Clapham Lights (16 page)

‘OK. I’ll take it,’ Craig says decisively.

At the till, he pushes his Norwich and Peterborough Building
Society
debit card into the machine. There is an air conditioning unit right above the counter and tears are streaming down his face as he enters his pin.

‘How many days do I have to return this?’ he asks as he takes the receipt.

‘You have twenty-eight days from the day of purchase to return the items.’

‘And what time do you open on Monday morning?’

’Ten a.m.’

‘Thanks.’

Mark is looking at women’s handbags by the front door.

‘Ready to go?’ Craig asks.

‘Yes, mate. You must be pleased,’ he says checking out the suit
carrier
in Craig’s hand. ‘I was tempted to get one myself.’

‘I don’t think they had your size,’ Craig says. ‘Look mate, I might head home. I need some sleep if we’re going out later.’

Knightsbridge is now damp and chilly. Most of the shoppers and tourists have disappeared down into the tube station or off on buses, and the traffic has eased. Two black Mercedes and a Lexus wait at the
temporary
traffic lights. The workmen digging up the road have gone, leaving piles of smashed tarmac cordoned off behind mesh fences.

Mark stops outside Vision Electrical and says he wants to have a look at a new television for the living room. Craig says he’ll meet him back at the flat and makes him promise that he won’t buy anything without running it by him first. Mark talks him into taking a couple of his bags home because they are digging into his hands.

A security guard informs Mark that the shop will be closing in ten minutes so he whizzes around the displays of stereos and laptops and gets to the televisions.

An entire wall of the store is covered from the floor to the ceiling by flat screen and plasma televisions ranging from twenty inches in size upwards, all HD ready. They simultaneously broadcast BBC News, Sky Sports News or a promotional video for Sky played on loop. Mark stands in awe. Behind him a row of smaller televisions are all playing
Aladdin
. He turns and watches it for a few seconds before spinning back to the larger screens.

He walks to the far end of the display, spellbound. In front of him is a colossal Humomi C-Max with a laminated sheet of A4 stuck on the top left corner advertising a ‘
Managers Special. Was £1,599, Now £1,199. Free Blu-Ray disc player. 1080p true high definition. 32p Tru Cinema technology. Virtual Dolby
®
Surround and BDE ViV9 sound
’. He takes two steps back and studies it intently.

The queue outside Fire Bombs stretches up Clapham High Street as far
as NatWest bank. A group of drunk girls in high heels totter their way along the pavement behind three shaven-headed boys wearing FCUK t-shirts and drinking Stella. As they join the back of the line, one of the boys walks into a girl with glasses, knocking her against the window of Snappy Snaps. Another ten people are let in. At the front are a group of twenty or so rugby players dressed identically in embroidered club shirts, navy ties and jeans.

Two fake-tanned girls with obvious hair extensions get out of a taxi and go straight past the bouncers and in through the red and black doors.

‘I’m not waiting here,’ Mark says. He steps over the barrier and walks to the front with Craig in tow. Two bouncers - one with a gold tooth and the other with corn rows - stand between them and the doors. Mark tells the one with corn rows that he and Craig are VIPs and shakes his hand, sliding a £20 note into his palm. The bouncer takes the money and lets them pass.

The pair pay the £10 entrance fee to a woman sitting in a perspex booth and walk up to another set of bouncers who stab their tickets onto spikes and search them. Mark winces as gloved hands run over his white Armani shirt and up and down his new jeans.

The club smells of Red Bull and disinfectant and has a dull red glow emanating from the lights over the bars which line the main room.
Shut Up
by the Black Eyed Peas is pumping out and Mark leads Craig to a bar overlooking the mass of bobbing heads on the dance floor.

He orders two pints of lager, four bottles of Smirnoff Ice and two double Aftershocks from a moody barmaid who doesn’t speak much English. They down the Aftershocks, which make Craig shiver, and stand at a table facing the bar. Mark glugs his first Smirnoff Ice and points to a girl whose boobs are almost falling out of her top.

‘Come on, let’s get spastic,’ he says, throwing the empty plastic
bottle
on the floor. ‘Turbo shandy.’ He downs half his pint and refills it with his other Smirnoff Ice.

Craig does the same and forces the drink down, beating Mark by a couple of seconds.

