Читать книгу The Silver Chain - Primula Bond - Страница 8

My feet are curiously sluggish as I walk down St James’s Street, as if there are weights in my boots or a magnet is drawing me backwards. The truth is I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to leave that warm bar, that half-sipped cocktail. That intriguing tall stranger with the split-screen eyes and a way with his fingers.

But as he lifted his hand in casual farewell just now it was as if he’d already forgotten me.

There’s a chain spanning the space between us, a rope between ship and shore; no, more like a jailor’s thick chain jangling with keys and handcuffs. Except this is woven thin like a spider’s web, so delicate, so invisible it only occasionally catches the light. I don’t know which one of us holds it. Which one is caught.

I might not see him again. So what? It was only an hour or so. A chat. He bought me a drink. Dry martini. Period. Why would I even consider missing a party to spend the evening with an older guy who, come to think of it, idiot that I am, oh my God how stupid am I, probably has a beautiful wife waiting for him in his beautiful home, stirring a stunning soup in a designer kitchen.

My phone buzzes again, as if to knock some sense into me. I study the map that Pol has texted, so my eyes are down as I cross Trafalgar Square. The map shows a warren of streets on the other side of Covent Garden, and the venue is in the narrowest street of all.

It feels very quiet out here. I thought there would be more of a party atmosphere, but I guess it’s still quite early. A few people are wandering about under Nelson’s haughty column, emerging from the tube at Charing Cross Station. They’re mostly in costume. The stab of scarlet skirts and fiery masks, the sharp black outlines of stalking skeletons, of horns and tails, pierce the thickening fog, which has simply dropped like a shroud. It dims the circling traffic, the glowing streetlamps, muffles the foot shuffle, like old photographs of the smog in post-war London.

They seem to be gathering by one of the lions. I reach under my scarf to lift the camera from its strap. And I realise it’s not there. Icy panic grips me as I scrabble in my bag, my pockets, under my jacket even. As I stand there, going round in circles like a cat with a firework on its tail, I’m vaguely aware of people whispering and jostling around me, a shout, a cackle, but I can’t focus on them.

A voice seems to whisper in my ear, the exposed ear, the ear he tucked my hair behind. It’s here, it says. Your camera. Both cameras. You left them in the cocktail bar in Dukes Hotel.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Without my cameras I might as well have had my eyes put out.

I have to get back there, sharpish, this is too good a photo op to miss. What makes it all the worse is that out of nowhere I think of how Jake would be nagging me to get the picture, how this unfolding scenario would sell brilliantly to a newspaper or YouTube. But I’m crippled without my equipment, and now I can’t even move because both my arms are grabbed and pulled out sideways as if I’m in a line dance. It hurts. I’m sure my left shoulder is wrenched out of its socket, but that’s exactly what it is, a dance, I’m part of some kind of formation, all the people in their costumes have suddenly organised themselves into a pattern, and then suddenly the intro to ‘Thriller’ screams out from hidden amplifiers; the crowd starts to dance perfectly in time, jerky and robotic, all crawling and grimacing like the zombies in the video.

I’ve been caught up in a flash mob in eccentric, crazy Trafalgar Square, on Halloween night. Getting on that train yesterday and coming up to London, and finding myself part of this kind of mass madness was the best thing I could have done.

I’m part of the picture tonight, the subject in front of the lens for a change, not behind. And I know who has my cameras. A sudden calm floods me, like a warm shower. The same sensation as when Gustav Levi put my beret on me just now, hooked my hair behind my ear.

Gustav has everything safe. He’ll look after everything. So for tonight, I’ll be observed instead of always the observer.

Passersby are laughing and clapping and filming, the front of the National Gallery morphs into a giant cinema screen showing images of Michael Jackson, magical and tragical. The throb of the music makes everyone dance, makes me dance despite myself, and we’re all zombies now, stamping and waving and crouching and yelling, intoxicated with madness and music.

Eventually I reach the cobbled alleyway that Polly has directed me to. A trio of grisly vampires with rubber fangs, red paint dripping down their chins, troops past me drinking tiredly from Coke cans. I stop in front of what looks like an antique shop. The whole structure is bowed as if it has the weight of the world on its roof. The window bulges outwards and the doorstep is worn almost through from being crossed by centuries of shoes and boots.

