Shit Life Syndrome

By Stu Hennigan.

 “The phrase seemed to denote a level of long-standing poverty, family breakdown, lack of stability, unemployment and potential risk factors common to many of the predominately young, working class patients referred to the [psychotherapeutic] service” – Rosemary Rizq, The Future of Psychological Therapy, 2016

The coastal wind cut with a Stanley knife slash through a bitter mist of spray, chilling him to the bones. He was stiff and sore from the Megabus ride, a dreary eight hours that had been stretched to ten by miles of roadworks just outside London, the lingering numbness in his arse compounded by the slimy stones of Brighton Beach oozing damp through the threadbare seat of his jeans. In the middle distance, silhouetted against the inky wash of the sky was the skeletal hulk of the West Pier, gutted twice that spring by blazes clearly raised by better firestarters than he was. The sad pyramid of driftwood at his feet hissed and sputtered, smoked and spat, but there was more heat coming from his lighter’s insipid flame than the smouldering heap of briny twigs.

Give it up, Jonny. Job’s fucked.

Same as everything else then, eh?

Give the man a prize.

Ah piss off, you knobhead.

Nat had been there the first time the pier got torched, back in March. She’d been gone for yonks by then and he was flipping out, an imaginary crime scene cop shot of her raped and strangled corpse tormenting him twenty four seven until a text popped up from an unknown number one afternoon while he was at work. He’d started the job part-time not long after she’d bailed, busting his balls for a pittance doing the garden at a care home in a village a couple of miles outside of town, but it wan’t gonna last. None of them ever did. He’d already murdered the lawn – an area the size of half a football pitch now more drybrown dead than green – by going at the rampant moss with the wrong kind of weedkiller, but aside from nicking the odd piece of jewellery from the old dears’ rooms when they were having their dinner, he’d achieved fuck all else.

Hey J. Gess who? Im in Brighton. The fuckin peer’s on fire. Sat on a bench with spliff n Spesh watching it burn. Trippy or what? N x

When she belled him later on, as if the black hole of those desperate, endless weeks hadn’t happened, she was so stoned and the line so bad it sounded like she was calling from another planet. With three hundred miles between them and nothing but shrapnel in his bin, she might as well have been. It had taken the whole summer and a lot more grafting off the coffin dodgers at work to scrape the bus fare and a few bob to blow while he was down, but he’d made it at last. October was on its way out; a brutal November incoming, foreseen by the Halloween squall.

So much for it being warmer down South. Colder than a witche’s tit, this gaff. I’d’ve brought a coat if I had one.

You’re a moaning bastard, you. It’s autumn. And it’s nearly midnight. We’ll have a walk round in a bit and see if we can find you another jumper. Folk here leave bags of clobber outside charity shops all the time, decent gear an all. I’ve got a whole new wardrobe since I moved. Here, open wide, I got you a prezzie. This’ll warm you up.

A grainy disc on his tongue, like something chiselled from a tablet of Persil; a chemical sting that made him boke at the same time as his gob flooded with spit. He took the bottle she offered. Stink of Smirnoff, glug of grain. Down it went. He winced. Grimaced.

Yeah, but you love me for it, don’t you? An undertaker’s deadpan, so far beyond sarky even he didn’t know how he meant it. He passed the vodka. Waited.

*

In another world they’d have been childhood sweethearts. They were spawned at opposite ends of a scruffbag terrace where what passed for gardens sprouted fucked fridges instead of flowers and every other house had at least one gaffertaped binbag where a window should’ve been. Devonshire Street, it was called. Folk said it was named after a Duke or summat, whatever one of them was. They went to the same council-run nursery and made friends there, not that they remembered it much. Later it seemed like they’d always been around each other, thick as thieves, but they knew deep down that’s where it all started. At primary school they grew into grimy latchkey kids who walked home together when most parents wouldn’t dream of letting their little’uns out alone, not so much left to their own devices as abandoned to fate.

