Selected Works of Creative Creative Writing
 

There’s something in the warm June air that blows into the city from the south. Everyone can feel it. The workers in town feel it as they knock off early for the afternoon, streaming out of office blocks, blinking, baffled in the searing sunlight that shimmers off the silvery glass facades of the buildings above them, dazed and amazed by the nascent weekend ahead, sixty-four hours stretched out like an ocean before them, vast and teeming with promise. The lads clad in tight white shirts feel it as they gather outside Wetherspoon’s, sipping fizzing pints of Carling, pink faces flush in anticipation for the night, of the heady chance of a shag or fight. The chip shop owners topping up fryers, the cab drivers topping up tyres, the police chatting as they strap on their batons, they all feel the crackle in the air, and everyone knows that summer starts here. 

 It’s the same Sheffield over, from the tip of Meadowhall to the Peak District, from Whirlow to Woodhouse, Hillsborough to Hunter’s Bar, not far from where the party starts, on the bustling park where we’re all meeting soon. 

Those of us who have finished work, shedding drab garb to emerge anew, rejuvenated and resplendent in going-out gear; those of us rousing from the long, languorous afternoon sipping cocktails mixed from old flat coke and the dregs of rum, gin and vodka; those still stuck at our desks with a goldfish view, watching the world cavort through a pane of glass; those lounging in Endcliffe Park, huddled around a bright blue blanket, one of a hundred gaudy islands spread across the sea of green grass amid the hubbub from fifty separate stereos and the piercing shrieks of children high on sunshine and sugar. Those of us who are right now walking past the blinking workers and wolf-whistling, white-shirted lads, the cops, the taxis and shops, freshly dressed in their best purple skirt, hair newly blued, butterflies fluttering, nervous and nauseous, on our way to find the first friends we've made in the long, lonely months since mum and dad moved moved us here. 

We’ve been on the park a couple of hours, sipping tepid beers or warm sangrias, and it feels like we’ve known each other forever, been here for years. Smiles spread across sunbathed faces, friends chatter like the birds chirping in the trees above. In the middle of us, holding court, sits Sadie, a gangly girl with tight, curly hair tied in a bandana, boasting a big, broad, beautiful smile that shows off the quid-sized gap between her front two front teeth. She’s the one who texted the invite out after we finished our shift together at the care home last night. 

You’re coming out tonight, right, baby girl? She says, one eyebrow raised.

Where’s everyone going? 

Old tool factory, she says. 

Where is it? Don't really know the town yet.

Sadie laughs. It’s not a club, she says. It’s a big old building, abandoned, out in Attercliffe. Free party. Load of our mates. Erik dropped the sound system off earlier, didn’t you?

The boy next to us makes a noncommittal noise. He’s lying on the grass, long mousey hair spread out around him. He’s wearing baggy jeans, ripped at the knee, a green tie-dyed tee and stolen bowling shoes, a throwback from every decade at once. He looks so calm, eyes closed, smoking. A roll-up? A joint? It’s hard to tell. The whole park smells like weed. Police amble about, indifferent to the heady scent. Maybe it’s safety in numbers; maybe they really don’t care. 

Eventually, Sadie’s words sink in, and Erik rouses himself, leaning back on his elbows, sleepy kitten eyes blinking in the too-bright light. Oh, yeah, he says. This afternoon. There’s another seven systems down there, too. 

See? Sounds ace, Sadie says. Come on, it’ll be fun. 

Maybe. We don’t have the weekend off, though, do we? Thought we had to work tomorrow night? 

She looks so confused. Not ‘til like six in the evening, she says. But if you don’t wanna party, try this… She hands over an old lemonade bottle filled with a sticky liquid, the colour of old dishwater. It’s disgusting. Worse than it looks, and it looks chuffin’ revolting. Strong and sweet and so bloody bitter, like choking on a paracetamol. Then, before the drink gets spat right out, Sadie grabs the end of the bottle, holding it up, incessantly squeezing ‘til the drink’s half gone. 

It tastes fucking horrible. What is it?

Trampagne, she says, mischievous brown eyes twinkling. Like Champagne, but better. Buckfast, cider and a gram of speed. Still fancy going back to your mum and dad’s?

Speed? Like amphetamine? 