Mark pushes his way past a hen party wearing matching bunny ears and dancing to
Rehab
and joins the queue outside the toilet. He leans against the wall and tries to keep his eyes open. It is almost one a.m. A bouncer
forces his way out of the toilets dragging a semi-conscious teenager by the head. The skinny youth’s dragon motif shirt is covered in sick and he has blood streaming from his ear. Mark says ‘twat’ under his breath.

The toilet is claustrophobic and reeks of sick. Mark spits into the urinal when he has finished and washes his hands. There are the usual range of aftershaves, chewing gums and mouthwashes next to the sink, but no attendant sitting on the stool. He has a quick glance behind him and takes two sticks of chewing gum and an orange lolly. He drops £1 onto the coin tray and takes £3 change.

The deep bass of the music makes the dance floor vibrate as Mark crosses it half-pretending to dance. He stumbles into one of the rugby team, who glares at him, and is then slapped on the bottom by a woman with a nose ring. He fends her off and shuffles back towards Craig, who is talking to a girl.

Mark takes a diversion to the bar and orders a bottle of champagne and four glasses. The barman uncorks a 2007 Ron Perpignan.

Mark puts the bottle in his mouth, picks up the glasses and charges over to the table. Craig takes the bottle and rolls his eyes at Hannah.

‘Mark, this is Hannah,’ he says. ‘From work.’

Mark dives in and kisses her on the cheek. Her thickly-mascaraed eyes are bright and piercing. She is wearing red patent shoes, skinny jeans and a tight black vest top.

‘Would you like some champagne? Me and Craig are celebrating,’ Mark says, overfilling the first glass so it spills over the table.

‘No, thanks,’ Hannah replies, backing away from him. ‘My friends are at the bar.’

She taps Craig on the chest with her clutch bag, gives him a
lingering
kiss on the cheek and tells him to come and find her later.

The boys watch her melt into the dark throng on the dance floor.

‘She’s fit,’ Mark says, drinking more champagne. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’

‘I have told you about her. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend.’

‘What are you waiting for then?’

‘I don’t know.’

Craig is approached by a girl with a long narrow face, black curly hair and oversized gums:

‘I’ve been watching you all night. I think you’re hot.’

‘Are you joking?’ Craig mumbles, drowned out by music. His mouth is hanging open and he’s spilling his WKD on the floor. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Amanda,’ she says in his ear.

‘Mander. I like your make-up,’ he says, referring to the mauve smudges around her eyes.

‘Thanks.’ She reaches for his hand. ‘Do you live around here?’

‘Clapham Junction.’

‘Is that your housemate?’ she asks, pointing at Mark who is with her friend at the bar.

‘Yeah it is.’

‘Have you had a lot to drink?’

‘Loads. I don’t feel very well.’

‘How are you getting home?’

‘Dunno.’ He closes his eyes and breathes slowly.

Mark comes over and pats Craig on the back. ‘Your mate just slapped me in the face,’ he slurs at Amanda.

‘What did you do?’ Craig holds onto the table for balance.

‘I told her she had a beard.’ Mark bursts out laughing, trips over his own feet and cracks his head on a chair. He sits on the floor rubbing his bump and Craig helps him up.

He convulses and holds an empty pint glass to his mouth. He brings up a mouthful of watery bile and runs towards the exit, bursting through a group of girls dressed as policewomen.

‘Do you want to go after your mate?’ Amanda asks Craig, running her hand over his groin.

‘No.’

‘Shall we go back to mine?’

‘I think I need to go home.’

‘You can come back to mine, it’s close.’ Amanda brings her face to his and kisses him.

‘I really need some water,’ he says, wiping his mouth.

Craig sees Hannah approaching over Amanda’s shoulder and steps away from her, taking her hands from his chest.

‘Are you OK?’ Amanda asks.

She turns and gazes straight at Hannah who stops dead and looks
dumbfounded. Craig lurches towards her, his feet dragging:

‘Han, please, don’t walk off,’ he pleads.

‘I just came to say I’m going. How much have you had to drink, Craig?’

‘Please don’t go, Han, I wanttatalktoyou-’

‘Craig, I can’t understand what you’re saying. Your friend’s staring at us. You can’t leave her on her own.’

‘She’s not my friend. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-’

‘What are you apologising for? See you on Monday.’

Craig leans in for a kiss, but Hannah sways back.

‘I don’t think so, Craig.’