Decapitated mannequins scratch at the greenish glass as if to escape. They have been dressed in strapless ballgowns and pose with diamante tiaras circling their wooden necks, as if the heads where the tiaras once perched have been guillotined. Further inside there are figures, just like my zombie friends, dancing and whooping.

I push open the door and weird, hypnotic, twangy music assaults me. The kind that twines in and out of your psyche. Whales, or dolphins, calling to each other in the deep.

People in period costume are drinking and singing and smoking, but it’s difficult to tell the revellers from the displays. The shop is like the Tardis, much bigger inside than its tiny bent facade. Various fringed shades, candles and lamps throw a low, red-tinged light as if we’re all in an Edwardian bordello. The air is a mist of sandalwood, patchouli, and sweet dope. Hammered to the walls are enormous glass cases full of skewered black butterflies, beetles and scorpions. Cherrywood cabinets burst with everything under the sun. Watches, jewellery, weapons. Cross-bows, arrows, curved scimitar daggers. Even a row of vicious-looking whips hanging from butcher’s hooks.

I push my way through the crowd to find my cousin, and a flock of boas tries to strangle me as I pause before a rail of antique lace dresses.

‘One of those will look great on you, petal! I’m so glad you came!’

Polly winds her arms round my neck and nearly squeezes the breath out of me.

‘Oh, Pol, it’s so good to see you!’ I disentangle myself after I’ve buried my nose in her neck to take in the familiar, over-scented smell of her. ‘Oh my God, you look like Snow White! I presume that black hair dye is temporary?’

‘It’s a syrup, actually!’ She tweaks it off her narrow head to show the ice-blonde crop beneath.

‘And you’ve lost another stone! Don’t they have food over there? Don’t people eat in Manhattan?’

‘Only on Fridays!’ she laughs, and starts to drag me to the back of the shop. She swishes and sways in a scarlet Vivienne Westwood-style ballgown. ‘Those gorgeous curves of yours would be totally frowned on, but we’re forgetting all that tonight. What do you think of this place?’

‘It’s incredible! What are we doing here?’

‘It’s Pierre’s. My new boyfriend’s. It’s his first costumier outlet in London. We’re only here for tonight, for this launch party. Not many people will know about this place because mostly he’ll be supplying wardrobe departments for theatres and movies and so on. He’s here somewhere. Let’s get you dressed up first!’

She high-fives and kisses various people on her procession through the guests, but it’s impossible to tell what any of them really look like. Even the men are painted with white theatrical make-up, red slashes for mouths. If they’re not painted they’re wearing masks. Polly looks like a Disney princess. If she’s Snow White, I’m Rose Red.

The back wall of the shop consists of a huge glass awning leading out to an enclosed yard, twined with ivy and brambles, and round a bubbling cauldron witches are spiking lumps of bleeding red meat into their mouths with pitchforks, a barbeque of the damned, and fake bats swing on invisible strings from the trees. Even the moon is streaked with red as if bleeding, glowing through shredded clouds streaking the London sky like claw marks.

My long-lost cousin pulls a curtain across the changing cubicle at the back of the shop and hands me a long, fluted glass of champagne. We stand together in front of the full- size, gilt-framed mirror as she chatters on about New York. Then from a rail she unhooks an ivory lace dress so flimsy it could be made from gossamer feathers.

‘You look amazing, Rena. You seem to be on fire, or is that just the cold? What’s been going on with you?’ she says, holding my hair clear as I struggle out of my clothes.

I get a flash of Gustav Levi’s serious face in my mind, uncoiling my hair from my blue scarf in the garden square. Calling me Rapunzel.

‘I’ve just had an extraordinary twenty-four hours, that’s all. First proper day in London. I think I’ve already got enough Halloween shots for an entire exhibition if only I can get someone to show my work.’

‘Someone will snap you up. And if they don’t, I’ll get Pierre on the case. He has contacts all over the planet.’ She catches my hand as it goes up in protest. ‘I know. You’re always so stubborn! Don’t need anyone’s help. Cat that walks alone. But bear it in mind, cuz. You’ve struggled enough.’

I fling my arms around her again. ‘I never felt alone when you were there. The best bits of that miserable life were when you came to stay.’

