To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  ‘And I enjoy having my tea with my handsome grandson, don’t I?’ she smiled. ‘That’s what tea time’s for, isn’t it?’

  For a second he thought she was going to lean over and pinch his cheek. Poor Gran, he thought. What would happen when he eventually moved out? Into that mythical urban apartment of his? On the day that his real life actually began. What would happen to her then?

  She’d starve.

  He blinked away a vision that had risen before his eyes. Bizarre. He’d imagined walking up into Lance Randall’s rooftop pad (and he was picturing what all the furnishings would be like. Fantastic) and Lance was asking him, very seriously, almost pleadingly, if he’d care to move in with him immediately, to share his lonely, starry life and to make everything wonderful and complete. Colin blinked again and shook his head like an Etch-a-Sketch to clear it. Sad bastard.

  His gran’s eyes were on the telly again. Riveted. Her mouth had dropped open, showing what she’d been chewing – and that wasn’t like her at all.

  ‘What is it, Gran?’ Colin thought she was having a stroke. He wouldn’t know what to do.

  She pointed at the telly. ‘It’s her!’ she said hoarsely. ‘What’s she doing on the local news?’

  Behind the bootblack hair of the ironic newsreader there was a blown-up still of Karla Sorenson.

  ‘BACK IN MANC’ the headline said.

  SIXTEEN

  No one in the world called her Gran but Colin. Her real name was Sally, but she liked being called Gran in the privacy of their flat. It was like a game they were playing. Sally pretending to be this old person, to do old person’s things, to have old person’s cares. It did her good to have Colin fret over her. She liked the way those tables turned: when he was sixteen, suddenly thinking he was the most grown up, the most responsible of the two of them. That must be eleven years ago. Since then, she’d consented to become the wrinkled-up, ancient child and he called her Gran and he fretted. Fretted that she didn’t get out enough, fretted that she stayed in too much. Fretted that she fretted over him and also that he was too young and she was too old and they’d have no common bond other than all the shared blood and these few square metres of living space.

  Up here on the ninth floor, from where you could see right over the city centre.

  Was it perverse to like him fretting? This orphan she’d taken in at eleven and brought up as her own. After the death of his parents … No, she doesn’t want to go over that again. Not just now. He’s an orphan and they’ve lived together since he was eleven. Legal guardian, the whole shebang. They don’t even talk about her son, his dad, his mam, death. They never talk about it all.

  The fact he worries about his old gran means he cares. It shows that his heart is still here and he listens to her. She is still a figure in his life. Even now, when his life holds so many distractions. And life has so many distractions. Sally knows well how easy it is to have your head turned. How easy at his age – and at any age.

  Oh, what does that mean, precisely: to have your head turned?

  Turn again, Dick Whittington.

  It means you’ve been flattered or duped into turning your back on where you came from. You’ve forgotten your roots, your family, your friends. You’ve abjured – that’s the precise and brutal word – all those at home who know all about you, who know you too well and who love you still. They continue to love you with that irksome, embarrassing ferocity, fondness. Only those who know your faults and foibles can show that kind of love.

  And having your head turned … that means you can chuck all that back in their faces. Dick Whittington, too big for his boots.

  Karla, Gran thinks. That’s just how that silly mare turned.

  But not Colin.

  Colin has his own Dick Whittington moment. His Ladybird storybook of the old tale was one of the few books that came with him from his parents’ burnt house to his gran’s flat. And it was that book – with its weirdly photo-realist paintings on every right hand page – that gave him his very first erotic frisson. It wasn’t long after moving in with Gran. He kept looking at the pictures of the pauper boy and his handkerchief of belongings tied to a stick and slung over one shoulder. His cat trotting along at his side. A jaunty stride down the dirt track to the city, passing milestone after milestone. Dick’s devil-may-care expression and his glossy black hair. He was off to seek his new life. And there was a moment, mid-story, when he flung off his tattered and dusty clothes to bathe in a river as his puss guarded his stuff on the bank. Colin kept lingering over those pages.

