“How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!”
Matthew Arnold, Thyrisis
“Not yet,” warns the man next to Jak, the soft polyester of his trousers brushing the bare skin of her leg as he leans across to wind the window back up.
They are sat in the back of an old, battered car being driven, slowly, along Marston Ferry Road. The inside of the car smells of sweat, sex and skunk. And something else that Jak can’t quite place, although it is familiar.
She pulls her hand away from the door but manoeuvers the rest of her body a little closer to it, pressing her arm hard against it.
After the security gate on the bridge over the River Cherwell, heading east, there is a tree-lined stretch with broken streetlights. The car goes round a bend, engine whining like a dog straining on its lead, until it is dark save for the headlights of other cars, cruising stealthily by.
The man’s voice strangely reminds her of a TV show she used to watch. She tries to recall the character’s name but can only remember the feeling of the sofa against her back as she sat on the living room floor. He did make her feel a bit uneasy but he was only someone off the telly and as her mum repeatedly said, ‘telly has nothing to do with the real world.’
“You can get out now,” mumbles the driver without turning round.
Jak can’t tell what he’s saying. She forces a sound from her dry mouth, “what?”
“He said, ‘get out,’” says the first man impatiently.
She fumbles with the door handle, pushing and pulling with numbed, unresponsive fingers.
“I said,” confirms the driver, raising his voice slightly but still not turning round, “get out. Now.”
Finally Jak opens the door, her cold sweaty legs unpeeling painfully from the faux leather seat, and stumbles out onto a grass verge. The car growls and then roars away, leaving a lingering smell, that familiar smell stronger now in the outside air.
‘What’s that smell called? Damn it, what is it? Fuck’s sake, Jak, get a grip.’
Jak can feel it on her tongue and at the back of her throat. It makes her feel nauseous. There’s another childhood memory there somewhere. But never mind that now.
She leans forward, hands on knees, trying to steady her breathing and clear her foggy head. A slight breeze lifts the old smell up into the sky, and disperses it. The natural scent of cool, damp, sweet grass asserts itself.
Jak keeps her head down to avoid being caught for long in headlights. This stretch of Marston Ferry Road is a place she has never been before but has heard all about. The boarded up windows. The broken streetlights. The steady stream of expensive cars coming through Cherwell Gate, following directions to houses on side streets.
And the empty pavements. It is a dangerous place, somewhere to avoid. Certainly not somewhere to stay for long if you’re a woman or girl on your own.
Jak forces herself to stand up straight. She’s shivering. And her legs are weak. Her lace cotton skirt clings to her thighs and her light canvas shoes feel loose, too big for her feet. The grass is slippy with dew. She can just about keep herself upright if she doesn’t try to move, but sways like a sapling in the wind.
Her brain feels like cotton wool and turning her head even slightly makes her feel sick. She takes more deep breaths, holding the cool air in her chest for as long as she can. Then stretches both hands out to her sides, palms down, clenches and unclenches her fists, leans forward, focuses on the ground in front. Until she can stop herself swaying.
Jak looks around. She has been near to this place before, just up the hill at the John Radcliffe Hospital fetching dad back from A&E after he got so wasted he split his head open. He claimed he’d hit it on a dangerously low bridge and that was why he couldn’t walk properly. Turned up at their house, claiming he hadn’t drunk or smoked “all that much really”.
“A likely story!” her mum had laughed scornfully.
‘How far to Carly’s? Head to hers, she’ll be home. Just a mile or two? Not far, Jak, not far. But gotta keep moving.’
All along both sides of the road, between tarmac and pavement, runs a raised grass verge that forms a barrier when the river floods, keeping the road open. Jak walks along it, hiding her face in her thin black cardigan each time a car cruises by.
It’s a dark place, beneath an overcast sky, but there’s a steady orange glow not far away. Somewhere, off to her right, the streetlights are working. Jak scrambles down the verge; runs, half-stumbles, across the road and over the raised grass verge at the other side. She turns down a long, slightly curving road.
