out with…you know. This here is…this is…’
‘Killer,’ Spider-Face interjected helpfully, his warm smile revealing a mouthful of discoloured and broken teeth.
‘Yes, um, Killer here was just telling me about this biker festival he was at last weekend. There’s another one coming up in a few weeks, great fun, open to all-comers and not at all what most people expect apparently. We should…’
‘We should and we will, mate,’ assured Lucien. ‘Let’s all swap numbers before the end of the night. But right now we need to chip off for a few minutes. Eva wants a word. Don’t mind do you, Killer?’ He steered Benedict away from his beaming companion towards the back of the club.
‘What does Eva want? Where is she?’ asked Benedict, pushing his hair back off his face and peering about.
‘Ah, well, that was a bit of a lie to get you away from your new friend, you see. This being your first pill, I should explain a few things to you. When you’re loved up on Ecstasy everyone seems like your best mate, but of course what really happens is you wake up the next morning with a Hell’s Angel named Killer asleep on your sofa and wonder what the fuck you were thinking. That’s if he hasn’t stabbed you to death in the night and nicked your TV.’
Benedict attempted to raise an eyebrow but succeeded only in generating a series of seemingly random facial twitches. ‘It’s not like you to be so judgemental. You’re condemning the man based solely on his appearance and we all know you can’t judge a book by its cover. You’d miss out on some very good books that way, all those Penguin Classics with the orange covers for starters because they all look alike, not to mention…’
Lucien raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Yeah, yeah. Call me a judgmental conformist, but I’m going stick my neck out here and say that having a spider’s web tattooed across your face is not intended to send the message, “I’m a cuddly, peaceable member of society who under no circumstances would stove in your face with a shovel for the change in your pocket.”’
A hint of doubt finally crept into Benedict’s face. ‘Ah. Well. When you put it like that. So, do you know where Eva’s got to?’
Where Eva had got to at that very moment was wedged into a tiny toilet cubicle with Sylvie, who was struggling to break a pill in half between her fingers.
‘Shit, I’ve dropped it. No, there it is.’
‘Oh God, not on the floor. There’s wee all over it. We can’t take that now.’
‘Oo, hark at you, princess. Here, I’ll wipe it off. There, all better. That’s your half.’
‘I don’t know whether I should do another one anyway. I need to be compos mentis for work on Monday.’
Sylvie glared at her through eyes lavishly caked in kohl. ‘Eva. It’s forever since we had a proper night out with the whole crew. Even Benedict’s dropped a pill, bless him. For one night, take off your metaphorical power suit and relax. We’ve hardly seen you since we’ve been back, it’s all work, work, work with you. You’ll have the whole of Sunday to recover.’
Eva hesitated. She was being pretty reckless by her prevailing standards, but the markets were dead in August and next week would be a quiet one at work. And Sylvie was right: they hadn’t seen enough of each other since she’d arrived back from travelling. There wasn’t much Eva could do about that; a job like hers came at a price, and that price was putting it before everything else in your life. When you worked fourteen hours a day it didn’t leave much time for anything else, and if you were half-hearted about it, well, there were plenty of people lined up behind you ready to take your place.
Still, at least the hard slog was finally starting to pay off. Many of her cohort were falling by the wayside, culled for underperforming or simply buckling under the pressure, and those left standing were finally being promoted into jobs where they wouldn’t have to
‘Killer,’ Spider-Face interjected helpfully, his warm smile revealing a mouthful of discoloured and broken teeth.
‘Yes, um, Killer here was just telling me about this biker festival he was at last weekend. There’s another one coming up in a few weeks, great fun, open to all-comers and not at all what most people expect apparently. We should…’
‘We should and we will, mate,’ assured Lucien. ‘Let’s all swap numbers before the end of the night. But right now we need to chip off for a few minutes. Eva wants a word. Don’t mind do you, Killer?’ He steered Benedict away from his beaming companion towards the back of the club.
‘What does Eva want? Where is she?’ asked Benedict, pushing his hair back off his face and peering about.
‘Ah, well, that was a bit of a lie to get you away from your new friend, you see. This being your first pill, I should explain a few things to you. When you’re loved up on Ecstasy everyone seems like your best mate, but of course what really happens is you wake up the next morning with a Hell’s Angel named Killer asleep on your sofa and wonder what the fuck you were thinking. That’s if he hasn’t stabbed you to death in the night and nicked your TV.’
Benedict attempted to raise an eyebrow but succeeded only in generating a series of seemingly random facial twitches. ‘It’s not like you to be so judgemental. You’re condemning the man based solely on his appearance and we all know you can’t judge a book by its cover. You’d miss out on some very good books that way, all those Penguin Classics with the orange covers for starters because they all look alike, not to mention…’
Lucien raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Yeah, yeah. Call me a judgmental conformist, but I’m going stick my neck out here and say that having a spider’s web tattooed across your face is not intended to send the message, “I’m a cuddly, peaceable member of society who under no circumstances would stove in your face with a shovel for the change in your pocket.”’
A hint of doubt finally crept into Benedict’s face. ‘Ah. Well. When you put it like that. So, do you know where Eva’s got to?’
Where Eva had got to at that very moment was wedged into a tiny toilet cubicle with Sylvie, who was struggling to break a pill in half between her fingers.
‘Shit, I’ve dropped it. No, there it is.’
‘Oh God, not on the floor. There’s wee all over it. We can’t take that now.’
‘Oo, hark at you, princess. Here, I’ll wipe it off. There, all better. That’s your half.’
‘I don’t know whether I should do another one anyway. I need to be compos mentis for work on Monday.’
Sylvie glared at her through eyes lavishly caked in kohl. ‘Eva. It’s forever since we had a proper night out with the whole crew. Even Benedict’s dropped a pill, bless him. For one night, take off your metaphorical power suit and relax. We’ve hardly seen you since we’ve been back, it’s all work, work, work with you. You’ll have the whole of Sunday to recover.’
Eva hesitated. She was being pretty reckless by her prevailing standards, but the markets were dead in August and next week would be a quiet one at work. And Sylvie was right: they hadn’t seen enough of each other since she’d arrived back from travelling. There wasn’t much Eva could do about that; a job like hers came at a price, and that price was putting it before everything else in your life. When you worked fourteen hours a day it didn’t leave much time for anything else, and if you were half-hearted about it, well, there were plenty of people lined up behind you ready to take your place.
Still, at least the hard slog was finally starting to pay off. Many of her cohort were falling by the wayside, culled for underperforming or simply buckling under the pressure, and those left standing were finally being promoted into jobs where they wouldn’t have to
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