‘Listen, don’t get all stroppy with me,
I’m
not the one who leaves her child in a knocking-shop and then bawls the place down when the poor kid picks up a fruity phrase or two.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Ellie.’
‘Well pardon
me.
And what nice language to hear from a
mother.
’
Ellie was right. She couldn’t keep dumping Layla on Dolly, and she couldn’t keep on dumping her on Kath either. Layla came skipping in from the hall, trotting around in Ellie’s wake as she mopped the floor.
‘Layla, honey, don’t get in Ellie’s way,’ Annie sighed.
‘It’s all right. I don’t mind her,’ said Ellie, chucking Layla under the chin indulgently. ‘You’re a little sweetie, ain’t you petal?’
Rosie came hurrying through in a leather mini and see-through white chiffon blouse with no discernible bra underneath it. She clocked Dolly standing there drinking tea, Ellie mopping, Annie at the kitchen table and Layla skating around the room, slipping and sliding, having a great time.
‘It’s like Clapham Junction in here,’ she said with a lazy grin, throwing a flirtatious smile over her shoulder at Ross, who was sitting in the hall beside the front door, waiting for punters.
Ross winked at her and grinned right back.
Jesus, this was
no
place for a child.
‘I’ve gotta go,’ she said, and scooped up Layla and hustled her out of the door, passing a semi-dressed, dark-haired and sharp-faced Sharlene in the hall, giggling with an older man who was just coming downstairs doing his shirt up.
Back at the club, she found chubby, vile-smelling DS Lane waiting for her, his white nylon shirt stained yellow under the armpits, smoking a fag and chatting to the workmen who were trying to hoist the new sign into place.
Annie glared at him. He stank of stale sweat. Jeez, didn’t the noxious bastard
ever
take a bath?
‘What the hell do you want?’ Annie asked, glancing sideways to where Layla was still sitting in the car, chatting excitedly to Tony.
‘Phewee, who bit
you
up the arse this morning?’ he enquired.
Christ
, she thought. Bent coppers with body odour, prostitutes in see-through blouses and now workmen who stormed past her and vanished into the club, saying they couldn’t get on because ‘the effing plaster’ hadn’t arrived on time.
They brushed past her and Lane, gaily calling each other cunts and stomping around inside in their hobnail boots. This wa
sn’t
the right atmosphere to bring a child up in either, and she was going to have to do something about it pronto.
‘Well?’ she prompted Lane in agitation.
‘I gotta take those files back. Someone’s noticed they’re gone.’
Annie swallowed her pride and her reluctance to be parted from Layla. She phoned her sister Ruthie, who was living over in Richmond, to ask if she would look after Layla for a while.
‘How long’s a while?’ asked Ruthie.
‘Two, three weeks?’ guessed Annie, and explained what was going on.
There was a pause. Annie could picture Ruthie there at the other end of the phone, her neat blonde hair, her kind and unremarkable face. A lovely
woman, Ruthie. A
good
woman, and Annie needed her now.
‘I know I shouldn’t ask, I know I’ve no right to,’ she hurried on.
‘Oh, don’t come over all humble, it don’t suit you.’ Annie could hear the laughter in her voice. ‘Course I’ll look after her.’
And so it was arranged, as easy as that: Tony drove her and Layla and all Layla’s things over to Ruthie’s. All Annie’s anxieties were resolved when Ruthie opened the door. Ruthie had two kittens, and Layla was instantly entranced, but she still cried and clung to Annie when she had to leave. There were tears in Annie’s eyes too, as Ruthie hugged Layla and told her that Mummy had business to see to, it would be fine, it wouldn’t be for long, and could Layla help her name the kittens?
Annie kissed her daughter goodbye, and walked away with tears streaming down her face. Things had to be sorted out, and that couldn’t happen until she knew Layla was safe. But Jesus, it hurt to be parted from her. It hurt like hell.
