‘Teachers know what they are doing.’
(Robert Walser, A Schoolboy’s Diary)
I was leading a vampire workshop at Mayfield residential home in Whitby Bay. There were ten minutes left and I’d run out of material. My elderly students, who I assume were compelled to be there, were getting restless. (It’s impressive how lively geriatrics can get when dying from boredom is a genuine possibility). I’d gone through the full Dracula lecture and asked if there were any questions. Nothing, just a few dreary murmurs and sly comments muttered into frazzled hearing aids…
I started muttering about the wolves again, those baying hounds, and then Whitby Bay itself: the gloomy North sea that The Count had crossed on a Russian schooner, visible through the window behind me. In passing I also added: though of course, Dracula is just one of countless famous vampyric stories that have been told over the years.
The old lad sitting to my right raised his hand. I waited for a second while he put his teeth in. He said:
– Such as?
– Sorry?
– These other vampire stories.
– There’s too many to name, we only have a few minutes…
– There’s time. Tell us one, young man, just one.
I composed myself: it was time to earn my crust. Well, I said, the outline of one comes to mind. The Vampire Problem, I believe it’s called. Roughly: a man (I think he’s called Julio) receives an invitation to a vampire’s birthday party. He doesn’t know him well. The vampire has only been at the office a few weeks and, frankly, Julio isn’t impressed with him. not at all. It’s clear straight away that he’s somehow scammed the interview process. (It was in person, but Julio suspects he’d sent someone else in his place). He clearly doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. He cuts corners and spends a lot of time in the bathroom. Julio ends up with more work than usual, while the vampire somehow receives plaudits for his industry, his strategic decision-making, and his warmth and common touch with clients.
Still, Julio accepts the invitation, which arrives by email. (Subject: ‘Countdown to my birthday…’) He tells himself he accepts out of collegiate politeness and because he has nothing to do at weekends. Also: Lotte has been copied in; she’s been invited too. She’s the only other person in the office who’s single (though there are others who are sexually available) – Julio himself is recently divorced – and, it becomes clear, the only other person from the office the vampire has invited. Over a drawn-out coffee break, they agree to go together. Actually, Lotte says with a laugh, they should make their entrance together.
Julio picks Lotte up from her house an hour or so before the party. He’s spent a good chunk of the evening trying on several suits, and going back and forth about whether to wear a velvet tie. (In the end he doesn’t bother.) He moisturises, he considers what to do with his hair, he tries to catch his own scent. He listens to sketchy recordings of motivational poetry: Twenty Love Poems of Love and Despair by Neruda, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by Blake. He remembers taking his ex-wife, Alyssa, to the school dance, just before they went to university (what – twenty years ago?): her dark purple dress (he’d only ever seen her in black jeans and t-shirts decorated with skulls and crucifixes); how she wore her hair up and looked American.
When Julio arrives, classical music (he thinks it’s Brahms) is blasting from the front room. An old woman answers the door in a tattered grey dressing gown. She looks as if she’s just woken up, or is just about to.
– Who are you then? she says. Are you a doctor?
– No, he says. I’m here to take Lotte to a party.
The old woman bursts out laughing, then starts coughing. She can’t catch her breath. For a few seconds Julio wonders if he should do something. (What?) But behind her, a hand appears, softly grips her shoulder and pulls her back into the house.
– She’s lost the plot, Lotte says, ignore her. She’s wearing a slimline red dress and emerald earrings. Let’s go.
The drive there is pleasant. Julio says very little, Lotte talks a lot. Julio can barely understand a word she’s saying; something about a sister, a recent holiday. He’s enjoying himself; he even starts driving with only one hand. He does hear Lotte very clearly when she starts talking about the vampire: yes, she says, as she rubs a thick white cream all over her hands; he’s a pretty strange guy, and is clearly a charlatan, a piece of shit as far being a colleague goes; still, it was nice of him to invite them. She’s always wanted to go to this kind of thing. She rubs some more of the cream on her face, and then puts the container in the glovebox. ‘Thank you,’ Julio whispers.
The vampire is standing at the door when they arrive. He nods at them without smiling and ushers them towards the entrance. Lotte walks ahead; a gaggle of little kids wearing white face paint are chasing each other through the hallway, and get in Julio’s way. (He thinks: these creatures are ruining our entrance.)
Inside, the whole thing is overdone: there are candles in bottles, plastic bats hanging from the ceiling, fizzing red light bulbs, and flimsy black curtains over the windows. There’s even a curtained-off area, through which he can see a free-standing bath tub. Attached to the curtain with sellotape, there’s a piece of yellow legal paper (Julio recognises it from the filing cabinet next to his desk) on which, in thick black marker, is written: BLOODBATH.
Julio goes to the bar and parks himself there. Lotte disappears, somewhere among the bodies on the dance floor. Sexyback is playing, then In Da Club, then Get Low. (Does Julio want to get low? Probably not, not yet). A man wearing a purple, three-piece suit takes the seat next to him.
