Being Bess

by Blueberry Pie

(part 5, continued on from here)

London at night: its dark matter holds you at the waist and calls you close. Suddenly you are ready for another drink, another kiss, another disbelieving glance at early light. Drive through its clutter of spaces before sunrise: most of Zone 1 is bare except for the coffee shop rubbish bags piled up high and bouncers rubbing their hands. “Cold tonight”. But then this crisp silence gives way to sudden crowds. Happy, swollen faces lost in a suspension of all fears.

“And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright,
I clap my hands to see;”

And sometimes – it is so beautiful its lustre is better than any drug. A sober walk between your house and a friend’s at 4 am, when all you can hear is the clock, click, clock of your boots. London’s polite goliaths: its skyscrapers, standing alert in Canary Wharf and bobbing up between smaller houses in the City. Soho’s darlings flitting between doors, the east’s down nondescript stairs. That perfect night when every colour, light, note and outfit jars individually but thrill together and every song is fresh, or at least newer than before. Eyes filled with sex and better music – each generation no more hyped up than before, but pupils more brilliant: now framed with bright green contacts. Girls who like femmes who like butches who like butches who like femmes who like queers who like girls who like boys who like girls who like girls.

On other nights it is violent. Then fears return, and no amount of alcohol will banish the knowledge nearby a dreaded rush of hate is present. Never justified, rarely adequately regretted: A and E filled with its aftermath, every detail too clear under yellow hospital strip lights. Is it London that fires up sudden punches, or is it its tightly-packed streets that make it colliding with them unavoidable? Dots of blood spotting the tiles of a bagel shop entrance. Bouncer’s nose blushing at the surface, nostrils drenched with red. The “violent hour” – not Eliot’s fabled violet – but the city’s invisible catacomb of crimson. Never topples (but often threatens) fragile scenes, its purveyors full of spite.

In between the nights, midnight memories seep into commuter journeys – a newsagents where you chatted with a new friend, that wall you and a girl leant on when the dark was just appearing, posters from clubs appearing on derelict doors. And then another: the bench you and an old acquaintance nestled in and swapped bad jokes; the magazine shop you used to mooch in before clubbing that’s become a bicycle shop overnight, ready to serve Shoreditch’s eager cyclists.

There is no fog now. No more on the Essex marshes, none now on the Kentish heights. Coal was before, a clarity reigns now. Except when it rains – on that night, Belinda and I ran into Soho with drenched hair, eyes pricked with gritty rain. All we wanted was a pointless drink and bad food.

Soho is wilting now to make way for the call of the East – Crossrail has scored through turn of the century queer haunts: Ghetto, the Astoria. But sometimes I return to its crisscrossing routes for a good beer and a walk through yet another alley where memories of early gay kisses abound.

Belinda and I ran into one of its remaining queer joints that night. A short leap from the tube station, this little cafe provides standard lesbian fare: vegan food, cheap beer and stockpiles of free magazines boasting gaudy adverts.

Ciders in hand, chat began.

“Could you ever live in another capital city?” I asked Belinda.

“I don’t know… Everything I value is here: my mates, my work… and Brits don’t give a shit do they? Go to other cities and people are just always too spruced up, and they don’t ever have a sense of irony…”

But everything can get a bit samey here can’t it… sometimes it’s bizarre when you go into a bar and everybody recognises everyone else more than they probably do their own first cousin… then again everything always changes doesn’t it Bess? New girls always appear from somewhere, as if there’s a secret lair of them hiding somewhere – like Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s door to hell. …but sorry yeah aside from girls…” I smiled. “It’s pretty amazing isn’t it? We’re spoilt aren’t we – I don’t mean to sound like a tourist brochure but we have the best exhibitions, food, plays… all’s here for the taking.”

“Wow, Belinda… speech over?” She laughed. We stared at one of the photographs in the cafe’s current exhibition: a selection of postwar images from a Chelsea gay haunt called Gateways. One was above me: a snapshot of the entire pub. Everything could be seen: one hand around another’s shoulder, hands in hands, hands ready to give money for another drink, hands around waists. Everyone’s head tilted slightly towards the lens, as if they’d suddenly noticed it. A whole bunch of histories in yet another area of London.

“I guess…” Belinda continued, peeling at her bottle’s label… “I suppose I couldn’t live without this. London’s pretty messy but the best things often are right?”

I smiled. “Without a doubt.”

“Time for Dalston?”

“Allright. It’s been a while. Let’s keep the beer goggles firmly off.”