This has a lot to do with the fact the council are always making a show of trying to clean up Broadgate, forcing the seedier establishments to either tone it down, or close down. This dumb town has been up and coming for more years than I’ve had hot dinners, purely by sheer fault of geography. Any town within one-hundred miles of London – and especially on the coast – possesses a certain prestige, a certain attraction for rich London commuters, be it renters or buyers.
But Broadgate is far from trendy, despite its kitsch appeal. It’s a dump, mostly, teeming with lowlifes and losers. I mean, I live here, don’t I? This place must be bad if I’m in it.
“Hey, Wayne,” I say, approaching the besuited gorilla with the bald head.
He grunts something in reply – it may have been evening Alice, but I couldn’t say for sure.
Stepping to one side, he unhooks the red rope from one of the two, freestanding brass holders and allows me entry to the delights that are housed within.
*
“Good evening, Alice,” Vincent Drakos says, the owner of this fine establishment, when I draw level with the long bar that runs along a good portion of the back wall of the club. He throws me the type of smile that makes me want to take a long, hot shower with a bottle of bleach.
“Hey, Vince,” I say, lifting the bar hatch to enter behind the bar, pressing my torso against the edge of the hatch entrance to keep as far away from the fat bastard as possible.
He is sitting on a stool next to the hatch, reading a tabloid newspaper, or pretending to, at any rate. I’m pretty sure that he’s just sitting there to potentially cop a feel every time I squeeze past. You’d think, given the number of exotic dancers that work here, his attention would be otherwise diverted, but no. It’s me he appears to favour. I figure that this is because I am new, and therefore a shiny new toy. This is only my second shift – I’m almost positive my lustrous sheen will have worn off by next weekend, and he’ll move on to someone else, but for now, I am flavour of the month.
“It’s going to get busy tonight,” he says, leering at my chest in the scooped neck, skintight top I’m wearing – the uniform of Pink Flamingos, which I have teamed with a stretchy black miniskirt, black woolly tights, and sensible, flat black, leather shoes, so unlike the towering heels I usually favour.
The uniform, white cotton t-shirt is in the style of the American restaurant chain Hooters, except it isn’t an owl whose huge eyes adorn my chest, but a pink flamingo standing on one leg, its large beak covering my left breast.
“That’s good,” I say absently, picking up a dishtowel and mopping up an invisible spill on the bar. “I like to keep busy.”
If this Friday night pans out anything like the last one, I shall be joined directly by two other staff members and Vincent Drakos himself; it’s safe to say, Vince is very hands on, in every sense.
The place should start filling up in earnest in a few hours or so. As it is, there is hardly a soul in here, just some sad sack in a long, leather coat, with a narrow haggard, pockmarked face, who props up the far end of the bar and stares forlornly into his pint. There are also a couple of younger lads sitting at one of the high, round tables in the middle of the vast, dimly lit space.
They look like they might be trouble.
The dancers have yet to make an appearance – if they’re even here, yet. If they are on the premises, they’ll be in their tiny dressing room, tucked away behind the scenes.
“Yeah. No one comes in ‘til at least ten, or so. Don’t know why I bother opening so early.”
I can only agree with him on that one – Pink Flamingos is definitely not the type of establishment to serves pub lunches.
He leers at me from the other side of the bar, all pretences of reading the paper forgotten.
“You know, normally I ask my girls behind the bar to wear their hair tied back, but I’ll make an exception in your case. It suits you like that; so soft and pretty.”
I look at him blankly for a second – I mean, I have no idea what the hell he is blithering on about. Instinctively, I swivel on the spot, examining my hair in the long mirror below the optics that runs the length of the bar.
My blue-black hair falls just below my chin in a sleek bob, my fringe thick and straight. I suppose I could, at a pinch, tie it back, but it would be pretty pointless and look stupid. I gaze at my face for a further second, checking that the red pout and the neat, winged lines on my upper eyelids are still intact, and my porcelain complexion is still shine-free. I am pleased to note that my face is still in order. I look good – false modesty be damned.
“Right,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.
I put down the dishtowel, meeting his hungry gaze head on. What am I doing? I think. Surging around, trying to look busy. For what? To please him?
Leaning casually against the long neck of a beer pump, I watch him with a cool detachment. I think how overweight he is, how greasy-looking he is. Okay, so maybe fat is a little harsh, but he is solid. He can try and suck in his barrel-like gut all he wants, but it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.
He might even be considered good-looking if he weren’t so unsavoury, with his olive-skinned, heavy-featured, very masculine looks. If he lost the dark rings around his big, deep-set brown eyes, and did something about that pale, greasy pallor. His black, coarse hair is in dire need of a wash, but he has good bone structure, even if his nose is on the large side.
He is wearing a black shirt, tucked into black trousers, like he fancies himself as gangster from some iconic eighties’ movie.
How old is he, anyway? Late forties? Early fifties? Whatever age he is, he is a prime candidate for a heart attack.
“You’re assessing me,” he states.
“I am?”
He smiles at me, but it’s nearer a leer.
