Don't You Want Me? (23 page)

Louisa, Frank and I sit ourselves down – thigh to thigh, very cosy – and look around: the club is beginning to fill up, and more or less everyone in the room is a good ten years younger than us at the very least. Which is no wonder: I haven’t been to a nightclub for years, and although Frank
looks reasonably at home, I know he doesn’t make a habit of going out clubbing either. Louisa can’t believe her eyes: she is rubbernecking like mad, trying to take it all in, occasionally breaking off to murmur how it all makes something of a change from Happy Bunnies and sitting on your own with your cup of organic tea, trimming a hat, and how she feels really, really old.

‘I don’t even know what those drinks are,’ she says, pointing to a group of young people carrying what look like beer bottles, filled with pastel-coloured liquid. ‘I feel like my own granny.’

‘Vodka and fruit juice,’ says Frank. ‘Or rum and a mixer. Don’t you go to the pub?’

‘Oh,’ says Louisa. ‘Right. No, I don’t go to the pub. Don’t have anyone to go with. Well, I didn’t,’ she simpers at him. ‘Until now.’ She resumes her eyeballing of our fellow clubbers. ‘And why do all these people look so vacant? Are they all on drugs? I can’t even understand what they’re saying.’

‘Some of them are on drugs,’ Frank says. ‘Not all. Most of them just look like that all the time.’

‘People don’t make much of an effort any more, do they?’ she continues. ‘I mean, in my day, when we used to go to a nightclub, we really, really glammed up – took us hours to get ready. Especially when I was a Goth.’

‘What?’ I say.

‘Especially when I was a Goth.’

‘You were a Goth?’ asks Frank.

‘Yes.’ Lou shrugs impatiently. ‘And it took ages to get ready, as I was saying – all that panstick, and then the hair. But all these girls are in jeans and T-shirts.’

‘Glamorous jeans and T-shirts,’ I say. ‘And it’s not like
they buy their trainers at Asda. I know what you mean, though. It’s hardly an ocean of beauty and style, is it, that dance floor? Mind you, I wouldn’t call an ocean of Goths a thing of beauty either.’

Frank laughs.

‘I wasn’t a Goth for very long,’ says Louisa. ‘Anyway, all I was saying was that a little sequin here or there wouldn’t go amiss. Oh, but I did used to like dressing up. Nobody’s properly dressed up in here. Except you, Stella.’

‘By mistake,’ I say. ‘It stupidly didn’t occur to me that we’d end up at a club. I’d have worn something more comfortable if I’d known. Like a long black coat and a pair of fangs to make you feel at home, Vampyra.’

Lou makes a face and sticks out her tongue.

I’m still in the belted pink velvet coat, and getting rather hot. But getting up and exposing half an acre of flesh would immediately mark me out as some tragic granny on the pull, I feel, in this environment, so the coat stays firmly on.

More drinks arrive, as does a discreet little paper wrap of cocaine, courtesy of Yungsta, slipped into my hand by an improbably wholesome-looking character in a hat.

‘Gosh,’ I say to Frank and Lou. ‘We seem to have scored.’

Frank looks at my clenched hand in an I-can-take-it-or-leave-it sort of way. ‘What is it?’

‘Charlie,’ I say, quoting the hatted man. ‘Couple of grams, he said, which if I remember rightly is quite a lot. Do you want some?’

‘You don’t know where it’s come from,’ says Louisa. ‘It could be bad stuff, and then you’d be dead or handicapped for life. I’ve never touched it, myself.’

‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ I tell her. ‘I’m sure it’s not bad. Presumably this is the resident dealer, and he seems to know Adrian. Well, what shall I do with it, if you don’t want it? I don’t take drugs either.’

‘Come off it,’ says Frank. ‘I can’t believe that.’

‘When have you ever known me to take drugs?’

‘Never, but that’s because you’re always at home.’

‘Well, I have a theory about old people taking drugs. I think it sucks, and so I don’t do it.’

‘How long’s it been?’ asks Frank.

‘About ten years. More, I think. Do you want some?’

‘I’ll have a line, yeah,’ says Frank. ‘Pass it over here. God, I can’t believe I’m here with a couple of puritans.’

Louisa sips her champagne. ‘I’m not a puritan,’ she says, giving Frank a very smouldery, dirty look and putting her hand high up on his thigh.

‘No?’ says Frank casually.

‘No,’ I pipe up helpfully, not liking the look on either of their faces. ‘She was a Goth.’

‘No,’ echoes Louisa, and then she grabs his head and kisses him. With tongues. For ages. In front of me. Tongue, tongue, tongue. He kisses her back, too. Lick, probe, lick, slowly, repeatedly, and then she starts sort of eating his face. It amazes me to watch this, but watch I do, gripped, appalled, horrified.

