To the Devil - a Diva!

by Paul Magrs

  ‘Hey,’ I jabbed her, as the first tongues of flame went writhing through the pyramid of branches and old crates. ‘Aren’t you scared?’

  She looked at me in scorn. The music around us was harsh and like nothing I’d ever heard before. They were making a symphony from the weird notes Isla drew from her musical saw. Great bubbles of discordant noise rose up from the players, up above our heads and out into the clearing: clashing and blending in curious harmonies.

  ‘Why should I be scared?’ she laughed. ‘This is all on account of me.’

  I scowled at her. I wanted to slap her, but I knew she’d thump me back. Curvaceous she might be nowadays, but she was still strong and wiry underneath. She hadn’t lost that.

  There were bright bursts of light, fanning out across the glade as other vehicles arrived for the celebrations. It was hard to take in the details, but other faces were joining the crowd. The noise grew quite fierce. These newcomers were more talkative and excited. There was a profusion of different accents, some I didn’t recognise. Their breath came out in smoky gasps and soon we were jostling for space.

  They came by to look at Katy in her winter queen frock.

  ‘Get some more of this down you,’ she told me, passing a tin mug of that spicy wine.

  I sipped it, wanting to hold my nose as I did so. I said to her, ‘You know what all of this is about, don’t you? You know what they do?’

  She admitted she was vague about some of the details. But she had the gist. It was only a bit of harmless fun, really.

  I shook my head at her, cold in all that crowd. I thought of her going out at night and coming back with mucky feet and scratches on her skin. She’d seen more of this stuff than I had. It wasn’t up to me to protect her. She’d gone too far for that.

  She laughed at me. ‘What do I care if a few funny old fellas want to worship me and fiddle on with me? It’s a good laugh. They think I’m Chosen. That’s all.’

  I shuddered at the tone in her voice.

  She was greeting some of those strangers then, as if she was a friend of theirs. Greeting them over my shoulder, like she was at a cocktail party. I moved away.

  Poor Katy. She was always centre of attraction after that. That was the real beginning for her, I suppose. Silly cow. And yet … Yet I suppose she really did know exactly what she was letting herself in for. That’s the funny thing.

  I moved away and went unnoticed in the press of the crowd. I shuffled through acrid billows of churning smoke and waves of hot and cold air, battening me back. The fire had leapt up from the frozen branches with unnatural quickness. Around it, the revellers were singing along with that awful music. They were eating meat that wasn’t on the ration. I watched their teeth squeezing down into crispy flesh and juices running freely down their chins.

  I kept my head down, making for the edge of the group. I wanted fresh air. I wanted quiet again. I didn’t want to see what was going to happen to Katy. I knew that much.

  I leant against the gnarled bulk of an old tree and watched the lot of them from afar. From here you could hear the real life of the forest. The owls shrieking in alarm; the creatures in the undergrowth stirring at all this alien hullaballoo. I breathed deeply, hating the lingering taste of that tainted wine.

  That was when I turned and saw the big posh car parked there between the trees. It was as strange as if a ship had docked there: a stately galleon stilled in the frosty air. I suppose it was a Rolls Royce or something, all silver. For one thing, it wasn’t at all like the motley assortment of lorries and butcher’s vans and whatnot everyone else had turned up in. This car stood out a mile and I was drawn right to it. To me it seemed like real magic, just appearing there. The real thing, with its windows all black and wound up against the cold. It was immaculate. Like something from another world.

  Without a sound the window on the driver’s side rolled down. It seemed to me that whoever was inside wanted to speak to me. I felt like they had been watching me, plodging and crunching in my wellies, away from the gabbling, rabble-rousing crowd. Whoever owned the car had noted that I was the odd one out – the wallflower – and they wanted to see that I was all right. That’s what I thought, trusting thing that I was. My insides went all watery at that thought.

  I’d watched the films. I knew what those stories were about. When a big car stopped by like a silver ghost and a hand came out of the window and crooked a finger at you, that meant someone had spotted your talent. They’d take you to Hollywood and put your name in lights and you would do anything for them.

  So when I stepped up to that car I was full of mixed feelings, but I was sure that someone had seen my true quality shining out through the duffel coat and all my puddingy flesh.

