I Came to Find a Girl

by Jaq Hazell

  His flat on the eighth floor, however, was spotless.

  “Is your brother here?” I asked, as we walked in.

  He knocked on one of the beech doors off the bright white hall. “Lee, you in?” There was no answer. “Must be at Lena’s,” he said. “You wanna beer?”

  He handed me a bottle and sat down at the small wooden kitchen table and began to write letters out on a piece of paper.

  “I’m not sure about this.” My voice came out whiney, so I coughed.

  “You’re doing it for Jenny. You ready?”

  “No,” I said, but still I put my hand on his.

  “Just fingers,” he said, pulling away so only our fingertips met on the base of the upturned glass. He took a deep breath as I held mine. “Do you think I should turn the lights off?”

  “No.” The very thought made me panic.

  “Calm down,” he said. “Ready? How do I start? Is there anyone there?”

  We watched the glass.

  “Is there anyone there?”

  The glass remained still.

  “If anyone is there could they please come through?”

  There was nothing but a faint buzz from the bulb above.

  “Say something else,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  I tried to remember what I’d seen on TV. “Say we respect the spirit world, say we need their help.”

  “We believe in the spirit world,” he said, as we held each other’s gaze. “We have great respect for you spirits. We need one of you to come through. We need your help, your guidance and superior knowledge...”

  We waited. The only sound the dull hum from the fridge in the corner.

  There was a slight tremble in the glass. Jason’s hands were shaking, but it wouldn’t move. It wasn’t happening. Twenty minutes we sat waiting. I didn’t want to be the one to stop even though my arm was aching. It had to come from Jason and he was hanging in there.

  “It’s no good.” He knocked the glass onto its side and stared at the table, his shoulders shaking a little as he tensed his jaw. He was trying not to cry.

  “Oh, Jase.” I hugged him as best I could. “We’ll get someone for this, you’ll see.” I kissed his cheek, happy to let our wet faces slide against one another, but Jason pulled away, stood up, and straightened his chair.

  “It’s late, I’ll give you a lift back.”

  I didn’t want to get out of the car. I didn’t want to go into the house, not alone.

  “Can you come in for a minute and check no one’s there.” I felt stupid saying it, but my imagination was working overtime. The house felt bigger and emptier than ever. I knew what sort of night lay ahead. I was under siege from my own imagination. “I hear things that aren’t even there.”

  Jason dutifully checked through the whole house for me.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said, as I unlocked my room.

  “I’ll see you at work.” Jason turned to leave, then paused. “About earlier...”

  “I know,” I said, “we were both feeling so bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Forget it ever happened.”

  He looked at me, his face tender. “See you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you out.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “I want to double-lock the door.” I followed him down, and he turned round at the door and I think he considered kissing my cheek but thought better of it. I watched him walk to his car; head down, as he stared at the ground. He didn’t look round. And by the time I’d shut the door, applied the bolt and chain, the house had changed. It was dark, silent and foreboding. I flicked on the hall light, decided to leave it on for the night, and ran up the first flight of stairs, stopping off at the kitchen for supplies: crackers, Brie, grapes and a cup of tea, and I left another light on, and then up to my room where I locked myself in. This was all well and good but as a plan it was seriously flawed. I would at some point need the toilet. I would need to wash.

  I left the tea and crackers on my desk by the lamp and looked out the window. There was a car stopped on the opposite side of the road. It was dark grey, an older model; I’m not sure what make. I sketched its dull, saloon shape and it drove away.

  Twenty-two

  Interior, Flood’s studio: there’s a large, dark canvas on an easel by the window. Flood is standing next to it, dressed in an old T-shirt and paint-splattered dungarees.

  What is he painting? I want to see what it’s like but the angle of the canvas makes it impossible.

  Flood holds up a brush. “Sam, get us some turps?”

  “You finished for the day?” It’s Gecko Girl.

  She stuck with him. She didn’t listen to what I said.

  She looks androgynous in navy overalls. “Early to stop, isn’t it?” she says.

  Flood lifts a bottle of Absolut. “Fancy some?”

  “Absolutely.” She shakes off her overalls, revealing a white T-shirt and jeans.

  Flood passes her a large tumbler and she takes a gulp. “That’s too much – don’t you have any mixers – lemonade or orange maybe?”

  Flood takes her glass to the kitchen area, his back to the camera. “Voila.” He hands back the drink.

  “That’s better.” She takes a deep breath, pushing her breasts up and out in her low-cut white T-shirt.

  Flood reaches out and touches her with his index finger, where the bump of her right nipple is apparent. “Ouch, you’re sharp.” He pulls back.

  Gecko Girl takes off her top and says, “Paint me.”

  He shakes his head, and steps back. “No,” he says.

  “Paint me.” Her body is lean and fit.

  Flood looks away, and rearranges his wet brushes.

  “You paint other women, why not me?”

  “It’s a compulsion, something I have to feel.”

  Gecko Girl necks the rest of her vodka. “You want my jeans off?” She unbuttons her fly, then completes her strip and lies back on the couch.

