7. All About Effy

Katie

"So, how's the spying going?" asked Emily.

I watched her cheeky little face bobbing about in the Skype window on my laptop. She had moved in with Naomi Diamond to her glamorous Camden flat, and I could hear the blonde shuffling around in the background. Although a part of me was jealous that I was stuck in some shitty little place in Bristol, I couldn't help but smile at how happy and full of life my sister looked these days. Seems like some models were good for something after all.

"Ok, I guess," I shrugged. "I went over there and met them all. They seem nice."

"Any fit lads?" smirked Emily.

"Just cause you've got sex on the brain twenty-four seven, doesn't mean everyone else has," I huffed back at her.

"I'll take that as a yes then," she grinned back unperturbed.

Sometimes I hate the way that she knows me so well.

"They're all fit," I conceded.

"Must be like paradise, Mata Hari," laughed Ems.

"It's not unpleasant," I replied.

"So what about the head honcho? I heard he was some kind of French genius"

"Half French, and definitely a genius…."

"And…?" prompted Emily, sensing I was holding something back.

"And she's a girl," I admitted.

"That's unusual," said Ems, with a hint of surprise in her voice.

"She's an unusual girl," I replied, unable to stop the corners of my mouth curling up into a smile.

"Is she fit?" asked Emily, her eyes full of mischief.

Moments later a hand came into view, and cuffed her playfully round the head.

"What?" complained Emily. "I'm just saying…"

"I'm glad she's found someone who can keep her in line," I said, knowing that Naomi could hear me."

"Someone has to," said Naomi, bringing her head down next to her girlfriend's, and playfully nipping her ear.

"Well," insisted Emily. "Is she fit?"

"Yes," I conceded. "She's very fit."

"So are you going to be pumping her for information?" smirked Emily. "Or do you need me to do it?"

"Oi!" frowned Naomi.

"I think I've got it covered," I said, to save my sister from another thwack round the head. I knew she was teasing. She was completely smitten by the blonde.

"Katie Fitch," said Emily cheekily. Dammit, I knew she'd pick up on that smile. "Are you going to go all bisexual on my ass again?"

"Again? What?" said an astonished Naomi.

"Bit of a dark horse, is our Katie," laughed Emily. "I'm not the first Fitch to shag a top model, you know."

"Oh my God, who was it?" said Naomi excitedly.

"None of your goddam business, Diamond," I told her, knowing damn well she'd get it out of Emily later by nefarious means, but glad that their attention had been diverted from Effy. No such luck.

"So, does she talk to you in French then?" grinned Emily. "That's got to be sexy."

She was like a fucking terrier with a rat whenever she caught a whiff of me liking a girl. It was my own fault really. My bitchy, idiotic sixteen year old self had given her such a hard time when she first came out, she was entitled to any payback she could get. I remembered the massive confusion that had shaken me to my core when I had first discovered my own feelings for Anna, and I was fucking glad Emily had been there for me in a way I had never been for her. I owed her, but I had to nip this in the bud before she started getting any ideas.

"She's got a boyfriend," I said firmly.

"But you like her," said Naomi, those piercing blue eyes cutting into me even through the low resolution of the webcam, reminding me of… I bit my lip and turned away from the screen for a moment as the thought of Effy's eyes overwhelmed me. The way she would look right into me, even when Freddie was in the room.

"That's got to be interesting," said Naomi.

"No, Katie's honourable," said Emily. "She doesn't do adultery."

"And you do?" said Naomi in alarm.

Emily looked like a rabbit in the headlights. I knew she would never cheat on Naomi, but she hasn't always been so squeaky clean.

"I'd never do that to you," she said urgently, taking her lover's face in her hands. "I love you, baby. You're the only one for me."

She kissed her to prove her point, and as the kiss deepened I knew I would soon be forgotten about. Not wanting to perve on my sister snogging her girlfriend, and knowing where that kiss would lead, I shouted 'bye then'. Emily waved in the vague direction of the screen without stopping for breath, and I knew that their passion would overtake them, and disconnected the call.

