Jordan hadn’t contacted me after that last terrible morning, but other people occasionally called. I’d been seeing a young lawyer from a merchant bank on a more-or-less regular basis since the time I decided to bail out. Conner Neil was nice; in his mid-twenties, an American from Boston, handsome and very rich. He rang a few times, asking me out, but I made excuses. He gave up almost straight away, which really hurt my pride. When we’d been together he’d acted like he was crazy for me. It was very hard to admit that no one missed me much, when I’d been under the impression that they all adored me.
I was still lying on the bed when the phone rang. It was Jules. Did I want to go to a gay rave at a city warehouse that night? It would be huge and loud and raucous, and the last time we’d spoken had made him think that I needed cheering up. Everyone would be in drag and off their faces.
‘You know, Kats, you just might find it interesting,’ he said slyly. I smiled. He often called me Kats or Queenie – very tongue in cheek – but I liked it. Jules was always teasing me. It amused and puzzled him, for example, that I read books that weren’t on my course.
‘Why do you do it, Queenie?’ he’d say, real wonder in his voice as he picked up whatever it was I was reading, fingering it as if it was something from another planet. ‘When you don’t have to? Why would you tax your gorgeous head with all these . . . words?’ It always made me laugh. Endeared him to me, really. But I couldn’t explain it; Jules had a kind of aversion to anything he didn’t immediately understand.
I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, but he’d described these warehouse parties to Kara and me before. I have to admit that nothing he’d told us made either of us even vaguely interested. Men dressed up as women. Men getting off with other men. Give us a break, Jules! Kara and I thrived on male attention. The gay scene didn’t interest us at all.
‘What would I wear to something like this?’ I asked cagily.
‘Something tight,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Definitely something revealing, sexy. You’ll have a lot of stiff competition, Kats, I promise you . . .’
‘Who from?’ I said warily. ‘I thought there were mainly guys at these things?’
‘These boys really go to town when they get out at night.’ He sighed. ‘And I want you to look ‘sensational.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, Kats! Because you’re with me. Just come, will you!’
I suddenly felt insecure. I hadn’t dressed up in ages.
‘What about my white crushed-velvet? You know, with the low neck and the split up the side.’
‘Oh God, no!’ He groaned. ‘That’s far too nice.’
‘Well, what?’
‘Haven’t you got any tight little hot pants?’
‘Hot pants?’
‘Yeah,’ he went on quickly, ‘with an iridescent pink see-through chiffon blouse and one of those hot silver-spangled bras underneath?’
‘Oh Jules!’ I laughed. ‘You mean like Madonna.’
He tsked loudly.
‘Madonna is out, Kats. You should know that! Look, I have to go. I’ll leave it to you, okay? We’ll pick you up at about eleven.’ ‘We?’
‘I’m getting us a ride in a 1969 powder-blue Bentley.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘See you then.’
IENTERED THE HUGE BARN-LIKE SPACE OF the Port Melbourne warehouse in a tight, very short red dress that only just covered my bum, silver lame stockings, and high-heeled red suede shoes. That afternoon I’d divided my hair down the middle and dyed one half silver and the other half bright-red with some non-permanent hair colour, thinking of Louise the whole time I was doing it. A surgeon. God, how unimaginative! Then I called Kara. She came around and plaited my hair into about a hundred tiny tails. On the red side we wound silver baubles onto the end of each plait and on the silver side, red baubles. Kara painted half my mouth with silver lipstick and the other half with red, to match my hair. I looked very weird, but classy weird, if you get my drift, and anyway I didn’t care. After Louise’s announcement I was in the mood for weirdness. While Kara was working on me she told me about the brick that had come sailing through Anton’s window at midnight two nights before.
‘And what were you doing in Anton’s room at midnight?’ I asked surprised. She gave a sly smile as she fitted the last bauble to the last plait.
