Revelry

by Lucy Lord

  ‘You’re looking lovely tonight,’ the cab driver says after a while. ‘Going anywhere nice?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I grin. ‘It’s a party given by the men’s magazine, Stadium. Do you know it?’

  ‘Is that the one with the naked birds on the cover?’ asks the cabbie. Hardly narrows it down, but I let it pass. ‘Never look at it myself. You a model then?’ Yay!

  ‘No, I’m an illustrator,’ I say, feeling a huge surge of pride as I say the words. Yes, I may look like a model (if you don’t know what models really look like) but I’m actually going to the party as I am a bona fide contributor to the magazine. By the time we reach Soho I am thoroughly pleased with myself.

  The traffic is terrible, so I get out of the cab at the beginning of Old Compton Street to let the cabbie carry on up Wardour Street rather than get caught up in the heinous one-way system.

  ‘Thanks beautiful,’ the driver says as I tip him. ‘There are going to be some very happy blokes at your party tonight.’

  I make my way down Old Compton Street, past the sex shops, gay bars and tourist dives. Past Patisserie Valerie, Bar Italia, The Admiral Duncan – the old institutions that make Soho what it is. Rickshaw drivers weave in and out of the traffic, dealers deal, tourists gawp, the pink pound flexes its not inconsiderable muscle. I feel fantastic as I sashay down the road in the warm night air, my hair swishing against my bare back and shoulders. Max and Andy, sitting outside Café Boheme, do a comedy joint double take as I approach.

  ‘Gotta hand it to you, sis, you do scrub up well,’ says Max, laughing slightly.

  ‘He’s right.’ Andy gets up to kiss me on both cheeks. ‘You look really lovely.’

  ‘An improvement on my urban warrior get-up?’

  ‘Well, that had its charms too, but – yes, I’d say an improvement. What would you like to drink?’

  ‘A glass of white wine would be great, thanks.’ Andy hails a passing waiter.

  I sit down and bend over to loosen the straps on my shoes. They’re hurting already but I’ll just have to hope that tonight’s booze and the drugs I imagine I’ll be offered have a numbing effect before too long.

  ‘So how’ve you been since our woodland sleuthing adventure? You must be totally immersed in all things wedding by this stage.’ I look at Andy and smile. He doesn’t seem to realize how gorgeous he looks.

  ‘Funnily enough, the pressure’s eased off a bit now. Al was so determined to get everything right in the first few months that almost all the donkey work has been done. We’re just sort of cruising along happily to the Big Day, which is far more like it.’

  ‘Glad to hear it mate,’ says Max, patting Andy’s forearm, as I remember how worried he was about him at Glastonbury, bless his soppy heart.

  ‘More than I can say for work, though – mine and Al’s. She’s worked late every night this week. The honeymoon cannot come soon enough.’

  ‘Oh yes, Indonesia. Swimming with the birds in the treetops.’ Max looks at me as if I’ve completely lost the plot. ‘Sounds so blissful. Wish I was coming with you!’

  ‘I’m sure Alison would be thrilled,’ says Max, as I realize how inappropriate the comment was. Andy is looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I change the subject.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had time to dig any more dirt on the bimbo yet?’

  ‘Nothing that would stand up in court, I’m afraid, though she is not what you’d call popular on the modelling circuit. One thing I have learnt is that Bernie’s influence must be colossal. My editor is aware of the story but he’d no more dare run it than … well actually I can hardly think of anything else he wouldn’t dare run.’

  ‘Blimey,’ I say, laughing. ‘Does anybody know what Bernie actually does? He is soooo dodgy.’

  ‘Beats me,’ shrugs Max, also laughing. ‘But I reckon it’s a good job we’re his friends. Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.’

  ‘God no! I hope Mum knows what she’s doing,’ I say, worried for her suddenly.

  ‘Bella, your mother has him wrapped around her little finger,’ says Andy. ‘He’s totally devoted to her.’

  ‘Well … long may it last.’

  ‘Long may it last,’ concurs Max. He raises his glass. ‘To Bernie’s dodgy contacts!’

  ‘To Bernie’s dodgy contacts!’ we chorus and, as I catch Andy’s eye, something in his gaze makes my heart start thump-thump-thumping.

  Bella Bella Bella, he’s getting married.

