‘I haven’t told anybody,’ Joe said. ‘About us talking, I mean.’
‘Thank you,’ Katya murmured.
‘I just wanted you to know, because I know you had your doubts – about Eddie, and that,’ Joe went on. ‘But I meant what I said about him and me not being mates. I just work for him, that’s all. And I saw what he was like with you that time, so I would never do or say anything to put you in danger—’
‘It’s okay,’ Katya interrupted. ‘I believe you.’
‘Good, because it’s important that you know you can trust me,’ Joe said. Then, holding up his hands when she gave him a mock-weary look, he said, ‘Okay, I’ll shut up about it.’ After drinking some of his coffee he said, ‘Do you mind if I ask where you come from? Only I’ve been trying to place your accent, and I can’t.’
The caution returned to Katya’s eyes. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she murmured. ‘Please don’t ask me to.’
‘Hey, it’s fine,’ Joe assured her. ‘No pressure. You speak excellent English, by the way.’
‘Thank you.’ She gave him a small smile. Then, turning the spotlight onto him, she said, ‘You were born here, yes?’
‘No, Liverpool,’ he said. ‘Not that anyone can tell, ’cos I lost the accent years back. It was getting a bit rough back home, so my folks moved the family here when I was six. Thought we’d stand a better chance of staying out of trouble.’
‘And were they right?’
Smiling at the memory of his parents’ naivety, Joe shrugged. ‘A city’s a city. If you’re the kind of person who seeks out trouble, you’ll find it anywhere.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Katya said thoughtfully. ‘But sometimes you can’t avoid it even when you try your very hardest to.’
Joe guessed that she was referring to her own situation. ‘Life can be unfair,’ he said, ‘but we just have to find a way of coping with whatever it throws at us. It helps if we’ve got good friends to lean on,’ he added pointedly. ‘A problem shared is a problem halved, and all that.’
Katya repeated the phrase, saying the words slowly as if to digest them fully. ‘That is very wise,’ she concluded. ‘Did you – how you say – invent it?’
‘No, it’s just an old saying,’ Joe told her. ‘We’ve got loads of them over here; things people have said that get passed down to the next generation, and the next.’
‘Tell me more,’ Katya urged.
Catching a glint of something he could only describe as hunger for knowledge in her eyes, Joe reeled off a few more sayings and their meanings, some of which she understood immediately, others that took a little extra translation and working-out before she could get to grips with them. But even Joe was stumped when it came to explaining why a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.
Katya mulled it over for a few minutes, then said, ‘I think maybe it means that it’s better to have something, however small, than to chase that which is out of reach and have nothing.’
‘Wow.’ Joe gazed at her with admiration. ‘So simple, yet so deep.’
Katya dipped her gaze as a blush flared across her cheeks. ‘I could be wrong.’
Joe shook his head. ‘No, I think you’re spot on. And it makes perfect sense put like that. Very wise.’
Aware that he was teasing her by using her own word, Katya smiled.
It was the first proper smile she’d given him, and Joe thought she’d never looked more beautiful. She had the most stunning eyes he’d ever seen, large and dark, with long silky black lashes. Her hair was equally black, and, free of the hood, fell in a curtain all the way down her back. He thought she would look amazing if she were able to pamper herself like women were supposed to, but she was like a butterfly whose wings had been coated with dust, and that saddened him.
Conscious of his scrutiny, Katya began to fidget. She found him very attractive and had almost convinced herself that he liked her, too. But the pity she saw in his eyes right now reminded her that he was only being nice because he felt sorry for her.
‘Thank you for the coffee,’ she said. ‘But I think I should probably go back now. Would you take me, please?’
‘Of course,’ Joe said, his mood dipping at the thought of her returning to work. The more he saw of her, and the more he spoke to her, the more he knew that she shouldn’t be selling herself like this. She was too good, too beautiful, too intelligent for any random man to think that he was entitled to abuse her just because he had the cash in his wallet. And that she seemed so resigned to it was tragic. But he couldn’t help her if she refused to let him.
