Beneath the Blonde

by Stella Duffy

  “Come on, babe, I have to spend time with her. That’s what they’re paying me for. And at least liking her a bit makes it more enjoyable than hating her a lot. Would you really rather I was having a crap time?”

  Molly laughed. “Yeah. Actually I would. Sorry, but I’d love you to be having such a crap time that you’d get on the next plane and fly home to me. I miss you and I want you and if you’re nibbling on Rudolph burgers you should be doing it with me, not them, and I just want you here. I want to be us.”

  Brought back to the reality of her relationship, Saz chatted a little longer to Molly about nothing and everything. The upholstery material they wanted to recover the sofabed and what movie they might see when she got back and the fact that Molly wanted to spend every minute of the rest of her life with Saz, ideally in person and not on the phone.

  Five minutes later Saz put down the receiver and looked out of her tiny hotel window at the harbour. Despite having calmed Molly’s fears, she could find no comfort herself in the wind-battered water as she climbed into the sterile, narrow single bed. She turned the television on for a semblance of company and glared at CNN for a while and then turned out the light. She lay alone in the light of flickering American blue and tried to sense Molly beside her. They’d lain so long in the same embrace that sleeping alone now felt like amputation.

  Later, fitfully asleep, Saz stretched out in the night to scratch the ghost itch of Molly’s hand on her arm, thigh, face, but there was no hand and no touch, just the aching left unscratched, turning slowly from itch to ulcer.

  SEVENTEEN

  The gig in Estonia was a spirited affair in a huge marquee in the old town square of Tallinn. Sponsored by two different breweries, the main aim of the young, mostly male, punters seemed to be to imbibe as much of the proffered liquid as possible and then use the alcohol-fuelled energy to propel themselves towards the stage. The numbers of young men flinging themselves against the flimsy plywood dais increased in direct proportion to the amount of flesh Siobhan revealed as she disrobed through each number until, at the end of the gig, she stood on the stage in just a pair of gold platforms, tangerine hot pants and a see-through silver shirt, while the swaying structure beneath her looked in imminent danger of collapse.

  Flushed and breathless from the gig, Siobhan was given just five minutes to swallow a quick glass of vodka and then Greg whisked her back to the hotel where a selection of local journalists were waiting to dissect her precious thoughts. The boys were going on to a restaurant—Alex to drink, Dan to eat and Steve to ply with wine the Estonian beauty who was taking seriously her role of “hospitality hostess”. Tiana had turned down the chance of coming to Estonia at the last moment to go to a photo shoot in Milan and Steve was making the most of his free time. Not wanting to cramp Steve’s style, and not interested in yet another night fending off Alex’s drunken aggression, Saz went back to the hotel alone to spend an hour or so on the fifteenth floor where the plate-glassed sauna looked out over the dark Baltic and the scarcely lit city.

  Fifty minutes later she was loosely wrapped in a sweat-drenched towel, trying hard to breathe while the Latvian occupant of the sauna poured still more water onto the heat, taunting the westerner by making the air a burning hot liquid which attacked her lungs almost as fiercely as it did her skin. She had just quit the blistering steam cabin and thrown herself into the long, cool pool in the ante-room when Greg came in. He carried glasses and a bottle of white wine, water quickly condensing on the outside of the bottle.

  Saz, suddenly shy of Greg seeing her scarred body, stayed under the water, “You’re having a party?”

  Greg shook his head, “Not exactly. I got bored listening to Siobhan give the same answers to the same old questions, so I left her to finish up. She’s just got one more to deal with. We’ve asked if we can have the sauna to ourselves for an hour or so.”

  “Oh, right. Sure. I’ll leave then.”

  “No, don’t. I meant all of us. I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but they’ve said we can turf out any other guests—there’s another sauna next door—and have our own little band party. I think we deserve it, the gig tonight was fucking brilliant.”

  “A party with just the one bottle of wine?”

  “No. Alex is in the bar sorting out a delivery. He has a more winning manner with the staff than I do.”

  Saz, who knew that Alex’s manner just involved larger bribes and more shouting, forced herself out of the water. While she didn’t exactly feel like exposing herself to Greg, she was even less likely to enjoy Alex’s scrutiny of her scars. “Are all of them back?”

