by Emmy Ellis
Why had she thought he’d hit her?
Because that usually comes next after gaslighting.
“You’re late.” He tapped his watch, the end of his fingertip going white he did it so hard.
She checked hers. One minute past six. She was about to say sorry but went against it. Why should she apologise? It wasn’t like he’d been kept waiting for half an hour or more—like she had on their first date with what she thought of now as his fake hand injury. What a cheeky bastard! One of those people who thought it was all right for them but not for anyone else.
He was a narcissist.
An overwhelming sense of wanting to escape rushed inside her, and she blurted, “This isn’t working.”
“What, your watch?” He stared at it, eyebrows meeting in the middle.
For fuck’s sake. “No, you and me. We’re not a good match, so it’s best we call it a day.”
His face clouded over, the now familiar sign he was going to insult her. She couldn’t be bothered to wait for it, act hurt, then him going back to normal, saying he hadn’t meant to be off with her, let’s start this convo over, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, here’s some flowers.
It was exhausting.
“What did you say?” His lips clamped into a tight line, the colour blanched out.
“We’re finished. You’re not who I thought you were at the beginning.” She stood to go. “Hope you find someone who can put up with your moods, because I don’t want to.”
“You’ll put up with them of I say you will.” He pushed to his feet, arms bowed at his sides, fists clenched.
Julie wasn’t staying around to watch him explode. She flounced out of the pub and ran towards the women on the corner—they were her saviours now, when all this time she’d avoided them. Odd how things changed, allegiances switched, how you needed something you didn’t before.
His footsteps pounded behind her and, “Get back here, you fucking bitch. This conversation is not over.”
She ran faster, heart pounding, lungs constricting. The women turned to watch, lips parted, eyes wary, but instead of coming forward in female solidarity, they shrank back, pressing their bodies to the wall of a building. Even the redhead who’d winked at her that first night seemed to shrivel into herself, although she had an expression of guilt on her rosy-cheeked face.
“Help me,” Julie shouted to her, convinced he’d do her some damage if he got hold of her.
The redhead glanced down, the pavement interesting.
He grabbed Julie’s hair, bringing her to a scalp-burning stop. She let out a strangled yelp, instinctively raising her hands to grip his wrist. Digging her nails in did nothing.
“Now then,” he said right by her ear, his breath hot, the condensation from it latching on to her skin, “I was waiting for you to do something for me all by yourself, no matter how long it took, but it seems you need a bit of prompting.”
What was he talking about?
“Get off me,” she said, tears burning, a lump rising in her throat, expanding with her fear.
He chuckled. “Not likely.”
Aaron marched her back towards the pub. She was stooped over, the path her only view, and she opened her mouth to scream. He tightened his hand in her hair, cutting any sound off as she battled to stand the pain, teeth gritted.
She managed to look up. He waved through one of the windows of The Flag, then down the alley he took her, the one beside the pub, and she struggled to get free and gulped another deep breath to scream. He let her go, slamming her against the building, slapping a hand over her mouth. His eyes, they seemed to glint with whatever the fuck it was—anger, despising her, she didn’t know.
“Shut your pissing chip-loving mouth,” he said, beer breath going up her nose. “I bet you want to know what’s going on, don’t you. See, I’m a brickie but also a recruiter.”
What did she care? And what was one of those anyway? All she was bothered about was getting away from him.
“I’ve got a job to do, selecting women, and you’re one of them.” He licked between her eyebrows, the freak. “The idea is to get you hooked on me, to the point that no matter how I treat you, you’ll do what I want, what they want.”
Who were ‘they’?
He was insane, had to be. Anger burst out of the bubble it’d been growing in, and she kicked out at his shin, but he didn’t budge nor flinch.
“Seems you’re stronger than I thought.” He pressed his body on hers to keep her still. “And I’m not just talking about fighting me. You’ve got some fire in your belly mentally. So we’ll play it the other way. You’ll go back to wearing your slaggy clothes while at work for my boss, Mr Lime, and you’ll let us fuck you whenever we want. You’ll get paid by men, punters, and you’ll pass a percentage of it to Lime.”