Fucksake, Sade, Erik says. He sits up so he's on our level. First time, yeah? His smile is sad, kind and comforting. Don’t worry, he says. We'll look after. Besides, no way there’s that much in there anyway. Sade’s a tight arse. 

Don’t worry. We’re like a family. Everyone looks after everyone else. They say Sheffield’s biggest village in the country. Well, think of us as the crazy family that lives at end of lane and has an old van in pieces on the driveway, a flock of chickens and twenty feral children.

Sade, that’s not a metaphor. Erik says. I've met ‘em. They’re fucking mental. He grins and snatches Sadie's bottle, finishing it in three great gulps. Doesn’t even flinch at the taste.

So, that’s it, then? No going home. Not for tea and interrogations. So, we become one more? Another little sister for the squad. A soft, little, scruffy blue-haired hippy whose only other friends live a lifetime away.  

Afternoon over and drinks emptied, we leave the park, legs twitching, talking twaddle. Not that anyone cares. Fifteen of us heading to the house party. No one’s considering going home anymore. There’s Sadie, of course, with her mischief and mismatched teeth; Erik, with his golden hair and kind, wide smile; Patti, who has perfect brown eyes and a pet gecko; Jamie, the poet who talks like John Cooper Clarke; and ten too many more names and lives to learn, but everyone knows everyone else, so it doesn’t matter who’s talking to who; the conversations just ebb and flow as we drift from one to another meandering down the street like we’re sticks in a slowly flowing stream. 

Then we’re there, freshly laden with budget booze from the Spar, armed and ready for the night ahead. We snake our way down a shady side ginnel of old red-bricked terrace spilling out into the cracked tiled backyard where someone’s spread a yellowing, once white duvet right up to the pungent, brim-filled green wheely bin, where people chat and laugh lounge drinking, or dancing to techno that blares through the cracked back window from a full sound system, seven feet tall, set up in the bare, beige front room. 

We spread out, mingle, diffuse into the bustling yard like milk poured in tea ‘til the party consumes us, and it’s impossible to tell where we end, and the party begins like pieces of plasticine pushed together. Except it’s not a party, it’s a gathering. Because only we’re invited, right? So, there is no us and them, just we, and we must be like a hundred strong now.

Then there you are. 

You.

One of us. 

Right?

You must be one of us, because only we’re allowed. 

You’re sat cross-legged, just a few feet away, chatting to Patti, eyes sparkling, arms flailing. You’re spilling your drink on yourself, on the duvet, on everyone, but no one cares. You smile when you notice you’re being watched, teeth bright, but not quite white through your scruffy, rough, brown beard. You lean over and pass the bottle. This time, the only surprise is you; the drink only tastes like budget rum and supermarket own-brand coke.  

So, what do you think? you say. 

About what? 

Philosophy’s dead, you say. 

Is it? Didn’t Patti take philosophy? Ask her if—

It’s what Stephen Hawkings wrote, you say.  

Hawking.

Stephen Hawkings, you say. He’s a physicist. 

Why’s he talking about philosophy, then?

Why is anyone talking about philosophy anymore? you say, with such authority that you sound like Dad when he lectures, like you actually know what you’re talking about. Nobody laughs, as though it makes perfect sense. Sadie slowly nods her head. Though perhaps Patti rolls her eyes.

What about ethics? Aesthetics? Politics?

For a long moment, there’s a pocket of silence between us, a space hollowed out between the raucous music and the riotous chattering. You stare so intently, head cocked like you’re not sure what to make of this new thing you’ve found. 

Yeah, fair point, you say at last. Guess he wasn’t thinking of that other stuff. You give a lopsided grin, eyes softening. Cleverer than Hawkings and twice as pretty. Okay, let’s do politics. Wait! You frown, looking all serious again. That’s the catch, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you’re a fucking Tory. 

Why would you— 

Sorry, you say. That was cruel. I take it back. You laugh, take out a crumpled yellow packet of Amber Leaf tobacco, and roll a baggy cigarette, slobbering on crumpled Rizla where the glue refuses to stick. 

So, which uni do you go to? you ask when you’ve lit your cigarette. You blow a cloud of scratchy, acrid smoke between us. 

Not at university. Not yet. Maybe next year, if I get in. How about you?

