Authors: J. Levy
Frankie fought to control her laughter, but couldn’t, so she sank her teeth into the pink doughnut, letting the dough absorb her snickering.
‘Maybe he’ll send flowers too,’ suggested
Jezzy
, reaching for the other half of her doughnut.
‘I don’t know, don’t you think they would have already been delivered, maybe he couldn’t do it with the time difference?’ ‘Stop making excuses for him! I didn’t get any either,’ grumbled
Jezzy
, ‘and at least you got balloons!’
‘We could send them to each other, everybody does that these days, I heard it on LBC,’ offered
Jezzy
helpfully.
‘Steve Allen?’
‘Who else?’
‘Steve is so perfect, he’s the kind of guy you could really talk to isn’t he? I love listening to him before I get up and sometimes I podcast him and listen to him at the school gates. Anything to detract from the crummy mummies!’ Frankie began to slightly crease up.
‘Steve doesn’t take calls though does he, he’s the kind of bloke you can text a lot though.’
‘Yeah, let’s do it then, we should!’
‘Amazing really, not getting flowers on Valentine’s Day, it’s all so very anti-orgasmic,’ sighed Frankie.
‘Anti-climatic?’
‘Maybe,’
Jezzy
started on the brown doughnut, then remembering she didn’t like it, put it down.
‘At least balloons don’t die quite so easily I suppose. I don’t expect exciting things anymore, if you don’t expect and don’t get, you won’t be disappointed. But I do love roses.’
‘And other negative clichés.’
Jezzy
poured the tea, milky for her and strong for Frankie. Strong stewed workmens tea. Bitter and brown. ‘This tea’s too brown for V. Day. Gosh, V. Day, sounds like V.D!’
‘Which ones do you want then?’ asked Frankie.
‘Are we talking the most preferable of STD’s?’
‘No, flowers.’
‘Oh, we can go to the stall outside and pick them,’
Jezzy
was faintly excited, ‘Sweet Peas maybe, if they’re in season.’
‘Does this mean we will be each other’s Valentiny?’ asked Frankie.
‘Great friends,’ shrugged
Jezzy
. ‘Always.’
‘Then I think I would like something fragrant, something that smells of friendship.
‘Yes!’ You would think, from her reaction, that
Jezzy
had just discovered a cure for Male-Pattern-Boredom. ‘Come on then, I have to get back to the surgery.’
‘And I have to get to school.’
‘Shall we take these with us or let them loose?’
‘Let’s release them.’
Jezzy
jabbed the split point of Frankie’s straw at the balloons. One, two, pop, pop.
*
Devon
Through the window pressed up against clouds of grey, Devon gazed, glassy eyed, until she glimpsed Windsor Castle, studded into the green of Berkshire, moving further to the east, until her plane came to land at Heathrow. Everything was cloudy.
Dull. Nothing had changed then. Except her.
Devon trailed through the vast carpeted corridors to passport control, wondering if she should use her British or US passport? She decided it would be lot simpler to use her British one. No questions. No searching. Nothing. Just a bland entrance into what she thought of as a bland country. She summoned a Sky Cap towards baggage claim 5, where thankfully and quite astonishingly, her bags were already there. He heaved them onto the trolley and they headed for the green channel. Feeling the chill on the other side, she and her Sky Cap made their way to the taxi stand. As she approached the line of humming, familiar black cabs she could finally smell England. Her nose, despite being made in LA, twitched disdainfully and she climbed into the back seat, letting the cabbie and the Cap pile her bags inside. Bags never seemed to fit into the back flap of taxis and she had no idea why they were still pretty much the same design as when she left, all those years ago.
‘Where to love?’ chirped the typical taxi driver.
Did they really always think they were in a movie? Didn’t they realize that sometimes their ‘chirpy’ behaviour made people want to vomit?
‘The Berkeley.’
‘Gotcha love, been anywhere nice?’
Devon pressed the heater button, allowing the noise to drown out the cabbie and his scratching, irritating curiosity.
She looked out of the window and ignored him. They drove past familiar sights. The houses were old and unkempt. The sky still looked so tired. Why was that? Was it really so very difficult having to hang over London? In Los Angeles, despite the smog, even the sky looked healthy. Here in England it looked as though it could do with a break. Jet-lag began to seep into her eyes and she closed them, just for a moment.
A smartly dressed doorman opened the taxi door. The Berkeley s
tood before her in all its ston
y-beige splendour. A London matriarch, situated regally on the cusp of Knightsbridge and Belgravia. There was no better location in this city, thought Devon as she eased herself out of the taxi. Had she forgotten all of the other places? Those places of long, long ago. The ones her mind dare not remember?
After mere moments at the reception, Devon found herself in her room with its sumptuous décor and enormous fluffy pillows on a bed that looked beyond inviting. She tipped the bellman ten pounds and had already stripped naked by the time he had closed the door behind him.
Shame, she thought. He was rather nice. Tall and dark, with an Eastern European accent and he smelt clean too.
She stood beneath the shower and let the water wash away that strange, indeterminable, almost acrid ‘plane smell’. The one everyone smells of after any flight. Luggage seems to temporarily take on that smell too. It’s a smell like no other. Horrible. She was glad to be rid of it. Slathering the hotel body lotion on her soft, still damp skin, Devon threw on the puffy white robe, flossed and brushed her teeth, tied her hair in a knot on top of her head, moisturized her face and almost fell down onto the bed, literally sinking into its comfort with a sigh. There really was nothing like the luxury of a good hotel room when you were clean and hungry. Scanning the menu, she punched the room service button and ordered.
‘Double fried egg and chips, not runny, not hard. White toast. Tea. Extra hot water. Biscuits. Please. And hurry please, I’m starving.’ It was not exactly Berkeley Fare, but they were obliging nonetheless.
