by Agatha Frost
“Tonight’s show?” Julia asked as she followed Russell around the racks. “I didn’t expect there to be one so soon.”
“The show must go on, or so they say,” Russell said with a sigh as he collapsed into one of the couches. “I’ve got a B&B full of guests. Nightly entertainment was promised. I can’t afford to be dishing out refunds. We won’t be able to do it in the bar, but there’s always the restaurant. Some candles and free cocktails, and people won’t notice the difference.”
Sitting across from Russell, Julia decided it was not her place to talk him out of putting on a show. She turned her thoughts to what she had wanted to ask, not wanting their meeting to go to waste.
“I saw Marvin at the ballroom this afternoon,” she started. “He’s a great dancer.”
“National champion,” Russell said proudly. “Nobody can move like that boy.”
Julia wondered how she could bring up Marvin’s stern words about Simon without sounding like a gossip. She looked around the room while Russell brushed through Marilyn’s blonde curls. Her eyes landed on a large framed picture of two drag queens on the wall above the row of vanity mirrors. Julia recognised the queens as being Lulu Suede and Tuna Turner. Russell noticed Julia staring and turned around.
“That was our first night in drag together,” Russell said with a fond smile. “New Year’s Eve 1999. We went to a huge Millennium party. I was convinced the world was going to end because of those Y2K conspiracy theories. We’d always wanted to try drag, so we thought we’d give it a go on our last night on Earth. We looked awful, and we would have looked even worse if Simon hadn’t helped.”
“You knew Simon back then?”
“We all met in a bar a couple of years earlier,” Russell explained. “I was coming out of a dark place, and I was partying too much. I always ended up in this little basement bar down some backstreet. Simone Phoenix was the star attraction, even back then. One night, I was waiting for a taxi on the street corner when a group of guys mugged me. They beat me black and blue. I won’t say what they called me, but they’re words I wouldn’t repeat in front of The Queen. I’ll never forget looking up and seeing Cher’s face. I thought I’d died and I was seeing the face of God, but it was just Simone. We went back to his flat, and he cleaned me up and let me sleep it off on his sofa. He tried to take me to A&E but I was having none of it. We were friends from that night on. We met Marvin not long after. He was in Blackpool for a dance competition and had snuck out to experience his first gay bar. I remember seeing this terrified kid sitting in a corner. I’ve always been the type to talk to anyone, so I walked right up to him, and he’s never been able to shake me since.”
“Marvin mentioned Simon earlier,” Julia said, feeling her opportunity to dig. “He didn’t seem too enthused about his old friend.”
Russell laughed and shook his head as he sat the puppet on his lap. He glanced back at the photograph on the wall.
“See that arm around my shoulders in the picture?” he continued. “That’s Simone. She used to be in that picture. Marvin brought it with him when he first came to Sparkles, but he’d already cut Simone off by then. After our first time in drag, we caught the bug. It’s like a drug. You get to play dress up and bring out all those sides of your personality that you suppress the rest of the time. People assume you want to become a woman, but it’s not about that for me. I love being a man, but I like being Lulu too. That wig goes on, and she takes over. It’s fun! It’s art! I get to escape myself for a couple of hours, and that’s priceless.
“After the first time, Simone talked us into going professional. I didn’t need much convincing, but Marvin did. He was big on the competitive dance circuit, not that he cared about competing. That was his mum. She was one of those pushy parents. He didn’t want to let her down, so it was a blessing in disguise when he broke his knee during the 2000 Lancashire Dance final. He tripped on his ankle right before going into a split, and when I say that was a crack heard around the country, I’m not lying. When it healed, he couldn’t dance to the competitive standard anymore. That’s when he gave in to my nagging.
