The Ward by S.L. Grey

Author:S.L. Grey [Grey, S.L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780857895875
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

FARRELL

The first time I shot Katya was the second time we met. It was the morning after the Fashion Week wrap party and I was lying on someone’s floor, battling a monster hangover. I’d noticed her the night before of course, shared a couple of glances, assumed she’d left with a posse of coke-fuelled agency girls. But when I woke up, there she was, picking her way over the other party casualties in her stiletto boots and her short skirt, the crochet flounce tilted just right over her shoulder; perfectly polished, ready for the catwalk, ready for me.

I hoisted myself up, leaned on my elbow, retrieved my camera from under the couch and pointed it at her. She looked down at me and smiled with that Jane Birkin freshness, not a hint of coy, none of that ‘Oh, I’m not ready’ bullshit that so many models or wannabe actors pass off. I was hooked. Katya was always ready, and she knew exactly what her strengths were.

At that time she was getting by on catalogue shoots, the odd advert. She knew she didn’t have the current look – she wasn’t gamine, tattooed, half-starved – and she didn’t care. She knew she’d make it eventually, because she had what the other girls lacked: pure confidence. And not just the confidence that comes from drugs or alcohol or cash. Even before she fell in with Noli and those other coke-snuffling bitches, she had it. She knew she was beautiful, knew she was capable of projecting every man’s fantasies, and all the while making him feel – even though he was looking at her in a magazine – that she was smiling only at him.

Katya was a photographer’s dream, and she let me in, let me get close to the real thing, the real smile, the real touch, the real mornings after… She was my dream.

The blunt push of a baton in my back snaps me back into the present. My knuckles are aching from punching that bathroom wall. My muscles are cramping all over and my entire body is a knot of fire.

‘Farrell, come on, you’ve got to…’ She puts her hand on my shoulder.

‘Don’t you fucking touch me, you freak!’ I bellow at her.

She cowers like a dog expecting to be kicked, and hangs back, shuffling along behind me. The security man – the patrol – herds us along the corridor back to the lifts. I can’t turn to look at her. My mind is seared with that hideous image, and I’ll never be able to delete it.

If she’s wearing Katya’s face, what the fuck have they done to Katya?

It was the right decision to go back to the waiting room and let that girl call the patrol. At that moment it was either that, or I’d have fucking killed Lisa. She took off that mask, and… I can’t say it. I can’t make the words happen in my head. Those lips I’d kissed a thousand times, the flawless cheeks I’d run my fingers over, that trademark nose.

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