  In a way that was true.

  Someone special had, in fact, noticed me. Perhaps the most influential person I’d ever meet, in all my life. As I rested my fingers on the silver skin of that car, and felt their tips start to freeze and stick, it was just like I was touching greatness.

  There was a beautiful man sat inside. And beside him, a beautiful woman. They were rich and grand and they were both wearing lavish fur coats. I had never seen people like them before. They smiled at me, together.

  Now how do I explain Fox and Magda Soames?

  I think back on these very early adventures of mine and they all seem to be about searching for new parents. I ended up in one set of laps after another. As did Katy. But I never wanted new parents. I just wanted Mam. I was quite happy when it was just me and Mam. But then great world events intervened and I couldn’t have Mam and I was sent to the Figgises instead. And now, it seemed, as I opened up their car as I was told and clambered onto their back seat, I had Mr and Mrs Soames.

  Straight away I knew they were taking me in. They were rescuing me in the Silver Ghost. I didn’t belong with the midnight people and so I was being led away again. Because I didn’t understand – or I understood all too well – what was going on in those woods.

  I was just a little girl. Them two took one look at me and they understood. She’s just a little girl. She’s out of her depth in the dark and dancing woods. We need to pick her up and take her away.

  They were good, well-bred people. Cultivated. They didn’t like what the Figgises did much either. But they were involved.

  We slid out of those woods, down off those hills, away from the Lake District. It was like flying, the car was that grand. I think I fell asleep in the warm, scented air.

  Do you know, I’ve not been able to go back to the Lake District. Never. It takes up this whole space in my memory and in my mind. I can see the crags and the rough grass and the valleys. And I can see the Figgises and Katy but they’re only faraway specks. In my head I can see it as from above, in the dark of a winter night and I can see the shape of its lakes in moonlight. Splashes and blobs of mercury. And there’s a stealthy, silver car leaving the place behind, bombing down the empty roads, towards Manchester.

  I was rescued that night by the most glamorous pair I’ve ever known. The gallant novelist and his lady wife. They had the kind of authority that no one could face up to: they didn’t care about the war or Hitler or witches or the evacuation board. They could see I needed taking back to Mam.

  I was rescued. Like a little girl should be.

  ‘What about Katy?’ I asked them, eyes wide as we hurtled south.

  ‘You’ll see her again,’ Fox Soames told me. ‘One day. But she’s in a story of her own now. It isn’t the same as yours.’

  I lay back on the upholstery of the back seat. Over the furry shoulders of the Soamses’ his-and-hers plush coats, I watched the night through the windscreen, rushing up to us. And I thought about what my mam would say.

  PART TWO

  Back in Manc

  ONE

  The first Lance knew of it was that morning, from the Daily Mirror. Well, from the milkman really, who’d yanked the paper out of his box and had already turned to the full story on pages four and five. He was scanning the colu
mns with some interest on the front doorstep of Lance’s flat. Lance noted that he still managed to hold a pint of full cream in one hand as he read. That’s dexterity.

  ‘I don’t take full fat these days, Dennis, thank you very much,’ Lance snapped. The milkman looked at him, blinking.

  The daylight was all a bit much up here. It was turning the rooftops and the turrets of the city centre the colours of salmon, butter and just-done toast. Lance had tottered direct from the shaded recesses of his boudoir. He’d only just cast his face mask aside. Now he was confronted with the full glare of the city’s rooftops. He clutched his dressing gown tight, making a moue of displeasure as his milkman passed him the bottle of milk. He looked like he was about to start rabbiting on about whatever had snagged his interest in the paper. But first he was reading to the end of page five. Lance sighed.

  Already smells of breakfast from the cafe bars five storeys below were wafting up to Lance’s terrace. There was still the tang of last night’s booze – fizzy lager and alcopops – drifting over from the rooftop bar that adjoined his little garden. Only a short hop and a jump from Lance’s Tuscan paradise to the aluminium garden furniture and heat lamps of that bar – Slag! – next door. Well, this was what you got for living at the top of an urban village. Hordes of them drifting by at night, outside the bars, along the canal, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of him – the star in their midst – up in his swanky pad.