‘What do you think?’ she said, pushing me towards the mirror above the couch. ‘You look fantastic!’ We could both hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen. Kara skipped out to make coffee.
‘Kara,’ I yelled after her. ‘Tell me please!’
‘What?’ she called back.
‘About Anton! What do you think?’
‘Oh, nothing much,’ she said airily, carrying in the cups. ‘He’s very cute . . . but unfortunately he seems to be very taken with that . . . fat girl.’
‘Carmel?’ I said. ‘So they’re still . . . ?’
‘Oh, for sure,’ she said, making a face. ‘Carmel this and Carmel that. God, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, you know!’ she said. ‘I mean, he’s really cute! And she’s . . .’
The conversation petered out after that. When Kara doesn’t want to talk she doesn’t. That afternoon she was being very cagey.
‘Who do you think threw the brick?’ I asked when she was leaving.
‘Some lout,’ she shrugged. ‘Probably drunk. It wouldn’t be personal. Just bad luck for Anton that they chose his house . . . and that lovely window.’
Jules was very pleased with my efforts.
‘Sensational,’ he had said softly as I stepped into the hallway. That had been enough. I knew I looked right. We climbed into the luxurious old car and sped off.
The warehouse was a mass of fractured colour. And sound, so hard and loud that I felt as if it was invading my body. I stood still, partly in shock, next to Jules and watched the laser lights bouncing and spinning in all directions: fluorescent green tunnels one second and iridescent pink spiky shapes the next, picking out for just an instant a painted, grimacing face, a bizarrely clothed arm, or a tangle of legs, before disintegrating and moving off again into a million slivers of multi-coloured light. I edged closer to Jules, terrified that he’d slip off without me, leave me stranded in all this noise and craziness.
‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ he shouted into my ear. His teeth were bright-green in the glaring light.
‘Yeah,’ I yelled back gamely. ‘Brilliant!’
‘You want . . .’ His hand opened to reveal about fifteen tiny pills. All different colours; heart-shaped, oval and round. ‘Do you want a lolly?’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t need anything!’
‘My shout tonight,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to pay.’
‘No. I’m right. Honestly.’
He shrugged and smiled, slipped a small pink one into his mouth, and poured the rest into a small white bag that he’d pulled out of another pocket.
‘Can you hold them for me in your purse?’
‘Sure.’
I slipped the tiny package into the small metal evening purse I had slung across my chest and promptly forgot it.
Jules took my elbow and pushed me into the mass of wildly dressed, panting dancers. They were like swarms of creatures from another world – some spun out on their own, others gaudily bunched together like exotic insects, shouting, catcalling and laughing manically – magnified thousands of times by the sheer thumping energy of the place. Five thin, wiry-faced guys up on the stage played their instruments with the usual haughty disdain; all dressed in tight leather shorts, with red braces, bare chests and red silk ties around their necks. Heavy black boots and long white socks. They reminded me of Hansel from the fairytale. Hansel gone badly wrong. The music was loud, too loud, but I suddenly didn’t care.
Jules and I began to dance. The big crowd had intimidated me at first. A bit like being adrift in a rough sea; I was used to discretion, lightness, subtlety. But now these rollin
g waves of bodies, gaudily clad and glistening with sweat, were pulling and pushing me to be something else. It wasn’t long before I was right into it. Jules liked to have fun dancing and so did I. He held my hand, spun me around, pulled me close. We began to laugh and shout to each other above the thumping racket. It was a rougher, wilder, more bizarre crowd than I’d ever experienced before, mainly men, some dressed as women, but many others simply dressed up for fun, with kohl around their eyes, strange hats, garters and fake jewellery.