I stared at the empty screen for a while. Despite myself I couldn't help thinking about Emily and Naomi's kiss. It was like all their kisses. So sensual, so beautiful, so passionate. It had stopped me in my tracks the first time I had seen them kiss on that balcony in Paris, and it still stunned me every time. It seemed like they really were fucking made for each other, and it made me wonder where the hell I was going wrong. I had had that fire with Anna, but she'd been a cheating fucking bitch. I had had that intimacy with Harry, but he'd been a cheating fucking prick. And then there was that kiss with Effy. Her kiss had eclipsed them all. If I closed my eyes I could still fucking taste it, I could still feel every fragment of its luxurious opulence. The deep sensual fizz of it that curled itself round my very bones and promised me so much more. Until she stopped it, because Effy wasn't a cheating fucking whore. The irony of it drove daggers into my heart. I opened my eyes, and looked at the screen again. Shutting down Skype I was treated to an eyeful of my newest wallpaper. It was an image I'd downloaded from Le Coeur Explosif's website. A beautifully layered shot with red flares at ground level, green crossette candles sparkling above them and topped off with two levels of golden shells bursting across the darkness. It was smart, stunning and emotive, just like its creator. Life was a total cunt sometimes.

.

.

.

"So what's the crack, lovely Katiekins?" said Cook. "You want all my secrets? Come and sit on Uncle Cookie's knee, and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

He patted his leg like he genuinely expected me to go over there.

"I think I'm fine over here thanks," I told him.

"It's alright Katie," he said soothingly. "Just because I've got a massive cock and loads of sexual experience, there's no need to be intimidated. I'll look after ya."

"So first question," I said firmly. "Are you a complete and utter prick or are there occasional moments when you vaguely resemble a human being?"

Cook threw his head back and howled with laughter.

"You're full of fucking fire, Katie Ford," he said. "I love it."

We were sat in his workshop surrounded by his creations. Giant and fantastical sculptures that were itching to be brought to life in fire and light. Flowers, dragons, and aliens sat next to beautiful abstractions that spoke of a man much deeper than the mask I had seen so far. I didn't mind the banter and the flirting, for despite it's apparent crudeness it was done with nothing but good humour, and I could tell that Cook loved to spar. But I found myself surprisingly keen to assume my Katie Ford persona, and talk to him about his art.

"This," I said, sweeping my arm expansively across the massive room. "This is what I want to know about, not how big your sodding cock is. How does a git like you come to be making stuff as wonderful as this?"

"Well it's all down to Effy really," he said.

"How come everything seems to come down to Effy?" I said, before my brain had caught up with my tongue.

"Because it pretty much does," replied Cook, and from his tone I detected I was going to get my first glimpse of the man behind the façade.

"Metalwork at school," he scoffed. "It's where they put all the stupid boys, the boys who won't behave themselves, the boys they don't think are good enough for anything else. It's supposed to keep you quiet making stupid bits of furniture or mending cars until you are old enough for them to get rid of you. But it did something else entirely for me. I fucking loved it, you know, getting my hands dirty and making something out of nothing. I used to stay there after school and practice with the welder, just picking up all the old bits of metal and putting them together in any odd old shape I could. I just wanted to make it perfect, I mean welding is an art, man. Anybody can do it crudely, but there's an art to making it beautiful. The mixtures of the gases, the deftness of your touch, you gotta be fucking subtle, know what I mean?"

"I never knew there was so much to it," I said.

I had seen guys welding stuff back at Dad's place, but I had never heard anyone talk about it with such love.

"Let me show you something," said Cook, standing up and reaching out his hand.

"As long as it's not your cock," I said dubiously.

"No, it's my heart," he laughed. "Well, Effy's heart to be more precise."

This I had to fucking see.

He led me across the workshop to the back corner, where there was a little room partitioned off. Inside there was a sofa, a desk, a tv with a playstation, and a filing cabinet.

"My little bolt hole," said Cook. "My escape from the big bad world."

He grabbed a sculpture from the top of the filing cabinet and placed it on the desk.

"This is the first thing I ever made that was for me," he said. "Just after me and Freddie met Effy."

The piece was about half a metre tall made from bits of steel rod about half a centimetre thick. The rod curled round to make a stable base, and then drove upwards to form a two dimensional heart. From the centre of the heart another series of rods drove outwards in all directions with explosive intensity as if the heart could not contain the fever that burned inside it. It was a simple motif but it was dynamic and surprisingly eloquent. Instinctively I reached out to touch it, as if the contact could connect me directly to that force, but stopped before I got there realising I didn't have permission.

"It's ok," said Cook. "You're not going to break it. It's tough. Just like she is."

I let my fingers trail across the metal, and felt a forbidden thrill as if I was touching her by touching the image she'd inspired.

"You didn't give it to her?" I asked.

