I untangle my hand from the loop of my handbag, slip it through the gap under the glass and madam stamps my wrist. I’m now the proud owner of a black smudgy ‘G’ tattoo. I tentatively rub it with my thumb but it doesn’t smudge. I’ll have to find a way to get rid of it before I get back home.
It’s like being in a mirror-balled haulage truck. I have to fight just to get through the door and then I’m stuck, prevented from taking another step forward by the tight throng of bodies that fill the nightclub. There are people everywhere and it’s hotter than a furnace. No matter which direction I move in I am knocked, jostled, elbowed and nudged out of the way. ‘What?’ people shout over the repetitive, thumping dance track that fills the room. ‘What did you say?
The bar runs along one side of the room – gold, sparkling and floor to ceiling with bottles of every size, shape and colour. Impossibly beautiful bar staff stalk up and down, reaching for glasses, opening fridges and pouring drinks as though they’re working an alcohol-themed catwalk. Seating runs the length of the opposite wall; low leather-backed booths and black poofs are groaning with people sitting around grey smoked-glassed coffee tables. I overhear a girl tell her friend that you’re not allowed to sit down at those tables unless you buy a five-hundred-pound bottle of champagne or a three-hundred-pound bottle of vodka. No wonder so many people are standing in the centre of the club, crammed into the narrow walkway between the seats and the bar. I don’t bother getting a drink. Instead I inch my way through the crowd towards the other side of the room where I can see the bottom of a flight of stairs. Access is blocked by a rope and two burly security guards – they have to lead to the VIP area.
‘Jesus!’ I hear a cackle from my right. ‘You weren’t kidding about going for Alex Henri, were you? The look of determination on your face!’
I spin round. My pneumatic friend from the queue beams back at me.
‘It’s my agent!’ she nudges her friend who giggles like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
‘Jasmine,’ she holds out her hand.
I shake it. ‘Sue. Thank you, for what you did outside. I really appreciate it.’
She smiles. ‘No problem. If he’d have spoken to my mum the way he spoke to you, I’d have lamped him one. Rude bastard.’
I smile back, unsure how to continue the conversation but Jasmine fills the gap.
‘So,’ she glances towards the stairs and the security guards. They’re turning away a group of three scantily dressed girls. ‘How are you planning on getting to Alex then?’
I shake my head. I really didn’t think this through before I left Brighton. I’d assumed I’d be able to talk to him somehow, or at least get a message to him but I can’t even see him. The stairs lead to the balcony above our heads but, other than a few pairs of legs, I can’t see a thing through the spindly balustrades. I don’t even know if Alex Henri is up there.
‘Could you introduce me?’ I ask, glancing back at Jasmine.
‘Me?’ She throws back her head and cackles like a fishwife. ‘Darlin’ if I knew Alex, do you think I’d be standing here now, talking to you? No offence.’
‘None taken. I just … I mean, you’re very glamorous, you could pass for a model and the security guard obviously thought you were successful enough to have an agent so …’
‘Are you tryin’ to chat me up?’ She laughs again then, spotting someone across the room, frantically grabs her friend’s arm. ‘You know that guy,’ she says, leaning into her, ‘the one I was telling you about that looks like a cross between Andy Carroll and Ben from Hollyoaks? He’s only bloody here!’
She yanks her friend away and through the crowd without so much as a backward glance. I’m not offended by her sudden disappearance. I’m actually inordinately grateful that she helped me get into the club at all. I look back at the stairs. I’ll get into that VIP area if it’s the last thing I do.
Thursday 21st May 1992
I can’t believe I haven’t written in my diary for nearly a year. Initially I hid it in my sewing machine table because I didn’t want James to find it and then I guess I just forgot about it until now. So yes, nearly a year since I last wrote an entry and the same amount of time since I moved into James’s house. I’d like to say that my life is wonderful, that I’m thinner, happier and more loved than I’ve ever been but the truth couldn’t be more wrong.
I don’t know how I ended up here. I feel trapped, unhappy and more lonely than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel like my life is on a loop – get up, take a shower, put on jeans and t-shirt (in a size sixteen, I’ve put on a stone and a half since I moved in), have breakfast with James and his mother (she started showing her face three days after I moved in, sulk finally over) and then complete the list of chores she gives me. If I’m lucky that includes a trip to the supermarket so I can be around real people but, more often than not, it involves cleaning, helping her attend to her personal needs (her carer, if there ever was one, never materialized from her holiday) and sitting quietly in the living room to ‘keep her company’ while she watches daytime soap after daytime soap. I’ve taken to watching them too, mostly to try and block out the creepy batik wall hanging that stares at me with its big empty eyes from across the room. It sounds ridiculous but I get really bad vibes from it. It’s always watching me, wherever I move.