  Oh, he was living the metropolitan life. He’d waited long enough for success and money, and now he’d take it whichever way it came. Sometimes you had to pay to live in the heart of life – and not just through the nose. Lance’s price also involved over-familiarity. It was the bane of Lance’s kind of celebrity. If you were on telly like he was – especially like he was – all of them owned a little piece of you. This milkman, for instance, was getting far too cocky just lately.

  Lance leant against his doorway and made a show of toying idly with the decorative pebbles of his Zen meditation garden with one bare foot. He hugged the offending bottle of full fat milk to his hairless chest (brrrr) and said at last: ‘Come on then. Tell me. What’s so fascinating?’

  The milkman’s face came out of the paper. He grinned. A louche grin. The bastard even doffed his cap in serio-comic deference. And so he frigging should, thought Lance.

  ‘Have you heard about this?’ the milkman said. He had a jaunty local accent and his white coat was pristine. He looked like he’d been dressed by the wardrobe department to be the very image of a milkman. ‘You must know this already. It can’t be news to you.’

  ‘What?’ Lance snapped. He knew he was making himself unsympathetic, even this early in the morning. But he was on his own turf. He was nearly forty and at the height of his personal success. Kind of. And if he couldn’t be stroppy here and now, this morning, on his own front doorstep, then when could he be? Most of his life he had to spend being polite. Obsequious, even. Don’t piss off the fan base. You have to appease the public. He yanked the paper out of the milkman’s hands and looked at it. ‘Oh.’

  On the front page there was a picture that filled most of the available space. It was of his most loathed enemy in all the world. With her bazoomas out.

  ‘Like mangoes, aren’t they?’ his milkman pointed out helpfully.

  ‘You mean melons,’ Lance sighed, and flicked to pages four and five.

  And that’s when he found out: Karla Sorenson, veteran queen of the lesbian vampire exploitation flick, to join cast of ailing porno soap in bid to up ratings. Full story with mucky pics.

  ‘Oh, fucking hell,’ Lance hissed.

  His milkman Dennis grinned again. His lips were very thin, the hair under his milkman’s cap as he removed it showed up blonde and cropped down to the skin. ‘You asking me in then, Lance?’

  And Lance – rather bad-naturedly – let him surge into the cool dark balm of his exquisite rooftop pad.

  ‘This is awful news, just awful …’

  The milkman perched himself on a tall stool at the breakfast bar and watched his host clatter about, from juice squeezer to coffee machine. Lance was clashing cupboards shut and switching on a lime green portable telly with unnecessary force. The Daily Mirror was strewn over the kitchen counter. Karla Sorenson was showing her perfect bosoms to the world.

  She must be sixty if she’s a day, thought the milkman.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Lance kept muttering as the coffee started to burble and the people on the daytime settee went chuntering on.

  Dennis the milkman smiled to himself, watching the whole drama unfold. Hey, this was good. A hissy fit at half ten in the morning. Dennis felt privy to something not many people in this life got to see. But this was in the nature of his job. And what a fantastic job. His steely grey eyes flicked casually around Lance’s kitchen walls – noting the posters, the playbills, all the glorious trappings. A framed signed photo of Lance standing with Barbara Windsor at what looked like a garden party at Buckingham Palace. A piccie of Lance, head-bowed, meeting the Queen Mother backstage at the Royal Variety. This was real stardom. When you’re a milkman, Dennis was thinking, that’s how you see the real stuff. Stuff like this: everything that lies behind the bland facades of these rooftop pads.

  He decided to rally his pal. ‘Oh, come on, Lance. It’s not all bad. You’ve said yourself that the show’s going down the pan. No one’s watching anymore. Maybe she’ll help it come back to life …’

  Lance was obviously taking it hard. Pride, Dennis thought. Lance was the star of the show. Now they were bringing in a lesbian vampire as a crutch. That must sting.

  Lance turned on him snarling. ‘Who asked you? You’re the milkman, for fuck’s sake. What do you know?’

