by Liza Cody
Typical. Typical polizei. Typical Enemy. She came round to see me. She could of brought my money. She could of slipped it under the door and saved me the bother of going to her office to get it. But did she? Oh no. She never does nothing to suit me. All I get is another one of her stupid notes giving orders. If I want my money – what I worked for, what’s due me – I have to suit her. Typical.
‘What’s up?’ Crystal said. ‘Bad news?’
‘Business,’ I said. ‘I got business and it’s nothing you can stick your hooter in.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and gave me my tea. She gave me this woeful look over the rim of her mug.
‘What?’ I said.
‘It’s Dawn,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve had it up to here with slags. I don’t want to know.’
‘You promised,’ she said.
‘I never,’ I said. ‘What did I promise?’
‘You said if I ever found out who did for Dawnie, you’d help me to kill him.’
Chapter 19
‘I fucking did not!’
‘Don’t shout,’ Crystal said. ‘You was standing right where you’re standing now.’
‘Was not!’
‘Was. Don’t shout.’
‘Not shouting!’
‘You said, “You find ’em, I’ll kill ’em.”’
‘Fuckin’ did not!’
‘Did,’ Crystal said. ‘It was right after Dawnie died. The night after. You was stood right there. I told you about her and me when we was little. About the bloke with the red car and the fancy suit. And you said, “You find ’em, I’ll kill ’em.” You did.’
‘Not!’ But it was coming back to me. I remembered Dawn’s story. Some of it. And Crystal moaning on about the blokes who tap-danced on Dawn’s teeth. And I s’pose I said something. Well, I must of, mustn’t I? You don’t just stand there like a parking meter when someone’s lost a sister, do you? Even if the sister’s only Dirty Dawn. So I must’ve said something, y’know, out of sympathy, but I wouldn’t never of said I’d kill someone. Not over Dawn. I’m just not like that.
So I stood there with my mug of tea. And Crystal stood there with hers, looking woeful.
Then she said, ‘It’s ’cos of Dawn, isṉt it?’
‘’Cos of Dawn what?’
‘You never liked Dawn. What you got against prostitutes?’
‘I don’t like anyone,’ I said. Which is true. Except for Harsh. ‘I’ve got nothing against … them other girls.’
‘You have,’ Crystal said. ‘You’re always rude to them.’
‘That’s ’cos they’re fuckin’ stupid.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s more than that.’
‘What do you know about it?’ I said.
‘Don’t shout,’ Crystal said. ‘Why’re you shouting?’
‘Who’s going to look after Stef’s kid while she’s in hospital?’ I asked. Because Stef was one of the ones who had kids.
‘What do you care about Stef s kid?’ Crystal said.
‘I don’t fucking care about Stef’s kid. No more than she does.’
That shut her up. She stood there drinking her tea, looking at me. Then she put her mug down.
‘Buy you breakfast,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I know your game.’
‘What game?’
‘You’re always trying to play pinball with my head.’
‘Am not,’ she said, and without any warning at all, she burst into tears. Which really took me by surprise. Crystal is not a crier. Crystal’s like me. She’d rather die than cry.
I could only gape at her, and she ran out of the Static slobbering all over her sleeve.
I suppose you think I should’ve run out after her. I suppose you’re the type who goes all weak and woolly when someone breaks down and blubs in front of you. Well, more fool you! You don’t know Monkey Wrench the way I know her. She’d try anything to make me do what she wanted – including pretending to cry. She’s a lying little madam.
Once I knew she was only pretending, I forgot about Crystal and decided to go and get my money off The Enemy.
Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t broke. I had money in my pocket from the self-defence classes, I had wages coming from looking after the yard and Mr Deeds owed me for the Lewinsham fight. But the self-defence dosh wouldn’t go far, and being owed isn’t the same as having a big wad in the hand. I like to keep my wad where I can see it. Owed money is no money at all until you get your fist round it. Take my advice – if you’re owed any ackers, you go out and grab it fast before the bim who owes you spends it on himself.
