by Ann Granger
‘I didn’t buy it,’ she argued. ‘You gave it to me.’
‘Oh, sorry, excuse me!’ I retorted sarcastically. ‘I didn’t realise that made it all right for him. Yes, my fault, why didn’t I think of that?’
There was a silence. She looked away. ‘Well, anyway, Fran . . . I didn’t mean it wasn’t nice of you. But when people try and help they nearly always foul you up more, you know that.’
I let her simmer. We finished our coffee and she slung her cup into the canal where it bobbed away. The old Tig, who’d arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from the Heart of England, wouldn’t have dreamed of littering up the place like that.
‘Why’d you take up with him?’
‘Why do you think?’ She shrugged. ‘He’s not so bad.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘If you want to know, I had – a bad experience. I was raped.’ She spoke the last words with an awful blankness of voice and expression.
I waited. After a moment, she went on, ‘I was on the game at the time, but I hadn’t bargained for that. I was stupid. I should have realised – I mean, a regular working prostitute would’ve sized up the situation and got out of there, but I walked into it, didn’t I?’
‘It was a punter, then?’ I prompted her.
‘Yes, or I thought so. I thought he was on his own. He came up to me, youngish guy, bit drunk, City type. It was a Friday evening. He’d been celebrating the end of the week, I thought, and now he was looking for a cheap lay. I went with him to his car – I told you I was stupid – and the next thing I knew, there were two other guys, pals of his. They bundled me into the car and drove me to a house. They were just like him, hooray Henrys, red braces, Italian suits, the lot. Drunk as skunks. They kept me there for, I suppose, a couple of hours while they had their pervy fun. I don’t know exactly how long, I just wanted to get it all over with and get out of there alive. My biggest fear was they wouldn’t let me leave. But they did in the end.’
‘Do you know where this house is?’ I asked angrily.
‘No, it was dark. I was too scared to take notice, I was watching them, not watching the surroundings. I didn’t know what they were going to do next. There were the three of them and I didn’t know which one of them to watch. They laughed all the time. One of them was sick, threw up on the floor and the first one swore at him so I guess it was his house and his carpet. Perhaps that’s what made him think the time had come to call a halt to the fun and games. At any rate, he told me to get dressed. They got to arguing a bit while I scrambled into my gear as fast as I could. I knew they were arguing about what to do with me. I thought perhaps I could run while they were distracted, and get outside. They wouldn’t want a scene in the street.
‘But then the first one – I don’t know any of their names – he grabbed my arm and shoved me along ahead of him down the hall, out and back into the car. He told me not to say a word or he’d take me straight down to the river and hold my head under till I drowned. The river police pull out bodies every day, he said. I’d just be one more, floating past. I believed him. I sat there almost too frightened to breathe. He drove me back to King’s Cross, which was where he’d picked me up. He gave me eighty quid and said, “Don’t try telling anyone it was rape, sweetheart. You offered and I paid.”’
‘Eighty quid,’ I said, ‘would hardly have covered it even if you’d agreed. That’s under thirty quid each.’
‘What was I going to do, argue? He tossed me out and drove off. I told you, Fran, I thought they’d kill me. I was just so pleased when he drove off . . . Afterwards, though, I couldn’t put the whole business out of my mind. I was too scared for the meat trade. So I took up with Jo Jo and we do all right, with me begging and Jo Jo watching out for me. I’ve had no more trouble with men since Jo Jo’s been around.’
‘What about the habit?’ I asked.
A dull flush stained her pale cheeks. ‘I’m clean now, Fran, I swear. That was when I was turning tricks to get the money for a fix. After the rape, I knew I had to break the habit because as long as I was on it, I’d take any risk to get the money. I went on to methadone and now I’m clean.’
I told her that was great, because it was. It had taken courage and perseverance but most of all, it showed that Tig hadn’t slid so far down the ladder that she no longer realised how bad things were.
‘What about you, Fran?’ she asked. ‘You seem to be doing all right.’
I explained that I was working temporarily at the newsagent’s, just while Hari was in India.
‘You haven’t cracked it as an actress, then?’ She gave a little smile.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I will.’
‘Sure,’ she said. It niggled.
‘I also,’ I said, ‘look into things for people.’
That made her suspicious. ‘What sort of things? What sort of people?’
‘Mostly people who can’t get help anywhere else. Like a private detective, you know, only I’m not official. I’m not fixed up with a proper organisation or the tax and insurance people would get me. Anyway, I don’t do enough work for that. But what I have done has been all right.’
I suppose simple pride must have echoed in my voice, but why not? I’d been reasonably successful, considering.
Tig looked impressed but persisted, ‘But what sort of things do you do? Say, if someone came to you and told you they wanted something arranged but they couldn’t do it themselves, would you do that?’
‘I do anything legal,’ I said, perhaps not as cautiously as I might’ve done.
‘Should’ve thought that cramped your style a bit,’ said Tig. ‘Sticking to the law, I mean. Don’t the coppers get in your way?’
‘Yes,’ I said, adding airily, ‘but I can handle them.’
