At number eighteen, the boy with the sore dry eyes pulls a shoebox from a high shelf and sorts through the polaroids inside, he picks out a handful and fans them out on the floor like a poker spread. A picture of a lamp-post covered in marker-pen graffiti, Uz 4 Shaf 4 eva 9T7, Izzy is fit signed who, Lee an me wuz busy like bee, Sian equals slag, and so on and so, the soap opera of the street corner marked out in rain-faded initials and abbreviations.
A picture of a fly-posted garage door, poster layered upon poster, streaks torn through the layers of dates and venues and djs and bands, the top corner peeling off under the weight to reveal bare metal.
Empty drums of vegetable oil piled up outside a curryhouse like tins in a nineteen fifties supermarket.
A traffic jam at night, beaded white lights stringing down the road like christmas decorations, rain splashed on the camera lens.
Dark dribbles of blood in a pub carpark.
He picks up the camera again and carries it through to the bathroom, he takes a picture of himself in the mirror. He blinks, tightly and painfully, laying the camera down and holding the palms of his hands to his eyes, screwing his face up, rocking his head.
The colours in the polaroid wake into the light, his selfportrait taking shape while he searches for eyedrops, his blind hand like an addict in a medicine cabinet, knocking over shampoos and deodorants and razors.
In the back room of number seventeen, the girl with the glitter around her eyes is lying awake, chewing gum, looking at her sleeping friends. She knows shell be awake for some time yet, her brain is piled high with powders and pills and the muscles in her legs are still twitching from the dancefloor. She looks at the girls on the bed, the one curled around the other, protectively, she watches their shoulders and breasts rise and fall, shifting gently into position, she thinks about the piercing in the short girls tongue and wonders if its true what they say. The stereo is still playing, very quietly, she watches the small green lights bubbling up and down with the music, she listens to the singer going doowah doowah, I love you so, oohwoah. She feels the good strong weight of the white-shirted boys arm across her chest, she tilts her head forward to kiss it. The music goes doowah doowah I love you so, and she thinks about the two of them. They havent spoken about it, they havent said what will we do when we leave here, do you want to come with me, lets work something out, and she knows that this means they will quickly and easily drift apart, into other peoples lives, into other peoples arms in rooms like this. She is surprised that this doesnt make her feel sad. She listens to the music, she looks around at the things people dropped when they fell asleep or went out of the room, she kisses the boys arm again and she feels only a kind of sweet nostalgia. She wonders if you can feel nostalgic for something before its in the past, she wonders if perhaps her vocabulary is too small or if her chemical intake has corroded it and the music goes doowoah doowoah.
In the bathroom of number eighteen, a face looks out from the polaroid, wide-eyed, composed. A young man, early twenties, a smooth round face, straight nose, full lips, pale hair losing thickness around the temples, a buckle of skin folded below each eye. Its a good picture, and in a moment he will date it and place it with the other objects he has collected together on his bedroom floor, a magazine article, a half-finished crossword, a twin-bladed razor.
But for now he has his head tipped up to the ceiling, a capful of solution bathing the dryness of his eyes, one hand gripping the sink until the ache subsides.
Its light that makes his eyes hurt, mostly, bright or sudden light, and the dust in the air. Its a rough prickling sensation, like sandpaper pressed up against the skin of his eye, a dryness he can mostly soothe by blinking rapidly, squeezing moisture across the surface.
Its worse in the city, with all the dust and the dirt, and its worse in the summer, with the long bright days, but usually its bearable, usually he doesnt notice and he just keeps blinking away that gritted feeling. And if it gets too much, like it has now, he comes to his bathroom and bathes his eyes, and its a relief like finding a spring welling up in the desert.
Its light that makes his eyes hurt, mostly, bright or sudden light, and the dust in the air. Its a rough prickling sensation, like sandpaper pressed up against the skin of his eye, a dryness he can mostly soothe by blinking rapidly, squeezing moisture across the surface.
Its worse in the city, with all the dust and the dirt, and its worse in the summer, with the long bright days, but usually its bearable, usually he doesnt notice and he just keeps blinking away that gritted feeling. And if it gets too much, like it has now, he comes to his bathroom and bathes his eyes, and its a relief like finding a spring welling up in the desert.
