by Paul Magrs
Mum tried to fling herself into work. Floating about on the studio sets as a lesbian vampire. She sent some very funny letters to my school. How they had put her in a harness on wires and hauled her up over the fake forest and castle set and she’d had to flap the wings of her diaphanous nightie and bare her savage fangs.
The others boys would listen as I read out my letters in our dorm. Maybe it was easier for me to settle into a school like that, because my mum was famous. Some of them even had pin-ups of her by their beds. Or posters of Karla, actually, in her furry bikini from ‘Prehysteria!’ – and Mum standing in the background.
We had hissed, whispering conferences late at night in the dorm, on the subject of those racy vampire ladies and I was, naturally, the acknowledged expert in the field. I had been amongst them and everyone wanted the inside story of ‘Get Inside Me, Satan!’ Had Soames really been in love with Karla? Had they really conspired to murder Magda? Had I seen the woman’s ruined body on the valley floor?
I became quite popular in my new school. I jazzed a few stories up for them. I told them there was real black magic involved of course, and real blood, and real sex. And that I had seen it all. We all became very excited about it. I got a lot of respect because my mum was a lesbian vampire. God, I even had my first ever bout of mutual masturbation over one of those posters from a horror mag. Me and whichever boy it was, getting worked up over those wicked ladies, working each other up to a froth on my truckle bed.
Very odd, maybe, letting someone wank you over a pin-up of your mum’s best friend. Or maybe not. To the other boy she was a star and she was ineffable. A purely fantastic creature. To me she was Karla, who’d turned up at our house the day after Boxing Day, with a goose, some satsumas and three bottles of Prosecco. She was Karla who had persuaded my mum to send me away.
There was something extra thrilling and taboo about gripping on hard to my new friend’s smarting, sticky cock and thinking about Karla in this whole new way. It was a kind of revengeful way, it seemed. When I came the first sight of my spunk frightened me, making the other boy laugh. I wanted it to be like holy water, burning into that cheap poster of the vampire lady.
Colin came out with the question in the end.
They were back at Lance’s flat. Lance was changing into another beautiful suit. Colin had packed a few things into a holdall and was holding up different tops and discarding them, one after another. They were in the pale blue bedroom and Colin’s gran was through in the living room. She was quite content to sit in the white armchair and wait. She thought Lance’s flat was magnificent.
Now Colin was looking earnestly at Lance.
‘How did your mother die?’
He looked away, smoothing down a shirt. ‘Brain tumour,’ he said at last. ‘By the time they diagnosed her it was inoperable. It had been growing there steadily, for a while. Giving her those headaches, blurring her vision, making her forget her lines. It was Karla who made her go to her doctor in the end. Harley Street. They rushed her in. Few months later she was dead. She died while I was at school. I never saw her at the end. Wasn’t with her. She never even told me she was ill.’ He looked at Colin. ‘Karla knew. Karla was with her at the end.’
Colin almost wished he hadn’t asked. There was something very lifeless in Lance’s voice. As if he had never told this story before, but now he had to tell it to Colin because Colin had asked and Colin was important to him. Colin felt awful.
‘Karla told me all about it, when I came back, too late. Karla told me all about my mum at the end. Stuff I didn’t know because I wasn’t there. It was like that woman had taken possession of my mum’s last weeks. Months. Caring for her, she said. Well,’ Lance flapped his hands. ‘I don’t know.’
Colin didn’t know what to say. To him it sounded like Karla had just been helping out. She had been a friend. Lance couldn’t blame his mother’s illness on her, surely?
I can’t say anything, Colin thought. Lance has lived this story over and over inside his head for all these years. If it’s helped him to blame Karla, well, maybe that’s OK.
All this black magic stuff …
Colin didn’t know what to make of that at all. His gran had knocked him sideways with her own revelations. It was the last thing he would have expected from her.
No. It was better for Colin if he kept his mouth shut. He was out of his depth here.
