Beyond Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “We were the greatest country on earth,” Len tells us, forthright on the matter. “But we’ve tried to befriend all nations and have forgotten our own identity. Being a friend to everyone, has actually brought about too many divisions.”

  “We’re just British,” Lilah says, butting in, “we don’t like fighting, we’re too polite, except for the idiots who aren’t who we try to help, but they don’t want help. We need harsher penalties for people not willing to help themselves.”

  I sit down, having finished my leaf polishing. I finish the whole pack of jaffa cakes and tell them both, “Mate of mine used to work in Argos. She said all humanity was there. The posh man stood in his suit, waiting patiently for his fishing rods to pop out of the hatch. A woman with six kids waiting for six identical sets of toys. The drunken man impatient for his new TV, the ditz wondering why it’s taken five minutes instead of three for her GHDs to come through. Then the scum who barge past all the others, just buying shit for the sake of burning their dole money. Most of it ends up in the skip a year or so later. Nobody knows the value of anything anymore.”

  “It’s true,” Lilah says.

  “I was in Vegas, not long ago, and people who’ve barely got a shirt on their back bid you good day, smile, offer you good luck at the slots, but here… man here, people on the street don’t want to know unless you’re going to help them.”

  “It’s awful!” Lilah exclaims, hands on her cheeks, happy to know she’s not the only one who sees it like that. I see it all, too.

  “I was in New York where you fear getting mugged, every corner you turn down. I was in San Fran where gays and lesbians walk hand in hand. I rarely see that here and it was so refreshing. We see it all on the news about gay pride and stuff but people are still afraid.”

  “Right,” Len says, nodding. “I was at the checkout the other day and the girl serving me didn’t say a word, except the total at the end. She spent the whole time talking to her colleague behind her. It makes you wonder why all the checkouts aren’t self-serve. If only I could be bothered with it all!” Len laughs hoarsely, making us laugh.

  He takes another biscuit, absentminded again, and adds, “No fear in people nowadays. Americans are living on the edge. They know they could be shot down, sacked or killed at an intersection any day. It’s how they live. Us, here, we’re all cuddled up in the nanny state, frightened of pissing people off, cushioning those who won’t help themselves. Nobody thinks for themselves anymore. Nobody cares enough to go out on a limb and help other people. Those who do try get it in the neck, like that woman who told a bunch of hooligans to be quiet in a cinema and got attacked by them outside afterwards.”

  “That was disgusting,” Lilah says.

  “It beggars belief,” I add.

  Len gesticulates. “Who was it who said, If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”

  “Nelson Mandela,” Lilah replies, “very prophetic in a lot of respects.”

  “But if there’s nothing to work for, people aren’t willing to make peace. That’s what a lot of people can’t see… the sunshine through the rain,” I tell them both, “and it’s a skill hard learnt, trust me.”

  “It is, it most certainly is,” Lilah agrees, “and on that note, we must be going Len.”

  He smiles. “Can’t wait for tomorrow. I hope Jules will come again?”

  “Of course,” I tell him, taking all the mugs away to put them in the gleaming dishwasher, shining so bright inside, the silver looks gold almost!

  When Lilah thinks I’m not looking, she gives Len a kiss on the head and whispers, “Take care, sweetheart.”

  “See ya tomorrow Lilah. You’re a good lass.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jules

  As we’re driving off from Len’s, Lilah warns me, “Next one’s probably the hardest. But then you’re done for the day.”

  “It’s only 10.30 and I feel like I’ve been doing this for freggin’ weeks!” I complain, feeling so empty, so drained in a way I’m not able to process yet. The hardest thing about this job is it is emotionally draining.

  “Janice will be here to help us with Laura.”

  “Janice?” The name makes my ears prick up, makes me feel aggravated too.

  “Yes, so you can sort of sit back and observe. You don’t need to worry. Then like I said, you’re off the hook for the day.”

  “Why do you need two people for Laura?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We arrive at a smart, new-build complex with lots of four-storey buildings containing flats for professionals. All the gardens surrounding the flats are well manicured and maintained. It seems like a well-to-do little nook of a town I always thought rough and ready.

