I Came to Find a Girl

by Jaq Hazell

  Outside, there was bright sunshine, a brilliant day, early enough in summer to make the heat a novelty. Students were sitting out on the library steps, removing any surplus clothes. But I wouldn’t even roll up my sleeves as I marched up the hill home, my hair soaked with sweat.

  There was a ropey yellow-haired prostitute sitting on the wall opposite. I ignored her, went inside and slammed the front door.

  In the kitchen I stopped to check the fridge. It was empty, while Slug’s box of Frosties remained on the table. Sod it. I took the box and went upstairs. Sitting cross-legged on my bed I would make rough plans for the project in my sketchbook as I ate handfuls of the sickly-sweet flakes straight from the box.

  I could hear a car outside and shouting: “Look at that – what a dog!”

  My room felt stifling with its velvet curtains and old dark furniture but I couldn’t open the window. I wouldn’t let in any fresh air and besides the dilapidated sash wouldn’t stay up.

  I had to shut everything out by shutting myself in. I sat back on the bed; mindlessly eating Frosties and took out my phone. I flicked through the names and paused at ‘Home’. Should I call Mum? I thought of years ago in the garden back home: lush green grass and Mum lying on a sunbed. Something had happened at school that day, I can’t remember what, but even aged six or seven I felt I couldn’t burden her, not when she was so tired after a hard day. I scrolled down the names on my contacts: Lucy, Tom, Kate – mates from home – they’d all listen, but they were all at other universities or working, getting on with their lives.

  Desperate, I thought, wiping at my sweat-dampened hair. I sighed and flopped sideways. And I must have instantly fallen asleep, as I was still like that when Kelly rapped my door. “Mia, are you ill?”

  I looked up at the ceiling, assuming it was early evening. “What time is it?”

  “It’s gone eleven.”

  “How come? It’s so light.”

  “It’s eleven in the morning – what’s got into you?”

  I’d slept right through – twenty hours or so. I rubbed my eyes and shifted onto my side. My legs were leaden, as though my very bones were sore.

  What is up with me? Again I felt shaky, as if I could cry at anything. Sort it out, Mia. You can’t go on like this.

  Six

  There was a new club night, Incendiary. I’d been looking forward to it for ages; only it was at Lost and Found, a converted lace factory close to the Merchant’s House Hotel. Can I go near there? I asked myself. Can I bear it? Flood’s gone. He must have. He has no reason to stay in Nottingham. I convinced myself he’d gone back to London, but even so my stomach knotted as I walked the Lace Market’s wormery-like streets, checking each passing face, wary of whom I might see. And I hadn’t told Kelly or Tamzin or anyone else – that would make it real. It’s best I forget it, I reasoned – seeing as I barely remember anything anyhow.

  At the door to the club, a skinny girl in hot pants and a halter-neck top checked us over. And then we were in and on our way up the stairway where I touched the walls – painted Prussian blue and dripping with a glittering film of condensation.

  There was a buzzing queue of the city’s beautiful people moving slowly up and into the first-floor bar. Two girls in gold bikinis with matching asymmetric haircuts danced on a podium. A gorgeous gazelle floated by in a dress slashed in a V to her belly; another wore a lime sorbet prom dress and there was a Boho type in a diaphanous kaftan. Boys with shaved heads and sharp suits stood in a Reservoir Dogs group while a Jesus lookalike in an artfully torn T-shirt popped something in his mouth.

  Everyone was looking at everyone else while pretending not to. People were moving in all directions looking for the best place to stand, where best to be seen, or space at the bar. There was my friend Ant in a skintight psychedelic Pucci top nodding from afar, the entire fashion course though Tamzin barely acknowledged them, along with basically anyone who was supposedly anyone.

  I stood, bottle of Budvar in hand, looking around like everyone else but I didn’t feel good. Is my dress all right? It was vintage, sleeveless with gold sequins sewn in a thick collar and I’d felt pleased with it earlier but in the club up against all the other girls it seemed lacking.

  That photographer was there, the one with the blonde Mohican who’d been at the private view. Again his camera swept the room, picking people off. I looked away, not wanting the black hole of his lens to rest on me – not again, not while I was feeling so unsure.

