‘To talk,’ he says, trying her with the smile again. ‘Only to talk.’
She sighs. ‘Dirty talk?’ Sometimes that’s what they want, to say the things they’d like to do to her, without doing them. Fuck, cunt, tits, cum, arse – only sounds. She could get an Oscar for pretending to get turned on. Men are so easy to fool, eager to believe they’re such big studs.
But he shakes his head. ‘Can I sit here?’ He indicates the bed. There’s nowhere else except the rickety chair for putting clothes on. She shrugs and he sits down. He’s a big man but not fat, clean. At home you do not often see men as tall as this, as strongly built, not with such strong white teeth. What does she know of Norway? – fjords, snow, the aurora borealis and probably fish, lots of fish.
He puts his briefcase on the floor. His jacket’s undone, blue shirt open at the neck, tie pulled down low. The tie is dark red with pattern of brighter red Vs that make her think of flying birds.
‘OK,’ she says after a while. ‘Talk.’ He does not seem to expect her to join him on the bed so she lowers herself carefully onto the chair. One of the legs is loose and she has to brace her feet against the floor to help it to stay up. But still he says nothing. Is he some kind of nut?
They sit wordless for a few moments more. It’s weird but no weirder than many things. Harmless. A rest. The speaker crackles and the music stops. You only notice it when it stops. There’s the sound of footsteps hammering down the stairs, Cristal in her boots maybe, and the stupid yell of someone coming. She sees him flinch at that and squashes down a smile as she shifts to release her cramping muscles.
‘You know you must still pay,’ she says. Music starts again, the cabaret type stuff that melts your brains, women’s voices frilly like lingerie.
‘Marta,’ he says. The name is wrong in his mouth. Not his to use.
‘What?’
‘Would you, if you could, stop doing this?’ He waves his hand.
She gives up on the chair, stands and leans against the wall. He has to pay. Or she’ll be in trouble. Other tricks have asked her this, asked her to stop, asked her to come away with them, marry them even, but it’s fantasy. It’s bullshit.
‘I want to help you.’
She forms her lips into a smile.
‘Seriously,’ he says. He bites the inside of his cheek as he gazes at her, tugging at the lobe of his ear, trying to meet her eyes, but she doesn’t let any trick look into her like that.
‘You don’t know my life,’ she says.
‘How do you come to be here?’
She does not answer.
‘The other day, that boy, did he force you to come back here?’
She gives a mild shrug.
‘I feel so bad,’ he says.
‘Not my problem.’
‘Bad that I . . . that I used you like that.’
‘You paid,’ she says, shrugging. Why do they think they are so important? ‘It’s fine.’
He meshes his fingers together now, bends them back till they clicked. ‘I’m still paying,’ he adds, banging his fist against his chest.
It’s hard not to laugh. ‘I don’t remember,’ she says.
He nods. Another minute or two tick by. She thinks about toast and jam. Getting the shoes off.
‘It’s against everything I believe in, men and women, sex it should be free and beautiful.’
Now it’s a real fight not to laugh. Idiot man! Donkey! Like someone on TV with a bad script.
He catches her expression and shuts up.
The music swells, sickly harmonies, violins. Her stomach growls.
‘Maybe I could help you find another job?’ he says.
Now she does laugh. ‘Oh so nice,’ she says, ‘what shall I be? A teacher maybe? A doctor?’
He looks so deflated, so sad, the big crazy guy, that she almost feels sorry. He turns his wrist to glance at his watch. ‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘Can we meet? Somewhere else.’ He takes out his wallet; she thinks it will be money, must not take it, must not – but he only hands her a little card with his name and phone number.
‘You think I come and go as I like?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shakes his head heavily. ‘I don’t know anything about it. What to do.’
‘If you want to see me you must come here and pay.’ Her hand closes round the card, sharp corners digging into her palm.
‘Is there a number I can reach you on?’
He’s ridiculous, a big, innocent fool. But there’s an odd and awful feeling, as if wires are tugging right through her, twisting deep in her belly.
‘You’re very pretty,’ he says, a compliment so stale she hardens against him again and that’s a relief. ‘I’ll come here then,’ he goes on. ‘Oh, and I have a present for you.’