  “There’s Janice. She’s always early. The woman doesn’t have a slow setting.”

  I try to pick out Janice’s car and remember Ronnie telling me she drives a Jeep. There it is, a red, gleaming thing no single woman working as a care worker could surely afford.

  “Look at that thing she’s driving.”

  Lilah’s mouth contorts and the tendons in her neck twitch. She pulls a face I understand and doesn’t say anything else: We all wonder about that, is no doubt what she is thinking.

  We evacuate the vehicle and Lilah goes into the boot of her car, taking out at least six pairs of plastic gloves from a cardboard dispenser and putting her tabard on, something she hasn’t had to do so far today.

  “Ready?” Janice asks, but she’s looking at me.

  “Suppose.”

  “Jules is just a bit shaken up by Hilda,” Lilah says on my behalf, because she probably knows I think Janice is a crook.

  “Yeah, that old witch gets everyone’s goat, the nasty hag.”

  As we head along a neat pathway to reach the communal entrance, I notice there are no kids enjoying the grounds. When I used to walk down the Avenue, all I could hear was kids, whether playing in the school playground down the street or screaming in their prams as they passed us.

  I hate being without my kids now.

  “What’s up, Jules?” Janice asks as Lilah forages the key safe to gain entrance to Laura’s flat.

  “It’s like a pop-up McDonalds this place.”

  “I know. Nobody really lives here. They just sleep here.”

  I look into Janice’s brown eyes. “Seems wrong.”

  “Don’t it just,” she tells me.

  There’s a lift but Janice says, “We’ll go on foot. That thing has broken down on us too many times in the past. We don’t have time to be dallying.”

  We climb three sets of steps to the top floor and round a corner, heading down a long corridor. We come to flat 15A and Lilah uses the key she picked up from the safe to unlock the door.

  We all walk inside and I’m surprised by the neat apartment, all white walls and modern furnishings. It seems like the typical single lawyer type place, with furnishings from Barker and Stonehouse that make the owner feel as if they have taste. I think it just shows the owner has no time to really shop for their own things!

  “Laura, we’re here. We have a trainee with us, Jules.”

  “Oh–oh–kay,” she answers, nervous, the voice belonging to a woman not even over forty I would guess. What fresh hell is this?

  Janice stands in the living room with us and I see worried looks pass between Lilah and Janice.

  “Jules is just going to put the kettle on,” Janice says in her gruff manner.

  “Probably best!” Laura shouts.

  “Go, Jules. We’ll shout you if we need you. Mine’s half a sugar, remember?” Janice reminds me.

  “Fine.” I look at Lilah who nods that they will be okay but I don’t know what’s going on here. When Janice pulls out plastic gloves that come up to her elbows, I swallow and dash off. I want the jaffa cakes to stay down, because I already threw up my breakfast earlier.

  As I make tea, I can hardly believe it’s still the same morning, le
t alone the same day. It feels like I left home about a week ago and I’m trapped in this parallel universe. I don’t even know how many cups of tea I’ve made already, let alone how my bladder is holding all of them inside my body still. I guess this is what happens in this line of work. You just get sidetracked and forget yourself while you’re dealing with others. I don’t know how they do this, day in, day out.

  I make three cups of tea and wonder whether Laura will want one as well. I venture back into the living room and shout through, “Does Laura take tea?”

  I hear crying, loud sobbing. It’s not Janice or Lilah, it’s Laura.

  I hear Lilah whispering, as if trying to console her. Janice comes out to talk to me and relays, “The hoist just broke. It’s a nightmare in there, Jules. We have bigger things than tea to worry about.”

  She’s red and sweaty, like she’s busted a gut trying to move Laura. So, she’s a big lady then.

  “Can I help?”

  “Maybe,” Janice says, her tongue licking her gums incessantly, obviously a nervous tick. “You can help me rig up the spare hoist strap.”

  I swallow. “Okay.”

  I dash back into the kitchen, making sure everything is safe. It is. There might be three very over-stewed cups of tea soon, that’s all.

