Slave to Fashion

by Rebecca Campbell

  An image of a hammer slowly materialized in my mind.

  “That, Penny, is one problem that I can solve for you. I have a friend. His business is to . . . help negotiate in situations like this. He has the proper tools.”

  “Really, Katie? Would you do that for me after everything? Do you really think we could work together again? I fear I, we, may have treated you . . . a little unkindly, back . . . you know. But we were a good team, weren’t we?”

  “A very good team. Look, Penny, I’ll be completely frank with you. I think my plan is a sound one, and everyone can benefit. But I also want my old life back. I want to come and work here with you again.”

  “Is that all you want?”

  Still shrewd!

  “I think you know that more than anything I want Ludo back.”

  “You know he came home to London for awhile? But then he returned to his island. I don’t know why. I don’t think he’s very happy up there in Muck or Mull. I would love it if he were here. I could forgive, forget almost anything. I imagine you have learnt your lesson?”

  “I’ve learnt lots of lessons.”

  And so, without the need to bully or cajole, or wheedle, or beg, I was back. And if Penny never quite fully recovered her old ferocity, she did find something unexpected in the months ahead: a sort of grace. My plan worked well enough. Penny Moss might never take over the world; we’re not Armani, not Prada, not Gucci; but we make a little money, and the people who know have even begun to call us chic. Jonah visited Kuyper, and our lease was renegotiated shortly after, on very favorable terms. Penny allowed Hugh back, cowed and compliant, but still with a twinkle in his eye and a tendency to pat bottoms.

  But what about the video Albert and Clittoria? And what about my lovely lost Ludo?

  A month or so after rejoining Penny, I said to her, in an innocent, just-making-conversation kind of way, “Penny, do you remember your first ever film role?”

  “Like it was yesterday. It was a gentle, humorous little erotic movie, directed incognito by a rather famous Italian director. I can’t tell you his name because he swore the entire cast to secrecy. Sadly, it seems to rather have disappeared.”

  I was surprised by her openness.

  “So you aren’t, you know, embarrassed or ashamed about it?”

  “Embarrassed? God, no. I had a body to dream about in those days. I’d give anything to see it again. Might even put a bit of lead in old Hugh’s pencil.”

  “Penny, I don’t quite know how to tell you this, but I’ve got a copy of it on video.”

  “Katie, you’re joking. How on earth?”

  “It really is too complicated a story to tell. I was just sounding you out. I was going to destroy it, and it’s the only copy. I didn’t expect you to be so enthusiastic about it. Here, you can have it, it’s in my bag.”

  “Did you watch it?”

  “No, actually. I thought it would be too yucky.”

  And that was the truth.

  But what about the nasty pornographic drug-dealing gangster? Didn’t he want the video for his own wicked purposes? I’ll have to rewind a bit to explain what happened. Remember Penny’s colonic irrigation video, shot with the Vaseline’d lens? Well, that video had been on my desk when my things were swept into the box in the course of my expulsion from Eden. I found it, of course, when I properly unpacked everything in the Kilburn flat. I stuck it on a shelf and more or less forgot about it—until, that is, Jonah’s visit.

  And as you’ve probably guessed, I switched the tapes.

  I gave the irrigation tape to Jonah a week later, and he returned it to the pornographer.

  “My associate,” Jonah said to me next time he saw me, “he was a wee bit surprised when he saw the tape.”

  “Really? I never watched it. I decided not to use it in the end.”

  “Yes, he was a bit surprised, but not disappointed. There was nothing to identify any particular individual on the tape, so it was of no use for extortion or the like. But the content made it attractive to those with . . . certain tastes. He’s had it copied in the thousands. It’s gone all over the world.”

  So Penny’s bottom acquired a celluloid celebrity that the rest of her had never quite achieved. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  And Ludo?

  CHAPTER 21

  And Ludo

  “Where do I find eagles?”

  “Eagles? What sorts of eagles? What do you want with eagles, anyway?”

