Dummies

I spent the night on Lee’s floor and I got up quite early by my standards. We watched a kid’s show on TV and then in the afternoon went for a walk up Old Priory Road to Gaunt’s Hill Road.

The hills were shrouded in a mantle of cold wet drizzle and mist, the distant sea hidden behind banks of grey fog. We went back to Varney Hall and had something to eat before I walked home. I got lost on Jervis Golf Course.

When I got back, I had to run the expected gauntlet of laughter, teasing and commiserations over my short hair (“baldy,” etc.). Barry and friend Ade drove down last night bringing John Turney with them, plus masses of stuff. The hallway was cluttered with Barry’s £460 synth, and he and Ade told me they are concentrating on getting a group together. The flat—not built for seven people and a tip anyway—was just ridiculous; we could barely move.

Our night out was already planned, a trip to Lindsey and Susie’s new flat across the other side of Watermouth. We took Ade’s car, but Ade himself didn’t come as he was tired and on the way we stopped at an off-licence. It took about an hour for us to negotiate our way through the maze of one-way streets.

Lindsey and Susie’s flat is small but very clean and very tidy and makes our place look filthy in comparison. There is just one main room, with cooker, fridge, shower etc., off which lead their two bedrooms. Lindsey looked as dark and pretty as ever, and I melted into the background. Shelley arrived and we all tucked into the food L. and Susie had made, and the room became a stage for John Turney. . . .

After the food, we all piled into Ade’s car (three in front, five in the back), and risking Barry’s license, drove along the seafront to The Sanctuary (it was called Antoinette's last term), a depressing night-club in the basement of one of the large Georgian hotels for which Watermouth is famous. It cost £2 to get in. The club was full of Siouxsie Su look alikes, black the predominant colour, and sickened us all off. Scores of bored, boring people sat about pretending to be different but looking like so many predictable dummies. Clubs are pretty shit places anyway, but this one was shitter than most, and we left after half-an-hour, preferring to leap about on the beach, play on the rides and swings and throw pebbles at one another.

We drove back to Lindsey and Susie’s and stayed until well past midnight. Ade’s car broke down in Watermouth so we walked the rest of the way back.