Sweet

by Julie Burchill

  But she still wasn’t having none, it seemed – and so neither was I, apparently. She shot me a look that would have put me straight into the freezer compartment, had I not been so hot-blooded, nudge nudge!

  Joking apart, I knew when I was beat. So I licked my lips, batted my eyelashes and ran my hands casually down my breasts, as if smoothing my sweater, causing my nipples to pop out in a defeated, forlorn sort of way, natch.

  But she still wasn’t having none. She held the door open a fraction wider. As I walked away, I heard her voice, crisp and cross –

  ‘Send your mother in, will you –’

  I nodded, not even looking at her –

  ‘Sugar.’

  7

  ‘And then she pushed me back on the table thing, right, and before you could say, “Do me three ways!” we were sliding about on that slippy paper. AND she looked like Lucy Liu!’

  ‘What – right there in her office?’ gasped Baggy at my feet, biting off a bit of cotton from the hem of my culottes. NOT one of my favourite outfits, to be honest.

  ‘No – in her dreams!’ sniggered Aggy, shoving him with his foot and me with his elbow. ‘Admit, sherbet-dip – the nearest you got to experiencing the foxy doctor’s bedside manner was when she asked you to help your mum on to a trolley!’

  ‘OK . . .’ I shrugged, ‘but it’s gonna happen, I just know it. She’s playing a game with me, innit. You know . . . whatsit gratification . . . when you’re not getting none—’

  ‘Deferred gratification, saccharin-swizzler,’ said Aggy. He snipped something off my sleeve and stood back, squinting. ‘OK – it’s a wrap!’

  I gasped; I wasn’t expecting my career as a muse to come to such a sudden end. ‘That’s the collection? It’s finished?’

  ‘The difficult bit – the designing is. Now all we have to do is make, show and market the gear – easy-peasy.’ Aggy laughed. ‘Just think, Bags will never have to kneel at your minging plates of meat ever again!’

  ‘If only he could stop kneeling at yours too!’ I shot back fast as lightning, and they both pinched me as one in two places. As well as the pain, I felt a warm glow: of belonging, of confidence, of self-esteem, of being valued for something other than sex, which had been all I’d known since I was thirteen or something. I was sad to think this might end.

  ‘So . . . you won’t need me any more?’

  Aggy shook his head. ‘Not unless you want to go back to skivvying for us.’

  I shook my head, no way!

  ‘As I thought . . . well, then I guess the answer is no, we don’t need you to work for us any more.’ He paused. ‘So I guess you’ll just have to settle for being a very special friend of ours, sugar-shack. How will that do?’

  I threw my arms around him.

  ‘Group hug!’ shrieked Baggy, springing to his feet. As we stood there, I must admit that tears came to my eyes. And not just because Bags had stepped on my toes with the full force of his beloved body.

  I walked home on air, feeling so good about myself, even though I was once more officially unemployed. I’d soon find something else. And what did I care – once a muse, always a muse!

  My mood didn’t change when I put my key in the door and walked into the kitchen. Jesus was lying on the sofa flicking through some tit-tastic lad mag and flipped me a friendly middle finger as I passed by. Swearers Three were still at it, it seemed, and even the twins ‘singing’, if that was the the word for it, couldn’t get me down. I smiled as I watched them do a dance routine on the kitchen table, little Rajinder between them, performing their latest opus, ‘The Little Shih-Tzu That Swore.’

  ‘O little Shih-tzu you look so sweet

  From the bow on your head to your four furry feet

  But there’s one thing about you that makes me sore

  YOU’RE THE LITTLE SHIH-TZU THAT SWORE!’

  Then, of course, came a list of all the bad words the delinquent dog could say. I looked at the twins swearing happily, their Punjabi mate between them, and I looked across at Mum, her back to a sink piled high with dirty dishes, laughing as she drank a watermelon Bacardi Breezer. I felt real pleased with her for pulling through her little adventure so cheerily – not to mention myself, for setting it up so well. We were like some warped sort of Waltons – only more fun. Personally, I was well proud of us.

