never open!’he shouts, and whips away his hands to clap loudly, spinning in a full circle and biting his lower lip with his teeth, thrusting his groin back and forth like a 1970s porn star, like some second-rate Russ Meyer gyrating horror.
‘Are you okay then?’ he asks me.
‘Yes, but I think I need biscuits.’
‘Kitchen’s down the hall, didn’t bouncy Gavin show you?’
‘He told me, I’ll find it, it’s fine.’
‘Lovely Gavin, I have to remind myself that he’s not, you know, slow … simple, retarded, him being so big. But he’s sharp as a tack really. Acid-tongued. I like it. It keeps me on my toes.’
‘Okay, well I’m going to go and find those biscuits I think.’
‘Good for you, but just the one, mind! Keep your chin up, Make-up. Stop thinking about your bloke if you can. We aren’t worth it!’ He throws me a huge grin – he doesn’t believe that for a second.
‘I’ll try,’ I say, and edge past him to leave. He trots off in the other direction, singing what sounds like ‘Anything Goes’ segued into ‘Let’s Get It On’.
I edge down a grey hallway, in and out of the patches of dirty light cast by infrequent and dim bulbs, speeding up through the strange shadowy spots that make me nervous with Tristan’s talk of shootings and blood-spattered walls. My heels clicking on the hard cold floor announce me to any potential murderers or psychopaths or evil spirits lurking behind dark doorways: they’ll hear me coming and be fully prepared to leap out and grab me, pull me into the darkness with them, smother my face and paw me to near death. I am convinced that’s what will happen. I make this daily exhibition of myself, in my heels and my skirts and my gloss, and I put myself on show even though I know that it is dangerous. I don’t go unnoticed, and it’s a cracked-up world.Soho is full of loners and losers, producers and pirates, prostitutes and pimps, directors and producers and more producers. Everybody claiming to produce something, so where is it all? I click my way into everybody’s view, and it’s a perilous route to take. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one with the biggest audience, and that has made all the difference. My heels tap out ‘look at me, look at me, look at me’, and by the way please note that I won’t be able to run that fast in three and a half inch stilettos. It is as if I have accepted my fate. I’ll be strangled with my own sparkly scarf, a victim of my own need to be appreciated in a world full of crazies.
In a badly lit 1970s kitchen that is dusted in crumbs I hunt through grubby cupboards for some Digestives or Rich Tea.
‘Can I help?’
Someone is lurking in the doorway behind me and I freeze, one arm in the cupboard, precariously reaching out on tiptoes back to the furthest corners, looking for the good biscuits that have been scrupulously hidden.
What if I just don’t turn around?
‘Can I help you?’ he says again, but louder this time, and yet I sense he doesn’t move an inch, he doesn’t come and reach for the biscuits for me. He doesn’t really mean to help. What he means is ‘turn around and let me see you’.
I rest my weight back onto my heels and drop my arms in exhaustion. I recognise his voice. I don’t want to turn around.
‘I was just trying to find some biscuits.’ I address the Cortina-beige wall in front of me.
There is a dramatic pause, so dramatic it would be noted in a script and the audience might be fooled into holding their breath. I hold mine …
‘I know you,’ he says, quietly, evenly, ‘have we worked together before?’
My heart sinks like Leo at the end of Titanic .
‘Only at Gerry’s,’ I say.
And still I don’t turn around.
It was spring. It was the first week after the clocks had changed, when you feel that extra hour of daylight every evening enriches your life. Every year, that first week after the clocks change, the light takes us all by surprise, and I feel
‘Are you okay then?’ he asks me.
‘Yes, but I think I need biscuits.’
‘Kitchen’s down the hall, didn’t bouncy Gavin show you?’
‘He told me, I’ll find it, it’s fine.’
‘Lovely Gavin, I have to remind myself that he’s not, you know, slow … simple, retarded, him being so big. But he’s sharp as a tack really. Acid-tongued. I like it. It keeps me on my toes.’
‘Okay, well I’m going to go and find those biscuits I think.’
‘Good for you, but just the one, mind! Keep your chin up, Make-up. Stop thinking about your bloke if you can. We aren’t worth it!’ He throws me a huge grin – he doesn’t believe that for a second.
‘I’ll try,’ I say, and edge past him to leave. He trots off in the other direction, singing what sounds like ‘Anything Goes’ segued into ‘Let’s Get It On’.
I edge down a grey hallway, in and out of the patches of dirty light cast by infrequent and dim bulbs, speeding up through the strange shadowy spots that make me nervous with Tristan’s talk of shootings and blood-spattered walls. My heels clicking on the hard cold floor announce me to any potential murderers or psychopaths or evil spirits lurking behind dark doorways: they’ll hear me coming and be fully prepared to leap out and grab me, pull me into the darkness with them, smother my face and paw me to near death. I am convinced that’s what will happen. I make this daily exhibition of myself, in my heels and my skirts and my gloss, and I put myself on show even though I know that it is dangerous. I don’t go unnoticed, and it’s a cracked-up world.Soho is full of loners and losers, producers and pirates, prostitutes and pimps, directors and producers and more producers. Everybody claiming to produce something, so where is it all? I click my way into everybody’s view, and it’s a perilous route to take. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one with the biggest audience, and that has made all the difference. My heels tap out ‘look at me, look at me, look at me’, and by the way please note that I won’t be able to run that fast in three and a half inch stilettos. It is as if I have accepted my fate. I’ll be strangled with my own sparkly scarf, a victim of my own need to be appreciated in a world full of crazies.
In a badly lit 1970s kitchen that is dusted in crumbs I hunt through grubby cupboards for some Digestives or Rich Tea.
‘Can I help?’
Someone is lurking in the doorway behind me and I freeze, one arm in the cupboard, precariously reaching out on tiptoes back to the furthest corners, looking for the good biscuits that have been scrupulously hidden.
What if I just don’t turn around?
‘Can I help you?’ he says again, but louder this time, and yet I sense he doesn’t move an inch, he doesn’t come and reach for the biscuits for me. He doesn’t really mean to help. What he means is ‘turn around and let me see you’.
I rest my weight back onto my heels and drop my arms in exhaustion. I recognise his voice. I don’t want to turn around.
‘I was just trying to find some biscuits.’ I address the Cortina-beige wall in front of me.
There is a dramatic pause, so dramatic it would be noted in a script and the audience might be fooled into holding their breath. I hold mine …
‘I know you,’ he says, quietly, evenly, ‘have we worked together before?’
My heart sinks like Leo at the end of Titanic .
‘Only at Gerry’s,’ I say.
And still I don’t turn around.
It was spring. It was the first week after the clocks had changed, when you feel that extra hour of daylight every evening enriches your life. Every year, that first week after the clocks change, the light takes us all by surprise, and I feel
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