by Claire North
I rode the lift to the top, and was not one step out of the elevator before I was confronted by security men, not here, ma’am, this floor is reserved.
I made an educated punt, exclaimed, “I’m here to see Mr Pereyra-Conroy,” and sure enough, this was the floor privately reserved for Rafe and his entourage but how did I even get access to it without a key?
“He’s not here, ma’am,” began one and I huffed and puffed and pressed the button for the floor below and as the lift doors closed, they barely had time to be confused before they began to forget.
The floor below was decked out in more black carpets, silver doors, the soft breeze of heating against the humid cold outside, cables along the ceilings and floors, newly put in. I looked through every open door with imperious confidence, noted TV cameras and men in black, women with tripods and notebooks, suites of rooms being set up with lightning-bright white lights for the interviews with the great, the famous, the fabulous and the rich. How much do you love being perfect? Oh, so much, it’s just the greatest feeling in the world!
A ballroom, being prepped. A low ceiling that rose rapidly away from the front door towards a dome of glass and steel, a Victorian extension to an older building, arches of black steel all around embedded in the walls as if someone had wanted to build a greenhouse, then given up halfway through and gone for a church instead. Hard to see the glamour in people gaffer-taping velvet drapes and hammering in steel platforms for the band. Tools across the floor, cables along the ceiling, but a few days and it would all be suitably
perfect
for its guests
Perfect: without blemish.
A security man spotted me, and this time he had the presence of mind to reach into his pocket where a little laminated photo lay, and so I turned, and fled, down the tulip steps and past the waiting guests, through the streets of Venice in my silly shoes, a snowball in a stolen dress.
Pass 2: as technician. Much easier costume. Black jeans, black T-shirt, leather belt, multitool, roll of gaffer tape. Access: universal. Security: utterly uninterested. I explored from the very top to the very bottom of the hotel, through the service corridors and behind the stairs. I photographed main power inlets, server hubs, stole a few more keys, lifted a couple of mobile phones, swanned around uninterrupted for nearly two hours until at last, sated on information, I packed up my goodies into a plastic bag, and let myself out by the service door.
A thought: if it’s this easy for me, I wonder how easy it is for Byron?
Pass 3: one day left, and I thought as I entered in my housekeeper’s blue that I saw… but no, easy to imagine these things, Byron couldn’t stay hidden from sight, not from all of Gauguin’s men, not from me, she’s good but not that good. The mind is a fallible, dodgy contraption to have to rely on, and yet not, complexity, complexity in the simple words that cascade meaning, that focus
made it forty minutes as a housekeeper before someone who should be in the know saw me, and didn’t know me at all and said, “Hey! Who the hell are you?”
Good thing about the housekeeper’s costume: excellent soft shoes. He was a senior management type, all hard leather and tight black laces. I outran him without breaking a sweat.
Chapter 91
So here it is.
The end of the line.
Or the beginning, depending how you look at it.
Hin und zerück – there and back.
The train reaches the end of the tracks, and I get off, and one day I may get on again, and return home, and the journey will be different and the same, just like me.
Night-time in Venice. I settle for a middle-ground costume, smart but unflashy black cocktail dress. Slip sleeping pills into the drink of a photographer with a friendly face, steal her cameras and ID, and catch the river bus to a party.
Things that are ridiculous about even the least ridiculous of events:
• Selective blindness. A guest at a big party must choose not to perceive the service staff around them. Waiters and waitresses, security men, duty managers, cooks, musicians, technicians, all melt into the background. This night is yours, it is about you and your friends, and the intrusion of strange, prying eyes, of eyes that are not of your world – best ignored, not a living thing at all.
• Canapés. Ridiculous. Mango from Sri Lanka, caviar from Russia, stripes of banana leaf flown in from Kerala, Thai rice, Norwegian salmon, Australian wine, Chinese squid. A small empire has risen and will fall in the name of a piece of food no bigger than the circle formed between my pinched thumb and index finger, cost: $17 a bite.
• Music. Not too good, not too bad. Mozart is fiddly, Beethoven a little too passionate. The Russians have good tunes, but sometimes stir too many emotions, the British tend to pathos. Something middle ground. Something we can all admire, but which no one bothers to listen to, because the beauty is in the listening, in the growing complexity, the unfolding of a story, and no one at a party has time for that.
• Speeches. Welcome everyone, we are honoured you can come to [x]. I was talking to [name] about what was expected of me tonight and he said [insert joke]. No, but seriously, tonight is all about [subject] and of course about you, and in honour of this we have some amazing events lined up, including [x] and [y] and not to forget [z].
Would that I could forget speeches as fast as they forget me.
• Champagne fountains: a waste of good booze.
• Ice sculptures, gently melting into stone bowls.
• Headpieces: in the 1700s, how many women died when their great wigs and beehive heads got caught in the flaming wax of the chandeliers? These days the only threats to some of the hair on display were low doors, the insides of cars, and the inability of anyone with that hairdo to nod.