‘Sorry, Han I-’

‘I’m going home.’

Mark clasps his McDonald’s bag to his chest and stumbles along the edge of Clapham Common. It is a mild night and after trying to hail a bus, he sits down on a bench next to a tree.

‘I’m not a gay,’ he shouts to nobody. ‘Don’t try and be gay with me or I’ll fight you.’

A black cab with its light on drives past and Mark shouts ‘OIIIIIIIAAAAHHHHHH’ at the top of his voice and then says ‘I hope you crash,’ when it doesn’t stop. He tears open the bag and spreads his haul over the bench.

He eats the two hamburgers first and then the nine nuggets and large fries, sucking on a large chocolate milkshake as he goes. Once he’s
finished
, he screws the bag up and throws it in the bin next to him. He sits with his head between his legs and then twists into the foetal position on the bench. Seconds later he lifts his head and vomits thick lumps of undigested burger, nugget and brown milkshake all over the footpath. He spits out thick strands of mucus and then coughs up more sick.

A fox skips up to the bench and starts nosing around the bin. It sniffs Mark’s vomit, gives it a lick and scampers off across the road in the direction of Clapham Old Town. Mark gets to his feet and apologises for the mess.

The clock on Mark’s iPhone says 3.57 a.m. and the sky is getting lighter. It has been a few minutes since a car last passed along Lavender Hill.

Mark tries to break into Planet Pizza by kicking the door but ends up in a heap on the pavement holding his foot.

He limps along to the phone box at the top of his road and picks off a collection of prostitutes’ calling cards. He discards a couple immediately and calls ‘Roxy’ who is dressed as a schoolgirl. There’s no answer. Next he rings ‘Angel’ who is dressed in leather and practices ‘BDSM 4 U’. Again, no answer. The last card he tries is ‘Black Beauty’ who is a
massive
brown backside in a G-string.

‘Hello, can I have sex with you, please?’ he says in a slow, infantile voice.

‘I can. How much does it cost?’ he waits for the answer.

‘That’s good value. Cheaper than Asda. You’ve got good business sense.

‘Sorry,’ Mark says, spitting on the floor, again, ‘I had the taste of sick in my mouth.

‘Sorry, did you say you’re in Battersea?

‘Do I have to come to yours? Can’t you come over?

‘I’ve got a really cool flat.

‘Don’t get angry… Yes I am serious. If I come over will you cook me something to eat afterwards? Have you got pizza?

‘Can I order a pizza and get it delivered?

‘I can. What’s your address?’ Mark pats his pockets.

‘Sorry I haven’t got a pen. I’m in the street. Can you text it to me? My number is,’ he slumps forward with his head pressed against the box’s glass side, ‘I think it’s… I can’t remember, sorry. I’ve been drinking. I’ve got an iPhone. Are you on Facebook? My name’s Mark Hunter. Facebook me the address and I’ll… hello… hello…’

The curtains open and Craig tugs the duvet towards his head.

‘Would you like some water?’

He groans and takes a fleeting look at Amanda, who’s sitting topless on the edge of the bed. She has small breasts with puffy nipples and pale, bony shoulders. Her straggly hair is tied back and her eye make-up is even more smeared.

‘Yes, can I have some water please? My mouth’s so dry,’ he says, shielding his eyes from the sun.

She strokes his face. ‘Have you got a headache?’

‘Yes, terrible.’

Amanda covers herself with a dressing gown and leaves Craig in the tiny bedroom. There’s an ashtray full of cigarette butts on the bedside table and Slipknot posters everywhere. He sprawls out of bed and pulls the curtains shut. He then fishes his boxer shorts off the floor and slips them on.

Amanda comes back holding a glass of water and a box of
paracetamol
. Craig thanks her and they sit there in silence whilst he swallows two tablets and finishes off his drink.

She then removes her dressing gown and gets back into bed. ‘Do you feel too ill to stay for a little while longer?’

Craig sneezes. ‘Err… I need to go home, quickly,’ he says, gathering up his jeans and t-shirt. ‘My parents are coming over.’

Amanda looks disappointed and takes her hands out of her pyjama bottoms. ‘Are you doing anything later? I’m going to the pub with my friends.’

‘I’m with my parents, I’m afraid.’

‘Are you doing anything later this week?’

‘I’m pretty busy with work this week, sorry,’ he says, not looking at her.