Jemma Forte - If You're Not The One

‘Good isn’t it?’ said Aidan.

But Jennifer was too fucked now to reply. Her jaw was trembling a bit and she could feel her eyes rolling slightly in the back of her head but she wasn’t remotely bothered. Quite the opposite in fact. Instead she was relishing every minute of the warm, soupy sensations that had taken over her limbs and merely wanted to enjoy them flooding over her.

‘Hey you, you OK? Come and sit down,’ instructed Aidan.

Stumbling slightly but happy to do as she was told, Jennifer let herself be led to the cushions where her mates were sitting.

‘Jen,’ they said delightedly as if they hadn’t seen her for a week, eyes huge and shining. ‘Come here, babe. Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ she said softly before lying down on the cushions. She was overcome by a desire to writhe around on them but something told her it was probably best not to.

Maybe she’d run that thought past the girls.

‘Don’t you feel like rolling around on the cushions?’

‘What?’ said Esther, whose jaw was quivering slightly.

‘I said,’ repeated Jennifer, suddenly desperate for some water, ‘don’t you feel like rolling around on the cushions?’

Lucy nodded. ‘I do, I feel like stuffing them up my top too and pretending I’m up the duff.’

This struck Jennifer as not only funny but wise.

‘And I feel like sticking one down my pants so I’ve got a massive butt,’ added Esther.

‘And I feel like…’ Jennifer tried to join in but was defeated once again by ever increasing sensations that were flooding her system. After a long pause, she uttered ‘sticking one up my arse’. Only by then, the thread had been rather lost so it came out as a totally random statement. However, rather than feel embarrassed, she was amused by how ludicrous it all was. Besides, what anybody thought just didn’t seem to be a problem.

‘Stick what up your arse?’ enquired Aidan, looking confused.

‘Nothing,’ muttered Jennifer, the notion of trying to explain her thought process far too daunting at this stage.

‘You girls are funny,’ said Aidan, head bouncing in time to the beat, and as they bathed in his compliment, it was like they’d known him for years.

‘Where did you all meet?’

‘School,’ said Esther looking really out of it and clearly loving the next tune that had just come on: ‘Everybody’s Free’ by Rozalla.

Karen came whooping over. ‘Come on you lot. Fucking tune! Come and dance Jen, on your feet now.’

‘Too wasted,’ She managed.

‘But happy?’ checked Aidan.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, flopping back onto the cushions.

Everybody’s free to feel good .

She waved her hands around, playing air piano.

‘Hey, you girls are great,’ said Aidan, continuing on the same theme, chewing gum frenetically.

‘We sure are,’ concurred Lucy, trying to pull her friends in for a hug, but Jennifer was too wasted. She just wanted to sit in peace, in her own space, without being manhandled.

‘Love you girls.’

‘Love you too,’ agreed Jennifer, hardly able to open her eyes, she was rushing so intensely.

‘Even Bonehead’s all right,’ said Esther, looking over to where he was busy stacking boxes.

‘I may have let Bonehead have a cheeky half, whereas this lunatic told me she definitely wasn’t coming up so she’s had a whole one,’ Aidan said, gesturing to Jennifer.

‘Have you?’ said Esther and Lucy in unison, slack-jawed.

‘Yup,’ said Jennifer, collapsing into the cushions again. ‘Oh my god this tune is amazing.’

‘Nutter,’ said Esther.

‘Can I have another one?’ asked Jennifer.

‘No you cannot,’ said Aidan, stroking her leg as her friends looked on, not knowing whether to be impressed or worried by how well Jennifer had taken to the drug. ‘I can see I’m going to have my work cut out with you, you little minx.’

And that was it. From that sentence forward, continuing in the vein of giving everything little or no real deliberation, choosing instead to be steered only by instinct and desire, as you do when you’re young, Jennifer and Aidan were an item.

Everything was very, very quiet, apart from the dull, ominous thudding in her head. She was aware that there was stuff going on around her, commotion, chaos even, but she could only very vaguely decipher what any of it was. It all seemed so far away and she wasn’t sure she had the inclination to tune in properly anyway, for instinct told her that if she were to, that suddenly everything would really hurt. So instead she let herself drift further towards a state of mental limbo, refusing to choose the path of either resistance or acceptance. Something terrible had happened. That was a certainty. Her entire body was like a piece of lead, and somehow didn’t feel like her own.

A scream pierced the warm, dense fog she was in. It was a guttural, horrifying sound.

‘Jen,’ yelled the same voice, its tone desperate and distressed.

Karen.

It was Karen.

And then came another voice, one she didn’t recognise, telling Karen to stay back. Not to touch.

She knew she should probably be feeling more than she was. Doing something perhaps, and yet doing anything was a complete and utter impossibility. She couldn’t open her eyes and yet still managed to be dimly aware of flashing lights and at one point of someone manhandling her eyelids and asking her things. She wished they’d all go away and let the cloudy haziness which was shrouding her, envelope her completely. That would be easier.

While Max went to collect the children from his parents, Jennifer raced round the house trying to get it into a vaguely fit state. Friends were coming for lunch and she was running behind. If she was honest she wasn’t feeling a huge amount of joy about the fact they were coming. Lately they’d had a lot of people over and while it was nice to socialise, Saturdays were starting to feel as structured and routined as the rest of the week. What with the cooking, cleaning and never-ending washing up and putting away. Still, in reality, if it was Karen and Pete who were coming over, she’d be looking forward to it a whole lot more. Apart from anything else, Karen wouldn’t care if the house was a tip, or if she served up a bit of old spaghetti for lunch.

Whereas with Judith and Henry Gallagher, she felt obliged to achieve that ‘I’ve thrown this magnificent feast together effortlessly, à la Nigella, wearing an unstained silk dressing gown while simultaneously raising two angelic children in a house liberally festooned with fairy lights’ look, that actually requires tons of effort, perspiration, lots of shouting at the children and some swearing. But then, when it came to Judith and Henry, ‘friends’ was probably rather a loose term and therein lay the problem.

Judith was a work colleague of Max’s who was alright…ish, only she talked about work incessantly, in a way that tended to make Jennifer feel totally excluded from proceedings. With Judith always hogging Max, Jennifer was usually left feeling obliged to entertain Henry, who frankly was hard work. A quiet, uninspiring, humourless bloke, Henry was one of those people who liked to exist under an umbrella of shyness, as if by labelling himself thus, he was excused from having to make any effort on the conversation front. As far as Jennifer was concerned though, once past the age of twenty-one, no matter how bloody ‘shy’ anyone was, she felt they should at least pepper a chat with the odd question, thus making it a two-way thing. As it was, whenever Jennifer was doing her bit by talking to Henry she felt like she was interviewing him.

To add to the already non-enticing prospect of lunch with the Gallaghers, this was the third time in two years she and Max had invited them over for a meal and they’d never returned the invitation. Max insisted it was a good idea for him to ‘keep in’ with Judith, for work reasons. But Jennifer was starting to think it was probably Judith’s turn to spend hundreds of pounds in the supermarket on feeding their faces, and that furthermore, perhaps she didn’t give a shit if they ‘kept in’ with her or not.