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Heathrow Airport, London
The Tube to the airport takes forever. The carriage has no air-con; it’s a sauna, not a train. A Turkish bath. Fucking Piccadilly line. It’s even worse than the Northern. I sit on synthetic orange fuzz and try not to throw up. A hooded youth sitting next to me plays Angry Birds at full volume while stuffing his face with endless chips. Where did he get chips from at eight a.m.? I glare at his distorted reflection in the opposite window. He’s lucky I’m in a good mood.
I wish I had a book to read. I wish I had some sunglasses. The strip light’s glare is brighter than the sun. I cover my face with my hands and wait for eternity in a dark world of greasy vinegar smells and hyperactive computer jingles. The bile in my throat rises and falls like the sea’s in my stomach. Blood vessels in my brain go throb, throb, throb. Why did I drink all that wine? I haven’t been there, yet, but I imagine this experience is exactly like hell. I half expect the fat black fly crawling up the inside of that steamed-up window to turn into Beelzebub himself and welcome me to perdition.
Hey there, Alvina! he would say, in a Disneyland drawl. Welcome to the Inferno! We’ve got torture without end coming up right here in our horrible dungeon, but first, why don’t you get to know some of the guys? Osama, Ayatollah, Idi, Pol, Adolf, and Saddam, this is Alvina! What a cockfest. I’d always assumed Maggie Thatcher would be here. But no. All guys. It’s like the Bullingdon Club down here, but with no pig heads to fuck and nothing to drink.
When I do finally get to the airport, security is a nightmare: endless queues for the X-ray machine; I have to take my shoes, belt, and jacket off. I throw my handbag into the plastic tray and it shuffles away down the conveyor belt. I step through the metal detector and of course, it goes off. BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! Oh, great. That’s just what I need. . . . A sour-faced woman frisks me up and down. I can smell the tropical fruit fabric conditioner she’s used on her blouse. Then things go from bad to worse.
“Is this your bag, madam?” asks a man in a uniform.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“Please, come this way.”
I’d rather not, but he’s got my bag, so I don’t have much choice. I start to sweat, racking my brains for incriminating objects that could be inside. The slobs’ drugs? But why would they be in my bag? Are they using me as a mule to traffic speed to Sicily? Is there a bottle of water over 100 ml? Are there nail scissors in my purse? Have I accidentally packed a machete? The Swiss Army knife is safe in my suitcase. I can’t think of anything else.
“Your bag appears to be buzzing, madam. Could you please tell me why?”
He looks at me with a face like a funeral. A high-pitched buzz rises from the tray. I think of the fly. He thinks it’s a bomb.
“I have no idea,” I say. “It’s definitely not a bomb.”
Don’t say the B word at airport security or people get tetchy. Everyone stops talking and turns to stare. The sour-faced woman and another couple of uniformed men crowd around me. They scowl. One of them puts on plastic gloves and unzips my bag. The buzzing gets louder. I wish I were dead; I’ve just realized what’s inside.
“Oh, you don’t want to look in there,” I say as a latex-covered-hand approaches Mr. Dick. One of the men in uniform pulls out my Real Feel 11-inch vibrating dildo and holds it up for all to see. Strangers whip out their phones and start to film.
“What’s this?” he asks.
It’s a bright-pink replica of a man’s erect penis. He knows what it is. They all know what it is. The woman tries to hide a smile. I don’t reply.
“What is this?” he asks again, a little louder this time. Families with small children in the queue behind me crane their necks to get a better view. At least it’s not anyone I know . . . at least it’s not Ambrogio . . . at least it’s not Beth.
“Let me introduce you to Mr. Dick,” I say at last, clearing my throat. “He’s a top-of-the-range, eleven-inch vibrating dildo. Variable speed settings. Detachable butt tickler. Guaranteed orgasm every time. Do you want me to turn him off? You just flick this switch over—”
I reach for the On/Off button at the bottom of the shaft, but he yanks it away.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to confiscate this, madam. You won’t be allowed to take it on the plane.”
My mouth gapes open, goldfishlike. “What? Why not? It’s not on your list of banned items.” I gesture to a poster stuck up on the wall with pictures of lighters and razor blades. Notable in its absence is a picture of a vibrating rubber cock.
“It could be used as a weapon, madam.”
“A weapon? How so?”
