A Cage of Bones

by Jeffrey Round

  He shrugged.

  “My latest scandal was over a model I used for a very famous dress designer. She is a young girl who works the streets of Milano. A beautiful little ragamuffin. ‘Oooh—she is so sexy,’ they said. ‘What enchanting eyes and bewitching face.’ Later when I told them she was a prostitute they pretended to be horrified. ‘How could you do this to us?’ they demanded. I said, ‘What is the difference between what she does and what a model does?’ One takes off her clothes for a living and the other puts them on.”

  He looked over at Warden who sat laughing.

  “Pardon if I offend,” he said with a faint smile.

  Andreo walked over to a desk obscured beneath piles of paper. He looked down and sniffed at the inscrutable mess. He spoke briefly to his assistant who reached in and pulled out a thin folder from among the many sheaves.

  “Let’s see—what have we for you today?” Andreo adjusted his glasses. “Fabiano fall campaign—very nice. And…oh, yes, you will like this. You will look wonderful. Francesco will prepare you,” he continued. “His English is minimal, but let him do what he wants.”

  Warden was led to a tiny drawing room.

  “Prego,” said the man, motioning him to enter.

  Warden changed into a casual suit and sat in front of the make-up mirror as his hair was sprayed with cool mist from an atomizer. The man ran his fingers nimbly back and forth over his head, arranging the locks to his satisfaction and drying the water around his temples with a cloth.

  “Wonderful,” said Andreo when they returned. “Francesco knows always what I want without having to be told.

  He indicated a backdrop.

  “The Fabiano people like their backgrounds very simple,” he said. “We will use one or two colours and play with the lights for contrast.”

  Warden stood in front of the backdrop. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do what you do best, my dear one—just be you.” Andreo fixed his eye to the lens. “One must remain neutral before the camera. Let us fill it with our fantasies and give it a purpose, while you simply give it a presence.”

  He looked up.

  “The most important thing is for you to make the clothes look good. The model is of secondary importance, if you will forgive me. You see, Warden, I can make anyone look beautiful. For me, everyone can be a model. But don’t tell that to your Sr. Calvino because it would make him lose sleep over his precious agency.”

  He continued shooting while he spoke.

  “To me, there is no difference between naïve beauty and beauty of a conscious design. One is just as valid as the other. I do not want to describe something idealistically so much as show how it makes me feel. It is through images and emotions that we make sense of our world.”

  They went through a series of shots, Andreo coaxing Warden to relax with each click of the shutter.

  “I’m bored,” he said suddenly. “Let’s jazz it up a bit.”

  Francesco took Warden off to a change room. He returned in a beige linen suit, classic in its simplicity.

  “Madonna mia! You were born to wear that suit,” Andreo exclaimed.

  He said something to Francesco who scurried off again. They heard him rummaging around off-set before he returned with a trumpet. He placed the instrument in Warden’s hands, looked at his hair critically then with a quick sleight of hand revised the look. Andreo took off his glasses and handed them to Warden.

  “For a more serious, studious look. We can say you’re in a pop band and that you agreed to pose for a promotion gimmick,” he joked. “We’ll call it the Yellow Submarines, tell the kids you’re the newest pop star. Soon you will be getting offers for recording contracts. People will follow you in the streets asking for autographs.”

  He laughed at his own mischievousness.

  Warden turned his body in three-quarter profile to the camera, looking out with a steely gaze of self-assured calm as he raised the trumpet to his lips.

  There had been small shows all week. At the height of things, Milan reached a fever pitch as collections were unveiled and fireworks exploded in the sky every night. That evening’s presentation included some of Italy’s pre-eminent designers, gathered together in a gala showing in aid of the newly formed fashion council. Feuding competitors had put aside their pins and cutting shears and come armed only with their most glamorous creations.

  The models assembled in the fitting rooms like so many prize blossoms as dressers and make-up artists fluttered from one to the other making sure each fold, each crease, found its proper place. Warden waited until the first group of models was led out before taking his place in front of the mirrors.

