The Squeeze

by Lesley Glaister

  My throat is dry.

  click

  OK. That night – I think it was that night or it was some night anyway – I stood in the hall and waited for the toad but he was not there and the walls were bare, the plaster the colour of skin under a scab and patched with white where there were wires threading underneath and holes where maybe pictures and mirrors had been. My nails were in such a state I thought about a manicure.

  Sue said it was a good sign to take an interest in my appearance; a good sign that I had even thought of it and I felt dead proud. Now the toad was dead I could take an interest, I would. The mirror reflected back a skank. How could Mats even look at me? I wanted to tell him how much better I was and that I would be better and that I was sorry; but he didn’t come home when I thought he would and all my positive feelings soaked away.

  Focus on the positive, Sue said, and I tried and tried but it was hours and too hard. I waited and waited drinking Rioja, watching whatever was on the telly after the news. He came in at midnight, an enormous, stubbly version of Thomas.

  ‘Thought you’d be in bed,’ he said.

  The room was hot, the realistic flames fluttering on the realistic coals, the radiators cranking out their heat. The TV was blethering on about the election. I saw him scan the room. All right there was a dirty dish or two and I might have had a cigarette. The nanny went upstairs after ‘kiddies’ bedtimes’ and I didn’t see her again till morning. There may have been some chocolate wrappers or something. Artie likes those Babybels, and so do I, and the rinds do get everywhere.

  Matts took off his jacket and undid a button of his shirt to make the point that it was too hot, and sat down on the opposite sofa.

  ‘Watching this?’ he asked.

  ‘Half.’ I gazed at the screen where a grey-haired man’s chin was wagging up and down.

  ‘Mind if I?’ He muted it. ‘So, how was your day?’ He was eyeing the bottle. I probably shrugged. ‘Thomas?’ I shrugged again. How was I supposed to know? That was the nanny’s job. I remembered that she had to go. ‘Arthur?’

  ‘Asleep.’ He must have been picked up from school, had his tea, played, been bathed, gone to bed. I must have been on automatic. So pleased about the hall. No smell of toad, or only a lingering whiff in the corners.

  ‘Did you notice?’ I said. ‘It’s finished. Ready for the weekend.’

  He reached down for a Babybel that had rolled under the table. It sat in his palm like a little planet and made my mouth water.

  ‘I think you should see the doctor again. I’ll make an appointment,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with you. And you shouldn’t be drinking wine with your medication, you know that.’

  ‘But it’s gone now.’

  He gave me wary look.

  ‘Toad?’ I said though he knew what I meant.

  He put the cheese on the table and took the bottle as he’d been itching to do since he’d walked in. I didn’t mind. It was nearly empty anyway. I picked up the cheese, split the red wax with my thumbnails, pulled away the halves and bit into the bland fat, shut my eyes until it was gone. When I opened them he was staring at me.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I want to talk about something,’ he said.

  I ran my tongue round my teeth and smiled. ‘Me too!’

  Now he looked surprised and waited to hear.

  ‘You first,’ I said.

  He paused before he spoke, pressing his lips together in this way he has that makes them disappear. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘There’s an opportunity at work. I could transfer back to Oslo. How do you think about that?’

  ‘What do you think,’ I corrected him. I wondered if he’d been drinking; usually his English is perfect. Better than mine. He was flushed, his eyes all slidy. I wondered where he’d been all evening, but couldn’t be bothered to ask.

  ‘We could get a house on the water,’ he was saying, ‘more floor-space; my folks nearby to help with the boys.’

  ‘But what about the hall?’ I said.

  ‘I’ll have it to finish it anyway.’

  He waited for my response.

  ‘We have to sack the nanny,’ I said.

  He looked down at the bottle. ‘I think we need her for now.’

  ‘I can manage. She stops me managing.’ I was trying to think of the word, there’s a good word for it.

  click

  Disempowering. I wanted to say, I feel disempowered; she’s deskilling me as a mother, but I couldn’t think of the words then.

