Faces in the Pool (15 page)

Sex is here to stay. And mesmerise, baffle, madden. And drive us to passion, murder, jealousies and despair. Religions say sex is the root of all evils. Others, as old soldiers say, tell the truth.

In that crowded hall, maybe 1,500 people were crammed in a high state of expectation. All were laughing, joking. Refined people – with money to burn, I mean – were on a rimmed balcony. A few daring customers tried to light cigarettes but were quickly blanked by friends with, ‘Erosa dun’t like smokes, see?’ Miss Erosa must be dynamite, to persuade even before she’d begun.

Ba-ba-boom music played, strobes hurting the eyes. Some people were already tanked up and singing. The air was festive, the sort you see in villages where Old English music trills and everybody’s at the cider and cake. This was not sedate folklore.

The walls showed giant scenes of copulation. As the images flicked and scrolled, aficionados recognised porno girls and studs, roars greeting the more famous. Not the
natural frolic-on-the-greensward, more reminiscent of expensive gigs where some rock band – I almost put skiffle group – played to huge audiences. It worried me, because they were all thinking: We’d better get the best or else. Threat was not far away. I hoped to God this Erosa lass was good or the building would be lucky to survive.

More than that, the great Erosa Sexotica was coming out of retirement. I was scared. If she failed, there’d be hell to pay. It would be tough on Mortimer, but I had survival priorities here, namely me. You’ve got to be truly naff to fail in Blackpool. But if this amiable mob once rounded on you, you were finished. The two artistes I’d seen die in Blackpool’s exalted summer season still try to revive their careers, but booking agents won’t even throw them a crust. I wanted Erosa Sexotica to do a decent (indecent? whatever) show.

Familiar faces looked down, four from Donna da Silfa’s group. All were avid. One in particular was glaring. If Erosa did her stuff, Hugo would eat her raw. It was that sort of look. I almost shivered. Perhaps this is why collectors of, wait for it, sexiana (I’m not making the word up) pay over the top for antiques portraying sex. I was once asked to paint a sex scene of Joan Crawford with Marilyn Monroe, who were transitory lovers, cruel gossip has it, Joan more than Marilyn. A lady offered me a year’s income. I declined because it made me feel uncomfortable. She said in wonderment, ‘But you paint ghosts, Lovejoy,’ and got mad.

On the other hand, I was present when two sexiana collectors fought over a fake panel listing the mysterious Latin word
muto
. It was written on ordinary children’s
sketching paper, lovely lettering depicting the word in Lucilius, Horace, Martial and other Latin poets. I’d thought what pillocks collectors were, battling for Latin scribbles of words for male genitalia – until the cost soared beyond the price of a new car. Then I marvelled. That the two buyers were women didn’t concern me. It was the fortune given for a modern scrawl copied from ancient Pompeii graffiti. Yet I’m the softest touch in East Anglia. I once spent my last groat just to let a caged sparrow go, and went hungry for two days, glad it was at liberty. And you know what? The little bastard flew off without a backward glance. It was overseas. Worst of all, a local geezer told me the vendors caught them again to sell to duckeggs like me.

Two pretty dancers emerged to a roar which quickly turned to groans, as neither was Miss Erosa. Their gyrations got my complete attention. They were only crowd-warmers, fluffers to prepare the crowds for the champ. One was an electric dancer, who shimmied on her silver pole with electric lights all over her body. Neither seemed very good, but of course had beautiful bodies so were great. I’d seen better. I scored these second division.

As the excitement built the erotic scenes behind the dancers continued to flicker. Idly, I began to recognise bits from old cinema releases. I kept a look out for Erosa. Wouldn’t have been surprised. Antiques dealers now go mad for erotic art, from pipe-smokers’ stubbers to genitalia-shaped spittoons, however badly they’re made. Playing cards of Hollywood stars – most often fakes – get snapped up. Every schoolboy owns a set.

My attention wandered back to the performers.

The two pole dancers were ending their routine, the
crowd thumping into action and moshing starting, that great leaping up and down en masse. The mob looked like a tin of maggots. It was mayhem. Two other girls replaced the pole artistes, to slow hand-clapping. The new ones depended on fake copulation involving slithering in cream, but the crowd had seen it all before.

The scenes on the backdrops were the same olds: corny cartoon jokes and dull pseudo-scientific data. So we all learnt, as if we cared, that the most photographed sex-throbette was called Betty (snapped in 55,000 trade exposures), that geneticists claimed red pubic hair would be extinct in fifty years (‘Go it, Ginger!’ shrieked the film clip), and sperm travels at 0.001 miles per hour.

New black drapes were set up during an interlude. Half a dozen sexthrobs stood posing, muscles and veins bulging, to the boredom of all except a few, with women
muscle-husslers
showing how they too developed biceps, so there. It was becoming a yawn.

