Autumn

by Vina Jackson

  ‘But they must have something else, as well. It’s not just a matter of open-mindedness, or of high sexual drive. We require talented performers who possess a certain level of sexual power. Magick, some people would call it, but it isn’t really that,’ she continued.

  ‘Depending on your point of view,’ Andrei added, and they glanced at each other, sharing a complicit smile.

  ‘What line of work, exactly, is it that you’re engaged in?’ I queried. I planned to direct them to my agent, who handled all negotiations for any performances, but my curiosity led me to question them further before I halted the conversation. Lauralynn had been right about the rumours, I thought with only a little misgiving. Evidently the nature of my encounters around Europe had not gone unnoticed, but I certainly did not expect to be offered work in – what – playing music in sex clubs perhaps? as a result.

  ‘You must understand, there is only a certain amount that we can divulge at this stage.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, accustomed to the secrecy adopted by creative types that often masked a fear of failure, ‘but you can’t expect me to agree to anything without knowing at least a little more about it. Particularly since these events sound somewhat … alternative.’

  Aurelia nodded, and continued to explain.

  ‘We are connected with an organisation who run very high profile, erotic events. Typically quite small. Only for either the richest, the most discreet, the most persuasive or curious individuals who seek us out. We refer to ourselves as the Network, for want of a better name. Your anonymity, if you were to perform at any such event, would be absolutely assured. And the pay is very good. In fact you performed at one of our events some time back, although you were only allowed to see, how might I term it, the tip of the iceberg?’

  I tried to recall which gig that might have been, and after thoroughly dredging through my memories vaguely recalled a set in a North London mansion, where the audience had all been unusually attired in risqué, scanty, or just plain weird outfits and afterwards I had been briskly ushered away and had wondered what was being hidden from me. It had stuck in my mind as usually the kind of crowds I played to were the cardigan and string-of-pearls wearing sort, or music students and a smaller contingent of hipsters wearing torn jeans or tweed suits picked up from charity shops in a bid to appear fashionably ironic. And a handful of city types in actual suits, straight from work. Not a whole roomful of swingers, goths, kinksters or any mixture of the three, that’s for sure.

  ‘I’m not in need of money,’ I told her. I was beginning to bristle a little now, and becoming impatient.

  ‘And the performances … they are different. Not sleazy or vulgar in any way. Erotic art, of the highest calibre.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘But that is not why we contacted you.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. I turned the coffee cup in my hands, as Andrei had done. The dark, bitter grounds had settled at the bottom and with some careful handling I knew I would be able to get a few more sips without taking a mouthful of sediment. ‘Why did you really contact me?’

  ‘We want you to perform at our Ball again, but this time you would be totally integrated into the spectacle, not just an opening act. It occurs more or less every two years. The next one is to take place in just under a year from now, in a somewhat unusual but fascinating area in America, in the desert. We would pay generously of course, and your travel expenses would be fully covered, and although the actual event is just one night, you would be expected to be involved fairly actively, both before and after. It would be a major commitment …’

  ‘Would I be at liberty to play the music of my choice?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes of course,’ she replied. ‘That goes without saying. You would play solo if you wished. But then again, if you preferred some form of backing, we would also provide for that. And you’d have total control over every aspect of the performance.’

  I felt my skin begin to tingle with excitement. Susan, my agent, would go nuts if she knew that I was even considering agreeing to even a one-off piece of work without consulting her and going through all of the proper contractual­ malarkey and paperwork. But for one night, and whatever they had vaguely referred to as ‘involvement’ before and after, I could probably disappear and call it a holiday. I had always wanted to visit the desert. Immediately images straight from the Arabian Nights burst into my mind in vivid, three-­dimensional colour.

  ‘What is this Ball?’ I asked. ‘You said it was related to the island? To what I experienced there? I thought that I was drunk, or dreaming …’

  ‘No, you weren’t drunk,’ she said. ‘As for dreaming … not entirely. When the mind is in that very relaxed state that you experienced, every thought and sensation is heightened, a hundred times over, at least … May I?’ she asked, indicating that she wanted to take my hand in hers.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, stretching my arm out across the table. This woman was like a witch. Enchanting. I could see why Andrei doted on her every word and movement. She could have hypnotised even the most hard-hearted womaniser.

  Aurelia picked up my offered hand in one of hers, and turned it over. She ran the fingertips of her other hand very lightly over my wrist as she spoke. ‘In your ordinary waking moments,’ she explained, ‘a gentle touch like this would feel like exactly that and no more.’ I nodded. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Close your eyes. Let your body relax. Imagine that you’re back there, swimming through the green water to the shore. Everything is calm. The sea is full of fish, but they won’t hurt you. Now your feet are sinking into the sand, and you’re walking into the jungle. You’re totally alone, but you’re safe, and your feet are stepping easily over the tree roots. You remember your way back to the vines, where you slept.’

  I continued to nod, to indicate that I was listening, and mentally followed her directions. My back began to fill out against the chair that I was resting on, and my limbs relaxed. My mind started to wander, and Aurelia’s voice took on a sonorous quality, like the intonation of a deep, heavy bell. I could hear music through the branches of the trees that had appeared in my mind, a mental lullaby that soothed my muscles into an even deeper state of relaxation.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘concentrate on my touch.’

