Never Tell

The following day was the anniversary of my French grandmother’s death. I spoke to my mother on the phone in the morning; she tried valiantly to mask her sadness.

‘Light a candle, love, if you get the chance. She’d like that,’ she said, but I knew it was unlikely I’d be near a church. I mumbled something placatory, and promised to write soon.

Around four o’clock, after a day spent struggling with Blake’s Songs of Innocence, I was desperate to get out of my stuffy little room. I grabbed my coat and fled into the fresh air.

The light was already dying in the chilly autumn afternoon as I walked aimlessly; my feet taking me across the Christ Church Meadow towards the old cathedral. The windows suffused with gold looked welcoming against the darkening velvet of the sky, and the choir were just finishing their rehearsals as I slipped into a pew at the back of the great building, listening to the last few beautiful lines of what I later learned was Handel’s Messiah.

I waited as they packed up, calling to each other jovially, agreeing to meet in the pub over the road, and then I wandered down to the great table where the candles were kept.

The door slammed behind the last chorister. I put my money in the honesty box, chose a candle and then carried it to the wooden rack where the others flickered. I placed it alongside the others, some still lit, some melted to tiny jagged stubs, the flames shining bravely in the dim light.

As I picked up the matches I thought I heard a footstep, but when I looked round, the cathedral seemed deserted apart from me. I lit my candle and tried to focus my mind, thinking fondly of my grandmother, her funny Anglicisms, her boeuf Bourguignon that melted in your mouth, her horror when my mother cut my infant hair short. (‘Mon Dieu! So common, Lynette. Vraiment, tout le monde dirait qu’elle est un garçon!’)

Placing the matches back, I felt a draught down the back of my neck. A sudden scraping noise made my heart jump – and then a great gust of wind blew through the cathedral from nowhere. All the flames guttered. My candle went out.

I tried to stand but I had cramp in my leg. Limping, I hurried as fast as I could towards the great doors – which suddenly seemed very far. I didn’t want to stay and relight the candle; I wanted to go now. But before I reached the door, a slim figure slipped from behind a pillar, framed against the stained glass like an unholy apparition. I blinked. It was Dalziel.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ I stuttered. I gathered my wits. ‘Hello.’

‘Praying for redemption?’ He arched an eyebrow. Wearing a long black Astrakhan coat, the collar turned up to frame his pale face, he looked otherworldly. ‘Are you the religious type then?’ He regarded me coolly. ‘You don’t really look it.’

‘No. I – it was my grandmother. She died – just, a few years – well, I – I just came to remember her, I suppose.’

‘Well, All Souls’ Eve is past.’ He flicked his blond hair back.

‘So?’ I didn’t know what he meant.

‘When, my dear, the boundary is open between the dead and the living. But perhaps she’ll rise again tonight.’

‘Oh.’ I thought of how very sick and slight my elegant grandmother had been at the end. ‘God, I kind of hope not. I think she might be happier where she is.’

‘Really?’ Dalziel looked amused. ‘Remind me of your name.’ He took a step towards me. ‘Something floral, wasn’t it?’

‘Rose. Rose Langton.’

‘Ah yes. Rose. “Of sweetest odours made.” Well, perhaps you can help me, now you’re here.’

I blushed hotly. ‘Help you?’

‘Yes. Number Four.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ I mumbled. He was so beautiful, close up. Ethereal, almost.

‘Never mind. No time to explain. Got to defile Sabbath’s day before the protectors get here.’ Dalziel picked up the bag at his feet. A bright pink feather boa protruded from one end. ‘Jesus needs a little help with his outfit. He’s been feeling a bit chilly.’

As I watched in amazement, Dalziel produced full suspenders and stockings, crotchless knickers and nipple tassels in red satin, a push-up bra in black lace and a bottle of champagne, still cold, all from his bag.

‘You open the Krug.’ He pressed the bottle on me. ‘I’ll dress him. And get a move on. This place is never empty for long.’

I didn’t dare admit I’d no idea how to open a bottle of champagne. Like a lost puppy, I followed him as he carried the underwear over to the six-foot Jesus, who gazed sadly down at the floor near our feet.

‘See.’ Dalziel ran his hand lovingly down Jesus’s torso. ‘He’s freezing, poor bastard. Where’s Mary when you need her, eh?’

Our eyes met and I felt a strange heat suffuse me, somewhere in the very core of me. Quickly I looked away again, struggled with the champagne’s foil, untwisting the metal. For some reason my hand was shaking.