Jonny’s mam had him so young that people used to mistake them for brother and sister till the dragon she sometimes chased for fun got its claws in deep and the smack jacked a decade twice over on her, but she’d taken so many hidings from his old man by then that the poor cow was better off nodding. Frank was a ghost. Now you see me, now you don’t, a guy who kept the kind of hours that made irregular look like clockwork. If he was in, he was smashed and so was everything within striking distance. A broken home littered with broken furniture, glass, faces. Sometimes bones.

He kept a horde of bull terriers in the cellar, their cages balanced on flags to raise them above the half-inch of standing water, matted with day-glo scum, that came with the house and stank like a midden. They were fed on scraps and slops and kicks to the gut, taken out after dark in an antique Tranny that was more rust than van. When they’d return in the secret hours they were ragged, stitched, missing clumps of fur or chunks of ear, sometimes fewer in number than when they left. A couple of times the neighbours complained about their howling, snarling racket so Franko knocked on with a pair of his best, frothing and foaming, half-strangled by choke chains, said if the council called him again he’d be straight back round only next time he might forget to bring the leads if they caught his fuckin drift? There was no more bother after that.

Local folklore remembered Nat’s sire with fear and trembling but she never knew the man herself. By his early twenties, Crazy Joe Shorrock had spent more time in Armley nick than half the screws that worked there, but he was free for long enough on one of his sorties beyond the razor wire to spunk the bun that became Nat into her mam’s oven, shortly before the next shitstorm kicked off and landed him back inside. When he wasn’t banged up he was a beast unleashed, the kind of cunt who’d empty a pub just by walking through the door. He could put down more ale in an afternoon than most blokes could sup in a weekend, a fella so fucking radged he’d’ve tried to chin his own shadow if he thought it had looked at him funny. He’d battered every hard case in town, a few more than once when they were daft enough to think he’d got lucky the first time and fancied another go, but he soon set those numpties straight. He had fists like cannonballs, nails that gouged, teeth that mauled any bare flesh they could bite. His left hook was the stuff of legend, his forehead said to have shattered plate glass.

On Nat’s first birthday he’d just got out, again. He went on a bender to celebrate and finally met his match when a row over a spilled pint ended up in the car park and a farmer’s lad on the lash from somewhere over Burnley way caught him off-guard with a Southpaw uppercut. The keepers of the tale said he’d been hit far harder by bastards twice the size and bounced up laughing but on the way to the deck that day his head caught the top of a concrete bollard at an angle all wrong. The snap of his neck was loud enough to halt the passing traffic.

The farmer’s lad got a twelve stretch. Crazy Joe Shorrock got the cheapest casket benefits could buy and a funeral no fucker went to. His widow Joanie, wed when they were both sweet sixteen, drank away her grief for ten years and then some, shacked up with a roll-call of stand-ins who took more than an unusual interest in the little girl she was rarely conscious enough to keep even half an eye on. People felt sorry for the bairn, course they did; but no kid of Joe Shorrock’s would ever amount to fuck all so there was no use bothering about it. Blind eyes were turned. Gossips’ tongues tattled at supermarket tills. For Nat, a childhood lost to so many cold, rough hands intruding in the darkness.

They didn’t share ice creams, hold hands in the street or lounge on the swings at the park strewn with dog turds like landmines. They didn’t play mummies and daddies, tig or tag, or join the kissing games under the climbing frame with the other kids. With their ages barely scraping double figures they stayed out after school, huddled inside the plastic shell of the rec’s wrecked wendyhouse until it was safe to go home, when the grown-ups were out for the night, or else too out of it to notice them come in. Often they’d meet in the chill of the fractured dawn when the lightening sky was the colour of a bruised eye, morning one last dream away for the townsfolk snoozing in the safety and comfort of their toastwarm beds.