But by the time I got to her office The Enemy was out and the old secretary-bird was packing up to leave.
She said, ‘Anna told me to ask you to wait.’
‘Where’s my money?’ I said.
‘It’s all ready,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ I said, and I held my hand out.
‘Anna locked it in her desk,’ the secretary-bird said. ‘She won’t be gone long.’
‘Not long’s too long,’ I said. ‘It’s owed me and I want it now.’
‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t thump the fax. You’ll break it.’
‘Now,’ I said. See what I mean? That old secretary-bird would rather part with her knickers than part with dosh that was already mine.
She said, ‘Please, Eva, calm down. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable? Anna’s coming shortly. You could read a magazine while you wait.’
And then The Enemy herself walked in. She said, ‘Bleeding hell, Eva, why’re you throwing magazines round the room?’ And the secretary-bird scuttled out like she had a fuse lit under her heels.
‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to wait and read a poxy fucking magazine. I want my money.’
‘Keep your hair on,’ she said, and unlocked her private door. ‘Come in.’
‘I don’t want to come in,’ I said. ‘You’re all jerking me around. You all want me to do things. And you’re holding my money ransom so I’ll do what you want.’
‘Take your money,’ The Enemy said. But she took her time unlocking her desk, and while she was at it she said, ‘I just wanted to pass on a warning, that’s all.’ She handed me my money.
While I was counting it she said, ‘I had a visit from the police this morning.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ I said, and I stuffed my dosh in a back pocket.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I think you should.’
‘Who’re you to tell me what I should know?’
‘Why are you so upset today?’
‘Not upset.’
‘Okay,’ The Enemy said. ‘Okay, okay. But all the same you should know that the police say that a brothel has been opened on Mandala Street at that property you and I would have taken charge of if we hadn’t found the squatter.’
‘What?’
‘For God’s sake, Eva, don’t shout at me. You’re splitting my eardrums. Don’t rush off. Talk to me.’
‘You don’t want to talk to me,’ I said. ‘You just want to tell me what to do.’
‘Have it your own way,’ she said. ‘But you’ll look pretty silly if the police charge you with keeping a disorderly house or living off immoral earnings.’
‘What?
‘And I’ll look bleeding silly for employing you.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. I said, ‘All I done was teach those slags a bit of self-defence. What fart-arse you been listening to?’
‘Just the local beat copper,’ she said.
‘What did he say?’ I said. ‘What does he know about me? What you been telling him?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Nothing?’ I said. ‘You dobbed me in.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Sit down. Calm down and shut up.’
I sat down. What else could I do? My life was turning rotten. I could smell it. I could smell the stench of a life turned mouldy, and bel
ieve me, it’s a sick, rancid stench.
‘It’s that turdy gnome,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘Crystal,’ I said. ‘Monkey face. She done it.’
‘Crystal?’ The Enemy said. And she got that puckered look around the mouth she gets when she wants you to think she’s thinking.
‘It’s Dawn, getting herself stiffed,’ I said. ‘It tossed Dwarfs brain down the bog-hole.’
I expected The Enemy to say ‘nonsense’ or ‘rubbish’ like she usually does. But this time she just sat there all puckered.
Then she said, ‘I’d better have a word with young Crystal. Meanwhile, don’t you take any more money from those women. And if you’re wise, you’ll give Mandala Street a wide berth for a few days.’
‘Can’t do that,’ I said. ‘It’s where I train.’
‘But I thought
‘You thought wrong,’ I said. ‘You always think you know, but you don’t know shit from shaving cream. Them premises on Mandala Street – that’s my gym.’
The Enemy looked like she wanted to spit tin-tacks. She said, ‘It’s the law, you see.’
‘What law?’
‘If more than one prostitute shares a place, that place is deemed a brothel.’
‘It’s my gym,’ I said.
