Page 12 of Unlikable

Clothing designer Lucius Lowe has his own clothing shop on the corner of Ebury Street, in the City of Westminster, not far from Victoria. There is a huge queue at the door. The shop’s employees have even set up two stalls in front of the premises to sell neckwear outside as well.

There are mostly young women waiting in the queue, accompanied by a partner or family member. When we have been waiting in the queue for just under half an hour, a couple of those women at the front of the queue almost quarrel. Something about jumping the queue and not being important enough.

Beside me, I hear Felix sigh. “I’m cold, still soaked from the rain and can hardly feel my feet.”

“Feel free to go back to the estate,” Everett says, unimpressed by Felix’s complaining.

“Not alone,” Felix responds. “Jonathan doesn’t want to come along. Besides, we were going to do something I fancy after this.”

I look over my shoulder at Jonathan, who is feverishly picking at his cuticles. He is obviously doing his best not to look up.

To my left is Everett; he is also looking at Jonathan, and it seems like Jonathan senses my brother staring at him because he looks up fleetingly, turns red and then looks down again.

I raise my eyebrows questioningly at my brother, who shrugs.

We shuffle agonisingly slowly to the front of the queue. I almost want to suggest we come back another day, but then Felix gets off his seat, walks to the front and unapologetically pushes forward.

People start shouting, start pushing against each other. I stand watching with my mouth open.

“Felix!” exclaims Jonathan, startled. He wants to run after his friend, but Everett stops him by placing his hand against Jonathan’s chest.

“Believe me, dear man, you don’t want to end up in that crowd.”

“But I…”

“Ladies, ladies,” sounds Felix’s cheerful voice, and I tiptoe to see what this man is up to. Felix turns to face the queue and smiles, exposing his beautiful teeth, his full lips curling up sweetly. “I’m very sorry, but I really have to jump the queue. There’s a younger sister waiting for me at home who really wants to go into town with her big brother. She has been crying for days because she doesn’t dare to go out. I am afraid that if this continues, sister dearest won’t have any tears left by the end of this month.” If architecture turns out not to be Felix’s thing after all, he can always take to the stage.

“Get back in line!” growls a man, obviously irritated, after which several men start shouting at Felix, but Felix just stays put. He even walks a little further forward, almost reaching one of the two stalls.

For a moment, I worry that this will go all wrong. That we will soon have to take Felix to the nearest hospital.

The women in line, however, calm their partners and family members. They start saying words like “that poor sister” and “the handsome wretch has his heart in the right place”. I can hardly believe my ears. Never in my life have I met anyone who has this effect on women.

And never before have I met anyone so rude and full of themselves .

Felix grins, just short of thanking the ladies on his knees, and as he stands in front of a stall, the employee behind the stall is just short of giving him the collar for free. She looks away shyly, even blushes.

Felix whispers something to the employee, turns around and then steps away with a grateful smile. He thanks the people in line and blows them hand kisses. When he has rounded the street corner, and Everett, Jonathan and I have caught up with him, he immediately drops his facade. His whole appearance goes from “friendly young man with a heart of gold” to “don’t talk to me or I’ll put your eyes out”.

My brother watches him open-mouthed. I think I do the same. Jonathan, on the other hand, rolls his eyes, as if he is used to this by now.

Silence follows, interrupted only briefly by the clatter of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones.

Then Felix holds out the collar to me. “You’re welcome.”

I stare at the hideous thing. It is made of a cream-coloured fabric, meticulously finished with lace and a floral pattern. It looks corny.

“Did you consciously choose this design?” I ask, disconcerted.

“Well, a simple thank-you would have been fine too.” Felix lets the thing slip from his fingers, and I catch it just in time before it can fall into the muddy puddle of rain stretched out below us.

“I’ll buy you a nicer one this week,” my brother promises. “You can pick that one out for yourself then.”

I grant him a grateful smile.

Again, a brief silence falls. I don’t think any of us know what the exact plan is now. My brother came here for a reason, but will he continue searching for Junior R now that he has come across us? Or are we going to help him? Or will we go home?

“Now that this is over, I love it,” Felix shares.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I said earlier that I want to do something I feel like doing, so that is exactly what I am going to do. Where I’m going is none of your business, Miss Prime.” And then, without a by your leave, he turns on his heels, only to walk away from us.

Jonathan mutters something akin to an apology and follows closely behind his best friend.