  Outside, the pounding music and the announcer’s perma-press voice meant the show had begun. It seemed only moments before the first group were back, inserted in and out of their exits and entrances between brief changes and the soft fluttering of applause.

  “She is magnificent!” he heard one of the assistants exclaim. The man was peeking out at the runway from behind a curtain. “Brava! Brava!” he cried, wringing his hands.

  The excitement was over Tamarra, a big star whose face frequently graced the covers of glitzy fashion magazines and whose lifestyle and personality were reputedly even larger off-stage. According to Joe, Tamarra was actually a transsexual from the slums of Brazil.

  Warden was distracted by the hands that reached out to brush his hair and dress his body. His stomach fluttered. Then his group was herded out of the dressing room and checked as they lined up for the parade down the runway. Warden stood anxiously backstage waiting for the announcer’s introductions, her voice booming in his ears.

  He looked around. Joe stood up front, hair slicked down and in place at last, still looking like a mischievous teenager under his conservative adult garb. Behind him was Cody, slate-eyed and steel-chested. Warden waved. He nodded back, unsmiling. Mike gave him a thumb’s-up sign.

  An assistant fluttered around, waving his hands and pulling his lips apart in a wide grin, making hideous faces until they were all laughing, all those beautiful men and women conscious only of their nowness. As though it were all that mattered.

  They were let out of the narrow confines one at a time, the pounding beat propelling them down the celebrated catwalk. A door opened and they entered a new universe where the stars had reassembled inside the pavilion for the night.

  Warden watched the models ahead of him spin down the ramp as though across an abstract horizon. Formations turned and scattered, reassembling instantly as taut lines and dagger sharp curves plunged the eye into a brilliant substitute existence. They seemed to re-invent themselves with every step, scarcely aware of the extraordinary fuss they were causing.

  Warden stepped onto the platform, caught in a trembling light. At the far end of the stage were the “magnificent” Tamarra and Eric Nevada. They turned in perfect unison and swept back up opposite sides of the ramp. Tamarra floated along ethereally, nothing in her movements suggesting she’d ever been anything other than what she was right now, while Eric strode up the far side, darkly luminous like a nervous racehorse.

  These were the two models who were magic that year. Somewhere someone had decided as much and given them the stamp of approval. This was the look, the stance, the face of what constituted the Here and Now.

  Warden glanced out over a sea of admiration as flashes went off like timed explosions around the room. The auditorium was filled with fleeting subtleties, the routes of suggestion on which the lightness of illusion travelled.

  This is what it looks like, he caught himself thinking.

  How temporary it all was: beat, look, model. Worlds winked out in quicker-than-the-eye changes. High cheekbones, pure skin tones, and slender supple bodies repeated themselves endlessly before retreating behind glossy curtains to be transfigured and melted down in an infinite array of guises.

  Warden felt magnified by the attention as the light caught on his skin like tiny smiles of adoration. He rose, porous with ecstasy wh
ile the Lilliputians looked on.

  The show exploded in a tableau in honour of American Independence Day. Models dressed as guards of honour held long-bannered flags along both sides of the ramp. Down the centre paraded Tamarra in a vermilion evening gown leading a Siberian tiger cub on a leash. She looked as sleek and tawny as the cat itself. The cub was not in the best of humour, spitting and snarling with each synchronized flash as the show ended in a splurge of colour.

  And then it was done. Lights dimmed and the fanfare converged to a distant hum as the public and press rose to follow the oracles of fashion to the reception. It was time to let the effects of the show gain momentum, taking it off the runway and into the streets.

  In a vast arena of marble and tulle the models reappeared one by one, mingling with the public and the designers, posing for the photo-hungry. Finally the stars entered, Eric followed by Tamarra. She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs as though caught by surprise when the flashes started up again. Then with one foot she began her descent, elegant and ever-lovely, and a smile that seemed to say to each person in the room, “Ah, there you are at last!” but which really said, “Here am I!”