Next day Tony drove her over to Dolly’s place. Ross was already at his station by the door. Tall dark Sharlene and cute blonde Rosie were in the kitchen helping Dolly get the buffet organized. Ellie was in there too, polishing the top of the stove and wearing her pale blue overall that bulged open over her curvy torso in all the wrong places.
‘Hi, all,’ said Annie.
There were muttered greetings from all around. Ellie was slumped at the kitchen table, looking unhappy and doing what she always did in times of crisis—digging into the biscuit tin.
Dolly, who had been leafing through her notebook and having an increasingly heated conversation about who was going out tomorrow night and who was not with Sharlene and Rosie, paused and looked across at Annie. Then she went on: ‘Look,
nobody
’s taking the fucking booking, don’t go getting all antsy about it, either of you. After what just happened to poor bloody Aretha? No escort jobs, not now. I mean it.’
‘But Rosie’s already taken the damned booking,’ whined Sharlene, who was always up for an argument about anything.
‘Well, she shouldn’t have,’ said Dolly. ‘Even if she
did,
she should have got a contact number. Don’t I always tell her to get a contact number so that we can call the client if we need to? Did you in fact
do
that small thing, Rosie?’
Rosie looked petulant. ‘No,’ she admitted.
‘Oh for God’s sake. Then we’re going to have to let the punter down. And that’s an end to it, okay?’
They both nodded.
‘And Ellie,’ said Dolly, ‘put your bloody face straight, will you? And will you stop eating those fucking things? I know you’re upset about Chris, but you’re just going to have to accept it. I know you like Chris, but it looks as if he did it.’
Dolly’s easy acceptance of the situation irritated the hell out of Annie. She would never understand it. She frowned as she thought of the mess Chris was in. He was banged up right now, awaiting trial. And her conversations with Jerry hadn’t filled her with optimism for Chris’s chances of escaping a substantial stretch.
And Dolly’s ready to just accept all this shit?
she thought angrily.
‘Look, his brief’s on it,’ Annie told Ellie, trying to give the poor mare some comfort. She didn’t look at Dolly; she was bewildered and offended by Dolly’s attitude towards the shit-load of trouble that was hitting poor Chris right between the eyes. ‘And he’s a bloody good man, Jerry Peters—the best.’
Sharlene and Rosie were still bitching cheerfully over who would have taken the booking up West tomorrow night.
‘I told you,’ said Dolly sharply. ‘Neither of you’s going to take it, so pipe down the pair of you.’
And then a black tornado came bursting in the front door, barging through into the hall, nearly knocking Ross clean off his feet before he recovered and got to grips with this spitting mad apparition.
It was a stocky black woman of middle years, all heaving chest and huge arms and mad-crazy eyes. Ross grabbed hold of her, and she kicked and lunged, and then she spotted Annie watching slack-jawed with surprise from the open kitchen doorway.
‘
You!
’ she yelled, and struggled afresh. Ross was half grinning now, tickled by this demented woman’s mad efforts to break free of his grip. His amusement was making the woman even madder.
‘Ross!’ Annie called out.
Ross looked up, almost laughing.
‘Let her go. It’s okay.’
Ross released Louella. She straightened her clothes and put her hat back on from where it had been knocked askew. Like a bull approaching a matador, she charged on along the hall. All the women in the kitchen except Annie drew back a bit. Louella came thundering into the kitchen.
Aunt Louella was holding a wad of fivers in her hand. When she got up close to Annie, she threw the notes into her face. Annie flinched. Notes fluttered. Rosie and Sharlene restrained themselves admirably and didn’t make a dive for them.
‘Hey!’ shrieked Louella. ‘
Here’s
what I think of your dirty money, girl. I tol’ you I wanted nothing from you people. You think I’m not serious; you think I don’t mean what I say? You think I
frightened
by those boys of yours, comin’ around my house tellin’ me to be grateful, to take this, to do that, that I oughtta show respect, that I oughtta take it and shut up?’
Annie stood there and let Louella get it all out. One of the boys had obviously got over-zealous in his efforts to help her out and had forced money on her. Annie guessed at Deaf Derek, the silly fucker.
