Last Dance At Yoko's (Part 1 of 4)

The first time Charlie Gillespie found himself in the past, he blamed it on the drugs.  A curious mix of Bell's whiskey, the red and yellow caplets prescribed for anxiety by Dr Clarke, and a couple of slightly less legal party favours purchased from his old acquaintance Twig in the pub.  Of all the possible side effects, travelling through space and time was not one he had been particularly prepared for.

It started on a Thursday morning.  Like a lot of mornings recently, Charlie woke up hungover, in a bed that was not his own, next to a girl he only vaguely recognised.

“Morning,” she whispered in his ear.

“Morning…” he mumbled back, trying to decide if he needed to be sick or not.  Her name was... Shit, what was her name?  He wanted to say Jor-El, but he knew that was the name of Marlon Brando’s character in Superman.  Janelle.  That was it.

“…Janelle.  Morning, Janelle.”

She was a good looking girl.  A damn sight prettier than some of the women he’d found himself waking up with in the last six months.  As she got up from the bed and covered herself with a robe, Charlie spotted a rose tattoo on her left shoulderblade.  Was that why he’d gone home with her last night?  Because that tattoo had been visible in her revealing dress?  Her dark skin and hair were a factor too, he supposed.  Not forgetting those gold hoop earrings.  Little things that might have made her look enough like Alicia to fool him in the hazy stupor of karaoke night at The Crown.

Alicia.  The one and only girl Charlie had ever loved.  Not that he ever told her, mind.  He’d thought himself exempt from that kind of sappy gesture, even when it really counted.  And now it was too late.  Alicia was gone, and here he was, trying to get high enough to fashion a decent simulacrum out of some random girl in a bar.

“Breakfast?”  Janelle asked from the bedroom door.  Charlie shook his head and tumbled from the bed, reaching blindly on the floor for his clothes.  A look of understanding formed in Janelle’s eyes.  She was disappointed, but far from surprised.

“I have to get to work,” Charlie offered, lamely.  She didn’t even need to believe the lie if she didn’t want to.  He dressed quickly and was soon out of there.

The morning that greeted him as he left the building was bright and unforgiving.  Charlie pulled up the collar of his jacket and retrieved his iPod from the pocket.  One of these days he was going to lose or break that thing, and he dreaded to think what the walk of shame would be like without it.

Charlie lit a cigarette and put the player on shuffle, hoping to blast away some of the cobwebs before he got home.  He could feel the ill effects of everything he had taken last night waiting for him just out of sight, like an albatross.  Biding their time to hit him when he least expected it.

A song came on that he didn't remember adding: "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor".  Old enough now to qualify as a classic, which meant it belonged on an entirely different playlist.  Charlie couldn't hear this song without thinking of uni, of how he had gone from loving it to hating it as the DJs played it to death.  And of course, like everything else at the moment, it made him think of Alicia.

The moment her name entered his head, the moment he began to picture her face, Charlie felt the albatross swoop in.  The cigarette dropped from his fingers.  The Arctic Monkeys suddenly sounded very far away.  The edge of his vision frayed into darkness, as if he were about to faint, and then it happened.  Charlie felt a jolt, a pang in the pit of his stomach, and the world around him vanished. 

For a split second, he was terrified.  He thought he was dead.  Then, in the blink of an eye, he felt something solid under his feet, and the world came rushing back in a surge of colour and sound.  Charlie promptly dropped to his knees and vomited.  He felt hammered.  It took him a few moments to scramble to his feet and realise that the pounding he could feel wasn't in his head - it was the rhythmic thump thump thump of a nightclub.  He looked around.  The walls weren't closing in on him like he'd first feared; he was simply in a toilet cubicle, standing next to a small puddle of sick.  With aching, trembling fingers, Charlie slid back the bolt on the cubicle door and stepped out into the room

The sight of urinals filled him with relief; he hadn’t blindly stumbled into that sacred territory marked “Ladies”.  It looked like any gents lavatory in any club.  He could be anywhere.  Charlie couldn't remember the last time he'd blacked out so completely. It was a small miracle that any bouncer in their right mind had let him come in, the state he was in.  Charlie rinsed out his mouth at one of the sinks, then stumbled out of the toilets and into a red, tunnel-like hallway.

An oft-cited cliché tried to form on his tongue, but he struggled to get the words out.

"Toto," he rasped.  "Kansas."

He was dreaming.  He had to be.  The garish pop art on the walls, the sticky floor, the smell of aniseed and cigarette smoke...  There was no mistaking it; he was in Yoko's. 

"Impossible," he said, clearing his throat.

"You what, mate?"  A young man leaning against the wall looked up from his phone.