He doesn’t elaborate. The woman laughs, then pretends it’s a cough. The man in the uniform tries to take Mr. Dick away, but I reach out and grab him. No! Hands off, you bastard! He’s mine! Three security professionals and thirty-plus members of the general public gawp en masse as the man releases the dildo and it smacks me hard in the face. WHACK!
I squeeze out a tear and it rolls down my cheek. (It’s useful being able to cry on demand.)
“I promise not to attack anyone,” I sniff. “Look, I’ll even take out the batteries.”
I remove two double-A batteries and slam them down on the metal table. “OK?”
There’s a pause. The woman (clearly the one wearing the trousers) nods. I shove Mr. Dick in my bag and sprint out the exit. Half of the crowd is still filming on their phones.
I collapse onto the sofa in the British Airways lounge and catch my breath. What is this place? Space-age and orchids. Cream leather sofas. Designer lamps and polished wooden floors. There’s a place over there where you can get a free massage. It’s like some kind of luxury spa hotel. People are staring; the kind I wouldn’t usually hang with: businessmen, escorts, footballers’ wives. I consider getting naked to give them something to look at, but they might not let me board the plane.
I grab my phone and check YouTube. Yup. Of course. It’s already there. Some loser has uploaded me as “Sex Toy Tourist.” You can see the back of my head and Mr. Dick. Fame at last. Unbelievable. It already has over sixty “Likes.” I stop the video and throw my phone back in my bag. I’m not going to “Like” it. They can fuck off.
To my left, a blond woman sits smelling strongly of jasmine. She’s wearing head-to-heel Louis Vuitton logos and matches her hand luggage perfectly: Louis Vuitton skirt, Louis Vuitton jacket, Louis Vuitton scarf. It’s as though she were on some covert camouflage operation in a designer store. Perhaps she is? I have shoe envy and bag envy. She looks me up and down with pursed-up lips like a cat’s asshole; I flip her the bird.
My neck is still aching. I rub it a bit and wiggle my head.
The inside of my mouth has turned into the Sahara. At first I think it’s a mirage, the product of a dehydrated brain, but there really is a free bar.
“Water?” I say. It’s all I can do not to lie on the floor.
An impeccably groomed lady hands me a bottle of ice-cold Evian and flashes me a million-dollar smile. They don’t do that in the Costcutter in Archway. She doesn’t ask for any money. “Actually, Champagne?” Hair of the dog; much better. I’m following Beth’s orders; the more bubbly the better. I can’t believe it’s free.
“Will Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle be to your taste, madame?” She asks in a Marilyn Monroe voice. I think she’s speaking French. She hands me a flute and I take a sip: liquid sunshine. I could get used to this! I take a selfie with the champers and post it on Instagram. “Getting gazeboed!” Twelve exclamation marks. I upload it on Twitter: “@ChanningTatum Wish you were here!”
Four glasses later, I skip out of the departure lounge to search for a gift. What do you get the girl who has everything? I only have five minutes before boarding and my brain’s not working. Vodka. If it’s going to be painful, then we might as well get pissed. I grab a bottle of Absolut and push to the front of the queue.
“Sorry; got a plane to catch,” I say to whomever.
“Don’t we all?” complains a mouthy Russian in a mink coat.
What’s “Fuck you” in Russian?
I race past shop windows: Burberry, Prada, Chanel, Ralph Lauren . . . trying to ignore the duty-free wares that call like sirens to a sex-starved sailor. “Buy me,” whispers a pair of boots in snakeskin leather. “Love me,” shouts a dress in lace and PVC. There’s a pair of glittering sandals with gold ankle straps in the window of Prada. I press my face against the pane, clouding it up with my hot, wet breath, streaking the glass with my sweaty little palms. There’s a bottle of Poison by Christian Dior for only £43.50. Tom Ford’s lipstick, Violet Fatal, is only £36. Think of all the money I could save if I bought these sunglasses here; these Ray-Bans are only £159; that’s twenty percent cheaper than on the high street. If I buy them now, I’ll be forty quid richer. It’s a no-brainer, but I don’t have the time. Or the money.
“This is a customer announcement: could Elvira Kingly please make her way to gate fourteen? Boarding for the British Airways flight BA4062 will close in two minutes’ time. That’s Elvira Kingly. Gate fourteen. Thank you.”
