Catch Me When I Fall Read Free

I went. Events occurred quickly but also in snapshots, like moments illuminated by a strobe light. The club was in an eighteenth-century townhouse, all shabby wood panelling and bare boards. It was an evening where everything seemed easy, available and possible. One of the men at the table where we ate was the director of the club so he was joking with the waiter and getting special food for us to try. I had a long, intense conversation with a woman who worked for something amazing, a film or photographic company or a magazine, and later I couldn't remember a word of it. The only thing I remembered was that when she stood up to go she kissed me full and hard on my mouth, so that I tasted her lipstick.
     Someone suggested we go dancing. He said a new place had just opened not far off and it would be getting going about now. I looked at my watch and saw that it was past midnight; I'd been up since half past five. But it didn't matter.
     We all walked there together, a group of about ten people who, until an hour or so ago, had been strangers. A man put his arm round me as we walked and started singing in Spanish or Portuguese or something. He had a beautiful voice, very deep, which boomed out into the soft autumn air, and I looked up and
    saw there were stars in the sky. They shone so bright and near I almost felt that if I reached out I would be able to touch them. I sang something too, I can't remember what, and everyone joined in. People were laughing, holding each other. Our cigarettes glowed in the darkness.
     We ended up near the office again. I remember thinking I'd come full circle and that I was less tired than I'd been when I left. I danced with the man who'd sung in Spanish, and with someone who said his name was Jay, and then I was in the women's toilets where someone gave me a line of coke. The club was small and crowded. A black man with soft eyes stroked my hair and told me I was gorgeous. A woman, I think she said she was Julia, came up and said she was going home now and maybe I should as well, before something happened, and did I want to share a taxi, but I wanted something to happen, every thing to happen. I didn't want the evening to end yet. I didn't want to turn out the lights. I danced again, feeling so light on my feet it was almost like flying, until the sweat poured down my face and stung my eyes and my hair was damp and my shirt stuck to me.
     Then we left. Jay was there, I think, and maybe the singer, and a woman with amazing black hair who smelt of patchouli and other people I remember only as silhouettes against the sky. It was so beautifully cool outside. I pulled the air into my lungs and felt the sweat dry on my skin. We sat by the river, which looked black and deep. You could hear the tiny thwack of waves on the bank. I wanted to swim in it, to lie in its dark currents and be swept away to the sea where no one could follow me. I hurled in a handful of coins, though only a few reached the
water, and told everyone to make a wish.
'What's your wish, then, Holly?'
'I want it to be always like this,' I said.
     I put a cigarette into my mouth and someone leaned towards
    me, cupping the lighter in their hands. Someone else took it out of my mouth and held it while he kissed me and I kissed him back, pulling him towards me and gripping his hair in my hands, and then a different person kissed me as well, his lips on my neck and I tipped back my head and let him. Everyone loved me and I loved everyone. They all had tender, shining eyes. I said the world was a more magical place than we knew. I stood up and ran across the bridge. With each step I felt that I might never land on the ground again, but I could hear the sound of my footfalls echoing around me, and then the sound of other footfalls too, following me, but they couldn't catch me. People were calling my name, like owls hooting. "Holly, Holly!' I laughed to myself. A car swept by, catching me in its headlights and letting me go again.
     I