11. An English Girl in Prague

Christmas Eve, 2009

“Love you too, Mum.”  Lola slaps a particularly bold, probing hand away from her thigh and switches the mobile phone to her other ear.  “I’ll be home before you know it.  Say hi to Dad for me.  Yeah, I will.  Yeah, merry Christmas to you too.  Love you.  Bye.”  She slides the phone shut and turns to the owner of the hand.

“That was my mother, you pig,” she says, helping herself to a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket.  “I thought you were going to the bar, anyway.”

“I did,” he replies.

“So where’s my vodka?”

“I drank. You talk a lot.”  His hand makes its way onto her hip, and Lola suppresses the urge to stub it with her cigarette.  Andrej might not exactly be the kind of man a girl would write about in her diary, but since meeting him this afternoon Lola hasn’t had to put her hand in her pocket once.  She might judge another woman for acting in such a way, but she can’t afford to have any feelings about it one way or the other just yet.  Can’t afford anything, full stop.

She wonders if she should feel guilty for lying to her mother; there is no ticket back to England in her bag.  She hasn’t thought far ahead enough to know what she’ll say when her parents call after she inevitably fails to appear at Gatwick. But that is a problem to be faced in two days. The phone call she has just terminated consisted of a rather realistic, well-constructed fib, the long and short of which was that Lola could not get a flight back to the UK until at least Boxing Day, due to the madness of Eastern European airports at this time of year.

Andrej’s hand finds its way onto her hip, only this time Lola does not bat it away. Instead, she flashes him a smile and suggests he fetch them more drinks. His jaw tightens and he heads back to the bar, muttering something as he goes that she can’t understand. Probably cursing English girls.

The moment she is certain that he can no longer see her, Lola heads for the door. She keeps her eyes fixed dead ahead of her, not daring to glance in the direction of the bar lest Andrej notice his new lady friend trying to make a run for it. Once out on the street, she exhales, not even aware until this moment that she had been holding her breath, then makes her way quickly across the road, round a corner, and into a narrow, low-ceilinged café.

It is the third time she has done this since coming to Prague.

Lola takes a seat near the back, catching her reflection in the mirror on the wall and shuddering as she lowers herself into the booth. Her eye makeup could do with touching up just a little, she is in desperate need of a new coat of lipstick, and her French plait has been slowly unravelling all night. In short, she looks not unlike a crazy person.

“Vodka,” she barks at the waiter as he approaches, then changes her mind. “Ne! Coffee.”

Her grasp of the local lingo is next to non-existent. Fortunately for her, everybody around here seems to speak one of two tongues; English, and that most universal lingua franca, a pretty girl batting her eyelashes. The latter was not without its drawbacks, however. Andrej had been pleasant enough company, but the way he had looked at her (and repeatedly attempted to caress her buttocks) made it clear he expected their sudden acquaintance to be of a transactional nature.

Lola has fixed her hair and makeup as best she can in the mirrored wall, and is occupying herself by stirring cube after cube of sugar into her coffee, avoiding having to think about her next move, when she overhears something quite peculiar from the booth behind her. So peculiar, in fact, that she believes she must have misheard. But then the low, almost raspy male voice repeats itself.

“No, I’m serious. Local girls taste like dark chocolate.”

His companion laughs, and Lola can almost hear him shrug.

“I wouldn’t have the faintest, Seth. I don’t exactly have a penchant for the ladies, as you well know.” This second voice was theatrical, bordering on fey – but something about his tone made Lola smile.

“So how do the young men of Prague taste?” The first voice, Seth, asks.

His companion seems to pause for a moment to think, then replies;

“Inexpensive.”

They both explode in fits of laughter. The wooden panelling separating the two booths trembles slightly, and Lola takes a deep sip of coffee, feeling suddenly very guilty about eavesdropping. Not that it’s a conversation worth listening in on, a prim, haughty voice inside her says. Talking about their conquests like little more than pieces of meat.

Lola quashes the voice. She doesn’t know if it’s the slightly sleazy subject matter, the fact that these are the first English accents she’s heard in days, or simply something in the voices themselves, but she finds herself wanting to hear more. She begins to wish she had got a better look at them on her way into the café.

“So…” Francis begins, somewhat trepidatiously, once the laughter has subsided, “what are you going to do about Mallory?”

“Now now,” Seth replies. “It’s only Christmas Eve. You know the bargain. I’ll face up to reality, I really will. But not until the New Year.”

It is clear from his tone, if nothing else, that Mallory is Seth’s significant other. It would appear, Lola thinks, that there are two people in this café taking a holiday from their lives.