‘Where was Carly tonight? She said she’d be there, didn’t she? Did she say she’d be late? Oh God, Jak, what’s up with your memory? How drunk were you?’
Jak’s legs feel weak, flimsy, as if her feet are somehow moving of their own accord. And her head is heavy, ready for sleep. She puts one unsteady step in front of another and keeps her eyes on the line of streetlights, following their arcing route.
A car speeds past on the otherwise empty road. Jak instinctively covers her face but she is safe enough here. She walks along a pavement next to small, neat suburban gardens.
The road straightens out and after a mile or so she turns up a steep, narrow track. There is a park to one side of the path and unoccupied student flats to the other. Jak struggles up the slope, her thigh muscles aching with the effort.
The further she gets from the road, the less light makes it through the bushes lining the path. A slight breeze sways an overhead branch, which creaks like a rusty door, and leaves whisper all around her.
‘Keep your eyes on the path, Jak, keep your eyes on the path.’
She trudges slowly upwards, breathes heavily, sweat oozing down clammy skin.
An owl hoots. It’s loud, can’t be too far away. Jak looks towards the sound and, pausing for a second, smiles to herself, ‘ah, a male tawny. Up there somewhere on your own, mate? Good luck Mr Tawny.’
The ground levels off. She has reached the top of the slope. Every step is a little easier here.
The path continues to follow the perimeter of the park but another leads into it, through a propped open gate. There are no artificial lights in the park itself but clouds have parted to reveal a more-than-half-moon. Jak turns through the gate into the park.
There is a silvery sheen on the grassy slope. And, framed by trees along the boundary fence, the lights of Oxford and its medieval shadows are spread out below. But Jak keeps her eyes on the path, which runs across the top of the park. She knows where she’s heading and just wants to get there.
But approaching the gate at the far side, the path peters out as it passes between two large trees. The ground here is sticky, almost muddy despite the lack of recent rain. It sucks at Jak’s feet.
And it is rutted with tyremarks left by recent circus trucks.
Jak, looking ahead towards a well-lit street, quickens her stride. But as she does so, steps on the edge of a rut and turns her ankle. She lets out a yell of pain and frustration, “fuck’s sake!”
Muttering to herself, she limps a few yards back along the path to a bench and sits lengthways with her sore ankle raised up onto the seat. Exhausted tears well up. She tips her head back to stop them flowing and looks to the blurry night sky.
—
The early summer sun flares and paints a bloody horizon onto the four-mile distant Harcourt and Hinksey hills. They lie on the far shore of a lake of mist, which clings to the wide valley where the rivers Thames and Cherwell meet, blanketing Oxford’s still slumbering spires and towers.
But overhead, the sky has woken clear and bright. A sharp white vapor trail rips across the otherwise pristine blue space.
From a propped open park gate, barely discernible at the bottom of an unmown grassy slope, a well-worn path winds up, past ragged bushes and tall, leafy trees to an old wooden bench with a blank rectangular patch on its headrest.
Drops of dew sparkle in tiny pools on the bench. A small, speckled bird hops down from an oak branch to sip and wet its throat before returning to its perch to sing a flowing, flute-like melody.
Jak, curled up like a hibernating mouse, murmurs in her sleep, “good morning Mr Song Thrush.”
More dew drips from leaves to the bench. Jak’s cardigan soaks it up. But, raising an arm in response to some dreamed threat, she breaks the crumpled dam and a cold trickle finds its way onto her skin.
“Stop it, get off,” Jak shivers, sits up and opens her eyes, “oh… for fuck’s sake Jak, what are you doing here?”
South Park is empty of people. The long grass is strewn with glistening spider threads. The lower, flatter ground is still largely enveloped by mist, but emerging from the murk a line of trees marks the edge of the park. Birds, some hidden, some like the thrush perched on prominent branches, sing their customary morning songs.
