by Deborah Bee
I said that already.
The policewoman puts her hand over mine and nods.
‘Go ahead,’ she says. ‘You can talk to me about anything you like.’
But I’m still thinking about Louisa.
Going on and on like she always did about these new acrylics she’d had done.
The ends were dipped in glitter.
Her nails always looked awesome.
I’d never do acrylics.
It damages your nail beds.
Makes them weak.
Like I could care less about that now.
She’s so funny.
She can talk for hours on her own without needing you to say anything back.
I’m the opposite.
I think it’s cos she’s from a big family and I’m an only child.
She’s got seven brothers and sisters.
I wonder what she’s doing.
I haven’t seen her in two years.
Nearly two years.
Then this man walked in.
To The Adelaide, I mean, when I was with Louisa.
Older.
Like maybe mid-thirties, I thought at the time.
He was a proper man, if you know what I mean.
Not like the boys that me and Louisa were used to dating.
Fumblers, we used to call them.
None of them had a clue.
But this guy!
You could see his muscles under his jacket.
He had hairs creeping out from his shirt collar.
He flopped into a chair, leaned back and looked at the menu.
Then he flipped the menu back onto the table and motioned to the waitress.
‘God, Clare,’ Louisa had breathed. ‘Get an eyeful of that, will you,’ she’d said, without moving her lips. ‘Did you ever . . .’ she said as he slipped off his jacket and slung it on the back of the chair.
He was near us. Near enough to hear what we were saying.
But he didn’t even notice us.
Well, that’s what we’d thought.
Why would he?
We were just a couple of kids.
He didn’t look at us once.
The waitress came over and took his order.
She was all smiley with him and he was all smiley back with her.
I can remember thinking ‘he really walks the walk and talks the talk.’
Like properly sexy.
Everything about him was confident.
He even had confident hair – thick, wavy, styled perfectly.
I’m sure he knew we were staring at him.
But he just seemed to enjoy that.
Like a cat lying in the sun.
So anyway, his food came.
He had a burger with fries. Lifted off the top bun, rearranged the tomato and gherkin, squared up the slice of cheese, aligned the bottom bun with the burger and replaced the top bun.
‘Perfect,’ Louisa said sighing.
He was tapping away at his phone the entire time.
Not interested in anyone or anything else.
‘And the real trouble with glittery tips,’ Louisa was saying, ‘is that they like totally shed. All the time! I got blue glitter in my keyboard at work and everything.’
Some of the glitter, she was saying, had got into her eye the previous night and stuck to the inside of her eyelid. She’d spent three hours trying to get it out, and instead just got more glitter in. We were crying with laughter.
She’d wiped a tear away with a finger and then stopped suddenly.
‘OMG,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve only gone and done it again!’
And we cracked up.
It was a funny story.
So much so that we’d forgotten about the good-looking man.
He put down his cutlery really loudly.
Our heads swivelled in his direction, simultaneously.
He drained his bottle of beer.
Slammed that on the wooden table too.
Motioned to the waitress to bring his bill.
And the entire time, I felt like I was electrified.
I felt like every cell in my body was on high alert.
My heart was beating faster.
The waitress was all smiley. He was all smiley.
Louisa kicked me under the table.
‘You luuuurve him,’ she said, and started making kissy noises.
Then her eyes widened.
‘Shiiiiittttt,’ she whispered. ‘He’s only headed our way,’ she said, shutting her eyes like she hoped that the whole scene would just disappear.
‘You are actually kidding me,’ I said, trying to look out of the corner of my eye without turning my head.
He came up to the table, right next to me, and he leant down to Louisa, who was nearly expiring I can tell you, and he said, ‘The trick with debris in your eye?’
He was American.
He said de-bree. ‘. . . is you fill a sink with water, OK, then you dunk your head into it and open your eyes under the water. Then the debris will just swim right out.’
Louisa was bright red.
She was staring at him.
He was looking at her.
And all I could do was breathe in his warm smell.
Sweat and tobacco.
A real-man smell.
He winked at her, drew himself up and turned to leave.
And I was thinking, don’t just leave now. Come back. I’ll never see you again.
And he left.
The front door of The Adelaide swung shut with a bang.
Louisa was holding her face, feeling her burning cheeks.
‘He is off the scale . . .’ she breathed, then stopped.
The doors had swung open again.
He was heading back to our table.
Not really looking at us.
Being really cool and smiling at the waitress again.
And then he handed me a card.
Me.
Not Louisa.
Me.
This was the first time he’d looked at me.
‘You should come for a drink with me,’ he said. ‘This is my number,’ he said.
He shrugged at Louisa.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you understand, right?’
She blushed.
And he turned and left again.
‘Gareth James,’ it said. ‘Model/Actor.’
And there was his number.
‘Holy cow,’ said Louisa.
‘But you don’t even know my name,’ I shouted after him, laughing.
‘You’re Coco,’ he said, not altering his pace
‘You’re mistaken,’ I shouted.
‘You’re Coco,’ he repeated, laughing. ‘I know it.’