“We opened for Simone’s celebrity illusion show. I did the stand-up comedy, Marvin lip-synced and danced, and Simone did her quick-change celebrity routine. It’s what she’s known for. Nearly thirty years in the game and it still impresses a crowd. Those were the glory days for me. We did that for two years, but Simon wanted to take Simone national. She became a touring queen for a while, so Marvin and I stayed behind. We had our own ‘Lulu and Tuna’ show for a while, but it was harder to get booked without Simone’s name. Marvin ended up getting cast in a burlesque show, and I got stuck doing the graveyard shifts in half-empty clubs. I paid my bills with the makeovers at the makeup counters.
“When Sparkles by the Sea went up for sale in 2008, I begged, borrowed, and took out a mortgage that I don’t think I’ll ever pay off, but it was worth it. Not only did I have a drag home, but I could also give that to other queens too. Feather Duster pretty much came with the building, not that I’d ever dream of getting rid of her. She’ll be here for as long as she wants to keep getting up and singing. There’s not a person who doesn’t adore Feather. She’ll be the first in drag and the last to leave the bar. She loves entertaining people. They don’t make them like her anymore. You’re more likely to see Feather than Arthur, the man under it all.”
“She’s an amazing singer,” Julia said. “It almost brought me to tears, but that could have been the piña coladas.”
“Arthur was doing drag when it could still get you arrested,” Russell said. “Feather Duster was a pioneer, so there was no doubt that she would be in my show. The queens come and go, but Feather is always there on time and ready to deliver. Marvin finally brought Tuna Turner here three years ago. I begged him for years. That’s where the feud between Marvin and Simon comes from, although I didn’t realise how bad it was until I brought Simon here. Simone ended up becoming the headliner at the burlesque show Marvin was part of. Marvin loved it and probably would have stayed there forever, but they fired him. He insists it was Simon’s fault. He never really explained why, and I didn’t realise how deep the hatred went. The club canned the burlesque show at the beginning of this year, so I swooped in and convinced Simon to do the show here. I sold it by saying he could do one summer and decide after that if he wanted to become a regular Sparkle Girl. I thought I was getting the old band back together, but it didn’t work out like that. Simon wasn’t the man I remembered, and Marvin can barely look at him. To say it put a wedge between Marvin and I would be an understatement. In fact, it’s put distance between me and all the girls. Simone has managed to rub everyone the wrong way. Honey can’t bear to be in the same room as Simone, or Simon for that matter. I had to give Honey a pay rise to convince her to stand at the side of the stage and help Simone with the quick-changes. That conversation almost caused World War Three. I wasn’t going to risk asking Marvin to do it, and I’d never insult Feather by asking her to assist someone else.”
Julia soaked in everything Russell had revealed. By the sounds of it, Simon was not short on people who might have wanted to send a rig crashing down on his head. In the silence, Julia suddenly remembered the small interaction she had witnessed between Russell and Simon before she had asked for a hairdryer. Dressed as Dolly Parton, Simon had said a lot to Russell, but Julia specifically remembered him demanding a salary increase before storming off.
“What’s your relationship like with Simon?” Julia asked, fully aware that Russell did not know what she had overheard. “Is there no friendship left?”
“There wasn’t from the day he walked in here,” he revealed with a sigh as he stood up. “I knew during the first ten minutes that I’d made a mistake. He was demanding things from the outset. That stupid lighting rig was his idea. He insisted on being properly lit, not that there was anything wrong with our old system.” He picked up the Marilyn doll and set off towards the curtain. “I have so many calls to make. I need to p
hone the company who fitted the damn thing to tell them what happened. It’s only been up for a month. The police want their information too. Feather thinks we could sue them for all they’re worth, and the police have said they could be charged criminally, especially if – if Simon doesn’t pull through.”
They walked past the rig, the frayed edges of the steel wire calling to Julia. She had assumed the most likely explanation was wear and tear, but if the rig had only been fitted a month ago, it seemed impossible for it to have snapped so quickly.
