Outsider (24 page)

“She was her usual self.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s a spoiled brat. Her father’s got money
she likes to spend.” After a short silence I add: “When I met her,
she was having an anarchist phase.” Does it explain anything? I
still wonder: how was I fooled? It feels like a long time ago. Fear
creeps in my veins. Like ice.

Does Janis smile twenty-four hours a day? One
day, I’ll have to ask her.

Her bus is growing bigger and redder on the
horizon. Time for good-byes. Where do kisses land today? Earlier,
when my friend Val hugged me, her kiss landed on my neck. Now, when
I hug Janis Kitto, a wave of her curly blonde hair brushes my cheek
and her kiss lands on the corner of my mouth. I decide
hypothesizing on it would be nonsensical. However, she is the best
hugger in town.

She says: “Thanks for inviting me!” and her
smile lights up the whole street.

I manage: “My pleasure!” and my knees are
ready to give way.

I turn around while she gets on the bus and
pays for her fare. I can’t resist a last look behind me. The bus is
disappearing in the night, taking her back to Shoreditch where she
will be reunited with her faithful bicycle.

While Sid works on a novel she's been
thinking about for years, a novel that shouldn't feature any
vampires but lots of wonderful and weird people in a parallel world
─Tiger People (all male), Cat People (all female), and of course
the ubiquitous People already featured in at least one short
story─, Joy scouts the streets of London, the music venues and
alternative clubs of the underground city.

While Sid knows that, despite her best
intentions, there will probably be some vampires wandering about
this parallel world on an on-and-off basis, as this is the way her
mind works, Joy reconnects with dingy pubs, sleazy squats,
long-forgotten venues, and draws one blank after another.

While Sid keeps on writing, increasingly
aware of the word MUSIC flashing louder and louder at the back of
her mind, Joy gets to the conclusions that Toni's favored kind of
territory, like hers, has evolved.

When will Sid answer the call of her guitar
and get back to the roots of her life, the very thing that has kept
her alive throughout time, her equivalent of Jo Davenport's
pancakes?

What venues would Toni now elect to feed and
express her contradictions and cruelty? Where was Joy when Toni
chose to breathe down her neck? Vampires do not breathe. At last,
it occurs to the vampire with the gypsy eyes that the scarecrow
with the innocent looks was not feeding that night, she was
trailing the younger vampire……. A deliberate trailing.

Sid realizes that even if she is totally off
anti-depressants, she can still feel the chemical influence in her
brain: she is still writing. She remembers
: beyond music, there
is Death
. At the time, of course, she didn't exactly mean Death
as the entity she met in the back garden of a pub, but death as in
the end, the end of life. Music has to come back to the forefront
of her mind, in fact, it is on its way, and it is just a matter of
crossing paths with Sid. What will she do then? Will she pick up
her guitar, and her voice, where they left off? Alternatively, will
she pick up, further back in time, the piano studies she had
abandoned because she did not own a piano, not even an electric
one.

So, Joy thinks in the illuminated London
night,
Toni's proclivities have gone more sophisticated
. If
Toni had been at the West End lesbian club to breathe down Joy's
neck, where would she go in order to feed. What other places had
Joy not checked out yet? Goth, maybe? Joy smiles. Toni used to be
such a
perfect rock chick
. While herself, she had been
perfect for the part of the
rich little girl looking for a bit
of rough
. There is nothing more gothic than a vampire. In
literature.

She hits Oxford Street, her mood a mixture of
anticipation and dread. The pub is one of a chain across London.
Her delicious meal is a very talkative middle-aged woman, who works
by day as an accountant for a very boring firm, and relishes
nightlife as an Ethergoth with no lisp but a definite sense of
humour that definitely defeats melancholy. By morning, the sated
vampire falls into slumber between black silk sheets, knowing the
next hunting range, a gothic venue with extra appeal.