‘Excuse me,’ said Dolly, getting steamed up on
Annie’s behalf. ‘Don’t go coming in here shouting the odds…’
‘And
you.
’ Louella turned, glaring, to Dolly. Her eyes swept with disdain over the neatly dressed madam, then over the thinly clad pair of girls standing there, open-mouthed, enjoying the fight. ‘You think I don’t know what happens here, what bad people you are? You should be
ashamed.
’
‘All right, that’s enough.’ Now Dolly was good and mad too. ‘I don’t have to take this. Ross!’
Ross came along the hall to the kitchen. Annie held up a hand and he stopped in the doorway, giving her a look that was half sneer, half question.
‘Hey, you and your trained
ape
don’t frighten me,’ said Louella. ‘It’s because of people like you that my little girl’s gone from me. It’s people like
you
caused all this, luring her with your filthy money into this bad life.’
Louella’s eyes were suddenly full of tears. She stepped up close to Annie and yelled full in her face: ‘You want to have your boys work me over ‘cos I’ve refused to take your dirty stinking money? Well, go ahead! They can’t hurt me any more than I hurt already.’
The tears spilled over and now she was sobbing.
‘My little girl, she was all I had and I lost her early on. I know I should have tried harder to stop her going to the bad but I didn’t and that guilt I just gotta live with,’ she cried. ‘You think I afraid
of what you’ll do to me? I ain’t afraid. God’s my only judge, Annie Carter, not
you.
’
Louella raised her meaty fist and waved it in Annie’s face.
‘I don’t know what to
do
,’ wailed Louella suddenly. ‘Vengeance is for the Lord, not for me. Yet I feel this
anger.
I want to hurt someone, beat someone, and that ain’t right.’
Annie thought back to how she had felt when someone had snatched her whole life out from under her nose. She had wanted to lash out, to hurt, to maim.
‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘I know, Louella.’
‘I don’t know what to
do
,’ Louella repeated hopelessly, her shoulders shaking with great, grief-stricken sobs.
Annie took a breath. After a moment’s hesitation she moved a step forward. Tentatively, she put her arms around Louella’s shoulders. The big woman stiffened for a second, then all at once she relaxed and cried hard. Annie hugged her, rocked her like a mother with a sick baby.
‘I know, Louella,’ she murmured, holding the shaking woman tight. Her eyes met Dolly’s over Louella’s head.
Dolly was nearly crying too. She’d loved Aretha. They all had; they were all hurting.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Dolly. ‘Ellie, get Louella a seat.’
In the kitchen it was warm, cosy and safe. Out there, a killer lurked. Annie knew it. She and Ellie settled Aretha’s Aunt Louella at the kitchen table, brought her tissues, biscuits, tea. Rosie and Sharlene made themselves scarce. Ellie and Dolly joined Annie and Louella at the table.
‘At least they got him, they’ve charged him with my baby girl’s murder,’ Louella said when she’d calmed down a bit.
Annie looked at Dolly, who looked away. She knew Dolly’s take on this; Chris was guilty. End of story.
Annie looked next at Ellie, whose mouth had opened to protest. She shook her head and Ellie’s mouth shut like a clamp. The police might have charged Chris but, like Ellie, Annie was convinced they had the wrong man. But this was not the time to start in on
that
again, not with Louella here.
‘They’ve released her body,’ said Louella.
‘Oh,’ said Annie, and drank tea, trying to warm up the film of ice that seemed to have formed over her heart. She thought of her friend Aretha lying dead because some pervert had taken it into his head to kill her.
‘She’s in the Chapel of Rest.’
‘Have you been to see her?’ asked Dolly after a beat.
The big black woman shook her head.
‘I wanted to. Couldn’t face it alone. I just couldn’t,’ she moaned.
‘We’ll come with you,’ said Annie. ‘Pay our respects. If you want to go?’