Elvira? That’s a new one. Who am I? Elvira: Mistress of the Dark? Do I look like an ’80s horror hostess on American TV? The Halloween Queen? Elvira? Give me a break. At least it’s not Albino.
I run to the gate and stride past the queue. Club Class, darling. I’m not waiting around. I want to get out of here. No money, no house, no boyfriend, no job. Are you fucking kidding me? I never, ever want to come back. This was never the plan, all this chaos and squalor. I’d had high hopes when I ran away from home. I remember it now like it was yesterday; it was a Sunday, the middle of the night. We’d just turned sweet sixteen. I thought I was on some fantastic adventure: Treasure Island or Huckleberry Finn. I crept out of the house with my world in my rucksack, hitchhiked my way through the night into town. I woke up in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. That was as good a place as any: the bright lights flashing, the neon billboards, the kaleidoscope of colors that sparkled and swirled. I got a job in a Japanese restaurant, chopping up tuna and squid for sashimi. Found a room in a hostel that I could afford. In my spare time, I’d sit for long hours on park benches, scribbling away in my spiral-bound pad: haikus mostly, sonnets and lyrics, quatrains, epigrams, a couple of ballads. Teenage woe and melancholy. I had angst to rival any of the bards’. I thought by now I’d be a world-famous poet, married to a gorgeous model/actor (Channing Tatum?) or (even better) Ambrogio. I thought I’d have a baby girl as pretty as an Anne Geddes flower fairy, a Range Rover, a dachshund, and a mansion in Chelsea. Where did it all go so wrong?
I look out of my little oval window; darkening thunderclouds over the tarmac; big, fat raindrops smashing into the ground. Isn’t it supposed to be summer? I check the calendar on my phone: apparently it’s still August.
On the plane an air hostess gives everyone warm, wet towels in case they haven’t washed. I scrub my arms, face, hands, feet, and knees. I have more legroom than I know what to do with. I start doing quad exercises as though I were swimming the breaststroke, practicing for Beth’s pool like an adolescent tadpole. It’s only about a three-hour flight, but you don’t want to risk DVT. A man sitting next to me peers over rimless glasses, as though I were a rare specimen of pond life he’d never seen before. I stop.
He looks the other way out the window, so I start again. Whatever.
The plane takes off with a wobble and a high-pitched whine. I don’t like flying. It just isn’t natural. There’s no way that this long lump of metal will float. I grip the arms of my chair and my knuckles turn white. I consider grabbing onto one of the man’s hands, but he doesn’t look like the handholding type. I neck a fistful of Valium instead. At least I’ll be high when we burst into flames in a tangle of kerosene and flesh on the runway. It might even be fun?
The seat-belt sign pings off. We’re safe! I study my rarefied section of aluminum tube; it’s nice to be up here at the front instead of back there in cattle class. I feel like a VIP, a celebrity. This is what it’s like being Taylor or Miley. But I’d rather be infamous than famous. Britney was better when she fell off the wagon. Winona and Whitney are by far the best. I don’t know why people are so mean to Lindsay. She looks like she’s having a ball.
The Louis Vuitton lover is here; I can smell her perfume. Across the walkway is another fashion victim/stick insect with Kate Moss cheekbones. (How I wish I looked that anorexic, I mean, really, she looks only hours from death.) An octogenarian man with a Berlusconi tan has fallen asleep with an unlit cigar dangling between his lips. One too many Bunga Bunga parties? (He might be dead, but I’ll leave that to the cabin crew). There are absolutely no kids and no one is kicking the back of my seat or head.
“More Champagne,” I call, pinging the Hostess button. I wonder what happens if you mix Champagne and Valium. “Have you got any food?”
This is absolutely fucking awesome.
Chapter Five
Catania-Fontanarossa Airport, Sicily
The heat slams into you like a Mafia getaway car. I shield my eyes from the dazzling glare, squinting and blinking like a naked mole rat that has never seen the sun. I stagger out of the plane; dive, rather than walk, down the last few stairs to the runway. Fuck, that hurts: skin scrapes concrete, metal dents bone. I think I might have fractured my elbow; I’m bleeding profusely from my right arm, but I’ll worry about that later. People are staring (again; what’s their problem?). Beth will be pleased; I’m completely “gazeboed.” I dust myself off and get onto a bus. I guess that’s the end of Club Class.