* * * * * * *

"Looking for me, Little One?" There is irony
in the voice, as always, and Joy does not bother answering or even
turning around. She is playing a dangerous game: you never turn
your back to potential danger, you always sit facing the doorway.
She is establishing her power, showing Toni that she is not afraid.
Toni walks around the table, ignoring the colourful patrons, and
sits across from her. The soundtrack of the moment is Nightwish's
"
End of all Hope
". They stare at each other in the
soon-to-be-crowded Black Behemoth. The tone of their cheeks shows
they have already fed. Joy's facial expression is serious; Toni's
is amused. "You look cute in your gothic outfit. Dressed up for
me?"

Joy feels the old attraction tugging at her.
Oh yes, Toni is still a beautiful scarecrow, even without the holes
and safety pins. She could so easily pass for a young man in her
elegantly cut, black suit. "Still looking for Dee-Dee?"

The smile fades away. "Now, now. No need to
be nasty." She keeps the flare of anger in check, but the blow
certainly stings. She pushes up the corners of her mouth, with
hidden effort. "I see you are still in London. Or did you leave and
return especially to welcome me back?"

Joy wonders what to say. The background song
morphs into "
Can't Get You out of my Head
" by Inkubus
Sukkubus.

"Listen, they're playing my song!" Toni
exclaims sardonically. She knows so much about Joy's feelings, she
thinks it is so easy to play her.

"How long have you been back?"

"Not long. I stopped in the West End on the
very next night. To say hi."

"Hi back. Is Dee-Dee in London, too?" Silence
takes a dark green shape in Toni's eyes. Something Joy is able to
read. "You can talk to me. Who else would you talk to?"

"What makes you think vampires need to talk?
What makes you think I need to talk?" With heavy emphasis on the
"I". The staring match is still on.

"We were friends, once."

Toni laughs, her beautiful and seductive
laugh, one Joy used to relish so much, once upon a time. "Vampires
have no friends. You know my rules. Stick to them, and we'll be
fine." The older vampire gets up in one swift motion and walks out
of Joy's field of vision, through the parting throng of young
people looking more gothic than any vampire, and out of the
pub.

Joy feels sadness. She considers sex to lift
up her mind.
Oh no, I'd be bound to fantasize it is with this
arrogant scarecrow…….

It is a typical day for the British weather:
clouded sky with a threatening hint of rain, while the sun is also
trying to break out in fingers of bright light. Sid is riding her
beloved Eliminator and is about to turn right into Coldharbour
Lane, anonymous and invisible under her crash helmet. A fight is
happening across the street, just outside the cab office, attracts
her attention, and every passer-by's.

A black man has been violently pushed down to
his knees by a white man. They both look in their thirties. A
twenty-something, white woman rushes to them.
To break the
fight
, thinks Sid innocently. No one else is reacting; this is
such a typical Brixton scene nowadays. But the woman is not trying
to break the fight, she is siding with the white man, and holding
the quarry down, too, she shouts at him: "Open your mouth! Open
your mouth!" The man eventually spits something out, Sid cannot see
what. The woman picks up whatever it is. The white man pulls out a
pair of handcuffs. The woman gets out a small walkie-talkie and
radios for back up. On cue, police sirens slalom down the street.
She flags the police car down.

The show is over. Sid has just witnessed a
drug bust. Sid feels unsafe, insecure. She does not trust the
police, undercover or in uniform. She cannot condone violence in
any circumstances. What stops the police to do that to anyone,
herself or any passer-by? The tarantula is still smarting on her
neck. Her state of mind is ripe for a sharp implement, but her body
feels already so violated. She zooms past the unwanted scene,
through the green lights and down the lane.

* * * * * * *

The bottom of Coldharbour Lane is an animated
shopping area and Camberwell Green. Somewhere on the left hand-side
she turns and finds a cash-converter's shop, one crowded not just
with music CD's and movie DVD's, but also computers, saxophones,
guitars, and keyboards. After safely parking her motorbike out of
the way and unfastening her helmet, Sid walks into the shop,
blatantly ignoring the Gretsch guitar ─a collector's item─ winking
at her from the shop window. She walks in and panoramically
contemplates the various items, before zeroing in on the objects of
her quest.

