by Jaq Hazell
I didn’t want to say. I was sceptical and felt we’d be giving too much away. But Jason had no such qualms. “Jenny Fordham,” he said. “She recently passed away.”
Andrea nodded solemnly and indicated for us to take a seat, while she took up her place at the front. The lights were dimmed and she raised her hands, closed her eyes and started to sway. Here we go – hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo. I stole looks at the other people trying to determine how seriously they were taking it.
“Alfred,” she said. “Alfred is coming through. He wants to tell Joanie everything’s just fine. She mustn’t worry. It will all be all right.” A frail lady to my right clasped her hands together.
“Ricky is with us.” Her swaying slowed. “It’s time to make a fresh start. Stop living in the past.”
I looked around. Does this mean anything to anyone? A middle-aged man at the back was listening intently. Is he Ricky’s brother or perhaps his dad?
“Ricky wants you to move on.”
The man nodded.
Andrea’s swaying became jittery. “This isn’t too clear. There’s a lot of interference. All right, sweetie, I hear you. She’s new to this. It’s Jenny.”
How convenient.
“It’s a little broken up. It’s kinda faint. I gotta real concentrate here. I got it – a white man in a white van – is that right? It’s a vehicle anyhow.” Andrea gave a start. “She’s on her way. Don’t you worry, she’s gonna be just fine in the summerlands...”
There were more banal messages as ambiguous as any daily horoscope and then everyone was done. Everyone had a message. One hundred per cent satisfaction guaranteed, and Andrea came round with a velvet collection net. “It takes a lot out of me, you know.” She shook the collection net. “Most people give ten pounds.”
“We’re students,” I said.
“In that case, half will do. It’s a mighty expensive property to maintain.”
Move somewhere smaller, I thought. “Can you tell me what it means that she’s in the summerlands?” I asked, as I searched my bag for change.
“Summerlands is our name for heaven, for want of a better explanation.”
“So, she’s okay?” Jason asked.
“Sure.” Andrea squeezed Jason’s shoulder and moved on with her collection.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Upkeep for her house, yeah right, the money probably buys all that old junk she’s got stacked everywhere.”
“Shut up, Mia. Why do you have to be so negative all the time? We’ve got a lead, at last – it’s more than the police have managed.”
“A white man in a white van – do you know how many bloody white van drivers there are out there? Look.” I pointed across the road. “There’s one over there for a start. I’m going to count them on the way back.”
Jason frowned. “Maybe that’s why the murdering cunt chose a white van – he won’t want to get caught, so what better than use a white van? Think about it. What about that bloke who killed that little girl Sarah Payne – didn’t he drive a white van?”
“Look, there’s one and another. What are you going to do, Jase? Are you going to tell the police?”
“No, I’m not – you are.”
“What? Hold on a minute, look, there’s another one,” I said. “And another – there’s two more. The police will think I’m nuts.”
“Remember those two girls murdered in Soham, Holly and Jessica?”
“Yeah.”
“Their parents went to a medium before their bodies were found. He told them the girls were dead and it was a young guy in a red car. Ian Huntley had a red car. If the police take the piss, you tell them that.” Jason drew up outside my house.
“Eight, Jason.” I looked across at him.
“Eight what?”
“I counted eight white vans during a five-minute car journey.”
Twenty-six
Exterior, Nottingham station. An old lady in a see-through plastic rain hat counts out her change with her purse wide open.
“You need to be careful, my dear, or you’ll lose that.” It’s Flood’s voice.
People walk in front of the camera – occasionally they apologise.
“Where are you?” It’s Flood’s voice in the background, the camerawork shaky as he talks on his mobile. “I told you 4.30.” He walks away from the station. The sky is grey and overcast. He crosses at the lights and walks through the shopping centre and back out the other side to a cobbled thoroughfare.
A short, dark-haired man smiles and raises his hand as if to stop Flood in his tracks. “Free stress test?” he says. Behind him there is a table with books and leaflets.
“Out of my face,” Flood says. “Scientology bollocks.”
He films the shop signs, and then directs his camera at a clinically obese woman and her matching daughter. As they shuffle past the woman narrows her eyes and says, “What you looking at?”
Flood points towards the short man. “Free stress test.”
Film cuts to: Maid Marion Inn, the cheap hotel room with the tartan-covered bed. Flood is sitting on it, rocking to and fro. He hugs himself. He seems cold, possibly unwell. He takes a call.
“About time,” he says.
Cut to: Maciek’s cab.
“Where you want to go, Jack?”
“The usual – start in Forest Fields.”
“OK, we go...”
The cab moves off at speed. Flood films out the window, taking a particular interest in a group of teenage girls.
“Did you see that? Hair like cooked spaghetti.”
“You need to find girl and settle down,” Maciek says.
Flood films the back of Maciek’s sandy head and his thick powerful bulldog neck. “Have I ever asked for your advice?” he says.
“No, you have not.”
“We’ll leave it at that, shall we? Turn left here, then next right.” Flood makes a wincing noise.
Maciek checks Flood in his rear-view mirror. “You have problem?”
“It’s nothing. Keep driving – left at the lights...”
