Lady Bag

by Liza Cody

  ‘And I’m what they call a sofa surfer,’ Smister said. ‘I’m homeless but I always have a roof over my head. I’m saving up, see.’

  ‘Oh right. How much did you save last night?’ I couldn’t seem to help myself. I needed a drink.

  ‘She saved me,’ Too-Tall said, turning her weepy wet eyes towards him. ‘They were picking on me outside Casualty on Goodge Street.’

  ‘Not Goodge Street,’ Smister said wearily.

  ‘They were trying to take my prescription off of me. But I need those pills. They stop me getting over-excited.’

  ‘And who’s got them now?’

  ‘Well Josepha has.’ Too-Tall gazed adoringly at Smister. Her expression made me want to retch. I opened my mouth to put her straight.

  ‘Momster,’ Smister said, sounding a warning note, ‘do you want me to do your hair or not?’

  ‘A makeover!’ Too-Tall clapped her bony hands and stared at us expectantly. She adored Smister. Electra adored Smister. I was missing something.

  Or was I? Jody, Josepha, Sister, Smister—some people have too many identities and it never bodes well. Whatever you called him, he was up to something. He was using me, Electra and Too-Tall, and if I hadn’t needed a drink and a haircut I might have confronted him about it. As for names, I have one or two myself. I don’t use the name I was born with—the one they arrested and convicted even though the cops got it wrongish. Mostly I’m known by a description which amounts to ‘that barmy old bat with the dog.’ I quite like it. It relieves me of the responsibility of being anyone else.

  Smister couldn’t make me over. All he could do was to cut and layer my hair so it curled and softened the outlines of my smashed face. He did something clever with a clean scarf, so I looked less like a badly sewn quilt. All I wanted was to seem a little more normal and that was what Smister did for me.

  Of course he wanted something in return. ‘Breakfast?’ he suggested hopefully. ‘I usually charge fifty quid for one of my cuts, but from you, Momster, I’ll just take a full English breakfast.’

  Actually it was well past tea time when we shambled out into the rain. Fortunately South London is the kingdom of the all-day-breakfast and we found a Greek Cypriot caff half a mile away. Smister put away sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans and fried bread with great splats of ketchup and brown sauce. He looked like a doll but he ate like a trucker. Too-Tall had spaghetti hoops on toast with chips. I made do with sausages for Electra and scrambled eggs for my sorry teeth. We drank tea the colour of conkers.

  We were a weird bunch. We all bore the mark of Kev, but apart from that we had nothing in common. Smister would have nothing to do with me if he didn’t want to steal my dog, my pills and my money. TT thought she was better than me and never tired of pointing it out to Smister. She wanted to whisper with him behind my back as if they were twelve-year-old schoolgirls. I had no idea what Smister wanted with TT unless it was her medication and her benefit money.

  Scrambled eggs and tea woke me out of my cosmic daze long enough to ask myself why Kev, employed as security for South Dock High Rise, allowed us to squat in one of the flats he was supposed to be guarding.

  Kev fancied Smister in a sick, punitive way. But he wouldn’t allow him to import riff-raff like TT and me unless there was a profit in it for him. But why should I care about what someone wanted with me when I was living for free in a horribly costly city?

  I was sleeping on a dry mattress and Natalie was paying for the scrambled eggs. Surely I’d be stupid to question gifts like those. I perked up and started to enjoy myself until I realised that it meant I was beginning to sober up and my ribs were screeching again. I should be drinking wine, not tea. I got up to put the matter right.

  ‘Oy!’ said Smister. ‘Where you off to?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Oh let her go,’ TT said eagerly.

  He ignored her. ‘I thought you said we were going to find a cash point.’

  ‘Electra needs dog food.’

  ‘And you need booze.’

  ‘We don’t need her,’ TT said.

  ‘I’ve got to find a pet shop for Electra’s coat.’

  ‘We could all go.’

  ‘Or we could light a fire and sing songs, just you and me,’ TT said.

