The Stranger

The holiday week on the coast was rapidly coming to an end. My three roommates and I have had plenty of fun baking our bodies to a crisp, dipping them in the cool waters of the English channel, playing beach volleyball, sitting at the tables of the outdoor cafes and observing the passersby, gossiping, eating and drinking more than should be allowed by law and generally having a very good end of the summer. 

This was to be the last evening before we squeezed our golden, still somewhat burnt selves into a beetle convertible and headed for London, returning to our studies and part-time jobs, interviews and panic-stricken attempts to scrape enough dosh for the obscenely high apartment rent, which we dutifully shared between the four of us. 

We met through the university bulletin board newspaper ad, all searching for roommates and finally deciding that were we to join efforts, we could afford one of those pricy but gorgeous places in Knightsbridge where people drive Jaguars and walk their two-thousand-pound dogs on the diamond studded leashes. Lacking the luxuries of a decent car and expensive pet we were nevertheless satisfied.

Part-time jobs helped to make the ends meet along with what the scholarships, grants and our parents afforded us. A week in Brighton full of play and getting shit-faced every night was just what the doctor ordered before we returned to the piles of books, unreasonable essay deadlines, hours of grueling studies in the libraries and stuck up professors, some of which believed that to treat students humanely would spoil them and leave them unprepared for the harshness of the today’s world. 

We decided to spend the last night on what we called the playground, which is really a couple of miles long stretch of cobble-stoned pavement squeezed between the beach and the busy street, a stone’s throw away from the famous amusement park boardwalk, packed with pubs, restaurants, fish’n’chips places, souvenir shops, filigrees, antique bookstores, tattoo parlors, outdoor cafes and the rest of the touristy attractions, which if one has not spent all their money yet will certainly milk you dry of your last penny. 

“We shouldn’t be getting smashed if we’re to drive back in the morning.” Said Saffron, the beauty in our group, a tall, black-haired and green-eyed Irish lass, who was well aware of her attractiveness and knew how to use it, making men stupidly enchanted with her. 

“No, no!” exclaimed Maya, a small Slovenian girl who was the last to join our group. Despite living in London for two years her accent was still as thick as it had been the first day we met her and many a time, when upset or annoyed she would break into an avalanche of cursing in her own language, bringing the rest of us dangerously close to peeing our panties from the hilariousness of the situation. “You don’t get smashed!” she yelled from the bathroom where she was fixing her hair and make up. In conversation, her grammar was appallingly horrible and sometimes I wondered how she managed to pass all her exams satisfactorily, although we all had a sneaking suspicion that her awkward way of speaking was a front, created to make people take interest in her. “You driving tomorrow! We sleeping!” 

“Yeah, that’s right.” Whined Katie in her cockney accent. “You’ll be the driver, we’ll co-pilot.”

Saffron rolled her pretty eyes. “With your co-piloting we’d be lucky if we ended up as close to London as Liverpool.”

I broke out laughing and the sight of Maya stepping out of the bathroom with one eye made up, the other one still untouched, her long hair a wild mess, which gave her the look of a crazy person made us all scream with laughter. “Wat?” asked Maya and we couldn’t help but stomp our feet and giggle. 

“Smotke!” declared Maya and marched back inside the bathroom, leaving us to eye each other with raised eyebrows and continue barking. 

“One of these days we should make her write all those words down and translate them. I really want to know when she’s swearing and when she’s just playing.” Said Katie and we all nodded in agreement, the giggle attack far from over. 

Finally ready to face the world, dressed and made up to attract, we decided to hide a few quid under the mattress and therefore prevent the disaster of the previous summer when we had to call Katie’s dad to the rescue, having spent our last money on the drinks, unable to afford even a drop of petrol. 

“What if somebody comes in and knicks it?” asked Saffron with face full of fake concern.

“Nobody will come in and knick anything, for Pete’s sake.” Said Katie. “This place stinks, you’ve just managed to kill the last little ozone we had left with that hairspray of yours! It’s a natural repellant to animals and people alike.” Saffron stuck her tongue at all of us and closely inspected the tank top she intended to wear.