  Flood takes a rag and wipes the turps from his brushes. “I told you I’m finished for the day.”

  Film cuts to Gecko Girl, cigarette in hand. Flood in paint-splattered T-shirt and dungarees is sitting in his calico-covered chair. Gecko Girl, wearing only turquoise knickers, sits back down on a floor cushion at his feet.

  She holds up a packet of Marlboro Lights. “You want one?”

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “You didn’t like it?” she says.

  He retrieves his Bible from an old chest of drawers.

  “That’s all you care about,” she says. “That stuff can affect you, you know.”

  “Affect what?”

  “Your performance.”

  “Drugs help.”

  “Not the shit you take.”

  He finds his glass pipe and scrabbles round for a splinter of rock. “What do you know? You’re just a girl – you’ve barely lived.”

  She reaches across the floor for her shirt. “I resent that.”

  “What have you seen?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me a story, entertain me.” He lifts the grubby pipe to his lips. “Tell me something that will impress me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “You want to be an artist, right?”

  “Yeah.” She stubs out her cigarette and crosses her arms.

  “What inspires Samantha Clark?”

  She stands up and puts her jeans back on. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Flood smiles. “Would you like me to show you what inspires me?”

  She stops and stares at him. “You mean that?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want?”

  Interior, a train carriage: blue seats and the number one on the window – first class.

  Flood leans back to squirt Optrex in his eyes. There is triangular plastic sandwich packaging cast aside next to him.

  “Do you have to do that?” Gecko Girl’s voice – she must be filming.
r />   He squirts more fluid into his eyes. “I haven’t slept.”

  “Do you ever?”

  “Some things are a lost cause.” He studies a photocopied map.

  “What’s that?”

  “The city centre.”

  “What have you highlighted?”

  “Places of interest.” He smiles, without crinkling his eyes.

  Exterior: a railway station with dark Victorian brickwork, swathes of people moving, rushing footsteps and car engines. Only Flood is visible.

  “That’s us.” He points at a white cab. And they get in.

  “Sam, this is Maciek,” Flood says.

  The cabbie slowly turns his big, sandy head. “Where you want to go?” he says, his heavy-lidded eyes glancing at the camera.

  Flood holds a finger to his lips. “Shush,” he says. “I’ve written it down.” He passes a piece of paper to Maciek, and then turns towards the camera.

  “I have to blindfold you.” He takes the camera. “Here Maciek, hold this.”

  “Why a blindfold?” Gecko Girl asks.

  “You didn’t think I’d give everything away, did you? Okay, Maciek, go.”

  The driver checks his mirrors and moves out, the abrupt movement making the blue bejewelled elephant hanging from his rear-view mirror swing erratically.

  The car moves fast through the city streets, taking twists and turns, stopping and starting. The roads empty and darken. It must be the outskirts of town, an industrial park. They pass a packaging factory and stop in a large, deserted, gravel car park.

  Flood gets out, his hand visible as he reaches out to take Gecko Girl’s hand. She remains blindfolded as he leads her to a walled-off area used for waste disposal.

  “Maciek, I need you to hold this.” He passes the camera to Maciek so that he can remove Gecko Girl’s blindfold.

  She blinks and rubs at her eyes. “Where are we?” She looks annoyed and then confused as she looks around and notices there is someone else – a girl leaning against the wall smoking. It’s Girl-with-braids. What’s she doing there? I don’t like it. She should only be visible from my window. I can’t bear it – wishing the simple act of pressing pause could stop whatever awful fate Flood has in mind.

  “You must be Sadie,” Flood says.

  “And you are?” She stands upright, as she flicks ash to the ground.

  “We talked on the phone.”

  “You’re not what I expected.”

  “Oh, why’s that?” Flood asks.

  “I thought you’d be alone for a start.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “What’s with the camera?”

  “I’m on holiday.”

  “You never said nothing about filming.”

  “I’m prepared to pay a premium for a little holiday video?”

  Girl-with-braids shrugs. “You want what we discussed?”

  “Yes. But first I’d like you to tell me your name.”

  “It’s Sadie, you know that.”

  “Pass me the camera, Maciek.” Flood takes the camera and moves in close. “What’s your surname, Sadie?”

  “Sunshine – it’s Sadie Fucking Sunshine. What’s yours?”

  Flood briefly scans the breeze-block walls and adjacent metal containers. “Tell me something about you and your life, Sadie.”

  “What?”

  “I must know something about you.”

  She stamps out her cigarette. “That’s not fucking normal.”

  “I’m sure you’re used to unusual requests.”

  “Not like that I’m not.”

  “What’s this all about, Jack? I don’t get it,” Gecko Girl says.

  “You wanted to know where my work starts. It starts here.”

  “What is this place?” She grimaces, as the toe of her boot catches on a discarded condom.

  Sadie curls her lip. “If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.” Girl-with-braids seems particularly affronted by another woman’s presence.

  “What do you see, Sam?” Flood asks Gecko Girl. “How does this look to you?”

  “You do it here?” Gecko Girl asks Girl-with-braids.

  “You never had it alfresco?” Girl-with-braids says.