  ‘There’s no poxy fireplace,’ Smister pointed out, and in the end we all went to find a pet shop as I knew we would. We also stopped at a cash point. I don’t know why I bothered resisting Smister. He always got his way. It’s what young, pretty people do. But Electra wore a proper coat home in the never-ending rain. It was green with blue straps, waterproof and lined. She looked lovely in it.

  All in all, it was a good day—if you don’t count Kev walloping me and breaking my bed. After a bottle of red I didn’t count anything, even that. I was just happy to go to sleep happy for once.

  Chapter 15

  Fire!

  I was dreaming about sitting in the back of a bus with Electra. A famous actor was driving and being very nice to us until he disappeared and left us tearing downhill on a helter-skelter. Electra started barking. ‘Let me out, make it stop.’ She trod on my face and chest.

  I opened my eyes and found Electra standing on top of me barking her head off.

  Smoke was seeping under the door and creeping across the floor like spilt milk.

  I sat bolt upright on my mattress. I looked at the window. We were eight floors up. It was still dark.

  I looked at the door. It was the only way out, but there was a fire on the other side of it. Electra and I would have to walk through fire.

  I looked at the wine bottle on the floor next to the mattress. It was empty. I couldn’t even drink myself back to sleep and wake up dead.

  Electra was shouting at me at the top of her voice. That’s the thing about dogs—they can’t see the advantage in being dead.

  I went to the door. The knob wasn’t hot. I grabbed my stuff and Electra’s coat. I opened the door.

  The blaze was in the middle of the living-room. It looked like a bonfire made of old sofa cushions. They were piled up and smelled like smouldering tires, snorting out black oily smoke. But the rest, the carpet and curtains, was going up like dry hay.

  Too-Tall was running up and down wringing her skeletal hands and crying, ‘Help! Make it stop. I can’t get out.’

  I ignored her and dragged Electra and all my stuff into the bathroom.

  I turned on the taps. I soaked two t-shirts and Electra’s new coat and put them on her. She was rigid with fright and quaking. ‘Who are you?’ she whimpered, ‘and what’ve you done with my bag lady?’

  ‘I am your bloody bag lady, you idiot. This is your fault—you’re forcing me to save your life, which requires speed, decision and will-power.’

  I soaked the towelling bathrobe in cold water and put it on. It was very heavy. I stuffed everything that I’d left soaking in soapy water into the wheelie case with the Louis Hooey bag. It was heavy too.

  ‘What about Smister?’ Electra was peeing with fear, but she still managed to remember Monkey-paws. ‘He’s still sleeping. He’ll die!’

  ‘That’ll teach him to steal the sleeping pills.’

  ‘You had me to wake you up. He’s got nobody. You can’t let him die.’

  I noticed she wasn’t bullying me about TT. Should I try to save the cretin who started the fire?

  I left all the taps running. I opened the bathroom door and rushed out.

  Electra stayed where she was.

  ‘Come on!’ I screamed. ‘This is your stupid idea.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to get so big,’ Too-Tall sobbed. ‘Usually the fire alarm goes off and then they ’vacuate the whole wing. It’s your fault—you don’t have a fire alarm.’

  ‘I’m not talking to you.’ I went back and grabbed Electra. ‘Come on,’ I pleaded. ‘Trust me.’

>   She came; proving once and for all that a bitch in fear of her life will believe anything—even that I am worthy of trust.

  The fire, howling and cracking like scarlet ice, cut us off from the door. I rushed us into the big bedroom.

  Too-Tall jittered in too and ran straight to the bed where she threw herself into Smister’s narcotic arms, crying, ‘Josepha, save me! She wants me to die.’

  Electra barked and licked his face.

  I unpacked sopping wet clothes and stuffed them into the cracks around the door. Then I opened the window.

  We were eight floors up so the window only opened three inches. My breath was whimpering in my chest. My lungs refused to expel the thick black air. I stood next to three inches of fresh wet oxygen and retched.

  TT was shaking Smister like a duster. He said, ‘Fuck off, I’m sleeping.’

  ‘Fire!’ she shrieked, ‘make it stop.’

  ‘Phone the firemen,’ he mumbled, ‘and save one for me.’

  ‘Yes, phone!’ she screamed. ‘Phone 999 and WAKE UP.’