‘Careful with the taffeta, hon. This dress is the real deal. Anyhow do you really want to go over all that old ground? Those bastards should never have been allowed to keep you, just because they were the ones who found you by that church.’

‘Whoever thought foundlings came from fairy tales?’

She balls her hand into a fist and bashes at her chest. ‘I wish I’d told my family how foul and neglectful your lot were. Persuaded them to take you in. I’ll never forgive myself for failing you like that. But ain’t it all dead and buried now?’

She holds out the dress for me to step into. I know her mind is like a firefly. You can never pin her down for long.

‘Dead and buried, Pol.’

‘Beautiful underwear, by the way, Rena! You always did have a thing about matching knickers. You saved up every penny from your Saturday jobs to buy it, even when on the outside you were all rags and tatters!’

We giggle feebly, just like we used to when she came down to Devon, trailing glamour and fun and naughtiness from the big bad city. We would run down to the beach and rip open the crisps and fags and bottles of vodka she’d brought with her, and try to put out of our minds the disapproving looks on their faces, watching us from the house on the cliffs. They could never believe, since we weren’t related by blood, how Polly Folkes could love me. How we could be so close.

‘Yeah. You’re right. The new chapter has started.’

I let her do up the tiny buttons at the back of the dress, twist my hair into a loose knot on top of my head. Push sparkling diamante earrings into my lobes to dangle right down to my shoulders. Then she gets to work on the make-up.

‘Was it awful, though, leaving? Did Jake give you hell?’

She helps me take everything off and as she brushes thick mascara on my eyelashes I battle with what to say.

‘He was upset, of course he was, but I’m not a heartbreaker, Pol. You know that. I tried to make him understand, but I don’t think he does. It wasn’t just that I had to leave that place. When I got back from Europe I just didn’t want him any more. I don’t think I want anyone.’

‘Well, you cut your teeth on each other. Got to lose your cherry with someone. But you were kids. Maybe he was even more of a kid than you.’

‘Too right,’ I snort. ‘He thought foreplay was the name of an indie band.’

She chuckles. ‘You need someone older, wiser now, girl. I reckon you’re ripe for a new man. One who’s going to teach you stuff you’ve never dreamed of. Someone who won’t be able to believe his luck.’

‘You got a crystal ball here somewhere, Pol? Because it needs a good polish. I’m off men at the moment. I don’t want the hassle. The mess.’

In the mirror we are so different. White faces, red lips, but her eyes are the pale blue of a Malibu swimming pool. Mine are green, like the sea before it reaches the rocks.

Gustav Levi said my eyes belonged to a Halloween cat. Where is he right now? Is he still in the cocktail bar, or has he picked up a beautiful stranger, vanished into the night with her? Or gone home to the mythical wife who must surely be waiting for him? I have this overpowering sensation, a pulling, tugging desire to find him.

Even with my cousin here, my only family, even in this hot, crowded party full of people, there is a new person missing. There’s no point denying it. I wish Gustav Levi was here.

‘Well, just for tonight you can be the vestal virgin! Pure as the driven snow. Freeze them all out if you want to, but I’m willing to bet that one of these horny guys will fancy the arse off you before the night is out and carry you off on their charger!’

Someone calls out to Polly and she leaves me alone for a moment. The mirror is tarnished, as if smoke from a steam bath obscures it. I stare at myself. My skin feels tight, like someone has stretched it over my bones. Every little hair stands on end. Maybe it’s all the dope in the air, but I feel as if I’m poised on a high ledge, just waiting to open my arms and fly down. My face hangs there, the moon behind the clouds.

Flying? Ledges? The moon? I’m not normally given to flights of fancy. Usually the only place I find poetry is through my viewfinder.

I run my finger down the side of my neck, where the pulse is going. My neck rises like a swan’s, extending from the fronds of lace clinging to me like a second skin yet cut into fragments as if someone has tried to rip it off me. Over my clavicle towards my breasts, exposed almost to the nipple in the tight bodice of the dress. And on cue my nipples start to harden, sending a buzz of wicked euphoria through me.

I need to get back to him. Someone older, wiser, who’s going to teach you stuff you’ve never dreamed of. I bend to collect everything, my jacket, beret, scarf, but someone slaps my slender lace rump and grabs hold of me.