‘Tassels or bra?’

The cork popped suddenly, nearly taking my eye out. It hit the pillar and ricocheted beneath a pew.

‘Oh, you bugger,’ Dalziel was murmuring to himself as champagne sputum poured over my leg, the froth spraying Jesus’s new outfit.

‘The tassels won’t stay on. His chest’s too slippery. So that decides it.’ Dalziel clipped the bra round the back of Jesus. ‘There we go.’ He took the bottle from my hand and toasted Jesus. ‘Genius.’

‘But …’ I looked at the incongruous idol before me. The suspenders flapped in a slight breeze coming from somewhere. ‘I don’t understand. Why …’

Voices were audible from the back of the cathedral. Dalziel took a quick slug and then shoved the champagne at me as he gathered up his bag. ‘Come on.’

‘You forgot the boa,’ I whispered.

‘Too late.’ Dalziel grabbed my other hand, and we ran for it, giggling up the side aisle, dribbling champagne and pink feathers as we went.

Outside we kept running, expecting to hear angry voices behind us, through the grounds, past the porter in his bowler hat and Crombie, towards the Meadow, ending panting beneath a huge tree as it began to drizzle. Dalziel took the bottle and drank, long and hard. He looked at me.

‘You know, you’re more fun than I expected,’ he said, and I felt my heart turn over. ‘Little Rose.’

‘I’m not so little,’ I protested. ‘I’m eighteen.’

‘Are you?’ He passed me the bottle. ‘Very grown up. What’s the time?’

I checked my watch. ‘Six thirty.’

‘Gotta go.’ He leaned down and kissed my cheek. He smelled a little of something sweet; later I learned it was patchouli oil. ‘Gotta meet a man about a dog.’ He winked at me. ‘See you around. Keep the Krug.’

He melted into the night. I stood for a moment under the tree in the Meadow, the city bright before me, the night dark behind me. In a window of Christ Church halls, a grinning pumpkin flickered.

I was more than a little light-headed. I was utterly intoxicated – and not just from the champagne.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE, MARCH 2008

James was shouting desperately in his sleep. As I came to, I could hear him moaning that he was being crushed.

‘It’s so dark,’ he kept repeating. ‘Let the light in, please.’

Befuddled with sleep, I pulled the curtains back although it was still night, and gently tried to wake him. He hadn’t had one of the really bad nightmares for a while. Now he was sweating and gurning, his face pallid in the moonlight, thrashing across the bed like a fish in a net. I tried to hold his arms still but it was impossible, his desperation making him strong as Samson. As he flailed he caught me hard across the face – but it was only the next day I realised he’d cut my cheek.

In the morning he said he didn’t remember the dream, but he looked unkempt and exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept at all, huge circles beneath his Labrador-brown eyes.

‘You’re up early,’ I said, plonking some toast in front of him that he pushed away. ‘Are you all right?’

He didn’t speak. He just sat at the breakfast table drinking black coffee and reading the Financial Times in sullen silence whilst the children ate cereal and bickered, and the Today programme murmured in the background. Liam and Star were still in bed; I didn’t expect to see them before noon.

I was plaiting Alicia’s hair when James ordered me to turn the radio up.

‘News just in this morning: as feared, the Nomad Banking Conglomerate has gone down with the most devastating effect,’ John Humphrys announced. ‘A huge shock to all involved. What exactly is it going to mean for the investors?’

‘Turn it off, for fuck’s sake.’ James stood up, his face horribly taut, a muscle jumping in his cheek. ‘Christ, all this fucking doom and gloom. I thought this was meant to be boom-time.’

I realised it wasn’t the time to reprimand the swearing.

‘Mummy,’ said Effie, ‘can I have a cross hot bun, please?’

‘I’m not sure how much more I can take actually.’ James rammed his chair into the table. ‘We’ll be lucky if we’re not out on the street soon.’

He was prone to exaggeration, but I wondered now if the warning signs of his former depression were rearing their head again. I thought rather nervously of the troubles he’d mentioned the other day.

‘James, please,’ I beseeched as Alicia looked at him curiously. ‘Let’s talk about it in a minute, OK?’

‘Cross hot buns, cross hot buns,’ the twins began to chant, oblivious.

James threw the paper on the table and slammed out of the room. It was obviously not the time to tell him I wanted to go back to work, although if the money worries were real, he might welcome it. I slathered my toast with marmalade and glanced at the front page.