‘Wear that one,’ Lance told him, just as Colin threw down another T-shirt. ‘Come on. Your gran will think we’re up to no good in here.’ Then Lance grinned at him. ‘You aren’t getting fed up with me, are you, Colin?’
‘What?’
‘Older man. All this … baggage.’
‘No! Course not!’
‘And tonight, of course, you’ll be surrounded by all these old fogies. Not your usual night out …’
Colin shrugged. ‘So?’ Then he thought. ‘Well, maybe …’ Hm?’
‘I was thinking I should phone Raf …’
Lance pulled a face.
‘Oh, don’t look like that. He’s been a good mate to me. And he’s obsessed – really obsessed – with Karla.’
‘Jesus,’ said Lance. He could see he was beaten, though. He’d have to give Colin what he wanted.
‘I just feel bad because Raf was so mardy on Friday night. And I’ve not rang him. But it would make his year … his whole life … if I invited him to dinner tonight, with the rest of us …’
‘He won’t make a show of himself, will he? Screaming and squealing at her?’
Colin smiled. ‘Raf knows exactly how to behave. He’ll be perfect.’
Lance sighed. ‘Give him a ring then. The more the merrier, I suppose.’
SEVEN
‘Out again!’ said Effie. ‘I was out for a meal on Friday night. Look at me now. Out again on Monday.’
She arrived at Karla’s suite flustered. She was hoping she looked right for this evening. The suddenness of everything had thrown her. She had had to resort to her very smartest wardrobe. This meant hunting through the outfits she never wore. Expensive, slippery, pristine things she kept in polythene storage, ready for holidays she might one day take, or funerals, her own and others’. This was just such a dress: dark, plain, with its folds and seams so stiff they seemed to be squeezing her into a different shape. The shoes were ones she had never worn and they pinched.
‘I’ll pay,’ Karla told her.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ said Effie. ‘There won’t be any need for that. I’m delighted to come along. I’m delighted to be asked. But you must understand, this is something I don’t do every week.’
Karla shrugged, hooking her earrings on. She was in a black trouser suit and she looked businesslike. There was something brusque in her manner. When Effie walked into the suite, gazing around at all the space, Karla didn’t rush over to welcome her. She had asked Effie to come along and Effie had arrived. She didn’t need petting or fussing over. Effie was glad, in a way, to be treated this casually, to be taken almost for granted. It was as if their friendship had moved on a stage already. Still, she felt awkward, standing by the door.
She caught Karla’s eye in the dressing table mirror. In that moment she saw that her new friend was nervous. That was what the brusqueness was about.
‘We have to ask the chauffeur to take us past the front of the town hall,’ Karla said. ‘According to Adrian, the producer. He phoned a little while ago. He says there’s something I have to see. Something the City Council have done.’
‘Oh,’ said Effie. ‘I wonder what.’
Karla shrugged again, examining her make up. Then she turned to Effie and sighed. ‘Oh, sit down, will you? I can’t stand people hovering about me.’
As Effie hastened to obey there was a knock and the door came open to reveal a young porter in his scarlet uniform and golden braid. He was carrying a sports bag and looking keen. Effie thought he must have come for room service, until he closed the door and hurried in, as if he was used to making himself at ho
me in the suite. He went to Karla and kissed her proffered cheek.
‘He’s my assistant, Kevin,’ Effie was told. The young man was just about standing to attention beside her.
‘Assistant?’
‘The management have loaned him to me. Isn’t he nice?’
‘I suppose so …’
‘He’s chaperoning us this evening, aren’t you, Kevin?’
‘I am, Ms Sorenson.’
‘What do you think, Effie? The two of us arriving on the arm of this young man?’
Effie had never arrived on the arm of anyone before. She thought it sounded a bit cumbersome, the two of them having a hold of him.
‘I told him to bring his best suit,’ Karla said. ‘Have you, Kevin? Are you going to make me proud?’
‘I hope so.’
‘He’s only on a pitiful wage. We shall have to tip him well. Off you go, Kevin. You may use the bathroom to change in. You’re off the hotel’s time and you’re in my time now.’