  Dennis gave a leisurely shrug. ‘I know what I like on the telly. And as a punter, as a member of your audience, what I say is more important than what you do. And your show’s been looking a bit lacklustre just lately. Yeah, it was shocking when it first started … but it’s not moved on really, has it? Maybe Karla Sorenson’s just what it needs to perk it up. I’ll start watching again when she comes on …’ He pulled the paper round to look at her publicity shots again. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at those bazoomas …’

  Lance cursed and turned to the coffee pot. It was brimming now, bubbling away, and even it was looking smug to Lance this morning. So Dennis has stopped watching the show, has he? Oh, there was no hope left. ‘You don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  Lance jabbed his finger. ‘About that woman. About what she’s done. What she is responsible for …’

  Dennis’s eyes widened. ‘You know her?’

  Lance tutted. ‘I’m a celebrity. Of course I know her. I know everyone.’

  Dennis nodded. Of course. Actually, now he looked more closely, Lance did seem as if he’d had an actual shock that went beyond professional pride and irk. He looked really horrified at this news about Ms Sorenson joining the cast of his show. Dennis had just thought it a laugh, but Lance was somehow taking it personally.

  ‘I’m sorry then, Lance …’

  ‘Mr Randall, to you.’

  ‘I’m sorry for upsetting you,’ said Dennis glumly. ‘I never realised it was the kind of news that needed breaking gently. I’d have thought you’d be interested and pleased …’

  Lance looked at him closely, alert for satire of any kind. But the milkman was hanging his head as he sat on that stool: the picture of contrition.

  ‘Well,’ said Lance. ‘Never mind.’ He turned, slightly abashed, to his portable telly, and turned up the sound. The folk on the sofa were saying that later in the show they’d be going over cervical smears.

  Lance busied himself making coffee in his hand-thrown bowls. Special treat for Dennis. He’d trust him not to chip it. Full fat milk, though. What had he been thinking of? That’d put the kybosh on Lance’s dietary regime. And he had volume two of his thigh and bum video to shoot in the next month.

  He sighed, g
lugged in the gold top, and turned to hand the milkman his fresh, foamy coffee.

  Dennis was still looking down at himself. Still abject and ashamed, Lance thought at first. Perched there on his Alessi stool. Well, good. So he should be. Trouble-making gobshite. He bloody ought to hang his head.

  But, no. Dennis was stroking the lobster-red head of his cock, standing out of his milkman’s trousers at the length of a baby’s arm. Lance set down the coffee with some difficulty.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dennis …’

  The milkman looked up from his doings with a lopsided grin.

  ‘Look,’ Lance hissed. ‘I’ve said before. I’m not really a porno star. And I’m not even really queer. Whatever you see on the telly …’

  Now Dennis was manipulating himself to a quite remarkable degree. Such dexterity. Wrists strengthened, presumably, from hefting weighty bottles, two, three, four, five at a time. The end of his cock was glowing stickily red in Lance’s immaculate kitchen. It looked like a creature in its own right, clamped to the milkman’s midriff and exerting this fascination over the pair of them. Dennis’s hand went up and down sharply, pacifying it somewhat brusquely.

  Lance’s mouth was dry.

  ‘Oh, fuck it,’ he said and dropped to his knees on the slate blue tiles. He had to shuffle forward a bit and set his palms on the milkman’s knees to steady himself.

  ‘You know you want to,’ said Dennis, after a few hectic moments. He said this rather politely. ‘Suck it, you bitch. You dirty sod. You know you want to suck it good.’

  Lance could hardly believe his ears – trapped, as they were, under both of the milkman’s hot palms. He arched his neck and struggled and took him gradually, all the way down his throat.

  This was becoming a rather regular occurrence.

  TWO

  ‘I know. I know all about you. I know what you really are.’

  The words were still ringing in Karla Sorenson’s delectable ears. Just before they came out of the commercial break and into the interview segment, her plump and matronly hostess on the Brunch Show had looked her dead in the eye. Plain as the daylight through the plate glass studio windows she’d said: ‘I know what you really are.’ And poor Karla, sitting ready on the orange settee in one of her black lace ensembles, had to go through the whole cervical smear phone-in gathering up her composure and trying not to wonder what the batty hostess had meant by that.