‘Come on, girl. I want to introduce my vestal virgin! My cousin Serena, everyone!’ Polly pulls me into the crowd of Sherlock Holmeses and Jack the Rippers, Miss Havishams and Carmens. She ties a sparkling white mask onto me, fastening it tight with white ribbons. ‘Now, you look hot, girl. You get out here and charm the pants off my friends! I already love you, but Pierre will love you forever, too!’

All sound and movement shrinks to the narrowness of the mask’s slit, like the helmet of a suit of armour. Everything has a dreamy, surreal air.

‘You will remain virginal and masked, until I set you free.’ Polly cackles like a pantomime villain, reminding me of her filthy side, and as she moves back into the party she’s like a dancing flame around which huge menacing moths flutter in their swirling cloaks and feathered, furry, Venetian, Phantom, lace masks. Polly has put on a mask in the style of Catwoman and her eyes seem to sink back into her head, narrowing into red-glowing slits.

I love my beautiful, borrowed cousin to death. But mixed with the love there’s always been jealousy. That she had a family who gave her that confidence, that generosity and style, of the cocksure way she can look down her nose at an admirer so he has no idea if she’s going to lick him or lump him one. Someone offers me a tray of devils on horseback, fiery fruit wrapped in salty bacon, and as I stuff in a handful I realise I’m ravenous. I can’t remember when I last ate.

Someone changes the music. It grows louder, and wilder, looping endlessly round the same gypsy spirals. Everyone is dancing like there’s no tomorrow in this confined space, knocking over stands, mannequin arms and legs flailing like marionettes, and some, oh my God, are getting frisky now, grabbing at each other’s clothes, ripping at dresses and trousers, showing knickerbockers and camisoles, but it all looks directed, like a show, everything looks so choreographed, like a ballet, composed like a mural.

Everyone is so white, some almost transparent so that you can see the blood blue in their veins, painted red on their throats, white arms, white faces bending into each other, kissing, licking, pretending to bite, pretending to be vampires with their false fangs.

Now I do wish I had my camera. It’s my disguise. My shield. Normally I’d be prowling the place taking photographs, offering to display them later, sell them for a fee. Or keep them for my own archives.

I am limbless and naked without it.

A violin tests its strings in a kind of screech and the music lurches into another gypsy dance, the kind that makes you want to leap over a camp fire, and suddenly I’m lifted off my feet, tossed across the sea of bodies, hands and faces everywhere, stamping, clapping, whooping.

A man coated in green feathers with a hooked mask bows courteously, but as we start to waltz his hands wander over my dress, lightly resting on my hips or bottom, threatening to move further up, further in, but luckily another figure dressed as a court jester spins me round so he can rock me from behind, but then he pushes himself into my back, getting off on the feel of my buttocks pressed against his groin, ripping my dress a little more. I squeal and wriggle away from him. My breasts are in danger of falling out for all the world to see.

‘Hey, babe, you having fun? You’re the belle of the ball tonight!’

Polly sweeps past me in the arms of a very tall man in top hat and tails. They look exactly like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I try to screech at her that actually I want to go, but the music is too loud. I try to veer away from the friendly fingers and hands on me, but there’s no point. There are too many of them, big men, slender women, heads bobbing and pecking like birds in their elaborate costumes and sinister masks, all with red-painted mouths, those clever white fangs which look totally real, stabbing at their lips.

Whatever was in those canapés suddenly kicks in and instead of panicky and desperate I now get high. Euphoria must be close to mania, because now I’m laughing as two men wearing cat masks advance on me and throw me back and forth between them.

I know I’m hallucinating mad because as Polly twirls in her partner’s arms and Fred Astaire’s face appears above her head, I’m convinced that she’s dancing with Gustav Levi. Through the mask those eyes are unmistakable, glittering black and boring into my very soul.

I clap my hand to my mouth, my whole body trembling with excitement.

‘Gustav!’ I shout and wave, trying to push towards him. But he doesn’t hear or recognise me, because like an artist’s anatomical doll he turns Polly stiffly in his arms and spins away into the shadows.

That jealousy, twisting like a small knife again. If I’m the belle of the ball, Polly is undoubtedly the queen. She always is. She’s sorted. She has a job, a flat, a man. There he is, parading her in his arms. And me? Apart from a large inheritance which has come by default from people who would rather have pulled their own eyes out than give me anything, what have I got?