  Well, my love life seemed to be sorted – the foxy doctor was a sure thing, the way I saw it – my social life was sound – when the Baggy-Aggy collection came out, I was gonna be getting free goes at every bowling alley in town – but I still needed a rotten old job. And I still had this dream of getting out of Brighton, nabbing some private dick – heh heh! – and searching for Kim; sorry, REN. Well, both of ’em – Ren for Mum and Kim for me. But no need to tell her that right this minute!

  So because Susie thought I was intending to get Ren back and do the brave single-mother stuff, she said that even when I got another job, I could still live at home rent free so’s to be able to save – she’s good like that, not too bright; I like that in a mother. Which is why I s’pose I could take or leave motherhood myself – there’s just this whole side of yourself: intelligence, selfishness, enjoyment, that you’re meant to kill off in order to be what people think of as a ‘good’ mother. But without them, so far as I could see, you weren’t any longer a real person, just some sort of robot programmed to wipe asses and blow noses. Well, my mum’s a Catholic and my husband’s a Lutheran and I never really got a handle on either except that the first lot go in for a lot more confessing, but I do know one thing – if the good Lord had intended me to be a robot, I’d have a little panel on my chest that opened up so you could tell me what to do.

  So that Thursday morning I bought the Brighton Argus, wrapped up warm and took it down to the beach for a read of the jobs. It’s a good thing I’m not depressively inclined, or I would have drowned myself in the briny right there and then. The first job that caught my eye required a Chinese-speaking employee, which of course made me think of my foxy doc; get this – you had to be IT literate, and have at least two years experience! And for this, you got the skanky sum of £6 an hour. And they wonder why kids become ho’s and drug dealers! It’s a little word like RESPECT – and ho’s and dealers get a damn sight more respect from their clients, the way I see it, than ‘decent’ employees get from employers. At least they pay a decent rate for the goods!

  I could’ve quite fancied working at the Spud-u-like (FRESH – HEALTHY – SATISFYING) but was put off by the fact that I knew I’d be the size of a house by the time I reached eighteen. And as for the call centre, which sported a smiley face by its logo – don’t make me laugh! As has been pointed out from time to time, I’m a gobby cow, and within days of acting as a punchbag for some pissed-off consumer’s ear-bashing, and not being allowed to answer back, I’d be gurning with rage, not grinning with glee.

  Then I saw it –

  FOR A NEW CAREER THIS YEAR, VISIT THE STANWICK AIRPORT CAREERS FAIR.

  Free admission. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Drivers – Retail – Hospitality – Passenger Services – Flight Attendants – Aircraft Grooming – Catering

  I know this sounds dumb, right, but airports are really glamorous places to me. Maybe it’s something to do with Mum never having taken us on holiday, but when I was about twelve, before I discovered shagging, sometimes I used to get the bus up to Stanwick and just sit in a Macky D’s watching the planes flying off to who knows where. That line of white they leave behind . . . it’s well my favourite sight in the world; it makes me think of freedom. And stands for all the stuff that goes towards making up one sweet life, the way I see it.

  I could see myself in one of them cute little stewardess outfits, like Britney in ‘Toxic’, wiggling up and and down the aisles and pulling fit blokes into the toilets for a quickie. And when I found Kimmy – and Ren! – we could have all sorts of cheap holidays and free flights. It’d be well sweet . . .

  And if I didn’t find ’em, heck, I could always invite the fo
xy Maxine for a dirty weekend of Doctors and Nurses. Got to have a Plan B. Or in my case, a Plan XXX.

  So next day I was up Stanwick like a shot. But, to cut to the chase – or rather, to the free flight that never happened – it wasn’t to be, my stewardess fantasy. Strike one – I wasn’t eighteen or above. Strike two – no passport. And strike three – no GCSEs. I mean, like they’re going to be REALLY useful, for pouring drinks and wearing a tight skirt! However, I WAS old enough, English enough and dumb enough to be an airport cleaner, as it soon turned out at the Stanwick Airport Careers Fair. Yes, all right, I KNOW! But it wasn’t just being a cleaner; it was being part of an airport. It was part of getting away.