You know what they say about pride coming before a fall, don’t you? Tig didn’t ask anything else but sat scowling at the canal water and twisting one finger in a lank strand of hair.
‘You know,’ I said, breaking in on whatever deep thoughts she was having, ‘I was really surprised to see you the other day. I thought you’d have gone home long before now, back to where you came from.’
She gave a strangled little laugh. ‘I can’t go back, not now, not like I am. Can you imagine their faces if they saw me now? No, of course you can’t. You don’t know them.’
‘You mean your parents?’
‘They’re really respectable people,’ she said dully. ‘Really decent. My mother’s so houseproud she can’t even bear to see the streaks the rain makes on the windows. She’s out there polishing them off as soon as the rain stops. She’s always polishing everything up. A perfect house, that’s what she runs, because that’s what he likes, my dad. Everything just so. I can’t go back, Fran.’
‘You could try.’ I leaned forward. ‘Listen, Tig, sooner or later Jo Jo’s going to get tired of you, right? You’re certainly going to want to get away from him. Where are you going from here?’
‘Don’t!’ There was so much pain in her voice that I was conscience-stricken at my question. ‘What do you think, Fran? What do you imagine I think about, day in, day out? How do you think I like facing another Christmas on the streets? Even if Jo Jo and I find a place in a hostel, it’ll be for a few days only – and then going back out is worse. I can’t get along with these charities and I’m not like you, Fran, a survivor.’
‘Pull yourself together!’ I said sharply. ‘That isn’t true and you know it. It took guts to get yourself off drugs and you wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t had some other vision for yourself, some idea of getting away from all this—’
Suddenly she struck out at me wildly, sobbing in dry gasps, her fists clenched into rock-hard little mallets. She caught me a couple of times, but I fended off most blows because she was too disorganised and angry to think about targeting them. At last they became weaker and finally stopped. Her hands dropped back in her lap.
For a moment she was still, then she sat up, tossed back her hair, and turned a stony face to me. ‘I’ve go
t to go,’ she said. ‘I’m not making any money sitting here chewing the fat with you.’
‘Write to your family!’ I urged. ‘A postcard, that’s all. Call them!’
‘How can I? Don’t be stupid, Fran.’ She sounded weary and exasperated. ‘I don’t even know what the situation is back home now. Maybe they don’t live in that house any more. Perhaps they were so ashamed when I left that they couldn’t face the neighbours. Perhaps they’ve moved. It’s the sort of thing they’d do.’
‘And perhaps they’re still there, hoping that the next time the phone rings—’
‘Shut up!’ she hissed.
She’d jumped to her feet with the last words and was making to walk off. I knew that if I lost her now, I’d lost her for good. She’d never sit and talk to me again. She was several yards away already, at the foot of the stone steps up to the bridge.
‘What have you got to lose?’ I yelled desperately.
I thought she mightn’t have heard me but she stopped and turned. The light was fading very fast and I couldn’t make out her face, only her dark spindly form. Her voice, eerily thin, came through the gloom. It gave me goosebumps. ‘They hope I’m dead, Fran. For them, I am dead. Soon I will be dead. We both know that.’
‘Rubbish!’ I bellowed back. ‘You’re giving up! This isn’t the time to give up!’
‘Why not?’ She sounded calm, too calm. I had to keep her there, keep her talking.
‘Perhaps together we can think of something.’
‘You’re crazy, Fran. You always were. Don’t try and help me. I told you, do-gooders always foul you up.’
‘You’re already fouled up,’ I retorted. ‘But you want to get out of this and I might be able to help. Or I can try.’ I hadn’t a clue how, mind you, and probably I shouldn’t be sticking my neck out like that, but I could feel her slipping away, not just physically, but mentally. A few moments back, just for an instant, I’d made contact. ‘Isn’t it worth it?’ I shouted. ‘Or do you want to wait until Jo Jo knocks out your front teeth and then goes off with some other girl?’
She swore at me and turned on her heel. I shouted after her, ‘You can find me mornings at the newsagent’s by the traffic lights, just down from where I saw you the other day. Or leave a message for me there with Ganesh Patel.’
A brief abusive reply drifted back to me through the evening shades.
I let her go and wondered if I’d see her again. I told myself it didn’t matter if I didn’t. That was life on the streets. People came and went. If anyone vanished it might be because they wanted to. Everyone had that right – to be anonymous, to be spared probing questions, needing to give an account of oneself. It was up to Tig to decide how she wanted to live. In the end, it mattered to no one but herself.
‘Not to you, Fran, at any rate,’ I told myself aloud. I went home.
The chap was wrong who said no man was an island. That’s what each of us is, an island.
Chapter Four
‘Morning, darling!’
‘Hullo, Hitch,’ I returned unenthusiastically.
He was on time, I’d give him that. It was just a little after eight. I’d arrived ten minutes earlier and found Ganesh in subdued mood. I fancied he looked relieved to see me. I went to take a last look at the old washroom and I had to admit, it badly needed doing up. Hari really shouldn’t complain. I just wished, somehow, it wasn’t Hitch carrying out the work. There’s always a snag where he’s concerned, something he hasn’t told you. But for the life of me, looking around the small area involved and the basic fittings, I couldn’t see what it was here.
