To the Devil - a Diva! (12 page)

Number Withheld. The green display of his hated new phone was lighting up green. Someone wanting to talk to him, but not wanting him to know who they were.

But somehow Lance knew exactly who it would be. It wasn't many who had his private number.

Early evening in his luxury pad. He had tried to insulate himself against the world by drawing the screens across his tall windows and by gulping down bloody red wine. He'd ignored the sounds of the street stirring, storeys below him, and the heady, bassy thump from the bar next door.

Still someone was badgering him. Someone with his private number. And withholding their own. At last he snatched it up. ‘Yes?'

‘Lance?'

Her usual throaty warble. Yet she sounded almost hesitant. Her unplaceable accent had turned tremulous, as if she wasn't sure what reception she'd get from him.

‘Who is this?'

‘Your new co-star, sweetness. I want to …' Then she went quiet. There was a slight hiss on the line, underneath her voice. He wondered how close she was.

‘You wanted to what?' He kept his voice hard. He wanted
to sound unperturbed. He was pleased with how steady and hostile he was being.

‘I wanted to check with you, that all of this hullaballoo wasn't too much of a shock. I want to know that … you're OK with me joining your show.'

He snorted. ‘I don't get much choice in the matter, do I?'

Inside he was thinking: I'm actually speaking to her. This is really her.

‘Oh, Lance.' She sighed. A long hiss. ‘I hope … we can work together on this.'

‘Hm.' He was unimpressed.

Now she was trying a different tack. ‘Your mother would be so proud of you.' She sounded more confident. ‘I just know it. Look at you. So handsome. So successful. A big, popular show of your own … pushing the boundaries …'

‘I know what my mother would think, thanks, Karla,' he snapped. ‘I don't need you to tell me.'

‘Of course, sweetness. You're right. You were very close to her. I'm sure she's looking down from heaven in complete approval. And I'm certain that she'll be delighted that fate has brought us together to work on the same wonderful show.'

He bit his tongue for a moment. Then: ‘Why are you here, Karla? Really?'

She gave a gruff chuckle. A tarry wheeze bubbling in her throat. ‘Honestly? Well, I need the money. My residuals are drying up.'

‘I see.'

‘It's as simple as that.'

He sat back on his couch. And listened to the quiet hiss again. ‘It's slumming it a bit, though, isn't it? A poxy late
night soap opera. You're a film actress. A movie star.'

‘Used to be. But you flatter me. I'm nothing that special. Just your average jobbing vamp.'

‘Mm.' He refused to be amused by her.

‘So … Can we? Can we agree to get on? To work together for the greater good and have a pleasant time?'

The last time Lance had seen this woman had been at his mother's funeral. He was a kid. Karla had taken over all of the arrangements. Lance could remember broiling with pent-up rage through all the proceedings. Standing on the sidelines, dressed like a dummy in clothes that felt stiff and too grown-up. Clenching his hot fists, glaring through his fringe at everyone. Then, eventually, when they were alone at the end of the day, he had screamed his frustrations at the flustered Karla. A banshee wail of grief that had frightened them both. You killed her. It was you. All of it was your fault.

And how had he known that? What adolescent intuition had forced him to that terrifying conclusion?

If Lance was honest with himself, he didn't really know any more. The truth of it had settled and silted down into his bones over the years: Karla was solely responsible for the tragedy. No question about it, no doubts. He was sure of it and because of that he hated her guts. His mother was dead and Karla was still swanning about in the world. He hated her now as much as he had that night of the funeral, thirty years ago, when she had tried to comfort him – purring, murmuring, pressing his head to her bosom – pillowing him with unctuous, surrogate love. He still held himself separate and hard: keeping his hatred within.

‘Lance?' she prompted.

When he spoke he sounded weary. He knew she would hear that in his voice. ‘We'll have to work together, won't we? The decision's been made. I'm not leaving. There's no choice, now.'

‘That's true,' she said. ‘But I'd like to think that we could get along as friends, as well as colleagues. There's an awful lot of history between us, Lance.'

He was silent at that. Biting his lip. Not trusting himself to reply.

