Author's Note: I freely admit that I don't know the geography involved in getting from Napoly to Soho. I pitched it at a short walking distance for my convenience. I don't mind being corrected, however, and I will be grateful for any objective critiquing of this work to make it better.
Author's Note2: I know it's a bit analogical in places, but I'm trying to keep in touch with the narrative style of the movie. Apologies if I'm not very good at it.
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"Oh, come on, Colin! Aren't you happy for me?" Suzette was shining in a way she hadn't done for so many months, smiling and sparkling in her best dress and her hair lush around her face. "We could do with the money, you know."
Colin shook his head as he tightened his arms around his girl. "Never mind the money, luv," he whispered, "It's great. It's what you always wanted. I'm… beyond happy for you! I'm ecstatic!"
He grabbed her up and whirled her around until she shrieked, putting her down and then dragging her to the door. "Let's celebrate," he exclaimed.
"Colin, no! You have work tomorrow and- and we really don't have the money right now, we…" Suzette sighed and shook her head. "Well, alright. But only for a little while!"
Colin whooped and dragged her out the door. She laughed out loud as they ran down the stairs and out into Napoly. The lanes were closed up and the young people had come to life. Two girls in new dresses and coy make-up waved at them in exhilaration as they trotted in the same direction, heels clicking deliciously against the streets.
Colin almost reached for his camera before he realized that he didn't have it.
Never mind. He hadn't taken a picture in weeks! What difference would one more night make?
"Come on, Colin! Cool's playing at the Glass House," Suzette squealed, "And he told me they've got a whole new sound lined up. It's bigger than ever!"
"And better than ever," Colin tossed back.
"And louder than ever," Suzette shouted.
She seemed to be free for the first time in months. Scarlet scarf knotted around her neck and scarlet skirt swinging around her legs. How she managed to run in those shoes Colin couldn't understand. But she could, and she did. He ran with her, loping along beside her just because they were young and they felt the world within their grasp.
It was escaping! Colin reached for it, snatched at it, tried to pin it down even when he didn't quite know what 'it' really was.
But he was confident that 'it' meant having Suzette there and she was there- right there beside him. And tonight… Colin thought of the end of the night when he would take her home and make love to her by the dawn light. A glowing fantasy come true.
"Colin, hurry up!"
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying." He caught her and pulled her to a slow stop. "Why are we hurrying?"
"Because I can hear the music call," she answered dreamily, "And we've got to dance our dreams away."
She made to run away again but Colin caught her tighter and drew her to a standstill.
"It's right here, baby," he pointed out, "We've got our dreams right here."
They were so close. He could kiss her, he knew he could. He certainly wanted to! And this was Soho, so no one would mind. No one would look twice. It happened all the time in Soho.
"Well, what about the music?" she teased.
Colin perked his head up and cast a look around. A bar door opened as someone was evicted- even so early in the evening- and the raucous sounds of singing came from within. "There's your music, luv," he chuckled, jerking his chin to the shouting publican and shouted song, "A regular symphony."
"More like a cacophony," she sniffed, untangled herself from his grasp with mock aloofness. The allure of something beyond his reach. And then she grinned and took off again, tugging her scarf off and waving it behind her as if to tempt him on.
The game of chase was juvenile; a child's game in a world of adult vice. But Colin felt safe enough in Soho. Anything happened over there and there'd be half-a-dozen burly men right there, willing to back you up if it meant they could wade straight into a fight with fists flying.
They dodged through stores, upsetting a table and streaking through a crowd of students with a shriek of mockery, running into alleyways where people loomed from the shadows and melted back into the corners again. A few blackened and burned places still remained, a haunting legacy of what had gone before. But the excitement was back and the world had no time for nostalgic memories when it was being reborn.
"Coo-ee!"
They pulled up short only when Big Jill hailed them from across the street, bouncing up and down in excitement to see them. She was always excited, Big Jill. There was always something new in the world for her.
"Colin, where've you been?" she demanded, "Ah, have you been to the Glass House? Our little songbird's there still," she tempted.
Suzette looked highly amused and poked her lover in the ribs. "What's all this about a songbird, Colin?"
"Nothing, luv, I swear. Jill?" he prompted.
The woman sniggered at him and tapped the side of her nose. "Be off, children," she laughed gaily, fluttering maddening hands at them, "Run away."
Colin took Suzette's hand and walked with her the rest of the way, catching their breath and exclaiming about nothing. And all around them new characters were beginning to come to life. By the next summer, another group of Beginners would make their way to Soho and they would meet another Wizard and another Cool and another Dean and…
Speaking of Dean.
"Colin." The older man simply oozed suavity.
"Dean."
Suzette said something appropriate that pulled a smile from that granite face. They left him there, waiting at the entrance to the club with the green door.
"Whaddya want?" came the garrulous query as they tapped on the door.
"We're friends of the Cool's," Suzette said quickly.
The door opened and they went in, instantly swamped with the noise and damp and dark gleam. The band was in full swing at this late hour of the evening and Dorothea was right there with them, swaying right there below the stage, eyes fixed on Cool's trumpet.
"This time you aren't late, Colin," Suzette teased, spinning away into the thick of the dancers with a delicious squeak of rapture.
Colin followed her for a while, but he wasn't much of a dancer. It was alright for him but he left his girl there to dance to her heart's content while he found himself standing against a wall, watching her.
Her new job wasn't much, that was true. She was working with a new company, one that had barely begun. But they wanted her to model their clothes and the money was good. Colin was happy for her. It gave her enough without drowning her. And she was so excited!
"Imagine, Colin! A whole clothing store just for us, where we can buy clothes that we want to buy. Not those horrible old stiff things anymore, but proper clothes. Nice clothes." She'd been over the moon to be asked to do it.
"Cigarette?"
Colin started and whipped his head to the side, half-fancying that the drawling voice belonged to a certain blond he had no wish to see ever again. But Dean only raised an eyebrow and proffered the packet again. Colin took one hesitantly and Dean lit it for him.
"She's a pretty girl," the man commented.
"Suze? She's great."
Dean said nothing for a while and then Colin suddenly found cool fingers slipping something into his hand. "What the hell? What's this?" He counted out money. A lot of money!
"Figured I owed you," Dean murmured, "A little payback, so to speak."
"Look, I don't need you to pay me…"
"I'm paying my debts, Colin." Dean wasn't backing down. "Take the money."
Colin looked from the averted profile to the notes in his hand. Dean was paying off the little bits of cash that Colin had laughingly thrown his way. An expensive habit, the other man had. He barely had enough cash to sustain it by himself, let alone to pay off his 'debts'. Where had this come from? And anyway, what was a little money between friends?
Dean left as suddenly as he had appeared, gliding fluidly through the crowd until Colin strained his eyes to see the black-suited figure in the moving crowd of people. Suzette pulled him back to dance with her for a while and he forgot for the longest moment that there was anything suspect about any of it.
Until he looked up one moment and found Dean with the Misery Kid in his skeleton suit, the two talking intimately in a dark corner where no one could see them. The Kid put a hand on Dean's shoulder, as if expressing some kind of sympathy. But there was something different about that gesture.
Colin thought about it for a little while.
And then the hand crept up and touched Dean's cheek and he knew exactly what he was witnessing and he turned away very quickly to give them some privacy.
Suzette spun into his arms and, for the briefest of moments, he imagined the lithe pliability of another sweat-slick body in the circle of his arms. It vanished as suddenly as it had come, but the taste of Dean's cigarette lingered on his tongue for a long time.