New Year's Eve with my home friends. Funny that they come with that prefix now.
On the slow train to Liverpool. I hear, amid the rattling of wheels on a track, subtle hints of new accents, words sitting different in their mouths. I hear myself, me, a homing pigeon who flew South for the winter. Do I sound posher now? I try to swallow the self-disgust alongside my words, and stick to nodding for now.
The business of the night: tarting ourselves up. It does not seem such a long time since we were all seven, rifling through the dress up box. Now we are playing again. I opt for a black lace up tank instead of a low-plunging red number I had bought online in one of my more confident and probably wine-hazed moods.
I am showing enough breast to fit in with the group as a Girl Going to The Club. Not enough to make me go weird and funny about it. Having breasts makes me feel a bit like a farm animal, like two reminders of the undeniable biological end goal my body has - to have children to latch on and feed. I fix my bra, and put my descendants out of mind for tonight.
This whole getting ready process is interspersed with many vodka-and-somethings to keep me warm and buzzy and agreeable. We eventually reconvene for a drinking game. Never have I ever makes me feel like I'm still the seven year old dressing up, who has accidentally made the company of these young women. I do enjoy Party Bomb, though.
Then the hours calls. We must go. Like Shackleton and his men pioneering through the Antarctic, we charge through the East Village. In front, many groups of middle to pension aged, big-coated bastards walk by, warm and full-bellied leaving their civilised dinners, surely. In my head, I curse against early club entry times, the sole reason that sees us cross this alien demographic. I think of when I will join their ranks. The best we get from them is a few stares, with our bare legs and arms and tits out I wonder if there is any sympathy behind that look.
The worst, a passing man comments, 'there is no sense of shame anymore'.
My first reaction is to want to turn to him, and explain. You're wrong actually, I have a very well developed sense of shame, thank you, I never normally dress like this, I'm a good girl and well-behaved. I've got the longest skirt on here. In fact, I never once rolled my skirt in high school, actually. I chose this top over something worse. I actually go to Cambridge University, did you know that? I'd make an amazing granddaughter for you.
Then secondly - 'anymore'? The hypocrisy of these aged old pricks, whose generation invented miniskirts. Just because you married at the end of the sexual revolution does not make you the grandmaster cunt of all that is modest and good.
But in the end I keep walking and pretend not to hear.
The club queue, the cold still bitter, but I feel less like a streetwalker in the company of others dressed the same. Coked up lads in front. Hope there's something better inside. Remind self that admirable, intelligent man who respects my mind is probably not situated inside, abandon hope of pulling and try to have good time. Remind self that I have a whole year now to rectify my being a big virgin loser.
Good music. Bad music. The DJ is following this running order: hit, miss, miss, hit, miss, hit, hit, miss (repeat). The politics of the dance circle and my weak diplomacy. The countdown, the year becomes 2026, nothing changes. To my upset, no Auld Lang's Syne. Upstairs, downstairs, no up again, back down please, toilets, upstairs, downstairs.
Walk back is easier, no prying stares, a box of greasy chicken warming me. The flat, the sleeping bag I took on DofE with the same girls. Would I rather have done that again than tonight? Stop thinking these things, sleep for two hours, first train back. Home.
Will I spend New Years next year with the same people I wonder? Where will I be, who will I be? Maybe I haven't started the year as I mean to go on, but I think I can pull it back. And if not, there's always 2027.
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