"Oh since i was dead little really, me dad used to love all like the beatles, bob dylan, and the streets, me dad really really liked the streets," I watched Fliss as she spoke, into the microphone, our third interview of the day, laughing and giggling along, lighting up the little tent we were sitting in, glowing in her seat whilst I sat beside her a shadow in comparison.
Van was watching from my peripheral vision, Fliss hadn't seen him yet but I got the impression he was trying not to be seen. There was a small smile lingering on his lips as he listened and watched contentedly from where he stood leaning up against a make shift wall, splitting out interview from someone elses.
""The streets? Really?!" Laughed Dylan, who was grinning away, arm around Fliss like they'd know eachother for years, then again they had. I wondered how Van felt about "Drunk Dylan from Birmingham" who she'd met at a tia maria stand on the isle of white two years before.
The story that they'd giggled their way through at the start of the interview, is that he'd hit on her and felt like a criminal because she was only 16 at the time, they'd seen the charlatans together on the last night of the festival and their departing words were that next time he saw he'd be interviewing her. And here she was.
"Yeah, reckon I know A Grand Don't Come For Free and Original Pirate Material off by heart,"
"She raps in her sleep," I nodded forcing a cheeky smile of my own, trying my best to remain tuned in. I had other things on my mind, I'd fallen victim to a familiar disconnect I always seemed to feel when Rhys disappeared. A distant feeling wrapping its arms around me waist in his place.
He'd been gone for two months now, we'd heard nothing from him, only the back gate clanging shut behind him after he'd broken in one night in late April. He was always there though, in the back of my mind. At first we thought he'd gone back to the band, but Ryan had called Fliss last weekend asking after him, asking how he'd taken "it" and upon asking what exactly "it" was, she'd uncovered a whole new reel he'd been spinning me.
"To be honest I just like anyone thats got good lyrics," she admitted with a small smile, "I'm a slut for clever lyrics like,"
"Why doesn't that surprise me," smirked Dylan leaning forward with a knowing smile as he looked between her and Van, fliss still blissfully unaware of his presence. "That why you've been hanging round van mccann lately then? I knew it had to be more than just his boyish charm..."
"Yeah Vans lyrics are class," she grinned, "I like you know the one ewan McGregor did... I like those lyrics, im so impatient when youre not mine... love it, oh and outside as well, I think Smother me in lippy is absolutely one of the best lines, cause its so simple int it, but youve all got that one mate that gets absolutely shiters and kisses everyones cheeks the whole way home, yous all wake up next morning covered in red lipstick... proper clever that one," she seemed to get more scouse the more excited she got, her eyes all lit up with it, I couldn't help but smirk struggling to hold back a laugh because she'd never have said any of it had she known he was listening in. I flashed Van a grin, I could tell he was itching to slip in between us, he had that feverish look in his eyes again half fond and endeared, half fizzing with pride and mutual admiration. Like there were a thousand things he was desperate to say about her."Van an the lads are just class lads you know, dead friendly lids, they're takin us on the american tour wi them in November you know, proper looking forward to that, these what we're doing now are like warm up gigs," she joked.
"Yeah I think Van may have mentioned that to me last time I saw him, he seemed pretty made up about it too, the lads are pretty big fans of yours aren't they,"
"Not as big a fan as Fliss is of them," I teased drawing a laugh from dylan and a grin from Fliss who shrugged me off nonchalant as you like.
"We've not got as many songs for them to sing in the shower as they have us, jus you wait" she smirked and I had to bite back a laugh because for a moment Van was caught stunned, his eyes wide, his adams apple popping as he visibly swallowed down and struggled to think of something clever to say. Still he managed it.
"Yous saying you sing my songs in the shower?" he smirked stepping out from the wall he'd been leaning against, grinning as her eyes lit up and an honest pinky hue tinged her cheeks and highlighted her freckles.
"How long have you been stood there?" She gasped shaken a little, she refused to admit it but she got a thrill from his presence in the room, every time he smiled in her direction. It was in the subconscious smiles she did when she thought no one was looking, like a fizz on the back of her tongue had forced her lips to curve and twitch.
