Robert Swindells - Daz 4 Zoe

We were standing in the doorway. Ned turned and said something I didn’t catch. I leaned toward him. ‘What?’

He shoved his lips in my ear. ‘I said, what’ll you have?’

I didn’t know. I wasn’t concentrating. I’d seen a terrific-looking boy across the room. ‘What’s Tabby having?’ I said.

‘A lobotomiser.’

‘A what?’

‘A lobotomiser. It’s coke with rum and a couple of other ingredients. Try one?’

‘Sure, why not?’ I didn’t want a drink. I specially didn’t want a drink with a name like lobotomiser, but what could I do? I wanted to be part of the gang, and the quickest way to screw up something like that is to act like a drag.

So.

Thay com in lucking nervous. 4 of em. 2 guys 2 wumen, nor thay aint old enuff 2 be owt ov school neever. Stop by the door lucking rownd like somfing smell bad. i’m wiv Mick and som ovver guys and we just turn away like we saying you noffing 2 us you Subby trash, only thers 1 of em rite, this girl, and she’s nice. Not just 2 luck at. i dont mean that. She coms in diffrent. Lucks rownd diffrent. Not sniffy if you know wot i mean. i cop a luck then turn away wiv the overs and then a bit later i luck rownd and catch er watching me. Soon as i turn er eyes go down but its 2 late i seen er. i gorra be careful cos i don’t want Mick 2 see me lucking and him getting ready 2 introdoos me 2 Cal, but i keep watching owt ov my eye corner and she’s fixt on me alrite.

Ned began making his way towards the bar and the rest of us followed. The Chippies let us through, but they weren’t acting pleased to see us and I avoided looking in their eyes.

When we all had drinks, Ned used his height to look for space. He spotted some and we went and stood there, holding our drinks and surveying the scene.

It was no big deal, I can tell you that. Just a lot of mean, dirty people crammed into a tacky room getting smashed, while some psycho of a DJ took out their eardrums to get at their brains. I was already wishing I hadn’t come, and I knew if we got home in one piece I was never going to do it again.

It must have shown on my face too, because Tabby nudged me and grinned and pointed to my glass. ‘Try it!’ she yelled. ‘It’ll put you in the mood.’

‘Or in the hospital,’ cried Larry, who looked drunk already.

I sniffed my glass, and it didn’t smell like coke. I didn’t want to drink it, but I saw the evening in front of me and I sure didn’t want to spend all of it feeling the way I was feeling now. I shrugged, lifted the glass to my lips and took a sip.

It wasn’t bad. It tasted better than it smelled, and I could feel it making its way down inside me like a hot little elevator. It felt sort of good, if you want to know. I took another sip and that felt even better. It was then I noticed the glass was dirty, but what a lobotomiser’ll do is, it’ll relax you, right? Two sips and I was laid back to where I could think, what the heck d’you expect in a dive like this – Waterford Crystal?

In fact it wasn’t a bad old place once you got a drink inside you. It was sort of cheerful, really – all these people, laughing and smoking and moving to the music as if they weren’t dirty or poor or anything. It was like they left all that outside. They were okay, and we were okay too. What you had to do was, you had to let go and let it sort of sweep you along. I was being swept along, all right. By the time I finished my drink all I knew was I never felt anything like this down the Sil-verdale youth centre. All of my nervousness had gone and I was ten feet tall.

I must have been on to my third lobotomiser when the boy I’d noticed before turned and looked at me. He was just another Chippy guy in a beat up leather jacket and wild, greasy-looking hair, but he turned round and our eyes met and that was it.

I guess sometimes there are moments when people’s lives change and they don’t even know it. They can look back later, when everything’s different, and say yes, that was the start of it – that’s when it all began, and I didn’t even notice.

Well, I noticed all right, and it was like – I can’t explain. It was like everything shattering apart, y’know? I mean everything. Things I thought I knew. Stuff I’d been taught. The foundation of my life is what I’m talking about here, and I felt it shift, and if you’ve never felt that then you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, it shifted that night and shattered apart and Ma and Pa Askew never got their sweet little Zoe back. Oh, they thought they still had her, but they didn’t. It was somebody else.