‘In fact,’ The Enemy said, ‘almost anything sensible a prostitute might do to protect herself – like hiring a minder or setting up in a collective – is illegal for someone.’
‘I told you – it ain’t a knocking shop. It’s my gym.’
‘Aren’t you listening?’
‘It’s you that’s got bum-fluff in your lugholes. It’s my gym. I saw it first.’
‘Don’t bleeding shout!’ The Enemy yelled.
It was turning out to be a stone septic day – a day when you’re dragged backwards into evil smelling flob. A day when everything you ever done up till now counts minus. It didn’t happen, you didn’t try, you’re back wallowing in the cesspit where you started.
And I hadn’t even had my breakfast yet. My feet were gummed to the pavement by everyone else’s snot and phlegm, and, since getting up, I hadn’t had time to get my gnashers round a bacon sarnie.
So I went to the caff on Mandala Street, but would you believe it – the first person I saw when the door banged behind me was Justin. Justin hunched over a table by the steamy window. Justin with his eyes all red and swollen.
‘Eva!’ he said.
‘Fuck off,’ I said, and I turned round and walked. ‘Out me way,’ I said to the bolly who whacked into me as I left. ‘Need the whole bleeding road?’ I said to the woman who nearly ran me over in her car. Weepers, bims and bollies everywhere you looked.
I stopped looking.
When I was a kid with nowhere to go I would sometimes fetch up at Waterloo Station. It was somewhere to get out of the rain. I wasn’t the only one. Lots of kids went to Waterloo. Sometimes there’d be quite a crowd and you could get quite matey – shouting at the railway police and passing round a bit of blow or a jar of cider. I never stayed long because there was always the chance of polizei, parents and social workers lolloping around looking for runners and IRA bombs.
Come to think of it, Waterloo was probably where I first ran into Crystal. Because a station can be an ace place to cadge a bob or two or a free cup of tea.
See, what happens is that your average train traveller mongs around waiting, gets bored, buys tea and munchies. Train gets called, passenger dumps tea and munchies. And someone like Crystal, after a quick dip in the passenger’s pocket or purse, gets to scoff his tea too. Easy-per-deazy.
You may wonder, if Waterloo was where I first met Crystal – which maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t – why I fetched up there after leaving the caff on Mandala Street. Well, keep wondering. I ain’t telling you ’cos I don’t know myself. It was one of those times when time eats its own tail. I went to Waterloo, and that’s all I’m telling you. You don’t have to know why I do every little thing, do you? Well, do you? You’re not polizei, are you? No. So you’ll hear what I want to tell you. No more, no less.
Anyway, that’s where I was – Waterloo. And I started looking round for something to eat, because I’d walked a long way and I was feeling quite light-headed.
But the station wasn’t a friendly place no more. There was nowhere to sit to take the weight off your feet. There was no bins for dumped food. There was no one I recognised.
And why should there be? All the people I knew was gone ages ago. And me. I was gone too. I wasn’t a kid no more. I don’t hang round stations. I’m a professional with a career and relaxed mental attitude. I don’t got to look in bins for bits of burger no more.
‘What’re you looking for?’ Justin asked.
He made me jump out of my boots. ‘What?’ I said.
‘You’re looking for something,’ he said.
‘What you doing here?’
‘I followed you,’ Justin said. ‘You stormed off. But you looked really, sort of, weird. So I followed you.’
‘Who said you could?’ I said. ‘I never said you could follow me.’
‘I was afraid you might, sort of, do something. But you just walked. And then, I saw you were coming here, and I thought I’d like to come here too.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Justin said. ‘This is the station I came to when I first came to London.’
‘So?’
‘I’d just got off the train,’ Justin said. ‘And I was standing over there with my suitcase in my hand, wondering which way to go, what to do next. And then this well-dressed guy – all silk suit and handmade shoes – came up and started to chat. Was anyone meeting me? Did I have anywhere to stay? That sort of thing.’ Justin stood with his hands in his pockets, and he looked at the station concourse like it was a picture someone painted. He said, ‘This guy took me in a taxi to Shepherds Market. I’d never been in a taxi before. I’d never been in London before. As a matter of fact, I’d never been anywhere alone before.’