  So here’s our schedule. There’s five crews, working rotating shifts – cleaning toilets, departure and arrival lounges and check-in areas; clearing rubbish, emptying ashtrays, wiping tables, vacuuming baggage-claim and check-in halls, cleaning check-in desks and lots of offices. I’m like the youngest on our crew, then there’s this pair of Goths in their late twenties, early thirties – the state of them! Call themselves the Dracules, but I happen to know that their real name’s Lambie. They spend most of their time bickering and you kinda get the impression Drina/Katie would be happy to bin the black lace and throw on a cute sundress but Drew/Josh still insists on living the Goth dream or the nightmare, or whatever. Still, they can be a laugh when they want to be.

  Then there’s Mrs Tribbley – late fifties, walks around wearing a badge saying DO NOT RESUSCITATE and talking about her ‘imminent’ death as though it was a date with him out of Hard-Fi, though she looks as fit as a vet’s vole to me. There’s Kathleen and Kathryn, mid-thirties, who basically hate each other and engage in competitive cleaning – if one’s on her hands and knees scrubbing sick off a toilet floor, the other will make sure she gets her head right down the bowl, no gloves, nothing to kneel on – hardcore. You should see the time I take to clean the toilet mirrors when all this is going on!

  Then there’s the two daddies of the pack – Nev and Navdeep. Nev’s an ex-docker from Shoreham and Nav’s this cool Sikh with a turban and all that, and sometimes he lets us touch his dagger! They’re kind to us, but they’re very much a self-contained pair, spending most of their breaks doing Sudoku and trying to force us to do them too, ‘To keep your brains working,’ as Nav would say sternly. What’s he mean, keep! – most of us, they never started. Specially the luggage guys who just play football all the time.

  So it smells and it’s slow and it’s hardly the stuff dreams are made of, but there’s a few perks. First, the security staff have to search you every time you go in and out of the lounges, and some of them are well fit. And second is this mystery boy, about my age, who keeps himself to himself and spends all his spare time with his squeegee, but he’s just about the prettiest thing you ever saw. Asif, I think his name is. And one of these days, not long from now, if he hangs around too long in the cloakrooms after home-time, he’s going to get some Sweet-smooching. A Sugar-shagging, even.

  Yes, I KNOW! What do I want – boy or girl, Indian or Chinese? Seems like I just can’t make up my mind these days. But whatever, it’s all sweet.

  8

  Cute as a Christmas puppy or not, I didn’t just want to jump feet first into a relationship – or even a sex-thang – with some cute immigrant kid who cleaned out karzies for a living. Don’t forget, I was still walking on air, or at least some invisible catwalk, from my recent reign as Baggy and Aggy’s muse. Though my part in their next world-conquering collection was finished in practical terms, I still couldn’t shake the notion that there might be some sort of modelling job for me when the clothes were finally good to go.

  I was standing in the restroom phoning them on their landline for the nth time that day – having been texting them and trying their mobeys all week – suggesting we get together, when I heard the door go behind me. I turned around and there was Asif – his mouth was like a kiss, I thought immediately, and as he looked at me it was like I could see birthday candles in his eyes. I closed my phone, walked across to him and, reaching behind him, I closed the door softly. Yes, I KNOW what I said, but rules were made to be broken. Especially your own. And especially ESPECIALLY if there might be a decent shag as a result.

  ‘Knock knock,’ I whispered in his ear.

  He stared at me, terrified.

  ‘Say “Who’s there?”,’ I prompted him.

  ‘Who is there!’ His eyes went really big – big mistake, as it only made him more perve-worthy.

  ‘Asif,’ I purred.

  ‘Asif –’ He pointed at himself and smiled nervously.

  ‘Say “Asif Who?”,’ I instructed.

  He laughed, finally realizing I meant him no harm. Hmm, well, not in a VIOLENT way. Unless he struggled, of course. ‘Asif who!’

  ‘As-if-I-wouldn’t-snog-you,’ I whispered in his ear. He turned his head slowly – I kept mine still; we were eye to eye and mouth to mouth. And by the look in his eye, and the way his lips parted, I knew we were speaking the same language, all right.

  But as I said, I wasn’t about to throw my future away on some tasty toilet-tender. Play it as cool and sweet as ice cream, that’s the Sugar-shock. I held my phone up to his mouth.

  ‘Put your number in. But kiss it first.’

