Fishnet

by Kirstin Innes

  ‘Hello darling. Sorry about that. Now, where were we?’

  Her face is fresh with new makeup and she’s sniffing ostentatiously, almost as though she wants me to ask.

  ‘Have you been taking drugs?’

  She pulls a face.

  ‘Oh no, not drugs! Honestly, lovely, how do you expect me to get through this otherwise? Ta–Rona’s sister comes to town and suddenly I have to deal with an awful lot of heavy stuff I’ve been very merrily burying away for years. I’m not off my face or anything. Just keeping it together. Sorry darling. I must seem utterly callous to you, mm? I promise, I’m just dealing. Just like you, in a way.’

  Her voice has got louder, and our waiter, embarrassed, brings the bill unasked.

  ‘Oops. I expect that’s a hint then,’ she’s saying, provoking a harder blush as I hand him my card. ‘Nice little cocktail bar two doors down, lovely. Shall we? Why don’t you tell me about the kid just now, mm?’

  Her arm tucked into mine, steering me.

  Me

  FROM: scandi_sonja@hot…

  Wednesday June 30th, 20:40

  Dear Fiona,

  I have wanted to write to you for a while now, or get in touch with you in some way. Firstly, and mainly, because I wanted to say sorry for the way I behaved to you. While I am sure that you understand that I was under a lot of pressure on that day, it was not in any way fair of me to place the blame for what happened to me on you. If I am late in getting this apology to you, it is only because after my outing to the newspapers I have had to hide for a while, and I was not at first sure my email was not being monitored. I am now almost entirely sure that I know the person who has done this to me, and I am very ashamed that I have accused you.

  I also wanted to wait until I had something I could give you, in return, to say thank you for the very valuable information you were able to give us. As I am sure you know now, we lost that fight. However, as Suzanne made me realise, you took a very great risk in helping us. It is easy to be cavalier about someone else’s life, I think, if you are not really living it.

  I was very sad to hear that you had lost your job: I had wanted to give you this apology in person, and I visited your office (please do not worry – I was dressed like a very polite politics student and they did not recognise me!). A kind older woman said that you had left three weeks ago, and she was perhaps a little worried about you as you had not been in touch with your friends there. I can only hope this was not because of what you did for us, and if it was, well, I am even more apologetic for this. Because I suspected that this might be the case, I have worked very hard to get this for you, in the hope you may feel better for your involvement with us.

  I have been asking about your sister’s friend Camilla. I have asked every one of my contacts who have been based in Edinburgh, and I have told them it is a matter of urgency: we do not usually break our silences on the other girls like this. The first possibility, I have attached the contact details of – she is an English girl living there and I have her name from a mutual client. She may be too young though, to have been your sister’s friend – I do not know if she was working seven years ago. Clients never really know our ages, they only guess. Below this one, you see an email from a woman who is working for a very exclusive agency in Edinburgh. I hope you do not mind that I have removed her email address and name from the message – this was her request. She is a friend of a friend and I do not know her directly. Anyway, she was booked recently for a session with a fellow escort who I think fits your bill too. It is her personal number we have managed to get for you, and the woman has specifically asked that you do not say, at all, how you got hold of it.

  This is so far all I have found. However, I have sent out many little contacts to let people know I am looking, and should there be anything else for you I will of course let you know.

  I hope that, despite your recent trouble, your life will be a happy one.

  My apologies again.

  Your friend,

  Anya.

  And all those small sparks in me seemed to be firing up again. The nearness of her, the fact that she had sought me out, her tone. Your friend. Your friend. The possibility of having her in my life, of making Anya my friend, learning the sex and confidence of her.

