Chapter 10
Mallory
I turn the engine off and peer out of the passenger seat window.
Before I take the hamper in my hands, something moves behind the rose bush, up on the porch.
There is someone stood at the door.
A man – I think – holding a plastic Poundland bag.
Yes, it is a man, but it’s not Daddy – or is it?
I can’t be entirely sure – it’s too dark, damn it – but I swear this person is too young to be him.
And no moustache or floppy hair. He looks about twenty, maybe even younger: very boyish, with a black Adidas cap, tracksuit trousers, his T-shirt soaked through by the rain, and he’s skinny.
He bangs on the door three times.
Where’s the boy’s coat?
There’s something in his other hand.
Flowers.
Oh, how sweet. A quote comes to mind. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Albeit his flowers look a little half-dead, but still, how thoughtful of him. It’s late, so he probably went out of his way to get them from the petrol station.
The pepper spray in my pocket suddenly feels like a weight, a heavy reminder of my own ignorance and prejudice that I have carried around with me for so long.
This evening will really be a learning curve, as I step into the realities of another demographic.
Why would I have been scared? How is that fair?
Who was it that said a writer’s job is to ‘step into the shoes of other people’? Did someone say that?
The man bangs his fist on the door again, louder.
I watch him muttering to himself, now holding the flowers over his head as a makeshift umbrella.
He hisses something into the closed door that I can’t quite make out.
I wind down the window an inch, in an attempt to hear him.
I don’t want to assume his mental state, but he does seem a little rattled, agitated, and actually somewhat wobbly on his feet – bless him.
He looks a little... dare I say, dirty? It is very wet, the rain—
‘Oi! Knobhead!’
OK, that was loud.
My body tenses.
He steps back from the door, then begins to move into the flower bed right in front of the downstairs window, peering through what looks like a lovely set of white wooden shutters. (We have similar – Ronan wants to change them because everyone has them now.) He starts screaming at the glass.
‘Oi, you pricks! Let me in!’
OK, interesting way to enter a property, but let’s face it, I’d be pissed off too if I was standing in the rain for this long. Especially carrying flowers I’d bought for the host. A little rude to keep him waiting.
The shutter blinds lift up momentarily, and a face peers through the slats.
I have to lean forward over the passenger seat – straining my eyes – but I can just make out a moustache, floppy hair, a distinguished look.
It’s him! Daddy! Yes, that’s definitely him.
He puts his fingers to his lips, silencing the man with the flowers, then gestures for him to go back to the front door.
The shutters snap closed.
I wait, stock still, as the boy does exactly as he was told.
When the door opens, two heads appear. One belongs to Daddy and the other, a blonde chap. Youngish.
But under the porch light I notice Daddy looks a little different.
Not that it really matters, but he looks a little older.
Come to think of it, he also looks a little angrier than his pictures suggested.
His eyes are dark – black almost – but alert, and I watch them begin to dart across the houses, checking the front windows, then over the cars lined up on either side of the road.
They land right where I am currently sat.
I am about to wave, Hi! It’s me! when I remember I’m not Ronan and look nothing like him, so shuffle down further into my seat and wait for them to scan right over me.
Once he seems content that he isn’t being watched, he opens the door wider.
Oh.
What is strange is that neither of them are wearing any clothes. At least, Daddy isn’t. The other one is just in a pair of tiny white boxer shorts.
Daddy starts gesturing to the boy with the flowers, pointing at the Poundland bag. Show me, show me now. I suddenly bristle, wondering what the man with the flowers will show these two men on this porch in Crouch End just before midnight.
I watch, transfixed, as the man with the cap and flowers checks behind him, left then right, before reaching his hand into his Poundland bag.
When he lifts it out, he holds it out to Daddy, passing him something.
What is it? They are trying to be discreet – which is a little ironic – huddling close together and probably blocking out the light, so the item inevitably drops to the floor.
They are all bending over, a blur of limbs and other bits frantically flailing as they scramble for it.
Three men on their knees in tiny white pants, an Adidas cap and not much else.
What am I witnessing? I momentarily feel like I am potentially not real.
Daddy suddenly stands up straight. The others follow. When he lifts his hand to the light, I glimpse something held between his fingers. A tiny see-through plastic bag, no bigger than a matchbox. Something is inside it.
