by Daisy White
“Rubes, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Victoria has walked right into the narrow alley between two dark buildings, and is poking around. “I know it must be awful to have your feet covered in blood, but it must be from a delivery to the butcher, or something. Look, there’s some packaging. Or maybe it’s just a fight. Those bloody London boys coming down here for the weekends always . . .” Her voice trails away. “Bloody hell!”
“What is it?” Kenny follows her into the alley, and makes a disgusted noise.
“Tell us then!” Pearl’s voice shakes. She peers quickly up and down the street, which not surprisingly, stays clothed tightly in its shadowed secrets.
I take a step into the darkness and blink hard. As my eyes adjust and focus I feel bile rising in my throat. At the edge of the pool of blood, up against the wall, is a dead cat. It lies spread-eagled on its back. Its throat has been cut and its glistening innards are on display.
“Sick bastards!” Victoria’s sharp voice slices through the shadows. She tip-taps back. “Someone has gone and killed a cat. Slit its throat and started their own little autopsy too, by the look of it. There are some weirdos around here.”
Kenny takes my arm, guiding me back to the road, “Might just have been that a car hit it and the driver thought he was putting it out of its misery,” he says sensibly, if unconvincingly.
“No bloody way. That was not a cat that has been hit by a vehicle — it was a cat that has been sliced by a knife,” Victoria says firmly. “Tomorrow morning I’m going to report it to the police.”
“Do you think they’ll take any notice?” Pearl asks, still sneaking horrified looks behind to the poor animal, but not going any closer.
“I don’t care. It’s a crime to murder humans, and it should be a crime to murder animals as well. I bet it is one of those stupid gangs. There’ve been too many fights and stuff since that all kicked off.”
Mary has her arm firmly around my shoulders and her body shakes against mine, but her voice is surprisingly firm. “Come away, Ruby. We’ll keep going down to the sea and you can wash your feet.”
I nod, doll-like and mechanical, as Pearl agrees with Victoria, “It’s okay, Ruby. You’ll feel better when you’re cleaned up. It — it only looks like a lot of blood because it’s running downhill, I’m sure.”
My breathing eases a little, and that tight feeling in my chest relaxes. Just a dead cat. I’ve seen them before, drowned in the gutter, and even though it upsets me, it isn’t the end of the world (which is another of Mum’s favourite sayings). I know some people are sick.
Just my mind playing tricks, and creating bloodstained monsters from the past. There is something that I haven’t told anyone, something that I know will haunt me for the rest of my life. If I’m lucky that’s all it will do, and the memory will fade from all-too-vivid colour to blank darkness. But now isn’t the time to mention it.
A dark-shadowed alley should just be a passageway between buildings, not a place of death. These empty streets are as safe as any I’ve been through before. I’m a city girl, I know these things. Just a cat . . . But tears trickle hot and fierce down my cheeks. My feet are sticky and I can feel the dust and grime collecting on my heels and toes as I walk. “Let’s get down to the beach. I need to wash this off.”
Pearl recovers quickly, but then she probably sees blood every day in her job. Before long she is encouraging us all to run headlong down the main street, dodging a disdainful black cat, who may or may not be the ghost of the victim at the top of Ship Street. Victoria is still ranting about cruelty to animals.
“Just a quick dip. But it really is amazing swimming at night, like being awake in a dream,” Pearl explains, waving her arms to demonstrate swimming on her back.
Despite our scare, Mary and I manage a giggle.
“I’ll swim if you promise me a date for next week,” Kenny offers, walking between the two older girls. “Mind you, it doesn’t even have to be a date because I am so broke — we can just go back to my place and make out!”
Victoria snorts with laughter, and Pearl shakes her head, cracking up at his increasingly lurid suggestions. Unperturbed, he carries on walking with us anyway, as we cross the road to the seafront, and those same green railings. The pier lies skeletal and deserted, stretching long weed-clad limbs into the oily blackness of the sea.
Concrete steps take us down to the pebbly beach, and we crunch down to the foamy water’s edge, laughing as the waves slide over our feet. Pearl tells us it’s just past midnight, and because there is a full moon we should all make a wish.
