To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘What have you being saying to her, Effie?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Effie didn’t look at all herself. She was sitting inbetween Karla and Kevin the porter and she was very formal and stiff. She looked across the table at her oldest friend and didn’t seem to know what to say to her.

  ‘She probably told her what you’re always saying,’ Lance said smoothly. ‘That Karla really is a malign old bag and she should watch her step.’

  There was another burst of laughter from the table. Everyone laughed except Raf and Vicki, who sat dumbly, drinking in every word. Colin tried to focus on the conversation and to work out what his gran and Lance were doing. It seemed to him like a very clever double or triple bluff: jokingly accusing Karla of being evil and up to no good and covering the fact that that was exactly what they thought about her. Karla wasn’t at all perturbed by the conversation. She was enjoying herself. When the waiter came to dance attendance she ordered for herself and her two companions. There was something very strange and half-asleep about Gran’s friend, Effie. He could see that his gran was provoked by that, her expression when she looked in Effie’s direction seemed strange, but she didn’t say anything about it.

  The wine arrived in sparkling carafes, black-red, pink and pale green, dry and frosty, fruity and deep. Then came large silver platters of antipasti, in a promiscuous jumble of leaves, beans, folds of meat, slivers of cheese. They were encouraged to pitch in, to tussle over mouthfuls. The waiters egged them on, responding to the curiously stilted, bristling atmosphere. They wanted to bring their table together by pressing on them wine, food, chatter, camaraderie.

  It was difficult. Karla’s guests had that weird, trance-like quiet on them. Vicki and Raf had been awed into silence, though Colin had caught Raf doing something very like winking at Karla down the table. Lance was oddly removed and thoughtful, and that made Colin frightened. He hardly dared turn his head sideways to watch him.

  But Lance couldn’t know what had gone on downstairs. He had no way of knowing. Even so, Colin felt shifty and weird and wanted to run out into the streets, hail a cab and get as far away as he could. He was scalding over with shame and annoyance and maybe Lance had picked up on that. But we played it cool, Colin thought. We came back up here only when we had calmed down. We waited until Vicki had gone at last, and then we silently got our breath back, we cleaned up, rearranged ourselves. Me and Raf didn’t say anything to each other. We couldn’t. I certainly didn’t want to.

  In the seconds after coming, thickly, desperately, noisily, into Raf’s mouth, a wave of awful dismay had crashed over Colin’s head. He felt a cold surge of horror, as if he’d done something terrifically violent. Raf kept sucking at him, harder and harder, and he’d started to hurt him. Just then Colin didn’t feel a thing for Raf. He had even started to feel tricked. That feeling steadily increased as Raf straightened up and he was calm now, almost cold. All that begging, all that vulnerability had gone out of him. And they didn’t say anything else. Just attended to practical things. Made it seem that nothing had happened between them. Staved off the post-mortem till afterwards. First they had their table to return to, a famous lady to meet.

  Trogging up the stairs to the restaurant, Colin knew there would be no post-mortem. Raf wouldn’t talk about it again. He would pretend he had never said those things. It was all a sham. It was his revenge. In a crash of light and logic as they re-entered the silver, white, boisterous room, Colin saw how Raf had taken his revenge. He’d knocked Colin off his stroke. He’d held up Colin’s supposed loyalty and sudden link with Lance and he’d destroyed it. Easily. He’d proved he was better, he thought, irresistible.

  Colin watched Raf as he ate a few leaves of rocket. He was moving very fastidiously and it made Colin blush, thinking about how eager he’d been, how stupidly eager he’d been to shove his cock in that mouth again. It horrified him now. Beside Raf, Vicki had forgotten all about her nervous, fractious intestine, and she was eating as much as she could, heedless of the fact that others were meant to share from the cold dish before her. And she was listening to us, too, Colin thought miserably. She listened to most of what went on. They planned all of this. But what was the point? Just to make me feel shit? Then he thought, well, yes. That might be exactly what they wanted to do. He sighed and reached for his glass and hated the way his cock felt wrung out and wet inside his jeans. He was wretched and struck by the thought: this is Karla’s influence. It’s her evil spreading out amongst us all. She brings out the worst in everyone. She’s flaunting her vile presence over all of us like her huge effigy is doing over the town hall.