  There was a time about then, when he had a stomach-ache in bed. Gran brought him Lemsip in a bone china cup and the pain drilled away, faded, came back again, all one night. She was so reassuring.

  She said: ‘Ah, you get all sorts of pains, all over the place, when you’re the age you are and you’re growing. There’ll be more to come yet. And you’ll never know what they were about. But they won’t do you any harm, Colin. They’re all just natural.

  ‘Do you know what I think, lovey? I think it’s more than just growing that’s hurting you. I think it’s the very feel of time moving through you. It’s invisible and most of the time none of us can feel it. But the age you are, chuck – you’re just that bit tender and susceptible to time.

  ‘So it twinges a bit and aches sometimes, winter mornings maybe, when you wake and twist round when you sit up in bed and it’s nothing to be scared of (though I’m glad you told me – there’s nothing worse than needless worry). It’s just time moving through you, Colin, and it means you are ready to join the world …’

  ‘Join the world, Gran?’

  She pointed out of his window. At the pink and yellow lights of the city. The low orange cloud under the black.

  ‘I mean, of an age to meet the rest of the world of grown-ups. Out there. To take the everyday pains and knocks and not be scared by any of it. You’re hardening up. Becoming a person. A person of your own, Colin.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Later that evening, Sally walked her usual route along the canal, out towards the main road. She let the rippling lines of light on the water calm her thoughts; the plaiting and twining of reflected streetlight on top of the mucky sludge. There’d been a suggestion, at one point, that the Old Dears should book one of those trips on a barge for a night out, and eat their chips as they sailed along the canal. They’d decided they didn’t want to chance it. Less danger to ancient bones just sitting in the restaurant on the ring road, having a singsong.

  She called on Effie, as planned. Her old friend still lived in the same place. There were some nasty-looking shops open down her way: everything for a pound, places with handmade signs advertising their meagre wares. There was a kebab place right underneath Effie’s flat. And Sally didn’t care what Effie said; you could smell those meat fumes rising up through her floorboards and through her new carpets. It was like dog food, but Effie claimed to be oblivious. The whole area had come right downhill and Effie refused to see it. When she looked out on her street through her old sash windows, she still saw the place as it was thirty years ago.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ she always said.

  ‘You don’t see things as they really are, Effie,’ Sally would tell her.

  ‘If you’d had your way, you’d have had me up one of them tower blocks in l967, same as you,’ Effie said, with just a hint of spite. ‘Well, we all know how that turned out. People scared for their lives. And you! When you first moved up there, you cracked on it was like living in Milan!’

  Sally would purse her lips. She remembered. At first, she’d been a great supporter of that whole notion of living up in the sky. And she’d liked having her own terrace with plant pots stood out. It really had seemed like living on the continent.

  ‘I like to keep my feet on the ground,’ Effie would say smugly.

  Sally hated her best friend’s name. On numerous occasions she had told her she thought it was awful. She thought it sounded rude.

  ‘Indeed it does not
!’ Effie had said hotly. ‘It was my mother’s name.’ And that was that. She wouldn’t have a word said against her mother.

  Effie was seventy-five if she was a day and, to Sally’s eyes, she still went on like a rather prim, Victorian child. Look at her tonight, preparing for a fish supper at Harry Ramsden’s: fussing with her lacy collar, patting it over her cardigan, blinking into her mottled hall mirror.

  ‘I suppose you saw the news tonight,’ Sally said glumly. She was fingering the sleeve of her new frock, as if testing the silver-threaded black for quality. She always felt too flashily dressed when she came to call on her friend. ‘The local news with that big-headed fella reading it?’

  ‘I did,’ said Effie. ‘Though I try not to, as a rule. It’s all murdered taxi drivers and initiatives to make people more tolerant. I can’t stick it.’ She was pursing her lips, aiming her lipstick, clacking the top palate of her teeth.