“Yeah, you are. You’re different, Alice; I like that. I can’t make you out. Why does a girl like you want to work in a strip club?”
A girl like me? How can he profess to know me? He knows nothing about me.
“I guess I just find the atmosphere invigorating.”
In reality, I am here for the potential contacts, but I will never tell him that. I am definitely not here for the money – that is something I do have plenty of.
“Huh. I still say that you should be on this side of the bar, wrapped around a pole,” he says, gesturing with the faintest flick of his head to the raised platform that runs the length of the wall opposite the bar.
At least he didn’t say wrapped around my cock, although his meaning is clear.
“Never say never,” I reply blandly, not once dropping my gaze.
“A classy girl like you?” he says, dark eyes gleaming. “The punters would love you.”
“Yeah.”
They would, so why lie? It is what it is, and I haven’t ruled it out. I’ve never stripped before, but how hard it can be? The girls here aren’t exactly top-class athletes – some of them can’t even lift their feet off the ground when the swing around a pole. Stringfellows this ain’t.
Besides, I’ve done worse than strip in my life.
“I am happy to arrange a private audition any time that suits you.”
I bet you are, you fat bastard, I think, smirking at him.
He doesn’t faze me – I’ve known men like him my entire life – he is nothing to me. In fact, his level of harassment is amateur. If anything, I feel sorry for him. I could destroy this man without batting an eyelid, but I don’t want to. Not yet, anyway.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I say, staring him down, still leaning casually against the beer pump.
If he thinks I’m going to scurry away like a frightened little mouse to mop or tidy, he’s got another think coming.
Vince lowers his gaze first, looking at his watch – a silver Rolex that looks suspiciously like a knockoff.
“I’ve got somewhere I need to be. My mobile number is next to the landline by the till. You get any trouble, Wayne will deal with it
. Did you remember to bring your paperwork in tonight?”
“No.”
Vince rolls his eyes. “You enjoy paying emergency tax, or something? I need your national insurance number, a PAYE number, all that stuff I asked you to bring in.”
“I’ll bring it next time.”
He looks as if he is about to argue further with me, but clearly, he is torn. Wherever it is he says he needs to be, it is obviously more pressing to him than this conversation.
“We’ll take this up next time, okay? I need to go.”
And, just like that, I’m left alone in the dive bar from Hell.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALICE
I already know which stripper I am going to approach with my proposition. I watched all eight of them carefully last weekend, and I have made my choice.
Luckily for me, my chosen girl is working again this weekend, because only five out of the eight I saw last time are working here tonight, with the other three females being new. Or new to me, anyway. She’s by far the prettiest girl in here tonight – apart from me, but that’s a moot point.
There is a narrow, waist-height stage around twenty or so metres long that runs the length of the wall opposite the bar, with four stripper poles welded onto it at regular intervals. This stage is accessible by three flights of steps, each six steps deep, with one at each end and one smack-bang in the middle of the stage.
It’s not that busy yet as it’s still before ten, so my girl is only one of two who have taken to the stage just ten minutes ago. There is a small, mirrored back room for private lap dances, and the dancing on the main stage is kept relatively clean. I say relatively, for the dancers are still topless, but they keep on their G-strings.
I am serving some lecherous old fool his overpriced pint, barely giving our transaction any thought or attention, for my gaze is glued to the stage. Specifically, it is glued to my girl.
Her name is Candice – I know this because we were fleetingly introduced on my last shift. I have no idea if that is her real name or not. I very much doubt it, but I couldn’t say for sure. These aren’t the kind of strippers one might find in more expensive establishments, or a burlesque show in Vegas, where the girls cultivate specific stage personalities and unique names to match. These girls are just here to get their tits out – or more, in the backroom – and no one gives a flying what they might be called.
“Are you dancing tonight?” the sleazy old dude asks me when he hands me his money after I have finished pouring his pint.
I manage to tear my gaze off Candice for a second and look at him properly for the first time. I almost laugh, because he epitomises the type of man one might expect to find in a strip club. He is faintly greasy-looking and underweight, with more than a whiff of sexual desperation and an aura of sadness that surrounds him. Probably the kind of guy who couldn’t understand why women were always so up for it in the porn movies he watched, yet wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire in real life; not even the ugly ones. It is easy to see that this has made him exceedingly bitter.
“Sorry sweetie,” I drawl patronisingly, “I’m just here to pour your drinks.”
The man tuts disapprovingly at me and shakes his head. I can see his liver-spotted skull under the harsh spotlights of the bar, through his painfully obviously dyed hair.
“What a waste,” he says.
But I am no longer listening, because the near-naked, high-heeled Candice is daintily picking her way down the middle set of steps of the stage. I drop the man’s change on the bar top without looking at him, and grab my pack of fags next to the till.
“Hey,” the man protests. “That’s so rude.”
“Where are you going?” Rob calls after me.
It’s just me and Rob working behind the bar tonight, with Vince making the occasional appearance if things get too busy. Mostly, Vince lurks on the side lines, acting all important and doing very little, just bossing people around and leching after me and the dancers.