"Oh you know, long enough," he winked sliding in as I made room for him on the edge of the settee. "Carry on anyway," he said sly as you like, "don't let me stop you...you were just saying how utterly gorgeous and talented I am right?"
"Who are you?" I raised my brow dryly, Fliss turning her cheek like she didn't know him, though I saw the way she struggled to bite back a smile, sucking her cheek in and failing miserably.
"Oi you, you were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met you!" he laughed pulling her plait and throwing his arms around her when she continued to pretend he didn't exist.
After a little more sweet talking and gentle coercion she gave in, turning round and flashing Van a toothy grin, giggling along as Dylan did his best to start the conversation back up, asking whether there'd be an album, asking whether Van would be buying it, asking whether he'd given us any advice yet. Truth be told we were growing a little tired of the constant catfish remarks which seemed to surround us, we weren't stupid though, Vans wind up merchant lines and interruptions, his constant praise and endorsements meant that people were putting their pens down and listening to us when they otherwise wouldnt have. We didn't need him, but he helped and we'd always be grateful for that.
"Yeah loads," giggled Fliss resting her head on his shoulder, she didn't see the way Van bit back a smile but she didn't, "always make sure you've got enough milk in the fridge to make a decent brew, don't eat cheese before bed,"
"Don't eat yellow snow," I nodded along. "Always wee before you leave the house,"
"Roll your own ciggys its miles cheaper," he chuckled, "theres another one yous can have that for free,"
"Hope youre listenin careful kids" smiled Fliss oh so at ease beside him, he didn't know it but he lit her up like no one else did. And there it was, the envious twist that swiped the sun from the sky and the smile from my face. I hated the way my shoulders stiffened and my posture failed me when I thought of how happy they could be, and how happy I could be if I could just get Rhys off my mind.
"Never let Bondy cut your hair," I lifted my chin just in time to smile at Fliss's comment.
"Never let bondy do your laundry," I smiled softly. He was a friend I wanted to make, Johnny Bond. I liked pissing around with him at the end of the night, basking in the dregs of the evening with him burning our lips of vodka bottles in the kitchen when all our friends were busy upstairs and in the bathroom.
"Never let bondy borrow your lighter," grinned Van.
"Never let bondy make the dinner," I giggled, wondering where he was.
"Never let bondy talk to your mam an dad," grinned Fliss.
"We learnt that one the hard way," I smirked with a look that screamed trauma remembering the day he'd answered the door to her mam and dad on his way out the house after a particularly wild night. He'd been half asleep when he trod on her foot, yawning and swearing in a sleepy geordie accent as he let them in.
We'd found him offering them a brew, telling them all about the party we'd pulled last night. Fliss had nearly screamed.
The interview moved on and I sat back gazing round the tent, quietly looking out for any of the others, anyone else I might recognise, smirking every now and then when one of them drove the other up the wall or said something stupid.
The tension between them was strange, it shrouded them, tied their shoes together with invisible laces but neither of them seemed to struggle against it or suffocate. I wasn't sure they'd even noticed it and I worried they never would.
I faded out for a little while and thought of Rhys, Dylan had asked about his band because Fliss had mentioned our first gig, a support slot for them a year ago last week and though the night itself had been blissful, I was trying to wash memories of Rhys clean so that a different name might linger on the tip of my tongue.
There was a time they'd been best friends, Fliss had known Rhys before me, introduced us one night at an open mic in a little pub just round the corner from our house. They'd gotten up and played a cover of Somebody Told Me together before she'd dragged him by the hand to meet me, her best friend. Sometimes when he was sitting at our kitchen table on miserable monday mornings after I watched the regret seep from the sleep in her eyes.
I tried my best to snap out of my melancholy trance but once I'd lost myself to the disenchanting whirlpool of bad dreams and second chances, it was difficult to swim to the side.
"I used to do ballet when I was younger, nearly went to study that instead of music but, I like alcohol and stayin up late too much, an me accents not you know..."
"But ballet dancers don't..."
