by Tim O'Rourke
"Sorry, mister,” Winnie said, standing to leave. “I don’t need no pimp.”
Thaddeus moved with lightning grace and took hold of her hand before she could leave. "I didn't mean that. I wouldn't be so vulgar to offer you such a proposition. The work isn’t of that nature."
Winnie looked down into his eyes and saw the openness, that honesty she had seen before on the steps of the Embankment. He spoke again, his voice gentle as always, "Please stay a while and listen to what I have to say, and if when I am finished you still want to leave, then you won't get any more harassments from me."
He let go of her hand. Winnie stood between the chair and the table. She looked down at the stranger before her and felt confused. On one hand he seemed strong and slightly arrogant, but on the other hand, he seemed gentle and a little naive. He implored her once more, his voice barely a whisper.
"Please trust me. Stay a little longer. You can go at any time. I am true to my word.”
Those last two words Winnie had heard so many times before in her life, and too often they had meant very little. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Winnie found herself taking her seat once more on the opposite side of the table. Somehow, she felt strangely in control of the situation. She sensed a certain desperateness about Thaddeus Blake which he fought to keep hidden beneath his cool exterior.
"Okay, I'm listening,” she said, “but any funny stuff, and I'm gone, mister.”
"Please, call me Thaddeus,” he smiled warmly.
Winnie eyed him cautiously and said, “So what kind of job are you offering?"
Thaddeus drew a silver flip case from his breast pocket, opened it, and offered a cigarette to Winnie.
“It’s not a habit I can afford,” she said, waving the case away with her grubby hand.
Thaddeus put the case away after taking one for himself and lit it. Once settled, he spoke.
"I’d like you to come and work for me at my home in Cornwall. In the last year, I have purchased a big home there, which takes a great deal of looking after and care. All I'd ask of you is to keep it clean. Your other duties would be to prepare my meals and do my laundry."
Winnie watched him blow smoke out of his nostrils as she said, "Ever thought about getting yourself a wife, mister. Or a maid?"
"I’ve had both. My wife died almost a year ago of cancer, and the maid just didn't work out."
“A wife?” Winnie asked, unable to mask her surprise. “You must have married young. You can’t be any older than twenty-five.”
“We met as teenagers,” he said, turning as if to watch the people pass in the street outside. “From the very first time I saw her, I loved her.”
Winnie watched his pale reflection in the window and said, “I’m sorry that you weren’t together longer. She must have died very young.”
“The time we spent together was very special - it felt like an eternity,” he whispered, looking back at Winnie.
Not knowing what to say next, and embarrassed by Thaddeus’s obvious sadness, Winnie said, “So why didn’t the whole maid thing work out?”
Thaddeus stubbed out his cigarette, which was only half-smoked, and laced his hands over each other on the table. "I have become somewhat of a recluse. I keep myself to myself. I tend to keep strange hours, mostly sleeping during the day and working through the night. It just got too much for my maid. She was old, and fetching my meals during the night and changing my linen became too much, and we parted company."
"Ever thought about changing your sleeping pattern?” Winnie asked dryly, eyeing him from beneath her matted fringe. “It might work wonders for your social life.”
“Let’s just say I prefer the moonlight,” he smiled wistfully. “Besides, after my wife's death, I had what you might call a breakdown. It wasn’t my mind which was broken - it was my heart. I shied away from people and the daylight, and all that it offered in its bright and harsh clarity. I prefer the nights. They are quieter and full of peace, with everybody away in bed. I can come and go as I please without being disturbed. The world seems mine then, and mine alone. As I have said, I work at night and I find the peace it gives me refreshing."
“What's your work?"
"I'm a writer; a poet in fact,” Thaddeus explained. “So as I'm sure you'll understand, I enjoy the solitude of the night. It sounds a little pretentious, I know, but I prefer to work that way.”
"Okay, mister, but...” Winnie started.
"Please, call me Thaddeus,” he reminded her with a smile.