  The man from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds wasn’t being very helpful.

  “What sort have you got?”

  “Well, breeding, we have golden eagles and white-tailed sea eagles.”

  “The ones with white tails. Scottish ones. They’re on an island. And it isn’t the eagles I want, it’s the man who’s looking after them. He’s my fiancé.” I thought I’d better keep it simple.

  The man sounded at least partially mollified. He was obviously cheered by the unexpected news that bird enthusiasts could have fiancées.

  “We have to be careful, you know. Egg collectors. So your fiancé is one of our wardens, on the white-tailed sea eagle reintroduction program? What’s his name?”

  Ten minutes later I had the name of the island and rough instructions on how to get there. I phoned rail inquiries and a ferry company. I then packed a small case with the nearest approximations I could manage to sensible clothing.

  My first setback came at Euston with the news that all of the very few proper sleeper cabins were taken. That ended my Orient Express fantasy, and I was left with the prospect of twelve hours in what was claimed to be a “comfortable recliner,” squashed in between, I imagined, an incontinent, drunken Glaswegian docker with a seismic snore and a sickly undertaker from Slough, heading north to recover from the nervous condition that had so exacerbated his epilepsy.

  In fact the carriage was virtually empty, with just two old boys quietly playing cards down at the other end. This was the holiday train to the Highlands and Islands, and who wants to go there in February? I guessed that the posh berths were all taken by stray business types on expenses, unwilling to risk spending a whole night in Glasgow for fear of deep-fried Mars bars.

  As ever, there came the little flutter of excitement as the journey began. My seat, if looked on as such and not as a bed, was comfortable enough to begin with, and I settled in. A gaily, if cheaply, liveried ticket inspector came along and stayed for a flirt. He made me think of Penny’s Argentinean undergeneral, long ago and far away. He cheerie-byed and came back ten minutes later with an appropriately tartan blanket.

  “Ye’ll be needin’ this, miss; gets more than a wee bit cold later on.”

  Remembering how well tartan hides stains, I thanked him and put it on the next seat.

  I spent five minutes rummaging for my book before I realized that I didn’t have one. Perfect. Months of working like a demon with barely a moment to dip into something trashy, and now, with hours of free time ahead of me, I had nothing to take my mind off the potential pitfalls of the day to come, the most important of my life. I stared at the black windows, but they showed me nothing but a worried face and what looked as though it might be a wrinkle. Miraculously, after a while the trundling rhythm of the train, combined with the hypnotism of the passing darkness, and aided perhaps by the large gin and tonic I’d bought in the station, lullabied me to sleep.

  I awoke with a start to half-light. I was freezing cold. My mouth felt like a slug had crawled in there and died. And yes, there was the trail, dried now and flaky, down my chin. I’d dreamt, of course, of Ludo. Nothing that shaped up as a narrative, just random images and the knowledge that we were together again. It was horribly poignant.

  It was four o’clock in the morning, and I knew I’d slept all I was going to. Looking down the carriage, I saw that the two guys were still playing cards. After a cleanup in the loo, I went and said hello. They invited me to join them, and over the next two hours I lost almost three pounds at poker, whic
h was quite good, as I knew no more about the mysterious rules at the end than I had at the beginning. The men, through accents thicker than porridge, said they made the journey twice a week, traveling on to Calais on the Eurostar. There they bought sackfuls of illicit rolling tobacco, which they sold cheaply in the pubs of Glasgow. It seemed like a strange way to make a living, but then so, at times, did fashion.

  Glasgow came and went, and with it the two guys. More passengers joined: day-trippers in cagoules and waterproof trousers, ready for the worst. As the light improved I became aware that we were in faraway country. Suddenly there were mountains, real mountains, and long lakes glimmering darkly, full of monsters. Perhaps it would have been pretty if the sun had shone, but under the furious sky it just looked moody and unwelcoming.

