by Monica Belle
‘Ah, Miss McKie. Have you come to give your opinion at the meeting this evening?’
‘No. I came to put up a petition to stop the All Angels development.’
‘A pity. I’m sure with your experience with the church you would have been able to make a valuable contribution. We will be considering a major new initiative to combat street crime with a zero tolerance policy, in particular the recent spate of graffiti attacks. In fact I understand that there was an incident here last night.’
Councillor Goulding had turned and was looking at me with an air of disapproval that would have done Eliza Dobson credit, her eyes fixed to my crucifix of long tourmaline crystals set in silver, and doubtless wondering if it was hung upside down on purpose. There was more than a little doubt in her voice when she spoke.
‘Miss McKie is involved with the church?’
Stephen stepped in before I could claim to be with the Reformed Satanists.
‘I was unclear perhaps. Miss McKie is the caretaker at All Angels on Coburg Road. She has, I believe, enjoyed considerable success in deterring vandals and er . . . other anti-social elements. Miss McKie, meet Councillor Goulding, who is chair of the committee on urban regeneration.’
The Councillor gave me a marginally less frosty look.
‘How did you go about this, Miss McKie?’
‘I set my dog on them.’
The look became frostier again. Stephen went on, now walking towards the rear of the building.
‘A great shame you are unable to attend the meeting, Miss McKie. Hmm . . . yes, I see. I always wonder what these things say.’
We had come in view of my piece, at which the caretaker was working methodically but not with very much success. It was still perfectly legible, or at least more so than the majority of wild-style pieces.
‘That’s a D first, or maybe an O. No, D, and u, and z . . . no, s, and k. Dusk. Dusk.’
He shot me a glance. I returned a bland smile. He knew, and there was worry on his face as he turned to the Councillor.
‘Did we capture anything on the CCTV camera in the car park?’
The caretaker answered.
‘They were sneaky, came in along the wall. Got some feet. Three of them, there were, and a dog. Left their cans behind too, they did. Get some good fingerprints, I reckon.’
Stephen spoke quickly.
‘I doubt the police would consider that an effective use of resources, and besides, with young offenders of this type it is not particularly likely that their fingerprints will be on the record. Nor am I certain that applying the full weight of the law is necessarily the answer. Yes, it is destructive, of course, and certainly we must do everything we reasonably can to prevent it, or at the least implement some form of damage limitation policy, yet I cannot help but think that the root of the problem lies in time management. If only we were able to increase fund allocation for youth services we might be able to somehow channel the undoubted creative energy that is expressed here.’
Councillor Goulding was unimpressed.
‘Nonsense. Our policy must centre on deterrence. What is needed are heavier fines, increased CCTV surveillance.’
‘Perhaps, but again we run up against budgetary constraints. If I may address you, Miss McKie, as – dare I say it – a typical young person of the borough, what do you think?’
It was just too good to miss.
‘I think they should bring back the birch, that’s what I think, so just give them a good old-fashioned spanking.’
Councillor Goulding shot me a filthy look, which was just as well as Stephen’s face had gone crimson. I smiled sweetly and made my excuses before he could say anything else, struggling not to grin as I walked away.
Our little exchange had made me feel a great deal better about taking the spanking. I had turned it neatly round to my advantage, making it something that made me the stronger partner, not him. He would be round later too, unless I was very much mistaken.
Other than a mouthful of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes I’d had nothing to eat since my snack at the café, and I stopped for chips on the way, eating them in the park and wishing I’d had the sense to retrieve the cans. Not that it was likely to be a problem, but I do like to be careful. After all, the whole idea of taking risks is to come out on the up side.
By the time I got back the evening was already beginning to draw in, with a slight chill in the air, bringing the first hint of autumn to the graveyard. After feeding Lilitu I went to sit on the wall, drinking the atmosphere in as the light slowly faded. Whatever Michael said, I could sense the presence of the dead around me, and I knew it would not have been the same anywhere else but there. He was wrong, and I would prove him wrong.