  Kelly passed me another Budvar. It helped to have something to hold. “Let’s look upstairs,” she said, so we went up to the quieter, chill-out bar above, which was low-lit with people seated at the sides or standing in groups. I recognised a few faces and quickly scanned the room for anyone interesting.

  Luke was there. He stood out as he was tall, good-looking and effortlessly cool, but then again perhaps his nonchalant image of classic T-shirts, jeans and retro old-school trainers took hours of dedicated sourcing. He was also on fine art, a third year sculptor, and I’d always liked him. Luke was the sort that always flirts back just enough to keep you interested. I went over and said hello.

  “Mia!” He made out he was surprised to see me and kissed my cheek.

  “What have you been up to?” I asked.

  “Just working – I’ve got a lot on.”

  “Oh yeah, your final year. What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want to go into it right now.”

  I should have taken the hint and made myself scarce, but I wanted him, someone familiar, though apart from looks it wasn’t obvious why. I looked back at him, desperately thinking what to say but he got in first. “I’ve got to find Nick.” And that was it, he walked away and I stared after him. Who the hell is Nick? I turned back, sensing someone watching me, and found Mohican-man pointing his lens straight at me. He captured my disappointment. And I glared back until he let his camera drop.

  Give them nothing and lots of it, I had heard men joke – is that Luke’s approach? “Arse-hole,” I muttered to myself later, staring at my reflection in the chipped mirror that hung over the dodgy gas fire in my room. I shouldn’t have gone. I wasn’t up to it. Clubs like that are for confident days when you feel good about yourself.

  My housemate Spencer walked me home. “Are you all right, Mia?” he said in a way that made me think he was asking about more than my inebriated state. But I couldn’t tell him anything. I couldn’t tell anyone. I stumbled and Spencer caught me. “Steady – how much have you had? It’s not like you to get this drunk.”

  Back home in my room when I looked at my disappointed face it seemed such a shame to wash away the make-up. I liked the heavy eyeliner slightly smeared by sweat and my hair falling forward as it should but rarely did.

  “Fucking tosser,” I said to the mirror as if it were Luke, and then said it again more aggressively, thinking of Flood.

  I reached for the wardrobe door. It was a dark, shiny, upright, mahogany tomb.

  From the next room I could hear groaning (Kelly had brought someone back). I pulled at the filigree metal knob and let the wardrobe door swing loose on its creaking hinge as I stared into the black hole of its interior. I knew it was in there, wrapped tightly in carrier bags and shoved to the back. Out of sight out of mind I had hoped, but it kept coming back, haunting my thoughts, coming between me and my life, reminding me I’d lost control, had allowed four hours to slip from my consciousness.

  I reached in and grabbed the bag as an image of a hooded man in black pulling me in flashed through my mind.

  Got it. I dangled it at arm’s length as if toxic, and then let it drop to the floor, its contents spilling out: my favourite Diesel jeans and Blondie T-shirt rolled in a ball, now criss-crossed with a thousand creases.

  I held the T-shirt to my nose, determined not to gag, as I smelt for signs of Flood. Could it be evidence – but evidence of what? I have no idea what, if anything, went on.

  I could detect only the faint hint of my own sweat
mixed with the chemical perfume of deodorant, while my jeans had lost their metal button.

  I went over to my desk where I kept my art equipment and searched my toolbox. Damn, no scissors. I must have left them at college. Scalpel?

  I placed my drawing board on the floor. It was a board my dad had made from an old off-cut of wood, carefully rubbing down the rough edges. I picked up the T-shirt. It was one of my favourites and I always felt good wearing it. It was fitted and a perfect flattering length that hung just over the waistband of my jeans. I loved that T-shirt, and I couldn’t help but cry as I held the material taut, looking at Debbie Harry’s beautiful young face from her New York heyday. She was like a punk Marilyn, I thought, as I slashed her to pieces.

  Seven

  Saviour’s, like college and the Lace Market area, had been tainted by the fact Flood knew where to find me. I was due back at work and, despite how I felt, I knew I had to go.