Snap, snap, take the photo, are you looking at me? And freeze and smile, teeth bright, smile aches, you are your smile and click beautiful photo, thank you, thank you so much…
A film star arrives and she’s signed a sponsorship deal with a jeweller in the USA. Value of the diamonds around her neck: approx. $7.5 million. In the old days I would have cared about that, but not tonight. Not tonight.
I turn and photograph, click click, darling, you look beautiful. There’s CCTV everywhere, but you’d have to look for me to find me, you’d have to remember what you’re looking for, to know to look. Another photo, another turn, wasn’t he in that, wasn’t she in something else, and here comes Rafe, applause at the door, oh Rafe you are wonderful (click click) tell us how you did it (click click), he smiles and shakes the hands of the perfect people around him and says, “I never lost faith in myself.”
I did, I think, click click, turn turn. I went forward, I went back, I crossed the desert and found myself wanting, stood on the railway tracks and discovered I was scared of trains, scared of travelling, travelled anyway, left it all behind, lost everything again, until only I remained.
Rafe – what are you wearing? Gucci. Ah: of course! Of course Gucci, and your watch by…?
Gauguin behind him. His eyes settle on me for a moment, and instantly, he reaches into his pocket. Poor Gauguin, are you worried about your own responses? You see a woman in a crowd and now you think, “Is it her?” The anxiety must be killing you. But you still carry my photo so I turn away, let the people eat me up, you’ll forget you saw me, though you’ll worry about it, this photo in your hand, did you get it out for me? Probably. Probably you did. Fat lot of use that is for you now.
Where is Byron?
Turn, click click. No sign of Luca, no sign of Byron.
Where is she?
The 206 are here, the elite of all elites, two hundred and six of them, the most beautiful of the beautiful, click click, she whose skin burns gold (“I went for a face glow… the doctor burned me… have you any idea…?”), he whose smile is silver (tooth whitening: apply carbamide peroxide, breaks down in the mouth to hydrogen peroxide (used to dye hair) and urea (usually excreted via urine). In olden times, wealthy men and women would rub their teeth wi
th charcoal to create the impression of tooth rot, demonstrating that they had access to expensive goods such as sugar)
click click
I am knowledge
I am me
click click
the world turns and I am still
Look upwards, and there, anatomy of a ballroom, go! To the left, on balcony one, photographers and cameras interviewing the select beauties of the 206, a man in there now, a golfer, I think, one wrist folded over the other so you can better see his watch (sponsorship, nothing flashy, and look, you get to tell the time!)
in the middle, balcony two, an acrobat warming up, a string quartet in full swing, twiddly dum twiddly dee, jazz later of course, when they dance, the 206 all know how to dance
to the right, separated off by red curtains, a control area, I remember it from pass two, a place of amplifiers and dimmer racks, cables and electrical outlets, not very 1600s having 63A three-phase power in your ancient stone walls, not very in keeping with the Venetian aesthetic, so hide it, turn down the lights and I look, tilt my camera upwards to hide my face
click
and think perhaps I see the curtain twitch.
How would I do it, if I were Byron? How would I be here?
Not for the first time, I feel a great deal of admiration for her, a memorable, incredible spy.
I turn to go, following my instincts, nice, professional instincts,
and there is Filipa.
Of course.
Standing in the door.
Someone takes her coat and she smiles and instantly
it is easy to see
there is something wrong with her smile.
Filipa? My voice. Not my voice. My voice is strong and self-assured. A weaker voice, a voice of a child. Filipa?
She looked at me, from the top of two short stone steps that led down into the hall, as the great and the beautiful flowed round her, and smiled, a wide, friendly smile on white teeth and said, “I’m so sorry, I think…?” She let her voice trail off. She thinks we might have met, but perhaps…? Just remind me, the name…? “My name is Hope,” I said. “You gave me your bracelet…” I look to her wrist, but the Möbius strip is gone, replaced by something bangle-like, white gold, flecked with rubies.
“Of course! Hope! So sorry, how silly of me, such a pleasure!”
She swept down the stairs, caught one arm in mine, pulled me with her, exclaimed, “With all the cameras for a moment I thought you were someone else, how have you been?”
Her words, high and easy, a flute singing its love-song. “I’m fine. I’m… why are you here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be here? My brother’s big event, and not just that, so important, don’t you think? A real chance to speak to the aspirations of everyone, to make a difference. I’m very proud of everything we’ve achieved, but there’s always so much more to do.”
Her walk pulled us towards the centre of the room, towards the champagne fountain, thin clouds of vapour rolling off the ice sculpture, an image of Aphrodite clinging longingly to the neck of long-speared Ares, her nose beginning to melt, melting into his arms, in the style of… of someone…
“Filipa,” I said, grasping her arm tight in mine, “Byron’s here.”
She looked up quickly, her smile not faltering, held the gaze a second, then brightly exclaimed, “In spirit, or in person?”
A joke. Making it a joke.
I held her tighter, until my fingers began to hurt, a frown flickering across her face, moving to disentangle her arm, but I just gripped harder and hissed, “What have they done to you?”