That particular evening I was in a happy mood. Nicely tanned with freshly washed hair and wearing a canary yellow sleeveless dress that reached above the knees, the color enhancing my complexion, I knew I looked good. It was exactly as my sister Fiona always told me – if you feel good on the inside, people would perceive you as such. 

We dined in a small Italian restaurant on the beach and then roamed from pub to pub, having a pint in each and I was glad to notice that I got quite a few stares and winks from the blokes. For the past week, none of us had had anything bigger going than an occasional flirt and we were quite happy with that. No immense dramas and tearful goodbyes, months of waiting and hoping only to be disappointed that the promised had not been realized. Or worse, if it were to come true, it would probably be destined to turn out to be a disaster. This holiday would be a success in every way. 

By the time we decided to visit the nightclub Charity for the last time before leaving Brighton, we were all pleasantly tipsy, dangerously approaching the limit of drunkenness. 

“Plenty of single blokes in there, ladies!” said the guy at the door. “Would be a sin to charge, so go ahead!” He grinned, his eyes pausing on Saffron. 

We entered and were immediately caught up in the smell of sweaty bodies and cigarette smoke, loud music vibrating through us as if we were all made of paper. “He wasn’t kidding about it being packed, was he?” coughed Katie. 

Booths with waist high separates between the round, benched tables and the main path around the club were encircling the entire outer wall of the club save for the DJ booth and a bar in the middle. Another, lower row of smaller booths with tables and benches enveloped the dancing floor, which was full of swinging and swaying bodies, some barely moving in the rhythm, others pouncing wildly, completely out of tune with the music playing overhead. 

Every table was occupied and we could not see enough space in the booths for the four of us to squeeze into. Small groups of clubbers were dotting the walkthrough area, making it very hard to move between the bar and the seat, should one be lucky enough to have arrived early enough to claim it. 

“Oh, oh…” exclaimed Maya excitedly, waving her arm in the air towards one of the booths opposite the entrance. “Go, go, go…” She pushed us all forward and then bolted past us towards the small clearing from which a group of girls had just left. It wasn’t a sitting area, rather a few square inches of the path between the booths, which was currently unoccupied. Like a flock of sheep we followed, glad to be able to find at least that much free space. 

Successfully managing to position ourselves in a way where we had clear view of the dance floor, the bar and the entrance, Saffron and Katie gestured that they were going to attempt the laborious task of getting some drinks. 

“Make sure nobody takes the place!” yelled Katie in my ear, as the music was too loud for normal conversation. I nodded and leaned back towards the booth, jumping away from it quickly as I felt a hand brush against the bare skin behind my knees. I turned around half expectant to see an annoyed face over my clumsiness, but the guy to whom the hand belonged was looking the other way, into the mirrored wall. 

“Well, I was going to apologize,” I murmured and turned back towards the dance floor. 

“Waaat?” screamed Maya and simply shook my head. I couldn’t be bothered with explanations. 

I could see Katie and Saffron have made very little progress towards the bar, bumping against and being pushed by other people in the club, giggling and apologizing, panic stricken looks pointed towards the floor. Their little feet were obviously being heavily stomped on. 

I pulled a cigarette out of my purse, lit it and tried to smoke it without burning anybody’s bare skin or obviously expensive piece of clothing, gently swaying in the rhythm of the music. 

I froze when I felt the hand brush against my thigh again. This time I was almost certain it was on purpose; I wasn’t standing that close to the booth. I turned around to give the guy a dirty look, but he was still not looking back at me. His gaze was pointed sternly at the mirror in front of him, his eyes observing something on the other side of me. 

He seemed to be very tall and slim, which made the woman sitting next to him appear tiny, almost like a child, although her aged hands that she kept carefully folded in her lap proved otherwise. The man’s hand was thrown behind her, not touching her shoulders, rather hanging off the edge of the booth into the path of the passersby. I kept looking at him in the mirror, while he continued ignoring me. 

The instant I turned back, I could feel his fingers brush against my thigh. I looked at Maya, but she was staring after Saffron and Katie, who were still trying to make their way to the bar. I looked around the other booths and nobody seemed to be paying any attention to what was going on. Unless someone was really interested, I seriously doubted anybody would realize my predicament.