by Fiona Mozley
“Budapest or Bucharest?”
Precious does not respond. She has sat back down on the sofa and is swirling the dark steaming coffee in her mug, waiting for it to cool.
“It turns out Marcus knows all about what I do for a living,” Precious says.
Tabitha nods. “I thought he probably did, love. He’s not daft. Ashley too?”
Precious shrugs. “I didn’t ask about that. I assume so. To be honest, that would explain why he hasn’t been answering my calls recently. Marcus was okay with it though.”
Tabitha comes to sit next to Precious. The sofa springs squeak as she settles herself. “Marcus has got that nice girlfriend. She probably set him right on it. Ashley is a bit younger, more hot-headed. He’ll care more about what his friends might think, but he’ll come round.”
“Do your family know?”
“What family?”
Precious nods.
“They weren’t my family long before I went on the game though,” says Tabitha. “It’s different with you. You’ve had a different life.”
Precious takes Tabitha’s hand. “If I’m going to stand, I’m not sure there’ll be any time for either Budapest or Bucharest. It’ll be campaigning round the clock from the sound of it. That all right by you?”
“That’s all right by me.”
Birds of Paradise
Filming is behind schedule. Tempers flare. Systems of accountability and delegation break down. Budgets are stretched. The set is a mass of cables and switches and lights and cameras and actions and glass and metal and plastic and rubber and silicone chips and electrical pulses and duct tape and health and safety notices and Perspex and full technicolor and folding chairs and building facades with no backs and boxes with no contents and books with no words and fine powder the shade of any conceivable skin tone and powder of every other shade that shimmers and sparkles and is painted onto ladies’ eyelids so their faces flash like birds of paradise. There are blunt swords and hollow war hammers and dogs and horses, and digital devices that pretend to be analogue and electronic devices that pretend to be mechanical, and blue and green screens and sensor dots all over people’s faces and hands and ice buckets of champagne and healthy options in the canteen and a gym for keeping fit and an on-set masseuse and a ban on mobile phones, and gossiping in the hallways and—for other people—lots of admin, and—for Lorenzo—lots of self-enforced networking, lots of making the most of things, lots of giving it everything, and then sometimes lots of hiding in dressing rooms, lots of slipping away to the local village for a solitary pint, lots of reminding himself of why he wanted this in the first place, lots of smiling and nodding and “Yes please” and “Fine, thank you” and false laughter he hopes sounds real.
Lorenzo isn’t due on set until 2 p.m. and is sitting in a little rented cottage on the edge of a small village called Coomby, which is somewhere in Yorkshire. The studios are at the other end of the village, housed within a series of converted aircraft hangars on an old RAF base. There’s a scrubbed wooden table and a wood-burning stove. He feels like he’s on holiday, only his days are filled with sitting about in a converted aircraft hangar with no natural light.
Lorenzo spends the morning flicking through yesterday’s Financial Times, which he picked up from the green room the day before after the other broadsheets had been taken. He scans the paper, its pink pages blushing with wealth. It is possible to buy shares in Manchester United. What an odd thought.
The hanging around isn’t all bad. Lorenzo has made friends with some of the other actors. Clive and Andy have small parts as the guards of the brothel which Lorenzo’s character is meant to run. There is Jenina, with whom he also shares scenes. She’s playing an old prostitute who is now more of an administrator. He’s also friendly with the women who play the many and various whores, but most of them keep themselves to themselves. They stand naked in the background of scenes, lounging around or pretending to perform sex acts. They have facilities in a different part of the building and are only brought into the filming area at the last minute and are taken away again at the end.
There is also Eddie Kettering. Eddie Kettering is a star. He has a leading role. He is a hero, a love interest, a talent, a body, a face, a sensation, a phenomenon. Lorenzo has a couple of scenes with him. Yesterday they had lunch together in the canteen.
“Big day tomorrow,” said Eddie as he slid into the seat opposite Lorenzo with his lunch on a tray.