  Flood’s in London, I kept telling myself. It was the only way I could carry on as normal.

  Warren, the head chef, was in. Crass and stocky with floppy white hair, he did my head in. “Whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off it,” he was saying to Jason, as I entered the kitchen. “They can whip right round your arm and paralyse you.”

  “That’s a wind up,” Donna said.

  Jason plunged his right arm into the shallow tank, grabbed an eel firmly behind its head and pulled it out of the water. Whack! He slammed its head against the edge of the steel worktop and slit its metallic skin, moving the knife in a full neat circle behind its head. The eel twitched as he pulled the skin down and away as if he were removing a wetsuit and chopped the length into portions while the jaws of the severed head gnashed away at the steel surface.

  “That is minging,” Donna said.

  “What’s it for?” I asked.

  “Lightly smoked eel with eel brandade,” Jenny said.

  “Sounds gross.”

  Jenny shook her head and smiled. “Eel is under-rated.”

  “You look nice, Jen,” Donna said. “You don’t normally wear make-up.”

  “Why Jennifer, you’re beautiful.” Warren put on an American accent.

  “Leave her alone,” Jason said.

  “It’s not like you to be so sensitive to the feelings of others,” I said.

  Vivienne looked in. “Girls, there’s customers waiting.”

  “Off you go, back to work,” Jason said.

  In the restaurant I seated a middle-aged couple, took their drinks order and immediately returned with a bottle of Chenin Blanc and a jug of water.

  “Mia, tuck your blouse in, you’ve got a nice figure, don’t hide it.” Vivienne was on my case again. I gritted my teeth and slouched back into the kitchen.

  “Hear them scream.” Warren held two lobsters, their pincers bound, above a huge pot, as he sang Rock Lobster by The B-52s. He grinned at Jason as he lowered them into the boiling water but Jason was with Jenny at the far side.

  “You’re a very sick man, Warren,” Donna said. “It’s so cruel, isn’t it, Mia?”

  “Sorry, what?” I’d been distracted, watching Jason and Jenny.

  Jason returned to his post. “It’s not a scream – it’s just the air coming out of their shells. It’s very quick. Shellfish have to be totally fresh.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to kill them first?” I said.

  “You can split their head with a knife if you want.”

  “You do the next lot, Jase?” Warren said, and Jason glanced at Jenny who shrugged as if boiling lobsters (which I knew she didn’t like) couldn’t be helped.

  Back in the restaurant a man raised his hand and snapped his fingers. He’d been difficult all night. “Do that again,” he’d said earlier when he’d caught me blowing up at my fringe. No way was I going to repeat something just for his amusement. “Four Tia Marias, please.”

  I headed back to the bar wishing I were invisible so I could travel like vapour, in and around, seeing who was there but without being seen.

  The bar was pleasant enough with dove grey painted tongue and groove panelling on the lower half of the walls and a selection of framed colourful prints – works by Dufy and Matisse, that kind of thing. They brightened the place up and yet were obviously chosen for their inoffensiveness. There should be a law against that, I thought. Companies should be made to buy or at least display original works – imagine the kick-start that would give young artists. I thought of one of Spencer’s vast seascapes – good enough to go anywhere – all that passion and turmoil in layer upon layer of thick oil paint that he couldn’t really afford.

  A balding bloke in a pink shirt by the bar looked my way. “If you were a bit older and had better posture...” he said, and his friends laughed.

  Yeah, as if. I scowled back at him. Hurry up, Duncan, I willed the barman to get on with my order. There was nothing to do but look around, take it all in – social life without the socialising.

  “Mia, what can I do for you?” Duncan finally got round to my order though it wasn’t long before Finger-snapper wanted more. In fact, over the next hour all my five other tables emptied while he kept ordering, forcing me to repeatedly return to the bar, worried that Flood could be there. Although I did try to rationalise: he has to have gone. He lives in London. Why would he hang round here? But even so, my heart raced whenever I walked in that direction.

  “Are they ever going to leave?” Donna said. Well, not before Finger-snapper had tried to humiliate me once more.

