Dead in Time

Chapter Eleven

May 14th 1976 

The party was already in full swing when the car drew up, cleaving the thick, soft night. The air smelled like gardenias and leather, and the strains of Houses of the Holy filtered down through the limestone wedding cake architecture and black iron railings of Chepstow Villas.

“How long do we have to be here?”

“It’s a party, baby. There’s no have to.” Damon sighed and tipped the driver. “Thanks, Freddie. Look, baby, just try’n have a good time, yeah?”

Inez said nothing. She rearranged the neckline of her frock and waited for Damon to come around and open her door. He offered her his hand as she got out of the car.

“Come on, darlin’. You hear that? Remember that song? You love that song. Come have a dance with me, yeah? Maybe,” he purred into her ear, arm sliding around her waist, “I can make your garden grow.”

She smiled, despite herself. So bloody typical; he’d spend the whole day pissing her off, as if he actually had some kind of a death wish, then he’d pull something like that out of the hat. Pick up her favourite ice cream, sneak back to a shop to buy a bracelet she’d said she liked… make her laugh. Inez let him kiss her neck.

“All right.”

“There, see? Good girl. And,” Damon steered her towards the steps, “if you really can’t stick it, we can always leave early, yeah?”

She didn’t reply. He wouldn’t leave. He never left anything early; he’d probably live to a hundred and twelve on pure stubbornness. His hand had already slipped south, and Inez reached back to remove it from her buttock. A piercing whistle cut the air, coinciding with an increase in the volume of the music and the party noise. They looked up. Charlie was leaning out of one of the sash windows upstairs, waving down at them, perilously close to falling out.

“Brilliant! You’re here! Day, you gotta come up, man. Dino an’ Steve are here… an’ Ade and Rob… everybody’s here, man! You have to get up. Back your mamacita up, too, she lookin’ good. You lookin’ good, Inez!” he added and scrabbled at the sill in an attempt to right himself. “Whoo… shit! Yeah, you come up, right? I-I’ll come and… yeah.”

The arms of unseen donors pulled him back in, and Charlie closed the window, still semaphoring suggestively. Inez shot a look at Damon. His hand tightened on the small of her back, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

“He doesn’t—”

“I know. It’s all right.” Inez planted a quick kiss on his cheek. She moved off, up the steps to the building’s front door, and glanced back over her shoulder. “Well? Come on, baby.”

Charlie’s flat always presented a kind of a mystery. Though large—sprawling over the top floor of the villa, with a small but lush roof garden at the back—it still managed to give off a flophouse vibe. No matter how many modern pictures hung on the walls, between the gold discs and the framed photos of favoured idols, something about the place still gave off the feeling that, somewhere under foot, the carpet might be rotting.

Tonight the joint was packed. Charlie met them at the door, expansive and dramatic in stonewashed denim and polyester.

“You look beautiful,” he told Inez, pushing the friendly kiss on the cheek in greeting right to the limits of acceptability before dragging them both inside.

A gaggle of lanky young things Inez had last seen on Top of the Pops loitered beside a large cheese plant, wreathed in giggles and heavy smoke. They hadn’t looked quite so stoned when they’d been dancing for the camera in matching gauze pixie skirts.