She checks her purse, and is less than surprised to find it empty. Casting an eye around to make sure the coast is clear, Lola steps out of the booth and begins to saunter nonchalantly towards the front door… And then freezes in her tracks.

Andrej is standing in the middle of the street outside the café. He has not seen her yet, is stood with his back to the café, looking left and right as if to try and spot where his new lady friend might have been spirited away to… But Lola cannot move. So what if he sees me? She thinks. We just met. He doesn’t own me.

But something tells her that Andrej will hurt her if he sees her again. Will feel compelled to express how much she upset him by simply walking out like that. Without thinking (it actually feels to Lola in that moment that her feet are doing the thinking for her), she spins around and slips into the nearest booth, facing away from the glass door and the man on the street.

“May we help you?” Asks a voice that Lola already recognises. Seth sits across the table, which means the man she has just cosied up to on this side of the booth is Francis. Lola does not reply. She leans as far out of the booth as she deems safe, looks over her shoulder, and feels the pounding in her chest abate slightly. Andrej is nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry,” she says, instinctively bringing out her most winning smile. “Sorry. I just… I’ll leave you two to it.” She goes to stand up.

“Wait,” Seth waves a hand to summon the waiter. “Sit and have a drink with us. It’s a delight to hear someone else speaking English around here.”

Lola smiles, more genuinely this time, but does not tell Seth that she had thought exactly the same thing when she had been eavesdropping only moments before. Instead, she orders another coffee and gets comfortable while Seth introduces himself.

“And this is my brother, Francis,” he says, although Lola can’t help thinking they look absolutely nothing alike. Seth is handsome, but lean. Gaunt, even. His eyes are the colour of slate and red-rimmed; windows to the soul of a man familiar with excess. Francis, on the other hand, looks full of life. His long brown hair is tied back neatly, full lips are half masked by an impeccably groomed beard, and his blue eyes twinkle, giving him the look of a man who is about to tell an especially dirty joke.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” she shakes both their hands. “I’m Lola.”

Francis immediately begins to hum the first few bars of ‘Copa Cabana’, before seeing the looks in both Lola and Seth’s eyes, desisting, and grumbling something like “you’re no fun” into his drink.

“So what brings you to Prague, Lola?” Seth asks, his real question unvoiced but clear nonetheless; why are you here alone on Christmas Eve?

For a moment, Lola considers giving him an honest answer. She feels like she could tell this man anything without the slightest risk of incurring shock or judgement.  It might have something to do with the worldly look in his eye, or more simply because he and Francis are the only man she has met in three weeks who haven’t tried to either have sex with her or sell her coke.

“I heard the city is beautiful in winter,” she says, not entirely untruthfully. “Yourselves?”

“I’m on a mission of mercy,” Francis tells her, leaning in ever so conspiratorially. “My brother here is having one of his not-infrequent ‘apart’ times from his dear wife. I thought, what better place to get a little perspective and some top notch hashish than Prague?”

“I’d have said Amsterdam?” Lola offers. Francis very nearly spits.

“A city of whores and amateurs. No, Prague is the place. Stick with us, kid – you’ll soon see.”

Lola laughs, then says that she will most likely be moving on soon. To where, she has no idea, but she doesn’t mention that part.

“Well before you do,” Seth conjures the waiter with another slight wave of his hand, “have another drink.” He then says something that Lola doesn’t entirely understand, but she is pretty sure she heard the word ‘absinthe’. A few moments later, the proprietor is silently and reverently carrying out an intricate ritual involving tall shot glasses filled with what looks like mouthwash, slotted spoons, sugar cubes, and vaporous iced water which turns the green liquid cloudy. Seth informs her, once the preparation is complete, that they call this the “French method”, even though that sounds more like a means of contraception to Lola.

“What the hell,” she mutters, and knocks back the milky, mint-coloured concoction, entirely unprepared for the instant, powerfully sweet fire that lights itself in her throat.

“You only love once?”  Seth smirks as if he’s heard it all before.

“Something like that,” Lola sputters, not wanting to go into any particular detail about the malignant, inoperable tumour that has set up house on her cerebellum.  Refusing to say the word “terminal” out loud is how she’s managed so far.  Her parents, God love them, haven’t a clue.  She told them her series of fainting spells earlier in the year were simply caused by anaemia; they think her sudden desire to leave Surrey and see the world is a sign of maturation, of change.

They’re right in one way, she supposes; there’s no change quite like not being alive anymore.

From the corner of her eye, Lola sees Francis check his watch.