– So how do you know the birthday boy?
– I’m a colleague.
– Me too.
After four beers or so, Julio starts talking about Alyssa. The man listens, he commiserates and then starts talking about his arthritis. As the man prattles on, Julio becomes convinced that he can see Alyssa, or rather, that she’s here, in some form: she’s a secret, mystery guest at this party. He gets up, circles the dancefloor, and starts following a woman down a corridor, then another. (Where are these corridors emerging from? Where are they going?) Every woman with her hair up, momentarily, becomes Alyssa; for a second, as he passes through a corridor decorated with he becomes Alyssa too.
Julio finds himself back at the bar. The vampire is there, with a small huddle of children gathered around him. He appears to be halfway through an anecdote, which Julian tunes into:
At that point I was seeing five different women, he says. It’s incredible, isn’t it? (There are a lot of desperate people out there.) New York is a big city, as they say. The women were unaware of one another, at least up to a point. I discovered that two of them (one an heiress, the other a dental hygienist) attended pottery classes at the same community centre. I never found out whether they were actually in the same class, but the mere hint of proximity was enough to send me into a panic. After a conversation with my pastor, I decided to sever ties completely. I should add: I didn’t love any of these women; or at least, the love I’m capable of was divided equally between them.
There was a solution, he went on, but it was an expensive solution. (Kids, listen carefully: any solution worth the name is very expensive). I had to hire a woman to pretend to be my wife. You wouldn’t think it would be that expensive: why not just hire a student and get her to show up to a few dinners together (after I’d made it clear that I wasn’t a creep?) But I needed someone who would be dedicated to the role. Someone who could memorise birthdays, holidays, the names of imaginary friends, that sort of thing. Back then I used to make a living narrating audiobooks…
At this point Julio loses interest. The vampire seems to as well; at least, he’s turned his back to the kids, and looks happy enough to talk to a poster on the wall. It’s a print of a gorgeous, tortoise-shell wildcat, sitting on a lacquered desk. Its left leg haunch looks wounded. The idea that Alyssa is somewhere inside that poster, or is gasping for breath inside the wall behind it, trying to reach out to present her invitation as the mystery guest, flashes through Julio’s mind.
This thought is killed by a tug at his elbow. It’s Lotte. She’s had her face painted: pale white, with dark eyes and black lips. She looks incredibly drunk, or like she’s pretending to be drunk. Julio thinks she’s on cocaine. Either way, they drag each other towards the bathroom. He tries to pull her towards the BLOODBATH, but she pushes open the smaller door beside it and they stumble inside.
A minute after he staggers back into the main room, Julio feels incredible. It’s as if he’s besotted by a secret dream that has actually just come true. As Mr Brightside thunders over the speakers, he’s convinced that he is in love with Lotte; that he’s always loved her, and that the vampire has arranged this entire event because he’d somehow intuited this. It’s possible, even very likely, that it isn’t even his birthday. (After all, it’s New Year’s Eve). He should find the vampire and thank him, and tell him, colleague-to-colleague, that he was wrong about him: his subtle warmth and common touch really has done wonders…
Julio returns to the empty bar. He stares for a second at the poster before remembering his task. When he turns to his left, the birthday boy is sitting there. He hands Julio a glass of dessert wine. The music quietens down and then stops altogether. The lights are lowered and there’s a brief hush, before the little kids start howling a kind of countdown. (‘Ten – owwwhhh! – Nine – owwwhhh!) The vampire raises his glass and Julio does the same.
– I’ve been meaning to ask you, the vampire says, gesturing towards the middle of the dancefloor, what do you make of her?
– Who?
– The vampire. I think she likes you.
Julio looks over. The dance floor is empty, apart from one person: Lotte. She’s lying in the middle of the floor. She’s wearing a different dress, the colour of which he can’t make out under the dimmed lights. But he can see that her face, the dress, her entire body is covered in a thick, dark, ooze. She looks completely drenched.
As the kids hit two, Julio tries to stand up, but realises he’s frozen to his seat. He watches as, on one, Lotte starts to break into convulsions. There’s a rattle, and then a kind of whistle, which seems to be coming from somewhere inside the walls of the venue. Julio feels a warm, firm hand on his shoulder…
At this point I was cut off by three sharp knocks at the door. The head of the residential home popped her head into the room and nodded at me with a polite smile. I’d just about hit the time; ten minutes were up. After a few polite thank-yous and a swift exit, I’d receive my fee, and could consider packing in teaching for good.
Just as I was gathering my things, the old lad to my right slowly stood up. He looked as if he might fall over. He reached out and grabbed my wrist. As far as I could tell, he still had his teeth in.
– Young man, he said, I didn’t like that story at all.
– Me neither, I said. But it’s famous.
*