Demogirl

The Demonstration Girl

I was 17, living in a bedsit in London. It wasn’t that adventurous – the bank I was working for found the bedsit and paid my deposit upfront. It was a good lifestyle if you were prepared to put up with the accommodation and appreciate the location. I was based in Bayswater, worked in the West End and played rugby in RIchmond for London Welsh every weekend.

On this particular Saturday myself and my mate were on our way from Richmond to a pub in Grays Inn Road for a few pints. It was one of those pubs around the Welsh centre in Greys Inn Road where a valleys accent wasn’t a social disability. On the way we met these two lasses in New Oxford Street, trying to make their way from a demo they’d been on back to Paddington for a train home to the west country. Since it was eight pm they were in trouble if they thought they were going to make the last Saturday night train, but we offered to help and take them to Paddington by tube just in case they got lucky.

They’d missed the train. They weren’t happy, but they didn’t have much choice, or much chance of finding a hotel room. So the skinny one, the one whose face was eighteen with the body of a fourteen year old, which is what she was, phoned her mum from a callbox and lied about a friend of one of their teachers who had also been on the demo putting them up for the night. There were no mobile phones in those days, and they seemed to think they’d be able to get the teacher to cover for them before their mums could find out, so they were free in London for the night. Then the plump one went through the same routine with her mum, and it was game on. We went to the Shakespeare on Westbourne Grove and drank a bit less than I normally would, and avoided the roving eye of the landlord, who didn’t mind under age drinkers provided they stayed quiet and out of sight . And we sorted out the idea of the night; that they’d stay at my place, with Dai bunking down on the floor with the homely looking plump one and the skinny one in the bed with me. She would keep her jeans on, apparently. Dai seemed to have better prospects, and I felt I’d wasted some of the time I’d spent impressing the skinny one with pseudo intellectual comments and letraset politics that would have made a grown up blush.

That was the deal though, and that was how we ended up. Dai had the spare duvet and some cushions, and the skinny one was true to her word, bunking down in one of my tee-shirts, her jeans and and a sulk. I couldn’t figure it out – did she really expect to get the bed to herself?

Then the plump one started. She was necking with Dai like a Dyson with a turbo fitted, and she was eager. That was no consolation to me, but the sound effects were an additional cause for complaint. There’s enthusiastic, and there’s just plain noisy. The skinny one didn’t approve either. She started out facing away from me, towards her mate, but even after I’d put on some music to cover the noise coming from under the duvet she turned away from her mate which left her facing me. So while Tom Robinson sang about living in East Berlin we tried to talk, and to ignore the noises.

After some desultory stuff about bands she’d never heard of, and pop stuff I couldn’t stand, she said ‘she always does this’, and I kissed her on the end of her nose, as if I was so much older and wiser.
‘She’s allowed to be herself if she wants to.’ She wrinkled her brow.
‘Why just do it though? She cheapens herself.’
Judging by the noises she wasn’t cheap as much as free, but that point probably wouldn’t win me friends. Arguing that people should do what they like didn’t persuade her either.
‘He’s barely said a word to her all night. And I’ll bet he doesn’t even like this album.’
He didn’t, she was right, but that didn’t seem to inhibit them, and, to be honest, it was a poor argument.