A Cage of Bones

by Jeffrey Round

  At six he sat alone at a bar drinking mango juice and eating the roseate flesh of figs from a bowl set in front of him. He watched a procession of spectral creatures crossing the beach in some ritual sacred to the morning, their wraith-like bodies slowly becoming visible in the dawn light. He pulled himself together in time to collect his belongings and make the plane back to Milan.

  16

  Under Calvino’s guidance his image took off. His features were spread across the pages of a dozen magazines, locating him squarely on the topography of fashion. One advertisement made Calvino nervous about his new star. A shot of Warden with dishevelled hair and a whip held over three women dressed in lace underwear and leather bondage gear threatened to jeopardize the wholesome image Fabiano prized in him. When he appeared wearing knife-slashed jeans, his middle digit raised in a one-finger salute, Calvino decided the time had come to limit the offers to those that moved him in a serious direction. From not knowing how to use him, advertising directors were being told how they were allowed to use him.

  Calvino also thought it time to send him abroad. Italy had seen enough of him for the time being. For the upcoming season, he would go to England. Apart from his friendship with Andreo—Valentino having all but vanished from his life—there was little he would miss in Milan. He was sent with Calvino’s blessing to the Elizabeth Smart Agency in London.

  It was raining the day he arrived, as it always seems to be raining or to have just rained as a peculiar characteristic of English weather. At Victoria Station he hailed the first in a row of sleek black cabs and climbed in.

  Warden liked the agency immediately. The staff was organized and efficient in contrast to Maura’s, though he sensed the surface coolness and business-like nature of the agency would preclude the sort of camaraderie he’d experienced in Milan. He would also not be living in a hotel with other models. There’d be little chance to indulge in a narcissistic atmosphere where ambitions were geared wholly toward success in the fashion world. Here the onus would be on him to succeed.

  Smart herself was a tall cheerful woman with gleaming eyes who’d built up her organization by her own hands in ten years. She was friendly to all and, like Calvino, seldom had time to spare, though she kept an ear open to the needs of the models in her stable. She neither bullied nor cajoled her young wards, but simply gave them the best opportunities and let them do the work, making it clear they were on their own. Nor was anyone treated as special. There were no “big, big stars” in her agency—only lesser and larger lights. Even his work with Andreo didn’t qualify Warden for elevated status. He was expected to take his place on the go-see lists with everyone else as he began making the prescribed rounds of clients.

  Out in the streets London was calling to Warden and others like him. Work began coming in steadily, even though he hadn’t established a rapport with a particular photographer as he had with Andreo. He was ordinary once again, yet still making his mark.

  His first cover shot appeared in November on the avant-garde periodical Pariah. He also appeared in some of the UK’s most style-conscious magazines amid an explosion of indecipherable shapes and colours where he found himself constantly re-invented in the fractured mosaic of English fashion.

  “Let them do anything to you but don’t let them give you this dirty grunge style,” Calvino admonished when he left for England. “It won’t last but you’ll be stuck with that look and it will damage your image.”

  He found himself working in a world strikingly different from the Italy of Versace and Ferré. The British mentality was one of a mind under siege seeking refuge in a disjointed reality influenced more by the machine and the found object than the rich Italianate love of opulence and splendour. It was a landscape distorted by a desire for novelty and a fascination with violence, undergoing a transformation wrought from decomposing social values.

  One day he wore an outfit made of steel mesh. It felt as uncomfortable as if he’d been wearing barbed wire. He couldn’t imagine anyone wearing it for real. The following day he found himself donning some of the most expensive formal wear the city had to offer. This time he couldn’t imagine anyone being able to afford it. He watched the photographer race maniacally between his camera and the lights, adjusting screws, raising and lowering reflectors, checking and re-checking the focus. All but oblivious to his model.

  “I charge extra for lingerie,” Warden quipped.

  “Eh? What was your name again?”

  “Marilyn.”

  “This layout is for a magazine called Pariah, Marvin. You heard of them?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they’re super cool. Now, Marvin, I want you to look angry—very angry.”

  Warden gritted his teeth and tried to look menacing. The shutter clicked away. Another wardrobe change and he returned in shirt and tie, minus the jacket.

  “I want you to sit over there, Marvin. Wrap your legs over the arms of the chair and tilt your whole body towards me.”

  Warden complied.

  “That’s it.”

  Warden looked down at the clothes, half-hidden and obscured by his pose. With his knees pulled up in front, the shirt could hardly be seen.

  “Will they see the clothes?” he asked.

  “Sod on the clothes,” the photographer scowled. “This is art, not fashion. You have to give those bastards what you want. Don’t let them tell you about it, you know?”

  The photographer clicked away for a while then leaned on the camera. “That was just great—so primitive, you know?”

  After several weeks of hotel living, Warden took a small furnished flat on Ladbroke Grove in the Notting Hill district. He found himself an object of curiosity as he moved in with his piles of luggage. A blue-haired young man stared at him from down the hall.

  “Hello,” Warden said.

  “Hello, I’m Ivan,” said the young man, extending a bangle-covered arm. His hair stuck up like the antennae of a large insect. “Though sometimes I’m Ivy, depending on how I’m dressed.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Warden said.