  “Sadie’s spotted a gap in the market,” Flood says. “A lot of the factory and office workers come out in their lunch hour or between shifts.”

  “Yeah, and time’s money so can we get on with it?” she says.

  “How old is Sadie Sunshine?” Flood zooms in on her face.

  “Twenty,” she says.

  The camera concentrates on the eye area – not a line, not a wrinkle.

  “How did Sadie Sunshine get into this line of work?”

  Gecko Girl moves back to lean against the opposite wall.

  “I don’t need this.” Sadie stomps off a few feet away. “If you want to do business, fine, let’s get on with it – if not bugger off. Leave me alone.”

  “Give me one of your beads?”

  “What?”

  “I’d like one of the beads from your hair. A blue one...”

  “You’re fucking nuts.”

  “Please.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I’ll double your money.”

  “What you want it for?”

  “A keepsake.”

  “What?”

  “I like to collect keepsakes.”

  “Double you say?” She considers the offer.

  “Keep you going for a day or two, won’t it?” Flood says.

  “Depends what shit I can get,” she says.

  “I want a bead.”

  “They’re difficult to get off.”

  “I’ve got a knife,” Flood says. “Here, Sam, hold the camera.” He passes it over, and then takes a retractable Stanley knife from his pocket. Girl-with-braids stares ahead as he steps forward to slice a Byzantine blue bead from her plaited hair.

  Twenty-three

  Jenny is dead. Every day the alarm clock went off I’d open my eyes and remember that there was something I had to remember – Jenny has gone.

  I sighed heavily. I was due in at work. I didn’t want to go. But I couldn’t skive again, not after what happened the last time. It was another beautiful day. How can that be? I forced open the battered sash and wedged it open with an A4 folder. I needed light in my dark hole of a room and I needed air. Though propping the window open didn’t make much difference seeing as the air was syrupy thick with heat and dust.

  A girl was out already and it was only ten. She had blonde hair with black roots and wore a thin-strapped white top and short denim skirt with a frayed hem. She was slim and attractive by anyone’s standards, though her eyes were hard as was the set of her jaw.

  Crouched by the side of the window, on the edge of the bed, I took a black ink pen and sketched Blonde-with-black-roots as best I could. I drew her looking one way, then the other. I sketched her on the phone and pacing up and down. A car came. I drew the car. Then another – but that didn’t stop.

  The girl squinted up at the sun. A 4x4 arrived. I made quick decisive marks on the page. It was a Range Rover – a boxy, solid car, although my version looked jagged as if seen through a heat-haze.

  The girl checked left and right and approached the car, leaning in at the open window, her back curved like a feline goddess. I got that. She walked around to the other side and got in. I struggled to keep up, my sketches frantic. She’d gone, so I sketched the empty street.

  Saviour’s was properly subdued. I mean the place was shady and too dark for a bright summer’s day at the best of times, but the news about Jenny had made it heavy with tragedy and regret. We all wished we’d walked out with Jenny that night and seen her to the bus stop or wherever she needed to go to be out of harm’s way.

  I changed into my uniform and followed the usual routine: laying tables, prepping the coffee machine, sorting menus. No one expected Jason to come in. Vivienne said she’d told him to take whatever time off he needed, so it was a surprise to see him,
all puffy-eyed and unshaven, his hair uncombed and flat.

  “Jason, buddy.” Warren gripped Jason’s upper arm. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I can’t sit at home and stare at the walls.”

  “Being here won’t take your mind off anything,” I said.

  “Why would I want to take my mind off it? I like being with people that know Jenny. I want to talk about it – try and work out who it can be.”

  “You’re not a cop, Jase,” Donna said. “The police aren’t going to tell you anything. I don’t see how any of us can work it out.”

  Vivienne walked in then, crisp white blouse, beige trousers and high silver sandals. “Jason,” she said, her concerned face firmly on. “I appreciate your dedication, but this can’t be the right place for you right now.”

  “I have to be here.” And that was the end of the subject. We all did what we had to do that day and we all worked together perfectly. There was none of the usual banter but there was the odd caring word.

  I made sure I relayed all compliments to the chefs, not that they were interested. Jason merely shrugged and said, “It’s only food.”

  Later on, as service drew to a close, Jason came over to where I was arranging some petit fours. “How was it at your place last night – everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course it was, though I can’t help being jumpy. It feels like anything could happen anywhere to anyone.”

  Jason nodded. “I feel useless.”

  “Jase, you can’t sort this out. I mean where do you start? We don’t know enough about what happened.”

  He returned to his duties: wrapping up unused produce and washing down his area. He was distant, removed. I couldn’t reach him. I thought about asking if he wanted a coffee somewhere afterwards but I sensed he’d refuse.

  “See you same time tomorrow,” he told Vivienne. “See you guys.” He waved.

  I felt a little put out that he hadn’t asked what I was up to later. He wasn’t due in that evening and neither was I. I reconsidered my plans. I couldn’t stay in that house alone for another two weeks. I went to Vivienne, told her I needed to go home and see my family. She wasn’t thrilled about it, but she understood.