At some stage they’d drifted away from her friends to join another member of Jerry’s band and the girl he was with, a striking-looking brunette called Nancy, who was older than Janey, with a slightly world-weary air about her.
At first she’d merely been slightly surprised when Jerry had started rolling his own cigarette, but that had been before Nancy had explained to her that it was a cannabis ‘joint’. Janey knew people who knew people who smoked cannabis, but as far as she was aware, no one in her immediate group of friends did so, although it was talked about a great deal by some of the more daring members of the group, as something they would like to do. And now here she was with someone who was actually doing it.
Janey had been impressed but at the same time had felt slightly alarmed. Nancy had obviously guessed what she was feeling because she had dared her to try one.
Janey had wanted to refuse, but somehow, what with Nancy laughing at her and Jerry putting his arm round her and her hugging her whilst he put his own ‘joint’ to her lips, it had been easier to give in.
At first she had thought the roll-up was going to make her sick but then as her nausea had cleared she had started to feel pleasantly light-headed and then even more pleasantly giddy.
Before too long she had been laughing uproariously with the other three, and feeling part of some wonderful, special privileged world to which only they had the key.
She and Jerry had danced again, Jerry putting his hand up her skirt and whispering to her that he wanted her to take off her knickers. But then his friend had tapped him on the shoulder saying that they should ‘swap girls’ and Janey had ended up dancing with Rick, the band’s drummer, who had stuck his tongue so far down her throat when he kissed her that Janey had hardly been able to breathe.
Janey couldn’t remember when they had left Eel Pie Island although she could remember the four of them climbing into Rick’s Morris Minor and then Rick driving them back to London and Jerry’s bedsit. Which was where she was now–and thankfully alone.
Janey pushed back the bedclothes, keeping a wary eye on the door as she pulled on her clothes, relieved to discover that her coat and her handbag were on the floor under a chair.
Outside the bright light of the pale winter sunshine stung her eyes. Her head was pounding and her legs wobbly, the feeling at the top of her thighs making her glance anxiously at her reflection in a nearby shop window to see if she was actually walking like a jockey who had spent too long in the saddle. Her own mental reference set her face on fire. She really didn’t want to think about what had happened when they had got back to the bedsit. How they had all smoked another joint and how then Nancy had taken off all her clothes, encouraging Rick and Jerry to help her, whilst Janey had looked on with what had then, thanks to the cannabis, been a totally unembarrassed curiosity as Rick had stroked Nancy between her legs, whilst Jerry had fondled her breasts. Janey quickened her walking pace, wishing she had been granted the blessing of a total loss of memory where the events of last night were concerned.
She didn’t want to remember what had happened, she didn’t want to think about it and she certainly didn’t want her head to be filled with the shamefully erotic images that were now dancing around tauntingly inside her, just as she herself had danced around the bedsit last night, totally naked, in Jerry’s arms, whilst Rick had pressed up behind her, joining in their dance.
‘A delicious piece of super sexy filling in the men’s sandwich,’ was how Nancy had described her, before pulling Rick off Janey, then pushing Jerry away and starting to dance with her herself.
It made Janey want to writhe with shame and guilt now to remember that when Nancy had started touching her breasts, instead of stopping her she had simply laughed. Just as she had gone on laughing when Jerry had joined in and slid his hand between her legs, taking her nipple into his mouth whilst Nancy cupped her breast for him. Rick had started rubbing up against Nancy’s back, cupping her breasts from behind and telling Janey to lick and kiss them.
Janey shuddered.
She hadn’t done so, but only because Jerry had picked her up bodily and carried her over to the bed, burying his face between her wide open legs.
The sudden tightening of her insides, as her body remembered that incident with embarrassing pleasure, brought Janey a fresh surge of hot shame.
Shortly after that Rick and Nancy had joined them on the bed and soon they had become a writhing mass, stroking, touching, licking, sucking, fucking, as Rick had said joyfully at one point, limbs, hands, lips and bodies.
It had been Nancy who had expertly rolled the condoms onto the men, insisting that that should be done–Janey admitted that she’d been too far gone at that stage to care.
What she had done was an awful terrible thing that filled her with shame, and it must never ever happen again. She must never ever even think about it again, Janey told herself firmly.
Someone was banging impatiently on the door to his flat. Oliver groaned and opened one eye to look at his watch. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. He’d been out partying and hadn’t gone to bed until gone three. Whoever it was would have to come back. He pulled the pillow over his head, but the knocking persisted and, if anything, grew even louder.
Swearing under his breath, Oliver got up, pulling on his jeans.
‘All right, I can hear you,’ he called out as he padded barefoot to the door. ‘Christ, the whole ruddy street can hear you,’ he added as he unlocked and opened it, only to step back in astonishment as he saw his mother standing outside.
‘At last,’ she announced before he could say anything. ‘Come on, your dad’s asking for you, and there isn’t much time.’
‘What?’ Oliver scratched his head and yawned.
‘I’ve just told you, it’s your dad. He’s dying and he wants to see you.’ As she spoke his mother was picking up the polo-neck sweater he had dropped on the floor when he had undressed, and handing it to him, then picking up his shoes.
Automatically Oliver pulled the jumper over his head and then sat down on the bed to put on his socks and shoes, whilst his mother watched him grimly.
For as long as Oliver could remember his mother had watched him with that same look of determination, every inch of her five-foot-two frame focused on chivvying and nagging both him and his father into doing what she thought was ‘right and proper’. High standards, his mother had–too high, Oliver often thought–especially when it came to cleanliness. A demon with her mop and bucket, his ma was. Never wore anything fancy but always looked spick and span, with not an ounce of extra weight on her, and the dark brown hair he had inherited from her always pulled back tightly into a bun.
Still half asleep, Oliver didn’t ask her any questions, simply following her out into the street where, to his surprise, she’d got a taxi waiting with its engine running. His mother, who never wasted a farthing and who could make one shilling do the work of ten, using a taxi in the first place, never mind one with the meter ticking over, was astonishing.
‘So what’s happened?’ Oliver demanded, once the taxi was in motion, but his mother simply shook her head and looked warningly towards the driver, indicating that she didn’t want to say anything in his presence.
The taxi sped down the virtually empty road towards t