They lived on chocolate, crisps, sweets, packs of biscuits half-inched from the newsagents on the corner. The old Indian who owned it knew full well what they were up to, but if he chanced to look and caught their eye while they were stuffing their pockets he’d flinch like he’d been shot, take a sudden interest in a faraway shelf or duck to pick something up from the floor behind the counter. The loot kept them from starving, but still their bellies growled like Franko’s fighting dogs.

*

When you told us you were coming, you said the first thing you’d do was go upto your knees in t’sea.

Didn’t know it’d be like this though, did I? And what’s wi’ these fuckin stones? I were after sprawling out on some right soft sand after that bus ride.

Never mind that. Anyone’d think you’d rather be at home. Getting tappy feet, me. You feeling it yet?

Different kind of cold, mate. Like there’s frost in me blood. Give us some more of that vodka, me fuckin tongue’s minging.

You don’t seem happy to see us.

Course I am.

Have you missed me?

What fucker else have I got? Did me bastard nut when –

Let’s not talk about that, J. Come here and give us a hug. I fuckin well need one.

*

They fought through high school as a gang of two, when they could be arsed to go; that was in winter, mostly, when they had nowhere else to get warm. They lost as many as they won but they stuck up for each no matter what and they never, ever backed down, which was way more important than keeping score when the end result was a given.

He got suspended for a month in Year Three after blowing his stack when she pointed out a lad who’d touched her up that morning as she bent over to tie her laces in the cloakroom. He followed him into the bogs and splattered his nose flat to his face with a two-handed swipe of a hardback textbook – the only time one of those things would ever be any fuckin use – then kicked the shit all the way out of the little prick while he was rolling round booing in puddles of piss and water leaking from the busted urinals.

Touch her again and you’re a fuckin dead man, right? Dead. I’ll fuckin kill you, you cunt, I swear to fuckin god I will. Screaming like Frank in the throes, swinging his Reeboks at the sodden, bloodied mess while three teachers struggled to drag him away.

Fuck school. The park was theirs when the sun was out, sitting on a bench where they’d hacked their names with a screwdriver at the end of the first year. Life didn’t hurt as much then, when it was just the two of them, Scrumpy, skunk, sky. They’d watch mams and toddlers laughing in the playground down the bottom, piss themselves at grannies and grandads still hand-in-hand after fifty years as they chucked tennis balls about, shouted at their dogs when they did a runner. Sloshed and stoned, they’d cheer on the errant mutts as their owners tried in vain to catch them. Who could blame them for acting up when they knew they’d be back on the end of a rope?

She kissed him once, mangled on mushies in a phonebox where they’d stopped to hide from a cloudburst, the spiderwebbed panes misted with their body heat. They were having fits at fuck knows what, still tripping but on the slow slide back, bent double, grabbing at each other to keep from falling over it was that funny. Then she sort of leaned in, opened her mouth a bit and there was he, mister oblivious, still laughing right up until her tongue touched his and he clocked what was happening. A split-second shock, then, fuck, it was perfect. Two pairs of lips moulded to match, four lungs sharing a single mingled breath, the fusion of his face and her fingers, two bodies, two brains, one them, together forever in the final fuzz of the psilocybin mindmelt. But when he tried to put his hand down her tracky bottoms she went rigid, shoved him away so hard he cracked his head on the glass and stalked back out into the rain.

What the fuck was that all about? Nat was his best mate but he’d never thought of her like that, not once, so for it to feel as good as it did was a headfuck and a half. He tried to talk to her about it when they were smoking away the comedown on the rec but she clammed up, told him to get fucked when he pushed it then stormed off in a huff. He never dared mention it again.

*

Do you like living here? Mate, I’m tingling now. Mmmmm. Fuck, it’s been a while. Where’d you get these?

