The Companion

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Uncut Version
by Stardust Grrl

Part I: The Preparations - The Canterbury’s Flat (July 3, 1973)

"I can’t believe you’re not going!" said Margaret to her long-time friend Andy as she put the finishing touches of her pink eyeshadow on. Finally, the careful job of applying her makeup was done. "Wait a minute, you wouldn’t go. You’re such a loser when it comes to music." Or most anything, for that matter, Margaret thought with a stifled chuckle. Andy wasn’t exactly one of her best friends; he was someone who just wouldn’t leave her alone. Their relationship resembled that of a love/hate one, even though Margaret herself never experienced the love part with Andy. And she never planned on doing that, either. Margaret got up and walked around her room, talking to Andy.

"Who would want to go see that Ziggy Stardust? Or is it David what’s-his-name? Nobody really knows. You don’t even know!" Andy was tired of Margaret talking about Ziggy—and David—all the time. Ziggy this, Ziggy that, zig zag Ziggy! Andy thought. To tell the truth, he was actually somewhat jealous of this rock ‘n roll icon that Margaret held on a glittery pedestal. Margaret was spending all of her time engrossed in this man rather than with whom Andy wished—with Andy. Oh, how he dreamed of romping in green pastures and picking flowers with his lovely Margaret! He even tried to talk her into kissing him in eighth grade, but she wouldn’t do it. "Why don’t you come and play football with me? You have that great ball that must’ve cost a lot. Come over, we can use it."

"I can’t, I’ve swapped it for a Ziggy poster," said the girl who sold the ball. "Listen, Andy, I have to go now. I want to get there extra early." Margaret glanced around her room in an effort to make sure she was not forgetting anything. She looked at her posters and smiled at them. Her favourite was a big poster advertising David’s first new record of 1971, The Man Who Sold The World. He was in a long, flowery dress and was sitting on a blue couch, holding a king of diamonds card in his hand. She used to have had innumerable other posters and pictures plastered all over her walls…Ziggy posters, Bowie posters, Lou Reed posters, Marc Bolan and T. Rex pictures…and anyone else who were considered deities in the Glam Rock scene. Of course, most of the pictures were of David. Now, all but three favourites were all packed up in boxes.

"Fine, go. But why would you want to go see a person who’s having an identity crisis when you can just look in the mirror? You’ve changed. I’ve known you since third grade…you’ve changed. That David Bowie and glam rock has changed you and all that you are." Andy had never really changed. He sported the same kind of clothes that he always had been seen in, he wore the same pair of thick glasses that he always had worn, and he kept the same morals and ideas that he always had kept. He was not exactly a cosmopolitan kind of guy.

"So what if I’ve changed? Time may change me…I like being who I am. David’s opened doors for me that were closed before. I’m a lot more open-minded than I was before I started liking him. It’s such a wonderful feeling! I think I’m actually in love. He’s so sexy! I’ve never really been in love…ah!" Margaret was indeed a more broad-minded girl because of David Bowie. She learned things through his music that she hadn’t known before, she tried new things because she followed his examples, and she met new friends through the International David Bowie Fan Club. Of course, she would occasionally get in trouble because of certain little things she did that were related to certain little things he did, but she was only human.

"And that’s a good thing? That you’ve changed? And how can you think someone’s sexy when they look, act, and dress like a girl? Especially him! Lord, I think he really is a girl!"

"He’s not a girl! I know that! Haven’t you seen those pictures when they show him in skin-tight outfits with his d—"

"Ugh! You’re making me sick. Answer my questions!"

"Fine! God, you’re so impatient. Alright, first of all, he’s sexy, and that’s all there is to it. Second, so what if he dresses like a girl? Third, you wouldn’t understand, unless you were either a girl or you were a boy who liked boys. And I don’t have an identity crisis."

"Then pray tell, why do you dye your hair all the time?"