‘I’m not Coco, I’m Clare,’ I said to Louisa, as though she didn’t know, thinking that he wouldn’t hear.
‘Not anymore,’ he shouted back, just as the doors closed behind him again.
‘Coco.’
Detective Sergeant Clarke, is still staring at me.
I jump.
‘Coco! Are you OK? You were going to tell me a bit about yourself?’
Wake up’ bitch.
I need some food.
I look at the door of the Community Room.
There was a noise.
A noise on the other side of the door.
‘It’s only Barney,’ she says. ‘He’s always having a barney. Come on now . . . Tell me all about you. How old are you?’
‘Twenty-four,’ I say.
My hands didn’t used to look this old.
‘Where do you live?’
Shut your mouth up.
I shake my head.
‘Can you hear me?’ she says.
I’m not sure I know where I am.
Coco . . .
Eight
Sally
She’s in there now, that girl with the bare feet, in there with Sue. I expect Sue’ll get the ambulance here right away, because, heavens above, that girl ne
eds it. The boys are still here. Excitement over and probably forgotten, given the state of them.
Known Sue for twenty years, been friends off and on since then, but now I have to call her Sergeant; well, in here, I do. Ever since I came down from Liverpool, I’ve known her. That was the first time I met her and she didn’t have a posh title back then, she was just a plain old PC, like, who made it her business to help DVs. They didn’t have swanky women’s refuges back then, either, didn’t have hardly any at all, and the ones they did have were basic. And when I say basic, I mean dirty thin mattresses on the floor, ten girls to a room, one bathroom per floor and use of a shared kitchen, if you were lucky. There were no TVs and no gardens, no meeting rooms, no CCTV. If we got a break-in, and we got a lot of break-ins let me tell you, we all ganged up together, with whatever we could lay our hands on, and chased them off. I remember Tracey Fernshaw getting rid of one bloke with a squeezy bottle of washing-up liquid and a rolling pin! Seriously, no word of a lie. Mind you, most people would have run a mile from Tracey Fernshaw, built like a brick shi– outhouse, she was.
They were free in those days too. No one expected you to fork out for a safe place to put your head down, but you have to pay these days. I’ll be honest, I don’t mind giving up £150 a week, cos it seems a small price to pay for peace of mind.
When Terry gets out, Sue says it’s best I go back into a refuge, just temporary like, until we make sure he’s not going to be playing silly buggers, and if he doesn’t come looking for me, I can go right back home again. I’ve got a nice place now, just behind that Koko nightclub, on the corner of the High Street; it’s what Camden Palace used to be.
There’s a new refuge opened near Regent’s Park, someone in the doctor’s was telling me. It’s two or three properties knocked into one or something, in a mansion block that runs the length of the street, they said. You’ve got to be off your rocker, I said. Regent’s Park is far too posh for a women’s refuge, but apparently there’s squats in half the block, the ones up nearest to Chalk Farm tube; no one wants to live in them, couldn’t even sell them at knock-down prices, so the council got given some of them. It’s all being done up now, with state-of-the-art security and everything. Whatever that means. Twenty two-bedroom self-contained flats, all new, and shared use of kitchens, laundry, TV room and social rooms. Social rooms. Social! In my day no one wanted to be social, I can tell you. Too busy putting Savlon on their cuts and concealer on their bruises.
I’m going to tell Sue about it, this new place by Regent’s Park Road, because I may as well go there as anywhere, if it’s ready that is. You’re s’posed to go out of your area for a refuge, you know, that’s the rule, make it harder for anyone to find you, if you know what I mean. Terry doesn’t know I’m in North London, well, I don’t think he does anyway, so where I stay’s my business. Not unless Terry’s brothers have kept track of me over the years, but I doubt that, fat lazy slobs they were. They’ll be in their sixties now, for God’s sake, even fatter and lazier, I’ll bet, with a perma-tan and tattoos, and they’ll do all-inclusives on the Costa del Sol, two weeks, twice a year, out of season, when there won’t be any kids. I’ll bet.
And I should think my Terry has got a lot better things to do getting out of prison after twenty years, than tracking me down. His mum will have been baking for weeks, freezing batches of cheese scones, and coffee and walnut cakes. I always hated coffee and walnut cake. She’ll still be alive, you know; at least, she hadn’t passed on last I heard. Eighty-one, she is, and she’ll have been forcing herself to stay alive just to make those cakes for his coming home.
Some godforsaken young PCSO, wet behind the ears make no mistake, has just gone into the Community Room. They’ll be trying to find out what happened to the poor girl.
You know what I think? I think this girl’s typical DV if you ask me, all the signs.
What she could do with is a nice hot bath, that’ll sort her, and a whole new set of clothes. Sue’ll have something, cos they keep stuff here for situations like this. She’s a specialist in DV, is Sue, or did I say that already? She’s in charge of the Community Safety Unit for the whole of Central and North London.
Come to think of it, Sue’ll need her to stay in her own clothes, to start with, if you know what I mean. They always do that with a DV.