  Not only am I a coward, though, I don’t know that I could ever be anything else around her. I felt supplicant and dusty even just in electronic proximity. And no matter how bad she felt about having accused me now, I would always keep coming back to that look on her face, in the café, something closing down as she realised some of the truth of my feeling for her. There’s no way out of something like that: a relationship can’t be reset on an equal footing. The boredom in her eyes, disgust, even. Seeing it, realising it for what it was, I’d pitched into that white hot anger, had thrown things and screamed, had given her name to the first journalist who’d phoned the office. Anya Sobtka, I’d said. Look it up. Try cross-referencing Swedish Sonja. I’d hung up then, hating myself. But I’d done it. I’d earned that disgust, and I certainly hadn’t earned the right to her friendship, her apology, or these women’s names and numbers.

  I’d use them, though.

  You

  Camilla knows what she’s doing, of course, throwing out enough clues to take us on to the next round, and then the next. At some point I’m going to have to stop buying: her choice of both cocktails and bar are well out of my unemployed price range. I don’t want to tell her that, though. I don’t want to let anything else go. And in spite of the concentration it takes to play her game, in spite of subject matter and the fact I’m clearly being taken for a fool, I want to stay around her, just for a little longer.

  Some of the things Camilla tells me:

  ‘So-o, by the time we realised she was up the spout, it was too bloody late. It was a client who asked about it, actually. We laughed it off, but I made her sit and actually pee on the facking stick in front of me later, and sure enough, bing. Idiot. She bleated something about her periods never having been that regular or something, but I think she’d known all along, been, like, in denial, yeah? I think it’s why she left Edinburgh. Anyway, it put a stopper on our plans to go travelling. And she was just, you know, utterly panicky at first. All the docs telling her it was too late for an abo. Got to say, I was pretty worried about what she might try and do, so after the dull old school chum chucked her out I moved up to the bloody sticks for a while, rented us a cottage, and we saw out the rest of the preg like a splendid couple of bucolic facking dykes!’

  ‘Oh yeah, pretty sure the daddy was someone from Edinburgh. Honestly, sweets, it’s better for the kid’s sake that it is: some of the darts-playing chubbos we dealt with up north… There’s even a slim chance it could be your Mr McKay, you know. Still got his number? Make the bastard stand you seven years of child support! Ha. Joking. You’d never get rid of him, even with a negative test, and I did say only a slim chance. Course, he probably would have tried to marry her anyway, yeah? The wanker.’

  ‘Oh, it was lovely, in our little cottage? Just taking time out. Of course, the natives were pretty shitty to me whenever I went on a grocery run and they caught the accent – and neither of us could bloody drive, so it was always taxis in and out of town, and the one taxi driver had picked up on our particular means of income a couple of months earlier. Seriously, awkward, darling. Mostly, we stayed put. She’s good company, your sister. Was. Ha. That’s not a clue, honestly. I mean it: haven’t seen her for five years. Another one? Don’t you love it here?’

  ‘Well, I’d said adoption, and honestly, I was convinced she was going to go through with it, you know. I mean, we were getting it organised and everything. But then the bloody thing – sorry, the kid. You know I didn’t mean that, lovely? – was, like, three weeks prem. And that rather facked everything – by the time we’d got her out of the hospo, Ta–your sister had only gone and got bloody attached to her. And I was like, seriously darling, we were going travelling. This has been planned. And you a
re nineteen. And she was like, look, can we just give this a chance, just try it? And I said, okay, but bad for business, for a start. Anyway, we didn’t quite last a fortnight. Babe was a bit of a whinger, mm? And your sister wasn’t really coping, not with the crying thing, and I said, listen darling, what are we going to do? We are too young for this, and she was seriously getting worse, you know, the full post-natal, and I could see it wasn’t doing the little darling any good, being stuck with two stressed-out fackers who couldn’t look after her properly, and that’s when we thought of you.’

  I got up, at that point. I got up without saying anything and I went to the bathroom and I rested my forehead against cold porcelain and I counted to twenty. Then I stood by the mirror and splashed my stupid painted, plucked Rona-face with water and the expensive mascara didn’t run, and I wondered how one person could so casually tell another person these things, and then I went back to our table. Camilla had kicked off her shoes and curled her feet up under her, and ordered another two drinks.

