Diva

by Carrie Duffy

  Fernandez laughed loudly and Dionne pulled the sheet more tightly around her. ‘You ain’t never gonna be no supermodel, honey. The public – they don’t like black trash, see? And that ass ain’t never gonna fit into any sample sizes.’

  ‘Give me those pictures!’ Dionne screamed again, snatching furiously at the camera. But Fernandez held on to it tightly.

  ‘Get the fuck out of my house,’ he snarled, pushing his face up close towards her. Dionne could smell the stench of his breath, see his yellowed teeth.

  With a sob, she grabbed her clothes and ran down the corridor, leaving the door open behind her as she ran outside. Tears were streaming down her face as she sprinted barefoot into the street, her thick, black hair streaming out behind her. Passing cars honked their horns, amused by the spectacle of this beautiful girl running down the road with only a sheet wrapped around her, but Dionne was too upset to care.

  How could she have been so fucking stupid? She’d thought this was going to be her big break, but he was just some fucking pervert. Jesus, he had those pictures of her – God only knew what he’d taken when she wasn’t paying attention. He’d been pointing the camera right between her legs, right up …

  Dionne stopped running and collapsed into sobs. The photos would go all round Dash Ramón’s crew, she knew that. She wanted to kill him for humiliating her like this. She thought he’d been doing her a favour, but Dash Ramón was only looking out for himself, as usual. Shit, what if her daddy saw those photos?

  ‘Hey, Dionne! You okay?’

  It was Trey Williams, one of the guys from her neighbourhood. They hung out with the same crowd and she’d slept with him a couple of times.

  ‘Baby, what happened?’ he asked, looking genuinely concerned as he pulled his car over to where Dionne was standing, shivering, on the sidewalk. ‘Come on, get in,’ Trey told her, opening the passenger side door.

  Miserably, Dionne did as she was told.

  ‘What happened?’ Trey repeated, as she slid into the seat beside him.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Dionne insisted, wiping her eyes furiously on a corner of the filthy sheet.

  ‘You wanna go back to mine – get yourself fixed up?’

  Dionne nodded. He was a nice guy, and she didn’t want to go home yet.

  ‘Oh, Dionne, baby, you’re so good …’

  Dionne lay back lifelessly as Trey writhed and moaned on top of her.

  ‘I told you Trey would cheer you up, didn’t I, baby?’ he whispered, pushing deeper into her.

  Dionne lay silent, closing her mind as he used her body.

  She didn’t mind, not really. It was all the same to her. Men always wanted sex, and she wanted to feel loved. It was a fair trade.

  Dionne lay back passively, running over her options as Trey thrust inside her, grunting and squirming. She had to get out of here. She’d known it for years, but this afternoon had made her see there was no future for her in Detroit.

  Ever since she was a kid, people had told her she ought to model. She was beautiful, with soft, flawless skin, high cheekbones, huge, liquid-brown eyes and legs that went on forever. But as she’d grown up, her body had refused to cooperate with her dream. Dionne had wanted to be tall and skinny with a flat chest and no hips, but nature wouldn’t play ball, obstinately blessing her with large breasts and a full-on booty that never seemed to get any smaller no matter how much she exercised. Whenever Dionne tried the big agencies, she always got the same answer: ‘Try glamour work. You haven’t got the right look for runway modelling.’

  But Dionne refused to let them crush her dream and turned her attentions to Europe; after all, didn’t they like different-looking girls over there? Dionne was no Cindy Crawford, no all-American, California-tanned cheerleader type. But in Europe, the fashion world adored the tiny, bohemian Kate Moss, the doll-like Lily Cole and the Amazonian Naomi Campbell.

  Trey began to thrust faster, and Dionne could tell he was close to climax. Obligingly, she moaned and arched her back, clenching herself around him. With a final groan, Trey came and collapsed onto her. He was heavy and sweating, and Dionne hoped he’d get off her soon.

  ‘Dionne, you’re the best, you know that?’ he told her, pulling out and rolling away from her. ‘I told you I’d cheer you up,’ he winked, clearly pleased with himself as he lit a spliff and lay back contentedly.

