Authors: Primula Bond
‘What about your costume?’ he asks suddenly, turning my beret over in his hand as if trying to decode a message. ‘Can’t go to a party without a costume.’
I try to take the beret off him, but he tugs it back and starts to put it on, resting his hands on the top of my head.
‘My cousin has something for me to change into when I get there.’
By now one or two people in the bar, as well as the barman, are watching us. Gustav doesn’t care, or notice. He tucks my hair behind the exposed ear, his fingers cool on the tender skin behind. My eyes close involuntarily to relish the tremor running through me. Lovers, surely, is how it looks. Ex-lovers? No. I would never let Jake get as close as this.
‘Good to go.’
He pulls my hair long on the other side, smoothes the riot of ringlets as best he can, and stands back. I feel like a prize exhibit.
‘It’s been fun, Serena. Who knows what’s in store for you tonight, and beyond? Some incredible times, I’m sure.’
I take another long sip, his eyes on my mouth as it drinks, my throat as it swallows. Then I put the glass down. My hand is shaking.
‘Thanks, Gustav. For the drink. For everything. It’s been fun meeting you, too.’
Amazing how convincingly detached I sound. I start to back away and suddenly he’s in front of me. He’s looking down. All I can see is his black hair, the slope of his nose as he takes my hand and pushes a business card into it. Closes my fingers round it. Holding his own warm hand round mine like a cage as he pats it down into my pocket.
‘You never know.’ His voice is sombre and sad.
I hesitate. I haven’t told him the party isn’t that far away. I could stay for at least a couple more drinks. Everything in me is straining to stay, but I won’t. I might never know if there’s something between us. If that spark I felt when his fingers were on my neck, his mouth on my fingers, was real.
What is real is the way he nods at me to go then leans back against the bar, arms crossed over his wide chest, the sleeves rolled up over his wrists. I must depart, otherwise I never will. So with his eyes watching my every move, every bounce of my hair on my back, burning hot under my stranger’s gaze as I try to move gracefully, I push out into the foggy cold.
My feet are curiously sluggish as I walk down St James’s Street, as if there are weights in my boots or a magnet is drawing me backwards. The truth is I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to leave that warm bar, that half-sipped cocktail. That intriguing tall stranger with the split-screen eyes and a way with his fingers.
But as he lifted his hand in casual farewell just now it was as if he’d already forgotten me.
There’s a chain spanning the space between us, a rope between ship and shore; no, more like a jailor’s thick chain jangling with keys and handcuffs. Except this is woven thin like a spider’s web, so delicate, so invisible it only occasionally catches the light. I don’t know which one of us holds it. Which one is caught.
I might not see him again. So what? It was only an hour or so. A chat. He bought me a drink. Dry martini. Period. Why would I even consider missing a party to spend the evening with an older guy who, come to think of it, idiot that I am, oh my God how stupid am I, probably has a beautiful wife waiting for him in his beautiful home, stirring a stunning soup in a designer kitchen.
My phone buzzes again, as if to knock some sense into me. I study the map that Pol has texted, so my eyes are down as I cross Trafalgar Square. The map shows a warren of streets on the other side of Covent Garden, and the venue is in the narrowest street of all.
It feels very quiet out here. I thought there would be more of a party atmosphere, but I guess it’s still quite early. A few people are wandering about under Nelson’s haughty column, emerging from the tube at Charing Cross Station. They’re mostly in costume. The stab of scarlet skirts and fiery masks, the sharp black outlines of stalking skeletons, of horns and tails, pierce the thickening fog, which has simply dropped like a shroud. It dims the circling traffic, the glowing streetlamps, muffles the foot shuffle, like old photographs of the smog in post-war London.
They seem to be gathering by one of the lions. I reach under my scarf to lift the camera from its strap. And I realise it’s not there. Icy panic grips me as I scrabble in my bag, my pockets, under my jacket even. As I stand there, going round in circles like a cat with a firework on its tail, I’m vaguely aware of people whispering and jostling around me, a shout, a cackle, but I can’t focus on them.
A voice seems to whisper in my ear, the exposed ear, the ear he tucked my hair behind. It’s here, it says. Your camera. Both cameras. You left them in the cocktail bar in Dukes Hotel.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Without my cameras I might as well have had my eyes put out.