  ‘I was being insensitive again, wasn’t I lovely? God, sorry. I’m running on numb just now, you know? Need to watch my whorish mouth!’

  She reached out a lazy arm to me, pulled me down onto the sofa with her, ran her thumb gently over my hand. Then she told me something.

  Then she told me something.

  Then.

  Anyway, after that, these are some of the things that I said:

  ‘And so – no. No. I’m fine, really – you went to Manchester, or was that just her?’

  ‘I hadn’t even considered she might have left the country. We checked – her passport hadn’t been–’

  ‘But you’re here now. What happened?’

  These are some of the other things she said:

  ‘No, we were never in Manchester. God, why the fack would we go to Manchester, lovely? I was in Carlisle to meet her off the train, after she left you, hotel room already sorted and all. We got the next London train in the morning. Figured that was the best way, you know. And god, I wanted to show my girl London. Best cure for anything, London. Just to get her out dancing again, you know, skin on skin. Bring her back to life. We had, ah, contacts, you know? On the club scene. Promoter chums, DJs we’d met when we were – well, when we were in Edinburgh. And this was how we’d planned it. This one guy, I don’t know if you’d have heard of him. I mean, he was super-huge for a while, on the scene, you know. DJ Fleidermaus, he called himself. Except it was spelled flee-da-mouse. He thought that was really funny, god, I never got it. Anyway, he was off to take up a residency in Strasse in Berlin – that’s like, techno mecca, darling. Or it was in 2001, you know? So. We went with him, moved into his flat. He called us his two girlfriends, but well, he paid the full whack for it. We were basically supposed to laze about and be in his pad if he threw parties; put on a little show for his friends, sometimes. We weren’t to tell anyone about the paying, yeah? It was all supposed to be like we were two girls who genuinely wanted to share our lives with him, you know, because he was, like, so phenom. And from there, we made more contacts. I mean, neither of us really spoke German, but they loved us anyway, you know. T–Rona just bloomed out there, darling. It was like she had found her calling, yeah?’

  ‘Pff. Passport? It was pre-9/11. Nobody checked! We’d borrowed one off some girl we knew in London who had hair a bit like yours. Like your sister’s. Told her we were just going for the weekend! And we went took the train. Great big rail jaunt across Europe, no serious border checks. Ah yeah, we were facking happy out there. For a while. I mean, obviously our gentleman friend got a tad much to take after a bit, but we’d already cosied up to another couple of promoters then. We had far bigger fish to fry, you know? And it was phenom. I mean, we’d spend our nights dancing until dawn, then running these amazing, immense sex parties darling, I mean you really can’t imagine. It was like we were the hub. I mean, it put turning tricks for facking shoes back here into some perspective.’

  ‘What happened was, she got bored of me, darling. We had a fight, one of those that had been brewing for a while, you know, and then the next morning I found she’d just gone. Facked off in the night. Ha. I’m sure you know the feeling. And the place just wasn’t the same without her. I mean, she wasn’t quite as good at covering her tracks with me, you know. I had a pretty good idea where she’d gone and who she was with, which is more than you ever did, isn’t it lovely? But fack it. The whole point was that it was the two of us, and besides, Berlin was always more her scene than mine. So facking grungy, god. So, yah, I ended up back here. There’s only one job I’m really any good at, darling, and London’s a bit of a saturated market, you know.’

  She was bruised with her own failure, with having to admit it to me even as she spread clues about more worlds I wouldn’t ever understand. And then we were both quiet, the sort of quiet that buzzed the air.

  I said:

  ‘She’s been using another name, hasn’t she? You keep wanting to call her something else. I’ve noticed.’

  She said:

  ‘Astutely deduced.’

  I said:

  ‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’

  She said:

  ‘Not unless you want me to. And I’m not sure you do, darling.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  She said:

  ‘She’s got no facking online profile with it, though. I’ve checked, obv. She’s too good. God, she may have even changed it again for all I know, yeah?’

