Cinnamon Twigs (7 page)

             
I wrote a short story called
The Rocking Chair
, which had been inspired by a story my mother once told me. She claimed to have seen her deceased grandmother’s rocking chair slide across her bedroom. Her childhood days had been haunted by this chair and the presence of a ghost named Mister Brockway, who spent time with my great grandmother’s spirit, sipping tea and munching digestive biscuits when they weren’t going about their poltergeist activities I imagine. I’d been terrified by my mother’s tales of Mister Brockway wandering through the dim corridors, or my great grandmother whispering in the darkness on lonely nights. My mother had never quite grasped the concept of bedtime stories.

             
I suggested to the editor of the college newspaper that it would be a good idea to print a couple of chapters from
The Rocking Chair
each week, as a temporary alternative to the poetry section. The story gave my friends the creeps, and many of its images and themes would make their way into a movie I’d make, many years later, called
X
.

             
‘I had nightmares last night.’ Lisa held my hand as we strolled across the turf outside college.

             
‘What about?’ I asked.

             
‘Your story in
The College Column
!’

             
I chuckled.

             
‘You just love scaring people, don’t you?’ She gave my hand a squeeze.

             
‘I think I’m good at it.’

             
‘Yeah, you used to give Elliott nightmares when we were kids.’

             
‘Well, he deserved them.’ I grinned.

             
‘The story scared the shit out of me, and I’ve seen a real ghost.’

             
‘Have you really?’

             
‘Yeah. I was just sitting in the living room one evening, the only person home, and I saw a figure dressed in white cross through the kitchen and go upstairs.’

             
‘Did you check who it was?’

             
‘No. I knew it was a ghost.’

             
‘Did you shit yourself?’

             
‘Not at all.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I felt calm. It just felt natural. Not all ghosts are nasty, you know.’

             
I enjoyed scaring people, but I also liked to make them laugh. So I leapt at the chance when my Drama teacher asked me to write a short comedy play. The play would feature as part of a variety show involving singing, dancing and all that theatrical jazz. I banged out a first draft within an hour.

             
The play,
An Open Audition
, concerned a lovesick teen named David, his deranged mother, Gina, and a Russian stripper who believed he was Superman. The audience loved the show and laughed at every corny pun. They especially loved the part when the Russian stripper hits on David’s mother. David roars, ‘If you carry on you’ll be in the crypt tonight!’ The stripper replies, ‘Yes, kryptonite is Superman’s weakness!’

             
The script is an interesting example of juvenilia, with some odd mixed metaphors, especially in the narrator and David’s moping dialogue, but I’m proud of it as a product of my youth.

             
My mother laughed along, so I knew the performance had been a success. But she noticed that my swagger was swaggerier than ever before.

             
‘You think life’s so easy, don’t you?’ She turned to me in the car on the night of the play.

             
‘Have I been smiling too much lately?’

             
‘Oh, you keep that cheesy smile as long as you can.’

             
‘Oh, I will.’ I beamed.

             
‘Enjoy it while it lasts, because you’ll soon realize that it’s a big world out there.’

             
‘I’ve heard. I was talking to Captain Cook the other day…’

             
‘You think you’re so funny.’ She cracked a smile. ‘Just make the most of it.’

             
‘My sense of humor?’

             
‘No. Your youth.’

             
I kept experimenting with poetry, using different forms and exploring fresh themes. I sent some of my new stuff to a publisher, but my previous book hadn’t made an impact on the shelves. I’d been stripped of my cape. I wondered if I’d be resigned to the heap pile of failed bards. My mother reminded me that writing could be a capricious line of work, but Michael and Lisa convinced me I had nothing to worry about. I’d been so naïve, expecting success to come my way without a battle. I look back at the way I was then and always snigger. I was a different person. So young and bloody fragile.

             
I knew nothing about the real world, the trials awaiting me and the inevitable tide of negativity. I’d spent my youth dreaming, but the realization would eventually dawn that in the real world it’s a struggle to keep your dreams afloat.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mates Forever

Lisa, Michael and I sat on an aniline leather sofa, on the upper balcony of a
cavernous pub on St Mary Street. Michael had ordered a series of bizarre alcoholic combinations, mishmashes of spirits and all sorts.

             
‘You’re not gonna be able to stand up in an hour.’ I warned him.

             
‘Good.’ He sipped his latest drink. ‘Standing up is overrated.’

             
Lisa chuckled.

             
‘We’re gonna have a b-brilliant night tonight, dude and dudette. Let’s get on it!’ Michael’s breath reeked of alcohol and cigarettes.

              We’d been drinking all day after watching a play Michael had disliked. He’d shared his view with the cast afterwards, engaging himself in a heated debate, which he’d won convincingly. The director had been most upset when Michael denounced the play’s poor attempt at realism, and asserted that the theatre practitioner Stanislavski would be turning in his grave.

