The Dangerous Kind

by Deborah O'Connor

  ‘One,’ kiss, ‘two,’ kiss, ‘three times for luck,’ kiss.

  He often does this. It’s our thing. I let the tears come. He watches me for a few seconds, then shakes his head. He seems to be changing his mind. I feel relieved. He can’t go through with it either. He loves me too much to share.

  But then, making sure to keep one hand on my face, he reaches behind his seat with the other. He pats around on the floor until he finds whatever he’s looking for, then brings forward a carrier bag. He releases my face and opens the bag. Inside is a small bottle of vodka.

  ‘Have a drink.’ He unscrews the cap and nods in the direction of the flat. ‘Relax.’

  I start to panic. ‘But you’re my boyfriend.’

  ‘And I still will be. It’s just this one time. Promise.’

  I back away towards the passenger door. ‘I don’t want to. I won’t.’

  His eyes flash. ‘Do you want me to get into trouble?’

  He’s about to go on when he stops, distracted by two minicabs pulling up on the opposite side of the street. Men get out of the cars and approach the door to the flat. They are laughing, caught in the aftermath of some joke. Before they go inside one man stops and, bending low, he peers into our car. He is fat and older than Sunny. He waves. Sunny waves back.

  I start to shake.

  ‘Drink.’

  He offers me the bottle but I keep my hands in lap.

  ‘I said, drink.’

  He leans across and I think he’s going to hit me but then he knocks twice on the glove box.

  It takes me a moment to understand his meaning. I know what the compartment contains but until now I’ve only ever thought of the gun as something separate, nothing to do with me and him. Sunny runs the town’s largest nightclub. He says it’s a cut-throat business: he’s often threatened and called upon to protect himself and his staff.

  He pushes the vodka towards my mouth.

  The alcohol reeks and I back away. Losing patience, he tuts and, without waiting for me to recover, he shoves the bottle forward. The glass bashes against my teeth and the liquid is on my tongue. I’ve only ever drunk the booze he buys mixed with something sweet, like Coke or Fanta, so the sting at the back of my throat comes as a surprise. I try to swallow but after a few mouthfuls I need to stop. He won’t let me. I gag and splutter until, finally, he releases his grip. The vodka explodes out of my mouth into the car.

  ‘Fuck.’ He wipes his arm.

  I cough and gulp at the air. My skirt and school bag are soaked.

  I look at the car door. It’s unlocked. I could get out and walk away. Catch a bus and go back to the home. I’d be there before curfew.

  He seems to read my thoughts.

  ‘You said you’d do anything for me.’ He fiddles with his identity bracelet, adjusts it so that the silver nameplate lies dead centre on his wrist. ‘You said you loved me.’

  ‘I do!’ I shout, angry my feelings should be called into question.

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

  He gets out, comes round to my side of the car, opens the door and offers his hand. Still, I hesitate. He waits a moment, then lets his gaze drift to the right of my shoulder, to the glove box.

  Another mouthful of vodka and I place my hand in his. He leads me across the pavement and around the corner to the flat’s entrance. Before he rings the doorbell he pulls me in close and, with his hand around my waist, he kisses the top of my head, one, two, three times for luck.

  *

  I am at another party. In a house on the edge of the Blackbird Leys estate. I’m not sure which of the men it belongs to but it’s a lot nicer than some of the other places we’ve visited recently. There is carpet on the floor and curtains at the window. They were already drawn when we got here: protection against prying eyes and the bright end-of-day sun. Still, a bit of light has managed to sneak through where the fabric doesn’t quite meet in the middle. It acts like a laser, showing the smoke and dust in the air.

  I reach for my glass and top up the vodka with Fanta. I don’t want it too watered down – I know now that it’s best to drink as much as possible early on – but, try as I might, I can’t get used to the taste of it neat. My hand shakes as I bring the glass to my mouth, my nerves more shot than usual.

  Until now, Sunny collecting me from the home has been a simple process. At the agreed time he pulls up outside and I grab my coat and run to meet him. I get into trouble for returning after curfew but it’s nothing I can’t deal with. Tonight, though, it all went wrong.