  I still didn’t say anything.

  She said:

  ‘But I could give you leads though. If you want them. I know people who could get her scent, mm?’

  I said:

  ‘Sure. For a price.’

  She said:

  ‘Of course for a price. But it would be a good price.’

  I didn’t say anything, because she was suddenly leaning right in to me, her hand cupping my face. And she was kissing me, and I was being kissed, and the loud group of men at the table beside us got even louder. And I don’t think I kissed her back. I don’t think, but everything was slow, and smelled sweet and boozy, slightly of vomit. And she pulled away again.

  ‘Sorry darling. That was tacky of me. You want to know, I’ll tell you. Just. I just couldn’t resist. You just look so facking much like her, yeah? Lost loves and all that.’

  And she laughed at my face, and broke the slow spell with what she said:

  ‘Yes, yes. Lost loves. Come on, darling. Our speciality was girl-on-girl. I mean, we’re not lesbos, not for anyone else, but honestly. You don’t lick someone’s muff that often and not come to feel something for them, you know?’

  XXX

  It’s still early, on this train full of drunks. Sun finally setting, condensation on the windows, and the elephant stamps of football fans trying to tip their carriage over.

  Camilla had been apologetic, charming, expressed a vague idea of walking me to the station that she hadn’t meant me to take seriously so I didn’t. She’d said:

  ‘Listen, go away and think about it. I’m not going to tell you now even if you beg me. Even if you kiss me, baby. Ha. Ha. Go away and sober up, and tell your parents if you want, mm? Come back to me after a week, if you’re really sure. And god, if you decide to go ahead and declare her dead, don’t worry about me popping up to chuck a spanner in the works, you know? I might be a money-grabbing slattern, darling, but I’m honest with it.’

  And then she’d called me back, and she’d said:

  ‘Ooh, by the way. You wouldn’t happen to have twenty for a taxi, would you? I’ve only got bloody plat cards, and they don’t take them.’ But before that, and before that, when she’d pulled me down to her and held my hand, this is what she said:

  ‘I mean the thing is, lovely, I assume she didn’t tell you why she left the bub with you? I suppose she couldn’t really. She said it had to be done that way, you know. She said if you got any sort of wind of what was up, you’d stop her. Well, of course you would. Anyway. We were t
rying to work out what to do, and she was like, I can’t give her away. What if I want her back again? And I was like – because I was being bloody honest with her at that point, only way to get through to her – listen babe, you’re doing a facking shit job of being a mother right now. Give the kid a chance, you know? I mean, I have to say, I was fearing for its life at this point. So I said look, why not stick her with your mum or something? And my god she went mental at that. I mean, I knew your parents were a bit of a touchy subject with her, but god. She said, god, my dad can’t even look after himself, and my mum would only fack off on her – sorry, I need to watch my mouth, your parents, sorry. Anyway, the point is –’

  Her thumb went back and forth, back and forth over my hand.

  ‘– the point is, the next time the bub woke us up, she said, I’ve been thinking. Do you think I could leave her with my sister? And I asked, like, are you sure, and she said, and I still remember this:

  “I think right now, my sister is the only person in the world I trust apart from you, Cam. And you’re doing just as shit a job as me.” And that’s when it was decided.

  ‘And I was surprised, when you said there’d been no word from her, of course I was, but, you know, at her lowest she was utterly worried she would do some sort of damage to that baby, and you were the only person she was sure wouldn’t. Maybe all the dark, facked up bits of her kept her away, you know? Maybe she feels like she can’t come back now, like she hasn’t earned it. But I rather think she ought to have let you know that one thing, lovely. So. Now you know it. Message passed along, yeah?’

  And I’d said another thing.

  ‘Christ,’ I’d said. ‘I don’t know how I ever came to deserve that.’

  The train pulls away, like it seems to do a lot recently, taking me away from this place, back to where I’m supposed to be. And I make it home, and I’m still held together by skin, even if I can feel something else underneath, something breaking and turning.