The image of the redhead giving him money flitted through her head.
Oh God, he was a pimp.
“And there’s nothing you can do about it,” Aaron whispered.
She writhed to no effect.
“Didn’t you wonder why I just got my end away with you and didn’t get too into it? I was giving you a taste of what’s to come. Men, poking it in, doing the business, then leaving you cold on the bed. You were in training.”
Vomit threatened to come up. What kind of sick fuck was he? She was so scared, she lost herself for a moment, her mind going too fast, her body freezing.
What had he said? What did he want her to do? She couldn’t remember.
Footsteps came from the street end of the alley.
“The yard,” Houndstooth said.
Aaron manhandled her out the back. Lights glowed from the pub windows. A warped picnic table, a parasol, beer barrels, all manner of shit. He thrust her onto the table, belly first, the edge of the wood digging into her pelvis. He pinned her down with his body, his weight too much, her lungs compressed by it.
“Let’s see what she’s made of, eh?”
Lime.
A moment of no one on her but no time to run, then another body, a hand disappearing up her vet’s uniform skirt. In her knickers. The scent of stale cigarette smoke. And all the while, she endured it with her eyes closed, listening to what he said. One line stood out more than the rest.
“If you don’t work for me, I’ll kill you, got it?”
Chapter Fifteen
Thursday, late afternoon, her version of morning, Rosie had to get out. Her flat walls penned her in, bringing on claustrophobia and the need to run. She walked to the end of the wind-filled street towards the bus shelter, watching for the author who lived opposite her flat. Difficult when she had no idea what she looked like. The thought of the woman writing her movements down meant Rosie had a crap sleep, and work last night had been nothing short of torture. When she’d got out of the taxi around three a.m., she’d glanced across the road, thankful the lights were out on the houses either side of the alley. That didn’t mean anything, though. The nosy cow could be staring in the dark.
Creeper.
A middle-aged man with a service dog, a golden retriever, stood beneath the shelter, the wind buffeting his woollen coat, his brown hair. The dog’s silky ears fluctuated in the stout breeze, one of them turning inside out, revealing the glossy pink interior. The weather had taken a weird turn, lots of gales that promised to bring down fences and uproot trees, according to the weatherman on the local news. She was silly to have come out really, rain also due, but the idea of spending the next few hours before work cooped up inside, feeling observed despite her curtains being shut, didn’t appeal.
A woman clip-clopped towards the bus stop, a skinny thing with short, bright-red hair and big specs, her long beige mac buttoned up to the top, a silk scarf swept artfully around her neck, cream with blue anchors all over it. The ends flapped. She spotted Rosie looking, so Rosie glanced away, embarrassed to have been caught, and she went on to have an internal monologue with herself about it: Does she think I’m weird? Should I apologise? She’d been thinking how eff
ortlessly some people carried clothes off, the hairstyle, those big glasses. If Rosie attempted the same, she’d fail, but who knew, maybe she’d give a wardrobe change a try.
Aaron had dented her confidence, and it had just been coming back, almost at full blast, then the neighbour had happened. Now, despite her classy work clothes and the smart casual stuff she put on while not at the parlour, she seemed dowdy compared to the woman, who perched on the shelter seat. Her mac parted at the bottom over her dainty knee, showing the flash of a red skirt, and she took out her phone.
Rosie shifted her gaze again.
The bus appeared, coming from the way she’d walked, and she waited for it to halt and the man and his dog to get on. Then she climbed aboard, presented her Oyster card, and sat a few seats along, not quite halfway but nowhere near the front where the wind could clip her ankles every time the doors swooshed open at the various stops.
The woman paid and walked down the aisle, her attention fixed at the back. Her handbag smacked Rosie on the cheek as she walked past. No “Sorry!” No “God, are you okay?” and Rosie put it down to the woman not knowing what had happened.
She didn’t have the energy to say, “Excuse me?”
