Ben Cheetham - The Society of Dirty Hearts

Staring down at the swirls of foam stirred up by the bridge’s massive concrete feet, Julian couldn’t help but shudder. As Mia leant out further, he resisted an urge to grab her and pull her back. “Tell me about it,” she said, almost as if she was speaking to the river.

So Julian told her. She listened seemingly impassively, but after he was finished she took a quivering breath and said, “Fuck, I need a drink. You got anything to drink?”

Julian took out a lump of dope. “I’ve got this.”

“That’ll do. You got anything we can sit on?”

“There’s a blanket in the car.”

Mia started back towards the car. “Where we going now?” asked Julian.

She didn’t reply. They got the blanket and Julian followed her, groping his way in the moonlit dark, down a narrow dirt path that snaked back and forth along the steep grassy bank beneath the eaves of the bridge. At the bottom of the bank was a flat space with a graffiti-scarred concrete pillar at its centre. There were cans, bottles and scraps of blackened foil strewn around. Mia picked up a can of lighter fluid and squirted it over the remains of an old fire. She lit a match and dropped it. Flames whooshed up, throwing crazily dancing shadows everywhere. Julian spread the blanket over the ground and they sat watching the fire, smoking a joint.

“So do you think someone killed her?” asked Mia, fidgeting in her pocket again.

“I dunno.”

“You said there were marks on her face and neck.”

“Yeah, but my dog made those. I think. Anyway, everyone I’ve spoken to thinks she overdosed.”

Mia snorted. “They would.”

“You think they’re wrong.”

“Fucked if I know. She probably did OD. She always said that’s how she’d go. And, hey, if she was right, all those fuckers you spoke to can tut and nod and shake their little heads.”

It’s not like that, Julian wanted to say. But it was like that, and he knew it. “What was she taking?”

Mia shrugged. “Anything she could get her hands on. Speed, acid, E, ketamine — she was crazy for it all.”

“Heroin?”

The light of the flames picked out frown lines gathering on Mia’s face. “She said she didn’t do that stuff. But I know she did. I saw the needle marks.”

“What about you? You ever tried it?”

“Once,” Mia admitted as if it was something she’d rather forget. She added quickly, “I didn’t inject it, though. There’s no way I’d stick a needleful of that shit in my arm. I didn’t want to do it at all, but Jo kept nagging and nagging me. She had this thing about trying everything once before she croaked. I ended up giving in, like I always do. But I made her promise we’d only do it once. We had this big fuck off argument when I saw the needle marks. I called her a liar, and she told me to go fuck myself. That was a couple of weeks ago.” She chewed her lips, pain shining in her eyes. “We never spoke again.”

“Where did you get the heroin from?”

Mia laughed as if to say, you’ve got to be fucking kidding. She dragged the joint down to its roach, and flicked it into the fire. “Roll another,” she said. As Julian did so, she asked, “So what’s it like being a rich kid?”

Julian ignored her.

“Come on, don’t be shy,” she persisted. “I want to know. What’s it like living in a big house, driving a nice car, knowing you only have to put out your hands and everything you ever want’ll fall into them.”

Julian sighed. “Am I supposed to be ashamed? Have I done something wrong?”

“I dunno. Have you?”

To his irritation, Julian found himself blinking away from Mia’s gaze. He bent to light the spliff in the fire. “Must be nice,” Mia said. “Not being stuck in this shitty little town, living a shitty little life.”

Now it was Julian’s turn to snort. “Who says I’m not stuck?”

“You go to university down in London, don’t you?”

“How do you know that?”

Mia smiled coyly. “Someone told me.”

Julian passed her the joint. “Yeah, well, did they tell you I’m doing a business degree I fucking hate, and that at the end of it I’m expected to come back here and help my dad run his business, and in another five or ten years I’ll be expected to take over running the business. A business which, by the way, I find about as interesting as this town.”

Mia was silent a moment, thoughtful, then she said, “I guess we’re all stuck in our own little boxes.”

They passed the joint back and forth. Julian lay back and stared at the underside of the bridge. His eyelids felt heavy as stone. “But what if someone wanted to get away, just disappear someplace. Do you think that’s possible?” asked Mia.

“I don’t know. There’s this guy at uni whose parents got sick of the rat race and decided to drop out of society. Now they live on a commune in some woods in Preseli.”

“Where’s Preseli?”

“Wales. They generate their own power, grow their own food, look after goats, horses and chickens.”

Mia sniffed down her nose. “Sounds boring as shit.”

“Not to me. Sometimes I think about going there myself. This guy says everyone’s welcome, and you can stay as long as you like, a day, a year, whatever. No one asks any questions about who you are, where you’re from, or why you’re there. Just imagine, no boxes. You can be whoever you want to be.”

Mia stared at the fire, her face intent. After a moment, she shook her head. “I think that guy was shitting you. No place like that really exists.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s only one way to truly disappear.” Julian drew a line with his finger from the bridge’s railings to the water.

A strange, distant light came into Mia’s eyes. Julian watched her watching the river flow past. Her pupils looked huge and black in the firelight, like a doll’s. She began to rock gently, as if hypnotized. Suddenly, with a quick intake of breath, she snatched her hand out of her pocket. There was blood on her palm. “What happened?” asked Julian, sitting up in alarm. Mia didn’t reply, but her eyes came back to themselves and she lifted her hand to her mouth and licked the blood away. More welled up in a thin, straight line.

“It’s strange,” she said, her voice low and dreamy, like a sleepwalker’s.

“What’s strange?”

“When I saw you the other day you seemed so familiar. I felt as if I knew your face.”

“You’ve probably seen me around town before.”

“Maybe.” Mia sounded unconvinced. She turned her intense blue gaze on Julian. “You feel that way, too, don’t you? I can tell from the way you look at me. It’s like you’re trying to work out where you know me from.”

Julian licked his suddenly dry lips and spoke hesitantly. “I’m not sure how I feel when I look at you.”

A moment of silence passed between them. Mia bent and kissed Julian, a kiss as deep and heavy as the ache in his stomach, a kiss that felt wrong to him, and wronger still with every second it continued. His blood hammering in his temples, he pulled away.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing…I…” stammered Julian.

“Don’t you want me?”

Yes, he wanted her, but some whisper in his consciousness told him that giving in to that want would be like jumping off the bridge above, only less intimate and final. “What I want’s got nothing to do with it.”

“I thought we had a connection.”

“We do. I don’t understand it, but it’s there.”

“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

One side of Julian’s mouth lifted. “Yeah, I kind of guessed that.”

“So what is it then?” Mia pouted, obviously not used to being turned down. “You bent or something?”