Somebody else entirely.

‘Here’s Cal now.’

i lucked, and i seen this littel guy wiv spex. Fin he was. Five foot frag-all wiv blond hair and neat doodies like a Subby. i sez, you jest, and Mick sez no, that’s im.

i cant beleev it. Like, Cal’s a nero, you know? A living ledge end. Peeple tork abowt im all the time. Thers a price on is hed for faxake, and hear he com lucking like a shagged-owt det-clecter.

Aniway he com over and sez somfing 2 Mick and Mick sort of nods at me and nex fing Cal’s standing nex 2 me and he sez i’m off 4 a slash, foller in a minit. He gos of tord the bog and Mick does a fumsup wiv a silly grin on is face. i wait and wile i’m waiting i shoot anovver glance tord this Subby girl. She’s in a corner wiv er mates. She’s lucking at me but drops er eyes wen i luck at er. She’s making me feal funny and I wish she never com in tonite. Any ovver nite yes but not tonite. Why’d she hafta com in tonite of all nites, screwing me up, like i’m wondering if all Subbys’re bad. Cors all Subbys’re bad. Evry 1 knows that.

i go in the bog. Thers 2 guys in, Cal and anovver. i pertend 2 slash and Cal’s wiping his hands til the geezer gos. Then he sez strait owt, who’s the girl?

My hart kicks. Wot girl i sez, and he sez i seen you lucking at that Subby tart. Guy fancys Subby tarts no good in Dred. How you feel, sposin you gotta kill er? He torks fast, all the time watching the door. Jumpy i guess, i’d be jumpy an all, 50 thou on my hed.

i dont know wot 2 say. Panicking inside finking, i’m blowing it. All that time waiting 2 com 15 and now i get my chance i’m blowing it. i kill er, i sez, no danger, but i’m not so shor and i fink he knows it, but before he can say anyfing else thers this crash like some 1 frou somfing and Cal sort ov freezes, lucking at the door. Then he spins rownd and befor i can breeve he’s up and away owt the window.

I never seen any 1 move so fast.

We nearly didn’t make it. I mean, everything could have ended for the four of us right there in the Blue Moon that night, and it’d all have been Larry’s fault.

What happened was, he saw this girl. Chippy girl. She was with another girl and two guys and they might have been married for all we knew but it made no difference to old Larry. She was pretty and he was smashed and he caught her eye and smiled and started making signs for her to leave the others and come on over. I felt quite apprehensive about it in spite of the drink, and so did Ned. He said something to Larry – tried to get him to stop, but Larry accused him of being jealous and went right on doing it. The girl kept smiling, but it was the sort of smile people put on when they’re embarrassed and don’t know what else to do. I could see that, and I bet Tabby and Ned could too, but not Larry. Oh no. He thought she fancied him and redoubled his efforts.

At first the two guys ignored him. Chippies don’t like people from the suburbs and they’d as soon smash a Subby to pulp as not. But there’s always big trouble with the police when something like that happens, so unless theyr’e members of Dred or very drunk they’ll usually bend over backwards not to get involved. In the face of their seeming indifference, Larry’s antics became increasingly gross, until finally he yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Come on over honey – you know you’re wasted on that trash!’ It was just our luck that this outburst coincided with a break in the music. There was this awful silence while everybody in the room turned to look at us, and then one of the two guys – the one who was with this girl I guess – got up and grabbed his chair and came at Larry like he meant to splatter his brain. He probably would’ve done it too, if two beefy guys hadn’t burst on the scene and put themselves between him and us. They must’ve been lurking somewhere discreetly, watching the trouble build. When the guy saw he wasn’t going to reach Larry he let out a roar and flung the chair. Larry threw up his arms to fend it off, and it bounced off him on to the floor. Meanwhile, the two heavies had grabbed the other guy and were wrestling him towards the door.