  I did so, and suddenly, instead of a feather-light touch on my wrist I felt four hands travelling the length of my naked body; one slim, pale pair and the other thick and heavy, unmistakably belonging to Aurelia and Andrei respectively. The response of my body was immediate and unstoppable. I felt a familiar wetness gathering in my loins and a strong flood of desire sweeping through my veins, leaving me weak and breathless. I was sure that my face had reddened.

  My eyelids opened immediately, partly in shock and partly in embarrassment.

  I was still in the heart of Borough Market and its familiar environment. Aurelia was smiling at me. It might even have been a smirk.

  ‘I did nothing more than touch your wrist,’ she said, releasing me. Instinctively I cradled the wrist that she had been holding with the fingers of my other hand.

  ‘And I haven’t moved,’ Andrei added.

  It seemed that they both knew what I had been imagining.

  ‘You see,’ Aurelia explained. ‘There’s no trickery involved. Just a heightened sense of awareness possessed by only a very few individuals, and the readiness to accept that desire. That’s what the Ball is all about. We work to preserve the joy and wildness of human sexuality, to remove the shame that clouds intimacy for so many people … The Ball is a celebration of sex. And to make that happen, we stimulate the senses. The eyes, the flesh, the smell, of course, the hearing. We want you to arouse people, with your music. Just like what you experienced on the island, but on a much larger scale. It would be an unforgettable experience, for you and for all others present.’

  They were both staring at me intensely.

  I broke away from
their gaze and looked down at my coffee cup, then glanced up again.

  ‘It’s an interesting proposition,’ I said. ‘But I’ll need to think about it.’

  I felt as if I was not being told everything about the Ball and the involvement they sought of me. Something was being held back. Or maybe it was just too weird to be believed.

  ‘No problem,’ Aurelia said. Her expression was relieved, as if to her mind I had accepted already. She slid her fingers down the front of her dress and pulled out a white card with a phone number handwritten across it in a neat font, in blue ink. ‘Take as long as you like.’

  I seized the card, which was still warm from the heat of her breast, and slipped it into my pocket, thinking immediately of the man from the Kentish Town sauna. What was it with me and strangers with cards?

  They rose from their seats in unison, and I quickly stood up to bid them goodbye. My plastic seat clattered. We shook hands, and Aurelia tilted her chin towards me in a firm nod of acknowledgment.

  I sat down again, and watched them walk away. They had linked hands within moments of leaving the table. It was an instinctive gesture. I could not have pinpointed who had extended a hand to the other first. A gust of wind caught Aurelia’s dress and it briefly flew up at the bottom, displaying the meaty flesh of her calf muscles and the backs of her knees. I caught a brief glimpse of another large tattoo.

  The waiter returned, and placed another cup of coffee in front of me, explaining that Andrei had ordered and paid for it earlier, although I hadn’t noticed him do so.

  My thoughts of the strange introduction and their offer were interrupted by the rumbling of my stomach. I had been so distracted by our conversation that I had entirely forgotten I had not yet eaten breakfast, and now my stomach was crying out for food. I took my coffee, stopped at the nearest food stand and ordered a beef burger with cheese and extra relish, then made my way home.

  When I arrived, I stuck Aurelia’s card to the fridge with a magnet. I would keep her offer in the back of my mind, I decided, and mull it over. Until then, I would get on with the business of enjoying London in summer, lazy days out, and even lazier mornings relaxing at home.

  It was late in the morning and I was still in bed. No longer sleeping, but lazily half-awake, half-somnolent, on the fuzzy shores of indulgence. I was being distantly serenaded by small birds buzzing along the higher branches of the Heath’s trees outside my window, and in the deepest recesses of my brain, was attempting to divine some sort of elusive pattern or tune in their random chants.

  I stretched out like a snow angel across the thin white sheet covering me. Extended my arm to pick up the bottle of mineral water I kept on the floor on my side of the bed and took a deep sip from it.

  My phone rang.

  I reluctantly shook off the cobwebs holding back my wakefulness.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Miss Zahova?’

  ‘Hmmm …’

  ‘Summer Zahova?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The voice was male. English though accentless, with no regional traits. Deep and smooth. Seductive.

  ‘Good. My name is Antony Torgerson. Antony without an H,’ he spelled it out. ‘I’ve been sending you e-mails but gather you’ve been overseas. Your agent’s offices gave me your telephone number.’

  He must be OK, I reflected, as they wouldn’t have communicated my number to just anyone.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve heard of me,’ he said. I hadn’t. ‘I’m a theatre director. I understand you’ve become the executor for the estate of Dominik …’

  A dark cloud blanked out the rest of his words.

  Something caught in my throat.

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘It’s about his second novel. The Violin Diaries. I’m a great fan.’

  I regained my composure. Pulled the bed cover up across my chest, covering my naked breasts, not that he could have been aware of my state of undress on the other end of the phone line.

  ‘The book didn’t do that well,’ I pointed out. ‘It was a commercial disappointment,’ I added.