‘Look,' she said. ‘Sleep on it, sweetness. I just want you to know that I am delighted. I'm pleased that we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other. I've always been very fond of you, you know. No matter how you talked to me or about me. No matter how much you seemed to despise me. Right from you being a little tiny boy. I've always shared in a little bit of your mother's love. We're connected by that.'

Lance swallowed dryly.

She went on, wrapping up the call. ‘So I'll see you on Monday, at work. There's a photocall in the morning. They want us together. OK?'

He struggled to speak. ‘OK,' he said.

The line went dead.

Kevin the tame porter gently took the mobile from her and closed its flap. He looked at her expectantly. ‘I take it that went rather well.'

Karla pulled a face. She wandered over to her picture window and gazed at the redeveloped wharfs of Castlefield, all lit up for the evening. ‘I have an inkling it did,' she purred. ‘I might have mollified him a bit.'

Kevin the porter was perplexed. ‘Why on earth would he need mollifying? I don't understand.'

Karla smiled. ‘He's an artist, Kevin. He's temperamental. Besides, he holds me responsible for his mother's death. He always has. And I've always known that.'

The porter's eyes were gleaming at this. ‘Were you? Responsible?'

Karla felt her face twitch and then sag. Then she asserted self-control: Kevin might well be in thrall to her, but she still had to keep up her act. ‘Of course I wasn't. What do you think I am? Lance thinks he knows everything. He's always been like that. But he hasn't a clue. He doesn't know what it was like back then.'

The porter nodded dumbly and knew that he shouldn't ask anything else. Not for now. He knew there was only so
much he could get out of her. He would just have to take titbits as they came, and feel grateful for them. It wouldn't do to push her too far. For now, he had to feel privileged just to be here; that she had let him come this close.

The phone vibrated twice in his sweating palm. ‘Text message,' he said, and smiled at her.

As she took it from him she was reflecting that she hadn't done badly today in the taking-people-over-stakes. She'd always had a knack for that. Just twenty-four hours and all her life had changed around completely. All sorts of fabulously sinister things were in train and she was having goose-fleshy bumps of nostalgia at the very thought.

She knew that this was all down to the intercession of the Brethren. She knew it was they who had brought about these sudden upturns in her fortunes and she was glad. She knew that their powers were boundless. The Brethren had fingers in a surprising number of pies.

This text message had to be from them. When she clicked it on the screen she was reassured to see their distinctive Gothic font:

‘Excellent progress, daughter. The Brethren advise that U rest well over the coming weekend and prepare yourself for the rigours of your first week back in harness. We will B in touch with further instructions.'

They were always solicitous. They always made her feel special. The Chosen One and all that. Karla was obscurely chuffed by that treatment. They'd been a bit quiet for a few years and she'd wondered if they had forgotten all about her. Hey! Remember me? You've got a willing servant in Cricklewood! And she'd found herself, during those wilderness years of the convention circuit and appearances
on daytime quiz shows, craving the attentions and flattery that the Brethren had always given her. She had started to assume that other, younger, more useful agents had come along.

But they were loyal, she had found. They had bided their time. Waited to deploy her again. Struck when the iron was hot. Now she was in her prime.

Karla was thrilled by all of this.

The Brethren knew what they were doing. They had been marshalling and instructing the likes of her for decades; for centuries. She didn't really know who they were or what they individually did in their daylight hours, but she had every confidence in them. She was their daughter and she would do their bidding without question.

But no one told Karla when to take it easy. It was all very well for them to text her, saying rest up over the weekend. But she was all fraught now, all keyed up. Ready for action. As she erased their message she was even bridling slightly. All these years without them, she was damned if they were coming back and telling her what to do every minute of the day. She was used to looking after herself.

‘You seem cross,' Kevin the porter noted, fiddling with his golden buttons.

She shrugged him away. Made him pour her a drink. Crème de menthe.

‘I can't keep you here forever, Kevin,' she said, settling into a high-backed chair. It was like a throne and the fabric was warm on her bare back. ‘I mean, it's very nice having you jump at my every word, but you must have other duties to perform, for the other guests.'

‘The management have placed me entirely at your disposal.'