“Midnight,” he murmurs. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”

And that is when it hits Lola properly for the first time, immediately and forcefully, like a punch in the stomach. She will not see her parents again. All pretensions of being an adventurous, free-spirited woman evaporate; she is Lola Humphrey from Dorking. Nothing but a little girl, far from home. She wishes more than anything to be there now, to be able to smell toast and hear the clink of mugs in her parents’ kitchen, to be able to smell her mother’s perfume and feel her father’s beard tickle as he kisses her.

You did this for them, she reminds herself. To spare them. That was the decision she made, all those months ago. For them, she insists, silently. To save her parents from seeing their only daughter fade away to nothing.

Liar, another voice mutters in the back of her mind. It is knowing and reptilian, and sounds more than a little like her new friend Seth. If you didn’t tell them, then you didn’t have to tell yourself. And now the weight of the choices she has made, the lies she has told, is suddenly enough to crush her.

She is staring into the empty absinthe glass, but can feel Seth’s grey eyes on her.

“Isn’t there a present under a tree somewhere out there,” he inquires, “with your name on it?”

Lola smiles, but every muscle in her face feels heavy.

“I’m on the run, truth be told.”

Francis and Seth exchange a look, and Lola gets the impression that they both understand.

“Have you ever had a secret you couldn’t tell anyone?” She asks. “Because if you did, if you actually said the words…”

“It would destroy everything,” Seth finishes for her.

“That might be the loneliest thing in the world,” Francis concludes.

Lola nods. Not trusting herself to say anything else on the subject without crying, she asks instead; “I don’t suppose either of you have a cigarette?”

Seth holds out an open silver cigarette case. Lola takes one with an ever-so-slightly shaky hand, and lets Francis light it for her.

“You can tell us,” Francis says. His voice is quiet but solid, and Lola believes him.

“I’m a bit poorly,” she says. Is this the first time she’s said it out loud? Most likely. “Properly, seriously, incurably, not very well at all.”

And so she tells them everything. How one migraine had led to another, which in turn had led to a diagnosis and her buying a plane ticket.

“Nobody knows?” Francis asks. “No-one at all?”

“Correct,” Lola says, adding rather weakly: “I’m beginning to think that might have been a mistake.”

“I think…” Seth begins, staring at her but lost in his own train of thought, “I think I might be able to help you.” Francis kicks him under the table and glares as subtly as he can (which is not very), but Seth ignores him. He draws his lips back, and for a moment his leer is merely unsettling – and then Lola sees the fangs.

“Gracious,” she utters. “You kept them well hidden.”

“Josephine is going to be livid,” Francis tells Seth, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “You know we’re meant to be keeping a low profile.”

“Special circumstances,” Seth says, not taking his eyes off Lola. “What do you say? Feel like becoming immortal?”

Lola does not for one second think this man is crazy. Looking at Seth, it is easy to see a man who has lived longer, seen more, than other men. There is something about him; not wisdom, exactly, but a certain weariness.

“How old are you?” She asks.

“You’ll never guess,” Seth says, “that’s half the fun. Think about it. You could be young forever, like Peter Pan. Or Tinkerbell, in your case.” He reaches forward and flicks her braid playfully.

Lola does not reply immediately. She picks up her cup of coffee, which has sat forgotten in front of her since the waiter placed it there, and drains its now tepid contents. Then, after dabbing the corners of her mouth daintily with a napkin, she gives Seth an answer.

“No thank you.”

His expression shifts from expectant to quizzical so quickly, Lola very nearly laughs. She imagines this doesn’t happen to him very often.

“Sorry,” she continues, worried she may have somehow offended him. “I just don’t particularly want to be a vampire, that’s all.”

She can hear Francis sniggering to her right, and decides her initial assumption was correct. Seth is not accustomed to rejection, nor is he too fond of it. The sheer arrogance of it riles her, and she decides she should probably get out of there before he loses his temper and starts chomping on her wrists. And she’d thought Andrej was strange.

“I don’t think you quite understand what I’m offering,” Seth says.

“Oh, I think I do. But I’m a little old for swooning over this crap.”

“You’re nineteen,” Seth tells her without hesitation. “I can smell it. Not old at all. And certainly too young to die.”

 “Fucking hell!” She exclaims. “Vampires! You’re as bad as Jehovah’s Witnesses!” At this point Francis bursts out laughing at her side, which manages to put her back up even more somehow. “I am fine the way I am, thank you, odd man who I just met. I do not need fixing or changing. I want to be me when I kick the bucket.”

“Yes,” Seth says, so calmly she could scream, “You are just fine and dandy. Tell me, Tinkerbell – who were you running from earlier? Who scared you so much you jumped into our laps?”

“Someone who didn’t like being told no. There’s a lot of it around.”

“Imagine having nothing to be afraid of, ever again. That’s what I’m trying to give you, Lola. Freedom. It’s a gift. Your Christmas present, if you like.”