  “Sorry I haven’t got on me proper skirt for a curtsey,” he said, “but it’s lovely to meet you too.”

  “That’s all right—I haven’t been able to get at my clothes for days now.”

  Ivan stopped and stared at him. “I mistook you for a local lad,” he said. “You have an accent.”

  “I’m Canadian.”

  “Shocking!” he said, without explaining why he thought it so.

  Ivan followed Warden into his flat. “It’s a bit drab,” he said, looking around. “My flatmate Rebekah and I can help you fix it up. We’re in the decorating business. We get deals on all kinds of things. We’ve got loads of street cred. If you like night clubs, we know all the door attendants who will let us in free.”

  A phone rang down the hall.

  “That’s me,” Ivan said. “Why don’t you get yourself settled in then come knock us up. We’ll have tea.”

  “Love to!” Warden said.

  “Brilliant!” Ivan exclaimed, dashing off.

  Half an hour later, Warden found himself in an elegant flat with a decided Victorian sensibility. Ivan led him through rooms containing more antiques per square inch than should have been physically possible.

  “You’ll find we have everything for a successful parlour,” Ivan exclaimed. “We thought we would only have to buy a flat and decorate it and move in for life to be complete.”

  In a drape-lined sitting room Ivan served tea on a silver service beside a plate piled high with the biggest strawberry tarts Warden had ever seen. Ivan’s flatmate had not yet returned.

  “But she’ll be home soon,” he promised, as though her presence might be the high point to Warden’s visit. “She phoned to say she was leaving ten minutes ago and she’s a demon driver. She operates best at top speed.”

  Warden looked around, complimenting the decor and the collection of bric-a-brac that filled the room.

  “Rebekah, again,” I
van confided. “She’s a genius, you know. She can take any old junk and make it look like something special. Her real name is Lady Rebekah Wentworth-something-or-other, but you mustn’t tell her I told you. She gets terribly annoyed with me for telling people she’s royalty.”

  Ivan proceeded to divulge a number of secrets about the absent Rebekah, including the story of her affair with Prince Andrew before his disastrous marriage, which, Ivan solemnly informed Warden, had broken Rebekah’s heart forever.

  “Just like Elizabeth the first, she’s vowed to die a spinster, collecting lovers on the side and cutting off their heads to leave on spikes in the garden.” Ivan giggled. “But I don’t suppose she’ll do it really.”

  Having exhausted his supply of gossip, Ivan turned the topic to their design business, which consisted of material salvaged from neighbourhood junk shops and antique stores. Every weekend he and Rebekah wandered through crowded second-hand stores piling up goods along the way. He pointed out a chandelier winking at them from the next room.

  “Rebekah spotted that one right off,” Ivan said proudly. “It was black with soot, but she said it had potential for three-hundred quid. We picked it up for five pounds, brought it home and polished every crystal. Now just look at it.”

  They were lounging on the sofa when the door burst open and a young woman rushed excitedly into the room. Butterscotch hair tumbled from under a blue hat. She seemed tongue-tied with glee.

  “Ivy, the most wonderful thing just happened! I was shopping just now in the deli up the street and there was a new girl on the cash. I ordered all these items that normally come to five pounds and when she added it up it came to just a quid. I literally threw the money at her and made good my getaway. It was lovely! I only hope they haven’t sent someone to arrest me. It feels so good ripping someone off, doesn’t it? It’s better than a bargain in a junk shop!”

  “Hello, Bekah,” Ivan said. “I’ve made tea and we have company.”

  “Hello,” Warden said.

  “Hello,” she replied, setting her bags down and tugging at a long pair of zebra-striped gloves.

  “Miss Rebekah Wentworth, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Warden Fields from Canada. Warden, meet Rebekah. Warden’s our new neighbour and you’ll be pleased to hear he’s totally suitable for socializing.”

  “I’m so pleased to hear it,” Rebekah said. “The last bunch were boors and terrible snobs. I was just thinking we needed some new blood in the entourage.”

  “It’s true,” said Ivan, turning to Warden. “We took the last girl who lived in your flat to one of the wickedest clubs in all of London—worse even than All Saints Road where the prostitutes hang out. And do you know what she did? She sat in the balcony above the dance floor for all to see, clearly bored to tears, knitting a scarf while some leather queen held her wool for her.”

  Rebekah poured herself tea while Ivan munched on a tart like the March Hare. Sticky red filling spilled out between his fingers, the crumbs clinging to his lips. He proffered the plate to Warden.

  “Thanks. These are wonderful,” Warden said, taking another.

  “They’re from our local bakery,” Rebekah said. “This is the best neighbourhood in all of London, I should think. It has nearly everything. For starters, it has the best strawberry tarts in the world, and that has to count for something, doesn’t it, Ivy?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ivan agreed. “Strawberry tarts count for a good deal. Don’t you agree, Warden?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ve offered for us to do Warden’s apartment, Rebekah. Some sort of neo-colonial look, I thought. And when we get done, don’t you think it would be nice to do his image over as well? Perhaps something a little more androgynous?”

  “What’s wrong with my image?” Warden protested jokingly.

