A Place to Call Home

by Carole Matthews

  The man behind the counter glanced up from his work. His eyes widened. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen them.’

  Suresh felt his heart thud erratically. ‘Recently?’

  ‘A few weeks ago. Maybe longer. I remember the child though. A very pretty little girl. Her mother said she didn’t speak.’

  Now Suresh’s mouth dried up and he struggled to get the words out. It was them. Who else could it be? He tried to keep his face impassive. ‘Did they say where they were headed?’

  The man pursed his lips. ‘She showed me an address,’ he said. ‘Up near Euston. Drummond Street? I can’t be a hundred per cent sure. It was a while ago.’

  What the hell could she be doing there?

  ‘Is there anything else?’ asked the man.

  ‘No,’ Suresh said. ‘You’ve been a great help.’ He paid for the coffee and moved away from the counter.

  Sitting at a table in the window, he punched Smith’s number into his phone. ‘We’re one step closer,’ he said. ‘Call in the lads.’ Suresh told him the name and directions to the coffee bar. ‘I’ll see you in five and I’m buying the coffee.’

  He hung up and grinned to himself. You might be able to run, he thought, but, my dear Ayesha, you can’t hide.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ‘Be good for Joy,’ I tell my daughter. ‘Not too late to bed. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’ Oh, how I hate to leave Sabina in the care of others, but, if I’m to be a working mother, then it’s something I’ll have to learn to do. I kiss her head, inhaling her sweet scent.

  ‘We’ll have fun,’ Joy promises. Then she touches my arm, her face concerned. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’

  Joy and Hayden exchange a worried glance.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I must.’ I’ve promised Crystal that I’ll go with her to the club where she works and I don’t feel that I can let her down.

  Joy sighs and lets me go. ‘Look after this girl,’ she warns Crystal, ‘or you’ll have me to answer to.’

  ‘Take a chill pill, Joy,’ she tuts. ‘It’s a job in the cloakroom. That’s all.’ She fluffs her hair one last time. ‘Come on, Ayesha, taxi’s waiting. If I’m late, we’ll both be looking for jobs.’

  So, reluctantly, I leave my daughter in Joy’s care and race after Crystal. My friend’s wearing a very short leopardskin-print dress that’s cut extremely low at the neck, fishnet tights and heels so high that I don’t know how she walks in them. Over the top she slips a light, cream mackintosh and pulls the belt tightly around her.

  In contrast, I’m wearing my maxidress as instructed. On top I have one of the smart little jackets that Crystal bought for me.

  ‘I feel very plain compared to you,’ I confess as we slide into the back seat.

  ‘You look fine,’ she insists.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘If you were auditioning as a dancer it would be a different matter. Then they’d want to see some skin.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She’s put make-up on me again. Much more this time, I think. Strangely, it makes me feel slightly more confident, as if it’s a mask I can hide behind. I’m grateful for that, as I believe I’m going to need some help to get me through this evening. Hayden and Joy looked so worried on our departure that I’m now filled with trepidation.

  The taxi ride is slow and we spend a lot of time in traffic. I don’t know where it’s taking us and there seems little point in asking Crystal as it would mean nothing to me. So I’m content to sit and watch the cars go by, while Crystal spends her time chewing gum and texting.

  I should buy another mobile phone. One for me and one for my daughter. She should always be able to get in touch with me in case there’s an emergency. I think of the phone that I threw away when I first arrived here and wonder if Suresh is still ringing it, trying to catch me out, or if he has given up by now. I’ve had such a short time away from Suresh, yet for me it feels like a million years. I’m a new person, living a new life. But I’m also like a fugitive, newly escaped from prison, and I can’t help but be anxious that there’s still someone out there looking for me.

  I turn to Crystal and ask anxiously, ‘Could Suresh find me?’

  ‘Nah. Anyone can disappear if they want to.’ She pauses in her texting. ‘Unless you’re Hayden Daniels, of course.’

  ‘He’s very precious of his privacy.’

  ‘With good reason,’ she says. ‘You don’t bounce back from a blow like he’s had.’

