To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  It was on that word that Colin started to listen to him properly. It was a word he’d never heard anyone actually use. Not in a normal conversation.

  THREE

  Sally dusted her nick-nacks all Saturday afternoon.

  She had gotten hold of one of those feather dusters from the shopping channel, the ones with all the attachments. They employed static electricity in a very ingenious way to lift household dust off in long, easily disposable strings. Ideal for going round her porcelain dolls and her commemorative plates. Even so, they took a full afternoon to care for. Sally didn’t like detritus about the place.

  So she beetled around, keeping herself busy, telling herself she wasn’t waiting for Colin to turn up.

  She hoisted out her old records, wanting to fill the flat up with music she hadn’t listened to in years. They were oily, purple, black and brown and crackling with their own accumulated dust. She slid open the window so the syrupy strings of Mantovani went out into the open air, all these storeys up.

  She wasn’t waiting for Colin to come home. It might have been nice, to tell him the tale of last night and maybe spin it all out to make it more dramatic than it was. He’d have liked that. But he wasn’t here and that wasn’t to be helped. She wasn’t going to worry about him. That would do no good. He’d have hooked up with one or other of his pals. She had a number for that Raf, who was supposed to be such a mate of his. Maybe she’d try it later.

  I should have met up with Katy when she called. Karla, I mean. But really, I did think she had a cheek. It’s not like we’re long-lost best buddies. Karla was acting like this is some TV show where they reunite loved ones. I’ve wondered what happens on those programmes, once the cameras stop running and the audience go home. Oh, everyone looks so glad to see each other. Often they’ve been flown in from somewhere far-flung, like New Zealand and no one’s seen each other in decades. It’s all tears and hugs and make-up running. Then the presenter steps to one side and sings a sentimental song about time and distance and love never changing. I always think, Well! They’ve kept apart this long. They can’t be that keen on each other. And when the show’s finished they’ll slip apart again and there’ll be Christmas cards but they’ll peter out eventually. Everyone ends up back where they started.

  Yet maybe I should have seen Karla today. At least she’s making an effort. Last night at the bar of the Prince Albert she took me by surprise. She was affable. She was all right. She was treating me like a friendly face she didn’t mind seeing.

  It stirs up all sorts, a reunion like that. As we talked I kept thinking about my mam and our street and her mam and how they ended up. Just the sound of Karla’s voice put me back there. Her accent was coming out stronger, the more we talked. She was dropping her airs. I could hear my mam telling me I had to keep a watch out for poor little Katy MacBride. Well, she’s done all right for herself. Now she’s going to be on the telly every night. That’s the ultimate accolade, isn’t it? Isn’t that what everyone wants to do these days?

  Back then, she really faded out of our lives. We knew they had the bailiffs after them and it was all moonlight flits they were doing, from one set of digs to another. We’d hear bits and pieces. They had all sorts of people after them for money. Her mam had sunk really low and I bet we never even knew the half of it. She was dragging Katy through the dirt, is all my mam would say about it. Still, Katy stuck by her mam. Even when she could have bolted. She stayed with her.

  I saw Katy and her mam in St Anne’s Square once about that time. They didn’t see me. It was Christmas and all the stalls were out, the crib by the church and the lights. Hot chestnuts and all that. The theatre crowds were coming out of the Royal Exchange. And here’s these two coming along, looking a bit shabby. Shabby but flashy, that was her mam. She’d cleaned herself up a little, but she looked tarty, like she was back on the game again. I didn’t go over. They were sitting on a bench by the church and my feet marched me smartly away. I didn’t want people seeing me going over to them. Katy was in a green woollen coat that looked old. She was smoking right there, in front of her mam. I could see her looking into space, or at the crowds as they came out of the theatre, down the steps. Her eyes were flat, hostile, envious.

  I don’t know how she got into acting.

  My mam used to say, How do you think? Well, they call it acting. That’s not what I would call it. They start off as street walkers. Round Piccadilly Gardens. That’s what it really is. Or in them hootchie kootchie shows. I know the kind of thing. That’s not like acting Shakespeare, is it? It isn’t Pygmalion or any of that lot. Can you imagine Katy learning her Shakespeare? No, course you can’t. She’ll be up on a stage somewhere, in front of a whole lot of dirty men. And she’ll be showing her bum. That’s the kind of acting she’ll be doing, bless her heart.