  The reception went by in a blur. Between the excited introductions and brassy greetings, the brilliant talk and bitchy gossip, small quantities of cocaine began to be dispensed furtively among the glasses of champagne. Warden watched with curiosity as Tamarra herself came to offer him the drug of the gods. She smiled benignly and lifted it up on the back of a credit card.

  “Here’s to it,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Up the spout.”

  He had one quick snort of the cold whiteness up each nostril and felt a numbness descending his throat. Gianni Versace passed by with one of the show’s coordinators.

  “You were wonderful, my darling!” he said, taking Tamarra’s hand and kissing it.

  “Gianni, Antonio, I’d like you to meet Warden,” she said. “Warden is with Maura’s. We’ll have to get him in our show next year. He’s going to be very good.”

  The trio spoke briefly in English before switching to Italian. Crowds surrounded them. Tamarra and the famous designer drifted off in a haze of smoke and camera flashes, followed by the coordinator.

  A waiter passed Warden bearing a tray that seemed to float toward him. He picked up a glass with an amazingly long stem. The music had begun to sound peculiar. Everything sparkled, as though the room were strewn with delicate crystals. There was a glittering edge to it all, outlining the gathering in an aura that seemed fabulous yet vaguely sinister.

  Warden watched as Calvino went through the crowd, a blur with an anxious face. Cody followed with a woman on either arm. After a while Tamarra reappeared. Warden stared. For a moment he thought he saw traces of blood and bone beneath her skin, her celebrated cheeks rotting as she stood chatting and laughing, ignorant of her impending demise. He shook his head. The nightmarish vision disappeared.

  “This place is getting too fabulous for words, darling,” Tamarra said, shaking her vivacious hair at him. “Some of us are going to dance and we think you ought to come along.”

  And then they were clambering into one of several cars with a dozen or so others from the show. Mike was there and he felt reassured. Warden watched as parts of Milan flew by he’d never seen before. Out of a general buzz of conversation he heard Tamarra speaking.

  “This one needs taking care of,” she said, patting his head.

  He was aware of a face leering at him from the front seat.

  “I’ll help,” he heard a man’s voice say.

  “No, you won’t,” said Tamarra. “You keep your hands on the steering wheel and off of this boy. He’s an innocent among us wolves.”

  Warden smiled and suffered her attentions while the car drove through warm streets with its top down. Eventually, they all piled out at an outdoor party. There was music and dancing and occasional fireworks like ersatz stars dissolving in the sky.

  After what seemed an appropriate amount of time the night began to move off in search of more adventure before dawn. Warden found himself in an all-night dance club where everyone looked as elegant and beautiful as the runway models had been. He felt as though he’d walked into the centre of a diamond, everything pulsating in a din of lights and sound.

  The man who’d driven them came over and put a drink in his hands. Warden felt thirsty and downed it quickly. The man claimed to be a photographer. He told Warden that he was beautiful and would make him a star. He wanted Warden to come and live with him.

  “I will provide you with everything,” the infatuated man said, trying to kiss him.

  Warden pushed him away. “You probably couldn’t afford me,” he said, repeating a line he’d heard someone else use once, and went off to dance.

  He swayed like a feather in a breeze. Around him faces gleamed, radiating haloes and receding in the distance. The music had become a dull roar and he knew it was very late. Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and ousted him from the club as though waking him sharply from a dream. Outside, someone else wrapped him in a jacket that looked surprisingly like the one he’d worn god-knows-where in another time and place. Then he found himself on the street, gravel crushing under his feet like peanut shells.

  “Can you look after him, darling?” he heard Tamarra say, as hands pushed him gently into a taxi, unable to shut the door behind him as he lay stretched out on the seat.

  He heard Mike answer something about “sticky pearls,” which made him laugh. It felt as though there were veils hanging inside his head. He watched Tamarra stumble away from them. He struggled to sit up in the seat trying to think, to remember where he was or how he got there.