  ‘I feel very sorry for him.’

  ‘Me too,’ Crystal says. ‘By all accounts he’s a shadow of the bloke he once was. Used to be the life and soul of the party.’

  Perhaps I like him better as he is. Men like Daniel Cleaver are the life and soul of the party.

  ‘He’s been different since you’ve been around,’ Crystal adds. ‘He never used to come out of his room much. Must be your cooking.’ She nudges me and laughs. ‘They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I can’t even open a tin without having a disaster. That’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years.’

  It makes me feel warm inside to think that he’s a little better since my daughter and I came to stay, and that it’s not simply me hoping it is so.

  The taxi stops.

  ‘Shake a leg,’ Crystal says. ‘We’re here.’ She gets out of the cab and I follow her. While my friend pays the driver, I look at our surroundings.

  We’re on a busy main road, closer to the centre of London, I believe. Though my sense of direction may have failed me. The street is full of restaurants and office buildings, but we’ve stopped outside a doorway with a brash neon sign that says DESIRES GENTLEMEN’S CLUB. There are two burly men in overcoats who stand at the door and, I must be truthful, this doesn’t look like the kind of place that a gentleman would visit. Already I wish that I’d heeded Hayden and Joy’s advice and stayed at home.

  Crystal stands on the pavement and turns to me. ‘Right. Don’t be shocked. OK?’

  I nod. ‘I won’t be shocked.’

  She too now looks anxious that she’s invited me. But then she grabs my hand and, before I can think better of it, we go inside.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Hayden sat at the piano and played. It seemed he’d now opened the floodgates, and music flowed from his fingers. They tingled with energy and it felt good. There was, out of nowhere, a nugget of happiness at his centre. That felt good too.

  At the other end of the room Joy sat with Sabina nestled next to her. The child was in her pink pyjamas, looking all sweet and cuddly. She pulled a wayward strand of her dark hair across her face and held on to it while she sucked her thumb. Hayden played softly so that he could hear what Joy was saying to her.

  ‘Now then,’ Joy said. ‘Take your wool like this.’ She leaned in to the little girl and Sabina sat up so that she could see better. ‘Wrap it round your finger and make a slipknot. Now slide it on to the crochet hook, so, and tighten the wool.’ Joy demonstrated and Sabina copied. ‘Chain stitch is how we start everything.’

  The kid’s as bright as a button, Hayden thought. No doubt about that. She was taking in every word Joy said and picked things up in a flash. She was keen to learn, too, which was nice to see. It must be a worry for Ayesha that she didn’t speak. Maybe, given time, she’d take her to a specialist again and let them do their worst. The fact of it was, even though she didn’t chatter as a child would normally do, Sabina still had the ability to light up a room. Even Joy, who was as grumpy as hell about everything, was warming to her.

  He’d thought it was a bad idea for Ayesha to go to the club where Crystal worked. Hayden had never seen it; he’d been to enough of those places in the past to ever want to go again. Also he knew that Crystal was no longer in the West End and hadn’t been for a while. She talked about it so little that he was sure the place she worked at now was a long way from the glamorous end of an already tawdry market. He knew without even thinking that it wasn’t the kind of place where Aye
sha would be comfortable. Still, Ayesha was a grown woman and it was up to her to make informed decisions about what she did and didn’t do.

  He’d offered time and time again to set Crystal up with something else, but her pride wouldn’t let her accept. She had debts that he wanted to settle, but she wouldn’t hear of that either. She already took too much off him, she said. Which was nonsense. Crystal had been his lifeline these past few years. It was he that owed her, not the other way round.

  ‘Now we go under, over and pull it through,’ Joy continued. Sabina did the same. ‘Keep going until we have a chain.’

  Sabina concentrated on her work.

  ‘I have lots of grandchildren,’ Joy said proudly as she dashed off a chain of stitches. ‘When the two oldest girls lived in England, I used to teach them how to crochet and knit.’ Joy examined Sabina’s first few stitches. ‘Very nice. Keep the tension the same all the time. Not too loose. Not too tight. You’ll soon get the feel of it.

