Bit of a Blur by Alex James Read Free Book Online

wisdom. She’d been naturally gifted with good looks and athleticism, which had always made her popular. She didn’t have to learn how to do anything to win anyone over. She had nothing to prove to anybody.
    We took over the flat downstairs. Flat 2, 302A New Cross Road, was lying empty because the building was condemned. There was no heating, we had to boil the kettle to have a bath, and even though there were only ever a few inches of water in there, it took all day to empty. The kitchen had a collapsing, rotten floor and was infested with slugs. They left their goo on the lino. They weren’t there all the time, but occasionally there were invasions. I didn’t mind the slugs. They were slow and quite interesting. There were nasty white ratty things in the cellar, though, and dripping pipes. It was precarious. The next building along the terrace burned down. Someone knocked on the door and said, ‘You’re on fire.’ Outside there were flames roaring out of all the windows and high into the sky from the roof like a huge incinerator.
    Living in that flat was like camping. There was a little walled garden overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy and the sun came through all the windows. A hostile motorbike beardy lived in the building behind the wall, but one day it was demolished and he was gone. That left us with half an acre of space, through a door in the garden wall. I became quite absorbed by the garden and planted anything that might grow. I threw old vegetables over the wall and they sprouted. The potatoes did really well. Graham came round and we made chips with them. We mainly cooked on a fire in the garden, using all the demolition debris. We were cavemen really.
    Ours was the only flat that had electricity by that time, all the others having been disconnected as bills went unpaid. Adam had gone to the States and the rest of the crowd moved on. Graham went to live in a cupboard in a house in Lewisham but one of his friends from Colchester called Mad Paul still lived upstairs. He was a sculptor and the main theme of his work was death. He wanted his degree-show exhibit to be his head in a box. He dribbled when he got excited, but he was an enigmatic presence on the whole. We gave him candles and he crept around in the dark alone with his mad thoughts.
    Justine packed her bags regularly but never left. It was tough to start with. The flat wasn’t safe. The whole neighbourhood was insecure. She didn’t know anybody and there was no money. In the band I had acquired a new family, plus I was at college during the day. She got a job in The Body Shop in Oxford Street. She’d been sacked from the Bournemouth Body Shop for messing around. She had an endless capacity for messing around. That was why I liked her. Oxford Street didn’t seem to mind either and she worked on the cosmetics stand giving makeovers.
    When we were together it was always wonderful. We brought bicycles up from Bournemouth and rode or walked all over town. Sometimes we took vows of silence. Sometimes we stayed up all night talking. We were young and in love and all we really needed was each other.
    We went to the Natural History Museum on my twenty-first birthday, Justine, the band, Paul and some old friends from Bournemouth. Then there was a party at the flat. Large numbers arrived. Adam’s girlfriend, Raych, set fire to a pile of debris behind the wall and it burst dangerously out of control. Someone fell through the kitchen window. Damon climbed on to the roof of Deptford Town Hall next door and changed the time on the big clock, which stayed at the wrong time for several years. Dave locked himself in the bathroom. Graham passed out early on the sofa. My mum and dad arrived in the morning; they were flying back from Hong Kong, and came into town from Heathrow to say Happy Birthday. We put the fires out and mopped up a bit before they arrived. The flat had been trashed, burned, soaked and soiled and it stank. I could see my mum was shocked at our