  However many times I tell myself, it doesn’t seem to sink in. It’s just the excitement of the evening and my gratitude for his helping Dad. Impulsively I lean over and grab his hand.

  ‘Thank you so much for everything,’ I gabble for the hundredth time. Oh God, it’s happening again. Thump thump thump. Those dark eyes staring deep into my heart. I could stare back forever.

  ‘I think you’ve made your point, sis,’ says Max.

  I leave shortly after, pleading lateness but actually because the whole Andy thing has been disquieting in the extreme. The last thing I need in my life right now is to fall for a man who’s about to marry another woman. Also, I’m starting to feel quite pissed and could do with a sobering line. Mark’s bound to have some coke on him.

  I saunter past a huge group of blokes wearing antlers. Unimaginative stag do paraphernalia, but there you go. They are all at least eight or nine years younger than me, and they all start chanting:

  ‘LEGS!’

  ‘TITS!’

  ‘LEGS!’

  Silly little buggers can’t make their minds up.

  ‘Can I marry you?’ asks one of the boys, who is all of twenty-one, by the looks of him, and I laugh, blowing them all kisses.

  Fuck it, whatever I may feel for Andy is tenuous and idiotic. He is getting married and that’s that. Boys much, much younger than me fancy me, and I am going to have the time of my life tonight.

  Inside the Windmill Club it’s dark and noisy and opulent and fabulous. The burlesque theme is carried right through from the heavy velvet curtains either side of the stage to the corseted bar staff to the stocking-ed and suspender-ed cigarette girls in their red lipstick and little pink uniforms. Even the pale pink and black cocktail menus are written in the distinctive Agent Provocateur font. I scan the gloom for a familiar face, spotting an MTV presenter and a rock star’s currently-more-famous-than-her-legendary-guitar-playing-Dad’s daughter as I do so.

  ‘Bella!’ I turn around to see Mark beaming at me, his arms outstretched. As I launch myself into them, he whispers in my ear, ‘Christ you look fuckable tonight.’ He looks pretty AOK himself, if decidedly butch-camp in tight white jeans that show off his apparently vast packet – unless he’s got socks down there – and a gold-embroidered pink Indian waistcoat with nothing underneath. His biceps ripple enticingly.

  ‘Oh go on, you big charmer.’ I put my hand on one of them (bicep, not bollock or sock) and whisper into his ear, ‘You don’t have any coke on you do you?’

  ‘Big charmer yourself,’ he grins, punching me playfully on the shoulder and nearly felling me to the ground. ‘Here you go.’ He reaches into his pocket for a wrap. I thank him and make my way towards the loo. Then,

  ‘Bella!’ This time it’s Damian, whom I haven’t seen since the night we kissed. All of a sudden I come over all shy, but he gives me a warm hug.

  ‘Wow, look at you,’ he says eventually, holding me at arm’s length. ‘Being single suits you.’

  ‘Thanks. You don’t look too bad yourself.’ Damian is looking very handsome in a sharply cut dark grey suit with an open-necked lilac shirt that sets off his dark skin. I don’t recall ever seeing him look so smart.

  ‘Well, I thought I’d make the effort as technically I’m on the pull now for the rest of my life,’ he says, and I realize how unhappy he still is. I give him another hug.

  ‘Been following the tabloids?’ I ask. He nods.

  ‘Me too. Today’s Standard was brilliant, I thought.’

  ‘I�
�m worried about her, Belles,’ he says sadly. ‘I can’t help it; I know she treated us both like shit but watching her destroy herself in public is heartbreaking. And I just know that Ben –’ he spits the word out – ‘isn’t helping her to look after her dad.’

  ‘Hardly famed for his sensitive, caring side, is he?’ I assent. ‘I know, that’s been on my mind a bit too, I have to admit. But, as far as the papers go – come on Damian, you’re a hack, you know how it works. It’s just an unfortunate consequence of fame by association. If any of the paps got hold of any of us after any of our big nights we’d probably look just as bad.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘I am right,’ I say, full of the confidence of the half-pissed and soon-to-be-coked-up. ‘And talking of destroying ourselves, I must just nip to the loo.’ I tap my nose and he laughs.

  ‘I’m heading to the bar. Shall I see you there?’