‘Art Dealer’s socialite daughter protests for Islamic Fundamentalism,’ the headline read. There beneath the print was a photo of a girl struggling with a policeman in Parliament Square, dark hair falling across her beautiful but angrily contorted face, a black boy with short dreds behind her, partially obscured. Licking marmalade from my fingers, I pulled the paper closer and looked again. It was the girl from the petrol station.

UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER 1991

The River of Oblivion rolls … whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets.

Paradise Lost, Milton

I didn’t see or hear from any of them again until the middle of November. There were vague murmurings on campus about the incident in the cathedral, and one mention in the Oxford Gazette; and sometimes I wanted to shout, ‘That was me’ – but I never did. Life went on as normal. I immersed myself in my work, but I found myself searching streets, bars and crowds longingly to see if Dalziel was there. He never was, and there was a part of me that was relieved. Once I saw Lena and the beautiful dark girl in the King’s Arms but they looked through me in a way that made me shrivel. I wanted to do well at Oxford and I had a feeling deep in my bones that these boys and girls, this group, were never going to be good for me. I asked a few people about Society X but no one seemed to want to talk about it. Some just smiled and looked away; lots had never heard of it – and a few looked faintly appalled when I mentioned it, so eventually I stopped; I started to forget about them all.

But one evening there was a folded note sealed with scarlet wax in my pigeonhole, my name in flowing black italics. For some reason, my fingers fumbled with the seal as I tried to open it.

‘X MARKS THE SPOT’ the note proclaimed, giving a time and an address, which later turned out to be one of the best streets in town, instructing me to ‘dress dangerously and bring something intoxicating’. I wasn’t exactly sure what the latter two meant – but I did as I was told, spending the last of my grant on a black velvet catsuit and the highest black heels I could find.

On the night in question I bought a bottle of Lambrusco for Dutch courage, and opened it in my room. I slicked my hair back, painted my eyes with kohl and my mouth with scarlet lipstick, splashing myself with Chanel No. 5 that I’d nicked from my mother. I was excited. Overexcited at the thought that I had an invitation into the elite.

And then I sat on my narrow bed and decided I couldn’t possibly go. I was terrified. I didn’t know anyone. They’d think I was an idiot; a country bumpkin. They’d laugh at me. I heard the other students on my floor come and go, the laughter of a Saturday night, music fading and increasing as doors opened and closed. Only I was alone, apparently. I reapplied my lipstick for the fifteenth time. I drank a bit more wine. I changed my mind, then changed it back again.

In the end I was there just before midnight, as instructed, clutching the Jack Daniel’s I’d bought because I’d read that Janis Joplin had drunk it, at the door of the tall town-house on Lawn Street. My belly squirmed with nerves. The lights were all out as I rang the doorbell and I thought for a horrid second they’d forgotten me – or perhaps it was all a nasty joke to get me stumbling around town in killer heels like a drunken fool.

The door opened a crack.

‘Password?’

‘Pardon?’ I said.

‘Password,’ the voice drawled impatiently.

‘I don’t know the—’ I began, and the door started to close.

‘No, wait.’ I had a flash of inspiration. ‘X?’

The door hovered – and then opened just wide enough to let me in.

‘That’ll do.’ Black-tipped fingernails grasped my arm, and pulled me through. The door slammed behind me. I was in.

I followed the tall girl called Lena, whose hair was now pink and who wore nothing but a bra and bondage trousers, down a white hallway into a very minimal room. The floorboards were painted black, the walls red, and there was no furniture at all apart from a red velvet divan, a black granite coffee table and long white curtains. It all looked like a stage-set, particularly as a hundred candles flickered and guttered in the breeze from the French windows. The room was terribly hot and music swelled from the expensive stereo in the corner, some kind of opera I didn’t recognise. A few people I didn’t know stood round the corners of the room, drinking, smoking, mostly silent. Everyone seemed to be wearing black and it was clear everyone was nervous, although there was a certain loucheness to most of them. They eyed me with feigned disinterest and chose to ignore me. Lena lit a chillum and handed it around.

James appeared, and I headed towards him gladly. He was wearing a dinner suit that rather drowned him, despite his stocky frame, and he too seemed on edge. His nervousness surprised me, and made my own heart thump more.

‘This is all a bit weird,’ I whispered. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Dalziel?’

‘He’ll be down in a minute.’ He eyed me warily. ‘You look nice.’