It’s alright. No worse than up north. At least no one knows us. Here I’m just Nat. Not Natalie Shorrock, Crazy fuckin Joe’s lass that every cunt stares at in the street like I’m summat in a bloody bastard zoo. I’m tingly tingly an all. Proper got ants in me pants, don’t reckon I can sit for much longer. Got the didz off a lad who serves past the other side of the pier. Pink, they are. Fuck knows what they’re cut with but they’re better than the shite we’re used to. Here, turn around and look at us, I wanna see your face. God, J, you should see the state of your eyes. Thought they were meant to be blue. They’re blacker than a coalminer’s bollocks.

You can’t fuckin talk. Yours were like that when you met us at the station. You on one already or what?

Bloke at the office said your bus were delayed so I had a cheeky half while I were waiting. Thought it’d pass the time. You’d’ve done same, don’t tell me you wouldn’t.

Did it?

Did it what?

Pass the time?

Nah. But it cheered us up a bit.

You got the sads?

Fuck’s sake Jonny, when’ve we ever not?

Well. Yeah. Getting a right buzz on now though. Give us another hug babe. I can’t believe I’m here with you.

Cunt you’re pilling your tits off. Since when do you call people babe? Especially me. South of Barnsely for once in your life and suddenly you’re Ray Winstone, that it?

I don’t give a shit about that. Cuddle us. Tighter. I don’t wanna be away from you ever again.

Me neither.

I –

Mmmmm god are you feeling like I’m feeling? It feels like. Oh shit. Mmmmm. Aaaah. Oh that’s good I feel so fuckin good right now are you feeling it too tell me you’re feeling it tell me tell me tell me. Blowing through pursed lips like she’d been holding her breath for an hour.

I’m feeling it babe, I’m fuckin feeling it, you’ve gotta have some more, right, don’t say you don’t cos I know you fuckin do.

Course I’ve got some more. Not now though. Let’s go look at the sea. Hold me hand and we’ll skip. Oh my god you’re freezing.

*

She never said she was leaving, just upped sticks and vanished not long before her eighteenth. First he knew about it was when he crawled out of a K-hole on the floor of an empty council house they’d broken into for the night when they’d spotted a shutter hanging loose round the back. He was bear’s arse rough, mouth all baccy flecks and grains of ket that had slipped down the back way, nose clogged with the stink of the poxy stuff. When he’d come round a bit and smoked a dog end spliff, he found his wallet on the floor with a note inside. She’d printed it nice and clear for him.

DEER J.

I CANT STAY HEAR. DONT ASK WHY. I JUST CANT. I DIDNT WANNA TELL YOU COS I NEW YOUD TRY AND TALK ME OUT OF IT. YOU PROBLY WOOD OF IF I LET YOU LOL. BUT IVE GOT TO LEEVE AND ITS GOT TO BE NOW. I NOW YOULL THINK IM A CUNT FOR NOT FESSIN UP BUT I CUDNT HACK SAYING GUDBYE. I HOPE YOULL UNDERSTAND.

SOZ ABOUT THE TWENTY. I PROMISE ILL PAY YOU BACK AS SOON AS I CAN. IM THROWING MY FONE IN THE CANAL SO DONT CALL ME. ILL BE GETTING A NEW NUMBER WHEN I GET WERE IM GOING. I JUST NEED TO BE FAR AWAY FROM THIS SHITHOLE AND ALL THE WANKERS IN IT. THERES NO POINT SAYING DON’T WORRY COS I NOW YOU WILL. BUT YOU NOW WHAT A ROCK HARD BITCH IVE HAD TO BE TO LIVE THIS LONG AND IM NOT DONE FITEING YET LOL. ILL CALL YOU WHEN I CAN. NAT X X

OH. IF OWT BAD HAPPENS AND YOU DONT HERE FROM ME AGAIN I WANT YOU TO NOW YOUR THE ONLY GOOD THING THATS HAPPENED TO ME IN MY HOLE SHITTY LIFE. ILL NEVER FORGET YOU. NAT X X X X