  I watched Sunny park, then headed out of the front door, not knowing that Raf, one of the youth workers, had followed me into the street. He grabbed my arm and asked where I was going. When I didn’t answer he went and stood in the middle of the road, checking the cars. Then he marched over to where Sunny sat, his window down, music playing, and started asking him questions. Did he know how old I was? Where was he taking me? Why did he keep bringing me back so late?

  I worried that Sunny would think I’d told and be angry. But he laughed in Raf’s face, opened the car door and motioned for me to get in. Then he gave Raf a wave and drove off. He told me that normally he would have got out of the car and given him what-for but he’d decided to let him off this once because he’d had such a good day. The planning application for his new club had been submitted and he’d had the nod from someone at the council to say it would get the green light. Then he’d turned the radio up loud and we’d sung along and things had felt like they used to, in the beginning.

  I look around the room. Some of the men are the same age as Sunny and work for him in his club, but the others are older – taxi drivers and takeaway owners, cousins and uncles. There are two other girls here. One looks about my age, the other a bit younger. The first has red hair braided tightly against her scalp. The younger one is wearing a clingy white T-shirt that rides up over her belly podge. From the way they keep jumping at every little thing, I’m guessing this is their first time.

  Sunny catches me looking and winks.

  Despite everything, I smile.

  It might seem odd that I can love someone who scares me. But I love him – I do. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything.

  We met at the Westgate shopping centre in Oxford. I often nick off school with my friends and we like to hang out near the benches by the fountain. A couple of months back these lads started talking to us. They were our age and went to a school on the other side of town. They were a laugh, and after that, whenever we bunked off, we’d knock around with them. Then one day a man came over to where we sat, good-looking with shiny black hair cut into Zac Efron-style layers and light brown skin. The boys seemed to know him and they talked and laughed together. Then he turned his attention to us. I was far from the prettiest in our group, in fact people often make fun of my baby-face, but still he made sure to talk to me more than the other girls. Before he went, he asked my name.

  As he walked away, my friends and I fell about laughing. But secretly I was thrilled. No one had ever singled me out like that before, especially not an attractive man.

  After that he kept turning up at the shopping centre whenever we were there. One day he asked if I wanted to go for a drive. I knew he was older but I didn’t care. My friends were jealous. I said yes and followed him out to the multi-storey. That first time in his car we talked and talked. He told me about his work and his hopes for his business and asked me questions about myself, what I loved, what I hated, what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then he asked if I was hungry, drove me to the takeaway and bought everything I wanted. He dropped me outside the home before curfew, and, as I got out of the car, he told me I was beautiful.

  I kissed him first.

  He started to pick me up after school. He’d wait for me across the street, and all the other kids would look. I’d feel special and proud that he was there for me.

  Then things started to change. Now when I’d get in the car I’d find him silent. He’d refuse to look at me,
and whenever I asked him a question he’d reply in these horrible one-word answers. He owed money to a gang. They’d told him that if he didn’t pay soon they’d hurt him, beat him up, maybe worse. He showed me the gun he kept in his glove box as protection.

  The weeks went by. Sometimes he was in a bad mood and sometimes he was his old self, buying me anything I wanted. Takeaways, booze for me and my friends. Fags. For the first time in my life I felt safe, protected.

  Then the gang decided to turn up the pressure. They wanted the cash they were owed and they wanted it by the end of the month. They threatened to torch his club. He said he’d begged for more time and that he’d almost given up hope when one of them had suggested a way he could pay off his debt. They’d noticed him around town with me and they thought I was pretty. They said that if I were to go with them just this once they would call it quits.

  He said he didn’t want to ask but he was scared, and even though he couldn’t bear the thought of me with someone else, he had no choice.

  I didn’t hesitate. My answer was no. The thought disgusted me. Besides, he had a gun. If they tried to hurt him, he could soon see them off. We argued.

