Hard Up

Cathy wakes up in a strange bed.  She daren’t open her eyes, but the pink glow of the insides of her eyelids, tells her its morning.  Her head hurts so badly that she can’t move without feeling that the excruciating pressure behind her eyeballs, will cause them to erupt from their sockets; and her tongue has the texture and flavour of the Student’s Union Bar carpet.

She knows this for a fact, because last night she downed a pint of snakebite and black in one, while a hoard of rugby players looked on, chanting.  A few depth charges later and she was prostrate on the beer-sticky floor, tugging at the rugger buggers’ trouser legs, in the vain hope that one of them might help her get upright again.  They were too busy making ‘elephants’ by this stage, though, to notice her: their cocks on display and trouser pockets turned out to make flappy ears.

Exhausted by the effort of trying to make it to her knees, Cathy gave up and lay face down, eating carpet; inhaling a nauseating infusion of stale lager and cigarette smoke.  “Fuck! I think one of them’s stepped in dog shit,” she’d thought; precipitating a tsunami of magenta vomit from her gob, all over someone’s white Adidas trainers.

Cathy now groans inwardly at the remembrance, and presumes that she was chucked out of the bar after that.  The bar staff turn a blind eye to puking in empty pint glasses, but they get annoyed when you pebble dash the upholstery.  Usually she makes it to the ladies’, pushing pouting girls out of the way of the mirrors, to puke up in the sink.  If it’s still early enough, then she’ll carry on drinking after the purge.

There’s a rattling fart and a groan from beside her and Cathy realises with deep regret that she has to open her eyes to find out who she slept with last night: if she’s lucky, they were both too drunk to do anything.  She reluctantly makes her eyes into slits and pulls back the duvet.  She stinks like Whitby Docks and her thighs are glued together.  “Shit, that means he didn’t even use a condom.”  The kebab-breathed moron snores on next to her.  It looks like Dave, the rugby captain, but his face is squashed into the pillow and his open mouth is drooling, so she can hardly bear to look at him.

At least it’s not my house and I can make a quick escape, she thinks, as she heaves her guts into the skid marked porcelain of another disgusting student house toilet bowl.

………………..

It’s a Sunday bus service and so mid-afternoon before she makes it home to her dingy shared flat.  Her flatmate Sue is baking in the squalid kitchen, adding the finishing touches to a huge fondant iced cake.

Cathy gawps at Sue’s latest creation.

“What the fuck’s that?!” she asks.

“It’s a cock cake,” Sue laughs, poking her tongue into her cheek like she’s giving a blow job. 

“You’re a filthy cow.  It’s even got big purple veins.  Who modelled for it?  King Whoppadong?”

Sue looks momentarily coy.

“Well, I did see him last night, but I could’ve made it from memory.”

Sue’s on-off boyfriend may be hung like a donkey but he’s a total user.

“Honestly Sue…” she begins to reprimand, but then she remembers that she isn’t entirely sure who shagged her last night and so guffaws at the phallic gateau instead.

The physical exertion makes her head throb.

“Urggh – I’m going back to bed,” she tells Sue.

“Have you forgotten it’s Sharon’s birthday?  We’re supposed to be going round this afternoon.”

She had forgotten and it’s the last thing she fancies doing. 

Pausing as she passes the open bathroom door, she notices that the avocado suite is in a state of disarray.

“Sue, what the fuck have you been up to?  The sink is hanging off the wall.”

The look on Sue’s face tells her all she needs to know.  She’s a big girl and it obviously couldn’t take her weight.

“Been doing it standing up, have we?”

Sue goes glassy eyed and grins from ear to ear.

“You can phone the bloody landlord,” says Cathy, rolling her eyes.  “Save a slice of cock for me.”

………………………..

That evening Cathy tentatively nibbles a slice of Sue’s obscene homemade jam sponge and flicks channels on the TV.  Last of the Summer Wine.  She wishes she were dead.

A huge pile of unopened envelopes sits accusingly on the coffee table in front of her.  She can tell from the franking marks that they’re from her credit card companies and the bank.  She gets up and stuffs them into the bottom of her wardrobe, where they join the existing mountain of ignored red bills and overdraft notices.

Settling back on the sofa she feels dread, like a wave of despair wash over her, followed by building panic.  The desire to escape, to run away, is unbearable.  But where is there to go?  So she rolls a spliff and helps herself to a glass of Sue’s red wine instead.

She’s retrieved the one pink envelope from the pile of hate mail, and recognising Aunty Val’s handwriting, issues a silent prayer that it will contain a cheque.  She tears it open, but it’s just a letter on floral notepaper, which she’s too disappointed to read.  She switches off her brain with cannabis and Sunday night telly instead.

…………………..

Monday morning and Cathy is getting ready to go to her lectures.  She tips out the contents of her rucksack onto the bed, hoping to find some loose change for the bus, among the detritus of used tissues, tampons and biros.  Instead, she spots an unfamiliar black leather wallet.

Flicking through the cards inside tells her that it belongs to Saturday night’s rugby player, but she can’t remember how it got there.  She retrieves a slim wad of creased notes from its interior and counts them.  Fifty quid – her heart leaps as she lovingly fondles the money.  “That should keep the wolf from the door for a couple of days,” she thinks, surprised at her lack of remorse, as she transfers them into her own empty purse.  She throws the wallet to her rucksack and decides that she’ll think of a way of returning it anonymously, but then she takes it out again and stuffs it under her pillow.  She’ll worry about it later, she decides.

To be continued.