‘Okay, okay, focus Jak, focus. Thrush, chaffinch… is that a blackcap? Bit early for him? Maybe, yeah, doesn’t matter. Look, what am I doing here? What the fuck am I doing here? Think Jak, think!’
She stands up. Her ankle throbs. Her head is woozy, her mouth parched with lips so dry they’re ready to crack. She kneels and scoops a tiny handful of dew off the bench in the general direction of her face.
With cold hands and pale knuckles, Jak grips the wooden seat and laps what liquid her tongue can reach.
She shivers again and struggles to her feet, leaning on the headrest to take the weight off her sore ankle. The wooden bench is slightly soft and musty. The smell tickles her nostrils, fills her sinuses, and she sneezes out a spray of blood-laced snot. More follows, dribbling down to her lips.
She sits down again. And spits.
‘Bloody nosebleed! Where’s my bag? Fuck’s sake Jak, you’ve lost your bag. So your phone, your bank card, bottle of water – ha, and your memory. Anything you’ve not lost?’
Jak tilts her head back and reaches into her cardigan pocket. A tissue, damp but usable. She wipes her mouth clean and tears the paper in two, pushing one half up each nostril.
She sits, eyes closed, face to the sky, until the bleeding stops. Without opening her eyes, she pulls out the dirty half-tissues and puts them back in her pocket. And pushes her head forward, as if about to stand up again. But thinks better of it for now.
Jak looks at the ground. Grass curls up over the concrete plinth to the toes of her shoes.
‘Who the fuck were those guys? Was I up all night with them? No way! Why would I do that? In fucking Marston? Fuck’s sake, Jak, just calm down won’t you.’
She shivers and looks up. The branch of an oak tree sways in a slight breeze, green leaves flutter in the clean, blue sky. A blackbird, perched high up in the tree, starts its song. Jak breathes deeply.
She blinks and shivers again, rubs her arms, both of which ache slightly. And runs a finger round a small bruise, the skin just starting to discolour, on her inside elbow. She pushes harder and harder until the pain is too much.
There’s a similar bruise on her other arm. She holds it up out of her own shadow to inspect it. A dark dot, near the edge of the bruise, the unmistakable mark left by a needle.
‘Fucking hell! What the actual? Okay, okay. Keep staying calm. Think about this later… I mean, what the actual fuck?
‘Calm, calm, calm Jak. And first things first. You need a piss as soon as. And no way are you dropping your pants in public.’
She stands up, head down, arms wrapped protectively around her body, and limps towards the park gate.
—
Normally, Carly’s flat is a five minute walk from South Park. But this morning it takes her closer to ten. And with a full-to-bursting bladder.
Jak leans against the door and presses the buzzer, waits, presses again until there’s a response.
“Yeah?”
“Tabs, it’s me. Can you let me in?”
The lock clicks and she pushes the door open and struggles up the stairs. Carly, swaddled in a plump, red dressing gown, yellow football socks rolled down to her ankles, pads onto the landing to greet her.
“Christ, Jax, what’ve you been doing? You look awful. Are you hurt?”
“Yeah but I really need a piss.”
“Er, yeah, sure. Where have you been?”
“Slept in South Park. No bloody toilets, are there.”
“South Park?” Carly frowns, “Why didn’t you just come here?”
Jak, hobbling as fast as she can, pushes past to the bathroom.
“Or piss in the bushes?”
Yanking her knickers down, Jak half sits, half falls onto the toilet seat and lets go of a hot, fast stream of urine. After the last drop has dripped, she checks her arms again, tiny needle holes in both inner elbows. And checks her clothes, her body, she checks all over. Everywhere. Her hands trembling.
Nothing is all that sore apart from her ankle. And she’s got all her clothes on, undamaged, nothing seems wrong, not really. Apart from the marks on her arms there are no bruises. Her bleary head and mild nausea are standard hangover fare.
She shivers and pulls her knickers up.