  “Nah. Just Dan and Alex. It seems that Shagger Steve’s scored with the local talent. He’s confined to bed.”

  Saz picked up her towels and headed for the door, “Well, I’ve been here for a while really, I might just go back to my room.”

  Greg looked at her, taking in the scarred backs of her legs and quickly diverting his gaze, “Sure. That’s cool. But if you wanted to get dressed and come back for a few wines and the view, you’d be more than welcome.” He stretched an arm past the wide, clear windows, “We might as well make the most of all this.”

  Smiling at his sensitivity, Saz nodded, “Ok. Thanks, I will. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Alex was struggling up the stairs with five more wine bottles as she left. He acknowledged her with a grunt and then called out after himself, “Check Siobhan out, will you? I think that journo’s probably boring her to death. They’re in the bar.”

  Showered and dressed, Saz went down to the bar to look for Siobhan, who caught one glimpse of Saz and immediately stood up and called her over, mouthing a quick “save me” over the head of her intrepid interviewer. The man Siobhan introduced as Torril was probably in his mid-forties, tall, broad, very big and very dull. After the other journalists had left, content with the usual answers on how, who, where and why, he’d stayed on to ask Siobhan exhaustive questions about her training—none; her background—traditional; and her ambitions—vast. He had just launched into his third page of notes when Saz walked in. Siobhan told Torril that she was the band’s general assistant and dogsbody. Saz was only too happy to sit obediently and listen to Siobhan’s answers. Anything that would give her more info on Siobhan was welcome and she knew that the businesswoman side of the pop star would keep Siobhan answering questions until even her ambitious patience was exhausted. Saz listened politely as the eager man faltered out his next question. “And you are happy then, from what you have said, to be a sex star?”

  Siobhan sipped at her vodka, “A sex symbol? I suppose so. If it sells, right?”

  The man nodded gravely, laboriously writing down her answer in what Saz assumed was Estonian.

  “Yes. Sales. These are important to you?”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m not just in this for the applause, you know.”

  “No. Of course not. And you do not feel the need to protect yourself?”

  “From what?”

  “The public. Those who would take your … image too far?”

  “People who believe in it?” Siobhan pulled her coat closer around her shoulders, covering a little of her bare flesh, “I can’t help what people believe.”

  “You don’t think you are responsible for your image?”

  “Well, naturally I am, I’m responsible for what I believe I look like. But I can’t be held accountable for what other people do with that. It’s obvious to me that the stage Siobhan is different from the real Siobhan. You’d have to be an idiot to think I went down the shops in my hot pants or that I really do fuck strange men for breakfast.”

  Torril didn’t look up as he said, “You don’t? That is a disappointment.”

  Siobhan shook her head, not quite certain if she was meant to be insulted, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand? What’s your point?”

  He glared at her, “Of course you don’t understand. Girls like you. You never even think about what you do. All over the rest of the world and
now here.”

  “What?”

  “You are not exactly what we hoped for from democracy.”

  “I’m a singer, for God’s sake!”

  “And, as if we didn’t have enough to deal with, you bring in your cheapness and defile our country. This was not what we stood up to the tanks for, your type pollutes us by simply being here …”

  The last comment was too much even for Siobhan’s good-girl act and she pushed her chair back, “Look, I’ve got to go. Really. I’m tired, it’s been a long night, and I certainly didn’t come all this way for a lecture. If you’ll excuse me …”

  As she tried to stand, the man reached out a huge arm, grabbing her wrist. Siobhan pulled back from him, but his grip was too strong and he twisted her arm, forcing her back into her chair. With his other hand, he reached across to clumsily stroke Siobhan’s hair, “You see, I had hoped that I might be able to educate you …”

  Saz didn’t give him a chance to explain just what it was he was hoping to teach. She picked up Siobhan’s glass, quietly praising the choice of neat vodka and even more grateful that for once Siobhan hadn’t downed the glass the moment she laid eyes on it. She threw the contents straight into Torril’s face. The pure biting alcohol blinded him long enough for Siobhan to grab her bag and for Saz to pick up Torril’s notepad and the two women ran from the bar, Saz stopping briefly just to explain to the burly security guard that the large man rubbing his eyes and dripping vodka from his face seemed a little more drunk than was seemly in Tallinn’s premier hotel.