Went to Hallam, you say. You offer the soggy roll-up, flicking ash on the already drink-drowned duvet. Like anyone else would want the horrible spit-soaked thing.

Guessing you didn’t take philosophy?

I did physics, you say. Philosophy, but with maths. 

Patti jabs you in the waist with two fingers, making you flinch. Did you fuck! she says. You failed a physics course four years ago. That’s different. Gotta go to lectures to say you did it. 

Your cheeks flush, and you glare, but don’t argue; you just change the subject again, start talking about some band nobody knows. But now you’re so full of gleeful excitement, it’s infectious, impossible not to laugh along with. And it’s just us, in a sun-soaked, drink-drenched backyard. You, only a few feet away, chatting about baffling subjects, undeterred that there’s no one else listening. And maybe it isn’t so bad you don’t care. Kinda beautiful, in a weird way. Then an hour’s gone by, and we’ve emptied the bottle, and you haven’t spoken to anyone else, haven’t stopped speaking really, and Patti and Sadie are smiling at us, and we’re smiling too, as though we’re all in on a secret. 

Then, Erik leans across the yard, breaking into our little circle and passes us a CD case. It's Phil Collins, he says, so you know it's good. 

Phil fucking Collins! As though the DJ’s going to drop it next, and we’ll all go wild over dumb dad rock. But instead, it’s realisation that drops when we see that the case is covered in gritty white powder, roughly scraped into jagged little lines. Erik passes a rolled-up five-pound note. Right there in the backyard, overlooked by the windows of god knows how many neighbours. Right there, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Everyone in? you ask.

Don’t worry, it’s not ket! someone shouts, as if that’s all anyone needs to know. Maybe it is, because you don’t ask more, you just hold out the case and say, wanna be princessed?

Princessed? What’s that?

You lean over the case, holding back blue-streaked hair so it doesn’t get in the way, and it seems like there’s nothing left to do but to take the old rolled five-pound note, which is dusted white on one end and weirdly wet at the other, and inhale, holding one nostril closed like that girl from Pulp Fiction. 

Except it’s not like that at all. Doesn’t even hurt. Smells kind of floral. Almost feels normal. Or maybe like normal should be. Like a perfect day. Like a place where no one needs to worry whether they’ll fit in, or that stupid thing that happened at school last term, or if they’ll run out of words to say, because there’s more words than anyone needs, and nobody cares if they’re the right ones or what. 

The sun is dipping below the horizon, and the whole world looks candle-lit when the text comes. Throughout the house and all round the backyard, phones beep, one after another, like it’s part of the music. 

I prefer it, Erik says.

Yeah, but you like Phil Collins, you say.  

Sadie pops up between us, throwing skinny arms over our shoulders. Taxis are on the way, she says. You'll look after this one, won't you?

Of course, you say. One of the family now. You gave her the smallest village speech, right? you say, making bunny rabbit ear air quotes. 

Fuck off, Sadie says and slaps you with the back of her hand, but not hard.

You rummage around in your pocket for a second and pull out a tiny, tatty, dusty baggy with five or six little pink pills in it. Reckon it’s time, you say.

Maybe later.  

But you just smile and say, It’s fine, like you’re just being kind, and pass us one each. And we don’t say no, because it isn’t a question. 

We can hear the party from where the cab drops us off, even over the thump of our hearts. Half the city must know about the party. Can’t the cops hear it as easily as us? But it isn’t until we’re crawling through a gap in a security fence, party dresses catching on rusty wire, bare knees scuffing on muddy gravel, that we feel it – a rhythmic rumbling, pulsing through concrete and soil – that we finally understand how loud it must be. 

What do the moles think?

Bet they're loving it, Erik says. Probably having their own rave. 

Massive underground scene in the mole community, you say. Nearly everyone laughs. 

They must be scared. 

I don’t think anyone’s ever worried about free party moles before, you say, eyes already glassy and happy. Come on, it's just round the corner.

Then we’re there, and it’s like nothing else, this glorious, grimy, glitzy mess of a place. It must have been abandoned thirty years ago, a relic of Sheffield's past, a four-story factory of crumbling concrete, broken glass and twisted wires, sprayed, top to bottom, in a kaleidoscopic blitz of graffiti and covered in curving psychedelic decorations glowing bright under UV light, and I can see you looking as we step into the factory floor, into the beautiful deafening barrage of music, and Sadie takes us both by the hand, and we stand for a moment, just breathing, fingers tingling, then you let go of Sadie and lean over pressing our lips together so everything tastes like your sour, smoky breath, and the night feels so right, but not quite, not this, but its like there’s nothing else to do, so instead it just happens, and no one says no.

