Elfish was not humiliated by begging but she resented the time wasted, and it was hot. Summer seemed to be approaching fast and this always discomfited her. She disliked hot weather and regarded the sun as an enemy, particularly if it became so hot that she was obliged to discard her leather jacket. Without her jacket she never felt entirely secure.
Commuters flocked past her as the trains arrived but they generally ignored her, as they ignored the men selling cheap socks and handkerchiefs from upturned crates who kept a close watch for policemen, hastily packing up and moving if any came into view.
Across the pavement from Elfish was another man selling a tray of rings and beside him were three young men around a stall selling pamphlets about an organisation called the Nubian Nation. Beside them a young man and woman had laid out posters for sale on the pavement and beyond them was another beggar sitting cross-legged with a hat in front of him in which there were two small coins.
“Can you spare ten pence, please?” asked Elfish to all who passed. Few people wished to spare ten pence and it was slow progress.
She clutched her locket that contained the moonlight and mused on Aisha’s tale of sex, her last adventure before her agoraphobia came on fully and her boyfriend Mory left her.
“I met two young Frenchmen at a modern motorbike circus,” Aisha had told her. “They rode their bikes around the arena through fire hoops and stuff and they had leather jackets with metal bits sewn on, like yours, though not as good. In the arena they juggled and tossed fire clubs around, you know the sort of thing. I didn’t really like it but I liked them when I met them in the bar afterwards.
“I went back with them to the place they were staying, a room in someone’s house somewhere in Peckham. I was quite drunk and so were they and though I had imagined I might end up sleeping with one of them it hadn’t occurred to me that I might end up sleeping with both of them together until they asked. Quite charmingly, I remember. I agreed because they both looked so cute in their leather and metal jackets. They were both about three years younger than me which seemed to make them cuter.”
Aisha paused, and drew on her cigarette. She was a compulsive smoker.
“What happened when you went to bed?” asked Elfish.
“The place caught fire.”
Elfish was impressed.
“Really? It was that good?”
“No, I mean the house actually did catch fire. I dropped a cigarette into some of the fuel they put on their fire clubs and it went up in a flash and we had to run out into the street. A terrible shame, though not as bad as it might have been because this was after we had finished having sex.
“You know, when we started I remember thinking that it might possibly be difficult working out which body to pay attention to but they made it easy for me by both licking me between my legs at the same time, which was an excellent sensation. I can’t remember ever being more turned on. They both had these lithe acrobatic bodies with tight muscles and messy black hair and really a lot of earrings and they were licking my cunt practically inside out and licking my thighs and it was just great.
“After that I can’t remember the precise sequence of events. I did straddle one of them and fuck him whilst sucking the other one. He came in my mouth and after that I sucked the other one’s cock and I was fucking the other one at the same time or rather he was fucking me which was energetic, I thought, him fucking again so soon after coming. No doubt all these acrobatics kept him fit.
“All this activity in a warm bedroom made us sweat a lot and by this time we were practically sliding off each other’s bodies. I remember having the distinct impression that there was a penis in every direction. Wishful thinking, I suppose. But the drink made me tired after coming myself and I needed a rest for a cigarette and that’s when I set the house on fire. I just grabbed my clothes and fled. I never actually knew whose place it was I destroyed.”
Aisha smiled.
“Excellent fuck. But when I arrived home without my shoes Mory was there unexpectedly and although I lied about where I’d been he knew that something had happened and he left me. I don’t understand that bit of it. He’d never been suspicious of me before. I wonder if someone told him stories about what I’d been up to when he was away in Canada.
“Anyway, after that my agoraphobia came on worse and now I never go out if I can help it. Also I don’t have any paint or even a brush and I don’t think I could paint anymore even if I had. These days I spend most of my time being sad and missing Mory or having panic attacks.”
Aisha slumped in deep depression. Elfish went out to beg.
“Can you spare ten pence, please?” said Elfish, and smiled in fake gratitude as a young man dropped some coins into her hand. Counting, she found that she now had enough and headed off to the cheap home-decorating shop down the road to buy materials.
Is everyone depressed? wondered Elfish, and decided that yes, they probably were. She did not care about everyone being depressed but resented the way it kept getting in the way of her plans. She wished that just one time she could ask someone to do something and they would rise enthusiastically, agree immediately, then go and do it. She did not really expect this ever to happen.
On the other hand, if Aisha had not been depressed it would have been because she was still with Mory, and in that case she would have been too busy working on their joint project to do anything for Elfish. So Elfish could only feel that she had been justified in privately informing Mory about Aisha’s night in bed with Aran. The suspicion thus created had no doubt led to Mory not believing Aisha’s cover story after she arrived home without any shoes from her night with the two acrobats and had therefore led to the collapse of their relationship. Very depressing for Aisha of course, but at least she was doing something useful now, that is, working for Elfish.
forty
IT TOOK ELFISH no thought or effort to lie to Aisha, telling her that she had been in contact with Mory by telephone.
“And he misses you dreadfully,” Elfish informed her. “So you don’t have anything to worry about. He’s coming to the gig and he more or less told me he is going to ask you back.”
