Lady Bag

by Liza Cody

  ‘What did you do with the fucking dosh?’

  ‘What dosh? I’m cadging off bus queues cos I’m an eccentric millionaire, right?’ I was trying desperately to remember what I’d told the ‘Lone Ranger’, the mean guy in the cowboy hat. Electra licked my hand.

  ‘Electra nearly died in that fire,’ I said, gratefully stroking her head. ‘The vet’s bills were horrendous. And Josepha took the rest.’

  ‘And how come you never mentioned you had a fucking daughter?’

  ‘She lied. Everyone lies on telly. Don’t you know that by now?’ I couldn’t go far wrong by appealing to Joss’s paranoia.

  ‘So that blonde bint lied about them taking up a collection for you, people fucking phoning in, an’ all?’

  ‘Bingo! You don’t think anyone gives a toss about the likes of us, do you?’

  ‘Fucking A right!’ Joss said, and Georgie rolled a skinny cigarette, lit it and passed it round. The smoke hit my virgin throat like sandpaper but it seemed as if we were nearly friends again.

  Then Joss said, ‘What about the dead fucking body? If I didn’t kill her and you didn’t kill her, who did? She didn’t fucking kill herself, did she? No one batters themselves to death.’

  ‘I don’t know. I was too busy dealing with you battering me to death.’

  ‘Stop whinging,’ Georgie said, handing me the roll-up again. ‘You’re all right now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, don’t blame me for thinking Joss did it—two women smashed up the same way, at the same time, in the same place.’

  ‘She was fucking dead before we got there.’ Joss squinted at me angrily. His mucky beard smelled of alcohol and hot dogs. ‘I didn’t even need to bust the door in. I think she was dead before the first time I saw you there. Remember? You was already outside that ritzy little house. That’s why I thought you done it.’

  ‘So you just wandered in, found her dead and then stole from her?’

  ‘He thought you were on to something,’ Georgie explained. ‘He thought you wasn’t sharing.’

  ‘You know what I fucking do to people who don’t share?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  Georgie was giving me the crafty eye. He said, ‘So did you tell the filth about us being there?’

  ‘Did you?’

  We all stared at each other. Joss broke first. ‘Know what, you arseholed wrinkly old moo? We could of. We could of made a few quid turning you up. People been asking.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Georgie said. ‘Word comes down the line—you know how it goes. We thought it must’ve been the cops cos we kept hearing from people who think we’re your friends, and they pretend they’re your friends too. Only we know for a fact you don’t got no friends except that poxy dog. And another fact is they’re the sort as would grass you up for a jar of marmalade.’

  I crouched down next to Electra. ‘What do I believe?’ I whispered to her. ‘I’ve spent weeks thinking Joss was a killer.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Joss looked ready to kick my head in again so I stood up quickly.

  ‘Gimme an answer or I really will do you this time.’

  ‘I haven’t talked to the cops,’ I said. ‘Would I be here if I had? Would you?’

  ‘Cos you know what I’d do if you talked?’

  ‘Same as you did when I hadn’t?’

  ‘Too fucking right.’ He bristled and flexed his shoulders.

  I sat down with a bump and buried my face in Electra’s neck. Joss was insane, paranoid and violent. I used to be quite pleased to see him. I used to think he was nearly normal.

  ‘Now turn out your fucking pockets,’ he snarled.

  So I gave him the seven pounds 86p I’d collected that afternoon. What was I going to do—fight both of them?

  ‘Sorry,’ Georgie said, ‘but you did make us come all this way three days in a row to find you. You owe us the bus fare at least.’

  They stole my Trilby hat as well, but they left me the umbrella so maybe they were budding humanitarians after all.

  After they’d gone I stayed sitting with Electra in the doorway for a long time. If I’d got up then I would’ve gone to the nearest offie for a couple of litres of red. A body can only stand so much threat and insanity without comfort. A few swallows of red would stop my guts from churning and my brain from twitching. A couple more and maybe Electra would talk to me again and tell me what to do. I might even be able to sleep without pills.

  I hate being on the wagon. It’s very bad for my nerves.

