Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (26 page)

Love at first sight. Think I was ten."

"He's got to have been pushing fifty by The Sting, you dirty little pervert."

"Yeah, well. I always liked older men, that's how come you can't get rid of me."

"Don't make me thump you again."

"You can if you want."

"Like I need your permission." He rolls over and pins Valentine in place with his body, holding his wrists up against the pillow either side of his head.

The kid pretends to struggle for a minute before giving in and darting up for a kiss, and then there's nothing for ages and ages except wordless teenagey snogging until fatigue hits all at once, both of them together, and the subject of

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hideous costumes is avoided while they sleep – which is mainly why it's
Lindsay
hiding under the pillow and clinging on to the covers in a death-grip this time, when it's morning and Valentine's wide awake and bouncing around like an overexcited toddler. He's adamant about the surprise, though; he insists on that promised trip out shopping and playing slot machines and air hockey on the pier until halfway through the afternoon, dragging Lindsay's uneasy feeling of dread out and out until he almost feels sick with it.

Finally: "We should probably get changed, yeah?" He's trying to sound casual but he's looking at the floor and his face is slightly pink, and that shy little blush is Lindsay's undoing. He's kind of been planning to laugh it off and choose his own clothes, but it'd feel like kicking a puppy. He still tries to
act
grudging and unimpressed, but he goes willingly enough when Valentine holds his hand and takes him upstairs and pushes him at the bedroom then runs off to his own and slams the door. Music starts up, something electronic with too much bass that Lindsay knows he would have loved fifteen years ago but can't bear now. He slams his own door on the noise, and then he sees the clothes waiting on the bed and kind of feels like he's dreaming because they're not nearly as bad as he expected: black and grey striped trousers, a silk waistcoat and cravat, shirt, black frock coat. Cufflinks, button boots. A tall top hat, sitting there on the pillow like a monument. The cravat and the lining of the coat are blazing scarlet, and there's a gold-topped cane leaning against the bedstead, but that's as bad as it gets.

He goes into the bathroom to have a shower and a long think.

Valentine's music somehow seems louder in there, seeping through the walls and thundering around the little tiled cubicle. He wonders exactly what the costume is meant to
be
, and what Valentine's going to wear to match it, and kind of hates himself a little bit for the delicious thrill that runs through him at the mental picture of the kid all done up like a Victorian gentleman. Lindsay laughs at himself and turns the water off, wraps a towel round his waist, and sits on the bed for a bit longer because he can't bring himself to actually dress yet. He just sits there turning the hat over in his hands, dripping water from his sodden hair down his back and onto the blankets – then there's a tap on the bedroom door and he jumps, startled. Of course it's only Valentine. He's wearing a towel too, 209

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although Lindsay notices he's not got his precious hair wet, and he looks a bit sheepish, giving Lindsay a tiny smile on his way over to the scatter of junk he's left on the dresser.

"Forgot my make-up," he mutters, chucking pencils and pots and bottles into a bag, then he hesitates and seems to have some kind of internal Great War about whether or not to say anything else. "Is it alright, then?" he finally asks, timidly.

"You made this?"

"Yeah. Well, I never made the shirt or boots, or the hat, but I did the suit. I'm good at suits, I got A for GCSE
and
A Level only people think it don't count cos it ain't maths or English." Lindsay holds his hand out until Valentine smiles properly and comes over to sit with him. "Didn't wanna show you til it was ready. Probably stupid, it probably don't fit now. It fits the mannequin alright but you've put on a ton of podge over Christmas, so-" He breaks off and yelps because Lindsay's tickling him viciously again and manages to slither away and right off the bed, losing his towel. "Don't squash nothing!"

"You never said."

"I said I was at fashion college."

"You never said you were half-decent at it."

"Yeah, try it on before you strain yourself with the gushing compliments..." He's smiling, though, looking pink and pleased again, and he leans in to put a little kiss on Lindsay's kneecap before he stands up and tucks his escaped towel back around his hips. "I'm gonna get ready."

"Question," Lindsay says, and Valentine turns round in the doorway with his eyebrows raised. "What exactly
is
it?"

