Lady Bag

by Liza Cody

  ‘Shit!’ Smister stopped so suddenly that Electra bumped into his legs.

  I hissed, ‘Keep walking. Don’t attract attention.’

  But he went over to the newsstand. I put my head down and hurried off to the burger bar. My hands were sweating and trembling. I bought two burgers and went to hide in the ladies’ lavatory to eat.

  Smister joined us there but was too excited to eat anything. ‘My picture’s in there too,’ he said. He opened the paper and showed me a picture of himself in Craig’s arms being carried to the ambulance.

  ‘I look like a waif.’ He sighed in satisfaction. ‘Miss Angelic Rescue of the Month. Hardly any slap, a strategically placed smear of soot under one cheekbone and look at those legs. Long or what?’

  There was a larger photo of Electra, wearing her wet Ralph Lauren polo shirt, standing on her hind legs looking regal. The caption read, ‘K-nine Hero-ine.’

  ‘What do they say about me?’ I could hardly breathe enough air in to ask the question.

  Smister folded the paper. ‘You might want a disguise. Your brother’s saying you’re not his sister.’

  Thank fuck it was still raining. I bought an umbrella. Everyone hid their heads under umbrellas.

  ‘It won’t always be raining,’ Smister said. ‘What will you do when it stops?’

  But I knew it would never stop. It was one of those years.

  We went to a Christian Aid shop. I bought a man’s raincoat, a man’s fedora and a dry purple velour leisure suit with a hood, all for thirteen pounds. There were no shoes to fit me. Smister made vomiting faces at me, but the sales woman was so old she hardly noticed. She tottered into the back of the shop to fetch a bowl of water for Electra.

  Smister turned his nose up at all the clothes. He said he knew an Oxfam in Chelsea that had cast-off designer labels. So we took the Circle Line from Liverpool Street to Sloane Square and I read the Standard.

  On the front page was a photo of me, taken off the TV. I think it must’ve been just before I honked on Carmel’s Monolo Blah-knickers because I have a look of desperation in my undamaged eye. My face is still swollen lopsided. The layers of sopping wet clothing have dried in wads and wrinkles. The words lumpy, bumpy, dumpy, grumpy and frumpy hardly begin to describe me. Even so, I look recognisably human—ten times better than the reprinted picture of me in hospital they inset beside it.

  I tilted the brim of my new hat down to my nose and read on about how Natalie Munrow’s brother talked to the Standard reporter after the first picture was published. He’d already expressed serious doubts to the police that the woman in hospital was his sister. But he hadn’t been able to identify the dead woman either. He couldn’t tell who she was. The police were comparing the brother’s DNA with the body’s, but until they had the results they were hinting that grief plays tricks and he might be in denial.

  The headline shrieked, ‘IMPOSTER’, because it seemed that the reporter from the Standard took a tape of the catastrophic interview with Carmel to show him, and he said it was absolutely, positively not his sister.

  He also said that no way, no how, could Josepha be Natalie’s daughter. His sister was childless.

  Smister, who was reading over my shoulder, said, ‘He’s right, isn’t he? You’re not Natalie Munrow. That’s why you can’t remember your PIN number. You was never a financial executive.’

  ‘Yes I was,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Yes she was,’ Electra said. ‘She was a branch manager.’

  ‘Right!’ Smister said. ‘And I’m a fairy princess.’

  ‘I’m a furry princess,’ Electra said.

  ‘You are,’ I agreed, stroking her sleek head, ‘you can be anything you like.’

  ‘Well,’ Smister said, ‘I can be a fairy princess more easily than you can be executive material.’

  ‘If I don’t have another drink soon, I’ll fall apart.’

  ‘You promised,’ Smister and Electra said together. And I couldn’t remember if I had or not.

  Natalie’s brother told the reporter that a stranger was cavorting round town spending his sister’s money—money that was his and his sons’ by right as her only living relatives. His name was Malcolm Munrow. But he was lying: I don’t cavort; I’ve never cavorted in my life. Well, maybe once—but the only one who knew about that was Gram Lucifer Attwood. Could the Devil be in league with Natalie’s brother?