  Dionne smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, Trey,’ she said, getting up and dressing hastily. ‘I’d better head off.’

  ‘Sure,’ he told her, unconcernedly. ‘I’ll see you around.’

  Dionne paused. ‘Yeah, see you around.’ She let herself out, closing the door behind her, and stepped into the grimy streets, breathing in the polluted air. Suddenly she knew with absolute certainty that she had to get out of here, whatever it took. If she didn’t, the city would grind her down, her life becoming a carbon copy of her mother’s – marriage to a deadbeat drunk, a cluster of kids, a minimum wage job that exhausted her and made her look old before her time. There was no way she could let that happen. Dionne Summers wanted something more from life.

  She thought of the money in her savings account. A thousand dollars. Enough to buy a plane ticket, a motel for a few nights. The possibilities swirled tantalizingly in her mind. She could go to Europe, find work, be a model. It all seemed so easy, so obvious.

  Dionne looked around her, taking in the familiar streets for one last time. She felt something harden inside her, like steel, and she knew what she had to do.

  2

  Manchester, UK

  Eighteen months later

  Alyson Wakefield scurried out of school into the freezing February air. Her head was bowed, her shoulders rounded in her habitual pose, in a desperate effort not to be noticed. Standing just shy of five feet eleven in flats, with a rail-thin body and endless, coltish legs, being unobtrusive was not something that came naturally to seventeen-year-old Alyson Wakefield.

  Her fine blonde hair had been hastily tied back with a simple band, revealing razor-sharp cheekbones and enormous blue eyes. With her clear porcelain skin and enviable poise that naturally lent itself to elegance, Alyson was on the verge of blossoming into a true beauty. But all she saw when she looked in the mirror were startled eyes and a skinny body that never filled out, no matter how much she ate. With her lean, gangly frame she felt clumsy and masculine, gauche and out of proportion compared to the other girls in her class. The boys teased her about her flat chest and towering height, the daily taunts ringing in her ears so that it was impossible for her to be anything other than self-conscious about the way she looked.

  ‘You workin’ tonight, Alyson?’ asked Kayleigh, a small, freckled girl with a shock of red hair and a prominent overbite.

  Alyson nodded as she hurried to catch up with her friends. They were known as ‘The Misfits’, a group of five girls each as physically awkward and insecure as Alyson herself. Staying together meant safety in numbers.

  ‘Yeah, it’s going to be another late – ouch!’

  She broke off as she was shoved in the shoulder by the group of boys walking towards her. Instinctively, Alyson spun round and saw Callum Bateman grinning at her. Dark-haired and good-looking, he was also cocky and arrogant, and did his best to humiliate Alyson whenever he saw her.

  ‘Fancy a fuck?’ he yelled. ‘I could do you up the arse, you’d love it.’

  The ever-present group of admirers hanging off his every word burst out laughing as Alyson flushed bright red, her whole face lighting up like a beacon that was probably visible from the other side of the Pennines. But she kept her mouth shut and didn’t reply. She wasn’t about to get into a war of words with Callum Bateman. There would only be one winner, and it wouldn’t be Alyson.

  Instead, her friend Leanne took up the challenge. Short and round, almost as wide as she was high, with a perma-orange fake tan and a face obscured by a mass of jet-black hair extensions, she relished a good argument.

  ‘Shut your face, you bell-end,’ she screeched,
her voice carrying halfway across the car park.

  ‘Piss off, Leanne,’ sneered Callum. ‘I’d rather chop my dick off than put it in your rancid midget fanny.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, gaylord,’ Leanne shot back venomously.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Alyson said under her breath, as she saw her bus pull up to the stop. Already the other kids were piling on, and she couldn’t afford to miss it. If she did, she’d be late for work. ‘I’ll see you guys tomorrow.’ She sprinted off, her long legs quickly covering the ground, leaping onto the bus as the doors closed behind her.

  There were no seats left and she stood awkwardly at the front, speaking to no one. Instead, she kept her head down, pulling her tatty old duffel coat tightly around her like a security blanket and glancing out of the filthy windows from time to time as the bus made the short journey from Oldham to Manchester.

