Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving Read online

  “Don’t interrupt me when I’m on the phone,” she said.

  “It’s no wonder we get such huge phone bills when you’re talking all the time,” countered Elfish. Realising that this had given Gail an opening for criticising her for never actually paying her share of the phone bill, Elfish turned quickly and headed upstairs to the extension phone.

  A long wire ran from the living room up the stairs to the other telephone. These stairs were a dangerous obstacle course, littered with empty paint tins, cardboard boxes and an old fridge. They creaked ominously at Elfish’s footsteps. Elfish manoeuvred her way carefully past the various obstructions but before she could lift the phone some more creaking on the stairs warned her of an enemy approach. As none of the other women in the house liked Elfish she felt quite justified in regarding them as enemies.

  “What is it now?” she snapped.

  “I need my guitar strings back,” said Gail, and her voice was heavy with the implication that Elfish had no right to take them in the first place.

  “No,” said Elfish. “I need them.”

  “So do I.”

  “You never play your guitar.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean you can just walk into my room and take the strings off it.”

  Gail marched past and on up to Elfish’s room to claim back her guitar strings. Elfish cursed, and wished that the stairs might collapse and bury Gail in a pile of rubble. It struck her that the next time the house was empty she would take Gail’s guitar and sell it. This thought cheered her as she waited till Gail had finished removing the strings and walked stiffly back downstairs. It was now time to phone Mo.

  eighteen

  SHONEN WAS MUCH more pleased to receive a visit from Elfish than Elfish was to be making it. They used to be good friends but these days Elfish generally tried to stay out of Shonen’s way because Shonen suffered seriously from bulimia. Elfish found it hard to muster much sympathy for this.

  Shonen would eat food and throw it up again at an incredible rate. A visit to her house meant a long series of waits while Shonen made feeble excuses to leave the room and vomit up whatever junk food she had just consumed. Elfish found the whole process most frustrating and could barely resist the temptation to shout at Shonen, “Don’t eat it if you don’t want it!” although this of course is not the recommended way to speak to anyone with bulimia.

  Leaving the room to be sick could happen anything up to ten times in a two-hour visit. While Shonen’s bulimia made her feel so guilty about eating that she would be obliged to stick her fingers down her throat and make herself sick after bingeing, she would also vomit spontaneously at times of serious anxiety. This, thought Elfish, added up to an incredible daily rate, unless being in company made Shonen more upset than usual. Possibly she controlled it better on her own.

  Elfish explained the purpose of her visit while Shonen sat nervously on the edge of her chair, eating crisps.

  “I am obliged to learn the entire Queen Mab speech, as spoken by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, which amounts to forty-three lines. I need help. I have come to see you because you are an actress and must know how to learn lines.”

  Shonen was doubtful. Her chosen speciality was physical theatre, in which herself and the five other members of the company would move the story along by pretending to be tables, chairs, cats, dogs and whatever else was necessary. They made up all their own scripts. She did not act in Shakespeare or anything like it, and had not done so since leaving drama school two years ago.

  She explained her doubts to Elfish, casually placed her crisp packet on the floor, and excused herself. Elfish waited with pursed lips while Shonen emptied herself of the demon food in the toilet.

  While out together at gigs, raves or parties, Elfish had often been obliged to help Shonen out of some incredible situations where old and fragile toilet bowls had seized up completely after relentless visits from the bulimic actress, leaving outraged fellow partiers looking on in horror as a hideous mess of vomit and sludge-like water oozed up over the bowl to cover the floor, making the bathroom totally off-limits for the rest of the night, and possibly forever.

  “I know it is not your sort of thing,” continued Elfish, on Shonen’s return. “And you are generally more at home whilst pretending to be a field of wheat, or the spirit of freedom, but you must have learned speeches from Shakespeare at one time. And it is not nearly as difficult for me as it sounds because I have already learned thirty-three lines of the speech and have a rough idea of how the rest goes. I just need you to do a little final coaching.”

  Shonen could not understand why this had suddenly become so important to Elfish.

  “I have to learn the speech in order to claim the name of Queen Mab for my band.”

  Shonen looked blank. Elfish explained that she had made an arrangement with Mo, this arrangement being that if Elfish could stand up on stage in front of the audience before Mo’s gig and recite the forty-three line speech she could have the name of Queen Mab, provided she had a band to go with it.

  “Why did Mo agree to that?”

  “Because he is keen to make me look foolish and he thinks that I will look very foolish indeed trying to quote a speech from Shakespeare to his audience, particularly as he is completely certain that I will not be able to learn it in the first place. Already he has spread the word and much of Brixton will be there to see me make an idiot of myself. Unfortunately for them they will all be disappointed because they are unaware that I know most of it already.”

  Elfish did not further explain that her brother had brokered this agreement through the imaginary agency of Amnesia and that Mo had gone along with it not merely to humiliate Elfish but to gain favour with Amnesia.

  “When I am successful Mo will be obliged to cede the name to me.”

  Shonen looked troubled and opened a packet of biscuits.

  “What happens if you fail?”