Have they indeed? She couldn't help beaming at this. ‘Pour yourself one,' she said. She watched him unsurely sip his drink. She nodded for him to sit on the end of the bed. She let the awkward silence settle between them.

‘Do you have family, Kevin? A girlfriend?'

The atmosphere in the room was cloying; snarled and snagged like cobwebs. He coughed on the fumey drink.

‘Married. Two kids, three and eighteen months. Boy and a girl.'

‘Family man,' she smiled, clunking the ice in her green glass. ‘Nice.'

‘And you?'

She stared at him. For a moment he seemed almost insolent. Sitting there on her huge bed, mussing it up. Asking her personal questions. But there was a guilelessness about him. She had to remind herself: this man was in thrall to her. He couldn't do her harm. Her own powers were augmented by the forceful wills of the combined Brethren. Nothing could touch her now.

Yet her voice came out choked and harsh. ‘No, Kevin. I have no family. I've no one at all.' She put a hand up to her face and covered her eyes. She felt her lashes scraping on the crêpey flesh of her palm and she heard the rustle of Kevin getting off the end of the bed and coming over to her, in one smooth movement.

‘But anyone can see,' he was saying gruffly, ‘Anyone can see that you deserve to have people devoted to you.' He was all concern. He was anguished with concern, she could tell. ‘I am devoted to you. You know that, mistress. And others will be.'

Now he was kneeling in the thick pile of the carpet. She took her hand away from her face and looked down at him. His face was pale and earnest, and his eyes were shining a startling blue. She liked the way his eyebrows were so thick and dark, arching up into his brow. Incredulous that she could think herself alone.

‘Don't mind me,' she said sadly. ‘I'm apt to get like this, Friday nights.'

Sometimes Colin wondered why he bothered coming to Slag! bar on his nights off. It was like being in work all the time. Like all his life revolved around this part of Canal Street: like he could never get away.

The place was filling up. The nighttime drinking crowd were here in earnest. They bustled and shoved at the bars on each level and they hustled and hurried up the open plan stairs.

You had to go somewhere on your nights off, he told himself. You had to go out.

He met Raf and Vicki at the long, shiny bar, where they were already ordering shots of schnapps and looking quite excitable. They had both dashed home from their comics shop at tea time – Vicki to West Didsbury, Raf to Rusholme – and then they had dressed up. Raf was in an extraordinary suit made of some sheeny, cerise stuff, his shirt cuffs falling over his hands. Vicki was wearing a high-necked cashmere pullover, and Colin was surprised to see that it didn't have any kind of design on the front.

‘We've both made a stupendous effort,' Vicki said in her rasping voice. Colin saw that she was eyeing his own outfit. He was in just another tight T-shirt. It was the same as
his work one, except it didn't say ‘Slag!' on the front. He stared back at Vicki until she looked away. He knew she didn't like him, and was at a loss to know why. Sometimes he thought she was downright spiteful. It wasn't even like he'd ever been nasty to her, or said anything out of turn. She had just made her mind up to treat him like a twat. He was surprised she had even agreed to come on the same night out.

Raf was always oblivious to the tensions between his two best friends. When Vicki had one of her digs at Colin, and Colin bit his lip and refused to be drawn into a barney, Raf would gaze away into the distance. Even if Colin snapped back and the two of them ended up rowing, he wouldn't be pulled into it. Raf liked to think his pals got along with each other like they got on with him: easily and smoothly and with him serene, at the centre of their attention. Any discontent and he switched off. Somehow he made this seem like exquisite good manners.

‘We got you one of these,' Raf said and passed Colin a tiny plastic shot glass. Colin would have preferred a pint of lager. These plastic pots put him in mind of medication: Night Nurse or something. He gulped it down.

Raf leant in and whispered: ‘She was on the tea-time news. Did you see it?'

Colin nodded and smiled, a bit disconcerted by that rapt look on Raf's face. It was exactly how he'd been at the Birmingham convention. That's how all the Karla fans at Slashcon had been, and Colin had imagined himself in a hotel full of zombies. Zombies who filled their days and nights with amateur erotica and wistful dreams about people off the telly.

‘I watched it with my gran,' Colin said.