I have to get back there, sharpish, this is too good a photo op to miss. What makes it all the worse is that out of nowhere I think of how Jake would be nagging me to get the picture, how this unfolding scenario would sell brilliantly to a newspaper or YouTube. But I’m crippled without my equipment, and now I can’t even move because both my arms are grabbed and pulled out sideways as if I’m in a line dance. It hurts. I’m sure my left shoulder is wrenched out of its socket, but that’s exactly what it is, a dance, I’m part of some kind of formation, all the people in their costumes have suddenly organised themselves into a pattern, and then suddenly the intro to ‘Thriller’
screams out from hidden amplifiers; the crowd starts to dance perfectly in time, jerky and robotic, all crawling and grimacing like the zombies in the video.
I’ve been caught up in a flash mob in eccentric, crazy Trafalgar Square, on Halloween night. Getting on that train yesterday and coming up to London, and finding myself part of this kind of mass madness was the best thing I could have done.
I’m part of the picture tonight, the subject in front of the lens for a change, not behind. And I know who has my cameras. A sudden calm floods me, like a warm shower. The same sensation as when Gustav Levi put my beret on me just now, hooked my hair behind my ear.
Gustav has everything safe. He’ll look after everything. So for tonight, I’ll be observed instead of always the observer.
Passersby are laughing and clapping and filming, the front of the National Gallery morphs into a giant cinema screen showing images of Michael Jackson, magical and tragical. The throb of the music makes everyone dance, makes me dance despite myself, and we’re all zombies now, stamping and waving and crouching and yelling, intoxicated with madness and music.
Eventually I reach the cobbled alleyway that Polly has directed me to. A trio of grisly vampires with rubber fangs, red paint dripping down their chins, troops past me drinking tiredly from Coke cans. I stop in front of what looks like an antique shop. The whole structure is bowed as if it has the weight of the world on its roof. The window bulges outwards and the doorstep is worn almost through from being crossed by centuries of shoes and boots.
Decapitated mannequins scratch at the greenish glass as if to escape. They have been dressed in strapless ballgowns and pose with diamante tiaras circling their wooden necks, as if the heads where the tiaras once perched have been guillotined. Further inside there are figures, just like my zombie friends, dancing and whooping.
I push open the door and weird, hypnotic, twangy music assaults me. The kind that twines in and out of your psyche. Whales, or dolphins, calling to each other in the deep.
People in period costume are drinking and singing and smoking, but it’s difficult to tell the revellers from the displays. The shop is like the Tardis, much bigger inside than its tiny bent facade. Various fringed shades, candles and lamps throw a low, red-tinged light as if we’re all in an Edwardian bordello. The air is a mist of sandalwood, patchouli, and sweet dope. Hammered to the walls are enormous glass cases full of skewered black butterflies, beetles and scorpions. Cherrywood cabinets burst with everything under the sun. Watches, jewellery, weapons. Cross-bows, arrows, curved scimitar daggers. Even a row of vicious-looking whips hanging from butcher’s hooks.
I push my way through the crowd to find my cousin, and a flock of boas tries to strangle me as I pause before a rail of antique lace dresses.
‘One of those will look great on you, petal! I’m so glad you came!’
Polly winds her arms round my neck and nearly squeezes the breath out of me.
‘Oh, Pol, it’s so good to see you!’ I disentangle myself after I’ve buried my nose in her neck to take in the familiar, over-scented smell of her. ‘Oh my God, you look like Snow White! I presume that black hair dye is temporary?’
‘It’s a syrup, actually!’ She tweaks it off her narrow head to show the ice-blonde crop beneath.
‘And you’ve lost another stone! Don’t they have food over there? Don’t people eat in Manhattan?’
‘Only on Fridays!’ she laughs, and starts to drag me to the back of the shop. She swishes and sways in a scarlet Vivienne Westwood-style ballgown. ‘Those gorgeous curves of yours would be totally frowned on, but we’re forgetting all that tonight. What do you think of this place?’
‘It’s incredible! What are we doing here?’
‘It’s Pierre’s. My new boyfriend’s. It’s his first costumier outlet in London. We’re only here for tonight, for this launch party. Not many people will know about this place because mostly he’ll be supplying wardrobe departments for theatres and movies and so on. He’s here somewhere. Let’s get you dressed up first!’
