Royals

by Emma Forrest

  They were short-staffed at her shop, so Jasmine was unavailable for a few days. When I couldn’t stand home any more, I asked if I could come meet her at work. She gave me the address.

  Outside Marble Arch Tube, evangelical Christians were calling through megaphones. ‘Sin!’ they shouted, like they were hawking it at a discounted summer rate. I wanted to make them an offer. Saudi men in neon shorts were trailed by women in black niqabs. Occasionally, they’d cross paths with a Hassidic man in his glossy curls and fur-covered U.F.O hat (as fabulous as anything Grace Jones would wear), while his wife bore the sadness of her lifeless wig and worn-down loafers. These couples were the purest interpretation of birds in the wild, the males strutting peacocks, the females muted. It bothered me. I wondered if, to balance, the men had grey, sad, underwear and the women’s lingerie was pastel fancies.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses stood silently beside their piles of Watchtower magazines. The religious groups were too close to each other, unconnected but touching tendrils. I wanted them separated, like a child with autism separating her peas from her mash from her chicken. Perhaps I was just envious that they had a belief system (the child with autism as much as the religious extremists).

  I passed a tatty souvenir shop and then another as I followed the numbers to Jasmine’s shop. A pigeon walked alongside me from the first shop to the second, like a decorous suitor.

  When I got to the third tourist shop, with its ‘My brother went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ T-shirts, toy double-decker buses, miniature replicas of Big Ben, Diana and Charles mugs – I went in to ask for help because, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find her store. There must be, I assumed, a Little Marble Arch or a Marble Arch Place. I’d written it down wrong. When I saw Jasmine behind the till, I assumed she was a mirage. But then she spoke. ‘Hi, darling!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m at work.’

  I tried to orient myself. When I thought I was looking at bad pun T-shirts, was I actually looking at the new Malcolm McLaren/Vivienne Westwood collection and not realising it? But then a German toddler ran over my foot with a motorised Margaret Thatcher, and the pain brought the room into focus.

  ‘This is the shop?’

  ‘Yes. I told you your clothes wouldn’t fit in here.’

  ‘And rightly so.’

  ‘And I told you I wasn’t a snob. You should have believed me.’

  Yes, I nodded, speechless, as she went to help a tourist. (I couldn’t describe them as customers. What was the custom? I’ve bought from souvenir shops since then, in other countries. But in your own country, the idea of in any way interacting with national-themed kitsch, be it as buyer or seller, was something I couldn’t wrap my head around.)

  The German mother of the toddler bought bobbleheads of the Queen and Queen Mother and then, as she handed her traveller’s cheque over the till, Jasmine persuaded her to buy bobbleheads of the Sex Pistols too, all four of them.

  ‘I think no, thank you. I think they frighten my son.’

  ‘But, my God, there’s no one more terrifying than the Queen Mother! No, darling, no! You want an authentic British souvenir? Only a Brit could be as turned on by Johnny Rotten as they are by an ancient castle or country garden. It’s our greatest strength. It would be the ultimate British purchase. Friends would say, “How was your trip?” and you’d just whip out the bobbleheads, and walk away whistling.’

  Then she mimed walking away, whistling as she circled the till, until she was back behind it.

  The mother looked dazzled, Jasmine selling her on the bobbleheads like a Selfridges shop girl can sell you on age-delay moisturiser.

  After they left, a Saudi man came in. Jasmine hissed under her breath, ‘Ugh, he comes in every day. It’s like he’s stockpiling kitsch for the apocalypse.’

  I ate a piece of chocolate-covered shortbread in the shape of Tom Baker. ‘There is a lot of End is Nigh around here.’

  As the mega-tourist approached her, she turned on a smile so convincing it made me suddenly fearful she might not genuinely like me.

  ‘Oh hello, again!’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve come for your number.’

  Her voice changed size and shape. ‘It’s on the front of the store. Where’s your wife? How did she like her Eurovision tea towels?’

  He repeated again, like a man with one of those End is Nigh sandwich boards: ‘I’ve come for your number.’

