Solace & Grief (4 page)

T
he wrought-iron banister was peeling and old, but the touch of the metal was comforting. Solace's Blundstones clumped on the stairs. The bouncer, who'd been checking his watch, looked up.

There was a split-second pause. The man opened his mouth. Solace honed her concentration, willing the man to perceive her as properly dressed, willing that she be obeyed, let in.
See me. See me. See me
.

Slowly, the bouncer shut his jaw, blinked and considered her again, his expression suddenly dim and owlish.

‘Cover fee,’ he slurred, and Solace was startled to see that his pupils were dilated, as if he'd been injected with a muscle relaxant. ‘Fifteen dollars.’

‘Here you go,’ she said, not daring to break eye contact. The man raised a massive hand, and stretching it out towards her, made the kind of plucking motion necessary to take money from someone. His fingers closed on air and rain. Without looking, he pulled his hand back and stuffed the money Solace hadn't paid him in a small bag strapped to his hip. At the same time, he withdrew a stamp, removed the lid, stamped her outstretched wrist. He let her go, replaced the lid and returned the stamp to his bag, all with the kind of studied concentration common to small children using a proper cup for the first time. There was a pause. He stared at Solace. Solace stared back. And then, as if he'd only just remembered, the bouncer stood aside and let her in.

‘Thank you,’ said Solace. Success left her feeling heady, so that she hardly noticed when the door closed heavily behind her.

I did it,
she thought.
I thralled him
.

The Vampire Cynic said,
I know
.

Inside, the music was loud, but not quite deafening. People milled and danced in a massive open space at the foot of a curling flight of stairs. Coloured lights alternately illuminated and concealed the various corners of the club, so that it was impossible to rest her eyes on any one place for more than a few seconds. Solace looked around as best she could, making out the location of the bar and two other exits through the visual confusion. When she did descend, nobody noticed. Silent and swift, she slipped through the crowd like a minnow through a net, never making physical contact with anyone despite the rush and press of bodies, joyful with the strangeness of it all.

In the far corner of the basement lurked a battered, mismatched collection of armchairs and lounges. As a new song began, Solace found a fat, cushiony chair big enough to curl up on, which she promptly did. Tucking her boots up, she leaned back and watched the club. Hidden in the noisy, unfamiliar warmth, everything seemed connected: drinkers, dancers, talk, movement. The basement seemed to hum, inhale, exhale, flowing like breath in the lungs of some single, weird organism. The effect was somewhat like falling into a magic-eye puzzle: she didn't know exactly what she'd done, but was too fascinated to risk losing the trick of it. Wide-eyed, Solace sank deeper in, stared and smiled.

A sudden bump to the chair, and her concentration broke, shaking her from whatever state she'd entered. Even more startlingly, she found she was being spoken to.

‘What?’ she said, stupidly. The speaker, a youth around her age, sat down opposite and frowned. He had a curved jaw and dark blue eyes, set off by messy, rough-cut black hair. Slender without being truly skinny, he was dressed in a T-shirt several shades darker than his eyes and jeans several shades lighter than his hair, a fetching symmetry that made Solace grin. Only a little hesitant, he smiled back.

‘I
said,
’ he repeated, ‘I'm sorry for bumping you.’

‘Oh.’ She blushed, feeling absurdly at fault. ‘That's okay.’

The stranger waved amicably, leaning forward. ‘No problem. Hey, have you been here before?’

‘No. Have you?’

He nodded. ‘Mm. I was just wondering how you got in, that's all. No offence,’ he added hastily, as if she'd taken any, ‘it's just that you look a bit, well –’

‘Damp?’ Solace supplied.

The youth grinned. ‘Just a bit. Where've you come from?’

She shrugged. ‘Around. I sort of wandered in.’ She hesitated, but only briefly. ‘My name's Solace.’

‘Solace? As in, peace and comfort? Cool. I'm Evan.’

He held out a hand. Solace shook it. His palm was cool and dry, slightly calloused but not unduly so, and his grip was strong.

‘Nice to meet you.’

‘You too.’

