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

they were evicted, as they inevitably would be.

    Elfish wished to phone Mo. She would normally prefer to do this from the privacy of Aran’s house but today she was suffering from a hangover and a bout of melancholy and did not feel like leaving the house. Gail was using the phone and Elfish fretted while she waited.
    â€œAre you going to be all day?” she snapped eventually. Gail pretended to ignore Elfish but in reality she was distracted by her rudeness and brought her conversation to an end, as Elfish knew she would. She glowered at Elfish.
    â€œDon’t interrupt me when I’m on the phone,” she said.
    â€œIt’s no wonder we get such huge phone bills when you’re talking all the time,” countered Elfish. Realising that this had given Gail an opening for criticising her for never actually paying her share of the phone bill, Elfish turned quickly and headed upstairs to the extension phone.
    A long wire ran from the living room up the stairs to the other telephone. These stairs were a dangerous obstacle course, littered with empty paint tins, cardboard boxes and an old fridge. They creaked ominously at Elfish’s footsteps. Elfish manoeuvred her way carefully past the various obstructions but before she could lift the phone some more creaking on the stairs warned her of an enemy approach. As none of the other women in the house liked Elfish she felt quite justified in regarding them as enemies.
    â€œWhat is it now?” she snapped.
    â€œI need my guitar strings back,” said Gail, and her voice was heavy with the implication that Elfish had no right to take them in the first place.
    â€œNo,” said Elfish. “I need them.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    â€œYou never play your guitar.”

    â€œWell, that doesn’t mean you can just walk into my room and take the strings off it.”
    Gail marched past and on up to Elfish’s room to claim back her guitar strings. Elfish cursed, and wished that the stairs might collapse and bury Gail in a pile of rubble. It struck her that the next time the house was empty she would take Gail’s guitar and sell it. This thought cheered her as she waited till Gail had finished removing the strings and walked stiffly back downstairs. It was now time to phone Mo.

eighteen
    SHONEN WAS MUCH more pleased to receive a visit from Elfish than Elfish was to be making it. They used to be good friends but these days Elfish generally tried to stay out of Shonen’s way because Shonen suffered seriously from bulimia. Elfish found it hard to muster much sympathy for this.
    Shonen would eat food and throw it up again at an incredible rate. A visit to her house meant a long series of waits while Shonen made feeble excuses to leave the room and vomit up whatever junk food she had just consumed. Elfish found the whole process most frustrating and could barely resist the temptation to shout at Shonen, “Don’t eat it if you don’t want it!” although this of course is not the recommended way to speak to anyone with bulimia.
    Leaving the room to be sick could happen anything up to ten times in a two-hour visit. While Shonen’s bulimia made her feel so guilty about eating that she would be obliged to stick her fingers down her throat and make herself sick after bingeing, she would also vomit spontaneously at times of serious anxiety. This, thought Elfish, added up to an incredible daily rate, unless being in company made Shonen more upset than usual. Possibly she controlled it better on her own.

    Elfish explained the purpose of her visit while Shonen sat nervously on the edge of her chair, eating crisps.
    â€œI am obliged to learn the entire Queen Mab speech, as spoken by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, which amounts to forty-three lines. I need help. I have come to see you because you are an actress and must know how to learn lines.”
    Shonen was doubtful. Her chosen speciality was physical theatre, in which