  “Then Mo may demand from me anything he desires. Mo stipulated this condition, saying that otherwise he would just carry on and use the name when he was ready. This is an unpleasant aspect of the agreement but it was necessary to entice Mo into it.”

  Shonen looked at Elfish in amazement.

  “You have entered into a competition with Mo, a man of cave-man-like desires, the prize for which is anything the winner desires? Are you completely mad?”

  Not as mad as you, thought Elfish sourly, as Shonen excused herself and hurried out of the room.

  nineteen

  ALCIBIADES WAS AT the height of his fame around 421 B.C. and he was the most famous man in Athens. He was rich, talented and beautiful. He once entered seven chariot teams for events in the Olympic games. He could probably have had anyone he wanted in Athens but the person he most wanted was the renowned philosopher Socrates, whom he couldn’t have.

  Plato relates that Alcibiades once invited Socrates round for dinner. There were no other guests, and after they had eaten, Alcibiades dismissed the servants and slaves and started to ply Socrates with drink. Socrates, however, as well as being a famous philosopher, also had a huge capacity for alcohol and did not become drunk. Eventually Alcibiades said to Socrates that it was getting late so why didn’t Socrates just stay the night?

  Socrates agreed, and Alcibiades, fully intending to have sex with him, covered him where he lay on the couch with a blanket, then got under the blanket himself. Unfortunately for Alcibiades, nothing happened. Despite the fact that Alcibiades was the most desirable man in Athens and had every reason to suppose that Socrates would be unable to resist him, Socrates did not react, and politely declined Alcibiades’ advances.

  “Isn’t that interesting?” said Aran.

  Elfish looked blank.

  “Why?”

  “Because it was two thousand years ago and people are still acting the same, namely asking someone round, plying them with drink and then saying, ‘It’s too late to go, you might as well stay.’ I’ve done it myself.”

  “And lost your girlfriend.”r />
  “Well, yes, there is that. Possibly Alcibiades suffered the same problem. Do you want to know what happened to him as the Peloponnesian War progressed?”

  “Definitely not,” said Elfish. Her eyes were already glazing over. She sometimes consented to listen to Aran’s stories but she rarely found anything of interest in them.

  twenty

  THE FOUR WOMEN with whom Elfish shared the old house had tried their best to like Elfish but she made it impossible. They had done their utmost to be understanding but one and a half years of Elfish’s continual refusal to pay bills or buy food, and utter inability to wash a dish or clear up her mess after her had worn them out.

  In the face of frustrated demands for her share of the telephone bill, a considerable amount, or even a few pence for the soap and lightbulb fund, Elfish would remain calmly unconcerned. Even under intense questioning about the fate of four beers Marion had had in the fridge, Elfish could display a Zen-like calm, refusing to descend to the level of petty household squabbles. Only if, as had happened before, her flatmates unearthed suspicious empty beer cans stuffed in the bottom of the rubbish bin would Elfish become animated, and violently accuse the others of interfering in her business and roundly condemn them for daring to question her word.

  They all strongly desired that she would leave the house but as Elfish was among those who originally squatted it they felt unable to use actual force to get rid of her.

  This house had once been a place of optimism and activity but it had recently become a dark and sad place. Elfish’s dreadful behaviour notwithstanding, the four other occupants—Marion, Chevon, Gail and Perlita—had until only last month been bright and active participants in the projected production of a small independent feminist newspaper. This was to be a journal for young women and the mock-up they had made was a pleasingly chaotic South London mix of extreme politics, music articles and hastily scrawled cartoons.

  Now, after devoting almost their entire existences to it, they were facing failure. They could not raise the money to produce the first issue. Worse, they had failed to find a distributor. Even if they could have raised the money, without a distributor the project would never get off the ground. Distribution was a key element, and as any small radical journal such as theirs would never be welcomed with open arms by distributors who were entirely concerned with large volume sales, it had always been a matter of some doubt as to whether they would be able to find one. The only alternative was to distribute it themselves by taking it around bookshops on their bicycles and suchlike but this would get them no further than one or two small outlets in London. This did not seem worthwhile. The whole point had been to break away from such small-scale communication and talk to the rest of the country. Now, after months of preparation and expense they were defeated and had ended up in debt and depression.

  On this day, as Elfish arrived in the living room sometime in the afternoon, yawning, Marion, moving swiftly back from national politics to local issues, was moved to confront her about the disappearance of the peanut butter she had bought yesterday.

  “Did you eat it?”

  “Yes,” said Elfish.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?” protested Elfish. “We all share food in this house, don’t we?”

  “But you never buy any.”

  “I never have any money,” said Elfish, logically.

  Marion, disheartened by recent events, gave up the argument. Elfish switched on the TV. Television was for some reason an irritating subject in this household. Although they owned one, no one seemed to approve of it. They would occasionally spend time discussing how much they disliked it. Elfish, however, was a self-proclaimed TV fan and during the day would watch game show after game show with blank attention till it was time for her to go out and play pool or re‘hearse.

  Marion, annoyed, expressed the opinion that Elfish was a waste of time as a human being and a person completely without ambition.

  “To hell with you,” retorted Elfish. “I dream of calling my band Queen Mab and I am going through extraordinary difficulties to do it.”