My emotions were still a little raw, but I was nervy rather than down. I considered communion, perhaps another attempt at Sir Barnaby Stamforth, but I knew that part of my mind would be detached. The experiment needed to be made, but in the right way. Only then would I be able to retrieve the exquisite pleasure I’d grown used to. Until then . . .
Until then I could content myself with Stephen, who was sure to be along presently. I still felt tired after the night before, and relaxed back against the gatepost, drinking Coke and scratching Lilitu behind the ear. I could see the full length of Coburg Road, and made sure to keep up a pose of languid elegance with just a touch of the naïve and just a touch of the urchin.
His extravagant praise had been flattering, even if it had been designed to get me across his knee, and he had said it with real feeling. It was strange, because for all the effort I’d put into my look, it wasn’t Gothicism that attracted him at all, but his perception of Gothicism as charmingly naïve, as a childish conceit. Really I should have felt resentment, but I couldn’t find it in myself, preferring to feed his image of me.
Undoubtedly he would want to spank me after I’d cheeked him so badly, but I wasn’t going to let him. Instead I would tease to make him more eager, suggest playing a game as before, but this time win, or lose, and rely on his sense of obligation to make him help me with my blindfold communion. I adjusted my dress a little, ‘accidentally’ showing off a little more thigh.
‘Don’t move. I have to catch you like that.’
I nearly fell off the wall, catching myself only just in time, and turning to find Michael standing at the gates, sketch pad in hand. Lilitu was snuffling at his foot.
‘Hi, you made me jump. I thought you were in Birmingham?’
‘I was. No, no, stay there.’
‘OK . . .’
I let him capture the sketch he wanted, then hopped down from the wall. It was more than a little awkward, with Stephen likely to turn up at any moment, and the sensible thing to do was obviously to make for Michael’s flat. I kissed him and gave his cock a cheeky squeeze.
‘Your place then?’
‘Out of service, I’m afraid. You know that couple Chris was showing round the flat? Well, they’re going to buy, almost certainly. They’re round there now. I need a new place. Anyway, this is a great light, how about a few poses for me and then I’ll buy you dinner?’
‘I’ve eaten, thanks, but yes . . . some sketching . . . good idea. The light is beautiful, isn’t it? I tell you what, how about something a bit more industrial, like . . . like cranes or something?’
‘Industrial? Cranes?’
‘Yeah, sure . . .’
A big, shiny black Jaguar had turned in at the far end of the road.
‘Well, it’s an idea, but I really wanted some more background material for the Goat of Mendes project.’
‘Yeah, OK, or . . . oh never mind. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet anyway.’
The Jaguar drew to a stop directly across the gates. Stephen climbed out, his face bland and official as he extended a hand to Michael. I drew a sigh.
‘Stephen, hi, this is my friend Michael. Michael, meet Stephen Byrne MP.’
9
I SUPPOSE IT was bound to happen, sooner or later. Stephen knew, of course, and
behaved like the experienced adulterer he was. First he created his excuse for being there, stating that he ‘intended to ensure that my petition was given due consideration at the next consultative committee meeting’. Next we chatted politely, discussing the one thing we had in common, All Angels, Michael and I pointing out various features of the architecture while Stephen made polite comments. Finally he excused himself, saying that he had a lot of paperwork to catch up on. I had never seen an exhibition so studiously dull in my life.
Michael remarked on it, making a joke about greyness and politicians. I laughed, if not for the right reason, but I was feeling more than a little guilty underneath. I did my best to make up for it, sucking his cock and going down on all fours on the vestry floor for him, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I kept thinking about Sir Barnaby, and how Michael and I should have been at that moment in ecstatic communion on some appropriate tomb.
He stayed, and for the first time I slept with a man in All Angels. It was strange, after so many nights alone with the ghosts, and I could feel them crowding around as I lay there long after he’d fallen asleep, some disapproving, some filled with lust and envy, some merely curious. If it was no more than my mind playing tricks on me then it seemed very, very real.