Louella looked at Annie, then at Dolly. She’d cursed them both a few minutes ago, called them bad people. Her dark eyes were full of hurt and suspicion. But she nodded cautiously.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘All right. I’d appreciate that.’
Annie made a mental note to kick Deaf Derek’s stupid arse up between his shoulder blades next time she clapped eyes on him.
First it had been the uppers: they had made Mira feel so much better, had blurred the edges of her pain, lifted her, repaired her shattered spirit even though they ruined her appetite. She’d lost weight. She could feel her ribs sticking out. She felt self-conscious about that.
Then the downers, the wonderful downers, had made her sleep without dreaming; she hated to dream, her dreams were nightmares, technicolour, hideous: she was pleased to be free of them at last. But for every plus there had to be a minus. She awoke every morning feeling vile, hung over, and when she looked in the bathroom mirror she saw that her skin had lost all its youthful bloom and that her hair was dull. No amount of pamper treatments and visits to the salon seemed to make it any different, either.
‘Try some of this,’ Redmond said one evening
when they were laid out on the couch watching television, and put a line of white powder on to the glass top of the coffee table. He rolled up a ten-pound note and handed it to her and said: ‘Just sniff it in. It’s amazing.’
She was in a happy mood. She’d taken her tablets and they’d drunk a full bottle of champagne between them; she felt good. She felt good because she refused to think about anything, and the pills made it so much easier not to think. The sex between them, for instance. It had become increasingly experimental, veering into sadomasochism, stuff she didn’t like, stuff that frightened her, and she wouldn’t think about that, she refused to think about it, how it turned Redmond on when he hurt her, she just took her pills and felt good.
She took the little rolled note from him, leaned forward, inhaled the powder.
Suddenly, Mira felt like God.
Nothing was beyond her. Everything was possible. She looked in wonderment around the room, and saw that every colour was brighter, crisper; that he was more beautiful than ever, his hair like flames, the sheen on his white skin like alabaster, his eyes the brilliant pale green of fresh limes.
‘Oh…oh shit…’ she murmured, staring around her with eyes new born.
He was smiling benevolently. ‘You like that,
darling?’ he said, and trailed a hand down her bare arm.
It was ecstasy; she shivered and half closed her eyes, it felt so good.
Redmond leaned forward and kissed her, his tongue playing with hers. She felt hotly aroused in an instant, as if she was going to come right then and there. She leaned into his kiss; he unzipped himself, and pushed her head down; he was so beautiful, she kissed his rigid cock rising from its nest of red pubic hair and then did what he so loved her to do, and then she paused and looked up at his face, his exquisite, wonderful face, as handsome as an angel’s, and he was holding a square of what looked like soft rubber over his nose and mouth, the material flattening out on his face as he struggled to breathe against it.
‘Keep doing it,’ he said, his voice muffled, gasping. He closed his eyes. His erection was huge now. Feeling drunk, feeling ecstatic, feeling high, Mira turned her attention back to his straining cock and did what whores did best.
‘It’s just a dental dam,’ he said later as they lay entwined in bed. ‘It makes it…more enjoyable. It enhances my orgasm. You should try it.’
Redmond had already had his hands around Mira’s neck during sex. He had already beaten her.
The thought of him holding a square of rubber over her nose and mouth while they copulated did not excite her. But that thrilling white powder was still coursing through her veins, making her reckless, invincible.
‘Do it then,’ she said, and he did.
It was frightening, and arousing. He was right.
They did it often, after that.
He never touched the white powder, but she did. She began to look forward to it. She started to look for it, to ask for it. It made her feel so good. Her weight kept going down and her appetite vanished. Her hair grew lank and her skin was dull and erupted in sores and spots. But she kept asking for the powder, and he said if she did what he wanted, let him put the dental dam over her nose and mouth while they fucked, let him have his hands around her throat while they did it, let him call her Bitch and Whore and slap her a little, just a little, then he would keep the supply coming.