Interior, Flood’s studio: he is in his calico-covered chair, the TV on. There is rubbish strewn everywhere. The walls have been rubbed with surplus paint.
“Police say they are increasingly concerned about a young Nottingham woman who has been missing for several days. Connie Vickers was last seen on Thursday evening at about 6.40pm on Forest Road East in the Forest Fields area of the city. Connie had been known to work as a prostitute but it is out of character for her not to return home to her mother and two young children. Police say it is too early to say whether her disappearance is linked to three other recent murders in the Nottingham area.”
Flood curls his lip. “Another crack-whore out on the rob.” He struggles to lean over to pick up a pen and a used envelope. He writes the name ‘Connie Vickers’ in florid handwriting and goes to his computer in the corner of the studio. There is a pile of paper at his feet. “So much to do...”
The doorbell goes. It’s a young woman with auburn spiky hair, dressed in jeans and a navy hoodie.
“Work around me, Anna.”
A new cleaner – what happened to the last one?
“You want that I move things and put back?”
“Do what you like.”
The young woman changes into a pair of vinyl slippers and tidies everywhere else before finally approaching Flood at his desk.
“It okay I mop under you?”
“Sure – it okay I film you?”
She shrugs and he aims his camera in her direction.
“Why you do that?”
“Don’t you want to be in the movies?” Her face reddens as Flood focuses in for a headshot.
Flood lounges back in his calico-covered chair, his legs across the arm. He’s pale, wasted and unshaven – his dark hair unkempt and in need of a cut. He looks like he hasn’t eaten for days.
“‘Men act, women appear’ John Berger, Ways of Seeing,” Flood says. “Watching you, watchin
g me, watching you... It’s hard to convey just how important a piece this is proving to be...”
He gets up and paces the room. “It’s about adding layers. You start with an idea and it develops, or it doesn’t and that’s the difference. What I’ve got here is something new – I’ve pushed the boundaries.”
Flood pauses, lights his pipe and talks straight to camera. “I’ve completed Aftermath. It’s sold already, but I want feedback, and to put it on show.” He takes another toke on his pipe. “More than anything, I want her reaction.”
Twenty-seven
Martin Power, the artist who sculpts in light and soundscapes, was scheduled to give a lecture at college. We were all expected to attend, so I traipsed down to the lecture hall after lunch and found a place, halfway up the tiered seating, next to Kelly.
Mike Cherry, in a floral shirt, took centre stage. “There’s been a last-minute amendment,” he said. “I’m afraid Martin Power has had to postpone due to unforeseen circumstances but he has very kindly organised a more than worthy stand-in.
“I’d like to introduce a quite remarkable artist, someone who has already made big waves in the art world and continues to make exemplary and fascinating pieces. This artist has already shown here at Future Factory. I know you’ll remember his recent show, Now That You’ve Gone Were You Ever There? Please join me in welcoming Jack Flood...”
Oh my God, no. Don’t clap. My heart pounded. I wanted out, but I was trapped in the middle of the row, halfway up. I’d have to squeeze past everyone and go down the side steps in full view of Flood. I sank down in my seat.
“Are you okay?” Kelly whispered, as he came on stage, wearing a suit jacket over jeans and a fine-knit jersey. “What a scumbag.”
“It’s an honour to be invited here today to talk about my work. I never like to miss an opportunity to talk about myself.” He paused for everyone to laugh. Creep.
“I’d like to take you through my recent exhibition and tell you a little about how I work. I’ll take questions and then I’d like to give you a preview of my new work, Aftermath.”
He wouldn’t dare show anything that involved me, would he? I’d come out in a sweat as soon as I saw him but I wouldn’t be taking my jumper off. Wearing only a T-shirt would feel like exposure. I wanted out, but was hemmed in. I’d have to bide my time, listen to every single thing that sad fucker had to say and then watch his latest video-art-crap.
Kelly squeezed my arm, while I imagined taking a gun from my bag and slugging him one straight between the eyes.
“This is entitled I Owe You Nothing. You may have seen it in my recent exhibition.” Flood’s slide show commenced with a photograph of a small pot of dust, toenail clippings and pubic hairs lit from beneath by a pink light-box. “I often use found objects or in this case human detritus and utilise constructs such as light-boxes and picture frames et cetera that we’ve come to recognise as signalling, ‘This is art’.” He babbled on for ages and after a while Graham, who was sitting two rows ahead, put his hand up and I sank lower in my seat as Flood looked upwards.
“How do you find your subject matter?” Graham asked.
Flood flicked his hair away from his face and said, “For me, it begins with the human condition. It’s about how we live now and that can take in anything: the consumer society, how our identities are defined by our possessions, urban fear and alienation, the disintegration of community, the government and its need to control with more stealth taxes, et cetera.”
People were taking notes while I wrote: ‘Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off...’ He was controlling me again. I was caught and couldn’t move – couldn’t leave – only this time I was awake and fully aware. The slides went on and on and then it was premiere time. The audience perked up. There’s nothing like thinking you’re getting a little privileged information, seeing something before anyone else, but for me it was beyond difficult. My hair stuck to the back of my neck. I felt grubby before the film had even got under way.
