Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

I wandered off stage in a daze, drifting into the arms of our manager Alex, noticing the smile on his face twitch as he held me out in front of him and said something like,

"ahh my little prodige,"

I flashed him a grin but shook his comment off.

"I think that can be reserved for our Saffron really can't it," i smiled as she followed us into the greenroom glowing with something like pride and relief.

"i think, i think they liked us?" said Kitty as if still a little uncertain though it had been clear three songs in when we'd not been booed off stage.

"darlings, darlings!" suddenly Matty took over the room, and the glow in me faded out. I wasn't sure what it was about him which dampened my mood. Id tried my best to warm to him but something about the way the room always had to center around him grated on me. I always felt the need to put on a pretence, to be someone i wasnt so that i could be everything he was expecting instead.

Saffy however lit up on him, perhaps that was because all of his attentions seemed focussed only on her. Sometimes i wondered whether he saw the rest of us around her or just simply Saffy at the center of the room.

"Darling!" she beamed back at him, arms openwide melodramatic just the way our new friends seemed to like. "Weren't we just wonderful," she held her finger to her eye as if to wipe away an imaginary tear and i bit back a laugh suddenly realising what i should have realised all along. That she was taking the piss, that she was being ironic. Channeling the theatre mum she had grown up with.

"Stunning, magnificent, just beautiful,"

"muy bonita," I offered with a throwaway line.

"belisimo," offered Jazz, a chefs kiss and an eyeroll in my direction which seemed to go over everyone elses head.

"15 minutes boys!" shouted someone from the next room and i thanked the stars for the moment when they would leave us to debrief the way i had begun to enjoy. Just the four of us and a couple of joints. We could hotbox the green room and get as high as we liked talking about the songs we were keeping and the ones we never wanted to play again.

Matty nodded in the direction of the bathroom and Saffy looked to me before rising from her seat to follow the boys to the bathroom, followed by me.

They did a different kind of drug and that wasn't a critisism. It made you feel light, a little silly. A little less restrained than you'd felt all day.

It wasn't the coke i was used to but i loved it all the same.

"Well girlos, if every set you do is gonna be like that one you'll be headlining by the end of the tour," grinned George. I saw Saff roll her eyes, i felt myself roll mine.

"there'd be riots, riots of 15 year old girls,"

"Ah, my favourite kind," chuckled Matty, "You'd fit in quite nicely wouldnt you Fliss, you're basically still a minor," he smirked then and i couldnt tell if he knew something i didnt, if he'd found out about me and Van and was digging. Or if he was just taking a dig like everyone else did, at the baby of the group.

"I turned 18 last week so you can pipe down," i shot back with half a smile cracked for him. "Shouldn't you be focussing on cutting," i nodded to the sink and his credit card, i took out a house key and handed it over a little impatiently.

I looked between him and Saffron and felt a little pang of irritation because he was standing so close and I'd always liked it better when she was stood that close to someone else.

"Age before beauty," he winked at Saff taking the first key himself, only offering one to her and then me when the rest of the lads had had their share.

"oh charming Healy," Saff said back, putting on that deep honeysuckle voice she only ever used when she wanted to use her airs.

I was the last to take a line and so was granted the privilege of watching all their smirks grimace one by one. The shakes of their head. The looks of disgust. Still it wouldn't ever stop me following suit.

"Well ladies," stalled Matty, "we'll see you in an hour or two on the bus," i wondered if he had intended to sound inviting. I wondered if he knew that he'd failed.

I stood asside to let them all through waving goodbye to them one by one as they shuffled past, brushing up against us, all of them jostling for the exit.

I heard their manager make some snide comment about how the toilet was actually a tardis and then i closed the door, turned back to Saff and let out a sigh.

"What was that for?" she asked with a small frown and i tried to hold back my smile a little longer.

"oh you know, i was just daydreaming about this crazy mad first night of tour were about to have!" i was grinning by the end of my sentence. Pulling a bag of coke from my pocket laughing when her face lit up.

"Ugh my G," she beamed clapping her hands together fizzing over with excitement. "this is everything i needed tonight and more!" she squeezed me in a tight hug.

"oh same you have no idea," i grinned really believing that she didnt understand the feelings if sorrow and strange separateness i was feeling in that toilet back stage somewhere in Portsmouth, though actually she did.

That feeling like someone was missing. Like you'd been hoping to see them all day and finally as the sun as setting and the moon held that sift sorry glimmer around her, you were finally coming to terms with the fact that you probably wouldn't see them for an age.