A Little Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I have never lied to you!’ She almost shrieked.

  He smirked. ‘In my book, omission is deceit and that is the same as lying.’

  Pru looked up, her face streaked with tears, her eyelids swollen. ‘You said you would love me even if I was broken. You said you’d carry all the little pieces of me around in your pocket, forever.’

  He shook his head. ‘We both said a lot of things. And this is real life, Pru, not fucking gingerbread.’

  He grabbed the phone as it buzzed once again in his shirt pocket. Pru watched as he scrolled through the screen. ‘Flights are booked, I need to get back to London.’

  ‘Now?’ She sat forward in her chair.

  He reached across, grabbed the postcard from the table and tore it into pieces, letting the bits fall to the floor around his feet.

  ‘Yes, now.’ Christopher walked past her, leaving their supper untouched on the table. He climbed through the window and started to gather his belongings.

  She nodded; she understood. ‘I’m sorry,’ she offered once more.

  He shook his head as if to emphasise the impotence of those two words.

  The two of them placed their bags on either side of the bed and silently folded their clothes.

  ‘You know what?’

  ‘What?’ He focused on scooping up his loose change, watch and passport from the bedside table.

  ‘I may have slept with men for money, but I have never felt so dirty and humiliated as I do right now.’

  Chris walked briskly past her and shut himself inside the louvre-doored shower room. Pru listened to the sound of running taps; she couldn’t hear him whistling ‘Dixie’, but she could have sworn that she heard the sound of crying.

  14

  Pru looked at her reflection in the window of the cab; she looked lost. There was a remorseful twist to her mouth and her eyes were deep pools that seemed to speak of shame and regret. Puta.

  It was the early hours of the morning when she alighted from the cab in Curzon Street. The engine seemed loud and invasive, cutting through the purple-tinged hush of the summer night. She placed her key in the lock and trod the stairs. She was about to walk into her flat, picturing her bed, or more specifically, her pillow, when she heard shouting from above. She paused with her hand on the banister before climbing the next flight of stairs, digging deep to find the energy to put one foot in front of the other as she let herself in. The noise was coming from the sitting room. She could hear both Milly and Meg’s voices and was able to make out the odd phrase.

  ‘You have no idea how much Bobby loved him! They were getting married—’

  ‘And I am having our fucking baby, what’s that if it’s not commitment?’

  ‘That’s not commitment; you wouldn’t have seen him for dust. Bobby knew his family!’

  ‘Well good for her. I knew his pin number!’

  It was the final straw at the end of a long and horrible evening. The plane journey had been horrendous. They’d sat in near silence, Christopher’s body angled away from hers, his arms tucked into his lap. She felt small and dirty and would have given anything to be free of his company sooner, wishing she could have clicked her heels like Dorothy and woken up at home. The formality with which they had said goodbye at the airport couldn’t have been more different from the way they had greeted each other there only two days before. She could hardly bear to recall it.

  She walked into the sitting room and stood by the door. Both women were standing in front of the fireplace. Milly staggered and wobbled – she looked as if she had been drinking. And Meg too looked a little unsteady, exhausted.

  ‘You knew his pin number? Oh well that’s practically a proposal!’ Milly gave a derisory laugh.

  ‘I didn’t need a proposal, we were buying a house, a house that we would raise our child in!’ Meg screamed.

  ‘You’re a liar!’ Milly growled. ‘And you might have taken Pru in, but not me, I’m watching you.’ She pointed her fingers at her own eyes and then directed them towards Meg.

  ‘Am I? Is this a lie?’ Meg patted her swollen stomach. ‘And what about the photos I’ve got, and all his letters, talking about our future? Am I lying about them n’all?’

  ‘Enough!’ Pru screamed from the doorway.

  Both women looked round, shocked by her presence and her tone.

  ‘What are you doing back here, Pru?’ asked Milly, taken aback. ‘I thought you weren’t due home till tomorrow?’