Aisha was ecstatic at this, indeed she was about to phone Mory right away but Elfish hastily persuaded her that this would be a bad idea.
“You mustn’t appear too eager. Make him wait a few days. After all, it was him that finished with you so he deserves to suffer a little. By the weekend he’ll be desperate. Probably at the gig he’ll march in and sweep you off your feet. Meanwhile, get on with painting the backdrop.”
This was a cheering start to the day for Elfish but her mood quickly deteriorated. She tried learning some more lines of the speech but made no progress and a familiar melancholy settled in. When she found that not only could she learn no more, but that the few lines she had remembered had now entirely vanished from her mind, her mood deepened from melancholy to depression. After thinking about it for long enough, anxiety set in. She wondered if she might have caught this off Aisha, or Shonen. Perhaps anxiety was contagious, like measles.
Today she was meant to be visiting Shonen for more help with the speech but Elfish feared that whatever Shonen did it would not help her to get beyond line three. She found herself wondering why she had ever become involved in anything as ridiculous as this contest. Mo merely wished to humiliate her by showing her to his friends as a woman so desperate for something she was prepared to try and learn an impossible speech from Shakespeare, and so hopeless that she could not do it. She cursed her brother for suggesting it, and cursed Mo for everything.
Elfish’s mouth was rank and foul from cigarettes and alcohol. The taste was sickeningly bad. She had a great resistance towards brushing her teeth, possibly connected to dim memories of her parents instructing her to do it regularly. At this moment she would not have been able to say when she had last cleaned them.
Elfish’s circumstances were actually worse than she thought they were, because at that moment Mo was waking up contentedl
y with Amnesia.
“Do you think Amnesia will phone today?” he asked, and they both laughed.
When Elfish had phoned up yesterday, pretending to be Amnesia, Amnesia had sat next to Mo at the phone and it was all she could do to stop herself from screaming with laughter. She thanked the good fortune which had brought her back into Brixton and into the path of Mo at this very moment. Ever since her last day’s stage diving with her ex-friend, Amnesia had waited and wondered how she could repay Elfish for her badness.
Mo was now aware that Elfish was plotting against him. He could not work out the precise nature of her machinations but it seemed clear that she must believe herself to have an advantage. Thinking back to his conversations with her when she had been pretending to be Amnesia he could recall how she had carefully manoeuvred him into a position whereby he agreed to give up the name of Queen Mab if Elfish learned the speech and produced a band. He still found it hard to believe that Elfish could do either of these things in so short a time but Elfish must at least be confident that she could. Mo did not intend to be defeated by Elfish. Nor did he intend to cede the name to her. With a view to frustrating Elfish he asked his friends and contacts to talk to people and find out exactly what she was up to.
forty-one
[ STAGE DIVING WITH ELFISH ]
The gig was nearing its climax. Elfish and Amnesia still swooped around like crazed eagles. In the morning Elfish would be a mass of bruises and abrasions but at this moment she was immune to all discomfort.
For the hundredth time Elfish was fighting her way back to the stage. She paused near two boys who still had cans of beer in their hands.
“Give me a drink,” said Elfish.
“No,” they replied.
Elfish would often ask strangers for drinks at gigs and was used to refusals so she would have thought nothing of this had not Amnesia at that moment appeared beside her.
“Give me a drink,” she said to the two boys.
Immediately they both handed over their cans to her and she drank from them. She offered one to Elfish. Elfish took it but her eyes were narrowed and she assumed that the boys had given Amnesia their drinks merely because she had long blonde hair. Elfish was used to this and shrugged it off. She continued on her way, digging her elbows into those around her to make her way once more up on to the stage. The bouncers had by this time more or less given up and Elfish had an easy ascent. Once onstage, she kicked the lead singer’s microphone stand over for fun then jumped mightily into the air. Elfish leapt in no particular direction but her keenness for this last jump carried her far and she crashed down close to the vacant space at the side of the stage. Only one person stood there and Elfish was fortunate to land on him rather than the concrete.
They both stood up and the person moved away, possibly feeling that this place was no longer safe. As Elfish looked up she saw that Amnesia was now onstage, preparing to jump. Amnesia saw her, waved, sprinted a few yards to the side of the stage and leapt directly at Elfish, intending to land on her, just as Elfish had previously landed on Amnesia in the same spot.
But Amnesia did not land on Elfish. As she sailed through the air Elfish stepped quickly to one side and the gap thus created was just large enough for Amnesia to crash headfirst on to the concrete where she lay without moving.
She was helped away backstage and later in hospital it was found that her collarbone was broken and she was concussed. She was obliged to remain in hospital for several days.
Afterwards Elfish and Amnesia never spoke. There seemed little to say. Amnesia knew that Elfish had deliberately moved out of the way, and Elfish knew that she knew. Once recovered, Amnesia retired from the area, going to live in the suburbs for a while until her shoulder healed. While in the suburbs she thought often about Elfish, and always with great animosity. Elfish’s behaviour had been treachery of the worst kind, a wretched betrayal of a friend and fellow stage diver.