  ‘Try keeping me away,’ I say, and carry on walking. I am just about to enter the Ladies, when,

  ‘Bella!’ It’s Simon, exiting the velvet-curtained Gents, sniffing loudly. ‘My God, you look fab-u-lous. Give us a twirl, darling.’ It really is hard sometimes to remember Simon’s straight, especially as he now seems to be channelling Sebastian Flyte, in black tie, with a Twenties white silk scarf draped just so. Tonight he and Mark have crossed the metrosexual ‘just gay enough’ line with their fashion choices. ‘To die for. Really.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, so buoyed up with praise now that I’ll no doubt be rendered quite insufferable in – oh, five minutes’ time, max. ‘Fantastic party!’ I gesture around at the glittering crowd, dressed to impress and mainlining cocktails. Some early Sixties lounge music – Henry Mancini or Burt Bacharach – enhances the louche glamour of the surroundings.

  ‘It’s going well so far,’ says Simon. ‘Listen darling, I am gagging for a drink. Shall I see you at the bar? What can I get you?’

  ‘Oh pick me a fabulous cocktail. Something that matches my frock.’

  ‘Your wish is my command.’ He performs a deep sweeping bow and disappears into the crowd.

  Inside the cubicle, I sit on the loo and open Mark’s wrap. Bloody hell, there’s loads in here. I pinch a bit between my forefinger and thumb and am about to take a sniff when voices outside the cubicle stop me in my tracks. I’ll wait until they’ve gone. It’s unlikely anybody will object to my behaviour in such an establishment, but better safe than sorry.

  ‘Did you see that photo of Ben Jones and Poppy Wallace in the paper today?’ says one of the voices.

  ‘Yeah. God, the slag’s a mess,’ says the other. ‘I used to work with her and she really thought she was it.’ She laughs nastily. ‘Nice to see pride coming before a fall. Jules says she’s yesterday’s woman.’

  ‘I heard she’s on smack,’ says the other, and my heart plummets. ‘Also, between you and me, Ben’s not that keen any more. My mate Sophie was at Punk the other night and she said he was chasing anything in a skirt.’

  ‘Serves the stuck-up bitch right. I wouldn’t mind a look-in with him. He is GORGEOUS. Did you know …’ Their voices fade away as they leave the loo.

  Ha! So Ben’s reverting to type, eh? Let’s see how you like it when the tables are turned, Poppy. But I can’t help feeling worried. Smack? Surely not. She would never be so stupid. Then I remember what she said at my mum’s house about her father losing his mind, so she should be allowed to blow hers too. I think again. Oh fucking hell.

  I sit there for a minute or two, trying to calm myself down, before picking up the wrap again and taking three hearty sniffs. Maybe I should get in touch, see if she’s OK.

  Stop being such a soft-hearted mug. She stole your boyfriend. Fuck her, and go out and enjoy yourself.

  I flush the loo for appearance’s sake, leave the cubicle and check my reflection in the mirror, still feeling uneasy. I’m ashamed to say that my reflection cheers me up. I still look bloody fantastic. In fact, probably even more fantastic than I did before, apart from a telltale couple of white crumbs around my right nostril. I brush them away, ready to face my public again.

  ‘Bella!’ shouts Simon as I approach the bar. ‘I have found the perfect match.’ I look at the drink in his hand and smile. The colour of the cocktail is the exact pale pink of my dress.

  ‘You’re brilliant.’ I take it from him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Lychee martini, darling. Absolutely delicious and full of vitamin C. Quite cancels out the alcohol content.’

  ‘I do hope not,’ I smile, taking a sip of the delicately sweet concoction. ‘Divine.’ A voice comes over the tannoy.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. The cabaret is about to commence.’ A hush falls over the room as a transvestite who looks like Mae West bumps and grinds his/her way to centre stage. This must be the compère. She introduces the first act with a mixture of camp innuendo and coarse bawdiness, then wiggles off the stage to drunken whoops and applause.

  A pretty, pale-skinned girl with a dark Louise Brooks bob dances on, apparently naked underneath around fifty blown-up pink balloons which are somehow attached to her person. She is chased around the stage by a dastardly mustachioed Edwardian villain brandishing a giant needle. Every time he bursts one of her balloons (and somehow dispenses with the flapping bit of rubber), she strikes a pose, wide-eyed with her hand to her open mouth. It’s all rather innocent and charming, harking back to a bygone age of suggestion, compared to – say – the simulated sex shows at Manumission. Eventually she is down to five balloons. The Edwardian villain bursts first one, then the second covering her boobs, to reveal a pair of black nipple tassels, which she twirls in expert circles for a minute or two, leaving all the men around me transfixed.