  The cheese wax had gone soft in my hands and I began to squeeze it, shape it into fingernails, lovely red. I would ask for a Babybel colour when I had them done. I almost forgot that he was there. ‘I’m going to check on Thomas,’ he said, and left the room, swinging the bottle like a club.

  click

  Marta

  Lunchtime and it’s busy down there. She used to be surprised that men would pay for sex in their lunch hour, but nothing surprises her now. Nothing about men. No one has chosen her today and she knows why and Dario knows why. It’s because of the darkness on her face. When they run their eyes over her, she scowls. But she has to stop it. She has to force herself to smile. Ratman will be mad if he hears she’s had no punters; he’ll blame her. Maybe he’ll punish her. But how can she smile? With no Alis?

  Last night Geordie asked for Marta – Rosa. Never has he asked for her before. Before it was always Alis, but Alis has gone.

  Marta’s guts contract remembering thick, panting, alcoholic breath, the way he whispered, as he hurt her, This is just for starters, pet.

  You can see sunshine out there but this kitchen is not a room for sunshine. Always it’s cold. Lily has been busy this morning but now she sits curled up on a chair, wrapped in the big brown cardigan everyone borrows, twirling her hair and sucking her thumb; the tiny wet noises make Marta want to scream.

  Dario comes up and she and Lily rise to their feet, but he shakes his head. Lily curls up again. Dario goes to look out of the window. ‘You must to do some or Ratman, he will be mad with me,’ he says.

  ‘Where’s Alis?’ she says.

  He shrugs his thin shoulders. His eyes are bright and slippery. ‘Hey, smile,’ he says, grinning exaggeratedly as he squelches his chewing gum.

  But she won’t, she can’t.

  ‘What you want from me?’ he says. ‘I can do nothing.’

  He turns away, stretches out to touch the window. His finger leaves a smear on the glass. She comes to the window and looks down at the street, the roofs of cars shining.

  ‘Sunshine,’ she finds herself saying.

  ‘You want sun?’ For a moment he stops chewing. ‘OK.’ Marta’s heart jumps. He moves towards the door. ‘Come then?’

  Marta looks at Lily but she is sucking and twirling her hair, eyes quite blank. Marta follows Dario upstairs to a room she’s never seen before. It has a narrow rusted balcony, where they can perch on rickety iron seats. The view is a blank wall stained green, a garden down below with a broken bedstead buried in ivy, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. In the corner of the balcony, a pigeon’s wing, dried and trapped between the rails, splays as if still soaring.

  Dario fetches bottles of Coke. They sit in the full blare of the sun. Leaning back against the wall, he props his feet on the hot rusty rail. She studies his long monkey toes, the one black painted toenail on his right foot, the silver ring on the second toe of his left.

  They sit in a silence she can’t gauge. Is it awkward or companionable? The Coke is invigorating; cold bubbles prickle in her throat. ‘I hate that guy, Geordie,’ she says after a while. ‘What he does. It’s not normal.’

  Dario swigs his Coke, dabs his lips with a neat fist.

  ‘Who is he?’ she asks.

  ‘Special man. Important,’ Dario says.

  ‘Important? Why?’

  D
ario shrugs.

  ‘I wish I could ask Alis.’ She swallows with a painful click.

  ‘Ratman say not to let him in no more, but if Ratman is not here, how I can stop him?’

  Marta stares. This is the most she’s ever heard him say. He closes his eyes against the sun. There’s a pink glow through her eyelids as she does the same. If she makes a friend of Dario, then maybe he will help her. She asks about his life; but his answers are brief. He’s from Bucharest. He knew what he was getting into when he came to the UK. That’s all.

  ‘You don’t hate Ratman?’ she asks.

  He shrugs. ‘I hate no one. No point.’

  ‘Can you ask him about Alis for me, please?’ she says. ‘Where she’s gone?’

  Dario lights one Mr Ratman’s panatellas, spits a fleck of tobacco from his lip.

  ‘What about your family?’ Marta asks.

