Courtisanes
Et bandits, tels souvent vous offrez des plaisirs
Que ne comprennent pas les vulgaires profanes.
Harlots and
Hunted have pleasures of their own to give,
The vulgar herd can never understand.
Baudelaire, Epilogue to "Les Fleurs du Mal"
[Arthur Symons’ beautiful translation]
Leamington Spa has its genteel acres of well-preserved Regency and Victorian terraces; the Pump Rooms tonight have the ladies of the amateur chorus in Haydn. But my quest for Rockbitch takes me out beyond the railway, to the edge of the industrial estate, to a small pub which stands in the shadow of the viaduct. Inside, a long L-shaped bar with a small group of determined drinkers in the corner nearest the door; at the far end a tiny performing area; and, first hint of the magic here tonight, I recognise two girls sitting on bar-stools by the wall near the door, languidly affectionate together, .
Kali is in a very short black skirt and sheer grey top, Erzulie in a long black dress; why are they sitting out here, and why is nobody - friend, punter, misfit or groupie - talking to them? Partly, perhaps, it’s because they are creating their own small island of silence within the insistent music that fills the place; as they exchange the occasional inaudible word, kiss from time to time, stroke without urgency the other’s thigh or shoulder, they quietly tell us that nothing needs to be said.
Partly, too, it’s because with only an hour to go before the band is on there’s virtually nobody here but us; I’d guess that the few that are here are regulars rather than Rockbitch fans and among us I notice only a couple of girls. It seems to be by choice that Rockbitch put out no publicity for their gigs; the only posters I’ve ever seen at the places they’ve played have been at the venue and on the day. This avoids unwelcome attention, but it also means that the event can take on the guise of an impenetrable secret. For some of us, I know, there is an allure in this, the search for the forbidden, the escape from the vulgar herd, the attainment of something others haven’t found - as in a fragment of Sappho’s own lyric of her inamorata, from two and a half thousand years ago :
.. Like the sweet apple ripening on the highest branch, which they forgot to pick - or perhaps, they didn't forget, but couldn't reach. ..
But what I begin to suspect tonight is that there is allure for these women too, the harlots and hunted, whores devil-made, as they proclaim themselves, courtisanes et brigands, in this same sense of the forbidden. Babe comes straight out with it before they play a note: “If we’d known there’d be this many, you could have come round to our place..” And in the glances that flicker between them, the smiles they share, I detect a determination that for the thirty-odd of us they will tonight give more rather than less, perhaps too a recognition that by meeting here at all they, and we, have already achieved something.
So the familiar music starts and, of course, by now these women seem no strangers to me at all:
Babe her eyes often closed, creating and inhabiting her own world, muse ecstatic; sweat glistens on her chest, her face is radiant with a private pleasure which rises from a source only she understands, reflects an intelligence that dresses her nakedness in power
Julie straining forwards across the tiny gap that separates us from her, so close we could embrace; her face is painted boldly, deep black circles from cheekbone to eyebrow, but her eyes turn a gaze upon each of us that is naked and unflinching
Nikki gamine, head high, her regard open and wide-eyed, a childlike pleasure in her smile; tonight she's almost hidden from many of us behind the speakers at the left of the tiny stage; but naive is merely faux-naive, as she makes clear when later she comes forward, demurely casts off her g-string and fingers herself; her fingers go from cunt to mouth, she sucks them, her gaze still innocent and girlish, her body now naked, as she subjects herself to the ritual of the skull
Luci head down, staring at the floor and at her guitar, seemingly shy and (in a literal sense) entranced; no longer the stage-slut, only when something triggers a sudden smile does she hint at secret thoughts we wish we could know more of
Amanda never still, sombrely dressed, long hair flying wildly as she tosses her head, constantly driving; once, dervish-like, she leaves the stage to confiscate a camera which a punter is recklessly using (no bouncers here to bother us tonight)
Jo pretty and looking very young, intense, watchful at the back of the stage, squeezed into a tiny space behind the drums, her eyes flickering everywhere
Earlier, before the show, Kali and Erzulie have told me - yes, I did broach their intimacy - that they won’t be taking part tonight. The stage space is scarcely large enough for eight women to stand, let alone to move or dance; so, tonight, the ritual, the hieratic element, proves to be largely absent. But they’ve apparently changed their plans in the last hour - perhaps they weren't deaf to my pleas - and the two girls do, in fact, come on from time to time, unclothed, silent, enigmatic. For one song they draw a single, tall, blond girl from the audience up on stage, move slowly with her, timelessly, clasp her between their naked bodies, hold, kiss, caress her. Later, Kali takes backstage the recipient of the Golden Condom, while the band plays on.