Just outside town they passed an all-night pharmacy. Glancing back, Katya bit her lip. She’d been too frightened to stray away from her spot before, terrified of what would happen if Eddie caught her. But she’d been for a coffee with Joe twice now and the sky hadn’t fallen in.
‘Could you please stop?’ she blurted out.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Joe said, doing as she’d asked. ‘Is something wrong?’
Katya shook her head and unbuckled her seat belt. ‘No, I just need something from that shop.’
Guessing that she meant the chemist’s, because that was the only one that was open on the block, Joe reversed back.
Katya was relieved to find a female pharmacist on duty because she knew that she would never have been able to discuss such an intimate problem with a man. But she was still poised to run if the woman asked for her name or proof of identity.
Fortunately, she was asked for neither, and she came back out a short time later with the medicine and the cream that the woman had prescribed after Katya had confided her symptoms to her. She’d had to dip into her earnings to pay for them, which had worried her because she was sure that Eddie would realise she’d spent some of his money and would beat her. But it would almost be worth it just to have this awful pain taken away.
‘Sorted?’ Joe asked when she went back to the car.
Nodding, she held the small bag in her lap as he set off, already wondering where she could stash it. She definitely couldn’t take it back to the flat, so it would have to be somewhere near her doorway. That way she could take some when she arrived each night, and more before she left in the morning.
Joe turned to her when they stopped and offered her thirty pounds.
‘Please,’ he urged when she shook her head. ‘I don’t want you to get into trouble with Eddie.’
‘He is never satisfied no matter how much we make,’ Katya told him, giving him the clearest glimpse yet into what life was like for her under Eddie’s control. ‘It will probably be his girlfriend who comes to take it, and my friend Elena always puts the money together when she comes so they don’t know who has given what. So, really, I don’t want it. You’ve already done enough.’
‘Can we do it again, then?’ Joe blurted out. ‘The coffee, I mean.’
Katya inhaled deeply. Her head was telling her that she should stop this now before one or both of them got hurt. But her heart was screaming yes, yes, yes.
Her heart won.
Smiling, she said, ‘Yes, please.’
18
Carl was freezing when he arrived home at just gone twelve in the afternoon. He’d planned to stay at his mum’s the night before but had ended up going to a party at an old mate’s place a few doors down and he’d got so wasted that he’d ended up flaking out on the guy’s kitchen floor. So by the time he’d woken up this morning his mum had already gone out, locking his jacket in her place – along with his keys and money.
Cursing her for stranding him like that, and Mel for the row which had sent him there in the first place, he’d walked all the way back from Longsight only to get no answer when he knocked on his flat’s door.
He shoved the letter-box flap open after several attempts, and yelled, ‘MEL! I know you’re in there, you ignorant bitch, so quit arsing about and open the fucking door or I’ll kick the fucking thing in!’
Kettler came out of his own door just then, buttoning up his coat. He cleared his t
hroat as Carl stepped back to carry out his threat.
Twisting around, Carl gave him a thunderous look. ‘What you gawping at?’
‘I was just going to tell you that she went out about half an hour ago,’ Kettler informed him. ‘And I’m sure the council won’t be too pleased if you damage their property,’ he added disapprovingly.
‘Fuck off,’ Carl snarled. ‘I pay the rent, I can do what the fuck I want with it.’
Kettler’s eyebrows rose. He wanted to point out that Carl most certainly did not pay the rent: that it was paid for by the DSS, from the proceeds of the taxes they had taken from honest workers like his own father. But he sensed that the lout was in too volatile a mood for honesty, so he went on his way without another word.
Sucking his teeth as he watched him go, Carl booted the door before marching over to Joe’s. Although, now that he knew Mel was out, it was more an act of defiance to piss Kettler off than a serious attempt to get in.
Joe didn’t hear the first few knocks because he was sleeping, but he woke up when Carl started yelling through the letter box. And then he pulled the pillow over his head and tried to ignore the noise because he was too knackered to face any of Carl’s usual morning exuberance.