  But he has no family. She stares at him, this is so sad. I’ll be your family, she thinks of saying, but does not. Blue smoke drifts from his pretty, girlish lips but he gives her a hard look. Enough. They sit in silence; the smell of smoke makes her feel sick. Ratman’s smell. Pigeons scrabble on the opposite roof, cock their heads, eyes like fruit pips.

  ‘I haven’t seen her for two days,’ she dares.

  Dario shrugs, leans over the balcony, hawks and spits, watching it splatter on the ivy. And then he relaxes back again. Another silence. From an open window somewhere there’s a sudden burst of laughter. A slim grey cat balances along a wall, stops to sit and lick one paw.

  ‘Hey,’ Dario says, ‘this is secret, you say nothing?’

  She nods.

  ‘This place is shut down soon, all go. Not just Alis.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know. I hear word “Council” or maybe is police.’

  She stares at him as he tilts back his head to mouth a smoke-ring. ‘Dario?’

  ‘All girls to move is all I know.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You are girl, I think!’ He smiles sideways, so pretty.

  Inside a tiny leap of hope, but there is nowhere to land; how should she feel?

  ‘Where?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘What about Alis?’

  He’s absorbed with blowing smoke rings, watching them rise and dissolve. She gulps the rest of her Coke, chucks the bottle down into the garden. The cat darts away, the ivy shifts, the bottle vanishes.

  ‘Wish I could go out now. Properly out. In the street,’ she says without any hope at all, but he finishes his cigar, flicks the butt over the balcony, turns to her, and grins so that she can see his bad teeth. ‘Ratman’s away,’ he says. ‘Business in London.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Hey, how about we take walk, eh?’

  The whole balcony lurches with the surprise of it. She hasn’t been out in the streets since home. Not really walked except upstairs and down.

  ❦

  So strange to be out on the hot, busy street, bag heavy on her shoulder, knotted strap digging in. To be among ordinary people with the traffic roaring, the smell of exhaust, sun lancing off glass. Some people are still bundled in heavy coats, some stripped down to their winter white limbs. Like a creature just crawled from a crevice, she blinks, shrinks in the brightness.

  People give them odd looks, eyes resting on Dario’s bare feet and he stares boldly back. In a corner shop he chooses gum and sweets – strawberry shoelaces, white mice, pink shrimps. She wanders into the back of the shop. On a stand are plastic dolls and water pistols, toy cars, crayons and colouring books; and also pads of blue airmail paper, the sort you fold up to make an envelope. An idea shafts through her. She looks around but no one’s taking any notice.

  Dario’s still queueing; the woman in front arguing with the Indian man behind the counter, waving a packet of biscuits in his face. The airmail paper slides into Marta’s bag and she tenses, waiting for something to happen. But nothing does. The argument goes on. The man behind the counter shakes his head, arms folded. Dario jiggles from foot to foot, darts Marta an anxious look. He’s losing his nerve, she can tell; they must go back, he’s going to say that. Pens on the same display, different colours with a scribbled tester card. She picks one and scribbles. No one’s taking any notice. It joins the paper in her bag.

  ‘I’ll wait outside.’ She passes him to step out into the sun, rigid, expecting a hand on her shoulder or a shouting voice. But there’s nothing, just sun in her eyes and the tooth-rattling vibration of a bus idling at the traffic lights. Quick, quick she must plan. Write letter, get it posted but how? Go back with Dario and write her letter – but how to post it? And if it’s found?

  For Ratman’s girls nothing’s private. Under the mattress, their pockets, their bags, everything is searched, even her crappy plastic satchel. She’s heard that a girl took a watch, a present from a punter and hid it – but it was found and taken and soon after, she too disappeared.

  Girls do that sometimes, disappear and you never know anything.

  Like home.

  Like Alis.

  She watches a girl, no older than herself, slot her card into a cash machine and the fresh money sliding out. A beggar also watches, a guy with a thin face, a sturdy dog curled beside him, twitching. In his cap is a scattering of copper and silver.

  ‘Spare a pound?’ he says to the rich girl.

  She shakes her head as she puts the money in her purse and walks away.

