Perhaps she could confide in the Curry Club? Surely they would have all the answers?
Karl stood at the window of his bedsit and watched the orange flicker of the streetlight as it danced away defectively, ill-timed and flashing on a violent high. This normally bothered him as he tried to sleep. It illuminated his room and then darkened it, imitating the actions of an outdoor rave, forcing him awake to join in the street party and he submitted more often than not. But tonight, as he stared distractedly out at the street – empty but for the flash of orange glow – he had only one thing on his mind. Sophie Kane.
Karl checked his phone once more. Still no text from Sophie. He had rung and texted her at least half a dozen times but still no reply.
He too had drunk in abundance but, hard as he tried, he couldn’t quite recall the moment Sophie had left the bar. Nor who with.
She could be lying dead somewhere.
Karl panicked at the thought of her being hurt or in some sort of trouble but he quickly overcame it with his own summation. Sophie was not soft. She was shrewd and streetwise, plus she threw a mean right hook.
He closed over the curtains to his open-plan bedsit, succumbing to tiredness.
The streetlight continued its all-night affair but he was too tired to do anything but sleep. He sank under the dark throw which was covered in a mass of yellow stars, placing his mobile phone carefully to the side of his pillow. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes began to blink, fast at first and then slowing down until he blinked no more.
He would have to stop worrying about Sophie – that was his last thought before the night carried him with it into total blackout.
Sophie turned the key to the right once and then to the left in an anti-clockwise circle before pressing the button to lift the shutter, exposing what was very soon to be the new Kane’n’Able hair salon on Alderley Avenue. She gloated as she did her sums – all of which added to a massive ker-ching!
Alderley Avenue was one of the most affluent streets in one of the richest areas of the entire country and even she wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed it, but she had bagged an empty unit, swiped from beneath the feet of all those on the waiting list.
And she didn’t have to sleep with him to get it.
As she closed the Georgian front door behind her, Sophie turned to be greeted with a cloud of dust and a thick blinding smog.
She knew that Jude had her work cut out – the place was a mess – but she also knew that a girl like her would breeze through the project, lapping up every last moment of it.
Sophie wondered how Jude had got on with Clive last night. She had received her text but it was the finer details she wanted, like how Clive had got on with Jude in terms of how he took the news. Much as her impatience willed her to call her friend, she knew that as soon as Jude was ready to dish the dirt, she’d be the first to know.
Sophie skitted from room to room downstairs. There were five rooms in total and each room was partitioned by a solid brick wall. Structurally, there was so much to do, in order to transform the place into an open-plan state-of-the-art salon, that Sophie took a deep breath for her friend in anticipation of the stress to come.
Sophie Kane was a businesswoman through and through, but what she wasn’t was a project-planner. That’s what she paid other people to do while she herself had built her business on relationships and on impeccable high fashion cuts and colours with an unrivalled level of service which she knew, with understated arrogance, was her signature.
Her feet trudged through the ground refuse, kicking dry particles in the air with each small step. She put her hand over her mouth, which was already dry as a bone from the amount of alcohol consumed the night before and, coughing violently, quickly scarpered to the green front door which she yanked open, throwing herself outside, desperate for air. She coughed relentlessly.
“Sophie!”
Sophie continued to wheeze, bent double until her eyes streamed and she retched with each inhale.
She had seen Jude racing towards her but could do nothing but gasp for breath. Next time she would wear a mouth mask.
Jude rubbed her friend’s back as tenderley as rubbing a new baby with traped wind until she was sure that her recovery was complete. She grabbed a bottle of Perrier from her bag, removing the lid, wiping the top before holding it close to Sophie’s lips.
“Take this.”
“Uuughh . . .” Sophie laughed a gritty, congested laugh. “I think the next time I go in there, Jude, it will be on the night of the opening party.” Her voice was hoarse as she handed the green glass bottle back. “Thanks a million. That’s better.”
