Sweet Sorrow(71)

‘Stop talking!’ said Helen.

‘I have to—’

‘Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking!’

‘Come,’ said Alex, ‘we burn daylight.’

‘We will see you there,’ said Fran. ‘You did promise. Remember?’

And now Alex was steering me back towards the others, his hands on my shoulders, his mouth to my ear.

‘Oh, Charlie. Can’t you see what this is? Go! Go quickly, say goodnight, before they start another song.’





The Pines


The house was on The Avenue, or Millionaires’ Row as it was known, at a time when that still meant something. A coniferous Beverly Hills, captains of industry lived here, presenters of local news programmes, respectable gangsters, a handful of actors who’d made good in seventies detective shows. Door numbers were too déclassé for The Avenue. Instead, the houses had fanciful, faux-rural names with a whiff of the National Trust: Marble House, Stone Cottage, The Mount, The Hollies. My scrap of paper told me to look for The Pines, and for some time I swooped from side to side on the wide, silent street, peering at the gateposts of mansions hidden behind high privet hedges, until I found a great, impenetrable slab of artfully rusted steel, like the airlock of a space freighter.

Time passed, twenty minutes, half an hour, creeping towards midnight, as I loitered like a burglar casing the joint. The police paid special attention to Millionaires’ Row. In my wallet, stolen scratch cards and cash from the till. What if I cracked under interrogation? I sat on the kerb, listened to the click-click-click of automatic sprinklers, watched the bats tumble against the purple sky, a fox trot blithely down the centre of the avenue as if looking for the party. The minute hand clicked over to twelve and, sober now, I began to wheel my bike away.

A mini-cab approached, Alex’s head already protruding from the window. ‘Noooo! Stay right where you are!’ They pulled over and tumbled out onto the wide grass verge, transformed; first Alex in a grey satin shirt open to the sternum, Helen dressed in the day’s dungarees but with her hair gelled into random stalagmites, two thick black lines drawn under her eyes with what might have been a fat felt-tip, more war-paint than make-up, and finally Fran in a black shift dress, a nightdress almost, lace-trimmed at the top and bottom, the same Adidas trainers below.

‘We stopped at mine to change,’ said Alex, paying the driver. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

Fran tugged at the hem. ‘What d’you think?’

‘It’s lovely,’ I said.

‘Doesn’t she look amazing?’ said Alex. ‘It’s my mother’s negligee. Paging Doctor Freud!’

‘I feel a bit underdressed, Alex,’ said Fran.

‘Nonsense. It’s underwear as outerwear.’

‘I’m wearing outerwear as underwear,’ said Helen.

‘I’m not sure if I should have this on,’ said Fran and touched the red bra-strap on her shoulder.

‘No, you shouldn’t. Take it off!’ said Alex. ‘You’re with friends.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Later then. The night is young.’

‘This feels weird too …’ She touched her lips, the lipstick butterfly-shaped, overlapping the edges as if applied with the edge of a thumb. ‘What do you think? Alex did it.’

‘Great,’ was all I could say.

‘It feels a little … mime-y.’

‘It’s meant to be like that,’ said Alex. ‘It’s Kabuki-style. This is a serious do, people, not the last-night party for Bugsy Malone. You’ve got to make an effort. And with that in mind …’ From a Tesco bag, he produced a neat white rectangle, holding it flat like a tray then, with a conjurer’s flourish, taking one corner and flicking it into a shirt. ‘For you.’

‘I can’t wear this.’

‘Charlie, you look like the paper boy. They won’t have you in there like that. Put this on.’

‘Here?’

‘You can go behind a car if you’re bashful.’

I took the shirt by my fingertips, walked a little distance and turned my back. It was a struggle to flex every muscle and take off the T-shirt simultaneously and I realised, as it passed over my head, that this morning’s underarm Aztec had long lost its power. I rubbed at my grimy neck and under my arms with my old T-shirt. It seemed almost sacrilegious to climb into this pristine thing, which smelt of the airing cupboard and felt expensive and heavy and cool against my skin. The white shirts I’d worn at school were scouring, non-iron polyester things that came in packs of three. This label said Dior. I went to tuck it in— ‘No, leave it like that,’ said Helen. ‘Let’s look at you.’ I turned, rolled my shoulders, tried to tuck my hands into air.

‘It will have to do,’ said Alex. ‘Are we ready?’ He beckoned us over to stand beneath the security camera. ‘Band photo! Smile. Say “Eighteen”!’ We arranged ourselves, assumed our most mature faces and Alex pressed the intercom button. ‘Hello, Bruno! It’s Alex. I’ve brought some friends. Is that all right?’ Time passed but we held our pose until finally, with a low industrial rumble, the great airlock began to slide open.

At the end of a long woodchip drive lit by burning flares the house emerged from the ground, low and long, smoked glass and gunmetal like an expensive coffee table, and immediately I recognised this as the drug lord’s house from the old action movies. Somewhere, guarding the perimeter, there’d be a security guard in sunglasses, pressing his finger to his ear, reaching into his jacket just as he’s pulled into the privet and garrotted.