The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Fabulous Flower

Charlie removed his tailcoat and untucked his shirt, closing his eye to the last gasp of summer's glory washing his face, cooling quickly in the September air.
'I heard he uses the apparatuses as a brewery,' Iggy was saying, but Chance was barely listening. 'Judging by the amount of times I had to correct the blooming imbecile, the swig of rum in his mug must have addled his brains; he almost created a chemical reaction that would've turned Eton and Windsor into Hiroshima and Nagasaki!'
'Backs to the walls quick, boys,' Mark McElderry yelled. 'Perkins is coming through!'
Ahead, a group of boys rushed to press against the shop windows, heckling, laughing, and shoving one another towards Iggy.
'Are you calling my love a sexual deviant?' a girl chastised, hanging from the open door of a limousine as it pulled onto the kerb pumping "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes out of the windows. Sweeping back Brigitte-Bardot-blonde hair that tumbled to her ribs as creamily as a dream, she put a pastel-coloured cigarette to her lips like a lover. 'You poor fools, that only strengthens his glamour.'
The willowy sex kitten immediately evoked rampant lust from the other Etonians, causing slobbering tongues to slither out of gaping mouths like throbbing slugs. Startled, the boys rearranged their postures into cool poses. Charlie couldn't quite blame them as she was currently the youngest and most attractive female about—probably in all of Berkshire for that matter, if not further—and the boys rarely made contact with the opposite sex; when they did, they were usually older, priggish, unfortunate looking, or as sexless as their pillows. There was Wycombe Abbey in High Wycombe—which the girl in question was an ex-student of—but interactions between both boarding schools were infrequent. Furthermore, this girl was an extraordinary beauty.
The bodacious babe crossed her arms on the frame of the door to rest her chin, bunching her pale pink mink fur coat against the glass and exposing a provocative milky thigh underneath a risqué white lace shift and periwinkle netted tights, holes torn through them like a blitz. Fixing her femme-fatale emerald eyes on the other boys, she stepped out. 'Conrad, shoot the swots.'
When the driver caused the town car to backfire, they scrammed through alleyways like rats fleeing the cat.
Gold necklaces swung around her neck, propelled by the sultry shake of her hips as she sashayed towards them with one hand latched onto her hip, legs strutting and haunches jutting to muster the same panache she'd mastered on runways, a pair of silver platform stilettos flashing like slashing knives.
Trouble, troubler, troubled Seraphina Imogen Rose, a quadruple axel on ice.
'Darlings!' Throwing her head back to cackle, Seraphina flung jingling arms around their necks and pressed bejewelled fingers and red kisses to their cheeks. 'It has been an absolute lifetime!'
'If there ever comes a day when I'm desperate enough to invite McElderry into my bed, you'll find me floating face-first down the Thames.' Iggy humphed, choking on enough citric perfume to put the smoke bombs of a riot squad to shame. 'He stinks of soggy bread.'
'How do you always show up at the most convenient time?' Charlie asked her.
Moneymaking cheekbones rose, sharp enough to cut a man's throat, and Seraphina purred, 'Rather scandalously, I'd imagine. Now, into the car with you; I'm staying over at the Macdonald Windsor Hotel under the name Marguerite Alibert.'
Seraphina dealt out multicoloured cigarettes as they entered the (for her standards) modest penthouse. Crossing to the brief balcony of the executive suite, which offered a splendid view of Windsor Castle, she cast the pink fur coat into an armchair and dipped a hand into the chest of her dress (when Iggy mentioned the virginal colour, she flashed a cheeky glimpse of her black-as-sin underwear underneath) to remove a long cigarette holder. When Perkins caught wind of this, he rifled through his breast pocket to retrieve his own much shorter black holder, one that she'd given to him on the day they'd met.
'Oh, my darlings, have you had an absolute dream of a summer?' she asked, throwing herself onto the bed. With her head resting on a hand, she draped the other across her hip as if she was posing for a painting. Born on a leap day, Seraphina Imogen Rose resurfaced just as rarely as the 29th of February. 'Has it honestly been a century and a half since I saw you last?'
It had, in fact, been two months since they'd seen Seraphina for the first and last time: she was on her way back from a party in Soho to stay with relatives in Eton because (if Charlie hadn't misheard her) a friend had abandoned her in Bethnal Green. Eyes like two piss-holes in the snow, she'd woke and rose from her seat to ask them, 'I don't suppose you know where this train goes?'
