Ava’s fiction, short stories and life writing have been published in The Guardian and Oh Comely.

Born in Lewisham but raised in rural North Yorkshire, Ava returned to New Cross in 2010 to undertake a degree in English and American Literature at Goldsmiths. Since then, she’s worked as a freelance copywriter and journalist with a focus on arts and culture, with bylines at Grazia, Vice, Urban Junkies, Tech Radar and Elle. In 2021 Ava moved to the coast to write about city life from afar, as well as memory, nostalgia, music and the impact of social media on identity. 

Instagram: @avaszajnahopgood

Email: avainlondon@gmail.com

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Party Is As Party Does

‘Don’t hype it up,’ I hear you whisper, as you pass Tracy the finalised guest list in the back of Maths. It isn’t how these things work, but I appreciate the gesture. Now that you have summoned me, we can begin.

I see you’ve invited 80 people. 54 will emphatically tell you they are coming, but I’ll allow 32 to show up. I will call in a favour so it’s a clear night and out on Tracy’s trampoline at dusk you’ll bring the duvet and the joints Turtle rolled and Jarman will be in his parkour phase so he’ll climb out of Tracy’s parents’ en suite on to the conservatory but somehow not put his foot through the glass ceiling. 

At this point in time there are a few ways of playing it. I am intrigued by the socks people are wrapping around alcopops in a few villages away – that’s new for Yorkshire. This is encouraging. Three Year 10s lie and say Tracy’s having a sleepover for her birthday (stealth alcopops hidden between folded pyjamas), which five parents are too frazzled to work out was nine months ago. Four and a half family rows are started by the idea that no one knows where Tracy’s parents are, so no, they can’t go to her house party. Two villages over, Malachi’s younger sister distracts their mum by pouring Vimto over the kitchen floor, so that Malachi can get into the garage undetected, and retrieve the leftover pills he taped behind the dartboard after Leeds Fest. 

Back at ground zero, Rhiannon and Lucy have commandeered the CD player in the kitchen, and I can tell you Joss Stone is the WRONG music for now, get them out of the kitchen. I don’t want people looking at lino! Can I ask that you choose better pacesetters in the future? Yes, it’s the twenty-minute window of time where you want to cancel the whole thing but people need ICE and SHOT GLASSES. I want you to plead with Tracy to go up to the pub and ask Tom Kirk (who she hasn’t spoken to since the French exchange and that god-awful school disco on the last night) if he can give her some ice from behind the bar. Amber and Izzie from the year above have cycled because they’re insufferable, and they’re about to indicate into the village now, which means far too many girls. But that’s what I’m here for. An instant puncture in Amber’s front tyre causes her to swerve across a cattle grid, twisting her ankle in the dismount, which should waylay them for at least half an hour. We can’t have the Year 11s monopolising all the fun now, can we?

Unlike your peers, you actually took some time over the guest list and plus-ones, so I’ll also furnish you with Miller and Simon who are late because Miller’s older brother drove over three pheasants on the way here, and Stilly, who isn’t allowed on the property, as per Tracy’s mum’s rules, because of what he did last time to the avocado green toilet seat in the downstairs loo. ‘Ain’t no stopping us now, we’re on the moose,’ he sings, as he fights his way in through the leylandii hedge at the back of Tracy’s garden, partly for attention, and partly because he’s still a bit scared of Tracy.

Love arrives by himself, just as Siobhan grabs you by the wrist on the upstairs landing, sobbing, something about Turtle and a hunt gone wrong, and I know you know I know this is a complete waste of your time this evening, so you wriggle free of her, sitting her down on Tracy’s bed (stuffed animals hidden in the wardrobe), assuring her you’re getting some water, but closing the door in a way that tells me you have no intention of going back into that room. Good girl.

At 9pm the loot is as follows: the stubbies someone rustled up from someone’s stepdad’s garage supply plus Eddie’s mum’s Malibu, the own-brand Bacardi Breezers Chelsea’s sister buys under duress at a petrol station on the way, and then Tracy’s gone to town with vodka, whiskey and the Guinness Export that’s been in the offer bin in the big Co-op since Year 9. 

