Chapter 14

"Xenana!" shouted Beta in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you after so long!"

I was somewhat taken aback by Beta's exclamation; and looked ahead along the marbled floors of the shopping mall we were in to the subject of Beta's greetings. It was a woman of about Beta's age, standing beside the glass sheets enclosing a small fountain scattered with tiny crabs and fish: her pale image reflected on the plate glass of a saddlery emporium. Like Beta she wore no clothes, but unlike her this did not evoke an appearance of naturalness. She was festooned with bangles, rings, necklaces, earrings and jewellery. Her lips were bright red with lipstick. The very prominent application of eyeliner made her eyes unusually striking. Her hair was totally shaved off, and not only on her head. She teetered on black leather platform boots that raised her an extra six inches off the ground, but she was still shorter than me and not much taller than Beta. She held a cigarette in her forefingers and desultorily stroked her chin with her other fingers while inhaling.

"How super!" Xenana exclaimed. "How jolly super! I would never have thought it possible I'd ever see you in the City. And in a mall like this!"

"We were just looking at the shops. We could never afford to buy anything here! It's so expensive. The prices are simply Brobdignadian!"

The prices may have been high, but Beta's wonderment as we had wandered through the marbled, windowed and laminated mall had also been for the comprehensive range of goods on offer. There was everything for every species and every taste. There were imported suits, obscure gramophone records, antiquarian books, fancy horse-wear, dinosaur eggs, buttered croissants, white chocolate and computer games. We would stand in front of the windows outside the shops or simply wander in and gaze in awe at the video images and material goods that saturated them. It was sometimes difficult to tell amongst the mirrors and windows whether we were in the confines of a store or in the general walkway. Bright artificial light illuminated everything. Wherever we went we were followed by a sometimes annoyingly indistinct and sometimes annoyingly disruptive wallpaper of music ranging from the ambient and the classical to the irritating and the banal. At intervals we came across chairs or benches, fountains, statues, clock-towers, garden beds, wooden bridges or glass elevators which promised further delights on other floors. We pursued a series of tall escalators up and down and around a never-ending series of shoppers' paradises, occasionally approaching the glass ceiling protecting the mall from the elements outside. The air-conditioning pumped out by the shops made it much cooler inside the mall than the warm sunny day outside would have one expect it to be.

"You certainly don't dress any flipping different to at home!" Xenana commented.

"I don't see any good reason why I should," Beta retorted. "But your appearance surprises me. When you left the Village you said you'd never walk naked again and here you are..."

Xenana laughed. "Ohh, Beta! Your naïveté is so wonderful! There is a blinking world of difference between the nudity of the Village and the current fashions in the City. But don't let's quarrel! It's super to see you. Absolutely super!"

The two girls embraced.

"I wish you hadn't shaved off all your hair," commented Beta sadly. "It was so beautiful!"

"You mustn't get too attached to such ephemeral things, Beta. But who is your friend? He doesn't come from the Country, does he?"

"No, he's from the Suburbs," Beta explained, who then introduced me to Xenana: a good friend of hers from the Village who had left to live in the City as soon as she was able. "You don't regret it yet, do you?"

"Not at all!" Xenana claimed. "After living here, I just don't see how I could ever live anywhere as slow and uneventful as the Village!" She glanced at her cigarette butt and noticing that it had burnt down to the filter tossed it to one side. "I'm glad you've come to the City. It's a great place! Are you staying long?"

"We don't know! We only arrived last night. But, what about you, Xenana? What are you doing these days?"

"Oh, all sorts of things. I don't have a proper job as such, but I get enough work to see me through jolly well. I help out at a record store where they sell white label twelve inch vinyl. I sometimes work at clothes shops and alternative book shops. I do some bar work some evenings or just help out at night clubs. I sometimes do a bit of my own business - selling things I buy in cheap outside the City for less than you'd normally pay for them here. A bit of entrepreneurism if you like. There's no shortage of ways to earn money in this place if you know people. And believe me, Beta, I know people!" Xenana's broad grin threatened the fabric of her lipstick, clearly delighted with her social success. "I know so many flipping people! When I lived in the village, I just didn't think it possible that you could know so many, so very many of them. Even when I first arrived here and it all seemed so frightening - you know, the tall buildings, the crowds, the traffic, the constant rushing around - I didn't believe it was possible to know so many people. And now I just do!" Xenana giggled for joy and slightly bounced up and down. "I've arrived you see, Beta! I've arrived! I'm as much part of the City scene as anyone else. And that's a great buzz! It's the biggest high you could ever have!"