  ‘I know,’ the man said. ‘All the more reason to help people become aware of it again.’

  Dominik had blamed the novel’s lack of success on timing and the vagaries of fashion in the minds of the reading public. The reviews had been sparse, although the storyline was original and if anything, Dominik had believed the quality of the writing had been better than his initial effort which despite its flaws had been a runaway success. Just one of those things.

  ‘How?’ I asked him.

  ‘I think it would make for a great adaptation to the stage, I really do.’

  I was intrigued, if dubious. The book’s plot was all over the place and had few central characters. Unlike his first, outrageously romantic novel which I had unwittingly inspired, it had not even drawn any form of interest from the movies whatsoever.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘It’s an interesting idea, Mr Torgerson,’ I said. ‘So what are you after? An option for the stage rights? In which case, I fear I’m not the person you should be speaking to. Maybe best if you contacted the publishers …’

  I certainly didn’t want to become involved in any form of financial transaction. Just didn’t wish for Dominik’s memory and books to be dirtied by such considerations. As for me, I had money enough right now and was in no need of further funds, since the impromptu European tour had proven surprisingly lucrative.

  ‘I have already spoken to them,’ he answered. ‘But I’d also rather obtain your blessing as Dominik’s executor, some form of understanding and approval for what I’m hoping to achieve with the adaptation,’ he concluded. ‘It would be nice to have you on board before anything is signed off. I’d also like to put some of my ideas to you, casting and otherwise.’

  He sounded genuinely concerned. I was still unsure whether to allow myself to become involved, wary that it might drag old ghosts back to the surface and disturb the fragile equilibrium the visit to the island had rebuilt. My silence spoke for itself.

  ‘Maybe we could meet up? For a drink? So I can put you at ease and demonstrate that my intentions are quite honourable,’ he said. ‘It would be so much easier to explain in person.’

  What was there to lose? He would just propose some ideas as to how Dominik’s difficult second book could translate to a theatre stage. It might even prove interesting. Because of the subject matter of the cursed violin, maybe he had certain musical elements already in mind?

  I agreed to see him.

  I slipped back under the covers. The bird songs had ceased. I looked up at the ceiling, half guessing at shapes in the ever so uneven plaster as sharp rays of sunlight jutted their way through the open window and spread unevenly through the bedroom in a maze of geometric patterns.

  I was casually hoping I would doze off again and briefly banish all thoughts of life and the reality I was still muddling my way through, but was unable to do so.

  Reflecting on Aurelia and Andrei’s strange offer and the telephone call about Dominik’s book. A strange confluence: one road opening to a new future and the other leading back into the past, respective diversions that could either harm me or act as an exorcism. Which should I take? Or could I embark on both journeys and retain my sense of peace?

  The phone rang again. I let it ring, unwilling to process yet more information. It stopped. Then began to ring again as if first time around the caller had decided he or she had been calling a wrong number and was determined to get through to the right one.

  It was my sister Fran.

  Tonight she wanted to take me dancing.

  Oh yes, I would dance!

  A decade or more of joyful sweat lined the subterranean walls of the club or dripped like candlewax in slow motion, down the outdated posters advertisin
g long forgotten punk groups.

  I was drunk.

  Neither a merry or a sad sort of drunk, but a detached one, observing from afar how my steps were becoming increasingly uncoordinated and my gestures a touch too abrupt. The noise was unbearably loud and I kept my mouth shut, unlike all my companions blabbering away at high pitch with no one in our group able to hear a single word of what any other was saying. I felt like an observer in an aquarium watching the mouths of fish behind the protective glass distort into twisted shapes as they exhaled. It had been ages since I’d imbibed so much alcohol. I’d never been much of a drinker anyway, just the occasional glass of wine and rare half pints of beer in social circumstances, but Dominik had not indulged and I had found it easier to copy his habit in the time we were together.

  The damage had been done by a series of cocktails in gaudy colours and a litter of miniature matchstick umbrellas was spread across our oval table, alongside the empty glasses. It was her birthday and Fran had sworn to sample her way through the entire list of cocktails on the card. Chris, still friends with us both but no longer her other half, appeared more in control, even though his gestures were growing broader by the minute and his laugh even more raucous.

  A musician whose name I couldn’t remember, a friend of Chris’s, tapped me on the shoulder, indicating the swarming dance floor. Oh, why not?

  I rose, unsteadily, although I was still half a dozen cocktails behind Fran, Chris and their other celebrating friends. I’d tried the emerald blue, scarlet pink, sickly green and sharp orange ones, but still had to face the deep purple, canary yellow and the turd brown liquid concoctions that lay on my side of the table, waiting for me to summon up the courage to continue this boozy road to meaningless damnation.

  Using our elbows we made our way to a pocket of free space on the dance floor and within seconds we were submerged by a pack of bodies and separated, as the metal disco pounded out its relentless rhythms and the whole room swayed in its wake. The strobe lights flashed like robots on a rampage through a science fiction apocalypse, each shot of white lightning skimming across the forest canopy of shaking heads and crashing against the damp, sweat-laden walls in continuous waves.