‘I can take nothing.’
‘Of course you can.’
He pulls a carrier bag from his briefcase, puts it into her hands before he goes. How Alis would laugh at him, such a baby in his big, clean, handsome body, a rich man with the luxury of a conscience.
She listens to his feet on the stairs before opening the bag, thick slippery polythene, black with gold lettering. Inside there’s a wooden box with a metal clasp. What? When she lifts the lid she sees crayons, chalky, in every colour. It looks like hundreds. Hundreds of crayons. Crayons? Crayons?
Anger rises in her, sour curds of anger. What does this mean? Why? Crazy prick.
She slams shut the lid. Oh but how Milya would love them. She remembers her little sister’s drawings, the ponies, the dancers. If only she could send it. What a useless present! Opening it again, she sniffs the crayons, good things, not for children; for an artist. Oil pastels, says the label inside. She snaps shut the box, fastens the clasps, examines the card. Pale blue with his name and firm, his contact number in tiny embossed letters. She can’t keep the crayons of course, but she can keep this. Just in case. It will slide inside the lining of her bag.
Marta
How many today? Lost count. Anyway, what’s the point of counting? Sore and weary, wrapped in the brown cardigan. Alone in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle, she flicks through a magazine, stares at the hair and heels, at Madonna and Princess Diana. At home this magazine would be a treasure; here it’s trash.
Dario comes into the kitchen, hops on the table, swings his legs, chewing juicily. He smells of bubble gum.
‘Coffee?’ she says.
Since the day they went out together they’ve been friends. Of course he was pissed off that she’d run away – but she came back with no fuss and he doesn’t care enough to stay angry. He’d followed her and watched her talking to Crazy Man. Walking back he’d held her arm so tight he left a ring of finger bruises. Maybe it was a relief that he found her. What else anyway could she have done?
When Crazy brought the pastels, he took them for her. ‘Don’t tell Ratman,’ she said. When he flipped open the box another little blue card dropped out – Crazy making sure she didn’t forget him. Dario picked it up and slid it in his back pocket. ‘Rosa’s got boyfriend,’ he teased.
But now he says. ‘Bad news. Is Geordie.’
Marta swallows. ‘Please no.’
Dario raises his hands and lets them fall. ‘What can I do?’ He goes off down the stairs again. She pushes away her coffee, stands, tugging at the hem of her slip, goose pimples bristling her thighs. She puts a finger in her mouth and bites hard on the nail. Pain is nothing. Only a feeling and it goes.
Physical pain. Not pain in the heart. That is harder to bear.
Alis, Alis.
Geordie looks like a good man. When they first met, she thought that. Round face, thick grey eyebrows, soft grey beard, eyes like a dog’s, soft and kind and brown. You might think him a doctor or teacher. You can’t tell by looking at a person. You can’t trust your eyes to know. His kind face is a lie.
> He opens his trousers and stands behind her, but he does not put himself into her, he puts a bottle. And he pushes into the wrong place and she can’t help but cry out but he likes this, he likes to know she’s in pain, so she tries to make no sound. While he’s hurting her she plays a child-song in her mind.
A mouse lives in the clock
and a flea lives on the mouse
and they both live together
in a gingerbread house.
When the boy eats the house,
the flea bites his nose
and the little grey mouse bites
his 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 toes.
In the playground they used to chant and clap it. She bites her two thumbs as he does her and makes the words come quicker through her mind, like you did with the rhyme and the clapping, quicker and quicker until one of you went wrong and sometimes in bending down to touch the toes, crashed your heads together. He puts his hands under her chest and hurts her breasts, squeezing so that the boy eats the house the flea.
At last finishes, zips his old-man’s trousers, calls her a good wee lassie. He has expensive shoes, kind looking hands, a broad wedding ring. He looks like somebody’s grandpa. Probably he is.