Men approached Jules at regular intervals, but he only laughed and called that he was ‘taken’ and kept dancing with me. They’d run their eyes over me as if I was some strange, highly amusing specimen. But they were friendly in their own way and I found myself giving back as good as I got; a wisecrack here and a smart quip there. As the minutes wore on I forgot about the stuffiness, the strong smell of sweat, the cigarette smoke, the sheer size of the crowd, and threw myself into the music. After an hour or two the whole place was pulsing of its own accord. In and out, around and under. Heaving and roaring like a huge animal. I loved the feeling of being flung around, like a doll on the end of a piece of elastic, a tiny, bouncing, sweating doll in the middle of this great amorphous mass.
‘I’m parched!’ I shouted across at Jules.
‘You’re a piker, Kats!’
‘No, Jules, I need water!’
Sweaty and puffing, we went to get a drink. I saw that not everyone was dancing. There were dark corners: bodies on couches, people entwined on mattresses on the floor, groups on the sidelines sharing joints. I went into the toilets and had to step over four people injecting into their ankles. Their eyes were glazed and they looked desperate and hopeless in a way that frightened me a little. I’d never really come face to face with that before. I sat on the toilet and decided that everything was too loose, too desperate, but I was enjoying myself anyway. I came back and stood next to Jules by the wall, both of us sipping soft drink from plastic cups and staring around. I wondered what all these people did during the day, and giggled to think that some of them probably had to turn up for work in a bank at nine o’clock the next morning.
The last thing I remember before it happened was the onset of a headache. It was around three in the morning and I knew that I’d probably had enough. We’d been there for over three hours. I turned to Jules, about to say that I’d catch a cab home. But Jules wasn’t where he’d been only a minute before; there was just a space. I twisted right around, trying to catch sight of him in the crowd. That was when the lights went on.
Blinding fluorescent lights. Harsh and merciless. A loud gasp went up. I looked around in shock. Everyone was now stripped of all their magic. We were just a crowd of people – some handsome, some sleazy and plain, a few quite old and others very young – but ordinary. Very ordinary. No one was exotic in this light. The music crashed into silence.
For some brief seconds there was the sound of men outside; someone was yelling orders, then the big doors at the end of the room opened and a stream of uniformed police poured in.
‘A bust!’ someone breathed. But that word had no meaning for me. I must have been in shock, because it didn’t register. I gaped as the police – all strangely alike, strong and young with shut-off, determined faces and wielding batons – strode in. The crowd moved back instinctively, creating a small space in the middle of the room. At the same time I saw people around me diving into their pockets and pulling out small packets and throwing them into the air. I was too stupid and too surprised to have any idea what was going on. An older policeman with a moustache and a heavy stomach stood in the centre of the crowd and spoke into a small microphone.
‘We have a warrant to search these premises for illegal substances,’ he barked out. ‘No one is to move from where they are standing. All the doors are manned, so there is no way any of you will leave without authority.’ I looked around wildly. What was going on?
At last the penny dropped. I dived for the zip of my purse. I must get rid of it. Where the hell is Jules? Why did he give them to me? Where is he? But I was too late. A young policeman was standing right in front of me, looking first at my fumbling hands and then into my face.
‘Your bag, Miss?’ he said, quite politely. I gulped and slowly pulled the chain over my shoulder, frantically thinking of something to say. Only the most absurd sentences came to mind. I was just leaving. Sorry, but I can’t really stay, you see my grandmother is sick . . . I’ve already called a taxi. He was rifling through the tiny purse with strong, business-like fingers. And then the pathetic coward came out in me. I don’t really belong with this crowd, Constable, I wanted to say. This isn’t my scene at all. I’m a nice girl . . . I would have said it, too, if I had thought it might work. Out came the white lolly bag. I gulped as he emptied the pills into his other hand. He frowned, looking down at them for a moment then up at me, eyes impenetrable, mouth twitching slightly into a sneer that disappeared as soon as it arrived. This was my moment. He wanted an explanation. I took a frightened breath and summoned up my most provocative smile.
‘They’re not mine, actually . . .’ I said in my best private-school accent, surprised that my voice managed to sound reasonable in spite of the fact that my knees were knocking. ‘You see, a friend asked me to . . .’