"You're the Mad Hatter. You're gonna have to get in character and fake the mad, though, cos I knew you wouldn't wear it if it weren't all black. You nearly had orange, but I know you're a spoilsport, so..."

From what he can remember, the Mad Hatter hangs around with a

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mouse and a rabbit, neither of which seem very likely costumes. "So what are you, then?"

"Wait and see." He grins wide, like the Cheshire Cat, and blows Lindsay a kiss and disappears off back down the hall.

Predictably, he's locked away in his room for ages, so by the time he deems himself ready to be seen Lindsay's in the kitchen working on his third cup of coffee – which means he spits half his mouthful over the table at the sight of him and almost chokes to death on the rest and spends a good few minutes panicking and heaving and trying to breathe.

"So what do you think?" Valentine says, all nonchalant like the near-death experience never happened. He hands Lindsay a teatowel to wipe his streaming eyes, and leans against the counter with his hip cocked girlishly, like he's displaying himself.

I think you're crazy.
"I think... Tenniel's probably spinning in his grave."

"He might drill right through to Australia. That's good and fitting, innit?"

"Shut up." He can't stop staring. "You look grotesque. You're not going out dressed like that-" But then he stops, because Valentine comes over and perches on his knee, fussily plucking at his layers of skirts until they're arranged the way he wants them, spilling over his white... tights? Stockings? Both are horrific to imagine. Lindsay just stares at him, like a rubbernecker at a crash site.

He doesn't look enough like a girl today, he looks like a hairy-armed angular boy in a dress, and that makes it so much more disturbing. He's got huge chunky ankle boots on, platform sole and thick heel studded with gleaming silver bolts and chains. He's wearing a
dress
, slubby silk with a neat black bodice and little cap sleeves and a massive ostentatious bell skirt with a red and black striped petticoat, one that's white with red hearts, one that's black with red diamonds, and endless spills of lace and net like a bratty little bridesmaid. He's got lacy black fingerless gloves on like he thinks he's Madonna in the '80s, and he's holding a fan he's clearly made himself from oversized playing cards, four 211

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queens and a joker, stuck together and folded like a concertina with a black fabric edging.

"Your ascot's all lumpy," he says, like it's perfectly natural to wander into the kitchen dressed like something Tim Burton discarded for being too over the top. He tucks his fan into a pocket on his skirt and twists a bit on Lindsay's knee to unknot the cravat and re-tie it in a loose ruched knot. "There.
Now
you look good enough to eat. And you're allowed to tell me I'm pretty any time you like."

"What the
fuck
are you doing?" His eyes travel up from Valentine's bony knees, over the skirt and the pocket-watch he's wearing round his waist like a loose belt, following the darts up the bodice, bypassing the silver necklaces looped tight around his neck like choke chains, pointedly
not
meeting his eyes, and finally seeing it – a smooth swoop of fringe at the front, a backcombed tangle of hair at the back, and between the two a black Alice band.

"Tom Waits made me do it."

"That's the man I love. You're not using him as your scapegoat."

"
I'm
the man you love."

"You're a being of indeterminate species and gender I can't fucking stand. It's not the same thing."

Valentine leans against him, brushing their cheeks together on his way to Lindsay's ear. "Tell me that again when you ain't rock hard," he murmurs, then suddenly he's jumping up and tugging at Lindsay's hand, flicking off the lights and ushering him out the back door. "Come
on
. Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting... can I drive?"

***

The worst of it isn't even the look Lindsay gets from Danny and Ty when he turns up at the manor house with a gothy teenage drag queen hanging

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off his arm – the worst is when Ty's daughters and their friends scurry up to them like little mice in party dresses and demand introductions, spend the next couple of hours becoming firm friends with Valentine, and then inform Lindsay that,

"Your boyfriend is the coolest in the WORLD!" when the kid nips off to the toilet to touch up his eyeliner. Lindsay manages a twisted kind of smile, tries to stammer out a denial, gives his hat to Katie because she's looking at it so longingly it melts his heart more than he'll ever admit to, and legs it to the bar for a few emergency drinks. Several whiskey shots later he realises Valentine's been even longer fixing his face than usual and if he doesn't get out himself then the children are going to switch their attention back to him, like last New Year when he spent the countdown to midnight having party popper streamers looped around his neck, loathing himself for actually having a serious conversation with two overtired hyperactive tiny girls dressed like Disney princesses about whether Lilo or Stitch would win in a fistfight. One more whiskey for the journey, and he slips out of the ballroom as discreetly as he can.