“Done to me?” she replied. “Nothing at all! Do you mind, you’re hurting my arm?”
“Filipa, who am I?”
“You’re Hope; you said.”
“And when did we last meet?”
“I… well, you know, I meet so many people.”
“Nîmes, the hospital, the people in the beds, Perfection, the treatments…”
“Ah, yes, that’s all been resolved.”
I gripped her hard enough to make her gasp, my fingers burrowing into her skin. “What the fuck have they done to you?”
Already knowing the answer.
“Let – go!”
She dragged her arm free from mine, staggered back, a scene, we were now the centre of a scene, people turning to look, security men turning to look, couldn’t have that, needed to move, dammit dammit dammit!
I cradled my cameras close to my chest, and ran.
What now?
Sit in the women’s toilets and cry?
When you are lonely, it’s hard to get a little emotional perspective. Like a child, every cut hurts deeper, every wound bleeds from your very heart. Bruising has not knocked strength into me. Society never taught me how to hide.
Fuck this.
No more fucking crying.
No more counting, I am my feet!
I am my feet in their black boots as I move through the hotel, I am justice, I am vengeance, fuck you world if you think you can do this to me, fuck you if you think I don’t know how to fight back, if you think I’ll just roll over and die, my dad looked murderers in the eye, my sister would swing a light sabre through evil’s fucking head, and I
Hey Macarena!
Will be all that I am.
Now!
Up the stairs to the control room, duck under the red cordon separating it from me. No security guards on this stair – surprising, there had been two days ago, when I was a technician, but now, gone, abandoned, wonder why (don’t really), up to a wooden door, built for a smaller species in an older time. The lock was old, too cumbersome to pick, but I forced it with a kitchen knife and let myself in.
A balcony, the size of my childhood bedroom. Low stone ceiling, a hint of a stone flower blooming above the door, a shadow of ancient red bricks plastered over by a man in straw sandals and a floppy hat, back in the days of smallpox. A red curtain, shielding it from the ballroom, a narrow slit down the middle where you might peep out to see the beautiful people with their perfect lives, watch and be amazed, dancing, dancing, dancing.
A bottle of pepper spray in my camera bag, which the security guard had dismissed as a roll of film (ridiculous; we are in a digital age, go back to school, fool!). I looked around, but Byron wasn’t there, of course she wasn’t. Gauguin knows she’s coming, security is tight (but I got in), she wouldn’t be able to get past the door (yet here I am and where was security?), probably already been caught in fact (hey Macarena!) and
I begin to relax.
A quick inventory of the room.
Amplifiers; changing displays indicating the peak sound being pumped through the system from the string quartet
radio racks, currently muted, for when speeches begin
sloppy – hubs for the security men’s radio system too, should definitely be guarded, peculiar that they’re not
dimmer racks and cables, great fat red ends, fat copper in black tubes, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s
two photos, pinned to the wall
I’m so eager for everything to be fine, I almost miss them.
A woman, her face turned down and to the side, as if caught in a lie. The sun behind her, filling her curling dark hair with reddish cobwebs. Another, she looks direct to camera, but doesn’t seem to see it, attention focused on something else, and that was San Francisco, I recognise the internet café behind – had Byron followed me, or was the photo from another, more trusting time?
The woman, asleep in a chair. Or at least, probably asleep, hopefully asleep, two electrodes pushed through her skull, a pair of goggles round her neck, ready to be worn. A sensor taped to her tongue, she looks like the dead, all that technology, none that I can remember
Hey Macarena!
none that I choose to remember, perhaps
she is me.
And beneath the photos, messages, written in a familiar hand, stuck up on Post-it notes.
SHE IS REAL
SHE IS _WHY
Movement behind me, and at once I turned, raising the pepper spray, cameras swinging around my neck, bruising my belly as they bounced.
The knife bumped on a camera, but then slipped on by, carried by the momentum of the woman who used it. As it passed between the floating ribs on my right side, it was bigger than all the world. She held me up as I began to fall, one hand across my back, the other still supporting me by the knife stuck through my body.
“Is it you?” she asked. “Is it you?”
Not as much blood as I’d thought – not yet – not with the knife still in me, a plug blocking the flow. I looked up into Byron’s face, and she’d chosen a very different path from mine. She’d shaved her head, glued a skullcap on, then a wig of black hair. She wore a grey dress, high-collared and swathed with a black shawl, pinned with a butterfly brooch. A security pass bounced around her neck, declaring her to be press, and a long Italian name that blurred as I tried to focus on it. She wore a green wristband to give her all-area access and – here I would have laughed, if the blood wasn’t seeping from my body – had glued on an extra piece of latex to the bridge of her nose, changing it into a Roman beak, and now she reached into her mouth and removed two little pieces of sponge, deflating her cheeks to their natural dimensions, and discarding them, held my hand tight again and inspected the place where the knife was stuck in my chest.
“It is you,” she breathed, but I couldn’t answer, and she pulled off her shawl and wrapped it tight around the wound, pressing down hard, though I wasn’t at the point where I could process pain. “I wondered if you would come.”