A film star arrives and she’s signed a sponsorship deal with a jeweller in the USA. Value of the diamonds around her neck: approx. $7.5 million. In the old days I would have cared about that, but not tonight. Not tonight.
I turn and photograph, click click, darling, you look beautiful. There’s CCTV everywhere, but you’d have to look for me to find me, you’d have to remember what you’re looking for, to know to look. Another photo, another turn, wasn’t he in that, wasn’t she in something else, and here comes Rafe, applause at the door, oh Rafe you are wonderful (click click) tell us how you did it (click click), he smiles and shakes the hands of the perfect people around him and says, “I never lost faith in myself.”
I did, I think, click click, turn turn. I went forward, I went back, I crossed the desert and found myself wanting, stood on the railway tracks and discovered I was scared of trains, scared of travelling, travelled anyway, left it all behind, lost everything again, until only I remained.
Rafe — what are you wearing? Gucci. Ah: of course! Of course Gucci, and your watch by…?
Gauguin behind him. His eyes settle on me for a moment, and instantly, he reaches into his pocket. Poor Gauguin, are you worried about your own responses? You see a woman in a crowd and now you think, “Is it her?” The anxiety must be killing you. But you still carry my photo so I turn away, let the people eat me up, you’ll forget you saw me, though you’ll worry about it, this photo in your hand, did you get it out for me? Probably. Probably you did. Fat lot of use that is for you now.
Where is Byron?
Turn, click click. No sign of Luca, no sign of Byron.
Where is she?
The 206 are here, the elite of all elites, two hundred and six of them, the most beautiful of the beautiful, click click, she whose skin burns gold (“I went for a face glow… the doctor burned me… have you any idea…?”), he whose smile is silver (tooth whitening: apply carbamide peroxide, breaks down in the mouth to hydrogen peroxide (used to dye hair) and urea (usually excreted via urine). In olden times, wealthy men and women would rub their teeth with charcoal to create the impression of tooth rot, demonstrating that they had access to expensive goods such as sugar)
click click
I am knowledge
I am me
click click
the world turns and I am still
Look upwards, and there, anatomy of a ballroom, go! To the left, on balcony one, photographers and cameras interviewing the select beauties of the 206, a man in there now, a golfer, I think, one wrist folded over the other so you can better see his watch (sponsorship, nothing flashy, and look, you get to tell the time!)
in the middle, balcony two, an acrobat warming up, a string quartet in full swing, twiddly dum twiddly dee, jazz later of course, when they dance, the 206 all know how to dance
to the right, separated off by red curtains, a control area, I remember it from pass two, a place of amplifiers and dimmer racks, cables and electrical outlets, not very 1600s having 63A three-phase power in your ancient stone walls, not very in keeping with the Venetian aesthetic, so hide it, turn down the lights and I look, tilt my camera upwards to hide my face
click
and think perhaps I see the curtain twitch.
How would I do it, if I were Byron? How would I be here?
Not for the first time, I feel a great deal of admiration for her, a memorable, incredible spy.
I turn to go, following my instincts, nice, professional instincts,
and there is Filipa.
Of course.
Standing in the door.
Someone takes her coat and she smiles and instantly
it is easy to see
there is something wrong with her smile.
Filipa? My voice. Not my voice. My voice is strong and self-assured. A weaker voice, a voice of a child. Filipa?
She looked at me, from the top of two short stone steps that led down into the hall, as the great and the beautiful flowed round her, and smiled, a wide, friendly smile on white teeth and said, “I’m so sorry, I think…?” She let her voice trail off. She thinks we might have met, but perhaps…? Just remind me, the name…? “My name is Hope,” I said. “You gave me your bracelet…” I look to her wrist, but the Möbius strip is gone, replaced by something bangle-like, white gold, flecked with rubies.
“Of course! Hope! So sorry, how silly of me, such a pleasure!”
She swept down the stairs, caught one arm in mine, pulled me with her, exclaimed, “With all the cameras for a moment I thought you were someone else, how have you been?”
Her words, high and easy, a flute singing its love-song. “I’m fine. I’m… why are you here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be here? My brother’s big event, and not just that, so important, don’t you think? A real chance to speak to the aspirations of everyone, to make a difference. I’m very proud of everything we’ve achieved, but there’s always so much more to do.”
Her walk pulled us towards the centre of the room, towards the champagne fountain, thin clouds of vapour rolling off the ice sculpture, an image of Aphrodite clinging longingly to the neck of long-speared Ares, her nose beginning to melt, melting into his arms, in the style of… of someone…
“Filipa,” I said, grasping her arm tight in mine, “Byron’s here.”
She looked up quickly, her smile not faltering, held the gaze a second, then brightly exclaimed, “In spirit, or in person?”
A joke. Making it a joke.
I held her tighter, until my fingers began to hurt, a frown flickering across her face, moving to disentangle her arm, but I just gripped harder and hissed, “What have they done to you?”
“Done to me?” she replied. “Nothing at all! Do you mind, you’re hurting my arm?”
“Filipa, who am I?”
“You’re Hope; you said.”
“And when did we last meet?”
“I… well, you know, I meet so many people.”
“Nîmes, the hospital, the people in the beds, Perfection, the treatments…”
“Ah, yes, that’s all been resolved.”
I gripped her hard enough to make her gasp, my fingers burrowing into her skin. “What the fuck have they done to you?”
Already knowing the answer.
“Let — go!”
She dragged her arm free from mine, staggered back, a scene, we were now the centre of a scene, people turning to look, security men turning to look, couldn’t have that, needed to move, dammit dammit dammit!
I cradled my cameras close to my chest, and ran.
What now?
Sit in the women’s toilets and cry?
When you are lonely, it’s hard to get a little emotional perspective. Like a child, every cut hurts deeper, every wound bleeds from your very heart. Bruising has not knocked strength into me. Society never taught me how to hide.
Fuck this.
No more fucking crying.
No more counting, I am my feet!
I am my feet in their black boots as I move through the hotel, I am justice, I am vengeance, fuck you world if you think you can do this to me, fuck you if you think I don’t know how to fight back, if you think I’ll just roll over and die, my dad looked murderers in the eye, my sister would swing a light sabre through evil’s fucking head, and I
Hey Macarena!
Will be all that I am.
Now!
Up the stairs to the control room, duck under the red cordon separating it from me. No security guards on this stair — surprising, there had been two days ago, when I was a technician, but now, gone, abandoned, wonder why (don’t really), up to a wooden door, built for a smaller species in an older time. The lock was old, too cumbersome to pick, but I forced it with a kitchen knife and let myself in.
A balcony, the size of my childhood bedroom. Low stone ceiling, a hint of a stone flower blooming above the door, a shadow of ancient red bricks plastered over by a man in straw sandals and a floppy hat, back in the days of smallpox. A red curtain, shielding it from the ballroom, a narrow slit down the middle where you might peep out to see the beautiful people with their perfect lives, watch and be amazed, dancing, dancing, dancing.