The Mess We're In by Annie Macmanus

Author:Annie Macmanus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-03T10:09:14+00:00

Chapter 19

Get Your Freak On

I am coming up on an MDMA bomb that Frank put in my hand an hour ago.

Shiva’s album came out on Thursday, but they wanted to save the big house party for Friday so that all the people with normal jobs would be able to get really stuck in. The whole living room of 74 Mill Road is full of people. It’s me DJing, and I’m delighted about it because Andy from Redstar is in the corner, and I’m safe avoiding him here behind the turntables. Anyway, he’s taking a hash cookie from a tray that Richie is handing around, so it won’t be long until he’s tripping his balls off; then he won’t be able to have a conversation even if he tried.

I invited Moses. He graced me with a reply: Thanks for the invite, Orla, but I’m already out that night. Link up soon!

It’s been three weeks since I’ve seen him. Three weeks of him haunting my thoughts at every hour of the day. I’m glad of the distraction of tonight. I’ve never known 74 Mill Road to mobilise like we did preparing for this album launch party. Kesh and Richie were in the kitchen for hours, Kesh chopping up fruit to make rum punch, Richie chopping up a coal-­sized lump of hash for hash cookies. Neema and I opened all the windows and vacuumed, and then draped fairy lights around the doorframes. Frank even bought a little strobe light to plug in at the decks.

I press play on AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’, and as the first chunky chords crunch through the speakers, every member of Shiva, all the Redstar Records lot and all of their friends stop talking, turn to look at me, and then simultaneously roar with approval.

Gwen has brought two girlfriends, Sal and another pretty, oval-­faced girl with a brown bob who is mooning all over Kesh already. There’s no sign of Amanda with the French plait. Frank is over in the corner, swigging from his beer bottle, chatting with one of the guys from Redstar.

– I’m here for all your DJing and drinking needs, Emma from Redstar said when she sidled up and pushed her coat under the trestle table an hour ago, and she’s been here ever since, pouring me vodka Cokes and helping me DJ, but not in an annoying way, more just enthusing about the same things I do. Turning to me to sing ‘Bombs over Baghdaaaad’ in between André 3000 and Big Boi’s verses, and to mouth the words of PJ Harvey’s ‘Good Fortune’ along with me. Those important things that need to be done.

– Neema! Emma shouts as Neema comes rushing into the room.

– Hi giiiiirls, Neema says, and I can see the MDMA is kicking in; she’s blinking like mad. She always blinks on MDMA. I think it’s because it makes her eyes open wider, so they get dry quicker. She leans in to talk so we can hear. – Someone’s already been sick in the garden.

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