"Okay, Thaddeus,” she said, “but what you’ve said doesn’t explain a great deal. Why choose me? I’m a beggar, living on the streets of London, without anything to offer. To be honest, I can barely read and write...”
Before she’d had a chance to finish talking herself out of the job offer, Thaddeus cut over her and said, “I've been in London over this last week visiting with my publishers, and each evening it has been my wish to walk along the river. Each night when I've reached the Embankment, there you have been, begging and being sneered at by strangers. Don't get me wrong; I'm not offering you pity or charity. If you do decide to come back to Cornwall with me, you'll be working hard for your keep. As I have already pointed out, I do have some strange habits, and perhaps a few requests from time to time that you might think a little odd, but let me assure you once again, I don’t want you for sex of any sort."
Winnie looked across the table at him and asked bluntly, “Are you gay?”
“No, I’m not gay,” Thaddeus said, with a smile. “As I have already explained, I’ve been married. I loved my wife very dearly and she will never be replaced."
Winnie watched him. She had become good at people watching during the many hours she had spent begging outside railway stations, and she couldn’t help but notice how his eyes grew almost black as he spoke of his wife. It was more than just sadness she could see in them; it was despair.
"How much will you be paying me?" she asked, changing the subject.
"You'll have your own private room. All food and any other extras will be paid for,” Thaddeus explained. “You won’t have to pay any bills. I’ll give you two hundred pounds per week, to spend in whatever way you see fit, as long as you are there when I need you, and are willing to succumb to any other little request I might make of you.”
Winnie swallowed hard. Two hundred a week. Lately, she'd been lucky if she'd scrounged two pounds a week from begging. Money aside, she was still wary of Thaddeus Blake. She only knew what he had chosen to tell her about himself.
“Two hundred a week, huh?” she said, pulling the ends of her sleeves down over her dirty hands. “A big house in the country… I didn’t know anyone could make so much money from writing down a few fancy words that rhyme.”
Thaddeus laughed and said, “I wish my poems made me money, they only make a fraction of my income - just pocket money, really. No, my wealth has been inherited. Like I have explained, I am the last and have no one to share it with – unless, that is, if you take me up on my offer.”
Winnie looked back at him across the table and said nothing.
"What have you got to lose, Winnie?” he asked.
Again, she said nothing and just stared into his brown eyes.
“I have been honest with you,” he shrugged, as if now the whole thing was not so important after all. “It’s up to you. No pressure. I have kept to my side of the bargain. I bought you dinner and we talked."
Sensing that her opportunity of escaping London and the evils she had discovered there was may be slipping away, she whispered, "How can I be sure that I can trust you?"
Thaddeus looked Winnie squarely in the face and said, "You won’t know unless you come back to Cornwall with me.” Then pushing his chair back from the table, he added, “The hour is getting late. I’ll be leaving tomorrow evening at seven from Paddington Railway Station. If you wish to take up my offer, meet me on the concourse and we shall leave together. If you chose not to meet me, I shall go back to my home and forget
this meeting, and you."
They parted company outside the pizza parlour, Winnie making her way back to the Embankment. After she was out of sight, Thaddeus hailed a taxi and disappeared off into the night. To him, the night was still very young, and he had a lot to do before dawn.
Chapter Three
Winnie made her way back to the Embankment. It was close to midnight now, not that time meant much to her. The days, nights, and hours all just rolled into one. Normally there was no break from the constant feel of hunger that gnawed away at her insides. Tonight she didn’t feel hungry; her shrunken stomach felt bloated, and it was a feeling that she had forgotten even existed. People poured out of the clubs and pubs, but they were nothing but ghosts to her. Or was it the other way around? She wondered. Was she the ghost? No one ever seemed to notice her, unless she made a complete nuisance of herself by thrusting her filthy hands under their noses, and asking for any spare change that they might have. Some gave her the loose coins they had jingling in their pockets, but others just looked away, their noses turned up. She didn’t really blame them. Winnie knew she looked more like an animal than a human. Her hair was plastered with dirt, and her clothes were threadbare and just as dirty as her skin. Thanks to the city worker who thought it would be amusing to take a piss over her as she lay huddled in a shop doorway three nights ago, she now stank of urine, too.