‘Go and tell him to open up the back gate, will you, darling?’ Hitch wheedled now. It must have got through his thick skull that he wasn’t my favourite person and he was wary of me. ‘So’s Marco and I can bring the new stuff in and take the old out, right? You don’t want it coming through here, do you?’
Ganesh came out of the storeroom at that moment so I said, ‘Tell him yourself.’
‘I’ll go and open up,’ said Ganesh, who’d obviously overheard. He gave me a very direct look which meant, I knew, don’t antagonise the workforce.
Ganesh disappeared to open up the small yard out back and Hitch followed, taking a good look round him as he went. I hoped he kept his fingers to himself in the storeroom.
I was on my own. I fiddled around, tidying the mags and papers, replenishing the bins of packeted snacks and the sweet trays until the bell jingled, the paper chains and tinsel rustled, heralding a newcomer in the shop.
I emerged from behind the rack of Christmas cards and gaped. He was six foot tall and beautiful. His long blond hair was tied back with a ribbon and contrasted with large dark eyes and eyebrows in an oval face with a long narrow nose. His expression was dreamy and serene, suggesting behind it was a mind concentrating on higher spiritual matters. It was as if the Angel Gabriel had just stepped off one of the cards. Perhaps the hair was bleached – I didn’t care. He wore an old dark quilted jacket and clean but paint-stained jeans and trainers. He hadn’t, alas, brought a message from on high.
‘Hitch around somewhere?’ he asked. He had a nice voice and was altogether my idea of a Christmas present.
‘Out back in the yard,’ I croaked, adding in, I hoped, a more normal if incredulous voice, ‘You’re Marco? I’m Fran.’ If he looked like any kind of painter, he ought to be one knocking out some entry for the Turner Prize.
‘Oh, right. Can I get through here? Or have I got to go round?’
‘You can go through, I’ll show you.’ I led the way to the storeroom. Perhaps having the Jefferson Hitchens Property Maintenance Company on the premises wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.
Oh yes, it was. The rest of the morning was dominated by a deafening banging and clattering from the washroom as the old fittings were torn out. Every customer who came in asked what was going on and I soon had a headache. Brief respite came roughly every hour when Hitch and Marco took a tea-break in the storeroom.
‘You know,’ I said to Gan, ‘not that it’s any of my business, but you ought to keep an eye on them in there.’
‘I can’t spy on them,’ said Gan nervously.
‘We’ll take it in turns,’ I said. ‘I’ll go first.’
I opened the storeroom door and peered in. Hitch was sitting on a plastic chair, reading the Sun and drinking from a large souvenir mug celebrating West Ham Football Club. There was an empty crisp packet on the table together with the crumpled wrappings from a bar of turkish delight. Marco was drinking Coca-Cola from the can and reading a Terry Pratchett novel. They glanced up.
‘Need some more KitKats!’ I excused my presence hastily and grabbed a carton.
‘Just the job,’ said Hitch, brightening. ‘Cheers, darling.’
I handed them out a KitKat each and went back.
‘Price of two KitKats, a can of Coke, a turkish delight and a packet of crisps to be knocked off the final bill,’ I said. ‘You’d better keep a tally. Has he given you the fifty pence owing from yesterday?’
Ganesh looked at me in wonder and reproach. ‘I’ve never known you so stingy, Fran.’
‘It’s like Aladdin’s cave in there as far as Hitch is concerned,’ I warned.
Ganesh looked worried and the next time the workers took a break, he was in there like a shot, checking on them.
At eleven, I made coffee for us all, using water from the kettle I’d filled before they started work. Needless to say, the water supply was now switched off. They were quick workers, at least on the demolition side. They’d pulled out the washbasin and the loo and cistern. I’d had to go next door to the petfood shop and ask to use the loo there. This time, as I carried my offerings of coffee to our two creative builders in the storeroom, my nostrils were assailed by a distinctive sickly scent as I opened the door.
‘I don’t want to worry you,’ I said to Ganesh, ‘but Marco’s smoking a joint in there.’
‘What? For God’s sake, stop him!’ Ganesh looked as if he w
as going to have a heart attack. ‘Anyone coming in the shop will be able to smell it!’
‘You stop him,’ I suggested. But in the end I was the one who went back in there and informed Marco that smoking – of whatever kind – on the premises was strictly forbidden owing to the high fire risk.
‘Sure,’ he said, smiling serenely up at me. I found myself smiling back, mesmerised.
‘You mean, you gotta shop full of fags and you can’t light up?’ demanded Hitch, shocked.
‘That’s it,’ I said. With Hitch playing gooseberry, what chance romance? ‘The insurance company insists.’
‘We’ll have a couple of them Mars bars over there, then.’ He pointed airily at the box.
By now, I didn’t have to tell Ganesh to keep a tally. He was feverishly jotting it all down on a scrap of paper by the till.