"I'm glad to see you're happy here," Beta remarked. "You always said you'd do better in the City. Do you meet many others from the Village here?"

"Oh absolutely flipping millions of them, Beta! People are flooding into the City from the Country every day. I'm sure that's one reason why there are just so many people living here. And you can't blame them. There's so much more here than in the Country. If you can't get a job in the City and make it in whatever you want then where can you go? And the scene here is so wild. It's where you can really get into the groove!" Xenana fished her hand into the ethnic leather handbag that dangled decorously over her shoulder and pulled out a cigarette case and lighter. She proffered cigarettes in our direction, not really expecting us to accept them, put one into her mouth and lit it theatrically. "But come back to my bedsit. I insist! You can't just meet me in the City and not visit my home. I can get us something to eat if you like."

Beta and I were easily persuaded, and followed Xenana through the maze of shopping aisles to the City streets outside. With Xenana leading the way, the mass of people and traffic was no obstacle at all, although it was impossible to remember the details of a route which took us through a series of quiet side roads, small parks, cobbled gas-lit antique shopping streets and finally via paved walkways, past swings, slides and a small river, to some tall apartment blocks sporting names such as Equestrian House, Cardiovascular Villas and Xanadu Mansion. However exotic the building's title, they were essentially all identical towers heights of punctuated balconies, mostly wholly anonymous and with doorways guarded by a row of named buttons and intercom grills.

"Home Sweet Home!" announced Xenana pushing open the door to Bodhisattva Heights, after using a complicated series of keys and punching the keys of encrypted locks. We followed her through the heavy door which slammed behind us, sucking dust into the foyer from the busy street outside. Xenana attached another key to her mail box and opened it to reveal a sudden cascade of unsolicited mail relating to financial opportunities, holidays abroad and local window-cleaning services. She sorted out one single manila-enveloped letter and deposited a kaleidoscope of brightly coloured mail into one of the overflowing plastic rubbish bins lined up on wheels just opposite the green battered metal mail boxes. "It's only a bill!" Xenana commented, placing it into her handbag. She scanned the clear metal sliding doors of the lifts where angular numbers mutated in illuminated displays to indicate the floors that the lifts were currently passing by. "I'm on the fourteenth, so we'll have to take the lift."

We waited for several minutes as the lifts descended, then rose and then descended again, but one finally arrived on the ground floor where a small purple pony with a very long tail trotted out smelling lewdly of perfume. She pursed her heavily lipsticked lips at us and trotted on, waggling her buttocks lasciviously from side to side. Xenana smiled indulgently. We clambered into the escalator to be joined by a hefty crab wearing a large black hat and an unfiltered cigarette who took up more than half the space. The numbers displayed above the door transfigured from 0 to 14, and the escalator doors opened to free us from the claustrophobia of the tiny room, to pace along a narrow corridor, past the constant thump of audio systems emanating from behind the doors that lined the corridor, and then, after another ritual of key-turning, we entered Xenana's bedsit.

I had never seen such a small home before in my life. Even Beta was astonished by how cramped it was, and she'd already told me how much smaller Village homes were to those in the Suburbs. Most of Xenana's room was dominated by a single bed, surrounded by the surfaces of furniture serving one, two or three different purposes. A shower unit stood in one corner, from which jutted out the porcelain of a sink or washing basin. A microwave oven stood underneath a television screen and a small chair was squeezed just behind the door and had to be moved every time the door was opened. Xenana seemed very proud of her home, however. She clambered over the bed to spread the ragged curtains to let in the slant of the early evening sun, and proudly displayed a view of other tower blocks, some of which being so much more monstrous than the others must have been in the financial district. She then switched on the audio system positioned at the head of the bed, and the speakers scattered about the room emitted an insistent heavy percussive rhythm sprinkled with samples, vocals and electronic doodling.