  Having delivered Siobhan safely up to Greg in the sauna, Saz took the notepad to the desk clerk she’d befriended earlier in the day. When she asked him to translate the writing, however, she could see that she was in grave danger of mortally offending the embarrassed young man. Quickly explaining that it was a job for her boss and a matter of band security—and therefore vital that she know exactly what was detailed in the foreign language—he finally agreed to tell her, but only by writing a translated paragraph on the next blank page. Reading over his shoulder, Saz could readily see why the poor guy was so red and flustered. Every second word was “fuck”, several lines detailed the finer parts of Siobhan’s anatomy and after a whole sentence of blatant—and very specific—porn, Saz thanked him and took the pad away. She returned to her room and put in an urgent call to the local booking agent to confirm just who Siobhan had been supposed to talk to that night. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Torril, if that was his name, should never have been there in the first place. She then went upstairs to the sauna to break up the party.

  There followed an exhaustive discussion with hotel security until Saz could be assured that, having been safely ejected from the building, there was no chance Torril would get back in that night. And further, once locked in her room, Siobhan would be perfectly safe as the hotel would place a guard outside her door who would stay with them all the way to the airport the next morning. Siobhan was less convinced when she actually saw the guard, who looked more like a Russian mafia cliché than the man who had caused all the fuss in the first place. Greg was furious with himself for leaving her to talk to the press alone and before they allowed Siobhan to go to bed, he and Saz promised that any future interviews would only take place with either himself or Saz present.

  When Siobhan eventually calmed down enough to sleep two hours later Saz lay in bed and counted the hours until they would have her safely home in London—where at least the stalkers wrote their nasty letters in good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon.

  EIGHTEEN

  He was easy actually. He drinks too much. Drank too much. It’s easy to kill a drunk. Even a bullying drunk. They are soft, pliable. They fall swiftly, crumple easily.

  He was drinking alone too, that helped. I joined him at his table. He was an angry bastard at the best of times, but that night he was really bad. Furious with the world, the band, himself. But most of all, he was furious with her. She didn’t appreciate him, he said. She never had really valued him. Understood his art. His talent. For a moment there I thought he was going to venture as far as his genius. But even he wasn’t quite that arrogant. Not then, anyway.

  He was drinking bitter. I joined him and ordered whiskys for the two of us. He was surprised that I wanted bitter. I was bitter that he still wanted her. And he did want her. Had done since the first day they met. It doesn’t surprise me. Everyone wants her, I think. At least they think they do. Want to have her, hold her, own her. Everyone wants to possess her.

  Everyone except me. She isn’t worth having. I know.

  After that I killed him. With a baseball bat. I know, it’s a cliché and actually, to tell the truth, it was a softball bat—all I had to hand, I’m afraid. His skull was bloody hard. His skull was bloody.

  Not immediately after, you understand. I am expeditious, not hasty.

  More speed less haste, my piano teacher used to say. Then she’d smack my knuckles with her wooden ruler. Smack is a small word for that splintering caress. She’d splatter my knuckles with her wooden ruler. She left a cut in the knuckle of my left index finger once. A long thin wooden splinter, it tore my skin and bled when I pulled it out. Extradition can be a very bloody process.

  I took him home first, we ate, I gave him a sandwich—a thin last supper of white bread and processed cheese—and opened another can. Lager this time. And then another. And more. It was very late, three, four in the morning. We shared six cans of Heineken, and a half pint bottle of whisky. I drank little, listened to him. He drank and talked, ate another sandwich, talked, dribbled, whined and then he cried. Actually, it’s lucky that he cried. If he hadn’t cried I might not have been able to do it. Merely angry, I just wanted to hit him. To smack him, in the jaw, the nose. I wanted to hear that swift crack of knuckle against his cheek. To spite him, surprise him, shut him up. But I held back my itchy fist. He was my guest, I had to be polite. And I hadn’t quite decided that it really was what I wanted to do. I had a moment of wavering self-doubt, contradiction. The tears though, they made me pity him too. So after that it was easy. I was just putting him out of his misery. Putting him out of my misery.

