—Ladyton Edition—
I have just heard the legendary, mythical and generally proverbial Kiki lia
Caerelinde.
Proverbial? Oh yes. And the proverb is: people who live in china shops shouldn't sing like Miss Caerelinde. It does seem to create a disturbance.
Of course, we have all heard of the goings-on in West Quirinelle: blondes rending their garments, shrieking and falling into faints. But then West Quirinelle is West Quirinelle. So when I heard she was going to perform at the Aphrodite Cocktail Bar, not two miles from my doorstep (a mere two minutes in my red fin-tailed Sepharella, traffic and constabels permitting), I didn't know quite what to expect.
To be fearfully honest, I'm not a great fancier of popular singers, but I am rather keen on seeing blondes rending their garments and screaming and falling into faints. Well, actually I have never see any do it before tonight, but it certainly sounded like entertainment to me. So off I whizzed to the Aphrodite, pausing only to collect two hundred lines for speeding from our friendly local constabel. She needn't think I'll be buying tickets for the Policepettes’ Ball this year.
So let me tell you about this Aphrodite Cocktail Bar. It's a rum sort of place, which I suppose is better than being a gin joint. It's — well the only way I can describe it is translucent. It exists half in Maryhill, East Quirinelle and half in a place called Elektraspace, which is — well, if you don't know what it is, I'm not going to tell you. Much too complicated. So the Aphrodite Cocktail Bar, apart from being translucent (it looks fairly normal from the inside — at least until the barmaid Ariadne has given you a few Pink Ladies) is rather a swish sort of place. That sort of Quirrie bar that makes you think you're over the border in Trent with all the sophisticettes. Black satin and clever chit-chat, and girls from places you've never heard of, because Elektraspace is — well I already haven't told you what Elektraspace is, so I won't not tell you again.
That's what the Aphrodite was like, and to some extent it still is. At the bar itself you still find all those sleek pettes, and the ravishing bar-blonde, Ariadne who moves so neatly that giving her a little pinch is like getting the brass ring on the merry-go-round. A few brunettes claim to have done it, but it was always yesterday or tomorrow. I've never seen it.
So what has changed? Well, by the door, as soon as I came in, I saw a group of five pettes who looked as if their collective age would only add up to mine on one of my more mendacious days. Three of them were the dizziest blondes you ever saw, chewing gum ever-so-delicate-like in a way that seemed to suggest unnamable things, and the other two were — well, I used to think I was a rough brunette, but one of these young wolves actually pinched me. They were the sort that carry a spare lipstick in their stocking-tops, and not to rouge their lips with.
Was that the only thing that was different? Yes, it was, if you multiply it by a hundred or so. you could hardly move for these juviepops. Apparently it's been getting worse every night for about a week and a half. But tonight word had got round that Kiki was actually coming. So I fought my way to the bar, getting a few more pinches en jolly old route. I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd been a blonde. I certainly shouldn't have been able to sit on my stool when I found it.
If I'd been the swearing kind, I'd have sworn that you couldn't swing a cat in the place. Even a small martinette would have presented diffies. But I am telling the plain unvarnished when I say that when the resident singing trio, The Quirinelles, started singing, those little hep-cats started to cut a rug. Goodness knows how. I couldn't see more than two inches of rug uncovered enough for even the most cautious operation in the laceration line. But they did.
And what is more they didn't do it gingerly. Pint-sized blondes were being thrown about the room like so many lip-rouged clay pigeons.
The Quirinelles are a delightful pony-tailed trio who sing everything from smart Trentish numbers to Rock and Roll things like At the Hop in the most delightfully camp manner. Their three-part harmony is absolutely charming, and if you make a request they can usually improvise it with a finesse that makes you think they have rehearsed it for weeks. To give them their due, the Junior Section seemed to appreciate them, but they weren't what they'd come for.
Well, about eleven o'clock, when three quarters of the crowd should have been tucked up in their pink-and-white cots, the lights went down and there was silence for a full minute. Every one knew the time had come.