Lorenzo nodded.
“You ever done any sex scenes before?” Eddie asked. He spoke with an affected East London accent, though Lorenzo and everyone else knows he went to Harrow.
“Not like this one. When I played Othello, there was a sort of sex scene with Desdemona, but it was—you know—more abstract, kind of behind some net curtain things. And then those net curtains were used as her handkerchief later on when Othello finds the handkerchief.”
“Oh right,” said Eddie. “Hot.”
Lorenzo laughed blankly. “Yeah,” he said.
“They’re okay,” said Eddie. “Sex scenes, I mean. I’ve done a few. It depends on how fit the girl is, and not for the reasons you might think. I mean, first off, there’s nothing sexy at all about doing a sex scene, and actually you probably want to be doing one with someone on the less hot side in case of accidental boners. But also, if you’re doing one with a super-hot girl, it’ll go on for ages. All of the techies and producers come along and find ways to make it last for as long as possible so they can get a proper look.”
Eddie acted as though he was telling a joke, so Lorenzo responded with a laugh.
“Fuck only knows what today will be like. I’ve never done an orgy before. Not on film anyway.” Eddie didn’t actually wink but the look he gave Lorenzo had a similar meaning. “It’s not with any big-name girls though,” Eddie continued. “Just with a bunch of extras. I bet the crew will still want to make it last though. You’re just watching on, aren’t you? Your character, I mean.”
“Um yeah, I think that’s the idea.”
“Love it. What a pervert!” Eddie chuckled to himself. Later in the conversation, however, he did say something of interest to Lorenzo. “Hey, I had a chat with my agent this morning. The showrunners are already thinking of commissioning another season. You should get your agent onto that early. I see your character being a real fan favorite. You should have a lot of bargaining power next time around.”
“That’ll be good, I guess.”
Lorenzo folds away the newspaper and goes to pour himself another coffee. He hasn’t eaten any breakfast. He’s trying to lose weight, contrary to the instructions of the show’s producer, as it was potentially affecting the continuity and also they wanted Lorenzo’s character to be “a bit chubs.”
Lorenzo goes into the shower and has a wank and a wash then dries and dresses and goes out to the pub in the village. He’s meeting Eddie there so they can walk over to the studios together.
It’s a short walk. The ground is firm from a week of frosts. He passes a freshly painted postbox and sees that it’s embossed with the GR of one of the Georges but he doesn’t know which. He likes noticing that kind of thing. There’s a wide, open village green and a couple of people have dogs off lead. Lorenzo is a little afraid of dogs and one’s a ferocious looking husky, only larger. He crosses the green but gives the dogs a wide berth. The pub is called the Queen’s Cushion. A climbing rose covers half the front wall, at this time of year all thorns and dead wood and lofty aspirations and biding its time. The pub has a large porch with a pointed roof and slate floor, and a place for putting muddy wellies. There is no stereo, but a fire crackles a primitive tune.
Lorenzo orders a pint of Black Sheep and pays close attention as the brown liquid splashes to the bottom of the tall glass and collects into a froth. When he was in London he drank lager for speed and ease, but on a day like this and in a pub like this it’s only right to have something bolder. The barmaid places the bitter on the counter and takes Lorenzo’s coins. The
liquid settles slowly and Lorenzo takes his first sip while still at the bar.
“You up here on holiday?” she asks him.
“Actually, I’m here for work.”
“Only I’ve seen you a few times now and I thought it was getting to be a long holiday.” She chuckles to herself, though Lorenzo didn’t realize she was making a joke.
“Ah, no, I’ll be here for a little while yet. I’m in a cottage up the hill.”
“Oh, aye,” she says.
She doesn’t ask him about his work. He’s been led to believe people in the North are extremely friendly but so far he hasn’t found that to be the case. It’s not that they’re cold. They just say what’s needed to be said and leave it at that.