AND DONT GO LOOSING YOUR SHIT WHEN YOU REED THIS OK? I NOW WHAT YOUR LIKE. BUT DOING ONE WONT HELP EETHER OF US. N X X X

It hit him like a kick in the balls. He sank to his haunches, gasping, spewed up a gobful of gut acid rancid with ket, and another, dry-heaved till he thought his eyes were gonna pop out, like the last time Franko tried to choke him and he didn’t think he was gonna stop. Shattering panic, as if the world had ended and he’d just twigged he was the last man left alive. He needed a drink – a fuckin strong one – and some mazzies to chase down with it, but she’d cleaned him out and his JSA payment still was a few days off. He’d sort it though, he’d have to. He got his shit together as quickly as his ketfucked head would let him and hoofed it straight into town, hellbent on lifting some vod from the Co-Op and breaking his knuckles on some cunt’s face.

*

Body, mind, stones, Nat, moon, sea, sky. A mirrored net of coloured jewels reflecting each other forever. The cosmic entanglement of sight and sound, hypertuned senses all mixed up. Sweating, steaming, vibing, unchained, free, watching her watching him watching her body in ceaseless motion, swaying, rocking, grooving, raving. He’d die for her, kill, even, knew it right then, so much in the moment he’d become it like it had become him, them, all of it, everything. The timeless scattered breakbeat of waves on shingle, mother nature’s drum n bass bombtrack blasting for them and them alone. VIP lounge, Brighton Beach style.

This is better than being on that fuckin bus, Nat, I’m telling you. Battered, me. Battered. Gun fingers high at the moment of triumph, every atom of him ready to love the whole stupid bastard world if only the fucker would love him back.

Thank Christ you got some straights, couldn’t roll a thing right now.

Bet you’d do a spliff if I’d got some weed.

Have you?

Might do. Fuck it though, have another of these. I’m rushing like fuck. Am I gurning? I’m gurning, aren’t I? I’m chewing me fuckin face off, I know I am. Me gob feels like it’s made of fuckin rubber.

Shit, yeah, you’re gurning like fuck. Think I’ve some gum somewhere, hang on.

He fumbled in his pockets, palms slick, stuff slipsliding. A synthline chime of coins on stone tumbled over the sea’s pounding rhythm.

Lost it. Fuck’s sake. Mebbe have a tab?

Got two already. Didn’t realise. Fuckin state of us, J. God I’ve missed this. She was whirling a fag in each hand, twin glowsticks streaming techno-coloured contrails like sparklers on plot night.

Must’ve been some sight when that pier went up.

Huh?

I said, it must’ve been some sight when that pier went up.

Up where?

Fuck’s sake, Nat. The pier, it were on fuckin fire, don’t you remember? You texted me and said you were watching it. It were t’first I’d heard from you since –

Wow, I remember that now. Yeah, it was mental. I mean, look at the fuckin size of it, right? Imagine all that raging like it was Guy Fawkes. I missed the second one though cos I were working out of town.

You never said you were working. Who for?

Fella I met when I got here. Fuck it mate, you don’t wanna know. Mebbe tell you laters. Give us that voddy, might stop us biting me cheeks if I’ve summat to suck on.

Body pressed against body they were one again, like in the phone box but supercharged, enough white hot energy coursing between them to light up a city.

I still can’t believe you fucked off without telling me though. He shelled a hand round her ear, shouted.

I’m sorry. There were a lot going on. Still bloody is. Feels like it’ll never end sometimes. I’m so sick of it, Jonny, you’ve no fuckin idea.

Why don’t you tell us about it? Can’t fuckin help if I dunno what’s what can I?

It’s complicated, you know? Whoa, check out them patterns over there. I’ve got these griddy griddy blue and purple lines all over the shop, like lasers. There look. There. And another. You could knock us down with a feather duster mate,

I’m absolutely fucked.

Been seeing em for ages, babe. Wondered when you’d catch up.

You call us babe again I don’t care how loved-up I am, you’re getting twatted. Here, Jonny, do you remember that letter?

