Page 55 of Girls Just Want to Have Sun

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

I am all woman, I want to roar as I fling my legs out behind me. It’s like a primeval spirit has taken control of my limbs. I am as light as air.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Oof!

At the same time as one foot connects with something solid, throwing me off balance, the other sweeps the table surface as I hear the systematic crashing of drinks to the floor. My eyes snap open. The world stops spinning as I survey the damage. I’ve emptied the table of the giant fishbowl and pint glasses, and they have smashed into millions of tiny pieces across the floor, creating a huge puddle. But no one seems remotely bothered about this small lake of broken glass and beer. Everyone has turned towards Matteo. He is standing nursing his eye.

We stare at each other as the horror of the situation sinks in. It would appear that someone, there’s a worryingly high chance of it being me, has kicked him in the face. He is giving me the look that you’d give someone you were perhaps thinking of strangling with your bare hands. It sends immediate shivers of remorse down my whole body.

There’s a trickle of blood crawling down his cheek. He bends down to retrieve his phone from the wet floor where it is lying smashed and stomps away shaking his head.

‘Oh, my fucking God, Connie!’ howls Liberty. ‘That could not have gone any worse, pet.’

Finally, somehow, it’s three thirty in the morning and most of the girls are struggling to stay awake and are slumped over the tables back in The Knee Trembler. I’m still sitting bolt upright in a traumatised daze. I have been unable to speak since the pole-dancing incident.

‘Connie? Connie, are you able to take Liberty to the toilet while I mop up after Cherry?’ Big Mand croaks.

‘It’s no use, she’s still zoned out. Big Sue? Big Sue?’ Tash squeaks. ‘I’m ready now, love, if you can help me over to the… to the… What did I say I wanted to do?’

I snap briefly out of my trance. ‘I will not be broken. I don’t need a man to complicate me.’

Gosh. I’ve just coined a new phrase. I wonder if it will catch on.

‘You mean to complete you,’ says Cherry. ‘You don’t need a man to complete you.’

‘Yes. That’s what I mean. I don’t need a Matt to complete me.’

Why do I have this huge pain in my chest? As though I have disappointed myself yet again. Always with the disappointments. The unfulfilled feeling. The empty, pointless point of existence.

‘There’s no point to me, is there?’ I say sadly. ‘No point.’

‘Connie. Stop being so self-obsessed, will you?’ yells Tash, jolting me out of my depression. ‘It’s not all about you.’

She’s right. No good will ever come from being excessively preoccupied with one’s own life and thinking everything andeveryone in this world should be focused on oneself. I give her an admiring look. Tash is enormously enlightened.

She stands up, throwing her arms wide and bellows, ‘Look at me! Someone look at me!’

The Dollz all turn towards her while I try to work out how this shameless cry for attention is any different to me being so self-obsessed.

‘No. The real me,’ she says, pointing to her heart.

Ah. Perhaps that’s it.

‘Finally. She’s owning her own truth,’ says Liberty. ‘Show us who you really are, babes.’

Tash swipes away at her phone and demands that the manager plugs it in to his speakers. She is having a brief second wind and gets up on stage to perform her much talked-about version ofRiverdance, which I remember we were very much looking forward to.

She hobbles onto the shallow stage, leaning against the wall to get her balance. And as if possessed by the spirit of Michael Flatley himself, she’s off. We marvel at the speed with which she jiggles her feet about on stage despite the swollen ankle, only to see her pass out in the middle of it. She’s mid-air one minute, executing a perfect split, and the next, her eyes clang shut and she’s crumpling to the floor.

Luckily, Big Sue has the reflexes of a cheetah and swoops down to catch her just in time.

Beep.

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