When they reached the fish tank reception desk, Russell headed into his drag den, leaving Julia to run over everything she had heard. The background information on Marvin made him even more of a suspect, but the rest of the story also implicated Russell, and that made her feel uneasy.
Right before Julia set off back to her room, the front door opened, and Jessie and Alfie walked in, catching her red-handed.
“I thought you were having a nap?” Jessie called, dipping her head to lick at an ice cream cone. “Does she look asleep to you, Alfie?”
“I’m sleepwalking,” Julia replied. “Where am I?”
“Hilarious, cake lady.” Jessie rolled her eyes as she marched towards the restaurant. “I think it’s very selfish that you’re not letting me in on the fun.”
Julia followed Alfie towards the lift, unsure what insight Jessie could offer. There was so little to work with. Julia had more questions than answers.
Chapter Seven
That night’s performance had an uncomfortable undertone. None of the queens seemed committed to their routines, nor was the audience, which was less than half what it had been the night before. Lulu Suede’s Marilyn Monroe puppet routine garnered a few chuckles, but the scattered applause at the end prevented an encore from happening. Feather Duster’s singing was faultless, but Julia suspected the seasoned queen would put on a polished show come rain or shine. When the show ended, Julia was happy to be heading up to bed, the offer of free cocktails not enough to make her stick around.
After a shower, she thought she was ready to crawl into bed, but Russell’s story would not stop whirring around in her mind. She sat writing at the table under the window long after Barker fell asleep. She wrote down everything Russell had told her as accurately as she could remember, as well as everything she could recollect from the events leading up to the rig falling. Forcing herself to write it down had conjured up details that had slipped her mind until they stared back at her. One of them being Barker’s disappearance right before the rig fell, and another being that none of the queens had been in the bar either. A small part of her wanted to wake Barker to ask where Honey took him to clean up, but he looked too peaceful to disturb. When Julia finally let go of her pen, she had filled half her tiny notebook. She rubbed her hand and turned to the window, her stomach knotting when she saw the first hint of sunlight over the calm sea.
Standing up, Julia let out a yawn. She looked down at the notepad, but her mind was still running. She knew it was likely due to the exhaustion she was feeling from the pitiful amount of sleep she had got since arriving in Blackpool. She suddenly wished she could have taken that afternoon nap with Barker.
Her phone screen told her it was almost half past four in the morning. She groaned and plodded off to the bathroom. After splashing her face with cold water, she stared at her weary reflection. It would take more than the bright pink dressing gown to make her look alive. Yellow and purple shadows circled her eyes, and her skin had taken on a grey hue. She wanted to believe it was the harsh lighting above the mirror, but she knew it was more to do with her body not able to handle the lack of sleep like it had in her twenties.
She splashed her face again before dabbing it with a pink towel. A small part of her was disappointed when her reflection stayed unchanged. She went to open the door, but a muffled sound made her turn around. It sounded like someone was sniffing, or maybe even laughing. She stared at the white shower curtain and fear sprung up within her. She tried to put it down to her imagination, but she heard it again.
Reminding herself that she was almost forty and too old to be scared of the monster behind the curtain, she tore it back. There was nothing there.
“Maybe it’s rats,” she whispered, the sound of her own voice comforting her as her heart pounded in her chest.
She heard the noise again, and this time knew it wasn’t sniffing or laughing; someone was crying. She stared at the vent in the wall above the shower, sure it had a similar placement in Jessie and Alfie’s bathroom on the other side of the wall.
She kicked off her slippers and climbed onto the edge of her bathtub. Holding the curtain railing, she edged towards the fan, her ears pricked. She only needed to hear one more sniffle to know it was Alfie who was crying. Julia had heard Jessie crying, and this was not it.
“Alfie?” Julia whispered. “Alfie, can you hear me?”
The crying stopped, and she heard him inhale through his nose.
“Who’s there?” he replied. “Hello?”
“It’s Julia,” she whispered, a little louder this time. “Is everything okay?”
