To the Devil - a Diva! (29 page)

‘Some kind of fuss about nothing,' Karla Sorenson said, peering over the balcony. ‘Someone jumped into the canal. They're alive, I think. The ambulance has just turned up.'

Lance had poured them a gin and slimline each and he brought it out to her and they watched the confusing fuss below them with interest, shivering in Lance's meditation garden.

‘Cheers then, my dear,' she said solemnly, and they clinked their chunky tumblers. ‘Here's to working together.'

He grimaced. ‘I don't know where Colin and everyone else has got to.' Lance wasn't keen on being stuck alone with Karla.

‘Oh, he'll be off having a row with his strange little Asian friend,' she sighed. ‘Doesn't that bother you? That he let him gobble him off in the lavvy?'

Lance shrugged. ‘Boys. Sometimes that's just how it is.'

‘My, my,' she said. ‘Quite the libertine.'

He didn't rise to this. ‘If Colin wants to stick with me, he'll let me know. I've told him where I stand. I'm here if he wants me. The thing with him is, he lets people wrap him around their little finger. He's good-hearted. But that tends to bring trouble.'

‘Don't I know it,' Karla grunted, and fished in her pocket for her black Sobranies.

‘You? You aren't good-hearted.'

‘I know,' she said, sparking up. ‘That's what I mean. I'm the one who causes trouble for all the good-hearted people.' She leant over the railing again and the two of them stared at the tall, dusky, orange-bricked buildings and towers of the Village.

‘That's true enough,' he agreed.

‘I don't want to cause trouble for you, Lance. Really I don't.'

‘I think you already have, lovey.'

‘Sometimes …' She hissed out her smoke and it dwindled away lazily. ‘Sometimes I could believe, really believe in this legendary curse that's supposed to be on my head. The curse that's fucked up every relationship and movie I've been in. The curse that's killed people and made all my films shit. I really could believe I'm a kind of Jonah.'

‘I think we make our own luck.'

‘You're talking ‘dialogue' to me, Lance. You don't believe in what you're saying. You've bumbled along the same as everyone else we know, bumping into the furniture and prey to everything.'

He hated her predatory metaphors. He looked down into the drifting crowds as they started going home and felt like he lived above a shark pool.

‘Tell me,' she said. ‘Why do you think everything and everyone around me goes to hell? I make people fall for me and fall under my influence until they wreck their lives. I cause chaos. All I've wanted is an ordinary life, a smaller life. Like all of you lot there, tonight. Even you, Lance, famous
as you are – you've managed to be ordinary and small. Why haven't I got that?

He crunched on an ice cube and hurt his teeth. ‘Do you really want that?'

She frowned, suddenly looking her age. ‘I don't know. I can't imagine what it feels like. You know, I loved walking in the streets tonight and no one seeing us. No one calling out my name.'

‘Sharing my obscurity.'

‘No. They knew you were there. They respected your privacy. That's nice.'

Lance was surprised by this more thoughtful, gentle Karla. ‘You tell me, then, Karla. Why do you think everything goes to hell around you? What is it about you?'

She smiled and threw back her head, laughing sadly. The length of her slender white throat was like a blade against the meagre light. ‘Well,' she said at last. ‘That's easy. I really did sell my soul to the devil. When I was about ten, in a forest outside Kendal. Big ritual, lots of booze and flames and chanting and then he appeared in a crack of lightning to take away my immortal soul in exchange for stardom.'

‘Oh, yes? And what did he look like?'

‘Between you and me? He looked just like Adrian the producer.'

‘I can believe it. Give me a drag on that ciggie.' She passed him the last inch of fag. ‘So,' he said, through a plume of indigo. ‘The devil really exists. Everything you've ever said about black magic is true?'

Karla nodded. ‘Oh yes. Every word. I'm still connected to a coven that sends me instructions to go about their evil work. It's a bit like temping. Or having a very aggressive
agent. I couldn't get out of it if I tried. I mean, I've stopped going to the black masses so regularly, but I'm there for major festivals like Beltane. Keep my hand in at sacrificing goats and pledging my allegiance to Beelzebub. All that. A girl's got to look after herself.'

‘I believe you,' Lance said mildly. ‘You know … you make it sound ridiculous. But I think I really believe you.'

‘Good,' she said, watching him stub out the golden filter of her cigarette. ‘That's very important to me, you see, my dear, because …'

‘Because you've been sent to enlist me? To make me sign the same blood pact?'

‘Why, yes …' She nodded, grinning at his cleverness. ‘Yes, you've …'

‘Just like you made the same offer to my mother. All those years ago.'