  But he kept quiet, and the pasta course arrived, steaming and scented with tarragon and garlic. The perplexed waiters couldn’t understand why the special table wasn’t happier. Why there was no celebratory air. Why no one seemed glad they were together.

  Then Colin said to Karla, raising his voice so that everyone could hear: ‘Did you know Raf writes stories about you?’

  Karla blinked, twining spaghetti onto her fork. ‘What was that, my dear?’

  ‘That’s what he does. As a kind of tribute to you. He writes what they call Fan Fiction. And it’s all about you. Sometimes he pretends he is you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Karla blankly.

  Colin glanced at Raf and pressed on. ‘Do you remember, there was a convention in Birmingham last year and you were the judge of a competition? They were all dressing up and writing these stories.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, yes,’ Karla chuckled. ‘I remember. Some of them were downright filthy.’

  ‘Well, he went in for that. He was horrified when he didn’t win.’

  Raf was looking at him daggers. ‘Yes, all right, Colin. That’s enough.’

  ‘I think I just picked one at random from the pile,’ Karla shrugged. ‘I only cast a quick eye over them when the convention organisers gave them to me. Christ, I wasn’t going to read all that stuff.’

  ‘WHAT?’ This was Vicki, through a mouth stuffed with ravioli. No one had heard her speak so loudly. ‘You didn’t READ them?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Karla. ‘It was weird stuff. It gave me the creeps, actually. And to be staying in the same hotel as all those people … ! Some of those stories were very, very filthy.’

  ‘But Raf spent ages on his story! He still does! He’s written hundreds! He writes them all the time!’ Vicki was rasping. She stopped abruptly. Raf must have kicked her under the table.

  ‘Do you, Raf?’ Karla smiled, gliding over the awkwardness. ‘And what do you write about me?’

  Suddenly all eyes were on Raf. All of his poise had fled as he stared down at his tangled dinner. For the first time ever Colin heard him mumble. He didn’t look up and he just said: ‘I write, like, vampire adventures.’

  ‘Sexy ones?’

  ‘Lesbian stuff.’

  ‘How lovely,’ smiled Karla. She was talking to him as if he was simple.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit sad and pathetic?’ said Colin’s gran loudly. ‘I’d have thought a young man like you would have better things to do with your time.’

  Raf didn’t reply. Karla shouted Sally down, ‘Leave the boy alone, Sally. He’s obviously very happy in his own little way. What do you want him to do, write sexy stories about you?’

  Sally laughed uproariously. ‘I think my days of sexy stories are over, thank you very much!’

  ‘What a pity,’ Karla smiled nastily.

  Then Effie spoke up, her voice croaking. ‘I want to have sexy adventures.’

  They all looked at her. She had picked up her wine glass and was staring into it. She looked up at them all. ‘It’s true. You needn’t look so shocked, the lot of you. It’s about time I did. I’ve had precious little fun in my life.’

  Colin stared at the faces around him. This is all down to Karla, he thought. She’s making them act like this.

  His gran was looking shocked. ‘Effie! You don’t talk like that!’

  ‘Yes I do, Sally,’ E
ffie said sadly. ‘You’d be surprised if you knew half the things I said. Inside my head.’

  ‘Sexy adventures!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘At your age!’

  ‘You do what you want, love,’ Lance said firmly.

  ‘I intend to,’ said Effie. She picked up and then set down her cutlery. ‘I believe in the magic. I believe in Karla.’

  Karla looked very pleased by this as Effie struggled into her coat. They all watched as Effie put a possessive hand on Kevin the porter’s sleeve.

  ‘Karla’s been a real friend to me, Sally, just this past couple of days. And she’s used her magic to put a spell on this nice young man for me. Now he can see the true beauty inside of me. Deep down. She’s made it so he can appreciate the woman I truly am. Isn’t that right, Kevin?’

  She was standing up.

  ‘Um,’ said Kevin, blinking.

  ‘You never made me feel as good, or as wanted as that, Sally. And you call yourself my oldest friend.’

