At the Purple Sirens Gentleman’s Club    

1 Depends upon your appetite

It was 22:50 on the last night of 2014. In Soho.

The woman with the red hair and black chiffon blouse, the one at the small table by the window, is creating an unpleasant stir. It’s been going on a while now, gathering momentum one diner says. She’s clearly very upset, extremely emotional. And now she’s leaning elbows over the table to rant at the poor man across from her. This isn’t the place for it – it’s Michelin-graded, you know. Besides, you should never air your dirty laundry in public. The cardinal rule. Of course, there’s more to basic etiquette. Certainly, this respectable restaurant, in a well-groomed street of Chinatown, rarely has occasion to raise an eyebrow at poor manners, because anyone entering the five-starred, glass doors of the establishment is well-versed in protocol. This is England, after all. But that woman’s ever so disrupting their fancy meal in the nice restaurant (Michelin-rated, you know), and from many a candlelit, white-linen table there’s a disgruntled twitter over porcelain plates and subtle silverware about her-at-the-table-by-the-window. The redhead. Don’t look.

The unseemly red headed woman is Maggie Bower, and in her thirty-seven-year-long life, she’s never prescribed to the sacred writ on decorum. And neither is she English, though she often passes as such. And, while those around her may well consider this an entirely inappropriate place and time for such a fuss, for Maggie it was all the same – time and place just overlapped pleats on one piece of material, and she, too, was the same, whether here, there, then or now.  Not that she was a heathen – she’d have avoided this fuss had Nico been more acquiescent. There would have been no need for it at all if not for the injustice of it – that she had given and he had taken, and now the shoe was on the other foot he’d broken his promise. And she’d have likely kicked up little fuss if her need for recompense had not become so keen. But over the last three days, it had grown more urgent in the replaying of past events and all their minute details. And, while for most the few days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is a cocooned hibernation, for Maggie, it had been a flat line, a flash of her life, a jumpstart, and then a rebirth.

Now she chucked a white serviette onto her side plate. “Why am I making such a fuss, Nico? Because of this non-conversation!”

“Come on, baby…” Nico, suave, slick dark hair, waved a white cuff across the table.

The candlelight trembled and they both looked at the flame as it faded to blue.

But the small remainder didn’t extinguish, it revived itself, healthy and orange, and Nico continued. “Look. Let’s have a limoncello, si? Talk about it calmly.”

 “No time, Nico. Because don’t think I don’t know. I know why you’re doing this here.” To confirm, she swept an arm to the restaurant. “Why you’re saying this now.”

He didn’t reply. She watched him pick up his fork to probe a half-eaten, chocolate-dipped strawberry. In the left-over cream on his plate, he circled it idly, then he dropped the fork to extend a hopeful hand across the white tablecloth. “Okay bella. We discuss it some more. But let’s keep it calm, si?”

 “No time, Nico.” She smirked. “No. You’ve had your dessert. And now…” She slapped the white tablecloth. “We must go to Purple Sirens.”

 “What did I say? What did I just say, Bella?” Nico gave the room a furtive glance. “We talk about it. But please. Can we do this quietly.”

“I’m not even speaking loudly!”

With a sigh, he retracted his hand and fiddled with his gold watch. She crossed her arms and stared at the white carnation in the silver vase. There was a gentle clatter of cutlery as forks and knives crossed like swords, Kenny G and his dulcet saxophone made the most of the hush, a waiter poured some water in a glass jug.

Maggie spoke over it. “You know… I’m a little surprised by your reaction if I’m being honest.” She wasn’t being honest though.  “I really don’t understand why you don’t want to go.” But she did . 

 “I – okay, tell me” Nico said. “Okay… Why do you want to go there? Because I don’t even remember making you this promise – ”

“Hell’s bells!” With a forcible sigh, Maggie looked to the ceiling, to an invisible ally in the magnolia canvas and down to the wall opposite her, over Nico’s head, where she pondered a triple set of green abstract designs set in a black framed neat row on the candle-shadowed cream wall. She decided the images were meant to be cherry-blossom trees. She remembered how he’d used the word ‘discreet’ five times on their first date – five times, she’d counted. Details were important. Listening was crucial.