She high-fives and kisses various people on her procession through the guests, but it’s impossible to tell what any of them really look like. Even the men are painted with white theatrical make-up, red slashes for mouths. If they’re not painted they’re wearing masks. Polly looks like a Disney princess. If she’s Snow White, I’m Rose Red.
The back wall of the shop consists of a huge glass awning leading out to an enclosed yard, twined with ivy and brambles, and round a bubbling cauldron witches are spiking lumps of bleeding red meat into their mouths with pitchforks, a barbeque of the damned, and fake bats swing on invisible strings from the trees. Even the moon is streaked with red as if bleeding, glowing through shredded clouds streaking the London sky like claw marks.
My long-lost cousin pulls a curtain across the changing cubicle at the back of the shop and hands me a long, fluted glass of champagne. We stand together in front of the full- size, gilt-framed mirror as she chatters on about New York. Then from a rail she unhooks an ivory lace dress so flimsy it could be made from gossamer feathers.
‘You look amazing, Rena. You seem to be on fire, or is that just the cold? What’s been going on with you?’ she says, holding my hair clear as I struggle out of my clothes.
I get a flash of Gustav Levi’s serious face in my mind, uncoiling my hair from my blue scarf in the garden square. Calling me Rapunzel.
‘I’ve just had an extraordinary twenty-four hours, that’s all. First proper day in London. I think I’ve already got enough Halloween shots for an entire exhibition if only I can get someone to show my work.’
‘Someone will snap you up. And if they don’t, I’ll get Pierre on the case. He has contacts all over the planet.’ She catches my hand as it goes up in protest. ‘I know. You’re always so stubborn! Don’t need anyone’s help. Cat that walks alone. But bear it in mind, cuz. You’ve struggled enough.’
I fling my arms around her again. ‘I never felt alone when you were there. The best bits of that miserable life were when you came to stay.’
‘Careful with the taffeta, hon. This dress is the real deal. Anyhow do you really want to go over all that old ground? Those bastards should never have been allowed to keep you, just because they were the ones who found you by that church.’
‘Whoever thought foundlings came from fairy tales?’
She balls her hand into a fist and bashes at her chest. ‘I wish I’d told my family how foul and neglectful your lot were. Persuaded them to take you in. I’ll never forgive myself for failing you like that. But ain’t it all dead and buried now?’
She holds out the dress for me to step into. I know her mind is like a firefly. You can never pin her down for long.
‘Dead and buried, Pol.’
‘Beautiful underwear, by the way, Rena! You always did have a thing about matching knickers. You saved up every penny from your Saturday jobs to buy it, even when on the outside you were all rags and tatters!’
We giggle feebly, just like we used to when she came down to Devon, trailing glamour and fun and naughtiness from the big bad city. We would run down to the beach and rip open the crisps and fags and bottles of vodka she’d brought with her, and try to put out of our minds the disapproving looks on their faces, watching us from the house on the cliffs. They could never believe, since we weren’t related by blood, how Polly Folkes could love me. How we could be so close.
‘Yeah. You’re right. The new chapter has started.’
I let her do up the tiny buttons at the back of the dress, twist my hair into a loose knot on top of my head. Push sparkling diamante earrings into my lobes to dangle right down to my shoulders. Then she gets to work on the make-up.
‘Was it awful, though, leaving? Did Jake give you hell?’
She helps me take everything off and as she brushes thick mascara on my eyelashes I battle with what to say.
‘He was upset, of course he was, but I’m not a heartbreaker, Pol. You know that. I tried to make him understand, but I don’t think he does. It wasn’t just that I had to leave that place. When I got back from Europe I just didn’t want him any more. I don’t think I want anyone.’
‘Well, you cut your teeth on each other. Got to lose your cherry with someone. But you were kids. Maybe he was even more of a kid than you.’
‘Too right,’ I snort. ‘He thought foreplay was the name of an indie band.’
She chuckles. ‘You need someone older, wiser now, girl. I reckon you’re ripe for a new man. One who’s going to teach you stuff you’ve never dreamed of. Someone who won’t be able to believe his luck.’
‘You got a crystal ball here somewhere, Pol? Because it needs a good polish. I’m off men at the moment. I don’t want the hassle. The mess.’