‘Actually,’ he cut in loudly, brutally mimicking my toffiness, ‘you’re in deep shit, girl! Hey, Brian, over here!’ I watched as another policeman came over to us. All around me people were being searched and questioned. Many of them I could tell were doing exactly as I’d done, making up elaborate excuses. Behind me someone yelped and began to cry. Others were arguing and someone else was getting abusive.
‘You haven’t got any right to go through my pockets . . .’
‘We’ll go up your arse if we have to!’
‘I want to call a lawyer.’
‘You can call someone at the police station.’
‘I want a lawyer now!’
‘Shut up!’
There was a highly organised system at work. Individuals were slowly being weeded out from the rest of the crowd. I was led over to a small group standing in the alcove near the toilets. There were about twenty-five of us collected together like a flock of sheep. More kept coming. Two policemen stood in front of me. The one asking the questions was the same one who’d rifled through my bag. His offsider was older with an ugly, ruddy face, fat lips, and greasy hair.
‘Full name, please?’ The young one said. I hesitated for a couple of moments.
‘Full name, please,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t muck us around. You try giving a false name and you’ll be in bigger shit than you’re already in!’
‘Katerina Anne Armstrong,’ I said in a small voice, feeling a sob rise in my throat. No one had ever spoken to me like that before.
‘You got any ID ?’
I fumbled in my purse, trying to work out the most sensible course of action.
‘No, I don’t think I have . . .’ I said.
‘Have a look!’ he said, refusing to see the plaintive look in my eyes.
Please, I don’t do anyone any harm. I’m not a drug addict . . .
I pulled out my driver’s licence and handed it to him. I was still under the absurd impression that if I played the game right, then these two men would let me go. After all, the whole thing didn’t make sense. They weren’t my drugs, and I hadn’t taken any that night.
‘Address?’
‘Canning Street, North Carlton.’
‘Number?’
‘What did you get here?’ a senior officer broke in, not looking at me. The young one counted out Jules’s pills into his hand.
‘Seven ecstasy, four speed, four hearts.’ The older one was noting it down carefully. ‘Fifteen pills.’ Then they dumped the pills into a white plastic bag.
‘Okay, you can take her in car four,’ the senior officer said gruffly, writing something down on his clipboard, and still not looking at me. ‘She’ll go for trafficking.’
Tr
afficking?
On my way out I saw groups of young men standing up against a wall in their underpants. Some policemen were going through their clothes, feeling the pockets and patting them down. Others were shining torches into their armpits. One guy was being led over to a sectioned-off alcove; a policeman was fitting on a plastic glove. I shivered, thankful that I’d at least been spared that indignity.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked. I was being hustled towards a police car with a blue light blazing on top.
‘Russell Street,’ the young one said shortly.
‘What for?’ I asked stupidly.
‘What do you think?’ he snapped sarcastically, pushing me into the front seat. I was sitting between him and the driver, conscious of my silver legs on display. Within a few moments the back seat was occupied by two other policemen. They sat on both sides of a young, tangled-haired, very doped-out guy who was swearing and struggling, in spite of being handcuffed. ‘Why ya fuckin’ pickin’ on me, ya pigs? I could show you fifty guys in there that had more on ’em than me!’
‘Okay. Okay. Calm down.’
‘Try and charge me, ya morons, and I’ll have ya for assault! I want your number, pig! I’m gunna report you!’
I cringed and hoped that the police wouldn’t associate me with him.
‘Why don’t youse go and get the real criminals, huh?’ he raved. ‘You got nothin’ better to do than . . .’
The four policemen in the car remained silent. The one on my left even looked bored as he stared out into the night picking his teeth with his fingernail. The driver leant over to the glovebox and got a cigarette.
‘Why don’t you answer me, pig? Huh?’ The guy in the back seat continued to taunt, but the police remained nonchalant, as if they weren’t even hearing him.
Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life Page 33
