Venom Chic

Chapter One

   Lights flickered across Karl Tandy`s face. The music was loud, a deep rhythmic beat, heavy on base. He had never felt so alone, even though surrounded by a crowd, all seated and staring as he into the shimmering lights.

   It had taken months of suffering, not with creation, but with his knowledge of the lack of creation. Once he had been the `noise of the new`, hunger burned and the cut was sharp and chic, there was an edge to his designs, he never followed the familiar nor the expected, his designs had a rawness that women desired in its uniqueness and in its beauty - until this night, which he knew was inevitable, he had been counting down the days and each day the angst was increasing. He looks across down the line of beautiful people in haute couture, some he noticed even wearing his designs. Anna Allegory, the art critic was sitting with the fashion editor Susannah Mangles. Anna shakes her head, she whispers under her breath and Susannah laughs. He knows what everyone else knows, he knew it months ago staring at a sheet of paper. He had drawn a figure stylized with endless legs, waiting to be enhanced in a chiffon of silk and cut for movement and grace.

   `You make me look a million dollars,` he recalled Alice Stanza, one of his early mentors, an American heiress who had recognised his talents and financed his first London show - times had changed and as sudden as a hammer blow.

   The croquis was waiting but nothing came, he felt his breathing deepen, even his Tag watch was loud, it was the first time he had heard the mechanism somehow beating with his own pulse; he drew a pendulum which he coloured in red with a throbbing vein. He stared again, was this him, bleeding, empty, void of ideas?

   The wait for inspiration was deafening, he clicked on the green from his Bic pen and coloured in a leaf on her crotch, he then entwined a stalk from the leaf over her hip and around her waist, over her small breasts and he coloured in smaller leaves.

   He looked around him, he was seated at a chrome and aluminium table, the whole room was similar, minimal, clutter stifled him, got in the way of bigger ideas, wider issues. The huge glass window dominated the room and was speckled with lights from surrounding buildings. The only prerequisite to buying the property was he had to be close to the river, he would open the sliding doors onto the balcony and look down at the Thames, he was in London when he could see the river, he was home, grounded was comforted.

   There were no leaves to be seen, the only ivy he deduced was poison from fumes rising from the red buses and vehicles beneath. He stared at the drawing, was it Eve from the garden of Eden? But the ivy confused him, he thought of  Rembrandts` Flora, which he had stared at endlessly at the National, or maybe Blodeuwedd, the woman from Welsh legend that was created from flowers.

   Was his student days returning? Was the well so dry he had to delve back to the research done in those innocent days?