Then I snatch the little white envelope of coke off the table and stand up. Frank has the courtesy to look up and mutter, ‘Where are you going?’

‘To take drugs.’

Frank pulls back from Louisa for a second, to rest his tongue muscles. He has the horrible look on his face of a man with a stiffy. ‘But you’ve just said you never take drugs.’

‘I’ve changed my mind. Total U-turn. See you.’

And I wander off, the envelope in my hand, in search of a loo.

When I’m a safe distance away, I turn back and look at them. Louisa’s head is cradled in Frank’s arm. They’re still at it hammer and, um, tongues.

The nightclub is enormous – disorientatingly so – and try as I might, I can’t seem to locate a Ladies on the ground floor, though there must be one: I just go round and round in circles, feeling lost and rather panicky. The place is getting packed and the music is pounding louder than before: heavy insistent beats with no melody, bang bang bang, louder and louder, making your entire body vibrate. Adrian mentioned something called ‘deep Belgian house’ at dinner: perhaps this is it. If so, can’t say I think much of it.

I decide to try upstairs and wind my way up a metal staircase. More crowds of people are on the first floor, leaning over a balcony area, looking down on the dance floor, on which everyone is dancing exactly as though they were monkeys. The number of people present, and the anxiety it provokes, make me wonder whether I am in fact suffering from an advanced form of claustrophobia: I’m not used to feeling like a sardine, and I don’t like it – the Bains Douches, surely, was never this bad. I keep walking, if you can call squeezing past people ‘walking’, up another staircase leading to the second floor, where I find what I overhear being referred to as a ‘chill room’. The music here is certainly kinder to my ears – it’s a sort of poshed-up whale music that reminds me of natural childbirth and thus, unpleasantly, of playgroup – but there are still too many people, all of them seemingly paired off, all of them
nearly young enough to be my children, all of them looking a) not entirely on the ball and b) at me as though I were a curiosity. Which I expect I am. And I still can’t find a loo.

There is a third staircase, smaller, leading to the third floor, so I take it. Unfortunately, there’s a bouncer at the top: a blonde drag queen, statuesque in her glittery heels, impossibly long-legged, with enormous, darkly outlined lips, silver false eyelashes and giant pink pointy nails. ‘Yeeeess?’ she growls.

‘I’m looking for the Ladies.’

‘Well, here I am, honey,’ she smiles coldly.

‘The loo, I mean. The lavs. The toilets.’

‘Downstairs. Second floor. This bit’s members only. Sorry, love,’ she drawls, not looking sorry at all and already looking past me.

‘Members?’ I pun cringingly. ‘You could have fooled me, dressed like that.’

She allows me one small, unamused smile.

‘What happens up here, then?’ I persevere. I have this very bad character trait: the minute someone tells me that something is forbidden to me, I want that something more than anything else. It’s very childish.

‘This bit’s for homos,’ she explains. ‘Our tiny refuge. Seeing as your lot overrun the club every Friday night.’

‘Those drongos? They’re not my lot. Please let me in.’

‘You,’ says the drag queen, ‘are not a homo. Go on,’ she adds, but not unkindly now. She looks as bored as I am. ‘Hop it.’

‘Oh, please. I’m so bored down here. And I hate the music and the crowds. I think I may be claustrophobic. And my friends are snogging each other. At least you look about my age. And anyway,’ I scramble wildly for something
appropriate to say, ‘I’m thinking of exploring lesbianism any day now.’

‘You and some pierced bulldyke from Stokey?’ she says, painted-on eyebrow arched, looking me up and down for the first time. ‘I don’t think so, love. Not in that faaabulous coat.’

‘Well, it’s just an idea,’ I concede. ‘But put that way, it doesn’t sound wildly appealing, I must say.’

She actually laughs at this, so I continue, encouraged, ‘Look, I’m telling you so that you feel some sense of gayness coming from me, and so that you let me in, please.’

‘Hmm,’ she says.

‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I love drag. I love cabaret too. My father took me to see drag shows from the age of twelve onwards. In Paris. I loved them. I’ll feel right at home.
Please
let me in.’

‘Go on, then,’ she sighs, smiling quite warmly. ‘And the lav’s on the left, all the way down.’

I beam happily. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Thank you so much.’ I walk away, but then walk back to her. ‘Would you like some cocaine?’ I suggest, to show my appreciation. ‘I’ve got heaps of it.’