"Is this Yoko's?"  Charlie asked.  The man laughed.

"Had a bit too much have we?"  He finished texting, then met Charlie's eye again.  "Yeah, we're in Yoko's."

A dream, Charlie decided.  Definitely a dream.  Because Yoko's never opened in the day. Yoko’s was miles from here. Yoko’s closed its doors for good almost two years ago.  And yet…  He couldn’t recall ever having a dream this vivid.  The smells, the sounds.  Most of them quite unpleasant.  Charlie wandered further down the red corridor, towards the music.  Déjà vu did not even begin to describe what he was feeling.  Already seen?  Already lived, more like.  He had spent longer than he cared to mention in this smoky corner of Carrow, off his head when he should have been working to achieve something other than a third class degree.  It had been a second home to him… and her.  Always her.

Charlie emerged into the club itself, where the Arctic Monkeys were blearing from the sound system, almost as if to greet him.  “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.”

He needed a drink.  Or a dose of anti-psychotics.  But he’d settle for a drink.  Charlie made his way through the sparse crowd to the bar, and ordered a double whiskey.  He knocked it back before realising he didn’t have any money.

“Fuck,” he muttered, patting his jacket and jeans knowing full well he would find nothing there.  He smiled uselessly at the barmaid, a skinny blonde with a hard, thin mouth, while trying to think up some excuse or platitude.  Before he could come out with anything, he saw a slender hand push a ten pound note across the bar in the direction of the blonde girl.

Charlie knew that hand.  He knew those polished red nails, the white gold pinkie ring, and the tiny scar on the thumb (from an incident involving lots of wine and a noble attempt at making bacon sandwiches).  Charlie looked up at the owner of the hand.  She smiled, and then she slapped him.

“Where the hell have you been?”  She asked furiously.  “I’ve been waiting here like an idiot for over an hour.”

His cheek burned where she had struck him.  Definitely not a dream, then.

“Alicia,” he said, “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?”  She asked.  “We arranged to meet here at nine and you didn’t show up.  Again.”  She signalled to the barmaid for another shot and then necked it, wincing slightly.  Neat spirits had never agreed with Alicia; she was a rosé girl at heart.  She slammed the glass down on the bar, as if to punish it for the vile taste of the whiskey, and then returned her glare to its rightful recipient: him.

Charlie remembered this row.  He remembered this whole evening.  It was the last night of university.  Tomorrow, they would both leave Carrow; Alicia would go home to London and Charlie would go back to Bristol, and they would never see each other again. 

“Alicia,” Charlie whispered, and then he said something that could not be heard under the din of the club.

“What?”  She asked, leaning in.  Charlie repeated himself, but she shook her head and held her hand up to her ear, sidling ever closer. 

“You’re dead,” Charlie shouted into her ear.

The beat stopped.  The bar that Charlie was leaning on vanished, and Alicia disappeared along with it.  Charlie fell into darkness, grappling for a hold on something, anything, before colliding with something hard and flat.  It might have knocked him out cold, or he might have awoken straight away – he couldn’t be sure.  All he knew was that when he opened his eyes, he was lying face-down on the living room floor in his flat.

~

To Be Continued
Read Part Two

Face Of The New World

The Daisy Wyatt Interview

She sparked a global scandal, made history, and has been on the receiving end of endless fan mail and death threats. Vanity Fair editor Rachel Black sat down for an exclusive tête-à-tête with Daisy Wyatt and found out just how a bookie’s daughter from Yorkshire became arguably the most famous woman of the 21^st century.

I first meet Daisy Wyatt in intimate surroundings; after the location of her hotel in North London was leaked to the press, she was forced to take refuge in a small guest house.  I can see straight away that Wyatt feels more at home in this cosier environment.  She wears simple jeans and a cardigan, and her dark hair tumbles over her shoulders in what has become known as her signature style (and has been imitated by many of her fans).

When I comment on her newfound status as a style icon among everything else, she laughs, then looks away.  Clearly, then, Wyatt is a girl for whom appearance has never been a priority – although she possesses alabaster skin to die for, and her eyes have a soulful, pensive quality that make me wonder if, in another lifetime, she might have been an actress.

Wyatt, née Sullivan, was born in Harrogate, the only child of Mick and Carol. Her mother died when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her father.  “He did the best he could,” she says now, her voice warming as she speaks of him. “He would always go without to make sure I had books, shoes, school uniform.”  When I ask Daisy what her father thinks of her newfound notoriety, she refuses to answer.  It can’t be easy, I go on, for her to maintain a semblance of ordinary family life, when she has been hounded by a media circus for much of the last year.  “It’s amazing what you can get used to,” she says defiantly, which I suppose is just as well, considering where she is headed in less than a month.