"They just know, I dance in scouse too," Fliss giggled beside me bringing me round. When Van told her she was mad she seemed to laugh harder, contagiously so, so that when she turned to me and grinned I found myself grinning back despite myself. There were moments like that where she brought me round to her way of thinking, wrapped me up in her sunny disposition and tricked me for a minute or two into feeling fine. I could crack a joke with her, kick a ball around a field with her and the lads in the early evening, giggle and suck my cheek in, deep in concentration as Larry or Bondy tried to teach me table football and failed miserably. I found that those moments were the only relief I got, I lived from one table football match to the next, with all these sad spaces inbetween which I just had to try and ignore.
"Fuckin hell Saffy how are you still struggling with this?!" Laughed Bondy stealing my bottle from my hands as we battled Bob and Larry at a doubles match, though for the most part it was Bondy vs Larry and Bob, because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. "You don't need anymore of this," he teased taking another swig, laughing harder when I snatched it back, downed it and told him to fuck himself.
"Oooo!" The other two lads chorused as my cheeks burnt up a little and I bit back a sheepish smile.
"Are yous still shite?" Grinned Fliss hovering over my shoulder, watching me with a little giggle, "yous wanna get kitty on your team, shes ace at these,"
She probably proved him right but not long after that Jazz and Rudy wrapped their arms around my shoulders and steered me in a different direction, to a more secluded area where Fliss and Alice were both buzzing like little bumble bees around forgetmenots in the spring.
"Now, im only giving yous a try if..." started Rudy though no sooner had he started speaking had someone clasped their hands on his shoulders and stuck a knife in the conversation.
"Oi oi what's going on here then?" I recognised Matty Healy from MTV on a wednesday afternoon but Fliss wasn't paying attention and Rudy didn't seem phased in the slightest. Instead he turned around with a wide smile and pulled him into a hug as if they'd known each other since childhood, which apparently they had. "Alright Ru, hope you're going to share... wouldn't want to let it slip to a certain anty of mine the things you were doing at isle of white this year..." he licked his lips and shot his cousin a cheeky smile which rudy returned with one of his own shoving him away lightly and telling him to wait his turn.
He gave me the first key with a small smile, "this'll cheer yous up lass," I flashed him a grin and took it all up at quickly as I could, desperate for a kick in a way I'd never been before. Rhys was a sober thought.
I could feel someones eyes on me before I'd opened mine, shivering at the slight burn in my nostrils.
"What was that?" I looked to Rudy shivering again, it had left a bad taste in my mouth.
"Mingin int it," he chuckled, "it'll sort yous out nicely though," he grinned offering a key round the circle.
"Fuck Ru!" Grimaced Jazz drawing a laugh from our friend and a smirk from Matty and George. I hadn't been paying much attention to them until George had caught my eye, his lingering on my hazy expression for a moment too long, half caught between laughter and the moment after.
"Yous two are jus soft aren't yous, bet its reet," Fliss was already out of it, her eyes glistening with a vacancy so pure I wondered whether she'd ever return to the mundane every day, or whether she'd stay high like that forever.
"You sure you need anymore?" Smirked Bondy coming up behind us to join, his eyes on Matty and George with an uncomfortable edge as he watched them smirking and joking sarcastic before taking a key of their own and then another.
"Cheers rudyru," grinned matty draping an arm around his shoulder and squeezing him into his side, "youre the best little cousin I could have hoped for," he teased, "whod have thought it, that when you were tucked up in your little incubator, all jaundised and premature, that not only would you pull through, but that you'd grow up to be a strong and healthy young dealer... if your mam could see you now,"
"Now now Mathew, no need to get sentimental on me," he winked in retaliation, a little embarrassed but a little too high to feel much at all.
For a moment there was a slightly awkward silence, shuffling feet and lost eyes flickering over the group as peoples skin began to crawl with it.
"Come on Saff, maybe youll be better at it now yous are off your tits like," teased Bondy taking my arm and leading me back to the table, Katie and Benji following closely behind.
"Yous wanna tell your friends to be smart round them you know," Benji nodded over his shoulder, Katie asked why but my head was spinning and I wasn't listening. Whatever Benji had said Bob and Bondy both agreed, nodding their heads along, their comments breezing over my head as I did my best to focus on the ball.
"Ey you're getting it lass, youre getting it!" Grinned Bob as I finally managed to score a goal.