The audience was now catcalling the girls. Nobbins were thrown, bouncers crossing the stage to collect the dosh. (Tip: the bouncers keep the money, even in boxing.) People emerged to clean the stage. The poles vanished into the ceiling. The muscly blokes and birds faded and the stage stilled. Then, strangely, as if by common understanding, the crowd hushed.

Imperceptibly a stirring began, with the same epicentres of riot and the occasional glass thrown needing bouncers to wade in and forcibly remove some foci of discord. On the whole it was fairly genial and the crowd settled down. The show’s big moment seemed to be on us. I’d come all this way, yet was no nearer to finding who had killed my
friends. I hadn’t even a decent clue, except for Gentry’s remark about Paltry.

Hang on, I thought, stilling my remaining neurones. Something was starting. People in the crowd were calling friends, swarming back from the bars to keep their places near the stage.

And the music changed. Instead of the thump, thump, thump, a distant fanfare was audible. The music eased, to something subtle, maybe Vivaldi. I tried to distinguish words in the cacophony. Clapping started in a strange rhythm I’d never heard before, out of kilter. People outside began bawling ‘Erosa! Erosa!’ I looked at nearby faces. I even asked the folk next to me, ‘What is it?’ The stage darkened, cones of multicoloured lights swirling around one pole as it slowly descended. A deafening fanfare blared – Copeland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. Women looked in a world of their own, blokes refusing offered drinks from pals.

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the stage. The pole settled, everybody eyeing it as if it were the Grail. Faces had become mesmeric pale patches lit by the strafing illumination in the eerie lighting. I heard a woman whisper, ‘It’s the same pole from Germany, when she won the…’ And the news spread, ‘She insists on the same…’ God Almighty, a frigging
pole
?

The place descended into gloom. I’d only once felt something similar, at a witches’ thing in East Anglia, but I’d never seen a crowd switch off like this, as if we were connected. I glanced up and saw Hugo Hahn gaping down, mouth open, white knuckles on the rail. He was transfixed.

No sign of Ted Moon or Fionuella. Had he met me to make sure I came? My one consolation was I could easily escape if this Erosa lass disappointed.

Smoke drifted from the wings, clouds forming a grey layer. A man stepped into a cone of purple light. He was dressed as Dracula, long cape and dark sideburns, fangs and a widow’s peak. He intoned, ‘Ladies and gentlemen. For one night only, the immortal, the supreme world champion pole dancer, the greatest… Miss Erosa Sexotica!’

He vanished in a puff of smoke. I stared. How do they
do
that? Unbelievable. Oddest thing, there was no applause, just total silence. Black-garbed figures lined the space and their arms started moving in rhythm like cilia you see in the sea. For one irreverent moment I wondered at the sheer cost of the production. The audience seemed numb. I realised I couldn’t remember how long it was since the announcement. Two minutes maybe? Five? I didn’t care.

The forty or so dancers stirred mist up from the vapour sea. Really quite beautiful. Then the whole crowd gave a groan. I looked around in astonishment, feeling uneasy, intruding in something I’d no right to. To regain control, I tried making myself think of daft events. A master forger was gaoled because he spelt Scotland with a ‘k’, Skotland. Blackpool exports Blackpool air in bottles. Scientists realised Planet Earth was slowing down, so they invented Leap Seconds. The World Walking-The-Plank Championship takes place in Kent. Keeping control got harder. The World Worm-charming Championship is in Cheshire…

A girl’s vague form became visible above the dancers.
Merely an image projected on some screen?

The crowd was transfixed. Her features gradually took on solidity. Nothing alluring, but definitely a girl, the eyes luminous. Angrily, I told myself it was only a faded photo on a black rag, for God’s sake, so why were we all behaving as if it was a vision? Then I thought, Don’t I recognise those eyes? My treacherous mind gave in when somebody called, ‘There!’ and others joined in, ‘She’s there!’ and the pointing became a riot, the noise a crescendo. Stupidly I asked somebody, ‘What?’ but nobody answered.

She came so slowly she could have been a patch of shadow, moving with a sinuous motion down to the stage ocean.

And the applause began, and a mad baying mixed with a curious wailing. It was as Bedlam must have sounded in ancient days. A woman near me was weeping. I thought, This is lunacy, yet got caught up watching that dark figure slowly slither inchwise with a grace that became hypnotic, a reasonable exchange for free will. I went along, like OK, it’s a bargain.

The figure dipped herself into the opacity of the mist, withdrew then stirred the fog with a movement that would have raised the dead with its suggestion of the erotic. I heard people actually sigh. I was captured by Erosa.

