True Crime Story(28)
Anyway, I was in the car park on Grafton Street, basically finished for the day but just walking up to the roof to see if there was a view. I wish I could say I saw something or sensed it coming, but my head was all the way into what I was doing. I was on my last roll of film with some shots saved just in case. The advance lever on my SLR always stuck, so I think I’d stopped to jimmy it on when I heard footsteps, started to turn and got twatted on the back of the head. I hit the floor and a guy said, “So you like stealing white girls’ knickers eh, Sinbad?” I tried to say something but he hit me again. Ripped my camera out of my hands and smashed it on the floor. Then he just kicked me, my face, body and back until I passed out.
LIU WAI:
I personally don’t agree with violence in any circumstances, I think it usually says more about the attacker than the attacked. In an argument, anyone who has recourse to physicality automatically loses in my opinion. But I would also observe that sometimes those who live by the sword die by the sword.
JAI MAHMOOD:
Bruised ribs, two black eyes, sprained ankle, a dislocated knee and a bloody nose, but the only thing he actually broke was my camera. Things might have been better for me if he’d cracked my skull open instead, man, because that fucked me up. Maybe it was the hassle I’d been getting, the dirty looks around campus whenever I took a picture, but I think it was mainly that kicking. I’ve never owned a camera since. I just didn’t see the world in the same way. The woman who called the ambulance had to pull a pair of piss-stained boxer shorts out of my mouth.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
I waited for Jai but he never showed, so I ended up on this misbegotten night out with our other flatmates, collectively known as One Direction, and yes, that’s the night I met Zoe.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
It was October 15—I can tell you the date because it was mine and Zoe’s birthday. The idea was this big night out, but as it got closer, as Liu Wai made more and more plans, I just found myself dreading it. Another night fielding no-brainer questions from boys about being a twin—“Can you feel it when your sister gets hurt?”—or watching them just walk straight past me to Zoe.
Sometimes it happens that way with me. I get this urge to cut and run. So I came down with a mystery illness and stayed in with Chihiro. I’ve often wondered if things would have been different if I’d gone.
LIU WAI:
I thought it said a lot about their relationship that Kim wouldn’t even spend their shared birthday together. Like, what kind of twin are you?
ANDREW FLOWERS:
We did the Great Central, the Deaf Institute, Font, and Trof. It was one of those nights that feels like it goes on for days. We finally ended up in a club called Heaven. Not the worst place in the world, but if you were forced to spend eternity there I think you’d lose your faith fairly fast. The idea was to blast your brains out with drum and bass, but through all the Day-Glo dickheads and denim dungarees, I saw this familiar face and thought, Hey, isn’t that the girl you met on your first night here?
LIU WAI:
Zoe and me ended up in this amazing nightclub called Heaven, and I ran into Andrew at the bar. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d been holding forth in our kitchen a few weeks before. I started trying to talk to him but he didn’t listen or actually engage, he was quite drunk. He was squinting at Zoe on the dance floor.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Yeah, I thought. It’s the one whose underwear went walkabout while you were in her flat. The one who said you could talk another time when you buzzed her door. Well, I thought, this is another time. I should go over and buy her a drink, make my peace. And I guess it must have worked, because the next thing you know we were on the dance floor, kissing like our flight was going down.
LIU WAI:
It was an incredibly disappointing end to the night. Andrew was dancing with Zoe, trying to scream into her ear over the music, but it was so loud. She was just laughing and nodding—I mean, there was no way you’d ever hear her in that place either. Let’s just say they weren’t connecting intellectually.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Listen, I freely acknowledge that I’m every shade of shit rolled into one for not noticing the difference between Zoe and Kim that night. I did think, somewhere right at the back of my brain, that this didn’t seem like the funny, self-deprecating girl I’d met before. I couldn’t feel that same spark that had almost lifted my feet off the floor the first time. But who thinks of twins? Who outside of fucking Poirot thinks of twins? I hadn’t got Kim’s name the first time we met. But I’d seen that same sneering Asian girl with her. The same one who was even then giving me the evils across the dance floor. So in my head, in that moment, it all just clicked into place. When the girl I was dancing with told me her name was Zoe, I thought, Yeah, great, that must have been her name.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
I think I probably tried to stay awake for them, just to see Zoe and check in, but sometime after midnight, I nodded off. I would have been in my room asleep when they got back.
ANDREW FLOWERS:
Zoe and I went back to hers. Not to air her dirty laundry, but she knew what she was doing. I only say this because I’ve seen stories online suggesting I was her “first” or whatever, and I think we can probably put those to bed, so to speak. In the morning, while she was still out cold, I guess I had a chance to get a good look at her. And I guess some doubt was really starting to bubble up, because I definitely recall thinking, Wait, was this really the girl I met before? The one quoting “Blister in the Sun”? I couldn’t see anything in the room that would verify things one way or the other, but what I could see was giving me an extremely bad feeling. We’re talking Ed Sheeran posters, Harry Potter merchandise, the Twilight books. So I go out into the hall, thinking I’ll just double-check this is the same place I was in before…