  Pru ignored the question. ‘Sit down, both of you.’ She spoke as if she were addressing kids. Her voice was stern but her hand trembled as she pointed first at them and then the sofa. They made their way across the room in silence and sat at either end of the oversized sofa. Pru stood in front of them, shaking with anger.

  ‘I’ve had enough!’ she yelled. ‘This stops, tonight, right now!’ Her voice was croaky from the effort of holding in her tears for the last few hours. ‘You have both been through an ordeal, but to further torture each other is futile and cruel. And I will not live with this sort of behaviour any more. I will not! Is that clear?’

  Neither woman reacted. ‘I cannot and I will not put up with it. Why should I? I want peace. I deserve peace. You seem intent on destroying any harmony that we have here, but it’s pointless. William is to blame for all the deceit. He’s the one that let you and Bobby down, Meg; he kept you in the dark and he lied to you. But he’s dead; he is dead and he’s not coming back. And neither is Bobby.’ This she addressed to Milly.

  Both Meg and Milly started to whimper. ‘That’s it! More bloody tears. Perfect.’ Pru ran her hand over her face. ‘You, Milly, have had a wonderful life, admittedly a good few heartaches and struggles along the way, but in the end a lovely life, a charmed life. You are a grown woman. No one is responsible for your life choices, not me, not anyone, just you. And yes, this terrible thing has happened, it’s happened to us both. We lost her! But it cannot be what defines you. It can’t make you bitter. You must not let it.’

  Milly nodded into her lap, sobered by her cousin’s outburst.

  ‘And you, Meg. I have invited you into our home and I expect a certain standard of behaviour. If this situation is going to work out, you need to find a way to live here as part of the family, not skulking around the edges of it and only coming out to fight with Milly behind my back. This is no way for any of us to live. This is not the example you should be setting for that baby. Okay?’

  Meg nodded.

  ‘Good. And finally, I would like to say to you both that some people go through their whole miserable life without ever loving or being loved. And it’s a very lonely way to live.’ She didn’t notice that she was crying, her body finally seeking the release that she craved. ‘So instead of screaming at each other and sobbing into your pillows, try being thankful for the fact that you loved someone so much that you miss them now they’re gone. And you, Meg, that someone loved you enough to give you a baby. Because some people have neither of those things, ever, no matter how much they want it. Some people live alone, when even a little love would have made a huge difference to them. Do you understand?’

  Both women nodded and looked from her to one another.

  ‘Good. I’ll see you both tomorrow.’

  Pru turned and walked from the room, leaving them to stare at the space that she had vacated. The echo of her words spun around the room then settled over them like a fine mist, seeping slowly into their consciences.

  Turning the handle of the shower, Pru allowed the water to run hot. Steam filled the glass-sided cubicle as she gingerly stepped under the deluge; she felt the hot hard jets pummel her skin. The temperature was more than a fraction too hot and ordinarily she would have lowered the gauge until it felt comfortable. This, however, was no ordinary night and she didn’t want to feel comfortable. Standing with her face tilted upwards, she let the water cascade over her body. Her skin flared red and angry at the scalding. It was some minutes before she reached for the lavender-scented soap and started to work
up a lather. Using her loofah brush, she scoured every inch of flesh until she tingled with pain. Then she started the whole process again. She scratched at her scalp with her fingernails, again painful but necessary. She wanted to scrub away the touch of every man that had laid his hand on her skin, every punter who had paid money to take pleasure from her body, every person who had used her.

  It had taken Pru two weeks of listening to Trudy traipse up and down the stairs with a never-ending parade of men – every sort, from senior policemen to Fleet Street’s finest – before she realised how Trudy earned her living. At first she naively thought that she just had a lot of friends. But once she understood, she asked Trudy immediately if she thought it would be a good way of earning money for Plum’s.

  Trudy had sat herself down at the kitchen table and taken a deep drag on her cigarillo. Her voice had a gorgeous husky growl, and she always sounded kind when she spoke to Pru.

  ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘The fact is, you are either cut out for this or you’re not. There ain’t nothing glamorous about it. When I started out at sixteen, it was about survival, but I’m twenty-six now and let me tell you it ain’t about survival no more, it’s about money. A lot of money. I’m very picky about my clientele, I don’t walk the streets, but I do have a fixer. He makes the arrangements, but I don’t work for him, I don’t work for anyone. It’s a partnership. I have some that come here, regulars, or I go to where they are staying, top hotels in the West End, mainly. And there’s the occasional party or private function, if you get my drift.’

  Trudy’s fixer turned out to be Crying Micky. He wasn’t much older than Pru and Milly, but he vetted the punters, made the introductions and took a cut. Pru had never liked or trusted him, and she kept her distance as much as she could. He mostly left her alone, but he had always looked at Milly as if she were meat, making her shiver with fear. The first time they met, he had crouched close to Milly and pointed to his eye injury. ‘Y’see this, Mills? A bear did it!’ There was a pause while the girls stood there, waiting for the punchline that Trudy had heard many times before. Micky grinned. ‘It was a bear all right, a bare fist holding a knife!’

  ‘How much could you make if you had an extra girl or two?’ Pru had asked Trudy that day in the kitchen at Kenway Road. She had been direct. If this was something she was going to do, it had to be worth it. It was the first time she could see a clear path to bringing their dream alive.

  But nothing had prepared Pru for the flicker of fear she felt when, alone in her bedroom, she listened as her first punter climbed the stairs. His foot creaked on the wood, and she shivered. When he entered the room, she was shocked at how old he was. He was wearing a wet wool coat that smelled, and when he opened his mouth to kiss her, his breath smelled of cloves. It felt all wrong. It felt horrible. As if in a dream, she took his calloused hand in hers and led him across the room. She imagined it was a game, a dare, part of her elaborate adventure. His near nakedness had brought her close to tears, more than the act itself. And the memory of it still could.

  After he had gone, she was too numb to cry. She lay there and looked at the coins that he’d put in a pile on the chest of drawers, and she thought about the bricks it would buy. Maybe one brick, maybe two, but each one of those bricks would one day build her freedom.

  15

  Pru left the flat mid morning with a file tucked under one arm, giving the impression that her excursion might be business-related. In the other hand she clutched a brown paper bag containing two croissants aux amandes, which this time she had made herself. She walked quickly, keen to get to the park, forgetting that there was no plan. She had to remind her racing heart to calm down. Christopher hadn’t answered her calls and so she had texted her intention to be in the park. She knew he probably wouldn’t be there, but she’d smoothed her fringe and applied her scent nevertheless. She felt a bit stumped when the bridge came into view. What was she to do now she had arrived?

  Conscious of being observed, of being so obviously abandoned and loitering aimlessly in this public space, she looked at her watch and sighed, as though the person she was meeting was late. She did this a few times and walked from one side of the bridge to the other, craning her neck as though trying to spot a certain someone in a crowd. This act was genuine enough. She was searching for a certain someone who might or might not have been visiting his favourite London landmark that day. He wasn’t, not today.

  Pru took a seat on the bench and set down her file with the little paper bag on top. She watched as couples and families sauntered past, stopping to admire the ducks or to kiss in the shadow of a weeping willow. She studied their grins, their interlinked hands and their slow blinks. She knew how they felt; she had been one of them, just for a little while. Her mouth trembled and her shoulders sagged. I miss you. I miss seeing you and I miss having you to think about. I am lonely again, just like that. I am lonely all over again.

  A chubby dark cloud blocked the sun and threw the park into shadow; the chill crept into her bones and caused her to look skywards as fat droplets of rain began to fall. Pru closed her eyes and let the water run over her. The paper bag disintegrated and rendered her croissants to mush. Looking around, she saw that everyone had dispersed, leaving her quite alone and feeling more displaced than ever.