  One of Sunny’s cousins rolls a spliff and passes it around. I take a puff and hand it to the girl in the white T-shirt. She shakes her head and retreats back into the sofa. I offer it to her again. I want to tell her that she should take a drag, that it will make the time go faster, that, while they’re taking their turn to come in and out, it will help her go outside of herself, up to a grey dent on the ceiling or down to a diamond-shaped stain on the carpet.

  The men have been talking and laughing but now they’re quiet. The sun has moved round and the light coming through the middle of the curtains has dimmed. There is a new crackle in the air. I recognise the shift. It means it’s almost time. I finish my vodka, and Sunny takes my hand. He leads me and the younger girl upstairs. He’ll set me up in one of the bedrooms and then the others will come. He prefers me afterwards, alone in his car.

  There are three doors on the landing. One is a bathroom; the others lead into bedrooms. Sunny directs me to the nearest door and escorts the younger girl to another. Just before she goes inside we catch each other’s eye. She looks at me, pleading. She seems to think I can help, that I can stop what is about to happen. I could try to reassure her, tell her I’ll be in the next room if she needs me. But then I look at the way she’s holding Sunny’s hand, the way she stands close to his hip.

  I lasted ten days without him. I never knew it was possible to miss a person so much. On the eleventh, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I went and waited outside his club.

  I make a point of looking the girl up and down and then I roll my eyes, flick my hair and push back my shoulders as though what is about to happen to her, to both of us, is no big deal, and that she, in her fear and shame, is nothing more than a silly kid. Then I press down on the door handle and, making sure to hold my head high, I go inside.

  Tuesday 13 December

  Present day

  Jessamine

  Midnight at the domestic-violence helpline. Jessamine had been on shift since ten p.m. So far, she’d spoken to five different women. She finished with her current caller, a first-timer named Hilary, and set to work logging the details on the system.

  Until recently, Hilary had thought her relationship normal, her fiancé kind and gentle. But then, in the last week, they had celebrated their engagement with a party. It had been a wonderful night, and all their friends and family had been there. At the end of the evening they’d returned to their flat and had been about to go up to bed when her fiancé had noticed water dripping off the sill in the kitchen. The window had been left open and while they were out it had rained. It was Hilary’s fault. She’d opened it earlier in the day and forgotten about it. They’d argued. Her fiancé had thrown her against the wall and punched her twice in the ribs. Hilary had yet to confide in anyone about what had happened and she was nowhere close to walking away from him or her impending marriage.

  Jessamine often imagined the tone of a person’s voice as a series of pictures. She supposed it was a by-product of spending so much time conversing with people she couldn’t see, either here or on the radio. When Hilary had said goodbye her voice had lifted – the result of a joke Jessamine had made at her own expense: a regrettable incident involving her weak pelvic floor, Tena Lady pads and a trampoline – and Jessamine had been left with the image of a woman in a dress, holding up the outer corners of her skirt in a shy half-curtsy, the semi-circle of the hem like the beginning of a smile.

  The log finished, she hit save, fanned herself with a newspaper and searched the room for Jackie, the supervisor on shift. In the corner, fiddling with a broken phone, she was wearing baggy jeans and a black-and-red lumberjack shirt. Jessamine waved to get her attention. ‘Is the heating on?’

  Jackie looked up from the splay of wires and plastic parts. ‘It’s December and minus five outside.’ She turned her attention back to the broken phone. ‘Yes, Jessie, the heating is on.’

  Jessamine dabbed her sweating face with a tissue. She would have liked to get some air, but no – she checked the time – she’d be calling soon. Tasha. She didn’t want to miss her. She’d have to settle for a quick trip to the loo instead.

  Again, Jessamine waved at Jackie, signalling she was going to take her break. Jackie looked at her strangely, smirked, and gave her a nod in acknowledgement.