  ‘Have a nice day,’ he calls. He ruffles the dog’s ears and it beats its stringy tail against the pavement.

  The guy catches her looking. ‘It’s OK darling,’ he says, ‘I don’t bite. Spare something for me dinner?’

  His voice is a bit like Geordie’s; she steps away, eyes skimming the street. Geordie could be back tonight. She edges away, sees the guy shrug, fondle his dog’s ears, look up at the next passer-by with little hope. Marta peers into the dim interior of the shop. Dario’s paying now.

  She takes off, pelts along the main road to the traffic lights, across a big street full of shiny shops and onwards. Nothing in her mind, except to run. Such a long time since she’s run, or even walked very far, it burns the muscles in her thighs and the soles of her feet; her lungs feel like they’ll burst. Past men and women and bicycles and babies and dogs on leads she runs, not daring to look over her shoulder. She crosses a road and hurries on until, forced to stop for breath, she leans against a wall, sweat trickling down her neck. She’s on a steep and wide grey street with clean and haughty buildings, fancy shops with leather coats, and paintings, swirly gold writing above the doors.

  No sign of Dario. No sign of the police or anyone taking any notice of her at all.

  So what now? She dithers, must not look suspicious, stops to gaze into a shop window, sees only her own reflection, hair wild, eyes wilder. Think, think, think. She will write her letter. Maybe beg money for a stamp? How much is a stamp? Is there a post office?

  And then what? Where will she go? What can she do?

  She walks downhill to the gardens opposite the busy shopping street and recognizes where she is; she ran this way. Above the park there’s a castle built on a cliff, a statue of man with pigeon shit on his face.

  Other people beg here. She could beg.

  But what if Ratman sees her, or Geordie or Mr Smith? If she doesn’t go back they will look and if they find her . . . she cannot bear to think. And if they don’t, and even if they do, they’ll go after Milya and break Mama’s heart.

  And if she goes to the police . . . then it will be the same.

  Down the steps into the park, a deep valley in the middle of the city. On an empty bench she sits. In the flowerbeds are tiny daffodils and knotty little blue flowers, the earth around them rich and wet, gleaming like pudding in the sun. She wriggles her toes, waits for the throbbing in her feet to ease, before taking out the pen
and paper. Leaning on her bag, she clicks the pen, open, shut, open, shut thinking of what to write. This pen will write in blue or green or red. How Milya would love such a pen as this.

  She tries to picture Mama’s face when she finds the letter in the mailbox, pictures the rows of tin mailboxes in the dim lobby, the musty smell, the sound of the creaking lift, the crackling of the faulty lights. Remembering such ordinary things takes her breath away. Never would she have dreamed she could long for that crappy place; to be there, just to be there.

  Write.

  Mama will cry out at the sight of her writing and crumple the letter to her chest. And then smooth it and . . . maybe read it to Milya in the kitchen. The thought of that kitchen – no. Or Milya will snatch it away and read it. Ant will come home, Mama will look to him, the man of the family now, the so-called man, for advice. Ant will have guessed what happened to her. Mama will know. She said not to go with Pavel, she said to wait.

  Marta swallows hard.

  But still, they’ll be glad to know she is alive. They have to know that.

  What can she write? What can she tell them? Only a short note, saying she’s fine and do not worry, saying she’ll be back soon – hoping this is not a lie. When she’s home, she says, she’ll explain. She tells them sorry, sorry, so sorry. She says keep safe; keep Milya safe.

  Of course she cannot give them a return address.

  How will she know if they even get it?

  Once she’s licked and sealed the flap she hides her face in her hands and lets the tears come.

  Mats

  He saw her in the street and followed. Not a decision. He rarely left work at lunchtime but he had a headache, too much wine the night before – getting to be a habit. Anyway he was avoiding a corporate lunch. And more particularly, avoiding Frank. He’d taken to walking this way lately, a way that took him near Massage City. Not that he had any intention of going in, of course not. But somehow that was the way his feet would take him. There was a good sandwich shop just around the corner, and he enjoyed the leg stretch.