I stagger backwards through the crowd, aiming for the cubicle where my clothes are strewn about on the floor, but the push of the throng sends me crashing out into the back yard instead, and when the doors shut behind me it’s blissfully quiet out here. The embers which were heating the cauldron earlier are still glowing, heating up the patio.

I stumble towards a kind of bower in the corner and without checking what or who might be there as well I collapse onto a day bed under a curtain of ivy, spread-eagled across the white calico cushions. All I can see through the curtain of ivy is the orange fuzz of the city sky. No moon. No stars. No clouds.

‘Are you OK?’ Someone else has got here first.

I heave myself up onto my elbows, irritation prickling through me. ‘I thought I was alone out here,’ I mutter crossly. ‘Who’s that?’

I find myself staring into the blank gaze of mirrored Elvis shades. As my eyes move over the interloper I see how totally incongruous those glasses are with the short white toga and laurel wreath he’s wearing, shoved on top of impossibly golden curls.

‘Friend of Pierre’s. Who are you?’

‘Cousin of Polly.’

He doesn’t move from his Caesar-like pose. I fiddle with my tattered dress, realising that even if I wanted to leave I’d have to take it with me, because I can’t get out of it without help.

‘Wrong party, huh?’ he murmurs in an American accent. ‘You look far too pure and innocent to be mingling with these ghoulies and ghosties. Some very decadent people here, you know.’

‘Polly dressed me up like this. It’s not really me. Her idea of a joke.’

‘May be a joke to you, but however dirty you really are you sure look the part in that scrap of a dress. Bit rough with you, were they?’ He speaks with a subdued gruffness that makes me glance at him more closely. ‘A bit of rape and pillage back there?’

I toss my head in just the way a vestal virgin would. ‘All a bit of fun. Actually I’ve got to go. I’ve got things to do in the morning.’

‘Hey, you don’t want to go now. This is where it starts to get interesting. Why should our host and hostess have all the fun?’ His hands gesticulate as if they might slice right through me like butter, then he aims them like a couple of pistols to point out my cousin. ‘You can tell they’ve only been dating for a short time. They can’t keep their hands off each other!’

It’s true. Polly and Pierre are in the doorway. The moon is their spotlight as they sway together, totally oblivious to everyone else.

‘She deserves it. New York has always been her goal. She’s worked for it.’

He picks up a bottle of wine and hands it to me. ‘And you haven’t?’

‘I’m just starting out. My first day in London.’

I regret it as soon as it’s out, like I did earlier when I told Gustav Levi my name, and sure enough those disconcertingly blind shades are still fixed on me, the American mouth grinning as I take a big swig of wine and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand like a navvy.

‘How about that! Mine too. Fancy showing me the sights while I’m here? Starting now? Show Princess Polly she’s not the only one who can take a city by storm?’

I glance instinctively back towards the party, as if I need to ask permission.

But there’s no-one to ask. Certainly not our Polly. She has always encouraged me to go for it. Rebel. Do what the hell I like. In any case, she’s not available for comment. Her eyes are closed behind her mask, her arms around Pierre’s neck and his mouth is locked down on hers, and they are kissing, hard, I can see their tongues, and their hands are roving, hers going under his tail coat and squeezing his buttocks, his wandering shamelessly between her legs, wrinkling up her red skirt, pushing it up her thighs, his hand and wrist diving in.

Polly’s knee lifts and hooks around her boyfriend’s leg to steady herself as his hand disappears, touching her where no-one else is allowed, assuming that no-one else can see.

But I can see, and so can my companion. I tear my eyes away from my cousin, because the sight of that naked love, or at least lust, is embarrassing to watch. She’s got what you haven’t got. But the jealousy is all grown up now. Emphasising what I’m missing. Who I’m missing.

I squeeze my bare legs together, trying to quell the hint of heat between them, and then I see all too obviously what the sight of my kissing cousin has done to the American. There is a big bulge under his toga. The white cotton is rising in a comical tent over his crotch.

‘How about it, Polly’s cousin? They’re all at it in there, or they will be.’

I blush hotter as he shifts closer along the seat. I move slightly away, but he’s reasonably gentlemanly, at least at first. He takes my hands and pulls me closer.