"Like I said, it wasn't for her. It was for me," he answered. "It was like I saw her and then I saw this in my head. It was like I had to make it. I went for lessons one time, and instead of working on a stupid table frame, I gathered loads of scrap from the workshop floor. I didn't really plan it. I just sort of let it happen as I made it. I got a bollocking from the teacher, but I didn't care. I knew I'd made something good, and I got a fucking buzz off it."

"Did you show it to her?" I asked.

"Not at first," he said. "But it was like I'd opened some kind of tap or something. After that I just couldn't stop the ideas coming. The dicksplash that ran our class kept getting on my case, so I nicked one of the welders from school and started making stuff in the backyard at home."

"You nicked a fucking welder?" I said.

"I was young," shrugged Cook. "I was already labelled a useless cunt and I couldn't give a fuck. The only thing I cared about was making stuff, even if I didn't know what it was for."

"You didn't come from an artistic background?"

"Nah," laughed Cook. "I came from a useless fuck background. Art was just something posh people did. It wasn't until Effy saw my stuff that it even occurred to me I was doing it too. I was all set to leave school and become a useless waste of space like my Dad, but Effy kind of became my champion. She took on the school and got me transferred to an art class. She taught me how to talk about it, but in a way that was true to my own voice. She made me go to sixth form college with her, and gave me the confidence to apply to art school. By the time she went away, I was a different guy from the one she met, and I'll never forget her for it."

"Wow," I said, in genuine admiration.

"It was the same for all of us," said Cook. "We were fifteen and in our last year of middle school when she gatecrashed into our lives and for the next three years she wreaked havoc over them, but not one of us would give her up for the world. Me and Freds already knew each other, but she found Thomas on the street. He'd only just gotten here from the Congo, but he'd already been beaten to crap and robbed by some racist knobbers. He was a scrawny little thing in them days, and his English wasn't that good. He must have thought she was an angel from fucking heaven when she found him and spoke to him in his own language. She took him to the hospital and then she took him home, even made Anthea and Jim take him in for a while, till he could get on his feet. Thommo's a survivor though, a gifted little bugger too, but again it was Effy that made it all happen for him."

"So is she actually an angel fallen down from heaven?" I said, shaking my head. These stories of Effy the teenage philanthropist were starting to make me swoon. How did she get to be so fucking perfect?

"Closest thing you'd get to one, I'd reckon," said Cook. "Though the fallen part is probably as important as the angel part.

"How so?" I asked, intrigued.

"Effy has a dark side," he replied.

"Everyone has a dark side," I countered, knowing that mine usually resulted in fists colliding with faces.

"Yeah well, some people's dark sides are just light grey, whereas others..." he trailed off, and I could sense he was wary of exposing his friend. I stared at him awaiting elaboration, but none was forthcoming.

"She's a good person, Katie," he said. "Strong, intelligent, beautiful, driven. She seems to have a knack of bringing out the best in people. She's so fucking talented, and beneath that cool ass mask of hers she's one of the most altruistic people I know. She always seems to be able to see the good in others, even if she can't see it in herself."

"Really?" I said, inquisitively. The Effy I'd encountered had always seemed so sure of herself.

"And on top of all that, she's a mint fucking shag," smirked Cook.

"And you would know this how?" I said sternly, squirming inwardly at the thought of Freddie bragging about sex with Effy to his mates.

"Because I fucked her," grinned Cook smugly, as though he was just telling me he'd won an Olympic gold.

It was a suckerpunch that forced all the air from my lungs. Cook had fucked her. Cook had fucked my Effy

"What?" said Cook cheekily in response to my obvious speechlessness. "You don't see something that beautiful without at least trying to have a go now, do you?"

He had me there. I had definitely tried to have a go myself, but she had rejected me. Why the fuck had she fucked Cook?"

"You fucked your mate's girl?" I said incredulously.

"They weren't together back then," Cook assured me. "That was a long time coming."

"Were you in love with her?" I asked, my eyes flicking back to the heart on the table.

"Nah," said Cook. "Well maybe a little, but there didn't really seem much point."

"Because of Freddie?" I asked.

"Not exactly," Cook laughed to himself.