‘Anything,’ she said, and led him to the bedroom, and did it just as he wanted it, the dental dam over her nose and mouth, his cock pumping hard inside her—he never lost his erection when they did it this way—and his hands clasping her throat, harder and harder as he got close to orgasm, harder and harder until he came, and she passed out.
‘Darling?’ He was tapping her cheek when she came round, wondering where she was, what had happened to her. ‘Jesus, that was fucking wonderful,’ said Redmond, falling back on to the bed and putting the rubber over his nose and mouth to see how soon he could get erect again.
It was then that Mira knew she had to get out of this, no matter what he’d threatened to do if she ran out on him—because if she didn’t then she knew that he was going to go too far, and kill her anyway.
And so one day Mira packed up everything she owned and left Redmond. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew she had to get away from him before it was too late. She had some uppers in her bag, and a few downers, and a little nose candy too, although that was giving her a few problems, a few little nosebleeds, but she had enough to keep her going for a few days.
Finally she booked into a little B & B in Soho—several took one look at her and turned her away—not giving her own name, because she knew he would try to find her. If he found her then she was dead, and although she was low, tired and confused, she did not want to die.
But then she ran out of uppers, and then the downers were all used up, and soon the nose candy too, because she seemed to need more and more
of it just to achieve the same effect. The owner of the B & B wasn’t too fussy, but when he found her convulsing and throwing up in the hallway, he drew the line.
‘Get your stuff and get out,’ he said, his face twisted with disgust. ‘Filthy junkie.’
For that was what she had become—a filthy junkie. Almost longingly, Mira thought of the luxury flat, the endless supply that never dried up. Nothing ever dried up when Redmond was around. She knew he was into all sorts of dodgy deals, although he had never discussed his business with her. Instant gratification was the name of the game when he was there to look after her. An ordinary man, a normal man, would say wait when she asked for something—a fur, a car, anything she desired; but he would always get it for her, straight away—whatever it was.
He would get her the drugs if she went back right now.
She knew it. She was almost desperate enough to do it. Almost.
But worse than the desperation was the fear of what he would ultimately do to her. She thought back to those choking, awful moments with the rubber thing over her face, his hands around her throat, and knew that she had done the right thing.
No. She daren’t go back. He’d be furious that she’d walked out on him. God knew what he
would do to her. She shuddered with fear at the very thought.
But, somehow, she had to get some stuff.
She had no family to turn to and she had no friends from way back. If Redmond wasn’t normal, it was true to say that Mira wasn’t normal either. She had never been able to form friendships in school and college like other girls did; if she got close to it, she always blocked it off, turned away, grew cold, afraid that they would discover her dark and disgusting secret. She had the mark of Cain upon her, she was cursed, she was a whore.
She walked alone. Until she met Gareth.
Gareth was nice. He was so gentle, so nonjudgemental. She met him one night outside one of the Soho clubs and he didn’t seem repulsed by her, as most people did. He gave Mira a smoke of his weed—that was nice, too. She said she was looking for some supplies, and he said he had some supplies, and took her home with him to his little bare flat in a horrible graffiti-strewn square concrete block. A place where she would never have been seen, before. Now, she barely noticed her surroundings, stark and horrible though they were.
Gareth had a little dog, a stupid yappy little ball of white fur; she disliked dogs, her uncle had kept dogs, but she petted the thing and made a
fuss of it because she wanted him to like her and let her stay the night.
If he wanted sex, then that was perfectly okay with her, but Gareth didn’t make any moves in that direction. He just poured the drinks and they sprawled out with Dinky the dog, and soon he produced some LSD tabs. They took some and he started telling her about his life.
‘My stepdad threw me out. I got in the way of his “relationship” with my mum,’ said Gareth dreamily.
‘Poor darling,’ she said, although she barely cared. She was away with the fairies, looking at the wild colours on the ceiling, the dancing, twirling shapes—even Dinky looked pretty after she’d taken acid; he became a ball of writhing kaleidoscopic worms moving like oil across the threadbare carpet.
‘Your voice is funny,’ said Gareth. ‘So posh. Anyway, she had a bit of cash from when her dad died and so she helped me set up this flat,’ said Gareth. ‘Did I already tell you that?’
