by Grace Lowrie
‘Oh, I’m not too sure, finance of some kind I think? But there’s a separate entrance and lift for you to use at the side. Come on.’ I followed Marguerite to a discreet door, set within larger solid double gates, to one side of the building. ‘There are just two flats and you’re in number two. This is your mailbox, and this is your buzzer,’ she said, indicating the panel on the wall where ‘S. Curtis’ was written in neat black script. The label for flat number one was curiously blank, but before I could comment Marguerite was rushing on. ‘There’s a little camera and a microphone so you can see and talk to whoever’s calling and then you can press a button to admit them from inside. I’ll show you when we get up there.’ By entering a code into the keypad she unlocked the door and then we stepped into a passageway beyond, which was open to the sky but hemmed in by the tall buildings on either side. ‘There are security lights all along here so it’s perfectly safe and you can dispose of your rubbish in the bins at the end, but you don’t have to worry about putting them out; that’s all taken care of.’
‘There are trees back there!’ I said, surprised. They looked lush, green and incongruous against the harsh urban surroundings.
‘Oh yes, there’s a garden, didn’t I tell you? It’s rather overgrown I’m afraid – mostly trees – and it’s shared with the other flat but I don’t think it gets used much.’ Marguerite, clearly in a hurry, led me into a waiting lift and we were swept smoothly up to the twelfth floor.
Once Marguerite unlocked the door to the flat I barely registered the empty landing, the burglar alarm or the entry system. Dropping my bags in the hallway I stepped inside, gazing in awe through the huge plate-glass windows which provided a drizzly but breath-taking view east across London’s rooftops. Identifying The Gherkin off to the right, I was tempted to pinch myself. And the interior of the apartment was no less amazing. It was vast and mainly open-plan with bare brick walls, parquet floors and high ceilings, and furnished with quirky character. The kitchen was tiled with glossy turquoise splashbacks while the lounge area was furnished with vivid violet velvet sofas and a shaggy lime-green rug. The two areas were separated by a huge fish tank and a breakfast bar with tall, vintage diner-style stools. A collection of large multi-coloured retro American signs adorned the walls above a wide, clear Perspex dining table with six matching chairs. The signs advertised everything from gas stations and lobsters, to hot dogs and superheroes. A selection of house-plants hung from the ceiling in seventies-style macramé baskets. They dangled at various heights in front of the windows, and as I watched their leaves quiver with the draft from the open front door, I realised I’d have to water them. Maybe even trim them. For the next six months these were my plants. I’d never been anywhere remotely like this, and it was going to be my home for the next six months.
Marguerite opened a succession of doors to reveal two spacious bedrooms, a candy pink bathroom and a storage cupboard, all the while venting a stream of information regarding fuses, timer switches, cleaning days and fish food.
‘Sorry, Marguerite,’ I interrupted, trying to tune into her words. ‘What was that about the fish?’
‘Don’t worry it’s all written down in the Sitter Information File,’ she waved a heavy-looking binder at me and slapped it down on the breakfast bar. ‘I just need you to sign the contract and the insurance docs for me.’ She produced a ballpoint pen from her bag and clicked the end. I took it from her and signed my full name, Calluna Drey, without really reading anything – I’d known Marguerite long enough to trust her completely. ‘Thank you so much for doing this, Cally, you’re a life saver,’ she said scooping her things up and handing me a set of keys. ‘As I said, everything you need to know should be in the file, but if there’s anything you’re not sure about you can always call me, day or night.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now, is there anything else before I go?’ she was already on her way to the door, checking the slim silver watch on her wrist.
‘Actually, there is one thing.’ She paused and rotated on her heels to face me with a smile of expectation. ‘Can I ask a huge favour? I don’t want anyone to know where I am – not Liam, not my parents, not any of our friends – no-one.’ Marguerite’s pencil-thin eyebrows lifted towards her hairline. ‘I know it’s a strange request, and I promise there’s nothing to worry about, really. It’s just that I want a complete break, you know, without distractions…’
Sadness crept into my friend’s eyes. ‘You’ve left him.’