The rest of the night seemed to morph into a strawberry cinnamon haze, with strange tastes on the back of my tongue and strange faces I didn't recognise, some that I did, talking to me, telling me they liked my smile or my style.
Every now and then my stomach would flip or sink and I'd have to stop and shake my head, force a smile and pretend I was still feeling fine. I lived moment to moment once again flitting from Fliss's arm to Ally's arm to a piggy back from Larry, a piggy back from Bondy, to the love 80s tent at midnight spinning in a circle with Fliss to Come On Eileen, throwing our intoxicated arms around each other heavily as one of us beamed at the other and the other grinned back repeating the same things all night.
"I'm so glad we met,"
"You know youre my best friend, you're more of a sister to me than my real sister,"
Their were giggles and glitter, falling over in the dry grass and spilling drinks.
"You in that dress, my thoughts I confess they are dirty! Come on Eileen!" Fliss flashed me a wink serenading me as Alice grabbed our hands and pulled us both into the circle our group were falling into.
"Fuck I love this song," giggled Alice, the glitter around her eyes and down her cheeks lighting up her eyes so that they gleamed like cats eyes in the road on the motorway at midnight.
I'd spent the majority of the night in a sad sort of swirl like strawberry sauce in melted ice cream but as the song changed and Dancing In The Moonlight started playing, the smiles on my friends faces proved too contagious and I found myself giggling along, arms around Bondy and Fliss as the whole group spun and swayed together, this drunk delirious sense of joy washing us like a tidal wave.
We were sweat and glitter and messy hair, strongbow and rosé wine, vodka and tequila slammers, Bacardi Breezers and Gin sprinkled with sawdust and cocaine all linked together, singing along and spinning like the last few drunken dropouts at prom, when everyone else is sitting at the side, ready to go home, tired eyes watching the last few singing nobodies.
With Bondys hand, then Fliss's hands, Van's hand, Allys and Katies hands, George's hands in mine, fingers entwined, it was easy to forget that the only hands I'd ever really wanted to hold weren't linked with mine anymore and probably never would be again.
We wandered back towards our rooms, collecting alcohol on the way and finding some field to kick a ball about until the sun came up and one by one we all began to pass out.
Katie and Benji disappeared to a quieter room, the same way they always seemed to, Alice, Jazz and Rudy found a corner to trip in, eventually passing out on eachothers shoulders. Larry and Bob and George went to bed, the only ones sensible enough to remember that they had somewhere more comfortable to rest their heads and Van and Fliss slipped into their usual routine. So I slipped into mine.
I sat crossed legs rolling a joint, toying with my lighter as I tried to make a sober decision. I could feel the buzz fading away, the fizz slipping out of reach slowly but surely as my addled mind began thinking sober thoughts again. Thoughts of Rhys and the lies he'd tied me up in just to get what he wanted.
I bit my lip and watched my friends, the way they smiled and giggled and got closer with every word they uttered.
The early morning mist was a little cold on my skin, the dew seemed to have settled on the grass around us and when I looked around at the flattened patches, the shadows of green where my friends had been sitting, I realised that I was very much alone.
Van and Fliss were a million miles away now, too engrossed in eachother to notice their surroundings, talking quietly and intensely. It was a wonder they'd managed to remain so naive, so completely in the dark whilst in the thick of it. They were holding hands now, they hadn't noticed yet but there fingers had slowly interlocked there hair falling in front of there faces, shielding them from the morning that threatened their sanctuary. I smiled softly watching the way their foreheads brushed as their tired bodies leant in a little closer. One day their lips would meet and they wouldn't notice.
"This light suits you," I hadn't noticed Matty smoking not so far away from me, I'd been too caught up in the kind of love affair I'd never have to see his slight frame slink closer to mine. Now he was sitting opposite me, his legs crossed, toying with a lighter in one hand, toying with his hair in the other.
I offered him a small smile, his opening line had caught me off guard, strange as it was and with the fizz of my high failing me a little he would either have to elaborate or fall victim to the silence which seemed to surround me these days.
"Catches in your eyes," he said his own watching me like a movie playing out on an old television screen, studying the space between the static carefully.
