Boy Parts(66)

I went out in a group of about ten, starting in the pub. I looked around the tables and realised the party consisted largely of Flo’s friends, apart from Finch, of whom Flo and I share joint custody. I took cocaine and complained that the majority of my friends lived in London, unable to attend on such short notice. Neither Finch nor Flo pulled me on this. Finch just kept buying me drinks.

My memories of the evening are faint, from pub onwards. I bragged about the exhibition, and split half a pill with Flo, and bragged more, and danced. I recollect going off on one, pure party chat, about how you don’t have to be in London, and people do know my work, and I’m not just an Instagram photographer or whatever, and I’ll be everywhere after this exhibition.

I personally made my way through a gram of coke over the course of twelve hours, my memory coming back into sharp focus at around nine a.m. the following morning, with Flo shaking and sweating on my sofa, arguing with a stranger because he was trying to open my curtains. I drank a large glass of water and threw up in the sink – which Finch, smoking out my back door, declared to be the end to the evening. He threw everyone but Flo out, and dropped a Xanax in my hand. Flo said she’d stay up and keep an eye on me, in case I was sick in my mouth and choked while I slept.

I took the Xanax, and lay on my bed, while Flo took my makeup off for me with a cotton pad. I remember being sure that this was how I was going to die – choking on my own vomit, with Flo’s sweaty face being the last thing I saw. I wouldn’t have to worry about turning twenty-nine on Wednesday, or thirty next year. I wouldn’t have to worry about boys, or Frank, or photographs to burn. I wouldn’t have to get old and ugly. I’d missed the twenty-seven club, but I could still get a cult following, a posthumous retrospective of my work at the Baltic, Tate Modern, then MoMA. Maybe they’d even find out about the boy. Then my work would be worth a fortune – like how John Wayne Gacy’s snidey clown paintings go for thousands. But I woke up, disappointed, with the sun down, and Flo’s arm slung across my belly.





Happy bday love x

Sorry about your mam x

Will ddrop off your presents when ur back from London & have sent you some ??? for a treat when your down their

Don’t get 2 drunk tonight remember you have a train!!! Lol xxx



Dad has sent me ???, and Mam hasn’t even texted, unwilling to speak to me since I binned off the bar.

I wait on the sofa for Flo, who is lighting candles in the kitchen, and Finch balances a party hat on top of my hair, kicking through the balloons he’s spent the evening blowing up.

Flo has set up her little makeshift nest on my smaller sofa, and her bags of clothes are stuffed into the cupboard under the stairs. It’s my turn to have her tonight. She’s been at Finch’s since Sunday, driving him up the wall, I think. Complaining about his smoking and the fog of white spirit following him since he took up painting. He helped her make the cake – I could hear them bickering in the kitchen like an old married couple. I watched telly with my eyes out of focus, the comedown hitting me harder than it normally does.

‘Cheer up, duck,’ Finch says.

‘I’m fine.’

‘London tomorrow,’ he says. ‘That’ll be good.’

‘Yeah.’

He turns off the television, and Flo comes in with the cake. They sing ‘Happy Birthday’, Finch’s voice breaking like a pubescent boy’s, Flo’s high and shrill.

It’s a vegan chocolate cake. Dark, with ginger. Flo is a decent baker. I blow out the candles with a sigh, and the party hat falls off my head. Flo pours me a glass of red, and hands me a piece of cake. I take a tiny, tiny bite.

‘I told you she’d eat some,’ she says to Finch. I’d spit it out if I hadn’t already swallowed. It’s good. My favourite, actually, this specific recipe. ‘It’s her favourite,’ Flo adds, smug.

‘Meh,’ I say, shrugging. But I eat the cake. The first time I’ve eaten something this sugary since… well, that affogato with Eddie from Tesco. Flo smiles, doting. She hasn’t gotten me anything, knowing I’m never in a good mood on my birthday. It’s better to get something for me next week, when I’ll feel better.

‘Is she always like this?’ Finch asks.

‘On her birthday? Yeah,’ Flo says. I grunt. ‘Since she turned twenty-four. Every year.’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room, like my fucking parents or something.’ They talk, and drink wine, and I remain uncharacteristically restrained. Finch jokes: eating cake, not drinking wine, should he ring 999?

He leaves to smoke a cigarette, and a tipsy Flo shuffles over to me on her knees. She tucks my hair behind my ear and kisses me on the lips. I let her.

I think, this is fine, isn’t it? She could live in my house, and clean it, and eat me out on scheduled days of the week. I don’t have to tell my parents we’re together, because she sort of lives with me anyway, and they wouldn’t notice much of a difference. It’d be convenient, and it’d probably stay my inclination to start fucking choking my models. Because I know she’d be there, and I couldn’t hide it.

She’ll have to lose weight and cut her hair, of course, and I can always dump her if someone better comes along.

I wait to feel a twinge, a twinge of anything, something anatomical, or even one of familiarity. But I feel nothing. She’s so soft, now.