  ‘I don’t see them now,’ Joy added. ‘All my children live a long way away.’ There was a sadness in her eyes. ‘I’ve got one grandchild who I’ve never even seen. Can you believe that?’

  Sabina looked as if she could.

  ‘Oh, but you’ve never seen your grandparents in Sri Lanka either, have you?’

  Sabina shook her head.

  ‘Would you like to?’

  The child nodded.

  Joy looked thoroughly miserable. ‘Life sometimes is very hard,’ she said. ‘We have to be apart from the people we love. I’d like to be able to show my other grandchildren how to do this too, one day. It’s what grandmas do, isn’t it?’

  Suddenly Joy looked ten years older, sadness weighing heavily on her, and her eyes filled with tears. Hayden was pleased to see that Sabina inched closer in to Joy’s side.

  ‘Right,’ Joy rallied herself. ‘Next bit. Now we go back on ourselves.’ She demonstrated to the child with her yarn. ‘We miss this stitch and then we do a single crochet into the next one.’ Joy wound the wool while her attentive pupil watched closely. ‘Under, yarn over. Pull through. Easy.’

  The two of them worked together, and Hayden smiled at their heads bowed in concentration. You could keep fame, he thought. This was what he wanted. A quiet, peaceful life. You could keep your red-carpet events. You could keep your champagne. As far as Hayden was concerned, he never wanted to attend another one in this lifetime. In fact, his vision of hell would involve a red carpet.

  He looked over at Joy and Sabina. Would he one day have a wife and child of his own who would knit or sew together in the evening while he played the piano? Perhaps they’d move away from London as he and Laura had planned. Buy a small, remote place in the country or by the sea. He glanced up at the photograph in front of him, her smiling face, her flowing blonde hair. She was slowly fading from view. Without looking at her photograph, the contours of her face were now slightly fuzzy in his mind. He couldn’t recall every single one of her quirky mannerisms as easily as he used to. Perhaps he was finally letting Laura go. If he was, it seemed as if it was the right thing to do.

  Maybe rediscovering his music was starting to fill the emptiness in his heart. He looked up at Sabina and Joy, heads close together. Or perhaps it was something else.

  ‘Just one more line and I think it’s time for your bed, young lady. You want to be up bright and early for school.’

  As instructed, Sabina finished one more line and then wrapped up her wool and put the crochet hook through it as Joy had done. The child was a delight, no doubt about it.

  ‘Say goodnight to Hayden,’ Joy instructed, ‘and then I’ll take you up to bed.’

  Sabina slid down from the sofa and padded across the room to where he sat at the piano. She came and wrapped her arms around his neck. As he held her tiny body against his own, a feeling of great tenderness rushed up inside him and he was overwhelmed by a fierce protectiveness of her, the like of which he’d never known before.

  He squeezed her tightly and dropped a light kiss on her forehead. Despite the lump in his throat, he said, ‘Sleep tight, Beanie.’

  Smiling at him, she returned to where Joy was waiting, hand outstretched, to take her upstairs.

  Sabina turned and waved as she went and his heart swelled again. He’d thought he would never feel like this until he had a child of his own. Perhaps this little girl was showing him otherwise.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  We pass through a plush reception area, heavy with scarlet velvet, and I note the cloakroom area. A woman with black hair, a black dress and heavy eyeliner is currently standing there. She looks very bored.

  Crystal waves to her and she raises a hand in return. ‘We’d normally go straight in the back door, but I wanted you to check out the cloaks. If you’re interested in the job, that’d be your domain.’

  ‘It looks very nice,’ I oblige.

  ‘You could do it in your sleep,’ Crystal says. ‘The pay’s rubbish, but the tips are really good. She doesn’t have to put them in the pot either, like the rest of us.’

  We reach an ornate, sweeping staircase and Crystal stops before we go down. ‘That’s where the punters go,’ she says. ‘It leads down to the main bar and dance area. We’ll have to duck through here or I’ll get a bollocking from the manager.’