She faced him.  “Look, it doesn’t matter anymore. I am going to go to Purple Sirens, no matter what.” Maggie shook her head violently. “And it’s happening tonight… So -” She paused to scrape free some hair stuck in a residue of red lipstick and wine. “So, you have two choices, which is more than I ever got off you. You can either see in the new year alone in this stuffy restaurant. Or – do as you promised and kick it off with me in a strip club.”

The tangible hush that settled upon the restaurant at these last words, spoken a little too loudly, did make Maggie glance outwards then. The echo of them vaguely reminded her where she was, and that all eyes were on her – covertly, of course. A respectively suited and cardiganed couple quickly looked back to their plates, busied themselves with buttering crackers. At a table near the fairy-lit bar, a navy-jumpered man made a comment to his neatly-combed group. That poor man, he might have muttered under his breath. Obviously in the bad books about going to a strip club. Rather handsome too, wives may have added to disenchanted husbands.

To hell with them, Maggie thought. They had no idea.

Nico hissed across the table. “It’s called a gentleman’s club, bella.” He leaned back in his chair. “Let’s have a bit of discretion, no?”

Discretion. Apparently, the better part of valour. Someone had said this once. In all honesty, even prior to the Thawing (her word), and before her compulsion to get to the Purple Sirens, Maggie had believed politeness to be a grave societal problem. And discretion, she’d noticed, was rarely brave. A lot of things maybe, but not brave. In any case, this was not the time. There was not the time for philosophising.

She stood. Kicked back the chair and pulled her red coat from it. “I’m going to the Purple Sirens now – as discussed.”

“What are you doing, Maggie? Stop it!” Nico came to his feet, leaned over the table and grabbed her wrist, glanced out to the diners and swiftly dropped it. “Okay, okay. You win. I pay and we go.” Ignoring the stares, Nico raised his hand and curtly nodded to a waiter. Then he lifted his black wool coat from the back of the chair, smoothed down the collar and shrugged it on. “Do you even know where the club is, Maggie?”

A black and white bow-tied waiter scurried over with the bill, stood head bowed as Nico slapped some notes onto the silver tray. Maggie gave Nico an assured nod, reached for a mint off the saucer, popped it in her mouth, and buttoned up her red coat.  The pair headed to the door, and the restaurant went back to its chocolate mousse and louder, freer tuts. Inappropriate, they muttered. Rude! Mad as a box of frogs.

2 The Visitors 

23:30

The Purple Sirens Gentleman’s Club is not easy to find, it’s true. Its narrow door is set back in a shabby London row. Tonight, the gable is wet and the light rain spills softly off its arch. Beneath it, veiled behind the drizzle, stand two men. Other than a glint of brown leather sleeve as one raises his glass, or the ember of the other’s cigarette, they’re barely visible.

This is what one of them is thinking. James Bower, nimble and scraggy co-manager of the club at their backs, is thinking that he’s barely visible. Nobody could have found him there. He sucks hard on his roll-up. Squints weary blue eyes to better see through the mizzle, to better focus on the man across the road.

Yes, the man is sitting under a bus shelter, but James doesn’t believe he’s there to catch a bus. He recognises the boots, for one thing. And, for another, the man’s just done it again – raised his hooded head to glance towards the club (it was at the club, that was certain now). So, he’s been seen. They’ve both been seen. James imagines the man standing from the bench and crossing the road, black-booted, thick arms swinging. He tries to form the words, but the conversation they’d have doesn’t come to mind. In any case, he can’t start thinking back, nor forwards, because his immediate present’s tricky enough to manage. He takes an angry puff of his cigarette. Shoots out the smoke in a steady stream – a signal as such, a signal to the Marley-like bulk across the road that he was unmoved. Because there’s not the time for this. He checks his Paul Smith watch (a limited edition). Time is marching on. He has thirty minutes to address his current problem. Well, less, because he’s got to get back behind the bar before countdown.

