First Love, part 1
Tom loved that section of the Hammersmith and City line between Goldhawk Road and Royal Oak where the track crossed the streets on a brick viaduct, heading northeast, drawing close to the Westway at Ladbroke Grove, and clinging to it all the way to Paddington. He was shown the gardens of terraced houses, containing moss and bicycles, and then, as the line rose up, the strange geometry of roofs, hidden when you were just walking around in the street, opened out like a paper flower. He passed the flat tops of council blocks where graffiti artists had climbed to write their words on lift shafts and maintenance doors: "Nerve", "Fret", "Ferm", "Koozer", words you could not read, only see. Past the uniform window of the estates where, here and there, behind net curtains where the track was close by, a porcelain doll or yellow kitchen wall, told of a life, an unknown life.
The train stopped beyond Latimer Road, the motors ticking above the asphalt pitches where a few children played. Tom's carriage was empty except for two half-caste girls in Puffa jackets and leggings who sat talking at the opposite end. They had acne high on their cheeks and wore wide gold hoops in their ears. Tom began to think of the stud in Suzanne's tongue, the inside sound against his teeth when they had kissed, a fortnight ago. His mother and father had been out and she had come round wearing her combat trousers low down, showing her knickers at the back. They had got stoned in the back garden, drunk nips of whisky from the cap of his mother's bottle and ended up on the sofa together watching TV. She had started to tickle him in the ribs and he had writhed, the laughter bubbling through him, as he tried to grab her wrists and wrestle her insistent fingers away, until he was lying on top of her, out of breath and surprised, kissing her. She had kissed him back.
Tom was a virgin, but he knew that Suzanne was not. She had dealt with boys when she was at school and also with a man who rode a motorbike and another man who was in prison. She had put her tongue into Tom's ear causing him to come into his trousers, his dick jerking unexpectedly, as though it were not a part of him at all. There had been some fumbling which had got no further since his parents had returned, embarrassing him with their smiles, treating her like she was one of his school-friends. She had answered their questions cheerfully; ironically it had seemed to him and when he had walked her to the station, his boxers still cold and slimy, she had not kissed him goodbye. When he'd turned his phone back on he had discovered messages from Nate asking what he was up to, whether he had seen Suzanne, where Suzanne was and what they were doing. Since then they had not been alone, Nate had always been there, watchful.
The train started up again, rocking on its way into Ladbroke Grove, a station that Tom feared. Even now as the motors hummed down and the doors hissed open, he felt a prickle of terror. Tom counted to three. No-one got on. The doors began to close and, in that moment, a man came running from the top of the stairs, turning his body sideways to slip through and on to the train. A rudeboy, coming to a stop in one step, pleased with the grace of his movement and, taking in the carriage, pleased to have been seen by the girls at the other end. He kept their attention as he settled down in the seat diagonally opposite, against the glass partition, just glancing at Tom as he did so. Tom did his best to look away, without looking like he was looking away, like he was just suddenly interested in the poem up above the window:
Earth has not anything to show me more fair;
Dull would he be of soul...
His eyes were watering slightly, which they did when he was afraid. He had never experienced violence, but he felt it could only be a matter of time until someone saw through him and decided that he was not real. Then he would be beaten.
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
He sat staring dully at the poem, until they reached Royal Oak, where he got off quickly and without looking back. He had to walk up Bayswater to find somewhere to change the Francs. The woman behind the glass gave him seven pounds, which, plus the tenner, was enough for cigarettes as well. He bought a packet of ten B&H from the newsagents on the corner of Suzanne's estate - they never gave you any trouble in there.
You had to go up in a lift to get to her flat, which was on the fourth floor of a grey block. The lift was filthy and smelt of piss, there was graffiti, but just done with a biro and saying things like "Keith smokes crack" and also "KS FOR WF 4EVER". The lift doors opened and he turned right. When he reached number seven, he rang the bell and waited, turning round to have a look down over the balcony rail. A lamppost started up at a weird angle out of the pavement making you imagine what it would be like to jump, turning over and over before you landed. He thought he might try gobbing but didn't want to end up with it on his hoodie. Behind him the door opened. Suzanne's Mum was standing there scowling, her mouth open a bit as part of her scowl. She had face that was almost perfectly round with dark bags under the eyes. Her hair was greasy and she wore a light brown bathrobe.
"What do you want?"
"Tom, I'm Tom, Suzanne's friend."
"Suzanne!" she shouted, "Suzanne!" only turning her head with the second shout to indicate that she was calling her daughter. She paused, looked Tom up and down and muttered something, then walked back into the flat leaving the door open. Tom stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He could see the screen in the far corner of the sitting room playing Oprah. He went over to Suzanne's door and turned the handle.
Through the rectangular window opposite the door you could see the next block of the estate. The room itself was perfectly rectangular too and the walls, which had once been beige, were covered in graffiti. Tom had been amazed by this room. He would have found himself physically incapable of writing on a wall in his own house. He didn't know whether Suzanne's mum had even tried to stop it, it did not matter, it struck deep with him.
Suzanne's bed was on the right hand side of the room as you came through the door. Right now there were three people sitting on it. In the corner with one leg straight out across the duvet was Dylan. He was wearing his Armani jumper, with the enormous eagle knitted into the front of it and was smoking a long joint. He nodded slowly, although Tom could not tell if this nod was intended for him or was just a rhythmic nod to go with the jungle that was coming out of the stereo. At the foot of the bed were Nate and Suzanne. Nate was kneeling, doing something to Suzanne's hair as she sat on the floor, using a heated curler. Nate had her hair cut into a short shoe-brush Mohican, but Suzanne had long black hair that she washed with conditioner. There was a smell in the room of both weed and burnt hair.