  ‘I’m nineteen years old.’

  ‘That’s not too old. I’ve come for your number.’

  He stared right into her eyes, which I could have told him was like looking directly into the sun.

  ‘I’m not going to give it to you, you dirty old man.’

  He blinked at her as if there had been a malfunction, as if this line usually worked. When she failed to re-boot, he said very quietly, ‘Western whore,’ and she laughed and said, ‘That’s my superhero name.’

  And this confused him, and he left before she could throw a Bucks Fizz Buck’s Fizz shaker at his head.

  ‘Creep,’ I sympathised, when he was gone, but I noticed her cheeks had turned bright red.

  ‘I had a Jordanian boyfriend at school, son of the ambassador. He went home to the Middle East right before our A levels. He had depression; his family thought he just needed more sun. I feel, if the Hashemites hadn’t lost control of Mecca to the House of Saud in 1924, he might not have been such a terribly sad boy. You carry these tragedies through generations.’

  Then she shrugged her shoulders and started to cleanse the shop with sage, waving it in all four corners. The kitsch combined with the smell was a potent and horrible place to be trapped.

  ‘His energy can’t have been that powerful.’

  ‘I do this every night before I close the shop.’

  As we walked, arm in arm to the Tube, I asked, ‘How did you get the job?’

  She held her hand to the railing as she walked down the steps of the station. It wasn’t like her to hold on.

  ‘It was after the last suicide attempt. Not the one where we met, but the one before that. The psychiatrist said it would be a good idea to take a menial job where I didn’t have time to let my brain lose itself in dark corners.’

  The Tube map was a tangle of jewelled spaghetti.

  ‘It didn’t completely work.’

  ‘There was a full year between attempts. It must have been doing something helpful. So I’ve kept it.’

  When we were in our seats, the Jubilee line making that Tardis sound as it was about to leave the station, I turned to her and said, ‘You know a lot about the history of Mecca. And classical Arabic music…’

  ‘That’s all from my dad.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should do something with all that knowledge? It seems crazy that you’re not in university.’

  ‘You know me. I don’t make things last.’

  I wondered if she wasn’t just worried about not being the brightest star there.

  ‘And I don’t want to be around all those Hoorays.’

  ‘Poor people make it to university, too. You wouldn’t know if you didn’t go.’

  She started to daydream.

  ‘Edinburgh or Glasgow would have been nice, I suppose. Beautiful architecture. Bath, ancient Roman history.’

  She felt strange about being led to consider an alternative way she could be passing her time, and I felt strange about having seen her behind that till. We didn’t stay together that night.

  My mother, fearing how the summer holidays drag out and knowing my father was on the rampage, had enrolled us in the local youth club. I tried to be stoical. Despite the name-calling I’d likely experience and the inevitable shunning by my brothers, at least I could pilfer art supplies. If I was lucky, there might be a sewing machine.

  It felt really weird to be around normal kids my age after my time with Jasmine. The high had been so high that, even though there was a sewing machine, this was truly a new low. I’d told myself ev
ery day of the term that this was my final year at school, that this daily torment would soon be over. But that nearby relief wasn’t soon enough now I was in youth club with the taste still on my tongue of what the world could be.

  The walls were dotted with pictures of local junior boxers who’d done well at the nationals. But it didn’t matter how well any of our local boxers did; in their thirties they all aged into coaching and fat. Once the physical exercise was over but the Walnut Whips remained, their bodies changed shape in a hostile takeover that haunted both the former boxer and the community. ‘Such a shame,’ the boys’ parents world whisper, while bringing them gifts of cakes to thank them for their coaching.

  I would sit out football matches like an Austen heroine yet to meet her true love. Thinking of footballers signing photos of themselves made me return to the notion I had in my head of signing my autograph, over and over, because young people – much lovelier young people than this – had waited in the rain to meet me. They had me sign the soles of the shoes I’d designed (I’d never designed a shoe in any of my drawings but I imagined it would be sensible to franchise).