  My old mam wasn’t far off the mark, was she? Katy certainly went on to show off her bum. And everything else.

  One time I even went to see one of her films. This must have been the Sixties by then. She hadn’t been doing them long. She was the bright young thing. I was with Mick. Ah, bless him. It wasn’t his kind of thing at all. Queuing outside the Odeon. He liked a war film. He liked men’s films. He couldn’t see why I was suddenly wanting to go and watch a horror flick, a monster film. He found the whole thing highly suspicious. But I’d read about it in the Evening News. Local girl nabs star part in vamp shocker. ‘Blood in the House of Love.’ Well, it was a lurid title and I could understand why my Mick was embarrassed queuing up outside.

  It was a whole load of teenagers out on dates standing with us. It was freezing and dark, the wind slicing up Oxford road with the buses. There were a few funny-looking characters waiting with us, too. The dirty mac brigade is what Mick called them. He was a man of the world, my Mick. Merchant Navy, all that. He didn’t hold with nonsense. He’d seen quite enough. Now I was making him sit through this silly, overblown film. On the backrow, like we were kids. As if we’d gone to sit on the cinema’s ratty old plush to neck and fondle each other because there was nowhere safe to do it at home.

  Yet we were respectable. Married for years by then. Getting out like this into town was a proper treat. It was unusual for us.

  God, I never really think this far back. It doesn’t do. I shouldn’t. What good can it do?

  And I never sit in the flat by myself, thinking about Mick. Standing outside the Odeon with the snow starting to come down. In his long coat with the collar up. His old hat on. Pulling a face at me because he’d rather be at home. He’d rather we’d just gone to the boozer on the corner.

  The film was horrible, of course. It was more horrible than I’d expected it to be. The house of love, indeed. There was precious little love in it that I could see. Plenty of blood, mind. That was when Technicolor was all the rage. You saw colours that you’d never see in real life. That old gothic castle was brilliant blue and the night time forest was a sheeny purple and green. The blood when it came on the screen was ketchup red and we were glad we never got hotdogs.

  All the flesh was unrealistic. Here came Katy MacBride like a sleepwalker, moving up the stairs of the castle in a lightning storm and her skin was like alabaster. I’d never seen her so clean in all her life. Her nipples came out like cherries on a bakewell tart.

  In the seat next to me Mick was getting flustered and eventually outraged. ‘This,’ he hissed, ‘is a mucky picture, Sally.’ I could see he had squashed his choc-ice in surprise. The yellowy cream had melted down the sleeve of his good Friday night shirt.

  ‘I didn’t think it would be this bad …’

  ‘It’s an XXX!’ he said.

  ‘That’s Katy MacBride,’ I told him. ‘A good Catholic girl.’

  ‘That one? That’s the one you know?’

  I nodded. She was the sleeping victim of a vampire queen. She was tossing in a four poster bed and the camera was poking its nosy way between heavy swags of velvet to catch a glimpse as she rolled and heaved, all nightmare-stricken on her counterpane
.

  Then in came the vampire lady: a guest in Katy’s father’s castle. The vampire queen was sexy too, but in a disquieting way.

  ‘Not something I can put my finger on,’ Mick said later. ‘But I thought, that’s not attractive. That’s not sexy. And I were right, weren’t I? Doing nasty business with other women. I didn’t know what you’d brought me to see. It were like a … medical film. Deviants and all sorts.’

  Always upstanding, my Mick. He never liked talk of anything perverted. He’d just leave the room. He wouldn’t have the News of the World in the house. He didn’t like mucky men’s talk in the pub and the pals he had knew better than to start on like that when he was around. A proper, old-fashioned gent, my Mick.