Winnie reached the Embankment, and she could hear the sound of the water slosh against the shore. Party boats cruised over the black water of the Thames, the sound of muffled laughter and music being carried on the wind. Late night trains rattled over Blackfriars Bridge, taking the last of the commuters home for the night, just to turn around and come back again in a few hours’ time and start all over. Drawing her hands up into the sleeves of her sweater, she felt the two bread rolls she had sneaked from the pizza bar. They weren’t for her - they were for her friend, Ruby Little. Winnie didn’t know her real name and she wondered if Ruby could still remember it herself. She was named Ruby because of the dirty red coat she always wore. Little, because she was little. It wasn’t any more complex than that. However, Ruby was more than just little. She was fragile - like one of those china statues Winnie had often seen in the posh shops in Knightsbridge.
But what Winnie couldn’t figure out was if Ruby was indeed a friend. She wasn’t sure. Winnie cared for her - perhaps like a younger sister. Ruby could be trouble, though. Winnie knew that Ruby had stolen from her before - the little money she had managed to scrounge that day - Ruby had sometimes sneaked from her pocket while she had been sleeping. Ruby was just as hungry as her, but what pissed Winnie off, was that she spent the money on blow, or worse. Ruby was cracked out of her skull most of the time, and would need looking after. Winnie didn’t always have time for that. Begging was a fulltime occupation. Hours spent watching over Ruby while she lay choking on her own vomit was time Winnie could spend hustling for money - money that would buy her more survival time. Even though Ruby would sometimes steal from her, she was company - someone to talk to when the nights were just too cold to sleep. Winnie had forgotten how many freezing cold nights they spent cuddled together for warmth over the last few years.
But Winnie knew that stealing from her wasn’t the only way that Ruby made money. She turned tricks for the men who approached her. Winnie knew why - she knew why most of the girls and boys went with those men - they were feeding a hunger far worse than starvation - they were feeding their drug habit. Winnie had smoked some weed from time to time, but nothing more. There was no coming back when you had taken a step down that darker road. It wasn’t food you were begging and stealing for anymore. You needed lots of money to satisfy that particular hunger - the kind of money you only made by selling yourself.
Winnie didn’t want to go there - not ever. She would rather die. She had been used before by someone who claimed to have loved her.
In the glare of the night buses, Winnie darted across the busy road and cut across the small concourse of the Embankment Tube Station. The flush of warm air inside momentarily coloured her cheeks. Then she was back in the cold again, and heading left into the archways which ran under the bridge. During the day it was a busy thoroughfare, but as the moon rose and the city went to bed, the archways became a makeshift town of cardboard boxes, soiled blankets, and huddled bodies. Winnie stepped over the seemingly lifeless bodies in search of Ruby. There was a small alcove where Ruby usually slept, but peering into the darkness, Winnie could see that it was empty. She moved forward, one of the others curled beneath the arches had a dog, and it licked dirty drain water from the gutter. It made a yelping noise as Winnie passed by in the dark.
Then, Winnie saw what looked like a heap of red blankets lying in the gutter just ahead. She approached them, and realised that it wasn’t a pile of blankets that she could see, but Ruby’s red coat. With the sound of her scuffed-out trainers snapping against the cobbled road beneath the arches, Winnie ran towards her friend. Ruby lay on her side, one arm jutting out from beneath her. Her small head was tilted forward, her chin resting against her chest.
“Hey, Ruby,” Winnie said. “I’ve got you something.”
Ruby didn’t move, even though she had her eyes wide open.
“Look what I’ve got you,” Winnie said, taking the rolls from her threadbare sleeves.
Ruby stayed still, not even her eyelids flickered.
Winnie crouched beside the girl, and it was then that she saw the thick stream of vomit trailing from the corner of her mouth. It was crusty-looking, and bubbles of dried snot blocked Ruby’s nostrils.
