Disco zombies

I went out last night with Grant. Steve Bates called round before I set off, so I felt obliged to invite him along although I really didn’t want to: he’s like a tailor’s dummy, and I can’t help recalling his “you’re the most negative and destructive person I know” comment from the summer.

We walked to Farnshaw, to the Red Grouse, where I’d arranged to meet Grant. Steve mumbled on and I scarcely said a word. I sat in silence, save for the odd word or two, until Grant arrived, and I glimpsed a few ghosts of years back (Ben Barnes, Paul Hoyle . . .).

It was good to see Grant and good too to see him in a better mood than at Gloucester. He told me he can get very pissed off down there, and that my visit just happened to be one such time. We moved to the Malt Shovel up Easterby Road and we came across more ghosts – Halyna, Laura, Julie Walker and Louise Taylor. They haven’t changed at all save for a slight spikiness apparent in Louise Taylor’s hair. The same faces, the same laughter, as if, for a sudden moment, whole years haven’t been.

Steve gravitated into their group leaving Grant and I sitting apart, and he told me that last night he ended up in bed with Jenny (Phases club, “I hate University students” Jenny), and that he felt oddly detached from what was happening, didn’t feel excited, felt nothing for what he was doing, a cold, preprogrammed routine.

Grant came back home with me and listened to records until the early hours.

Tonight Lee and I went to that yearly horror show, the Former Students disco at Harvey’s, which we were looking forward to as an opportunity for some anti-social fun, but it was in fact pure misery. Lee and I arrived early and sat apart, grim-faced and deliberately not speaking. The disco was soon full of people, packed to overflowing with soul boys from school, tap-room lads and their girls. Steve, Tim Moyles, Sean Laxton . . . Ms. Hirst was there too, and Jeremy. The list as long as it was predictable.

It was a noisy terrible affair and Lee and I slipped deeper and deeper into despondency huddled in our corner feeling totally apart and removed from the jollity around us, Lee long-faced and barely smiling. It was that depressing. It reminded me of being back at school again.

Lee had with him a set of Tarot cards—stolen, of course—and when a girl asked him to read her cards he refused point blank and she retreated with embarrassed laughter and confused looks. He did it with such a straight face too. Tim Moyles got off with Maxine Bates, and I sat and stared and was bored. I was glad to leave. Christmas used to be a time of excitement and magic but now all that is gone and I feel utterly cold and empty.

After Harvey’s ended I walked home with Jeremy, Peter Wood and Andrew Boyd.