Free Eighty Days Red by Vina Jackson Page A

travelling by yellow cab in New York, and had lost the energy for carrying instruments on the underground. I had plenty of money saved from my recent tours, and the albums were by now all producing tidy royalty cheques. Susan, my agent, had sent me a few sternly worded emails to find out what I was up to, though I was sure that Simón would have told her that I had moved out and was taking a break for a while.
Truthfully, I’d barely thought of Simón, or New York, since I’d left. I slipped so easily back into my single life in London that the past couple of years were like a dream. I missed him at times, when I thought about it. Missed having someone in my bed next to me, and the security of a full-time relationship, but most of the time I was just relieved to be free.
I thought about Dominik more often, in my waking life and my dreams. I wondered whether he had someone else, a girlfriend, and if he had abandoned his dominant tastes in bed in order to sustain a more regular relationship, as I had, or if he’d found another submissive woman to tie up at night.
    Towards the end of the same week, we found ourselves in another taxi, this time on our way to the Brixton Academy for the actual show. Chris, Ella and Ted had gone ahead several hours earlier to assist with set-up, which was being supervised by Viggo’s band’s road crew, and to carve out enough time for a soundcheck, so it was just Fran and me coming behind.
    Chris had assured me that we had both been invited to the after-party that Viggo was apparently planning to celebrate the opening night of his tour in London. He had rolled his eyes when I quizzed him. ‘What do you think Viggo said when I told him you had a sister over for a visit?’
    ‘Ugh,’ I replied. ‘He can think again if he thinks that’s happening.’
‘I’ll be keeping my eye on both of you.’
‘You’ll be too busy with the three hundred models he’s probably ordered to bring his
    drinks.’
‘You know me better than that. Bikini-clad dancing waitresses aren’t my style.’ Fran laughed and he glanced over at her with a grin.
As Chris and I had first met at the Academy, we both had a lot of affection for the place. It
    was a little gloomy without an audience in it, and the space on the inside was smaller than I remembered. Hard to believe that four thousand people would be crammed in here in a few hours. The sloping floor was covered in stains and smelled like beer, but despite that the building had a grand feeling to it, a sense of history.
    Out front, punters who had been lining up for hours were chatting good-naturedly, drinking cans of beer and smoking cigarettes. A fair few of them, I was gratified to hear, had come to see Groucho Nights. Chris had accumulated quite a following. They stared at Fran and me curiously as we flashed our passes at the burly, uniformed bouncers who were guarding the front doors and we were waved straight through. I’d gone fairly nondescript, in a denim miniskirt and my old cherryred Dr Martens, but Fran drew a lot of attention, determined as she was to prove that she wouldn’t be defeated by the British weather, and despite the cold, she was wearing the shortest pair of high-waisted denim shorts I’d ever seen her in. Her skin had turned almost blue in the chill.
    ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I’ll be thirty soon and I hear it’s all downhill from there. May as well get my legs out while I still can.’
I’d brought my violin with me at Viggo’s request. He hadn’t specified why, but I guessed that he wanted me to play for him at his party, after the show. I felt a little strange about the idea. Dominik had been the only person who I had performed for in that way, but for the sake of the band, if nothing else, I agreed. At least it would keep me in practice, seeing as I didn’t have any gigs lined up. I left the Bailly in the Green Room, which was heavily guarded, but empty for now as The Holy Criminals were in their dressing rooms and Chris, Ella