“Did you know,” she asks, gazing into the fireplace of this tiny parlour, “that there was more coverage on my wedding day than the Royal Wedding?”  I tell her yes, I do know.  Every channel imaginable gathered a panel of talking heads to express their opinion; everyone from Jeremy Kyle to the Archbishop of Canterbury had their say.

I want to ask her about Edgar Wyatt, her first husband, but he is on the long, long list of subjects I have been forbidden to discuss.  Still, since I will never again have the chance to be in the same room as Daisy, I feel it is worth the risk.

“Are you still in touch with Edgar?”  I ask, preparing for her to flinch, or for her expression to harden.

“Not for a very long time,” she answers, remarkably calmly.

“He has been markedly silent since the story first broke last Spring.  Why do you think that is?”

“He’s a good man.  A better person than I, certainly.  I hurt him terribly, but he would never seek to profit from that.”

“It is common knowledge that you and Edgar were on your honeymoon that night in Cornwall.”

Daisy raises an eyebrow.

“That night?”  She smiles.  “You mean the night my life changed forever?”

“The night the entire world changed,” I say. It is a date seared into living memory. The night that humankind first made contact with alien life.

“I was just out for a walk,” Daisy mumbles, clearly tired of telling the tale.  “Ed was in the camper sleeping. I went down to the beach, fancied paddling…”

“And then, like a comet, it appeared,” I finish for her.  Every man, woman and child in the world knows the words to this bedtime story.

“Yes,” she says.  “My first thought, although it seems ridiculous now, was that I would die that night.  I thought it was an asteroid, or meteor, that would drop into the ocean like a pebble into a pond, and the ripples would send a tidal wave to snuff me out.”

“But that’s not what happened,” I prompt her, aware that our interview time is running out. Soon Daisy will be ushered out of this B&B and sent to a new, more highly confidential location.

“No, that’s not what happened.  Although my life did end that night, in a way.  The life where I worked in Ladbrokes and married my sweetheart.  Nothing was ever the same again…”  She tears up, and I decide to push her no further.  We all know how this story ends.

A saucer, so similar to those in the films, descended from the clouds, spinning out of control.  It crashed into the water, skipping just like Daisy’s pebble, until it collided with the beach, a mere twenty yards from where Daisy stood.  Edgar, having heard the unearthly sound, ran from their VW to find Daisy, and together they watched as the saucer opened, and the first extra-terrestrial to set foot on Earth staggered, injured, onto the beach.

The rest is history.

Edgar and Daisy split soon after, around the same time that Downing Street and Buckingham Palace introduced the visitor to the world.  Following the break-up, as more and more ships gathered around Earth to meet the new neighbours, Edgar became unavailable for comment, retreating to his family home in Leeds, where his loved ones closed ranks.  Daisy found it harder to shake the press.  First, she was known simply as The UFO Chaser’s Wife.  But months later, when her marriage with Edgar had been annulled, she did the unthinkable.

Daisy Wyatt, née Sullivan, became the first human woman to marry an alien.

“I never wanted to make history,” she tells me now, as her guardians tell me my time is up.  “I just fell in love.”

And what more is there to say, really?  It is a twist, albeit a groundbreaking one, on the oldest story in the book.  Soon, Daisy will set yet another precedent by being the first person to leave Earth on an alien ship.  As we stand, shake hands, and part ways, I sense fear in Daisy, as well as endless wonder.  Hers will be the first eyes to see her husband’s home world; she will explore the galaxy in ways that Earth’s astronauts can only dream of.  An indescribably adventure, yes, but also a daunting one.  I wish her every happiness as we part ways, and can only hope that this second honeymoon is an improvement on the first.

~

Saint Pris

Rick Hartman took one final puff on his electric cigarette before pocketing it as a skinny girl in a headset ushered him into the hotel room. He reached instinctively for a stick of gum, remembered that was no longer necessary, then decided to have one anyway – it would calm his nerves.

“Don’t fuck this up,” his editor had cheerily told him this morning. “Did you know how hard it was to get a whole half hour with Saint Pris?”

Not that hard, it would appear, otherwise they’d be sending golden boy David Everett instead of Rick, who had gained the unfortunate reputation around the office of being more than a little washed up. Still, interviewing the hottest musical act of the New Year might just be enough to get him back in everyone’s good books.

Rick allowed himself to be led into the centre of the lounge of the hotel suite, where two winged armchairs had been positioned to face each other. Rick took a seat in the armchair on the left, and waited. After a couple of minutes, when the gum had lost all flavour, his nerves returned. Saint Pris may have only been on the public’s radar for five minutes, but it still felt like he was anticipating an audience with royalty.