"It wasn't easy to get this bedsit!" Xenana explained. "It was flipping hard! And it's so expensive as well. About a thousand three hundred guineas a week! And that's cheap for a bedsit as well appointed as this so close to the City centre. Most of my money goes on paying rent! But it's worth it. Most of the time I've been in the City I've had to sleep on friend's couches or in their beds. I just never got it together to rent a place of my own. But now I have. And it really is super! I'm absolutely independent. I can do what I like. And I've got the whole of the flipping City to groove in!"

Beta was still reeling from Xenana's admission of the bedsit's expense. "More than a thousand guineas a week. That's seventy or eighty thousand guineas a year! You could buy the whole Village for much less than that!"

"You get used to these sort of expenses after a while," Xenana commented, sitting down at the head of the bed. "Is it any wonder the country's in such a mess when you've got such ridiculous price disparities! But now I'm jolly used to it. Anything priced with a number with less than two zeros isn't worth doodly squat."

Beta and I sat cautiously at the foot of the bed which bounced with a life of its own after the introduction or removal of any weight. We twisted our bodies round so we could face Xenana who was lighting up another cigarette. The room was already infused with the smell of nicotine and of somewhat sweeter substances the nature of which was hinted by a scratched mirror on its side, a few torn shreds of cardboard and the blackened neck of an exaggeratedly bent spoon.

"What do you do in the City, Xenana?" Beta wondered.

"What don't I do, Beta?" Xenana boasted. "There's just everything to do that you could possibly hope for. It's just one endless round. Once I tried to keep a diary, Beta. You know like we did when we lived in the Village. I thought, there's so much excitement in my life, so much that's new and groovy, I'd better get it recorded. But clubbing, partying, all the boyfriends I've had (and not always serially), the bingeing, the orgying, the indulgence... ! Soon keeping a diary just got out of hand. I was a week out of date in making an entry. Where was I? What the heck was the guy's name? What had we consumed? I just couldn't remember. It was all a haze. And then I let it slip by a month. And when it gets that bad - you can't remember anything you blinking well did a month ago. In the City a week's nearly a lifetime. And a month's nearly an eternity! I can't even remember what was fashionable a month ago. Was it long hair, short hair, curly hair, no hair? Was it platforms, stilettos or flats? Was it shorts, minis, jeans or crinolines? Was it monetarism, millenarianism, communism or eco-awareness? It all blurs into one grey rush of motion. All you know is that you had a groovy time. The drugs were absolutely fabulous! The vibes were out of sight! The sex was simply super! You just keep to the rhythm, and let the rhythm flow!"

Beta seemed a little puzzled by Xenana's words. "I don't really understand more than half of what you say now," she remarked with a weak laugh. "But I'm still very glad you're enjoying yourself in the City."

"And you will too!" remarked Xenana, stubbing out her cigarette in an ash tray and leaping up. "I'll get us something to eat and then I'll take you to the Cancer Club. I got a few free tickets one of my boyfriends gave me. It's really kicking. The jam is really wild. You'll enjoy it."

She opened a few cupboards where cans of food were carefully stacked one above the other in the very little space available, and pulled out a combination of cans. She then opened them with an electric can-opener and with a deft combination of cooking rings and micro-wave cooker she managed to prepare quite a reasonable mushy meal in which all pretence of subtlety was totally engulfed by spices, curry and rich sauces. However, both Beta and I were extremely hungry.

There were several hours from when we'd eaten until Xenana felt it right to head off to the night club, but this time drifted away idly and lazily as Xenana chatted about her life in the City, the boyfriends she'd had, the drugs she'd taken and the more amusing or entertaining anecdotes of her new life. Occasionally she listened politely as Beta talked about life in the Village. How there were plans to redecorate the Village Hall. How some of the small-holdings were trying out a new breed of heifer. The trouble some of the horses had given in demanding higher rates for their services.

