With no trace of hesitation I half-ran up the stairs to the second floor. No carpets made the sound of my feet echo up and down the stairwell.
When I reached a door with 7b written large in black felt tip, I stopped. For some reason I was holding my breath. Then it came. I don’t know why, but for some reason the place I was in suddenly scared me. The squares of carpets outside doors looked too thick, the doors too big for their doorways; nail heads swelled from the skirting boards in a way that was somehow disgusting, gray metallic stumps forcing outward. I closed my eyes to stop the images lodging like parasites inside my head.
The sickening feeling went as quickly as it came. I felt calm. Somewhere in the distance came the sound of a girl singing. A ballad, slow, haunting. Outside, trees gently waved in the breeze. The sense of peace was beautiful.
I knocked on the door. “Mr Lawton. I happened to come across a tape of your songs in a…”
Maybe that was better. Mentally rehearsing the greeting I knocked again.
“Hello?”
The door remained closed. I realized the voice came from behind me. I turned to see a girl. In her twenties, ginger hair; she wore a vaguely hippy-style dress and plain white blouse. There was a black cat in her hands which she stroked nervously.
“Hello,” I smiled. “I’m looking for the tenant.”
She wrinkled her freckled nose. “Sorry?”
I looked back at the door. “Does a man live there? A musician?”
“No… no. That one’s empty. It’s been empty for months.”
Gone. I was on the verge of swearing furiously, but the fury did not come. I felt a lightness oozing through my body; a pleasant sensation. And life looked different now. I looked, no, I felt different. Enlightened. I would become a different person. Something was happening to me. Something special.
“Is there anything else you want?”
Her voice pulled me back. I must have been staring.
“Yes there is,” I said firmly. “I need a place to stay. The empty flat will be fine.”
She stroked the cat in a shy but quietly pleased way. She liked me. “The landlord comes to collect the rent about now. You could ask him about the flat.” She looked up with the tiniest of shy smiles. “If you want… if you’re not in a hurry… you could wait for him in my flat. I’ve got some tea.” She rubbed the cat’s head. The green stone in her ring caught the light with an emerald flash.
As I followed her through the door she paused and looked back up at me. “What’s your name, mister?”
I smiled, feeling a liquid heat run through my body. “My name?” I reached out and ran my fingers through the cat’s coal-black fur. “My name’s Joseph Lawton.”
I followed her inside and shut the door.
Martin!
Thanks for the letter. From what you say the songs sound fascinating. But check your stereo for gremlins. The tape you sent me was blank!
FALLEN IDOL
by Lillian Csernica
I watched her while I ate my sandwich at a table in the mall. The gang of skinheads and punkers around her did nothing without her approval. She never smiled. She never spoke. Only a faint nod or a limp gesture, but the gang responded as if they were commands.
Her face. That was what really caught me. I could do a series of portrait photos on that alone. Her paleness made her black-painted lips stand out harsh and strange. Her eyelids were silver with the faint blue shine of bad meat. Shed shaved her eyebrows then painted lines like barbed wire over her dull eyes.
I was in the mall covering a fashion show held by one of the major stores to kick off a new line. The models were so many bits of clumsy flash next to the dark, sullen poise of this girl. Girl? Woman? Hard to tell. Her bizarre makeup hid her age. After watching the models float around in bright spring florals, I was drawn to the maze of black cloth around her: a high-necked ruffled blouse, tight black leather miniskirt, black stockings ending in little boots with pointy heels. Over it all she wore a coat with immense shoulder pads, its hem brushing her boots. Delicate gloves hid her fingers, between which dangled a cigarette whose smoke stung my nose with strange sweetness.
Excitement made me gobble my sandwich. After years of covering fashion shows and garden parties, taking mother-and-baby shots for the feature pages, I wanted something wild, something dangerous. Here she was. The paper paid me well enough, but I was a guy who wanted more. My hands itched to snap her photo, to catch her in other costumes. Her gaudy clash of face and clothing could make a modern Mona Lisa.
I chased her for a week, haunting the mall and using a telephoto lens to get as close to her face as possible. Six of her faces were proofed and protected in a small album inside my backpack, next to my camera. She never wore the same face twice, and not one of the faces ever smiled.
At the end of the week I sat watching her through a screen of ferns, my coffee cooling in front of me. Today she was done up like a zombie Pierrot. Her face was dead white, her lips blackened in a shape that mocked Betty Boop’s kiss. One eye was ringed in black, the other leaked painted tears. Again she wore nothing but black. She was a true artist, knowing the right backdrop for the paintings she wore.
Every day toward sunset she would appear here, taking a table near the food counters where she would sit and smoke. The punkers and skinheads would find her and begin their complicated games of boredom and gossip, their glances at her and hidden whispers a way of paying homage to her superior outrageousness and consummate ennui. Their obvious fascination took on the nature of worship. If she was grateful, it never showed.
Another week yielded more faces, each unique. I stayed up late in my darkroom every night, examining the day’s “catch.” Other assignments got shelved while I compared a black eye on a flesh-colored cheek to that eerie blue shimmer leaking tears onto smeared rouge. I couldn’t wait to see her and the next day’s ingenuity. I debated showing my many-faced lady the album. Would she be flattered? Angry? I wanted to light a spark in those empty eyes. I thought of her while I lay in bed, wondering where she was, what she was thinking. My eyes made shadows into her long hair, dyed that dull black so popular among her worshipers. Not once had I seen even an inch of her naked skin. She was always hidden by black cloth or heavy makeup. I had no idea what color her skin might really be. I wanted to watch her strip, see her shed the black layer by layer, revealing her own skin while my camera caught every naked inch.
Sleep would not come until I decided to force some reaction from her. If the old superstitions were true, I had a lot of power over her. I had her soul on film. Thirteen faces—thirteen different souls? I intended to count them all. On Monday I waited outside the mall for her, just before closing time. The crowds dwindled and the parking lot emptied. Lights went out inside. Gates came down over the doors of the shops. She had to come out this door. It was closest to the food counters where she held court. Another ten minutes passed. Security guards checked the door and locked it. I felt the rising sourness of disappointment. The way back to my car felt impossibly long. I was halfway to it when I heard the peculiar sound of spike heels on cement. The red spark of a cigarette caught my eye. There she was! She walked straight across the parking lot, weaving in and out among the few remaining cars.
I paced her, trying to keep my own stride slow and casual. She lounged on the bus stop bench, still smoking. The night deepened around her. The evening breeze brought me that sweet smoke like her singular perfume. I went to the opposite end of the bench and sat down. She didn’t look over, just stared straight ahead and smoked with that curious determination.