With Whore of Satan the end approaches. Babe’s been naked for the last two numbers; we’ve been offered communion with the menstrual wine which has been poured between her breasts, has coursed over her belly, been channelled and warmed by her labia, collected in the chalice held under her cunt by Luci. And then as TicToc closes there’s a genuinely enthusiastic cheer. “Do you want another song?” says Babe, perhaps a little surprised. “More filth!! More filth!!” comes the shout from the moron fringe. Of course, to seek - to see, to find - filth in this show (and on this night in particular) is to misunderstand everything the women stand for, to miss their redemptive power, their sense of security in a shared commitment; it’s to cast back in their face what they, and perhaps they alone, offer to us: the chance to transcend the physical act - whether lived by them as lovers or merely externalised by us as images - and glimpse the honesty that generates it. But any reaction is better than none; and Babe, though she has a beauty that will melt your heart, has too a scatological humour as unforced as the power of her intellect. “Yes”, she says, through a smile that grows only more embracing, “I’ll shit in your handbag, shall I?”
And what in fact now happens is that the band do an extra song while Kali and Erzulie have sex together at the front of the stage, in that tiny space that separates our world from theirs, sex at last that is unchoreographed and without the trappings of ritual, sex that is naked and real and reciprocal, fingers deep in the vagina, clitoris hard against thigh; sex whose point is not to proselytise but whose message is of tenderness, where the gleam in the eye is of affection as much as it is of desire, where the other becomes as important as the self.
Of course, there is illusion here; though these two girls are surely lovers, we who watch are not part of their shared space nor can we be more to them than voyeurs. And, in the cold light of day, perhaps, the old suspicions will return: firstly, that the sheer physical beauty of these women is a more potent draw than anything they are saying - would we watch plain women having sex together, even if they, too, played like angels? then, that there is a sort of capitulation in the substitution of metaphor for reality - would these women offer, even to each other, a libation of real menstrual blood or urine, would they bring real orgasm to the celebration? And if not, is it all just an act?
But for all that, tonight the conviction is overwhelmingly, and simply, that here are real, kind-hearted women; that there is joy to be found in the shared glance, in the spontaneous communion, the suddenly flashing smile. Even now, we don’t want them to go, and they genuinely make it look as though they don’t want to go. “We have to stop” says Babe, from the door at the back of the stage; indeed, it’s well after 10.30 now, and Sunday licensing laws mean they probably really do.
Of the strange melancholy charm of Venice, Henry James wrote: “The deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place could give”. The space created by Rockbitch has that same quality. It comes to me tonight that these women are healers, their tolerance inspires, the infectious pleasure they take from the simple and the elemental betokens the true teaching mind. And there is a power in the intimacy of the sexuality here which nothing at a larger venue would equal.
Tonight, they could have cancelled and walked out of this almost empty bar, they would have forgone almost nothing, upset nobody of consequence; I doubt they have onerous commitments to a promoter. But in fact they stayed and played, and they gave not less, but more. There is an honesty in that, a form of humility, that is rare and ennobling, one which I feel honoured by and which, further, I believe they’ve offered us knowingly and precisely to avow an unspoken contract.
As I walk out through the silent Sunday streets I’m in no hurry to replace this magic with the commonplace. Wet leaves are on the ground, the sky is starless; ears ringing, I circle the streets of this unfamiliar town ..
"Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see - and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning. Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason."
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Eugene O’Neill
These are the titles as written on the playing order at the current series of gigs:
Krone - Holy - Suffragette - SNAFU - The Church - Pain - Killer - Blood - Eveline - Breathe - Fuck You - Whore of Satan - Tic-Toc
For reasons that may be clear, I wasn't giving undivided attention to the words of the song they did as an encore tonight.
A
Copyright: Makaris, October 2001
Corrections, reflections and alternative views would be welcomed by email.