He leaves her bleeding. When she washes it hurts so much she almost cries out. Sitting on the toilet dabbing at herself with paper she folds forward on her thighs staring at her 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 toes. How can she work anymore today? She wads her pants with toilet paper. Her slip is soiled; she must wash it. She prefers the slip to the tacky underwear that is the alternative. At least the slip covers her, if only thinly. Innocent, Ratman calls it, because it’s white, some of the punters go for that look, the innocent look. Fresh like a flower. Ha. She puts on grey tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirt. In the bathroom she fills a bucket, shakes in Persil, leaves the slip to soak.
In the kitchen, two new girls are talking fast, smoking, speaking a language she doesn’t know. They ignore Marta. Lily sits alone, a tiny frightened doll wearing the cardigan round her shoulders, over the lacy black slip that reveals her copper nipples, shrivelled with cold. Though hot downstairs it’s always cold in this kitchen; the window’s painted open and a damp wind blows right in.
‘Coffee?’ Marta says.
Lily regards her blankly. One of other girls, enormous teeth, too much blusher, pulls a face at her friend and they snigger. Ignoring them, Marta points to a mug. Lily nods. Alis reckoned Lily was about thirteen, but maybe Cambodian girls only look young?
A trickle of blood reminds her of when she used to have periods, no more of that now. The implants mean no time wasted with menstruation. Her coffee’s still there from before, and not even cold, though it seems hours since she left it. She tips it out and makes fresh coffee for herself and Lily. Her favourite mug, yellow with a smiley face, fits nicely between the hands. Comforting. She shovels sugar into both cups and sits gingerly down.
Lily frowns at her coffee, says something. Marta reaches for the huge plastic tub of Marvel, in case she wants that. When the girl doesn’t move she spoons some in and stirs, watching the greasy powder blob the surface. Lily’s like a child, used to being looked after by her mother. Mother, daughter, little sister. Clench your mind against these words.
Dario comes up, a punter waiting, they must come down to be selected from. Taking in how she’s dressed, he frowns.
‘I’m hurt,’ she says.
He says nothing, only gestures for Lily and the others to follow him. With no change of expression, Lily gets up, drops the cardigan, puts her feet in the high black shoes that are too big for her tiny feet and follows him down. When the clomp of heels on stairs has died away, Marta picks up the cardigan, still warm, and pulls it round her own shoulders. The coffee cup is hot against her palms, underneath her the wad of paper is lumpy and wet.
Dario’s feet patter back up the stairs.
‘Geordie hurt me,’ she says.
‘Ratman’s back,’ he warns. ‘Get ready.’
She stares at him. ‘But I’m hurt.’
‘Quick,’ he says.
Though fear prickles through her, she can’t move.
‘Think about Alis,’ he says. ‘You not want same.’
‘What do you mean?’ She tries to grab his hand.
‘Quick,’ he says and darts out.
You not want same.
Alis has been moved on, that’s all, maybe she’s safe; maybe even she’s free. Girls get moved about. There are always new girls, not only from Romania, but from other Eastern European countries, from Africa and Asia. You hardly get a chance to get used to people. Alis is a new girl somewhere else. That’s all. And maybe when this place is closed, as Dario said, she’ll find Alis again in a new place. Maybe a better place.
Ratman steps into the kitchen, bringing the smell of rain. He’s wearing a pale raincoat and a trilby and furling an umbrella. ‘Having some time off, Rosa?’ he says, smiling. ‘A nice wee breather?’
It’s hard for her to speak. ‘He hurt me,’ she manages. ‘Geordie did. I can’t work.’
‘Geordie?’ He presses his lips together and frowns, as if he doesn’t believe her. ‘Wait.’ His heels hammer down the stairs; gone to ask Dario if it is true, maybe, and maybe Dario will be in trouble too. The coffee is cooling; she takes a sip, closes her eyes. Ratman’s footsteps up the stairs.
He hooks his finger. ‘Come with me.’
She follows him up a flight of stairs, unlocks a door into a flat and takes her into his small hot office where a gas fire flickers blue and orange. A black leather sofa, a glass topped coffee table, a stink of cigars. Against the dark window glass, rain streams, threaded with orange glitters from a street lamp below. On the sill is a row of cacti, gleaming with health.
