Camellia (28 page)

At first Camellia did her best to find something to like about him, to understand why Bee was so besotted by him. But there was nothing to like, not a shred of decency or even humour. He had no conversation; it was all bravado, swagger and taking the rise out of others.

He quickly became a wedge between her and Bee. Bee was so mesmerised by him that everything she did or said was for his benefit. Stuck indoors, Camellia had little else to occupy her mind but the changes in her friend's personality, and within a few days she realised many of them were caused by the speed Jake was feeding her.

Bee was restless, overly talkative and had lost her once hearty appetite. Camellia woke at dawn one morning to hear her opening and closing drawers in her room. Thinking that perhaps she was packing up to leave, Camellia got up and hobbled out on her crutches.

To her amazement Bee was wearing nothing but the briefest pair of lacy panties and her bed was piled high with clothes.

'What on earth are you doing?' Camellia asked from the doorway. Although she'd been aware Bee had lost some weight recently, it was only now, seeing her naked that she realised how much. She was almost skinny!

'All my clothes are too big now,' Bee explained. 'I thought I'd sort out the things I like enough to get altered.'

'At this time of the morning?' Camellia saw it was just after four. Bee had come home around twelve. But the time was hardly important. She saw immediately that her friend's pupils were very dilated, that her hands were trembling, and her breathing seemed laboured. 'What have you been taking?'

'Just a couple of Bennies,' Bee shrugged and pulled on the black minidress she'd worn the night of the Arabs' party. 'Look at this Mel! Remember how tight it was?'

Camellia remembered only too well how the dress had once looked. Bee's breasts used to almost tumble out of it, and it clung to her hips like a second skin. Now it was loose all over.

Having been fat herself Camellia could understand that Bee was excited to find herself losing weight. But to lose so much, so quickly was risky, especially when it was caused by dangerous, addictive amphetamines.

'Bee, you've got to stop this,' Camellia implored her. 'I'm worried sick about you. Jake's turning you into a different person.'

Bee turned to Camellia and curled her lips in scorn. 'Jake's right about you, Mel,' she said, shaking her head. 'You're jealous, bitter and you're becoming a real drag.'

'Jealous?' Camellia snorted. 'Of you having a man who humiliates you, feeds you drugs and walks all over you! Grow up, Bee, and look at him for what he really is.'

'He only snaps at me because he's worried about things at the moment,' Bee retorted. 'If he could give up his studio and do his work here, he'd be fine.'

Camellia's stomach turned over. 'Never!' she said firmly. 'You let him in here, Bee, then I'm out the door for good. That's a promise.'

There were two songs in the charts during this time that seemed to capture Camellia's feelings. Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime' was a reminder that everyone else in London was out enjoying the hot weather while she was incarcerated indoors. The other was the Beatles' last and most poignant single "The Long and Winding Road'.

She too had been on a long and winding road, only to discover it was the wrong one. But on good days, when Mike telephoned to ask how she was feeling, she felt the road might yet eventually lead to him and true happiness. Sometimes when Bee went off somewhere with Jake, Camellia took a blanket and a few cushions outside into the small yard by the front door, to read books he'd recommended and dream daydreams of what might come later when her leg was better, when she'd found a job and Bee became disenchanted with Jake.

But there was no sign yet of him losing his hold over her. Instead his influence grew stronger daily. He took her shopping in King's Road and bought her diaphanous shirts, tight leather miniskirts with big studded belts and kinky long boots. Not even her hair escaped his attention. Jake got it permed in an Afro style, and now it stood out like a fuzzy blonde halo. She'd lost her wholesome pink and white prettiness, her warmth and her sense of humour. She looked like a blue-movie star, but acted like a robot, programmed only to please her master.

Two weeks after Camellia's discharge from St Stephen's Hospital she went back for a check-up on her leg. Jake used her absence as an opportunity to move in.

Camellia came home in a taxi, excited by the news that her plaster would be off within three or four weeks. But as she hobbled awkwardly down the steps to tell Bee, she caught a glimpse of Jake through the window, assembling his tripods in the lounge.

'You aren't going to move in here,' she shouted angrily, the moment she was in the door. 'Get it all out now!'