  ‘Kiss . . .?’

  ‘It’s a Sussex custom. “Silly Sussex”, they call us. Cos we get a rush out of doing daft things. You know what a rush is, don’t you, Asif?’

  ‘When people hurry – they rush—’

  ‘Na, not that type. The fun kind.’ I pushed the phone against his lush lips and he winced. ‘You want to have fun, don’t you – not just clean out toilets all your life? You’re too beautiful to be doing a crap job like this . . .’

  He shook his head. ‘No . . . YOU are beautiful – I am . . .’

  ‘You’re gorgeous.’ I put the phone in his hand. ‘Put your number in –’

  I watched his lovely dark face as he did it, wondering if he was blushing or not. He handed it back to me.

  ‘That’s right,’ I told him. ‘So now I’ve got your number, we can have fun.’

  ‘Tonight? When we finish work? We go out?’

  Why not? Wasn’t like I had any other hot date lined up when I finished going berserk with the Cillit Bang, was it? I opened my mouth to give him instructions.

  Then my phone rang.

  I checked it – Baggy and Aggy’s landline. And seeing it, I snapped back into reality – MY reality. A place where people lived in big white houses and did creative things – not cleaned toilets and ate at Burger King before a quick fumble by the bins round the back.

  I gave Asif a quick dismissive smile – ‘Not today, kid – I’ll call you sometime’ – and a good view of my coldest shoulder as I turned away to take the call.

  ‘Hiya!’ I squealed into the phone. ‘How’s it hanging!’ Behind me I heard the door close quietly, and if a door could sound sad, it certainly did.

  ‘Pretty good, last time I looked,’ someone sniggered. But it wasn’t B or A.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Duane, Shugs – Duane Trulocke.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt that my mates were still obviously doing whatever they were doing with Duane, when they hadn’t had any time for me. ‘They still screwing you, then?’

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’ There was a pause. ‘But not just me. You want to meet up?’

  An hour later I was watching Duane walk through the door of the Macky D’s in the Western Road. I could tell straight away that something was up, because usually he walked like he’d just done your brother and was on his way to do your mother – dead cocky. But now he was walking like he’d just done your budgie, and then let it out the window into the bargain – real shifty, like he didn’t know how to break the awful news.

  He sat down opposite me and pinched a chip. I pushed my tray towards him. ‘Go on, have the lot! I’m not touching ’em, I know where your fingers have b
een!’

  ‘Same to you. How come you got McNuggets? Thought Filet-o-Fish was more your speed,’ he sniggered.

  I hate that – the way everyone knows about me and Kizza. It’s like I’m labelled for life – DYKE! KEEP OFF! Another reason why I should bag Asif. But then, it’s like another label – two teenage toilet cleaners copping off together! Dead depressing. That’s why I needed to climb out of my ‘box’, so to speak – score the smart, exotic Dr Fox, or better still some really hot creative bloke. Like Baggy and Aggy – only not gay. Or a minger. Or a couple. You know what I mean!

  ‘Spit out it,’ I said coldly. ‘And I don’t mean the chips. Haven’t you got something better to do like, ooh, I don’t know, perving over some fit bird that’s been like a sister to you when she’s spread-eagled on six square foot of BacoFoil with her defences down?’

  He didn’t say anything, just got out his phone. ‘Want to show you something – because you WERE like a sister to me, cos you knew I didn’t have no proper family. You were dead kind. Even when Jesus and me done that thing with the superglue and your tampon that time—’

  ‘Spare me the gory details,’ I said hurriedly. Sitting in McDonald’s with a rent boy, discussing sticky fun with tampons from times past, having just clocked off from my cleaning job, was hardly the glamorous life I was cut out for, at the risk of sounding snobbish. ‘Just tell me the big news and let me finish my Fruit ’n’ Yogurt Parfait in peace.’

  He got out his phone, fiddled with it and pushed it slowly across the table to me, screen downwards, looking furtively around as he did so. As I reached out for it I had the most horrible feeling that I was never going to feel the same about B&A again after looking at it. I put my hand over it and pushed it back towards him.

  ‘Put it away, Duane. I don’t want to see what they’ve done to you.’