Mira shook her head. He was spaced out. Well, so was she.
‘She was afraid of the bastard, my…my mum. But she saw me right. Once I got the flat, I got a job in one of the hotels up West. I thought I’d get a live-in job, that’s what I wanted because believe me this ain’t the fucking Ritz, know what I mean? But I couldn’t, so I had to make do with this and
go in on the Tube. It’s not too bad, but I might move on soon.’
She nodded.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘Nothing to tell,’ she said. ‘No family.’
‘None at all?’
‘None.’
He let Mira stay the night, and then the next, and the next, until she was a fixture. They were bound together in mutual failure, two hopeless losers sheltering here against the world outside. He got a spare key cut and gave it to her.
A few weeks went by, and Gareth went on working odd hours at the hotel up West, while she walked the dog and turned a few tricks on Gareth’s unmade bed to get a little cash. Gareth got the drugs; they watched the telly together in the evenings and then shot up if he didn’t have to go out to work. Everything was cool.
Then she came home one day and Dinky was barking his head off inside the flat, which was weird because Gareth was home; he only ever barked like that when they were both out. She put her key in the lock, annoyed with the stupid little mutt, the neighbours would complain, fuck it, they were always complaining anyway, they lived to complain, saying the telly was too loud, that they were laughing too much, playing records into the small hours.
Fuck them. And fuck that damned dog.
She opened the door and there Dinky was, yap, yap, yap, silly thing. Then she looked inside.
A hot spasm of shock sucked all the breath from her body.
Gareth was hanging dead from the light fitting in the middle of the ceiling. The flex was around his neck. Mira fell back against the half-open door. A noise like a wounded animal emerged from her mouth.
She thought of Redmond, with his hands around her throat, or that awful rubber thing over her nose and her mouth. Redmond, who always liked to play around with throttling people, choking them.
‘Haven’t you heard of autoerotic asphyxia?’ he’d asked her once in that lovely soothing voice of his—she’d fallen in love with his voice, with that southern Irish lilt. She’d been nervous and started to object. ‘It heightens the sex, that restriction around the throat, it adds to the pleasure. So long as you keep the airways open, it’s perfectly safe.’
He’d told her to put something in the mouth
—her
mouth—a golf ball, an orange, keep the airways open, and she’d been lying there freaked out, terrified, naked, almost shitting herself with fear, with him choking her, and no, no, no, it didn’t feel sexy; what it felt like was the most
frightening thing she had ever been subjected to, and she wanted out.
Gareth had been strangled with flex.
She knew who’d strangled him.
Gareth was dead because Redmond had come looking for her, and, thank God, oh thank Christ in heaven, she hadn’t been here. But Gareth, poor bloody Gareth, had been here and he wouldn’t have told on her, would he? No, Gareth wouldn’t have told.
But now look; he was dead.
Bile surged into her throat. For long moments the room and the nightmare in it spun and blackened, but then her head cleared and she swallowed hard. She still felt as though she might vomit at the smell and the pitiful sight of Gareth dangling there. But she had to stay rational somehow; she had to think straight.
Because he was looking for her. He’d bloody nearly found her, too.
He would have asked Gareth where she was, maybe when would she be back?
Gareth wouldn’t have told…
Would he…?
He
could be watching her right now.
She backed out of the flat, closing the door on Dinky and his frantic barking, on Gareth swinging gently there from the light fitting. She looked wildly all around her as she stood exposed and vulnerable
on the dingy outside landing, but she couldn’t see anybody watching. She hurried, stumbling, nearly falling, babbling for God to help her, someone, help, like an idiot, trembling, and somehow she got to the lift and was then too terrified to press the button.
What if the lift doors opened and he was standing there?
She braced herself and forced herself to do it. Pressed the button. The lift hummed into action.
‘Oh shit,
’
she muttered, tears streaming down her face. She’d wet herself, she could feel piss running down her legs.