‘Nice?’

‘Good, I mean. Very good. You look like one of those girls in that Robert Palmer video.’

‘Do I?’ I was flattered. ‘Just need a guitar to get me going.’

‘You’ll need a bit more than that tonight,’ James said, producing a hip flask. ‘Drink?’

‘Thanks.’ I took a swig and choked. ‘God. What the hell’s that?’

‘Hell is right, you innocent,’ he scoffed. ‘Never tried the green fairy?’

‘Fairy liquid?’ I was confused.

‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ he laughed. ‘Absinthe.’

I obviously looked blank.

‘All the French Impressionists drank it.’ He was impatient. ‘Toulouse-Lautrec lived on the stuff.’

‘Toulouse who?’

‘Painter. Very short man, Paris, turn of the century. Dancing girls? Fucking genius.’

‘Oh, I know.’ I was relieved. ‘Cancan dancers?’

A church clock nearby struck midnight. James took another swig and pocketed the flask. ‘It’s time,’ he whispered reverently.

‘Time for what?’ I giggled nervously. ‘Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?’

‘Shh,’ James’s brown eyes were dilated in the candlelight. ‘He’s coming.’

The door opened slowly and Dalziel walked in. He looked ridiculously sophisticated in a tight-fitting black suit, a pristine white shirt, his blond hair sleek, his long bony face deathly pale apart from two spots of high colour on his cheeks, his eyes ringed with kohl. When he turned I saw he had attached to his back a pair of beautiful angel wings that looked like they were made from swan’s feathers. He really was quite unlike anyone I had ever met. Five or six beautiful boys and girls, all wearing black, all in varying states of undress, followed him into the room. He regarded us all, then turned off the music and, placing a cigarette in an ebony holder, lit it languidly. He was captivating to watch; I couldn’t tear my eyes away. We all waited.

‘Good evening, my lovelies. It’s wonderful to see you all here at the witching hour. Thank you for coming.’

We waited as he blew a perfect smoke-ring.

‘Now,’ we were treated to a smile, ‘if you could deliver your intoxicating materials for the good of one and all, that would be much appreciated.’

One by one we deposited our booty onto the table. James had a whole bottle of absinthe, but I noticed he kept the hip flask well hidden. I looked around for the beautiful peroxide girl who had always been with Dalziel before, but she wasn’t there. Lena put down a small plastic bag of white powder, another boy a couple of paper wraps, a tall girl a clump of straw-looking things, which I later discovered were magic mushrooms. More bottles and potions followed. Then Dalziel tipped a bottle of white pills into a small china bowl in the centre of the table.

‘One for all, and all for one,’ he murmured. ‘Never say my love is not shared between you.’

James pushed me forward and shyly I placed my Jack Daniel’s on the table.

Dalziel fixed me with a look. ‘Displaying a distinct lack of imagination there, my dear Rose.’ He inhaled through the ebony holder with wearied languor. ‘But as you are a Society X virgin, we will forgive your misdemeanour this time, although I might have to smack your bottom later.’

Low laughter rippled through the room and I flushed scarlet, staring at my feet.

‘Now,’ he looked around, ‘is that everyone?’

The room murmured assent. Dalziel whispered to Lena, who went to change the CD as he smiled slowly at us all. I had a sudden vision of us standing before him like lowly acolytes, mesmerised, a strange sense that we were all waiting to bask in his approval.

‘So. It is Commandments One and Seven we’ll be enjoying tonight. We’ve done Four most recently, we very definitely didn’t keep the Sabbath holy. It was most amusing, wasn’t it, Rose?’

I flushed under Dalziel’s scrutiny, nodding fervently, aware of the envy of some of the others. Lena shot me daggers.

‘Although the Bishop of Oxford clearly didn’t think so.’

‘No sense of humour, the bloody clergy,’ Lena was keen to join in. ‘Jesus in women’s underwear was fucking brilliant, I thought—’

‘Anyway,’ Dalziel cut her off, ‘tonight we will begin with Number One: You shall have no other gods before me.’ He cranked the music right up and unveiled a statue under a velvet cloth of a man with an enormous cock, festooned with a garland of thorns. ‘My dear friend Priapus. Let the party begin. Let us make darkness visible.’

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar screamed through the room and I felt a great surge of anticipation and, frankly, terror. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be here any more but I couldn’t drag myself away. Dalziel must have sensed my fear; he came to me.