  “You have to smile to get a tip,” he said, sweeping back an oily piece of hair. I looked back expressionless. “Must be her time of the month.” They all laughed, even the two women. Bitches. And then finally, drunkenly, they left leaving a little loose change for my trouble.

  I cleared away while Donna cashed up and split the tips between us.

  “What a load of shit for all that grief,” she said.

  “How are we doing, girls?” Vivienne turned up, G and T in hand. “Oh Mia, do something about your hair – tie it back properly please.”

  Don’t employ art students if you don’t like how we look, I thought.

  “Any room at the inn?” Warren sat on the bench next to me and Jason pulled up a chair. “We had some right fuckers in tonight.”

  “The customer is always right,” Vivienne said.

  “Yeah, and I’m Wayne Rooney,” Warren said.

  “Ugly enough,” Donna said. “What about Tia-Maria-man – he was giving you some grief.”

  “They do it to feel better about themselves,” I said.

  “Here’s Jenny.” Warren tapped the other side of the bench beside him but Jenny sat down next to Donna.

  “Are you going to get yourself a drink, Jenny?” Vivienne asked.

  “I’ve got to get going in a minute.” She gripped the strap of her Nike kitbag as if she wanted to leave immediately.

  “Come on, Jen, have a drink,” Jason said.

  “I’m training tomorrow.”

  “How far are you running this time?” I asked.

  “Ten miles.”

  “Is that supposed to be fun?”

  “I’m doing the Midlands marathon next month.”

  “Rather you than me,” Donna said. “You must be a masochist.”

  “She’s good,” Jason said.

  How would he know? Something is going on. I didn’t want to hang around anymore. “I better get going,” I said.

  “Me too,” Donna said, and Jenny stood up.

  “Are you okay getting back, girls?” Vivienne asked, which was a joke because we all knew she wasn’t prepared to shell out for staff taxis.

  “I heard about that murder,” Warren said. “That’s near you, isn’t it, Mia?”

  “Why mention that? Cheers, Warren, I’ll worry even more now.” I didn’t need reminding. Days earlier, I’d even passed the bundle of wilting bouquets marking the spot where she was found.

  Donna frowned. “That poor woman.”

  We left the
n, and walked up Victoria Street towards Market Square.

  “How did it go with that artist the other night?” Donna asked. She was being a friend. Friends ask questions. But I didn’t want this conversation. What to say? I felt sick and turned away, as if checking the traffic before we crossed a road. “Where did he take you?” She wasn’t going to drop it.

  “The bar at the Merchant’s House Hotel – I only stayed for one drink,” I said, which was true enough. I saw it then – the hotel room with its dishevelled bed and me naked as I desperately searched for my clothes and boots. “He’s too old and smarmy.” I made a face and changed the subject. “What about you, Jenny? Are you seeing anyone? You never tell us anything.”

  Again, she gripped the strap of her kitbag. “I’m always working.”

  “What about your nights off?” I had to know. Jenny was so pretty with poker-straight hair to her waist. If she weren’t so shy she’d be deadly.

  “I’m usually at running club.”

  “Is there no one there?”

  “They’re all too old.”

  “She wouldn’t tell us anyway,” Donna said.

  “I reckon you’ll end up falling for another chef,” I said.

  Jenny looked at me quizzically. I’d guessed right, something was going on between her and Jason. She smiled and looked away and before I could ask anything more Donna interrupted. We’d reached their bus stop and the moment passed.

  I left them then to walk on alone, too impatient to wait for a bus or tram. And, as always, I worked my keys between my fingers.

  It had gone midnight by the time I got back. I looked over my shoulder before I opened the door. The house was dark. There wasn’t a sound. I listened at Slug’s door – nothing. Tamzin’s was slightly ajar – again nothing. Upstairs it was obvious no one was about. Spencer had left his light on and there were pots of wet paint on the windowsill. Lazy shit – never cleans up.

  Kelly’s door was shut. She would have locked it. I unlocked my own, went in and locked it from the inside. I was too buzzy to sleep. Service does that to you – all that running around after people. Sod it; make coffee.