  Three nights a week she travelled into the city centre to waitress at Il Mulino, an upmarket restaurant catering to the city’s most affluent residents. Her shift finished around midnight, when it would be a dash to make the last bus home and grab a few hours’ sleep before college in the morning.

  It was a punishing lifestyle, but Alyson knew she was lucky to have been taken on by such a reputable restaurant as Il Mulino. It paid minimum wage but the tips were excellent, the clientele being predominantly the flashy, new-money set: media workers, property developers, footballers with their wives or girlfriends or mistresses. The footballers were the worst, their eyes roaming over her as she walked back and forth to their table. Men often looked at her like that, with a predatory, covetous gaze, and Alyson found it unsettling. She didn’t realize it was because she was beautiful – stunningly so, ethereal almost – and ripe for the picking.

  The bus pulled into Piccadilly and Alyson jumped off, walking briskly towards Exchange Square. The pavements were already glowing with a thin sheen of frost, the bus covering her with slush as it drove away. But Alyson simply sunk her chin deeper into her knitted scarf and moved on.

  She reached the restaurant in a few minutes, hurrying into the back and quickly saying hi to the other girls who were crowded round the tiny mirror applying mascara and lip gloss, spraying their slicked-back hair firmly in place. Alyson didn’t even glance at herself as she slipped out of her school uniform and into her well-worn white shirt and black skirt, pulling on thick black opaques and her smartest shoes. Stashing her bag in her locker, she dashed back through the double doors into the mania of the kitchen and grabbed the dishes that were waiting on the hot plate.

  ‘Table twenty-four,’ yelled the sous-chef, and Alyson was on her way.

  It was an exhausting, spirit-crushing way to live, but it had become so routine that Alyson rarely stopped to think how tired she was. It was a necessity, a way of life, and it had been like this ever since her father walked out on them.

  Alyson slammed down a plate with more severity than she had meant to, apologizing profusely to the indignant-looking woman at the table. The woman arched an over-plucked eyebrow, then smiled graciously – well, as far as she could manage with a face full of Botox. Alyson smiled politely, hoping she hadn’t just blown her chances of a good tip, and scurried away.

  Even after all this time, memories of her father were still painful. Alyson had been just nine years old when Terry Wakefield had walked out on them, taking her younger brother, Scott, who was only six at the time. She remembered all too clearly the feeling of abandonment, the painful realization that her father had opted to leave her behind, that she somehow wasn’t good enough for him.

  The reasons behind his departure were complex. For as long as Alyson could remember, her mother, Lynn, had had issues. Her erratic behaviour had characterized Alyson’s childhood – there were periods when she wouldn’t leave the house for weeks, convinced that the neighbours were plotting against her, or that Mrs Davidson next door was trying to communicate evil thoughts through the wall. Alyson wasn’t frightened, simply confused.

  From time to time, her mother found work – low-skilled, low-paid appointments, like factory work or cleaning – but she struggled to keep a position as she swiftly gave her employers reason to get rid of her. Sometimes she stayed in bed for days on end, simply not turning up for work, until her employers got sick of trying to contact her and her P45 arrived in the post. Other times they would be disturbed by the bizarre things Lynn did – refusing to drink the mugs of tea she was offered for fear they were ‘contaminated’, or completely forgetting how to do a task she’d been shown a few hours earlier. It was only when she went to clean for an affluent and compassionate doctor that someone finally recognized what was wrong. When Alyson Wakefield was eight years old, her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

  For a while, life got better. With an accurate diagnosis, Lynn’s condition could be treated, but the run of good behaviour didn’t last long. Some of the side effects were unpleasant and she became increasingly reluctant to take the medication prescribed, treating her pills like headache tablets – taking one if she felt unwell, not bothering if she was having a good day. And as someone who enjoyed a drink, she didn’t see why being on heavy medication should stop her.