‘Sit.’ He indicates the sofa. She perches on the edge while he removes his raincoat, shakes it meticulously and hangs it on the stand. He strokes his trilby, sets it on his desk.
‘Dreich out there,’ he remarks. He’s smart in a blue suit, a paler blue shirt, a mid-blue tie. He pours whisky, sits behind his desk and lights a thin cigar. ‘Disappointing dinner,’ he says, ‘disappointing day all round.’ He puffs out smoke, tilts back his head so that she can see the smooth whiteness of his throat and the way the red whiskers thicken into the point of his beard. And then he sits suddenly upright, fixes his eyes on her. She looks down at her knees, holds them stiff to stop the trembling.
‘So he’s been back?’ he says.
She looks up. ‘He hurt me.’
He taps his cigar on an ashtray thoughtfully. ‘He shouldnae have come back.’
She finds a shred of courage. ‘So how can I work?’
He smiles and there’s just a tiny hope in her, just a tiny glint of hope that he might be kind, but above the smile his eyes are frozen. ‘Mebbe I should be the judge of that. Stand up. Show me.’
‘No. It’s OK. I will work.’
‘Show me.’
‘It’s OK.’ She gets up and edges towards the door.
‘Stop right there,’ he says.
She stops with her back to him. Feels him approach.
‘Show me.’ His breath is hot on her neck. ‘Where did he hurt you?’ he speaks close to her ear. ‘Show me what he did.’ She shuts her eyes as he pulls down the tracksuit trousers, pulls down the pants with the paper stuffing. She hears his breath, a blowing out of smoke.
‘OK. Enough,’ he says.
As she pulls up her pants, the wad of filthy tissue rolls to the floor. She snatches it up. He draws on his cigar, spits smoke. ‘Go and flush it.’
He takes her out into the hall, nods towards a door. Inside she pulls the string to click on the light, drops the paper in the toilet and flushes. There’s a bar of soap with a little red label. She washes her hands, snatching her eyes away from her scribbled reflection in the mirror.
Back in the office, he’s sitting on the sofa now, legs stretched out. Feet small, shoes shiny but splashed with city dirt.
‘Where’s Alis?’ she asks quickly, before she can lose her nerve.
‘Who?’ He frowns. ‘Oh, Lola. You mean Lola. Sit down.’ He pats the sofa by his side. She obeys, gathering herself in tight, so that she will not touch him.
‘I’ve got a wee bone to pick with you,’ he says. ‘I hear you’ve got yourself a boyfriend.’
She tightens further, heart squashed against her ribs and struggling.
‘A wee birdie told me. So? What’s the story?’
‘No story,’ she says. ‘It’s not true.’
‘The Swede?’
‘Oh,’ she says, carefully, trying to smile. ‘You mean crazy Norwegian?’
‘Giving you presents. Lovely present, eh? Was it your birthday, eh? Are you a wee artist now?’
His thighs are flattened against the leather, smooth trousers, too close to her thigh. She shrinks herself further from him. ‘I did not ask for a present.’
‘I think there’s a bitty more to it than that,’ he says. ‘You can tell me.’ He puffs on the cigar, making the end glow red. ‘I think you know his name.’
She’s silent.
‘Poor Lola,’ he says. ‘So bonny, but so stroppy. We don’t want you getting hurt now, do we? We don’t want you going the same way?’
Against her breastbone her heart peck, pecks, pecks so sharply she thinks it might split.
He gets up and stands looking down at her. She cannot raise her eyes higher than the knees of his trousers, which have a faint crease down the front – has someone ironed them for him? Does he have a wife? There are splashes of wet on the hems, a white hair, like a dog’s hair clinging to the shin. Does he have a dog? Somehow this thought emboldens her and she looks up.
‘Is she dead?’ she says.
His beard’s a sharp tawny wedge; his eyes are dirty ice.
‘Is she?’
He inclines his head in a way that might or might not mean assent. She squeezes shut her eyes till all she can see is sparkling. She hears the creak of the floorboards, the clink of a glass, liquid pouring. When she opens her eyes he’s sitting behind his desk swishing a tumbler of whisky.
The Squeeze Page 10