"You know I like to experiment around with things." Margaret was very worldly. In her social circle, she was usually the first to try new and different things. She looked around her room again. Damn! Margaret thought, realising she still had to pack three posters into a box. She had just started renting a flat a few miles away, and she would be moving in a couple days. She did have most of her belongings packed into boxes and some things at the flat already, but she loved looking at her posters on her walls. At least the cheeriness of the pictures took away some of the blandness of the boxes scattered about the room… Margaret couldn’t wait to move! Oh, well. She only had three posters to pack—everything else was boxed up already. It was a good thing that the vanity and the telephone that she was using weren’t her own (they were her mother’s), because they would take a long time to pack up. The makeup she was using could just be thrown into a box…Margaret loved to be so organised!

"Experimenting will lead to trouble. Especially what you experiment with."

"Oh, how would you know? You haven’t been around much."

"Oh, I know. I talk to people. I don’t even have to talk to people to find out what you do! Mark my words, Margaret. You’re bound to get in trouble sooner or later. The wild parties, the dangerous substances, the—ahem—all-night orgies…I really worry about you. You will get into trouble!"

"And you’re the perfect little scholar? Ha! You’re just a right-wing capitalist pig."

"Shut up!" Andy didn’t like Margaret to pick on him. His family was a bunch of capitalists, but he didn’t like his liberal friend Margaret pointing it out.

"Well, you are! And quite conservative, too."

"What’s wrong with that?"

"You should take Lou Reed’s words to heart and "take a walk on the wild side." It’s a blast over here! Ah, Lou…"

"Now, you don’t want me to expound on that—"

"You wouldn’t dare!" Margaret got defensive. "You’re the only person that knows! Well, not really…Georgi knows." She had recently told him an extremely confidential and personal secret and had sworn him to secrecy. Sure, other people knew about it, but they found out by doing and not by her telling them. If her parents ever found out, they would have her head, along with all of her valuable David Bowie memorabilia she had acquired.

Andy seemed to turn his nose up on the other side of the line. "What if I would tell?"

"Alright, I don’t have time for these games. I know you won’t tell, because if you did, I’d just tell everybody your real name. You’d hate that, wouldn’t you? Now, I have serious affairs to attend to. Let me go."

"This obsession you have is quite unhealthy. You should stop this. You know that stupid Ziggy character is a puff. And so is David Bowie."

Margaret did not like listening to Andy when he criticised her and her idols. "Oh, piss off! You’re the one that’s a puff! Bye." She hung up the phone. "What a square," she muttered to herself.

Margaret sauntered over to the vanity after hanging up the phone in her small room of her family’s London flat. "Far out!" she said to herself as she took a look at the space cadet staring back at her. Her hair had been freshly cut and dyed the day before with her hard-earned money from working as a cinema usherette. It was a fiery red, spiked up in the front, and long in the back. It was extremely hard convincing her mother to let her get such a haircut but she somehow succeeded. Her father had not seen her yet; she had always stayed in her room for an inordinate amount of time since she had been introduced to glam rock and Bowie… she listened to records, put on makeup, sketched, and dreamed. When she was not in her room she was out at a party with her glam friends.

Her face was heavily laden with pink blush, pink lipstick, pink eyeshadow, pink eyeliner, and black mascara. She had carefully painted a red and blue lightning bolt across her face, using her coveted Aladdin Sane record as a guide.

Margaret’s costume was elaborate and otherworldly. She had carefully made it by hand thanks to her sewing skills. It was a skin-tight plastic-like two-piece suit that had a raised-up collar and matching raised-up pieces of the material coming up from her shoulders. Her shirt was zipped up. Neatly pulled up over her matching pants were a pair of shiny red rubber go-go boots, which she had bought. She gave her costume a final look and smiled confidently.

She reached to open her door, but realised she was missing something. Her ticket! She frantically searched for it, throwing piles of dirty clothes every which way. Her eye caught a piece of paper resting under a bottle of red fingernail varnish and a tube of silver glitter. She had forgotten to paint her nails and put on the glitter!