  He woke up and stared at TT, Electra and me from beneath reluctant eyelids. ‘Fire? Really? Proper fire—not burnt toast?’

  ‘Save me,’ TT sobbed. ‘Someone always saves me.’

  Sinister looked at me as if I was the sensible one. ‘Haven’t you phoned… ?’

  ‘You stole my fucking phone,’ I snarled between puking and retching.

  ‘Real fire?’ He got out of bed, his silly silky gown swirling around him. It would flare and be gone like swan’s feathers in white heat.

  A coiled worm of thick smoky phlegm exploded from my throat. I yelled, ‘Don’t go near that door!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just don’t open the door. Phone, phone!’

  At last he seemed to hear me. He found the phone and punched in the numbers.

  TT wheezed and wailed. She smelled of charred cushions.

  Behind the blistering door the living room cracked, howled and exploded like fireworks. ‘Where the fuck are we?’ Smister said, smoke and sleepers sloshing in his brain.

  For a panicking moment I thought I was running out of things I once knew. Then, ‘South Dock High Rise.’ I croaked. ‘Eighth floor.’

  ‘Hurry!’ TT screamed. The lights went out.

  ‘I told you,’ Smister shouted at the phone, ‘Three women and a dog not three men and a girl. Hurry. Please. The lights have blown.’ He hadn’t forgotten he was a girl, and he hadn’t forgotten Electra either. I grabbed for his hand and dragged him towards the three small inches of wet oxygen.

  ‘He says we should lie down. He says there’s less smoke on the floor.’

  I didn’t want to leave my three inches of life, but the cold air followed us down and settled with us on the gritty carpet.

  At last, I thought, I can go back to sleep. If someone saves Electra, Smister will look after her, and she can look after him. I’ve performed my last act of hope. I’m done.

  Done, I thought, like a cake in the oven; like a piece of meat cooked through. A smoky black giggle escaped—because I would be done, exactly like meat cooked through. Would I smell of lamb, beef, pork or venison? Would there be anyone left to make the gravy?

  Chapter 16

  I Do A Deal With The Devil

  There’s a deep sea diver staring at me through huge goggles.

  I try to tell him to fuck off but he has his glass hand clamped over my torn up mouth.

  Deep sea diver with a burning sun in the sky above his head. There’s something wrong.

  I’m lifted bodily out of the burning sun into the cold wet ocean. This isn’t right.

  I dash the glass hand away from my mouth and yell. ‘Electra, she can’t swim.’

  ‘Alright, I got the dog.’

  A deep sea diver steps off the diving board into the life raft with Electra limp in his arms. She says, ‘You saved me, big boy. Hold me in your hard hairy arms.’ And a fireman says, ‘Steady on, girl, I’m a married man.’

  I turn my head and see Smister nestled in the arms of a big sooty uniform. He’s wearing one of Natalie Munrow’s wet t-shirts over his night gown. His face is dirty, his blond hair’s tousled, but he still looks fetching.

  Electra sprawls dead at my side. I wrench off my oxygen mask and push it over her snout. I lean on her and force her chest to move. On the other side of the boat someone’s doing the same thing with Too-Tall Tina.

  ‘Stop that.’ The fireman tries to take the mask back but I’m crying so hard and trying so hard I scarcely notice him.

  Smister says, ‘Leave her alone. She wouldn’t want to live without that dog anyway.’

  He’s clutching my Louis Thing bag in one hand and a fireman’s arm in the other. Now I know why Electra liked him so much. He may be a rotten little thief but he understands.

  She asked me to save her and I failed. I’m alive and so are Smister and TT because Electra wanted to live. She saved us all and now she’s dead. If I could sacrifice any one of us to bring her back I would.

  The fireman forces the mask out of my hand and covers my nose and mouth. It smells of sweet dog and sour soot.

  Another fireman says, ‘We’ve gotta get down—I’m losing her.’

  But I’d already lost her. In a spasm of grief and fear I turn to Smister—but he is snuggling in his fireman’s arms and looking at TT. It is TT who is being lost. Take her, I plead silently. Take her.

