Black Velvet

Chapter 46 - "Happy Birthday... Louis."

DECEMBER 22TH

“June Talford,” the man called my name, I looked up, he was standing wearing a neat suit and his fair was firmly jelled into place. I stood up and smiled at him. He waited at the double doors for me. “We just got your order, but there’s been a bit of a change,” he said and walked further into the warehouse. I was currently trying out something I would have never done before; the black market.

“That is?” I asked my voice cool. I walked close to the guy in the navy suit. Let me comment on it though, no one should ever wear a navy suit, like ever. He stopped walking, “Our suppliers got wind of who you are,” he told me looking me in the eye for a moment and then continued to walk. “And…” I encouraged. “Well you can see for yourself.”

The black market in fashion and make-up was a very dodgy business; you’d want pretty good connections to get the right stuff. You didn’t want to be £500 down with nothing. So it was ridiculously important to know your facts. So I spent about two months getting into the black market. And so here I was.

We came to a T in the corridor, we took the left and continued on, “Here it is. Um… as I was saying there’s been a bit of a change,” he said and indicated to the room in front of us. “Eh…” I stammered and looked at the room in front of me it was stock full of racks upon racks of clothes, table full of make-up and hair products. Everything was branded. “I only ordered like… I don’t know… like a fraction of this amount of stuff,” I explained to the guy who was looking as shocked as I was.

“Well as I said our suppliers figured out who you were and well they sent all of this, for your pick and choose,” he told him indicating to the mass of products laid out in front of me. I looked at it and took a deep breath. “You can take as much as you want,” he told me. “What’s the catch?” I asked looking at him. “No catch,” he said with a shrug. “Well this could take a while,” I muttered.

“Take as long as you need Ms Talford, also I will bring boxes and clothes wardrobes for you to take what you want home with you,” he explained. I nodded but couldn’t take my eyes of all of the stuff in front of me. This was my paradise.

I walked forward and began to scour through everything. All this stuff was amazing! I couldn’t believe it. I had ordered all men’s clothes for the lads, so I was surprised to see a few racks of woman’s clothes, all in my size surprisingly. I said I’d have a look at the end of them. I had to sort out what the lads were going to wear for the New Year shows. I really couldn’t have them in the same clothes for the whole tour, it just wasn’t happening.

It must have been a good couple of hours later, because I had ten boxes full of clothes and make-up ready to take away, before my phone rang. I was standing with a pencil in my mouth, a sketch pad in one hand and a jacket in the other. I put down the sketch pad and fished out my pocket from my back pocket. “Hello?” I mumbled forgetting to take the pencil out of my mouth.

“Sorry, hello, June Talford speaking,” I corrected. “June, this is Alexander is this an okay time to talk?” Alexander’s voice rang through my phone. “Oh hello there Alexander, haven’t heard from you in a whole week, has something happened?” I asked with a laugh, Alexander was weird like that, for ages he’d been calling me everyday, for small little things; like how was the weather, was Niall taking his meds, that kind of thing.