Kenny loudly wishes to go on a date with her. Or Victoria. Or me. Or anyone who is female and under the age of forty.
“Idiot!” Pearl pushes him so he stumbles and falls into the next breaking wave. “Why do we put up with you?” But she’s laughing again, kicking up spray with both feet, soaking us all.
Kenny comes up from the shallows spitting water, and he sends another wave of foam over the little group. His trousers are wet and the front of his shirt is spattered with seawater, but he still seems happy enough. “You love me really, Pearl, it’s just taking you a while to recognise it.
Victoria lights a cigarette, cupping her hand to shield the flame from the salt breeze. “She does, Kenny. You keep right on believing that, sweetheart!”
Pearl unzips, and steps casually out of her dress, standing for a moment in her pink lacy underwear. Clearly this happens quite often, because nobody says anything as she wades in and dives into the darkness. A moment later her sleek, wet head, haloed by the moon, appears nearer the pier. “Come on, Ruby — I know you can swim!”
She’s right. Mary shakes her head and accepts a cigarette from Victoria. They both collapse on the pebbles, and Victoria continues her banter with Kenny. Ignoring the chatter of thoughts racing through my brain, I slip my own dress over my head and follow Pearl into the water. It’s freezing cold, and the icy ripples make me gasp, but I shake out my own hair like a mermaid, revelling in the freedom.
The sea murmurs into the night, and the hypnotic rise and fall of the dark waves brings me closer to Pearl. She’s drifting on her back, hair spread out, studying the moon.
“Have you wished yet? Do it now!”
Obediently, I too flip over onto my back, staring at the star-dotted sky. I can see shadows across the moon, but its silvery glow still lays unearthly train-tracks of light across the waves. It must be the alcohol, because I don’t believe in all that superstitious rubbish, but tonight I wish, moving my lips, but not making a sound. The words run softly inside my head, banishing the other chatter: “I wish for Mary and me to be happy and safe here in Brighton . . . for her baby to be healthy . . . oh and I want to have some fun too.”
I think that might be three wishes, but never mind. I’m sure nobody’s counting.
“Can you two come in now? We’re getting cold!” Victoria shouts from the beach.
I realise then how far out we have drifted in the current. We’re towards the end of the pier. I’m close enough to make out the huge supports, hung with curtains of weed, and the black gloom beneath, where the water sloshes and slaps. The seaweed smells sour, and the salt on my lips makes me spit into the water.
As I start to swim back towards the others, I catch sight of a figure, higher up on the beach underneath the pier. My heart pounds harder, and I shiver, pausing in my swim, although there is no reason for someone not to take a night-time stroll along the beach. If that person happened to come across some crazy half-naked swimmers, he might even stop and watch.
But his stillness bothers me, and the shiver creeps along my wet skin, as the figure moves slightly and I catch a quick flash of yellow as he lights a cigarette. He’s too far away for conversation, but near enough for me to smell the smoke, and pick out his angular face. Nothing more. No features, no obvious identity. I tread water uncertainly for another minute, still shivering.
When the figure turns slowly to face me full on, I can see his raincoat fanning out in
the breeze. My stepdad George always wore a long coat when he went out. My salty wet hands are clenched and my legs cycle frantically underwater to keep afloat. The watcher under the pier takes another puff, without taking his eyes off me. Everything except my head and shoulders is hidden under the water, but his gaze seems to burn across my naked skin.
“Ruuuuby! You swimming to France or what?” Kenny yells.
The invisible thread that links me to the dark watcher snaps, and I splash loudly and quickly back to the safety of the beach. I haul myself through the shallows with numb limbs and wince as I tread on sharp wet stones.
“Probably some drunk,” Victoria decides, when I eventually reach them, and explain. “Or a tramp. They do shelter under the top end of the pier, where the tide doesn’t reach. Are you even sure it was a man?”