‘Yes.’
‘He must be gutted.’
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to think about it. She glanced at her watch again.
‘OK,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s not going to be easy – I’ll probably see him around all the time, in the pub, at matches…’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
She stared at me for a moment. ‘My loyalty has always been to you first – you know that.’
‘Thank you,’ I said with relief. ‘I won’t always have my mobile switched on but you can leave a message or ring me on the landline here.’
‘OK,’ she said reaching out and pulling me into another one-armed hug. ‘If you get bored or lonely just call me and we’ll go out for cocktails or something.’
‘Sounds great,’ I said, with more conviction than I felt.
I waited until the lift had carried Marguerite away before wheeling my suitcase inside, closing the door behind me and turning to face my new life with a long, slow exhale.
Chapter Four
I gradually became aware of a persistent buzzing which grew louder and more irritating as I slowly gained consciousness. Eventually the screaming pain in my head, the stiffness in my limbs, and the urge to vomit conspired with the buzzing to force my eyes open. Squinting in the bright daylight I groaned aloud as the familiar contours of my flat assembled into focus. Fuck. I was still alive. I’d bottled it again. Fucking coward.
The persistent buzzing was someone down at the front door trying to get my attention. I wished they’d stop. Gingerly I dragged myself up into a seated position from where I’d been curled on the floor beneath an open window. With great effort I reached up one hand and pushed the reinforced glass shut behind me. It slid home with a hard, audible click of finality, punctuating my abject failure to escape yet again. Whoever was pressing the entry buzzer was now stabbing out an infuriating little tune. ‘Fuck off!’ I yelled ineffectually across the room, clutching my head in my hands. How long had I been out? The digital clock by my bed read 09:05 but was it still Thursday or had I been out longer; missing a day or two like last time? My gaze alighted on an open bottle of vodka a couple of feet away and I reached out and grabbed it with stiff fingers. There were only a few mouthfuls left, but I downed it quickly, savouring the burn as it made its way down my throat and hit my churning stomach.
By the time I’d made it to my feet and staggered across the room I was ready to kill whoever was downstairs still pressing the damn buzzer.
‘WHAT?’ I roared into the handset.
‘Bay, at last, I was about to call the police.’
‘Fuck off, Felix.’
‘Charming. I’m just gonna keep buzzing until you let me in…’
Sighing, I punched the door release button with the side of my fist and stumbled towards the bathroom. While Felix made his way up to my door, I managed to knock back some prescription painkillers with more vodka from the freezer, pull on a sweatshirt and recover a slightly squashed fag from behind my ear.
‘Jesus, Bay, you look like death.’ The irony of his comment was not lost on me, but I was too irritable to laugh. Lighting up I walked silently back to the centre of the room while he closed the door behind him. ‘Shit it’s freezing in here. Why’s it so cold? Has your heating broken down?’ I didn’t respond. ‘At least the air’s fresher – makes a change from the usual fog of tobacco smoke in here.’
‘What do you want, Felix?’ I said, collapsing onto my bed and taking a long drag.
‘Ba
y, your feet are blue, put some socks on for god’s sake.’
‘Felix…’ I growled in warning.
‘OK, OK,’ he held up a hand in surrender as he righted a chair and sat down to face me. ‘You know why I’m here.’ He furtively surveyed the jumble of canvases of various shapes and sizes that littered the room, most of them faced the wall, turned away from prying eyes. ‘I’m holding that exhibition over on the other side of the river in the summer and you said you’d have some finished pieces for me by now. I need to have some idea of what I’m going to be displaying if I’m going to curate and market the show properly.’
I took another drag and blew smoke rings out above my head.
‘Bay, tell me you’ve got something for me. I can’t make you money unless you give me something to sell.’