  It wasn’t until she was in front of the bathroom mirror, washing her hands, that Jessamine saw the source of Jackie’s amusement. The tissue had disintegrated, leaving bits of itself on her skin. Jackie could have alerted her to this but instead had let her leave the room looking like she’d had a fight with a toilet roll. Jessamine wasn’t surprised. Her supervisor took any chance she could to bring her down a peg. It had always been the same. When Jessamine had first applied to volunteer three years earlier, Jackie had conducted her interview. It had gone well and they’d been about to finish when Jessamine had mentioned her radio work. Jackie’s eyes had widened. ‘In my phone room, where you’re from, what you do, how much money you earn, it doesn’t matter. You could be the prime bloody minister, you still do as I say. Understood?’ Jessamine had nodded meekly, then Jackie had got to her feet and adjusted her shirt sleeves. ‘One more thing. Your name. It’s a bit . . .’ She’d screwed up her face.

  Jessamine had decided to make it easy for her. ‘Lots of people call me Jessie,’ she’d said. ‘Would that do?’ Jackie had smiled, happy to be understood.

  Back inside the helpline office, the air was full of the contralto hum of nine women talking into their headsets. With so many crises constantly bubbling just beneath the surface the atmosphere had a dense, charged quality that sometimes made it seem hard to breathe. There was some respite to the claustrophobia: a floor-to-ceiling window that filled one wall. It looked out onto the Tower of London, its moat packed with snow that had been there for weeks. The southern half of the country was caught in the grip of a freeze the likes of which had not been known for decades.

  Jessamine retook her seat, put on her headset and scanned the desks. Every one of the other volunteers on shift was busy. That was good. It meant Tasha had a strong chance of getting through to her first time.

  Twelve thirty a.m. came and went. Two more minutes passed and still nothing, from Tasha or anyone else. She was never late.

  Jessamine’s stomach grumbled. It had been a long time since supper. Her coat hung on the back of the chair. She reached into the pocket and grabbed a handful of pumpkin seeds – she’d bought some after reading that they could help with the symptoms of menopause. Although they tasted like wallpaper paste, she’d persevered.

  Two more minutes passed.

  Maybe Tasha had forgotten. Or maybe she’d called earlier than usual and was already talking to one of the other volunteers.

  The first time Tasha had phoned the helpline Jessamine had taken her call. The conversation had gone well, and T
asha had wanted to know if she could ask for Jessamine in person, should she need to call again. Jessamine had given her her extension number, and from then on Tasha had called when she knew Jessamine was on shift. After a few weeks, Jessamine had found herself looking forward to their chats. They reminded her of the conversations she used to share with Sarah.

  Sarah. They’d had an argument, another, just before she’d left for her shift tonight. Sarah had left a wet towel on the bathroom floor and Jessamine had asked her to pick it up. In the past she and her daughter had had what she would have described as a good relationship, great even, but recently it seemed like they couldn’t spend any time together without a door being slammed, a voice raised, a dish thrown hard into the sink. Jessamine couldn’t work out if Sarah’s behaviour was to be expected – part of the normal, difficult stage of adolescence where you tried to shuck off your parents and forge your own way in the world – or if there was more to it.

  Still nothing.

  It seemed she wouldn’t be speaking to Tasha tonight after all. She set to work on some admin and the phone rang. She punched the green flashing light, accepting the call.

  ‘You’re through to the domestic-violence helpline. Are you safe to talk?’

  ‘Jessie?’

  ‘Tasha?’

  They laughed, happy to hear each other’s voice, and Jessamine saw, in the corner, Jackie scanning the room for the source of the jollity.

  When Jessamine next spoke she tempered her tone. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fat, grumpy and I need to pee all the time. Also, in the last week I seem to have developed cankles.’

  Tasha’s accent was pure Brum, all singsong inflections and rounded vowels. Jessamine imagined her words as a rollercoaster, loop-the-looping their way towards the lower octave on which she ended every sentence. ‘Not long now.’

  Tasha groaned. ‘The skin on my belly is itchy.’

  ‘That’s because it’s so stretched. Rub it with olive oil.’ She opened Tasha’s log on the computer. ‘How’ve things been since we last spoke?’