I think about this as I flip back my wet hair and grab my cardigan, suddenly very aware of my nakedness. My knickers and bra are white, and the water has soaked them transparent. Could it have been a woman watching me? No. “It was a man. He was pretty tall, and had a long jacket on, like a raincoat maybe. I could see the outline of his shadow against the beach.”
Since we don’t have any towels, Pearl and I scrub down with a mixture of cardigans and Kenny’s jacket. Strangely, I don’t mind that Kenny stares lustfully at us as we pull our dresses back on, but I do mind that a faceless stranger was watching me in the sea.
My feet are rinsed clean by the grey salt water, which is now ebbing and flowing up the beach, like a giant heartbeat. It soothes my frazzled nerves. First the blood, the poor cat, and then some freak watching me . . . I order myself to calm down, and not ruin what has been a very promising beginning.
“Do you want me to go and have a look for the bloke who was watching you?” Kenny suggests, as the other girls gather purses and shoes. “Although Victoria’s right. I hate to admit that, but lots of other people hang out on the beach late at night. You’re always safe in a group, though.”
I smile at him, tugging the sleeves of my dress down to my wrists. Kenny looks like he could probably see anyone off in a fight, despite his boyish expression. Yet he seems to have the sweetest nature, which is probably why I feel safe with him already.
“Come on, you two!” Pearl is finally dressed, and heads up the beach, marching briskly with her red hair now in two long, wet stringy plaits.
We trail after her. Kenny stays comfortingly close to me as we crunch back up the shingle banks to the green railings. The combination of damp, salty skin, and the fabric of my dress makes my bruises itch, and I rub my arms. When I take a quick look back from the road, we’re too high to see under the pier anymore, and darkness has swallowed the solitary watcher.
Chapter Three
“Come on Ruby, get a wiggle on. I’ve got a wedding party coming in at ten!” Johnnie’s in a bad mood.
He flounces off to yell at the senior stylists, and I fumble my way through some pin waves. Luckily these are quite easy. It’s quite satisfying to transform a hank of hair into something pretty and neat.
“Sorry!” My client looks up from her magazine and frowns when I accidentally stick a pin into her neck. Okay, so I’m still making mistakes. She is a society lady, with her tweedy suit and short curled hair. She even wears a single strand of pearls around her neck. She’s a relic of another time — I’m sure she wouldn’t be seen dead in Pucci.
I get rid of her as quickly as possible. She does give me a nice tip, though. Mary sweeps up the floor and wipes down the chair and mirror. This place, with its opulent gilt and cherub-encrusted mirrors, is buzzing. Clearly Johnnie’s is the place to have your hair done, because I’ve already seen everyone from office girls to old ladies, to models and musicians, coming through the pink-and-gold doors. Mary and I aren’t allowed to do much cutting or try any of the harder styles, of course. We do a lot of cleaning and fetching towels instead. My hands are wrinkly from shampooing.
In between the hairdressing we give manicures, and I have a major weakness for the little cupboard of jewel-coloured polishes. Most clients have pink or red, but the younger girls are starting to ask for purple and blue. Johnnie has promised to nip into the wholesale warehouse next time he’s up in London. He’ll do anything to compete with Vidal Sassoon.
We’ve been here a whole two weeks now, and I’m surprised by how well I’ve settled in. After that strange evening, I was almost prepared to run again, but I’ve managed to dismiss the idea that I’m being watched. I’m determined to live in the present.
I’m also so proud of Mary. She’s a star hairdressing apprentice even though she feels so sick. Most of the time I pretend I’ve always been here, slogging in the salon during the day and partying all night, with nothing else to think about and no memories to avoid. There’s no time to think at work anyway and by bedtime I’m exhausted. Pearl was right about a fresh start. Nobody back home seems to be bothered we’ve moved out.