  For Terry Wakefield, the final straw came one night when he awoke to find his wife standing in the freezing cold kitchen, wearing only her underwear and holding a heavy metal pan high above her head. She claimed Mrs Davidson was trying to tunnel through from the house next door, and she wanted to be prepared for when she surfaced through the dirty lino floor.

  The following day, Alyson came home from school to find the house unusually quiet. Her mother was slumped in an armchair, her eyes staring blankly into the middle distance and a near-empty bottle of vodka beside her chair.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ asked Alyson, an ominous feeling creeping over her.

  Lynn glanced up at Alyson. She looked exhausted, huge purple bags under her bloodshot eyes. ‘He’s gone.’

  Alyson swallowed. Her father had left before – so many times that she’d lost count. Often he’d disappear for days at a time and there would be furious rows when he got back, her mother crying and screaming and drinking, while Alyson and her brother huddled together at the top of the stairs, longing for them to stop. But this time there was something different in Lynn Wakefield’s tone, an air of finality.

  ‘He’s taken Scott with him,’ she confirmed resignedly, picking up the vodka bottle and swallowing the final dregs.

  From then on, it was just the two of them. Alyson never heard anything more from her father and grew to deeply resent him, furious at the way he’d abandoned them to struggle, choosing her brother over her and splitting up their family.

  Alyson had had to grow up very quickly, learning to care for herself and her mother, ensuring she was always presentable for school lest the teachers became suspicious. One of the kids in her class had been taken away by social services, and for nine-year-old Alyson that seemed every bit as terrifying as being snatched by the Child Catcher. She was determined to avoid the same fate; after all, her mother was all she had left now.

  Lynn Wakefield gave up looking for work when her husband left, the pair of them getting by on benefits and disability payments. There was barely enough to cover bills and food, let alone any money for extras like school trips or new clothes. Alyson dressed as cheaply as she could, buying clothes from charity shops and wearing them until they were threadbare. She wasn’t like the other kids, with fashionable outfits and designer trainers. She was different, obviously so, and was ostracized accordingly.

  She began working as soon as she was old enough – a paper round, babysitting for the neighbours’ kids, then glass collecting at the local pub when she hit sixteen. Every penny she earned she took home to her mum, to help pay the heating or the water or whichever bill was coming through the letterbox stamped ‘Final Demand’ that week.

  Sometimes, in her rare, quiet moments, she secretly dreamed of getting out; of escaping and going far, far away, like an adventurer in a
fairytale. But in reality, she couldn’t see an end to this life. There was no time to think about her own dreams and ambitions, to consider what she wanted from the future. She was too busy fighting tooth and nail to keep everything together – school, work, home. She couldn’t stop for a second. If she did, she might break.

  ‘Alyson?’

  Alyson jumped as her shift manager’s voice cut into her thoughts.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I really hate to ask, but Carmen’s just rung in sick and I wondered if there was any chance of you covering for her tomorrow night?’ Helen bit her lip and looked pleadingly at Alyson.

  Briefly Alyson thought about the English essay that was due in two days’ time, and the French verbs she was supposed to learn by tomorrow. She was a good student, bright and hard-working, but her troubled home life meant she couldn’t always finish her work on time or study as hard as she wanted for that exam. Her teachers got frustrated that she wasn’t reaching her full potential, but Alyson simply bowed her head and took their criticism, unwilling to go into details about her problems.

  ‘Sure,’ she told Helen, with a little shrug of her shoulders. Schoolwork could wait – they badly needed the extra money.

  ‘Great!’ Helen smiled gratefully at her, before disappearing back through the double doors into the restaurant.

  It was raining lightly when Alyson climbed wearily off the night bus and set off through the darkness towards her house. It was almost one a.m., and the dank drizzle for which Manchester was renowned only added to her bleak mood. She was exhausted, longing to collapse into bed, but she dragged her aching body one step at a time through the deserted streets.

  She lived in a small two-up two-down, just one of many on an estate with identical rows of red-brick terraces, built at the turn of the century for Oldham’s millworkers. Each opened directly onto the street in front, with a small yard out back and a narrow lane running behind. Beyond lay the rugged moorland, stretching for miles, but currently invisible in the blackness of the night.