I’ll be upfront about it: You’ve gone against my wishes for no decorations. A balloon ceiling is not something I sign off on, and the fact Tracy says it has a ‘Studio 54 ambience’ makes me want to throw up. However, this is offset by the rolls of foil you lay over Tracy’s mum’s sideboard and nesting tables, creating an ad-hoc Cecil Beaton gloriousness rarely seen at teenager soirées. Back on the trampoline someone says to themselves that they’re ‘in an open relationship anyway’ as they re-read a text on their phone. Rhiannon’s mobile buzzes, but she is locked in the avocado bathroom trying to speak to me through the mirror, which is impossible on this occasion. 

I have limits, you see. I will not allow Travis, Led Zeppelin or texting people to ask when they will get here. Tactical chunders are a yes, instinctive vomming is a no. Let’s have some decorum. I’ll ensure Tracy’s parents aren’t back until 3am (their evening is far more eventful, let me tell you). You’ve heard of the call of the disco ball but what about the infatuation with empty houses you teenagers get, my god. All I ask for in return is your firstborns. Kidding, I’m kidding. I need eight-hour playlists and relentless beer. My rider is meagre but my vibes are big. Margaritas with not enough ice or limes. Wincingly sour, achingly good, acid unchecked until debriefs at dawn. Your friends are too young to understand the nuances of George Michael’s lyricism so don’t waste time on that – that comes later. At eleven you will remember that Jamie said he’d ‘defo’ have pills to bring and he finally, finally shows up having walked from the next village with David K and Malachi and yes, those beautiful pills in his camo jacket pocket sourced from god knows where with his smile he only does when he’s already high, and the sentences that come with it. The platitudes of gratitude and the ‘I-wouldn’t-say-it-if-I-didn’t-mean-it’s. It’ll be another four months until he actually admits he’s in love with you, which is already a wasted effort, as we know. There’s crying somewhere. I can sense it. Siobhan maybe, or Amber – forget it. I know why you started this.

There’s dancing now, and you’ve had the marvellous idea of opening up all of the ground floor doors, so the house becomes an oval for everyone to run around, looping and looping. You’re caught in the undertow of glowsticks and glitter and animal masks and shredded Union Jack flags, duvets stained forevermore in mud and Tango. Pure alchemy if I do say so myself. Eddie’s come back from the causeway with a tent he’s found on the side of the road and he opens it in the utility, momentarily flooding the room with sea water. There’s sangria splattered across the conservatory windows and seven joints stubbed out on the trampoline. On a quest to impress Tracy, Miller’s taken over the family desktop computer in the living room and is playing an audacious YouTube set of Dizzee Rascal’s Fix Up Look Sharp, The Jam’s Town Called Malice and Robbie Williams and Kylie’s iconic Kids. You run in, right on time to scream ‘NOTIFY YOUR NEXT OF KIN CAUSE YOU’RE NEVER COMING BACK’. The way Amber nudges Lucy makes you immediately regret this. But you don’t see what I see, which is someone else watching from outside.

Daisy’s bought more of that speed you pulled off all of your toenails with last time and in Tracy’s parents’ guest bedroom you bomb it with Dr Pepper then a pill then a capful of vodka for good measure. You say ‘medicinal’ and I like the approach. Somewhere else upstairs someone thrusts a hand between someone’s drainpipe jeans and skin. Izzie’s trying to start a pharm party on the landing with Calpol and her birth control. Downstairs WKD meets dado in the hallway, Daisy decides now is the best time to make her move on David K (it isn’t) and someone’s playing the Rugrats theme tune on the piano which means the music needs to be louder. I turn up the everything, because midnight means full swing. Galvanize by The Chemical Brothers jams on the kitchen CD player, so the opening four bars play over and over, the beat never quite dropping, and someone has finally succeeded in putting their foot through the conservatory roof and the trampoline’s been ripped right through. Liv’s cut her face on smashed glass but Rhiannon looks at you like ‘she’s kind of milking it’. 

That’s the last time someone sees you that night, before you and Love pace out of the driveway, down across the village green and out into the full moon and sand dunes. A French exit, up onto the broken tarmac of the causeway. The tide is out, as you both know it will be. No one looks for you, and you wouldn’t want them to. They’re too bothered about the freaktown running through my mind.