An uneasy silence fell between us then. Cook seemed to drift off back into some distant memory, and I was desperately trying to flush away the images of him and Effy together that insisted on stamping themselves across my consciousness. For some reason they were far more vital than anything my brain could throw up for her and Freddie. I had no trouble at all in imagining an aggressive physical passion between Effy and Cook, and it burned me until it felt like it was stripping away my very flesh. My brain knew that she was not and could never be mine, but my heart seemed to have already staked an ownership without my consent, and my jealousy was drawing nails down the blackboard of my soul. It took a superhuman effort not to turn and run out of the building, but I couldn't risk exposing myself. It wasn't Cook's fault. He couldn't know that his natural pride in nailing a hot girl was shredding my guts where I stood. Just as the hot-blooded fury that was Katie Fitch was threatening to make an appearance, I remembered my alter-ego, and mild-mannered art loving Katie Ford stepped back into the room.

"So how did you get here?" I asked, wandering back out into the main space. "How did a bunch of teenage tearaways become Le Coeur Explosif?"

"That was a long time coming too," said Cook. "Effy's parents broke up when she was just eighteen. Her brother Tony stayed here cause he was already at university, but Effy ended up going back to France with her Mum."

"That must have been hard for you," I said.

"It was a fucking blessing in disguise," said Cook. "I'm not sure she would have survived without it."

"What?" I said in alarm.

Cook looked at me guiltily, as if he had let way too much slip.

"Maybe I should just shut the fuck up now," he said.

Jesus Christ no, I couldn't let him stop there. I had to find a way to make him trust me.

"It's ok," I said reaching over and putting my hand on his arm. "I'm writing an academic paper, not a tabloid exposé. I would never do anything to hurt Effy."

I stared at him with my very best Puss in Boots eyes, hoping could see the sincerity in them, because despite all of my other lies what I had just said was true. I would never do anything to hurt Effy. I fucking couldn't. It would destroy me. I could almost see the cogs turning in Cook's head, as he tried to figure out if he should continue. It seemed as if he really wanted to, as if this was something he had wanted to get off his chest for a while, but still he hesitated. I wasn't particularly proud of what I did next, but it had been my tried and tested method of getting what I wanted for years now. I stepped away from him as if I was relinquishing my hold, but I simply found the nearest work surface and leaned down over it, resting on my elbows and offering him the most fabulous view down my top. I watched his eyes slide down from my face to my chest, and he took a deep breath. It seemed that for Cook, like for most men, having mint tits was a sure fire indicator of your trustworthiness.

"Effy was in a bad way," he said. "Though she'd somehow managed to push three of the most unworthy lads towards decent grades and a chance at a better education, she had also somehow managed to completely cock up her own. Something was eating away at her, and it was sending her over the edge. Most people wanted to blame it on the tension between her parents, but I think there was something more, and I don't think we were doing anything to help her. She was drinking, she was taking shit loads of drugs."

"She still drinks and takes shit loads of drugs," I said, remembering our night at the Old Library.

"No, I'm talking stupid amounts of drugs," insisted Cook. "She was off her fucking head every day, and drinking neat vodka like it was water. Of course we were all still young and stupid, and most people just seemed to build up this dumb fucking cult around her. They thought she was badass. They fucking admired the fact that she was so much wilder than the rest of them, like she was some fucking rockstar destined to wake up in a pile of her own vomit. They totally bought into the mysterious fucking cool shit. But some of the things she was doing… It was painful to watch, man. Like she had found a whole room of self-destruct buttons and pressed them all at once. If Anthea hadn't taken her away when she did…"

Cook looked at me seriously, leaving the implications to my own imagination.

"But she's ok now?" I asked tentatively.

"Three years later, we got the boys back together, having a big celebration that we'd all somehow managed to graduate. We were in our old pub, sinking beers and trying to work out what to do next with our lives. Freddie suggested that we form a band. He was always coming up with daft schemes to keep the group together. I think he kind of viewed it as Effy's legacy. We were debating what we should call ourselves, when we heard the most beautiful sound. It was her, telling us that being a band was the fucking lamest thing she'd ever heard and that only Thommo had any musical talent out of the lot of us. I think every last one of us spilled our pints in surprise. We had invited her on Facebook, but we'd never expected her to turn up out of the blue like that. She looked stunning. Grown up, mature, but most of all in control. There was a fire in her eyes that I hadn't seen in a long time. We'd got our angel back."

There was pure pride in Cook's eyes as he spoke. If nothing else, Effy was capable of inspiring intense loyalty. He loved her, and had done so for years.