Oh, God.
Oh no.
I suppose it could be salt? Or sugar?
Sugar for all the tea?
I immediately look down at the passenger seat where my picnic hamper sits, and sobriety slaps me like an aubergine to the face.
Shit.
I have made a huge mistake.
Daddy and the blonde boy take the tiny bag back inside the hallway and push the door to, so the flower boy is left on the step again, alone.
I watch him waiting, scratching the side of his head anxiously, then quickly slip my phone out of the cup holder, turn down the brightness so as not to draw attention to myself through the glass and pull up Google.
My legs cramp as I slide further down into my chair.
I quickly type what is T-Party – gay?
OK.
OK...
Reddit, where are you? The truth lies in Reddit. I’ve always said—
There. A subreddit entitled:
/r/gay: WTF is a T-Party?
I scan to the top answer, liked 421 times.
T is slang for crystal meth.
Oh, shit.
STAY AWAY from chemsex parties.
People die at those things.
Do not go to one, you’ll need more than Jesus to help you get out.
Chemsex?
Jesus?
People die?
My brain begins to unravel, a spool of cotton wool, stalling as it catches on knots of panic and clumps of dread and oh fuck oh fuck oh holy fuck—
Wait. Calm down. Maybe it’s wrong. Reddit can be really wrong: hyperbolic and overly dramatic. It’s really just people’s opinions, isn’t it? And those can’t be trusted. Wikipedia. Try Wikipedia. Wikipedia is far more reliable.
I type in the word chemsex (sp.?), trying to stop myself from dropping the phone into the footwell, to see a page actually exists.
Party and play (PnP), also known as chemsex or wired play, refers to the practice of consuming drugs to enhance sexual activity.
This sexual subculture involves recreational drug users engaging in high-risk sexual behaviours under the influence of drugs, often within specific sub-groups.
Activities may include unprotected sex with multiple partners during sessions over extended periods, sometimes lasting days.
The drug of choice is typically methamphetamine, commonly referred to as crystal meth, tina or T.
My phone falls from my hands.
Panic infuses me.
Existential panic.
Not least because I just turned up to a drug-fuelled orgy with picnic food.
And I expected to meet multiple men here called Tina.
But also because I have an immediate and disturbingly intense understanding that I don’t recognise myself at all.
I feel completely and utterly unknowable.
It is as if I have floated out of my body, and I’m looking down from above at a woman sitting in a car, waiting to join a homosexual subculture in her Lululemon anorak.
Days?!
How did I get here? I am aware I have a tendency to romanticise and/or fantasise, but usually it just stays in my head.
Not this. Not actually acting on the idea of entering a complete stranger’s house as a different person from the person I said I was, give the inhabitants buffet food and expect them to love me for it.
How much J?ger did I consume? Who the hell do I think I am? Certainly not the person the New York Times reviewer said I was. Unhinged bravery is very wrong. Just unhinged would be more accurate.
Someone shouts, loudly. I jump, stifling a scream, hand over my mouth, and turn back to the door.
Daddy is there again, but now he is talking agitatedly, trying to keep his voice low as he speaks to the boy with the flowers, trying to pull the Poundland bag out of his hand.
But the boy is not letting go. I can just make out Daddy saying something that sounds like You’ve fucking had some, haven’t you?
Give it to me now! while the blonde one in his underwear folds his arms across his chest, like some ill-equipped security guard.
He looks so young. Does his mother know he’s here? Where’s his mother?
What the hell am I doing?
I am about to turn my keys in the ignition, to leave, when I realise I will draw attention to myself, which I categorically do not want. I’ll wait for the porch to clear, then go home. To my husband.
Shit. My husband.
No wonder they locked me up.
Ronan cannot know.
He can’t...
Oh, God, I feel sick. Unwell. My head becomes immediately very light, like there is nothing inside my skull – which perhaps would make sense of how I ended up—
A thud.
I turn my head back to the porch to see Daddy slam a hand into the flower boy’s chest so that he stumbles backwards, releasing his grip on the Poundland bag, falling flat on his back on the checkered tiles. A loud crack snaps through the air as his body makes contact.
Was that his head?
I’m not supposed to be here. I’m really not. I need to leave.
Will they see me leave?