‘You look very beautiful, darling,’ he said quietly, and he ran a finger down my cheek. ‘Very curvy and delicious.’ He put a pill in his mouth and then he leaned down and kissed me. I felt his tongue and then I realised the pill was now in my own mouth. For a moment I was about to protest but he handed me a glass and murmured ‘Swallow. I always do.’

So I drank and swallowed. Then he leaned down again and kissed me properly, and I felt the lust lick through my body like forest fire, and I pressed myself into his tall form and held his snake hips and kissed him back. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me: my wildest dreams coming true. Dalziel wanted me.

Abruptly he pulled away, grabbed the pink-haired girl and pulled her over to us.

‘Rose, meet Lena,’ and I smiled, and my legs felt a bit trembly in my very high heels, higher than I’d ever worn, and I went to shake her hand but Dalziel said, ‘Don’t be silly. Kiss her.’ I hesitated because I really didn’t like girls, not in that way, but Lena wasn’t so reserved; she leaned in and kissed me, and I just thought her mouth was very soft where a man’s is normally harder and there was no stubble, only soft skin, but it wasn’t so bad. I was starting to feel very strange, like the whole room was moving away and I was growing very tiny and then big again and then Lena was putting her hand on my breast and I pulled away because I felt a bit sick.

‘Don’t worry,’ Dalziel grinned; he’d been watching us lazily, ‘you’re just coming up. You’ll be fine in a sec.’

I stumbled to the French windows to breathe in the cold autumn air and after a moment or two the music started to overwhelm me. It had changed from Hendrix to something tribal, the beat of the drums pulsing through my veins, and I was beginning to feel like I was flying. I was ecstatic, in fact I was surely about to lift off the ground like a bird. The music was inside me, and outside me and then James was there and he held me and we danced and he got nearer and I pushed myself against him and I never wanted to let go.

‘This is amazing.’ I smiled and smiled, feeling my limbs were like liquid and so strange. I tried to articulate it but I couldn’t. ‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ I shouted over the music.

‘No, well,’ he smiled back, ‘you’ve probably never taken Ecstasy before, have you?’

‘God, no. Is that what it is?’ I forgot even to feel fear; I just felt amazed.

‘It is indeed. It’s gonna break down society’s barriers.’ His eyes were slightly glazed. ‘We will all love each other for ever and indiscriminately.’

And I felt decadent and cool and amazing, and then James was kissing me and I felt so odd, like I actually loved him and I kind of wanted to say that to him but I didn’t, I just kept kissing him. The music had changed to banging house and I wanted to dance now. The beat was in me, I was the beat and I was dancing now, writhing and turning, and I felt like everyone was watching me.

And then Dalziel was talking, far more dishevelled than earlier, his jacket was off and his shirt was unbuttoned, flowing loose from his trousers, exposing his smooth chest, his ribs that jutted out. He stood on the small table and he was asking for quiet and people were complaining, ‘Don’t turn the music off’ but he said it was time, time to do the seventh thing.

I didn’t know what he meant and I didn’t care.

A girl was led in wearing a strapless black dress, very fitted around her voluptuous curves. She was short, elegant, olive-skinned, with almond-shaped eyes, long dark hair in a French plait, a year or two older than us, perhaps. She was beautiful in a soft, rounded way. I smiled at her, but she ignored me, and I realised after a second that she was not quite here with us. Her eyes were unfocused and she stumbled slightly. At first glance she looked quite beatific but the longer I looked at her, the more it became apparent that she was in some kind of trance.

Lena stepped forward and blindfolded the girl, who appeared to acquiesce willingly, staggering slightly in her stilettos, a red satin scarf tied around her eyes. Lena ran her hands down the girl, slowly across her breasts, a lascivious smile spreading across Lena’s face. The music was put back on and the girl was led to the divan, her hands held before her as if in supplication or prayer. I wanted to dance again and I grabbed James’s hand, but he was distracted, I could feel that he was waiting for something. He watched Dalziel, who had a spray-can in his hand. In his great looping script he wrote on the wall. I thought that was quite amazing, writing on his own wall.

‘You shall not commit adultery,’ he scrawled, and then he turned triumphantly to us. ‘This is Huriyyah. She is the lover of someone I know well,’ he proclaimed, ‘very well indeed’. He looked around at his minions, challenge in his eyes. ‘And I have –’ he paused momentarily – ‘I have, let us say, persuaded her to help my fallen angels celebrate tonight. So – who will be the lucky taker?’