It was the first weekend of the Easter holidays and I travelled to London with the intention of taking my online friend Twi to Slimelight, a goth nightclub there. I arrived at the club at 11pm, then realised that she didn’t know where it was. I thought it was necessary to phone Sofie (another online friend) to get AevilSteve's phone number (AevilSteve being another online friend), but instead, I just went to find Twi.
AevilSteve was living in a house in London. He resided on the ground floor, while a woman in her twenties called Suzie lived upstairs. Twi was staying with him for the weekend. I was a bit unsure about the nature of our relationships. For a moment I thought I was going out with Steve, and at one point Twi told Steve that she loved him, but I was pretty sure she meant it in a platonic sense. My brother Noj was also staying with Steve.
When I got to the house, I asked Twi to write down what music she wanted to have played at Slimelight. I started naming bands that were often played – “The Cure, Depeche Mode, VNV Nation . . .” I forgot to mention Covenant but remembered The Chemical Brothers. We were standing beside an empty three-shelf bookcase, and I started filling it with CDs by the appropriate bands. A slim teenage girl helped me. Twi wasn’t very impressed, though. “I don’t want to ask for anything I could hear at home,” she said.
I offered her an old-fashioned computer game, and she, Noj and AevilSteve started playing it. The screen was split horizontally: each half showed a vehicle on the surface of the moon, which you had to control using joysticks. I watched them play: although it was late at night, I felt very awake. Twi claimed that she didn’t like it, but when the phone started ringing very quickly, all three were totally engrossed. A dog in the sitting room started barking noisily.
“Should I answer it?” I asked.
“No,” Noj said, getting up and heading for the sitting room, which was where the phone was, but it stopped ringing before he could answer. The dog left the room though: it was large and brown-and-white in colour. I glanced into the living room, where three middle-aged people were sitting.
Noj and I went upstairs to a bedroom. He said he was considering going to Slimelight. I didn’t think it was really his cup of tea, so I tried to dissuade him by telling him what music they played, but he remained interested. “How do they dance there?” he asked. “Bouncing up and down?”
“It’s more like shifting from one foot to the other,” I said. “Although some people dance more flamboyantly.”
“Like this?” he asked, twisting around and raising his legs. I noticed that he was wearing a short flimsy shirt, and I saw his underwear. It was white.
“More like flouncing,” I said.
“That’s ok, I can flounce,” he said. “Maybe Easter weekend, though.”
I spoke on the phone to my mother. She seemed a bit confused about my situation and it occurred to me to say as little as possible, as she probably wouldn’t approve.
It was 11.45 and I was losing Slime-time and in a hurry to leave. I told Twi to get ready and began to do so myself. I tried to put on my PVC dress, but felt distracted. “Yeah, that looks gothic,” someone lying on the floor commented. I realised I was wearing a white school blouse, a tie and dark green school trousers.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I said, and quickly took them off.
(Interpretation: I was planning to go to London the following day and take Sofie to Slimelight. Also, I was unwilling to tell my mother that I’d been there the previous weekend, as it would be seen as extravagant.)