  ‘Does it say anything about Too-Tall in there?’ Smister’s voice had a trepidacious shake in it.

  I looked, but the article only said that the fire crew had dealt so speedily with the fire that only a handful of victims had been taken to St George’s Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

  We got off the train at Sloane Square and I couldn’t help remembering that I was now quite close to the little mews house with the yellow front door—just a step away from a murder enquiry, from being at best a witness and at worst a suspect.

  Traffic ripped by on the wet road like torn Velcro. Chelsea rain smells of smoked haddock, and everyone, whether they’re wearing Armani or jailhouse chic, looks expensive.

  First Smister went into a chemist where he bought everything a woman needs to look like a proper woman, from glossy head to pink-tipped toe. He bought shampoo, conditioner, sculpting foam, serum, depilatory and all the et ceteras. It was this more than anything else that made me realise that he couldn’t live on the streets. He needed bathrooms and mirrors. He needed the time and privacy it takes to be a woman. I am what a woman looks like when she has no bathroom, no pride, no privacy and above all no money. Smister needed lots. Being a proper woman is a costly business.

  I hadn’t really walked for ages, and it felt weird without a backpack and a bedroll. Smister was a pain in the arse: he was acting as if we were two girls out shopping, stopping and sighing at overpriced window displays.

  At the end of the Kings Road, just as you get to World’s End, is his favourite charity shop. He was right, it was stocked with lightly used designer cast-offs and it wasn’t long before he’d spent every penny he had. He was like a little girl—his notion of shopping was to grab everything pink or black off the rails and to squeal.

  He had absolutely no idea about how to conserve energy or money. Life on the street is all about having much more time than money or energy. Electra knew, but Smister clearly didn’t.

  It was time for me to turn my back on him. We would never be fit companions. He would never understand the street or that if you want nothing you’ll want for nothing. He’d never understand the difference between want and need. And I would never understand why he wanted to cut his genitals off. I could understand being really unhappy about who you are; even to the point of suicide. But I don’t see how turning into a Barbie girl by self-mutilation could make him any happier. True, I’d never talked to him about it, but that was because he never actually seemed depressed with the way he was. If you don’t count him wanting to be bombed out of his head all the time, he seemed quite optimistic and cheerful.

  While he was shrieking, ‘Ooh, D&G!’ I exchanged the Louis Vuitton for a strong, lightweight, backpack. It was time for me to reject aspirational handbags and become invisible again.

  Chapter 19

  Electra Needs A Roof Over

  Her Head

  Electra is the only companion I need. We’re alike. Neither of us likes the smell of charity shops—even up-market ones in Chelsea. The mould spores made Electra sneeze and the righteous volunteer asked me to tie her up outside in the rain.

  ‘I’m going,’ I told Smister. ‘Good luck with Barbie Girl.’ Because that’s how I pictured him after the operations—all pink and plastic with no genitals at all except for a couple of torpedoes sticking out at chest level. But he wouldn’t look like that; he’d be a mess of wounds, swellings, bruises and stitches. His nether regions would look like my face when I was in hospital and it would probably be
weeks before he could piss without a tube. He’d be one very sick little bunny. And all because he wanted to be a real girl for the likes of Kevin and Craig. Who would beat him till he was a mess of wounds, bruises and stitches again. Because even the most brilliant surgeon in South America couldn’t change his taste in men or his need for abuse.

  I blundered out of the shop, making the little bell above the door dance in protest.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Electra. ‘We can’t care about him.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It hurts.’ But she turned round and looked at the jangling shop door.

  We walked on for a couple of steps before she said, ‘But he’s your daughter.’

  ‘He said she was Josepha Munrow, and you know he’s a dirty liar. I don’t trust him.’

  We walked on. The rain pattered like applause on my umbrella and I knew we were doing the right thing.

