I don’t know if you know Bristol? It’s a crazy, mixed-up sort of place, but I like it. Anyway, that’s where I live, in a flat, a basement one. It’s not great-looking, mind. Like, the paint’s peeling off the wall when you walk down the steps to the front door, that sort of thing. I’ve been here since I left Mum’s four years ago. She’s on her own, so she was a bit sad when I moved out, but then, I had to sometime.I moved in with Izzy, a girl I knew. She was fun, and I liked it when we did things together; we had lots of laughs. Then she got fired from her job for nicking stuff and she had to move out. Silly cow.

   Then, at the end of July, Jay turned up. She’d seen my ad online and got onto it straight away, so I was dead lucky. Her proper name’s Jayna, Jayna Williams, but she calls herself Jay. I don’t know why, unless she can’t be bothered with the whole word. I think Jayna’s a nice name. She said she’d just split up from her latest boyfriend, Rocky, and when I asked her why, she didn’t want to talk about it. The way she said it, though, made me think she goes through boyfriends quite regular.

   Jay’s really up for it, if you know what I mean — larger than life and loud with it. She says I’m just as bad, so that’s probably why we row about things. She says all my clothes are shit and I say all hers look like they’ve had some sort of accident with a sewing machine.

   There’s always clearing up to do, and it don’t help when Jay keeps having parties. When she moved in, she said did I mind about her having them, and I said no, as long as I was invited. I don’t know what it is about her parties. Word gets round and people come from out of the woodwork, and they’re like beings from another planet. She’s got one going tonight, when I get home from work. She sees me and stumbles over. She wants a light, I think. There’s bottles everywhere and music blasting away, and you can’t hear yourself.

   ‘Who’s that girl?’ I shout.

   ‘Which one?’

   ‘The one you were with. Over there. The one with them stupid things in her ears.’

   ‘Oh, her? That’s Zed.’

   I look again. She’s got spiky hair, jet black, like it’s dyed, and black all round her eyes. And she’s like, skinny as a rake.

   Jay’s talked about Zed before. How can someone be called ‘Zed’? She knows one of Jay’s friends, I think she said. I can’t remember much else she said about her, but she looks the sort of girl you wouldn’t want to mess with. 

   I decide to tell Jay what I’ve done about Clive, but she says she don’t know who I’m talking about.

   ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ I say. ‘He’s the one that saved me from those morons after you walked off at the funfair. The other week. He wanted me to go and buy something in a shop.’

 

   What happened was this: Jay’d said we should go the fair on the Downs, said it’d be fun. I’d been like, ‘What? Up there?’

   And she was like, ‘Yeah, why not?’

   And I was like, ‘It’ll be full of screaming kids.’ At twenty-four I hadn’t fancied that.

   And she was like, ‘No, it won’t.’

  So, we’d gone. We walked around, seeing what was what, and after about half an hour we ended up in front of the Waltzer ride.

   ‘D’you want to go on there, then?’ I said.

   ‘No, that thing makes me throw up,’ she said, sticking out her tongue and making a stupid face.

   We just stood there for a bit and Jay lit a joint, and I looked to see if anyone was watching. There were some blokes staring, and I nudged Jay to take a look.

   ‘Fuck ’em,’ she said, loud so they could hear. ‘They’re the weirdos, not us.’

   Jay walked off, saying she’d seen her friend Malc, and I was left there on my own, like a right muppet. One of the blokes came over and started trying to chat me up. Then someone else appeared, and this was Clive, and he saw the bloke off.

   You couldn’t miss Clive ’cause he was tall with enormous great muscles, a tattoo of a lion on his neck, a T-shirt that said ‘BS2’ on the front, army style combat trousers, vicious boots and a red baseball cap on the wrong way round. And I reckoned I could see the butt of a knife sticking out of one of his side pockets.

   Clive said he knew the bloke and he was bad news and a right pillock. Then he bought me a drink from what looked like a converted caravan and asked me if I wanted some easy money. He said I just had to go and buy something in a shop and get it delivered.

   I told him to eff off, but he said it’d be worth fifty quid, and I was like, ‘Yeah, well, I’ll think about it.’

   He said he had a party at his place that night and I should come, and he gave me his number and his address. He’d had a car parked up there on the Downs and he’d driven me back here, back home. I reckon he fancied me.

   Now Jay’s looking at me like I’m off my head. ‘Sounds fucking stupid,’ she  says. ‘You doing it?’

   ‘Yeah, I am,’ I tell her, ‘but it was odd ’cause I called him from work today and he said he didn’t want me to do it after all. I was like, “Why not?” and he was like, “Never you mind” and I was like, “I need the fucking money” and he was like, “Tough” and I effed and blinded some more, and he was like, “Well, okay then.” He said he’d pay me fifty quid to go, and I said a hundred and we agreed seventy-five.’

   Mum’s always saying I swear too much, and I tell her it’s what I heard all the time from the other girls at school, so that’s why.

   Jay don't look that bothered and hands me what she's smoking. Knowing her, it could be anything. I try it. It's foul. I give it her back and before I can say anything else, some bloke's dragged her away.

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