“Aftermath,” he announced. The lights were dimmed, the screen flickered and there it was: that hotel room with its panelled walls, floor-to-ceiling windows and ornate cornicing. The camera felt its way round the room picking up on moved or used items as if it were recording evidence at a crime scene: the discarded champagne flutes, a barely touched bottle of Cristal and into the bathroom where a cream towel lay crumpled on the limestone floor alongside a brown one. There was a designer egg-shaped bath and taps and a designer radiator. The camera swung back round into the room and slowly closed in on the bed: a satin bedspread, dishevelled sheets, possibly a stain and then moving down onto the floor, discarded underwear – my discarded underwear.
A strangled cough escaped my throat, and I couldn’t stop. I hid my face within the neck of my jumper as a few people turned to look at me. It made it worse.
There was no mistaking them, my pale pink cotton knickers and mismatched purple bra. God, why am I so slovenly about lingerie? My fists clenched tight as I tried to look anywhere but at Flood. When will it end? Get on with it. Stop.
The camera took off again, and then a close-up – the bedside table, a twenty-pound note... So, I’m a whore – is that it? He had shown I was a whore, so I was a whore, and a particularly cheap one at that. It began again, focusing back on the panelled walls. The film was looped as if this exchange were never-ending.
Emily had her hand up.
“Yes, the girl with the long hair,” Flood said, and Emily proceeded to completely fawn over him saying some rubbish about how intriguing it all was “and at the same time so decadent”.
Flood nodded. “It’s always interesting to hear interpretations of your work.” Another few questions, some effusive thanks from Mike Manners and it was over.
“Hide behind me,” Kelly said, as she got up and shuffled along the row before stepping out onto the steps with everyone else. I clung to the back of Kelly’s jumper as we began our descent.
Flood was down at the front surrounded by young admirers looking for individual guidance on how to find success in the art world. For a moment I thought he hadn’t seen me but a quick flick of his eyes let me know that he knew I was there. As I drew closer, at the most opportune moment, he turned and said, “Remember?”
I kept moving. It was all I could do. Get out of there.
Twenty-eight
Interior, Maciek’s cab: Flood films a council estate, Sixties prefabs that lead to back-to-back Victorian terraces. There’s a gang of teenage boys, a lone middle-aged woman in high heels and a man walking two small dogs.
Maciek glances in the rear-view mirror. “I have to tell you – it is the last time.”
“What’s that?” Flood isn’t listening.
“I move to London.”
“London?” Flood sounds irritated.
“My wife – she go to University College.”
“She works in a coffee shop, right?”
“She study law in Poland. Now she start once more in London. We find house-share in Acton.”
“You’re kidding me? This is terrible news.”
“There are plenty cab drivers – you say so yourself.”
“We have an understanding, you know the ropes...”
“I save for flat deposit, now we go.”
“You have no idea how heavily you have rained on my parade.” Flood sighs. “Head to Forest Fields, the usual place – they’re expecting me.”
Maciek glances repeatedly in his rear-view mirror.
“Is something up?” Flood asks.
“Not every day you have famous artist in back of your cab. My wife – she saw you in newspaper. You are up for big prize.”
“That’s right, the biggest art prize in Britain.”
“There was picture in the paper also – I recognised the young waitress.”
I know what the driver is referring to – a still from Aftermath, shot from the neck down and reprinted in the press. What a shit. But how did the cab driver know it was me?
Flood
films the university buildings, the terraced housing of Forest Fields and the crossroads with the waiting wall – my old street.
“Sadie, baby,” Flood calls out from the car window. “Slow down, Maciek.”
Sadie (Girl-with-braids), dressed in a short egg-yolk yellow skirt and low-cut T-shirt with cherries on the front, keeps walking.
“Sadie – the only sunshine in my life, jump in, sexy girl.”
“Do one – fucking pervert.”
“Don’t be like that. You know you can’t say ‘no’. I pay too well for that.”
“You’re not filming me no more, I’m not having it. Fuck off.”
“You gave me a bead from your hair – that means something.”
“Just fuck off and leave me alone, I’m busy.”
“Don’t look busy. How much you made today – enough for your gear or are you feeling a little jittery right now?”
Sadie shoots him a look, but says nothing.
“I got candy – enough for two. Don’t be silly now.”
Sadie bites her thumbnail and looks around.
“OK, Maciek, she doesn’t want to know, drive on.”
“Wait,” Sadie says. “What you offering?”
Twenty-nine
The call to the helpline did help. Drugged date rape happens – ‘Julie Walters’ confirmed that. I’d call again when I next had the house to myself. I’d tell her everything. And so, over and over, I rehearsed my story, determined to make it clear that I was a sensible person who had the misfortune to be momentarily duped. In the meantime, I did as ‘Julie Walters’ advised.
There were orange chairs at the STD clinic – the stackable, plastic type. They’re everywhere: doctor’s waiting rooms, the dentist and even in museums. Those chairs are institutionalised and whenever I see them I think of the time I sat, waiting to hear whether or not I was going to die prematurely of HIV/AIDS.