Then, in an instant, it's over, and the tune drops, washing the moment away, like waking from a daydream, and you're gone, too, carried off into the crowd. 

Sadie beams and pulls us onto the dance floor, and it's such a surprise to find we're still holding hands. Don’t waste any time, do you? she says.

It wasn’t like that. 

It's fine, love, she says. I'm happy for you, and then we’re hugging – the first proper hug in months. She holds us together for what seems like forever. But it's too right to be too long, too tight to feel wrong, and her skin is so soft, and she smells of strawberries, not smoke, and it feels like nothing else matters, like maybe anything else was just a stupid mistake. 

There are four floors in the old factory, linked by giant snaking stone staircases. Each floor has two sound systems, and who knows how many of us dancing to tunes that all sound the same but also so different tonight. Off to the side, there’s an endless warren of rooms moulded from ash grey cement, smooth and seamless, like pods, most now decorated with pictures of mushrooms or mandala hangings, where groups of us lounge, passing drinks and joints, and it’s like we’re all best friends, though surely we can’t have all met. 

What’s your name, and what’ve you done? they say.

Then Sadie, Erik, or you’ll reply with MD-this or 2c-that, and for a while, there's ten of us all rabbiting on about something that doesn't make sense but somehow sort of does. Or sometimes there’s just a few of us, and talking about how we met at a festival in France, or all about our bitch of a mum, or how we were bullied back at school because, cos everyone’s got some shit to deal with and nobody’s problems are only their own.

Hours pass, gone just like that, in a blur between dance floors and rooms, heads spinning with the new strangeness of it. Then there’s a moment, like coming to the surface for air or waking up for the first time; an intake of breath, hooded eyes suddenly open wide, and it’s only us in the room.

You and me. 

We’re sat, holding hands, but I don’t remember when or how it happened. I blink, eyes adjusting to the new crystalline clarity of the world. The room is bare, more or less, with only graffiti tags adorning the crumbling red brick walls. With a start, I realise there's no roof above us; I can see the stars. The light is the full moon overhead. Where the hell are we? The music sounds muffled and distant, but I can feel the vibrations through my bum on the cold, concrete floor.

You okay? you say. 

I…. I think so. How long have we been here?

Erik said it was your first time, you say. Your smile’s a mile wide, pupils wider, a Muppet with black dotted ping-pong ball eyes. Your coarse, nicotine-stained thumb caresses the top of my hand in harsh, hard circles. You've had a good night, right? you say. 

My stomach flips, and I take a shuddering breath, remembering the friends I've met and all those I can’t quite recall. 

I nod. 

 My stomach twists again, but this time, I can't breathe, can’t move, when you kiss the side of my neck, placing one clammy hand too high on my bare thigh. You smell like the party, sweat and ash. When you press your lips against mine and brush your tongue along my mouth, I can taste your weed and whisky breath, feel your sandpaper stubble, rough and raw on my chin. I want to move. I should move. But I don’t. I don’t do anything. I can feel your calloused palm pushing up my short purple skirt. I realise you've moved my hand to press the bulge beneath the fly of your jeans. You rub yourself, back and forth, with my limp hand. But still, I do nothing. And I never say yes, but I don’t say no.

Then there’s a sound like an old rusty robot stretching as the great metal door to the room is pushed open, and Sadie’s silhouetted by the light outside. 

There you are, she laughs, then looks at us, at our hands on each other. Fucking hell, she says. Get a room, you two. 

I can feel the heat in my reddening cheeks. 

We’ve got a room, you say, beaming at Sadie, not embarrassed at all.

Rooms have roofs, dickhead, Sadie says. Come on, Erik is playing a set in a bit. She holds out her hands and hauls us up, dragging us out of the makeshift room onto the flat, open rooftop of the factory, where people are milling about, enjoying the summer air. You go on, she says, nodding at you. We’ll catch you up. 