"What are you saying Tom?"
"Yes Tom Dove-Clare. What are you saying Tom Dove-Clare?"
"Yeah, I'm good, I'm fine. Cool. You know."
There was one place to sit in Suzanne's room which was on the light wood-framed armchair against the wall. You didn't hug and kiss with Nate and Suzanne you just went to sit down. The thing about the wooden-frame chair though, was that its frame had a lot of give, so that if you sat back into it you tended to end up sprawled right against the wall. This was fine until you got stoned, when it made it hard to get up. But Tom didn't want to sit on the floor either. There was a black bag on the chair, a kind of rucksack with a cord that closed the mouth and also ran through eyelets at the top and bottom so that you could throw it over your shoulder. Tom picked up the bag and put it on the floor. Dylan sucked his teeth.
"Don't you know to ask before you touch a man's bag?"
"I'm sorry," he'd said it before he could stop himself. He tried to make it up, "It's just a bag what's wrong with you?"
Dylan sucked his teeth again.
"That's not just a bag. That's a special bag you get me?"
"That's Dylan's bare potent bag," said Nate.
"Bare potent."
Tom had the bag in his hand and was trying to give it back to Dylan.
"Look inside."
Tom pulled open the mouth of the bag and put his hand inside. He could feel several plump plastic bags. He pulled one out to look at it. It was packed with bright green buds of weed and when he popped open the seal to smell it, it had that moist mossy smell of skunk.
"Rare. Potent." He said, nodding his head slowly as he put the skunk back in the bag and handed it back to Dylan. Suzanne had been silent through all this, she winced slightly as Nate tugged the curlers through a knot in her hair.
"You alright Suze?"
"Yeah. Fine."
He sat down in the chair which immediately sank back against the wall.
"Did you bring that money Tom Dove-Clare?"
"Oh yeah." Tom had to thrust out his waist in order to reach into the pocket of jeans. Suzanne and Nate both giggled.
"What?"
"What you thrusting out your tings for?" said Nate.
"Check my man's bogle."
The three of them laughed at this. He couldn't tell if Suzanne had told her. Nate had green eyes and a long straight nose with rings in each nostril. Although Suzanne kept on at him about how beautiful Nate was he could not find her attractive. He thought there might be something wrong with him that meant he could not see it. He felt his face go hot with a blush.
"No, it's just I can't get the money out my pocket while I'm sitting like that." He levered himself up threw the notes onto the bed, "Here."
Dylan reached out and took them, flattening them out over his thigh before he put them in his wallet. Tom stayed standing, waiting for him to produce the draw from his bag. Dylan looked up at him, pouting slightly, showing him his chin and his cheek.
"What?"
"The draw. Where's the draw?"
Dylan took a long draw on the joint he was smoking and then exhaled blowing smoke rings. He held the joint up in front of Tim between his thumb and forefinger.
"This is the draw," he said. Then, without taking his eyes off Tom he passed it across to Nate who took it and held it between her lips, smoking as she worked with the curlers. Tom sat down again in the armchair, dejected. The stereo was playing a thin kind of jungle that was all in the treble range. Dylan reached over and started to twisted the volume button back and forth, so that it sounded sort of woozy.
"Have you seen Dylan's gold tooth?" asked Nate, blowing smoke in two thin streams from her nose. Tom shook his head, "Show him your gold tooth."
Dylan beckoned, forcing Tom to struggle up and out of his chair again. He was slightly surprised to see him opening his mouth and tilting his head back.
"Is tha a tha va. A tha va."
Tom craned his neck to look down into Dylan's throat. Sure enough, against the deep red of his gum there glinted a tiny bead of gold. Dylan's tongue lolled around in the area of the filling by way of indication. His breath smelt slightly of biscuits. Tom caught his eyes, the whites showing alarmingly. He nodded as he sat down again.
"That's the real thing. Real gold."
"Who did that for you?" asked Tom.
"My dentist."
And so they sat on. Tom watching impatiently as Nate smoked the joint and then placed it between Suzanne's lips. Suzanne smoked hers before passing it on to him, lodged in the nick of green glass ashtray. When he put it in his mouth the butt was wet and bitter but he could still taste the skunk. He tried to catch Suzanne's eye, trying to engage with her in way that Nate could not stop. He resented Nate's touching her hair, guarding her intimately. Nate wanted to be a hairdresser, but her interest spread beyond just hair though, really she wanted to be a beautician, with a shop that would deal with hair, nails and skin. If she wasn't going out Suzanne would often wear a long-sleeved vest, and then Nate would sit behind her on the bed, squeezing the blackheads from her back with her long nails. Suzanne would submit to this cheerfully, smiling at Tom and rolling joints to pass over her shoulder to Nate. She worried about her skin. She had shown Tom the psoriasis on the inside of her arms and it was then that he had seen the scars on her above the elbow, short cuts with a constellation of red plaques around them. Once Suzanne had seen that he was looking she covered them with her other hand.
"What are they?"
"Oh they're just my marks."
But now she was saying:
"Rare. That skunk has made me hungry. Got to the shop for me please Dylan."
"What am I, your benson?"
"I'll go," said Tom. He was already up out of the chair. "What do you want?"
"Oh. Thank you. Can you get me some Munchies please. There's some money on the table."
"It's ok."
"And get me some Maryland cookies will you. I'll give you the money later alright." Dylan made like he was going to get his wallet out but didn't.
"Yeah."
Tom was just at the front door where he heard a noise behind him.
"You. You. Are you going out are you?"
"Yeah."
"Would you get me a Muller Rice?" Suzanne's Mum was waving a fifty pence piece at him from where she was sitting on the sofa. Tom went over and took it from her hand.
"Strawberry," she said.
"Yeah."
