1997 part 7 - She was a little subdued...
After Nick had told me about the snog dynamics began to change drastically in the sound system. Nick told me that our relationship had been having problems for four years. FOUR years. I couldn’t believe it. I was devastated. How could four years of problems suddenly manifest themselves through one sneaky snog with cheeky chap? What were these ‘problems’ she was intimating at? Was it a love thing? A sex thing? A relationship thing? She still hasn’t told me.Last night I had a great time but Nick was decidedly subdued. She was sort of making an effort but that is all it was – an effort. I’d catch her, eyes glazed; looking out of the bus window on the way home and when she’d catch me looking at her she’d smile with her lip but not with her eyes. She’d rub my knee and say “Are you all right?” and I’d say “Yeah!” then we’d go back to staring out of the window. I’d hear the occasional sigh involuntarily escape from her lips and we’d go through the routine – “You all right?” “Yeah!” – again.
It’s been raining hard all day but by the time we’d both finished work it’ stopped but the ground was still wet. The sun had come out and the air smelt fresh as the ground slowly dried. Nick had on her usual work garb; green jeans, red 18 hole Doc Martins and a black flying jacket. She was weighed down with a large bag of shopping filled, as usual, with a great selection of top vegetarian delights and a large green umbrella. It was great to see her and this was the first time in ages we’d actually had a chance to socialise with each other, alone, on a small scale, no hassle, no frills night. We were off round the Art and Tech colleges to ‘dish’ flyers out. We skipped a veritable dance round the town loaded down with bags, sneaking a sly drink at every venue we went to, even eating crisps.
Back home we cooked and chatted and relaxed and ate and watched TV then went to bed. In the morning we made love but I had the remnants of a thrush infection which tightens my foreskin so when Nick started rubbing me my erection tightened the skin and it was nice to enter her but I came too quickly and then got told off for not putting the tissues in the designated waste tissue bin but, hey, that’s cool.
We got up, had croissants and watched TV whilst Nick waited for her call from the Lovely Lisa. An old friend of ours P was in hospital having a mastectomy. A previous operation to remove her lymph nodes failed to stem the flow of cancer. Lisa is going to ring and take Nick to visit P before she is discharged from hospital. A mutual friend stroke pain in the butt, D, the only guy I know who can fall of a ladder down some stairs, break loads of bones including his neck and still survive (who works with Nick and knew P and her ex J, before we did) pulls Nick up at work saying the reason P’s got cancer is because she took shit loads of ecstasy and it has destroyed her immune system. Twat. What he is saying is that hanging out on the dance scene has given her cancer. But luckily Nick does not listen to anything D says (or anyone) because “he’s sad and a Buddhist” she says.
Maybe that was the reason she was a little subdued when I met her after work to do the flyer round.
So, P was being discharged today and Lisa and Nick were going to see her and give her some sisterly support but when Lisa rang up and said that P had already discharged herself and was at home and didn’t want any visitors because, well, her new man doesn’t want or like any of the party crowd she used to hang out with there. Besides she’s moving to Buckinghamshire where her mum lives. She’s got a 45% chance of survival and we fucking miss her a lot at the parties, but she’s just dumped us all and probably thinks we did give her cancer.
So after the call Nick is all subdued again so she cleans the dishes, sweeps the floor, gets stoned and decides to go to the University to dish some more flyers out. Before she goes though we work out the little money we have and designate a 50 to pay off our E bill. The hash bill can’t be paid because we have no money and besides I don’t want to pay it because I owe it to a psycho-twat-cunt who jumped up and down on the head of our mate Tony because he “Fort eed grarst ‘im up!” Stupid fucking Pikey idiots who think they are toy town gangsters are more dangerous than the real thing. Besides, all that happened at one of our nights outside in the car park and in the road and Tony was barely conscious when the catalyst and I ran out of the pub to sort it out. His face was a mess and the next day his eyes were totally bloodshot and black and we can’t do anything about it because the guy is a serious head case who doesn’t care if he lives or dies. But we try and understand because we know his brother and know what he’s been through but then again that doesn’t justify bad behaviour. You’ve got to look at why they are living in a toy town if they’re so hard. Anywhere else; London, Manchester – they’d be dead. And you’d better believe that.
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posted by DJCabbaged @ 1:55 pm
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