Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

Helen’s mother had been ill for a while. At least she had Mick with her.

The last time I’d seen my mother had been the three days I had spent in London on my way to Kirov. We had both been busy—she with embassy functions, me trying to get in touch with the guide who was supposed to be travelling with me to the steppes—too busy to spend much time together. Story of our lives. Not always unintentional. She’s never really forgiven me for choosing to live in my father’s country. “You’ve no one there, Aud. No family. No job. Nothing to keep you.”

On impulse, I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Clear and sharp, so unlike Beatriz del Gato.

“Julia? It’s Aud.”

“Have you found out something?”

“Yes and no. That is, nothing spectacular, and that’s not why I was calling. How broad is your definition of art?”

“Why do I get the feeling I shouldn’t answer that one?”

“There’s a performance tonight that you might find interesting.”

“What kind of performance?”

“You’ve got me there. She’s a performance artist into body modification. That’s all I know.”

“Okay…. Hello? Aud, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes. I was just trying to remember what time it starts,” I lied. “How about if I pick you up around nine-thirty?”

“Why don’t I pick you up? After all, I know where you live.”

“Fine. And don’t dress up. It’s at the Masquerade.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. Wear something casual. And if the CD player in your car has one of those removable face plates, remove it.”

She must have got the message. She arrived at nine-thirty wearing just the right clothes: wide-legged jeans with a big belt, tight low-cut button tee that exposed her flat, tanned belly, and big boots. She’d even done something with her hair, wearing it casually upswept with thick wings hanging at each side so that it didn’t look quite so sleek and moneyed. Two silver studs gleamed from her left ear and her fingernails were painted a red so dark it was almost black. The effect was to make her seem both younger and more worldly. I slung my leather jacket in the back and got in the passenger seat. It had been a long time since I had been driven anywhere; door locks and seat belts all seemed the wrong way around.

“North Avenue,” I said, and after a while I began to relax. The hands on the wheel were competent.

We drove in silence. The only things we knew about each other revolved around the death of a man who had been her friend and I didn’t want to talk about that, didn’t want to think about murder and men with money.

“So. What am I letting myself in for tonight?” Orange streetlight glided across her right cheek and disappeared through the back window.

“Diane Pescatore has spent the last eleven years of her life surgically and cosmetically altering herself to look like a Barbie doll.”

“Barbie? Those shoulders and hips and legs aren’t physically possible!”

“I believe that’s the point. According to a book I got from the library this week, Pescatore is one of several well-known artists and/or body sculptors who try to draw attention to the way women’s bodies have been objectified by the patriarchy et cetera, et cetera.”

“You mean she actually does this stuff on stage?”

“Please watch the road. No. At least I hope not. I think she’s put together some kind of multimedia…thing.”

“Thing?” She sounded amused.

“Performance, then.”

The car passed under a railway bridge and slowed down by a garishly lit, dilapidated warehouse. “Is this it?” She swung into the lot, parked automatically under a light. It was strange, being with a woman who thought about these things, who remembered to take corners wide, even when she was running.

The Masquerade is an odd venue in the middle of an industrial wasteland. It looks a bit like a cross between a castle and a wooden fort from the Old West, with huge, chained freight doors on the third story and a massive iron-bound front entrance. We showed ID, paid, and walked into the gloom. Julia had her hands out of her pockets and all senses on red alert.

“It’s not dangerous. It just likes to pretend it is.”

“If you say so.”

“Let’s find out where this performance is.”

The Masquerade is divided into three spaces: Heaven, upstairs, for the larger bands; Purgatory, a sort of coffee hangout for those who don’t get up until after dark; and Hell, down a series of ramps where the lighting gets gloomier and gloomier and music louder and more unsettling. As we headed down I could feel my face stretching into a smile and my stride loosening and lengthening. The sharp scents of dance sweat and tequila cut through the hip haze of handrolled cigarettes. Julia’s eyes glittered. I had to put my mouth to her ear and shout to be heard. “Want a drink?”

She nodded, pulled my head down to her level and touched her lips to my cheekbone just by my ear. “Beer and a tequila shot.”

“Aud!” A young, thin woman cut through the crowd. Metal gleamed from forehead, shoulder, nipples, even the webbing between thumb and fingers. Thin chain threaded from nose to ear to temple. “Aud, how are you doing! Helen with you?”

Julia stepped a fraction closer.

“No. Cutter, this is Julia. Julia, Cutter. An old friend.”

“Hey, Julia. Nice to see you around.” She reached a thin, strong hand to Julia’s face, touched the corner of her upper lip. “Little topaz would look good here. Very fierce. Aud likes fierce. Think about it. If you like the idea, Aud can give you my e-mail. Gotta go get ready. Aud—later, okay?”

Julia, finger on the place Cutter had touched, watched her slide back into the crowd. She turned to me. “‘Aud likes fierce’?”

“Let’s go get that drink.”

Even though Hell was full, there were not many people waiting at the bar. Julia ordered, and gave me a warning look when I made a move to pay. “You’ve known Cutter a long time.”

“Eight years.”

“Eight? She doesn’t look old enough.”

“She was fourteen, living on the street.”

“Was she…” She pointed to her temple and nose.

“Yes. When I first met her she had seven studs in each ear, one in her nose, a ring through her tongue. She’s got them everywhere now. And scars.”

“Is it the pain she likes?”

“I’ve never asked.”

“What about her family?”

“What about them?” They wouldn’t be bothering her, not anymore.

“It’s just…” She changed tack. “All that metal, it seems a bit excessive.”

“If wearing all the hardware stops her jamming herself with heroin and makes her feel good about who she is, then I’m all for it. She even makes a living at it. As you’ll see tonight. From what she said, it looks as though we’ll be getting a live demonstration of body mod after all.”

She sipped her beer and licked the foam off her lips. “Who is Helen?”

“Another friend.”

“Like Cutter?”

“There’s no one like Cutter. Helen is a professor in the Sociology Department at Georgia State. She and her husband would have been here but they had to go to St. Louis because her mother’s in hospital.”

“So I’m here with you instead.”

I tossed down my shot, turned back to the bar and said, “My turn to buy.”

After midnight and we were sitting with Dornan in the Borealis. A dozen or so other customers dotted the place. Dornan and I were drinking red wine, Julia had coffee.

“But what was interesting,” she was saying to Dornan, “was the Q&A they did afterwards, how seriously they took everything. They were talking about what gauge metal to put through the penis the same way student drivers ask what kind of gas to put in their car.”