You mean the one in me wallet where me last twenty quid should’ve been?

Nah not that. The other one.

*

On their last day of high school his old man showed up at home after a week on the sniff and leathered him. He’d just opened the front door to leave when he literally bumped into Frank coming in the other way. He looked trounced, all buggy eyes and grinding teeth, dripping sweat, hooter streaming like he had the flu. He took a step back, shuffled sideways to let him through but Franko lunged straight for him.

Get out the fuckin way you useless shithouse little cunt.

He must have been sparked for a few seconds cos the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees, spitting blood and bits of teeth while somewhere up above Franko went apeshit.

Wish we’d never fuckin had you, you hear? I should’ve thrown that smackheaded twat down the fuckin stairs when she were up t’stick and saved us all the grief.

A kick in the ribs took his breath. Years of animal instinct balled him up, foetal, while Frank got busy with his feet, booted him out the door like a rag doll. He thought he’d be safe then but he came after him, got him by his shirtfront and lifted him clean off the ground, claret spurting all over the shop.

Go on, fuck off out me sight before I really fuckin hit you.

Even half-blinded by blood he saw the headbutt coming; the Frank Payne Special he’d seen his mam get so many times, a few other folk an all, like he was a character on an X-box game and that was his finishing move. He leaned back so it caught him on the end of the chin instead of flush on what was left of his conk but it was still enough to knock him down the front steps. As soon as he hit the bottom he scrambled up and ran like fuck, the way he’d learned to do as soon as he could stand on his own two feet, a sticky red ribbon trailing the path behind him.

He was sitting on one of the parapets that decorated the overpass by the station when Nat found him, gazing at the rusted lattice of rails below. They went up there sometimes to watch the carriages disappear in the distance, imagine where they’d go if they could ever afford a ticket. It wasn’t such a long way down. The speed the trains came in at he wouldn’t know much about it if he timed it right. He shuffled forward, another inch closer to no way back but still not a hundred percent sure. The way his head was spinning he half-hoped he’d slip, save himself the hassle of making up his mind.

Jonny. Jonny. He heard her calling, turned to see. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I slept in and thought I’d missed you knocking so I went to school but Tariq said his little brother saw Franko going mental in the street and you running off and – Jesus Christ Jonny, what’s he fuckin done to you? The panic in her voice said it must’ve been bad but the pain hadn’t cut through the adrenaline yet and he couldn’t hold a thought long enough to grasp what had happened.

Get down from there, you might fall. Come back to mine and let’s see if we can fix you up a bit, okay? Come on. Oh shit Jonny what a mess. Come here, let me help you. That’s it. Down you come. Can you walk? Get your arm round me shoulder. There, like that. Good lad. You’re alright now. Come on. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

Nat was home alone that week. Her latest step-dad was a waste of oxygen like the rest, only worse, cos he was some distant cousin of Joe’s or something, not that her mam gave a fuck as long as he kept subbing her for booze and didn’t knock her about more than she said she could handle. Gaz Keenan was no Crazy Joe but what cunt was? He’d put her in hospital once already, then had the brass neck to take her a bottle of Gordons to say sorry when he picked her up from the ward. Since then he’d been carrying on like Flash Harry after he dropped five grand on a scratchcard so all had been forgiven, and he’d taken Joanie to Magaluf so she could spoil herself. That’s what he reckoned, anyway, but Nat said all it meant was she could pass out pissed somewhere warm in the mornings while the dirty fucker perved over the young lasses in the pool.

He’d come into her room one night not long after he’d first appeared the scene, but she was old enough by then to recognise The Look that tracked her every time he was in the house and she was ready for him.

Early hours.

Click of catch, creak of board.