  A long time ago I trusted the Devil. I had no doubt about him even though I knew he was too good for me. I knew I wasn’t loveable and yet I believed he loved me because he told me so. I was that simple. I wasn’t about to make the mistake of believing another guy, even if he thought he was a girl.

  Electra sneezed again.

  ‘What?’ I said. She looked so forlorn that I knelt down in front of her, protecting both of us with the umbrella. Her ears were hot—too hot—and her nose was dry. ‘What’s wrong? Talk to me.’ But she didn’t. She stood, her head drooping and her shoulder blades poking up like dinner plates in a drainer.

  I hate it when she won’t answer—it means I have to work it out for myself—even when I’ve had a bastard day, starting with a fire and smoke inhalation, going on to being accused of fraud in the national press.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, getting it at last. ‘You were there too. You nearly died and you’ve been trudging through the rain ever since.’ I blamed myself. I was wasting time and energy thinking about who I shouldn’t trust when my true friend was suffering in silence. Obviously she was ill and exhausted and I would have to find somewhere dry for her sleep. Soon.

  Gently I ran my thumb along her snout, between her weepy eyes and over her skull. She closed her eyes and leaned against me.

  A hand fell on my collar.

  ‘Momster, you great hairy wart,’ Smister said. ‘What’re you up to—running out on me like that?’

  ‘Electra’s sick. We need somewhere warm and dry.’

  ‘Like a pub?’ He was such a cynic.

  ‘Feel her ears,’ I said. ‘Look in her eyes. Smell her breath.’

  ‘No thanks.’ But he squatted down too and fondled her ears. ‘She’s got a fever? Should she see a vet?’

  If you’re a dog owner and you’ve been homeless for any length of time you’ll know that even animal charity vets expect to be paid, and in order to qualify for free veterinary care you need to show that you’re on housing benefit; which of course is hard if you haven’t got a house. Some people think that it’s cruel for the homeless to own dogs. But she’d be dead by lethal injection if I wasn’t allowed to keep her.

  I said, ‘She needs a warm, dry place to sleep and plenty of clean water. If she’s still sick in the morning I’ll get help.’ Because I suddenly remembered that there was a Blue Cross clinic in Victoria that didn’t discriminate against homeless dogs. Bless their hearts.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I can always find a place. You know that.’

  ‘We can’t do abuse anymore,’ I said flatly.

  ‘What are you babbling about?’

  ‘Kevin,’ I said, ‘knocking you about. Electra can’t be upset like that again.’

  Smister leaned towards me and petted my head as if I were the dog. ‘Look—I’ve bought you a present.’ He rummaged through one of his bags of pink goods till he found a pair of men’s trainers. ‘I know they’re only Reebok, and the ones you’re falling out of are Nike—but they will fit and they’ll keep you dry. Hey, Momster, what’s the matter? I know they aren’t Nike or Adidas but there’s no need to cry.’

  ‘Why do you want those cruel operations?’ I blubbed. ‘You’re perfect the way you are—even though you’re a dirty liar. And you’re in love with pain. I hate that. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘It’s only a pair of trainers,’ he muttered. But we clung to each other, protecting Electra from the rain for at least two minutes.

  In the end he said, ‘Stay here. I’ll find us somewhere. Thank fuck its August and all the students went home to their mummies.’ Then he was gone. August? I was gob-smacked. If I’d had to guess I’d have said it was March. So much cold grey rain.

  I huddled over Electra in a doorway and fed her clean bottled water from the palm of my hand. When she’d had enough I made a nest for her in my new raincoat and she went to sleep.

  I felt alone and unprotected. I had nothing, no bedroll, no layers of clothing, nothing to survive on. All I had was a sick dog and a new pair of shoes. And socks! I found what looked like a brand new pair of white sports socks rolled up neatly in the toe of one of the shoes. I put on socks and shoes. Warm, dry feet made me sleepy and I closed my eyes.

  Smister said, ‘Wake up. You look corpsified and you made three pounds fifty while you slept.’ He put the money into the pocket of his new second-hand jacket.