‘There’s a light in your eyes,’ he says quietly, his mouth close to mine now. ‘And I can see you’re distracted. Who are you thinking about?’

I don’t move or say anything. He’s right, I am distracted. I can’t help thinking about Gustav. I wish he was here, looking at me like a glittering treasure he found in the snow. I’m dying to show Polly, her friends, that I can click my fingers and get anyone. But this all feels like a silly game. My heart isn’t in it. I want to get out of here, back to him. Look into his eyes which will tell me clearly that they like what they see.

‘Well, if you’re not distracted, I sure as hell am. Look how I’m fixed now.’

The guy takes my silence for consent, and takes my hands. He places them over the rigid shape under the cotton and it jumps in response. He leaves my hands there and strokes my legs, fingers wandering, under my dress. They pause, politely, then move on up my thighs.

My hands are still resting on him. I’m letting him touch me. I should play along. I will myself to want it, enjoy it, but I can’t. I shake my head and close my legs against his exploring fingers, and thankfully he pulls away.

In the doorway I can see Pierre’s hand working under Polly’s skirts. She is half opening her legs to him, wanting us all to see, to know what he’s doing to her, but half trying to keep herself hidden for the sake of decency. Her dress has ridden right up and every time he pushes at her, the curve of her butt presses white and flat against the glass door.

What’s wrong with me? If I’m aching for something, attention, caresses, then let this guy have his way. No point pining after someone else. Gustav won’t be giving me another thought, while this guy is here, he’s hard, he’s willing and able. So get over it. Show Polly I’m sexy, too, and desired. This guy is up for it, but he’s not doing it for me. Just as Jake didn’t do it for me, in the end. Maybe if I wait, sit here very still, the ache will subside, or wake up into something more useful.

Or maybe there’s nothing in me to wake up. Maybe I’m sitting here on this seat with a good-looking, aroused bloke unable to react because I’m terminally frigid, as Jake shouted yesterday morning (was it as recent as that?); he shouted it after me, standing on the metal step, shivering in the damp dawn as I stumbled across the field, away from his caravan.

Frigid cow, he’d yelled, the new, insulting violence weighting his words to make him feel better. And to punish me for faking it, and then leaving him.

The American starts to sing under his breath. Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?

He strokes my face. No. It’s not him I’m looking for. But there’s no harm in letting him touch me like this, is there? It’s a party. He’s cute enough. Why not test myself? See if I am really frigid?

Are you somewhere feeling lonely? Or is lonely feeling you?

Still looking at Polly, certain that she can see me, I turn my mouth into his stroking hand, flip out my tongue and hook the guy’s finger into my mouth. Even though he’s still wearing those stupid glasses I can tell from the excited biting down of his teeth that I’ve suitably surprised him. I nibble further down the finger and start to suck.

His tongue flicks across his slightly open mouth. It’s such a quick flick that I can tell what he’s thinking. He reckons he’s reading my signals loud and clear.

And Polly has noticed, just as I wanted her to. She can see me up close to one of her cute friends. She nudges Pierre to show him, too, but he’s talking to someone else and he doesn’t turn to look. She puts her thumb up to me, shakes her dress down to cover her legs again, then Pierre’s arm comes round her waist and they merge into the crowd.

The music has faded to one plaintive violin, the lowest possible notes probing the emotions. The dancing has slowed.

The American sees that no-one is watching. He’s strong, and he pulls me over onto him, to sit right down on his lap. My lace dress floats up round my hips. The hardness grows and jumps under the toga and pokes at my inner thigh, jabbing on the bone, at the tendons up high, trying to impress me, weaken me so that it can get in.

‘I need help with this,’ he groans, lying back, complacent in the assumption that he’s got me where he wants me. ‘I’m sorry, honey, but you caused this boner.’

I look down at him. ‘No I didn’t. My cousin getting it on with Pierre did that to you.’

‘Well, you’ve kept it going. I’m in trouble if I don’t have a woman at least once a day. Polly promised that this would be the place and she’s right. Look at you. Sex on a stick, like all the horny English girls. You gotta help me out here. Just with your hand. Your mouth?’

