Friction (14 page)

Rebecca and Justin are entwined. They're in the living room of Rebecca's newly acquired flat in Hulme. Watching television in the soft vanilla light of the lounge. The smell that you notice is coming from the last surviving particles of the exquisitely cooked meal they shared this evening. A prawn curry with coriander and sweet potato. Over the next few minutes the smell of quality cuisine will be overwhelmed by the aromas of three thick, scented candles burning on the coffee table: lavender, tea tree, hemp.

‘Would you like some more wine, Becca?'

‘Yeah, I'll get it.'

‘No, you stay there. I'll bring it through.'

Justin withdraws his fingers from Rebecca's hair. She feigns a kind of blissful weightlessness and allows her head to slump backwards on to the cushions. This is a way of showing him that his subtle massaging was a success. A way of showing her appreciation.

‘Oh, that was heaven. I'm so tired.'

The wine has been left to chill in the fridge because it would have been spoiled in the warmth of the room. Justin pours it slowly and the sound of cold, trickling liquid merges with the serious voices coming from the television. The television screen is full of protesters. Antiporn has begun.

‘Where do they get their energy from, Justin?' Rebecca asks, picking up her wine glass from the coffee table and taking a minuscule sip.

‘The same place as us, I expect. Their dismay, or probably just their boredom.' Justin watches the screen with unresolvable anxiety. He finds it hard to watch civilisation fuck up in the face of its participants. So does Rebecca. They both believe in sex. Having replaced her own glass on the coffee table, Rebecca picks up Justin's and hands it to him.

‘They'd think we were monsters, wouldn't they?'

‘Yes, they would. They'd think we were sick,' says Justin, returning his wine, untouched, to the coffee table.

‘Are you warm enough?'

Winter has nailed blackboards to the window frames. Even the streetlights struggle to be noticed. They emit a sheepish yellow glow, scarcely capable of illuminating the tree branches that sway no more than metres from their bulbs. Manchester is under siege from cold and rain as repetitive as breathing or sleep. The city is soaked, and has
been for what seems like years. Wet stone. Cars fizzing through roadside puddles. The sound of splashing and the whisperings of winter: how long can this be sustained?

Year after year, Manchester's inhabitants are gobsmacked by the unfaltering resolve of bad weather and its ambition to eat up the year with damp. Its commitment to stealing days. Each year brings the eternal novelty of a dismal climate and its attendant miseries: melancholy, wet socks and foul moods. Summer is remembered as childhood is: a collection of unreal memories and unappreciated joy.

Police reports suggest that there were as many as ten thousand people congregated and cold in and around Albert Square today. Justin and Rebecca watch in disbelief as the crowd huddle and shout on the television screen.

‘How many of these people do you think are secretly perverts, paedophiles and submissives?'

‘Fuck knows. Countless. Most of them probably.'

The crowd gathers in support of an increasingly popular campaign group lobbying to impose strict constraints on the production and distribution of pornography. Antiporn. The group, led by a retired primary school headmistress, accuses pornographers and specifically the television channels, websites and shops that sell pornography of an open and bloody war on childhood. The idea is that inefficient modes of censure on the visuals of hardcore sex mean that children are being, in effect, parented by pornography. Youth-mutilating images of far-fetched and obscene acts of sex are falling into the wrong minds. Childhood scarcely exists. It has been robbed of its innocence. It is as sick and guilty as the rest of us.

The cheerfully middle-aged news presenter certainly seems surprised by the turnout. He watches as his attractive
co-presenter relays the details of the event. She utters the words ‘sex habits' and the motions of her mouth seem in sudden slow-motion. A nation of men shift in their seats.

The news item attempts to, and partly succeeds in incorporating the affair into the long and glorious tradition of mass provincial idiocy. But the footage of the protest itself shakes free of constraint and makes an impression on the viewers. Makes them scared and squirming.

The volunteer army of a geriatric nation is out in force, of course. But youth itself is represented, too. Young boys and girls in waterproof clothing hold banners declaring that ‘The End of Innocence is Nigh', ‘I'm Tired of Being a Porn', ‘Rochdale Says No to the Freedom of Pornography'.