The big news in Aunt Jackie’s most recent telephone call to Pearl is rather horrible. She phones every week on a Wednesday night according to my cousin, and won’t end the call until she has caught up on all the gossip and imparted a lot of her own. She says my stepdad was attacked and killed on his way home from the pub. They found his body in an alley two doors down from Mum’s house. Auntie Jackie didn’t even mention that cousin Ruby had run away. She did say my mother wanted to grieve in peace and not have to put up with a whole load of family turning up. Odd. I wonder if Aunt Jackie knows I’ve run away. I would say Mum hasn’t noticed, but I think she knew, deep down, that I would have to go. Does she guess where I am? If she does, she knows better than to speak up.
I grab my combs and brushes and shove them into a hot water and disinfectant solution. We told Victoria what happened to my stepdad, and she said it was fate. She’s slightly daunting, but she has a lot of common sense, and as we see such a lot of each other, we’ve quickly become close. She didn’t flicker a false eyelash when I gave her an edited version of our great escape either.
Pearl and Mary may have guessed there’s more, but I know they’ll keep quiet. It isn’t as if they can do anything else. Sometimes I even forget, myself — just for an hour or so. Blood on my feet, blood on my hands . . .
“Do you want to go to the pictures tonight? I really want to see Lolita again!” Mary wipes the mirror with a soft cloth.
“Really? I didn’t think it was your kind of film. I’d rather see something new — Johnnie said Cleopatra was stunning — but I don’t think we’ve got time. Pearl said to meet the others at half seven at the Regent.” The Regent Ballroom is a grand, pillared, dance venue on the corner of Queens and North Street, and it has a bouncy dance floor. It’s an elegant relic of days gone by, a bit like my client from earlier, but it’s a great place to start the night. “I wish we had a television. We could watch something while we get ready.”
“Dream on! Maybe we can save up for one in our new place.” Mary chucks an empty shampoo bottle in the bin, and lines the new ones up neatly, next to several gallons of lacquer. The glass bottles glitter in stray sunbeams. “We’ll be lucky if we can afford food for tonight.”
Johnnie glares at me again so I start sweeping the grey lino floor even though it doesn’t need it. He doesn’t pay us much but we can afford clothes and food. He’s offered us the rooms above the salon rent-free, too. We’ll move in next week once they’ve been cleaned up.
Catherine and Eve, the two senior stylists, regard us with a sort of world-weary disdain and give us all the rubbish jobs when Johnnie isn’t around. But they dote on Johnnie. They treat him rather like a naughty family member.
Catherine has a scrapbook of pictures of Johnnie’s clients, which she cuts out from society magazines, and she constantly reminds us of the “standards” we are expected to uphold. To be fair, Johnnie did say the staff haven’t always been reliable, so I make an extra effort to work hard, and do everything I’m asked. I know how lucky we are. Mum always said you made your own luck, but she clearly was
n’t any good at it. When I once asked her if she was happy with George, knowing she couldn’t possibly be, she just gave me this wistful little look, and said she was lucky to have a man.
I sweep harder, paying attention to the fiddly corners under the shelves and around the pink-and-white reception desk. If it wasn’t for Johnnie, we might be stuck sponging off my poor cousin, who has already done quite enough for us, so I mean to pay him back in hard work. I’m never going to end up like Mum. It’s my dearest wish, and I repeat it every day. Have done since I was about ten.
“Can you make up some more neutraliser, Ruby?” Eve calls across, cutting into my thoughts. She’s about forty, a beady-eyed professional the size of a bus. Not fat, but muscular. No clients ever dare argue with her, and I bet her husband doesn’t either.
I wave to let her know I’ve heard, stow the brush neatly into the cupboard next to the mop and bucket, and start measuring out the conditioning cream. “Twenty-volume peroxide,” I mutter, peering at bottles and tubes on the shelf unit near the back door. You mix it with water, and the chemicals work their magic on a client’s hair. It’s fiddly, and takes the skin off your fingertips if you aren’t careful. Johnnie buys these huge plastic containers of hundred-volume peroxide, and gets us to dilute it down with distilled water. It stinks, making the back of my throat burn and my eyes water.
I beam at Eve, who is scowling at me, and trot over to her with the plastic dish. She glances briefly at my red thumb. “Did you get burnt?” I nod and she smiles grimly. “Only way to learn. Isn’t it, Joyce?”