It was raining in the morning and we spent it inside, Michael sketching the tombs of Isaac Foyle, Sir Barnaby and the poet Nathaniel Gold. I sipped hot sweet coffee and watched, as entranced as ever by his art but unable to stop myself from brooding. He didn’t seem to pick up on it, as cool as ever, and when the rain had stopped asked if I’d like to go flat hunting with him. I declined, telling him I was busy, which again he accepted with absolute nonchalance.
Once he’d gone I took Lilitu for a walk and handed my camera in to get the film developed. The streets were wet with rain, and the smell of autumn was in the air, something that always brings back the beginning of school terms, making everything seem new and uncertain. Now it served to bring home my ill feelings with a vengeance, and I found my mood growing blacker by the minute.
Nothing appealed, not communion, not reading, not tagging. When I got back to All Angels I went to sit on the wall at the bottom of the graveyard, staring out over the rank grass, bramble and sycamore growing between the gravestones. I knew my mood would lighten, but that didn’t mean I could break it, anymore than I could push the smell of dank earth and wet leaves from my head.
I was still sitting there when I heard a voice from near the church. That I could handle, and there was a savage determination in my heart as I whistled up Lilitu, only to realise that it was somebody calling my name. I walked over, wondering if one of my old friends had decided to drag herself across London, to find Snaz standing between the gates. She looked as sulky as I felt, with her hands pushed deep into her pockets and her face half-hidden. I grabbed Lilitu’s collar, struggling to hold her back. Snaz retreated and I quickly called after her.
‘It’s all right, she won’t hurt you. Are you OK? How’s your head?’
She stopped and turned around, still eyeing Lilitu as she spoke.
‘Good. OK. I . . . I just wanted to say thanks, yeah? For helping and that.’
I shrugged and smiled. She stayed put, not looking at me, but at a car across the road. Something inside me badly wanted her company, and I was going to ask her if she’d like coffee when she spoke again.
‘The big piece down the centre. Yours, yeah?’
‘Mine, yeah.’
‘You’re no toy, you.’
‘Nor are you, you’re good. Biggy too.’
For the first time she smiled.
‘That prat. He ran. He’s a good writer but he’s chicken.’
‘Bigger boys than him have run from Lilitu.’
‘That’s your dog?’
‘Yeah, but she’s all right once you get to know her. Aren’t you girl?’
I’d squatted down to scratch Lilitu’s chin. She returned a quizzical look, doubtless wondering why a prey beast was suddenly one of the pack. Snaz didn’t move, but pushed back her hood. I hadn’t really focussed on her dressing before, but it looked awful.
‘That had to hurt!’
‘It did. I didn’t know what day it was.’
‘I bet. So, do you want a coffee or something? Ever been inside the church?’
‘Yeah, plenty, before you moved in. So what’s the deal?’
‘I get to live here so long as I look after it. It’s not official, but my uncle’s a Commissioner.’
‘Right. I couldn’t figure how come you’re a writer but you buff all our shit?’
‘I’d be out if I didn’t, and this is my ground.’
‘You into all that Goth stuff then?’
‘Yeah. Did you like my letters?’
‘Yeah, real style. D’you bite them from someone old school?’
‘No. They’re like the way the old monks used to write, only with a bit of my own style. It’s already been buffed.’
‘Yeah, I know. I went down the centre.’
‘I’ve got flicks. We can get them now, if you like? We’ll have coffee down the café where you and Biggy did your piece. You’re up plenty, you two.’
That was it. We kept talking as we walked, first to the photo shop, then to the café, giggling over the pictures and my piece and swapping stories. My black mood had gone by the time we left, so completely I couldn’t even understand why I’d felt there was a problem. I wasn’t married, I could fuck with who I pleased, and Michael was sure to be open minded, which was really all he was being about communion.