Valentine's not that difficult to find – some kind of instinct seems to make Lindsay's feet walk on their own. He's not even thinking about it or making any conscious decision to go upstairs, to the main hallway that's hung with paintings covering nearly every scrap of all four walls.

"You abandoned me," he says, bending his head when he's standing right up close behind the kid and biting his neck gently. Valentine laughs a bit and leans into him, finding Lindsay's arms and pulling them around his waist.

"The small sparkly people were eyeing me up like vultures. You almost got me stuck in a Disney nightmare."

"Stop it, they're brilliant. I'm going back down in a bit, Cinderella says she'll swap her tiara for my hairband and fan."

"What are you doing up here? I thought you liked parties."

"I do. Just, Ty's wife asked me where I got my costume and I said I made it cos this is what I was doing for college only you kidnapped me before I could actually
make
it, and we talked about clothes and art and stuff for a bit and she said come up here and have a look round, so... I'm having a look round.

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What's her name, anyway? Has she
got
a name? We weren't introduced properly, Danny just said she's Ty's wife, I dunno, is that how it works for us molls? We ain't real people, everyone just knows who we are in relation to the big boys?"

"She's called Elspeth, Ellie. And you won't let anybody use your name."

"Cos it's shit." He leans his head against Lindsay's shoulder – carefully, Lindsay notices, so he doesn't squash it
too
flat at the back – and turns his attention back to the painting in front of them. "Fifteen minutes I've been trying to decide... is that a fake? Cos it's spot on if it is."

As if Ty's going to put a
fake
Waterhouse in pride of place in the middle of the main wall of his private art gallery, below museum-quality steel shutters and fake walls he can plunge down at the flick of a switch if anybody comes sniffing around.

"It's not a fake."

Valentine goes very still, then, and eventually lets his breath out in a slow, careful whoosh, as if he's afraid of breathing too hard in case it evaporates the painting. "No shit?"

"None."

"
Fuck
." He's drumming his fingertips lightly on the back of Lindsay's hand, fidgety and excited. "But I've
seen
this, it was on tour once like a fucking rockstar or something, they had it in the Tate, cos I used to go in the Tate all the time just to look at the Lady of Shalott and Ophelia, and this was there for a bit and I swear I went in
every day
cos, don't laugh, you ain't allowed to laugh, but I proper fancied him. I don't care he's made of oilpaint."

"Yeah,
that
one was the fake."

"Tell me."

So Lindsay tells him, the ID and references – some they faked themselves, some they bribed people for – that got Danny the job with the gallery, the few years he spent there working an honest nine-to-five in the most elaborate scam of his career, getting in with everybody and working up to head

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of security, Ty's need-to-know reputation as a black market art dealer, the contacts he had, the commissioned forgeries, how
easy
it had been in the end to choose their own security team for transporting the painting. A simple swap in the van and that was it. Danny got off on the thrill of a job well done. Ty just wanted the art. Lindsay was the mastermind, lurking around the edges of the operation, listening to everything click gently into place, and then creeping away again. If anybody actually
knew
about the swap they were keeping quiet about it.

Embarrassed, maybe, at how silent and simple the theft had been – and did it matter, really? Lindsay couldn't see why anybody would actually care who painted the damn thing as long as it looked nice, although O'Flaherty got offended when he said so and threatened to burn down Lindsay's bookcase of first editions and replace them with modern paperbacks because did it matter what binding the same words were in? They had a druggy punch-up in the garden over it, until Danny stomped over and bashed their heads together and told them they were both wrong because a single line from Kurt Cobain was better than all their shitty books and paintings anyway. Things got too confusing to fight then, so they shared the last of Lindsay's quality whizz and made up. He doesn't tell Valentine the last bit – not that it'd matter if he did, because when he leans over the kid's shoulder to see his face he's gone a bit glassy-eyed, like he's not even really listening any more.