Jude smiled fondly. “Where’s your inhaler, Sophie? Aren’t you supposed to carry it around with you?”
Sophie retrieved a packet of tissues from her Coccomatto cappuccino-coloured bag. She blew her nose, dabbing her eyes with a clean corner of the tissue before throwing it back into the bag Tardis which held everything but the kitchen sink.
“I don’t want to rely on it, Jude, to be honest – and anyway I’m not convinced it really is asthma – I’m just not very good with dust.” She blew her nose. “Sure, these days you forget something and they say you’ve got Alzheimer’s. You clean a lot and you’ve got OCD. Poo a lot and you’ve got IBS. It’s pathetic!”
Jude laughed loudly. Sophie made her laugh like no one else. She adored her frankness and her ability to make light of something serious.
Sophie pulled the door to a close, locked it and turned to Jude. “This has to go.” She pointed at the flakes of green paint and rattled the brass handle, her face twisted with disgust. She cast her eyes up and down the rest of the avenue. “Any wonder the estate agent put a shutter on this unit. At first I wondered why on earth you’d need a security shutter on Alderley Avenue – nothing ever happens here – there’s virtually no crime.” She winced as she stood back, looking hard at the shop unit. “But now I know – it’s to hide the ugliness of this shop compared with the retro-modernity of the other shops surrounding it.”
Jude beamed at Sophie. “Well put, Ms Kane – I couldn’t have put it better myself! Anyway – not for long. Let me loose in there and I’ll have the place ready for the end of August – providing there’s no dry rot, environmental issues or anything else which crawls out from under the woodwork, that is.”
“You’ve just listed all my worst nightmares!”
Sophie stood on her tiptoes and reached up to hug Jude. Jude was wearing boots with a thick wedged heel and Sophie felt like a dwarf beneath her.
“Thanks, Jude. Thanks for agreeing to work with me on this. I need you to keep telling me it is possible to turn this place around because when I look at it all I see is a load of shit and no place for it to go. I wouldn’t know where the bloody hell to start in there. Anyway, enough of me! Tell me, how did Clive take the news?”
Jude stared into the empty shop with longing. “He was fine about it actually. Pleased in fact.” She snapped out of her creative moment and turned to Sophie. “He was made partner yesterday, Sophie, isn’t that amazing?”
“Wow, it was definitely a night for celebrations in your house, wasn’t it! I wish I’d been there.”
“It was indeed,” Jude answered. “He is officially the youngest ever partner of Staines & Greer. I’m so proud of him, Sophie.”
Sophie wasn’t suprised. Clive had always been a go-getter. Once he had something in his grasp he went for it, head down, horns locked and if he had to take a man down in the process, then so be it.
“Well, tell him I said congratulations, won’t you? A dual celebration,” Sophie said thoughfully. “How will you guys cope with the domestic situation when the pair of you are working, Jude?”
“I’ve got my mum, she’s brilliant, plus the kids are coming up sixteen, Sophie, and it’s about time they learned to carry out a few domestic chores themselves.”
Sophie scoffed. “Princess Anna will love that.”
Jude broke into a smile. There were m
any things Anna loved to do but housework was not one of them.
Helena handed over the rest of the fare in copper. She had raided her money box to buy a packet of ten cigarettes, and even though she felt quilty for dipping into their emergency rent fund the burst of relief was worth the feelings of guilt. She needed some escape for five minutes every hour from the awful place she worked in. It kept her there for eight hours every day, plus overtime which she grabbed at every opportunity, given her work bonus hadn’t lasted too long.
Helena thought about the Curry Club the following night at Sophie’s waterfront apartment, which meant that she was to host it the week after that. In turn, that meant two things for Helena. Firstly, she would have to get rid of Nathan for the evening, and secondly, she would have to magic up some money to put on a good spread like the rest of them did week in week out. She knew that her culinary offerings ranked bottom compared with the capabilities of the others, but she also knew that the women didn’t care about what she gave them and that they appreciated the thought which she put into the evening whenever it was her turn. And thoughtful she was. As much as she could be without money.
