acid

“Can you see them?”

“Not yet.”

“I think I’ll wait until we do.”

We leant against the wall, scanning the slow shuffle of people as they trooped in. It was always a bit chaotic at first, just after they opened the doors. It would calm down later, once everyone was in and the bands had started. Then we’d find the Johns and drop the tabs.

I felt the little piece of paper in the pocket of my dungarees. How odd that such a tiny thing could have such a big effect on you – possibly change your life altogether. I was excited, but also a little scared. I looked at Miranda’s face to see if she was too, but I couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t going to say anything. She and I were both good at not showing how we felt – it was safer that way. Miranda did it better though – she was a quarter Japanese, and she could look as blank as a geisha when she tried. I was very jealous.

We’d decided earlier that weekend to do acid. It was the only thing left to try of the drugs we wanted to. I didn’t think I would bother with smack. It seemed to have too many drawbacks; tell-tale trackmarks, infections, death and so on. I thought I might possibly try cocaine if it ever came my way, but it wasn’t the kind of thing on offer on the stairs.

Drugs were fun, but you had to be cautious – know what you were doing. There were a few books, but the information wasn’t always right. Nutmeg, for instance, was meant to be an hallucinogenic, but we’d tried and it definitely wasn’t. It just tasted awful and made us feel slightly sick.

In the books it said it was essential to have a friend when you did acid for the first time – someone who knew what they were talking about. If you didn’t have a friend you might have a bad trip – or maybe you could still have a bad trip, but it wouldn’t be as bad if you had a friend. I couldn’t quite remember the wording, but it definitely sounded as if you needed a friend.

Waiting on the stairs, we looked around for the friends who always took care of us - the Johns. There were sometimes two, sometimes three of them and they were older – sixteen or seventeen. They’d rescued us several times already when things had gone a bit wrong and we knew we could count on them.

We’d been going to the Roundhouse for ages – it was the centrepiece of our weekend search for interesting things. School offered nothing interesting – Miranda and I had both given up on it. The tube journey was often the only enjoyable part of the day, so long as I managed to avoid the newspaper seller at Baker Street who always shouted “hello ginger” at me. Everyone would turn and stare when he said that, and I would go red and hope that he’d die, or that the floor would swallow me up.

When they wanted to tell you off at school they’d often say “you girls need to be on a hockey field’ – obviously not a possibility in Victoria Street. The curriculum was all optional, but games and science weren’t offered because you couldn’t do either in an office block.

Neither Miranda nor I felt we needed a field of any kind. We were quite happy with pavements. What we felt we needed most was new things – as many as possible; new drugs, new ideas, new experiences.

We spent our weekends wandering around London looking for them. We’d look all over on a Saturday. We’d do a line of sulphate to start things off. Sulphate was lovely. It was cheap and meant you weren’t hungry. We’d read somewhere it was supposed to be a good thing to fast, plus, you could save the rest of your pathetically meagre pocket money for what counted instead.

Money was always a problem. Twenty Marlboro; drinks – when you couldn’t get anyone else to pay for them - and drugs, were just about our limit – and tickets for Sunday afternoons at the Roundhouse of course.

You didn’t need to buy things where we went – you could just look. Up and down the Portobello Road, hands in pockets, we’d walk slowly, watching all the strange people, smelling all the different smells – the musty little shops, the joints being shared by people sitting together on low brick walls, the strange food stalls – they all fused together into one exotic mix. Camden Lock was the same – only it was mainly fashion there. In Notting Hill you could examine real skulls, and Victorian underwear, and leather-bound illustrated books. It was more interesting and it took your mind off cowboy boots you couldn’t afford.

“Find a safe place for your first trip.” That was the other piece of useful information in the books. Well, it had to be the Roundhouse then. It was the safest place we knew, and standing on the stairs there – hours before the doors opened, like everyone else did, we’d bought our tabs and found our friends. Now we were just waiting for them to come in.