“What do we do?” I ask my brother.

Everett grabs my hand and pulls me along, following behind Felix and Jonathan.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know what the man is up to, but didn’t you see Jonathan’s face? He is hurt and clearly uncomfortable.”

“And that’s your problem because?”

We have to jump aside for a man pulling a fruit cart. The pain in my feet starts to return. Nasty shoes.

“That’s not my problem,” Everett responds timidly.

“So why then?”

“Just because, sister. Do I really have to explain everything?”

I look at him sideways and try to catch his gaze. Everett, however, only has eyes for Jonathan, who is walking not far ahead.

I don’t get it.

“I want to go home.”

“You followed me. This was your plan.”

“Not this,” I sigh theatrically.

From now on, my brother ignores me completely. I keep insisting that I would like to go home. I blame it on the fact that I am tired, that I have cramps, that my feet hurt and that I am cold. Everything of what I suggest is true.

But I might as well be talking to a wall.

We cross bridges, meander through streets and alleys and dodge rain puddles. Meanwhile, the sun begins to sink and the clouds increase. Evening is falling. A thick veil of grey clouds fills the London sky.

At one point, I am so fed up that I free my hand from Everett’s grip and, on my sore feet, make a dash towards Felix and Jonathan.

“Enough!” I call out to Felix, who immediately comes to a halt, his back straining.

He turns to me. His eyebrows raised, as if he is surprised to see me. “Miss Prime, you are still here.”

“Where are we going?”

“You will join us?”

“Not by choice.” I look around and take in our surroundings. We are in a small square where market stalls are set up in the shape of a horseshoe. The premises surrounding the square consist mainly of pubs and brothels. An uneasy feeling creeps up on me, and I unconsciously squeeze the safety collar I am still holding a little harder.

“Do what you want to do, Miss Prime,” Felix says without a trace of emotion in his voice, “but please don’t bother me.”

Then he turns and walks towards a crowded pub that many people would rather walk past than enter. Jonathan follows him.

“Surely you’re not going to tell me we’re following him,” I bring out in bewilderment, staring at my brother, who seems to be in conclave with himself. Surely he is not seriously considering taking me there?

Dirty Nelly’s indicates the pub’s sign in large, gold lettering.

“What a bastard he is,” I mutter. “Let’s go, dear brother. I think we’ve had enough for today.”

Everett nods, but it comes across as uncertain. Still, my brother manages to tear his gaze away from Jonathan, who has by now walked into the pub.

We have only taken a few steps when we suddenly hear a deafening screech. A scream so grim, so chilling, that it pierces through marrow. A sound that screams pure agony. Startled, Everett and I come to a halt.

A middle-aged woman comes running out of an alley, her hand pressed to the back of her neck. “He’s here!” she shrieks. She falls into the middle of the square, between the market stalls, onto the cobblestones and sobs loudly. “Junior R is here! He got to me, he got to me…”

Her voice dies away. A horde of people swarms towards her like a stampede of sheep. Passers-by want to know what’s going on, what he looked like. Everett and I are forced to take a few steps backwards by the many people who want to speak to the woman.

“Which way did he go?” asks someone from the crowd.

Men run toward the alley from which the woman came, as if they can still catch Junior R.

Meanwhile, more and more people are walking into the square. Market stalls are closing, and pubs are emptying. News of the battered woman is doing the rounds with lightning speed.

“I need to speak to her,” Everett says next to me. Looking at him, I see that the expression in his eyes has hardened. He stares purposefully at the crowd. “I need to know what Junior R looks like.”

“Don’t let revenge kill you, brother,” I try to stop him. “I’ve already lost family once.” My mother’s face is burnt on my retina. “Don’t make me go through that again.”

Everett looks at me, the look in his eyes softening.

“Don’t let that lunatic poke you. Protect your neck!” suddenly sounds a hackneyed sales pitch from a man walking into the square. He is middle-aged, looks like he has not bathed for days and wears a dark-grey suit, which is a few sizes too big and by the looks of it has lasted several years. “Don’t let that lunatic poke you. Protect your neck!” he repeats again in a loud voice. In his hands he holds safety collars, which he raises in the air and waves back and forth as if they were flags. “Affordable safety collars, effective against the horrors of Junior R, are on sale now. Forget Lucius Lowe and buy your collars from me!”

The crowd falls silent for a moment and deviates slightly, revealing the woman again. She stands up, knocks off her clothes and walks quietly towards the man.