‘Yes maam, that should be with you in 20-25 minutes.’
Devon popped the remote control and set the channel to Sky News. It was the weather report. Apparently, England was chilly. No kidding? Maybe rain tomorrow. This country was so predictable. Then they showed a sky cam pic filled with clouds so that you could barely make out what was beneath.
‘Three degrees overnight in town, dropping to minus two in Greater London…….’ A pretty, meteorologist with dark shiny hair and high heels droned on and on.
Greater London.
Her mind began to travel back in time. Dropping down into the underground, boarding a train, lingering in the carriage as it jolted through the city, the eastern outskirts
of London
, carrying her
through stations
on a red line, further and further,
to
Essex…
Knock, knock. Two loud raps at the door.
Food.
The waiter delivered and Devon devoured with gusto. She
tore
her toast into
uneven rectangles,
soldiers
slightly askew
and dunked them into the slightly mobile perfect yolks. She put salt on her chips and scoffed them down, chasing down mouthfuls with hot, burning slugs of tea with white sugar. She mopped up her plate with a waiting soldier, filled the teapot with hot water and dunked biscuits into the steaming dark brown drink. Bitter with sugar to sweeten.
Saited. Devon closed her eyes and escaped to dreamland.
She awoke three hours later with dried egg yolk across her bottom lip. Scraping it off with her teeth, she peeled herself off the bed, reached into her case and punched a text into her Blackberry, pulled out a silky black sheeth dress and a brigh
t red wig styled into a chignon, held together with crystal-studded
chopstic
ks
. She climbed into the dress, piled up her hair, fastening it with pins, pulled on the wig and slipped out of the room.
3am. Soho. Windmill Street.
In a dingy alley that stank of piss and rotting food, Devon handed something over to a spindly tranvestite wearing a vibrant orange mini-skirt and a black velvet cape.
Within
a short space of time
,
time seemingly devoid of minutes and seconds
that stretched like a heat sodden fog, despite the chilled night air, i
n a room rented by the hour above a sex shop, a man was grunting like a pig. His face was puce, his eyes bulging and his fat nose was dripping
with
sweat. He was a pig.
‘Uuuugh, more, more,’ he grunted through yellow teeth. He shoved out his thick, coated tongue, reaching for her ear and jammed his tongue inside it like a thick, spongy arrow.
The room was dingy. Dank. Stale. Threadbare curtains hung limply across the window, but the red lights along the street glowed through. Impervious.
‘Uugh, let me shove it in, more, more…’
Devon flipped out from beneath him and before he knew what had happened had turned him face down and was astride him. She quickly pulled a chopstick from her updo and shoved it up his arse. He yelped, squealing like the stuck pig he was. She jammed it in further, as far as it would go. He was whimpering, pleading. Just how she liked it.
She leaned in very close, so he could feel her breath in his hairy ear.
‘Never stick your tongue in a lady’s ear,’ she whispered so quietly that she could barely be heard. ‘We hate it. It feels disgusting. Your breath is disgusting. Your saliva is disgusting. Your snorting is disgusting.’ With every other word she twi
sted the chopstick inside him until h
e began to go limp
,
contorted with the
pain
of twisted pleasure
.
She yanked out the stick in a flash, brown and putrid, using it to spear a disheartened prawn that was hanging over the edge of a square plastic carton on the bedside table. He gaped at her, eyes wide, fearful, confused. Then she shoved the chopstick in his mouth.
Cramming the cash into her purse and sweeping away to the door she turned back and with a razor-like gleam in her eyes snarled, ‘Eat shit.’
*
Back at the Berkeley. Devon laid down on the ceramic floor of the bath, lifted her legs to the ceiling and let the hot water wash away the night. She didn’t know how long she was there, upside down with her legs wide open, it just had to be long enough to flush away the stench. Her face remained still, stoic, as tears mingled with water. Salt with soap. Sweetened tears. She rubbed furiously between her legs with the little bar of hotel soap, rubbing and rubbing, digging her fingers into it until it became a squidgy mass.
Her mind was a maze. Entangled and entwined. Intertwined. Mangled. Unravelling a little more each day.
She couldn’t go on like this anymore, trying to avenge her past by demoralizing disgusting men. She knew she was reaching the end and that freedom was, at last, within her grasp.
She pulled herself out of the tub, wrapping two huge bath towels around her tired body and shattered mind, dragging them across the floor as she dragged her body to the bed. She climbed under the duvet, wrapping herself further into her feathery cocoon and escaped. To sleep. To a place where she would be safe. For a while at least. From herself.
In her dreams she was a child again. Running across a field brimming with buttercups and daisies, the grass kissed by the spring. There was laughter. Sunshine and fine, blue birds in the sky. A football on the glossy grass. Glorious trees to climb. Sandwiches made with pappy white bread,
tangy salt and vinegar
crisps, crispy sausage rolls and sweet Jammie Dodgers, all tucked away in a red gingham-lined, wicker hamper. There was Mother. And Dad. And little brother Joe. Little sister Patsy with her favourite doll that she had named Diana Dors, because of her white blonde, luxurious hair. Devon loved that doll of Patsy’s. It was the best toy in the house. In the world. Better than anything else. Mother spread a blue and yellow checked blanket on the grass and they all sat down to feast upon their picnic. Bees buzzed around them and they laughed and squealed as they swatted them away. The sandwiches were delicious. Mother always made tasty sandwiches with thin ham and buttery lettuce and real thick yellow butter. A perfect day. Then, suddenly,
an
awareness of discomfort, of prickles on
the
neck. The day had a dent in it. A wedge. A feeling had finally erupted that meant things would never be the same again.