Free After Brock by Paul Binding

train journey up to Shropshire, despite a horrible headache, like I’ve had slithers of iron rammed behind and above the eyes. Easy to understand why they talk of headaches as ‘splitting’ because my head really does feel it might break into two pieces (at least). Every now and again, like when the train lurches fast round a bend, I almost believe that’s what it’s going to do. Mouth and throat seem clogged with furry stuff yet extremely dry too. When that trolley comes round again, with that friendly guy not so much older than me wheeling it, I’ll buy a third bottle of sparkling water, and hope it does more to rehy-drate me than the previous two.
    Josh called it, before, during (and probably after – though didn’t see him after) his mega-party, to celebrate the end of his (our) school years, but really it was a family event with Josh’s mother trailing through house and garden in a scarlet gown with a red rose in her hair, cooing at everybody, and his step-dad in shorts strolling from group to group like a man who thinks he’s at once the wisest and the sexiest thing going. I went round to Josh’s early to help set things up. There was to be a barbecue, lights strung through and between the horse chestnut and the crab apple trees, and a platform for the band; also long trestle tables had to be carried out of the house and placed on the lawn (looking pretty parched after so much relentless sunshine). Rollo, naturally, put himself in charge of operations. ‘No, not at that angle, Matt, we should position it quite a bit further to the right. No, not that much further, airhead, that’d block access to the drinks table.’

    I was surprised at the amount of meaty things on offer, stuff my mum and I, as vegetarians, would refuse. My disgust that so many dead animals and birds had been thought necessary for all these, mostly very well-heeled, guests gave me a sudden feeling of licence to behave exactly as I wanted. I helped myself from as many bottles as I could, as well as from the jugs of Pimm’s, and opened more cans of both ice-cold lager and blood-temperature beer than I care to count. I discovered a tremendous pleasurable recklessness the further into doing this I got. In addition, I snatched people’s glasses or beer cans when they weren’t looking. Considering the length of time I was there, you will realise that I put inside me a mighty river, if not a great lake, of alcohol. I can’t say when it was I understood this myself, but I thought it a spiritual condition more than anything else.
    â€˜Hi Em!’
    As if it took her a moment to recognise me, ‘Oh hullo, Nat!’
    â€˜Decided what you’re going to do, Em, when this party comes to an end? Like all good things do.’
    â€˜Do you know, Nat, that you’ve said both those sentences to me already tonight?’
    I was a bit taken aback to hear this, but wasn’t going to show it. ‘Worth asking twice, though, ’cos I badly want to know the answer.’
    She looked heart-melting in her white dress which glinted in mesmerising places thanks to the play of the lights that I personally had put up in this particular section of the garden.
    â€˜We’re only halfway through the party, at the very most. I can’t think why you’re bothering at this stage about what people should be doing in a couple of hours’ time (or more). And, by the way, my name is Emily. Only Rollo calls me Em and it’s a sort of private joke between us.’
    Rollo – I didn’t like that guy at all. ‘Well, he calls me Matt,’ I informed her, ‘and that’s even less my name than Em is yours. Fucking arrogant of him, I think.’
    â€˜Don’t you think you should lay off the alcohol from now on?’
    â€˜Kind of you to suggest that, but no!’
    With this I swung myself away from her, to appropriate the glass of white wine that a