"Yeah?" I smirked a little sadly and lit up another cigarette of my own. He was the last person I'd been expecting to wind up suffocating with that morning, now his shadow was surreal and I wasn't sure I had anything useful to say.
"Yeah," he smirked back and then he took me by surprise, letting out a sigh and rolling his eyes, "you know you've got to talk back, if we're going to have one of those deep end of the night conversations because we're the only two left standing... you're going to have to try a bit harder than 'yeah' Saffy," he said and I simply hugged my skinny jeans to my chest, chin on my knees as I looked up at him with dry eyes, washed out, fizzling down like the vodka coke Katie had abandoned earlier that night.
I found the use of my name strange, it sounded foreign on his tongue, a tongue he'd never felt the need to introduce, using a name he'd never felt the need to ask for. I was the stranger he was acting like he knew because he had nothing to lose.
"What makes you think I want a deep conversation..." it wasn't a question, they were just words strung together lazily like every other sentence I'd ever uttered. Mundane, irrelevant, out of context even bland.
"You'll be the first person ive ever met that doesn't..."
"One of a kind me," I said dryly, slowly curling my tongue around the words, sarcasm and bitter alcoholic aftertaste oozing like saliva.
"Thought you might be," he cracked a sideways grin at no one in particular and leant back a little in the grass, dew drops dribbling down his veiny wrists. "I'd have just thought that if you really wanted to be on your own, you'd have just gone to bed,"
"And miss all the fun?" I raised my brow and cracked a wry smile of my own, finally feeling comfortable in our conversation. He chuckled softly and clinked the top of his bottle with mine, elbowing me in the ribs gently, his eyes locking with mine.
It was strange because he was strange, his gaze seemed to linger a little too long, reach a little too deeply into my pupils, studying the patterns in my iris for a moment more than he needed to, but I didn't feel like he was intruding.
I licked my lips and he licked his, running a hand through his hair as he watched me unwind and reach into my sock for a little bag I'd hidden from security earlier that day.
I took my house key out my pocket and poured a little of the white powder into a line, biting my lip with anticipation, but before I could snort it and take the edge off I felt a hand on the back of mine.
When I looked up at Matty a little confused he only smiled teasingly and said,
"Before you're pinging again, answer me this..."
"Yeah?"
"Wheres your boyfriend?"
I froze for a second almost dropping my key, eyes darting just beyond his shoulder to see Fliss's head lol against Van's chest as he picked her up and carried her to her room.
We were well and truly alone now, the mist tinged a pale blue and pink by the sky and the mood. He licked his lips again, I wondered whether they were chapped like mine or whether it was a subconscious response to the thoughts swirled up in his mind by the lines and the drags and the shots he'd enjoyed earlier.
"I don't know," I shrugged and he smirked nodding his head.
"So you've got one then?" He seemed a little disappointed but not deterred, nodding back to the line I'd prepared.
I flashed him a smile and snorted closing my eyes momentarily as the burn hit me and I thought about the damage I was definitely inflicting upon my cartilage.
"Yeah," I sighed and he smirked.
"I knew you would have, his absence getting you down?" He asked, "I dont think I've seen you really laugh all night,"
"You haven't been looking properly then have you," i smiled because I could be as clever as him. I didn't want to tell him about Rhys, or how relieved I was that he wasn't here breathing down my neck and scaring off all my friends. I didn't want to tell him about all the lies and the manipulating, the abuse and the tearing me up at the seams.
So I didn't, and when he asked why Rhys wasn't with me I just shrugged my shoulders again and smirked.
"Because I don't want him here,"
It was a lie but it was worth it to see the stunned look on his face as he told me that he hadn't imagined I'd be that sort of girl and then when I told him that actually I wasn't that sort of girl.
When he licked his lips again he was looking right at me and when he moved a little closer I felt a different kind of tension rising.
"Me and you aren't done," he pushed his lips to my ear, his breath tickling my skin sending an involuntary shiver down my spine as he kissed my cheek and pulled away leaving me unsure what he meant or what he wanted from me.
Still I didn't mind, I'd not felt those kind of nerves in a long time.