We slept late the next day. Each time I surfaced, I was soothed to sleep again by the warmth of the big Scotsman, diving back into his arms to dream. It was like sleeping with a giant mammal, a bison or a bear. His body was like a landscape: the mysterious plains of his back, the dunes of his buttocks, the outpost of a hip overlooking that tender valley at the nape of the knee, the orange savanna of his stomach. And each part of him was illustrated with a cryptogram, a maritime tattoo, like the embellishments on an ancient map of the world.
Eventually, I was woken by the sound of the shower and as I lay in the tangled sheets, luxuriating in the scent of skin and sex, the doorbell rang. I tensed. Of late, whenever I heard the phone or if someone came to the door, I involuntarily steeled myself against the prospect of misfortune. I wrapped myself in a sheet and tentatively reached for the latch. It was Grace. He was wearing a sumptuous vicuna overcoat and a series of scarves.
‘Happy Birthday, doll,’ he said, delivering a pair of extravagant cocktail kisses and then with a flourish from behind his back he produced a great bunch of garish asters. Grace always had a knack of finding the most bizarre flowers. These had magenta petals and acid yellow hearts. They looked totally beyond the probability of nature.
‘But wait, there’s more, let me in, doll, before my balls freeze off. It’s fucking arctic out there.’ Grace came in to the living room, doffed his coat and unzipped his giant leather shoulder bag.
‘Champagne for the birthday queen,’ he pulled out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. I thought of Fabulina. I could hear her voice in my imagination, ‘Nothing like a drop of frog piss to loosen a girl’
‘And just a little something for those long winter nights.’ Grace handed me a package wrapped in a page of sheet music. It was the score of ‘Younger Than Springtime’. ‘And it would appear that the latter may be somewhat redundant, you filthy bitch.’ For at that moment, the Scottish barman emerged from the bathroom, dressed only in his tattoos. He nodded and Grace curtsied as I introduced them.
‘Très Depardieu,’ he said approvingly.
Grace poured the champagne while I unwrapped the gift. It was an inflatable man. The valve was at the end of its dick.
‘The definitive blowjob,’ said Grace. ‘And when you’ve finished with him you can jump on him and stick him back in the closet. There seems to be a moral in there somewhere, doll, but how would I know? Cheers.’
‘Chin-chin,’ I said.
Soon the barman had to leave to open Shooters
for the day and Grace cooked me a birthday breakfast with ingredients conjured from that magical handbag. Bitter coffee, croissants and an aromatic omelette stuffed with mushrooms and peppers.
I told Grace about my surreal night on the town. The madwoman in the Queen’s Arms. The strange couple in the park. The spectacular drag-queen in Shooters. I told him about my encounter with Fox.
‘That piece of trash,’ he said. ‘I hope you told him where to get off. The shit. I’ll never forgive him for what he did to you.’ I didn’t say anything. Grace scrutinized me. ‘You didn’t succumb did you, doll? Believe me, she’s nothing but mauvais nouvelles, that one.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but maybe... I overstepped. You know, maybe he really is straight.’
‘Straight as the Yellow Brick Road. Where have you been all your life, doll. She’s been peddling her arse ever since her balls dropped.’
‘So why the fucking charade?’ I asked. I could feel the fury starting to simmer.
‘Carrot on a stick, doll. As long as you kept paying, he kept dangling. And I wouldn’t worry too much. Rumour has it that the carrot is fairly minuscule. Infinitesimal in fact.’
‘It’s funny,’ I said. ‘As soon as I saw him, I thought of Sykes. They’re sort of similar in a way.’
‘Bullshit,’ Grace said. ‘Sykes may be mad and bad and totally indecipherable but from what I can gather he’s honest. Fabulina had a shrewd eye. She could read people at the drop of a chapeau, doll. How long do you think she would have tolerated someone like Fox? And you know how she adored Sykes. Now, hurry up, rinse your minge and pop on a frock because I’ve got another bottle in my purse and we’re going out for a picnic lunch.’
Grace took me to the hothouse at the botanical gardens. Outside it was overcast and achingly cold but beneath the glass dome the air was warm and lush. We sat on the bench in our overcoats sipping champagne like a pair of dowagers, surrounded by tropical palms, tiers of waxy cyclamens and a shocking profusion of cinerarias. I never ceased to be astonished at the breadth of Grace’s knowledge. Despite having left school at fifteen to go to hairdressing college — The University of the Hair, as he called it — he could identify every plant in the hothouse by its Latin name. He kept abreast with the worlds of art and fashion and music and politics and sport. He had taught himself French and Spanish by correspondence school.
‘I’ve always craved a garden, doll,’ Grace was saying. ‘Sweeping lawns and some obscene topiary. I guess it will have to wait until I’m somewhat more elderly. You know, a bit decrepit, like Vita Sackville-West or Cecil Beaton, in a broad hat with a veil and secateurs.
When Grace dropped me off at my apartment, I felt suddenly bereft. I didn’t want to be alone. I fretted from room to room wondering what to do. I contemplated going back to Shooters but it seemed too soon. I didn’t want the barman to think I was mooning after him. Finally the combination of a late night and the champagne breakfast got the better of me and I turned on the television, turned off the sound and crawled into bed. There were ginger hairs on the pillow. I fell immediately into a deep dream.
I was somewhere arid. The equatorial sun was crashing down into a sort of natural amphitheatre. It looked like one of those open-cast diamond mines. I was standing on a narrow ledge. The soil was orange and friable. Whenever I tried to take a step the ledge crumbled and I had to cling to the bank behind me. I could feel the grit under my fingernails. Below me was a scene of unbelievable mayhem. Wildcats were ripping something apart. The sound of tearing flesh, the snarling of beasts and the shrieks of their prey echoed up and hung in the hot, dry air. I stumbled along the ledge, scrabbling for a foothold and then I saw padding towards me, rumbling and baring its fangs, a cheetah. I looked up and saw another, a leopard, poised to pounce. And another and another. The whole of the cat family was converging on me.
Suddenly, I was on a bus. An ordinary commuter bus, travelling through the suburbs. The passengers were reading, filling in crossword puzzles, looking out through the rain streaked windows. Then I froze. Because the woman across the aisle from me had a large leopardskin shopping bag. And it was breathing.
I woke with such a fright that it took me a little while to register that the phone was ringing. I had to scramble in the dark for the receiver.
‘Are you watching the news?’ it was Grace.
‘I’ve been asleep,’ I said. ‘I had a nightmare. Why? What’s happened?’
‘I don’t want to have to tell you this, doll, but you’ll find out sooner or later,’ Grace sounded shaken. ‘They’ve found something at Fabulina’s place. In the wreckage. Human remains.’ I felt the blood rush to the surface of my skin and then recede. I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. The news item had finished. There was an advertisement for a room deodorizer on the television. Butterflies and bluebirds were flying out of a lavatory.
‘Whose body?’ I said.
‘They don’t know. They said it was burned beyond recognition. They said they’ll have to check the dental records.’