She leads me to the wide wall encircling the rooftop and plonks me down on the cold, bumpy stone. The view from this high up is amazing. The smattering of lights across the valley. This place seems so small of a sudden. For a minute, we sit in silence.  

You okay, love? Sadie asks, at last.

I don’t know, I reply. What else can I say? What can I tell the girl I’ve hardly met about the friend she’s known forever? Because what really happened when I never said no?  

I’m sorry, she says. I didn’t know you didn’t do stuff. That it was your first time. I’d have never. Not like that, anyway. I just thought, you know, you were one of us. 

Did she, though? Did she think? Too hard to tell. I try to smile, hope it’s reassuring. 

Looks like you had a good night, though, she beams. Seems you two are getting on pretty well – 

Sade, I didn’t want to. Not like that. I don’t like…

 I can feel my throat close and swallow hard to hold back the tears, cos what kind of psycho cries at a party? But then I think maybe if she can see my shiny eyes in the half-light, she'll understand; she’ll know what it means, what happened.

But she's not listening. She's looking straight over my shoulder, staring at a girl about as old as me but twice as pretty, wearing nothing but denim hot pants and a bra. She’s dancing out of time to fuck knows what tune, and I’ve never seen anyone so unreasonably beautiful or resented someone so much. Can’t she just fuck off and leave us? I watch Sadie watching her as she twirls with the same hungry look you gave me. 

Then, like I willed it the girl trips over an almost invisible black backpack that someone’s left in the middle of the floor, and slowly she prances, taking two steps backwards, still ballerina light on her feet, arms out wide, until the low wall takes her feet from under her and she rolls over the rooftop wall, her perfect face still serene as disappears noiselessly over the edge. 

The whole place freezes. Everyone’s still. Even though half of them never saw her fall, even though she never made a sound. Flawless, beautiful, ethereal, right the way to the ground. The group next to us, her friends, I guess, look stricken for a second, petrified like those poor people statued in Pompeii. Then, there’s a sound so alien to the moment that, at first, I can’t figure out what it is. 

Sadie is laughing. Fuck me! she says. Did you see that? 

Her friends turn and stare. I shrink back, eyeing, trying silently to let them know that it’s not us, it’s her. All I can feel is shame. For what happened with you; for willing her over the edge; for being one of us. For a moment, I wish with every part of me that I’d fallen off the roof, not her. 

The music's off when the ambulance arrives. Everyone’s heard what happened; the news reached the ground before she did. Groups of people coalesce, murmuring in hushed tones, deciding where to go. Surely, I should recognise them, but though my head’s spinning with names and stories, they’re disembodied from the strange, wide-eyed aliens that cluster in the pools of gloomy yellow streetlight.

You, Sade, and Patti are there, chattering, cracking jokes. I stand with them, with you, shivering in the damp twilight air. Where else is there to go?

Taxi's on its way, Suzie says brightly. 

Can’t believe they stopped the party, you say. 

It’s getting light on Endcliffe Park by the time everyone gets there. Erik, Patti, Jamie, and Sadie. Maybe it’s the same group as before, cos there's fourteen of them, and me. I sit cross-legged on the moist grass, right in the middle of the group, an arm's length away from everybody but a million miles apart. A quiet, recursive island, engulfed and isolated. The conversation flows around me. For them, it’s like nothing's happened. Like they can’t see a reason the party should stop. 

You come and sit next to me. You squeeze my hand, but that’s it. I don’t pull it away; I don’t move at all. You look so happy, like everything’s right with the world, never noticing the sham of my fake plastic smile.

Jamie and Erik clamber up an old oak tree and perch on a gnarled branch ten feet above. Legs swinging, they share a moment, passing a joint between them as the sun peeks up over the endless rows of red terrace houses that break up the hill into neat flights of steps. Perhaps a different me would be with them, up there, without a care in the world. Perhaps, on a different night, we could have been friends. Or maybe we were yesterday. But today, there’s no we, there’s just me.

I wonder what they see from up there. Can they see across the city to the shining office blocks, the bleary-eyed cops, tired cabbies making their final drops? Do they see the scruffy little blue-haired girl in the mucky purple skirt sitting among, but apart from, their mates? Will they notice, soon, when she ups and leaves? What will they think in years gone by when they reminisce about this night? Will they even remember her? 

I wonder if you will.