Name: Polly Vernon
DoB: October 2, 1997
Place of birth: Stockholm, Sweden
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: Practically nothing
Hair: Dark brown or red or blonde or nearly black. Depends what day you’re asking
As soon as I saw her, I knew she was different. She was young, not much more than 20, but kinda older than that. Older and younger. Her eyes had a curious quality of having seen too much but still somehow being untainted. She looked bright, you know. Bright in every sense of the word.
I’d only been at the Palace a few weeks but it was long enough to know that if you were there, there was a reason. This wasn’t somewhere you just rocked up because you saw it in a guide book and thought it looked nice.
Polly turned up at Mark’s door just after Sarf London Jane. Not long after. She’d come to ask Mark something about getting a room changed or something. Why she was asking him, who knows. She’d probably asked someone to, I don’t now, change a lightbulb maybe. Whoever she’d asked didn’t have a clue what she was talking about but probably figured it was some local codespeak for “Where can I get a bag of skag?”
So clearly, the answer to “Where can I get a lightbulb changed?” is “Go and see Mark”.
She was shiny, was Polly. I was a little bit tarnished – you’re not going to get many 30 year old men who aren’t a bit tarnished and I was a bit tarnished, my teeth mainly – and Mark was most definitely not shiny.
Polly came in and sat down. She was funny and smart, not jaded, not tarnished. Me and Mark were talking, the usual bolloocks about reggae and people came and people went and the day passed. If people watching was what you were into, Mark’s place was the best cinema in town.
Somehow, she fitted. In that room with it’s fractal posters on the wall and multi-coloured sarongs for curtains and the huge green and gold kimono hanging over the front of the wardrobe like the opening of Mark’s own Pandora’s Box, somehow she fitted. Cos she was pure, you see. Pure and true – and if you were pure and true, nothing could touch you.
“You’re like a shopkeeper, aren’t you,” she said. “A 24 hour convenience store, open for anyone who needs anything.”
“We aim to please,” he said.
As we sat there, seemingly the whole Palace came in, shopped till they dropped and left. Brad the Canadian. Steve the Canadian. There were quite a few Canadians here, weren’t there? And Israelis. Loads of Israelis who’d gone on the run after their national service, kids who’d seen too much, who’d peered into the darkness once too often. They were interesting, these guys. Interesting, but dangerous. They had no “Off” button. One of them explained that they’d seen things I wouldn’t even begin to imagine let alone understand, they’d seen things get as bad as they could get and after that, nothing could touch them. And all the time, they trooped in, splashed a bit of cash, and moved on.
“How many people here take drugs?” Polly said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. And then he looked at her. Said nothing.
“Everyone?”
Still he didn’t say anything.
“Look at you,” said Mark. “You’re pure and beautiful, you’re not like these low lives, you’re different to them. Your hair, your eyes, your skin… it’s all clean and pure and different to that lot. Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing here and I’m not asking but you’re lovely and special. Don’t stay here too long. Don’t become one of them.”
This time it was Polly’s turn to say nothing. Silence hung in the air, probably for a few seconds but it felt like hours, like silence does.
“So listen,” said Mark eventually. “I’ll give you a couple of pills to start you off, see how you like them. On the house. My treat. If you like them, I’ll do you a deal, if you don’t no worries.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“It’s a joke, you twat. You know, the evil dealer trying to seduce the trusting waif.”
I looked at him. It was a joke. But it probably wasn’t.
Polly smiled. “Maybe next time.”
“Who was that?” I said after she’d left.
“What do you mean, who was that? You’re not really asking that, are you?”
“OK, what’s she doing here? She looks so…”
“Nice?” said Mark.
“Yeah, nice. Sweet. Innocent. All that. Not the usual Palace type.”
“You really haven’t been here that long, have you? You’ll see.”
“Oh fuck off,” I said to Mark. “You’re telling me that…. that sweet little thing is one of these Palace freaks? That she’s some, I don’t even know, some candyfloss version of Graham. You think?”
“Listen fat yuppie, you think all pirates go around saying shiver me timbers and talking about pieces of fucking eight? You think all robbers wear striped t-shirts and carry bags of swag? If you wanna be a bank robber, would you wear a t-shirt that says “bank robber”? You gotta learn to look behind the surface, behind the eyes. You’ll see. Sometimes the ones who look the straightest, they’re the biggest fucking freaks of all.”
Polly was fresh and sweet, not the biggest fucking freak of all. But then again, what did ‘freak’ mean here?
“And the ones that look like freaks?” I said.
“They’re just cunts,” said Mark as he reached over for the skins.