Wrecked

My hand pushes into her tiny size 8 back as her jelly body gives way to gravity once more. I push forward again. She teeters on the edge; her body indecisive about whether to plummet headfirst to the sticky carpet below or crash backward onto the buffer of my stiff, sober body, each muscle of it tensed in pure bitter anger. It considers the two choices for a moment and then chooses my outstretched, taut palm.

She’s a wreck. A fucking liability.

Astonishingly she is attempting to prolong the conversation she has started with the boy band reject who stands before us, a carefully measured distance between him and her carved out, perhaps to protect the reputation he thinks he has. His arched eyebrows, strained smile and piercing green eyes that scan over her roots trying to spot anything better on his radar, go unnoticed by her unfocused, kohl rimmed eyes. Before she caught sight of him five minutes ago, I’d almost convinced her to leave. We’d manoeuvred through the mass - me guiding, her tripping into countless irritated clubbers who I left standing with open jaws and gathered eyebrows in the wake of my drowning apologies. His fake tan must have illuminated her line of vision and rejuvenated her with the scent of over styled fashion victim because she then defied any remaining expectation I had of her regaining a semblance of consciousness, and began shrieking his name, shaking off my hold and surging into the crowd. It wasn’t too difficult to find her. She’d inadvertently cordoned off part of the dance floor since even the passing thrill seekers in this shrine of tack avoided moving within 10 inches of the disaster area she’d become.

Now, with her childlike arms snaked around his neck, her weak knees buckling into his shins and a prominent vein beginning to protrude on the surface of his skin, he looses patience.
‘I have to go,’ he says, his unnaturally white smile like neon under the club lights. His statement is accompanied by a blast of some appalling 1990s one hit wonder followed by jungle whoops from the party-going monkeys on the dance floor. His strong, slender arms push her back to me like a ping pong ball and he makes a step backward. Throwing me a fake smile from his intricately goatee bordered mouth, his lips pronounce the patronising sentence ‘good luck’ as he whips around and strides into the throng of arms and limbs.

She turns, wobbling to face me. Her head lulls forward like a nodding dog in the backseat of a car as her bleary eyes try to focus. I stand like marble. I thought I was immune to this by now, that all feeling and reaction had been drained from me already. But no. Anger is running inside me like water droplets racing down a window.

In truth, I don’t feel surprised that this is the result of tonight’s celebrations. Not when I consider how she acted earlier and what she’s always been like. She’d always been the friend to choose for a good night out partying when we were younger. Her carefree, reckless attitude was exacerbated by alcohol and she’d talk to anyone. Before you knew it, half the bar or club were your friend and many of them were often handsome as she was a pretty girl. Where she was, the party reigned.

As the years progressed, college and university finished and real jobs began. The socialising continued of course, for all of us. New cities, circles, and experiences meant new nights out, no one would deny it. But now, with age creeping closer to 30 than 25 we’d at least begun to grow up, learn our limits and no longer equated fun with just getting smashed. She on the other hand seemed only to have gained the financial means and social contacts to prolong her partying lifestyle on a grander, larger budget and scale.

I should have heeded the earlier warnings but this was my sister’s hen night and her happiness was my priority. It would have seemed over-sensitive to highlight my concerns or perhaps as though I was being a kill joy, particularly since it was the wreck that was providing the city centre penthouse apartment for us that evening. So earlier, when she’d banged into the wall in her sparkling open-plan living room, spilled her drink in golf-ball size puddles on the floor and promptly demanded another one, I relented with just my instinctive twinge of doubt for company.

I went on to overlook the unfathomable 20 minutes she took to get from her flat to the limo below in which the waiting hen party sat. I tried to disregard her continually falling on top of me when the car took a turn. I played along with the inane smiling and nonsensical conversation.

Her body now becomes heavier as the night propels into the early hours. Elbows of passing revellers jab my waist. A fruit machine glints and flashes at the corner of my eye. Garish pink lights up a sign that says ‘bar’ for the extremely dim who hadn't quite figured it from the draught pumps and rows of spirits on show. Right now, it would be like claiming that Hitler was just misunderstood to say I’m not having a good time.

‘We need to get you home,’ I say robotically and clasp her arm in my hand. She tries to pull away.

‘I’m fine,’ she slurs, knees snapping and folding. My arm tightens its grip.

‘You’re not,’ I reply, straining to keep the anger from my voice. ‘It’s fine. I’ve had enough anyway,’ I placate. I know better than to show my resentment.

‘No,’ she exhales in a rush, as though she’s been holding her breath. ‘You need….your sister….stay…..Jude,’ she manages and bobs from side to side in front of me like she’s made of rubber.

I find it ironic that she is now worried about spoiling my sister’s evening. She clearly has no idea that I’d spent the last hour looking after her and had barely said more than a sentence to the ‘hen’ that she is now so ardently protecting. Her puny attempts at selflessness make me turn my head away to the dance floor. I want to hurl her underfed body into the dancing sea of idiots below.

Anyway, I know what would happen if I let her go without me. I’d go back to the group, have a few drinks, and maybe even relax. I’d have a good time for a while, better than now without a doubt. The time would come for departure and we’d pick up our assorted collection of belongings, slip back on shoes we’d thrown off in a rebellious manner when the pain was too much and jostle our way out through the crowds, chatting in lines of twos and threes. And then we’d leave, my sister, mother and I, in our haggled taxi headed for Deansgate and the apartment block behind it. We’d stumble out, giggling. Mother would be leaning onto my arm to exit the cab. I’d pay the fare, laughing at the argument she and I would have about splitting the money. We’d ask my sister if she had a good night and she’d smile her dimpled smile and hug us. At the bottom of the apartment block in front of the grand glass windows, I’d press the cold, round buzzer to flat 57, enjoying the cooling, solid sensation and we’d wait. 30 seconds would pass and I’d press it again. Another minute. This time my sister would press, holding it so the nasal sounding buzz would satisfy us that it worked.

Only the shuffling of our sore feet switching weight and our increasingly worried sighs would be heard.

My mum would begin to panic. ‘Why isn’t she answering she’d say,’ urgently. ‘Phone her, ring her,’ she'd bleat and we’d reach for our phones, my sister and I. I’d stop when she’d say ‘it’s ringing’ and we’d wait, the expectation in the air making it difficult to breathe. Her anxious eyes would tell us all we’d need to know and we would all turn to the buzzer again in its pristine, solid silver glory, unyieldingly keeping us from our sanctuary for the night. We’d repeat the pattern of buzzing, phoning, leaving exasperated messages for twenty minutes or so when, finally, we’d reluctantly admit the futility and we'd make our way back towards the centre in search of a hotel bed.

I turn my face back to where her panda eyes had blinked slovenly. She’s vanished, her space filled with a snake of people. I dart my vision left and right, spinning on my heels. She’s nowhere.

Pushing on arms and shoulders, twisting my waist to slide through gaps, I surge towards the exit and am smacked by the cold February air. Panting, I search out her blonde hair, black dress, heavy eyes and Christian Dior shoes but am assaulted by streams of mocking look-alikes. The air is filled with the throb of muffled music and laughter. Taxis drive by ignoring the waving hands of groups of men but pulling up quickly for smiling, pretty girls. I stand for five minutes, staring out at the crisp city, longing to be warm, wrapped up in bed with his arms tight around me.

I snap back to the reality of her escape: the inception of my earlier vision. With onerous steps, I head back into the fetid smelling mouth of tawdriness.