  ‘Great party trick – you should learn how to do that,’ Mark whispers to me. I am about to respond, when someone behind me bitches,

  ‘God I’d kill myself if I was that fat.’ I turn to see the Stadium fashion chicks leaning against the bar, sneering with all the venom only the professionally malnourished and terminally stupid can muster against another member of their sex. For the record, the girl on stage is probably a size 10, with a tiny waist and B/C-cup boobs at the most.

  ‘I know – her cellulite is wobbling all over the place,’ says the other one. ‘Gross.’

  Balloon Girl finishes her act by bursting both balloons covering her buttocks herself, then shaking her head sadly at the audience and wagging her finger as they sit in anticipation of her final bits being revealed. With another shake of the head, she turns round and wiggles her bare bottom at them, before skipping off stage, to good-natured boos and more applause.

  The cabaret does get raunchier after this (the South-East Asian girl performing with a live snake is particularly graphic), but it all has an air of performance rather than just cheap lapdancing-type thrills. Or maybe it’s the coke.

  I am certainly not thinking of Poppy, either of our fathers’ respective plights or even my earlier reaction to Andy as I dance with Mark some time later, getting down and dirty to some late Seventies funk. I have kicked off my painful shoes and my bare feet are filthy as we writhe around the grimy dance floor.

  ‘Come on boys,’ I cry, pulling Damian and Simon up to dance too, totally off my stupid face now. They kindly oblige and I am in my element, centre of attention as I prance around with ‘my Stadium boys’ as I have come to think of them tonight.

  After a bit Mark and I decide to go outside for a fag.

  ‘Brilliant, brilliant party,’ I shout over the music as we stagger up the club’s dingy back staircase. ‘You’re all so clever. I love you all, I really do. Everything’s just brilliant! Isn’t it all brilliant, Marky?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s brilliant,’ he laughs, throwing back his shaved head and giving me an eyeful of his powerful throat.

  ‘You’re brilliant!’ I cry. ‘You know, everyone thinks you’re so stupid, but they’re wrong. You’re brilliant! Absolutely brilliant.’

  ‘Thanks babe, th
at means a lot to me,’ says Mark sentimentally. And without further ado he pushes me back against the wall and shoves his tongue down my throat. It feels amazing. His tongue is as huge and muscly as the rest of him. I respond, forcing my tongue back into his mouth so I can kiss his lips too.

  He holds both my wrists up against the wall with one incredibly strong arm, so I am trapped. With the other, he pushes my dress up and starts kneading his palm against the front of my new lace knickers. The friction of the lace combined with the force of his enormous hand makes me moan into his mouth.

  Mark leans back, still holding me against the wall by my wrists, and looks mockingly into my eyes.

  ‘Fuck me, you’re a sexy little thing, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t stop,’ I say.

  ‘Would you like it if I did this?’ He puts one finger just inside my knickers, not inside me, but touching the very edge.

  ‘U-huh.’

  ‘How would you like this, then?’ He puts a large finger right inside me and I look him in the eye.

  ‘I’d like it a lot.’

  ‘And how would you feel if I started doing this?’ He starts rubbing my clitoris with his thumb, two huge fingers now going deeper still inside me. He still has my arms pinned above my head with one hand.

  ‘Oh Jesus, Mark, I …’

  He lowers his head and starts kissing me again. I feel vulnerable, unable to move as he’s so strong and has me pinned to the wall. His huge tongue is in my mouth, his huge fingers in my cunt, his huge thumb against my clit. Plundering never felt so good.

  Suddenly, somebody says, ‘Oy you two, enough of that.’

  Mark lets go of my arms and withdraws his other hand. A security guard is standing on the stair below us.

  ‘Looks like you’re having fun, but it’s more than my job’s worth to let you carry on here,’ he says, looking overexcited himself. I wonder how long he’s been watching us. ‘If I catch you again, you’re out of here.’ He walks back down the stairs, probably off for a wank.

  ‘Phew, perhaps we’d better go outside and cool off, have a fag.’ I adjust my wet knickers and lean up to kiss Mark’s stubbly cheek. ‘But I definitely don’t want tonight to finish here. You and I have unfinished business.’