Adam Thorpe
50
herself as a counsellor, sat
on trusts and stuff, never
had time to be lonely. She
found Jazz’s description
annoying.
Superior.
Hoity-toity.
Suddenly, he’s squeezing
past her knees.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To jump off and make a
snowman.’
‘Wrong type of snow,’ she
jokes.
He’s
already
swaying
down the aisle, his lovely
buns sashaying really
conspicuously in those
skinny jeans into which
she does seriously wonder
how he crams in all his
tackle: maybe it’s like
folding a Tetra Pack carton
for the recycling bin. He
has to steady himself on
the seat-backs because
the train is hurtling along
again at top speed, rocking
and slapping against the
air whenever they hit a
tunnel, so loud it is almost
painful
because
the
window near them is stuck
half open and the heating
is on too high so nobody
has tried to close it.
Jasper glances down at
the girl in front as he
passes, giving her a little
grin. That’s because she
is jigging around to her
music. Eminem, probably.
M.I.A.
Young bad girls do
it well.
Tetra Packs are dead cool
for making stuff out of but
when she tried a
3-D installation like a
surreal high-rise city it was
mingy primary-school naff
and the tutors said, ‘Suzie,
is this ironic?’ She nodded
vaguely
because
she
wasn’t actually sure. ‘Like,
the process was really
important, getting people