Huts82

I knew one day in my dash between kitchen, toilet and Gillian’s room, any good luck I’d stored was burning up like rocket fuel, ready to combust in the heat of finding new love. It couldn’t last. And that made me in a hurry to ride my luck even more. It was almost a relief when I eventually bumped into James Munn. He had me at a disadvantage. I’d only a pair of Y fronts, was self- absorbed, and scratching inside them, like a four year old.

‘Ahem,’ he said interrupting me.

He was overdressed for going to the lavy, with a jacket, shirt and bow tie, but he didn’t comment what I wasn’t wearing and I didn’t comment on what he was wearing. He had a brown face and I had a red face, so it was like a meeting of two different tribes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he handed me a pair of beads to trade with other natives.

‘How’s the study going?’ he asked.

He kept smiling his big smile as he danced and checked in front of me. I head the tap running in the toilet. I wasn’t sure of the correct etiquette for standing outside a toilet. My da’ would have just kept banging on the door and told him that he was here first, and to hurry up, because he was bursting. I tip- toed back down the stairs and pushed the door behind me. Gillian was sleeping. It was one of the things she was good at. One of the things she loved. That and me. She said she loved me. But she was only kidding. I became aware of my lips; not talking, not saying I love you back.

She hung back from me, hadn’t said anything, but we’d made it up in the way that we knew best. She was a nighttimes person, prodding and poking and keeping me awake with fag-talk, worrying the future with her endless plans, which sprouted like goose bumps on my sleepy brain.

I listened first, before poking my head out of Gillian’s room door. James Munn seemed to be away. I’d put on my denims, just in case, and scooted up to the toilet. It was a relief in a number of ways. Since I’d met him I reasoned that the chances of bumping into him again were reset and made it less likely.

Carol, on nightshift, looked at me differently. Even the half-wits at work looked at me differently. I think I gave off some kind of subtle musk, a kind of Gillian Old Spice, that shouted I was in season and ready to rut. I’d hear snatches of conversation at work, or in the pub, and people would nudge each other and laugh. Now that I was a seeing Gillian, now that I was a shagger, I’d finally entered the world of men. I was given a new kind of respect.

I’d a few lines on the tip of my tongue, ready to unleash if anyone ever hinted at it. The kind of softly, softly, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be approach, but I think I’d have given it away the crinkle in my watery–I’ve had no sleep-eyes and the constant grin that played on my face. Only mum was pissed off because, apart from dinner, I was hardly ever home, but that wasn’t my fault. Maybe if she knew what it was like she wouldn’t have moaned so much.

Gillian missed me, so much, when I wasn’t with her. I’d got into the habit of nipping up after dinner. She’d cooked something in the communal kitchen for me once, spaghetti something or other. I didn’t like that foreign muck and preferred the Heinz tinned variety, in red sauce, with chips; not her homemade kind, that made masticating lumps of meaty pebbles a job, like chewing hardtack for a living. The only thing that had made it edible was the cans of beer she had in the fridge for me. That and plenty of HP brown sauce, helped wash it down and almost made it taste less like something someone from Birmingham would make.

The one night I hadn’t been able to get up to her room in the Halls she’d appeared at my front door again. I didn’t even need to look out of the window. I’d been listing to some CaptainBeefheart on the stereo. It was down low, which kinda defeated the purpose, but saved my dad from whinging about having to get up early for work in the morning and needing his sleep, as if he was the only one, but had tumbled sideways and was out for the count. Gillian chapping the door, and mum’s cheery, ‘just a minute,’ which cut through walls, startled me awake. Mum’s voice unfurled, stair by stair, coaxing Gillian up to my room. I could only hear mumbled replies.

‘That’s you then,’ said mum showing Gillian into the room and fluttering at the door.

Gillian didn’t need to say anything. Her face was wired for fury.

‘I’m sorry. I fell asleep,’ I said, flinging my feet off the bed and patting my pockets for my ciggies. There was a empty cigarette packet beside my bed, that I’d already crushed, but picked it up and looked inside it hopefully.

‘Here,’ she said, handing me one of her fags. ‘You coming up to mine tonight?’ she said, but there was a slight catch in her voice.

‘Yeh, I think I might,’ I said, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her onto my bed, before remembering that my dad was just a ball’s hair away, through the wall next door.

She giggled. ‘That’s good,’ she said laughing and kissing me, because I’ve got some news for you.