  And he wasn’t standing for this. Women kissing women. He watched as far as the point when Countess Dracula or whoever she was slipped out of her robes of satiny night and then he was up on his feet as she leant forward to caress the breasts of the girl on the bed. She was nibbling at Katy’s neck and the two of them were moaning so hard the speakers were vibrating. Then they pressed up together and Mick grabbed hold of my hand and he was pulling me up out of my fold-down seat. He never said anything, he just yanked me up and dragged me along the aisle, scattering choc-ice wrappers, the lot. We were treading on everyone’s feet and I kept saying our excuse me’s, and there were all these hisses and boos from the seats behind us. Mick wasn’t to be deterred. He wasn’t staying for any more of this filth. I tried to duck and crouch down. Our silhouettes were marked out against those colossal, pale, female bodies on the screen as they went tumbling over each other; one shot fading into the next in the endless melting and shifting of a cinematic love scene. I even caught a glimpse of Katy’s face as she drowsed in the vampire queen’s embrace. I saw her eyes widen hugely as she succumbed – and got her fatal, sexy bite on the neck.

  Then, next thing I knew, we were out in the foyer, which was overwarm and carpeted in bright blood red. All the light and all the red made me feel a bit queasy. Shame, I suppose it was, too.

  Mick was furious with me. ‘Who on earth writes rubbish like that?’

  The funny thing was, I knew. I actually knew who had written the script, and the original novel upon which ‘Blood in the House of Love’ had been oh-so-loosely based. His name had appeared in the opening credits, in golden Gothic lettering a foot or so tall. He had been the other reason I had wanted to see the film that night. Fox Soames, the famous writer of the Occult. Fox Soames the rescuer of children. He was someone else I knew in real life.

  I didn’t have time to explain any of this. Mick was whisking me out into the hurly burly of Oxford road on Friday night. My head was still swirling with lurid pictures and the snow was stinging my face. We found a pub where everything seemed familiar, smokey and green-tiled and chock-a-block with folk. Everything was normal. And as clear and settled as a pint of bitter.

  * * *

  The phone was ringing.

  The record had finished ages ago and Sally found herself in a trance, stroking her feather duster.

  ‘Hello?’ She hoped it wasn’t Karla again, trying to persuade her.

  It was a funny voice. Queer-sounding. ‘Is that Colin’s grandmother I’m speaking to?’

  Her heart started thumping. ‘It is. Is he all right?’

  ‘Oh, he’s all right, all right,’ said the tight, brusque voice at the other end. ‘I just thought I’d ring you and tell you what he’s been up to.’ Something malicious in that tone, Sally thought. She didn’t trust this person one bit.

  ‘Who is this, please?’

  ‘I’m Rafiq,’ said the voice quickly. ‘I’m Colin’s so-called best friend.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Raf,’ Sally said, cupping the receiver and squinting. He sounded to her like a spiteful girl. ‘Well, what’s happened to Colin? He’s not in trouble, is he?’

  ‘Only with me,’ Raf sighed.

  Sally felt her hackles rising. ‘Are you going to tell me about it or not, Rafiq?’ There was odd chatter in the background at his end. It sounded like he was in a shop of some kind.

  ‘Your grandson is a real slut,’ Raf said at last. ‘He makes out he’s better than everyone and me and that I’m the dirty one. But at least I was home in my own bed last night. Do you know what he did last night? He was doing everything he could to schmooze round that Lance Randall off the telly. We were up in his flat and Colin got as drunk as he possibly could and then he was all over the fella. It was downright embarrassing. He made a right show of himself and I’m ashamed to call him my mate. Me and my friend Vicki had to leave, we were that taken aback. Well, your grandson stayed there. In that flat. I thought I’d better let you know, in case you were bothered. But that’s where he is. Hobnobbing with the stars. I expect we’ll see him in HIYA magazine next.’

  Eventually Raf ran out of steam.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you think of that?’

  Sally was pursing her lips. ‘Did you ring me up to give an old woman a nasty shock?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘And you call yourself Colin’s best friend?’

  ‘I am! That’s why I’m telling you …’

  ‘Stop it. I don’t want to hear any more from you. You sound like a nasty, spiteful boy. I shall tell our Colin what you’ve done. How you tried to mix it and make trouble for him.’