Time waits for no man, they say. But despite this certainty, the attempt to outrun it continues. Tonight, Soho is laden with lights, sodden and shuddering under the sprawl of urgent soles all mad with substance and silliness and under the clock. Though invisible from here, Big Ben waits to take its annual toll. Soon it will sound out twelve strikes, regardless and loud as it summons the world’s ears to its mechanical diktat. So, under a spitting sky and into an imminent future, amped-up, migrating feet trample and swell across the streets like lost Wildebeest, witless and wild, leaping to opening doors, chasing Auld Lang Syne. 

Not so at the Purple Sirens Gentleman’s Club. Its street is dark and quiet: the occasional biker, a drunk pedestrian, a taxi taking a short-cut. And its sign is the only totem to drifters and voyeurs, lusty stags and lonely old-timers, brood-tattooed fathers and fervent merchants. Here, the sign says, you’re no one. And here, it promises, time has no consequence. It’s stolen, forgotten, alibied.

This is the line James has stuck to for a few years. But, right now, there’s a familiar man across the road, and an urgent problem next to him.

He turned to the latter now. “Mark, listen. Before we go in, we need a word about yesterday…”

“Ancient history, pal. We made it. End of the day, we made it.” Mark McAllister, confident six foot three, raised a brown leather sleeve and took a celebratory sip of whisky. 

James checked again, but the empty glass at his feet was still empty. “Not quite, mate.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re seeing it wrong, bud.” To prove his point, Mark waggled a finger at James, stepped out from the gable, and gestured up to the purple sign. “This here? Ours, mate. Come the end of the year – all ours. We’ve pulled it out the bag again. Been a good year. Yeah, I got a divorce, and there’s been a few – ya know. But – all in all, we should celebrate what we got.” He waved an arm over an imaginary bounty. “F’r example…Here’s me – here’s me ending the yearwith a Canary Wharf bachelor pad! Croydon boy like me. In Canary  fuckin’ Wharf.” His finger tapped his head. “See? Ya gotta look at the positives, mate.” 

James didn’t mention Mark’s flat was nearer Stratford than Canary Wharf. Said, instead, “Remember the day our sign went up?”

Mark missed his reply – he was too busy rubbing his chin and pondering his good fortune – but now he looked up to the dark, drizzling sky, a hand went to his sable hair (styled, he said, like his idol Paul Weller), and he stepped back under the gable to pat James on the arm. “Honest to God, mate, we’re kings among men! Fair to say, London’s our … What’s it? Our pearl.”

 “Oyster.”

“What?” But before the question could be answered, if it even was to be, he nudged James with a leather elbow. Nodded down the road. “Ey, what’s all that then. Down there. Near Oli’s.”

James followed his gaze, down the narrow pavement lit only by rainy streetlamps to Oli’s tobacco shop, where, in front of the old church on the corner, a scuffle had broken out.

“D’ya see?” Mark nudged him again.

“Yeah, I see it.”

There was a tall black coat and a short red coat. Standing as they were, in the middle of the narrow pavement and right on the curve of the block, they’d become an obstacle in the stream of pedestrians heading perpendicularly and north-east to Chinatown. But the couple didn’t seem to care. They stood, stances wide, arms flat at their sides, facing each other with heads jutted forward. An English Mexican stand-off. Words were shared. James judged they weren’t pretty. Then the black coat made his move. He stepped forwards and reached for the red coat’s arm. At this, she pulled free, escaped his grasp a little too viciously, stumbled backwards and promptly bumped into some passersby (who expressed their frustration and continued hurriedly, dashing off as if to make up lost time or get away from the awkwardness).

“Looks like a domestic.” Mark shook his head disapprovingly. “What a way to bring in the new year, ey! What did he do – have one too many? Gawk at some waitress in the restaurant too long? Poor geezer – havin’ t’ listen to a lecture, and tonight of all nights. What a way t’ bring in the new year.” And he shook his head again.

“Can’t be avoided sometimes, mate.” James left the couple to it, took a last drag of his roll-up, the end of it and it burnt his lip, before chucking it to the ground. He had his own domestic issue: a difficult conversation and a partner who considered such things a fight. Of course, James was not unfamiliar with this sentiment – had used cunning hyperbole to escape one or two himself. So, it was ironic that over the course of their two-and-a-half-year partnership Mark’s avoidance of undesirable chats had been the most annoying of his foibles. It’s worse when your tools are used on you.

