Camellia (12 page)

'It's full of drug addicts,' she said, pursing her lips in disapproval. 'I heard someone comes up and sticks a needle in your arm the moment you get there.'

This seemed extremely unlikely, but Camellia decided to try Carol and Suzanne at work the next day.

'It's only those loony flower children who go there,' Carol said dismissively. She was a little surprised to find Camellia had come so far out of herself. 'I like places with a bit of style, not cellars full of weirdos.'

In the absence of anyone to go to the club with, Camellia had to resign herself to pubs and dance halls with the other girls, but it didn't stop her looking longingly at girls who wafted into the shop with bells and brightly coloured beads round their necks. She sensed their freedom, it wafted to her like the smell of their patchouli oil scent. These girls didn't wear bras beneath their flimsy cheesecloth blouses, their hair was long and tousled. She knew they didn't have to be home by eleven and she was sure no one would ever dare measure the length of their skirts.

But as summer arrived, at last Suzanne began to wake up to the idea that there was more to life and London than being bribed with a gin and orange by lads who wanted nothing more than to get their knickers off in the back seat of their Consul.

'Do you still fancy going to the Middle Earth,' she asked one evening as they hurried towards the tube to go home.

'Yes of course, more than ever,' Camellia said, feeling a surge of excitement. 'What makes you ask?'

'I met a real tasty Australian the other night who goes there,' Suzanne grinned. 'He said it was "mind blowing". We could try it out once, just to see. I think Carol will come. She's fed up with the Palais too.'

'Let's go there on Saturday,' Camellia suggested. 'But I'd have to tell Miss Peet I was staying at your house. Would your mum write me a note?'

As Saturday came closer Camellia was dizzy with excitement. In return for helping a friend of Suzanne's fill a shopping bag with clothes in the changing room, Camellia had an outfit so wild she could hardly believe she had the nerve to wear it: a red crushed-velvet tunic, with little shorts underneath and a huge studded belt to put round her hips. She spent almost a week's wages on some white, tight, long boots to wear with it. It was all packed in an overnight bag down with Wilf the security man. She was going home with Suzanne for tea and to change, and the Connors didn't have any kind of curfew in their house – in fact Suzanne had casually said they probably wouldn't be back until the tubes started running on Sunday morning.

The Middle Earth didn't open until after half past ten and when the girls arrived soon after eleven The Cream's 'Strange Brew' was blasting out with such force it almost singed their ears. As they'd been told, it was just a huge cavern like a cellar stretching right under Covent Garden market, the only seating planks on scaffolding in tiers, but to Camellia it was everything she'd expected and more. The walls were whitewashed, but transformed with coloured light shows. Strange shapes oozed and blobbed in time to the beat, each wall a slightly different image.

'To think I was worried I looked weird!' Suzanne giggled.

She was dressed like a Red Indian squaw, in a chamois-leather minidress with fringing and beads, more beads round her forehead and long brown boots.

I've never felt more normal,' Carol sniggered. She had taken some persuading to abandon her normal dolly-bird image for a Victorian cream lace dress of her grandmother's she looked stunning in. 'I think I'll have to raid Gran's wardrobe more often.'

It was like walking in on a film set or a fancy-dress party. Hundreds of people, reflecting almost every period and style: girls in twenties and thirties evening dresses, still more in flowing diaphanous cheesecloth smocks, jeans, miniskirts and wild patterned loons; saris, gypsy skirts, even one girl like a belly dancer with a glittering girdle of gold chains. The men were every bit as remarkable: not a dark suit in the entire club and hair almost as long as the girls. Velvet trousers, brocade jackets, beaded Red Indian leather shirts and jeans. One man wore nothing but a pair of bright yellow hipster trousers, his bare feet and chest tanned a deep golden brown and his curly hair like a halo round his face.

"He must be a ballet dancer,' Suzanne said as he pirouetted and leapt into the air. A black girl joined him on roller skates, her buttocks undulating beneath a long red tube dress, flowers painted on her cheeks. Joss sticks burned everywhere, little bells around necks tinkled; it was somewhere between a fun fair and a carnival, a pleasure house for the young.