  Perhaps it’s better for my memory though. I began to remember that Joss didn’t cause all my injuries. Some of them happened when I fell over in the bath. Someone screamed and I fell over. What on earth was I doing having a bath in a stranger’s house with a dead body in the living room?

  If you’ve never been completely wankered you probably won’t have to ask yourself a question like that. And not be able to answer it.

  I remembered seeing Gram Attwood with a woman. He caught a cab to Harrison Mews. She went to the theatre. The next day I saw the same woman leave the house in Harrison Mews. It was the same woman. I’m sure it was. And it stands to reason she was Natalie Munrow.

  Then I went off for a beer with Joss, and later there were guinea pigs, chocolate biscuits, and a little kid who called me Big Foot. That happened. Didn’t it?

  I was sleepy when I got back to Harrison Mews so I don’t know what happened until Georgie came running out of the yellow door with bags full of stolen stuff. Then Joss gave me a terrible kicking.

  Some time before that, Natalie came back to her house and got herself beaten to death. I screwed my eyes tight shut and tried to see her leaving the house. I remembered her looking back because she’d left Gram in bed. Gram would have been there. He’d have been gorgeous and sleepy. He never got up early. She brought him coffee with cream, and muesli with slices of banana. Afterwards he went back to sleep. That’s what happened because that’s how Gram liked it, and what he liked he made happen.

  Don’t tell me I’m wrong. I know I’m right. I was there: I sliced the banana. I squeezed his luxuriating thigh before I left for work. And sometimes I rushed back at lunchtime to see if he wanted a nice sandwich. Or even me.

  Was that when he killed me?

  ‘Was it?’ I asked Electra, but she blinked and sneezed at me so I knew I should take her back to Cadmus Road before she caught another chill.

  Luckily there wasn’t an off-license on the way home. Because, I can’t promise I’d have had the strength to pass it by. I was still shaking from the memory of Joss’s staring, bonkers eyes as he said, ‘If you blabber I’ll mash your skull into your stinking brain. You won’t have any face left at all. And your brain will be all scrambled up with egg shells and fag ends. Bye-bye.’

  Bye-bye? Maybe the scariest part was Joss thinking he could finish off a threat like that with a harmless ‘Bye-bye’.

  Joss batters people. That’s how he is. He breaks eggs but there are no omelettes. He’s the logical suspect. Except he isn’t logical, and nor am I. I used to be, and then when my heart died my brain went on the sick list too.

  If it wasn’t Joss and it wasn’t me who killed Natalie, that left the one I used to call Gram Attwood—otherwise known as Lucifer, the Devil, Satan and Ashmodai.

  Except he isn’t interested in death. He may kill your heart, your mind and your spirit, but he leaves your body alive to feel the pain. Pain is his gift—even in bed when, hurt and degraded, you still want him. In the end you crave the hurt and humiliation because it’s the only time he touches you. You have no other proof of his love.

  Or has he changed and added death to his repertoire? I can’t believe that: death is sometimes merciful and Gram is not.

  Or did he love Natalie more than he loved me? Did he kill her to spare her years of pain and madness? Whereas with
me, his indifference was so manifest that he couldn’t even be bothered to come to court or prison and watch me suffer.

  I turned my face up to the streaming dark sky and let the rain irrigate my tear ducts. Electra whimpered.

  ‘Okay, sweetheart,’ I said, and we took the last few steps to our home.

  Music greeted me as I walked down to the basement. It was a song called ‘Tainted Love’ and it fitted my mood so perfectly that I almost forgot that Smister only ever listened to talk radio.

  I stopped on the stairs, but Electra went ahead confidently, her tail waving a gracious hello. I followed with more caution.

  Smister, now honey-blond and funky in red, was dancing with a tall bald guy in overalls. He had black almond-shaped eyes, skin smooth as polished wood, and forearms like Popeye’s.

  ‘This is Pierre,’ Smister said, all dimples.

  ‘Hi,’ Pierre said, holding out a hand the size of a hubcap. ‘I hear you’ve been looking after our girl here.’