'You'll come with me next time, won't you? I feel like I haven't had my feet on the ground since June—runways, covers, and centrefolds galore! I was even able to use a picture of myself on the back of a posh magazine as a passport. Oh, the wonders and the bores. Kit was there in Paris, a cheeky photographer I knew in another life. You simply must come with me next time; we'd have such a scream of a time. If only you weren't so imprisoned by this ... this'—her hand circled as she searched for the word, wisps of smoke spiralling towards the ceiling—'oppressive academia that only strives to chew up and spit out the downtrodden socialite, I'd find posing on a tropical beach much less tedious with you two delights around. Again, I urge you to do what I did: get expelled from that clone factory.'
As he made cocktails by the hotel minibar, Charlie wondered just how sincere she was about travelling together as she seemed apt to forget such promises and prone to vanishing in the middle of the night like a visiting ghost; she had written her telephone number on the back of a cigarette packet on that journey from London to Slough, but she was never on the other side of the line any time Iggy rang.
'I met a man on my adventures: the baron of a cartel named Judas Ghorbani. Judas, you called him. Isn't that a tickler?' she drawled, drawing deep on her cigarette. 'I shrieked with laughter for about a week after I denied him three times, but he didn't find it so funny when I forged him a noose out of Egyptian cotton bedsheets.'
Whilst Iggy distracted them both by talking about his holiday to Mykonos for his archaeologist father to excavate the Aegean Sea and unearth a lost Roman statue from the seabed, Charlie swallowed his Long Island Iced Tea in one large gulp and fixed himself another. Sometimes, it could be strenuous to keep up with Seraphina's pace; she often spoke as though she was in a hurry, as if she had somewhere else to be and just had a moment to spare. Her words, grated through clenched teeth, were accompanied by exaggerated hand gestures that flapped around her head like she was whacking away a kit of pigeons, face tilting consciously towards the sun as though she was posing for a photographer configuring a camera like a sniper's rifle on the terraces opposite. Regardless of their vacationing in Greece and Italy for the season, it still wouldn't compare with her extravagant jamborees in exotic countries with lofty madcaps, lavish fabrics, luxurious dining and drinks, and all the more foreign terrains. Even her little British adventures were more unconventional than theirs: in June, she'd spoken of an ex-boyfriend, a nihilist, who she suspected was a potential overdose in an overcoat.
'Judas ditched his Bollywood hag mere seconds after setting eyes on me by the fountain during a wine-tasting event in Sforza Castle in Milan. It was only a matter of time; the crow's feet around her eyes were sprouting feathers.' Blowing Charlie a kiss, Seraphina used the same fingers to take a cocktail from him. 'Much obliged, my little cherub. Listen, you have not yet lived, sweetie, until you've sipped angel-sweet Moët champagne whilst standing as naked as the day you were born by a balustrade overlooking a vineyard during a Saint-Tropez sunset and then made love on the balcony of the château in the sunrise.' Knee-deep in memories, Seraphina turned to the sunlight and closed her eyes, wiggling her nose fondly as her tongue swiped along her bottom lip before she smothered it with her top one a second later. 'Judas was as tall, dark, and handsome as a fortune teller's dream. A nouveau riche of Persian descent. Oh, the things he knew, and the things we taught one another; if only a writer could experience it, they would understand what true love and lust truly were when they are a tryst—and their novel would simply sell a fuckload of copies. Alas, there are just some sensual things that cannot ever be properly put into words.'
'What's that?' Iggy pointed towards a rectangular item wrapped in brown paper by the door.
'I suspect it's me,' Seraphina said quietly, withdrawing behind a vacant stare as soon as she looked towards the package resting against her luggage. A moment later, she lit with life again and snapped around towards the boys. 'I found the artwork waiting for me in Paris when I returned, and so I decided to take it home with me. Darlings, you ought to be painted unclothed by a lover—there's nothing like it that is as existential.'
'Surely you're not serious?' Iggy asked.
Pointing her eyebrows towards him and raising her shoulder, she replied, 'I am.'
'But what did you mean by it?'
'I've no idea; I'm sobering up.' She arched her back. 'Pretend it was something profound.'
Like all the other boys, Iggy was almost salivating from the mouth at the sight of her, but he ogled her in awe. Although only seventeen, her outlandish exploits propelled her years ahead into precociousness and unparalleled wisdom. However, gorgeous as she may be, Charlie found that the most charming thing about her was that she laughed and drank like a bloke—that, and sometimes a comical cockney accent slipped out of her like a burp.