Karla's mouth fell open as if she had been slapped. She stared at him and quickly regained her composure.

‘And she refused,' he went on. ‘She wouldn't have anything to do with you. Fox Soames had warned her off you. That's what you fought about. You tried to take her over and she was strong enough to tell you where to get off.'

Karla's expression was hardening, her lilac eyes going narrow.

Lance's hands flashed out, grabbing both of her wrists. Their gin glasses smashed to the floor and she jumped, but didn't resist him.

‘You killed her, didn't you? You evil fucking bitch. You destroyed her. You put that tumour in her head. You sat by her bedside right till the end, willing it to grow …' His words were lost in a roar of fury that erupted out of him
and he pushed Karla right back against the terrace wall. He was shaking her hard so that she was winded and gasping. She howled and bit her own tongue so hard her mouth filled with blood and her wig slipped sideways, freed of its clips. She started to scream and Lance slammed one palm over her mouth.

‘One more sound and I'll break your neck,' he said.

She nodded, eyes wild.

He pressed himself against her, shoving her back and back until she was sitting on the ledge. And Karla knew, just from the air at her back, on her neck and the unwigged bit of her head that the drop behind her was sheer. Five storeys down to Canal Street, where revellers were starting to look up to the noise.

Her eyes were pleading at him. Close up.

‘She said no to you,' Lance snarled. ‘And then you killed her. And then you wanted me. You still want me. To join you in your filthy world.'

Behind them, a voice called out inside the flat. ‘Lance … ?'

Colin and his gran had toiled up the back stairs. They were hunting through the flat for him and Karla.

Something shifted in Karla's eyes. She realised that help might be at hand.

‘Lance?' Colin called again. ‘You'll never guess. That daft mare Vicki chucked herself in the canal! Raf's gone off in the ambulance with her! Lance!'

Lance held his face very close to Karla's. He shouted: ‘We're out here.'

He heard Colin and Sally talking. Then the french windows shushed open and he knew they would see him in
the full glare of the living room lights. Lance Randall, star of the famous porno soap, dangling Karla Sorenson, ageing lesbian vampire queen, over the very edge of the terrace wall of his meditation garden.

Karla was trying to shout through his hand. She made mmmpphing noises and she still had some fight in her. He imagined her fangs ripping through the tender flesh of his palm. But no, she didn't have fangs. Not really. She was just a pathetic old woman who happened to be possessed.

‘Lance!' Colin shouted, shocked to see them locked together against the wall.

‘What's going on?' Sally was asking and they came stumbling warily across the concrete and pebbles of the rooftop garden.

‘She's admitted it,' Lance said thickly. He was struggling not to let his emotions take over. ‘She's admitted that she's in league with Satan. And that she always has been.'

Colin froze, staring in horror at Karla, perched on the wall, feebly struggling, and at Lance, tall and implacable, holding her tight with one fist and gagging her with the other.

He had gone bonkers, Colin knew it. Oh, great, he thought.

‘Lance,' he said. ‘Let her go. Put her down. She isn't worth it.'

Sally was inching forward. ‘Don't do it, Lance,' she said coaxingly. ‘If you do, they'll bang you away for good. You've got your whole life to live. You're young. You've only just found Colin. Don't chuck it away on the likes of her.'

Lance's whole body was shuddering as the tumult of his feelings started to overwhelm him. ‘But she told me. She told
me what I always thought was true. I knew it. She told me I was right.'

‘What?' Sally asked. ‘What's she said now?'

‘She killed her!' Lance moaned. ‘She cursed Sammi. Sammi Randall died because of her.' He sobbed bitterly and Karla almost went over the edge then. But he took the lapels of her suit jacket in both hands and yelled into her face: ‘She murdered my mother!'

Colin and his gran stared and found they couldn't move.

Lance was crying hard and they were scared he would lose his grip on Karla.

But, weirdly, Karla didn't look at all concerned any more. She balanced there easily on the precarious ledge and now that Lance's hand was away from her face they could see that she was smiling. It was a horrible smile.

‘I murdered your mother?' she said gently. ‘Oh, Lance. You've got it wrong. You see, dear, I am your mother.'

And that came as a shock to all of them.

It was too much for Lance. He tried to push her over the edge right then and there. Colin darted forward and there was a flailing, struggling mass of limbs for a moment as he found himself wrestling with his new boyfriend to save Karla's life. For a split second she was a goner, but he managed to wrench them all back. All three of them clattered to the ground, panting and tangled and, luckily, on the safer side of the terrace wall.

Karla was on top, screeching still. ‘It's true! You weren't hers! You never were! She stole you from me! You are mine, Lance! You've always belonged to me! You've always been a mother-fucker!'