Sighing heavily, I bent to drop the remains of my fag into a half-empty coke can on the floor and shoved my hands into my hair – it really needed cutting. As annoying as Felix was, he was my agent and a friend; a good friend; he didn’t deserve all the shit I subjected him to. ‘Yeah I’ve got something for you.’ I rose to my feet and he followed me into my storeroom. ‘That doesn’t mean they’re any good, though,’ I added, self-doubt brewing in my mind.
‘Just let me be the judge of that,’ Felix said as I dragged dust-sheets away from a selection of canvases stacked in a rack along one wall. I stood back and observed as Felix carefully spread the series of oil paintings out around the room, silently considering and scrutinising each one in turn. I told myself I didn’t care if he liked them or not; whether he thought they were good enough for his exhibition, or commercially saleable, or complete and utter shit. But deep down, I did care. What little life I had left was poured into those paintings; my very soul was spread within the pigment, carried in each brush-stroke and sealed in every scrape of the knife. I didn’t paint because I wanted to. For me, painting was a compulsion; an addiction, as surely as drinking, smoking, and getting high was. I would still paint if no-one else ever saw them. But being able to send paintings out into the world – knowing that they existed somewhere beyond here, beyond me – that mattered, even though I’d never admit it.
‘Extraordinary,’ Felix muttered to himself.
‘Extraordinarily bad?’
‘No, Bay, these are fantastic – seriously. Slightly disturbing as usual, but no less brilliant for all that. Most people don’t want anything this depressing on their walls – you know that – but there’s a niche market for your work now. You’re developing something of a cult following…’
I snorted with derision and returned to the main room, uncomfortable with Felix’s praise now that he’d restored my fragile ego. He stayed behind, taking photos and making notes on his phone while I rolled a spliff and checked the contents of the fridge for something edible. Thankfully the flat was warming up again and the painkillers were beginning to kick in. Now all I wanted to do was crawl into my pit and sleep – it was disconcerting waking up in the morning instead of late afternoon.
Felix was grinning from ear to ear when he re-emerged. ‘Thanks, Bay, you’ve made my day. I can really relax and enjoy my weekend now.’ Weekend? Was it Friday already? I took a bite of cold pizza from the limp slice in my hand and then hastily spat it back out again. It didn’t taste right. Felix grimaced in response. ‘I know I’ve said this before, but you know you need help, right?’ I rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash from a bottle by the microwave and spat into the kitchen sink. Why it was there, instead of in the bathroom, was anyone’s guess. Had I been drinking it? ‘I mean, you should really check yourself into a clinic, or at least see a therapist or something,’ he pressed.
‘Isn’t it time you were going?’
Felix sighed and shook his head in defeat. ‘OK mate.’ I followed him to the door. ‘Listen; will you email me a list of titles so I can start working on the promo material? Nearer the time I’ll send someone round to transport them over to the gallery.’
I nodded, distracted by the sight of a large plastic carrier bag on the landing. A pair of long brown furry ears where sticking out the top. ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘I don’t know, nothing to do with me,’ Felix said, lifting a large stuffed bunny by one ear, so that its glassy eyes peered out at me. ‘Maybe it’s the Easter Bunny?’
‘Easter Bunny?’
‘Yeah,’ Felix shrugged, dropping it back in the bag. ‘It’s Good Friday after all.’
‘Oh.’ I’d been unconscious for over twenty-four hours.
‘Maybe it belongs to your neighbour?’ Felix said stepping into the lift.
‘Maybe,’ I said doubtfully, raising a hand in farewell as the lift closed and whisked my agent away. Admittedly my neighbour, Sidney, was a little camp, but he was in his late forties and drove a BMW; a fluffy bunny didn’t seem his style. I vaguely recalled him telling me he was going abroad for a while, but I was stoned at the time and couldn’t remember any specifics. As I shut the door and sloped off to bed I shivered, hoping the mysterious bunny was not going to lurk on the landing for long.