Even now I can’t imagine how she did it, with a few slight movements evoking a bealing roar. I found myself saying the silly name in time, ‘Erosa! Erosa!’ like a fool. I swear I almost heard her splash into the sea, even though it was only vapour from a bottle in the wings of a tatty stage. Her hands made slow swimming movements, imperceptibly bringing her to the surface of the undulating
sea.
She almost turned into a bird.
What the hell am I seeing here? I tried to think, wondering if I’d been slipped a Mickey Finn. A tart in a cape waggles a bit, and I actually
see
her transform into a flying creature trying to fly out of a deep tide?

What the fuck was going on? My mind tried not to see an egret struggling in a restless sea, but pity took hold. I’ve always been a pillock, so I should have just let the poor thing get on with it. A bird is only a bird, right? I heard myself groaning with the rest then cheering as it rose into the air above the waves. I can see her now, becoming that soaring bird, and the crowd going mad with relief as she flew up.

Daniella was light years in the past now, she had become sublime in a way I’d never seen. It was impossible not to surrender. I’m ashamed to say we all became obscene and piteous, the lot of us. Sometimes her movements were so minimal she almost seemed in tableau, but that’s only saying the opposite. The lovely creature became sacramental. One part of my consciousness remembered I was merely one of a crowd mesmerised by a simple dancer. Putting it in words sounds daft now. There, though, it was magic, transcendental alchemy practised by the witchcraft of a woman who understood what is divine. Daniella became transfigured.

I was soaked in sweat as she finally rose from her orgasm and her winged form was freed from the degradation. I felt I had seen martyrdom. She was the most magic person I’d ever seen.

As the music quietened and the fog sea enveloped her, the weeping began. I’m not ashamed to say I choked a
bit. The lovely bird sank into the rising tide. We saw she was going to die. People actually called, ‘Oh, no,’ as the goddess clung to her silver pillar. No good. Exhausted, she looked back at us, but her strength had gone.

We fell silent as the bird died and the engulfing ocean took her in. She was gone. The silence seemed leaden. Words seem stupid, but everybody who was there wouldn’t think so. In her dance, Daniella had become the goddess every man longs for. Whatever the cost, those moments of dance were cheap at the price.

The sea fog slowly dispersed, the place quiet as stone. When the lights gradually came back on to show the stage in full, she had evaporated with the mist. The stage was bare. People actually stood on tiptoe to look. The glittering silver pole slowly ascended to the dark tabs above. In total silence we turned away. Throats were cleared, people somnolent and almost creeping from the auditorium as if leaving a sickroom.

Christ, I thought, seeing the clock in astonishment, nearly two hours? Couldn’t be. Surely it had lasted no more than ten minutes, fifteen at the outside? A faint music began as we left, some pavane. I glanced at the balcony, but the Faces had gone. I neither knew nor cared where to. I had seen her, and now wanted to find her and ask what she knew.

Maybe I already knew deep down. She was the one excuse that would draw them all here. If she could provide even one answer, as Mortimer had implied, maybe there
was
some kind of salvation. Daniella seemed good at salvation.

The crowds drifted along the pavement. The women left blotting eyes and fumbling for mirrors, the blokes quietly heading for bars along the promenade. The lot of us seemed still to be dreaming.

OK, I thought. I’d obeyed everybody. I’d gone to Sunderland – all those cars. Lincoln – all those flowers. I’d visited old Smethie, and helped Death’s rich harvest. I’d watched the World Suprema Sex Dancer. Was I any nearer? The only thing I’d learnt after getting three friends murdered was that I was due at Somnell House.

Reassembling my splintered mind, I stood by the stage door. No Mortimer, no Daniella. The muted press hung about. I couldn’t understand the difference between Daniella and the lustrous dancer who conveyed such sexual passion. Every women has her own beauty, sure. Young or old, loveliness is there.

Yet I’d only seen Daniella as genuinely off-her-trolley. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what daftness she was hooked on – recovering Isaac Newton’s thoughts from space, was it, or Molly Malone’s Dublin cockles? Beyond
sense, anyway. She always sat facing the corner among Tansy’s colony of crazies in Mehala Bay. How on earth could I be expected to know? I felt done out of my pie and my pudding, as we said when I was little. I might have been in ecstasy for months.

Imagine having Miss Erosa waiting in my cottage ready for… I moaned. Nobody nearby even looked. We were all thinking the same.

Mortimer seemed to have vanished, like Fionuella and Ted Moon, Laura’s oppo, Ellen, Donna da Silfa. Seeing the sun-dog hadn’t changed my luck. No contacts of any kind. Without Mortimer, I was like an army without its scout.

Over the next two hours the crowd dispersed. I asked at the stage door, ‘Any chance of seeing Miss Erosa?’ A bloke said sadly, ‘She vanishes once a show is over.’