  Sally sat back flabbergasted. Colin saw that Karla was watching all of this shrewdly, a delighted smile spreading across her face.

  ‘Well, now I intend to start living my life to the fullest,’ Effie announced. ‘And I’m leaving here now. I’ve had sufficient to eat and drink, thank you ever so much, and I’m tired of your sniping at each other. I’m going out now and taking a cab home, so hang the expense. And I’m taking this pretty young porter home with me, whereupon I shall allow him to ravish me to his heart’s content on my new living room carpet because …’ She straightened up inside her smartest outfit. ‘Because I am a beautiful human being and Karla’s dark arts have allowed me to see that for the first time ever. What is more, I have had the most clumsy, bloody awful sex precisely twice in my long and boring life and, to be honest, what I could do with now is a damned good rogering.’ She scraped back her chair with finality. ‘Are you coming, Kevin?’

  ‘Um,’ he said again and, for one awful second, Colin thought he was going to say no. But he stood up obediently and gazed into Effie’s blazing eyes.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Good night, everybody.’

  As she left, with the porter at her heels, there was a scattering of applause from the other tables.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Lance.

  Sally was glaring at Karla. ‘You evil woman. You’re messing about with her mind.’

  Karla smirked. ‘I don’t think it’s her mind you should be worrying about.’ She wafted a hand. ‘Effie’s lived too narrow a life. You know that. You’ve been responsible for holding her back. You and all the people around her.’

  ‘How can you know what people want?’ Sally burst out. ‘You’re like a … Satanic agony aunt.’

  ‘I like that,’ said Karla. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Buggering about with people’s lives …’

  ‘She looked happy, didn’t she?’

  ‘How do you know? What do you know about happiness?’

  ‘More than you, you wizened up old sow.’

  ‘Really? How happy are you, really, Katy?’

  Karla shrugged. ‘Happy to see Effie get laid for once. That Kevin really isn’t bad, you know. I’ve brought him on by hand.’

  ‘Pah,’ Sally snapped. ‘Why is it all about sex, Karla? Why is that the only way you can make Effie happy? She’s never been bothered about it. She told me that herself. You’ve managed to twist her mind so she’s parroting you. Why should sex be the only thing? The only answer? Why is it important at all?’

  ‘But it is important,’ Karla said. ‘It is vital. It’s vital to magic and it’s vital to me. It’s all I know. It’s the only way you can know someone wants you or knows anything about you. Trust you, Sally, not to see the point. You’ve never understood.’

  ‘No,’ Sally said. ‘I don’t see the point of you, I’m afraid. I came here tonight thinking I’d give you a chance. I thought you might have mellowed and changed. Stupidly. But you’re the same selfish, twisted, angry little girl you always were. Scrimping by on sex. Selling your dirty arse and anyone else’s just to get your own way. And then having the gall – the absolute bloody gall – to think that puts you above all of us! That that makes you anyone at all!’ Sally was up and out of her chair.

  ‘Gran?’ Colin got up to help her.

  ‘It’s all right, lovey,’ she said tersely. ‘I’m only going to the lav.’ She scowled at Karla again and shuffled off.

  Lance grasped the nearest bottle of wine. ‘Well, you’ve managed to piss off nearly everyone, Karla. I can see that working with you is going to be a lot of fun.’

  Her lilac eyes flashed out at him. Then: ‘By the way, did you see the outline for my first show, Lance, darling? It was appended to next week’s scripts.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Too busy too look at them. Why? Should I have looked?’

  She grinned broadly. ‘Don’t you know? We’re having an affair. I’m to be your love interest, it turns out. I’m the one who turns your character’s head at last.’

  Lance was choking on his Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. ‘You what?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Oh, yes. You see, the great viewing public have gone off you being gay. I can’t say I blame them. So you’re getting a chance to taste real woman flesh.’ She laughed throatily. ‘Mine,’ she added.

  He groaned. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I knew they’d do this to me.’

  ‘I must say, you’ve never really convinced me as a gay man,’ Karla said lightly. ‘I mean, look at the one you’re with. That doesn’t look right at all. He’s just some scrawny little boy off Canal Street. He’s not even all that young. What are you doing being seen with that?’