Apparently, Rob is his cousin. I can see the family resemblance – he is a younger, slimmer version of Vince, and equally as sleazy and self-important.
“Fag break,” I shout over the music – Goldfrapp, I do believe. You’d be hard pushed to find anything more clichéd playing in a strip club.
“You can’t,” he moans. “You’ve only just been.”
I throw him only the most cursory of glances as I lift up the bar flap and exit the bar.
“I won’t be long,” I call over my shoulder.
He’s pissed at me. As far as this loser is concerned, he is the boss of me when Vince isn’t around, policing my every move and mansplaining at every turn.
I smirk to myself – I can’t imagine that my career in this sleazehole is going to last all that long. And if I can talk to Candice, then I won’t even need this job anymore. I only took this position so I wouldn’t look like a sleazy weirdo; a lone woman frequenting an establishment such as this is sure to raise a few eyebrows. But the fact I work here makes it appear so normal if I while away a fag break, talking to a stripper or two…
I know Candice is going for a fag break, because she has turned left, not right. Right is the direction of the toilets and the girls’ changing room, and left is the door marked ‘Staff Only’ which leads into a small room that serves as a cloakroom, beyond which is a tiny courtyard, reserved for staff who smoke.
Apparently, there have been some instances when the girls have smoked in the official, designated smoking area, which is a courtyard on the other side of the club, where the more hands-on punters have been known to make a nuisance of themselves. I can well imagine; some of the men that come here are just bloody disgusting.
Candice has disappeared through the door marked Staff Only a good amount of time before I draw level with it. I figure this is good – I don’t want to look like a stalker or anything…
I don’t rush through the club since I want to give her a chance to shrug on one of the fleecy dressing gowns hanging up in the small room which are reserved for the topless or scantily-clad girls. Vince doesn’t want them catching a cold because that would be bad for business.
What a pig he is, I think, winding past the round, dark-wood tables with the raised stages in the middle of them for when the girls are required to give a more up-close and personal performance, usually to groups of businessmen who are happy to shove twenty-pound notes into their sequined G-strings.
No such groups have arrived yet. Not much of anyone has arrived yet. I look around the vast room, which is all black wood with the occasional splash of red leather. The lighting is dim, except for up on the well-lit stage. Also, when the girls are performing on the tables, those too are then lit up like the sky on Guy Fawkes’ Night. Thankfully, there is no sign of Vince, because he’d only follow me out here to hit on me and moan that I’m not behind the bar.
Pushing open the door, I enter the small room beyond, crowded with coats and other bits and bobs, including a wall of shelves stuffed with crap. One shelf is supposedly for lost property, and the one above that is ‘the game’ shelf. I’ve been told that when the men tire of the flesh parade, their attention has been known to turn to dominoes and card. Who’d have thought it.
I push open the door at the end of this room and enter the tiny walled courtyard.
*
Candice is leaning against one of the stone walls, huddled into a cream-coloured, soft and warm dressing gown, smoking a cigarette. Just as I do the handful of other times I’ve been out here, I wonder how and where this courtyard fits. Because I really couldn’t say how this high-walled, windowless space slots into the geography of the club and surrounding area. I guess it’s just one of life’s mysteries.
It’s lucky that I’ve caught her out here alone and I can’t waste this golden opportunity, for it may not happen again tonight, if at all. She makes for a faintly surreal sight, illuminated by the outside floodlights, her Bardot-inspired makeup piled on thick, her bare shins sticking out beneath the bulky
dressing gown and her feet encased in the sky-high, white stilettos.
“Hi,” I say, tapping out a cigarette from my packet. “Do you have a light?”
“Sure,” she answers, barely giving me a second glance as she reaches into a deep pocket of her dressing gown, pulling out a bright pink, Bic lighter and handing it to me.
“Thanks.” I proceed to light my cigarette, studiously ignoring her as I focus all my efforts on the trivial task.
“I’m trying to quit,” she says when I hand her back the lighter. “Not great for the skin, you know?”
I nod sagely. “Tell me about it.”
This small courtyard is lit up as surely as if we are on Candice’s stage back inside the club. I feel like I am on a stage right now, as if I am an actress reading lines from a script. Suffice to say, my whole life feels like that.
“You’re Alice, aren’t you?” she asks me.
Still I resist the temptation to look directly at her, leaning back against the same wall as her. I rest the sole of a foot encased in the flat shoes I wear against the wall – a jaunty gesture that she can’t emulate because she’s in heels.
“That’s right,” I laugh in an entirely natural manner. “Well done for remembering.”
She also laughs, drawing deeply on her cigarette, tilting back her head and blowing smoke up at the starry night. I too, look upwards when she does, blowing smoke rings, deciding that I should go with saying exactly what’s on my mind in that moment because it is a split second of truth, and nothing ingratiates you with another human being better than a slice of emotional honesty:
“It’s like being at the bottom of a well, down here.”
She giggles once more – a lovely, girlish sound that I’m sure Shane will appreciate.
How old is she, anyway? I wonder. Twenty-something, I would say, although it’s hard to tell under all that makeup. However old she is, she’s old enough.
In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming Page 3