  ‘Isn’t he just gorgeous?’ Smister said. ‘He’s from Detroit, you know.’ He was glowing, relaxed and slightly stoned. I couldn’t see any wine, but the heavy scent of blow was making Electra sneeze. At least I hoped it was the weed and not a chill.

  I dried her off. The temperature of her ears was normal and her eyes were clear.

  There were plates on the tiny table with brown cake crumbs on them. Pierre caught me looking and said, ‘My girlfriend sent brownies, but we got the munchies… sorry.’

  Smister said, ‘Something happened. What happened, Momster?’

  I looked at Pierre.

  Smister said, ‘Don’t worry about him, he’s solid.’

  I sighed. ‘The guys who broke my face—they found me. I was going to bring us back some fish and chips, but they took all my money.’

  ‘Fuck the fish,’ Smister said, pulling up a chair for me to sit on. ‘Are you okay?’ He turned to the smooth wooden man in overalls, ‘They killed her friend and then kicked her brain into cake-mix so she can’t remember anything properly. Also she was heavy on the sauce, but she gave it up a few days ago. It hasn’t made much of an improvement that I can see. Except she doesn’t do her God and Satan piece so often—that used to be quite annoying.’

  ‘Going cold-turkey screws with your body chemistry,’ Pierre said. ‘It’s hard. You should maybe cut her some slack.’

  ‘Isn’t he the cutest?’ Smister said. ‘You should see him do “Can’t Hurry Love”. I swear there isn’t a dry seat in the house.’

  ‘It’s the transforming power of a big wig.’ Pierre dipped his shiny dome modestly, and I thought, at least he told Smister he has a girlfriend. I was prepared to like him, but there were too many confusing sexual signals wafting around. I’m a beat up old broad and easily confused these days.

  ‘Did they hurt you?’ Smister pulled the other chair close. Pierre sat down and Smister sat on his knee looking small and fragile.

  ‘See, that’s what makes me wonder if I got it all wrong,’ I burst out. ‘They twisted my arm and thieved my money, but that’s like shaking hands for them. If Joss actually killed Natalie, and he went to all the trouble of tracking me down, he would’ve killed me too; no argument.’

  ‘Then why did he bother?’

  ‘Cos he wanted to know if I’d grassed him up to the cops. And also everyone who saw us on TV told him I was in the money. Everyone wants a piece.’

  ‘But how did he know where to find you?’

  ‘Remember I told you about a mean bugger in a cowboy hat at Fulham Broadway Station? Well he told them.’ I could see that he didn’t remember—he’d been so whipped by his own woes he hadn’t even listened to mine.

  Nevertheless he said, ‘This is why we need transport. We should never have gone on TV. It’s brought us nothing but trouble. I thought it’d open up the world of show-biz but all the wrong people were watching. We need to be able to change location quickly. We got more enemies than a debt collector.’

  Pierre was eyeing my lopsided haircut with disbelief.

  I was embarrassed. I said, ‘Georgie stole my hat.’

  ‘You surely do need something to escape in. Good thing there’s no lightning around—you’d be struck by that too.’

  ‘You do understand.’ Smister kissed the top of Pierre’s perfect scalp and wiped the lipstick off with his wrist. ‘I knew you would.’

  Pierre brushed Smister off his lap as if he were a week-old kitten. He stood up. ‘Tell you why I’m doin’ this, girlfriend. It’s because you’ve finally wised up about those assholes you always fall for. See, you got a blind spot for abusive guys and I can’t help you till you wanna help yourself.’

  That explained something: Pierre was far too kind to be Smister’s latest hump. He went on, ‘I got something you could be interested in. Give me till tomorrow evening. And in the meantime do something about your friend’s hair.’

  ‘I lost my scissors in the fire.’

  ‘Then get her another hat.’

  ‘I told you, I haven’t been going out lately.’

  ‘So start now before you lose your oomph.’

  I wondered, if I paid him, whether I could persuade Pierre to be my friend too. It’d been years since I’d met anyone with even the tiniest motivational bone in his body. No wonder he could convince audiences he was Diana Ross even though he was six-foot-three with wrists like a riveter’s.