To Camellia's disappointment Carol and Suzanne seemed bored. 'There's no booze,' they kept saying. 'All the blokes are a bit weird. The music's too loud, maybe we should have gone down the Palais.'

The music wasn't loud, it was deafening. To Camellia it was like finally being dropped into the centre of all those happenings she'd read about. 'Don't be spoil-sports,' she implored them. 'Look, everyone else is enjoying themselves/

"They're all on drugs,' Suzanne pouted. 'Now if we could get some Purple Hearts we'd be able to get into it.'

Camellia didn't need anything to make her high. But if some pills would keep Suzanne and Carol happy enough to stay, she intended to go along with it.

She perched on one of the platforms, with Carol just below her, and watched Suzanne walk towards a tall dark man in a long brocade jacket. He was very slender, with black curly hair as long as her own. He turned as Suzanne spoke to him and Camellia felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. A pirate out of a kids' book, was her first impression: a long olive face with thick eyebrows and a wide, flashing smile.

She was at least twenty yards from him, but when Suzanne pointed towards them he smiled and Camellia felt a quickening of her pulse.

He was at least six foot, judging from the way he bent down to listen to what Suzanne was saying to him. He wore a ruffled shirt under his jacket and velvet trousers tucked into long snakeskin boots.

Camellia put her hand down and touched Carol's shoulder, indicating the man. 'He's beautiful,' she whispered.

'He looks dangerous to me,' Carol sniffed. 'But then so does everyone. I don't know why we agreed to come here with you.'

Camellia took no notice of Carol's terse remark. Suzanne was walking back towards them, the dark man at her side.

'What are you after girls?' he said as he came closer. He looked up at Camellia and winked, almost as if he knew she'd been studying him.

'Purple Hearts or Blues?' Suzanne asked.

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small envelope. 'All I've got is a few Bennies, want a couple each?'

'How much are they?' Suzanne had that cool, snooty expression she used when she wasn't entirely sure about something.

'Would I charge three tasty chicks?' he smiled. 'Have them on me.'

He hesitated before moving on. His gaze flickered up to Camellia and all she could do was stare back. His eyes were the darkest she'd ever seen, slanty with heavy lids and long black lashes, his skin tight and shiny smooth over protruding cheekbones. Maleness seeped out of every pore, drawing attention to his tight trousers and the suggestion of an iron body under the dainty shirt. Even his hair, which at a distance had looked like wild curls, was in fact made of tightly coiled spring-like ringlets.

'Wake up,' Carol nudged Camellia. 'He's gone now.'

'Was he really that beautiful?' Camellia smiled.

'Yeah,' Carol handed her a coke to wash the pills down with. 'But you can bet all the other girls think so too. So forget him.'

There were strange things going on all around her. A whey-faced, dirty-looking girl sat in the corner tightening a leather belt round her upper arm and to Camellia's horror she injected herself with something. In another dark corner a couple were making love just as if they were alone. Others mumbled to themselves, stumbling about with glazed eyes. On the dance floor couples jumped, swayed and writhed to the loud music, making her feel as if she had landed on a bizarre, alien planet. But despite all this decadence Camellia's eyes were drawn back constantly to the man who'd given them the pills.

Everyone knew him and tried to stop him as he passed by, but he didn't pause for more than a moment or two with anyone. Camellia wondered if in fact he owned the club. It was nice of him to share his pills with them.

She barely noticed first Carol, then Suzanne go off to dance, content just to sit and watch from her position up on the scaffolding, legs dangling in space, arms resting on another bar. Her friends had claimed to be so stoned they could barely sit still, but Camellia felt nothing more than a slight flush of excitement.

'Left you all alone have they?'

It was the man again, his voice deep and husky as if he smoked a hundred cigarettes a day.

'It's okay,' smiled. 'I like watching.'

He jumped up the six feet to her as effortlessly and gracefully as a cat and sat down beside her. 'I haven't seen you and your mates before,' he said. 'Where are you from?'

'They live in Hammersmith,' Camellia replied. 'I come from Highgate.'

'I'm Dougie,' he said. 'And you?'

'Camellia.'

It was the first time she could remember giving her real name willingly. For some odd reason she felt like a Camellia tonight.