“Hey, Ruby,” Winnie said, shaking her friend gently by the shoulder.
Ruby’s head flopped to one side and Winnie stared into her blank eyes. Her lips were mauve, the skin around them blue. Winnie knew that it wasn’t just the freezing cold which had turned them that colour.
“Ruby?” Winnie whispered, shaking her friend again.
Ruby just stared back at her, her eyes blank - dead.
With tears standing in her eyes, the two bread rolls fell from Winnie’s hands and into the gutter. There was a woofing noise as the dog leapt forward and snatched them away in its jaws.
Then gently, as if handling one of those china statues, Winnie lifted Ruby into her arms and cradled her dead body.
“Somebody help me!” Winnie cried out loud, but the only response she got was the dog barking back at her from somewhere in the darkness. Winnie knew she had lost her only companion, however difficult she could be at times.
“Please somebody help me,” she sobbed, but she knew nobody would.
Winnie looked into Ruby’s upturned face, and the line of ropey vomit made her look as if she was smiling somehow. “I’m scared,” Winnie whispered. “I’m so scared.”
But not because of the hideous grin spread across the dead girl’s face, but because she knew that one day, however hard she tried not to succumb to the same nightmares that Ruby had lived, she, too, would end up dead. Winnie wasn’t scared of dying - it was how she died that she feared. She didn’t want to die like Ruby had; choking on the drugs which had been bought with the money she had got for selling her body. That was no way to live and no way to die.
But what choice did she have? And then she thought of the offer Thaddeus Blake had made her.
Chapter Four
Thaddeus Blake had arisen from his hotel bed at five, just before dusk. He showered and dressed himself in a black turtleneck sweater, dark denims, and a deep blue jacket. On leaving the hotel, he had made his way to Oxford Street and purchased some clothes for his new traveling companion. He had no doubt in his mind that Winnie would be at Paddington Railway Station. Thaddeus had chosen a violet top, jeans and boots. As he lingered over the garments, he pictured Winnie in the clothes he had selected for her. He pictured her seething locks of copper hair bouncing delicately off the violet top. Thaddeus could also see her enchanting emerald eyes, enhanced by the colour of her hair. She was going to look perfect for what he had in m
ind for her. Underwear came next, selecting a pair of panties and bra. Then there was the smell - Winnie’s smell. It wasn’t her fault, he knew, but it was pungent and turned his stomach. So he chose some shampoo, soap, and perfume. Thaddeus paid for all the items in cash and left the store.
He now stood on the concourse at Paddington Station, a little before seven o'clock. The carrier bag with the clothes and his own leather suitcase sat neatly by his feet as he waited for Winnie to arrive. He watched the throng of commuters who waited restlessly, looking up at the luminous displays, checking to see what platform their train home that night would depart from.
Others seemed more relaxed and sat on heaped mounds of luggage, drinking from soda cans and chewing on cheaply-made sandwiches. The homeless continued to beg, and pigeons circled above in the diesel fumes which belched from the engines of departing trains. Thaddeus had no love for the city, and he longed to be back at home in the clean air and the safety of his sanctuary.
Without even noticing her arrive, Winnie had crept up beside him.
"What time does our train leave?" she asked him.
He smiled with his eyes and replied, "Seven-thirty."
Winnie stood, arms wrapped about her fragile frame which she hid beneath the same dirty sweater. She also wore the same faded denims as the previous night, which were covered from thigh to calf in grime and dirt. Her feet were clad in worn trainers, which flopped loosely about her feet, due to oversize and lack of laces.
Thaddeus could see at once that Winnie appeared disturbed in some way, and he wondered if she was going to turn and run at any minute. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Winnie thought of Ruby, the last she had seen of her was being slid into the back of the hearse, zipped tight in a black plastic body bag. The police officers had asked her questions, but not many. It was obvious what had happened. Winnie didn’t want to think about that - that was in the past now and she didn’t want to go back there. So brushing aside her long, unruly fringe, she looked at Thaddeus and said, “I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all.”