  “Oh, my god!” he heard Tamarra say. “I can’t believe it! I’ve got a Gucci show in three hours and I’ve still got my Versace make-up on!”

  He watched as a long black limousine rolled slowly up to the curb like a hearse. Tamarra went over to the driver’s window.

  “Darling,” she said. “Have you got any cocaine?”

  A door opened and she stumbled inside. It was the last thing he remembered in the lavender night.

  11

  Warden woke with the beginning of a hangover. He dimly remembered an appointment for 10:45 and reached out to grab the clock beside his bed. His cheek stuck to the pillow.

  “What the fuck?” he mumbled as he stumbled out of bed.

  The pillow was covered in blood. He looked in the mirror and shivered.

  Dried caked streaks of red ran from his nose across his cheek. His hair stood straight up and his face glared with a sullen puffiness. He showered and rubbed a handful of gel into his hair, combing it through with his fingers. He threw on his clothes and looked in the mirror again. A slight improvement, but just. He put on sunglasses to cover the circles under his eyes, grabbed his bag and ran.

  By the time he reached Via Scarsellini for his appointment, he was already twenty-five minutes late. He walked along looking for the address on the paper Calvino had given him. He passed a number of warehouses until he came to the end of the street. He checked his sheet again. There was the number 23 in Calvino’s long looping scrawl, but there was no number 23 anywhere on the street. He wasted another ten minutes finding a phone box. He dialled the agency.

  “Hello, this is Warden. I have an appointment with Amica Magazine but I can’t find the address.”

  He heard the receptionist flipping though her schedule.

  “Yes, Warden—we have you listed for 10:45,” she replied finally.

  “I know, but I can’t find it. What’s the address?”

  “Number 17, Via Scarsellini.”

  “Thank you. Grazie.”

  He hung up and walked back to a warehouse he’d passed fifteen minutes earlier, locating the magazine in the directory listing. He was now three-quarters of an hour late. Not good form. An elevator took him to the third floor where he stepped out into an empty hallway. He heard a typewriter in the distance and followed it to a room at the end of the hall.


  “Scusa?” he said, poking his head inside the doorway.

  The young woman behind the desk removed a pair of Dictaphones from her ears and scowled at him. Warden removed the glasses from his face, which had started to feel slightly less puffy. He tried to smile but his face muscles stiffened.

  “Si?”

  “I’m from Maura’s. I have an appointment with Signor Gustavo.”

  “You look like shit,” she said, shaking her head. “And Signor Gustavo’s not here.”

  “But I’m supposed to be working with him right now.”

  “They are shooting,” she said. “But not here.”

  He must have looked so distraught that she began to soften.

  “You should be here,” she said, and wrote down an address on the other side of the city. “Your agency should have told you this.”

  She shook her head again sympathetically, but whether for his appearance or for his bad luck he couldn’t tell. “You cannot get there in time, though. Even by taxi it is almost half an hour away. But don’t worry,” she said, brushing the matter aside. “There will be others.”

  He wasn’t sure if she meant other models to take his place or other jobs for him in future. He thanked her and left, replacing his glasses as the daylight hit his eyes. That’s Maura’s Noodles for you, he thought, remembering Jimmy’s nickname for the agency.

  He stopped at a pharmacy and bought some aspirins. He swallowed six as he huddled into a phone booth. The same receptionist answered at the agency. He explained what had happened.

  She laughed. “It’s not a problem,” she said. “You have no other appointments this morning. You can go home to sleep.”

  He rolled his eyes. Life was so simple to the Italians. Either one had a problem or one didn’t. That was all.

  “Grazie, bella. Ciao,” he said and hung up.

  He headed back to the albergo and sat in the café downing an espresso. The caffeine surged through his body as though a sluggish drain had begun to unclog. He went upstairs and lay on his bed. When he woke again, the pain was nearly gone. Valentino stood looking in from his doorway.