'A pretty name,' he smiled. 'It suits you. I think you've got the best legs I ever saw.'

Camellia blushed and giggled, instinctively pulling the little shorts down further.

'Don't do that.' He took her hand in his and smacked it. 'If you've got the nerve to buy something outrageous, wear it with pride and don't go getting embarrassed.'

Camellia had a surprisingly easy manner with men, compared with most of the girls she knew. She still didn't expect them to fancy her, somehow, so she didn't try too hard. As a result they tended to single her out to talk to. Working in a busy store had helped her still more, since she'd learned to respond with interest to anything customers might say. She'd also discovered that making an outrageous remark right at the beginning of a conversation, took people by surprise and kept their interest.

'I didn't buy it,' she grinned. 'I nicked it. I nick all my clothes.'

For a moment he just looked at her. It was difficult to gauge whether he was shocked or thought she was crazy. But his mouth curved into a wide grin and his eyes sparkled. 'Well!' he said. 'A girl after my own heart.'

It was only as she began to chat to Dougie that she became aware the pills were affecting her. As Suzanne had claimed, they made you chat a lot, made you feel powerful. She found she was projecting an image of herself that was entirely new, steering him to believe she was far more worldly and zany than she really was.

He asked her down to dance and though Camellia had a moment's trepidation that she would make a complete fool of herself, she found to her delight that she was swept away by the music.

'Are you a professional dancer?' Dougie asked. He hadn't been doing much moving about himself, more just a shuffle of his feet and a few waves of his hands.

'No,' she laughed. 'But my mother was. I suppose it's in the blood.'

Once or twice Camellia caught a glimpse of Suzanne and Carol, dancing on the other side of the club, but as they were obviously happy she forgot all about them. The more she looked at Dougie, the more she liked him. He wasn't like any other man she'd ever met.

The heat eventually stopped them dancing and they went over to one of the booths at the side of the club to get a soft drink.

Even here it was too noisy to have a real conversation, though Dougie pointed out a few of the more outrageously dressed people and told her who they were.

'See that guy in the orange robe?' he said, indicating a tall dark-haired man with a beard. 'Well he's an American lawyer, he gets his kicks coming down here when he's in London on business. Straight as a die he is, wouldn't know a drug if you shoved one up his nose, yet he gets all dressed up and dances all night.'

'What about him,' Camellia pointed out the man they'd thought earlier was a ballet dancer.

'He's an acid head,' Dougie grinned. 'He used to be with the Royal Ballet. The owner here lets him in for free because he makes a good floor show. That's what this place is all about really, a show. We get them all in here, the queers, the exhibitionists, and then a whole load of people who come to watch. It wouldn't be any fun if everyone was like that.' He pointed to a scruffy looking couple sitting against a wall, their eyes almost closed.

'They are on heroin,' he said. 'Losers both of them. They'll probably dip in a few pockets or handbags before the night's over to get their next fix. They started doing heroin for fun, now they don't know the meaning of the word any more.'

Camellia wanted to know a great deal more about Dougie, but without shouting to make herself heard, she couldn't ask him any more questions. He confused her a little. He knew everyone here, he seemed to belong here, yet he was cynical about the whole thing. Where did he fit in?

They had been back on the dance floor for only a few minutes when suddenly Suzanne was at her side twitching the sleeve of her tunic.

'Where've you been?' she said crossly. 'We looked everywhere for you.'

'I only went with Dougie for a drink.' Camellia stopped dancing for a moment. 'What's the matter?'

'It's nearly three. We want to go home,' Suzanne replied. 'Are you coming with us?'

Camellia looked across the floor. The crowd had thinned out a little without her noticing. Carol was standing between two earnest-looking boys in denim jackets with Beatle-style haircuts. It was obvious even from a distance that the four of them intended to go together.

'It's early yet,' Camellia pleaded. 'Can't you wait a bit longer?'

'We won't get a taxi if we stay any later.' Suzanne's pupils were dilated so far Camellia could see no iris. 'Besides the boys want us to go back to their place for coffee.'

Dougie moved forward and slung his arm round Camellia's shoulder. 'You don't have to leave with them. I'll get you home,' he said.