"So Freds asked her if a band was so lame did she have any better ideas. 'Yes,' she said, drawing up a chair and downing the rest of his pint for him. 'I think we should become a pyrotechnics company.' It turned out she was serious, and we stayed up the whole of the fucking night just buzzing off it. Took us another four years to get it together though. We worked at shitty jobs to raise the money. We all went off to hassle other pyro companies for work experience. It was a slog, but now that Effy was back, it was like the Muse had struck us all again. She was so fucking certain, she just kept us all going, even when she got the chance with Groupe TLC, and fucked off to France again. Me and the lads started doing smaller gigs with the fire sculptures and that, and starting to make inroads into the scene. She started coming back between TLC stuff to do shows with us, until finally we managed to land that Mayfest gig with Maxxie, and that was enough to bring her back for good. And here we are, finally living the fucking dream."

"Harsh times to be starting a new business in," I stated.

"You've got to fucking believe, man," said Cook. "If you don't have that, what the fuck have you got?"

Yeah, Katie what the fuck have you got? I looked at the man in front of me and realised he was the embodiment of happiness. However uncertain the future might be, he had his Muse and his dreams to inspire him. I had pissed on my dreams, and now all I had was an obsessional crush on a woman I could never have.

"So what did she do for Freddie?" I asked Cook.

"Say what?" he asked in reply.

"Well she gave you your art, she gave Thomas his start in this country," I said. "What did she do for Freddie?"

"Let him love her I suppose," smiled Cook casually. "Finally stopped being such a complete fucking whore."

I felt my face flush and my eyes widen in surprise. His words might have been harsh, but they were laced with nothing but affection.

"A whore?" I said nervously.

"A complete and fucking whore," grinned Cook. "How else do you think I got a look in? She could have anyone she wanted, and trust me, she fucking well did. Told you she had a dark side, well the girl was a fucking animal."

"Oh," I said breathlessly.

"Freds pretty much fell in love with her the day he laid eyes on her, but Effy was having none of it. Effy was a huntress, and he just wanted to lay down and die for her. Effy wanted the thrill of the chase. We had some times, me and her, heading off into the night with one thing on our minds. Well two things actually, getting laid and getting wasted, and we were very good at both of them. I mean, we were always her boys, but the trails of heartbroken men she left behind her, everyone of them hoping they could be the man to tame her. But there was no taming Effy, man. She was fucking feral, and she loved fucking sex. It wasn't just blokes either. Jesus, there were times when I thought she got more pussy than I did. Some nights she'd let me share though, and that was fucking sweet. Good times, Katie. Good times."

Oh great, now I would have to try and cope with the mental image of Effy and Cook in a threesome. This history lesson was beginning to look like a seriously bad move on my part, but still I couldn't let it lie.

"So what the fuck happened?" I said, barely controlling my emotions. "I mean they seem really together."

"No one really knows," shrugged Cook. "One day Freddie came back from visiting her in France with the biggest fucking smile on his face, and declaring that he and Effy were finally together. I mean Thommo and I didn't believe it. We thought she'd just eventually relented and given him a pity shag, and she'd be back fucking half of France before his plane had even taken off. But it turned out it was for real. I think she might have had one or two lapses in the early days, but after that she was playing the good girlfriend."

Is that what she was doing? Playing?

"What made her change her mind?" I said.

"I don't know," laughed Cook. "He'd been trying to get in her pants for eight fucking years. Maybe he just wore her down in the end."

This new information was like a fucking lit match in the pyro store of my heart. I had tried to wrap everything in steel based on the evidence that Effy was a good girlfriend who loved her man, and that whatever had happened between us was a momentary lapse in judgement at best. But Cook had sneaked under my radar with an incendiary device, and now one wrong move would set off a chain reaction of fatally dangerous detonation. So who was the real Effy? The good girlfriend or the complete fucking whore? And which one of them had kissed me that night? The good girlfriend who could have loved me if we had met when she was free? Or the sexual animal who was simply reverting to type? Was I a fool for thinking I had felt something more than either of those things? Now that I knew that the good girlfriend was Effy in chains, did I want to keep her there, or did I want to release her? Could I handle the consequences if I did? But in the end my foolish heart pushed me toward the only question that really seemed to matter to me any more.

"Is she happy?" I asked Cook, no longer trying to hide the fact that this whole fucking conversation had been all about Effy.

"She says she is," he said, in a tone that made me think he doubted it. "Sometimes I think she's only ever truly happy when she's got her finger on the firing button."

"Hardly grand passion then, is it?" I said involuntarily.

"I'm not entirely sure she's capable of it," said Cook.

I thought back to the sculpture he kept hidden in his private den. You are lying Mr Cook, I thought. You have seen her explosive heart.