‘Yes, Ms Sorenson.’ He hefted the bag and went eagerly to change. Effie watched the door click shut behind him, listened to the hiss of the shower as it started up. She was amazed at Karla’s capacity to make people do things.
‘What are you thinking?’ Karla said, smiling at her.
Effie’s voice surprised her by coming out in a croak. ‘He seems like a pleasant young man.’
‘Because he does what I tell him?’ Karla laughed. ‘And, as yet, I haven’t paid him a penny. He’s just happy to do for me, bless him. He’s under my spell.’
Effie coughed. ‘I think that’s marvellous.’
‘Do you?’
She nodded. ‘I never got the knack of getting what I want.’
‘Oh, you should try it some time.’
Effie wondered where her sense of scandal had gone. Here was Karla with a man young enough to be her grandson showering himself and singing in the en suite and she was saying he was under her power. And here was Effie, sitting and listening and, yes – if she was honest – trying to picture the dark young man in the next room. She couldn’t deny it. She didn’t think she had thoughts like that anymore. Why should the bodies of boorish, clattering younger men attract her notice at all? Let alone her imagination. They might as well be of a different species to her.
But something about Karla’s rakish ease and her talk of will power and spells had sent Effie’s thoughts straying. Well, everything was unaccustomed this evening. Her outfit was making her conscious of the shape of her own body in a way that clothes were never often permitted to do. She felt she had completely different boundaries tonight. So she couldn’t help thinking about the warmth of the dark, young body in the next room, soapy, wet, alive under the showerhead. This was all Karla’s doing. She brought about an atmosphere that made you – it certainly made Effie – capable of anything. She managed to make you feel more present in the world. And that meant all of Effie’s senses.
Karla was eyeing her. ‘I’ll give him to you, if you like.’
‘You what?’
‘I mean it. He’ll do anything I tell him. You could do with a toyboy, Effie. You should give him a go.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m ancient!’
‘I don’t believe you’ve completely dried out and healed up yet, have you?’
‘I’ve never heard such awful talk. Besides, you can’t just … give people away like that.’
‘Why not? He’s keen as anything. He’d do it to please me.’
‘But …’ Effie was staggered. ‘That’s because of who you are. I’m no one. And anyway, what you’re suggesting is grotesque and horrible. I’m sure you’d see the last of him if you go round making suggestions like that …’
‘You don’t understand. I really do control him. He’s given up his will. If I want him to see and appreciate the beauty in you, then he’ll happily do so.’
‘The beauty in me …’ Effie laughed mockingly.
‘Don’t knock it,’ Karla warned.
‘I think you overestimate your so-called spells.’
‘No. They really are spells.’
‘Like magic? Like a witch?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t believe that for a second,’ said Effie primly. ‘That’s what Sally said about you. But it’s fake, isn’t it? It’s just publicity for your acting. It’s ridiculous. No one does magic. Not even you.’
Karla smiled. Then she clicked her fingers and said, in a quiet voice: ‘Kevin?’
A moment later Kevin reappeared in the bathroom doorway, soaked and wearing a white bathrobe. He looked a little dazed. ‘Yes, Ms Sorenson?’
Karla sat back in her tall chair. ‘You think Effie here is beautiful, don’t you? You find her attractive, don’t you? Even a mature woman like her … ?’
Effie flinched as Kevin turned, dripping, to inspect her. She felt that Karla was being cruel, to both of them.
‘Do you want me to, Ms Sorenson?’ he asked.
‘I do.’
He nodded and Effie watched his blue eyes staring down at her. He nodded slowly, as if a tune was running through his head.
‘See?’ said Karla. ‘I told you. Now you can tell him to do just what you want.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Effie burst out. ‘It’s hypnosis. It’s perverted.’
Karla’s warbling laugh came again as she hunted for her shoes under the dressing table. Effie felt very disconcerted. ‘Oh, go and get dressed, Kevin.’