Since his breakthrough with Katya last week, he’d been nipping into town almost every night to see her. And their conversations had deepened as her trust for him grew, so now he knew that she was twenty-four, and that she’d wanted to be a teacher but that she’d been too poor to waste time gaining the necessary qualifications because she’d been forced to take whatever jobs were available in order for her family to survive.
Joe also knew now that she and her friends were from tiny poverty-stricken Ukrainian villages with unpronounceable names and that they had all been fooled into coming to England with the promise of well-paid work and a safe place to live.
It was a classic scam and Joe had imagined that everyone the world over must be aware of it by now, considering how many documentaries had been made on the subject. But he hadn’t taken into account the fact that people from Katya’s background often didn’t have access to TV, so they’d had absolutely no idea of what awaited them when they’d set off. And by the time they had arrived it had been too late.
Now that he knew, Joe was more determined than ever to help her. But, brave as she’d been in opening up to him, Katya was still too scared even to contemplate trying to escape from Eddie. When Joe had pressed her to explain how anything could possibly be worse than the way she was being forced to live now she’d clammed up and refused to discuss it any further, so he’d been forced to let it drop.
It had been four a.m. by the time he’d got home this morning, and it had taken him hours to get to sleep, so he didn’t appreciate being woken now. Carl was being so insistent that he had no choice but to get up.
‘Jeezus, mate, you took your time,’ Carl complained, blowing on his hands and rushing in when Joe opened the door. ‘It’s fucking freezing out there.’
‘I was asleep,’ Joe told him, yawning his way to the kitchen. ‘And it might help if you were wearing a coat instead of a T-shirt.’
‘I was, but I left it at my mum’s last night,’ Carl told him. ‘My keys are in the pocket and Mel’s out, so I need a lift to Longsight to get it.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier to ring Mel and tell her to come back and let you in?’ Joe suggested, putting the kettle on.
‘I tried, but her mobile was switched off,’ Carl told him.
‘Everything all right with you two?’ Joe asked, guessing that it probably wasn’t if Carl had spent the night at his mum’s and Mel had gone awol.
‘It’s her not me,’ Carl muttered. ‘You know I told you I thought she was seeing someone else behind my back? Well, I came right out and asked her the other day, and she had the cheek to tell me that the bongs have fucked my head up and made me para. Can you believe that?’
‘Well, they do say it’s a side effect,’ Joe said amusedly.
‘Mate, the only side effect going on here is the one she’s picked up watching them twat-show hosts lecture tossers about shit they know nowt about,’ Carl retorted. ‘I mean, when was the last time any of them had a good bong? But give ’em a microphone and they’re experts all of a sudden. Paranoid, me backside.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘She won’t be such a smart arse when I tell her I’ve got her lined up to go on Kyle to do a lie detector.’
‘You haven’t?’ Joe laughed.
‘Have I fuck,’ Carl snorted. ‘But she won’t know that. And she’ll crap herself when I tell her, ’cos she’ll know it’ll make her look guilty if she refuses.’
‘She’ll never go for it,’ Joe said, handing Carl’s coffee to him.
Sighing, Carl said, ‘Yeah, I know. Guess I’ll just have to keep following her till I catch her.’
‘What do you mean, keep following her?’ Joe asked. ‘I didn’t know you had been.’
‘Yeah, man,’ Carl said, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do. ‘Like last night, she went stomping off saying she was going to her sister’s. But I know she can’t stand her so I waited five minutes and went after her.’
‘And did she go there?’
‘Yeah, but only ’cos she probably clocked me. She’ll have left as soon as she thought I’d gone.’
‘How long did you wait?’
‘About half an hour.’ Carl shrugged. ‘Got too cold so I walked to my mum’s. And then my old mate invited me round to his for a party and I got wasted. That’s why I need to get my keys asap, ’cos I did a bit of a dribble in my jeans and need to get changed.’
Sighing, Joe said, ‘All right. But you’ll have to wait till I’m properly awake.’