I sit there for another moment, straddling his bare thighs, feeling the hardness pulsing against me under the stupid toga. What a drag that must be for a guy, being attached to that hardness all your life, no control over it, what or who is going to trigger it, or when. Pretty girl wandering round a party on her own in flimsy dress. Get hard. Picture in a magazine. Get hard. Sit on a beach. Listen to sexy music, that disco thump that matches your heart beat. Matches the bump and grind of lovemaking.

But what about me? I may as well be made of stone. My body isn’t reacting to him at all. I’m straddling a handsome guy with a thumping erection who will do anything to relieve himself and nothing’s happening in here. I’m closed up. Dry as dust.

I come to my senses. ‘No. No. I’m sorry. I’m not like that. I’ve got to go.’

I lift my leg and climb off him, tug my dress down, hear the rip of vintage lace, feel the dress slipping.

Frigid. You frigid cow.

‘Look, fair enough if you don’t want to go with someone you’ve just met. Choosy’s fine. But what about me? Help me out here. Girls like you shouldn’t be allowed out looking so goddamn hot!’

He sits up, slams a cushion down on his disobedient groin. I wince.

‘I don’t blame you for being pissed with me. But I’m not putting out. No.’

He sighs. ‘I can tell your head is somewhere else. Who’s the lucky guy?’

I fiddle with a loose thread on my dress. ‘Don’t be nice to me. I just acted like a tease.’

‘And I acted like a schmuck. But I still say you owe some responsibility for this situation.’ His smile spreads wider. Those amazing straight American teeth. He’s obviously relieved that we can talk. And talking like civilised people might just make his hardness subside. ‘Cousin Polly’s never mentioned you’d be here. She’s a great stylist, isn’t she? You know some of the studios are looking at her fashion work? She’s made you look like something Dracula would happily snack on. I’m not sure you realise.’

‘Well, I’m flattered, Elvis. Really.’ Emboldened by distance I point playfully at his crotch. ‘And flattered that I still have that effect on people. But I’m not the girl for you. Find one who’ll want to make use of all that.’

He lifts the pillow off it. The toga is flat, no life under there now. ‘Begone, wench. See if I care.’

I lean over him and kiss him on the mouth. There’s a shy stirring in me as our lips meet. A shy tugging in the places where he touched me. But it’s not him.

Look at me, Gustav.

I put my hands on the boy’s shoulders. Make nice with him. Love the one you’re with. His tongue flips out hopefully. I hesitate, and pull away. Relief that I’m not frigid, that I can react to a cute guy? Or relief that I’ve said no?

‘So long, toga boy.’

He lifts the wine bottle in weary farewell. I still haven’t seen his eyes, and now I never will. The clouds of the night sky drift across the twin mirrors of his glasses.

Polly is waiting for me just inside. She’s been watching me.

‘You turned Toga Tomas down? Unbelievable. He’s got the hots for you. What’s up, hon?’

I shrug. ‘I’m bushed, that’s all.’

‘We’ve got lots of other cute guys around if Tomas doesn’t do it for you.’

She winds one arm round my neck and holds me for a long moment. The crowd has dissipated. Pierre is nowhere to be seen. The music has stopped. Empty bottles and glasses and trays have been virtually kicked into a pile in the corner. One or two overhead lights have been switched on in place of the old lamps. Scraps of lace and feather and ribbon are shed on the parquet floor, shining dully like fish scales. Masks have been ripped off and draped jokingly on the mannequins in the shop.

In short, the spell has been broken.

‘We’re all going up into the piazza for a meal. You coming, hon?’

I shake my head. ‘Can we catch up tomorrow?’

‘We’re leaving first thing. Might not even get any sleep. Might get on the plane dressed like this! Oh, please come with us, Rena? You look a sensation like that. Even more dishevelled than you were before, if that’s possible, like Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Like someone’s just ravished you, although I know damn well they haven’t, you saucy minx!’

‘I told you, Polly, and tonight’s just proved it. I’m genuinely off men.’

‘OK, forget men. Forget sex. I just want to show you off to my friends! Who knows, someone might offer you a photographic commission. Tomas is big in the film industry.’

I hold her tight. Kiss her cheek. I smell Eternity, by Calvin Klein. Just like mine. ‘Baby steps, Pol. I’m not a player like you. Not yet, anyway. I want to see if I can make it here in London, first. Come back and check me out in a year’s time. Who knows? I might be ready to fly by then!’