  I climbed out of sleep and onto my feet. Electra stirred and whimpered just once. I fed her more water from my cupped hand. I felt terrible about waking her. Sleep is a dog’s best healer. I wondered how I’d feel if it turned out I’d sacrificed Too-Tall’s life for Electra’s and then Electra died as well.

  She limped and I shuffled. We followed Smister up one street and down another, zigzagging into scruffier neighbourhoods until at last we came to a mean, narrow house with dirty windows. There were five doorbells and the front door was wedged ajar with a small piece of cardboard. We slid into a dark, dank hall. Junk mail and fliers crunched underfoot.

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ Smister whispered. ‘All the fridges have been turned off. The flat in the basement’s the best—well the driest and there’s a door out to the yard at the back for Electra.’

  I swallowed hard and said, ‘Thanks for the shoes and socks.’

  ‘I didn’t know your size,’ he said, ‘so I asked for a pair of canoes.’ He pushed open a door and we went down into a dusty pit. There were three rooms, kitchen and bathroom. I guessed the landlord had been packing tenants in like baked beans because each small room had three beds in it. There was a table, two chairs and a little TV in the kitchen. Nine beds and two chairs; no room for clothes or possessions. This was accommodation for illegal migrant workers or students.

  But what might be rotten conditions for them was luxury for Electra and me. She had a bed and three blankets all to herself. I lifted her onto the mattress and she went to sleep without saying a word. I covered her with a blanket. Her ears were still hot and I could hear wheezing when she breathed.

  ‘The roof leaks,’ Smister said, ‘and so do all the windows except down here. It will be safer if we don’t show any light. There’s an electric shower so that’s where I’m going now. I can’t put myself about looking like this, and I smell like an old chimney.’

  ‘I liked you as a nun,’ I said.

  ‘Me too.’ He sighed. ‘I was a brilliant nun. But the blessed habit went up in smoke, didn’t it? Listen to me—the blessed habit—I sound like you when you’re off on one. Were you brought up by Jesuits too?’

  ‘Everything I know about human suffering I learned from Satan’s mouth.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re just a bit barmy is all.’

  ‘And I need a drink.’

  ‘I’ll get you one, soon as I’ve had a shower. Gimme some money.’

  This was familiar territory. It was greed, not generosity, and I could handle it without blubbing. As he’d already pinched the money I made on the Kings Road I ignored him and crawled unde
r Electra’s blanket, snuggling up to her—just to rest my eyes which were still sore from the smoke.

  I woke up hours later. Smister was sitting on the end of the bed wearing a silky frock I’d never seen before and holding a flaming candle. He had a bloody, fishy, alkaline smell which came over quite clearly in spite of his perfume. His eyes were heavy and his pretty lips were smeared and swollen.

  He said, ‘Don’t you want to find out who beat you half to death and killed your friend?’

  ‘I haven’t got any friends,’ I said. He was squeezing the life out of my heart. I think it was because of the shoes and because he found Electra a house when she needed one. I’m not used to people being nice.

  I gave Electra some more water and took her out into the yard. The sky was turning slate grey but it wasn’t raining. She did her business among a thousand cigarette butts.

  Smister was still sitting where we’d left him staring intently at the candle flame so we took a different bed. But before we snuggled down I blew out the flame and took the candle away. I didn’t think I could stand another fire just yet. I pushed him over so he was lying on his side and covered him with a blanket.

  ‘But don’t you?’ he mumbled. ‘Y’know, want to know?’

  ‘I want to sleep. I want to be safe. I don’t want anymore violence.’

  ‘Not good enough.’ He turned his back on me and lay silent.

  Just as I was dropping off again he said, ‘You’re right I was a brilliant nun. I was a brilliant nun since I was eleven.’ He coughed and I could hear the wet weepy smoke still in his lungs. After a minute he started muttering again.

  ‘What?’ I wished he’d shut up and take his hand off my heart. But he said, ‘I keep asking myself, was he a beastly priest or a priestly beast?’

  ‘I’m trying to sleep.’ Why was he hurting me? He had no right. He wasn’t my daughter.