  ‘Did you see her?’ Sally asked, meaningfully.

  ‘I did. You knew her, didn’t you?’

  ‘When I was a kid. Before I knew you, even. We were kids together. Daft as brushes.’

  Effie eyed her. ‘You’ll forgive me for saying so, Sally. But you look like you’ve got twenty years on her.’

  Actually, she wouldn’t forgive her. Sally was seething as they tottered down Effie’s front stairs to street level. Damp and musty and reeking of aspidistra. ‘Karla’s had all the money and the life, hasn’t she? She’s had all the hard knocks pampered out of her. Injections and stretching and all the luxury treatments. She has every right to look younger than me.’

  Effie was fishing in her huge handbag for her multiple sets of housekeys. ‘I think it’s supernatural,’ she agreed.

  Sally watched her wrestle with the locks. ‘What makes you say so?’

  ‘A woman her age. Looking like that and taking her clothes off.’

  ‘She was never shy, that one.’

  Now they were out on the street. The kebab smell was very strong out here. Neither had eaten a kebab in their lives. They agreed that they couldn’t see the attraction.

  ‘There’s something unnatural about her,’ Sally said. ‘Really.’ They moved off towards the busy road.

  ‘She’s still an inspiration,’ said Effie. ‘To all of us old duffers.’

  At this Sally fell quiet for a few moments. Effie cast a sidelong glance at her friend and saw that she was stewing with anger. ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s no kind of inspiration.’ Sally’s voice was low. ‘She’s wicked through and through.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Effie was laughing.

  ‘I mean it.’ Sally looked at Effie’s thinning perm, the pink scalp showing through. ‘I could tell you things about her that would make your hair curl naturally.’

  This made Effie self-consciously pat her head and the two friends went quiet as they negotiated the complicated crossing of the ring-road.

  EIGHTEEN

  Number Withheld. The green display of his hated new phone was lighting up green. Someone wanting to talk to him, but not wanting him to know who they were.

  But somehow Lance knew exactly who it would be. It wasn’t many who had his private number.

  Early evening in his luxury pad. He had tried to insulate himself against the world by drawing the screens across his tall windows and by gulping down bloody red wine. He’d ignored the sounds of the street stirring, storeys below him, and the heady, bassy thump from the bar next door.

  Still someone was badgering him. Someone with his private number. And withholding their own. At last he snatched it up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lance?’

  Her usual throaty warble. Yet she sounded almost hesitant. Her unplaceable accent had turned tremulous, as if she wasn’t sure what reception she’d get from him.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Your new co-star, sweetness. I want to …’ Then she went quiet. There was a slight hiss on the line, underneath her voice. He wondered how close she was.

  ‘You wanted to what?’ He kept his voice hard. He wanted to sound unperturbed. He was pleased with how steady and hostile he was being.

  ‘I wanted to check with you, that all of this hullaballoo wasn’t too much of a shock. I want to know that … you’re OK with me joining your show.’

  He snorted. ‘I don’t get much choice in the matter, do I?’

  Inside he was thinking: I’m actually speaking to her. This is really her.

  ‘Oh, Lance.’ She sighed. A long hiss. ‘I hope … we can work together on this.’

  ‘Hm.’ He was unimpressed.

  Now she was trying a different tack. ‘Your mother would be so proud of you.’ She sounded more confident. ‘I just know it. Look at you. So handsome. So successful. A big, popular show of your own … pushing the boundaries …’

  ‘I know what my mother would think, thanks, Karla,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t need you to tell me.’

  ‘Of course, sweetness. You’re right. You were very close to her. I’m sure she’s looking down from heaven in complete approval. And I’m certain that she’ll be delighted that fate has brought us together to work on the same wonderful show.’

  He bit his tongue for a moment. Then: ‘Why are you here, Karla? Really?’

