1 Chapter 1

She knew her, of course; everyoneknew her, after a fashion. It was hard to get away from her when the circle of her friends was so small. She was tall, that was how Madeline remembered the other girl being described, tallas a descriptor that became a gesture, a way of saying what could not be said, a nudge, a wink, a hint. She didn’t like it, she wasn’t comfortable with this kind of reaction from people, and yet she couldn’t really say that she liked the other girl much either. The girl in the Slayer jacket,as the song went, Tippex slogans etched upon the hem, decorated in button badges and patches not entirely dissimilar from Madeline’s own arrangement, but somehow made distinct by virtue of her height, a fact so readily inferred by others.

A few years back, Madeline had first met her, seeing the shock of dyed blue hair in the crowd, her wild gestures indifferent to those around her. She had not been impressed, offering the girl a forceful shove when her elbow had come dangerously close to smashing a younger girl in the face. The girl had stared back at her, unable to understand what she had done wrong, unable to comprehend why she had been pulled out of the moment, and why Madeline, a head shorter than her, long red hair and too much eyeliner, was shouting four-letter words in her face. It could have gone better; as first meetings went, it could have gone better.

For the next couple of years, Madeline was sort of aware of the other girl’s presence, though she didn’t know her name. At the Assembly Hall, clutching a plastic glass, she saw her in the crowd; at the Forum, she was there by the bar, talking with a friend, the blue in her hair all but washed out, whilst, at the Electric Ballroom, she could be seen on the fringes of the pit, cautiously evaluating when was the right moment to pitch herself forward into the crowd.

Madeline had not felt it necessary to learn her name. What was the point, after all, it wasn’t like they were going to be friends or anything, they were just two people who happened to like the same music.

Very tall, one of her friends, Rosie, she thought, had said when trying to describe the other girl, whilst relating an event that had transpired one weekend. Madeline rolled her eyes and tried not to engage in the conversation.

Agatha, she had later heard the girl referred to, begrudgingly at first, as if by naming her, those discussing her when being deprived of a more fruitful conversation relating to how tall she was. It had not occurred to Madeline until much later that the other girl must have picked this name for herself and that her name certainly hadn’t been Agatha when first she had glimpsed her, blue hair, moving through the crowd, her elbow all but in another’s face.

What did it matter though, she thought, it wasn’t really any of her business what name the other girl picked, what choices she made, none of these impacted Madeline in the slightest; they weren’t friends, they didn’t even know one another, they simply happened to be at a lot of the same venues at the same time.

She took a deep breath, drawing in the scent of rain and cigarette smoke, shivering slightly, holding onto the square polystyrene box of chips from across the road as she stood at the bus stop.

“She’s very tall, isn’t it she?”

Madeline turned, glancing over in Rosie’s direction, pretending she had not been looking down the long road, past the coffee shops and the Black Heart, down towards competing fast food chains and the statue of Richard Cobden, the old politician crowded out by resting pigeons come home to roost; pretending her eyes had not been following the sight of the girl in the Slayer jacket

“What?” Madeline asked.

Rosie nodded in the direction of the other girl, still visible by merit of her decorated jacket. “That girl. She’s very tall.”

“Oh right,” Madeline replied, feigning disinterest. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

The situation was stupid, and she resented it. She didn’t like her, she wasn’t interested in her.

“Know her much?” she asked, her accent seeming stronger the more defensive she became about the situation.

Rosie shrugged, long dark hair tied back in a loose ponytail, a heavy jacket that trailed almost to the damp pavement, weighed down by almost every useless item that could be summoned in any given situation, the kind of things most people left buried at the bottom of their handbags; books, surgical tape, a box of plasters, out of date sweets, the kind of things most people broughthandbags for. Getting into any venue was always a nightmare, each security guard seeing it as their duty to try and lessen the amount of crap the young girl carried around with her. And yet, despite all this, she insisted it was all of vital importance. It clearly wasn’t, Madeline reflected, otherwise Rosie would have had some need to call on each of the items she carried more regularly, not keep them embalmed in lint within the folds of her heavy coat.