  Rebekah looked him over. “Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said. “When we get done, he’ll know what looks are to be used for, won’t he, Ivy?”

  Warden smiled at the two immodest schemers. The blue-haired young man reached over to the tray with one hand, the other pushing the remains of a tart into his open mouth.

  “You know,” he said between bites, “I’ve been thinking, Bekah. It’s time to redo our own place. We need to do something with the ceiling. I could do a replica in miniature of the Sistine Chapel. What do you think?”

  “Capital,” Rebekah answered, lifting a cup to her mouth.

  They sat staring up at the ceiling as if it were there already.

  17

  As winter approached, the English weather began to be dominated by a thin constant drizzle that held no promise of snow before Christmas. Warden’s thoughts turned more and more to home. It seemed so long since he’d been at the friendly house on Connaught Circle or out enjoying walks in the park with his sister. The feelings remained curiously aroused and wouldn’t go away.

  He received a card from his mother asking about his plans for the holidays. She’d enclosed a photograph of the family taken by his father some years before, with Warden standing between his mother and sister on the front lawn. A stone gryphon sat poised on either side of the entranceway, claw-throated and stiff-backed, guarding the staid residence through long quiet nights. It all seemed so far away, as though it belonged to a previous existence. He phoned to say he’d be home in a week and spent the next few days shopping for gifts.

  He landed at the airport on one of those bleakly Canadian days that resonated at the very core of his being. A wintry sunset matched the orange glow in each living room window, suffusing everything with stability and order. He imagined hard wind-swept faces staring from behind endless rounds of beer in front of endless rounds of Hockey Night In Canada, as if the country were held in the unreceding throes of an endless winter.

  It was strange to be back, and stranger to think he once belonged there. The places he’d visited seemed more real as they obeyed the relative laws of time and mutability compared to the absolute unchanging homeland.

  The gryphons watched his re-entry into the sacred groves of the family under shadowy eaves, lace encircling the windows, withered vines clinging to the outer brick walls. The house stood before him now, welcoming, accommodating, surviving all the changes within him.

  Lisa met him, throwing her arms around him in hugs as huge and greenly welcoming as the pine and holly wreathes on the front door. She ushered him in, apologizing that no one had picked him up at the airport, amid exclamations of joy on his return.

  “You’re back at last, Ward-Boy—I can’t believe it!”

  He set down his bags and took off his overcoat. His mother and father were there to greet him and make the scene complete. He’d already eaten but his mother brought out more food, insisting he eat again as she watched over him.

  They wanted to hear all about Italy and England and his work. He told them about the shows he’d been in and of the erratic Sr. Calvino, about go-sees and photographers and his trips around the Italian countryside. He described the abandoned house on Elba and the quality of light in the late afternoon on the tiny island where Napoleon had once been held prisoner and how amazed he was that even the least educated Europeans spoke two or three languages fluently. He even mentioned Valentino’s name several times to see if it elicited a spark of curiosity. He went on talking till they were satisfied they knew him again, that he hadn’t changed beyond all recognition. Finally they let him go up to bed, happy with the season and the return of the prodigal son.

  He stayed a week, long enough to feel he’d never left and to fall back into routines he thought he’d outgrown. They made the requisite visits to relatives and ate holiday dinners as a family, together again at last.

  One night after dinner when Lisa was out, he touched on the subject of his newfound sexuality. He’d couched it in the ridiculously transparent guise of “What if someone you knew…” that led to an embarrassed silence on the part of his parents. His father cleared his throat several times. Warden could tell from their reaction it wasn’t an
entirely new thought for them. His mother was first to speak.

  “I just hope you’re being careful,” she said, by-passing his question altogether. “There are so many more things to worry about these days than when your father and I were young.”

  She got up and went to the kitchen where they heard her clattering the dishes, as though cuing her husband. Walter spent an inordinate amount of time wiping his mouth with a napkin. At last he looked directly at Warden. “Whatever you are, Warden, doesn’t change who you are for us.”

  Warden waited. His father seemed unable to muster anything more concrete in the way of advice, possibly for the first time that Warden could remember.

  “Young people seem to feel a need to experiment with things that your mother and I never even thought of,” he said, choosing his sentences cautiously, as though the wrong word might explode in his face. “There’s nothing wrong with that in itself,” he said. “Though I can’t speak from experience.”

  If Warden had expected to be challenged, he was disappointed. It was the others who now faced the task of adjusting to accommodate the entirety of his identity as it had just been revealed to them.

  He pondered the changes he’d undergone since he last saw his family. He felt no different now than then. It was simply a decision he’d made to accept what was already inside him. From then on it became a gradual emerging of the contours of the person within.

  There was an awkward silence as his mother returned bearing a tray of dessert, armed with a vast selection of spoons. All eyes were on her as she laid out the utensils. She looked up and smiled.

  “There we are,” she said, and began spooning out a sticky trifle.

  His father avoided looking at anyone.

  “I just want you to know I’m being responsible,” Warden offered. “I wanted to let you in on who I really am. As a family we don’t really talk much about things like this and I just wanted to tell you I’m okay.” He shrugged. “That’s all.”