There was a pause followed by a deep cough as though an attempt to cover it up.
“I’m – I’m fine.”
“Come to your door,” Julia said. “Give me a second.”
Julia let go of the rail, a decision she instantly knew was a mistake. Without the balance, gravity pulled her backwards. The shower curtain popped off one ring at a time as she fell bottom first into the tub. She landed with a thud, the curtain wrapping around her face. She did not move until she was sure she had not actually hurt anything, except for her dignity.
After scrambling out of the bathtub, which took more effort than she would have liked to admit, Julia assessed her reflection again. Her skin had turned from grey to bright red; it was somewhat of an improvement.
To her surprise, Barker had slept through her tumble. Leaving him snoring softly in bed, Julia eased open the door and slipped into the hallway. In a pair of cotton shorts and a white vest, Alfie paced back and forth in the dark, his neck to ankle tattoos making him look like a shadow.
“I heard you crying,” Julia whispered as she folded her arms across her dressing gown. “What’s wrong?”
“I -”
“Are you about to lie to me and tell me everything is fine, or that you weren’t crying?”
“Yes,” Alfie admitted with a sheepish smile. “How do you fancy watching the sunrise?”
When Alfie led her through the fire escape at the bottom of the hallway, Julia’s protests fell on deaf ears. He pulled her up an outdoor metal staircase to the roof of the B&B. Not content with being that high, Alfie climbed a ladder up onto a unit that looked like it housed the B&B’s water tank.
“You’re going to get us into trouble,” Julia muttered as she clung onto the railing at the top of the staircase, the courtyard behind the B&B sinking away from her. “I feel dizzy.”
“I came up here last night,” Alfie called with a laugh. “Nobody is going to come up here, are they? Come on! The view is incredible.”
With legs of jelly and feet of lead, Julia climbed onto the roof. She had visions of it collapsing underneath her, but she pressed on to the ladder. She scurried up it, more out of fear than anything. After crawling across the top of the unit, Alfie grabbed her, and she sat on the edge, her feet dangling towards the tiled roof below. She was about to berate Alfie for being so reckless, but the view stole her words.
“Wow,” was all she could manage.
“Told you.”
Even though they were only a floor above their bedrooms, the view had transformed without the limitations of a window frame. The sea stretched for miles in each direction, looking as though it went on forever. With the usually busy promenade empty, it felt like they were the only two people in Blackpool.
“I woke up crying from a nightmare I was having,” Alfie confessed after a period of silence. “About my parents.”
Juli
a tried to think of how to reply, but the words did not come. Jessie and Alfie’s parents had died in a car accident on their way back from a holiday almost eighteen years ago. Julia had read the details in an online article, something she had given little thought to while being in Blackpool, even though she knew she should have made the connection sooner.
“You’re from here,” Julia said, dropping her head and feeling like a fool. “Blackpool is where you were born. Oh, Alfie. I never connected the dots.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “I haven’t been back here since they separated me from Jessie when they first took us into care. When I found out you were all coming to Blackpool, I was relieved I didn’t have to come too. Dot thrust her ticket upon me. I didn’t know how to turn it down.”
Alfie had been so knowledgeable about Blackpool since their arrival, but Julia thought it had been because he had travelled the world.
“How have you found being back here?”
“Honestly?” Alfie asked, his eyes turning down as he attempted to smile. “Hard. It’s been a struggle to hold it together, but it’s helped having Jessie, and you and Barker.”
“You’ve hidden it so well.”
“You learn to,” he said. “You have to, or you’ll never get through a single day. Sometimes I feel guilty for having known them for ten years when Jessie has nothing, but other times, I’m jealous that she doesn’t have to deal with the memories.”
“Does she know the significance of Blackpool?”
“If she does, she’s hiding it well,” Alfie replied. “I haven’t told her. She doesn’t need that on her, especially with her birthday so close. She’s becoming an adult. She doesn’t need me dragging her back into the past.”