  She sat on the bench for two hours and thought, ignoring the showers that started, stopped and started again. It wasn’t as if she could ever have had a future with him. She couldn’t exactly see him taking her to a do at the House of Commons – her, sitting between Lord and Lady Lahdeedah, chatting about growing up in London. While they were at debutant balls, she was taking paying customers up to the flat for a couple of bob a time. That’d be a conversation stopper, right there! Pru allowed herself a rueful smile. What would she do if they did get married, sit him next to Crying Micky on the top table and make out he was a friend from the country club?

  Pru shook herself and smacked her forehead into her palms. Unbidden, the memory of her and Milly discussing their perfect wedding sprang into her mind. Milly had always wanted a proper church, with peach-coloured confetti, the lot. But Pru had scoffed at that, preferring something extraordinary. A woodland fairy canopy with stars twinkling, that’s what she had always longed for, a wedding fit for a forest princess. She twisted the diamond on her finger and gulped back a sob. She wasn’t a princess. She wasn’t even a businesswoman. She was nothing but an old brass. No wonder Christopher Heritage didn’t want to be associated with her; she couldn’t blame him, not really.

  Pru stood up from the bench and dusted off the small twigs and leaves that dotted her clothes. She took one last lingering look at their bridge and with her head down returned the way she’d come. She didn’t look back, didn’t see the grey-suited man step from beneath the cloak of the weeping willow, didn’t see the expression that swept across his face. A look that some might interpret as regret, wishing that the world were a bit more like gingerbread.

  As she walked back to Curzon Street, she decided to try and put him out of her mind for good. She wouldn’t go looking for him in the park any more, or attempt to call him. How pathetic was that? No, it was less distressing and far easier to accept that that was it; ties cut, fling over.

  It was easy enough to say these words in her head, but so much harder to banish the images and memories that went with them. Pru lay in her bed, exhausted, but sleep would not come. Only days before, she had slept so soundly, within touching distance of Christopher and gently comforted by knowing he was close by. She imagined sleeping like that every night – she couldn’t help it. So many of the men at Kenway Road had uttered promises against the rented pillow in the aftermath of sex. Before they headed home to the wife and kids they adored, they would tell her she was beautiful or that they wanted to run away with her. They made a mockery of the shiny gold band that had briefly lain against her naked shoulder or stroked her hair. But she believed none of their promises. Who did they think they were kidding? She had never allowed h
erself to be taken in, never smudged the line between paying for sex and romance. With Christopher it had been different; she’d believed his sentiments, had wanted to hear his terms of endearment, his promises.

  Eventually she fell asleep, but after an hour she woke and sat bolt upright, momentarily confused, not sure where she was. Barcelona? She jolted at the recollection of what had happened. A fresh wave of regret was right there waiting to sweep over her, as it always was.

  A few days later, just as Pru was closing up the café and about to make her way upstairs, she noticed a fan of light poking from beneath the kitchen door. She walked in, expecting to find Guy and his sketchbook.

  ‘Oh, Meg! Hello, love. I didn’t expect to see you here at this time of the evening.’

  Meg froze. She was still slightly wary of Pru after the shouting match the other night. ‘Guy said it was okay. I’m just playing a bit, baking stuff.’ She wiped her arm first across her face, smudging her nose with flour, and then over the Plum Patisserie apron, which was tight across her stomach. She looked worried that she might be in more trouble.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine, of course. You carry on. What are you making?’

  ‘Madeleines. My first batch isn’t quite right.’ She glanced at the pale sponge offerings that lay abandoned on the counter.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ Pru sat on one of the bar stools by the stainless steel central island.

  Meg groaned and reached for the wire rack on which sat eight little butter sponges.

  ‘They look pretty good to me.’

  Meg shook her head. ‘No, the grooves aren’t right. They’re supposed to be firmer and fan out more – like a scallop shell, it said. And mine don’t; they look more like mussels.’

  ‘How do you know about madeleines?’ Pru was curious.