  Some designers lose their name when they take a misstep. Diane von Furstenberg had lost hers so entirely that even my mum wore her wrap dresses that were no longer made by her. My dad had a Pierre Cardin pen that he took out for special occasions even though it was no less pedestrian than any other ballpoint. But it had someone’s name on it.

  Jews had always been the centre of the rag trade. They’d worked so many generations as tailors that there is a phenomenon called ‘tailor’s thumb’, a genetic quirk where the thumb is a set at an angle frozen from endless hours of sewing. I was sad I didn’t have it. But that was the closest I came to seeking ties with my community. I was not going to go to the girdle shop in Bethnal Green. Mum kept saying she bet she could set me up with them and we could put our heads together. I’d avoided this for as long as I could.

  After the football I’d skipped (not just because I was bad at it, but because there was a load of coloured crepe paper secreted in my shoe) I pushed my fork around my plate of repulsive food, trying to make sense of what it was meant to be in the first place before I unpeeled its odd corners and dough, its interior flakes of possibly fish. My efforts were interrupted by the arrival of two nasty boys from my class at school, whose names I knew well but one of whom my mind has since then blocked.

  ‘What you doing here, yid? This is a youth club and you’re an old man.’

  ‘Don’t sell him short. He’s not only a yid, he’s also a fag.’

  ‘You’re Jewish, too!’ I said to the second tormentor, an unfortunate boy named Allan Furst, destined always to come larst. ‘And you wear spectacles!’ I happen to think spectacles are very stylish, but I wasn’t telling him that. I could see they were surprised I was answering back at all. At school I turned on my heel or shrunk into the wall.

  ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘You know you can fight back less now we know what happened at the royal wedding?

  ‘What happened?’ I shot back.

  ‘I heard you were so overcome by the glory of her wedding dress that you fainted and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s it. That’s exactly what happened. I wish you hadn’t found out. I’m really embarrassed now.’

  This confused them, more, my copping to the lie and beyond that, confessing an emotional reaction. I wiggled my toes over the secret crepe paper, as if it were one of Jasmine’s moon-charged crystals giving me powers. They were so used to me whimpering, ‘You won’t make me cry,’ while I held back any sign of tears.

  Then things started to make less sense – to me and my tormentors. To my very great delight and horror, I saw, entering the dining room, Jasmine herself. It made no sense whatsoever and I assumed her to be a mirage induced by the fumes emanating from the dessert that had just been brought out, paper plates of spotted dick. But then she sat down next to me on the bench. She had on her full pile of make-up, with the bat wings that made her whole face take flight.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ Allan Furst asked.

  ‘I’m just a girl enrolled for the summer in your youth club.’

  ‘No she’s not. I’d remember her!’

  He was talking to me, refusing to address her directly. That’s when I saw her power in action on a kid other than myself. He didn’t want to make eye contact.

  ‘Hard to forget that make-up!’ he said to his nameless friend.

  ‘Or that arse!’ answered no-name.

  ‘No, I don’t like being talked to like that,’ said Jasmine, sitting up straight.

  ‘Lucky I wasn’t talking to you!’ But Allan Furst couldn’t help himself. ‘Who are you?’ He was still looking at me when he asked.

  ‘I’m an avenging angel. But I’m his.’ She pointed at me. ‘I belong to him. So budge up.’

  ‘Oh la-di-da, are we?’ scoffed no-name.

  ‘Oh yes, very much, I am quite la-di-da. Will that be all?’

  They were so confused that they left us alone and retired to their own table to commence strangulated whispers.

  ‘Oh my God, Jasmine. Why are you here?’

  ‘I suppose you scored the winning goal in soccer?’

  I felt like every single eye in the room was on us, and others that had yet even to start attending the club.

  ‘There’s some decent art supplies in the cupboard.’

  ‘I know,’ I answered. ‘That’s the only decent thing about this place.’ If I told her straight, would she leave? Did I want her to leave?

  ‘Oh, excellent!’

  Allan Furst came back to try again.

  ‘You’re not from our school. What school are you from?’

