Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Benji

London always had a habit of overwhelming me. It was the size of everything, the claustrophobic pubs crammed into old appartments, refurbished flats they'd turned into trendy pop up bars where you weren't allowed to use your phones and sporting a peado mustache was deemed perfectly acceptable and apparently trendy.

I felt around in my back pocket for my phone as it buzzed with a message from Van. He'd been out all morning god knows where, skipped out on a meeting with management and want for? Fliss I imagine.

He was always so quick to dote on a girl, fell for them instantly and then what... that was that, he put everything on hold for them, losing himself in them for a week or two until he snapped out of it.
I stood up from my seat, taking my phone outside as if it were a cigarette, calling my friend as if I were smoking.

The whole policy was ridiculous to be honest. Id take Llandudno over Shoreditch any day.

"Ight lid where are yous?" He asked I couldn't work out whether he was tipsy or high but I let it slide knowing that he'd have sobered up by the time he found his way to us.

"Some pub for wankers in Shoreditch," I yawned leaning up against the walls. "Theyve got a no mobile phones policy I have to stand outside with all you filthy smokers..."

Van laughed at the end of the line saying nothing for a moment as if perhaps he'd had a better idea. Something that appealed more to him than a bar in Shoreditch.

"Ey lid do yous fancy ditching and heading out wi me instead..." he asked, I could picture him squinting at the sun, cocking his head to one side as he hopped on a tube.

"Where to?" I sighed glancing over my shoulder at the shithole inside and my friends gathered around the table, looking uncomfortable as anything with their hands in their pockets and their eyes on their shoes.

"I dont know, we could ask the girls..."
"Oh..." I breathed, "I get it,"

He chuckled again trying to play it off as nothing.

"Whats that supposed to mean?" He asked and I could imagine the grin with which he was trying to brush me off with.

"Do you really think we should spend another night off out on the piss with them? All you've done this week is..."

"Ah leave it out lad I like her alright, I wanna make the most of her whilst I can... I might not see her for months..." he argued back changing his tactics quickly when he realised that I wasn't believing him the way I might have done once. "Katie will be there..." he sang knowing exactly how to get under my skin.

"So..."

"So...." he teased, "Don't you wanna see her again?" I could hear the train the background the signal cutting up and out every now and again. Before I knew it he'd be underground and our call would cut out. I sighed and thought about what he'd said.

Katie was a lovely girl, she seemed it at least. Lovely in all sense of the word too, she was sweet, shy and everything she talked about she cared about. Her eyes would light up when you touched a nerve, she'd come alive and get carried away talking about the things, the people she loved... and then she'd realise and she'd breath a little, she'd soften and she'd look at you with buttermilky eyes and smile shyly, giggle a little, retreat back behind her barricade so that you'd spend all night trying to make her do it all over again.

"Fine," I sighed, "where do they want to go?"

"I'll let you know..." he grinned hanging up the phone, leaving me to wander back inside and attempt to persuade the others to join me and Van on our night about town.

However after 3 more hours wandering Shoreditch, our night about town became another party back at theirs and for me, another night lying in Katies bathtub watching the light from the candles catch in the little glass windchime above me, refracting across Katies cheek as she smiled and a dimple broke out. One of us must have been saying something funny.