hacienda

The little red Renault is our umbilical cord to the world. After the crash, we spend a month dependent on public transport. It curtails your social life. The red Renault doesn’t like the cold of Winter. Sometimes I spend an hour trying to get the points warm, smoothing them, tending them, in the hope we might get into the library, out of our retreat.

One weekend we drive across the Penines to Manchester. Manchester feels like a great, bleak civilisation, in comparison to our backwater. It’s big and messy and full of people we’ve never seen before. We stay in Charlotte’s room, hang out, and explore.

Saturday night we go to the Hacienda. It’s probably 1985. Just about the heyday. The club is full, but not rammed. It’s big and shiny and maybe it rivals the New York Clubs she’s talked about, only it’s got that sense of grit which makes it unique.

Some band is playing. Who knows how famous they might have been. There’s some dancing. An Egyptian makes a move and she flirts. Charlotte knows a few people.

The change happens in the space of a song. The space isn’t fun anymore. It’s a big warehouse full of noise. The noise is inescapable. There’s nothing worse than being trapped in a club. The only thing that can make it worse is if the girl or the boy you’re with wants to stay. Then you’re a misfit and a killjoy. The Egyptian has money. She attracts money. It’s all a charade, some men never realise when they’re wasting their time, or their time’s being wasted, but the charade drags on. The Hacienda loses its cool.

The next day we lie in late. It’s a treat to be in a foreign city for a change. Out of our little village. Away from everything. Old York’s too small. It’s suffocating us. We know it. We need space and people and room to flourish. We need big clubs you can get lost in and hate and dream about going back to another night, when it will all be perfect.