  I follow Janice back in and see Laura, all forty or fifty stones of her if I had to guess, filling a king-size bed. She’s so upset and has her head tucked into Lilah’s shoulder. Her matted hair is long and unwashed and the bed smells of urine. It’s really horrible.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be like this.”

  “Hello Laura,” I say, recognising her face, “I know you.”

  She lifts her head, slowly.

  “Yes, I do. I know you.”

  I help Janice with the hoist, reaching up on my tiptoes to unhook the old, ripped one, taking a new one from Janice without needing a chair or anything. It comes in handy being five-ten sometimes.

  “You don’t know me,” she mumbles.

  “Yes, I do. I’m Jules, remember?”

  Recognition sets in and her face brightens. She lights up.

  “Jules Simonovich?”

  “Yeah, we were at school together, weren’t we? You were clever.”

  “So were you!”

  I smile as I fiddle with the difficult positioning of the hoist and the metal hook at a funny angle. Once it’s aligned, Janice nods thanks and hooks the joining strap onto the back of a belt they’ve put under Laura’s arms.

  “How’d you end up doing this?” she asks, suspicious eyes on me.

  “Oh, I am doing this because my dad died and ladies like Janice and Lilah helped him in his last days. I really want to give back. My husband’s well off so I don’t need the money. I just like helping out.” I choose my words carefully, hoping to appeal to what Janice understands.

  “She’s a good lass, isn’t she?” Janice asks Laura.

  “She was always nice to me at school. A lot of others weren’t.” Laura sobs, horrible memories gripping her. I wonder if I didn’t have such a naturally high metabolism, whether I wouldn’t be the same size as Laura. I comfort eat, still do, and probably always will. It’s a really hard habit to give up. It’s the easiest fix to reach for when you’re feeling low.

  “What did you get into?” I ask her as Janice presses a button on the machine and it helps to hoist Laura out of bed.

  She winces with pain, probably bedsores and all sorts plaguing her, but she grits her teeth and tries to hold conversation with me. “I was in accountancy. I earned a good wage. Eventually, I worked from home, then I got too sick to work. This is me, now, a walking flump.”

  I close my eyes as she’s lifted from the bed and Lilah guides her feet to hit the floor, her whole body creaking the ground beneath her feet as she’s raised onto them.

  Janice passes a heavy-duty pair of crutches over and Lilah and Janice work hard to steady Laura as she begins making her first steps. Wearing a simple white nightshirt, which is more like a bag, she turns towards the bathroom and I see not only urine but diarrhoea splattered right up her back. It’s all over the bed.

  Poor woman. How did she get this way?

  “If you want to help…” Lilah turns her head, nodding behind her to me, gesturing I have a go at cleaning the bed. I grab some of the gloves Janice brought with her and as I’m dipping my hand in her bag, I spot a huge bag of white powder in there too.

  Oh my god. What do I do?

  What do I do?

  The shower’s running and I hear them rip the nightdress from Laura’s body, it’s all they can do.

  I think about the big meals I’ve had in the past, the ones where you feel so full afterwards, you need to have a lie down or a sleep to work it off. I think about Laura’s poor body and can’t imagine what strain it’s under. It’s an illness, she has, a terrifying one. She’s an overeater.

  While Janice is showering Laura, Lilah comes back into the room and as I’m frantically stripping the bed, not even caring about the shit, I whisper, “Check her fucking bag, now.”

  I’m so furious and Lilah sees it. She checks Janice isn’t looking and peeks inside. Her hands immediately go to her face. “No!”

  I nod. “Oh yes. What do we do?”

  “Nothing, nothing, Jules!” She comes rushing over towards me, gloves on, quickly helping me peel the bed free and toss the soiled sheets into a hamper. She spits, “You don’t know the sorts of people who deal in this. If we sprag, she will be dead. Leave it, Jules.”

  I stare Lilah down, furious. Something has to be done.