Sue comes in to reception and Joanna slaps down her emery board and gives Sue a look like butter wouldn’t melt. My mam would have said ‘Get off the stage, you little madam, and take your awful sour puss with you.’
And then Sue leans over the desk and says very quietly to her, ‘Next time, PC Lee – Joanna – can you make sure that victims take a priority? Priority. Understand? Priority over your coffee break, your nail filing, your eyebrows, everything! OK?’
Only I could hear, because I was the closest. I don’t think the R.P. boys heard. They’re all asleep, anyway.
‘How am I meant to know she’s a victim?’ says Joanna, jerking her head around like Little Miss I-Know-Everything, little cow.
‘You open your eyes, that’s how,’ Sue hisses, between her teeth.
Nine
DS Clarke
Over the years DS Clarke has had many hours of training working with DVs, and running the Community Safety Unit for Central and North London. Lately this had included one-to-one cognitive-behavioural therapy with a trained practitioner. She’d sucked her teeth the first time she’d heard about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy – something about integrating the emotional mind with the reasonable mind. Smacked of American do-gooders. And if there’s one thing DS Clarke can’t stand it’s American do-gooders. Billy Graham set her straight on that. And Tom Cruise. She often wonders what happened to Tom Cruise and whether he is still making those action films.
But actually, the premise of DBT was right: allow the emotional mind full rein, then gradually, gradually introduce the reasonable mind to teach rational thinking. Soothe the emotional mind but listen to good sense.
Hence, she always let the emotion burn out of highly charged situations. She’d listen and listen. Only . . . sometimes her own emotions got the better of her. She was, after all, only human. And, when she found herself getting emotional, she’d remove herself from the situation, let off steam, then – and only then – resume.
The brief conversation with PC Joanna Lee at reception was like a valve slipping off a pressure cooker.
DS Clarke re-enters the Community Room and sits down again opposite Coco. Ally had packed up the forensic kit, the self-seal bags and swabs, so the room looks back to normal. Bland. Except for the girl. She looks up, surprised, as though she hadn’t noticed her go and hadn’t noticed her come back either. Or worse, DS Clarke thought to herself, she didn’t really know who or where she was.
Take respectful command. Be courteous, be kind but take control.
She breathes out, slowly, noticing again the strange chemical smell. Bleach? Turps? She changes the subject.
‘Do you have a job at all, Coco?’ she says.
The ‘at all’ DS Clarke employed there is standard waffle to deflect the directness of the question.
DS Clarke’s giving the victim the appearance of control. What she’s really doing is protecting the individual from events that can’t be consciously accessed. Suppressed thoughts that may bring anxiety along with them. DS Clarke often does this without thinking.
Coco’s eyes swim with vague memories that eluded her.
‘A job . . .’ she says. ‘I did have a job . . .’
And then her eyes glaze over.
‘I can’t remember . . .’ she says.
‘Are you warm enough in your dressing gown?’ DS Clarke says, changing the subject again.
And then Coco switches. Just like that.
‘Only morons say dressing gown, you thick bitch,’ she says.
DS Clarke tries not to show her shock and examines her own nails for a full thirty seconds, before looking up.
‘Is that what you think? Or is that
what someone else thinks?’ says DS Clarke, quietly.
No reply.
‘Did someone tell you to say that Coco?’
‘What?’ says Coco. What did I just say?
Ten
Coco
‘You’re doing OK,’ Susan says.
That policewoman.
Smiling.
Nodding.
‘Look, I know it may not feel like it right now, but you’re safe here,’ she says, taking a slurp of tea.
I have a sip.
I can’t decide if it’s the milk that makes me feel sick or if I just feel sick anyway. Maybe it’s the lactose intolerance.
‘So,’ she says. ‘If you’re ready, we can start the Risk Assessment.’
I nod.
‘And we can stop at any time.’
I nod.
‘You hold the reins on this.’
I don’t know what she’s talking about.
I nod.
‘So, all you need to say is “Yes”, “No” or “Don’t know”. OK?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘OK, are you injured at this moment?’ she says.
I shake my head.
‘Is that a no?’ Susan says.
‘No,’ I say.
She taps the screen.
‘But my dressing gown,’ I say.
I’VE TOLD YOU, ONLY MORONS SAY DRESSING GOWN, YOU THICK BITCH.
‘I did accidentally get paraffin on my dre – bathrobe.’
‘Paraffin?’
‘Yes, it’s called a bathrobe.’
‘How did you get the paraffin on your bathrobe?’
‘It was soaked, you see. But it’s dried. Evaporated. But it was soaked.’
I looked down the V of the dressing gown. Red bra.
ALL UNDERWEAR RED, FROM NOW ON, GOT IT?
Put it on.
Now.
Put it on.
PUT.
IT.
ON.
Now, guess what?
I’m going to have to fuck you all over again.
The paraffin has stained it blue.
‘How did you get the paraffin on your bathrobe?’ she repeats.
He probably didn’t really mean to do it. He was having one of those black days. Like people do sometimes. My dad had black days.
