I took Becky with me into the toilet stall, where we laughed and fell into each other as we poured out a tiny cloud of the white powder. “Just a bit more,” I said to Becky, shoving her elbow so that a teaspoon of cocaine fell onto the toilet seat.
“Shit!” she said, laughing. “We better leave some for Guy.”
We tried to get the powder back into the packet, but our coordination was off and most of it drifted across the seat in white puffs, which we chased and licked with our fingers. “Don’t worry, he’s loaded,” she said, cutting up what was left and inhaling it greedily through a ten-dollar note. “Merry fucking Christmas, Suki!”
We stared at our wide, sparkly eyes in the dimly lit bathroom mirror and I was sure I had never looked so beautiful. “I feel like dancing,” I said.
“Me too,” said Becky, and we jumped in the air and kissed.
Hours and a lifetime later, a dull glow filtered through the glass bricks of the skylight above the back bar of Kuzo. Outside it was daylight, but I had convinced myself that the bar was still suspended in the night before. I lit a cigarette and looked in the packet: only two left. Apart from the barman, Lewis, the place was deserted. Becky had gone home with Rupert and Guy to their flat in Saint Heliers, but at the last moment I’d changed my mind about going with them. It was a long taxi ride there and I’d had an unlovely vision of how the hours after that would unfold, especially with the kind of deficit Becky and I had racked up. Everyone would sit around on the patio with their sunglasses on, drinking and smoking pot until they came down enough to sleep or at least lie horizontally in a dark room. When that happened, there would be sex, or the expectation of it, and even though I was wasted, that was the part I shrank from the most. It was never a question of being forced to put out, but if you didn’t, you had to be prepared for the hostility that followed. Rich young lads didn’t take girls home for company—they had guy friends for that—and after the deed was done, they happily left you on the bed with your knickers round your ankles, feeling like you should have gotten paid. Except that we had already been paid, at Kuzo, in large amounts of booze and fags and coke.
Staying in the bar with Lewis seemed like a simpler option. He was the bar manager, and like everyone in the district, knew Scott, and knew about our messy breakup. When he offered me another line, I took it, even though I was already shaking so much that my coffee cup rattled on the saucer when I put it down. The new line of speed wiped away the effects of the alcohol and instantly sharpened my focus, but when I looked around at the objects in the shadowy bar, they formed a surreal jigsaw that held no meaning. The longer I stared at a chair or a table, the less I was able to recognize it as either of those things.
“I’m hungry,” I said, even though it wasn’t my stomach that was empty.
Lewis had closed up the bar and there was no avoiding the bright glare of the pavement any longer. When we walked out onto Vulcan Lane, the buildings looked to me like cardboard scenery.
At the corner, Lewis hugged me and said good-bye. Through his thin shirt, I felt a ragged heartbeat and was overcome with an urge to cling to him. “Do you want to come up for tea?” I said, trying to sound light, but hearing the desolation in my voice.
He held my hand for a moment. “I can’t.” He tipped his cap and let it settle back on his head. “Merry Christmas though.”
“You too.”
When the lift doors opened, the painted scenery of the apartment I shared with Becky and two of the chefs at the restaurant gave way and let me in. There was a ringing in my ears that I hadn’t noticed in the bar, where there had been low music playing, or in the street, where there had been traffic. The door to my room was wide open, and a boy was standing by the window. I was startled at first to see him and then I remembered: his name was Liam, he was the brother of one of my flatmates, staying with us until he found his own place. He was much younger than me, fresh out of school, but he had kind eyes and this sagelike quality that made him seem older.
He was embarrassed at getting caught in my room, but I told him not to leave. I didn’t want to be on my own. “Are you okay?” he said, and looked at me with such gentle concern that I had to tell the truth.
“I feel like a ghost,” I said, through chattering teeth. “Like I’m not really here.”
Liam reached out for my hand, the one nearest him, and tried to warm it. “You’ll be okay in a couple of hours.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
I wanted to believe him, but the stickiness of his palms was making me think of a schoolboy who hadn’t washed his hands all day. When my amphetamine-fueled gaze zeroed in on the skin on his face, it was oily and caked in zits. Sagelike qualities? What was I on? “I think you better go,” I said.