Cruel Pink by Tanith Lee (uplifting book club books TXT) 📕

be on time for work. However it wouldn’t be the only time I’d made do with less than three hours’ sleep.

I swiftly got ready in the bathroom, and then went into the bedroom. The wardrobe here is small, of course. None of the rooms are large enough to fit big pieces of furniture.

The wardrobe door is always kept locked. And the key is not on my key-ring, where it would definitely look incongruous. I store it elsewhere.

On undoing the wardrobe, everything at first, to an alien eye, is average and of slight, if any, interest. Perhaps one becomes aware of a dark curtain that seems to hang at the far end, closing that area off. But it may just be a shadow, an optical illusion.

I drew the curtain, which is black, and shoved it back along the rail with my everyday clothes, none of these of too bad a make or condition, and neither of any particular elegance, let alone merit. They serve. Beyond the black curtain is a softer grey curtain. Drawn back also it will reveal a sudden glitter and gleam, a sudden wakening to light and colour, reminiscent of dawn and sunrise. Another world, as in some famous children’s book, I believe, though I’ve never read it. Another world.

41

In colour it is rich wild gold, but augmented by a thousand glass beads, which are pink, a deep luxurious edible pink. The gold shines upward through the pinkness, and the pink reflects inward on the gold. Like a sunrise, as I said. The fringes that ornament the line of it are also pink and gold, but this gold far paler, with a silvery tone. And the second pink is hectic, like that of certain roses, geraniums, orchids even.

Below, the accessories, also in matched shades. And above, on the little shelf—put in the wardrobe maybe to facilitate hats and gloves, in the days of such things—the hair. Blonde, the hair. Shoulder-length. Very realistic. It was very costly, even back then, when even luxuries were cheaper. The dress cost a very great deal. From a theatrical shop in Covent Garden. I remember how thrilled they all seemed to be at this staid, youngish man buying such a gem for his girlfriend, Sophie. And I said she had a thing about pink. It was her ‘favourite’ colour. The woman directly serving me came out with that old saying, “Blue for a boy, pink for a girl.” She and I laughed. I could recall my father quoting this saying, too, but I didn’t tell the woman that. I said Sophie would love the dress. And when I bought the cosmetics later, and the shoes, and expensive costume jewellery, all for Sophie, I also said how she would love those particular things. And some of the people who served me were enthusiastic at my perceived generosity, and others—very clearly—took me for a sucker, in thrall to some young demanding slut with a too extreme taste in fashion.

I used Sophie’s name on the wig form; that transaction was managed by post. Sophie Thorney—another version, in fact, of our outlandish family name. (It truly is a family name, by the way. My mother and father had been cousins. Terris, Taurus, Terry, Thorney, etc. were general to them, and to all the kin I knew. Or, had known.)

To answer a question that might be floating in the air, no, I never myself put on these garments, though they may well fit me; nor the wig, nor the make-up or the jewels. I only ever look at them, and that—just now and then, And touch them, sometimes. That’s all I’ve ever needed.

Nor is the pleasure erotic. Though pleasure it is. I have no full idea why I am thrilled by these specific and idiosyncratically glamorous things. Although I do have several theories which, very likely, it’s pointless to set out here.

After about twenty minutes I drew back the curtains and shut and locked the wardrobe door, and put away the key. It was getting on for three thirty-five, I must lie down and snatch what sleep I could before the alarm, faithful and infuriating as a watchdog, eviscerated me out of slumber. I considered inconsequently if Forrel would himself make it in to work. Poor devil. Half his Lottery money must be gone, and his girlfriend gone, and nobody but bloody old Rod to go to a sex club with. Poor sod.

Klova:

42

No memory of coming back to the flat-house.

I woke up there. It was like as morning, or I thought so.

When I woke up again it was dark again. Night again.

All the while I knew what had happened. How he misunderstood me. And what he said. Coal.

What he said.

Over and over.

In my mind.

Bank-nanny woke me next time.

Four thousand shots.

Didn’t care.

Then I couldn’t sleep again. I walked about the rooms, even round and round the bathdome. I couldn’t get away from me, or from him, or from what he said, and thought.

I thought, should I message him? But I didn’t have the number of his Mee. He’d never given it over. I couldn’t go back to the Tower. If he saw me he would say it all again, think it all again.

There was a day and another night. No sleep. Just walking.

Then I dressed and went out. No cosmetics. Like no eyes, no mouth. I walked along by The Nile, by the Forest. I passed the streets that lead away, all planted by their tall trees that never lose their leaves, and the tall shops that sparkle. The sun shone.

I looked down in the water, and I thought about being under it.

But then that seemed wrong, because someone here who was happy might find me and be upset. I never before thought like that. How I might hurt someone else.

And I rem that girl and that male quack, those people about that other male called Sigh. And how I was with them, with her. Can’t help you. Don’t know. Don’t