She crept to her door and peeked out, hoping no one would see her until her costume was complete. Luckily, the hallway was empty. She hurried to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

Margaret reached for the razor. "Well, I never needed them anyway," she said as she shaved off her eyebrows. "Ouch!" She cut herself and it started bleeding. She took a towel and dabbed her cut. This, in turn, messed up her makeup. Luckily there were the materials she needed in the bathroom for a quick touch-up job.

After fixing her makeup, applying the glitter, and painting her nails, she was finally ready to go. She slipped her ticket inside her zipped up shirt (no pockets!) and stepped out of the bathroom. She quietly returned to her room to throw her makeup in a box. Then she made her way to the living room and the kitchen.

Her kid sister, Anne, was in the room adjacent to the bathroom teaching her make-believe class. Anne’s dream was to become a teacher, even though she had just started school not too long ago. Anne looked cute with her little ringlets of brown hair framing her round face, talking to her invisible class. When Margaret sashayed past, Anne dropped her piece of chalk and screamed. She ran past Margaret to the kitchen, where their mother, Peggy, was cooking supper. Margaret thought, This isn’t good at all!

She tried to act suave, expecting the worst, as she entered the living room where her father was deeply engrossed in the evening edition of the Times. She tiptoed past him and entered the kitchen to say good-bye to her mother, where she found Anne clinging to her mother’s skirts.

"…Oh mummy, it was so scary! Her hair, her face, and guess what, mummy? No eyebrows! I was so afraid!" Anne was clearly quite frightened. She loved her sister, but then again she loved to tell on her. Anne turned around to get a gingersnap and found Margaret standing there in her otherworldly splendour. She pointed a trembling finger at Margaret. "There she is!" Quickly taking a gingersnap she ran back to her room, whimpering.

Peggy took a look at Margaret. "Lord, Margaret, what on earth have you done…" She shook her head in disgust and returned to cooking supper in her white apron. "I hope you’re happy, scaring little Anne like that."

"I didn’t mean it, mummy. This is a big event! The end of his Aladdin Sane world tour, right here in London at our own Hammersmith Odeon! Even some of my friends from the International David Bowie Fan Club are going to be there. Now, mummy, I’d better get a move on."

"Dear, it’s only half-past three. Doesn’t it start at eight?" Peggy stood there in disbelief.

"I’m going there early to meet up with my friends. And we want to see if we can spot any celebrities. We especially want to see Angie." Margaret and her friends adored David’s wife, Angie, and especially their one-year-old son, Zowie.

"That American girl’s just full of trouble. And so is David-what’s-his-name. Have you read the tabloids about them lately? I don’t know why we’re letting you go." She stirred the stew so quickly that it sloshed out of the pot.

"I’m going now. Love you, mummy." Margaret started out of the kitchen.

"Wait." Peggy put down the wooden spoon and walked over to her glittery Bowie Girl of a daughter. "Just—just stay out of trouble." She gave Margaret a hug. "Stay away from strange-looking…" She re-worded her sentence. "Stay away from strangers. And don’t do anything that could harm you."

"Yes, mummy. Good-bye." She walked through the living room to the front door.

Her father, Ward, almost dropped his pipe in shock. "Good God, Margaret! You look like a bloody dyke! Are you, then?"

"Oh no, no!" Margaret said, utilising the puppy-dog eye effect.

"That’s good. I won’t let you be…that way, you hear me?"

"Yes, father, yes. I always listen to what you have to say."

"Good," Ward smiled. It turned out his little daughter was still sweet and innocent after all. Or so he thought. "Give me a kiss, darling."

"Yes, father," Margaret smiled. It turned out she had him fooled for the moment. She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Ward smiled at her. "Now, who are you trying to impress with that nonsense?" He asked in a joking manner.

"Why, David Bowie, of course!"

---This page last modified: 16 Dec 2018--

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