‘The Fat Rockabilly’s definitely had a few too many tonight.’
She lived in a hard-to-let council flat. She’d queued all night outside County Hall to get the tenancy, she told Seaton. It was in a walk-up block on Old Paradise Street, just on the south side of Lambeth Bridge. She told him this as he walked her home along the river an hour after meeting her, an hour after speaking to her for the first time. They passed an anchored barge in the darkness and the smell of gunpowder drifted up off the breeze on the river. It was one of the fire-works barges used in the GLC’s sporadic extravagant displays. A party boat wallowed by, over near the far bank, its lights pearly now through thickening mist and the voice of Boy George, thin and tremulous, singing ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’ over its sound system.
He looked at her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was tall and slender in her black leather jacket and a cream silk blouse and a black calf-length skirt that hugged her hips, and there was something in her hair, brushed back from her face, that gave it an oily, intricate gleam when they passed under the bright globes, every few yards, of the Embankment lamps. Her skin was very pale and her mouth full under deep red lipstick. The Culture Club song carried over dark water and light jigged through mist on the distant boat. And Seaton smelled the scorch of dead rockets and burned-out Catherine wheels and his skin pricked and his heart hammered in his chest with the hurtling joy of life and youth and possibility. He’d never felt so alive. His life was a brimming adventure. A sensation accelerated through him and he took it for sexual anticipation, for lustful excitement. But it was more than that, he realised. It was a pure untrammeled anticipation of all the life he had to come. Later, he would remember this moment often. Later, much later, this moment and the remembered joy of it would come to visit him, unbidden, all the time.
There was a Stockman in the sitting room of her small second-floor flat. It was partially clothed in ruched pinned silk that looked blood red in the moonlight through the window but faded to something between terracotta and taupe when Lucinda switched on a standard lamp. The floor of the room was littered with pieces of dress patterns and swatches of cloth and sketches of clothes. She could really draw, he noticed. There was an electric sewing machine on a table with a pedal underneath. Her other furniture comprised an expensive-looking hi-fi and a small vinyl-covered sofa he thought he remembered having seen in the window of Practical Styling.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about the mess.’ She took off her jacket and hung it across the Stockman’s headless shoulders. ‘Would you like a drink?’
He could hear music coming from one of the flats of the floor above. The somnolent UB40 cover of ‘Red, Red Wine’. He looked at his watch. It was just after one in the morning. She took a record from its sleeve and put it on her turntable. Julie London began to sing ‘Cry Me A River’.
‘Do you have any beer?’
‘No boy drinks, I’m afraid,’ she said. She stood with her jacket off and her hands on her hips and her weight on one leg. Her breasts were small and high against the fabric of her blouse. Julie London was quietly histrionic through the loudspeakers. ‘There’s Chartreuse or Armagnac,’ she said.
Chartreuse. The green drink she’d been drinking in the Wharf.
‘Armagnac would be grand,’ he said.
‘Grand,’ she said.
‘It’s what they say at home.’ He felt foolish.
‘In Dublin’s fair city,’ she said. ‘Where the girls are so pretty.’
But he had never in truth seen a girl in Dublin with the looks on Lucinda Grey.
After a week, he moved in with her. Her flat was small, it was true, but they didn’t want the space to be apart. When they weren’t attending clubs and parties, they would sit through the lightening evenings on one
She lived in a hard-to-let council flat. She’d queued all night outside County Hall to get the tenancy, she told Seaton. It was in a walk-up block on Old Paradise Street, just on the south side of Lambeth Bridge. She told him this as he walked her home along the river an hour after meeting her, an hour after speaking to her for the first time. They passed an anchored barge in the darkness and the smell of gunpowder drifted up off the breeze on the river. It was one of the fire-works barges used in the GLC’s sporadic extravagant displays. A party boat wallowed by, over near the far bank, its lights pearly now through thickening mist and the voice of Boy George, thin and tremulous, singing ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’ over its sound system.
He looked at her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was tall and slender in her black leather jacket and a cream silk blouse and a black calf-length skirt that hugged her hips, and there was something in her hair, brushed back from her face, that gave it an oily, intricate gleam when they passed under the bright globes, every few yards, of the Embankment lamps. Her skin was very pale and her mouth full under deep red lipstick. The Culture Club song carried over dark water and light jigged through mist on the distant boat. And Seaton smelled the scorch of dead rockets and burned-out Catherine wheels and his skin pricked and his heart hammered in his chest with the hurtling joy of life and youth and possibility. He’d never felt so alive. His life was a brimming adventure. A sensation accelerated through him and he took it for sexual anticipation, for lustful excitement. But it was more than that, he realised. It was a pure untrammeled anticipation of all the life he had to come. Later, he would remember this moment often. Later, much later, this moment and the remembered joy of it would come to visit him, unbidden, all the time.
There was a Stockman in the sitting room of her small second-floor flat. It was partially clothed in ruched pinned silk that looked blood red in the moonlight through the window but faded to something between terracotta and taupe when Lucinda switched on a standard lamp. The floor of the room was littered with pieces of dress patterns and swatches of cloth and sketches of clothes. She could really draw, he noticed. There was an electric sewing machine on a table with a pedal underneath. Her other furniture comprised an expensive-looking hi-fi and a small vinyl-covered sofa he thought he remembered having seen in the window of Practical Styling.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about the mess.’ She took off her jacket and hung it across the Stockman’s headless shoulders. ‘Would you like a drink?’
He could hear music coming from one of the flats of the floor above. The somnolent UB40 cover of ‘Red, Red Wine’. He looked at his watch. It was just after one in the morning. She took a record from its sleeve and put it on her turntable. Julie London began to sing ‘Cry Me A River’.
‘Do you have any beer?’
‘No boy drinks, I’m afraid,’ she said. She stood with her jacket off and her hands on her hips and her weight on one leg. Her breasts were small and high against the fabric of her blouse. Julie London was quietly histrionic through the loudspeakers. ‘There’s Chartreuse or Armagnac,’ she said.
Chartreuse. The green drink she’d been drinking in the Wharf.
‘Armagnac would be grand,’ he said.
‘Grand,’ she said.
‘It’s what they say at home.’ He felt foolish.
‘In Dublin’s fair city,’ she said. ‘Where the girls are so pretty.’
But he had never in truth seen a girl in Dublin with the looks on Lucinda Grey.
After a week, he moved in with her. Her flat was small, it was true, but they didn’t want the space to be apart. When they weren’t attending clubs and parties, they would sit through the lightening evenings on one
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