  I thought about the abominable Malheurbe. What had he said? His words were mixed up in my head with images of Penny wrestling with Art. But it was something along the lines that only with the invention of the concept of the sublime had nature become comprehensible, and then only as the “incomprehensible.” Mmmm. Ah. Well, if any landscape anywhere in the world was sublime, then this must be it. So, did I comprehend it as the “incomprehensible”? No, not really. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand nature: I just didn’t care about it very much. Nature is never witty, or silly, or sexy, or flirtatious, or drunk, or camp, or clever, or gossipy. It can’t chat you up, or tell you a funny story, or take you to a smart new restaurant. And nothing ever happens there, apart from rain. Often it smells of poo. Going to look at countryside always struck me as a bizarre thing to want to do, weirder even than other eccentric pastimes like opera or bowling. And you can test it. The next time someone tells you in that smug way they have that they’re “going to the country,” just ask them, “Why?” They never have a proper answer. So, I thought as Nature hammed it up outside, you’re wasting your time with me.

  At Fort William I had to change to a local train for Mallaig. The scenery, in its ill-mannered way, continued to shout for attention, and I continued to ignore it. At Mallaig there was a dash to the harbor for the boat. I’d imagined something like a slightly smaller cross-Channel ferry, but it looked more like a fishing boat seeing out its retirement. It was certainly in need of a lick of paint, and I hoped the plug was in.

  The lady at the ticket office had looked surprised when I asked for a return to Ludo’s island. “But there’s nothing there,” she said in the singsong Highland way, “unless you’re a geologist or biologist. And I have to say that you don’t look like either.” I supposed that was a compliment. “There’s only the youth hostel, you know? Oh, and the campsite. But at least the day’s bonny,” she added, looking through the window at the thousand shades of gray in the sky.

  She told me more about the island as she wrote out the ticket. It was always the poorest of the Hebrides, she said, and perhaps the only place where the crofters got up a petition begging for eviction. But not even the sheep that replaced them could turn a profit for the laird. The island was eventually sold to an English mill owner, who transformed it into a hunting estate, importing deer and building an endearingly mad castle. But in time the ferocious midges, and the rain, and the gloom dulled the blood lust, and now the island belonged to the nation and was devoted to scientific research.

  The name of the island, the ticket lady told me, was Gaelic for “Devil’s Turnip.” She started telling me a story about some Highland trickster who had a wager with the devil about which of them could throw a turnip the farthest out into the sea. As usual with these stories, the trickster’s soul was at stake. I got as far as the devil hurling his turnip out to sea, and the turnip becoming the island (“And as you can see,” the lady said, pointing to a map on the wall behind her, “it does look a wee bit like a turnip”), and the trickster eating his turnip, when, mercifully, I had to run for the boat.

  The ferry was surprisingly crowded with young people, all sensibly backpacked, waxed, and waterproofed. These were the student geologists, geographers, and biologists, shepherded by nervous lecturers. Reassuringly, they mostly conformed to the stereotype, and I killed the first half hour by counting pustules.

  It took about that long for the seasickness to get to work. The sea was choppy rather than rough, but the little boat rolled and pitched like a member of Jonah’s academy after an all-day tutorial, refreshments supplied. I’d never been on such a small boat before, so I had no inkling of the true horrors of seasickness. I lay across three of the hard seats, and tried to wedge myself in with my knees against the row in front. I was nauseated from the souls of my feet to my scalp. My head throbbed and pulsed; my mouth was at the same time dry and yet flowing with saliva; my ears rang.

  Eventually I could take it no longer. I dived through the small metal door to the deck, found a safe place on the side, and added my contribution to the aquatic food chain. I felt a little better, and wiping my eyes, I found that I was next to an anorak who’d just done the same. She turned out to be a bucktoothed girl called Smitty, from Luxembourg, studying marine biology.

  “We have no coast, no sea, no islands, and so we have to use yours, which are some of the best in the European Community. I am the only marine biologist in Luxembourg, which is lonely.”

  I made some polite conversation about fish, which I think she appreciated.