  The boat jerks, sways and begins to drop.

  Electra spasms. She sits up. She licks my face. I hug her till she squeaks. She licks the salt and charred lashes from my sore eyes. I’m weeping so much I can’t see her. I just hold on. Because I didn’t save her; she saved me. It’s always been that way round.

  And I made a bargain with someone—probably Satan: Electra lives only because TT dies. I am killing TT. It is my decision. I am guilty. But my best friend is here and I can’t feel anything but glad.

  The cold wet dawn smacks my face, and the warm wet dog in my arms rears up on her hind legs to look over the edge of the juddering bucket we’re riding.

  A fireman tells me to sit down but I want to look too.

  I stare down into a sea of light. We are going to land on the surface of the sun.

  ‘Effing Eleanor,’ the fireman says. ‘We’re all going to be reality telly stars.’

  It’s true. The surface of the sun is really the glare of spotlights. Some belong to the fire crew, but most belong to film crews.

  ‘Where?’ Smister cries, standing up. ‘Does my hair look a mess? I can’t be seen like this.’ He rummages in my bag till he finds the little gold compact and a comb.

  ‘Sit the fuck down,’ roars my fireman. Smister and I obey, but Electra stands tall until our bucket comes to a halt. I’m so proud of her I would cry if my eyes weren’t too sore to wipe.

  Chapter 17

  Exposure

  We were celebrities. People clapped and cheered as we climbed down from our giant cherry picker machine. Smister tossed his blond hair as if he was on a red carpet. The fireman who got the most praise was the one who carried Electra down to dry land, because it looked as if he had saved a helpless dog from a burning building. But I knew who had saved who.

  Then I noticed a little group of South Dock High Rise residents—including the ogre in his white nighty and the little old bird who survived World War Two. They were muttering and booing at the back of the excited crowd. As I watched, I saw a cop go over to talk to them.

  Medics aren’t nearly as judgemental as cops. They gave us huge lungsful of oxygen, irrigated our eyes and wiped our faces before letting the cops talk to us.

  I thought it might be time to creep away into the grey wet dawn. But Smister had other ideas. He never let go of his fireman’s hand even when the medics were working on him. ‘Craig,’ he sighed, still husky from the smo
ke. ‘Don’t leave me. I’m frightened. I owe you… everything.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ Craig said tenderly. ‘These people will look after you.’

  Smister was turned on by the men who made him feel safe. I wondered how often Craig beat up on his wife.

  I should have crept away without him, but the hand that wasn’t occupied with Craig still gripped my bag, and, with half of London’s media watching, it didn’t seem the right time for a dingdong catfight.

  A lady with a scarlet raincoat and a black umbrella loomed over me and said, ‘We’d like to interview the dog and the hero who saved her on GMGB TV. We can transport them in a car straight over there.’

  Scarlet and black, I thought, looking at her coat and brolly—the Devil’s colours. What if Gram Attwood saw us on TV? Maybe he didn’t have to; maybe he knew where I was all along and sent Too-Tall Tina to light the fire that would burn us for eternity.

  Smister piped up. ‘Can’t you see my mum’s sick and confused? I’ll bring Electra.’

  ‘That’s her name? Electra?’

  A medic said, ‘Do you mind? Nobody’s going on telly without they’ve been checked out at Casualty first.’

  A cop said, ‘And nobody’s going on telly without they talk to the police first and answer a few questions.’ He’d crept up on us without our noticing.

  I wrapped both arms around Electra and croaked, ‘Nobody’s taking my dog anywhere.’

  ‘You need treatment,’ the medic said. ‘Your lungs sound terrible and if that ain’t enough, it looks as if you’ve been in some sort of accident.’

  ‘I’ll need all your names,’ the cop said, and the lady in the Devil’s colours took out her notebook too.

  Before I could stop him, Smister said, ‘I’m Josepha Munrow and this is my mum.’

  ‘And the tall lady over there?’

  Smister and I turned our heads and watched Too-Tall being loaded onto the second ambulance. They hadn’t covered her face, but I’d made my bargain with Satan so I wasn’t allowed to hope.

  ‘Tina,’ I said.