The last owner kept a mad Alsatian dog and its teeth marks wor still visible on t’ bottom of t’ cellar door.
I didn’t know there wor gay communes.
I didn’t know there wor lesbian writers.
But I knew that the world wor full of mad dogs.
I pitched up on my tod shortly after 8 p.m. wi’ a bottle of Bull’s Blood Hungarian wine and three cans of Red Stripe. The fourth I’d drunk on t’ way. I dropped the empty can over a low garden wall and rang the bell. After waiting a while I rang it again. Then I heard a shout of ‘Dooor!!’ and someone clattering down t’ stairs.
The door wor opened by a man wearing a low-cut purple dress that showed a full mane of chest hair. He had blue powdered eyelids behind round little specs, and matching blue fingernails. I could smell fresh nail varnish.
‘Well, you’re an early bird. Who are you?’
‘I’m Rick. Friend of Fazel’s.’
‘I’m Camp David. Well, don’t stand on ceremony. Fazel’s popped out with some friends for a curry. They’ll be back later. At least you’ve brought some booze.’
I followed Camp David into a long kitchen out the back of t’ house. All t’ chairs had been pushed to t’ sides of t’ room and on t’ table wor several large bowls of brown rice and lentil salads.
‘Come on,’ he said, pulling the dress together at the waist. ‘You can give me a hand.’
I trailed behind Camp David as he portered napkins, forks, paper plates and plastic cups from t’ kitchen to t’ front room and set them down on a worn red velveteen tablecloth that covered a hefty old dining table. The carpet had been rolled up against t’ wall. Above me, the ceiling wor painted black wi’ sprayed-on silver stars and planets.
‘That was done by the previous lot,’ Camp David said. ‘Occultists, apparently. We haven’t got round to painting it over. Terry – he’s another Radclyffe Hall inmate by the way, but he won’t be at the party – well, Terry says it’s inaccurate. Terry says the Pole Star is in the wrong place completely.’
‘Wouldn’t know. Not great on my stars and planets.’
‘Terry watches anything educational ad nauseam. All the Open University programmes. Lord knows why – what use is all that knowledge if you just sit around all day drinking endless mugs of tea?’
‘He knows the planets are in t’ wrong place on your ceiling.’
‘Darling, he does it just to feel superior. As long as you know where Uranus is, then everyone’s happy.’
‘Don’t he work, then?’
‘Trained as an architect. But then the quacks gave him aversion therapy and he hasn’t worked since.’
‘Version therapy?’
Camp David flapped a hand. ‘Hmm, nails still a bit sticky.
A
–version. It’s electric-shock treatment. They think they can cure us of our so-called perversions, but they can’t – it just fucks you up. Fucked Terry up good and proper. His other obsession is the weather. He measures it. Keeps a rain gauge and a thermometer in the back yard. He records the maximum and minimum temperature each day, cuts out the weather report from the paper and writes down the names of cloud formations. Don’t ask me why.’
‘Maybe measuring the weather helps to keep him sane?’
Camp David snorted. ‘Well, darling, if you ever need to know your cumulus from your cirrus, you know who to ask.’ He looked at me over t’ top of his specs like a transvestite owl. ‘You know, I like the punk hair, and your clothes are, well, interesting, but what you need is a few finishing touches. Come upstairs. You can keep me amused while I finish getting ready.’
In his bedroom, Camp David parked himsen on a long stool at his dressing-table mirror.
‘Put some music on, sweetie. You choose.’
I walked across t’ shaggy, dirty-white carpet, lifted the smoked plastic lid of t’ stereo and switched it on. Where t’ carpet didn’t reach the edges of t’ room, the boards wor painted lilac. Spider plants in macramé pouches cascaded down from t’ mantelpiece toward a fireplace filled wi’ dried flowers and incense sticks, and in t’ corner a Swiss cheese plant stretched its dust-laden leaves toward t’ window.
I rifled through t’ LPs, unable to decide.
‘What do you want to hear?’
‘Lou Reed.
Transformer
. That always gets me in the mood.’
I lowered the needle onto t’ record and the opening chords of ‘Vicious’ chugged in, Camp David mouthing the lyrics at his own image. I sat on t’ edge of t’ bed. Above me wor a poster of a drawing of a man wi’ a stiffy twice the size of his body.
‘Aubrey Beardsley,’ Camp David explained, clocking me ogling t’ skyscraper stiffy via t’ mirror. He patted the padded seat beside him on t’ long dressing-table stool. ‘Come, sit. Sit by me.’
I perched on t’ seat beside him. In t’ mirror’s side wings countless images of mesen cascaded away. Camp David’s hands hovered over t’ mess in front of him, his eyes lit like a child’s in search of a favourite crayon.