One day. As he watched the boy mimic her like a child would a mother, which seemed fitting as it was she who'd christened him with his nickname, Charlie thought, One day, I'm going to lose contact with Iggy. And one day, I'll return to Eton, where it all began, to meet him for a drink in the Crown & Cushion. A blonde bombshell will enter, bouffant hair perfectly coifed into a beehive, wearing large black sunglasses, cherry-coloured tights, silver heels and a silver dress, and a baby blue fur coat. She'll approach my table and tell me his name is Iggy—or was, if they haven't adopted one of the many aliases Rose had once used.
'I've since been exchanging letters with a rather dashing prince called Dimitri del Rio. He tried profusely to court me in Paris, and proceeded to do so all the way to Versailles and Saint-Tropez. Persistent little bugger, he was,' Seraphina continued, flicking ash onto the carpet by sweeping her hand through the air. 'My Persian was simply gaga for me and it started to nauseate, but some measly sense of moral weaselled out of me and I couldn't scorn either of them—that is to say, not whilst the baron was in the villa, anyway. And so, once Judas visited Transylvania to deal with some business concerning a Romanian monarch, a kidnapped foreign diplomat, a sacred goat, two mimes trapped in a box, and a conspiracy involving a murdered Tsar—don't quote me on that; it might just be translated incorrectly as my Farsi isn't impeccable—Dimitri, Alejandro, and I quickly departed from Saint-Tropez so that I could be undressed by royalty.' Seraphina cackled wickedly at the ceiling as she smushed her cigarette into a saucer, revelling in her own daredevilry. 'Oh, Mother would just simply die of shame if she came to know of how much of an old whore I've become!'
Momentarily, as he slumped into an armchair, Charlie debated whether they were invited up because she enjoyed their company or if they were there specifically to feed her egotism.
'Alas, I had to pop back into England much sooner than I'd planned. Further alas, as they say, all good things must come to end. Nothing lasts forever, sweetie, but I think that's a gorgeous philosophy as too much goodness only sours. Leave them with a lasting memory to remember you by, that's what I say.' Seraphina's eyes widened with excitement like two large bulbs bursting into life. 'Oh, my darlings, and your love lives? Have you simply been wearing beds to the bone over in that all-you-can-eat buffet since?' Lighting a peach-coloured cigarette, she clenched it between her teeth and popped the cork off a bottle of champagne to let foam fizz over her fingers. 'Cor!'
'Well, I'm not averse to an occasional dalliance with a prefect from Cotton Hall House to scratch an itch,' said Iggy, 'but that's about it, really.'
'Fabulous. Marvellous. I adore it. Lovers with expiration dates are much less hassle, don't you think, darling? Much like reading a book, it's only a matter of hours before you reach the final page and replace it back onto the bookshelf with no intentions of ever revisiting that ink again.' She shook her head disapprovingly, a dark eyelid fluttering dramatically like a trapped butterfly. 'And you, my Charlie? Have you still managed to remain as virtuous as possible?'
'That might as well be an appendix he has in his underpants as it's just as useless, if that's what you mean,' Iggy remarked. To Charlie, he added, 'I'm sorry, but you're going to shrivel up like perished fruit one day and I need to make you aware of that.'
'Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! Just what are we going to do with you?' She sighed sympathetically. 'You cannot wait for life to come to you, sweetie, or you'll be standing at that station evermore and watch as all the other passengers board to fill the carriages. Remove that chastity belt and seize life by the balls—quite literally, if you must. Show them what you've got, Charlie boy. The cost of being free isn't expensive, sweet soul, but your life will be the currency paid if you become imprisoned by your regrets. When you dare death to come, let your swan song be fond laughter rather than a rueful cry. Open your eyes, my love; you have been sleeping much too long, and it is time for you to wake up.'
'What are you, a virginal maiden who wants to remain unsullied for an arranged husband?' Iggy tutted. 'Those medieval times have came and went, dear; you're not going to be condemned as a witch for making a funfair out of the human body.'
'If it's of your own prerogative to keep it secret and sacred, as it is a gift that only your will can offer wholeheartedly, then so be it; I support you just as wholeheartedly. However, don't come crying to me if retaining your purity results in you being used as a human sacrifice for ancient pagan gods,' Seraphina commented, filling his glass with champagne. 'Lord knows I've had my fair share of run-ins with Aztec priests and priestesses who tried to offer me up as a ritualistic slaughter to their archaic gods due to my overwhelming beauty. Oh, the sense of peace the hideous must endure.'