The gloom was pierced by a single rose-coloured spotlight and on came Kiki. The first thing that strikes you is that she isn't nearly as big as you might expect. I mean, somehow one anticipates a towering figure to be the cause of these storms of passion we have all read about and seen on the weekly newsreels. But she is quite little. Not much over five feet tall, and smaller than most blondes. But she is all brunette, all right.
As soon as she takes the stage, well, you feel that the stage knows it has been taken . And so does the audience. Those rather badly behaved teensies look on her in awe.
Well, I suppose you have read a bit about her. The lia Caerelinde is not a stage name. She comes of an aristocratic Novarian family who were among the first settlers of the province from far east in Amazonia. The Kiki is sort of a stage name. She is really Quiqui lia Caerelinde (short for Quilenquithia) but Kiki is supposed to have more "snap". Not that Miss Caerelinde needs any extra snap. This most unlikely croonerette takes the microphone as if it was a blonde and sings
To know, know, know you
Is to love, love, love you
And I do.
She sings it in a purring, husky voice that is the bottom of her remarkable vocal range.
And they do it. The blondes, I mean. They scream. The audience is in near darkness, but the Caerelinde eyes sweep them like searchlights; and when they rest on a blonde, she screams. If she wasn't screaming before she screams then, and if she was she screams louder. Or she faints. Three of then go down in the first five minutes.
Well, I thought I should like seeing blondes scream and faint. In the event, do I? Yes I do. It is extremely diverting.
Actually, it is more than that. It is rather exciting. The air is filled with these high-pitched, adolescent cries of pure passion. If it were not for Kiki's powerful amplification her voice might be drowned, though I am not sure: an awful lot of her diminutive internals seems to be lung. But it is that soaring, feral-but-oh-so-vulnerable impromptu blonde backing that thrills my spine. I wonder if that is what all the brunettes go for. I imagine not, because one or two of them are screaming too (any one would think this was Ladyton). The rest, I fancy, feel as I do.
"And what," you ask — oh, yes, dear reader, I know what you are asking. I know what you will pelt me in the streets for if I fail to tell you — "What of the pettes at the bar; the age-of-majority crowd; the regular and rather sophisticated patronettes of translucent Aphrodite?"
Well, their composure certainly does not break in the first song. They are almost all enraptured; brunettes coolly appraising (or trying to look so), blondes a shade more fervent judging by the eyes and the white teeth on lower lips — a precaution, perhaps, against that scream that is in them all somewhere.
Kiki sweeps her searchlight among them. None give way, but there are a few gasps and little whimpers; and she hasn't even started on them yet.
She turns back to her adorers and speaks a few words in her delightful Eastern accent. They are commonplace words enough, but somehow we all feel they are more than they say; that they carry some current of warmth and magic. Then she looks the microphone in the eye, turns back to her admirers (who are never quite silent, even when she speaks) and sings What Lola Wants, Lola Gets. Perhaps what Lola wants is a scream or two from the grown-ups gallery. She certainly gets it this time.
No, I am not going to name names. This is The Morning Letter , not the other paper. That is why I got in. But I'll tell you this. The withstanders, in the end, numbered rather less than half the whole, and Ariadne, the suspended barmaid - well, her eyes were very wide for some time and . . . But no. This is The Morning Letter .
And now at last it is over. I feel, believe it or not, emotionally exhausted. Every one does. It has been a fascinating experience. Miss Caerelinde is not simply a brunette who attracts blondes. She seems, when singing, the Universal embodiment of all brunettishness, and the blondes seem united into one blonde. But also, every brunette in the room seems part of Kiki, and she part of them. Every brunette feels the blondes are screaming for her , and she is not wrong, for what moves them is the brunette spirit itself.
It is hard to explain, but I know I am right about this. The magic of Kiki lia Caerelinde is not a separating, atomising magic; it is a unifying magic that binds her whole audience together in a thrilling but pure frisson .
That, I feel sure, is the real reason for her success, and the reason that an establishment like the Aphrodite Cocktail bar booked her. I don't think they were wrong. But then I am not the District Governess.
M ERELINE FI’ A MALA
in Yvyanne