Bee wasn't there. Presumably she'd been sent out on an errand. Jake was wearing skintight white jeans, and a white singlet, a gold medallion round his neck and his hair in a ponytail.

'It isn't your flat,' he said grinning triumphantly at her. 'I looked at the lease. It's only in Bee's name. And it's fine by her if I move in, so keep your mouth shut or I'll make her throw you out.'

Camellia shook with rage. He was right of course; legally Camellia was nothing more than a lodger. Alone with Bee later she tried to get her friend to back her up and throw Jake out, but Bee merely cried, insisted it would only be for a few weeks and begged her not to make any more scenes.

'Then I'll have to leave,' Camellia said, bitter that her friend thought more of Jake's feelings than hers after all they'd been to one another. 'I knew we couldn't stay together for ever, but I never thought someone as worthless as him would split us up.'

But however much Camellia wanted to leave, she couldn't. The only money she had was from the national assistance and that wasn't enough to pay advance rent elsewhere. Now that Jake was living with them, she couldn't even consider asking Mike round. A smell of cannabis hung in the air, there were pornographic magazines everywhere and she never knew which of Jake's dubious friends might drop in. Sometimes she was tempted to telephone Mike and confide in him, but he was first and foremost a policeman, and if he chose to get the flat raided, it was just possible that Bee might find herself up on serious charges.

As Jake dug himself into the flat, things grew far worse. The flat was no longer hers and Bee's, but Jake's. The lounge was littered with tripods, cameras and lights, making it impossible to clean up. He slept till lunchtime, then either spent the afternoons smoking dope in front of the television, or making endless phone calls to contacts. By six in the evening he was getting into his stride, objecting when Camellia wanted to cook a meal because it made 'his studio' smell. Total strangers came to be photographed. Scantily dressed women made free with the bathroom as a changing room, using her towels, dropping their cigarettes on the floor.

Music blared out constantly. Beer bottles, overloaded ashtrays and piles of papers spoilt the home which had once meant so much to both girls. Jake had no respect for anyone's belongings or their privacy.

Often when Camellia was in the bath, sitting with her leg up on the side to keep it dry, he would march in to use the toilet, grinning broadly at her embarrassment. He ate the food she'd paid for and rifled through her room for cigarettes.

Each time she saw him brushing his hair, admiring himself in the mirror, she wanted to scream at him. She loathed him for his cutting remarks, his insolence and his violence to Bee. But she could escape to her room and lock the door. Bee had to live with his dominance.

Before Jake moved in, Bee went out a great deal with him, often not returning home until Camellia was asleep. But now she was in all day and night too, it was obvious how Jake had got her total subservience. He fed her drugs till she was in a permanent stupor: barbiturates to get to sleep at night, amphetamines to wake her up the next day. Her diet consisted mainly of yoghurt and oranges and as her weight continued to drop dramatically, she became gaunt and withdrawn. The bath was strewn with loose blonde hairs, her skin was dry and flaky and her eyes permanently dull and vacant.

In the early hours of the morning Camellia would sometimes awake to the sound of vicious sadistic sex–obscenities shouted out, the swish of a cane and screams followed by silence. Occasionally there was another female voice besides Bee's.

One morning she found Bee shivering on the settee wearing only a slip. One look at her tear-stained face was enough to know Jake had kicked her out in favour of another girl. For once she didn't appear to be drugged witless.

'Bee, you've got to pull yourself together,' Camellia implored her, making her tea and forcing her to eat an egg on toast. She ran her hand over a new bruise on her friend's now bony shoulder. 'He's evil, Bee, and you know it. Say the word and I'll round up a couple of Aiden's old mates to get him out.'

'You don't understand.' Bee's big, now dull blue eyes filled up with new tears. 'This is a mind game. A kind of test. He does love me.'

'Mind game!' Camellia shook her friend angrily. 'This is no game! He's all but destroyed your mind. Where's your pride, Bee? He's in there screwing another girl in your bed, on your sheets. He doesn't love anyone but himself, you poor fool.'

Four weeks to the day since she'd left hospital, Camellia went to stay the night with Denise in Notting Hill Gate, just for a brief respite from Jake. When she came home the next day it was raining hard, but Camellia was feeling more cheerful and optimistic. Denise had told her that a friend of hers who owned a pub out in Chiswick wanted a live-in barmaid. As soon as her plaster came off she could go and see the landlord.