‘I’ll be back sooner than that. OK. Piss off into the night like a little bat, then! Take Pierre’s car. It’s the incredibly expensive and luxurious red Bentley parked outside. His driver will make sure you get back to the flat safely. And keep the dress. My gift to you. You look magical this evening.’

‘That’s down to you, Pol. Tomas just mentioned what a great stylist you are.’

‘Tonight London, tomorrow the world!’ She gives me a little shake, then another huge hug. ‘But you know, you’re looking so good tonight. Kind of ragged, and feverish. If you really are off men, then celibacy suits you!’

I have left the blinds open in Polly’s flat and through the huge plate-glass window the River Thames glints like steel under the night as it slides under Tower Bridge. Fireworks are spattering somewhere over to the east where the Docklands railway will be trundling lethargically around the glittering skyscrapers.

I ease the dress off my shoulders, managing to get enough buttons undone until it sheds like a second skin. My reflection is overlaid by the river, but I can see my body unpeeled in the moonlight, the body hidden in its laddish layers from Gustav Levi. The body that Polly dressed up like her dolly, that Tomas tried half-heartedly to ravish. But neither of them got down to the skin, did they? They didn’t see the whole of me.

My breasts, released from the dress and the bra, are high and full. I cup them gently, so heavy and warm, hold them forwards, watch as soon as they make contact with the cold glass how the nipples pinch into dark red points, an answering tightness behind my navel, the bounce of my breasts as my heart expresses its interest.

Jake didn’t like my breasts. It was as if he was scared of them. He’d ogle other people’s tits, as he called them, or comment on pictures in magazines, but he never touched mine except to give them a brief squeeze and a token rub before we scrabbled out of our clothes and lay down on that narrow bed. I’d push them into his hands. I’d try to kneel up over him and push them at his mouth, but he’d give them a cursory fondle before pushing me onto my back and getting down to what he really wanted.

These buried untried responses are like roses that will shrivel if they are not pruned. A vine that will wither if it’s not plucked. Any poetic image you choose. I’m alone tonight, I can set it to music if I want.

When the nipples go hard like this they burn and prick, little beacons, bright cheerleaders waving their pom poms, no, that’s a daft simile, they are just a pair of super sensitive buds that set off the train of wanting, the heavy ache pulling down to my centre, travelling towards a really deep, dark desire which I know has never been truly awoken.

What are they all doing now? Polly and her friends, dancing in a hoola round Covent Garden or crossing the Strand and demanding breakfast in the River Room of the Savoy where she is staying with her rich boyfriend. Jake, strumming discordantly on his guitar, cigarette dangling out of his mouth like James Dean, glowering at the sea beneath his caravan.

Gustav – I can’t picture him. Maybe he’s still sitting up on that high stool, turning the stem of his refilled cocktail in his long fingers while the barman polishes the glasses and tries not to glance pointedly at the clock ticking away at his overtime.

I lie down on Polly’s queen-sized bed, just in my knickers, my hands resting on my breasts. In my cousin’s walk-in closet is a wardrobe full of cellophane-wrapped dresses and suits and blouses, all for me to borrow, she said. All swaying as if in a breeze, or as if someone has just brushed their hands along them.

One hand trails down my flat stomach and onwards, into my knickers. The images of the last two days stalk across my mind like the credits of a movie. Now there’s just me, naked and alone on this low white bed, resisting the warm tugging between my legs, teased into being by all that’s happened. Not by Tomas and his tumescent toga. Not by the desire biting in his mouth, the hardness lifting the white cotton.

I’m turned on by the thought of Gustav’s wrist when I pulled off his glove in the square. Gustav’s finger, hooking my hair behind my ear.

So my fingers trail down, and into my knickers, pull them aside and then right off, stroking and parting myself. I’m too lazy to find anything else to use on myself. I push in a little more, the warmth and wetness, withdrawing, pushing in harder, and what makes me flower brightly under my own probing fingers is no amount of music or poetry or lovely photographs.

I’m not frigid.

As dawn blossoms over my drowsy face, what makes the wetness spring and spark is the wondering of how Gustav Levi’s mouth would feel, kissing me right there.