Lorenzo leaves the bar and goes to sit by the fire. He looks around at the pictures on the walls. They are, for the most part, drawings, watercolors, and prints of hunting scenes. Fox hunting, game-bird shooting. There’s a corkboard with notices pinned to it advertising a local yoga class, an amateur production of Ibsen’s Public Enemy, and an anti-fracking campaign group, also called “Public Enemy.” Another notice advertises a new fitness scheme in which people from cities come out to the countryside in the evenings and weekends and work on farms instead of going to the gym. They can shift bales of hay or do scything or heavy lifting, and they pay the farmer rather than the other way around. There’s an app for it. Lorenzo takes a photo and sends it to Glenda. She’ll see the absurdity. He’s missed her these last couple of months. He wonders what she’ll think about the show when she sees it. She was so eager for him to go for the audition and then afterwards, for him to take the part, but she hadn’t read the script. She didn’t know about the kinds of things he was required to act out. A couple of days ago he had to film a scene in which his character held down a prostitute, someone who was new to the brothel, while she was raped by two men. The character, although she had no lines, was meant to be fourteen, but for legal reasons was played by a young-looking eighteen-year-old. While filming, the director kept instructing Lorenzo to hold the girl’s wrists tighter, tighter. “We have to believe that she can’t get away. You’re holding her so loosely she could easily escape.” Lorenzo had queried the direction on the grounds that he didn’t want to hurt the girl. “Oh god, I’m fine,” she said, happily. “Go for it.”
A couple of weeks ago, Lorenzo attended a preliminary press conference about the show. There was already a lot of hype surrounding it and some early trailers. At the press conference one of the show’s creators was asked about the violence: the graphic portrayals of violence, physical and sexual. The journalist asking the question then added an explanatory comment which contained the phrase “the current climate.” The show’s creator, who was called Nick and had been the silent man at Lorenzo’s audition, responded that he saw the project as “fundamentally feminist.” When asked what he meant by that, he responded with the assertion that if we accept sexual violence is an epidemic within society, that it happens everywhere all the time, then we have a duty as artists and writers to show it in all its horror, and that if artists and writers don’t show it in all its horror then they were doing a disservice to the victims of sexual violence, and in fact if they “cut away” the implication was that there was something shameful about being the victim of violence. In other words, we have a duty to bear witness.
Lorenzo was sitting at the end of the long table. The famous actors and producers were towards the middle. As Nick said these things Lorenzo turned in his seat and paid close attention to his facial expressions and body language. He was pleased with himself, there was no doubt about that. Lorenzo thought it unlikely that Nick was motivated to create this TV show out of a desire to address sexual violence in society.
The content of the TV show was making Lorenzo confront all sorts of things about himself he hadn’t thought about in years.
Lorenzo had a girlfriend at school. He was handsome and popular and he had a vulnerability about him that drew girls closer to him. He had lots of offers. The girl who became his girlfriend was one of his best friends. Her name was Anabel, and soon after her sixteenth birthday, when they were both in Year 11, she told Lorenzo that she was in love with him. She watched a lot of BBC adaptations of Jane Austen novels so, although they were young, she declared her feelings in overblown terms. The proposition had not occurred to Lorenzo at the time but it was a natural enough progression. They already spent much of their time together. People around them were getting boyfriends and girlfriends and, although Lorenzo never spent much time thinking about girls, when Anabel made the suggestion, he realized that if he were to have a girlfriend, as he probably should at some point, he would want it to be someone like Anabel. At first, very little changed. But soon, when he went round to her house after school, instead of watching TV or getting on with homework, they sat on the couch kissing.
Lorenzo has always enjoyed kissing and regrets its relegation in adult life to foreplay. He and Anabel began their relationship with nothing but kissing, and hours were spent rolling around with each other.