Back at her desk, Helena lifted the handset to her personal extension which had begun to ring out.
“Good morning. Northern Direct, Helena Wright speaking,” she sang cheerily down the receiver, her eyes and her voice in paradoxical contrast.
“Helena, it’s Maggie here. The queue is out the door again. Can you open your float just until it goes down, please.”
“No problem!” Helena replied as cheerily as she had answered the initial call.
However much she hated the job, she needed the money so it was a no-brainer for her in terms of how she acted.
She preferred her role of Personal Banker as opposed to the role of helping out as a glorified ‘cashier’ which she did whenever the banking hall was busy. She had a first class honours degree in Psychology for God’s sake! Counting money and handing it out really wasn’t the challenge she was looking for.
Jumping from her seat, Helena stood for a moment, unable to move. Her head spun like a merry-go-round and her knees buckled. Her vision was blurred and for a moment she thought she might faint. She sat down, lowering her head towards her legs, allowing the blood to flow to her brain.
To passers-by, it looked like she was simply digging deep into the drawer to the right of her where all the bank’s pre-printed application forms were neatly organised in green hanging files. But she knew the truth behind how and why she felt so weak.
Helena waited until the feelings had passed before standing up again. Slowly.
She made her way to the queue, seeking out those she thought might have difficulty standing in line for too long, regardless of how many people were in front of them or how long they had waited. Young as she was, sometimes she felt like one of those people, frail and weak and in need of a little added attention.
She would eat something soon, she promised herself.
“Where did you get to last night?”
Sophie turned to Karl haughtily. “What are you – my mother all of a sudden? What’s it got to do with you?”
Karl swallowed hard. He knew Sophie hated his gentle ways, particularly how much he worried about her, but one of these days she was going find herself knee-deep in shit and this genuinely concerned him.
“You never even said goodbye, Sophie, or told anyone you were leaving. Even Mandy was scouring the place looking for you . . . we’re supposed to stick together when we’re out . . . you know that.”
“When the horn kicks in, Karl, you just have to go with it.” Sophie grabbed the black towels from the tumble-dryer. She held them against herself, stealing their heat and letting it penetrate her skin.
Karl set down his coffee and began to help Sophie fold the towels with symmetrical perfection. Everything Karl did was neat.
“Karl, you’re on your break.” Sophie’s tone was warm and soothing. “Sit down and relax, I’ll do these.”
“So who was it last night? I didn’t even see you talking to anyone – that’s what was so suprising when we realised you’d gone awol.”
He sat down, picking up his coffee mug, holding it in both hands. His grey eyes watched his boss intently.
Sophie stopped what she was doing and laughed loudly. In contrast, her sea-blue eyes carried a wicked expression and Karl knew from that look that she had dominated the poor sod whoever he was.
“You know, there’s something to be said for younger men. True, they might not have all the experience of an older man, but by God they’re willing to learn!” She grabbed another armful from the tumble-dryer, repeating the folding action, whipping the black towels into perfect squares. “I wouldn’t fancy getting too close to that poor fella today though.” She grinned. “His breath must stink.”
Karl tutted with genuine revulsion and Sophie couldn’t fail to notice the disgusted look on his face.
“What?” she barked at him. “Would you prefer I take it up the bum like you?”
Karl slammed down his mug and stormed out of the staff-room-cum-laundry-room. He was furious. He was not gay, damn it! But for some unknown reason Sophie Kane had decided that he was and she flung it in his face regularly.
But Karl had never actually told her he wasn’t gay. He shouldn’t have to and it had become a point of principle. He was as heterosexual as the next man and he only had eyes for one woman.
Kath dressed at breakneck speed. She had taken on an extra class at the last minute and now she didn’t want to be late for Sophie’s night.
