Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving by Martin Millar Read Free Book Online Page A

a year ago after a gig at the Marquee in Charing Cross Road. They had gone there with high hopes of some serious stage diving because although the stage at the Marquee was not high enough to present any sort of real challenge it was generally easily accessible. While the stage diving might be a little lacking in thrills and audience amazement, it could at least be performed a great many times.
    As it was too expensive in the Marquee for them to drink very much they bought a quarter bottle of cheap whisky from a supermarket. They drank it on the underground then headed into a nearby pub before going into the gig. Many people in the audience nodded or spoke to them as they passed because they were a well-known duo. As they stood at the bar, bored with the support act, young boys came to talk to them and offer them drinks. Elfish was in those days clean and was looking good. She drew attention, though not nearly as much as Amnesia, whose long blonde hair, tight black clothes and tattooed shoulders always brought young men flocking round.

    Mo was in the audience with some friends. Elfish was at that time having a relationship with Mo but tonight they paid each other little attention, staying instead with their own companions. They could do this without it seeming strange, or hostile.
    The band came on more quickly than they expected. As the first notes were sounding Elfish and Amnesia were still elbowing their way through the dense crowd. Amnesia arrived at the front first and was on stage before the singer reached his first chorus. Elfish joined her and together they launched themselves on to the upraised hands of the crowd. The band were popular at the time, and very loud, and before they appeared on stage there had been an excited atmosphere in the hall. Immediately their set began, Elfish and Amnesia’s activity ignited the crowd and there was a mass rush for the stage.
    The security men were completely overrun and soon there were stage divers everywhere, plunging through the air, arms and legs in all directions, thumping into the crowd, picking themselves up, struggling back to the front and repeating the process.
    Elfish and Amnesia were in their element. They were set up for yet another night of glee, and this feeling was shared by many of the people there. The singer’s vocals, lost in the badly mixed roar of screaming guitars, were full of disdain for the world and all its problems. He was a man who wished merely to get drunk, stoned, make a noise and have a good time. Elfish was not particularly interested in his lyrics but had she been able to make them out as she plummeted from stage to audience, drink-addled and immune to pain, she would have found herself, for that moment at least, in complete agreement with him.

seventeen
    MARION, ONE OF Elfish’s flatmates, asked Elfish if she could return the money she had borrowed last week. Elfish brushed aside this request, having no intention of ever paying Marion back. Elfish owed small sums all around Brixton, none of which would ever be repaid.
    â€œI really need it,” said Marion, but Elfish merely shrugged and said she was broke, and would try to find the money next week. Faced with this brazen lie, Marion was forced to give up.
    Elfish’s squat was a large old three-storey house, one of the many large properties to be found in the side streets of Brixton dating from the long-gone time when it had been a fashionable area. The house was crumbling away. The rain leaked through the roof and the wind came in through the gaps round the window frames. Plaster was missing from the walls and the meagre supply of cold water they had made its way slowly from the tank to the tap via a string of rubber hoses held together by metal clips.
    None of the five women who lived there felt particularly hard done by, however. Years of living in the area had given them some sort of immunity to bad housing conditions. They rather liked the house and would be sorry when