Is it really . . . me? she asked.
— My dreary dear, the essence is to have no essence, think of yourself as a work of surrealism. The Duchess once wore a birdcage as a corset, with a real bird inside!
— The Duchess? she asked. Thankfully, he spared her the entire history of his favourite transgressor.
Her giggles infected us all. The flashes of her skin between changes, soft flesh pulled tight by elastic, by leather belt. I chastened myself and tried to see beyond her feminine forms. Was that not Saul’s mantra – to eliminate all preconditioned desires? She turned to the camera, asked me what I thought, had we made art yet? We watched the playback, all huddled up together on his bed before the tiny screen. It looked like a home video, nothing more.
— I’m crap.
— No, no, not at all, it’s just . . . Saul left us waiting for his aesthetic judgement.
— The hair is the
big
problem, Saul finally pronounced. He looked at me for affirmation. What did I know?
— Yes, those curls are far too preppy, the whole damned lot will have to come off.
I thought he’d gone too far when she got up so suddenly and ran to the bathroom. I reproached him and told him to go a little easy on her.
— It was beastly, bourgeois beastly.
We heard sound of the bathroom door, slammed, locked.
— Seriously, she might be in there slashing her wrists for all we know.
— Change is the only thing in history that never changes!
Minutes passed as I sat and smoked. I was freaked, I must admit, at how fast she’d jumped at his suggestion. He could be fickle and sometimes say things to dare people to acts of great stupidity, like the time we gatecrashed that rave in that mansion house in Islington and there were all these rich kids out of their tits on E. We were spliffing up on the third-floor balcony and he dared that stoner kid to jump. Everyone watched as the kid lowered himself over the edge then fell beyond sight, and everyone started screaming. But then the rich kid came limping back wanting to do it again, at which point Saul declared he was bored and wanted to leave.
She called us from the bathroom and I ran through, Saul following slowly. I glimpsed scissors in the sink, a trace of blood on the ceramic bowl. I pushed in to find her shorn skull confronting me, but radiating with a smile.
— Can you do the back for me? I can’t reach.
— Ah,
mon amour
, Saul declared as she stood before us, fists full of hair.
— Can you film us? she asked me. And so I did as Saul trimmed the back of her head to, practically, a skinhead.
So we were back in Saul’s room and the volume was turned up and Nico was singing ‘Chelsea Girls’ as Dot paraded in front of the camera giggling to herself, her fingers feeling their way through her ravaged tufts, watching her new face on the live feed from the TV.
And I had known this. That your face could be a stranger to you as you learn the contours of the world according to Saul. The sense of rebirth in the brutality of the scissors. With me it had been the opposite. I was too ‘socialist realist’ and had to grow my hair long, he insisted, to embrace the fop within.
For hours we watched her striking TV poses. All of us singing along to ‘Heroin’ and ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Venus in Furs’ while Dot judged her face, pulling her skin tight, then pouting, checking herself against the Edie photos. Sticking her tongue out at her own TV-face. Laughing like a little girl, then falling silent as we watched the playback.
—
Mais, je suis pas Edie Sedgwick
, Dot said glumly.
—
Non? Mais tu es fantastique! Superbe! Beaucoup
better than Edie,
mon petite cabbage. Tu es un très bon garçon
he pronounced.
—
Moi, un garçon?
She loved the idea. I had not said a word in French all night and had to say something.
Her hand reached to bring me closer, then she brought Saul closer too, we got ourselves into position for the camera, all three of our heads on the TV screen, while she
— My dreary dear, the essence is to have no essence, think of yourself as a work of surrealism. The Duchess once wore a birdcage as a corset, with a real bird inside!
— The Duchess? she asked. Thankfully, he spared her the entire history of his favourite transgressor.
Her giggles infected us all. The flashes of her skin between changes, soft flesh pulled tight by elastic, by leather belt. I chastened myself and tried to see beyond her feminine forms. Was that not Saul’s mantra – to eliminate all preconditioned desires? She turned to the camera, asked me what I thought, had we made art yet? We watched the playback, all huddled up together on his bed before the tiny screen. It looked like a home video, nothing more.
— I’m crap.
— No, no, not at all, it’s just . . . Saul left us waiting for his aesthetic judgement.
— The hair is the
big
problem, Saul finally pronounced. He looked at me for affirmation. What did I know?
— Yes, those curls are far too preppy, the whole damned lot will have to come off.
I thought he’d gone too far when she got up so suddenly and ran to the bathroom. I reproached him and told him to go a little easy on her.
— It was beastly, bourgeois beastly.
We heard sound of the bathroom door, slammed, locked.
— Seriously, she might be in there slashing her wrists for all we know.
— Change is the only thing in history that never changes!
Minutes passed as I sat and smoked. I was freaked, I must admit, at how fast she’d jumped at his suggestion. He could be fickle and sometimes say things to dare people to acts of great stupidity, like the time we gatecrashed that rave in that mansion house in Islington and there were all these rich kids out of their tits on E. We were spliffing up on the third-floor balcony and he dared that stoner kid to jump. Everyone watched as the kid lowered himself over the edge then fell beyond sight, and everyone started screaming. But then the rich kid came limping back wanting to do it again, at which point Saul declared he was bored and wanted to leave.
She called us from the bathroom and I ran through, Saul following slowly. I glimpsed scissors in the sink, a trace of blood on the ceramic bowl. I pushed in to find her shorn skull confronting me, but radiating with a smile.
— Can you do the back for me? I can’t reach.
— Ah,
mon amour
, Saul declared as she stood before us, fists full of hair.
— Can you film us? she asked me. And so I did as Saul trimmed the back of her head to, practically, a skinhead.
So we were back in Saul’s room and the volume was turned up and Nico was singing ‘Chelsea Girls’ as Dot paraded in front of the camera giggling to herself, her fingers feeling their way through her ravaged tufts, watching her new face on the live feed from the TV.
And I had known this. That your face could be a stranger to you as you learn the contours of the world according to Saul. The sense of rebirth in the brutality of the scissors. With me it had been the opposite. I was too ‘socialist realist’ and had to grow my hair long, he insisted, to embrace the fop within.
For hours we watched her striking TV poses. All of us singing along to ‘Heroin’ and ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Venus in Furs’ while Dot judged her face, pulling her skin tight, then pouting, checking herself against the Edie photos. Sticking her tongue out at her own TV-face. Laughing like a little girl, then falling silent as we watched the playback.
—
Mais, je suis pas Edie Sedgwick
, Dot said glumly.
—
Non? Mais tu es fantastique! Superbe! Beaucoup
better than Edie,
mon petite cabbage. Tu es un très bon garçon
he pronounced.
—
Moi, un garçon?
She loved the idea. I had not said a word in French all night and had to say something.
Her hand reached to bring me closer, then she brought Saul closer too, we got ourselves into position for the camera, all three of our heads on the TV screen, while she
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