Then she gave a terrible scream. It was right in Colin's
ears, because he was trapped where he'd fallen, underneath Lance and Karla's thrashing bodies. So Colin was deaf for a minute or so and he was confused as to why Karla had stopped using human language. It was like she was speaking in tongues. Or screaming.

Colin looked up to see his gran, silhouetted against the glossy night sky and the soft french windows. She was holding the silver ceremonial dagger aloft and it was dripping and gleaming in front of her face. Colin whipped his head back round and only then could he see that his gran had stabbed the bitch, right through the heart.

‘Jesus,' said Dennis the milkman, who was watching a gaggle of over-excited queens. They'd watched the ambulance come and go and now they were speculating about all the noise from one of the rooftop gardens. ‘You always see something different down here, don't you?'

Dennis the milkman had turned to say this to his neighbour, at the next aluminium table under the trees, outside Eden. Of course, the milkman wasn't dressed as a milkman tonight. He'd come out dressed as a lesbian vampire.

His neighbour was nodding in agreement. They had watched the various Canal Street palavers: the half-drowned duck woman, her skinny friend and the bouncers climbing aboard the ambulance and then they had tried to figure out what was going on above their heads. For a while they had thought someone was going to jump. Now Dennis the milkman's neighbour at the next table was gazing appreciatively at Dennis's stocking tops. I should be home by now, the milkman thought. Early start tomorrow. I shouldn't be out at all on a Monday night. But something grabbed hold of me and made me want to be out tonight. Something turned me into a lesbian vampire and that's always worth doing. And at least I saw someone nearly drown in the
canal. That was worth seeing and it's something I can tell my regulars when I take them their milk tomorrow. Lance will laugh at the story when I bring him his gold top. And then I can find out what all the noise was from his terrace tonight.

The milkman glanced up at the top studio flat by Slag! It was quiet now. No one had flung themselves off the terrace. The lights were on and the blinds were drawn. Well, I'll see him tomorrow and hear the tale and tell mine. And I should be going soon but, in the meantime, the bloke at the next table is still staring at me as the blood-hungry crowd disperses and there's nothing more to see here, everyone go home, it's all over now.

‘Hi,' said the bloke at the next table. Slick-looking bloke in an Armani suit. Public school accent, pointy little teeth. Not bad. ‘It's funny,' he went on. ‘The way you're dressed tonight …'

‘Oh, yes?' smiled Dennis the milkman who, to be truthful, looked quite burly and bizarre in his vampire lady costume.

‘You look exactly like the new star of my TV show. I work in TV. I'm Adrian.'

‘Oh,' said Dennis. ‘I'm a milkman.'

Adrian was still looking him up and down, slightly disappointed that Dennis wasn't more impressed by his working in TV. ‘Do you fancy a shag, mate?'

Dennis the milkman shrugged. ‘I've got an early shift. Delivering everything they need up and down these streets, first thing tomorrow. All my regulars. But, yeah, go on.' He finished the last of his alcopop. And Adrian the producer stood up and took his hand and shook it, and was pleased at the firmness of the milkman's grip. Must be strong and dextrous from carrying all those bottles, he thought.

They walked off purposefully through the Village. ‘So you work on
Menswear
, then?' the milkman asked. ‘I know Lance Randall in real life, as it happens.'

Adrian grinned. ‘I'm his producer.'

‘Great,' said Dennis. They were dodging past the late crowd at the New Union. ‘So,' he said. ‘This Karla Sorenson. Is she really as big a cunt as they say she is?'

Adrian laughed out loud over the noise of the buses, the squabbles, the laughter, the karaoke. He looked back at the softly glowing windows of Lance's studio flat. ‘Oh, no,' he said. ‘She's lovely. It's all an act. That's just showbiz. You ask Lance.'

‘I don't think Lance is keen on working with her.'

‘Really? I'm surprised. You should have seen them at the photo shoot this morning. They were delighted to be together. I think it'll all work out just fine. You'll see the pictures in tomorrow's papers.' Adrian stood in the road, hailing a taxi, watching it veer gently towards them.

‘I usually take Lance his paper in the morning,' Dennis the milkman said. ‘That's when I hear all his news as well.'

‘Sounds cosy.' They climbed in, and Adrian gave the driver his address, somewhere in Castlefield. Another studio flat.

‘I suppose I'll hear all about it in the morning,' Dennis said. ‘All the dramas.'

‘I guess you will,' the producer said as they drove off and he reached across the seat to Dennis. He laughed. ‘That Lance. There's always dramas with him. Sometimes he's murder to work with. Bit of a diva, don't you think?'