  She takes me through a door that’s almost hidden, and instantly the velvet disappears and there’s nothing but a stark corridor with breezeblock walls. The carpet gives way to concrete.

  ‘The back end of the club is totally depressing,’ Crystal calls over her shoulder. ‘All the money’s spent out front.’

  The corridor seems to get narrower and more dirty. We go down a short flight of stairs and walk some more until eventually we reach a metal door. Crystal pulls it open.

  ‘This is our dressing room.’

  The hot air hits me like a blast furnace. Inside there are a dozen or more girls, in various states of undress, sitting around a chipped table. Some of them are wearing only their underwear and one is in nothing but her pants with her breasts exposed. I don’t know where to look. There are harshly lit mirrors around the walls and more girls sit in front of them too. Most of them are applying make-up when, in truth, they all look as if they’re already wearing enough.

  ‘Hey,’ Crystal says.

  The rest of the girls greet her. The nearest one leans over and pecks her cheek.

  ‘This is my friend, Ayesha Roberts, that I told you about,’ she says.

  It sounds strange to hear the pretend name that Crystal has given me. They all say hello to me and I reply politely.

  Crystal tosses down her handbag next to a vacant chair and strips off her mac. She pats the chair next to her and obediently I sit down. The light in here is unforgiving from overhead fluorescent tubes. The carpet and chairs are stained and the air is fetid with staleness and sweat. One of the girls eats a takeaway hamburger and the smell makes my stomach turn. It’s a soul-destroying place.

  ‘I’ve brought Ayesha here to speak to Vinny about the cloakroom job,’ Crystal says to her colleagues.

  ‘Tonight might not be the best time,’ one of them warns. ‘He’s on the warpath. Kelly hasn’t been declaring all of her tips, so he’s given her the push. You’ve just missed her. She went home bawling her eyes out. He’s convinced someone on the bar’s got their hand in the till too.’

  Crystal groans.

  ‘He’s not a happy bunny,’ one of the other girls throws in.

  ‘We should all watch our step tonight,’ another advises. ‘You know what he’s like.’

  ‘Our manager is a twat,’ Crystal tells me as she pulls out her make-up bag and starts to apply another layer. She looks so much prettier when I see her in the morning without any on, but I don’t think she’d believe me.

  ‘Better get a wriggle on, Crystal,’ someone else says. ‘You’re on first.’

  ‘Really?’ She glances at her watch and hurries with her powder and lipstick.

  Then, while I and al
l the others watch, Crystal unzips her dress and takes it off. While I’m still agog, she peels off her bra. Her breasts look even bigger now they are not restrained. They’re milky white, marbled with pale blue veins and very beautiful. Her nipples are pink like rosebuds.

  She takes off her pants and replaces them with a very tiny sequinned thong. I’m shocked to see that she has no hair down below, and it’s probably a good thing as the little sequinned patch would not cover what a lady normally has down there. Her high heels come off and are replaced by even higher ones that are made of a material that looks like glass.

  ‘Perspex,’ she says when she sees me staring.

  ‘They look like they’ll break.’

  Crystal studies me. ‘Are you sure you want to see this, Ayesha?’ She stands there boldly, no shame at displaying her body. ‘This is my work uniform. Is that what you expected?’

  I shake my head, unable to meet her eye. ‘No. It’s not.’

  ‘You could leave now,’ she says. ‘No hard feelings.’

  Yet I know it would offend my friend if I left and, in the short time that I’ve known her, she’s done so much for me. ‘I’d like to stay.’

  ‘Come on then.’ She inclines her head towards another door. ‘I’ll find you a place to watch out of the way.’

  Two more girls follow as we head down another grubby corridor past a sign marked TOILETS. I think I would have found them by following my nose.

  We pause at a door with a circle of glass in it and Crystal peers through. ‘It’s still quiet out there,’ she says to the other girls.

  They tut and go ahead of us into the club. One wears shorts that are entirely see-through, with red stilettos, and the other has a shiny black corset that laces up the back. Her breasts are bare and she’s not wearing any pants at all. I feel an anxious gulp travel down my throat.