At this point, the conversation dried up, as each of them realised that, barring pleasantries, they had nothing to say to one another. Solace chided herself – couldn't she think of a single topic, a single question? Evan himself seemed uncertain of where he should be looking, reaching an awkward compromise by continually glancing at her and out over the club, all the while smiling easily. Thankfully, the music was loud enough to compensate for their silence, and after half a song had come and gone, Solace finally ventured a query as to the name of the club, unable, despite her best efforts, to think of anything more relevant.

‘Name?’ Evan looked puzzled, then laughed. ‘I don't think I've ever asked. Maybe it doesn't have one. We just call it the Downstairs Club.’ He stood up fluidly, as though he'd been planning the movement for some time. ‘Come on. We can ask my friends. They'll know.’

‘Friends?’ A little uncertainly, she accepted Evan's outstretched hand and rose. ‘I'm not sure I –’

‘You'll be fine! Unless you were thinking I'm a creepy, friendless liar looking to get you on your own, which I'm not, or that I'm nuts, which I probably am, but in a good way. So humour me, and come sit with us. Please?’

Solace had to laugh at that, or at least chuckle. She let Evan keep a hold of her hand as he led her through a maze of people. The giddiness she'd felt upon arrival returned in a rush. The bouncer hadn't remarked on her appearance, but only because she hadn't given him the chance – how would she look to a group of complete strangers? Come to that, how must she look to Evan? The Vampire Cynic was outraged at such concerns, while another, smaller, more
human
voice pointed out that, before tonight, the last boy she'd actually spoken to had sold her the Blundstones, and since when had she known how to socialise in a group?

Oh, shut up,
said the Vampire Cynic, crossly.
That's not helpful
.

Begrudgingly, the rest of Solace agreed.

When Evan finally pulled her free of the press, she felt like a cork jettisoned from a bottle of particularly rambunctious champagne. Nearby, a group of about fifteen people loitered on or around a matching set of dark-red leather lounges, separated from the main throng by a solid partition. As Evan made to lead her into the light – and it was steadily lit here, though still not bright – she found herself holding back. Sensing her reluctance, he grinned and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze.

‘It's okay. They don't bite. Well, not to the best of my knowledge, anyhow,’ he amended. ‘But, hey – I've been wrong before.’

At the sound of his voice, several people in the group looked up. The strangers were a mix of men and women. One or two waved, while a black-haired, blue-eyed girl who couldn't be anyone other than Evan's sister glanced up from an animated conversation. On seeing them, she smiled welcomingly and beckoned them over.

‘Hey, little brother,’ she called, confirming the relationship.

‘Hey, Jess.’ He turned to Solace. ‘This is my –’

‘Sister,’ Solace finished, somewhat shyly. ‘So I can see.’

‘Hey, Evan's friend,’ said Jess, peering cheerfully around her brother. ‘How are you?’

‘Good, thanks.’ She paused, but only momentarily. Jess had an open face, an expressive mouth and friendly, mischievous eyes. Even had she not been smiling, Solace would have been hard-pressed to find her intimidating.

‘My name's Solace,’ she added.

‘Solace? As in, peace and comfort? Cool. I'm Jess.’

Solace blinked, then burst out laughing, to her surprise as much as anyone else's. ‘You're like echo-twins!’ At the expression on Jess's face, she added sheepishly, ‘Or, possibly, not.’

Evan grinned. ‘That's verification by an independent source, O sister mine. We must be related after all.’

‘Tell no one.’ With a humorous roll of her eyes, Jess turned back to Solace. ‘You want to come and sit down? We don't bite. So far as I know.’

‘Sure,’ said Solace, trying to keep a straight face, and not quite succeeding.

They sat. In actuality, it was a more complicated process than that: several people had to be jolted out of conversations and made to realise that, firstly, Evan had returned from his random club-circuit and brought someone with him, and secondly, they were being asked to move down so that he and the new chick could sit. This seemed to involve several people too many getting up at once and then sitting back down when they realised that not all of them had to move, but that some of them still did, and so on until everyone had sorted out whose drink was whose and what they'd been talking about.