‘It isn’t an attempt,’ he said, leaning into t’ mirror to crimp his lashes, ‘to appear female. It’s about breaking down the constraints of your attire, of breeder society dictating who you are, how you should look. It’s radical drag, it’s genderfuck. I mean, a man isn’t a man until he’s worn a dress.’
He batted his lids at the mirror, testing the lashes.
‘But let’s not run before we can walk, shall we? Especially in heels. What you need,’ he murmured, turning his face toward mine, ‘is some work around the eyes. A little kohl, a little black eyeliner perhaps?’
‘Like Sid Vicious?’
‘More Cyd Charisse, dearie. Those cheekbones are just begging for rouge.’
I worn’t one for make-up, or drag. And glam wor so out now that Bolan wor churning out shite and Bowie had moved on. Camp David wor holding the eyeliner pencil aloft.
‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘But just a little around t’ eyes.’
I found it hard to keep my face still. Camp David wouldn’t let me look in t’ mirror ’til he wor done.
‘You’ve got lovely skin,’ he purred. ‘Really fine.’
He leant forward wi’ eyeliner pencil, t’other hand resting on my knee. I could feel his warm breath on my skin. I caught the faint odour of sandalwood soap. It wor odd that someone so hirsute should smell so maidenly.
‘Like I said, fabulous cheekbones. Hold still, try not to blink.’
‘It tickles.’
‘Don’t be daft. Now. There. No, don’t look yet! You need a little more on the other side. Black on black. Give you that punk-glam look you so desire.’
He leant back a little, looked me directly in t’ eye. ‘Lashes,’ he said firmly. ‘Look up at the ceiling to my right.’
‘No, no, not …’ and then t’ doorbell tringed. We both stopped. ‘I’ll get it,’ I said, springing up from t’ stool.
‘Ah,’ Camp David sighed. ‘Saved by the doorbell.’
The bell tringed again. Then we heard laughter from downstairs, and at least three, possibly more, voices talking over each other. I recognised Fazel’s throaty laugh.
‘Oh,’ said Camp David. ‘They’re back. And more besides, by the sound of it.’
The partygoers soon splurged from t’ kitchen into t’ hallway, t’ front room and up the stairs where they queued for t’ bog, and eventually into t’ first-floor bedrooms. The place wor jammed now, save for t’ attic bedrooms, which wor marked out of bounds. Still yet more kept arriving.
Camp David wor showing me off as ‘the young chicken I found on the doorstep’, and when he tired of that I wor left to my own devices. Fazel wor gliding from person to person, laughing and waving his long fingers. Another housemate, Fizzy – nicknamed cos of his Bowie haircut, I assumed – had commandeered the record deck. The Bowie obsession extended to about every third friggin’ record.
I hung against t’ wall, supping Red Stripe and looking on. A large woman wi’ long, beaded necklaces that flew about wor dancing wi’ a tall, bearded guy in a tie-dye T-shirt and purple loons whose shoulders convulsed when he laughed. Nearby, two guys wi’ Afro hair wor in a crotch-locked sway, holding each other’s gaze.
Who wor all these people? Where did they hide themsens? Where did they come from? I hardly knew anyone ’cept for Fazel and a few folk from Gay Lib. I wor just getting into t’ groove of Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music’ when I heard a commotion in t’ hallway. Gina. Wi’ Tad in tow. So he’d come!
I shuffled along t’ wall slightly so that I wor partially hidden by others, and glimpsed them as they shoved their way along t’ corridor. Tad wor dangling a half-drunk bottle of gin between his fingers.
‘Try the kitchen!’ I heard Gina screech. I edged into t’ hallway and could see them up ahead, about half a dozen heads between us. I cut up the stairs and ran into Fazel, leaning over t’ banisters, peering into t’ hallway below.
‘Who invited her?’ he snapped.
‘Who?’ I replied.
‘Her! Gina! That fascist little cow.’
I wor wondering how the heck Fazel knew Gina. Fazel straightened up.
‘It wasn’t you, was it?’
‘Me?’
‘Just thought your paths might have crossed at your little punk thingies or whatever. I hear the FK Club lets anyone in. Even fascists. That’s the trouble with democracy. It’s like an open sewer.’
‘Sorry, Fazel. Do you mean that punk girl who just arrived wi’ that bloke?’
Fazel’s wide nostrils flared. ‘Yes, her. She used to come to Gay Lib meetings claiming she was lesbian. She was very disruptive. She was thrown out for threatening someone with a broken chair leg. Lesbian? Her? Ha! Her husband used to drop her off and collect her.’
‘Husband?’