Was this for show? Is this how people sell their goods these days? By instilling fear?

“She’s an actress,” Everett confirms my suspicions. He doesn’t sound happy.

The other spectators in the square also seem to have taken notice of what just happened. The fact that the woman instigated this panic to sell safety collars seems to go down the wrong way. The crowd gets moving and flies towards the twosome.

The man and the woman—watching with open eyes as people storm towards them, clearly not the outcome they had expected—take a few steps backwards, startled.

A scuffle ensues. More and more passers-by join the circle of struggling people. I am pushed aside. Some people start hitting each other. The realisation that the fear surrounding Junior R is not just among women, but across London, across England, dawns on me. A fear so great that even small promotional stunts, like the one just now, can create a dangerous situation.

Fear swarms the city streets, seems to nestle in the brains of its residents, clinging there like a parasite. Fear can do strange things to a person, I realise. I startle when an unknown woman comes storming towards me, stares at the safety collar in my hands and holds out her hands like claws to attack me.

Everett grabs my hand and wants to pull me along to the street, but we soon see that angry people are coming from there too.

This is getting totally out of hand.

Then Everett drags me along to Dirty Nelly’s . The little bell above the door rings excitedly as we step inside and close the door behind us. My brother and I look at each other and then breathe a sigh of relief. My heart is pounding in my throat.

If we had stood in that square any longer, we would surely have been embroiled in that brawl.

The memory of the woman’s wild eyes briefly shoots through my mind, and I suppress a shiver.

It is only when my heartbeat seems to beat back to its normal rhythm that I realise where I am. I stare at the closed door in front of me, which blocks most of the noise in the pub. Everett and I are standing in the small corridor that separates the pub from the outside world.

“Are we going in?” I ask cautiously.

“Do you want to go back out then?” And with those words, he put his hand on the door before pushing it open.

I am inundated with laughter, chanting, shouting, and in addition to all that, if you listen carefully, there is cheerful but messy piano playing.

The place is even busier than the previous pub. Round tables at which people are gambling are cluttered throughout the room. A wooden piano stands against the wall near the window, and a young man with a long beard plays the thing with utmost concentration, but he is clearly no longer sober from his glassy eyes. His half-drunk mug stands above him on the top of the instrument.

Strumpets stand against the wall, laughing with each other and flirting with men who occasionally glance at them.

No, this is not a place I would like to linger.

“We’ll find Mr Clifton and Jonathan, and then we’ll discuss what we should do,” Everett suggested.

I nod because I don’t have a better idea myself.

We blend into the crowd. Everett lets me lead the way so he can keep an eye on me. I press my lips together, trying to avoid contact with people. It smells like old sweat, alcohol and burnt food here. Nobody seems to notice that Everett is dressed as a woman, or nobody looks surprised.

“There!” my brother shouts just a little too enthusiastically in my ear, making me startle and want to elbow him in the stomach.

Felix and Jonathan stand at a gambling table. Well, Jonathan is standing behind his best friend, pulling his winnings towards him with a big grin. The people around them clap and urge Felix to join them again.

I walk towards them and pat Jonathan on the back. When he turns around and sees me and Everett standing there, he breathes a sigh of relief. “You guys stayed.”

“Yes, there’s quite a riot outside,” Everett said.

The two men hold each other’s gaze. I look from Everett to Jonathan and back again. Could they be…

“Miss Prime?” Felix’s voice pulls me back to the here and now. He watches me over his shoulder. The irritation I expect to see in his eyes is nowhere to be found. Instead, a kind of curiosity lurks in his dark gaze. “Have you changed your mind?”

I shake my head.

In the background, the piano playing goes from bad to worse. It makes me restless. The loud talking is also starting to get too much for me.

“Miss Prime?” Felix repeats my name. “Are you all right?”

I am grabbed by my hip by someone I don’t know. I look to my left to see my attacker. It is an older man with rotten teeth in his mouth, and he grins at me. Quickly I take a step to the side, colliding with Jonathan.

I gasp for air.

“Hey, leave that,” I hear Everett exclaim angrily. Probably to the man who touched me.

Felix also gets up from his stool and makes himself tall. “Hands off,” he says menacingly.

“Miss Prime?” Jonathan asks anxiously.

“Eleonora?” adds Everett.

I raise my hands in the air, signalling everyone to shut up. I can’t think. I seem to be running out of air.