  Lilah drags out new bedding from the ottoman and pushes the hamper on wheels towards the kitchen to put Laura’s sheets straight in the wash. While she’s gone and I’m scrubbing the plastic mattress cover with Dettol, I quickly remove my plastic glove, take my phone from my pocket and text Ronnie:

  ME: She’s carrying. Big bag of the stuff.

  RONNIE: Don’t react. Good sighting. We need more, though. We need details. We need to catch the supplier. She’ll freeze on us otherwise, or she’ll get taken out of the equation.

  ME: Okay.

  It’s so frustrating, but I understand.

  I get on with the job at hand and when the bed’s refreshed, the ruined tea thrown down the sink and Laura’s back in bed with clean sheets, a clean nightdress and a fresh cup of tea and toast in her hands, Janice asks me, “They found who killed Miranda yet?”

  I sniff. “No. I’ll find ’em though.”

  “Hmm.”

  Whether she believes my cover or pseudo-cover, I don’t care. I will oust her for what she really is.

  ***

  We’re driving away. Lilah’s dropping me off at the office so I can pick up my car and get home. I’m only contracted until eleven whereas she has a lunch hour now before another long shift of lunches this afternoon.

  I half want to stay on and help her. Part of me feels she’s needed me today.

  “You knew about her dealing then?” I ask Lilah.

  “I knew… well…” She clears her throat, nervous of telling me anything. “I knew two factors. One, her kids suddenly got rich and she started driving a Jeep. Then,” she glances at me, looking sideways, “there was that time I was training her up at your dad’s.”

  “How do you know he was my dad?”

  She smiles, unshaken. “Your eyes. They’re exactly the same as his.”

  I grit my teeth, knowing she’s right. Dad had grey eyes like mine and the thing that defines them are the deep-green rings around the outside of our irises. Both my boys have Warrick’s eyes, and it’s no wonder – ones like mine are rare.

  “What happened when you were training her?”

  “She disappeared to the pig sties for ages. I had no idea what was going on.”

  “What?” I wrack my brain. “What did my dad think of her just hanging out with the pigs?”

  “Hmm,” Lilah pauses, “well, he said to just let
her do what she wanted.”

  “But you were training her, so did you tell William Barker she was messing about in the pig shed instead of feeding my dad scrambled egg?”

  Lilah nods. “I told him. He didn’t seem to care. In fact, he warned me off.”

  “He’s in on it. Who does he have? Which ones are part of this? Are you?”

  She shakes her head. “A lot of us know what goes on, but he only chooses ones like Janice, tough sorts, sorts who can do it. Some of us can’t. We turn a blind eye.”

  “He’s using care workers to run a drugs ring, isn’t he? The perfect cover… a care company. My father’s place would’ve been perfect ground for a handover and Barker knew my dad wouldn’t notice – with his brain not what it once was.”

  “I don’t want to know, Jules. I just care, that’s what I do. I need this job.”

  Nobody would ever suspect these women; these ladies can go anywhere, park anywhere, and in their uniforms people trust them.

  We pull into the staff car park and before I get out, I look to Lilah and ask, “If there’s anything else I should know, please tell me. Please. It’s a matter of life and death. If everyone knows I’m his daughter, I might be the next Miranda.”

  “Okay, but you didn’t hear it from me.” She turns in her seat and mutters under her breath when I nod. “Miranda and your father were in love. Except, she wasn’t who she said she was.”

  “What?” I hang on tenterhooks, wondering how Lilah knew Miranda was undercover. That’s surely what she means?

  “I knew Miranda when I was a kid, like you did with Laura today. For some reason, you never forget your schoolmates, do you? Anyway, she was local, like me, except she weren’t called Miranda then, but Kimberley.”

  “What?”

  Lilah continues, “Kim was very clever. Sort of clever that gets herself bumped a few years up in class, you know? If I knew who she was, other people round here were bound to have figured it out too. She had one of them faces. Looked like she’d maybe recently dyed her hair, maybe wore colour contacts and a bit too much lip-liner, but you could still tell it were her. Makes you wonder if she was set up here, for some reason. I don’t know, but it never seemed right to me.”