He comes back, she can feel the cold on him.
‘You been outside?’
‘No, yeh, needed some air like.’ He sniffs his fingers.
‘You been for a smoke.’
‘No, I don’t, well I do, weed. Not now, I just needed a quick breath of air, but I have some, if you like.’
‘Maybe.’ Dope would do but she needs something stronger. Something to kick against. She thinks, but she doesn’t know. She’s never taken anything like that, she wants something. She’s sick of drink, this sweet bright drink, she’s sick of the music. He is talking again, she’s no idea what about, stop talking man, for Pete’s sake!
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I just thought of something.’
‘I was just saying …’
‘Pete right.’
‘It’s fucked Wakey nightlife, people used to come in coaches’
‘Pete, you see?’
‘from Middlesborough and that’
‘Pete.’
‘they used’
‘Pete.’
‘to close off Westgate’
‘Pete!’
‘I remember when … sorry, what?’
He has not been smoking. He tastes malty, his stubble prickles.