He puts the eyedrops back into the cabinet, scratching the back of his hand, he picks up the camera and the selfportrait and returns to his bedroom, he wonders what else he might hide away with this collection. And he thinks about the girl at number twenty-two.
In the street, the front door of number thirteen is swinging gradually open, a young boy who can barely reach the doorhandle is peering around the door, his hair is sticking up and he is still wearing his pyjamas. He climbs onto a bright red tricycle which is waiting for him on the front path, he pushes all his weight onto the pedals and he creaks out of his garden and onto the main pavement. He looks back at the still open front door, he looks ahead of him to the main road, he puts his head down and he pedals, slowly at first, bumping and wobbling over loose paving slabs, picking up speed.
A streetcleaner whirrs past, brushes spinning and skidding across the tarmac, grit and glass and paper skipping up into its innards. The driver stares sleepily ahead, sunglasses curled across his face, lips mouthing the words of the song on the radio, Ill be there for you, when the rain starts to fall. As he passes number nineteen he glances across at a girl sitting on the garden wall, a girl in a red velvet dress wearing very tall boots, she has her face arched up to the sky and a boy in wide trousers is gently kissing the tight curve of her throat. The streetcleaner whirrs away around the corner and the girl takes the boys hand and bites his little finger. He makes a noise, a soft noise and his eyes are closed and his stomach is like it was left behind over a humpbacked bridge and she says shall we go now and they both stand.
They hear voices then, shouted voices crashing down from the attic flat of number twenty-one, a womans voice shouting no but listen will you, listen to me, its not okay is it you shit you werent thinking about me were you you just went off out and did what you wanted to do its always about what you want isnt it you selfish fucking wanker and what about me what about me she screams and the woman between the washing in next-doors backyard stands and wonders how these people manage to shout at one another so much and still walk in the street with a hand in a hand. Shut up says the mans voice, just shut up, shut up shut up will you please shut the fucking fuck up please? and his voice rises and rises until it sounds almost like the womans and it cracks and it breaks.
The girl and the boy outside, they look at each other and they hurry away down the road, and when they turn the corner the street is empty and quiet again.
The street is empty and quiet and still, the light is brightening, shadows hardening, the haze of dawn burning away. The day will soon burn with a particular brightness, hot and lethargic and tense. Later, it will rain, hard, suddenly, and the hot tarmac will steam and shine as water streaks across the surface into the gutters. And windows will be hurriedly closed, and people will stand in doorways, in shocked silences. But now, in this early beginning, it is dry, and the street is beginning to warm, and people sleep, or lie restlessly awake, or make love and sleep again.
Chapter 5
The day after speaking to Sarah I tried telling my mother.
I took the phone into my room, I sat on the floor with my knees pulled up into my chest and I started to dial the number.
I looked at a photograph on the wall, taken that summer, taken a few days before it happened.
Half a dozen of us, huddled together in a front garden, ashtrays and cushions spread across the grass, a speaker mounted in the front-room window, a beanbag spilling its beans across the pavement.
Its a photo that makes us look young, it makes all of us look very young.
Our faces taut and shining, grinning awkwardly, squinting into the sunlight, everyones arms around everyone else.
Waving cans of beer as though they were novelties.
Looking like we thought everything was going to last forever.
I put the phone down before it started ringing, and I looked at the other pictures.
The photo of Simon must have been taken the same day, the day he left.
Hes sat in the front passenger seat of his dads car, window wound down, waving.
His dads at the back of the car, leaning all his weight on the boot, trying to get it closed against three years worth of possessions.
Against duvets and pillows, a stereo, a television, books and magazines and folders full of notes.
Against plates, saucepans, cutlery, a shoebox full of halffinished condiments, a food processor with the attachments missing.
A box of CDs, a box of videos, a box full of photographs and postcards and letters.
And a standard lamp, which he bought in a junk shop to make his room look civilised, lunging over his shoulder from the mess behind him.
All of it squeezed into his dads car, and he sits there and smiles and holds his open hand up beside his face.
In the background theres a boy on a tricycle, staring.
Theres a photo of me and another girl, Alison, and I cant remember who took it.