Chapter Five
I didn’t get up until mid-afternoon on Easter Monday, having stayed up all night eating popcorn, chocolate mini-eggs and ice-cream in front of Mr Curtis’s epic surround-sound TV. It was peculiar living in the home of a complete stranger. His personal effects were presumably tidily stashed in the locked bedroom cupboard – there were no family photographs lying around, no notepads, no letters, no books – no clues from which I could glean more about him. Not that I was one to snoop, but I was curious, and found myself trying to guess at his first name, age, occupation and looks. The only thing I knew with any certainty was that Mr Curtis was the sort of man who has a pre-paid movie package. I had comfortably vegetated all weekend – sitting and soaking up virtually any film I fancied. It was pure indulgence, but one that I could no longer afford.
By leaving Wildham I’d taken a big risk – one that I justified to myself repeatedly – after all, it was my life and I was young, fit and healthy – in all respects but one – surely as long as I ate well and maintained an active lifestyle the worst of any symptoms would be kept at bay. But leaving my old life behind was only the first step towards transforming it, and the clock was ticking.
Having fed the fish and poured myself a bowl of cereal, and very careful not to confuse the two, I gazed out at the massive grey buildings across the street and the jumbled sprawl of London beyond. It was far removed from the safe, leafy world of Wildham. But I refused to be intimidated. I had a book to write and I wanted to make the most of my time in the capital – do a bit of sightseeing, visit art galleries, explore markets – not to mention I had a whole new wardrobe to buy. But that was going to cost money, so my first priority ought to be finding a job.
I’d always been a wallflower, an introvert, and I’d always been OK with that; content to observe from the sidelines and go unnoticed. But not anymore. Now I wanted to be seen. For once in my life I wanted to shine, sparkle and burn brightly… before it was too late. And my hopes for that rested in the hands of the only famous person I’d ever met; rising actress and all-round star, Jasmine Reed. Setting my afternoon breakfast aside, I grabbed my mobile and switched it on. Immediately it erupted with sound, the screen flashing with voice mails, text messages and missed-call notifications, mostly from Liam. But I couldn’t read them. Ignoring them all I located Jasmine’s number, jotted it down and quickly switched my mobile off again. Taking a steadying breath I picked up the Bakelite receiver of Mr Curtis’s 1960s rotary-style phone, cleared my throat, reminded myself I was a new person, and bravely dialled.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Jasmine, you may not remember me, my name’s Cally, I’m a friend of James Southwood – we met at his birthday party a couple of years ago…?’
‘And…?’
‘It’s just that I’m a dancer and you told me if I was ever looking for work that I should give you a ring; you said you might be able to help…’
‘Did I?’ She sighed. ‘Look, Kelly is it?’
‘Cally.’
‘Whatever, look, I was probably drunk when I said that; I can’t get you a job just like that.’
‘Oh, no of course not,’ I mumbled, a tremor of embarrassment creeping into my voice.
‘Taxi!’ Jasmine yelled, making me jump and pull the handset away from my ear. I listened as she climbed into a cab and gave the name of a posh-sounding venue to the driver. ‘Are you still there, Kelly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know The Electric Fox on Lexington?’
‘No, but I’m sure I could find it…’
‘All I can suggest is that you go there and ask Pavel, the owner, for a job. Tell him I sent you and if he likes you, you might get lucky.’
‘Wow, OK, thank you, Jasmine – I really appreciate it.’
‘No worries, take care—’ She’d hung up before I could say goodbye, the drone of the dial tone echoing in my head as I dropped the retro handset back into its cradle.
For several minutes I stared out the window as I ran the conversation back in my mind. She hadn’t been as friendly as I remembered, but then she was a busy, famous celebrity and I was lucky she’d spoken to me at all. And she’d given me a lead – a real life opportunity to fulfil my secret dream of being a paid, professional dancer! I flipped my laptop open and chewed my lip while it warmed up. The Electric Fox… was that a dance troupe? A theatre company? Or the name of a performance venue…?
My shoulders slumped as the information popped up on Google. I should have known. What did I really expect? Show business was one of the hardest industries to get into and I was a nobody. I clicked through to the relevant website and jotted down the address. I owed it to myself to at least go along, check it out and give it my best shot. After all, what, aside from my dignity, did I have to lose?