“And before we go in…” He began, but Mark’s face was half in, half out the light, semi-shade, semi-pink, like half a plastic mask. Unnerved by it, James looked away, to his feet. He admired his New Balance trainers for a second, raised a toe, shook it about, bent down to brush an imaginary scuff off the blue plushness. “That’s what we got to talk about.” He rose. “Time is of the essence. You’ve swerved the subject since yesterday.”

 “I see,” Mark waved vaguely down the road. “You wanna be like them lot down there. Ruining the night with a flamin’ row… Nah, nah. Tonight’s for celebratin’, my friend! You should join me – ‘n stop bein’ a mardy prick.”

“It’s a talk, not a row, mate. And not everyone likes this time of year. For me…” James scoffed, “for me, the end of the year always brings some sort of shit. Always some sort of… I dunno.”  He quoted with his fingers. “Moral auditing. Someone once described it like that.” This he quickly brushed away. “Whatever the fuck it is it’s that time of year for me. Not everyone likes this time of year, ya know.” James’ words dribbled resignation. There was no smug pride evoked from the promise of self-flagellation or any derived self-development thereof. Honestly, he was reluctant about the whole thing. And, despite how hard he’d tried to evade it, eventually, like an errant inmate to solitary, at some point (he didn’t dwell on that) he’d been forced to drop the luxury of exuberance. This was the problem. He was the sensible one in the partnership. It’s all relative. In contrast, Mark’s natural joie de vivre had not been quelled by any number of mistakes nor years (thirty-seven), and he wore it like his leather jacket, all weather-proof, and his orange Liam Gallagher sunglasses, distinctly polarised. 

Mark was speaking. “…I said, who’d ya think you’re talking to? You’re working in a hair salon and I’m gaffer of a strip club! Think it’s pretty clear who the idiot is, I said to him.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I want things to be good here. You know I do.”

“Exactly what I’m tellin’ ya, bud! They’re good. It’s all good. So, don’t be a bell-end – not tonight ‘n all.”

“I wouldn’t be  -”

But, again, James’ speech was put on hold.

The couple from the scuffle down the road had clearly reached some sort of compromise and were approaching the club – not arm in arm, nor hand in hand, just walking, a little tensely, alongside each other, black coat and red coat, black head and red head lowered. The man said something into the woman’s neck then, and, when she nodded, he put his arm around her. James was certain they’d continue past and, judging by their certain swank, a certain classiness that seemed to exude off their wool coats and shiny hair, were simply lost (maybe that’s what the fight had been about), and on their way to some fancy London party. But the couple stopped right in front of the Purple Sirens Gentleman’s Club.

The tall man in the black coat straightened up to prove his full stature. “Even-ing gentlemen.” His voice was soft and broad European. “Pri-vate dances, si?”

James assessed him: tall and athletic, Mediterranean. Spanish? Maybe Italian? And he wore his expensive black winter coat comfortably. Cashmere? Hugo Boss perhaps? James checked the man’s shoes. Oh yes, black, shiny brogues. Impressive. This bloke had style and, as his father had always said: Clothes Maketh the Man. Instinctively, James shuffled his blue Burberry shirt a little, but the Latino stranger didn’t notice.

With a brusque finger, Mark motioned to the redhead on his arm. Snorted loudly. “The lap-dance for your missus?”

It was then that James looked at the woman. And, as he did, he swallowed hard, stepped back quickly, but held her stare – she with brown, deadpan, familiar eyes that rooted him to the ground. At the corner of her crimson mouth a smile began. Her hair was the same, tousles of red on the shoulders, and she shook the rain off it now, almost imperceptibly, and the smile stopped.

The man in the black coat coughed. “Yes, si… It is for her.” He kissed the top of her head.

 “Yes.” She sniffed a cavalier sniff.  “For me.”

It hit James at once: the lilting voice and shake of red hair, the cold reaction, the indifference. It was a hefty affront, but he recovered his professional club owner demeanour with a flourishing wave towards the entrance, “Of course, of course…” He shot her a look, “We don’t discriminate here.” Looked over his shoulder to a shadow in the corner of the doorway, “Ed. Let them in.”