              ‘I need to pop into the little boy’s room.’ Michael finished his drink and stumbled across the crimson carpet.

             
‘Yeah, me too. I’ll be back now in a minute,’ I told Lisa.

             
Michael flashed me a smile as we entered the bathroom.

             
‘What?’

             
‘Look what I’ve got.’ He revealed a small bag of cocaine in his hand.

             
‘Where’d you get that crap from?’

             
‘Some guy sold it to me earlier. Fancy some?’

             
‘Not particularly.’ I washed my hands and walked towards the door.

             
‘C’mon, it’ll give you a buzz. No? More for me then!’

             
He locked himself in a toilet cubicle, while I waited for him. After a moment, I decided to give the stuff a go. I knocked the cubicle door and Michael grinned at me.

             
‘It’s not something I do often,’ he said. ‘Just a sometimes treat.’

             
‘Do me a small line and don’t tell Lisa. She’d kill me.’

             
Michael told me to flush the toilet while he did a line, so nobody would hear the deplorable snorting sound.

             
My heart pounded as he prepared a line for me. I wiped my clammy hands on my jeans and snorted the cocaine with a twenty pound note.

             
‘Now, rub some of it on your gums.’

             
‘That tastes horrible!’ I grimaced.

             
‘This stuff is good. Sometimes you end up buying washing powder.’

             
‘Your eyes are dilated.’

             
‘Your eyes are the size of small moons. Lisa’s gonna be looking into those bad boys all night!’ He laughed.

             
‘Right, don’t be obvious in front of her.’

             
‘Don’t be so paranoid.’

             
‘I’m not paranoid. Who said I was paranoid? You’re the paranoid one!’ I joked.

             
Lisa observed us shrewdly as we returned to the sofa.

             
‘You’re looking very chirpy,’ she said.

             
‘It’s the drink.’ Michael rubbed his nose and fidgeted like an idiot.

             
‘Want another one?’ I asked Lisa.

             
‘Sure. A mojito, please.’

             
‘Coming right up.’

             
Michael stood next to me at the bar, speaking in an alarmingly loud voice, as if he were delivering a monologue at the
Royal Variety Performance
about how good the cocaine had been.

             
‘You’re gonna get us into trouble if you’re not careful.’

             
I ordered the round and went back to the sofa.

             
‘Right, I make it to be quarter to eleven,’ Michael said.

             
‘It’s quarter to ten.’ Lisa glanced at her watch.

             
‘Well, at quarter to eleven I reckon we should make our way to a club.’

             
‘Sounds good.’ I shifted in my seat to make myself comfortable.

             
We fell out of the pub an hour later, screaming with intoxicated laughter as Michael came out with his usual nonsensical aphorisms. We’d made half a dozen sneaky visits to the loo before we entered a club at the end of St Mary Street. Michael and I drifted through the bustling crowd of clubbers, desperate to take a leak.

             
‘It’s a bloody sausage fest in here.’ Michael glared at the queuing men in front of us. ‘Where are the ladies?’

             
‘This is the men’s toilets, you silly git!’ I laughed.

             
‘Play with it more than twice and you’re shaking it!’ He poked one of the men in the back.

             
‘You really are very drunk!’

             
‘C’mon, Tinky Winky. Hurry up.’

             
We pushed our way to the bar a moment later. I kissed Lisa’s eyelids and she giggled.

             
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

             
‘Very drunk and hoping Michael doesn’t get into a fight.’

             
‘Yeah, I don’t think he knows his limitations.’

             
‘I don’t think he has any.’ I smirked.

             
I held Lisa in my arms and breathed in her sweet aroma. The club swirled around us as if the whole world were orbiting our embrace. The flashing lights cast capricious shadows across the dance floor and bodies swayed in time with the music. Through the haze I discerned Michael, arguing with a girl at the other side of the bar.

             
‘My boyfriend’s over there!’ the girl snapped.

             
Michael had tried something he called ‘subliminal seduction,’ which involved making superficial conversation with a girl, like asking her how her night was going and then, midway through a sentence, saying something ridiculous like, ‘Touch my willy.’ He’d been caught out and made to look like an idiot as the voluptuous brunette barked at him.

             
‘Well, ditch him and come back to my place. I’ll fix us some eggs for breakfast.’ Michael grinned.

             
‘Piss off.’

             
I touched Michael’s arm and told him to leave her alone.

             
‘Yeah, you’re right, mate. This one looks like she’s done a bit of boxing!’

             
A fist hurtled through the darkness, colliding with my cheek. The girl’s boyfriend, a monstrous steroid freak with arms the width of pillars, knocked Michael to the floor and kicked him in the ribs.

             
‘Watch out.’ I gave Lisa’s hand a reassuring squeeze and charged towards the girl’s boyfriend, arms flaying. Two bouncers interrupted the tussle by knocking me to the sticky floor and dragging me outside. Michael soon followed, with Lisa in tow.

             
Michael held his nose, his hands covered in blood.