  On the extension upstairs, she called Mo. The very act of deception gave Elfish pleasure. Mo’s belief that he was talking to Amnesia when he was in fact talking to Elfish made her feel powerful and was further proof of Mo’s stupidity.

  The greatest proof of Mo’s stupidity of course was that he had slept with various other women while having a relationship with Elfish, and failed to conceal it. The second greatest proof was that he imagined he could steal the name of Queen Mab.

  As Amnesia, she was merry on the phone.

  “Elfish went for it? She is really going to try and learn forty-three lines of Shakespeare in a week? She can’t even remember what day she signs on.”

  She laughed uproariously. Mo joined in.

  “Not that it matters. She won’t have a band in a week and that’s part of the agreement too.”

  Mo informed Amnesia that he had already spread word of Elfish’s hopeless endeavours around Brixton so there would be plenty of people to see her humiliation.

  “What are you going to ask Elfish for when you win?” asked Elfish, but Mo said he had not yet decided.

  “When are you coming up?” asked Mo.

  “At the weekend. I’ll see your gig.”

  “What are you going to give me for making Elfish look foolish?”

  “Anything you desire, Mo,” said Elfish, and they laughed again.

  twenty-one

  PERICLES WAS A natural leader but his efforts to rally the spirits of the occupants of the raft met with little success.

  “So your reputation was entirely eclipsed by Shakespeare?” he said to Ben Jonson. “So was everyone else’s. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t leave a great body of work behind you.”

  Ben Jonson did not find this very comforting.

  “And they buried you in Westminster Abbey,” continued the Athenian.

  “Well, whoopee,” said the dramatist, with some bitterness.

  Cleopatra leapt to her feet, yelling, “Tidal wave approaching!”

  “Damn,” screamed Botticelli, who had been trying to construct some sort of steering device to get them back to shore. Botticelli was a poor engineer and wished he had paid a little more attention to Leonardo da Vinci and the other Renaissance scientists.

  “Take cover!”

  “What do you mean, take cover?” demanded Cleopatra. “We’re on a raft.”

  Botticelli’s efforts to guide them safely past the tidal wave proved futile and the vast bulk of water crashed over them, sweeping away what little food supplies they had and propelling them even further from the shore and closer to the edge of the world.

  Aran chuckled as he finished programing in the tidal wave. He wondered what new disasters he could send against the hapless mariners. An inescapable whirlpool, perhaps? Or a giant school of killer whales?

  A woman with long red hair, tumbling by in the violent ocean, grabbed on to the side of the raft and held on grimly with one hand. Ben Jonson and Cleopatra rushed to her aid while Botticelli and Mick Ronson tried to repair the shattered mast and sail.

  The woman was helped on board, bedraggled, gasping for breath but still clasping a mighty sword in one hand. Once on board, she glared suspiciously round her for a few seconds before collapsing in a heap. Cleopatra took off one of her regal cloaks and wrapped it round the stranger for she was wearing only a chainmail bikini, no real protection against the storm. Later, when she awoke and felt stronger, the newcomer introduced herself as Red Sonja, a female barbarian and onetime star of her own comic book.

  “But it was only a matter of time before I was cancelled,” she related, with a hint of sadness. “Even the film I starred in was not as well reviewed as Conan the Barbarian.”

  So Red Sonja joined them on the raft. Her dreams of success fluttered way above her, far out of reach, and the giant waterfall at the edge of the world crept ever closer.

  twenty-two


  ELFISH WAS NOT a fan of Elvis Presley but she had a lingering affection for “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” possibly because of her moon locket. She could play it after a fashion.

  Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining

  Shine on the one who’s gone away

  Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining

  Shine on the one who’s gone away.

  These were all the words she knew, which had not in the past prevented her from playing it onstage in a fast and aggressive-sounding metallic stampede. All of Elfish’s music for public consumption was fast, aggressive and metallic. The increasingly popular dance and rave culture had almost entirely passed her by. Elfish had occasionally ended an evening of drinking by hanging around in clubs where dance music played all night, and had even found herself unwillingly trapped beneath an outstretched parachute on which psychedelic lights flickered while ambient music floated all around, but she was not impressed. While the people around her gazed in drug-induced wonder at the colours swirling overhead on the parachute silk, Elfish merely fretted, and wished that the DJ would play a proper record with guitars on it. The thought of making music with machines instead of guitars filled her with loathing and contempt.

  Elfish was sitting on her bed, guitar in hand, musing on the prospects for her band. Her ambitions were powerful but she realised they were rather uninformed. Although she knew how to put on a small gig in South London, her knowledge of what might come next was very limited. She was largely ignorant of all the further stages of the music business. She did not know how successful bands became successful. She did not even know how to get a gig in a pub in another part of London. As for reaching the next stage up from this, the independent circuit of small venues, she had only the vaguest idea of what was necessary. She presumed that she would need a demo-tape of some sort but was not sure who to send it to. As for any further progress, to the world of small concert halls, managers, booking agencies, press agencies, one-off deals with small record labels and suchlike, it was all a mystery to Elfish.