When the ex-headmistress takes to a podium and addresses the crowd, the stakes are raised. She is ruthless and determined to shock. ‘What,' she implores, ‘will happen to these young lives exposed to images of girls blocked up in every conceivable orifice by phalluses? What kind of a role model is a man preoccupied with soullessly enslaving women into sexual malpractice, or a woman whose thirst for semen can never be quenched? We must fight. We must prevent this collapse. Protect youth. Protect the future.'

‘Jesus. The pornography of conservatism,' mutters Justin, his lips locked in a small, scared grin.

‘Fucking right. Turn it off,' agrees Rebecca, who famously believes that free trade has got fuck all to do with freedom. Has she mentioned this to Justin? She can't remember. Probably.

Justin, whose hair has been growing steadily since the night he first met Rebecca in the Nude Factory, leans forward for the remote and a moment later the TV is quiet. The voices of protest die down.

‘Thank God for that.'

Justin drifts back into the slumped position he'd previously been enjoying and is greeted by an affectionate headlock from Rebecca. In a moment of energy, she runs the palm of her free hand vigorously across the top of his head, causing his hair to stand on end in static shock. He hates his hair. He rather resents Rebecca for demanding its growth in the interests of their experiment and in accordance with her deep mistrust of the shaven head. Justin is quick to retaliate. He rotates his body and sends a pointed finger hard into Rebecca's ribs. This is a time-honoured method for causing brief and disabling agony. Rebecca's body blurts and spasms as if she's got fifty thousand volts of electricity searing through her veins. And now they're laughing, hysterically laughing in this warm, medium-sized apartment. Oh, yes, real shrieking laughter. They're feverishly fumbling with each other's bodies, finding numerous ways in which to inflict fleeting and hilarious pain. A knuckle to the knee cap. A swift dead arm. A deadly flick to the ear. What larks, what fun. Rebecca clasps Justin's nose between her thumb and her forefinger and gives it an almighty tweak. Ouch, it wrecks, oh, it hurts like hell, you bitch. Then he's pushed over, his head nestling under the arm of the couch, his hands repairing his nose with their warmth. Oh, the bitch, oh, what friends. Sighs all round, small chuckles in memory of the shrieks, haha, what friends, what friends.

‘You're a fucker,' says Justin, still holding his nose with both hands.

‘Well, you're a sexual deviant who's spoiling childhood for the kids. Think of the children!'

‘Fuck 'em.'

Justin walks over to the window and writes ‘Rebecca is a slag' in the condensation with his finger. The lettering is conspicuous against the black of the night. Right on cue, Rebecca skips over and quickly scrubs out her own name and replaces it with Justin's. ‘Justin is a slag.' The two young people laugh.

‘I should be going,' says Justin.

‘Yeah, I've got uni in the morning, I can't be late for my date with Dostoevsky.'

‘Fucking student.'

Rebecca is perched on the end of the couch, looking up at Justin. With his hair long, his features seem to soften. In the months since they met, Rebecca has noticed a more general softening in his character, too. He is not the mysteriously pissed punter who praised her tits at the Nude Factory. He is calmer and more calculated. He has become the sexual experimenter he wished to become. Yes, the experiment is everything.

‘What do you want to do about Wednesday?' Rebecca asks, following him down the hall to the front door, watching as he selects his coat from the various hooks and prepares to face the cold.

‘I want to go to that thing in Cheshire, that “Fuck Power” thing. I wanna have sex with Margaret Thatcher.'

Me too, thinks Rebecca, and doesn't Justin look wonderful in his large winter coat? The type of man that might hold your attention at a dinner party, while modestly explaining his full-time job as a total hero. What am I thinking? she thinks, I must be an idiot. Just as Justin's nodding goodbye and opening the door, she remembers Johnny. When Justin found out that Rebecca knew a twenty-one-year-old virgin, his mind started to formulate plans.
Virgins are useful things when you're experimenting with sex. Good guinea pigs. Yes, indeed, the experiment is everything.

‘I'll talk to Johnny this week, too. About the plan.'

‘Yeh, make sure you do. That's important.'

‘I will. See you later, Justino. Adieu.'

‘Goodnight.'