He came in on tiptoes, like they all did, thinking they’ve feet like Tinkerbell when they sounded like fuckin Dumbo. The familiar cloud of putrid manstink. BO, booze, fags. Stale piss from his unbuttoned fly. He ripped the duvet off like a magician – ta-da! – but the trick was on him when he clocked what she was holding. He pulled away just in time but she must’ve caught the bastard somewhere cos there was blood on the sheets when he’d gone, although nowhere near as much as she’d’ve liked. He never tried it again, but she kept the carving knife under her pillow after that, just in case.

For all the years they’d been mates he’d not been round at Nat’s much. It was like a mirror of his, same layout, same yellow ceilings, peeling wallpaper, dust on every surface, carpet shroomed with mould. The only difference was Nat’s reeked of gin rather than dogshit and there were empty bottles all over instead of broken works, tinfoil flutes, blackened spoons.

She ran him a bath while he sat on the crapper, hands cradling his head. Between his feet a lino tile speckled with yellow toenail clippings and various colours of pubes stared him out as scarlet spots splashed down from where his mush hadn’t finished leaking.

Gaz can pay for t’fuckin immersion. Might leave it on till they get back just to spite the cunt. Here look, I’ll chuck some of this in. She waved a little bottle, pale shades of peach and pink. Nicked it from Superdrug. Thought I’d treat mesen with them being away. Bit poncey on a fella but it’s better than nowt. You gerrin in?

He’d not had a bath in years. The one at home had gone for a burton when the homebrew Frank was making in it sent Psycho Geoff Thomas blind for a week and he’d taken an axe to it as soon as he could see again. Since then it pissed out faster than it filled, and there was no hot water anyway since the gas got cut off.

He lay semi-conscious while she dabbed his ruined face with a flannel, soaped the black and blue bag of his bones. She kept reaching to pull the plug so she could add more hot, swish up a fresh froth of bubbles to cover him; she even washed his hair with some tackle that smelt like a Maccy D’s strawberry milkshake. Her hands were so gentle, knowing; they tensed and recoiled when he winced, like they felt his pain. He’d never imagined a human touch like that could exist.

After she’d patted him dry she swaddled him in Gary’s fleecy dressing gown and they snuggled under a duvet on the settee, smoking squidgy black from a bong he’d filched for her from some kid at school years back. They didn’t talk much. Every now and again she’d ask if he was alright and he’d nod as much as the pain would allow. Yeah. You sure? Yeah, sure.

Later they drank neat brandy – it was amazing what she could find in Gary’s stuff when the prick wasn’t around – with a pack of codeine crushed in the top while they watched shite telly, tried to find something to laugh at, failed.

J, can I ask you summat? They were near the bottom of the bottle. He couldn’t feel a thing but Nat was slurring. Fuck he was tired, though, hardly had the puff to speak. What were you doing on the bridge today? You weren’t gonna jump, were you?

Mebbe. I dunno. I dunno. He couldn’t think what else to say.

Don’t say that, J. Don’t.

Shit, was she crying? Surely not, not Nat. No way. He’d never seen her head get wobbled by anthing; the lass was fucking nails.

You’ve got to swear you won’t, whatever happens. Cos if you do, I’ll be right behind you. And I know you’ve seen me go through some proper shit, yeah, like I have you, but you don’t want me to fuckin die, do you, and that’s what’ll fuckin happen if you do anything daft I’m telling you, so promise me, Jonny, fuckin promise me. Now.

Promise. It was all he could manage.

Sorted. I’ll write it down for us. Like a proper, whatsitcalled, you know, contract. We’ve to stick to it then.

*

A lull.

They were seated again, resting, not that they were tired. Far fucking from it. But sitting was the best, way better than standing. Why had they even got up in the first place? Oh yeah. That thing that was rocking his legs already, jiggling his feet even though he’d only just stopped moving them, urging him to leap up and flail while an iceworm wriggled in his spine.

Have you still got yours?

What, the note?

Yeah.