‘Sally was right about me, whatever she told you,’ Karla said. ‘I’m up to no good. I’m not to be trusted. Do you still want to be friends with me, Effie? Really?’
The bathroom door was open and a bank of pearly steam shifted into the room. Effie looked away from the dark young man as he dried himself mechanically and she turned back to Karla. ‘Yes. I do want to be friends with you. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?’
EIGHT
‘He can grease in all he likes. I’ve had it with him, though. This is the end. I’ve been good to him. A proper pal. The only reason I’m going along tonight is because I want to tell him to his face. Our friendship is over. That’s his lot.’
Vicki thought Raf would have been in a better temper. She was surprised to hear him raging at Colin again. She kept looking sideways at him as they walked through the town centre and he seemed dead set. Colin wasn’t forgiven. Even though he had phoned them at the shop and even though this invite to dinner seemed like the perfect way for Colin to make amends, there was no mollifying Raf. He had taken the phone call very coolly, accepted the invitation, rang off and told Vicki all about it. All very calmly. She had screamed. Then they shut the shop early (there would be trouble about that) and dashed off to their respective homes to prepare.
Now they were both in the very best clobber, marching towards the restaurant. ‘Clobber’ was a Vicki word, she realised. She wore clobber, Raf didn’t. She had on a green fluffy jacket, leggings and boots and Raf had greeted her by saying that she looked like Orville the duck. Well. She wasn’t elegant, she knew that. ‘Clobber’ would just have to be good enough for her. Her whole look, she thought, was somewhat punky, sexually ambivalent and with just a touch of humour about it. It suited her. Vicki didn’t like to think she took herself too seriously. Irony would do for her. Still, she wasn’t sure about looking like a duck. Especially when meeting stars.
Inside she was a jangling, quavering mass of nerves. It felt like all her organs were going into spasm at once. She was bound to keep going to the toilet and she would have to refrain from eating anything at all. She had the most obnoxious irritable bowel. She was just the kind of sensitive person to be afflicted with a bowel like that. It was how she was made. And she was imagining that the bowel was turning her usual gait into an unfortunate waddle.
She struggled hard to keep pace with Raf.
He was forging ahead through the streets in a very tight new denim two-piece. It was all ripped and bleached, with the lining hacked out and hanging in careful tatter
s. He had explained the whole look to her. The idea was to look as if you’d been attacked, molested, ravished and left for dead in an alley. He adored this whole thing, even though it was quite expensive to achieve. He called it fucked-in-the-gutter chic. He must have got that out of some magazine. He’d even applied some false bruising and grazes to his face with blusher, mascara and lip gloss.
‘He’s right in with that Lance,’ Raf said as they went skirting around the great, pale, circular bulk of the Central Library. ‘He said ‘We’d’ like to invite you. ‘We’d’ love it if you both came along. To ‘our’ little dinner tonight. He was really putting on airs.’
‘Maybe he was just being nice. To make up for ditching us.’
‘He’s had his head turned,’ Raf snapped. Vicki smiled. She knew that by taking Colin’s part she’d set Raf against him even more. ‘He’s rubbing our noses in it. Thinking he’s just excellent.’
It was curious, thought Vicki. Neither of us have mentioned the obvious. Neither of us have said a word about Karla. Hardly once. That’s who this is all about. That’s what’s driven us home and made us come straight back out again. The thought of seeing her. That’s why we’re walking so fast and talking so rapidly. And I know that even Raf is excited and nervous inside. I just know it. There’s an inverse ratio at work on him. The cooler and more vituperative he becomes, the bigger mess he is inside. I know him, Vicki thought, with some satisfaction. I know that boy inside out. And that’s because I love him.
Raf had stopped at the crossing in front of the town hall. ‘Fuck me,’ he said softly.
Vicki, about to brave the gap in the traffic, stopped herself and looked up in shock. Raf was rigid at her side. He grabbed her arm, pinching her skin through the fun fur fabric.