Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

It was a balmy night, one of those antihistamine infused hazy janes meddled with mellodrama and strange tastes tingling on the back of your tongue.

Vans hand was sticky in mine, our clothes clung to our bodies and our shadows merged on the wall we leant against.

Most of our friends had gone to bed or passed out, or passed out and gone to bed having awoken to grass stains and soil in their mouths.

We'd shared the last of Rudys shit cocaine and now we were talking, closer than close, the sky a strange shade of indigo as dawn threatened us from far away.

He was telling me about his family, about these half baked memories he had of early childhood visiting his cousins and long car journeys to liverpool. I'd not realised how close we'd been living our lives until he mentioned a hairdressers where his cousin worked now, a hairdressers I'd been dragged into when me and my brother had tried to cut each others hair.

Now though, as he reeled off road names and other stories I began to wonder how many times we might have passed eachother on the street when I was in a push chair wearing my dads cap and sunglasses and he was kicking a ball about the streets with his cousin.

"Don't you love memories like that though, dead normal ones you wouldn't even think were worth the effort it takes to tell them," he mused, I smiled back and told him yes, I did, that they were my favourite kind.

"You know every time you remember somet though your mind corrupts it a little bit, so your safest memories are the ones you can't remember... int that a pisser," he shook his head when I spoke, watching me intently as though every word I said shed a new light on his life. "You ever go down Stanhope Road?" I asked, "dead close to the river like, thats the road I was born on, literally, we lived in number 37 and me mam wanted a home birth, fancied herself as posh like... I was born at 4:24am on a Thursday night," I said softly, "I think I lived there for 7 years... did you ever go?" I don't know why I thought he would have been, it was only significant in the fact that it had once been my home. Still he smiled. "I used go school round the corner, an on weekends I used go ballet lessons down the community centre in the mornings an when my mam was late picking me up me and my friend phoebe used to climb the trees at play lord of the rings in the forest by the car park,"

"I remember that I think, me cousin had footy round the back of there," he grinned.
"Yeah I bet its the same place! We used to sit in the trees an watch the games, an sometimes we'd empty our waterbottles on them when they passed under our tree... always used to think that was hilarious,"

"Bet they loved yous pair," he smirked as we faded out and the conversation lulled a little, our voices softening as our eyes strayed for a moment from.eachother to Saffron and Matty who just like us were talking quietly, smoking a joint, all lonely silhouettes and shrouded in mist.

"You know he's no good don't you," said Van carefully.

"Why, he the type of lad who only kisses yous when no one else is looking..." I teased, lighthearted as you like, expecting to draw a laugh from his lips. Instead I got an argument.

"Don't think its like that Fizz," he started but I shut him up with a smile, my hand in his playing with his fingers as he trailed off.

"I don't," I said, there was a tenderness in his eyes that I trusted, he was waiting for me to admit something that I wasn't sure I could, studying me carefully trying to work out whether I was hiding something behind my smirk, whether there was pale doubt between my tongue and my teeth. "I don't want to be famous for fuckin you," I shrugged my shoulders exhaling as I did and passing him the joint, he took it carefully, if not a little warily, eyeing me up as if he wasn't sure he could believe me.