Probably. Fuck knows where though. I left a few bits at Franko’s but I never go near the place. I’m sort of in-between houses, like. But I can usually find somewhere to kip. Did I tell you he’s on the brown? Least it’s quietened the cunt down a bit. He flicked his smoke, saw it sizzle as the waves drowned it.

You should go round and bray him while he’s gouching. Use a baseball bat or summat.

Don’t tempt me.

I’ve still got mine. Do you wanna see it?

Bit heavy innit. Let’s have another one of them didz.

But she was rummaging in her bag. Here it is. Have a look. She held out one half of the crumpled sheet she’d torn off the pad next to the phone at her mam’s place.

You know I can’t read great, Nat. And it’s too fuckin dark.

I’ll read it to you then.

He wasn’t ready for this. He knew what it said. He’d made her write his copy in big letters to make it easier and he’d memorized the lot. Fuck’s sake, why did she have to bring it up now? It was bound to get lovey-dovey when they dropped the E’s and that was all good, fucking mint, actually, but this was different level, shit he couldn’t have coped with sober, never mind when he was spangled on the best pill he’d had in years.
He got a head start, mumbling under his breath. I swear down that I’ll never……

……do anything daft to hurt myself…..Her voice was crystal, the only thing he could hear.

…..cos if I die I know…..

…..my best mate will have to…..

…..Follow me. They finished at the same time.

And then I signed it, remember? Was weeks before you could though. Made a right mess of your hand, that cunt did. And everywhere else.

Not the first time either. Or the last. Probably the worst though.

Don’t you think it feels a long time since all that happened, J? Like we were a couple of little kids or summat.

We were never kids, me n you.

The silence shut out even the sound of the sea.

Nat, remember the day we were tripping in that phonebox?

Yeah, we were fuckin soaked. Funny as. We got up to some right shit, didn’t we?

Not that. I meant –

Fuck it, I’ve got to get up. I need to move or dance or have a walk around or summat. We can chat shit later. I know, let’s go for a swim.

You’re having a fuckin laugh. He watched her hopping from one foot to the other, pulling her trainers off. Nat, you don’t even know how. He swigged the last of the Smirnoff, flung the bottle sideways into the dark, waited for a smash that never came.

Neither do you. You’re never too old to learn though. Can’t be that hard, can it? Even littl’uns can do it.

He kept thinking she’d stop but she was like a stripper on fast forward, peeling off clothes in flimsy layers till she was down to her bra and knickers, skin glowing with the eerie frostblue of an ambulance light. Her eyes kept moving slowly from her feet to his face and back again; up and down, up and down, up and down. She’d stopped biting her cheeks but her whole frame was rattling, like the wiry arms folded round her ribcage were the only things holding her together.

Last chance. You coming with us or not?

Nat –

Looks like I’ll have to go on me own then.

She half-waved then turned and set off with quick, even steps. She was waist-deep before he realised she wasn’t joking and then he was after her, fully dressed, slopping past the shallows, battling the breakers thigh-high as the cold clawed the breath from his lungs. His stomach lurched big time when a rise in the swell nearly took him off his feet but he managed to surge on, fighting the drag of the tide. He saw her shoulders go under and threw himself forward but she was just out of reach, his fingers grasping empty air as a fuck-off wave rolled up, crested, poised, a heartbeat from shrouding the tranquillized gaze of the bored, uncaring sky.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stu Hennigan (above) is a writer, poet, editor and musician from the north of England. His book Ghost Signs (Bluemoose) was shortlisted for two national literary prizes, including Best Political Book By A Non-Parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Book Awards in 2023. His short fiction, essays, poetry and criticism have been featured by Prospect, 3:AM Magazine, Lunate, Lune Journal, Broken Sleep Books, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Massive Overheads, Visual Verse and Expat Lit. His next book, Disappear Here: Bret Easton Ellis’ America, a social and cultural history of America from 1970 to the present day as seen through the lens of Ellis’s novels, will be published by Ortac Press in late 2025. He also plays guitar in the rock band Kamień.