Click. The door closes and Rebecca turns in the direction of the kitchen because she wants to take a cup of tea to bed with her. En route she picks up the glasses of wine and, while the kettle boils, she will carefully decant the contents of both glasses back into the bottle. Her life is as sturdy as ever, as if its feet are spread apart and rooted to the ground, hands outstretched anticipating attack, fists clenched and poised. Not even the whirlwind abnormality of Justin and their society-saving sexual adventure can destabilise her mind, her stripping income, her studies, her thoughtfulness. She continues to sleep soundly and wake with open, interested eyes.

The five thousand pounds that paid for Justin's car virtually leapt out of his bank account. The moment the inheritance registered it all began bursting out, evacuating in the direction of prostitutes, restaurants and, in the case of the car, a second-hand Peugeot dealership in Longsight. It's a modest automobile, no need to splash out on anything too fast or beautiful. It's just a car. Just something to aid the adventure. The project: happiness.

Justin's right hand hangs off the bottom of the steering wheel, nonchalantly negotiating the plodding traffic of south Manchester with a limp wrist. He's been spending Sunday evenings round at Rebecca's since the experiment
began, watching films, TV, eating good food. It had happened very naturally. It was surprising to them both that they found this regular and relaxed meeting so helpful. It allowed them to carry out the sexual side of the experiment with such aplomb. The Sunday evenings together instil a sense of unity. They never experiment on a Sunday. Never screw. This gives the more unsavoury dimensions of their alliance credibility and generally makes their investigations more fun and, perhaps, more moral.

But they're yet to find anything, happiness or whatever. They've had some fun, of course, but the fact is, they're fifteen thousand pounds down and still no closer to finding any answers.

CARLY HAS BEEN
considering opening the parcel by the front door for over an hour. Perhaps, if she had a job, the parcel wouldn't be so fascinating and inviting, but she doesn't, she's bored. She was aware that it had been delivered early this morning. She had heard Steve lugging it in and had wondered what the fuck it was. The parcel is large and covered in about half a dozen stickers, some with Japanese writing and others in English. It came from overseas and is addressed to Steve.

On the breakfast bar, however, there is an envelope with Carly's name on it. She lifts herself up on to one of the three high stools and leans in towards the letter. ‘Carly,' she reads, written in Steve's handsome handwriting. It feels a little like romance. She sits alone in this attractive flat, cigarette in one hand, burning grey smoke into white morning light, a note from her loved one directly in front of her. This is my life, she thinks. ‘Carly.'

The envelope contains two hundred pounds and no note. She eventually discovers that on the back of the envelope
Steve has written ‘Back Wednesday'. As an afterthought, she guesses. Or perhaps out of guilt: the result of some sudden and arresting fit of morality. She counts the money three times, tens and twenties, two hundred pounds for the two and half days that Steve will be away at his parents'. Two hundred pounds, but no note.

Around the time that Carly appeared at the Magistrates' Court, she and Steve attempted to separate. It was all very amicable. As if they both realised they didn't have the depth or closeness to negotiate her trial for ABH together. They even made jokes about it: we'll try a trial separation for the period of the trial. Ha. Goodbye. See ya. Carly went to live with her mum and Steve didn't even attend court. He just waited for the phone call – they let her off. By which time Steve was getting lonely at home, tapping his foot to his mid-tempo desire to fuck her. They reunited and were smiling and together once more.

The attack on the girl was Carly's first offence. She got a warning, if she fucks up again she'll face prison. It was clear that the judge couldn't bear to punish Carly too severely. She looked so beautiful in the dock. How could he send her to prison? She might be spoilt or damaged in some way. The judge didn't want that kind of guilt. Didn't want such beautiful blood all over his hands.

For Carly, the trial was testing. No more violence, she decided. She lost her job at the shoe shop. She now spends every single day alone in the house watching TV. She jokes about learning to cook but is yet to bother trying. Fuck that, she reasons. Each evening Steve comes home with a takeaway. They eat and their days fade softly to sleep. These are TV times.

It's in the context of this boring televisual period in
Carly's life that the parcel arrived, bringing with it promise and excitement. Carly grinds out her cigarette and stares across the room to the front door, where the parcel seems to pulsate with possibility. A Trojan horse. She's so bored. The parcel is an attack on her sweet, red heart, which beats faithfully in accordance with the television schedule. It must be opened.