We bought a pack of beers each and walked east alongside the tracks, first through the park and then along an alley, way beyond anywhere I had explored before. She lived high up in a block with a prime view over Coburg Road and All Angels, also the railway. She had caught the writing bug watching crews at work trackside, far beneath her. She was worse than me, tagging buses at twelve and trackside before she was sixteen. Like me she’d found it difficult to be accepted as a female artist, being called a toy and having her work dissed by people without a fraction of the skill.
I could sympathise, and did, telling her about my hit on the tower block, and more. She gave back as easily, explaining how she and Biggy had been determined to stay up at All Angels, which now just made me laugh. She’d been scared by Lilitu, but he’d been terrified, and it had been his decision to back off. I just laughed, our previous enmity now something to be shared.
We got thoroughly drunk, and while I held short of trying to explain communion to her, just about everything else came out. I told her about Michael and Stephen, her advice being to keep shagging both of them as long as I could. She thought the idea of having an affair with an MP was hilarious, and like me had thought of him as a cold fish, in so far as she had ever thought of him at all.
Back at All Angels with pies, bags of chips and more beer it grew better still. She was no Goth, but she was well into colour and design, and loved my jewellery, swapping a silver goat’s skull with garnet eyes for the aquamarine tipped peg from her belly button. That got us comparing piercings, then swapping clothes. She was much my size, a touch shorter and with another couple of inches of tit, but just about everything fitted. By the time we’d dressed her up in full Goth gear of fishnets, short black dress with nothing underneath and about half my jewellery collection I was down to my panties and laughing so hard I could barely stand. I’d been a Goth since before low-rise jeans came in, and tried hers on, only to find I couldn’t get them far enough up to cover the crease of my bottom, which we found absolutely hilarious.
We started making up, borrowing each other’s gear to swap looks. She went first, her face pale, black lipstick fading to purple, heavy mascara under deep-purple eyelids, an inverted cross painted on her cheek. I was just trying to put on her vivid red lipstick without making a complete mess of it when my phone rang. It had to be either Stephen or Michael, and I was trying to repress my giggles and shush her with my hand as I answered. It was Stephen, and he wa
s parked outside.
I let him in, too drunk to care what he thought, and making a point of walking ahead of him to show off the way my bum looked. Snaz wasn’t much better, sprawled on my bed with the dress tight over her chest and her nipples poking up and a good deal of thigh showing too. It immediately got him flustered, tripping over his own tongue as he tried to make small talk, which had us in fits. He was grinning though, embarrassed but enjoying the view, and I just had to take it further.
‘He spanks me, you know. Pervert.’
Stephen went bright red. Snaz dissolved into giggles. There’s nothing like a bit of encouragement.
‘He does, really, over his knee with my knickers down. I suppose it’s because he went to public school. They’re all very repressed, naturally, but oh girl, does he get up to some mischief!’
I’d gone up to him, and kissed his cheek as I pulled close, raising one leg to brush the front of his crotch. He was going to explode, his face beetroot coloured, his mouth working between a silly grin and tight-lipped annoyance. His cock was more than a little hard though, and I gave him a squeeze as I stepped away. Snaz put in her pennyworth.
‘Dirty little boy. You should spank him, not the other way around.’
‘Perhaps I will.’
‘You should. I bet he’d love it.’
‘He would. I bet he would. Well, Stephen old chap, how about it? Six of the best, that’s what it used to be at the good old school, didn’t it? Still, never did you any harm, eh? Frightfully good for you. Character building and all that!’
I had suited actions to words, imitating his voice as I marched stiffly across the room, bent over the table and stuck my bottom out, my face set in a mask of overdone pomposity. Stephen was gaping like a cod fish, completely unable to cope, Snaz in a great gale of laughter, clutching at her tummy and mouth. I went on, thinking back to when he’d done me.
‘Nah, he prefers to dish it out, he does. You should have heard him – “You do realise that your knickers are going to have to come down, don’t you” – “Now come across my knee, young lady, and no more nonsense”.’