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asks my brother.

“I don’t know.”

“Give her a crutch.”

Someone grabs me by my shoulders and takes me to the corner of the room. I let myself be pulled along. It feels as if my lungs have become too small, as if my heart has too little room to beat. Then I am placed on a stool with my back against the wall. A window behind me is open, and the semi-fresh air from outside blows coolly across the back of my neck.

“Give me that thing,” Everett says and grabs at the safety collar that I have by now kneaded into a wad in my hands. He pulls the thing apart and stares at the clasp, which is far too complicated for him. “How does a person get this on?”

I put my head against the wall and close my eyes, trying to control my breathing. The way I am sitting there now is definitely not feminine; I am very aware of that. Dear Lord, how I can still worry about my appearance even in such a situation, in such a place, is beyond me.

And it doesn’t exactly help my peace of mind either.

Felix comes to stand next to me. I know because he pushes a glass into my hands and tells me to take a sip. It’s water, not beer. So I drink, after which I put the glass behind me on a wooden shelf that has been hammered against the wall.

“What’s going on?” Felix asks, and he turns to my brother, who explains to him in detail what has just occurred in the square. Felix, Jonathan and Everett get into a conversation. I only half get it, concentrating mostly on myself.

Suddenly I feel very small, pathetic and alone. I have never been outside of Canterbury, let alone in the heart of London, where it is crowded, where it stinks, where the people are so different from the inhabitants of my familiar Canterbury. Much busier, more outgoing, more brash.

And now I’m sitting here. On a stool in the Dirty Nelly’s , unwell and sipping a glass of water that I don’t even want to know what sewer it was pumped from because even the water tastes different from back home. At the moment, I am far from the lady my father would like me to be. The idea that I am disappointing him—despite him not being here—makes my lower lip begin to tremble.

Everett explains the situation in the square and how people reacted, how scared we were and how we ended up here.

Felix occasionally looks at me while my brother tells the story. The expression on his face is cool, as if he doesn’t care much, yet he keeps casting glances at me.

“Oops, pardon,” I hear next to me. I lazily turn my head towards the source of the sound and stare at the stranger’s back. The stranger staggers to his feet, looks for a foothold on the little shelf on which my glass stands and almost knocks over my water. With a trembling hand, he grabs at the glass to prevent it from falling down. “Excuse me,” he repeats again. I don’t get to see his face as he turns it away from me.

As quickly as he appeared, he disappeared again.

I don’t think much of it. Just a man who is three sheets to the wind. The men in front of me don’t even realise it, too deeply engaged in conversation. They are offered a tray of small snacks by someone sitting at the gambling table. Felix is the only one to take something from it.

I reach for the glass again and bring it to my lips. When I want to put it back on the shelf, it is snatched from my hands by Felix. He looks at me, takes a sip and drinks the contents completely.

“Spicy stuff,” he says with his mouth still full, and he pushes the glass back into my hands.

Then his face shifts.

He spits out the remains of what he has in his mouth on the floor. “What was that?” he asks with a grimace.

Jonathan and Everett fall silent and turn to Felix.

Felix grabs the glass again, pulls it out of my hands and brings it to his nose. He smells, holds it out in front of him again and smells again. He spins the glass around in his hands, studying it from all sides, as if that way he can unravel the mystery.

“What is it?” Jonathan asks.

“Did you taste something strange?” Felix asks me.

“I…” I bring out. “I don’t know. I already thought it tasted a bit like sewer and…” Yeah, what else? It’s not the water I’m used to, but right now I’m not feeling well, so everything is strange and dirty and different.

“Oops, pardon,” the man’s voice just now echoes in my head again.

That voice…

Everett waves his hand in front of my face, making me look up at him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Next to me, Felix cringes. He folds in half, grabs his stomach with his hands and spits his entire stomach contents out onto the floor. “Damn…” He looks up, as white as my aunt’s corpse, then he stares straight ahead. “That man who just stood here,” he brings out wearily. His eyes find mine. “Did he do something…”

Jonathan takes care of his friend, and Everett looks around helplessly.

I let my eyes glide through the pub. And then my gaze falls on the figure in black, with blond, tousled hair. I cannot see his eyes clearly, but I sense that he is staring at me, purposefully, curiously, fearfully. Like a hunter watching his prey from a distance. The boys follow my gaze and catch sight of the man too.

The hunter knows he has turned into the prey because he sets off on a run.