'I don't want to unbutton and unbuckle just to satisfy a craving.' To loosen his heart, Charlie drained the glass and Seraphina refilled it. 'Shouldn't I know their heart? Have pondered their mind? Witnessed their soul being exposed at least once? Wondered what happiness lit their cheeks, what sadness wetted their lashes beforehand? To me, for them to be nothing more than anonymous warm flesh seems a depravity. But you're both wrong: I savour integrity in the act more so than the vessel. I want my memories, the great and the terrible, to fill my head like a film, a novel, a song as that's how I believe my life should be lived.'
'That was lovely.' Seraphina sighed dreamily.
'That was lonely,' Iggy said into his glass, shrugging his eyebrows.
'Tell me, what else have I missed since I was elsewhere?' The anachronistic girl, an amalgamation of the last six decades, who never quite seemed to belong to any of the eras—be that yesterday, today, or the tomorrow due—walked out onto the balcony on the off-chance that she'd be seen. 'Have either of you fallen into bedfellows with my dear cousin yet?'
She was also a blood relative to Francesco Carrozza.
'Come now, you've been here for absolute generations,' she continued. 'If not, if the whispers I've heard are anywhere near the truth, I dare say you ought to do it quick—especially before winter comes. Mind you, he wasn't so handsome when he chased us through the countryside and threw slugs and snails at us when we were children—or was that that deplorable friend of his from childhood and onwards, a boy whose name I shan't dare mention in fear of accidentally summoning him here or stinging my lips?' Leaning over her the stone balcony, Seraphina crossed her legs and clicked her heel off the ground. 'I can't say I feel drawn towards "playing doctor" or becoming kissing cousins with him nowadays, but I suppose I can understand the appeal—after all, he is a Rose. Evidently, it must be something in the genetics, magic in our siren blood that causes the locals to become infatuated with the Roses.'
Quiet sips from their glasses answered her question.
'Forget about him, darling. Eton is a continually replenishing fountain of youth that is simply overflowing with beautiful options. Frankie is extraordinarily pretty, but not the prettiest—regardless of who you are, just as someone will always have it worse than you, someone else will always have it better.' Drumming fingernails on the balcony, she contemplated behind smoke and eyed the pedestrians below. 'You aren't just going to read the one book all your life, are you? Just choose another lover. Not so long ago, I chose to devote myself to this bohemian, hedonistic lifestyle as faithfully as a religion—'
'Seraphina,' Charlie began, 'what you said about Frankie, why quickly?'
'Charlie!' She snapped around to lean on her elbows, golden hair spilling over the side like Rapunzel. 'That reminds me! Do you remember our promise to attend that festival together next June? You will uphold it, won't you? Just as I will? Say you're going. You will go, won't you, darling? Yes? You must, sweetie, you simply must.' She bit the tip of her pearly fingernail, face full of puppy-dog eyes. 'Say you will.'
'Then I will.' Her simper was much too infectious for him not to reciprocate it with a laugh. For her to make someone drunk on feeling like they were the most important person in the world to her, there had to be something enchanting in the Rose blood. Sobering quickly from her beguilement, he went on to say, 'If you tell me why you really left Saint-Tropez so suddenly.'
'Oh!' Seraphina's coquettish smile faltered, uneasy eyes darting towards the brown parcel. 'Oh. Well, it is possible that I've seen some things that a girl should never see—but you must see, darling, or how else do you expect to temper a strong diamond out of an old soul? For now, I've filled my boots with lovely paradises, so I'm positively delighted to have returned to see some friendly faces and familiar sights again for a spell.'
'That doesn't answer—' Charlie began to say.
'That deplorable old friend of Carrozza's you mentioned, who may that be now?' A sly smirk sliced jaggedly up Iggy's jaw as he pointed towards two glasses on the coffee table—one with vibrant red lipstick on the rim, the other with the stub of a black cigar soaking inside. 'Is it someone we know, perhaps, or someone you've invited recently into your boudoir?'
'HA! I'd sooner take the veil,' Seraphina seethed, sucking hard on the end of the cigarette as she stomped back into the room. 'Believe me when I say that I would invite Satan to bed quicker than I would that leviathan as even Lucifer wouldn't be so loathsome.' Capricious by nature, she smiled radiantly again as she used a knife to pop a second bottle, but Charlie couldn't help but wonder, as she hurled another nervous glance towards the parcel, if the painting was a warning that trouble had followed Seraphina Imogen Rose back to the English coastline. 'Not to be presumptuous—' she sat down on an armchair, balanced her glass on a crossed knee, and merged a pout and a knowing smile together—'but I sense that we three are going to have such a fabulous year together, don't you?'
The three of them clinked their glasses together merrily.