Now's when I could tell them, Colin thought. I could tell them what Gran had said. When she was shouting at the telly and squawking at the pictures of Karla on the box. Before she bolted out of the flat to call on Effie. I could floor them both this time. I could knock their socks off if I told them both: my gran knew Karla Sorenson. Years ago, when they were kids. When they grew up in Salford together. What would Raf and Vicki say to that? When they hear that I've got another connection, another route into your precious goddess

Yet he held off. For now he would keep schtum. It was an admirable display of restraint from Colin, he thought, and he congratulated himself warmly and silently. Usually he had this urgent need to unburden himself of secrets in front of Raf: all his messiest, most treasured secrets, for Raf to listen to, to turn over, to make of them what he willed.

Colin was glowing and mulling this over and realised that Raf and Vicki were rabbiting on between themselves. Vicki was asking, ‘Do you think you'll start writing FanFiction based on
Menswear
, Raf? To keep your website up-
to-date
?'

He pursed his lips. ‘I think I'll have to.' Then he was leading them out of the heaving bar area and up the steps to the rooftop garden. Colin followed in his wake, and he kept having to nod to punters, who recognised him from behind the bar. Or maybe they just half-recognised him, and couldn't remember where from. He felt weirdly out of his context and like no one would ever remember him for just himself. He sighed and looked down at the open-plan staircase, thinking: I was mopping these stairs spotless, just this morning. And
now everyone's treading all over them: muckying everything up.

The lamps and the heaters were burning and sizzling out on the terrace. The space was only half-full and, as they leant on the balcony, over the potted shrubs, it was a bit like being on the prow of a cruise liner. They took in the view of the streets along the canal: the surging mass of people bobbing along in every direction.

Vicki was rasping away and Colin gritted his teeth at the sound of her voice. ‘I feel like we are about to touch greatness. I can just sense it. Can you guys?' She gave an elaborate shudder and gazed out at the spotlights beaming beer adverts onto the low-hanging clouds. ‘It's like we're about to come into contact with something … bigger, and much more fantastic than ourselves.'

Raf raised his eyebrows like he couldn't imagine anything at all, bigger and more fantastic than himself. Colin pulled a face. ‘What's that you're on about, love?'

‘Vicki has got highly-developed psychic abilities,' Raf reprimanded him. ‘I've learnt to trust in her intuition.'

Colin sighed. ‘You're only on about Lance. He's just the bloke who lives next door to the bar.' He nodded at the fire escape leading up to Lance's pad. They all looked. The blinds were drawn all the way across the tall windows. There was only a faint suggestion of light and life within. A tantalising sheen of light, Colin thought. He wondered what Lance was up to. And what state he was in by now. Colin sighed. ‘He's just some bloke off the telly. That's not greatness.'

Vicki widened her eyes and blinked at them both. ‘I'm not just talking about meeting people off the telly. I mean … something more.'

Raf was rivetted. ‘What, Vicki?'

She chewed her thumb. It looked dirty. ‘I don't know yet. But there's something brewing here. Something stirring … Something out of the ordinary.'

Raf peered over the balcony. ‘You can probably smell the canal.' His shrewd eyes flicked to Colin. ‘So. When do you think your celebrity pal will turn up?'

‘I explained before, Raf. He isn't here every night. I told you, we might not even see him.'

Vicki surprised him then, by talking sense. ‘We shouldn't get all our hopes up. Let's concentrate on having a nice night together.' She smiled sweetly at Colin. ‘You know, I don't mind it here much. It's quite pleasant, for a gay place.'

There was a cool, slightly rancid and beery breeze slicing through the tall rooftops, ruffling the awnings and spiralling around the dark turrets of the apartment blocks clustered round the canal. Colin shivered and wondered what Vicki imagined was brewing around them; what it was she thought was stirring in the night. He was watching her narrowly and then she was whipping her jumper off over her head and messing up her hair. As she tied her pully round her waist he saw what was on the front of her T-shirt. The words: ‘Lance Randall in
Menswear
', and a fuzzy screen-grab of him flashing his cock. Vicki pulled it tight, down over her boobs and grinned at the two of them. ‘Ten quid down the Arndale. Not bad, eh?'

Colin didn't dare imagine what Lance would say.