Losing It by Ross Gilfillan Read Free Book Online Page B

that’s where I am, just in time to see Clive, for fuck’s sake, dancing the most perfect interpretation of this song I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot. I know he spends hours in his bedroom dancing to records, but up until now I haven’t paid it much attention. It was just something Clive did while I played GTA on his computer.
    But here is now, our own John Travolta, launching himself across the floor, hair flopping, groin thrusting and hand-jiving, as the crowd claps to the beat, everyone full of respect, loving hismoves, no-one taking the piss. It’s an A-starred performance. Is this Clive’s dancing twin? He jumps, he struts, he strikes poses, he whirls his jacket above his head before throwing it into the crowd. He pirouettes, adds a break dance where he falls on his hands, flips over twice, spins on his back and leaps back on his feet. Some girls in our year push in front of me, desperate to catch it all on their iPhones, totally floored, like everyone else, by this secret side that Clive has decided to showcase tonight. Tomorrow he’ll have a hangover the size of Japan, but tonight there’s no stopping him. The record is ending but Andy segues the last seconds into
You Should Be Dancing
and Clive takes off again, adding a crotch-splitting slide across the floor on his knees before an audience which is whooping and calling for more. Fuck me, I think, if I can’t get him laid tonight then it won’t be my fault. I can see half a dozen damply excited girls who’d go home with him right now.
    Which reminds me, I’m trying to find Rosalind and who knows, maybe take a step or two towards getting myself laid too. I scan the gel-shiny and wax-spiky heads of the crowd and spot something flashing in the lights. It looks like one of the tiny mirrors that Ros has woven into her hair tonight. The crowd pulses to the beat like a huge collective organism, gaps appearing and then closing up again. I get a tantalising glimpse of her, then my view is blocked by a swaying wall of torsos with upraised arms. I’m standing by some chairs on which a boy with hair like Jesus appears to have passed out, when the crowd opens for me like the Red Sea parting for Moses.
    It’s like this has been decreed by fate, that nothing shall obscure the moment when she lifts her face and looks directly at mine. Which is when I tip my glass of Sunny D&V all over Andy Towse’s crotch. She’s looking at me, there can be no doubt about this. Yes, me, Rosalind Chandler is looking directly into the eyes of Brian Johnson. And not just looking, but staring. Staring directly at me. I feel kind of faint, but excited too. I hold her gaze,savouring the moment. I try to look cool, as if this were no more than my due, that it was only a matter of time before she recognised me for what I am, a sex god.
    I’m thinking things are going to pan out. I’m going to go across to her, start a conversation. We’ll find somewhere quieter where we can talk. We’ll chat and we’ll laugh and we’ll wonder how we never connected before and there will be that look again, the one she’s giving me still. It’s true, then, I think. Time really does stand still at moments like this. It has to, because she’s been standing there gazing intently at me, not moving a muscle for what must be ages. Something isn’t quite right. The gears in my brain, which have temporarily seized up, begin to grind and turn once more. I become aware of the music again – it’s
Night Fever
now and the crowd is still clapping and chanting Clive’s name, but Rosalind Chandler is oblivious to everything, as she holds that look. The look of love, I thought it was at first, but it’s starting to look a little odd and even disturbing. Then the bag of books falls from her shoulder and her eyes roll back. Everyone else is watching Clive and only I see what is happening and I run towards her, colliding with a girl carrying a tray of Diet Cokes and just miss catching Rosalind as she