  She didn’t even look up. ‘Darling, I’d forgive you barging in, but it’s very rude to talk with your mouth full. Chew like a bunny. Here, look.’

  And she mimed how a rabbit would chew, circling her mouth like a hula dancer.

  ‘Oh, your mum taught you manners?’

  ‘Darling, she did, but she’s dead now.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Quite dead. Manners are her greatest legacy to me.’

  ‘Your stupid make-up? Is that good manners?’

  ‘You can’t ask me to explain to you. It’s like trying to explain what it is to be a member of a society. Do you want to be part of one?’

  He looked scared. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Then turn back to your luncheon. Spit-spot!’

  ‘Did you just say “spit-spot”?’

  She squeezed my hand. ‘Is he still talking?’

  I nodded. The clock on the wall moved its arm as incrementally as water in a lake. I knew it must be happening, but it was not visible to the naked eye.

  I poked at my spotted dick. She took a big bite. I almost gagged, watching her.

  ‘How can you? Shouldn’t we be eating, like, macaroons in sorbet colours?’

  ‘It’s macarons. And one can’t eat only macarons. One can’t have tasted the absolute best of everything by the age of nineteen. What would there be to live for?’

  She allowed herself a small smile and I knew she had wandered, accidentally, into talking about herself. She took a big breath and tried to summon her good cheer. I could tell when she was doing it. Her eyes appeared to darken, from pale blue to Indian ink. That’s why I use so much of that colour in my patterns. To remind myself how hard she tried, really, really did try to be well and happy.

  She took in the faded pictures of the faded junior boxers. ‘Oh, it’s all so deliciously degraded here! I love it!’

  Terry, the youth supervisor, came out of the kitchen and towards us. I could see him clocking her, first that he didn’t know her, then that she had terrible make-up, and finally, that she was very beautiful. He tucked that thought away like it was a shirt tail hanging out. His shirt tail was hanging out.

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’

&
nbsp; ‘Ms, if you please. It’s been in common usage since 1968 but was used by the New York Times in an article only recently. They are the paper of record. If it’s good enough for them, it should be good enough for us…’ She looked around the room, ‘… here.’

  Terry, who was in his late twenties, looked around as if taking in for the first time ever just how shit our club was. The scales thus fallen from his eyes, he excused himself. He actually said, ‘Excuse me,’ and she said, ‘It was a pleasure,’ and she didn’t laugh when he left, but made a sad face and said, ‘What a tormented soul. He rather reminds me of Kenneth Williams.’

  I don’t think I knew to feel sorry for the people I perceived as my tormentors until I met Jasmine. You gain so much power when you start to feel sorrier for them than you do for yourself. I felt completely differently about my dad after Jasmine. I could barely look at him any more, but it wasn’t from fear now, it was from embarrassment. It felt horrible to see how much ugliness he lived inside. That doesn’t mean I forgave him or ever will. There are a few people in life – just a few – whom one ought never to forgive. If it’s not hurting you to hold on to your resentment, you can let it be the corners of your moral compass. North, south, east and west. Save yourself four people you don’t forgive (you don’t have to know them all. I never forgave Thatcher, even when she was dying of dementia).

  ‘Remember the food that we had in the hospital?’

  ‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘I don’t want them to know how we met.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because it makes both of us look pathetic.’

  ‘Well, speak for yourself.’ Now her voice got louder. ‘Suicide has been the choice of many great thinkers and artists, from Ernest Hemingway to Diane Arbus.’

  ‘It’s been the choice of a lot of nutters, too.’

  She stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry. Jasmine, I’m sorry. Don’t leave me here.’

  But she was smiling. ‘Come with me.’

  I looked at the clock, knowing, by the fact I was eating lunch, that it was only lunch time. ‘The day’s not done here yet. My mother pre-paid.’

  ‘I’ve seen all I need to see here. I get it, and so do you. Come along, we need to cleanse our minds, perform some mental hygiene. Ooh, we could just make it into the West End in time to catch a matinee.’