The curtains were closed in the lounge, and at first Camellia assumed Bee and Jake were still in bed. She let herself in, but then stopped short at the brilliant light flooding from the lounge into the small hall.

She could hear nothing. Thinking Jake had left his photographic lights on by mistake, she went on into the kitchen, glancing through the half-open lounge door as she went.

To her horror, the room wasn't empty. Bee was lying on the settee in only a black suspender belt and stockings, and by her head a naked, very hairy man was holding his penis to her mouth.

Camellia was so shocked she stood rooted to the spot.

'For Christ's sake, Bee,' Jake's voice boomed out suddenly, so close to Camellia that he had to be just the other side of the door. 'Don't just look at it. Suck it!'

The naked man turned slightly at Jake's command, but she barely looked at his face, for even semi-flaccid the man's penis was enormous.

Bee's open mouth was less than an inch from it, her eyes screwed up in disgust.

'Suck the fucking thing!' Jake shouted again and moved forward. All at once his back view was in Camellia's line of vision.

He was wearing nothing but a pair of white shorts, his muscular back bronzed from the sun. Holding the heavy cine camera on one shoulder, he shot his spare hand forward to probe at Bee's vagina.

'Come on,' he said huskily. 'You're keen enough to suck mine. Do it good and I'll reward you later.'

Camellia was trapped. If she went on out again now Jake would hear her. Stuck, she waited for an opportune moment to make her escape.

The dark man had rammed the end of his cock into Bee's mouth. Jake was practically on top of them with the camera.

'Come on, Bee,' he ordered. 'Play with yourself at the same time, stick your fingers in it. Hussein, start wanking.'

The man obliged willingly, his head thrown back, ramming the tip of his helmet into the wide mouth in front of him.

'It's good,' he shouted in a strange guttural accent. 'Hold my balls you bitch. Lick me!'

'Pull back,' Jake yelled. 'Let's see the spunk on her lips!'

As the Arab came, shooting it all over Bee's face, Camellia retched, lunging for the sink and dropping one of her crutches.

'Spying eh?' Jake was suddenly behind her. 'If you want to watch you only have to ask!'

She stood up again, holding the sink for support, her nausea replaced by fury. 'How could you?' she shouted. 'You bloody pervert.'

He caught hold of her arm and dragged her forward. She clung desperately to the one crutch and tried to prevent him, but he was too strong for her.

'Come and meet Hussein,' he said, smirking and putting his arm right round her, grabbing one of her breasts. 'I'm sure he's got another lot in there for you.'

Bee was hastily trying to cover herself, still with all that muck on her face. Hussein clearly thought he had been brought a new partner, and his low brow furrowed with frown lines as he studied the plaster cast on her leg. 'Who is these?' he asked, rubbing his cock half-heartedly, sitting down on a chair, great balls hanging over the edge like a bull.

But overriding her fear and disgust was anxiety for Bee. She was completely out of her head, her pupils dilated so much her irises had all but disappeared. She couldn't even sit up.

'Leave her alone,' she kept mumbling, absent-mindedly wiping her face with the back of her hand. 'Let her go, Jake.'

On 1 August, nearly three months since Hank Beckwith attacked her, Camellia finally had the plaster taken off her leg. It felt strange without it. Her leg was oddly light, and the warm sun and breeze seemed to tickle the pallid flesh.

Taking the back streets, she crossed over King's Road, then went on to Cheyne Walk by the river. It was a hot, sunny day, and she was reluctant to go straight home, even though she'd been warned that it would take some time to adjust to walking normally again.

By the time Camellia reached the embankment, her knee was aching. She sat down on a bench and looked at the view appreciatively. The Thames looked almost clean today, silver and sparkly, the houseboats adding a gay, Mediterranean quality to the scene. A girl, little older than herself, was watering some flowers in tubs on a house boat. A fat brown baby sat by her in a pushchair, naked apart from a nappy, gurgling happily. Apart from the heavy traffic roaring away behind her, it was an idyllic place to waste a couple of hours.