‘I phoned to see if you wanted to go and get pissed.’
I almost said no, but then I thought about my empty house. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’
We drank to forget. Or, at least, we tried to.
‘Do you think they were already dead when the firemen carried them out of the house?’ Simon asked, staring into a half-empty pint of Guinness.
‘Can we not talk about it? Please? How’s Susan?’
‘Yeah. Fine.’ He fiddled with his coaster, tearing the edges off it. I sensed he wanted to talk about something but couldn’t spit the words out.
I felt the alcohol start to work, getting into my bloodstream and clouding over the memory of the fire. The world around me lost clarity. The lager tasted good. I felt good. I drained my glass. I got up to the bar to buy another.
We ended up in a club near the seafront. I felt old. There were a few other people in their late twenties, but most of the clubbers were late teens, early twenties, beautiful, skinny, fit. I hadn’t been to a club for months.
Simon handed me a drink. We leaned against the bar, surveying the crowd. Simon eyed up the teenage girls in their strappy tops and little skirts. I watched the crowd. The club was packed, but still they let more people in, until we were forced away from the bar by people struggling for the attention of the staff.
Two blonde girls in mini dresses that barely covered their arses slinked by. Simon said, ‘I’m off,’ and followed them into the throng.
Things were definitely awry in Simon-and-Susan land. Wondering if he’d tell me more, I drained my bottle and headed for the dance floor.
And that’s when I saw her: Marie.
She was talking to a couple of girls, laughing, her head thrown back, exposing her pale throat. I could only see her head and shoulders; the rest of her was obscured by the mass of people in my way. She was about ten feet away, but it might as well have been a hundred. I tried to push my way through the crowd. The moment I had seen her I had felt a jolt in my chest, a quickening of the pulse. After the night on the hill I had cursed my timidity, certain I had missed my chance to get to know her. Now, maybe, I had been given another. I looked across the river of heads between us and watched her laugh and brush her hand through her hair. I had to talk to her.
‘Excuse me. Sorry.’
I pushed through perspiration-soaked bodies, using my shoulder, clutching my drink to my chest, and finally emerged where Marie had been standing.
She was gone. I stood on tiptoe and looked around. No sign. I swore under my breath. Maybe she was on the dance floor. I edged my way into the moving mass.
I caught a glimpse of strawberry-blonde hair on the other side of the dance floor and headed over. But it wasn’t her. The hair’s owner scowled at me when I touched her shoulder, and her boyfriend took a menacing step towards me. I stepped back and allowed the crowd to swallow me up.
I leant against a wall that was wet with condensation and squinted into the maelstrom of strobing lights and smoke and skin. Where was she? I started to grow angry at the crowd. Why the hell had the nightclub management let so many people in? It was crazy. God forbid if there was a fire . . .
I searched for twenty minutes, finally coming back to where I’d started. In front of me were two girls – no older than sixteen – with black circles of makeup around their eyes, lips painted purple, and I imagined the two little dead girls, their lives choked and finished that afternoon, saw them standing in front of me, looking at me with blank eyes.
I squeezed my eyelids shut. Marie had probably gone home. It was time to call it a night.
As I moved towards the exit, the door of the Ladies opened and a couple of girls ran out. They grabbed a bouncer by a thickly muscled arm. ‘There’s some bloke in the Ladies, puking.’
The bouncer’s eyes narrowed and he and another doorman went into the Ladies. They emerged, holding Simon between them. His eyes had rolled up into his head and a smear of sick glistened on his chin. The two girls laughed as the bouncers dragged him through the exit into the fresh air. I followed and watched Simon hit the pavement. ‘Don’t come back,’ one of the bouncers warned.
Simon pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. ‘Wankers,’ he slurred, then threw up in the gutter to a chorus of disgust.
‘Come on, get up,’ I said, pulling him to his feet. He reeked of beer and vomit.
‘Richard. My mate.’ His eyes were all over the place. ‘I’m gonna write about this in the fucking paper. Those bastards have had it . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘No one gets it,’ he slurred. ‘Everyone thinks I’m the bad guy. But it’s just as hard for me.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
I managed to get him into a taxi and watched the car pull away. I shook my head. No doubt tomorrow he would have forgotten all about it.
I was about to head home when I heard a voice say, ‘Hello,’ and I turned around.
It was Marie. She was wearing a short black and gold dress and strappy shoes, and was carrying a small black bag. She smiled at me, a little ironic uplift at the edge of her full Cupid’s-bow lips. Two other girls stood behind her.
‘Your friend was in the toilets making a fool of himself,’ she said.
‘Friend? I prefer colleague.’
She laughed. Her large eyes looked up at me, big and round and wide awake. It struck me how little she was, and how pretty. The grime and sweat of the nightclub didn’t seem to have touched her. She looked like she’d just been for a pleasant stroll along the promenade. Whereas I must have looked terrible, with my hair all messed up, my clothes sticking to me and my eyes bleary from too much booze.
One of Marie’s friends said, ‘You coming?’ and she shook her head. They staggered off towards the taxi rank.
Still with that little smile on her face, Marie said, ‘So how are you?’
‘OK. Well, actually that’s a lie. I’ve had a shitty day. I came out to get drunk and forget about it. Except it hasn’t worked, really.’
‘Why don’t you walk me home and tell me about it on the way? My flat’s just along the seafront.’
‘Cool.’ I tried not to look too enthusiastic. I didn’t want to scare her. She was just being friendly, after all.
The nightclub was a pebble’s throw from the beach. We crossed the road and walked side by side along the promenade.
I told Marie about the fire. ‘It was horrible. Not just because two children died, but because I was so excited by it all. When I was taking the pictures my heart was really pounding.’ I thumped my chest in illustration. ‘I kept thinking, this is why I’m a photographer. Not much happens in Hastings, does it? The occasional murder that everyone gets hysterical about, or the odd drugs bust. But most of it isn’t stuff that you could take pictures of – not on the scene, anyway. So this fire was something different. We were actually there, capturing it. And it was aesthetic and cinematic, with the firemen running out of the house, the hysterical father, the concerned crowd. I loved the drama of it.’