‘So,’ said Evan, once all this was sorted. ‘Solace was wondering what this place is called – its real name, I mean. Any clues?’

Jess shrugged. ‘Ask Manx, maybe? Hey, Manx!’

On hearing his name called out, a young man turned. He was shorter than Solace by nearly a head and a half, with messy red-blond hair and mismatched eyes, one green, one brown. His nose and smile were crooked, but despite his size, he seemed perfectly proportioned, moving with a muscular, easy strength that was distinctly feline – appropriate, given his name. Walking over, he knelt by Evan and crossed his arms lazily on the armrest, looking impishly up at Jess.

‘You rang?’

She nodded. ‘Solace asked what this place is called. I thought you might know.’

By way of answer, he pointed towards the bar, where someone had nailed a sturdy-looking sign below a shelf of rainbow liqueur bottles. In faded yellow-on-black writing, it read:

Welcome to the Gadfly. Come Get Stung!

‘The Gadfly?’ Solace said. ‘Weird. But also cool.’

‘Agreed,’ said Manx. ‘Drinks should be here soon, by the way. It's Electra's round.’

They chatted amiably for a while, during which time Solace finally relaxed. Manx, like Evan, was easygoing; unlike Evan, he had the knack of encouraging conversation. Jess was somewhere in between, alternately taking the lead and sitting aloof, leaving plenty of room for Solace to contribute.

‘Who's this? Someone new?’

All four of them looked up. The speaker was a willowy blonde girl, dressed in a knee-length, bright blue dress, bottle green jacket and tan-coloured boots laced to just below the knee. Her eyes were grey and her face elfin. Presumably, this was Electra. Smiling, she offered Solace a glass full of brownish-black liquid, one of many perched on an expertly balanced tray. ‘You want a bourbon and Coke?’ she asked, by way of introduction. ‘Sorry I took so long. It's crowded tonight.’

‘Why not?’ Solace blinked, surprised by both offer and apology. She held out a hand. The glass was cool to the touch. The blonde girl grinned.

‘No problem. Enjoy!’

With that, she sauntered off, laden with considerably fewer drinks than she had been some moments earlier, Manx, Jess and Evan having raided her supplies in less time than it took to blink. Cradling her glass, Solace looked up as a new song came on, surprised by the fact that, courtesy of Annamaria's CD collection, she actually recognised both track and artist: ‘Risingson’ by Massive Attack. Rhythm pulsed through her. The scent of alcohol vied with the warm salt of sweat, muggy and animal. Overhead, a green light flicked on, washing colour across their faces. It was almost like being in a jungle.

‘Electra's my housemate,’ said Manx, by way of explanation. ‘Well, warehouse-mate, actually. It's a pretty big place. This other guy, Glide, he lives there too, but pretty much everyone ends up crashing.’ He raised an eyebrow at Jess and Evan. ‘Actually, I can't remember the last time you two
didn't
crash. Don't you have homes to go to?’

Evan shrugged lazily. ‘Hey,
su casa es mi casa,
right? Besides, it's not like you actually pay rent or anything.’

‘Neither do you!’

‘Yes, but
our
place is a basement. Literally. Paying good money for the non-privilege of storing stuff there would be madness, whereas in the grand hierarchy of squats, your warehouse ranks approximate to the Four Seasons. You going to drink that?’ He directed this last to Solace, who'd been contemplating her bourbon and Coke. For obvious reasons, she'd never drunk alcohol before, and after growing up around people like Kelly and Annamaria, she'd never really wanted to. But that had been before the warning, before she'd realised how artificial her life at the group home had been. Besides, drinking something which
might
make her sick was hardly a foray into the unknown. Under Evan's questioning gaze and the Vampire Cynic's reckless scorn, she nodded, tilted the glass to her lips and drank. The bourbon burned the back of her throat, but pleasantly so.

After experiencing none of her usual queasy reactions to a new food, Solace concluded happily that alcohol fell into the category of Things I Can Consume. Seeing her enjoyment, Evan clinked his glass with hers and drained its contents in a single swallow.