‘Heaven,’ she says, now all smiles, ‘must have sent down an angel. Don’t mind if I do. I’m Regina Beaver, by the way. And I love your coat, Miss French.’

‘Stella.’

Regina leads the way. The third floor is smaller, more compact than the previous two, and filled with squishy sofas and soft lighting. There aren’t many people up here – not as many as downstairs, anyway – and it is actually, blissfully, possible to walk without bumping into anyone.

‘Why are you in a place that you hate with a load of coke?’ says Regina, gliding regally through the little crowd, issuing greetings left, right and centre.

‘Well, my date is DJing downstairs and, as I was telling you, my other two friends are snogging each other.’

‘Holy Virgin,’ says Regina. ‘Do you go out with Yungsta? So called. I happen to know he’s at least forty-one.’

‘Not go out, no. We had a date.’

‘I can do all of that, you know,’ Regina says. ‘With the hands. Watch.’

There is a chandelier on her right, and an expanse of wall by her side. ‘Look,’ says Regina. She folds and bends her fingers, the light shining. The shadow of a dog appears on the wall. ‘Yo! Homie! Don’t fuck with ma bitch,’ Regina says, voice-perfect.

I start giggling helplessly.

‘I can do ducks, too,’ Regina says, demonstrating. ‘I reckon all that hand-signalling is really a very competitive way of letting your “crew” know you can do the tricky ones, like Da Antelope or Da Wolf.’

I am actually snorting with laughter as Regina continues her display, forgetting the shadow-play now and just concentrating on saying ‘Yo’ and turning her fingers into da rabbit and da fox. ‘Come on, girlfriend,’ says Regina, herself laughing like a drain. She has a really rough, raspy voice. ‘We are toilet bound.’

‘Do you know him, then?’ I ask, trotting after her and feeling small to the point of midgethood – she must be at least six foot four in her heels.

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘Here’s the toilet.’ She looks me up and down. ‘Wouldn’t have thought he was your type.’

We wedge ourselves into a tiny, pee-scented cubicle.

‘Line them up, girl,’ says Regina.

‘Could you? I haven’t done this for ages.’

Regina does, expertly, with the help of my Sainsbury’s Reward Card (‘Oh, will you look at that. We’re not in Kansas any more, are we, Toto?’). Regina snorts up a couple of fat lines, while I content myself with a smaller single one. Everything Regina says makes me die laughing: I honk like a seal every time she opens her filthy mouth. I must bring Papa here, I think to myself – he’d love it.

We trot back to the top of the stairs.

‘Through there,’ says Regina. ‘That’s the piano bar. I think you’ll like it. I’m doing a turn myself in ten minutes, so I’ll see you then. Tell Kevin behind the bar that you’re with me.’

I part the dirty curtains – ooh! missus! – and sigh with pleasure.
This
is more like it. I’m in a smallish, square room, redly lit, with a mini-stage at the front, five or six tables in front of it and a general bar-cum-milling area at the back. There’s a piano by the stage, a baby grand, which a balding, middle-aged man is playing. Another drag queen, this one in green sequins and a black beehive, is draped across the piano, singing. The words – some fabulous old torch-song about her man doing her wrong – send goosebumps racing down my arms. I am in heaven. If all nightclubs were like this, I’d be in one every night.

I actually beam with happiness, like a simpleton. Everyone else in the room – a mixture of all sorts of men, young, middle-aged, old, fat, thin, plain, lovely and a couple of women (female guests, presumably, are allowed) – seems to be beaming too. There’s a friendly buzz of chatter and a sense of anticipation. I walk over to the bar and introduce myself to Kevin – an enormously fat, barrel-chested skinhead
– who pours me a double gin and tonic and waves away my money.

A man appears on the stage. We’re having half an hour of singing from ‘our resident goddesses’, after which we’re all allowed a go. I down my G&T in two gulps. I briefly wonder about Adrian, and Frank, and Louisa downstairs, and then push them out of my mind. One’s working, and the other two are making tongue sandwiches. It’s no fun. This, though – now
this
is fun.

Regina reappears and introduces me to Miss Chastity Butt and the Hon. Fellatia Lipps, her fellow artistes (drag queens, I notice with some sorrow, seem to have the monopoly on amazing legs), and to a sweet man called Barry, who apparently comes here every night. I like them so much I offer them my coke too, and take a second line myself, and then a third. There’s still masses left, and after an hour of listening to their singing – all my favourites, plus some I didn’t know – I am in such a spectacularly good mood that I offer my coke to every other person I speak to, which is to say half a dozen people. In return, they buy me more of Kevin’s giant G&Ts. By the time the floor show starts, I am hysterical with happiness. And, possibly, drugs and alcohol.