Almost quarter of an hour into his allotted time, Saint Pris finally appeared, surrounded by a small mob of makeup artists and bodyguards. She waved the entourage away as she sat down, and they vanished into an adjoining room. She looked smaller, frailer, than her photos suggested. Her pale, angular face was almost entirely masked by a massive pair of mirrored sunglasses that gave Rick the impression of looking at an insect.

Every pop star had to invent a persona these days. Saint Pris took hers more seriously than most, though. She claimed to be an extra-terrestrial princess from a distant world, and had yet to be spotted out of character. Rick found it mildly offensive that the girl’s management hadn’t bothered to put the slightest effort into their science fiction research when brainstorming a name; everybody knew Pris was the femme fatale from Blade Runner. A cyborg, incidentally – not an alien.

“Good afternoon,” Rick said, pressing the record button on his antiquated Dictaphone. “Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.”

“You are welcome,” replied the girl behind the sunglasses, “it is lovely to meet you.” Her voice, expressionless as it was, could almost be that of a robot. Pris by name, Rick thought, Pris by nature.

“This is shaping up to be your year,” Rick continued. “A number one single, the cover of Rolling Stone, and you’re set to support Madonna on her next tour…”

“Cher,” Saint Pris corrected him.

“Of course. Cher. Anyway; very little is known about Saint Pris outside of press releases and music videos. What can you tell me about your background?”

“Saint Pris is an Archalian.”

“I see,” Rick smiled, humouring her. “But what about the woman behind Saint Pris? When did you first fall in love with music, for example? Where was your first gig?”

“Saint Pris comes from the 9^th dimension,” she intoned. Another affectation, it seemed, on top of the glasses, was referring to herself in the third person.

“The 9^th dimension?”

“Where stars freeze and water burns.”

“Saint Pris, though, it’s a moniker – an alias.”

“Correct. Saint Pris is a chosen name.”

“So…?”

Saint Pris did not respond, and Rick realised he was going to have to spell out the question.

“What is your real name?”

“Saint Pris is an Archalian. To utter the true name of an Archalian in this world is to tear down the very walls of reality itself.”

Rick leant in conspiratorially.

“Come on,” he implored. “Just between us. What’s your real name?”

“You must desist, immediately. Or you will face an unimaginable fate.”

Rick snorted. You could say what you liked about Saint Pris (and the bloggers certainly did), but he’d be damned if she weren’t committed to her art.

“Okay, okay,” he laughed, holding up his hands as if in surrender. But he had no desire to surrender. None at all. Nothing stays hidden, he thought. Even a bloody so-called Archalian has to have a birth certificate.

Saint Pris tensed, as if she had overheard his internal monologue somehow, telepathically stumbling across his intention to uncover her true identity.

“To speak the true name aloud is to condemn the entire cosmos,” she breathed. “This cannot be permitted.” And then, without another word, she removed her sunglasses.

The stare of Saint Pris was unlike anything Rick had ever experienced. At first he thought that his life was flashing before his eyes, but he knew that couldn’t be it, as the images being transmitted into his mind directly from Saint Pris’s eyes were much grander and far-reaching; wars, tsunamis, the moon landing, the hanging gardens of Babylon… The life of the world was flashing before his eyes. And Rick knew that he was done for.

The floor beneath them began to tremble, and a sinking sensation began to seep into Rick’s feet. He looked down, and the carpet itself had started to dissolve, pulling Rick down like quicksand.

“What’s happening?” He yelped, gripping the arms of his chair. “Help!”

Saint Pris simply looked at him with her saucer-like eyes, and shook her head.

“Please!” Rick begged, his knees vanishing into the quagmire. As the armchair started to subside with him, he let out a terrified scream: “Save me!”

“Give my regards to the 9^th dimension,” Saint Pris whispered into the void, referring to herself for once in the first person. “And good luck, Mr Hartman. Good luck.”

But there was no reply from Rick Hartman. The vortex swallowed him and the armchair whole, and seconds later there was no trace of him left in the hotel suite except for a battered Dictaphone on the carpet.

Saint Pris sighed, put her sunglasses back on, and carefully retrieved the tape recorder from the floor. She pressed rewind, and listened to the brief interview all the way through, from its delayed beginning to its abrupt end.

“Is that what I really sound like?” She pondered aloud, replaying it again, and again. Finally, she removed the tape from the Dictaphone and crushed it beneath her right high heel. There would be no more interviews today.

~

This little piece of nonsense was inspired by (and is therefore dedicated to) David Bowie, Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey, among others.