Perfectly Happy Out In The Cold

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a ten year old boy set to dance with an eighteen year old girl with excessive cleavage will, at some point, get an eyefull. Unfortunately the photographs are on the other side of the country.

My expectations of the evening of my cousin’s eighteenth birthday party could perhaps be summed up in the contents of my bag. A book – The Hound of the Baskervilles – a spare – Journey to the Centre of the Earth – in case the other got confiscated, extra headphones, a notebook and a handful of biros. I would be lying if I said I was looking forward to the ceilidh, so I won’t. Instead I shall describe the mind wanderings I indulged in there as much as I find interesting. This is my blog, after all.
Firstly, you may notice a change in my language and style. I can only apologise for this and my only excuse is that I have recently become obsessed with Sherlock Holmes (which will become even more evident later) and want to practise the more beautiful construction of descriptions.
I am writing this in my third different settling place in the yard of the primary school the dance is being held in. It’s around ten, the chimes sounded a few minutes (though come to think of it that could have been anywhere up to fifty nine minutes) ago, and there are screams of the Hokey Cokey leaking in to my space. Why is everyone so loud?
The reason for my constant repositioning is that upon leaving the building ‘for air’ another type of air overcame me: one of vast antisocialness. Therefore I’ve taken to avoiding everyone I can.

The party was in full swing (literally) when we arrived, with a stage holding two fiddlers, an accordion player and a thirteen year old bassist whose plucking thumped to the core of your body. Save the birthday girl and her family (and of course mine) I knew nobody there. I took the opportunity to actually get a look at some of my cousins famous friends, who I had heard much about but had only met one. He wasn’t there. That was typical.
We sat at the only table left, the one right next to the door, and I dragged my chair as far away from the dancers as I could manage. The roving mike was not going to pull me up for a demonstration.
Mum had found some college friends, Andrew had brought his DS and Dad was getting a drink, so I inevitably fell into more interesting thoughts, developing a psychological profile of the couple dancing in front of me and making them seem far more interesting than they were. You may think I’m being horrible. I probably am. But there comes a level of boredom where anything goes, and this was it.
They had a dangerous relationship and she held all the cards. Nothing could be put past her, and she was toying with him as a cat would a mouse. To his credit, he was aware of it. He was intelligent enough to refuse to dosedose with her, and clever enough to keep up the charade. Each time there was a subtle excuse: he forgot, he tripped, he bumped into the man next to him. I concluded he wasn’t comfortable with her out of his sight so close to him; perhaps she’d get him with the knife I’d already decided was kept down the front of her dress. Morbid? Me?
It is Mr Holmes’ fault, I suppose. I’m seeing suspects everywhere, even if there’s no crime.

I’m leaning against one of the darker corners of the playground as I write this, saving drafts on my phone because I’m not savvy enough to be connected to the world wide web my entire existence. I was on a bench under a helpful street lamp, but it was on the route back to the cars and some of Jess’ more rowdy and annoying friends were approaching. It’s not that I don’t want to meet them… no, no, it’s exactly that. My first impression of them was eccentric and loud. Very loud. The eccentricity faded along with the sun, and all evening they have just been people who don’t shut up and draw all attention to themselves. At the moment though, this is working well for me, as it means none of my extended family noticed my escape.
They seem to have stopped, which traps me outside, unless I want to walk through a swarm of them to the only open door. This also suits me fine; it’s an excuse to stay outside with my new hero. As long as, on their way home – if they do decide to leave – they don’t look left. I have no idea how far the light from this phone shines, but I’d be an eerie vision as the floating face of the girl nobody knows faintly illuminated in the shadows of a playground.

They called me in to say goodbye, to tell her what a good time I’d had avoiding the dance floor and deciding I wouldn’t last three minutes with her friends. Or they wouldn’t last one with me, in the cases of those who were not murderers.