  She gave a gruff chuckle. A tarry wheeze bubbling in her throat. ‘Honestly? Well, I need the money. My residuals are drying up.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s as simple as that.’

  He sat back on his couch. And listened to the quiet hiss again. ‘It’s slumming it a bit, though, isn’t it? A poxy late night soap opera. You’re a film actress. A movie star.’

  ‘Used to be. But you flatter me. I’m nothing that special. Just your average jobbing vamp.’

  ‘Mm.’ He refused to be amused by her.

  ‘So … Can we? Can we agree to get on? To work together for the greater good and have a pleasant time?’

  The last time Lance had seen this woman had been at his mother’s funeral. He was a kid. Karla had taken over all of the arrangements. Lance could remember broiling with pent-up rage through all the proceedings. Standing on the sidelines, dressed like a dummy in clothes that felt stiff and too grown-up. Clenching his hot fists, glaring through his fringe at everyone. Then, eventually, when they were alone at the end of the day, he had screamed his frustrations at the flustered Karla. A banshee wail of grief that had frightened them both. You killed her. It was you. All of it was your fault.

  And how had he known that? What adolescent intuition had forced him to that terrifying conclusion?

  If Lance was honest with himself, he didn’t really know any more. The truth of it had settled and silted down into his bones over the years: Karla was solely responsible for the tragedy. No question about it, no doubts. He was sure of it and because of that he hated her guts. His mother was dead and Karla was still swanning about in the world. He hated her now as much as he had that night of the funeral, thirty years ago, when she had tried to comfort him – purring, murmuring, pressing his head to her bosom – pillowing him with unctuous, surrogate love. He still held himself separate and hard: keeping his hatred within.

  ‘Lance?’ she prompted.

  When he spoke he sounded weary. He knew she would hear that in his voice. ‘We’ll have to work together, won’t we? The decision’s been made. I’m not leaving. There’s no choice, now.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘But I’d like to think that we could get along as friends, as well as colleagues. There’s an awful lot of history between us, Lance.’

  He was silent at that. Biting his lip. Not trusting himself to reply.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Sleep on it, sweetness. I just want you to know that I am delighted. I’m pleased that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other. I’ve always been very fond of you, you know. No matter how you talked to me or about me. No matter how much you seemed to despise me. Right from you being a little tiny boy. I’ve always shared in a little bit of your mother’s love. We
’re connected by that.’

  Lance swallowed dryly.

  She went on, wrapping up the call. ‘So I’ll see you on Monday, at work. There’s a photocall in the morning. They want us together. OK?’

  He struggled to speak. ‘OK,’ he said.

  The line went dead.

  NINETEEN

  Kevin the tame porter gently took the mobile from her and closed its flap. He looked at her expectantly. ‘I take it that went rather well.’

  Karla pulled a face. She wandered over to her picture window and gazed at the redeveloped wharfs of Castlefield, all lit up for the evening. ‘I have an inkling it did,’ she purred. ‘I might have mollified him a bit.’

  Kevin the porter was perplexed. ‘Why on earth would he need mollifying? I don’t understand.’

  Karla smiled. ‘He’s an artist, Kevin. He’s temperamental. Besides, he holds me responsible for his mother’s death. He always has. And I’ve always known that.’

  The porter’s eyes were gleaming at this. ‘Were you? Responsible?’

  Karla felt her face twitch and then sag. Then she asserted self-control: Kevin might well be in thrall to her, but she still had to keep up her act. ‘Of course I wasn’t. What do you think I am? Lance thinks he knows everything. He’s always been like that. But he hasn’t a clue. He doesn’t know what it was like back then.’

  The porter nodded dumbly and knew that he shouldn’t ask anything else. Not for now. He knew there was only so much he could get out of her. He would just have to take titbits as they came, and feel grateful for them. It wouldn’t do to push her too far. For now, he had to feel privileged just to be here; that she had let him come this close.

  The phone vibrated twice in his sweating palm. ‘Text message,’ he said, and smiled at her.