Two white eyes nodded, and a dark suit moved to the left.

“Ya know…” James had a thought (more of a need). He stuck his hands in his pockets. “What the hell. It’s on us.” Mark shook his head in violent disagreement, but he continued, “A dance on the house. Our house. I mean, we’re the house. We run the club. Happy New Year, ey.”

“Nooo, noooo!” The Latino man brushed the offer away with a dramatic hand that promptly dove into his coat pocket to pull out a leather wallet, which he thrust forwards like a gift. “I pay, I pay.” He huffed a nasal sigh, looked about him anxiously, left and right, over his shoulder, as if someone may have witnessed this shameful episode. Then he turned to James. “Look, my friend. Let us in and let me pay, no more fuss…You understand. I have a pretty lady on my arm.”

The woman’s head jerked up at that. “Hell’s Bells, I’ll pay. We’ll all pay!”

James balked at the familiar curse and flat vowels. Cleared his throat. “Please,” he waved to the door, “Go in, enjoy. Don’t worry about all that now.”

“Yeah. In ya go.” Mark added wryly, “On us.”

Ed opened the door. A heavy bass line and hint of purple burst out. The tall man’s hand went proprietarily to the woman’s red coat, and they headed inside.

When the door had slammed shut, Mark chuckled. “Oi, Oi, she’s a bit tasty, eh! Kinky ‘n all.”

James, half-rolled cigarette paper between two fingers, stuffed his tobacco pouch back in his jeans pocket. “And my ex.”

“You what?”

“My ex,” James replied. He stopped short of saying her name, licked the paper and folded it closed.

“Blimey! You either got the worst luck or the best, not sure which.”

“The worst,” James confirmed. “It’s been years. Dunno what she’s -”

“Ey…” Mark interrupted with an offhand wave towards a group approaching the club. “Look at this sorry lot.”

Gathered in a huddle just in front of the men, near the kerb and around a lamppost plastered in tags and stickers, was a crew of black and navy puff-jacketed lads, a variety of heights, misshapen by the cruel hands of puberty. From their small circle, hands in pockets, feet darting on and off the kerb, the boys sent hurried glances to the black club door.

“Y’alright, lads?” James called.

A couple of the boys shot him a look, turned back to the circle, jostled about a bit, dug ribs, shoved shoulders. A taller one, with a patch of curly blonde hair atop an oblong head, was shoved out of the circle and isolated as the spokesperson. At first, the boy’s blue puffy arms went up in protest and he looked to the others like they’d let him down in a big way.

Then, in surrender, he dropped them, swivelled on his trainers, and said to the men. “Yeah yeah, so…So, er, we was wonderin’ laaaike– how much is it, yeah?”

Mark stepped forwards. “Let’s find out how old you fellas are before we talk about that.”

The curly-headed lad puffed out his chest, kinked his neck as if offended by Mark’s comment. “Whaaaa’! Waaa youse mandem gassin’… We all over eighteen, yeah!”

Mark smirked at James. “Anyone would think they was from Jamaica not Essex.” He turned back to the lads and waved to the door. “You got ID? You got ID then come on in, fellas! Forty quid a dance.”

One of the kids in the circle whistled out a “phheeeeewwiiiieee! That’s bare pricy, innit.”

“Classy females in our gaff, lads. Quality costs.” Mark replied as if he agreed and couldn’t do a thing about the price of a decent lap-dance any more than they could. “Now are you comin’ in or not?”

And the lads huddled again.

James commented from the back, “Chancers.”

Mark, concurring, shook his head, and they both watched the group discuss their options. Did anyone have ID? What year would you be born in? How much cash did they have if they made a kitty? Could one of them get in at least? A lucky contender?

After a few seconds, the curly-headed spokesman raised an arm and called out, “Safe, fam. We’re off.”

“No cigar, boys,” Mark called.

And the group slid off down the street with a swagger, trying their best not to look too disappointed, too young, and too broke.