‘Late night?’ Carl asked, opening the window and shivering in the cold air as he lit a cigarette. ‘Seeing that bird again?’
‘No, I just couldn’t sleep,’ Joe told him.
‘Not easy getting used to a strange bed, is it?’ Carl gave him a knowing smile. ‘Come on, mate, no point lying about it,’ he went on. ‘I already know you stopped out, ’cos Eddie called round for you, then rang me wanting to know where you were.’
‘I forgot to take my phone,’ Joe said, wondering if Eddie had somehow found out about him and Katya. ‘What did he want?’
‘A lift to some tart’s place, knowing him,’ Carl said. ‘Anyhow, what’s with you and your bird?’ he asked now. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking out in the middle of the night. So what’s with the secrecy? Is she a minger, or something? Or is she a he?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Joe scoffed. ‘I just haven’t known her long enough to start introducing her to my mates yet. Don’t know if it’s going anywhere – you know how it is.’
‘Fetch her round. I’ll soon tell you if she’s a goer or not.’
‘Cheers, but I think I’ll just carry on taking it slow for now.’
Joe headed into the living room when he heard his mobile vibrating on the coffee table and his heart leapt when he saw that it was a withheld number. Hoping that it might be Katya, he was smiling as he answered it. But the smile soon slipped when the caller tartly informed him that this was the third time they had tried to reach him this morning.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I had a late night, didn’t hear it.’ Frowning now when he heard the reason for the call, he said, ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll be there.’
‘Was that her?’ Carl asked when he’d hung up.
‘No, it was the dole,’ Joe told him, checking the phone and seeing that he’d had nine missed calls in all: two from Eddie, three from Carl, the rest from a withheld number. Glancing at his watch now and realising that he didn’t have much time, he said, ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to give that lift a miss. They’ve called me in for a meeting.’
‘Aw, come on, I was here first,’ Carl protested. ‘Ring them back and tell them you can’t make it.’
‘I can’t,’ Joe insisted. ‘You know what they’re like. They’ll cut me off if I mes
s them about.’
‘Wankers,’ Carl sneered. ‘You wanna do what I do and tell them you’ve got mental issues. Amazing how fast they want you out of there when you’re rolling round on the floor foaming at the mouth.’
Joe grimaced at the thought of people looking at him the way they must surely look at Carl if he really did that kind of thing.
‘No, you’re all right, I’ll stick to doing it my way,’ he said. Then, ‘Look, why don’t you stop here till Mel gets back? I don’t know how long I’ll be, but you know where everything is. And you can take a shower if you want.’
‘Nah, I need to get my gear and get out there before I lose my customers,’ Carl told him. ‘But you can lend us a couple of quid for the bus if you’re feeling generous. And a jacket,’ he added, rubbing at his arms.
‘Take the one off the hook behind the door,’ Joe said as he headed into the bedroom to get the money.
Carl was already in the hall, tugging the jacket on when he came back out. Handing the money over, Joe said, ‘Don’t forget my cups when you fetch it back. You’ve got four of mine now. I’m running out.’
‘You and them bleedin’ cups,’ Carl snorted, pulling the door open and stepping out into the corridor. ‘Anyone would think they were made of gold or something.’
‘Just bring them,’ Joe repeated firmly.
‘Yes, sir!’ Carl said, giving him a salute before marching away down the corridor.
‘Tosser!’ Joe called after him.
‘Takes one to know one,’ Carl called back, flipping him the finger before disappearing into the stairwell.
Joe closed the door and traipsed to the bathroom before reluctantly getting dressed for the meeting he’d been summoned to. He was dreading it because he had no answers for the questions he would undoubtedly be asked. Yes, he’d lived here for almost six months now, and no doubt most people would think that was ample time to have made some sort of headway. But he just hoped they would understand that it wasn’t that easy.
19
As Joe drove through town a short time later he just missed seeing Chrissie and her mum making their way into the family-planning clinic. It had taken Chrissie a long time to make her mind up, and now that she had she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. But she was about to have her whole world dragged out from under her feet.
The Driver Page 17