  Colin was feeling weirdly removed from the scene.

  Raf was laughing. ‘I don’t believe it, either, Karla. I’ve told Colin. Everyone will laugh at the two of them.’

  ‘And you’re obviously a man of great perspicacity,’ Karla told him and Raf glowed. He glinted back at her, expertly.

  Lance’s voice went steely as he leant across the table. ‘I’m with Colin because I love him. Remember that, Karla? Remember what love is?’

  She considered. ‘No,’ she said crisply. ‘And if I did, I’d try to forget. What a waste of time.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Raf.

  ‘Raf,’ Colin shouted. ‘Just fuck off, would you? You’ve caused enough damage. Stop chiming in with her.’

  ‘I’ll ask for the bill,’ said Lance. ‘I think we should all calm down.’

  ‘Oh, the lovers are dashing off into the night,’ said Raf. ‘Tell us, Colin. What do you know about love?’

  ‘More than you. I know who matters. You’re just smarming around Karla. She doesn’t give a shit about you.’

  Then, startlingly, Raf started to cry. He trembled and shook and his great big eyes were welling with tears. ‘How can you talk to me like that? It’s you who’s turned nasty, Colin. After everything we said downstairs …’

  Lance looked sharply at Colin. ‘What were you saying downstairs?’

  ‘I …’

  Vicki spoke up. Her voice was loud again and vehement. ‘I was there. I heard everything. Colin told Raf he loved him. And then, if I’m not mistaken, Raf sucked him off.’

  There was a rigid silence that stretched out until the waiter appeared. ‘Who wants the bill?’

  Karla took it swiftly and looked at Lance. ‘I think you’re wrong, Lance. Quite wrong about love. I have loved. I loved your mother, you know. And I loved you. And you’ll never give me credit for that, will you? You’ll never believe me.’

  Sally returned from downstairs. ‘What lovely toilets they’ve got. Oh – are we leaving? What about coffee?’

  Lance tried to take the bill from Karla, but she snatched it back. ‘Coffee at my place,’ he said tersely. ‘We’ve all got things to talk about.’

  ELEVEN

  ‘Walking across town at this time of night could be a big mistake,’ Colin told his gran.

  She gripped onto her handbag. ‘I can protect myself. I’
m armed, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, to get to Lance’s flat we’ll have to go right through the Village. When they see Lance with Karla it’ll turn into a Mardi Gras parade.’

  ‘That’s a thought. Should we warn them?’

  But Karla and Lance were walking too far ahead. They were turning the corner into the gaudy hullabaloo of Chinatown, with Vicki and Raf clicking along at their heels. Colin was lagging back with his gran, who was out of puff. Already it had been a long night. Colin wished Lance hadn’t demanded that everyone come back to his flat. He wanted some time with Lance alone. But to say what? He couldn’t claim that Vicki was lying about Raf sucking him off. The silence following her revelation had been too long and dreadful. Yet he would have to do something to patch it up. Explain how Raf had tricked him and begged him. And he knew that would never wash. Lance had thrown in his hand, so winningly and wholeheartedly with Colin. He had talked about love and that meant Colin should have tried to behave himself. But what have I promised? What have I pledged myself to? I haven’t said anything yet.

  He could tell how hurt Lance was, underneath all his quiet and cool.

  At least Gran hadn’t been there to hear the news. She’d be really ashamed of me. Especially after what she said about Karla, and how she assumes everyone uses sex like she does. Like Karla thinks everyone is as big a slag as she is. And, God, I am, thought Colin. I fell for it. I fall for it every time. Being needed. Being flattered.

  He watched Lance and Karla striding past the crowds in the middle of Chinatown, strolling by the pagodas in the garden square. He wondered what they were talking about, whether they were arguing. He was just starting to enjoy the cloying, spiced aromas from the restaurants when another thought struck him.

  ‘What did you mean, you’re ‘armed’?’

  His gran winked at him. She opened her handbag and carefully produced a decorative curved blade, worked in silver.

  ‘Fucking hell, Gran. Put it away! What the hell’s that?’

  ‘Something I usually keep tucked away in my knitting bag for safety’s sake. You could do someone a mischief with this.’