Tourist Magazine

Piccadilly circus was obscured by the slow, drifting drizzle of London’s rain, the black, white and grey clad passersby seemingly materialising ten feet in front then dissipating once they were past, as though they themselves were formed of the thick wet mist. Black cabs circled lazily, their headlights reflecting dimly in the water-beaded shop windows and oil-slick coated puddles. Neon lights and brightly lit advertisements, dulled by the rain, did nothing to dispel the gloom. Into all this she came, the gypsy girl. She emerged suddenly, brightly clad and radiant, from the dark recesses of a subway tunnel, an exotic flower blooming in the otherwise cold, wet and dull London concrete, her emerald green coat and care-free smile in utter contrast to the surrounding aura of suffocating misery. Effortlessly and gracefully she joined the passing surge of humanity, content to let the persuasive tides of the city sweep her where they would. A sudden push drove her in the direction of Coventry Street, and onwards toward Leicester Square. As the crowd thinned, the gypsy girl assumed a more even, determined stride, marching purposefully into London’s china-town, her bright clothing more at home here amongst the fiery orange Chinese lanterns and hepatitis yellow fluorescent lights strung above, the garish red menus scattered about the street complimenting the bright seductive colour of her lips. A darker, more sinister, crimson splash was hurled into this riot of colour moments later as an empty bottle of Gordon’s Dry Gin was hammered repeatedly into her shiny dark hair, smashing on the third attempt with a surprisingly muffled crack, and slicing a deep, wide gash below her right eye as she collapsed to the wet grimy cobblestones. Struggling to keep hold of consciousness, the young gypsy girl was vaguely aware of her assailant rifling through her coat pockets, and, in an effort to safeguard her few belongings, rolled onto her stomach, effectively blocking his access. Perhaps sensing he had been too long about his task, the mugger cursed violently, emphasising each spat out “CUNT!” or “SLUT!” with a sharp kick to her ribs, before up-ending a nearby rubbish bin onto the gasping, bloody gypsy and disappearing into the crush of people milling about in front of a five-pound all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant, his dark blue tracksuit impossible to discern amongst the black suits and raised umbrellas of the London night.

Recovering enough to rise, the gypsy dragged herself into a sitting position by a graffiti-strewn alleyway, her previously silky and shiny hair hanging matted and damp in listless clumps about her ruined face, a thick, almost black, stream of blood running unfettered from the wound beneath her eye and dripping in a steady stream from her chin to pool sickeningly in her lap. Her breath came painfully, and, with tightly clenched teeth, she gingerly fingered at her bruised left side, locating two cracked ribs, just below her breast. Jerking agonisingly to her feet, using the gore-smattered wall behind her for support, she set off slowly towards the brightly lit and well-populated Leicester Square, hoping to perhaps find help and comfort amongst the hordes of well-dressed and wealthy cinemagoers ambling peacefully about the richly appointed theatres and cosy winter markets. As she exited the alley however, she was dismayed to find the crowd break around her, as though an invisible barrier kept the clean-cut masses from the horrible spectre of the gypsy girl, her angular face split unevenly in two by the still weeping wound below her eye and the previously bright green coat jacket smeared an ugly, mouldy khaki by the city’s underbelly of grime, effluent and trash.

Taking a few faltering, painful steps forward, her outstretched arm is caught suddenly in a bear-trap grip, a surprisingly wasted and scab-scarred hand guiding her through the flick-book parade of disapproving faces and quickly averted eyes, gently depositing her upon a paper-strewn bench in the squares interior.

Glancing up at her saviour’s previously unseen face, the gypsy can do little but gasp in involuntary horror, as her knight in shining armour is a skeletal figure of indeterminate age, his bulging, sunken eyes circled by dark rings of fatigue and illness, demonically accentuated by a scraggly beard and deeply pock-marked cheeks now creased in crude imitation of a welcoming smile, the few yellow-black teeth vivid against the mal-nutrition pink of his gums. The helpful junkie leant conspiratorially over the semi-conscious girl, psychedelic waves of never-washed clothing and sour human sweat washing over her in an undulating gut-wrenching nausea, and a dark blue plastic bottle, quarter full of white lightning cider, held gently toward her. Absently her filth-stained, broken-nailed fingers closed around the bottle’s stubby neck, lifting it to bruised and bloody lips and letting the horrible, sickly sweet liquid wash over and down her slack tongue and throat. Focusing on the bottle for the first time, the gypsy, comprehending the welcome, comforting numbness it will bring, raises the blue-shrouded medicine higher, greedily inhaling the contents with Olympian determination, and dropping the empty, crumbled vessel of hopeful salvation to lay gently rocking at her feet.

Helping the blood-drenched gypsy girl to rise, the junkie grasped her about the waist, and with his surprisingly strong grip, began to lead her slowly through the buffeting throngs toward the dark maze of streets leading from the square. The crowds thinned steadily as the streets and alleys they took grew darker and more foreboding, until eventually they were alone with the back-alley stench of ripening urine and fermenting trash. Even their footfalls, soggen with grime and despair, seemed to seek solitude. Turning a corner, the cobbled alley suddenly thinned and shrank, a Victorian archway framing the only path forward. Passing through, the gypsy and her wasted attendant entered an old walled garden, the stones hidden behind moss and ivy, obscuring all vestiges of the filth of the alley behind them. A bubbling stream ran playfully between the trunks of two old, gnarled apple trees, its banks thick with hillocks of lush green moss and its waters shaded by the overhanging boughs, a solitary white swan floating serene and calm between the bright pink clusters of water-lily. Lowering the still dazed girl to the soft, springy turf in the centre of the garden the junky-prince took a knee, and removing an old battered metal container from his coat pocket, began to set his works, glancing at the gypsy over his shoulder. The Gypsy girl sat slumped, her head resting in one hand, hair hanging thick and matted with congealed blood and her disinterested gaze fixed on one half-ripe red apple hanging almost to the ground from a low-hanging branch.

Rolling the Gypsy’s once green coat-sleeve to her shoulder, the junky-nurse deftly tied a soiled red scarf tightly around her limp upper arm, and as the veins begin to show, plunged the cruelly glinting spike into the crook of her arm, waiting for the tell-tale flush of red to tinge the solution before plunging the junk determinedly and irrevocably into her racing blood stream, and removing the make shift tourniquet. As the muscles in her neck and back melt away from the on-rush of the hit, the gypsy collapses backward, arms spread at her side and dead, expressionless eyes fixed on the star-spattered night sky, and the dark oval shape of a multi-coloured hot air balloon hanging low and motionless above the city skyline. The junky-fiend’s scarred and scab-crusted hands close around her knees, slowly inching up to her thighs and under her dress, closing with awful purpose as a single tear flows from the gypsy girl’s unseeing eyes to mingle momentarily with the dark, sluggish blood on her cheek, before dropping unnoticed to the emerald green grass on which she lies.