“Well it clearly hasn’t made you happy,” she retorts. “I mean, look at you. If you looked your age, like a normal person, I’d say you were having a midlife crisis. Oh, Mallory! I miss you! So much, in fact, I am drinking and shagging my way through Eastern Europe!”

Seth looks positively wounded now, but Lola doesn’t care, he has pissed her off. She has absolutely no problem believing in creatures of the night, but she very much doubts that letting a stranger in a bar bite her would improve her life any more than sticking a needle in her arm. She stands up and has to wiggle out of the booth, her cheeks burning with irritation at how much the absinthe has gone to her head.

“Leaving so soon?” Seth asks, waving his green-stained glass. “Don’t feel like another dance with the green fairy?”

“There are no more fairies,” Lola tells him. And with that, she turns and leaves the café.

The cold night air hits her so hard, it’s like being slapped. She pulls her tiny jacket tightly around her body with one hand and tugs her dress down with the other, attempting to cover as much leg as possible, with little effect.

“Right,” she mutters to herself, “home”. Meaning the hostel she left this morning. If she can just charm the humourless mass of ginger dreadlocks behind the desk into one more night, she knows she will be able to think of something in the morning. That is, unless he feels like pulling himself up to his entire four feet in height and declaring there is no more room at the inn.

Lola hears the screech of tires on ice first, and is blinded by the headlights a moment later, as they come racing towards her. It’s Andrej, she thinks wildly. He saw me in there. He waited for me to come out. But when the car hits her and she sees the driver’s terrified eyes for a one single, near interminable second, she knows she was wrong. It isn’t Andrej. His eyes were green. The eyes of this drunk, panicking fool are brown.

***

When she wakes, she expects pain. She felt something inside her shatter upon impact, and blacked out so suddenly that she knows she must have suffered some kind of head injury. But there is nothing. In fact, she feels better than she has in weeks.

“I’m dead, aren’t I,” she says to nobody in particular.

“Not quite,” is the reply.

Lola looks to her right, where Seth sits at her bedside, and then around the room. She is not in a hospital, but a small and sparsely decorated twin bedroom. The walls slope and meet at the ceiling, indicating a converted attic.

“My humble abode,” Seth says. “For now, at least. I was thinking of making alternative arrangements for lodgings after Christmas.”

“What day is it?” Lola asks. “When did you fetch me from the hospital?” How had he fetched her from the hospital? Had he pretended to be her father? Uncle? Older brother?

“It’s Boxing Day,” Seth tells her. “You were unconscious for over twenty four hours.”

“What happened?” She says, sitting up. But she already knows. She can tell, by the absence of pain, and unfamiliar gnawing deep inside her. Seth remains silent.

“You bastard,” she whispers. “You absolute bastard.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, although the look in his eyes tells her otherwise. “I just couldn’t leave you there. It was obvious the moment we saw you in the road that you were gone, there was no saving you, by conventional means at least. Francis tried to make me leave you, but I couldn’t.”

“Where is he now?” She asks, wishing suddenly that if she had to be turned into a vampire, it could have been the nicer of the two brothers to do it.

“He’s off on his next adventure. Sends his love, but says he can’t stand other people’s children.”

Lola rises from the bed and stretches. She is still wearing the same underwear from the other night, under an oversized man’s shirt. It comes down to her knees, and the cuffs drown her hands. It’s the least revealing thing she’s worn in a while, and reminds her inexplicably of her father.

Except he’s not your father anymore, the little voice reminds her.

“Where are my clothes?” She asks, pushing the voice back.

“Your dress was more or less shredded, I’m afraid. Francis left you a jumper and a pair of his skinny jeans… I suspect they were designed for women to begin with.”

Lola takes the garments that Seth offers her, and locks herself in the tiny en suite bathroom. She quickly checks the mirror, and is relieved to find she still has a reflection. That’s one myth debunked, she thinks. I always did wonder how Angel got his hair so beautifully gelled.

Her head is buzzing with so many questions as she dresses, combs her hair and re-emerges, she simply plucks one at random and gives it a voice.

“Does blood have many calories?”

Seth laughs, and says he will have to get back to her on that one.

“It’s my first time doing this,” he tells her. “So forgive me if I’m not quite the expert.”

“Brilliant,” Lola rolls her eyes. “I get the virgin.”

“Could be worse. Your brains could be Christmas decorations right now.”

Lola scowls at him, but her heart isn’t in it. She had never wanted to die.

“Come on, Tink.” He says, holding the door open for her. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

 “Fine. But we need to go shopping first,” Lola asserts, walking past him, out into the early evening and the new life that awaits. “I haven’t a stitch to wear.”

~