The bus trundled off, picked up new passengers, then came to the end of the line at the station behind the shopping area. Rosie waited for Redhead to get off, scooting towards the window a little—no more bag slapping, thank you—then rose. The man and his dog went next, and a couple of others, and Rosie jumped off, anxious to lose herself in the shops.
It was stifling in the precinct, too much hot air blasting from overhead fan heaters, and she unzipped her jacket, pushing the fronts aside. Her first stop was Home Bargains to get her shampoo and whatnot, and she spent a while in there, browsing, thinking of some new curtains for the living room, ones she wouldn’t mind being permanently shut. A cream pair with large grey flowers on them caught her eye, and she picked them up and put them in her wheeled basket with its pulled-up handle.
Redhead stopped beside her, close, their arms almost touching. The woman’s scent wafted over, familiar, but Rosie couldn’t place it. She’d probably smelt it in The Angel, numerous ladies spraying the same perfume, the latest one to hit the shelves. Uncomfortable with the nearness—it reminded her of Marla—she took a step to the right, then skirted around the woman and headed for the tills. She paid and left, checking over her shoulder, but Redhead hadn’t followed.
Rosie was getting paranoid.
A few shops later, several bags bulging, she wandered into Costa. Latte, she needed a latte, and she sat with it at a window table, her purchases clustered around her aching feet. While she drank, she people-watched. So many scuttling along, some in a rush, others more languid, and she did what she’d done after Aaron, making up lives for everyone, something that had occupied her mind and steered her away from thoughts of what had happened.
A lady with two kids, harried, her cheeks bright red, stormed along, the raggedy buggy in front of her going skew-whiff as she only used one hand to push it. Her other was half-filled with the delicate fingers of a child around three, who stumbled due to his mother’s speed. Rosie put her in the ‘overworked and underappreciated’ category, not enough time to even brush her hair today, the poor thing, a bird’s nest sitting on the back of her head, created by a pillow, and she was on a budget, too, going by the shop names on the carrier bags hanging from the buggy handle.
Rosie wanted to get up, go out into the precinct, and guide the woman into Costa, buy her a coffee, a cake for the little lad, but that would just be weird—and may cause offence. Still, the empathy and urge were there, and she had to scoot her attention to someone else, tears pricking her tired eyes.
Mum would have been just like that lady. Struggling. Desperate for a break.
A man now. Baggy jeans, the waistband halfway down his arse. A hoody, black, the usual white tick on the front. Expensive trainers. Rosie’s mind went to a rich kid, and he was on a day off from college—and she also thought about one of the corner girls, Beth, who’d come here to get a message from Lime. Had she people-watched, too? Or had she been so afraid of him she hadn’t had the chance to concentrate?
The redhead from the bus seemed to flow out of Superdrug, and she stopped beside the greeting card stand, scoping the area. Rosie had the mad idea she was looking for her—paranoia playing its part again—and she shrank back from the window. She picked up one of her bags, the stout paper kind that had a stiffening sheen on it, and placed it on the table to shield her from view, the thin blue rope handles draping down. She peered over it. Redhead clutched a handbag strap at her chest—Rosie hadn’t noticed it at the bus stop, nor in Home Bargains—and looked left then right, as if about to cross a road.
What was she searching for?
In Rosie’s head she was a fashion designer, working from home, and in one room she’d have all her drawing equipment—easels (did they use those?), pencils, a computer to digitally enhance her drawings.
Redhead stared over at Costa, and her expression changed to the one many people displayed: Ah, yes, I’ll go there.
Rosie averted her attention to the door, head slightly bent, eyes up. Redhead came in a minute or so later, casting her gaze around until it landed on Rosie, who lowered her eyes so she stared at the crumb on the tabletop, dark, from chocolate cake. This was either weird to see her three times in one day or a coincidence, and Rosie couldn’t make up her mind which it was. If she didn’t know about the author, if she didn’t have a guilty secret she hoped said author wasn’t aware of, would she have just thought: Oh, there’s that woman again. Would she have told herself: She’s standing out because of her hair.
Yes.