He stopped looking dreamy and smiled. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘it could’ve been a lot worse. At least he was clean and fairly normal. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve heard since.’
‘Yes, I would,’ I said.
‘He’s dead now,’ Justin said. ‘Let’s go, shall we? I’m getting the shakes, thinking about it.’
So we went. I wanted to go anyway. I was afraid Justin was going to tell me how his young life got knocked pear-shaped. And I didn’t want to know. Somewhere between the ages of nought and eighteen everyone’s life goes pear-shaped. I don’t need the details.
Chapter 20
Justin said, ‘I’m surprised you’re so upset. I didn’t think a thing like last night would upset you.’
‘Whadya mean, upset?’ I said. ‘I ain’t upset.’
‘The violence,’ he said. ‘I thought that was your stock in trade.’
‘Takes more than a little bam-a-lam to upset me,’ I told him.
‘That’s what Crystal said. But maybe she’s wrong for once.’
I just kept walking. If he thought Crystal was only wrong once he was a bigger melon than even I thought. As far as I was concerned Crystal was wrong every time she came out of the water to breathe.
‘Don’t look like that,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like you kill kittens for fun. Crystal’s been good to me. She looks after me. I owe her.’
‘Buy a brain!’ I said. ‘That’s what she wants you to think. You’re just another mark. She wants you for something – only you don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Yes I do,’ he said. ‘She’s lonely, she’s sad and she’s frightened. We need each other.’
‘Wait while I get me violin out,’ I said, and I started running.
‘Don’t go,’ he said. So I stopped. I don’t like running, and I sodding loathe running on an empty stomach.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘only don’t talk to me about Crystal. My whole l
ife got gangrene since she showed up.’
So we walked down to the Embankment. I found a van selling hot dogs, and I bought a few which made me feel better. And Justin kept his trap shut till I’d eaten which was a good thing too. He didn’t want a hot dog and he spent the time kicking a stone around like it was a football, and that made me remember he was only a kid. Which was weird – he didn’t talk like a kid and he didn’t cook like a kid.
He waited till I’d stuffed the last crumb in my gob and then he said, ‘Queenie died, you know.’
‘Who?’
‘My dog.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. And that explained why his eyes were all pink around the edges. I was afraid it’d been something to do with Crystal, but anyone can understand a bloke being cut up about his dog. That’s the way it should be.
He said, ‘I wanted to ask you about her puppies.’
‘What?’
‘The vet won’t keep them any longer, and I’ve got to collect them.’
‘So?’
‘Well, they’re newborn,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You got to feed ’em and keep ’em warm just like Queenie would of.’
‘Oh,’ he said, like he never thought of it. ‘But what do I feed them on?’
‘Milk,’ I said. ‘There’s stuff you can get like bitch milk. But you’ll have to bottle feed ’em. They’ll be too small to gnaw a bone.’
‘This bitch milk,’ he said, ‘is it expensive?’
‘How should I know?’ I said. ‘I always got my dogs full grown.’ I knew, I just fuckin’ knew, he was going to ask me to help, so I said, ‘Has anyone been to see Stef?’ Which was really stupid. I didn’t want to know about Stef. I didn’t want to know about anyone.
‘You could go and see her yourself,’ Justin said. ‘She’s right here.’
‘Where?’
‘St Thomas’s,’ he said.
And I looked. Sometimes, see, I don’t bother about what’s around. I know where I am. But Justin was right. We were on the Embankment, a stone’s throw from Waterloo, with St Thomas’s right behind. If I’d of known that I’d of walked in the opposite direction.
‘The funny thing is,’ Justin said, ‘the man who hurt her, the one who got his face cut, is here too.’