He and his mates eventually loped off to the famous Captain’s Cabin, its crowds spilling out onto the pavement. I crossed to a phone box and tried Lydia’s home number. Her mother Mavis – she hates me because we once made smiles – answered. I pretended to be somebody else but she snapped, ‘It’s you, Lovejoy. Stay away from Lydia and from me.’ That’s the thanks you get. It was unfair. I tried others, but Lydia and Tinker were nowhere.

In the bright lights of the famous Illuminations, a smartly dressed woman stepped into a car. Was it that pleasant woman Joanna? I knew all roads led to Rome, but Blackpool?

Somebody tapped on the booth. I kept ringing dealers. The tapping continued. A woman was outside in the mottled darkness, evidently too impatient to cross the blinking road to a hotel phone. Eventually I opened the
door and said, ‘Missus, this is a matter of life—’

Breathlessly, she eeled in and pulled the door to. The place filled with perfume. She wore a voluminous tent.

‘Daniella?’ asked Hawkeyes of the West.

‘It’s Mortimer, Lovejoy,’ she breathed. ‘They’ve got him.’

As my remaining dendrites synapsed, I said in the light of a passing tram, ‘Is that really you?’

‘You sent word, Lovejoy. Are you ashamed of me?’

I decided to leave the shame bit. ‘Me? Send word?’

‘My sister, Etholle.’ She was so close I could have… I looked into those eyes, never wanting to look away again. ‘You begged me to come.’

Passing blokes saw us in the phone booth and cheered as they saw Daniella fumble for a message.

‘I saw your performance, love.’ I got out.

‘I saw you when I was robing up.’

She wore her drab marquee and a hood. ‘What was that about Mortimer?’ I didn’t want an answer.

‘They’ve got him, Lovejoy. They told me.’ She lowered her eyes.

‘Who?’

‘Mrs da Silfa’s people. They have him trapped at Somnell House. They said be there tomorrow.’

‘How did they catch him?’

‘He’s so trusting, such a beautiful nature, Lovejoy.’ Her lovely eyes filled. ‘It’s amazing that he’s your son, you being so… His mother must have been an absolute saint, when you are…’

A tatty shiftless prat? It’s always me bad, and everybody else St Alban.

‘What can we do? They’ll be trailing me.’

‘They know you’ll try to rescue Mortimer.’ She gazed at me with adoration. I wished the frigging trams would stop clanging past with their lights showing me her lovely features. I was in enough trouble. ‘You’ll dare any wicked dangers to rescue him from their evil clutches.’

‘Hang on a sec.’

This sounded like a Victorian melodrama, the way she was going on. There was too much risking of Lovejoy in her scenario. I felt safe in the phone booth, with nobody quite knowing who I was. I could go south, and let everybody get on with it. OK, there was this father-son stuff, but hang on. If I stormed Castle Perilous, who would be in the firing line? Me, that’s who.

Who wants risks? I had no SAS to charge into Somnell House and confront its armed Faces. What chance would I have? They had guns. This called for heroes, not Lovejoy.

Feebly, I said, ‘How about the police, love?’

‘Out of the question, Lovejoy. They have diplomatic status.’

‘And I’m a convicted felon.’

‘Don’t take on, darling. Please. You will brave the jaws of danger, Lovejoy. You are, after all, their only divvy.’

Darling now? ‘True.’ I swallowed. It was so hot, Daniella so close and me trying to concentrate. ‘It’s just that…’ I strove for excuses. ‘I can’t risk you, darling.’

‘Me, Lovejoy? You’re thinking of me?’

I went for it. ‘I must protect you, Daniella.’

She really wept then, her lovely huge eyes streaming with tears. I could have eaten her.

‘You’re so sweet, when you could simply walk away.
What a beautiful soul you possess, darling. No.’

‘No what?’ I wondered if I’d painted myself into a corner.

‘I am your secret weapon, darling.’

‘Weapon?’ Only moments before this creature lifted the world to paradise. She was no weapon.

‘Yes, darling.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘Just think. What does subterfuge need?’

‘Money? Guns? Police?’ I still hoped I’d be left out of it.

‘No, darling. It needs bait.’

Like in fishing? You set traps with bait. I’ve seen poachers at it on the Stour in Suffolk, using snares to strangle creatures in the owl hours. I gulped.

‘Bait? You’re the bait?’

‘Yes, darling. I’m your Trojan Horse. The earlier we start, the better, don’t you think?’

We left the phone box and caught the tram along the seafront to the hotel. She lowered her lovely face into her hood, anonymous again. I sat beside her, my spirits sinking. Daniella was determined to make me a hero. I’d never been one before. Coward always, hero never. Still, I might go missing before the action began. I’m good at never being where I’m needed. My three murdered friends already knew that.