What does she want exactly? She does not
really know. She only knows that she'll "know" it when she'll see
it. Casio? Yamaha? Roland? Panasonic? She's never been keen on
Casio equipment and overlooks the first keyboard. She is barely
aware of some music in the background. A young man, as unkempt as
he is skillful, is trying out a Yamaha acoustic guitar. Sid zooms
in on the Panasonic SX-something keyboard and caresses the silent
keys. It looks in good condition. The menu printed on it reveals
the expected sounds, including a full drum kit and a few fanciful
combinations. Speakers integrated. She checks the back of the
instrument and finds every standard socket, including midi ─she
could not care less for midi. She grabs at the price tag and reads:
£80. The price makes sense to her: she's got just about that in a
box at the back of her bedroom closet. She wonders if the stand
comes with it. Damn, now she's gonna have to talk.

She knows she should talk to a sales clerk,
ask for the keyboard to be plugged and play a few tunes, to make
sure she likes its sound, to make sure it works…… but she hasn't
got the time. Ok, that's her excuse. She could make the time, of
course. She just dislikes the crowd of people milling about shops;
they make her feel self-conscious, uncomfortable. Give her a stage,
give her a real audience, and she will be an international
superstar. An elderly man bumps into her, breaking her bubble, and
barely apologizes. She scowls. Reality. She sighs and decides to
join the queue leading to the counter.

* * * * * * *

Second stop on her way to another part of
London to visit friends: the psychiatric hospital. Still sitting on
her black and shiny Eliminator, Sid extracts her head from the
helmet. A black bandana knotted around her neck hides the bitten
tarantula tattoo. She looks absentmindedly at the other motorbikes
lined up on the side of the street, but even if her eyes can see
the details of their engines, her brain doesn't really register or
react, her mind is elsewhere, she is wondering, again and again,
for the zillionth time: where is Joy?

Oh, sure, Joy will show up eventually, but
where is she when Sid needs to talk to her? Where is she when Sid
cannot talk to anyone else? Of course, the writer is crazy.
Everyone is, to a certain degree. However, Sid knows better that
telling a psychiatric: "I've been bitten by a vampire", even if
she's got the bite to prove it. "And this other vampire I know, is
not around at the mo." Yeah, sure. Sid is not interested in being
sectioned.

Showing her chewed-up tarantula to her
friends? Forget it. These two are probably already stoned out of
their heads. Once again, Sid has no one to talk to, no one to tell
about the reality of vampires she is learning night after night. No
one to tell that, even if she is not scared out of her wits, she is
feeling rather unsettled.

Once upon a time, vampires were terrifying,
the stuff of nightmare. Without any warning, at 12, the world of
television introduced Sid to Dracula himself. A demon praying on
your soul, identity, safety, integrity, a monster who could invade
your every thought, as deep as your kidneys, turn you into a
mindless puppet against your will, touch you and violate you,
physically, as much as emotionally, psychologically and
psychically. A cruel and unethical being who could rape you ─mind,
body and soul─ and force you into enjoying it. The word "repulsive"
as a describer is a total euphemism.

She spent years struggling with the celluloid
fiend, fighting the recurring nightmares haunting her nights,
afraid of being still awake at midnight, ─not just still awake, but
aware of the midnight hour─, waking up drenched with fear.
Eventually, with time, she learned to deliberately wake up in order
to escape from her nightmares. She learned to get out of a dream to
go into another one. She learned to manipulate the events in a
dream. She taught herself lucid dreaming. She gave herself means
and weapons to fight off the vampires. Until at last, after
thirteen years of a seemingly endless war, Sid won. She destroyed
the vampires with the silver arrowheads given by a woman from
another planet. ─Ok, it might sound like cheating there, but bear
in mind that, in psycho-analytic terms, this woman from another
planet was actually a part of Sid's psyche, thus, technically it
was not cheating. Since that extraordinary victory, the occasional
vampires turning up in her dreams have always been friendly.
Friendly.

Friendly is certainly not an apt adjective to
describe the blond vampire that has bitten Sid at the
Breakdown.