We’re at the terminal waiting to collect baggage, when a thought hits me with a comic-book POW: Ambrogio! He’s here. I look a mess and have toothpaste down my front. I’m bleeding from my elbow from when I fell out of the plane; my Katy Perry dress is splattered with blood. I still haven’t managed to brush my teeth. I tie up the laces on my weather-worn sneakers (I can’t let Ambrogio see me in these trainers), then I get an idea: I’d noticed the Louis Vuitton lover arguing with someone at passport control. She was having a problem with her visa and hasn’t made it this far. She’d looked about my size when I was checking out her booty in the departure lounge earlier. I could take her bag! Shall I do it? Mr. Dick’s still in my hand luggage, otherwise I’m guessing she’s packed better than I have and, let’s face it, I could do with a makeover.
I grab both our cases from the conveyor belt and sprint for the exit, my heartbeat pounding in my throat. I duck into the disabled toilet and look in the mirror. It’s worse than I thought. I look shit and my hair looks shit, so I find a beanie in the bottom of my bag; it covers my hair, but not my face. Could do with a burka. Perhaps a balaclava? I wipe the blood off my arm with a piece of wet toilet paper. Surprisingly, it’s only a graze. I pick up the Louis Vuitton suitcase. There’s a miniature padlock on the zip. How am I going to get that off? I try to pick it with one of my hair clips. That stuff works in movies, but never for me. I jiggle it around and wait for the click, but nothing clicks. I jiggle and jiggle and swear under my breath. I have no plan B. This has to work. I jiggle some more, but the padlock stays shut. A bead of sweat slides down my neck. It’s not going to work, is it? Time to think outside the box. Come on, Alvie, you’re supposed to be a poet! This is the time for creative thinking. Where’s your genius when you need it? I glare at myself in the mirror. The girl in the mirror glares back. Nice. I could find something to smash off the padlock? I scan the toilet. What can I use? The tap on the sink? That looks heavy. I unscrew the tap and twist it off: clunky metal. This could work. A jet of water shoots up from the pipe: the shock of cold spray in my face. The sink overflows and water cascades down onto the floor. I’ll have to be quick or I’ll get everything wet! I pull out the padlock so it rests on the ground, lift up the tap, and smash it down hard.
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
I can’t believe it, it worked!
I open the case with trembling fingers. There’s a little black dress by—surprise—Louis Vuitton; the cool satin fabric feels soft on my skin, smooth as silky double cream. I slip it on. It looks amazing. The cut is incredible. I suddenly have curves in all the right places. I actually have a waist. There are some stilettos in my size, which seem to go. I step into the heels and I’m six inches taller. My shoulders pull back. My chest lifts higher. I’m as poised as a dancer, a prima ballerina. I spin around and check out my bum; it’s a bona fide miracle!
This woman’s makeup bag is bigger than my suitcase. I find some pretty pink blusher by Yves Saint Laurent and apply a slick of Dior Show mascara. I add my own signature bright-purple lipstick. Right. I guess that’ll have to do. I look in the mirror, unsteady on my heels. I look like somebody else, someone much more attractive. Someone with money. With taste. With class. I shove my blood-covered clothes into my battered old suitcase and now I’m ready. I can do this. I can finally face my sister’s hot husband, the sex god, the stallion: Ambrogio Caruso. Hic.
I close the door on the flood.
A tsunami of faces crashes into me. Where is he? I scan the crowd for a Davidoff model, but it’s a sea of strangers waving pieces of cardboard with other people’s names: “Alessia,” “Antonio,” “Ermenegildo.” I don’t think any of those are supposed to be me. But perhaps they’ve sent a driver? A driver with dyslexia? Could I be “Elena”? “Aldo”? “Alessandro”? I bet I’m “Adrian.” I’m sick of this shit.
There’s a group of nuns in black-and-white wimples, crucifixes around their necks. They have a tranquil aura about them: calm, enlightened, happy, serene. I should have been a nun, but it’s probably too late now. I could have done something with my life. Could have written more haikus. Won the Pulitzer. The Nobel Prize. I let myself get distracted too easily. Too many men. Too much drama. I should have focused on poetry, not on boyfriends. Apart from Ambrogio, Ambrogio is different. Ambrogio and Channing Tatum. Sigh.
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