“Mark, listen,” James said, all distractions gone bar the man across the road who was still there like a dark blimp on the horizon, but James was quickly convincing himself he was simply a random man waiting for a bus, because that made sense. He glanced to the empty glass at his feet again, then to his partner. “Mark, mate, we gotta get back inside. It’s almost time. So, long story short – this year, from now on – you’re gonna need to be clearer with me.” This time James pre-empted any attempts to butt in with a firm hand. When he had Mark’s silence, he lit his roll-up, inhaled, and with a headshake, said on the exhale, “Clearer about my debt and clearer about Lila.”

Said like this, James had two thoughts. Five years he’d been in London (it was seven, in fact, but what’s a year or two?) – it had taken him only five years to slip into this hackneyed role of archetypal club manager. James, a soldier! True, he had always prided himself on his adaptability. Fitting in wherever he was, whatever the year, that he could do. It seemed he could do it very well. So very well that he’d become one of them. A cliché, a bloody cliché. And the second thought was that it was a bit rich for him to be lecturing anyone on money and women – and if anyone was asked, anywhere around the world, they wouldn’t disagree. That he was trying to turn over a new leaf, or had been forced to, made little difference to the fact that James had always suffered under these two slave-masters himself. Once a sinner always a sinner. And saints could sound like sanctimonious ex-smokers, holier-than-thou teetotallers. It was a quandary, really.

1. Money had always been a problem. In fact, it was likely that his predilection for entirely deprioritising the stuff meant he left it to those who did care about it. This may be the core of it.
2. Maggie popped to the surface from wherever she’d been lodged since her unexpected arrival. She was inside his club right now. She’d found him somehow. Had crossed his sacred threshold. Mark had said she was kinky, and, yes, with an unwitting eyebrow he remembered, she could be a bit of a wild one. But this was not her MO. She had always been sentimental about special occasions. We’ll start the new year right. Under the sky. That’s what she’d said. He remembered her as she was that day – a yellow cardigan, red hair alight in the sun, brown eyes grinning as she kicked hot sand dune on his legs. He would solve this problem swiftly and practically.

Mark, who’d been preoccupied with the close observation of a woman exiting a taxi a yard or so away, gave James a delayed and quizzical reply. “Why you bringin’ this up again? I said I was sorry.” His head went back to the woman he’d been watching, who was adjusting both a black-sequinned jacket and a tight pink skirt as she made her way on ungracious heels down the pavement.

 “Women fuck things up,” James said, and was a little surprised. His words had come out differently to how he’d planned. But he maintained his position. “Like I always say, men are shit, fair enough, but women are crazy.”

Mark chuckled. “You do always say that.”

“Christ,” James added defiantly. “If you think about it, we’ve both escaped by the skin of our teeth in that department. And this is why I say – no cutting corners this year.”

“And that’s where I say, you got it all wrong. You’re seeing it wrong. Glass half-full, bud, glass half-full. ‘Cos the way I see it is – we been cuttin’ our teeth.” Mark grinned, proud of his witticism, and said it again. “Cuttin’ our teeth, that’s what we was doing.”

 “Long story short –” James, with an empty glass at his very feet, pointed over his shoulder, “any woman in there is out of bounds. I’m telling ya, mate, it’s not worth it. Been there done that. You know my story.”

Mark nodded slowly, in respect and commiseration, and the two men stared at the street a while, mourning the dead. James avoided the bus-stop.

“Your ex, though, ey -”

Whatever Mark was about to say was snuffed out. “Especially her. And especially Lila. And that’s that.” James flicked the rest of his cigarette into the black. Maggie was no threat, not at all, and he didn’t like her attitude. He looked back to the man across the road. It wasn’t Omar. He was there for a bus. “Right…Come on,” he said, keen to shake off the doldrums. “We need to get inside. Almost time.”

Mark planted a loud kiss on the bouncer’s shadowy cheek. “It’s New Year’s fucking Eve, Ed! Bower’s already given away a free dance, two lectures and a partridge in a pear tree. And I’ve had one too few vodkas, which I’m about to remedy sharpish.” He swung open the door.

“I hate vodka,” James said, before following his partner in.