  After a couple of hours of churning we approached the island, big and black and lumpy. A high-pitched voice screamed out, “Dolphins!” and everyone on deck rushed to one side of the boat. I wobbled after them, in time to see nothing at all. And then the same cry went up from the other side of the boat. Again the surge, and again I missed the spectacle. I began to think the whole thing had been cooked up by the geographers to get back at me for being more attractive than them. One last time I followed the shout, and there, miraculously, I saw them: four dark backs breaking the surface. I expected to feel elated, but it just looked ominous.

  There was no decent harbor on the island, so an even tinier boat had to come out to meet us. The transfer was predictably hairy, and I had to be rescued from near catastrophe by an enormous German, who rewarded himself with a quick, furtive squeeze of my breast. We landed in a small village, perhaps twenty houses, with a pub, a small shop, and one or two utility buildings. The castle, which was really a rather undistinguished country house with a couple of crenellations, stood outside the village on a small hill. Its outbuildings housed the youth hostel, and the students trudged off, a little subdued and wobbly after the crossing.

  I headed for the pub. Not because I was desperate for a drink, but because it seemed like a good place to begin my search for Ludo. The pub was a newish bungalow, devoid of charm. But it was warm inside, and a fire was burning. I went to the ladies’ and dried my hair on the small towel I’d brought. My coat was heavy with sea and rainwater, and my feet were sodden. How could I have thought that loafers would be up to the job? I changed into dry socks, but I’d stupidly forgotten a change of footwear.

  With dry hair and feet, I felt more myself. I asked the landlord for a coffee, and when he suggested a little something in it I smiled acceptance. I asked about Ludo.

  “Oh, aye, the young fellow up on the mountain. Yes, he’s in here most nights. Nice lad.”

  “How can I find him?”

  “Well, you could just wait here for a few hours, and he’ll come down to you. You’re not really dressed for the mountain, are you?”

  “No, I can’t wait, I have to go to him. How can I get there?”

  “If ye must go, ye must go. You take the coast path for maybe a couple of miles along the shore. Then you take the path up the mountain. You can’t miss it. The young fellow’ll either be in his hide—you ken, a wee hut?—or just sitting out, watching over his eagles.”

  The barman’s wife had appeared.

  “Och”—yes, I’m sorry, but she really did throw in a quick “och”—“James, your not sending this wee girl up on the mountain dressed like that?”

  “I’m not sending her
anywhere, Jessie. She’s a mind to go.”

  Jessie shook her head and disappeared. She came back five minutes later with some clothes. There was a heavy waterproof jacket, some matching trousers, and a pair of gum boots.

  “See if these fit,” she said, and then, reading my expression, “May not be Carnaby Street, but they’ll keep ye dry.”

  It was my first time in wellies since I was a little girl. This wasn’t part of the plan. I’d hoped to look unbearably pretty for Ludo. Instead I looked like one of the less fashionable geographers. I thought about waiting in the warm until Ludo came to me, but somehow it just didn’t seem right. Here I was, making the first extravagant romantic gesture of my life, traveling to the ends of the earth to find my lost love, so I might as well see it through.

  I thanked the landlord and his wife and set off, my heart singing and expectant. The rain had slowed to a fine drizzle pattering cheerfully on the hood of my waterproof. The path by the sea was firm and easy. On one side the shore sloped away, grinding into shingle where it met the waves. On the other the land rose impressively barren and forbidding. There were no trees, just a low scuffing of tussocky grass and gorse in between the rocks and boulders.

  The Wellies were a size too big, but I was grateful for them when, after an hour of ungainly flapping, I forked upward to the mountain. There was still a sort of path, but it was boggy and slimy. I was soon sweating despite the cold rain. Luckily the mountain was more of a big hill, and the path wound in manageably gentle curves up along its side. I wasn’t sure quite what I was looking for. Would Ludo be right at the top? I kept thinking I was near the summit, but each time another ridge would rise out of the mist.