It was clear, however, that Xenana wasn't really that interested and took the opportunity of rolling marijuana infused cigarettes as Beta was speaking. The air in her room soon filled up with thick smoke which irritated my eyes and made me extremely dozy. In the background, Xenana's choice of music began to take on shades of meaning and relevance that had hitherto seemed rather hidden in an aural wallpaper of noise and rhythm. I lay back on the bed, while Xenana continued her account of City life, occasionally being nudged as she passed a reefer across to me. I made an attempt to be fairly abstemious. I noticed Beta had refused to touch any of it, and any drug other than alcohol was extremely rare in the Suburbs. It certainly wasn't sold across the newsagents counters as it was in the City.

It was very late when Xenana finally took us to the Night Club, but the City, however, had clearly not gone to sleep. The streets were brightly lit and although less crowded than during the day, they were far from barren. Xenana flagged down a horse-drawn carriage and asked the horse to take us to the club which he gladly did, chatting as he went on about how there were too many foreigners in the City these days and how the change of government to the Red Party spelt disaster for small businesses such as his own. As we trotted along, I observed how much the life on the City streets had changed from the day time. Although it was cooler at night, there were many more women dressed in very few clothes and quite a few more than I'd seen before dressed like Xenana in virtually nothing and their scalps shaved to the skin. Gangs of youths sauntered along, yelling randomly at other pedestrians and dressed in peculiarly dandified clothes contrasting with a partiality for working-man's boots. A gaggle of what I at first thought were women, but then recognised as men dressed up as women, emerged in a giggling cackling crew from one of the many wine-bars, restaurants and pubs that lined the roads and appeared more prominent at night when the shops were closed and security bars obscured their windows.

The Cancer Club was no different from the outside to the many other Night Clubs we'd passed en route. The exterior was emblazoned with inviting lights in blue and red neon, with the illuminated image of a crab flashing on and off over the doorway. Xenana tripped out of the carriage, paid the horse for his services and strode boldly to the door where a large aggressive-looking crab was standing, clicking his claws in tune to the distant pulse of music emanating from within. Beta and I hastily hurried behind her, aware that in comparison to her and all the other club-goers we looked rather too obviously like non-sophisticates. I had thought that Xenana's appearance was relatively unusual or at best an extreme representation of City fashion, but judging from the bare flesh, the shaved heads and very prominent make-up adopted by both the men and women entering the Cancer Club, her appearance was not at all remarkable.

"Yeah, Xenana! 'Course you can! And your friend and her boyfriend too!" sniffed the crab doorman amiably. "You didn't really need the invites at all. Keep them for another night!"

We followed Xenana through the heavy door and up a staircase spangled by little lights, along a corridor decorated with images of exotic animals and into an enormous dance hall which was far from full but fairly lively. Music similar to that which Xenana had been entertaining us in her bedsit boomed out distinctly and deafeningly from massive speakers dotted about the place, and the spectrum of single coloured lights beaming from all directions somehow failed to properly illuminate a place where visibility was obscured by mirrors, floor-clinging clouds of smoke and the long shadows of the guests. There was dancing on dance-floors which were positioned all about the place and where people, many dressed like Xenana, were gyrating, gesturing and gesticulating in full abandon.

The centre-piece of all the attention was a pulpit on which a disc jockey was energetically busying herself on a collection of turntables, electronic equipment and stacks of vinyl and compact discs. Generally her head was face down, a bald pate facing to the audience, concentrating on what next to play. Then she would raise her face, perspiration visibly illuminated by the powerful beams, and look out at the audience as if surprised that there were any there. Not all her audience were dancing. Several were sitting on stools and chairs around the several bars or near the cafeterias serving convenience food.

Xenana sat us down on a comfortable black leather sofa looking down on a dance floor occupied by a sideways-dancing crab and a sinuously shaking snake. She rushed off to the bar, which was wholly composed of mirrors and tiny bulbs, leaving Beta and me to chat as best we could. To make ourselves heard, we had to lean quite close to each other and shout in our ears. On a sofa nearby, a gibbon with a hypodermic needle was carefully injecting himself in an arm bandaged tight by a handkerchief, while his companion, another gibbon, inhaled on a clay pipe shaped like a funnel, giving off great clouds of dark smoke. Xenana returned after a few minutes with three bottles of beer, each with a lemon inserted in the opening where the metal top had been wrested off. She handed us a beer each.