She leaned closer, handed me a full glass. “What?”
“Your brother!”
“Oh! It was anti-climatic.” Her brow furrowed in irritation. I swallowed a gulp of drink. Too much gin and not enough tonic. “How so?”
“He took me to some pretentious play in Convent Garden. The kind of thing you’d see scraping the bottom of the barrel at the Edinburgh Festival. We argued over money, my inheritance to be precise, which he still won’t give me.” She grabbed cubes of ice from a bucket and threw them in her glass so aggressively, whisky sloshed down the side. I leaned back into the counter. “How is that possible? Is he your blood brother?”
“No, my father remarried you see. The woman already had a child, Bryn. To make matters worse, my father legally adopted him. I wasn’t the easiest of children. Anyway, when he died, he instructed my share of the inheritance to be given to me at Bryn’s discretion. And of course, he hasn’t, claiming I’m mad and irresponsible.”
“But that’s not fair!” I offered, genuinely annoyed on her behalf.
“You don’t know the half of it!” she announced, shouting in my ear. “Bryn inherited the estate. After everything my father and I went through in that house, he and his mother just waltzed in and took it. It was as if my father rewarded them for being his new beginning.”
The track changed. David Bowie was signalling to Major Tom.
“You know what was awful?” she continued. “When I got admitted to the mental hospital, Bryn sent me a letter with a hundred pounds enclosed. He said he was disappointed by my circumstances and here was some money to spend wisely. Spend wisely! As though I was an idiot.” She sipped from her glass, shook her head frustrated. “So you see my dear, you’re not the only one that has to wrestle with the burden of an inheritance. I’m not talking about just money and objects. I mean things people like you and I see clearly that others may not. Sometimes, I think I inherited a different destiny simply because my mother walked out.” She gripped my arm tightly. Her eyes glowed ominously.
Later in the evening, Mrs Harris and I decided to separate and mingle. After several extra drinks for Dutch courage, I relaxed more. I’d had no intentions of launching myself sober into random conversations with strangers yet I chatted amiably with a pope smoking a spliff by the piano in the cherry-coloured living room. I danced with a Charlie Chaplin who reeked of beer. In the kitchen, I watched Mr T and Darth Vader arm wrestle. On the stairs, two bumblebees kissed passionately. I felt light and floated amongst bodies whose lines were blurring, only to emerge slumped over tables, languishing on cramped sofas and pushed up against each other in doorways. My feet began to hurt so I took my ankle length, black boots off. I dropped them amidst the pile of shoes in the hallway.
When my energy began to dwindle, I expected somebody to slot coins in my back so my eyes could shine brighter. But nobody did and the whites of my eyes continued to fill with the hand drawn movements of the night. More alcohol was shoved my way.
Hey! Have a Corona.
Want another Vodka and orange?
You’re a lightweight; try some of this!
At some point, I wandered slack-jawed into the garden. Smatterings of people had gathered and I noticed Mrs Harris and Otto the Pirate by the swings. They appeared to be arguing but I wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said. I felt a sharp twinge in my foot, looked down and a bit of broken glass was covered in my blood. I made my way indoors into the bathroom, where I spent some time washing a bloody, grimace from my foot.
My shoes went missing. A waifish, blonde dressed as Veronica Lake loaned me white slippers. “Cinderella you shall go home! Imagine if you could never leave the party.” She mused. “Imagine if this was all there was, just this party and the characters in it, twenty four hours a day, for the rest of your life.”
“Just imagine,” I slurred.
After her exit, I scanned the bodies milling to and fro but couldn’t see Mrs Harris. I sat against a wall in the hallway nodding off, head jerking up intermittently. Then from nowhere, through a smoky cloud I caught a glimpse of a familiar dress, a skeleton’s pattern on the bodice. My eyes adjusted, took in the crown of dead flowers askew on a pile of wiry, black hair. A breath left my chest like a one winged bird. It was Anon dressed in Mrs Harris’s costume, face painted skeleton white. She flew up the stairs, the traces of another life clinging to the hem of her skirt. I uncurled my body, followed her. In my inebriated state I was slower, tripping a few times. I squeezed past bodies on the carpeted stairs. By the time I reached the roof, the music had shrunk to a hum. Anon stood on the edge and was about to leap off.
“No, don’t!” I urged, rushing forward. Then she vanished. Cold sweat popped on my brow. I looked down, realising I was steps away from flying to my death.
On my way back down, dice spun on the ceilings. I rummaged in the cupboard beneath the stairs, grabbed my coat and flung it on. Anon waited by a street lamp, it was after three am and the cold air nipped my skin. She picked up the pace while I trailed behind. We dashed past satellite dishes transmitting pictures of other life to sleeping TV sets. She whistled the tune Mrs Harris had been whistling the other day. That strange, melancholy song was water seeping into our movements. I kept blinking it away. It made my nerves jangle. The borrowed slippers rapped against the ground and my feet were freezing. Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that Anon was wearing my missing boots. And somehow it made sense. She led me home. In my frosted window, Anon waited to wear limbs that ambled towards her from the four corners. I stood outside watching. I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets, felt a folded flyer for a show called Eat. I fished it out, a storm was gathering in the mouth of the afro-haired woman featured, spawning creases on the shiny sheaf of paper. I tucked it back into my pocket where a broken key ring languished; I fingered the break in the key ring.
Light Spinning
I stuffed some clothes in the washing machine, including the skeleton costume. I watched its turns, the previous night calling to it, spinning too, a watery eye pressed against the glass. Later, I swept cobwebs from my head, knowing they’d reappear on Anon’s open palms. That evening I rapped on Mrs Harris’s door, still upset by her disappearance at the party. She opened the door puffing on a cigarette, wearing a robe bearing a flamingo print. She smelled of smoke and something sweet and exotic like jasmine.
“Ahh, Ronnie Wood,” she exclaimed, peering at me as if seeing me in a new light.
I smiled uncertainly. She shut the door firmly, kicked aside a pizza leaflet that slipped from the mail flap. “You were a party animal last night, good to see you having fun.”
“About that,” I tucked my pyjama top in my jeans properly. “It wasn’t nice for you to leave me like that. I came home on my own.”
In the living room she paused, looking at me with a baffled expression. “What are you talking about? We arrived home together dearie. I walked you to your door.”
“No you didn’t!” I answered, in a tone sharper than I’d intended.
“I did. You were so drunk you didn’t even know where you’d left your shoes. One second.” She began rummaging through a green glass ornament shaped like a pearl on the mantelpiece. It sounded like whispering sweet wrappers followed by the sound of coins clashing. I wiped a perspiring hand on the back of my left buttock, feeling the thin leaf of the Iranian playing card she’d given me in hospital. I’d taken to carrying it as a good luck charm, unable to forget its burst of brightly coloured possibilities in a glum ward.