Page 79 of Glitterland
As though it wanted to tell me something.
***
Days
The ideas unfurled across my whiteboard and, slowly at first, I wrote them down, letter by letter until I had sentences, paragraphs, chapters.
Amy said it felt different from the others. More about people than puzzles.
She said she liked it.
And I liked writing it, my every word a piece of broken mirror, showing me a glimpse of Darian.
***
Summer
One day, after meeting Max for coffee, I stumbled down a back alley in Soho to get away from the crowds, having formed the erroneous impression that this would constitute a shortcut rather than a descent into hell. Somewhere between Eros Movie Rental, the French Pussy “Private Dancing” café, and a sex shop called The Whack Shack, I found myself staring at a small red door. It was edged in flaking gold and opened onto a narrow staircase leading who knew where. The reason I’d stopped at all was because the sign above the door read “Alice in Inkland.”
I was not in the habit of wandering, at random, into mysterious buildings in Soho, and years spent trying to rationalise the ever-spinning fairground ride of my depression had left me with a deep wariness of impulsive behaviour. Impetuous to insane was too narrow a line, too easy a step. My first thought, as I hesitated (curious and curiouser) on the threshold of that odd little door, was that perhaps it didn’t exist. There weren’t any passersby so there was no way to subtly re-orientate myself by the road markers of other people’s behaviour. But I did have my phone, and a cursory Google search confirmed that there was, indeed, a newly opened tattoo parlour in Soho called Alice in Inkland.
Which at least meant that I wasn’t slipping heedlessly into mania.
I couldn’t have explained why, but I went inside. At the top of the staircase was a tiny, red-painted room, the walls liberally plastered with posters, photographs, flyers, and glass-fronted frames containing what I presumed had to be tattoo…art? There was a counter against the far wall, carved with the words “Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink.” There was also nobody there.
Thank fuck.
I turned to leave.
“Can I help you?”
I turned, like a thief caught in the act. From a door I hadn’t noticed, a woman I presumed to be the owner had emerged. She was, frankly, enormous. With hair as red as a poinsettia plant. She was wearing a sleeveless top that showed the tattoos that swirled, bright and savage, up her arms and across her shoulders.
I blinked, stammered, and gestured ineffectually with my hands.
“Riiiight. See, this is why I don’t do walk-ins. Same reason I won’t shag you if you’re drunk.”
“Um. Pardon? I’m not drunk. Not that I want to shag you. No offence. I’m just not into. Women. Um. Pardon?”
“I’m not something you regret in the morning.”
“I’ll be going.” I indicated the door.
But her voice called me back. “What did you want, anyway?”
Darian. World peace. Actually, fuck world peace. Darian. “I think I…wanted a tattoo.”
“I got that much from you walking into a tattoo parlour.”
“Oh, right.”
She folded her arms. “What did you have in mind, bozo?”
I felt heat surge to my cheeks. This was exactly why I didn’t do impulsive. “I sort of wanted a name.”
Her eyes made a lazily appraising journey from mine to my toes, and then back up again. “That sounds like a story.”
“It’s not a story. It’s an epilogue.”