Rosie drank some coffee, straining to make out Redhead’s voice—she stood at the counter ordering a drink. Her words were muffled, and the barista turned away to make whatever she’d asked for. When he placed it in front of her, Rosie’s heartbeat sped up. He added a slice of caramel and hazelnut cake to her tray. The drink had a tiny gingerbread man poking from a high swirl of Mr-Whippy-like cream, plus marshmallows, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles, all extras she must have requested. It reminded her of what Marla had always chosen. But this woman wasn’t Marla, and although it was an unpleasant shove back into the past, Rosie admitted she couldn’t keep letting things like this affect her. So what if two people had the same tastes, it didn’t mean anything.
Redhead carried her tray to a table in the corner, facing Rosie, and sat. She took her phone out and held it up, as if posing for a selfie, the screen lighting up her face, the mobile reflected in the huge lenses of her glasses. She clicked a button on the side, capturing her image, then used finger and thumb to expand her screen and clicked again.
Rosie had the odd sense Redhead was zooming in on her.
She scraped her chair back, her chest tight, panic governing her, and grabbed all of her bags. She abandoned her half-drunk coffee, lurching out of the shop, an irrational need to leave, to go home, to be safe coming over her, pushing her feet to move one after the other, out, out of the precinct and into the street. Cold air swarmed her, cooling her heated cheeks, and her coat fronts wafted about, the wind snaking beneath, right round to her back and chilling her.
She opted for a taxi idling in the rank opposite, dived in, and told the driver where she lived. He clicked the meter then drew away, and Rosie stared over at the precinct, her throat stuffed with a lump.
Redhead stood there, beside the flower stall, glancing all over.
What the hell was going on?
Chapter Sixteen
Marla was so pissed off. One, she should have dyed her hair black, something less conspicuous—she’d convinced herself Julie had cottoned on to her, what with her scooting out of Costa like that. Two, she shouldn’t have taken those pictures of Julie so obviously. She’d been too overt about it, thinking people would have thought she was into selfies for Instagram, because it was after the second one Julie had scarpered. And three, she’d
ordered her usual cake and drink without thinking. She may look different, but she was still the same old Marla, and what you liked, you tended to stick with, didn’t you.
She hadn’t been cautious.
Shit.
She was used to playing a part, being someone others thought you were, but this Marla was the one she’d always been deep down. Assured, self-confident, and she’d chosen, for her own ends, to behave differently. With Aaron gone, she didn’t need to play a part anymore, having got what she’d always wanted: the sole attention of her parents. Yes, Aaron dying was sad, but still…
Julie had gone home in a taxi—or Marla assumed she’d gone home anyway. She thought about what Julie had bought—she’d followed her into every shop, watching, making mental notes, the one at the top underlined, stating Julie wasn’t observant, she wasn’t aware of those surrounding her. Curtains, shampoo and conditioner, a new silk scarf, a mac just like Marla’s. What was that all about?
Still standing beside the flower stall, she preened at the thought of Julie, of all people, copying her new style. Back in the days when Marla carried more weight than her doctor thought healthy, people wouldn’t have even noticed her clothes, just her size. She’d endured many a taunt. ‘Piggy eyes’, ‘You’d be so pretty if you went on a diet’, ‘Don’t you worry about having a heart attack?’, ‘How many cream cakes do you eat in one go?’
Being overweight had also been for a reason, just like being slim was now. Going after Julie spurred her on to changing her diet and losing weight. They said you had to have a good incentive, one that gave you focus. Well, the death of your brother was a reason and a half, and snatching the ‘only child’ crown was the other.
She walked back into the precinct and bought another mac—a black one—and a pink beanie with a big fluffy bobble on top to hide her red hair, a pair of Ugg boots—bit of a splurge there, but Dad’s credit card could handle it—and a cerise scarf. She nipped into the public loos to change, emerging in another disguise. She couldn’t arrive home and have Julie spotting her, the game would be up then, or at least Julie’s suspicions would be aroused. She nipped into Superdrug—black hair dye—and into B&M—some reading glasses with chunky red frames, a bargain at one ninety-nine—and the next time Julie saw her, she’d appear different again, no redhead in sight.