Sophie always threw such a great party that Kath hated to miss even a minute of it.
She hurriedly got herself into a dark-brown layered skirt, lightweight and flowy, pulling it over her hips, yanking up the side zip. Standing back, looking at the clothes in her side of the wardrobe, she mulled over what else to wear. There were no more than a couple of dozen garments hanging there and those, in addition to some drawered items, were the height of Kath’s materialistic worth – in terms of clothing at least. She had no need for an abudance of items like Roni nor hundreds of pairs of shoes like Sophie. She preferred life plain and simple. ‘You come in with nothing and you go out with nothing.’ She used this philisophy with consistency. She believed it.
James popped his head around the door, hoping to catch his wife and her toned body on display.
“Shucks!” he teased. “You’re quick tonight – you’ve only just got out of the shower.” He edged closer to Kath, squeezing past the double bed which devoured the small bedroom, leaving little room for much else. “I was hoping to catch you without your bra on at least.”
Kath shook her head. He was like a dog on heat and she knew if they were both together more, he’d inisist they did it three times a day not three times a week. They were a perfect match.
“Help me with this zip, will you, love?”
Kath pulled a brush through her wild curly hair as James carefully zipped the back of her cream fitted top which had green and red flowers and plunged at the front. It nipped in at her waist and he wondered at the firmness of her breasts even after breast-feeding his two children.
“Don’t even go there! I’m late already,” Kath warned him. She knew that look.
“What?” James gawped innocently, only they both knew his thoughts were far from innocent.
Kath’s fitness clothes had been flung across the room where they had landed on various parts of the carpeted floor or the limited furniture. Her white sports bra had landed on the windowsill for all the neighbours to see. Her lycra fitness pants and fleece were strewn across the bed and her gym socks had been thrown and left where they landed – on the bedside table.
James set about picking up after his wife. He never minded. Housework was not her thing, but he couldn’t fault her and there was nothing he would have changed about his perfect wife. She was a wonderful wife and an incredible mother.
Kath had been adopted at the age of eight by the family
that had fostered her since she was two. In the end, the Smithsons just couldn’t let her go, so solid were the foundations they had built during their happy six years together. The child was vibrant, full of life and full of love and she had proved that she was too much to sacrifice. They made her a permanent and legal addition to their family.
She never knew her real parents but she had been told that they were a waste of space, and that, whoever they were, they couldn’t afford to keep her. Apparently it was more a pragmatic decision based on the limitations their lives offered than simply not wanting her and Kath had forgiven them for it with ease.
A loud honk sounded and James knelt on the bed, allowing himself an elevated view of the street below where he saw the blue Ford Mondeo taxi with its yellow luminous sign.
“Ready, love?”
“Almost.” Kath dusted her cheeks with blusher and swiped her eyes with a simple coat of pearlescent eyeshadow. She would have to do. She turned to James, squealing as she roughly stabbed her ear with the sharp metal of the earring, missing the hole in her haste. “Ouch!” she yelled, rubbing her earlobe. “Jim, can you get me twenty quid from under the mattress, please, love?”
James lifted the corner of the light mattress. He set it down again, moving to the other corner until he had lifted all four corners.
“There’s nothing there, Kath. You must have put it somewhere else, babe.”
Kath grabbed her cheesecloth fairtrade bag, shoving her belongings into it. She flung it over her shoulder and lifted the bottom right-hand corner of the mattress. Her face paled and she felt a wave of bile attack the back of her throat.
“It must be there . . . I saw it only yesterday.”
But they both knew that the money had gone. This had happened too many times before.
At first they had thought they were going mad, but then came the harsh reality that someone was taking what wasn’t theirs to take.
“James, I can’t cope with this much longer.” Kath bit her bottom lip to fight the overwhelming emotion which was threatening to escape and to consume her – ruining her night. She fell into his arms, burying her head deep into his neck. She felt safe there.
Some Like it Hot Page 9