  Once he’d really got himself into a state I offered to take him out for a walk. Walk the unpleasing puppy dog. Help him to clear his head. As it were. It was dark in the hallway, dark outside too. A gentle rain was falling. One of those soft rains. My mum calls it Scotch mist. Though I don’t suppose he’d have seen what I was carrying even if a five hundred watt bulb was shining on it. He only had eyes for her. We went to the park and, in a pretty little copse with the autumn leaves fast turning to life-enhancing mulch, I beat his brains out. He was leaning over to throw up and presented me with such an easy target. I don’t suppose he suffered, the first blow seemed to knock him right out. Actually, he probably died fairly quickly but I needed to be sure, it’s not as if I’ve killed a lot of people before. Or any. His skull was very hard though. It took several swings, batter-up! I heard the crack. It was a small sound, shallow. His head breaking, blood and bone and a little brain—I suppose it was brain—spilling out, splashing out. It sounded more like a splintering twig, more natural than anything I’d been expecting. Because, then, I didn’t know what to expect. Of course, I do now.

  When you plant a new garden you clear all the old debris first. Or, indeed, when you uncover the foundations of a garden laid long ago. That’s what I’m doing now. Clearing the path.

  Once it was all over I went home. The rain was much heavier now. Opaque waves of it starting to wash the blood away from me even as I walked home. Washed it all away from him too, I expect. Lucky, really. You always see on the TV, don’t you, how they find the bad guy from an old bloody shoe print? But not after two inches of heavy autumn rain, I wouldn’t have thought. I put my clothes in the washing machine, rinsed off the bat with soapy water and a pot scrubber. Just an old-fashioned wooden bat. With a few dents in it now. Wood is so much more natural than aluminium, yielding to touch. I washed my clothes—my upstairs
neighbours were away so the machine didn’t disturb them. Not that I’d care if it did. They vacuum at eight in the morning on a Saturday. Bastards. Vacuum to make their flat shiny and perfect before one of their happy-young-couple shopping trips, coming home laughing and smiling together as if all that was needed to keep them content was a good bargain on their fabric softener and yet another chrome and glass shelf on which to stack their CDs. Actually, I think it is all they need. They’re fairly simple.

  I sat in front of the machine and watched the mechanized water rinse his blood from my jeans and shirt. Sitting on my bathroom floor staring at the machine like the sad old git in the laundrette. I even put my socks and trainers in too. They needed a wash, stinking from too much running around, from putting too much effort into my life. I put the powder in that little dispenser thing, added the fabric conditioner—I always buy the yellow one—and turned the hot tap off at the base so they were being washed in cold, clear water. My mum always said to wash blood out in cold water. Not hot. She’s good on handy hints, my mum. Knows how to get red wine out of the carpet too. You must never attack any stain with hot water. Hot water means the blood never really goes away. Always a ghost of a stain left behind. I got a lot of nose bleeds as a kid. But I didn’t do my own washing then. Not like now, I’m very domesticated now. Almost tame. I watched the water rinse through the blood and bits of him, heard it all gurgling down the waste pipe. Then I ran myself a long, hot bath. I lay in the bath for ages, until the water was cold and scummy with my flaking skin. After a while I took the plastic shower attachment and hosed myself down with icy cold water. By the time I was finished, the washing was done and I hung my clothes over the shower rail, trainers upside down to let the collected drips fall out. I took my time, measured my actions. I was very precise. My German teacher at school used to say, “The Germans are very precise.” I can hear his voice now. “Fernsehen—far-seeing—television. You see? The Germans are very precise.” My German teacher was Czech, so I don’t think he valued German precision especially highly. I don’t think he’d have valued my night’s activities either. But I was very precise. I’ve learnt that you have to be. I was going to eat, I thought I might be hungry but when I went into the kitchen I saw the plate he’d left on the table. The crusts from his cheese sandwich. So I threw them out my window for the pigeons and washed the plates and cups, swept the floor. Made it all nice. It was too nice to mess up with making toast for myself so I just left it. Clean and bright and shiny and new. Like me. Then I went to bed. I slept like a baby. I didn’t expect to. Didn’t think sleep would come so easily. But it did. Must have used more energy than I thought.