Lorenzo generally got an erection during these episodes and after a while Anabel began to reach down and hold his penis, first over his clothes and then beneath them. He followed her lead and reached down and touched her between her legs, where it was hot and wet. He found coarse hair and neat folds of soft skin. He most enjoyed the feel of her breasts. She had truly wonderful breasts, even then, and certainly now. Lorenzo and Anabel are still friends. He fondled her breasts with both hands and gently squeezed her nipples, which made her moan and sigh. He remembers liking this.
After they had been boyfriend and girlfriend officially for six months, and celebrated a six-month “anniversary” with a trip to the local Odeon, Anabel mentioned to Lorenzo that her parents were away for the weekend and would he like to stay over? He said that he would, knowing what was implied and expected.
They began in the usual way. Music from the hi-fi cut through the silence and dulled any embarrassing sounds. Anabel suggested they investigate a rack of wine bottles her parents kept in the cupboard beneath the stairs. They chose a bottle of red at random, though Lorenzo pretended to recognize the label. They drank several glasses each and danced before starting to kiss. They took off each other’s clothes and stood fully naked before one another for the first time. Anabel looked different fully naked. Lorenzo had seen naked sections, but never all of it together. Instead of being a series of female body parts, she was a whole creature. This changed everything, though he could not say why. He realized it must be the same with him. He was no longer the parts of his body she has touched while kissing him; those parts which were male. He was all of the other parts as well.
He felt suddenly shy: all stomach and lungs and bladder. As he lost his nerve, she became determined. He could not tell if she was moved by sexual desire or by a desire to get the job done. It seemed to him it was the latter. He knew her well and this was her homework face. She pulled him towards the bed and then pulled him on top of her. In their kissing she always made the first move but this time she lay back, still in charge, but somehow instructing him with her posture to take the lead. He was the man, he realized. He knew men were supposed to take the active role, but he felt weak and small and childish. He managed to get on top of his old friend and put his dick where he was supposed to put it. He pushed and was met with more resistance than he expected. Anabel’s face still expressed determination, but beneath the determination Lorenzo saw fear and pain. He pushed again and she actually cried out, but not in pleasure. He wanted to ask her if he was hurting her or if she would like him to stop but he knew that if he did those things he would really lose his nerve and his dick would go all limp along with the rest of his body.
He reminded himself that sex was supposed to be the best thing in the world. There were tears in Anabel’s eyes. He reminded himself that this was what Anabel wanted. He pushed again. Something inside her snapped. He found himself further inside her than he expected, which is str
ange because he had assumed he had been fully in previously. He was so shocked he pulled out, and she screamed again but said through tears and a clenched jaw, “No, no, keep going, I like it.”
Lorenzo didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. There was blood on the sheets. He had heard some kind of vague rumor about blood, though he had not anticipated quite as much. He looked down and saw blood on the condom hanging from his now-limp dick. He pulled it off in horror and threw it onto the bed. He felt certain what he had done was illegal. His friend was bleeding and crying and it was his fault. He had just assaulted her, surely. If that was not assault, then what was? Lorenzo made his excuses and rushed to the bathroom, shaking. He was desperate not to cause offense and was terrified that his response would have done so. Teenage girls always thought everything was their fault.
When Anabel came to find him she was dressed. She brought his clothes too, folded neatly. He had showered in her bathroom and wrapped himself in a fresh towel. He changed back into his clothes. They went downstairs to drink orange squash. Anabel ended up comforting Lorenzo rather than the other way around, which seemed absurd to Lorenzo even at the time.
There was no need to break up with her. When they returned to school on Monday it was clear that their relationship was over. A couple of months afterwards Anabel started going out with a boy from a different school whom she met at an orchestra club. Lorenzo was fairly sure they started having full sex almost immediately. He and Anabel remained friends but did not speak of the encounter again, although it crystallized Lorenzo’s own understanding of desire. He found Anabel and many other women physically appealing. He still does. He likes the way they look and feel, but desire is not about whether a body is drawn in curved or straight lines, but about the exchange of power. With Anabel he was expected to subjugate. This seemed to be what she wanted or thought she wanted, or a mode into which they both couldn’t help but slip.
