its North London twang somewhere between the train station and the muddy track to the house.

  Lester came in with logs for the fire. He was tall and gangling, with bright electric green eyes and a nose ring.

  'Hello, fairy,' he said, gathering up Mrs O'Sullivan in his arms, kissing her full on the mouth.

  Honor kicked Kitty under the table.

  'See!' she said very quietly.

  They slept in a huge attic under the eaves, all of them on the floor. The lulled voices of the grown-ups wafted up the stairs, and in the effort of trying to catch their words Kitty fell into a heavy sleep, feeling that it would be strange to wake up next to a boy.

  In the morning she regarded the milk suspiciously. It was golden; a fat cloud of cream gathered on the top.

  'Do you have any skimmed milk?' Kitty was starving.

  'No, sweetheart, I don't,' Lulu said. 'There are chocolate croissants if you don't want cereal.'