We would go there at first out of fascination, later out of habit and eventually out of boredom. Two or three nights a week we would all sit in a big, empty house, one that cost close to £1m and drink ourselves silly. They had the money and the time and we just wanted something exciting to do. In the end it turned into anything but.
I didn't really work. Every afternoon I would get out of bed at half twelve and drive slowly to an office where I spent a few hours of the day chatting to people and answering enquiries. I lived in a daze and every night was a drunken one.
I'd get home, bone thin, not eating still and someone would call and before I would know what was happening my flat mate was shoving me into the shower and I was putting on my make-up, blackening my eyes, straightening my hair, putting on a low cut top and heels. We'd drive up even though it was in walking distance and the boys would answer the door and we would go inside and all along the counter tops in the kitchen would be lined with various spirits and mixers and bottled beers and alcopops. They would pour them for us and give us lollipops to suck on. Fill up a tray of shooter glasses with sambuca and we would all do them together and dance around the hallway to Akon or some Brazilian music and the lights would be low and foreign voices were everywhere.
Sometimes in the house, people were having sex.
I never saw it happening, but the guy who owned it would occasionally come down and chat to us with a nondescript but very pretty girl on his arm. He'd shove her out the door and come and join us, coax us all outside into the garden where there was a hot tub and take photographs. They provided us with shorts and t-shirts to wear and we were all friends in some capacity but I never really knew them. There was always a lot of food. The brother would cook on the BBQ and bring it over to us, keep us supplied with drinks.
On Sundays we would all sit in the jacuzzi together and pass around bottles of whiskey and rum and sambuca and all take large swigs one after the other. The air was always warm and all our legs interlocked under the water, the constant feeling of soft skin on mine and mist and music.
We all had another home.
But none of us wanted to be there.
In that house, we were someone else. We existed for that only.
We partied every night of the week and the weekends were worse. We would meet up with them in nightclubs and go back for more parties. I'd occasionally pass out on the top floor in the gym and wake up the following day in the afternoon, still drunk with no idea what was going on. I'd go downstairs and the brothers who lived there would be asleep in their beds, or on the sofa's and I'd be locked in. No way out. A security system to keep everyone out and us all inside.
Most days at work I would be sick and shivery. On the nights I would be back there dancing on tables or sat in a hot tub doing shots of vodka. I drove home drunk a couple of times and nearly got caught by police. I cried a lot when I finally came round.
When they left and moved to another country, my flat mate cried and said she'd miss them. I breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of getting my life back on track.
When I pass the house now, pretty much every day, I remember what it was like to feel that low. I remember all the things I know that I will never share. And I wish that I had had the dignity that runs through me today.
"...'You forget some things don't you?'
'Yes. You forget what you want to remember and
you remember what you want to forget'..."
-Cormac McCarthy
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