“Why did you do it?” asked Aran later, but Elfish was unable to supply a satisfactory answer so did not try. It might have been pique at Amnesia jumping farther than her, or it might have been annoyance that she kept landing on Mo and that Mo seemed to respond to her favourably. Or it might have been jealousy that the boys had refused drink to Elfish but supplied it to Amnesia.
It might have been none of these things. Elfish could not really say. When Amnesia was hurling towards her, she just felt like moving out of the way, and she could never honestly say that she felt very sorry about it.
forty-two
THOUGH SHONEN’S BULIMIA had improved after Elfish’s encouraging news about the fund-raiser, it was a long way from being cured. Today she had been shopping in the supermarket and this had been a stressful experience from start to finish. Touring around the shelves pushing a trolley she experienced both the irresistible urge to stock up with some junk food and the certain knowledge that once she had eaten it she would feel bad and throw it all up again.
Driven by whatever childhood misery fuelled her disorder, she swept supplies into the trolley. As she did so, she practised excuses and reasonable stories in case anyone asked her why she was buying so much food; Shonen’s guilt about eating extended to a paranoia that other people knew all about it and were watching with disapproval.
“I have a large family to feed,” she would say, if challenged by the checkout woman. “I rarely get the chance to shop; I am buying provisions for a month. The woman next door to me fell down and broke her leg and I’m shopping for her as a favour. I am having a dinner party for twelve people and they are all big eaters.”
Unchallenged by the checkout woman, or the manager, or the store detectives, she bundled her food into a collection of flimsy carrier bags and struggled home. She was so encumbered with food that on the outskirts of her estate it took her much time and effort to find her purse to give a little money to a hopeless-looking woman with no place to go who sat begging beside the children’s playground. Shonen always gave money to beggars.
Once home she wolfed down a meal, vomited, ate, vomited, ate, vomited, then collapsed. She was on the verge of plunging into total despair when she remembered that things were not entirely without hope. Elfish was coming to the rescue. Elfish was going to put her theatre group back on the rails. These days the thought of Elfish had become very inspiring, looming large over Shonen’s hopelessness like a benevolent goddess.
Shonen cleaned up the toilet, resisted the urge to eat again, and forced her bulimia from her mind. With an effort of will she made herself think positively about a new production. This was such a pleasant thing to contemplate that not long afterwards she was on the phone to the rest of her group, practically bullying them out of their own defeatism with enthusiastic plans for the future.
Despite being neurotic, depressed and defeated by life, Shonen was not one of Brixton’s lonely characters. She had many friends and was frequently in contact with the various members of her theatre group.
These fellow performers were surprised by the sudden change in her. She had organised their appeals for funding and sponsorship and now called them up to organise planning meetings for a new season. She invited them round for drinks and launched into enthusiastic discussions about writing and rehearsing a new play and taking it to next year’s Edinburgh Festival. And, she said, if the Edinburgh Festival did not work out then they could do it free in a pub somewhere. Anything to perform.
When the members of the acting group asked her what had brought about this abrupt change in her demeanour, this sudden enthusiasm for life quite uncharacteristic of her recent behaviour, Shonen unhesitatingly gave all of the credit to Elfish. Elfish had taken the trouble to find someone who could actually help them and she appreciated this immensely. Not only that, Elfish’s strident endeavours to bring her own ambitions to fruition had acted as a powerful inspiration to Shonen.
“If she can overcome her difficulties, then so can we,” she told her theatre group.
“Elfish is so determined. She is inspiring. If
she says she can find us someone to look after our funding then she’ll do it because Elfish does not give up.”
Mo was at this moment thinking much the same thing, although not with kindness. He had learned from Irene Tarisa that Shonen was helping Elfish with her speech, and that May and Casaubon were playing in her band. Aisha was even painting a backdrop for her, which seemed like a sure sign that Elfish was confident of success.
Mo was perturbed, so perturbed that he spoiled his band’s rehearsal that day by continually picking faults in each musician’s contribution till the rehearsal ground to a halt in animosity and bad-tempered recriminations.
forty-three
ARTEMISIA WAS QUEEN of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor. She sailed with Xerxes, King of Persia, against the Greeks in 480 B.C. She was unique, being the only woman to fight in the war, a war which involved millions of men. She did not have to do this. Her husband had died, passing the sovereignty to her, but she had a grown-up son who could have led her forces. Artemisia was moved by the spirit of adventure.
Herodotus gives a very favourable account of Artemisia, possibly because he too came from Halicarnassus. Artemisia led a small squadron of ships, captaining the flagship herself, and gained a reputation for her prowess in war. The Greeks particularly hated the fact that a woman was fighting against them and offered a large reward for her capture but she was never taken.
Artemisia also gained a reputation as a shrewd adviser to the King. She was the only one of Xerxes’s counsellors who advised him against fighting the battle of Salamis, saying that the huge Persian army should continue the war on land rather than sea. Xerxes did not take her advice and went on to suffer a catastrophic defeat at Salamis. His fleet was routed and his entire plan to conquer Greece suffered a severe setback. This increased Artemisia’s reputation because her advice was proved to have been correct and Xerxes realised he should have paid heed to it.
Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving Page 10