Losing It by Ross Gilfillan Read Free Book Online Page A

collected in their little groups. The uber cool boys, ironically and not so ironically called the Gods, hang around like bulls in the field. You know that lame old joke? The old bull and the young bull clocking a field full of cows? The young bull says,‘Let’s charge down there and fuck one.’ But the experienced, older bull replies, ‘No, let’s walk down and fuck them all.’ I actually get the joke now that I watch Dave Fletcher and his mates coolly appraising the available fanny, which for them is most of it. The kids who want to be cool but aren’t, hang out in another clique, each with one eye on the fanny and another on the Gods. They don’t have the easy, relaxed style of the Gods; everything they wear is this year’s brand, the latest style and the rips in their jeans look freshly made.
    There are the geeks, whose standing is now higher than the nerds, thanks to their expertise with technology and also to their heavily-framed glasses, which are finally cool. Then there are the loners, the wall-flowers, at least three gatecrashers from Mafeking Street, two nuns who are dancing together and us: the fat kid wasted on E, the Muslim drunk on Appletise, the gay kid who claims to have shagged every bird in the place and Brian Johnson, who has a complex about the size of his penis and may be hopelessly in love with Rosalind Chandler.
    It’s over two hours into the Prom and cracks are beginning to appear. It’s not only the kids who have smuggled in secret supplies of alcohol: Mr Crowley is sitting inappropriately close to Sarah Payne and Lisa Moreton on the next table to us and he’s telling them how his wife doesn’t understand him, that there’s more to him than being a teacher and something about ‘releasing the animal inside’. Sarah and Lisa are nodding and giggling and probably recording it all on their phones for wider consumption later. Smeggy Cleggy, our deputy head, looks terminally stressed as he tries to separate Dave Fletcher and Jennifer Davies, who are enjoying a grope behind the piano while he shouts noiselessly at an unidentified group in the darkness beyond the windows, betrayed by the dancing fireflies of their cigarette ends. He hasn’t noticed that Andy Ottewell is now playing some totally obscene mixes.
    Over by the fire exit, Diesel is dancing dangerously closelywith Lauren Sykes, his porky hands stretched over her bum while Faruk lurches about the room with a plastic glass of apple juice assuring everyone that he’s not drunk, he can handle it. ‘I love you, man,’ he tells me, as he passes. Then I see Rosalind again, her eyes aglow, skin bathed in orange and blue light, a puzzled frown on her face. Unusually, she’s on her own. It’s not often I see her without that other girl in tow – Teresa someone, she’s called and she hangs on to Ros like a terrier with a bone.
    But now Rosalind Chandler is by herself and actually looking like she might welcome some company. This is my moment and being a man – and a little drunk – I seize it. I begin to push through the jostling, bouncing bodies towards the place I think I saw her last. Various potentially disastrous chat-up lines are rushing through my head, Is it hot here, or is it just you? Fuck me if I’m wrong, but haven’t we met somewhere before? Do you come here often? (Why not come at my place instead?) None of the above must even begin to form on my lips when we meet. But I have confidence born of the finest cheap vodka and I’m certain I’ll know exactly what to say as soon as we’re face to face.
    Just then there’s a commotion in the crowd, which has begun to draw away from its centre, like the ripples from a shopping trolley dropped in a canal. The music I’m hearing is something old and iconic and DJ Andy O has pumped up the volume. Of course, it’s the intro to the Bee Gees’
Staying Alive
, always a crowd pleaser, but never more so than tonight. Something is happening in the middle of things and suddenly