  Chapter 25

  The Last Straw

  Smister got up the next morning and dressed conservatively as a Catholic schoolgirl in a yellow kilt and black tights. He swathed my head in a scarf patterned with black and pink kidney shapes and I couldn’t argue him out of it. Pierre had spoken: we were going out and that was that.

  I scraped together all the money I could find in the various secret places in my layers of clothing and we celebrated with breakfast at a Polish café. We had hot sweet tea and sausage sandwiches. The owner, a round woman with no eyebrows, made a big fuss over Electra.

  Just for once it wasn’t raining so I couldn’t hide behind an umbrella. I felt exposed. I thought everyone must recognise us and I could almost hear the click of mobile phones automatically dialling 999.

  ‘No one can even see you when you’re with me,’ Smister said tossing his honey hair. Today he looked more sassy and less trashy than usual. It seemed as if Jerry-cop had taught him a very hard, unfair lesson.

  He found me a trilby on a stall, and paid for it by exchanging the fatal pink Donna Karan dress. I wore the hat over the pink and black scarf which made him giggle. The stall-holder called him ‘love’ and ‘doll’ and made him feel confident enough to steal a pair of scissors from a hairdressing salon when he went in to ‘make an appointment’. He was much better at stealing than I was.

  He went into an office building to ask if he could use the loo. I watched through the glass doors as he flirted the guy on the desk into submission. He was only gone ten minutes but he scored nearly seventy quid. He told me that all he’d done was to trawl one open-plan area for carelessly slung jackets and bags.

  Sometimes it can take me two hours to scrounge seventy pence.

  But anxiety bathed my viscera in acid, and in the end I said, ‘Smister, have you ever been to prison?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Have you?’

  ‘You know I have. So you’d better let me do the stealing.’ Because I could see men’s predatory eyes follow him everywhere, and in chokey there are loads of bastards as bad as Jerry-cop.

  ‘You?’ he said. ‘But Momster, everyone can tell you’re not a consumer or a spender. You look street. You smell street. You walk like you’re on the cadge. Even Electra looks like a beggar’s dog when she’s with you. When she’s with me she looks like a fashion accessory.’

  ‘And yet you thought I was rich,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘You had money, a Louis Vuitton bag and an
iPhone. What did you think I’d think?’

  ‘So I was good enough for my dog when I had an iPhone?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said blithely. ‘If you’re not young and pretty, you’ve got to have the sexy product.’

  ‘You must be the shallowest person I know.’

  ‘Sorry if the truth hurts.’

  ‘The truth about chokey’s gonna hurt you too.’ I grabbed Electra’s scarf and stomped away.

  ‘You were more fun when you were smashed,’ he shouted after me.

  ‘Remember Jerry-cop and get stuffed,’ I shouted without looking back. Electra looked back. She even looked sorry.

  ‘You’re a sentimental fool,’ I said, and without thinking I went into a con store and bought a bottle.

  I tore the cap off, stuck the neck in my mouth and took one giant swig.

  Oh the relief. The iron claw that was clamped round my head released its grip. Sweet relaxation hit the lining of my gut and was absorbed instantly.

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ a lad told me. He had expensive trainers and the blackened gums of a crystal meth user. I sneered at him and walked away. I had my salvation in my own hands. It isn’t often that I know with absolute clarity that I’m doing the right thing.

  What’s the point of having a friend if all he does is wind you up? A home is useless if it makes you scared of the landlord. Seventy pounds won’t help you if it can send you to prison.

  Why would I want any of that if I can live free at the bottom of the heap? I ask for money, yes of course I do, but you can walk away. I’m not the taxman; no one’s forcing you to give me a handout. And you’re perfectly right—I will spend it on drink. Because drink is reliable: it keeps me warm, it helps me sleep, it gives me the moxy I need to get through another day without jumping off a bridge.

  ‘I could quite fancy a bowl of Pedigree Chum around now,’ Electra said.

  ‘It’s yours, my friend.’ We turned, walking companionably side by side to Cadmus Road.

  I packed everything into my new backpack. Then I fed Electra and gave her clean water. I was ready to go. I took a look round the bedroom we’d shared and at the girly clutter that followed Smister everywhere. I shrugged.