  ‘What? But he’s a star-fucker! A tuft-hunter! He’d sleep with anything that’s been on the telly!’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with me. Or you,’ said Sally calmly. ‘I’ll thank you not to ring me again in future.’ With that, she slammed down the phone.

  Then she bit her lip. Oh, Colin. What have you been up to now?

  FOUR

  Vicki was staring up at Raf in admiration.

  He’d handled the phone call fantastically well, standing there at the till, while she saw to the queue of customers and earwigged. He hadn’t let himself lose his temper with the hysterical old woman. He had simply stated the facts. And he was quite right. Colin was indeed a terrible star-fucker. It had sickened them both to watch him licking around Lance last night.

  That Lance. What a loser. Vicki couldn’t believe how sad and pathetic he’d turned out to be. His flat wasn’t all that special, either.

  This morning Vicki had binned her Lance Randall T-shirt. She planned to record over all her Menswear videos.

  ‘That’s told her, anyway,’ Raf said, simmering with anger. ‘God! What a horrible old bitch. No wonder Colin’s as fucked up as he is. Being brought up by her!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Vicki. ‘You know I never liked him, anyway.’

  Raf let out a great, dramatic sigh. There was still a queue at the cash desk. He looked at the next fat, greasy punter, who was holding out a pile of fanzines and a plastic model of something off Star Trek. Raf grabbed them off him and shoved them in a bag while Vicki rang them into the till. ‘He’s got the tiniest cock, you know,’ Raf said. ‘Did I ever tell you that? That’s one of the reasons I’d have nowt to do with him in that department. He couldn’t do anything for me. I need a great big strapping one I can get my gob around. I could hardly find his. He was useless in bed.’

  ‘That’s £32.74,’ Vicki told the sweating punter, her eyes gleaming.

  ‘Really,’ Raf went on. ‘I think, if you’ve got a cock that small, why even bother? Chop the fucking thing off. No one’s gonna be impressed. Become a woman why don’t you. That’s got to be better than going about with nowt to show off as a man. No, I think anything less than eight inches semi-erect is a waste of fucking time. It’s an embarrassment. I don’t want it. No – you can take it away! Stick it up your own frigging arse! You might as well go home and stay home or hack the bloody thing off with your nail-file. I wonder what that Lance made of it. It’s bound to have been a disappointment.’

  ‘I bet,’ Vicki grinned, watching their customer shuffle away.

  ‘All he had to do was quite simple. His instructions were easy. All he had to do was tap Lance fo
r information about Karla, But no, he’s much too selfish for that. Once we’re all up there in that flat, he forgets all about us. We don’t matter to him anymore. We’re just his mates.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Vicki asked. She was keen to move on, past the subject of Colin.

  ‘I hate losing friends,’ Raf said. ‘I really fucking hate falling out. But sometimes it just has to be done. You can’t let people shit on you like that from a great height.’

  Vicki thought back to the look on Raf’s face when it became clear last night that Colin was going to be staying with Lance. Raf had looked … affronted, was the only word for it. He’d looked sick with disgust.

  They had left with all haste and hardly a word and walked down Canal Street and into Piccadilly together to get their night buses. Raf had been so furious he’d hardly had a good word to say to Vicki, either.

  ‘Look at me!’ he’d burst out eventually. ‘I’m young and I look fucking fantastic and I’m slim as a whip and look at who the fuck I’m stuck with at the end of Friday night! And that Colin is …’ He had clamped his gob shut at that point and glared at Vicki as she stood hunched in the bus shelter under an advert for mobile phones. She could have been quite hurt at what he was saying, but where would that get them? Of course she wasn’t who he wanted to be stuck with. Of course he was gutted, and wasted.

  A thought had struck her then. ‘You didn’t fancy Lance, did you?’

  He tossed his head, eyes blazing back at her in contempt. ‘Of course not. But if anyone was going to shag the old cunt, it might as well have been me. I could have got Karla’s number out of him.’

  ‘You’d have … shagged him?’

  ‘It’s just a shag, isn’t it? You can easily put it out of your mind. Specially when there’s something important at stake. You can suffer that much. It’s usually over quickly enough.’