‘Some Hell’s Angel on a motorbike. Anyway, then she showed her true colours and joined the National Front. What is wrong with this country? In Iran the likes of her would be dealt with properly. I don’t want her in my house.’
I looked down and saw t’ spiked-up crown of Gina’s head as she and Tad wove their way back from t’ kitchen toward t’ foot of t’ stairs.
‘And what about the likes of us?’ I said. ‘In your country?’
Fazel snorted. ‘What do you know about my country?’
Gina and Tad wor now clambering over two women who wor sat on t’ bottom steps. Behind me the toilet flushed and the door opened, so I ducked in, pleading urgency.
I sat on t’ bog, listening, weighing the options. I wor breaking into a cold sweat. I rubbed my palms over my face, trying to stay calm, trying to marshal my thoughts. The toilet walls wor a collage of arty posters. Pasted on t’ back of t’ door wor some friggin’ poem about Jesus called ‘The Love that Dares to Speak its Name’ by that poet bloke called James Kirkup, across which wor scrawled in red biro, ‘Defend Gay News!!’ This wor t’ very poem Gordon and Jeff had been blathering on about in t’ snooker club. Why did folk get so worked up about poetry?
I could feel the bass thud of Bowie’s ‘Jean Genie’ coming from below. I tried reading the first couple of lines of t’ poem. But then someone wor banging on t’ bog door.
‘Oi! You died in there?’
‘Won’t be a mo!’
‘Well, fucking well hurry up or I’ll crucify you! I’m dying for a crap!’
I took the key out of t’ door and peered through t’ keyhole. All I could see wor a flower patch on t’ backside of someone’s jeans. I unspooled the last of t’ bog roll and dropped it into t’ bog, flushed the chain and opened the door.
‘Sorry mate.’
I scuttled past him and up the second, narrower flight of stairs to t’ attic rooms. On one door wor a sign on a card that read ‘The Rochester Suite’, beneath which wor scrawled in biro, ‘Fazel’s Room. OUT OF BOUNDS’. So I went in.
At first I took it to be a storeroom of household junk. There wor a mattress under t’ steep roof slope, an overstuffed chest of drawers, thickly painted purple, and a wooden chair. Boxes, suitcases, clothes and books lay about in untidy piles.
I moseyed about. I tugged open t’ top right drawer of t’ chest. It wor chocful of papers: airmail letters and bills and study notes and the like. Under them I found Fazel’s passport. I flipped to t’ photo page. Fazel then worn’t very Fazel now. His hair wor combed and shiny and he wor wearing a striped sweater that an aunt might have notched up. In t’ passport wor a small buff envelope of loose photographs. Inside, two bevel-edged black-and-white photos of a boyish Fazel, studio head shots wi’ glued-on smiles.
I put them back, and had barely closed the drawer when t’ bedroom door wor flung open, making me spasm wi’ fright. It wor Tad.
‘Saw you disappearing up here,’ he said. ‘Gina’s having a helluva bloody barney wi’ someone or other. I guess we both need to keep a low profile.’
‘Only if Gina grasses me up.’
‘She won’t.’
Tad stepped further into t’ room, filling the meagre space, his head catching the round paper ceiling shade, making it sway. He still had the half-bottle of gin.
‘Why not?’
‘She don’t do that. She’s loyal. She expects loyalty in return. And she’s got this thing about you, I don’t know what.’
‘What about you? And Gina?’
‘There’s nowt going on between Gina and me, if that’s what you mean. She’s a law unto hersen, is Gina.’
‘I heard she’s married. To that Hell’s Angel bloke.’
‘Did you now? News travels fast, don’t it? She married Victor about two year back. But now she won’t have anything to do wi’ him. Poor sod still follows her about like a dog.’
‘How sweet. Anyone see you coming up here?’
‘Don’t think so. And no one else here knows me. Not even your Arab mate.’
‘Trust me, he’s not my mate. And he’s Iranian. They ain’t Arabs.’
Tad took a sup from t’ gin bottle and passed it to me. A fiery slug of gin coated my tonsils, making me cough.
‘Sorry,’ I said, handing back the bottle. We sat down on t’ mattress. Tad took another sup and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Music vibrated through t’ floor. ‘Nutbush City Limits’. The bottle passed back and forth between us like a silent conversation. Tad kept his eyes fixed on t’ wall opposite, as if waiting for summat to happen. My hand edged toward his leg. I didn’t know if he’d kiss me or punch me. Tad took another slug of gin and turning his head toward mine, snogged me, letting the gin sluice from his mouth into mine and then down our chins. The gin made him splutter. He pulled back. I wor breathing hard, like I’d swum across a swollen river. I weaved my fingers behind his neck, tilting his head toward me, his lips giving way as they brushed across mine.