“It was dark. Couldn’t see a thing,” Jak explains as she limps out of the bathroom, “went over on my ankle, didn’t I. Really sore and I was well tired, just needed to sit down.”
“You’ve had a night of it, haven’t you. You do look bloody awful. Come on,” Carly takes hold of Jak’s hand and leads her into the living room, “I’ll get you a hot drink.”
Carly’s sofa is old and knackered, stuffing tumbling out of the cushions, springs jutting out at the bottom. But it’s soft and swallows you up, which is what Jak needs right now.
Carly perches next to her, holding a mug of tea in one hand and stroking her hair with the other, “sorry about last night, Jax. I was at my uncle’s. In Berinsfield.
“He promised me he’d run me back to East Oxford but then refused to do it, said he’d promised no such thing. He does that kind of thing, my uncle, says one thing to persuade you into doing something and then claims he never said it. Such a twat sometimes.
“But anyway, I did message you. And then did get to Moonies eventually, a bit after ten. Thought you must’ve gone home already.”
Jak mumbles, “got taxi. I think the driver must’ve kicked me out. I was drunk, lost my phone, no way to pay.”
“How long were you in the pub for? Were you by yourself?”
“Met my tutor, Maddy Birch. We had a few. More than I realised, I think.”
“No, no, no,” protests Jak, “not like that, I don’t think. She was fine, wanted me to stop and go home before I did, well, you know, before I tried. I think she booked the taxi. Didn’t pay for it, I guess, but why should she? Anyway, never mind about that. God, I hate hangovers!”
“Do you want me to call your mum, get her to pick you up? I do have to go out in a few hours, campaign workshop thing with Alice, trying to get more of your fellow students involved in Stop the Wall.”
“Yeah, maybe. But not just yet.”
“I’ll stay out the way,” suggests Carly.
“Why?”
“Seeing you like this is just going to make her hate me even more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, I stand you up, you end up hurting yourself and sleeping on a park bench…”
“That’s not your fault, Tabs. I shouldn’t have got so drunk. All my stupid fault.”
“No, but your mum’ll blame me, won’t she. I mean, she hates me…”
“No she doesn’t! She hates politicians and politics and all that so she’s a bit kinda, you know, about all your campaigning stuff. But she doesn’t hate you, not like hating you personally.”
Carly laughs, “okay, if you say so. Most people seem ‘a bit kinda, you know,’ about our campaigns. I blame false consciousness.”
Jak yawns. Carly rolls a cigarette and watches Jak’s eyelids as they slowly close. Her arm, with her cardigan sleeve hanging down like a curtain, slips over the side of the sofa.
—
Sylvie presses down on the horn again. Halfway down the stairs, Jak hears the blaring noise and tries to go even quicker. She’d wanted to be waiting by the curb already, so her mum wouldn’t see her limping. Ah well.
She struggles out the street door and across the pavement, leans on the car roof for support and slides into the passenger seat.
“What happened to you, babe?”
“I slipped, kinda lost my footing. Hurt my ankle,” Jak thinks about how much to tell, and how much she can actually remember, “there’s these big tyre marks in South Park, you see.”
“I see,” tuts Sylvie impatiently, “but you’re basically okay, yeah? Carly been looking after you?”
“Yeah, she’s been great. But she’s got to go out and I’ve lost my phone…”
“Yeah, she said. And that nice bag I got you for Christmas…”
“Oh, sorry mum,” Jak stares at the dashboard and mumbles sheepishly, “had a bit to drink. My fault, not Carly’s. She’s been great. I’m the idiot.”
“Yes babe, you are,” Sylvie smiles to herself, “but aren’t we all sometimes.”
She stretches her left arm round to give her daughter’s shoulders a quick, sharp squeeze.
“Right. Time to get you home and get some peas onto that ankle.”
“What?”
“To make the swelling go down, frozen peas are the best, you just lie down and I’ll put them on. You’ll be fine, babe.”